Ghost Story Games is another rebranding of the same studio that made Bioshock (2K Boston) and Bioshock Infinite (Irrational Games), and is still headed by Ken Levine. Basically, this is Bioshock 3 (4?) in all but name, if the “From the creators of Bioshock” wasn’t explicit enough.
Is it still a smaller studio? I recall he shut things down and took a small amount of talent with him, but that’s when the studio was first made. He said he wanted smaller. The vibe was that he disliked the size of Infinite’s team and scope.
I’m not sure I would call it a rebranding. I believe Bioshock lives on without him still as it’s own thing.
His stories are mostly over the top nonsense, but sometimes that’s fun. Also, for a “AAA” studio director, he’s willing to take some VERY big experimental swings when it comes to gameplay. Death Stranding has it’s problems, but it’s very unique. That’s worth some points.
He takes no more 'experimental swings' than hundreds of indie developers. The only difference is, his studio has the money for the marketing campaigns.
I know right? He was suddenly hyped up so much, I guess it's one way to sell games. I'd understand if it was Miyamoto or something, but the man made Metal Gear and not everyone has even heard of that.
He was heavily pushed with geoff keighley's the game awards partnership he made.
He was though, some people might have known his name from Metal Gear, but majority of people didnt. Then TGA and Death Stranding rolled around and suddenly we were told we should care.
The sudden surge in journalism coverage he’s gotten in the last 5+ years are because of his dramatic departure from Konami and the Metal Gear series which his name was practically synonymous with, and he struck out on his own and made his own game studio where he makes very good, high production value AAA games that are extremely unique and experimental in nature.
Like it’s perfectly understandable to not like Death Stranding because of how niche its appeal is, but the thing is the gaming industry has become such a homogenous mess of samey, formulaic, safe games. Kojima is so relevant right now because he’s now one of if not the biggest studios that’s just making games out of passion, and not just the biggest return on investment.
My normie friends who only play cod or FIFA even know what MGS is. Maybe the Fortnite generation may not remember but when mgs was new for us then teenagers it was a cool action game.
He’s a completely insane horny man that loves action movies. His games tend to be high quality and even when they aren’t good they are at least entertaining and try something new.
He may have gone full George Lucas at this point though where he’s so overhyped that no one second guesses him at all. Death Stranding had some weird shit even for Kojima. I wonder what he could make if his personality wasn’t so dominant in a game and it had some input from other creative visions to reign in his weirder ideas.
That’s true, Kojima was just supervising director on that game. But I feel the politics of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance are very typical for the series and Kojima’s games.
Metal Gear in general is very much about American Imperialism.
Bold to assume. After making a human girl kiss Sonic, and having him freed from years of torture only to become an OC’s best friend, they aren’t upticking anything.
I can’t decide if Kojima is putting the acid industry out of business, because his games are enough of a trip already, or singlehandedly propping the industry up because he’s obviously consuming it all himself.
Somehow they managed to make the game look even stranger than the first one, which I didn’t think was possible. I remember trying to watch a playthrough of the first game and it was a bit too out there for my tastes already.
I think it’s a textbook Your Mileage May Vary game (pun mildly intended if you’ve played it). You have to have the tolerance for Kojima running wild and doing his thing, and it only works if you are engaged in the core gameplay loop, but if both are true, it’s easily a 70+ hour game. The Director’s Cut was the second game I ever took the time to Platinum.
I don’t think this trailer will sell many new players on the experience if they weren’t down for the first one, but I’m excited to play the sequel. Seems like it’s going to land some real gut punches.
Really? I I couldn’t make sense of it till I played it myself. It’s pretty grounded for the most part. There’s a lot of exposition that explains everything.
I play it in that async multiplayer they support with friends, both against each other and semi-allied with bots.
It’s cool. I love the variety, I love how that works against the sameyness these games usually develop, and it has just enough techncial qualities like pretty graphics and okay netcode to never get in my way. Plus hey, async MP! Always a huge plus to me, and sadly way too rare overall.
I can see it become boring if one players singleplayer generated maps religiously, but I got Against The Storm to scratch that itch, personally.
As far as the gameplay goes, it’s mostly the usual 4X fare, of course. Differences, if you’re not used to Age of Wonders games:
Magic is strong, to put it mildly. The games take their inspiration from the old Master of Magic game after all, and as such leader-cast spells can wildly swing battles even when your units are outnumbered and outteched. Likewise, strong summoned units and stacked buff spells make terrifying army stacks even out of tier 1 units (in fact there’s a spell tome specifically for that!).
The way you learn more magic makes for a nice little variety. You get 3 spells offered to research, you can reroll but it’s costly. Every few researched spells you get to pick a new tome of spells from which to research, and every few tomes you get to advance a tier and pick higher-level spell tomes.
From tomes + some other effects you have to “unlock” certain empire upgrades, and unlike other games some of these upgrades are instead instant effects, so at the right time they could swing things wildly (like healing all your units on the entire map to full).
There’s less focus on building your own empire - as you can only have 3-5 cities max anyways - and more on each city expanding in a huge sprawling network of influence and vassalizing more cities you take over, then getting tribute from them and hiring units with a resource specifically for that + empire upgrades.
Random encounters and events with decisions are way more common than in other such games. They’re not terrible meaningful 90%+ of the time (though cool ones do exist!), but it’s neat to get something shown so often, and sometimes you have replies that are unlocked by your specific empire attributes and setups.
The race/faction creator is something I’ve not seen that way since Master of Orion 2, not even when Endless Space 2 tried to go wild with that with later patches.
Now you made me want to play it again! But I have issues staying interested when I have to control more than one core army and one core city. Any advice?
Hrm, that’s tricky. I suffer from the same, if I knew how to overcome it I bet I’d play more 4X games.
Somehow it works for me here, I guess because I mostly play it in MP, and mostly async. Means I never spend more than a few minutes on a single match at a time.
If city building is also your thing, check out Against The Storm, a really clever roguelike take where you only spend 30-60 minutes or so on each village you build.
Waiting for the reviews on this one. The hard stance against fast travel turns me off. I only have so many hours in the day and slogging for 30 minutes to an hour between locations does not sound fun.
I love the combat from the first one though. Jumping on the bosses just felt bad ass.
I have avoided the trailers for spoilers reasons but the first game has a fast travel component it’s just not standards. There is teleport stone at the main city which you can go back to and you can place(?) A couple in other places. Generally when you have to travel for main quests between places it’s as part of the main quest.
I do respect your stance though obviously if a game is directed in a way that you don’t vibe with there’s no reason to force yourself to play it
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