I don’t get what makes this game so special that Geoff Keighley hyped it so much. That this thing was the big surprise that ended the game awards show was completely underwhelming. Out of the show, Highguard was the most generic game presentation. There was absolutely nothing about this game that seemed new or even interesting. Just the next hero shooter with comic look.
Tbf, I don’t think Apex Legends was completely new either. It refined and combined a lot of good ideas in other games into a battle royale. I think they’re trying to do that with this type of hero shooter vibe, having taken some ideas from Rainbow 6 Siege and a few other games. Doesn’t seem to have worked as well this time.
Well its not Concord 2.0. Already has WAY more players than Concord ever did, almost 100k peak players on Steam alone, currently 67k in-game as of the time I am posting this.
I can’t say that 3v3 is the right fit for the game, the maps are rather large for it. But I think with a bit more work in a few updates, it has far more staying power than Concord ever had.
Even still, its got more legs to stand on than Concord had, which was zero.
I think its serviceable unlike Concord, which required too many changes.
I guess we just have to wait and see if the server is shut down in two weeks. In reality, I don’t think we will ever see as monumental a train wreck as Concord was. Probably ever.
I’m 100% of the opinion that the main reason Concord failed is because it didn’t get any advertising. The first time I heard about Concord was the news that it completely flopped at launch and I wasn’t the only one. When that’s the first thing people hear about the game they’re not even going to bother to get interested in what the game is about. To this day I don’t even know if Concord had any redeeming qualities because I haven’t even seen any gameplay outside of 5 second no-context clips. Even bad games receive better numbers than Concord.
Highguard is going to have more staying power than Concord solely on the fact that it actually had an advertising budget.
Concord didn’t have any advertising because the data was showing them beyond a shadow of a doubt that it would have been throwing good money after bad.
But after they revealed it? Yes. From their reveal to their beta test, it seemed clear the game was not going to find an audience; definitely not enough to recoup $200M-$400M.
You can dig through This Week in Video Games episodes on SkillUp’s YouTube channel from back just before the game released. That’s where I got it from. Live service games are looking for the hockey stick shaped graph in order to take off, and it was quite clear that even when the game was free, it didn’t have the juice to make that happen. And even the lower bound of $200M is a tough bar to clear, but Concord was funded at a time when borrowing money was cheap and every asshole with a war chest thought they’d make a fortune by following the same formula; the problem with that is that everyone else thought they could do that too. And that’s not even to say Concord was the worst game ever made or anything. It was just a game that cost way more to make than it was ever, ever going to make back.
What advertising though? They didn’t have to pay for The Game Awards spot, Jeff just gave it to them for free. I haven’t seen any commercials or ads outside of that either. I think Concord had more advertising than Highguard, with Concord getting multiple devlogs and previews across a few Sony hosted events, IIRC.
My bad, I meant marketing strategy not advertising budget. Concord definitely had a bigger budget considering they got a Secret level episode deal before the game was even launched. But the budget and bits of marketing don’t matter when it doesn’t gain any traction and whatever their strategy was it gained no traction what so ever.
As for highguard, they did pay for the TGA spot. They didn’t pay extra to be the premier trailer, that Jeff gave them for free. And they did had a weird strategy of going completely radio silent after TGA. But despite that people at launch knew this game existed and has already beaten Concord numbers (at least on Steam) by hundredfold and I don’t think that’s solely because this game is F2P.
I’ve had this game for a few years since picking it up for $5, but have been afraid to actually get into it because I’m intimidated by how big it is (so many updates over the years). For the uninitiated, what kind if game is it anyway? How easy is it to get into?
It’s not too big if you only focus on getting to the end boss and end-game weapons/gear. I think they also don’t want to go past the end boss anymore. This update for example adds a lot of QoL and other fun content you can do on the side.
And with the wiki it’s pretty easy to figure everything out.
It’s Minecraft on a 2D plane with a heavier focus on combat and survival. There’s not much of a story. It’s up to you to go as far as you want too. The progression is basically learn the systems. Learn how to survive above ground. Learn how to survive below ground. Start collecting gear. Start challenging bosses. It’s pretty easy to get into. The real challenge is in the bosses. You need to think outside the box early on because you’re not just wacking a boss to death like you will the normal mobs. Mobility and verticality are key.
It’s not Elden Rings level of difficulty. It’s like a harder Minecraft survival mode. There’s a lot to do and it’s not hidden from you. In Minecraft because you’re in first person view and there’s stuff all around you, you can miss a lot. And the crafting system is similar too. You don’t know what you’re getting until you put the ingredients together. With Terraria you can see everything because it’s all on one plane. So you’re not playing a guessing game. Crafting is the same way. Once you discover gold ore you know all the things you can make with gold now. So discovery isn’t a hey I found this let me search for more in hopes I can make an item. Its more of I know exactly where I can find some ore that corresponds to the item I want because I discovered it at this depth and I need exactly this much to make that item I want. Does that make sense? The real sense of discovery comes from there being so much to craft.
You have it. Try it. IMO it’s one of the best video games ever made. It has a bit of everything. Survival. Crafting. Metroidvania aspects. Platforming. It looks great and sounds even better. It’s one of a handful of game I ever put more than 100 hours into as an adult. It basically got me through college. I still pick it up every once and a while to let my mind veg while I listen to music and fight mobs while I build a pretty base.
I will say that, while the other comment comparing it to Minecraft isn’t wrong to do so, you shouldn’t go in expecting some 1:1, 2D Minecraft experience. Because while they have plenty of similar features, the core of each game is quite different. Minecraft for example is primarily a sandbox game, with lite survival elements sprinkled in. You’re mostly just there to build and farm and do whatever the hell you want, and the game doesn’t differ greatly between peaceful and hard. Terraria on the other hand is primarily an action game with some survival elements. Sure, you can build huge, beautiful cathedrals if you’d like, but unlike Minecraft that’s not really where the game shines at all. Terraria instead shines in it’s exploration (especially when you’re new to the game) and combat.
Edit: Oh also, unlike Minecraft, world difficulties change things drastically. Difficulty isn’t just a damage and health slider for enemies, instead it also modifies general enemy AI (in honestly annoying ways sometimes - looking at you lava slimes), and bosses all get major changes including new attack patterns. I’d stick with classic or journey mode at first, even if you normally tend to try harder difficulties when playing new games.
Looks cool but only going to play it when, it is 🏴☠️. I refuse to pay so much and then to be forced to get th DLCs for even more money. If it won’t be 🏴☠️ then I simply will not play the game.
As someone who wants to approach car racing games, what would be the suggestion to start with? I remember I played need for speed undercover and shift many years ago and I enjoyed them (shift was one of my favorite) But I haven’t been in the scene for a long time. I just want to casually play, because I kinda like the genre and I was thinking about getting a steering wheel eventually.
Need for Speed Heat and Unbound are decent, usually go on sale for dirt cheap. They are much more arcadey (which isn’t a bad thing)
Forza Horizon is a great simcade experience imo. It’s a good blend of realism and arcade style driving mechanics.
Dirt Rally 2 if you want to try rally style racing.
Racing games cover such a large variety of styles and levels or realism so it really depends what you like in a racing game.
There are proper sim racers but they are much harder to get into if you are just getting started (Assetto Corsa, iRacing, Richard Burns Rally to name a few)
Thanks for the suggestions! If I’d go with a Forza horizon, which one should I pick? Do you know if there’s any Linux support for the game you mentioned?
I know both Forza Horizon 5 and Dirt Rally 2 work on SteamOS as I have played them on my steam deck
It’s hard to say which Horizon I would recommend. Horizon 4 is better than Horizon 5 imo (I much prefer the setting of 4 vs 5) but with Horizon 6 coming out in May it could be worth waiting for it.
Honestly check both 4 and 5 out and see which one looks more appealing as they play very similarly. 5 has more active players but if you just plan to play against AI then this is a non issue. Or go for whatever one is on sale if you just want to dip your toes in.
I will warn that Horizon games aren’t very well structured and can honestly be overwhelming with all the content added over the years (think joining an MMO with years of content releases).
No. Delisted from sale just means people can’t buy new copies anymore. It happens to virtually every game that features licensed music and/or brands, once those licensing deals expire the game can no longer be sold. However, if you purchased the game before that happens, it’s still in your library and you can still download and play it as normal. Usually delisting is also followed by shutting off the respective game servers soon after, but as far as I know online services for FH4 and FH3 are still up. Because I purchased those games when they were available I can still play them, and even when the servers go offline they have offline functionality that remains playable.
I actually had a lot of fun at first with FH5 in the exact same position. The unlocks flow fast and there’s a ton of stuff to tinker around with and explore, and the racing itself is very beginner-friendly. The difficulty settings and assists are very granular and can be fine-tuned to suit your skill level.
I particularly appreciated that it avoided a linear progression system and didn’t make you start off on the slowest cars and slowly work your way up to the good ones, as it’ll give you some insane hypercars right off the bat. The upgrade system and vehicle tiering also ensures that the “slower” cars are never truly obsolete. You can drive what your like, and the game never punishes you for it (in singleplayer, at least).
However, once I got through most of the single player content available, I started to sour on it at a certain point. The constant drip feed of new content in the weekly challenges was fun at first, but felt like a chore after a while, and it definitely takes advantage of FOMO, as the new unlocks in a given week are exclusive to that week and can’t be obtained anywhere else, unless buying them from another player at often exorbitant rates. They do re-run previous exclusive vehicles in the secondary challenges sometimes, but there’s no telling how long you’ll have to wait for a particular car to come around again if you miss it the first time.
So yeah, your mileage may vary, so to speak, but I did put something like 300-400 hours into it before I dropped it for good, and I don’t regret most of that.
Yeah well 300h is a lot, it’s gonna be hard for me to reach that level. That’s a good option, I’ll definitely check it out. However, I don’t understand how the game works in terms of cars availability and if the base game is enough since there are thousands of dlc and in addition you, as well as others, always mention this weekly unlock thingy.
The DLC car packs contain exclusive cars that cannot be obtained elsewhere. The weekly cars are often “hard-to-find” in that they are generally not available elsewhere until they re-run them, but apparently, now that the game is late in its content cycle, they’ve also added a “backstage pass” thing recently, which allows for easier acquisition of some previous “hard-to-find” vehicles.
There are a ton of base-game vehicles that are not exclusive to any particular time or event. Many can be obtained in the Autoshow, which you spend in-game credits to buy cars outright, or in wheelspins, which are basically lootboxes, but they hand out free spins like candy, to the point where I never felt any pressure to buy more. Most spin reward cars are pretty cheap on the auction house anyway (which also uses in-game currency, no IRL money or anything).
Yeah I’ll probably get the wheel eventually. I also found that I have dirt 1 and 3 in my steam account, probably got them for free. I will give them a try as well
If you just want to jump into something small, and single player. Super Woden Rally Edge would be my first suggestion.
Then from there you can decide what you want to jump in to next, more rally would be Assetto Corsa Rally, or Maybe something a little older like Dirt rally 2 or EAs WRC. Rally is probably the easier choice for controller if you want to start diving in to more sim racing stuff.
If you decide you want to look more into track racing, check out Raceroom as it is free and you can do a few weeks of their free multiplayer races(learn the tracks first) or some free stuff in single player, or you can grab something like Automobilista 2 on a sale for cheap, these are both pretty drivable on a game pad, but a bit easier to jump in on a wheel. Assetto Corsa and Assetto Corsa Evo are probably not great on a game pad to jump into, but pretty good options for driving on a wheel, with something like Le Mans Ultimate being the current multiplayer sim racing game of choice(not including iRacing).
If you decide that you want to stick to something more arcade, and controller friendly then Forza Horizon is really good and probably the best option. Gran Tourismo 7 is also a good option if you are only on playstation.
Posting the Sony one implies it’s exclusive to PlayStation and derails the conversation to a place it really doesn’t need to go.
Personally I’m cautious. After the way the second one ended, I never touched the third one. They kinda pull this bait-and-switch where if you try to pick the good ending, the game shames you for it. It’s almost as bad as Mass Effect 3 telling you that you have three choices, giving you three paths, and not telling you which one is which. Maybe a bit worse. I mean to go through this whole game and just get shit on for trying to do the right thing. It’s a bit shit.
Then again, Peter Molyneux isn’t involved in this. He’s making a sequel to Black and White set in the Fable universe without using the Fable name (but he is using the Albion name) so it’s kinda confusing. Obvious if you know what you’re looking at, though.
Look saving the dog is the only choice, you can go get another wife and kids and a million gold is so easy to get by that point in the game. My biggest problem with 2 was that I was so evil by the time I realized that I needed to get to a level of good to get an expression to open the last door and I just didn’t want to do it anymore.
3 is easy bad ending or huge money grind for good ending, that is the whole game.
I liked 3 a lot. But it’s way too easy. IIRC you also can’t die. You just revive with a scar. But I never “lost” until I got to that assassin for the DLC.
Also, yeah, the ending was price gouge all of your rental properties or let everyone die. Like, great, what a choice.
Gameplay was fun though. Missions were fun. Everything was good except those two things.
All of the Fable games were easy. The first one had a shield spell early in the magic tree that made hits drain mana instead of health, mana potions were cheaper than health potions, you could carry a ton of them, and using them was instantaneous even in battle. It was straight-up impossible to die unless you did so deliberately.
The shield spell also made it so getting hit didn’t reset your combo (which acted as an experience multiplier), so you could grind against infinitely respawning enemies like town guards or undead in the graveyard for a while until your combo was in the hundreds, then chug a few experience potions and max out all of your stats instantly.
The only downside was that the spell made an annoying loud humming noise the entire time it was active.
I can’t remember ever having trouble in the second, but I don’t remember it being so broken either. It was just tuned a little too low since they wanted casual players to be able to enjoy it. The games could have used some difficulty options.
The king telling you how hard the decisions are, and how you just dont understand how heavy the crown is and then forcing you to make the tough choices yourself seems great on paper until you realise you can solve the entire world’s economic problems by putting a 15 minute shift in at the pie shop.
I thought that the point was that the King was only interested in saving everyone, so he didn’t even consider that he could avoid being a tyrant. Like, if I remember right, you can overcharge for rent to get the money without going overboard. He just said fuck it and took everything.
Yes, I know about 3’s good ending and how all that works, I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who wants to play it but hasn’t before, but I appreciate how they handled it, as I understand it. And that twist is revealed somewhere in the middle, so you can grind out the good ending or you can take the easy way out. Fable 2 had you go all the way to the end, gave you one wish and 3 options to choose from, then pulls the rug out from under you. Unless you’re evil and you just take the money. Regarding the dog:
spoilerThere’s no option to save the dog. Not sure where you’re getting that. I don’t remember a dog. I know you could get a pet and they could die and you could get another one. But there’s no wish to bring a pet back. The evil wish is money, and lots of it, but it’s the end of the game so it’s purely symbolic. The other two endings are “bring back everyone who was killed by the bad guys” or “bring back your family.” The game pushes the value of family from the very beginning, but apparently choosing your family is a second bad ending and your family basically hate you for putting them before some strangers. Which doesn’t track with the rest of the game.
Ok I had to look it up since it had been so long since I beat 2. Take the gold is evil ending but like I said money is easy to get by the end game. The good ending is to leave your family dead and save everyone sacrificed to build the tower, the reward is a statue and knowing a bunch of NPCs that you can’t meet in the game are alive. Love brings back your family and dog, I was thinking that the dog and family were separate. Anyway family feels guilty about the trade but who cares the wife can be replaced, the dog is needed to get rest of the silver keys and other things that you couldn’t access until the end game so dog is the most useful reward, plus being best boy.
So it’s love, gold, and a tower? Yeah I still pick gold.
It’s been a while since I played but I thought you could have different pets and replace them as they go (since pets tend to be canon fodder in a lot of games).
I’m excited for the ride again. The hype about what’s possible, the belief that it’s going to be a genre-defining ground-breaking experience, the disappointment of finding out how shallow it actually is, and the fun of a casual, smooth playing easy game.
There is that — that it will probably be an easy game. There aren’t too many of those around. Or at least getting attention. Last year’s Game of the Year talk was all about three games that are just stupidly hard: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Hollow Knight Silksong, and Blue Prince. I love Blue Prince, but I caved and looked up how to beat it. I fully accept that I probably never will. And “beating” it really just means beating the tutorial. There’s so much to do after. But it’s fun, even when you lose. The other two are just exceedingly punishing.
And that’s fine — games were hard in the 80s. They eased off a bit in the 90s and 00s, but I think PlayStation was always pushing hard games while Xbox and Nintendo were more casual and “gaming is for everybody” (as opposed to “git gud or GTFO”). Then smartphones came out and easy games pretty much swept the app stores. I respect a good challenge if it’s fun, and I respect a game that pushes you to be your absolute best… I just don’t have the time for that. I like games with Story difficulty where you can do the motions if you want, but you’re basically guaranteed to survive every battle, and falling off a high ledge just returns you to the ledge you fell from.
Final Fantasy VII (both of them: the emulated PS1 version on modern consoles, and the remake) actually come with cheat codes built right in, and from what I can tell, they don’t even disable achievements. (Actually, the last one disables one achievement. The last cheat code maxes the level of your materia, and this disables the achievement for learning about materia. Once you get that achievement, go crazy.) The game even offers a Head Start mode that makes all your characters start powerful with high level gear. Of course, Final Fantasy VII is a special game. It’s often credited as being the first truly cinematic game. I’m not sure it was, but it was definitely one of them and absolutely the most popular of them at the time. The game plays like a movie, so they absolutely do not want to hold you back because you can’t push the right buttons fast enough. They want you to experience that story.
Someone told me that before. Still, if Peter Molyneux puts out a game and uses the name Albion, we know what he’s referring to.
Fable’s Albion could even be Great Britain in an alternate universe.
It’s like Pandora. It’s been used by a bunch of companies for different reasons. But if Gearbox lost the rights to Borderlands and they set a new game on a planet called Pandora, I would not expect they were talking about the jeweler.
So I suppose it benefits Molyneux that his world and title were so generic he can use them without the Fable license.
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