At least Nintendo had the decency to put in their EULA that they’re going to fuck you for trying to pirate content on their proprietary hardware. Sony just bricked your personal PC because fuck you and then lied about it.
I’m going to spoiler it and talk about it, because I am genuinely interested in other people’s opinion/experiences on this.
Spoilers for late chapter 1, early chapter 2This is mostly centered around the kiss. Save the “proposition” innuendo, it became pretty clear that Blonde Blazer’s whole schtick was to recruit Robert. Even in the moment when she moved close to him, she kind of sizes him up like someone looking at a horses teeth as opposed to someone losing themselves in the eyes of a prospective lover, so I didn’t kiss her, and save making a joke on the “proposition” comment, didn’t say anything overly romantic of flirty. This made the whole conversation the next day feel weird and out of place. It was toned like Robert DID kiss her, as Blazer just constantly apologized, and the responses I had options for (“I don’t think it was a mistake” met with “it was, for reasons I’ll explain later”) kept that same awkward connotation. Blonde Blazer acted like she did something incredibly inappropriate in… being slightly drunk when she offered Robert a job? But as a result of my options, there really was nothing to act like this about. But the conversation HAD to be toned this way, otherwise Invisigirl overhearing and responding with “what, you two fuck?” wouldn’t make any sense. The game didn’t “assume I made choices I didn’t” as much as they clearly wrote it with an expectation in mind, but my choices didn’t meet those expectations, leaving the whole section flowing weird.
Just finished Chapter 3 of 8. It has some very classic Telltale foibles. Sometimes the script seems to assume you made a decisions that you didn’t make and it makes the dialogue feel awkward. Other times, the sarcastic tone in a written dialogue choice isn’t clear when you select the option and the resulting scene isn’t at all what you thought you were suggesting. I suspect by the time I am done, I’ll have the general sense of “oh, my decisions didn’t ACTUALLY matter,” as is Telltale tradition, but I’m not far enough to judge in that space yet
Despite these fairly common for Telltale problems, it’s an incredibly witty and entertaining piece of entertainment, and perhaps one of better “no, seriously, there’s a game in here” Telltale products. The “dispatch” mechanic is, imo, a fun management game, and they tie it into the narrative in ways that feel clever. Everyone is at each others throats because of a story beat? People are actively sabotaging each other on the job and it’s making your job as their dispatcher harder. As a comedy and near-film, the writing is laugh-out-loud funny, the voice acting and character animation is top notch, and there’s an interesting story and world holding it all together. I’m sure people will argue that it’s a better movie than it is a game, and, as much as I enjoy the corporate dispatcher half of the game, I am sure many will agree, as the dialogue writing is truly the stand-out element of the game.
It’s very good. Not perfect, but very good, and compared to the older Telltale games, a real home-run.
I can’t wait to see the exemption for “part time workers” and suddenly everyone making less than a triple digit salary has exactly 32 hours a week, or whatever is legally permissible to pass as “part time work” in your country.
You’ve provided a fantastic common-sense solution designed off the simple premise that no one needs 12x of a living wage, and I can’t agree enough, but I know the capitalists would fuck it up at every stage possible, while simultaneously arguing that they’re justified in doing so because the method of economy that they worships has given them moral purchase to look down on the poors.
I don’t think this is about enthusiasts buying less games, though. We’re not talking about the average number of purchases the consumer makes. This is more evidence that there are a lot more casual players out there, who will make their 0-2 large game purchases a year and play their games over a long time. The college guy who literally only buys a couple sports games that they play online with a friend. The burnt out parent that can only make time for their 2 open world adventure games all year. I know a few people in my life who own a Switch, Mario Kart and Animal Crossing, and that will be literally the only two games they load all year. And this is to say nothing of people who strictly play F2P tirles, which apparently are 33% of players.
“US game players purchase 1-2 games a year on average” is not the same thing as “the bottom 60% of purchasers only purchase 1-2 games a year.” This is evidence that, one, the medium is reaching a much more widespread market and, two, the casual market is often more engaged with F2P titles.
I think if we looked at enthusiasts and hobbiests, there would still be a decline in purchases. I don’t think this is evidence that games have become too expensive for most.
Metal Hellsinger was one of the more inspired experiences I’ve played in the past several years. Really sad to see a studio making genuinely quality games have to shutter.
You know, fundamentally, I don’t hate Gamepass as a concept. “Netflix, but for videogames” is an idea I can get behind, as it widens the audience for something I love by lowering the bar of entry. There are plenty of people out there that benefit from being able to play a few games here and there without needing to commit hundreds of hours to $100 purchases.
But Netflix has overstepped with price hikes and ads, and I’ve cancelled my service with them. That Microsoft thinks it can charge some ~$40CAD a month is pure hubris. I hope they learn quickly that, at that price point, the enthusiast market will happily cancel and just buy their games outright, and the casual market will decide it’s an expense they don’t need.
Because if they’re shuttered, the company/people that make the company have the opportunity to go somewhere else and do something better. I’ve disliked everything they’ve produced since they were purchased by EA, so I’ve come to think the publisher holds them back.
The last Bioware game I genuinely enjoyed was Dragon Age: Origins, which was the last thing (mostly) developed before the EA buy-up. I’m sure it’s scary for the employees, but I suspect this is good for Bioware in the long term.
I’m not convinced this is worse than being publically traded. Now instead of being beholden to faceless investors who only care about number go up, it’s one specific owner? I mean, considering who it is, it isn’t better. But I struggle to imagine it as worse.
Doesn’t matter, I’ll still either avoid their games or pirate.