I agree with your latter paragraph but not the former. I’m really not liking these overbroad IP claims. This is almost worse than the Nintendo/Palworld stuff, which was already pretty bad.
Tencent may also be a villain, but if Sony gets its way here, it will be bad for games and other forms of expression.
There is basically no good AAA studio left save for maybe bohemia, rockstar and cd project red. Meanwhile indies have risen up and overthrown the corpos by making fun games that set trends.
A big studio hasnt set a single trend in like over a decade now. AAA gaming has been dead for a while.
This sucks for Canadians as well. I have a feeling 8bit ships all stock to the USA first then ships it by truck North and South from a distribution center. This means import fees are paid at the port of entry.
Not sure if demand is high enough for 8bit to ship directly to Canada or even have a warehouse in Canada TBH.
I’ve almost completely stopped keeping up with M:TG these days. I used to be into it but it just feels like it’s completely jumped the shark these days.
so i sold out of mtg around covid and they started committing to “universe beyond”. but all signs point to their stupid shit being profitable for the time being. and the new UB stuff will now be going through standard will help their new player onboarding a bit.
Lord of the Rings was massively successful, and I’ve been seeing even more buzz for Final Fantasy than there was LotR. Universes Beyond is certainly here to stay.
exactly. but you can’t just keep farming UB forever. you need to onboard them into the ecosystem and keep them hooked in. time will tell if these people only cared about their specific media or if enough latch on to mtg the game.
I enjoyed the early mythos of M:tG, but I already started losing interest when they went all Marvel with their whole Gatewatch thing.
Even though individual sets (like LOTR) have been well made and successful, the whole Universes Beyond thing just further dilutes the identity of Magic too much for me. I’m sick of endless exploitation of existing IPs from all over the entertainment business. I understand why they do it from a financial perspective, but it doesn’t appeal to me at all.
Add to that the endless garbage of Secret Lair drops like goddamn Spider-Man and SpongeBob and I think MTG just isn’t for me anymore.
I personally dont get why they went with Nvidia again, they make cheap mobile processors and I doubt this one will be any different. Imo they should have gone with a low end AMD APU based on Ryzen 9000.
Yet another reason that copyright really needs to be revamped hardcore. You should not be able to retroactively revoke a license in that way and the entire idea of yeah I license you to be able to use this for x amount of years is ridiculous to me either you can use the Media or you can’t.
I enjoyed Bioshock Infinite a lot back on the Xbox 360. The whole city in the clouds but also it’s the early 20th century setting was really attractive to me, and I enjoyed it pretty much throughout. Elizabeth being an actually useful NPC sidekick that you don’t have to do endless shitty escort missions for was a great move. I don’t understand the hate it gets after a few years have passed.
It was criticized when and after it came out, so it isn’t something that’s come up recently. But as you mentioned, there were some praises as well, as NPC escort missions were a bane in gaming at the time and this game did get praise for Elizabeth for that.
However, much like the comment “the medium is the message”, I think also Bioshock was a series that was very close to people’s hearts and they had a specific idea about what exactly made it feel like that atmosphere. My stance has always been, Bioshock Infinite is a phenomenal game that isn’t quite Bioshock, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s like… It’s like the entirety of the series Metroid, and then Other M. Had Other M been literally any other name and character, it would have been a perfectly fine game.
But since it, and Bioshock Infinite, are tied to their namesakes, staying in line with that atmosphere that they create is imperative for a fanbase. For all of the faults that Bioshock 2 had, they still nailed the thematic portion of the world that appealed to so many people in Bioshock 1. They’re dark, gritty, a musk of musty air fills the entirety of the game and characterization. They’re also quite creepy, with that setting on top of the insanity and tight enclosed spaces under the oppression of the ocean.
Bioshock Infinite seems to abandon that thematic element almost entirely. And mind you, they did the bright and airy world very well, I can only imagine what it would have been like if they had been able to complete the entirety of their vision! I suspect something like Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom size was always the goal, given all the details shared about what they had to cut out.
That tonal shift I am almost certain is a majority of the cause for the issues with Bioshock Infinite - as this was the sentiment I gathered upon release and the coming years. It was two-fold though too, because by changing the nature of the tonality of the game, the gameplay itself seemed to be “brightened”, maybe in an attempt to make it more accessible, maybe to make it more engaging, but it seems pretty commonly agreed that Bioshock Infinite is just easier. The puzzles seemed toned down (IMO almost more of a point a -> point b puzzle), and while yeah the ending was a very well done version of this, I think many also felt like it somewhat removed the agency the players were struggling with, just to toss in a “you have and always will be” multiversal moment.
Anyway, all this to say, these aren’t explicitly my opinions on Bioshock, I’m just an analyst. I enjoyed most of Bioshock Infinite, but it is clear to see that there is a difference in the show-don’t-tell of Bioshock and the tell-show-tell of Bioshock Infinite. I actually am able to replay Infinite, where I have a hard time replaying 1 and especially 2, just because they’re so goddamn scary for me, lol. Much of the gameplay of Infinite is also just slightly more modern, with 1 and 2 just being slightly slower and clunkier without the movement option of the grappling hook.
I think another way of putting this is to look at an entirely different game, We Happy Few. It seems to me that We Happy Few wanted to make the atmosphere of Bioshock 1 but with the brighter narrative style of Bioshock Infinite, which inevitably resulted in the clashing of those two themes. In the case of Bioshock Infinite, it is that very same clashing of themes which I think heavily affected the players perception of the game. Again, had it been named, like, “Sky Cultist: Enigma” or something like that, it would have been perfectly well received and would have maybe even gone down in gaming history positively. Instead, it was tied to Bioshock and is kinda seen as “it’s good but meh” as a byproduct of such a drastic shift. I also think the desire to go from sea to sky is just a little cheesy, and while it was done well enough I’m also sort of hmmmeehh on that whole side of it. Fun areas to play in, but… not very Bioshocky, even with the steam punk elements.
Which is too bad. It had many technically good qualities about it, from the story arcs, from memory I feel like the pacing was pretty good, I remember the gameplay early and mid-way being fun although I do feel like I remember just a little bit of bullet spongeyness and resource/ammo collection mid-late sections of the game. Obviously the ending was quite good, and I really enjoyed the cult story. However, the bright sky world is very contrasting to the murderdeath cult and gore of it all, and I personally wasn’t as big of a fan of the thematic shift, both in the overworld but also in the march towards the Industrial Revolution. It just felt so out of place to me (specifically the Patriots, or maybe I just hated fighting so many of them) considering we had this entire underwater industrial complex in Rapture. However this is alleviated somewhat by the ending of Infinite, since these are all infinite possibilities oooooohhhh the name makes sense nowwwww!
So yeah, all in all I think it turned a bit underwater espionage revealing the secret project to the world to floating cult investigation revealing the… secret project to the world.
No, there won’t be another xbox. Phil Spencer is angling to get gamepass on nintendo and sony. But he’s going to have to force it through the courts and government legislation, much like epic is doing with mobile stores now.
It’s a play for the consumer’s money, and when the consumer has better options than the traditional console model, the console model breaks down. They’ve got at least one more Xbox in them, whether or not that next Xbox is just a PC with different branding.
The “better option” is subscription services where you own nothing and the bottom drops out of the industry, just like music and film. You can cheer for that if you want, but it is not in the interests of the consumer.
I wasn’t cheering for subscription services. I was cheering that this exclusivity model of walled gardens no longer makes economic sense, while open platforms are on the rise. Microsoft is hoping that their pivot will result in more subscribers to their subscription service, but all signs are pointing to them having a rough time of growing beyond where they stand now, for all sorts of reasons.
I don't thinks so. It popular because "pokemon with guns" became a viral meme which sucks.
A a discontent pokemon fan myself I would love someone to make a pokemon clone since Game Freak is not really interested in doing good pokemon games anymore. But "Ark Survival Evolved with knockoff pokemon skins instead of dinosaurs" is not what I want
Pokémon with guns wouldn't have gotten millions of sales on its own. When the trailers came out people were laughing but they weren't exactly eager to play.
Given the persistent popularity of survival crafting games, I think "Ark with knockoff pokemon" is exactly what people wanted. After all, even before this, Pixelmon was one of the most popular Minecraft mods.
Pokémon with guns wouldn't have gotten millions of sales on its own
The day before sold millions (but this one was refunded by millions too) and everybody and their mom knew it was a scam since it was announced like 2 or 3 years ago. Internet is weird, if something becomes viral it will sell, the quality does not matter, people just wants to be in
As far as I can tell The Day Before was overhyped early and people bought it because of the marketing. Palworld did some advertising, but the mass adoption appears to be mostly word of mouth that the game is actually fun when it was made available in early access.
That matches what I have seen from people commenting and my personal experience as I don't remember hearing about it before and hopped on because of friends recommending it. Palworld is a word of mouth success like Valheim and for similar reasons of competent styling, smooth gameplay, and survival that isn't punishing the player from the moment the game starts.
That's a 3 years old post. Everybody knew it was a scam back then. to the point the studio released "We are not a scam, trust me bro" statements (which made it more obvious it was a scam)
I don't remember hearing about it before
Internet has been talking about "pokemon with guns" for 2 years or so since the developers were already famous because they launched a "Breath of the Wild" knock off (Craftopia) that also sold well (not at the same level of palworld, but for being the first title of a brand new indie studio it sold really well)
Apparently not everyone knew the day before was a scam or it wouldn't have sold millions of units. Just because some people predicted it does not mean that the general population had any awareness of that expectation.
People started to sell their steam accounts that owned the game and keys for the game for hundreds of dollars when it was announced the game was some bad that it was going to be removed from steam
If something is popular it will sell, the quality does not matter. You have the best example in Pokemon itself
The Day Before did not sell a single million units and Palworld is not getting widely refunded, even though everyone who starts it, dressed like a caveman, immediately realizes they aren't getting to play with guns anytime soon. There were streamers showing this even before the game was out.
It's true that virality is unpredictable and popularity is not a measure of quality, but I think a lot of people are being overly dismissive of the fact that Palworld managed to hook people with something that appealed to them. Not to say it's a bastion of quality and originality, obviously not, but it has something going for it.
Off the top of my head, there's Temtem and Cassette Beasts that try to mimic the formula more closely, and then there are a bunch of "Pokemon but _____" takes on the formula that you can find with a quick Google. This is "Pokemon but <survival game>". Last I heard, Ark didn't let you assign dinosaurs to a factory or have some of the more RPG systems like boss fights, but quite frankly, I found Ark so obtuse that I didn't play for long.
The problem with TemTem is that it's an always online game, if the servers are turned off you won't be able to play, not even the single player campaign so it's a hard pass.
And the art style of both games are not my cup of tea, the do a disservice selling me the game.
I'm a fairweather Pokemon fan at best, but I'm with you on Temtem for the same reason; many people don't have the same reservations as you and I, so I thought I'd mention it. I think Cassette Beasts is that game and reviewed well, and to ignore it might be to ignore exactly the game you're asking for, but I'd also point you toward the "creature collector" tag on Steam. I've never heard of Coromon before doing that search to leave this reply, but mousing over it for a second shows a video that proves they know what they're making (87% positive Steam reviews). Same goes for Nexomon: Extinction (92% positive). No one will know what you're looking for better than you, but people have been making games inspired by Pokemon for a long time now.
No one will know what you're looking for better than you, but people have been making games inspired by Pokemon for a long time now.
A Pokemon clone with high production values made in Japan. Or if it's not made in Japan one that uses it own art style, I simply can't stand the "Fake anime" aesthetic that most indies use, like they learned to draw using this as refference
Think of Shin Megami Tensei (but not SMT V, that one sucks, they removed the dungeon crawling and the puzzles)
I’m very sad they are closing shop, but I understand it.
I find their last DLC awfully expensive, but I think I’ll buy them anyway, as I really loved all their games (bought desperados 3 day 1, same for shadow gambit, and no regrets).
Their games were crafted with love, and it shows. If you haven’t, go and try them on, it’s a fun genre.
I started playing because I had nostalgia for the commandos games, but they really refined the gameplay and made the different difficulty modes so everyone can have fun.
I find their last DLC awfully expensive, but I think I’ll buy them anyway, as I really loved all their games (bought desperados 3 day 1, same for shadow gambit, and no regrets).
I find the Zagan DLC to be a bit boring, but he’s got some really interesting abilities.
Yuki is just fucking perfect, though. She might even be a little OP. Also, she adopted Kuma. It’s great.
It also carries forward her story from Shadow Tactics in an interesting way, but remains subtle enough that no one has to have played that before to enjoy her character.
I bought the DLC at full price because I’d already gotten the base game on sale (also because the DLC hasn’t gone on sale and I wanted to finish up the collection before year’s end).
Honestly, could definitely have done without the Zagan DLC. I’d only get it if you really like his abilities (they can be legitimately fun at times) and the darker tone of his story. Otherwise, no need.
Yuki was worth every cent, though.
It’s also fun chopping everyone into wood. Her passive is basically “everyone she kills turns into a block of wood that guards don’t notice or care about”.
Link up with John and Quentin/Suleidy, and you’ll never have to drag any dead body into bushes or throw them in the ocean ever again.
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