The Old School Otaku Lounge

There are some really great sales on PSN right now, particularly for certain Square Enix titles. I purchased Legend of Mana for only $2.99, and there's a 10% off coupon on top of that. I was able to pick up several great games on the cheap, so I highly recommend that PSN users check it out.

As a side note, it's great to see some classic Amiga titles getting updates! If you've never had a chance to play Superfrog, the HD remake is a pretty good place to start.

Sentionaut wrote:the switch from PS4 to PS3 graphics was a tad jarring.

Really? I can't imagine. Then again, I'm not very familiar with the PS4 and I've never seen it in action. I thought the leap from the 32 bit systems to the 128 bit systems was a huge difference, but since the DC/Xbox/PS2 generation, it seems they're only refining the technology and not really greatly surpassing it.

greg wrote:

Sentionaut wrote:the switch from PS4 to PS3 graphics was a tad jarring.

Really? I can't imagine. Then again, I'm not very familiar with the PS4 and I've never seen it in action. I thought the leap from the 32 bit systems to the 128 bit systems was a huge difference, but since the DC/Xbox/PS2 generation, it seems they're only refining the technology and not really greatly surpassing it.

Thinking on it more specifically, it has more to do with the characters, and not the background environments. The latter are quite nice, and hold up fine. The PS3 Dragon Age:Origins characters are however less 'expressive' than the newest installment's versions. But, I will say that after playing DA:O for more than a dozen hours, the difference is pretty much no longer an issue. The rest of the game is pretty stellar, so it was more of a cosmetic complaint to begin with.

I honestly don't find much difference from the PS2 to the PS4, aside from the degree of HD-ness: clarity of details, textures, widescreen image. etc,.

I do find that the PS2 era sits in a very uncomfortable spot graphically though. The problem is that they're not quite HD and widescreen yet, and they lack the crispness of 16 bit and 8 bit graphics as well. Much of this is due to the fact that the PS2 era mostly outputted in 480i, which is the least desirable video output of any gaming era--very blurry and flickery. The 8 bit to the PS1 era all outputted in 240p which looks much better than 480i, and the PS3 era outputs in 720p or better which of course is better than 480i.

Well, I had to search to find an HDTV that has S-Video capabilities. My Megadrive and PC Engine are just typical RCA composite outputs, and these look terrible on my TV. S-Video really helps the other consoles look better.

Even so, composite still looks better on mega drive and PC engine consoles compared to composite on PS2 because they're still progressive video. The majority of PS2 games are interlaced.

Oh, ok. I wouldn't know; I have only ever played my PS2 on my HDTV via S-Video.

Well, I'll be heading home in a few minutes. I know some naughty bad Nazis who deserve getting killed in Call of Duty when I get there!

Nitro & I recently picked up Theatrhythm: Curtain Call for the DS and it's SO much fun! I never picked up the first one because I wasn't really impressed with the controls, but they improved them for this version. I love music games, and playing with some of my favorite songs from the older FF games is really neat. (Although there are a lot of tracks for newer FF games I've never heard since I stopped playing most FF games YEARS ago ^^; ) The downloadable tracks are really great, too--we bought all the current Chrono Trigger ones, Xenogears, and SaGa Frontier tracks. Ah, memories~!

Hit level 50 on Borderlands the Pre-sequel the other day, so now it's down to grinding for rares. Got a lot of them now but trying to upgrade. Best places include the giant dinosaur side mission in Tycho Flats, the Verago Solitude and The Sentinel. A good place for moon rocks and legendary items from the gun vending machine can be found in the Robot Production facility. Good for upgrading from the black market or buying special drinks in Moxxi's place. It's a great game to play with friends and I look forward to getting copies for me and my friend's kids so we can play online on our XB1s...

I'm currently playing Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War on the PS2. I've had this game for a few years now, but have only just started it this week. It's a fun title that's aged well. Also, since I'm on a PS2 kick, I recently picked up Rumble Roses dirt cheap, but haven't played it yet.

And I've been playing Stranglehold on the PS3. It's a sequel to John Woo's 1992 film, Hard Boiled. This game is insanely fun. The environments are completely destructible in ways that I've rarely seen in any other game, and it's filled with that over-the-top HK action style. Picked it up for $2.99 at Gamestop and it's easily the best 3 bucks I've ever spent on a game. What really boggles my mind is that it was an early PS3 title, and holds up light-years better than most newer games. Though I notice that this is something of a trend--earlier PS3 games being more innovative and diverse than recent ones. In my opinion, no PS3 game has yet matched the visual artistry or immersive gameplay that Metal Gear Solid 4 set, and that game came out in 2008.