GIVE ME YOUR GAMING HOT TAKES

[RobertAugustdeMeijer]

I still think Half-Life 1 has exciting AI, when fighting soldiers. But yeah, other than that, it's a simple shooter that relies too heavy on cinematics.

My hot-take for this thread is that Half-Life 2 is even worse. The graphics were interesting in the first level, and physics were interesting in that horror level. But everything else was just kind of meh.

...

But here's a positive hot take:

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is the best Street Fighter. If it were 100% the same but made by Japanese developers, I'm willing to bet it would have become an EVO mainstay.

[ElkinFencer10]

It has a lot of games, so there's something for pretty much everyone, and if you were used to the PS1 controller, the PS2 controller was easy to adapt to, but yeah, there are definite issues. It wasn't the best graphics of its generation, and there were some definite hardware issues. Also, going back to it, games feel really dark on it for some reason.

But I still have a massive PS2 library...

My big thing is that the image quality is just shit. Composite feels damn near unplayable, and even through component cables, it feels blurrier than I think it should.

[pierrot]

My big thing is that the image quality is just shit. Composite feels damn near unplayable, and even through component cables, it feels blurrier than I think it should.

The phat PS2 in particular is some crap hardware mechanically speaking, but it's not like it would have been designed for a long lifetime, anyway. The video output on the PS2 in general is just a notch above the Wii's for sure. Going from looking at the Dreamcast's VGA output to the PS2's component usually feels like, 'wtf threw up on my screen,' to me.

[ElkinFencer10]

My big thing is that the image quality is just shit. Composite feels damn near unplayable, and even through component cables, it feels blurrier than I think it should.

The phat PS2 in particular is some crap hardware mechanically speaking, but it's not like it would have been designed for a long lifetime, anyway. The video output on the PS2 in general is just a notch above the Wii's for sure. Going from looking at the Dreamcast's VGA output to the PS2's component usually feels like, 'wtf threw up on my screen,' to me.

I think the Wii's component output is leagues better than the PS2's component output.

[pierrot]

I can't in good faith endorse that, personally. The original Wii applies a filter over 480p output that I find to look absolutely atrocious, but it looks like there's actually some ways to patch game images to correct a lot of the Wii's soft image issues:

https://www.retrorgb.com/sharpening-the ... utput.html

We might be seeing different things with the PS2 video output that we find distressing too, though.

[RobertAugustdeMeijer]

The PS2 is overrated. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying it's not as amazing as the internet makes it out to be.

True!

[Reprise]

I agree about the PS2. Even though I do really enjoy the system and have a much larger library of games for it than I do on the Gamecube and Xbox, I do think it's a bit overrated. The atrocious image quality was always something that stood out to me. I had a Dreamcast back in that period and after Sega pulled the plug on it and moved out of the hardware business I bought a Gamecube instead. Going from the razor sharp image of the Dreamcast (even without the benefit of VGA back then) to seeing the blurry muddy output of the PS2 made me wonder what everyone else was seeing that I wasn't.

I would rather play my Dreamcast, Gamecube or Xbox in most cases, but the PS2 library is so diverse and interesting it means I do ultimately still play it a lot. Also, the d-pad on the controller is better than any of the other controllers at that time.

[RobertAugustdeMeijer]

Another hot-take:

The PS2 controller is better for fighting games than the Saturn controller.
D-pad is just as good. Shoulder buttons are easier to press simultaneously with face buttons.

[marurun]

Another hot-take:

The PS2 controller is better for fighting games than the Saturn controller.
D-pad is just as good. Shoulder buttons are easier to press simultaneously with face buttons.

Wow, that is indeed quite a hot take.

[IrishNinja]

alien storm > golden axe, i enjoy both but will die on this hill all the same