Would be nice if there were some kind of open source, cross-platform, low-level graphics API, maybe overseen by some kind of pan-industry group (or “consortium” if you’re feeling fancy). Just spitballing but you could call it “Cape” or “Hephaestos” or something.
Would be great too if there were one or two open-source, MIT- or dual-licensed game engines that target this API. Maybe even some runtimes so you could target PC and the big three console platforms.
In fact it would help game development as much as “similar” approach helps the web grow the way you don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time. Although you can.
Why should they be focused on it? Xbox is now just a slimmed down Windows pc. You can play the exact same games on a pc, with access to the same storefront.
Microsoft’s original plan was to own the living room the way they own the office space. Not just gaming, but all your movies, TV, shopping, etc. could be done through the XBox.
Kinect was a particularly big jump in that regard. There were demos of AR-type stuff where you could see yourself wearing clothes you might want to buy. You could move around and the clothes on screen would move with your body. There’s some promo videos of that, but nothing concrete ever came of it.
Now they have slagging sales for two generations, and a AAA industry that struggles to make a real hit and is laying off a lot of people. They can’t even hold onto the core gaming market much less get their tendrils into the rest of the living room. They then release a handheld that’s basically an upgrade of an existing handheld that wasn’t selling very well, but now with XBox branding.
Is this a problem for the rest of us? No, not really. There’s plenty of alternatives, and we don’t need to care. Is this the result the money people at Microsoft envisioned when they started this ~25 years ago? No, not at all.
The end goal of all of that is to sell software. If they can do that without supporting a massive pipeline for selling custom hardware, that makes sense.
For wanting to own the living room, they never tried particularly hard. PS3 was a damned successful blueray player. They just needed to give you a nice, curated experience and ease of use. There were literally people buying PS3’s because they were cheaper than blueray players at the time
Yeah, Sony is just better at this. They’re really good at taking advantage of their competitors’ mistakes.
We forget a lot now, but the opening of the PS3/Xbox 360 era looked like Microsoft was winning. Sales looked good for them, Blu-ray be damned. Then the Red Ring of Death hits. In some ways, Microsoft has yet to recover from that. Sony held their face just above the toilet water ever since.
Yeah, just like PS2 and the DVD player built in. Being able to play movies up in my bedroom as an 11 year old was amazing. It was also the most cost effective way to buy something that could play DVDs and the cutting edge games at the time. There’s a reason why the PS2 remains the best selling console of all time
The Borderlands franchise is really past its prime at this point, anyway. I’ve got absolutely no issue skipping this one. Might pick it up when it’s on sale for $10 in a few years. The franchise really peaked with BL2; it’s been down hill since.
10 characters, in my experience, is about as small as a roster can be in a fighting game before it feels like you’re seeing the same matchups over and over again. That might be a bit worse in a 2v2 game, but there are other reasons, like Vanguard, that I’d argue are more compelling reasons to avoid 2XKO.
I mean, the ages thing grew on me. It was way too common in other civs to just snowball early and dominate the rest. Any modern civilization was just bad, because by the time they got online it was over.
Yeah, I am enjoying the age mechanic as a new approach to the formula. It’s not without its flaws, but in previous Civs after a certain point I just stopped playing/didn’t finish games when the outcome was clear. I’m doing that less now.
It also speeds up the games a bit. I simply do not have the time as a full adult to sink 10+ hours into a single game. I have actually finished every game of Civ 7 I’ve played so far, which has never happened with any prior Civ installments at my current playtime.
As the article says, it’s history repeating itself. This one made more foundational changes to the formula than 6 did over 5, and once again, if you’re looking to play a Civ game, the old game is still going to be cheaper. I loved 6 when it came out, but when friends were curious about dipping their toes in, I just referred them to 5 because it was almost as good and far cheaper to try out. Civ 6 charts compared to 5 around the same time period are similar. I haven’t picked up 7 yet just because I’m still trying to get through other games, but I’m looking forward to it.
I just referred them to 5 because it was almost as good
Why do you consider Civ 6 better than 5?
Edit for anyone else wanting to answer: Please specify whether you’re including Brave New World (or Gods and Kings) in your comparison, since those expansions significantly improved upon the original Civ 5 release.
On a technical level, it functioned better. On an artistic level, I liked the look a lot better. On a gameplay level, they were pretty similar, but I liked what they did with city tiles in 6.
I'm not the person that you asked, but I do hold the same opinion. My biggest reasons are:
Civs are far more incentivised to expand in VI, resulting in more conflict
Districts make city placement a much more complicated question
The city state influence game is much more interesting than just a spending race and also has more game-changing rewards
The culture and science victories are much more interactive with other civs now, rather than just hiding away and waiting for a bar to fill
I don't think V is bad by any means. It was the one that got me into the series after bouncing off III and IV. I just think that most of the changes in VI were improvements
I’m assuming Ubisoft thought people would blindly cash in on a a legacy franchise. I’m sure the game was fine, but nothing mindblowing. Just didn’t make enough money for the cash money execs.
It’s actually a really good game, though of course it has some problems. The real issue is the fact that most people weren’t even aware that it existed.
It seems to be resonating pretty damn well for them. In fact, the competitive multiplayer has been praised for its simplicity and feeling a lot like the kind of multiplayer that we used to get so much of back in the 360 era.
It was also famous for having multiplayer modes that were just fun and didn’t ask you to commit your life to them. Some of those multiplayer modes were really cool.
Who praised them? But I don’t know what measure we’d use to determine the general reception of this particular feature. Particularly given that almost all video game journalism is mere marketing. So that’s probably not a fruitful point to argue over.
Instead I’ll offer the things that I think earn the competitive multiplayer a poor rating.
No skill or even experience based match making. Too many games are blowouts because all of the level 1 players were put on one team.
Teams are static once a match lobby has formed. If the teams are poorly balanced they will continue to be forever. Players can’t even switch voluntarily. The only remedy is to bail on the lobby and hop into a different random one.
Classes and weapons are poorly balanced. The Bulwark is a key example of a too strong and not fun design. The Assault class, and melee in general is in a pretty poor state (unless you have an infinite defense shield that lets you walk up to people). Many of the weapon options for the classes are almost unusably weak, so class loadouts tend to be very samey. Grenades are spammy and the shock grenade blind duration is not fun.
Players are randomly assigned Imperial or Chaos marines. But there is basically no character customization for the Chaos marines, while the Imperial marines have 5 or 6 different sets. Either the enemy team should always appear to be Chaos with their NPC style, or they should have included equivalent Chaos customization.
Players have minimal control over which game modes they play. It’s either 100% random or selecting a single mode. A configurable selection is a common multiplayer feature.
Map design is bland. This is perhaps a more personal preference, but I find the symmetrical, arcade arenas with no narrative character boring.
I watch and listen to a lot of Giant Bomb and SkillUp, and both had praise for the multiplayer modes, warts and all. I can’t agree with all games media just being marketing, otherwise you’d never see bad reviews for the likes of those publishers spending all that money on marketing. It may not have worked for you, but doing all of those modes has done very well for the game.
So you have valid points and I do think it needs to be better, I however love the damn game. I would disagree that the assault class is weak, I’ve play plenty of matches where a good assault player is very key to the teams success. Melee is really strong when used correctly. I also think only a few of the weapons are weak, but I’ve still found their place in a teams composition.
I do think they should of launched with more maps and modes, according to them though they are coming and I’m willing to be a bit patient. The first patch was good and another operation is coming this month. Which is good stuff.
Reminds me of many “The reason why Call of Duty sucks” arguments I heard as a kid.
Like, my own tastes agree with you. But you don’t bring that argument into game industry discussion because fact is, the game is doing very well financially and obviously many players disagree with you. So you have to take that data, and work back to decide what the logical conclusion is.
If the argument is that SM2 is successful because it limited it’s scope to execute a smaller number of features well, I don’t think that holds up. It took on three different types of games and (imho) executed merely okay. What more could they have added? Open world? MMO?
I think the more plausible explanation for the sales is that it’s Warhammer, it’s pretty, and SM1 was good.
It made fairly big waves when it was released— mostly covered by cod influencers and the like. Their big selling point was “no sbmm”. I’ve thought about giving it a shot, since it can run on Linux under proton.
It’s alright, I played for a little bit after it released cause I was bored.
At the time, the queue times were fairly long and the game length was either very quick or a reasonable match length, no in between. It seemed like most people liked one character and anyone playing anyone else was new. At the time, it was very fast paced, but very floaty. There was also not a lot of impact on some of the guns, no real feeling of recoil on the sniper or the SMG.
I’m sure that has changed in the few weeks-~month since I haven’t played. It’s a fun point and clicker, but with the length of the queue times I’d rather play something else.
Between this and weighing in on what defines Final Fantasy (in the original interview), Sakaguchi sure didn’t shy away from the controversial topics in the fandom.
“I understand and know that this is a very widely debated topic, but I really think it has turned into something that has a different meaning for everyone,” says Sakaguchi. “If I had to give some kind of core ingredient, I would say it’s the story and world. These two are a must for any Final Fantasy and the common denominator across all of them. The world setting needs to contain some kind of thematic element that is loosely tied to current events. I think the world itself needs to have some kind of thematic backbone or message that gives a different perspective, or a thought-provoking prompt for players.”
As a gamer for over 40 years, I don’t play games on my phone. I find it boring, monotonous, and repetitive, along with the ads, gatcha mechanics, and whatever trash they’re pushing. If I want to play a game, I’ll use my desktop or Switch.
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