NTSC-RePlay 004: The Joy of Misery

[Asura]

I think framerates are one of the things that matter the least to me, but that's probably an effect of not just living through the Saturn era but also tending to run an outdated PC that only just met the minimum requirements throughout the mid 90s to early 00s. I'd plough on with some games at 10fps (or even less) back in the day, Cyrix CPU straining away trying to do software-based 3D and the fan humming like the generator on a burger van. I don't mind the comparison videos and suchlike, it can be interesting to see what's different - especially since it could even be subjective what's better

In my case I had the opposite experience. I was a Saturn fan through its era and it was seeing Virtua Fighter 2 for the first time which did it; I still remember seeing the demo that came with SSM.

That prompted me to save up for a 3DFX card.

[Baseley09]

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I really like The Darkness and Justin Hawkins has an excellent channel, but the videos all have clickbaity titles.

Highly enjoy Justin Hawkins rides again but yeah totally agree about some of the titles, slight toe curl

[Nu-Eclipse]

I think you've taken my comments a bit too sensitively.

As I said in my original post, I think Digital Foundry do great work. They highlight cool solutions developers have made in order to replicate real world effects or work around solutions. I'm also a huge fan of their Virtua Racing video and loved their deep dive of it.

But maybe they're part of a problem, where people get so caught up in the minutia of the technical parts of a game, they miss what the game is actually doing. DF might not be the issue themselves, but their work is highlighting an area that when it gets to the nitty gritty (Frame counting, VFX anti-aliasing issues) I just don't give a monkeys.

For clarity, I follow John on Twitter, overall enjoy DF and develop games myself. So please don't say I miss the point, because I really don't.

I'm standing right by what I've said (not going specifically at you though).

DF have been doing what they do for a LONG time now. DF have also made what they do crystal-clear at this point. If consumers of their content are wilfully misconstruing that then that is solely on the reader/viewer, not DF. Repeated use of the "Let's just judge games on fun!" argument to knock DF is so disingenuous it's tiring.

People who don't like what DF do aren't being forced at gunpoint to consume their content. It's really that simple. I'm sorry but it is.

[Neon Ignition]

Gamers often lean into the console rivalry elements anyway but with DF I think a lot of it is an extension of their vids going all the way back to the PS3/360 days when they would pit games against one another and as they have become seen to be something of a definitive stance it means people use their results to make definitive fanboy stances for their preferred systems etc.

It's extended into todays games even though the difference in what we see these days is so much smaller than it used to be. I like watching DF videos when they dissect new hardware or do retro features etc but I've tailed off their new release vids for games because there's little to tell.

As for framerates, if a game just gives me 20-30fps I'll play it without any real thought. 60fps exists mostly through the option, if it's there I'll go for it because it's outright better but it's not essential in making or breaking a game which is the best approach really as it'll never be standard.

[Asura]

It's extended into todays games even though the difference in what we see these days is so much smaller than it used to be.

Admittedly they do sometimes feel like the product of the PS360 era, when the difference between games on those platforms could be vast. As said earlier, I'm a fan, but even I sometimes skip parts of their videos when they spend 20 minutes going over something with a magnifying glass.

Still, sometimes it's interesting to see why two things are different, even if they're broadly the same. You can learn things about hardware or how developers achieve certain things.