MY BRAIN HAD A THINK ABOUT A GAM3

I did pick up the seasonal battle pass recently, mainly to give something back to respawn.

I've been playing a good bit of Mortal Kombat 11 recently and it's just reignited an urge to get into fighting games again, has anyone else had this with other genres where you fall out of playing them for a long spell but then one pulls you right back in?

I get it with shooting games. There are a lot of shit ones, but every now and then I play something amazing like a Doom or a Tites.

I have it with systems like I've not touched my Switch since Christmas but then I'll likely play Fire Emblem Three Houses, then MUA3 and maybe bits I have downloaded on it.

For genre's I never really get I want to play more in that genre, just fatigue. I wrote years ago about shooter's and still don't really play any, not touched DOOM or thought Titan was all that, or excited for any.

Now I doubt I'll play a fighter for ages, that might come down a little bit as MK11, I played on Xbox One which out of the 117 people I've got on my friends list, no one has played it part from me.

I'm also surprised this hasn't happened sooner for me given that the Souls & the Monster Hunter games have a bit of fighting game dna to them, I've already got the new Samurai Shodown on my radar after watching a couple of PAX impressions videos. One in particular was by WoolieVersus who also has a great series on his channel called 'Get Into Fighting games' where they play and talk about in good detail a variety of games in the genre with the most recent one being Power Rangers Battle for the grid.

I want to like fighting games but they make me tilt so hard. Smash works for me because of the chaos, but I always end up getting frustrated by my own limitations in traditional fighting games and don't really want to put in the hours to get good. I just don't get enough fun out of the learning in fighters.

Downloading the SEGA AGES version of Thunder Force IV last year is what got me back into shmups. I enjoyed Thunder Force IV so much that I downloaded Ikaruga, Steredenn, Hyper Sentinel and Danmuku Unlimited 3 off the back of it.

Balla and roguelikes. It's going to happen, watch this space.

Muss wrote:

I want to like fighting games but they make me tilt so hard. Smash works for me because of the chaos, but I always end up getting frustrated by my own limitations in traditional fighting games and don't really want to put in the hours to get good. I just don't get enough fun out of the learning in fighters.

I totally get that and felt the same way for a long time myself but the genre can be so varied that I have to say it'd be a shame to rule them all out for those reasons.

Muss wrote:

I want to like fighting games but they make me tilt so hard. Smash works for me because of the chaos, but I always end up getting frustrated by my own limitations in traditional fighting games and don't really want to put in the hours to get good. I just don't get enough fun out of the learning in fighters.

That's a real shame. I used to be like that until I stopped playing randoms online and just found a couple of mates to play with. There's something really appealing to me about learning a cool combo or working out the basics of a character you've not touched before and then hopping online to show off your new skillz with your mates.

That and making Andy miserable as I pull off a crazy combo gives me life.  

Balladeer wrote:

Balla and roguelikes.  It's going to happen, watch this space.

And pigs will fly...

To answer the initial question Jas posed, I think it's become JRPGs for me - I'll usually pore my life into one every now and then, but I'll fall out of favour with the genre after I'm done.

Is that what happened with Octopath? Steamworld Quest might be a nice antidote to that, actually: it's good but bite-size.

With ProJared committing infidelity, Peanut Butter Gaming defending it, JonTron being mad into ethnic cleansing and Boogie2988 being a great big tax fraud, it could be argued that the only good YouTuber left is Zero Jones, when he did that wee video of the start of Golf Story.

Seen some of them trending on Twitter and part from the one due Yooka-Laylee, I've got no Idea who they are.

They're all gaming YouTubers - JonTron is a big racist, ProJared cheated on his wife and sent unsolicited nude pictures to minors and Peanut Butter Gaming defended him without knowing the full story so looked like a nobhead in doing so. Basically, YouTube drama.

I follow a few folk on YouTube who seem to be good folk - one of my favourites is a fighting game YouTuber MaximillianDood and the worst thing he did was, er, accidentally mispronounce the word ninja whilst playing on stream. Which was clearly a genuine mistake, but he still got some flak for it.

For the most part, Sterling and Yahtzee aside (got to get my regular dose of gaming snark!), I've stayed away from 'YouTube gaming' and it looks like that's the sensible option.

I've mainly also stuck with those and used IGN back in the day for reviews etc with Gregg & Colin that has continued on.

---

Anyway, I've got a thought which came to me yesterday at work, I have tweeted about it and spoke to a mate at work as well (who's argument was The Mummy and The Great Wall being in English).

At the moment I'm playing A Plague Tale: Innocence for review. It's developed Asobo who are based in Bordeaux, the game is set in France and people in the world are French part from the English Soldiers.

Amica the main character you play as does have a French accent but everyone else unless it's me don't seem to (I can tell the difference between French and English soldiers though) have one.

Which got me thinking should I be playing the game in French as my argument for it is Amélie is a French film and in French, not English, now I know I'm being a bit of a hypocrite as I do tend to watch anime in dub, not sub.

I know we often play games in Japanese with Sekiro being a recent example and often Japanese language packs are DLC, that why don't we have foreign language games as we do films or even music as I often hear Spanish on the radio and even Korean.

My thinking is something Drunka said once, I could go make a film right now with my phone back I can't really make a game that due to the costs implications that a game have reach a wider audience beyond this case France for is likely to be a game that will just do okay commercially.

I like tubers with life experience. Northernlion was a tefl reached in Korea before he got big. He seems well grounded. If there's a pc game I'm looking into he's probably let's played it. Because I work at a pc it's easy for me to put on in the background.

The former videogamer.tv guys are all good, but I mostly watch shut up and sit down now for board games as their reviews are to tier and board gaming is my new favourite hobby.

I think the problem with tubers in general is that they don't know how to handle fame and they're often from a privileged enough background that they can spend ages before getting famous just playing and taking about games. Which is again why I only listen to people I think are grounded because fuck that background.

If ever you want to know which YouTubers to avoid then E3 will be the perfect time for it, any of them that go to the Nintendo Store to watch the direct and record themselves screaming at announcements ain't worth a second look.

One of those YouTubers who recorded himself screaming at announcements just got detained by police after threatening to harm himself. The guy is called Etika, and he streamed that too, in front of nearly 20,000 folk.

Was he being sincere, or just doing it for attention? Maybe unfairly I'm kind of assuming the latter.

Treesmurf wrote:

If ever you want to know which YouTubers to avoid then E3 will be the perfect time for it, any of them that go to the Nintendo Store to watch the direct and record themselves screaming at announcements ain't worth a second look.

Lot's do it and a lot do seem forced, then you have Hubers over Shenmue III which I do believe is genuine.

Huber from GameTrailers? Yeah, he's genuine - him and the rest of the GT guys run Easy Allies on YouTube now. Great reviews from those guys. They're good folks.

I tend to prefer less regular, well-made, documentary-style stuff on Youtube. Give me The Gaming Historian, Cool Ghosts, etc.

I do watch quite a few Pokemon Youtubers, but even then there are channels where I've started one video, been hit with a "hey guys" and an unnecessarily long, badly-written, unfunny spiel before the topic at hand and noped on outta there.

I did watch CND when he camped outside the Nintendo Store for the Switch though, but thats because I was so excited for the Switch.

Drunkalilly wrote:

...even then there are channels where I've started one video, been hit with a "hey guys" and an unnecessarily long, badly-written, unfunny spiel before the topic at hand and noped on outta there.

Urgh. One of my main bugbears about YouTube culture, that. Especially when it's followed up with, 'It's ya boy...' or equivalent.

The_Jaster wrote:

I've been playing a good bit of Mortal Kombat 11 recently and it's just reignited an urge to get into fighting games again, has anyone else had this with other genres where you fall out of playing them for a long spell but then one pulls you right back in?

I've just realised: 2D platformers! I'm a chuffing fool.

Essentially a few well-regarded games in the genre fell flat for me. It goes back to New Super Mario Bros. U I think, which was good but felt like another fall from grace for the plumber in 2D when compared to how his games were regarded. Then we had Yoshi's Woolly World, where I got hung up regarding the collectables; and Shovel Knight, which everybody else but me loved. I enjoyed Rayman Legends and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, but they felt simultaneously like the best of the genre in the modern day and 'merely' great, not excellent: like the genre had a low ceiling. Throw in a couple more indie offerings that left me cold, and the lack of true 3D exploratory platformers that seemed to last throughout the Wii U's lifetime, and I felt myself going off the genre.

Then Celeste happened, and you all know the rest.

IT'S YA BOY MILLBOB, YOUTUBE!