I paid for Overwatch too but tbh I’d rather have Overwatch 2. There’s no loot box bullcrap and the playerbase now is actually pretty sizeable now compared to OW1 near the end.
I do miss the free rewards but they’re just cosmetics. A bigger playerbase is more beneficial to the game than more free skins.
Starfield is the first and only Bethesda game I haven’t really liked. It’s got all the same gameplay elements, but it’s lacking the world building and interesting stories. The lore is bland as fuck, barely scratches the surface of what you’d want to know, and none of the stories really lean into actually telling you about the world in a fun way, opting instead to give big blocks of dialogue that are nothing but history and exposition. Where is the environmental story-telling they’ve always had? Is the blandness of the world simply a matter of it being new and young and not having nearly as much history as Elder Scrolls and Fallout to build on? Have they simply lost their touch? Believe me, I have tried to like this game. I am a huge fan of space stuff and Bethesda games, but it just doesn’t have that certain something that makes their games actually fun.
It’s really strange. The area under the main NC city was pretty good. It had character. Locations felt like they belonged and not just stuck there because they needed something there. It tells you a story about the people who live there. It’s literally the only place in the game that does this that I’ve seen. I don’t understand how so much went wrong with Starfield.
Regardless of the quality of the writing, they certainly had more interesting ideas in their lore and settings that added something to the experience. That’s what Starfield is lacking.
Activision Blizzard has become such a huge pile of disgusting shit that people are quite tempted to see what would happen if the devil Microsoft buys it.
Yeah, never thought I’d live the day to see it but here we are. Blizzard use to be the darling of all gamers, only one who did things right and released games when they were actually done. Then money hungry shitheads took over.
I’m just happy to potentially see Bobby Kotick, Ion Hazzikostas, Mike Ybarra, etc ousted.
Don’t get me wrong. Fifteen years ago I would have flipped if Microsoft put in a bid to buy Vivendi and get their paws on Blizzard, after seeing how badly they ruined Rare. Activision tanked the brand so bad that I’m actually rooting for Microsoft.
I don’t think Kotick is at all certain to be kicked out. As easily as I can see MS letting him go with an enormous golden parachute, I can just as easily imagine them keeping him onboard because all they care about is Activision’s ability to make money.
In all likelihood Blizzard isn’t going to be managed any differently. Microsoft’s modus operandi with gaming acquisitions is to leave the leadership in place and let the dev/publisher run itself. Why is everyone expecting different here? The most likely outcome is MS does nothing to Blizzard and Blizzard continues on more or less the same trajectory as before.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but maybe they shouldn't release even more content. That game is jam packed already!
You think you're done and then BAM! you're running a fish farm and an actual farm, then BAM! you're running errands for a mermaid kingdom, BAM! you're doing a whole side quest under the ice sheet, BAM! you're opening branches of the sushi restaurant... etc, etc, etc...
I love to see a game with tons of a content but I fear they may have overdone it a bit.
The decisions made do not reflect what the developers want. Honestly, they’ve done a good job. Blizzard has just made them make shitty things. Technically they are good games, just not as an experience.
This is classic ignorant take of the average user that don’t know how corporate gaming industry works.
The “developers”, the actual engineers, don’t decide shit, some manager that only care for what the higher ups are telling them. And what the higher ups are telling is the same in all corporates: Increase the cash flow.
I thought emulators usually didn’t have access to the motion vectors you need to implement stuff like this or DLSS? I seem to recall hearing about it at some point.
If that’s indeed the case, it’s probably not happening anytime soon because the article mentions FSR3 needs a FSR2 base to work with.
I looked it up properly and I think takes such as this one, by the yuzu dev team, are what I was thinking of. Meaning, sure, some representation of the info is always available somewhere technically but it’s not usually usable information.
That all said, I’m sure better heuristics and techniques will become available so here’s hoping it gets easier in the future!
I dont believe fluid frames reuires motion vectors as a hard requirement, else the driver level option where you force a game to use the function would never work (which is a feature).
However so far, fluid frames is only available on DX11 and DX12 titles, so many emulators would not have acess to the option. Switch emulation, and PS3 emulation which would need it the most, dont use directx
I think the flags exist, its just not implemented yet as AMD is being pushed to get it out sooner than later due to the long delays. But in a state where it isnt an abysmal feature (e.g DLSS 1.0)
I would be satisfied if Bethesda did stick to their “ancient ways”. Focusing more on environments and immersion rather than character-driven storytelling like any other RPG. Of course they did neither for Starfield unfortunately.
I don’t remember who said it, but in some youtube video they said something along the lines that fallout 76 could have been the ultimate bethesda game if it was actually finished on release and didn’t have that stupid “no human NPCs” gimmick, as it REALLY embraced that environmental design that they’re actually good at.
They can clearly make fun games, look at skyrim and fallout 4 which tons of people love to just run around doing quests and fighting stuff in, but then they always bollocks it up by forcing in a story that barely makes sense upon closer scrutiny and they never capitalize of the potential of really truly interacting with the world.
I think bethesda could actually make the best VR game so far, the format plays perfectly into what they’re good at since as valve realized people just want to rummage around drawers for hours on end and explore the environments.
Hell even as is skyrim VR seems pretty sweet, imagine if they actually designed the game for VR from scratch!
Fallout 4 VR was a cool experience. I don’t know about a good game though. It doesn’t help they didn’t even seem to test if it worked. For example, red dot sights don’t really work by default (though there’s a mod to fix it). By default it’s just a texture on the center of the sight, which isn’t how that works. The mod just makes the dot display (near) infinity forward. That’s just one minor issue that’s obvious. I don’t think any of the DLC works with it and most mods don’t either, so it’s pretty limited.
Well a lot of people had very fun with fallout 4, which is my definition of a good game.
It’s not a great game, nor a competent one aside from the environments and functional gunplay, and it’s a fucking terrible fallout game, but it is pretty fun if you just run around shooting things and looking at the environments and laughing at the environmental storytelling.
The sad thing was that CoD Mobile was the last decent game in the series. Just think about that for a moment: a freaking cell phone game is better than any CoD title to come out on actual gaming systems in practically a decade.
I agree that it’s probably mostly children / teens that play those games, but I’m sure a non-insignificant portion of their player base is the type of person who is A-OK with listening to nothing but pop music.
Nothing inherently wrong with that, but they are either afraid of trying something new or they aren’t interested in discovering what they may end up enjoying more than the same derivative time-wasters.
The only thing I don’t like about Cyberpunk’s writing is that everyone seems to be deathly allergic to pronouns, even when it would clearly make the dialogue flow better.
I’m talking more about the dialogue between V and other characters where they just adamantly refuse to begin sentences with the words I/me/my/etc. It begins to wear after a while.
Well, the player can choose which gender V is, plus there’s a lot of catering to gender fluidity.
It’s definitely a conscious choice, but I can’t say if it’s to not have to record more variations of dialogue, and maybe NPC’s use it less so not to draw attention to them not knowing V’s gender.
That said, nothing that really bothered me, although I still haven’t gone through the entire game.
But maybe it’s just how they picture 2077? Just look at recent history and draw an exponential curve and assume pronouns just went out of fashion?
I mean, it really doesn’t have anything to do with V’s gender, it’s literally just that they start every sentence like, for example, “…Thought” or “…Look like” instead of “I thought” or “You look like,” even when the VO is enunciating in a way that sounds much more emphatic than the dropped pronouns would imply? It makes the dialogue feel kind of disjointed at times.
Granted, I’m using the female V voice, I have no idea if the male VO runs into the same problems, but I imagine they’re reading off of the same script, so it seems likely.
No, I think they’re going to continue adding massive value to the Gamepass system to keep it afloat and competitive. Maybe a WoW sub is a bit of a stretch, but basically all other games will thrive on the platform. StarCraft 2 is still the benchmark RTS for competitive play. Overwatch and Diablo are not my cups of tea but they would also make great offerings on the platform. Most of Blizzard’s core franchises outside of WoW itself are heavily MTX’d out the ass, battle passes, cosmetics, whatever - even if it’s included in the gamepass sub, the theoretical higher volume of players will likely compensate for unit sales through the aforementioned MTX.
They are going to play classic Microsoft and destroy their competition in this way, then they will do what they want when they have a stranglehold on the market.
I don’t think Sony is going to give up that easily, nor is Nintendo or Valve.
Microsoft has tried, with sheer force of capital to buy out these players and couldn’t understand when they were denied. In tech you can do big mergers and acquisitions with sheer capital but Nintendo is a pride and joy crown jewel of Japanese industry, and no amount of money would allow MS to buy them.
MS’ big push for accessibility and cloud gaming makes them ultimately platform agnostic over time, because they are leveraging the cloud technology to deploy their catalogue on any machine with an internet connection and a screen.
“Classic” Microsoft, the EEE (envelop, extend, extinguish) strategy that made them assholes through the 90s and early aughts hasn’t been nearly as prevalent in the current Nadella era. More often than not MS has been forking open source projects or simply contributing to them in their own ways rather than building proprietary systems.
This would be dope for all the WoWheads being adopted by MS (I’m one). If I’m bored with everything I just revert to WoW. If my subscription included Gamepass, I may be more inclined to check out titles I wouldn’t otherwise play.
It’s funny that I lead with this because I had a minute to think about it and honestly I kind of just don’t care. Dragonflight did not renew my hopes for retail, although it had some neat mechanic changes. Classic will be over for me probably by the end of January, unless they announce basically Classic+ based around the WOTLK talents. I am going to get my Shadowmourne, kill Arthas on heroic, and then go play FFXIV.
I’ve been loving BattleBit Remastered lately. It’s cheap, fun as hell, and the very small dev team has been very active and responsive. I bought 3 more copies to give to friends so we could squad up.
Dotage just released, it's a relaxing boardgame / city builder made by a single guy over the span of 9 years. It's very addicting in that "one more turn" way, if you're into these types of resource management games.
Factorio and Rimworld have kept me entertained several thousand houers each. Hands down the best value for money on steam. Even beat out free to play games ;)
Haven’t touched factorio but played Rimworld. If you value your time don’t buy rimworld, it is the most addictive game I’ve ever played. It’s a great game don’t get me wrong but I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and played it for less than 3 hrs. You just get sucked in like a void.
The competition! lol! Activision is going to put out 2 games this year. Whatever will we play now that these 2 games are owned by a platform holder?
You are correct though that there are a million cool ass games you can play right now and put your money in the pockets of people who make THINGS instead of people who make value for shareholders.
Not to detract from your argument (I agree completely), but indie game devs not only make actual games, but they tend to pour passion into them rather than a formula.
If you’re into metroidvanias (platformers where you gain abilities over the course of the game, expanding gameplay and allowing you to access new areas in earlier zones) there are lots of really good indie titles. Hollow Knight is the reference, both Ori games are awesome. Dead Cells is also worth a try if you’re into fast-paced action games, though it’s more of a platformer rogue-lite.
I’m really enjoying Valheim lately. It’s similar to Minecraft in a lot of ways, but leans a little more into RPG elements with leveled skills. There’s a bit more of a story, heavier focus on combat, and NPCs to interact with (though I haven’t reached that point myself).
I just finished playing Cocoon. It was short-but-sweet - it took me two evenings to finish, so probably in the 5-7 hours range - but it was one of the most interesting and engaging puzzle games I've played in a long time. What's especially fascinating to me is that its controls are so simple - everything is done with one analogue stick / WASD and a single interact button - and it's a very linear game, yet it still feels so engaging to play. It's from the lead designer of Limbo and Inside, so it has pedigree.
I played it via Game Pass (ha...) so it's hard for me to say what the value proposition is like. It certainly isn't going to give you the most time for your money, and it doesn't really have much in the way of narrative or themes, at least beyond abstract ones. But it has a gorgeous aesthetic and some fantastic puzzles.
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