UFC 5. It’s very not-different from UFC 4 but that’s kind of okay. It was fun before and I need to catch up on my trophy collection after spending too much time with Diablo 4.
I played a few minutes of Spider-Man 2. It’s about as enjoyable as expected but I can play only one controller-heavy game at a time so I’ll come back to this later.
I’ve added a number of games to my wishlist I probably would have blown past thanks to a great demo.
The flip side is, sometimes the demo shows a promising game that doesn’t quite deliver on the original premise or introduces new, chunky systems for no reason and it’s all the more frustrating because the demo got my hopes up.
I think the (re)advent of demos has been an amazing boon for the industry that it forgot. Whether simplified full games or up-to-a-point full releases, it’s great to give things a try before you buy. Demos were huge in the 90s, and then capitalism thought it knew better.
I, for one, have bought more games this year in part due to the demos, whereas I used to demure to frugality and concern over refund policies.
I mean … Valve has an extremely reliable 2 hours or 2 weeks policy which is good enough for most games IMO. I’ve rarely needed more than that in terms of a demo to gauge whether I want to keep something or not
And that’s great for you, but I have a family, and sometimes I have to pause a game, and that means those two hours can go up quick. Demos are inclusive to people like me.
I guess that’s fair, but a lot of games also have “save anywhere” kind of saves where you can just close the game. Or they’re “there is no pause button” games.
It’s a sorta virtual novel type game, but it absolutely knew what it wanted to be and nails it 100% of the time. It’s teenage edge with an edge so sharp it actually breaks skin.
I went to several schools and had a lot of shitty drama growing up and it somehow nails that perfect catharsis while being funny as hell. They released an anime style trailer that made me buy it. I think it was the perfect limbic test for the whole game.
I learned about it from Civvie11’s video. I have unfortunately not played it yet, although I fully intend to. It’s stuck on a long backlog list. I really admire such an ambitious game that fully commits to a design and aesthetic which the devs surely knew would be obtuse and offputting to a wider audience. Making a game focused on a vision, without compromise is really a great thing.
That is a question where the answer is very complex. You’d have to break down different game design philosophies, think them through, and then apply them to specific games.
In general, I have two gut reactions:
If players are desiring to change the difficulty of the bosses compared to the rest of the game, the devs have to ask if there is a failure of design on their part. An example of this would be Dues Ex Human Revolution, which was an immersive sim that supported many different character builds, except the boss fights which were entirely based on combat. This created a frustrating and unfair situation to players not making a combat built character. The solution was that the boss fights were completely redesigned in the Director’s Cut release to support alternate builds. This is one example, but naturally there are many more. If a game has a “that boss”, the devs should look at it and examine if there is a problem with the design. Is a battle too comparatively difficult? Too tedious? Only suitable for certain builds (in games with builds)? Is the battle too much of a departure from standard gameplay in the rest of the game?
A popular game is going to get mods. If there is a strong desire in the player base, the mod is going to happen regardless of dev stubbornness, so devs may as well just give the people what they want. If a game is praised but has outcry for boss difficulty sliders, either put it in officially or incorporate it into the sequel.
I think this business model is likely suitable only for a few types of games:
Games with a repetitive gameplay loop. Multiplayer or single player, but something where you want to start another run/match/game when you finish.
And sandbox games where there’s no limit to the gameplay.
But for games it’s suitable for, the free marketing you get from content creators is the best publicity you could hope for, and a great way to stand out in an increasingly overcrowded and competitive market.
I bought Outer Wilds recently (my consumerism couldn’t resist the 40% sale on steam), friends recommended it and I know nothing about it, but only time will tell if I’ll play the game someday or if it’ll stay untouched for years…
I hope you do play it someday! I think it's definitely a game you have to be in the mood for, but when it clicks it's an amazing experience. But I also think it's really easy to bounce off of it too
Amazing game, and I say that as someone who generally doesn’t care for that style of game. It does take a little to get it’s feet, but when it gets it’s hooks in, it doesn’t let go. Give it a shot!
Still playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I’m about halfway through, and right now doing a small DLC side campaign. This DLC campaign runs parallel to the main story, in a neighboring barony, so it can maybe add some details and flesh out the world a bit.
Speaking of story, I think this is by far the weakest aspect of the game. Including the prologue, there have been four small story lines so far, that have been pretty much separated for the most part. While there are some small inklings here and there about some grander plot going on, there’s nothing concrete, so who knows. Act 3 was pretty good, there’s some shit going down in your kingdom, and I was really invested and felt like I was racing against time, but that just meant I blasted through the main quests in about a week or two in-game time, and then had like 200+ days of downtime until the next big thing happens. Yes, there are some (really basic) side quests, you can explore, and of course manage your kingdom, but it just doesn’t feel good. You need these long timeframes, because the kingdom management just has all these small time-skips (if you don’t use mods), but like I said last week, I don’t think the developers found the right balance here.
Finally bought myself a Playstation, so I’ve been playing a bunch of The Last of Us over the last week or so. And I got back into Hypixel Skyblock (please help the game has me trapped.)
Diablo 4 - I feel like I talk about this game every week, but I've been playing it every week, so... working on Season 2. Doing pretty good, already on Slayer chapter, and I'm happy to see a change up in the season journey objectives from last season. Feeling apprehensive but optimistic about completing all them this round, except for the PvP objective. There's like nobody in the PvP areas every time I'm there. Diablo 3 - season 29. Trying to improve my wizard for Greater Rifts. It's going... meh. I feel like I've hit a plateau in progressing, even though I'm still leveling up like crazy. Mad Max - I hadn't finished a previous playthrough of this game and was kind of having a shitty week, so I've been revisiting this favorite of mine. Ended up finishing the story while chatting with a friend, so now I'm just driving around in the Interceptor finishing up side quests and taking down camps.
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