Video Game News and Miscellany

This years E3 is not very good and we can't blame covid alone for this. Up to this point none of the games shown in the "PKs" are really big surprises. Even Eldenring looks like another "souls" game and not like something new.

I'm sure there are people super hyped about a Guardians of the Galaxy game or the next Rainbow Six or any of the racing games but the really interesting stuff were the Indies or was already shown weeks before the E3.
I'm honestly grateful we now have the PC Gamer and Devolver Digital presentations to really give a spotlight for indie games. As I just said above, some of the most unique, innovative games have come from the indies. They're not always the longest or have the most expensive graphics, but I've never judged a game's quality on those things.
 
I'm really curious to see where SquareEnix goes with this Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster thing.



Most of the remakes have either been severely flawed, or are radically different from the original. I'm not sure I want another version of Final Fantasy 4, but I would like to know what their aim is with these. How much are they messing with gameplay mechanics? Will there be any quality-of-life improvements? Will they be changing difficulty at all?

One of my questions has already been answered, they're each getting released individually.
I'm torn on if it would be better selling them as a pack for like $30-40 or individually for a (hopefully) lower price. I'd definitely want all 6 if they're actual good ports, unlike the one for VI currently on Steam. But not everyone would want every single older Final Fantasy. I would've preferred it as a pack, but I can understand selling them individually. Hopefully they won't stupidly overcharge for each one.
 
This years E3 is not very good and we can't blame covid alone for this. Up to this point none of the games shown in the "PKs" are really big surprises. Even Eldenring looks like another "souls" game and not like something new.

I'm sure there are people super hyped about a Guardians of the Galaxy game or the next Rainbow Six or any of the racing games but the really interesting stuff were the Indies or was already shown weeks before the E3.
I was watching the Twitch stream during the Square Enix showcase... people were... disappointed (to put it mildly) that -this- is what Eidos Montreal has been working on instead of a new Deus Ex game and the chat erupted into snores anytime the Gotg or Avengers games came up. I suspect both are going to be rather large losses for the company.
 
Have you met Square Enix? Or the AAA game industry in the 2020s, for that matter? :p

My guess is €40 each, possibly with a steep reduction if you buy a "complete" pack edition or something for €90 or so for all six.
I'm a bit more optimistic. 20€ for each title. But I wish they had explained and showed more of this pixel perfect games.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
It would be cool if SquareEnix took a lesson from remasters like Halo MCC, the Monkey Island Special Editions, Grim Fandango Remastered, etc. and allow changing between updated and classic graphics. I'd love to be able to cycle Final Fantasy 4 between the highly compressed SNES graphics, the more colorful GBA remake graphics, and whatever version they've cooked up for this version. FF6 could add in the mobile port's controversial graphics, and I'm not sure just how many different versions of the sprites in FF1 have been done (at least 5 judging by a quick look at a wiki).
 
The original Slime Rancher is 70% off right now. I may need this :)
It's very cute.
They're not always the longest or have the most expensive graphics, but I've never judged a game's quality on those things.
Every major title lately seems to be designed to engulf as much of your time and attention as possible. Game design is no longer merely about making a game that will sell a lot of copies, the game must also be designed to stake out and claim as much of the player's gaming resources (time, attention, money, friends, or even disk space) as possible, ensuring the player will not have resources remaining for any other games. They must be engaging yet relatively simple in execution, be multiplayer/discourage solo play, have microtransactions, feature some kind of grinding or collection/crafting mechanic, have daily activities that expire in 27hrs* if not completed, have seasonal/pass content that requires investment but then vanishes once the season is over, and so on.

--Patrick
*I don't know why it's 27hrs instead of 24, but it's 27 across enough dissimilar titles that I'm thinking some kind of actual research must have been involved.
 
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Every major title lately seems to be designed to engulf as much of your time and attention as possible. Game design is no longer merely about making a game that will sell a lot of copies, the game must also be designed to stake out and claim as much of the player's gaming resources (time, attention, money, friends, or even disk space) as possible, ensuring the player will not have resources remaining for any other games. They must be engaging yet relatively simple in execution, be multiplayer/discourage solo play, have microtransactions, feature some kind of grinding or collection/crafting mechanic, have daily activities that expire in 27hrs* if not completed, have seasonal/pass content that requires investment but then vanishes once the season is over, and so on.

--Patrick
It’s the “games as a service” mentality, and it’s going to fucking ruin the industry the same way Atari ruined the industry in the 80’s by flooding the market with low quality shit. I’m not saying that video games will disappear, but if it crashes there will be bankruptcies and companies folding up for good.

And you know what? If that’s what these greedy dipshits need for a wake up call, so be it. But I feel bad for the employees doing all the hard work who are going to get screwed.
 
*I don't know why it's 27hrs instead of 24, but it's 27 across enough dissimilar titles that I'm thinking some kind of actual research must have been involved.
Because 24hrs is just too tight. Let's say you play the game after getting home from work. You do your quest at 6PM and finish at 6:30PM. Next day you can do it again, until 6PM30? Yeah, that's going to give some stress and annoyance. Giving 3 hours of leeway allows most people to keep doing something in the same time slot, accounting for variations like traffic, children, weather, what-have-you, without making them feel like they HAVE to do it RIGHT NOW- which discourages people from continuing.
 
It’s the “games as a service” mentality, and it’s going to fucking ruin the industry the same way Atari ruined the industry in the 80’s by flooding the market with low quality shit.
It's also going to ruin the industry because each company is trying to crowd the others out of existence. Presumably because this means it will free up additional slices of the pie that they can then claim.
Because 24hrs is just too tight. [...] Giving 3 hours of leeway allows most people to keep doing something in the same time slot
Yes, this much is obvious, but what I want to know is how EVERYONE appears to have arrived at the same 27/28 hr figure. No 36, no 29, no 48...the majority is 27 or 28.

--Patrick
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I think Back 4 Blood just lost me.


At first I thought this was good news. "Hey, the party leader shares his paid content with his group, like in Vermintide! That's good!"

But then I kept reading.

They are SELLING. CARDS. "but but but you can also earn them by in ga-" stfu. You're officially pay to win, WITH PVP, and you suck.

For those who don't remember, the "cards" system in Back 4 Blood is basically random buffs and equipment, you have a deck of cards you build a "loadout" from at the start of each game, and at the beginning of each level one of your cards is randomly selected to be played, and it affects the rest of the game, and so the cards stack up.

So a player who pays for the "good" cards definitely has a big advantage over, say, a new player who is still figuring out the game (and if he even wants to keep playing the game, much less spend extra money buying cards).

Back 4 Blood is officially pay 2 win, and that sucks.
 
A little belated posting this since my life has been...kinda hectic the last few days, but...



Me, watching this:

-Heh, sure, why not.
-Aw, nice!
-Ooh, nice!
-...
-...oh no.
-No no no no no.
-NOPE!
-NOOOOOOOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE.
-Heh, I love that feature.
-Ooh, that date's not that far away!

Seriously, if you haven't played it, Grounded is still in Early Access but it's a lot of fun. I absolutely suck at the base building aspect of it, but it scratches the "Nick likes to explore worlds" itch.
 
Inject Breath of the Wild 2 directly into my veins, thanks.



I'm guessing the ground-level map will be largely unchanged from the previous game, but there will be sky and underground elements now too.

The two things I'm mainly hoping for are an actual post-game, and being able to mix buffs when cooking.
 
Inject Breath of the Wild 2 directly into my veins, thanks.



I'm guessing the ground-level map will be largely unchanged from the previous game, but there will be sky and underground elements now too.

The two things I'm mainly hoping for are an actual post-game, and being able to mix buffs when cooking.
I just want weapon durability to be removed
 
Final Fantasy Origins is the hardest I've laughed at a video game trailer since the Marilyn Manson Dragon Age Origins trailer or the incredible Duke Nukem trailer from some random even like 12-13 years ago.




The dialog was so bad that I thought it had to be satire. The main character looking like blonde Commander Shepard in a henley shirt was double chef's kiss perfection. The whole thing was magical.

Can you taste the chaos?



Also, holy shit the new Advance Wars Remake looks like dogshit compared to the original. Like total, textureless dogshit.

 
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figmentPez

Staff member
Maybe it's because I'm not a Nintendo fanboy like I used to be, but my only reaction to the Metroid: Dread trailer was, "Did Samus find her way into the old Aperture Science building? Is this what GLaDOS has been up to?"



EDIT: And I may not be fully awake yet today, because I'm thinking maybe I'm not remembering what the robot enemies are reminding me of, because they might be reminiscent of something other than Portal.
 
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Maybe it's because I'm not a Nintendo fanboy like I used to be, but my only reaction to the Metroid: Dread trailer was, "Did Samus find her way into the old Aperture Science building? Is this what GLaDOS has been up to?"



EDIT: And I may not be fully awake yet today, because I'm thinking maybe I'm not remembering what the robot enemies are reminding me of, because they might be reminiscent of something other than Portal.
Nope, not just you. Those enemies are very Portal-esque. But I don’t see that as a bad thing.
 
Steam is currently having Next Fest, a festival feature tons of new indie games. The best thing about it is the metric TONS of demos to try.

So far, I've tried a few games on my wishlist like Terra Nil, which was honestly kind of disappointing (enough that I removed it from my wishlist). But I also tried one called Unpacking, which is an oddly nice little relaxing game that I didn't expect to like as much as I did. I got to the end of the second level and was actually disappointed when I got to the "thanks for trying our demo!" screen. So that got wishlisted fast.

There's also a demo for the sequel to My Time at Portia, called My Time at Sandrock, which @Squidleybits might be interested in trying.

There's honestly so many, I'm not even sure what all to try.
 
Maybe it's because I'm not a Nintendo fanboy like I used to be, but my only reaction to the Metroid: Dread trailer was, "Did Samus find her way into the old Aperture Science building? Is this what GLaDOS has been up to?"



EDIT: And I may not be fully awake yet today, because I'm thinking maybe I'm not remembering what the robot enemies are reminding me of, because they might be reminiscent of something other than Portal.
The head of the robot chasing Samus, and its quadrupedal movements, are also reminiscent of Dog from the Half-Life series.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
The scariest horror game at E3 was Blankos Block Party.

'Blankos Block Party' is an NFT Trojan Horse for the video game industry

Blankos is obviously the proving ground,” Linden told Engadget. “We control all the levers in Blankos, which is great, so we can do a lot of testing and really see what's hitting with the community. But the idea behind that is to tune it so that other games can use the same concepts.”

"That NFT marketplace is the heart of Blankos, and it’s what Mythical is actually interested in building."

"More than 100,000 NFTs have been purchased in Blankos so far."
 
Next year they’re just going to show off a game titled, “Who can spend the most in microtransactions?“
It will be like Cookie Clicker, if Cookie Clicker was about clicking a “buy” button.

—Patrick
 
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Apparently that new Dark Alliance game starring everyone's favourite early 80s D&D campaign characters Drizzt Do'Urden, the dwarf, and the other two will be day one on Game Pass, both PC and console. I imagine it's going to be full of FTP loot elements. Can't wait for that disappointment.

MEANWHILE, LRR has a good rundown of how hilariously stupid Apple and Epic are.

Watch this long trailer with voice over by the Tremendous Jemaine Clement. Bonus, one of the first things they point out is . . .

NO MICROTRANSACTIONS!!!



Now I need to start a re-watch of Flight on the Conchords and What We Do In The Shadows.
 

Dave

Staff member
I HAAAAATE the R.A. Salvatore books and also do not like RPGs that don't let me create my own character. I own this because I have a friend who wants to play it, but I'm not excited for it.
 
I HAAAAATE the R.A. Salvatore books and also do not like RPGs that don't let me create my own character. I own this because I have a friend who wants to play it, but I'm not excited for it.
*You're missing the point. Honor Mister Clement, if nothing else.*
 
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