Am I correct in my understanding that Volition was doing fine but Embracer group fucked around with their money and now has to sacrifice a company that didn’t do anything wrong in order to save themselves?
I‘m not sure if I‘m missing something, but I‘d be really surprised if Volition was doing fine. Agents of Mayhem didn‘t do well at all and the Saints Row reboot was pretty terrible. Their last somewhat successful launch was probably the Saints Row 4 expansion back in 2015.
It‘s always sad to see a developer shut down, especially one with such history. But I can honestly understand closing a studio which hasn‘t had any great release for over eight years.
By “fucked around with their money” is that perhaps a leveraged buyout? That’s what killed Toys R Us, and various other major high street brands, and it’s also what’s been happening to Twitter.
Edit: Apparently not. Embracer acquired Volition in 2013 after THQ went bankrupt and they put it under the Deep Silver subsidiary, then in 2022 Embracer moved moved Volition over to Gearbox, and then recently a multi-billion deal Embracer had lined up fell through so now they’re cutting costs and Volition ended up on the block. So maybe not so sinister, this one - the studio has been in decline since Agents of Mayhem in 2017.
Disclaimer: I also had a lot of fun with this game but I got it for free with a graphics card.
Part of it was getting rid of the old beloved characters. Shaundi, Pierce, etc. were well loved among fans and sorely missed when the game out. People found the new characters boring and generic, but I don’t know if that criticism survived past the release stage.
It also released with quite a few game breaking bugs which had to be ironed out. Par for the course with big budget games these days, frankly.
As a fan of SR3 and SR4, I missed the zaniness of those entries, but that wasn’t a common feeling among fans of SR2.
A lot of people hated it for how “woke” it apparently was by having… people of color in it? Commentary about racism and feminism or something? I don’t know, it’s been a while since I played so I can’t recall any instances in particular of it being “woke” enough to offend people who care about that. As a woke SJW myself, I felt it was pretty good on that front without being overbearing.
For what it is worth. It is implied that this takes place in the Agents of Mayhem timline as you find the 3rd Street Saints symbol in an abandoned church, Johnny Gat is mentioned in the description of one of the weapons as being a famous person, and you can buy an Agents of Mayhem T Shirt.
So the old characters not being present is explained.
Talk to your IT dept. They might have a student version you can get for cheap.
And btw, 3 years is nothing for software like that. All the major features are already in the software. They just have to keep adding crap to it so people will buy the new version. It’s a big cause of software bloat.
I’m playing a gnome druid with dark urge, his troubled background is what causes the urges but deep down he just wants to be a good guy. Although, the urges do sometimes win, he tries to shop with every merchant to help the local economies. While necromancy is typically considered evil, he views it more as a “it’s stopping living people being hurt in battle.”
I only bought it last week and I’m already up to 50 hours, but I feel there’s so much I’ve missed. The amount of content is insane, and speak with animals/speak with dead just seems to increase it even more. I’ve been talking to every animal I came across and the depth of every character surprises me every time. It’s nothing like Bethesda’s “go talk to the boss, I’m a lowly grunt” esque chats, even the children have their own entire arc. I may be slightly enamored with it, I’d go so far to say this should be the gold standard of game releases.
Lol I missed out on speak with animals with the startled boar near the beginning area and I’ve regretted it ever since. Makes me want to reload a save and see what it has to say.
I discovered speak with animals last night and my friends and I were having a riot hearing what the animals had to say. A cow talked shit at me, a rat led me to treasure. Fantastic
I love to boot up Red Dead Redemption 2 and go on little hunting / fishing trips as Arthur. I play it as close to real life as I can, meaning I don’t just sprint across the map on horseback and get to my destination in five minutes or less. I have Arthur eat breakfast, ride the trails for a few in game hours, eat lunch, ride until dark, set up camp, eat dinner, brush / feed the horse, sleep, repeat. If I go through a town on my way, I’ll usually stop for a day to experience some entertainment or do a bit of gambling. It can take multiple in game days to reach a hunting / fishing spot. I’ll set up a camp once there, do some hunting / fishing for a few days, and then ride back home. It’s just super relaxing for me and helps me appreciate the little details in the game even more.
I never got anywhere near finishing the story due to this. Its a beautifully relaxing game if you just drink it all in and immerse yourself. I’m a big fan of the daily routine at the camp and if I don’t make it back one night, spend the return catching up with everyone and doing some chores.
You can press the power button on the Deck while in the middle of a game and it’ll suspend. Pick it up hours/days later and hit the power button and it’ll instantly resume your game. I don’t believe the Ally can do that.
I am a collector, and inventory management is always the thing that makes or breaks an RPG for me. Unlimited inventory is just completely unrealistic, but on the other hand, making an RPG inventory completely realistic is just no fun. Of course I want to be able to lug all that sweet loot home, including battle axes, broadswords, several full armor sets, myriad other weapons, potions, etc. Having an encumbrance such as Skyrim has makes total sense to me. I love the idea of being able to sort and filter my inventory, and store items in whatever container I own. I also like to be able to compare the stats of new items with ones I own so I know if something is a trade up.
I hate storage block inventories, where items physically take up one, or a few “squares”. I don’t want to play a tile puzzle with my items.
RDR2 has one of, if not my favorite, inventory systems. Your own 'backpack' that had a weight limit and could only carry smaller things. Big things you'd have to lug onto the back of your horse or find a cart. All of your equipped weapons are displayed on your person. If you want to swap weapons you have to run back to your horse and exchange weapons at your saddle bags
I often find mechanics that only exist to waste time incredibly annoying. In the case of loot, a limited inventory is kind of that. You could absolutely just portal/teleport to town, sell your stuff, and then get back to playing. There’s no challenge involved, EXCEPT that it wastes your real-world time.
I liked the pets in Torchlight for this reason. You could send them off to sell loot, while you kept playing the part of the game that’s actually fun.
One exception is something like Resident Evil, where the choice is relevant to the gameplay directly. But even then, I would’ve preferred limits on individual elements (Only X weapons, only X healing items, etc.) and having extras automatically stored.
Was gonna say it. This perfectly describes the last few Assassins Creed titles. Not bad enough to put them away, but also not good enough to leave any kind of lasting impact.
Yeah, Assassins Creed was cool at first but they just bled that shit to death with too many releases. It’s hard to keep things fresh when you put out like 10 sequels.
You can make your character as pretty as you please (though, no “sex appeal” -slider like in Saint’s Row :D). Also, no 3rd person camera, so you’d only see your character in inventory screen. Otherwise there’s bit of boobies to be seen - and massive amounts if you so choose with modding.
Difficultywise it’ll cater to very casual approach, but the game does the “bethesda-thing” where you will end up as destroyer of worlds regardless of difficulty.
edit: btw, you might want to specify your platform? No modding for cyberpunk on consoles as of yet, I just assumed PC here.
Sorry, CDPR is too close to the companies they’re trying to satirise in the game. Satire isn’t funny when it’s hypocritical. After that cosplay contest, I’m never giving Projekt Red a cent.
One of the finalists was a cis woman who pretended to be trans. She put a glowstick in her pants to cosplay the Chromanticore model. CDPR decided to reward that with a feature on their Twitter.
I’d rather not wade into the larger “CDPR is transphobic” debate, but here’s an article from Polygon from a few years ago detailing some stuff, including the cosplay contest controversy:
To save you from reading the whole thing, basically, during the run-up to Cyberpunk’s release, CDPR got very… edgelord with their marketing.
One of the more controversial pieces of marketing was an in-universe poster advertising a drink called “Mix It Up”, which depicts what appears to be a trans woman in a highly sexualized manner.
They then organized a cosplay contest for further marketing and that resulted in another controversy related to the poster, wherein a cisgender woman cosplayed as the depicted trans woman, CDPR made it one of the finalists in the contest, and it predictably led to outcry for being tone-deaf at best, malicious at worst.
The larger issues with the poster itself (and CDPR as a whole) are in the article, but the cosplay thing really comes down to this bit in the article:
CDPR also included a cisgender cosplayer as the Mix It Up girl among their cosplay contest finalists. Even if you buy the company line that the poster represents how queer bodies have been appropriated for marketing, their entire argument is negated when they have a cis person dress up in that queer body as part of their own video game marketing.
If you’re thinking perhaps the model was well-meaning, attempting to create a trans-positive cosplay, trying to further highlight queer commodification CDPR spoke of originally, or just a misguided ally who got it wrong this time around, I have bad (yet predictable) news for you. Yugoro Forge, the cosplayer in question, tweeted that her costumes are “beyond politics,” and when pushed on the fact her Cyberpunk 2077 costume dehumanized trans people who are already subject to violence so frequently, she replied, “many cis men and women face acts of harassment and violence on a daily basis as well.”
So you’ve basically got them saying the poster is satire, but then they’re not only doing exactly what they claim they’re satirizing, but doing it in a way that can be seen as rubbing salt in the wound for people who were already hurt by the initial depiction.
My personal opinion on the whole thing is that they really just fucked up and couldn’t read the room, but they do also have a history of being less-than-kind to the queer community themselves (seen in the article), so I can understand why people view the company as hypocritical in regards to the whole thing.
This isnt always valid excuse tbh. Ofcourse rushing and dying is bad, but if your team put together a strategy and you failed to even be there for that that strategy and are therefore left alive by yourself then that is lame of you.
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