smoreon

@Prizm I was poking fun- I'd initially taken you for someone who thinks 50 is old.
I guess you were thinking of more of a "Karen" stereotype, as opposed to a "Granny" stereotype?

Seriously, though, I wouldn't mind if Crystal Dynamics continues with the same Lara (current, original, or Legend!) for a long time, instead of feeling the need to reboot everything and make her younger again. Actually, that could go for a lot of franchises, now that I think of it.

@Prizm Only mid fifties- not exactly elderly by any stretch.
(Found the teenager/uni student!)

@Sebatrox Haven't you seen enough?

@NEStalgia So you've seen firsthand how 30fps is worse on some displays than others? I've heard things like this, but never fully understood it, due to my limited experience with new screens.

I've observed how CRTs have extremely crisp motion, where 60fps looks unbelievably, perfectly smooth, and 30fps looks like double vision. And then LCDs narrow the gap a bit, as the blur makes 60fps look less impressive, and I suppose it covers up a bit of the judder of 30fps as well. (And some LCD TVs make all fast motion look like quintuple vision or something.) But overdrive actually makes 30fps even worse somehow?

By the way, I find that N64 games at 30fps are easier on the eyes than modern games at the same rate, but I've only encountered maybe one other person who noticed this.

@Titntin Ah, I get where you're coming from now.
While I'd maintain that there will never be a true plateau where people run out of ways to slow down the performance- er, I mean, add cool features- it is interesting to think about the progression of tech in absolute terms. Because yes, things are always changing, and what's new will eventually be old (relative to the newer stuff), but progress is being made. Text used to be an issue, back in the days of 2 MB ROMs. Non-issue now. Same deal for audio, even in the CD era. Again, largely a non-issue. Large, open spaces were difficult on N64 and near impossible before that. But even that is trivial now, as long as RT and whatnot are kept out of it.
So I agree that all of the things you mentioned (4K, RT, good AI, etc.) will be achievable at the same time someday... in the hands of skilled devs, at least! Of course, there'll always be something new: 8K, 3D/VR, full sand and gravel physics, hair/cloth physics that actually work without glitches, etc. etc.

@Titntin If we're not there yet, then we never will be!
It always has been, and always will be, up to the devs to make 60fps happen on any given hardware, and there will always be the option for them to push the graphics/features too far (unless a 60fps option is mandated by the console makers).

If there was ever a time that 60fps wasn't a realistic target, it was before the Dreamcast came out, as 3D games had to keep their poly counts to a bare minimum to achieve 60. Back then, this actually compromised the gameplay itself, as 60fps games had to be very linear or simple in scope. Free-roaming stuff simply wasn't possible without sacrificing performance.

Note that Harry isn't actually saying that this happened, but that it's a story about him that gets repeated all the time.

He probably got a Nintendo 64 or PlayStation in 1997, but the story about it has been corrupted by decades of broken telephone. Though it's fair to say he's probably not a 1337 True Gamer™ if he doesn't remember whether the story is accurate.

I understand that patching the games themselves opens a small can of worms: recertifying everything, etc.
But I wonder what the implications are of leaving the game as-is, while simply patching the numbers in RAM.
Modders have successfully brought countless old N64/PS2/etc games up to 60fps using this method, and in many cases, it involves changing a single digit!

The last-gen footage here is noticeably blurry and compressed, which makes the 2015 release look bad. I played the game in 900p, and it was still a lot more detailed than what we're seeing here. Are they using footage from the Switch version, or did they just rip it from a 720p YouTube video?

(To be clear, I'm not going by memory here- I'm looking at screenshots that I took while playing. The scene with Radovid looks just like the "next-gen" in the video, not the 2015.)

Am I the only one who sees the wire as a plus?
No batteries needed, and it can switch between my PC and Xbone in an instant, with no pairing necessary.

Maybe I'm old-school. Or just old.

Sonic Adventure 1. Sure, it's showing its age, and it has some '90s 3D jank, but it was an ambitious and interesting take on the series, and I feel that it captured the essence of 2D Sonic better than any game since then. (SA2 was good, but it took two steps forward, and two steps back.)

The modern "boost" gameplay of Generations, etc., is slick and polished, but it's so limited. It's like the Call of Duty to Sonic Adventure's Goldeneye.

PS: If you want to play SA1 now, make sure to get the Steam version and install the mod launcher. That way, you can get the superior Dreamcast version's graphics, without giving up the technical and quality-of-life improvements from later releases.

I actually like the idea of an optional 1080p cap, as it could offer better performance in some games, with no noticeable downsides to those of us with plain old HD screens.
No way would I accept having this stuff turned on automatically, though (also see: Texas thermostat fiasco).

Also, turning down the graphics on our games to save a bit of power might feel good, but it isn't realistically going to help the earth in any way. And if you live in a region with a broken billing system on electricity usage, it might not save you money, either!

"The Cowboy Vampire Mashup We Didn't Know We Needed"
So basically, a modern Darkwatch?

(@ZYDIO, I see you noticed the similarity as well!)

Really glad to see that they're considering this, and that they're gathering feedback so intentionally.

I'm curious to hear what you guys thought about the questions regarding inspiration from other media: that is, which other games/movies/etc. have the kind of tone or gameplay style we want to see from the Legacy of Kain series.

PS: I know it's not on modern Xbox consoles, but the whole series can be had for a few bucks on PC- minus Soul Reaver at the moment, which has been temporarily delisted to allow for "some important updates", interestingly enough.

@blockfight Sounds like you've got some catching up to do, then!
Unless you really don't care for older games. The N64-era stuff is arguably the big highlight of Rare Replay, and of Rare itself.

@NoLifeDGenerate Clunky controls are a game design matter, and have nothing to do with the underlying tech (RE Engine, UE4, etc.). Unless you're talking about poor performance, which I hear is an issue in some versions of RE2/3 and especially DR4.

That said, Platinum has made an engine that can pull off 60fps on potato hardware, so that is something worth licensing out. Imagine if Game Freak borrowed a high-performing rendering engine like that, for example!

@BartoxTharglod There's noticeable slowdown in FZX, seriously? Think it might be worse than on the real N64? (I remember the performance on original hardware being pretty consistent most of the time, and it hasn't been all that long since I last played it.)

It's difficult to perfectly mimic the original console's performance, so emulators usually run a little better than the original, and that includes Goldeneye... so I would've expected that you'll see a small improvement on Switch. But then, this is Switch Online, and your mention of FZX doesn't bode well. Maybe GE will manage to run worse than the original. (And you're almost definitely right that they won't put in the small effort it'd take to get a consistent 60fps.)

I've found that using the 1.2 Solitaire scheme with the N64's main stick mapped to the Xbox's right stick works pretty well, though menus are a bit weird to navigate that way... I'd hope that they'll make some tweaks, but we'll see!

@Banjo- Oof. Almost every N64 emulator in existence supports 1080p, and Goldeneye itself supports 16:9 even on a real N64, so maybe, hopefully, it'll turn out well (fingers crossed)... but I guess I shouldn't underestimate Nintendo's ability to botch this!

@Banjo- In fairness, even a straightforward emulation of Goldeneye is practically guaranteed to display in HD, and will offer somewhat better performance than a real N64.

I expect that the Switch version will offer full 1080p (that's what they've been using for Switch Online, right?) and improved performance... but they probably won't bother overclocking for a consistent 60fps. But if they do overclock, and also remap the controls to make more sense, it should be pretty much on par with the Xbox release.

@Spaceman-Spiff Yep, Goldeneye was uncapped, and could occasionally hit 60fps if you put your guns away. (Try looking around from the starting platform in the Cradle mission.)

Emulators have already been running this game at a perfect 60fps, simply by overclocking- setting the virtual N64 to run at a higher speed. That's with an unaltered ROM, I'd add, so there's nothing stopping Microsoft or even Nintendo from offering the same... nothing except apathy, maybe.

As an owner of the original N64 cart, I'm on the fence with this one. Judging by the screenshots, this seems to just be an emulated ROM. ("Remaster" can mean a lot of things!)
But if the controls and timings are tweaked a little, it could still be worth it. (Mapping the C buttons to the left stick in an emulator has always felt just a little off, and the vanilla game has a bug where the firing rate of all the guns is dependent on the current framerate.)

Regardless, I'm glad that this classic is available again, and that so many more people will be able to experience it!
On principle, I'm in favour of as many older games as possible coming back- and ideally, remaining available indefinitely.