Let me add one thing more, that a realistic aesthetic brings with it certain expectations. For example, I don’t question how Security Bots in Bioshock refuel themselves, or fly, or recognise intruders. I don’t ask how come the turrets in Portal never run out of bullets (though it’s answered as a gag in one of the videos). They’re not presented as realistic, and I don’t expect them to be. But when you make the choice to use realistic miniguns in Talos, those questions are going to bubble up to the surface, like “Where’s the ammo box on that thing?” and “Who’s maintaining these on islands in the middle of nowhere?” and “Scratch that, who’s making them?” and “If Elohim (yeah real subtle name there) did all this then why bother with a machine that requires maintenance in the first place instead of a magic pillar of fire or smth?”
I can say I was put off at first glance by the “realistic” aesthetic, with props like jammers and minigun turrets that have an unnecessarily detailed, grounded look when as a puzzle game, graphics should not be the focus of the experience. A stylised, or minimal, graphical style would put the focus firmly where it belongs - on the puzzles themselves.
The commentary said they wanted to do rival criminal gangs, which would have made a lot more sense than the construction magnates they went with, but my guess is they realised West Side Story already did it.
I expect any war game or film to be at least somewhat propaganda-ish, though some do it with more nuance than others.
My go-to example of an anti-war war game is Ace Combat. Despite having licensed planes from Lockheed, Grumman, Sukhoi and many other real life defense manufacturers, every single depiction of the wars in its games are negative. In fact, one of the most often cited criticisms of Ace Combat 5 is that it took the anti war message too far and became preachy.
This is the Ace Combat 04 between mission storyline, it’s twenty minutes and is a nuanced view of the war you fight in those missions, from the perspective of a young boy in a city occupied by the enemy.
Bioshock games (and System Shock before them) have in-game systems for reviving protagonists after death. Sometimes they’re Quantum Reconstructors that need to be turned on in each level to use them, sometimes they’re Vita-Chambers ready to use, sometimes it’s your all-in-one utility companion Elizabeth with a medical bag. In all cases you’re free to continue the fight after your death, though sometimes with penalties like restored enemy heath or monetary costs.
I’m still playing through II. It’s not as immersive as the first one, but the mannequins in Chapter 3 were able to terrify me in a way none of the monsters in the first game could.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines has special lines that unlock according to your character build. Unlike a single Charisma skill, they’re divided into skills like ‘Intimidation’, ‘Seduction’, ‘Erudite’, etc. Intimidate options appear in ALL CAPS HULK SPEAK, seductive options are in italic in handwriting, and Erudite appears in blue. If you lose your humanity and become too bestial, dialogue starts disappearing as you’re too far gone to understand it and NPCs start being too scared to talk to you.
Xbox owners who are not following video game news every second of the day might find themselves buying a Series S version thinking they can play co-op with their friend who owns a Series X and they…can’t.
The problem here is implied to be local co-op between X and S players?
This is the first time a console developer has released a new machine less capable than equivalent machines in the prior generation. PS3’s switch to cell architecture springs to mind, which put game devs on their back feet trying to write code for it and made backwards compatibility impossible without including a PS2 in the case.
Wouldn’t that be just as applicable from the interaction with the main menu? When the player selects a menu entry (eg Start, Load, Options), that tells the game what you’re using.