Topic: The Chit Chat Thread

I’ve got an OG PS4 & I’m suprised at how quiet it is when running God of War. The fans kick in when booting up the game, but after that it’s all good.
This is particularly surprising as RiME was really ‘loud’.

I do keep the room well ventilated & the PS4 is raised of the table.

@YummyHappyPills Not weird in the slightest; my threshold is 7°C. I'm one of those folks who roots for Mr. Freeze whenever he fights Batman. A chilled suit would be awesome.

There is a noticeable difference between playing from a disc and the HDD, even on Pro, sure. My obsessive love of neatly-alphabetised shelves overcomes the kindness to the hardware to download more often, but gaming seems to be trending towards the digital anyway, so that choice will be taken away from me soon enough.

And yeah, the Switch is blissfully quiet. My partner's is seated amidst a seething mass of cables, plugs and other tech, in a room that becomes insanely hot even in overcast conditions, and we've never heard a peep from it.

@Octane Thanks for the information; that's my new thing I learned for today!

@Octane Thanks for sharing

Going to my local comic shop to continue playing a ongoing campaign of Dungeons and Dragons. I just hit level 3 with my half or ranger, so I am excited to test out all my new skills I got for leveling up.

Ive been playing Dragons Dogma for a couple of hours. I don't have a clue what I'm doing and I bloody love it. This is why I prefer this kind of game over the likes of God of War, Uncharted etc.

They just throw you in the deep end and see if you have the patience to figure out what the hell you're meant to be doing.

I wasn't sure what thread to put this in so I figured this one would do. The other day I was talking to a couple people at work. This girl says how when she met me she thought I looked like some gamer guy. I laughed and then the guy in this conversation asked if I am a gamer and I said yes. He's like oh what do you play? I told him all kinds of stuff. So then he starts listing games. Modern Warfare? No. Black Ops? No. Fortnite? No. Madden? No. What do you play?! GTA? Yes I used to on my 360.
I laughed to myself afterwards. I live in Texas and he's one of those big truck driving, country music loving, southern boys. Idk how much he knew about other games to even start naming off anything I love playing.

@ArkhamKnerd Lol, yeah I’ve had similar interactions. Do you play COD? Nope. Fortnite? Nope. Madden? Nope. Pfffssshhh ... Those are peasant games. Give me Persona 5, Nier Automata, or Danganronpa. Never heard of those? Well, I love Shadow of the Collosus, What Remains of Edith Finch, and Metal Gear Solid. Then after receiving a blank stare, I just walk away feeling sorry for them. Poor people limiting themselves to like 5 basic games they play over and over. 😂 Oh well, to each his own. I suppose they can be happy in their world, I’ll be happy in mine.

@Th3solution Yeah I know what you mean! 😆 It's not like there's anything wrong with those games or those who only play them. It just was funny to me when he didn't understand what I play if I don't play any of those games.

Back when I worked at HMV, I was playing Rayman Origins during my lunch break (a game I love), and a colleague came in. He couldn't believe that I'd rather play a colourful platformer than Call of Duty, or Gears of War, or that kind of thing. I tried to explain that Rayman Origins is brilliant and that games are more than just violent shooters, but he just stared at me like I'd smacked him in the face.

@ArkhamKnerd @Th3solution @Quintumply Agreed on every count; I've lost track of the amount of identical discussions I've had over the years.

What's worse is when non-gamers realise you're a gamer and automatically assume that it means you spend your evenings shooting digital soldiers / kicking digital balls whilst yelling unspeakable swear words into a headset at some eleven-year-old on the other side of the planet. The attempts to convince them of the artistic and emotional value of what I play became so desperate, I gave up trying.

One small success story; my old boss had a background in sound engineering. When I told him I played games, his immediate response was to marvel at how technical it must be to complete high-quality interactive sound design, and so I shared a couple of clips to show off moments I'd been impressed with. Because I picked the right clips, he understood and became interested in the latest games I had shipped to the office (although given his entry level of interest, I'm sure he'd love the sound design in one of CoD's pitched gun fights).

My desktop wallpaper would also be a screencap of whatever I was playing / whatever pre-order was incoming, and I'd get a few passing comments about how gorgeous and realistic games had become. More often than not, though, they'd follow up with "I didn't think it was from a game because it doesn't have a first-person gun in it!" and I'd roll my eyes.

Back when I worked at EE (I had a job, yes), all people there played was Xbox/PS4, for FIFA, CoD, Forza and Battlefield. 3 weeks I worked there and that was it. No interest in indies, Nintendo, any other big franchises like Overwatch from third parties. Just those 4.

Then again this is the UK where you get bullied in school for playing anything BUT those games so...meh. It's weird.

My mate at work used to play the annual PES and that would be it (good choice of football game, though). One day we were talking about it and I jokingly told him his then-new PS4 was going to waste if that was all he was using it for. He said that he'd like to play something good, but he didn't know what, and that the last non-PES game he'd really enjoyed was Legacy of Kain (it took him about a week to remember the name!)

So I told him about this game called 'Bloodborne' that had just come out and to maybe give it a try, but to watch out for the difficulty. Next thing I know, he's platinummed it before I've even bought a PS4! Nowadays, our gaming conversations involve him telling for the hundredth time that I need to play Firewatch and Salt and Sanctuary.

I think we're in a gaming echo chamber of sorts, that bubble that Sammy talks about. A lot of these people you speak to genuinely don't know these games exist.

@Gremio108 A friend of mine had The Last of Us on his PS4 through PS+, and he also got Ratchet & Clank and Bloodborne not too long ago through PS+. I asked him whether he had played them or not, his response: ''Why? Are they any good?''

@Octane I suppose it's them that are in the bubble? To not have played those games despite having them given to you, for free........

Now I'm going to ask the question that everybody is thinking: "But did he play Knack?"

@Gremio108 Haha, no! He mostly plays the free indie games he gets and games like Overwatch and COD. I got another friend of mine hooked on the single player magic though. I knew he liked Skyrim a lot, so I casually showed him Horizon, next thing I know, he bought a PS4 and beat Horizon within a single week. I believe he also played The Witcher and God of War, and a ton of other games.

I think gaming follows other entertainment trends a lot. The big names, simplest gameplay and easily marketable package sells more. In books it is typically celebrity biographies, or recurring franchises where there is one every year and every story is near identical to the last. Movies too - people go see the big films and it takes something special for a breakout hit from a lower ranking.

It does rankle but to be honest, in the 360 gen (when gaming had become an occasional hobby and something I didn't really follow), I tended to buy what was popular and it was only my street smart friend (and podcast co host) who kept pushing me to get games like Bioshock, Portal 1 & 2 etc. This gen, I've sought out better games, firstly from scouring Sony's first party catalogue and then through recommendations, particularly on this site and now I've have rekindled my passion for games I've not had since the PS2 days and earlier days.

Well, that's a friend for life right there!

@Rudy_Manchego I agree with everything you said. I'm even somebody who drifted away from games for a while during the last generation and have now come back to them and love them just as much as, if not more than, I did during the PS2 era.

It's why the success of big, expensive new IPs should never be understated. For something like Horizon to do as well as it did... well, it's nothing short of remarkable.

@RogerRoger Yeah, he's right. I will get around to it soon. It's just that my PS Plus sense is tingling with that one...

So I just realized with Toys R Us gone in my city now and Kmart gone a few years ago the only places left for me to get games physically is GameStop or Walmart both compies I don't like. Looks like I will really be going digital now.

@KratosMD Cause I want to play it now, lol. That and with shipping and tax a $60 game ends up being like closer to $70.