I could never get over how boring the gameplay of Infamous looked. Comparing it to a third-person shooter is pretty apt. Like, you’ve got these crazy lightning powers, but 90% of the time, you just use your hand buzzer to give folks a bit of a zap. Riveting.
At the time, Infamous seemed to get a larger share of the hype, but nothing about that game felt good to me, and Prototype felt great. Prototype’s protagonist might be one of the worst in all of video games, alongside Watch Dogs’ Aiden Pierce, but despite the video’s intro, his morality isn’t ambiguous; he’s the bad guy. In Infamous, every choice to be good or evil is so cartoonishly polar opposite that no one would struggle with the decision except for Cole MacGrath.
I get that I’m the minority with Infamous, but after going back and playing Sly 2 and having since tried Infamous 2, I think maybe I just don’t jive with Sucker Punch’s open world design, which makes me hesitant to start Ghost of Tsushima. And while I loved Prototype, alongside Crackdown, what I really wanted was that game again but in a different city, and both of those franchises reused the same city for their sequels, which would be like giving Mario new actions to use but having him run through the same levels all over again.
I love the inFamous games. inFamous 2 in particular is in my top 5. I’m trying to remember some of the choices, but some of them are execute the mass murderer or not in one (or multiple) cases. But also, they have a variation of the trolley problem which I thought was a nice touch. The ultimate decision in 2 is pretty extreme, but it’s also the culmination of two games worth of selfish vs selfless decisions.
The biggest morality question though is whether to use area of effect vs precision damage.
Having said that, I think it’s interesting how these two games are so similar on a surface level. But in my experience, most people heavily prefer one or the other. I remember my friend and I were each obsessed with one of the two franchises when they came out, but neither of us were interested in the other.
Side note: inFamous 2 had a standalone DLC which just used the map from 2 with an entirely new powerset, and it was awesome. But it was a lot shorter than a full game. However, I remember losing interest in Bioshock 2 because it felt like I was just replaying the first game.
It’s funny, because I’m much more forgiving of BioShock 2 and even Dishonored’s DLC, which reuse the same levels but chop them up differently and have you approach them from different directions. In an open world, you can go anywhere, so even if they deform part of the map, it still feels like the same map to me.
which makes me hesitant to start Ghost of Tsushima.
I haven’t played the other games you mentioned but GoT is a masterpiece. You should really give at least the first act a try to see if you like it. Pretty much everyone I’ve had try the intro has been hooked.
Maybe some day, but on top of disagreements I’ve had with that developer’s game design in the past, there’s also the looming threat that Sony patches in more dependence on a PSN login to give me pause.
Ghost of Tsushima felt the same to me. Great characters and a beautiful world, but the gameplay felt bland. I was happy to finally get to the end because I didn’t have to play anymore.
I’m really excited for this. Moreso than with the rumored remaster. Does anyone know if it will be a standalone install or if it will need to take over the Skyrim install?
In order to play Skyblivion you will need to own a legitimate copy of Oblivion GOTY Deluxe (ALL DLC) and Skyrim: Special Edition. Our installer will not install the mod unless it can find a non-cracked copy of the original games.
and
Skyblivion will work the same as most other complete overhaul mods. Simply install the mod via the installer and press play.
So you’ll probably need a pure unmodded version of Skyrim for it to install onto, but we won’t know for sure until the actual release date.
Its likely what we’d get would be a tool to create a normal mod. The tool checks for their requirements and when satisfied, rips oblivion files and repackages them.
So a clean skyrim installed to create the mod with the tool, but once the tool is done, you could remove the clean install and use it like any other mod.
This has been my experience with other “created from copyrighted works” overhauls, like rollercoaster tycoon for openrct2.
“This mod will ONLY work on a legitimate copy!” is just a plain lie I’ve seen many times on various mods over the years. Problems and issues caused by mods have never been because of a pirated copy.
That addendum is there purely so Bethesda doesn’t sue their asses to oblivion (heh). I am certain it will be very possible to play the mod on a pirated copy but it’s not like they can just write that on their website.
A long time ago, I read one of their developers say you require the original games since the mod is specifically designed not to re-provide you with any copyright material from either game, and in fact I think it’ll look for and use the files you have like any other mod.
This was done on purpose so they can never worry about being shut down or sued if they ensure they never wrongly re-use or provide copyrighted materials. Probably a smart move for such a massive undertaking.
You’re very right. Dick move of them to hear about Skyblivion and instead of thanking the heavens for plopping a marketing opportunity for minimum effort, went “crush them out of principle”.
The Bethesda remake is supposedly using some Frankenstein of the original engine shoved into unreal. It’ll suck.
Though in their defense, it’s not being done by Bethesda at all. It’s being done by some studio who has mainly only done support work for other studios bigger games. I think called Virtuoso?
My guess it’s to test out what they’re building for TESVI by getting a smaller studio to test it out in something they’ve already got design docs and scripts for.
Valve just needs a way to ensure you are over the age of 18, and I know a way they can do that WITHOUT collecting IDs. They need to incorporate an age quiz like leisure suit Larry.
Its the problem with corporate worship. People cant admit that their team might be bad, and by extension…their worship might be wrong, so they just get angry and hostile.
Especially when you point out that a lot of what they praise about Valve, was forced reactions to actual consumer protection lawsuits, or the threat of a possibility of one.
I really don’t get the love for Valve. They charge double the fees of some other digital platforms, and people flip the fuck out when a developer is like "we’re releasing on origin because paying Valve would cost more money than the entire net profit of the game.
Valve has a huge backbone it also needs for daily traffic. Valve is pushing gaming on linux big time. Crossover wine etc would have taken at least years. Provide space for the community for forum, workshop, other data ( all running costs ) Epic origin uplay purely stock market oriented with junk launcher which is far worse spyware than Steam. Valve offers refunds. Their efforts with Steam link, controller, deck and whatnot. Valve offers the player a hell of a lot. Competitors offer junk spyware launcher mostly for games with rootkit compulsion… do not offer a forum or anything else but refer to steam. Would prefer not to offer anything directly on steam but have a right to use the platform… Would the competitors instead of suing… would invest in the products and think about the players instead of the shareholders… then there would be no monopoly. Damn valve even opens up to others for free… Steamos, for example, will also exist outside the steam deck, whereby competitors could also adapt it directly as something of their own.
They offer a free operating system anyone can use that’s name after their company and designed to play games sold through the included store for a 30% cut of sales.
What saints!
If Google did something similar, I bet everyone would say they’re a great company and not at all evil…
Gabe is a billionaire monopolist, not your friend.
Ask linux Kernel maintainer or mesa, Vulkan, wine etc. what they profit from valves cooperation. Yes, valve is very involved. Yes, Google and the like also contribute improvements from time to time, but for the most part it remains with their proprietary accessories that only they themselves benefit from. Gabe has also built up a lot of things to earn this. As I said, competitors are always welcome to improve their launchers and build a backbone comparable to that of valve.
You said it! Valve actively supports OSS and that in many projects from which people beyond games also benefit (yes, they also exist). That Valve with Proton has just made sure that MS monopoly position is no longer so secure (oh wonder that in the most popular games devs then simply turn off linux support in anti-cheat…). ). You can certainly criticize a lot, but valve gives back a lot of things differently. Just no other Play Störe alternatives because the competition only complains, offers a junk launcher with dubious methods to offer a game for free every week… ( no risk but because of fixed amount possibly significantly less the developers… besides, the money comes from fortnite addicted children ). epic ubisoft ea use dirty methods anyway and known 30%… what they are hiding is that the 30% is the case with steam keys. however, they also have the possibility to link it to their own store with their own keys while it would be listed for free on steam only they would have to do without any steam feature ( anti cheat, workshop, forum, support, download from steam depotetc. Oh and have enough servers themselves regarding downloads.
By the way, about your comparison with android… Take a look at their Chromebooks. Have fun gaming!xD
What a strange way to look at it. Does Valve charge double than other store fronts, or did those other store fronts start charging half in an attempt to undercut Valve?
Also I find it strange how you mention things like publishing fees and people not liking games being released on other store fronts instead of Steam while you fail to write a single mention to Steam’s main competitor in those fronts: the Epic Games Store.
Is there a reason for these 2 points, or are they just a coincidence?
I can totally understand a small dev team who self-publish their games taking Epic’s exclusivity deal, even publishing on the EGS instead of Steam, every cent counts if they want to survive. But that’s not the whole story.
What a strange way to look at it. Here Valve is, actively working to addict children to their unregulated gambling market, but yeah, let’s deflect the conversation by protecting them and pointing out how mean we think somebody else is being to them.
I’ve heard more stories about CSGO over the years compared to other gambling games, but never heard people criticize the game like they do FIFA. It’s just my corner of the world, where Valve is a holy corporation.
All the sweaty middle-aged dudes with unwashed asses see GabeN as the only good billionaire. They’ll protect him with the same fervor that they use to try and keep women and POC out of gaming.
Getting tired of these “shock” youtube channels drumming up drama for views. It’s only a matter of time before someone points the youtube cannon at these channels.
I’m not even gonna lie up until a few months ago I was somehow under the impression that Valve and GabeN weren’t that evil. Learning about his 6th yacht and how they intentionally made loot crates as addictive as possible and target young people kind of put things in perspective. There’s still no such thing as an ethical billionaire.
I see your point entirely and I understand why you feel that way. Just want to give you my friendly opinion on Coffee. I wouldn’t consider him a “shock” Youtuber, personally. He is an entertainer and a journalist, and pretty good at both IMO. He is definitely drumming up drama to a degree but I think this topic is especially worth the attention. I’ve watched the series this is a part of and can tell you that dude has done his homework. He included several interviews he did with different people that offers up a few pretty interesting perspectives. I recommend checking it out! At the end of the day, clickbait thumbnails and titles work well on YouTube and for some creators that otherwise might not drum it up it can be a matter of, “if you can’t beat em, join em”, but I definitely think the ends justify the means considering all of his work is what I and many others would call “fighting the good fight”.
For fucks sake, Coffee is an investigative journalist, and he didn’t drum up shit. The problem has always been there, you idiots are just too busy sucking GabeN off that you can’t entertain the possibility that he isn’t the second coming of Christ.
As someone who grew up when you could physically count the bloody pixels on the screen, this whining about a miserable invisible miniscule artifact makes me palmface very hard.
Also as a person that grew up when game consoles could connect to the TV via an RF Switch, the image-damaging effects of Temporal Anti Alias smearing are extremely visible, and NOT a “miserable invisible miniscule artifact.” They’re massive on the screen. The particular examples shown in this video do not show it particularly well because it only focuses on raytracing, but the effects of TAA are still visible because turning on raytracing almost always forces on TAA, since the low resolution raytracing benefits from the smearing TAA causes.
Gamers massively overstate minor inconveniences. TAA smearing, upscaling artifacts, VA ghosting and blooming, ray tracing noise, all of that you get used to it on a day or two and never notice it again but leave it to the gamer to go on a crusade like their lives and the world are doomed because of it
Different people also have different sensitivity to different types of artifacts. No doubt a degree of the complaints is overblown due to a big of tribal / mob mentality going on, but a few of the people complaining might just be more sensitive to it.
With TAA specifically there's probably also implementation differences going on, where someone has a bad experience with it once or twice and then generalizes that experience to all implementations of it.
No, I don’t focus on realism over the playability of the game. The last “photorealistic” game I played was Ready or Not. But I have recently been enjoying Vintage Story, The Legend of Dragoon, Koudelka, and other games with “bad” graphics. Aside from Vintage Story, it should be noted that these other games were considered “cutting edge” graphics for their time, but they are by no means photorealistic.
My issue is that TAA (among other things such as UE5s Nanite and Lumen tech when incorrectly used) typically ruins games it is used in, both from an image quality perspective and a performance perspective. I wish that developers would stop using the default or current implementations of TAA so that better, more performant algorithms that don’t have the downside of smearing and has the upside of being faster can naturally emerge. Really, these are mostly problems that have already been solved but are ignored because big game studios operate via “Checkbox Development.” Rather than spending the time and money to implement these better solutions, they instead just check the default box for the default effect because it is faster and costs them less money.
As an old person who only kinda knew that lootboxes exist, this series was a huge eye opener to the insane amount of money and industry that has emerged around them. 10/10 would recommend to my fellow olds.
Now to head back to Bioshock where the only cost to looting boxes is that I might get attacked by a splicer.
Just check how much money GTA online has made for Rockstar every year. It’s an 11 year old game that makes half a BILLION dollars yearly.
No wonder they’re not in a hurry to get GTA 6 out. It MUST be better than GTA online both for gameplay and microtransactions as well as have the tech for live service
What the heck. Half a billion in microtransactions for a game that (according to this article) sounds like a real turd of a user experience. I loved GTA 3 and Vice City back in the day…I got GTA 4 in a Humble Bundle, haven’t spent much time with it yet. Anyone know if it’s a decent experience for a solo, offline, lootbox-free experience?
The single player is pretty good. You can also mod the single player to launch you into a separate online mode that doesn’t interact with R* servers. I don’t think there’s a way to sample GTA:O without signing in to the actual online mode. But like 99% of Twitch streamers for the game are playing a modded singleplayer version that lets them connect to roleplay servers
Someone mentioned Neural Radiance Caching to me recently, which Nvidia's been working on for a while. They presented about it at an event in 2023 (disclaimer: account-gated and I haven't watched - but a 6-minute "teaser" is available: YouTube).
I don't really understand how it works after having skimmed through some stuff about it, but it sounds like it could be one of several ways to improve this specific problem?
It’s at least used in RTX Global Illumination as far as the nvidia site mentions it, and I heard rumors about Cyberpunk getting it, but unsure if it’s used in current tech or not. I think I heard mentions of it in some graphics review of a game.
Yeah I'm also confused about its current state / status in currently-released games. It looks like a significant enough of a feature that I would naively assume that if it was implemented in a currently-released game that the devs would boast about it, so I guess it's not there yet?
youtube.com
Gorące