Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today • Hacker News Board

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#71

Post by slfnflctd » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 7:47 PM UTC

billfruit wrote: post #27

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #7

Loved the virtual flaneur aspect of this game, just wandering around the neighborhood, checking out shops, buying things, talking to people, heading home in the evening were so enjoyable. My Summer Car is the only modern game that comes to mind that captures the same kind of experience for me, if anyone has any other suggestions I'd love to hear them.

To my eye, Fallout New Vegas, had some of the most immersive open world experience. Walking alone through the streats, or even in the scrub lands late in the night, it almost feels if you are really there. Sometimes, rarely, you can get a similar vibe from Witcher 3 as well, but that game is a chore to play.

I have still never gotten Fallout NV to run without crashing catastrophically less than 2 hours in. I've tried different machines (laptop vs. custom desktop) and several mods to fix this, but when I realized I had sunk 4 hours into it already and it was looking like an all day project I walked away and haven't come back since.

It's one of my bigger gaming disappointments, honestly, especially after constantly reading how much everyone loves it years later. I keep hoping for a remaster or something so I can run it without buying new hardware which may or may not work and/or tinkering for hours.

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#72

Post by scott_s » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

jlawson wrote: post #65

scott_s wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Game journalists are often shit-tier gamers ... We've seen this in the game journalist who couldn't cear the tutorial level of Cuphead, The notion that a 26 minute clip of someone playing a demo of a game at a tradeshow is emblematic of any large-scale trend should be dispelled by mundane explanation from that person: https://venturebeat.com/2017/09/08/the-deanbeat-our-cuphead-...

It's not the only example, there's also the Polygon DOOM video. https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/4k4mt7/what_i... How can there be anyone in the entire office of such a website who is that bad?

That's probably about how I looked when I first booted up Doom 2016.

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#73

Post by stevenwoo » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 8:34 PM UTC

slfnflctd wrote: post #71

billfruit wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my eye, Fallout New Vegas, had some of the most immersive open world experience. Walking alone through the streats, or even in the scrub lands late in the night, it almost feels if you are really there. Sometimes, rarely, you can get a similar vibe from Witcher 3 as well, but that game is a chore to play.

I have still never gotten Fallout NV to run without crashing catastrophically less than 2 hours in. I've tried different machines (laptop vs. custom desktop) and several mods to fix this, but when I realized I had sunk 4 hours into it already and it was looking like an all day project I walked away and haven't come back since. It's one of my bigger gaming disappointments, honestly, especially after constantly reading…

This doesn't help you but the PS3 version was a pretty great game - I don't remember it crashing constantly. I was sad that it would/could? not get the mod support the PC version got that I kept reading about online, but apparently that was a tradeoff.

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#74

Post by flukus » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 12:01 AM UTC

gryson wrote: post #70

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A more apt comparison is probably 1999's Tokyo Bus Guide for Dreamcast. The developers of both games were probably aware of each other. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBxFiNxdso4

Tokyo Bus Guide is my favorite Dreamcast game. It requires intense focus. A single mistake 15 minutes into a course will result in a game over (small mistakes like going out of the lane or forgetting to signal the next stop will deduct points, but if you even tap another car then that's it). You have to find the perfect level of pressure to apply to the analog trigger to get the bus at the correct speed. I find it me…

Sounds like an action packed version of Train Simulator.

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#75

Post by myself248 » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 1:53 AM UTC

aasasd wrote: post #69

bgeeek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wracking my brain trying to think of early '80s job-simulator games, mostly because there aren't many at all. I'm not sure that I'd class Trashman, Paperboy or Tapper (fond of all 3 btw) as job-simulators. Other than driving and flightsims, I can't think of any from the early '80s :) Late '80s perhaps.

Star Trader from '74 seems to be the inspiration for Trade Wars and Drugwars of '84―they're essentially ‘grind simulators’ with the player looking at sheets of numbers for a lot of the time. However, the apex of popularity of such games was likely in the early-mid 90s when office drones apparently sought to get their minds off the grind with a different grind, and countless knock-offs appeared for DOS. Still, this ‘s…

I always took Tradewars and [Barren|Solar] Realms Elite to be descendents of Lemonade Stand, 1973.

If there's an earlier instance in the genre, I don't know it.

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#76

Post by rainonmoon » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 3:21 AM UTC

livueta wrote: post #52

JohnBooty wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm torn here. On one hand, I understand what you're saying. For example, I'm a big fan of Evangelion, and there's a decent amount of meta context to be aware about when going into that series. On the other hand, I think we need fresh (and even naive) looks at these older works. Shenmue, Evangelion, etc -- they should be continually reevaluated and challenged. That's the difference between a living fandom and an echo…

Oh, sure, I didn't mean to critique this article in particular. I thought it was actually somewhat interesting and went off on some fun mental tangents around how the form of the creative medium can influence the message, the obvious example being the interplay of mechanical difficulty and narrative in Fromsoft games. Stuff like this definitely benefits from a fresh perspective. Nobody needs another self-referential…

Isn't the framing of that hypothetical piece as "a window into..." fairly heavily implying that it's not intended to be the entire picture?

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#77

Post by Nerada » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 3:48 AM UTC

aasasd wrote: post #69

bgeeek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wracking my brain trying to think of early '80s job-simulator games, mostly because there aren't many at all. I'm not sure that I'd class Trashman, Paperboy or Tapper (fond of all 3 btw) as job-simulators. Other than driving and flightsims, I can't think of any from the early '80s :) Late '80s perhaps.

Star Trader from '74 seems to be the inspiration for Trade Wars and Drugwars of '84―they're essentially ‘grind simulators’ with the player looking at sheets of numbers for a lot of the time. However, the apex of popularity of such games was likely in the early-mid 90s when office drones apparently sought to get their minds off the grind with a different grind, and countless knock-offs appeared for DOS. Still, this ‘s…

Loved Trade Wars, it feels like at least once or twice a year I'll find a BBS that has it installed and play around. Aurora 4X is definitely a descendant of this spreadsheet simulator genre. That's a great game, but I wish there was more variety in the genre for wanna-be beancounters.

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#78

Post by s_m_t » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 4:15 AM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #56

livueta wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social issues definitely seem like part of it now, but Kotaku was disliked in hardcore communities well before Gamergate or any of that other nonsense. My recollections of late-2000s Kotaku are similar to how I feel today about a lot of tech publications where personal expertise in their subject area makes it painfully obvious that they don't really know what they're talking about. When you spend hundreds to thousand…

> When you spend hundreds to thousands of hours mastering a game and immersing yourself in the culture surrounding it, an article on "your" game, unless it's written by someone as keyed-in to the meta as you are, is likely to come off as a series of poorly informed hot takes. In other words, generalist journalists frequently have a hard time developing the level of experience in a particular area necessary to write a…

Never really seen anything like this

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#79

Post by aidenn0 » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 4:26 AM UTC

bgeeek wrote: post #35

jmkd wrote: post #29

Forklifts were a highlight for me. When you took Ryu to the arcade to play Space Harrier etc there's a well-established if indirect teasing of the fourth wall. After spending in-game money to beat your in-game (in-game) high score, you begin to ask yourself what on earth you are doing. When Ryu gets the job as the forklift driver this same question leads directly to a beautifully uncomfortable awareness of your self,…

I was wracking my brain trying to think of early '80s job-simulator games, mostly because there aren't many at all. I'm not sure that I'd class Trashman, Paperboy or Tapper (fond of all 3 btw) as job-simulators. Other than driving and flightsims, I can't think of any from the early '80s :) Late '80s perhaps.

Right, the 3 you mention are largely mechanically identical to shooters.

Earliest thing I can think of that is even close is Alter Ego which was '86, though I'm sure there are some job-simulator games in basic code in a magazine somewhere.

Somewhat off-topic, but searching for something older than Alter Ego turned up "Little Computer People" which Wikipedia lists as the Ur-example of "life simulation" and looks a lot like "The Sims" but on the C64.

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#80

Post by aasasd » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 4:45 AM UTC

myself248 wrote: post #75

aasasd wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Star Trader from '74 seems to be the inspiration for Trade Wars and Drugwars of '84―they're essentially ‘grind simulators’ with the player looking at sheets of numbers for a lot of the time. However, the apex of popularity of such games was likely in the early-mid 90s when office drones apparently sought to get their minds off the grind with a different grind, and countless knock-offs appeared for DOS. Still, this ‘s…

I always took Tradewars and [Barren|Solar] Realms Elite to be descendents of Lemonade Stand, 1973. If there's an earlier instance in the genre, I don't know it.

Huh, Lemonade Stand does look closer to the static reports of Drugwars clones.

However, Chris Sherrick apparently specifically modeled Trade Wars on Star Trader—according to Wikipedia. And, if those Realm Elites are anything like the other Elite, they should also involve travel like Star Trader and unlike, fittingly, the Stand.