Shmups

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hazeredmist
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Re: Shmups

Post by hazeredmist »

clippa wrote: June 10th, 2019, 8:50 pm Give me a chance, I just got here.

Yeah the shmups forum is teeming with absolute bell cheeses, I just don't get good vibes from that place at all, it's very unfriendly and nobody really seems to like playing these games either. It's weird.

Some lovely people there too, of course, you get that on lots of cunty forums, a nice little pocket of good folk that keep you visiting, but, eeesh, I do read it from time to time but I have to steal myself to post there. I just feel like there are a hundred eyes watching, waiting for me to trip up.
For being the biggest shmup forum on the net, they're surprisingly out of touch with the latest news too, they're normally at least a few days, sometimes weeks behind.

Very unwelcoming to new players and posters. It's like the grumpy old mans home in the shmupverse.

The shmups reddit is lovely, I think I've only seen a couple of tits on there, though it's not very active and reddit's not really good for having conversations on.

I know resetera gets a bad rap for whatever reason but their shmup thread is pretty chill. I don't really post there often, but everyone seems really nice and laid back and it moves at a manageable pace unlike the rest of the forum, you fart and there are fifty new threads about marios eyebrows. Once a forum gets too popular, it's just unusable, it's like walking around a loud bustling city centre and whispering your opinion into the wind.

Aye, there's no place like home, you won't leave me, will you, 'arold? You've got everything you need right here.

Great post here, by the way. Sums it all up nicely. I’m not suggesting for one minute they’re all cunts but there is a joyless arrogance about the vibe that will certainly keep me from checking it out more.

Rllmuk doesn’t seem half as bad (some familiar faces there which was nice!) but again, I join a thread literally called “Giantbomb Fan Club” and think oh nice, let’s see what people are discussing here, and it’s basically everyone completely character assassinating hosts of the podcasts post after post, like you say clippa waiting for them to trip up and fucking lapping up any error or goofy opinion. It was mental to read, page after page of it, people whining and bitching. I had to stop reading it.
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ratsoalbion
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Re: Shmups

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That's why, even though I'm told generally people say nice things about us, I don't go seeking out games podcast threads on forums!
:D
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hazeredmist
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Re: Shmups

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Yep, for the best. You’ve got a wonderful community here and none of that rubbish to worry about :)
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hazeredmist
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Re: Shmups

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In other news:

Image

Buzzing! Overdriven Reloaded was the first, but that game didn’t send you back to the start when you lost all your credits (in Story mode at least) so this feels like much more of a milestone. Plus the first stick clear :) This game is quite forgiving on easy with how it dishes out bombs etc compared to say Neko Navy so I’m under no illusions, but it still feels significant to me.

I think I’m starting to “get” looking for patterns in the massive bullet sprays a bit more now, far more practice needed and still a lot of times where I get into situations where I feel helpless and can’t avoid death - but they’re getting slightly less frequent, I think.
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Re: Shmups

Post by shadowless_kick »

I too spent some time on the shmups forums in the past before reaching the same conclusions everyone here has already mentioned. it's a surprisingly joyless place for a site dedicated to video games. most of the posters there are real-life Comic Book Guys from The Simpsons—embodying the ugliest nerd stereotypes. I pop in occassionally to see if there's any news on releases, but I never stay long. anyway, moving on...
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KSubzero1000
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Re: Shmups

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hazeredmist wrote: June 10th, 2019, 11:46 pm I think I’m starting to “get” looking for patterns in the massive bullet sprays a bit more now
Heeey, Congrats! :trumpet:

Well done, man. I think the next thing you'll learn will be when and where to use the Focus Shot. As I'm sure you've noticed, it is as much a defensive tool as an offensive one thanks to its reduced movement speed that allows for greater precision when squeezing through bullet curtains.
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hazeredmist
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Re: Shmups

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clippa wrote: June 11th, 2019, 1:49 amThere was a thread for Ricky Gervaises Life's Too Short at the time and I was being civil, critiquing the show. Some guy asked me to PM him my address as he was going to send someone round to beat me up. Calling me a sad bastard and saying "If you didn't laugh, fuck off and die. Watch My Family or Red Dwarf instead."
I thought he was kidding at first, it was so over the top! It's a very dark, strange place, lots of bad energy floating about, you can feel your soul shriveling just being there. It seemed to bring out the worst in everyone. I often wondered if a lot of them weren't always like that, maybe they'd just been there too long and it had warped them.
I joined up on a whim one day after seeing it mentioned in an episode of consolevania and I was like "Oh, that looks like a nice place to discuss my hobby, talk about computer games with other folk", I didn't realise I was entering the very bowels of hell!
Jesus. That's crazy. That type of nonsense can really get to some people, online bullying. Glad you've come away from that stuff and recognise it for what it is now... This place couldn't be more removed. I had a look only because I heard the TCGS guys mentioning it all the time... And I saw Stanshall there :D

I don't really care about numbers to be honest, things don't get lost in reams of drivel here and everyone seems so nice and friendly. Differing opinions, but we don't offer each other outside like brainless keyboard warriors.

Good god. even talking about this is winding me up about how shitty the internet can be and wanting to protect my offspring from it.

I'll take the C&R branded blue pill, please.
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Michiel K
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Re: Shmups

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clippa wrote: June 10th, 2019, 4:07 am
Dear me, your voice is like sonic gusset lubricant! It must be like a dog whistle for bitches in heat as I only had it on low in my headphones but could hear the frustrated, middle aged, middle englander housewife next door grinding herself against the fireplace, slapping herself around the face and shouting something about a hard brexit.
I ummm... yo, what?

RE: the shmups forum, one peculiar thing I don't get is also that people seem to fanboy rally around one particular developer and style of 2D shooter. There's someone on there that's only about Psikyo and thinks anything Cave is disgusting garbage, there are indeed C A V E B O Y S that play nothing else and there's even someone there that has chosen to preach the ways of Milestone and I'm not even sure if he has played anything by said company.

The place is full of great resources, yeah, and even some helpful and more open minded folk, but some of the most vocal members can't seem to fathom that there is room for multiple design philosophies and that people have different criteria for enjoying things and look for different things in the video games they choose to play. Don't get me started on that 'Full Extent of the Jam' guide by Icarus, Stanshall. :lol: "If you don't play DoDonPachi on MAME with a keyboard and save states and exactly replicate someone else's super plays, you're just an asshole, dude!"
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Re: Shmups

Post by Michiel K »

clippa wrote: June 11th, 2019, 2:22 pm Playing a new game, figuring out the mechanics and finding your own strategies and stuff, that's half the fun, surely!

Using save states to practise the bits you're not good at. I mean, it makes sense if you're going for a world record and you want to save time, but it just sounds like homework to me.
It seems like a very cold, logical approach to playing games where "gitting gud" is prioritised over everything else. It should be a natural thing that occurs while you're having fun, you shouldn't try to force it or fast track it.
Couldn't agree more!
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Re: Shmups

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I have a query for shmup boffins... Can anyone identify the music in this podcast at 57:15 https://soundcloud.com/user-306325657/e ... mupception

It's brilliant! Reminds me a little of Leftfield's Afrika Shox but hugely souped up with arcade / 90's VGM loveliness. I have to identify it...
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Re: Shmups

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Oh also: I had some WOW moments last night! A lot of them.

After some research into what are considered classic shmups, I set up my somewhat dormant raspberry pi, to see what the fuss was all about. Synced up my glorious pink stick which took seconds (mmm) and then jumped into the MAME folder. Turns out I've had these sat for years and had no idea. Dodonpachi, GigaWing, Tengai, Gunbird, fucking hell man!

The stick is so good, perfect for this setup. There is probably some minute input lag from stick to MAME a boffin could spot, but to me it feels tight and accurate, more than playable. I was actually quite overwhelmed by the volume of classic shmups suddenly revealed to be at my disposal so I resolved to make a list and play through them properly to avoid skimming.

I played all the way through Dodonpachi as the first choice, and now know what the big lads are saying when they say "CAVE style shmup" - I don't consider it a real completion as I used more credits than I could count to see the end, but it was a hell of a lot of fun. So much personality and it's actually quite stunning to me how modern these games feel. The version of Dodonpachi I played was from 1997 - despite the graphics not being 1080p or whatever, it felt every bit as modern as Ghost Blade HD for example. Very tough (clearly to sup all your quids) but hugely satisfying and "meaty" in feel. Timeless, clearly.

I feel head over heels with this genre, there is so much to play. The education is going to be fun methinks :D
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Re: Shmups

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So, I decided to get Blue Revolver after all. I thought "Hey, clippa swears by it, there's a DRM-free version, it looks fun and it's comparatively cheap. I'm sure this'll be a wise investment."

:lol: :|

First time booting it up, the automatic tutorial turns into some unskippable blue screen of tech jargon error text. I have to force exit.

"Okay", I thought. "Maybe it didn't install properly. Let's try this again."

Second time booting it up, the exact same thing happens again.

Third time booting it up, I skip the tutorial and play for a couple of minutes. "Oh hey, this is nice." Only then the game decides to freeze and, because it absolutely had to go full screen without having the common courtesy of asking first, RENDERS MY ENTIRE LAPTOP UNRESPONSIVE FOR A GOOD 15 MINUTES. I can't exit normally. I can't force exit. I can't access Task Manager. I can't access power options. All I get is a static screen, some occasional distorted game music, and the inexorable spinning wheel of bullshit. My only recourse was to lull the beast to sleep, wake it back up and turn it off as soon as possible. "garbagegame.exe has stopped working." Yeah, no fucking shit, Sherlock. :twisted:

A good 25 minutes passed between the initial freeze and me being able to use my laptop normally again. This is unacceptable.

Oh, and to top it all off, it turns out that the OFFICIAL MICROSOFT DRIVER for the OFFICIAL XBOX 360 CONTROLLER somehow only recognizes LT and RT as an "axis" instead of buttons, which in practice means that I can't use either of them in any of my games. The closest "solution" I could find would be to download a third-party program whose purpose is to trick Windows into working properly. What in the fuck, Microsoft? It's your hardware and it's your software! You got all the money in the world but you can't make sure something this basic works as intended? I hope you crash in the stock market.

Screw all of this.

This right here is why I've tried for so long to resist going anywhere near this complete and utter joke of a "gaming platform". I can't believe so many people unironically prefer to have to deal with this junk over the quasi-universal convenience and reliability of dedicated hardware. I'd like to see my dusty PS2 have the nerve to try even a fraction of this nonsense. Insert game inside machine, turn on, play and relax. How hard can it be? I've half a mind to uninstall this basura right this second.

I'll have (much) happier news to report later on, I just wanted to get the nasty stuff out of the way first.


/rant over
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Re: Shmups

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I don’t know about the stuff relating to the game, but I’ve never had that issue with the triggers on any of the Xbox controllers I’ve hooked up to my PC.

In fact haven’t had any problems gaming on a PC for many years now (and I am a total ‘lamer’ when it comes to that stuff too).

I realise this isn’t helpful right now, but my experience of playing on PC for the past 7 years or so has been nothing like the bad old days of constant stresses and headaches.
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KSubzero1000
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Re: Shmups

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ratsoalbion wrote: June 12th, 2019, 5:09 pm I realise this isn’t helpful right now, but my experience of playing on PC for the past 7 years or so has been nothing like the bad old days of constant stresses and headaches.
No it's fine, and it's obviously good to hear. I also think that if I had a proper rig and all the latest hardware and software updates, I probably wouldn't be running into all these issues. But man, this type of stress just gets under my skin. This is a late-PS1 level game. It should be able to run on a toaster without any complications.
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Re: Shmups

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Yeah, true that.
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hazeredmist
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Re: Shmups

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Ouch Ksub! You're right, that's just the kind of hassle I can't be arsed with when gaming... and I'm a techie! Last thing I want to be doing is fucking around with my PC when I've got rare leisure time.
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Re: Shmups

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clippa wrote: June 12th, 2019, 6:37 pm I'll paypal you the money if you like, owly. I'm at least 50% to blame.
Bah, humbug. Got nothing to do with you. I'm not about to start demanding financial compensation from internet acquaintances every time I buy a dumb game I shouldn't have.
Spoiler: show
And if I were, Chopper probably owes me a fucking yacht by now. :P
Anyway, maybe something can be done to alleviate the issue. I'll make sure to jot down the exact error message next time it crashes, for example. Maybe you'll then know something or other that can be tinkered with.

It wouldn't be an issue if PC games came with a free mandatory compatibility test, you know. Just a button that tests whether or not your hardware / software can run the program without issue before buying. Instead of a shady download link and "haha good luck have fun btw no refund lol".

For what it's worth, I enjoyed the 30 seconds of uninterrupted playing that Father Sky and Mother Earth were magnanimous enough to grant me.

clippa wrote: June 12th, 2019, 6:37 pm The triggers on a 360 pad are analogue and so are treat as an axis, the "z axis". Some games aren't set up properly so that the triggers can be assigned to be used as digital buttons but you could use joytokey to solve that problem without replacing the official driver.
Yes, that's what my research indicates as well. I'm not sure the fault lies with individual games, however. When I go to Devices > 360 Controller for Windows > Game Controller Settings > Properties, I can see all the buttons listed, ranging from 1 to 10, and they all light up when pressed except for the triggers who aren't even listed. Re-calibrating doesn't help whatsoever. So it looks like the issue is on the driver / Windows side of things to me.

clippa wrote: June 12th, 2019, 6:37 pm He's laid an egg with all the stress! It's a boy!
:lol: :lol:
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KSubzero1000
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Re: Shmups

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Yep, that's exactly what it looks like for me as well.

1 = A
2 = B
3 = X
4 = Y
5 = LB
6 = RB
7 = Back
8 = Start
9 = LS
10 = RS

But LT & RT don't correspond to anything. Which buttons light up on yours when pressing the triggers?

Laptop is from 2015, a whopping 10 years after the controller was first made available to the public. I uninstalled and reinstalled the official driver last week.
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Re: Shmups

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clippa wrote: June 12th, 2019, 7:49 pm The z axis bar at the top. Should go up the harder you push the right trigger and down with the left.
Yeah, that one doesn't move at all.

When I calibrate and get to the z axis section, it works perfectly well, however. Very strange.
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Re: Shmups

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KSubzero1000 wrote: June 12th, 2019, 4:50 pm I hope you crash in the stock market.
:lol:

Harsh.

Funny you should mention it, Ksub. I have this new game I'm very enthusiastic about and I you should definitely try out:
Spoiler: show
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