It’s basically capitalism as a game, but for the Genesis/Mega Drive era it was a surprisingly fun game. When I was a kid I played this before I even knew what McDonalds was, and many people I know thought I was crazy when I talked about a game I played where you collected the Golden Arches while being guided by Ronald McDonald on an environmental quest.
I liked Outer Worlds, but while I do see some “NV magic” there, it feels like both Bethesda AND Obsidian are no longer the same companies that they once were. Obsidian are still quietly putting out some solid games…but not to the same quality of two generations prior.
He had put out a long line of duds, but was still considered an accomplished actor. King Richard is probably an outlier as a critically acclaimed role for him, but even after a decade of mostly crap he’s still been getting the work.
Given the response from Chris Rock to the slap, that might all be over though. He’s still busy as a producer on Bel Air, which has been…okay? That might be his next move in his career.
That statement in itself is quite sad, when one of the reasons everyone called it out as being an amazing game is because it was huge, well crafted, and made by a company that actually seemed to give a shit.
I don’t say this to diminish their achievements, because I’m 80 hours in and still not done, but it’s a spectacularly low bar that Larian absolutely launched themselves over. At a time where companies seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel, Larian did the exact opposite, and reaped what should be the most obvious of awards (do good work, get lots of money).
It might be bland, but the fact it’s been marketed as “holy shit, it’s like Pokémon if Game Freak gave a shit” says it all about the Pokémon franchise.
FWIW, I doubt they’ll change a thing. People will buy anything with a Pokémon cover, and Game Freak know this…
Any of the Paper Mario or Super Mario RPG games. Maybe I’m not the target audience, but I’ve often felt that without the Mario name they would be considered mediocre.
Alongside this, basically every 3D Sonic game. I feel that Sonic has become a thing for furries, and that the 3D games just don’t really seem to get what a Sonic game should be. Frontiers was somewhat decent in the open world aspect, but its constant reliance on the homing dash just highlights how buggy those games are.
Do you have any recent examples? Am genuinely curious, given that it’s something that’s been a problem in the game’s industry for a long time, particularly at places like Activision.
Some industries in tech are hit extremely hard (i.e. recruitment), but as someone that has spent the last year helping those laid off from Amazon to find roles internally and externally, that’s definitely not true in software engineering.
In the tech industry, I’ve always enjoyed watching what those laid-off employees end up moving onto. While most find jobs elsewhere, you occasionally see some employees form new startups, or try something different with what they’ve learned from their big tech job.
I’d love to see a resource that follows up on people that were laid off from X company, and to see what their offshoots are working on themselves, supporting them where possible.
Given that you’ve got some great answers already, there seems to be very few guides on how to deal with this sort of shit as a parent.
Gaming today is very different to what we grew up with, particularly microtransactions, and I think a lot of people would be surprised at how many kids spend insane amounts of money on things like FUT packs, VBucks, etc. Much of this is down to peer pressure, so saying shit like “my kid will never pay money on microtransactions” is wishful thinking.