To… participate or watch? Because these days I can’t say I’m competitive enough in any game to bother. Not that I’m all that interested in competing either, anymore. Ten years ago me and my then Dota-friends were toying with the idea of signing up for something for a period there when we were playing a lot and doing well
To watch, well… I’m not sure. I don’t really play any esports type games currently. It’s a cop-out, but it would depend on the organisers. After mainlining the Olympics for a month I think I could probably get into anything - provided the commentators are good.
He… didn’t? Far Cry was not mentioned at all and he had this to say about radio towers:
You may be delighted to hear there are no towers to scale to push back Outlaws’ fog of war here: these open world areas - really a collection of entirely distinct biomes, separated by hyper space or fast travel - reveal themselves fully on arrival.
Maybe you were thinking of this in the conclusion, but I don’t think these observations are incorrect:
It speaks back to Outlaws’ issues with stripping away the bulk of the Ubisoft formula and finding so little underneath - or more broadly, a general misunderstanding of what you ought to be stripping away here and why. The Ubisoft open world functions so well because of how this clutter weaves itself together so intoxicatingly that you can’t help but flow from one to the next, from looting to crafting to combat to gear to unlocking another area of the world and more. The heist flick works because of its characters - their complexity, obsession or greed - as much as it does the sheer fun of actually doing a heist.
Star Wars Outlaws, by comparison, feels like it’s blagging it - much as Kay can, when regularly caught out by some far more worldly syndicate boss. The result is a series of quite painful comparisons: it lacks the branching, open stealth of an Arkham game, the systemic options of a Dishonored or the incisive, relentlessly satisfying speed of picking enemies off in Assassin’s Creed. It lacks the linear polish and charisma of Uncharted. Lacks the animation flow to its yellow-ledge platforming next to a Horizon, or the sheer joy of taking platforming and making it into an actual game in itself, as in Star Wars Jedi.
He definitely got worse over time. It’s sad, really. Despite always exaggerating and overpromising he still used to reliably put out good, fun games. I remember Bullfrog used to be a venerable company, the first Fable was a solid game (despite not being what he promised it would be) and Dungeon Keeper was a classic. And yeah, Black & White were great.
Alan Wake 2 was by far my standout choice for GOTY last year. I’m still bummed it didn’t win more awards, particularly narrative ones as I think it handily beats BG3 in that department. I love Remedy and Sam Lake, and I love them pushing the envelope of AAA games. It’s one to add to the example list of “video games as art” in my opinion.
I’m glad the DLC was great, I’ve been trying to hold off until I can play both at once but maybe I’ll need to cave soon…
I’ve been wanting a new, proper Splinter Cell for years. Michael Ironside is cancer free now and still alive for a couple more years (hopefully). I dream of Sam Fischer getting a final send-off with the correct voice actor. “One final job” with him old and grey. But yeah, Ubisoft wouldn’t make it right, sadly.
Valve is not a normal company. As far as I know they still have their fluid work structure in place where projects are dictated by what the devs themselves feel like doing and are inspired by.
Icefrog (who was the lead developer of Dota 2 - and Dota 1 for many years before that) is lead developing Deadlock as I understand it. It has his fingerprints all over it, at least. It seems enough other people at Valve liked his idea of a twist on the MOBA concept to turn it into a full project.
I feel your frustration but there isn’t really any opportunity cost lost here. It’s not that they decided to make “a game” and chose this one out of all available options. If they felt like they had enough ideas to make Half-Life 3 (or any other single player game) then they would have. It’s just that this is the game they want to make right now.
Having the game streamed by all these huge channels before it’s even officially announced is kinda crazy. Everyone wants to play Valve’s “secret game” of course, so it’s free marketing. Pretty clever.
Yeah I agree. Feels very anticlimactic after the long wait. I’d be very curious to see what the original concept played like. I heard it apparently involved controlling an enemy hero briefly so you could for example waste their ult.
I haven’t seen Rayman Legends mentioned, so I’ll throw it out there. It’s a pretty flawless game for what it tries to be, and it’s a lot of fun to play with a friend. The musical levels are just extraordinarily crafted. Definitely recommended if you’re into platforming at all (and even if you’re not it’s worth a shot!)
It’s such a terrible shame that we had Brian Mitsoda and Rik Schaffer back and actually working on a sequel and none of it will see the light of day. Say what you want about Mitsoda’s thin-blood protagonist idea (I’m not a fan) but watching the trailers of https://youtu.be/6PM0vb8UCzM" version of the game you can at least see the lineage of the original.
Yes, it’s very very silly and is basically the complete opposite of what it should be. It should be the Olympics for Esports, not a bunch of mobile games tangentially related to existing olympic sports.