SpiderWeb games are really good! I’m particularly fond of Queen’s Wish where you deal with political factions and base building while attempting to reclaim (or liberate) an abandoned colony.
They look like they’d be bullshit hard games, but they tend to be actually quite smooth and well made, while still being simplistic
So game companies have several ways to increase the ROI for their products: decrease costs, increase price, or increase audience size. As it is hard for single-player titles to signficiantly icnrease the number of players, Novak believes that publishers will continue to charge more for their games. The new $70 base price already seems too much for many customers, so companies try to come up with tricky monetization methods, including various deluxe editions priced at $100 or even higher.
Absolute imbeciles. We’re living in an era where customers have less and less purchasing power, where people can - and should - make more precise decisions when buying products, with wide availability of other options that aren’t AAAA titles, so what are execs thinking of? Charge more, obviously.
It is unrealistic to invest 150 millions in a game and expect a profit because you’re disconnected from your customer base. And you have the bare minimum of self awareness to consider that investing less and expecting less growth is an option, but choose instead to ignore it and push ahead with infinite growth. The development schedule of your average AAAA title is already almost as long as a console generation, there’s nothing that can be done if suits are staring at this wall and choosing to bash their head against it, rather than try alternative options.
A fightstick is the ideal for anyone wanting to invest in the genre, as it provides both precise control and a wide array of movements that neither d-pad or analog can reach.
It was a joke-y cursed option because d-pad are not only wildly uncomfortable but also quite inefficient when it comes to the high speed sequences
As with most, depends on the game. 2D I generally prefer D-pad, even if the game has 8 directions. For 3D, there’s really no choice.
My cursed option: I like playing fighting games with the d-pad.
Also a stray opinion: I hate games that mix the two on moment to moment gameplay. Using D-pad for pause menus while moving with the Analog, fine. Using d-pad to use items during live gameplay, like in soulslikes? Terrible.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Okami featured in one of these lists. Just to be sure I looked up some of Polygon’s and even in their Top 500, its not there, which is kinda depressing?
I’m not a fan of Zelda games - or most Nintendo games - but I do love when people take inspiration from them and make their own thing - Tchia, Darksiders, Oceanhorn, Tunic, and Ittle Dew all come to mind just as Zelda ‘clones’ - and I think there’s no higher example of that than Okami, a game that takes its inspiration and surpasses it in every way. The graphics were at the time mindblowing(frankly, still are), with its japanese classic art style cel shading, the soundtrack is phenomenal and Amaterasu has an excellent mobility, zipping across battlefields or simply open areas with easy and fluidity. The paintbrush is a stellar tool, both to use in puzzles and in combat, and the game boasts a charming cast of characters and engaging story. Probably the saddest tidbit about it is that it was also Clover’s farewell game, after its previous, unfairly lambasted, gem God Hand and two attempts at the beat’em up Viewtiful Joe series.
Nowadays the Zelda series has gotten a whole different kickstart with its open-world entries, burying these inspirations even further, but I still believe Okami easily stands atop most entries of that series, and on its own as well.
Not only are Kinguin and other key resellers notorious for having scamming cases - to the point of having “protection fees” you can pay while purchasing from them - they’re also pointless in any way except for adding a library entry for Steam - and even then, one that might be removed
Even developers would rather people pirate than buy from key resellers
For example, whereas the extended reality (XR) domain had previously developed primarily around business applications for the metaverse and other virtual spaces, 2023 saw the rise of many new services fusing virtual spaces with the real world. A case in point is the way the architecture sector, which previously had limited integration of XR in its business, began increasingly adopting these technologies because they enable the conversion of real-world architectural structures into data, a process also facilitated by the widespread use of commercial drones. In the realm of digital entertainment, where the focus has been on pioneering the development of new content, the experiential value of digital content itself increased dramatically as devices came to market that were capable of delivering even more immersive, realistic experiences using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). The next step will be applying these technologies to new forms of content that fuse the real and virtual worlds.
In terms of new business domains, we previously identified three focus investment fields, namely blockchain entertainment/Web 3.0, AI, and the cloud. Last year we redefined our overarching mission and goals for these three fields. We are currently working to modify our organizational structure and optimize our resource allocations to support these efforts.
Half of this letter is focusing on technology that has either already failed, or is going to, not to mention the aggressive leaning towards AI and anti-art, there’s nothing I wish more for Square Enix than a solid earnings loss, if not an outright bankruptcy scare.
(Of course it won’t happen because companies are too big to fail, see the Metaverse fiasco, but one can dream)
There’s an absurd gender dimorphism in most games where every guy is a mountain of muscles by default. I don’t enjoy that body type - for myself, as a 5’5 dude, or even romantically - and women are usually on the softer, thinner side, so I tend to pick them at first.
If its a game where I can easily change genders, I’ll flip around to my tastes, depending on which clothing looks better on whatnot. - Aliens:Fireteam Elite and Dragon Quest Builders 2 come to mind as examples that did that. Also games with intricate character creators, like Saint’s Row (RIP) are welcome, but rare.
Eastern games tend to have softer men, so those tend to be exceptions. I recall picking male options in both Genshin and Path To Nowhere, and I usually enjoy the male leads in jRPGs.
This article coming out on the same day as another wave of layoffs, this time from Bungie, is an excellent view on the state of gaming criticism. Even if it were the best year for the products (there are several titles in the article that are curious), it’s definitely one of the worst years for the people who work on them.
I hope the current wave of unionizing keeps manifesting and spreads to the gaming industry, because this situation is dire and it’s only getting worse.
I think this might be a thing in modern games, but I don’t play enough new releases to be sure: Changing the accessibility settings before anything else in the game. The first time I encountered this was on The Division 2, a Ubisoft game of all things, and being able to tune my subtitles, visual cues, sound options, among others before even the Press Start to begin the game is an incredibly comfortable feeling.
A minor feature that is unfortunately underused is having an archive/library/compendium of characters, plot events and the like. The Yakuza series has entries for its major characters, which is a bliss in games that are essentially soap operas introducing new families and plot twists every with every new installment, and being able to catch up after a few days/weeks without playing is a relief.
Its sorta comparable, but Saint’s Row was a finished single player game that could maybe be updated one day otherwise, while E:D is a game that will be lacking several months (years?) of content, being an online game that is in constant development