Here’s what the device is if (like me) you didn’t know what it was (and, if, maybe like me, you didn’t want to watch some random video).
It seems to me that those machines are poor PCs and poor Steam Deck wannabes.
However, they do remind me of my favourite PC of all time, the fabulous Vaio C1 PictureBook by Sony. Mine had 64 Megs of memory (extended to 192 I think) and 12Gigs of disk. And, you bet it ran Linux like a champ (Mandrake, with KDE).
To be fair, the GPD brand has been around for years so it’s not like they saw the SteamDeck release and tried to profit on it. They’ve been THE brand that has been trying to push the portable gaming pc paradigm for a decade, until Valve just “made it right” (price, performances and usability).
It doesn’t speak of the quality of the products nor the viability of their specific solutions, just a reminder they’re not a “random” brand.
I see they have a number of little machines that can come in very handy in a lot of cases. So while I’m not convinced by that one specifically, it doesn’t reflect on the whole lineup. A lot of their gadgets are quite nice.
However I’m more convinced by their “tech in a pocket” systems than by the gaming ones.
Without GPD and others, there likely wouldn’t even be a Steam Deck. They really paved the way and made the case for handheld PCs, which proved to Valve that there was a market worth investing in.
I think digital foundry hit the nail on the head when they said “This isn’t a space simulation like No Man’s Sky or Star Citizen, it’s a Bethesda RPG with space as a background setting”. For a lot of people that’s not a bad thing, but the advertising for this game set expectations wrong.
Still, the seamlessness should be there, I don’t care how they mask it, but it should be there somewhat, again, this is 2023. It doesn’t even do simple fade to blacks, but full blown loading screens everywhere.
Also, travelling with the ship mechanic is incredibly, frustratingly cumbersome. For example, let’s say you wanted to jump to Sol for the first time, in Starfield, you’d do:
Select and mark your destination through map screen.
Somehow exit the map screen (either mash B or hold B and tap B again to exit the menu, cumbersome)
Highlight your weapons with the D-Pad and mash down button.
Highlight GRAV and mash the up button.
Enjoy game stripping controls away from you.
Go back into map screen to mark surface spot you want to go to.
Hold X.
Voilà, you’re there, insantly.
Why have an entire space mechanic, if you’re just gonna make it frustrating to interact with? Game is okay with teleporting you around at times, but not others as well. It literally disrespects your time, but not in a good way. Speaking of a game that disrespects your time well, it’s Elite, which the flow of events would be:
Open Galaxy Map with Y+Left D-Pad and select a destination.
Exit with tapping B, once.
Align your ship with the destination and throttle up.
Tap Y to initiate jump.
Enjoy being able to look around or (albeit barely) interact with your screens.
Open System Map with Y+Right D-Pad and select your destination.
Align the ship with destination.
Open Navigation Panel via X+Left D-Pad, select your target and enable Supercruise Assist.
Enjoy ship taking you there, feel free to interact with panels, photo mode, chat, etc.
Sure, it’s a lot more complicated as it is a sim, but see that you don’t really do redundant actions and you’re in control most of the time. Also, no loading screens as the jumping effect will mask the system change, and the “dropping from Supercruise” screen will mask the second loading screen. Funnily enough, you’ll wait more but feel like it took less.
I don’t want Starfield to be be Elite or Star Citizen, but it doesn’t even have the rudimentary systems in place. For example, I thought you were able to fly anywhere with your ship in the atmosphere and outside it. Just not seamlessly transition between those. That’d be “possible” to have as the game already does this technically. It just isn’t there for whatever reason.
Also this basically breaks exploration as the wast majority of travelling you’ll do is via the menus and loading screens due to the exact same issues. I remind you this game was marketed as an exploration game with 1000 and whatnot.
This is also the case for game play as well. There are just way too many loading screens. Especially weird when they already have airlocks which would mask vast majority of those perfectly.
Bethesda’s engine disallows that entirely. Everything has to be chunked into pieces with loading screens between – every previous Bethesda game has done that, so it’s not really a surprise.
Agree it would be neat, but I also already have No Man’s Sky, and I’m looking forward to Bethesda competing on story.
It blows my mind that Bethesda have owned id Software for over a decade and haven’t at any point got them to make a version of id Tech engine for their games.
There’s literally no reason the graphics wizards at id couldn’t make a Bethesda branch of the engine that uses similar or identical workflows to Creation but also employs all the best practices for a modern open world engine.
Like, modders have made their own Open Morrowind engine from scratch, in their spare fucking time. It runs all the same files and all the same mods work, without any of the drawbacks of the Gamebryo engine. It would be trivial for id’s engineers, with their experience and resources, to make something better. For some reason Bethesda just… keep bolting new shit to the creaking husk of their old engine.
There’s literally no reason the graphics wizards at id couldn’t make a Bethesda branch of the engine that uses similar or identical workflows to Creation but also employs all the best practices for a modern open world engine.
It's hard to take your opinion seriously with this kind of statement. It has some real "It's 2023, where is my flying car?" energy.
At the end of the day, it's a lot easier to write a wishlist of game engine features than it is to actually develop said engine.
id Tech was already an open world engine with id Tech 5, after being a regular map-based engine for id Tech 4 and the Quake engines preceding it. It was then scaled back to normal maps for id Tech 6.
They can and have made it do whatever they want. What’s missing is the will from Bethesda to pay for it.
I’d argue it would be smarter to upgrade CE to meet modern standards than creating a branch of id’s software while porting all of existing Bethesda tools.
we don’t have access to the source so we can’t really say things are bolted on. it’s also possible that code is removed as it’s made obsolete.
I don’t think you would have to create an entirely new engine to support elite dangerous type of warping, or elevators even now they could make the illusion better
Yeah, as soon as it became known that this is still on the Creation Engine, I knew there would be loading screens galore. Seamless exploration of planets and actual infinite space flight is just not something this engine is capable of. Hell, I’m impressed they managed to squeeze even the little space flight out of it that they did.
An engine doesn’t disallow anything. The engine wouldn’t work with multiplayer, but then it did. The engine wasn’t 64-bit until it was. Bethesda could have added it, but they didn’t for whatever reason they have.
Fallout 4’s elevators were loading screens but you never faded to black and load in again. There are plenty of ways to mask a loading screen (as well just leaving a loading screen while keeping things menu-free), Bethesda just chose not to.
I’m not sure, been trying to find the answer. But FSR3 they’ve stated will continue to be open source and prior versions have supported Vulkan on the developer end. It sounds like this is a solution for using it in games that didn’t necessarily integrate it though? So it might be separate. Unclear.
I unironically love that game. It was equal parts bold and stupid. Where else you can find a game about a cartoon mascot character who can side with a alien-demon invasion to try to kill the president and the hero protagonist? SEGA can be judged for many things but they weren't afraid to dare.
I also really like how they did multiple endings. I know ultimately there is a single canon one but it's still interesting to see all the others.
Compared to Sonic Heroes which was released during the same generation, I like this game much more.
Playing the first mission a bunch of times was a bit of a chore but I did like the multiple endings and branching story. I’ve played around half of the endings many years ago. The “I’m an Android now, I guess?” ending is my favourite.
They’re not making a new Animal Crossing for the Switch 2. They’re making a free hotel add on for New Horizons that is the DLC but toned down. And adding multi crafting and strafe terraforming. Oh and mouse controls and the ability to call villagers via the mic for the Switch 2. $5 for that.
I’m sure they’ll make one eventually. They don’t have anything else in exactly the same niche, and ACNH was incredibly popular. This seems like the kind of update you put out to make sure people keep the brand in mind while your next title is still too far out to announce.
I don’t think that’s really the same. The repackaging of Wii U games was because the Switch’s install base was several times larger than the Wii U’s, so they could sell them to people who had never played them before. The “Switch 2 Edition” updates are a way to try to extract some extra money from people who already played the games, but they’re not going to fulfill the same strategic goals as, say, Mario Kart 8 DX, partly because they aren’t going to sell as much, and partly because most of the people who buy them will already own the game and therefore only pay the upgrade price. I think from a strategic standpoint they’re basically filler.
I agree that they’re filler, but Nintendo overemphasizes their importance when they’re released. It feels like they’re trying to hide how few new first party games they’re actually releasing.
Right, I just don’t think the Switch.2 will be where they launch it. While I’m not one of those guys who says the Switch is a minor iteration, I do say it’s a necessary iteration but still just a Switch. It’s just the 2025 Switch. Bigger, more powerful, mouse mode, higher resolution, some nice stuff to have… but it’s still a Switch.
Thinking about Animal Crossing releases, did the 3DS XL or New 3DS get a new Animal Crossing? Pretty sure it was just New Leaf, and Welcome Amiibo was sold on the eShop. Did the DS Lite or DSi get a new Animal Crossing, or was it just always Wild World (or City Folk, the other being NGC or Wii)?
I don’t doubt they’re working on a new Animal Crossing, but I don’t think it will be on the Switch.
It might also matter if you could get something closer to Animal Crossing on computers or rival consoles. Similar games exist but they aren’t that similar. I think Stardew Valley is the main one, but the recent Disney game would be a contender, too. And the Hello Kitty one. But Nintendo knows they don’t have any competition in the space.
Honestly, if I was really into AC still I’d be ok paying for the work of some devs of a five year old game if it made some good quality of life upgrades.
Ironically, the best parts of the Animal Crossing 3.0 update are free. The hotel, which is based on the Happy Home Paradise DLC (which is $25), is free. The bonus features are mostly free. The ones locked behind the $5 Switch 2 Edition upgrade mostly require Switch 2 hardware, like mouse control, higher resolution, and the party/multiplayer bonuses. And being able to call villagers by name. I though the Switch 1 had a mic, too, but I’m not sure. Maybe it does and that feature will be available on both Switches, but the video made it seem like it would just be for the Switch 2.
Switch OG doesn’t have a mic and that’s the reason they included the phone app. There were a fair number of aftermarket accessories that had mics though but I can’t say any of them were implemented to use first party games.
I believe it was their attempt to protect children from unknown people online. I have the app and one of the features is that you can talk to people online in certain games (Animal Crossing, Splatoon, SSB’s, Mario Kart, and I think Mario Party).
Edit: I’d also like to point out that those accessory mics didn’t work with first party games to my knowledge.
There was some public outcry about it specifically from parents who had to download said app and let their kids use it for games. You could later use accessories that would add a mic but it was limited.
That’s funny, because a selling point of the Switch 2 version of Animal Crossing is that not only can you talk to other players, but you can connect the webcam and see each others’ faces.
Yeah I saw. There were a lot of complaints from consumers about the features that existed in the 3DS/other DS’s that didn’t exist in the switch including this one. Pretty sure they started rethinking the idea that they were only marketing to kids after that. And even then I think those people have to be your actual friends on the switch 2 rather than just random people.
If a selling point was drastically redesigned UX I might give it a go. I hate how much the menus force you to wait in the game. Going to islands is a pain. That dumbass bird’s dialogue takes FOREVER. Letting multiple people join your island at once would be nice too. The method to buy items and clothes is so slow. Let me buy that shit more quickly. Let me craft shit more quickly. Little things like that are the worst.
Also, having more things to do in multiplayer would be good. Like some mini games or something. You can sort of make your own but it’s so minor. Running around pitfalls can only be so fun.
Another killer feature would be letting us make outdoor buildings, but I doubt they’d do something that involved.
No, but Tom Nook doesn’t run the store anymore, his nephews do. Tom Nook is offering two home storage upgrades, I think 7500 items, and 9000 items. (Yes, it should have been 9,001 for the meme.) They aren’t saying, but the last couple storage upgrades came with perks of some kind. A new recipe unlocked. One was the storage shed, which lets you access your home storage anywhere on the island (hint: keep one in inventory, plop it down wherever, it’s a Bag of Holding, essentially). Though I think that was the first storage upgrade.
But yes, the store, Nook’s Cranny, should get an upgrade. So should the tailor’s, though I’d argue it is upgraded. There should be a base model that only sells the clothes on display. And, once you’ve received all of Sable’s gifts (the patterns, from talking to her and getting past her mean streak), that should unlock the tailor’s shop as we know it now, with the fitting room and the online component.
That’s how I’d upgrade Nook’s Cranny, actually. A way to buy all the variations (or at least unlock them in catalogue) of an item, or buy more stuff that they don’t show on the floor.
Right, but why buy a handheld console to play it docked when you could just buy a more powerful console? The handheld aspect is the entire selling point, at least for me. The Nintendo exclusives will still be there when the OLED version is released, and they’ll be cheaper by then, too.
Because not everyone walks around playing games. A lot of people obviously enjoy playing in thier living room. These things come with a dock for a reason.
GW2 works surprisingly well on controller. I’ve been playing that way since launch, first with Xpadder and now with the Steam controller mappings. Inventory management and crafting are the only regular things I switch back to mouse and keyboard for.
never got why they following is so massive. one of these super popular games that never really clicked for me. i mean it was fun but also felt run of the mill; i didn’t understand what’s so special about it.
It’s one of the games that I’ve sunk too much time into during the pandemic. It’s got a special place in my heart. I think I’ve also purchased it on every platform available. It’s good. It’s tight.
I’m into my 5th decade of gaming and to me it wasn’t anything special, good game though.
However my son who was 8ish when he first played the first game ate it up, and I think it’s sort of for the same reason we have those same pedestals for our games from that age.
It’s a genuinely good game with an engaging story AND they dangled a carrot successfully for years.
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