Hear me out. A few games have shader installations that will usually apply any new settings you put down AFTER you restart the game, and a lot of other games have graphics settings that will only apply after you’ve rebooted the game....
All controls should be remappable. All means all. Not most, not some, and certainly none of this bullshit where all you can do is toggle between “XBox 360 controller layout A/XBox 360 controller layout B.” This is especially true for titles on consoles, many of which still to this very day don’t allow you to remap their controls at all.
For 3D games, field of view. Far too many developers of FPS titles in particular have Console Disease, and feel it’s somehow acceptable to lock the FOV to 70° or some absurd number. If they allow you to adjust it at all they may be feeling “generous” enough to let you go as high as 90°. That’s completely unacceptable. On my 4K monitor that’s 25" from my face, I need at least 120°. Honestly, I want to see that slider go up to 180°. That’s right, I want to be able to look at your game world like a goddamned pigeon. On that note I really have to wonder what those people with those 3840x1080 überwide monitors do most of the time, other than spending their days in never ending torment.
Allow me to turn off the stupid pre-launch splash titles. Certainly at least after the first startup. I certainly don’t need to be told that nVidia is the way it’s meant to be played, or that your company licensed Havok, or who your publisher is, or who your publisher’s owner is, or who your publisher’s owner’s owner is, etc. Nobody cares. Usually instead you have to resort to replacing the .mkv or .bik files in the game folder with zero-byte text files or something. It’s dumb.
While we’re griping, and speaking of Console-Itis, does every PC game now need to have an unskippable message telling me that this game has auto save and urging me not to turn off my PC when the icon is being displayed? Really? Nobody’s going to do that. Tell me your game is a shitty console port without telling me your game is a shitty console port. To keep this on topic, let’s have a setting to turn that off, too, because it’s stupid. Off by default would be nice. Should there be an Idiot Mode toggle?
Granularity in subtitles. It seems too many games only have two settings: All subtitles off, or they assume you’re completely deaf. Typically I want to be able to read what characters are saying in their voice lines, but instead the developers also think I need to see the bottom third of my screen filled with [BOOM] [GUNFIRE] [JUKEBOX MUSIC] [FOOTSTEPS] [BOOM] [GUNFIRE] [BOOM] [BOOM] and so on and so forth, all the time. They should either categorize sounds and make their subtitling things individually selectable, or at least if they insist on making it a slider give it three or four levels: Off, cutscene/conversation dialog only, all spoken lines (“Cover me!” “Reloading!” “Never should have come here!” etc.), and then only the top level resulting in every single cricket and rustle of grass being captioned. Some games do manage to accomplish this. Many do not.
Oh, I thought of a good one to add to my wish list. I want every game to bring back the sound test menu. But they won’t, because every studio on Earth now wants you to spend an extra $15 for their game’s soundtrack. (As if it’s not all going to be on Youtube about twelve seconds after release anyway…)
The difference is back then, I didn’t have to wait 2 years (give or take) for games to go on a proper sale to enjoy it. I’d just wait until a month or two has passed and ask around, go into Gamestop/EB Games, rent it at Blockbuster, find used games at yard sales, etc. and buy them for cheap (or potentially barter for them or be lent the copy).
We pay $70 to not play at release due to server issues and critical bugs. We do QA for most major gaming companies - while paying for the privilege to do so. We pay full-price for incomplete experiences that we are misled into believing are complete experiences, as well.
Most games I purchase at release (or pre-order) are just in limbo on my account while I wait for a playable product. By the time it’s playable, there is usually $70 worth of DLCs for me to buy.
That’s generally how I follow it also. Though I add the stipulation that they’re enjoyable hours, and it’s not hardline. I know not every game can be measured that way. If it’s a particular genre or series, l might take the dive anyway. For indies, it goes even further than that. Some I track for years before release, so I pre-order as soon as it becomes available, just to support as much as I can. So $/hr is a good baseline, but it’s deeper than that.
Ok uh, what can you do, in terms of actual gameplay mechanics, in Fallout76, that you can’t do in… basically every multiplayer, survival/craft/open world/fps game?
There are so many of those… and… FO76 basically came out around the tail end of the kind of craze for those kinds of games, they were trend chasing.
Uh lets see, Valve did make Portal, what happened was they saw a demo of a game (Narbacular Drop) being concepted at a nearby gaming college expo, and they basically hired all of them, taught them Source, gave them more team breadth and depth to work with.
Valve has… or had… a track record of doing this, in the 90s / 00s. Oh, thats a neat mod for our game: Hire them.
So yes, Valve did originally make Portal. By seeing a neat concept demo, hiring the people behind it, and then making Portal.
I mean, you can say that after 5 more years of development, F076 became a basically functional open world survival craft fps, sure, but like…
No Mans Sky basically revolutionized the concept of what you can do with procedural generation, oh and, they just kept adding more and more stuff, just to the base game, not as DLC, not as MTX.
CP77? Yeah very rough start, but uh, entirely different scope of production value, being an actually competent RPG that’s practically an ImSim in many ways, all with an absurd level of graphical fidelity.
Like, everyone just expected that game to be Grand Theft Auto 5, Cyberpunk Edition, started their standards there, and then got mad that it wasn’t at parity.
CD Projekt Red was a AA studio when they were making this.
They were not Rockstar. They were not Bethesda.
Ok, I’ll give you that PayDay2 does actually have similar map mutating dynamics, I also have not played Vermintide, we do not speak of Back 4 Blood, what an embarassment, I am also unfamiliar with Remnant.
What I was trying to get at is … map mutations is how you solve the age old FPS team v team problem of… if you just have better map knowledge, you tend to win, so this causes a problem where you either have to keep pumping out new maps to keep things fresh, or you have to have a bunch of other balancing gameplay mechanics to have variety from there.
But the fundamental problem is that vets will clown noobs all the time, often by just simply having the maps memorized, angles and positions figured out, etc.
Also Alien Isolation has pretty good monster AI that works with the rest of the game design, but no, thats not mutating maps.
Open world maps that move objective markers around are not mutating maps.
HellDivers 2 is a good example of doing proc gen maps… but again, thats an extraction shooter, co-op shooter type thing.
Nobody, that I am aware of, has pulled this off for mass PvP battles, like, 16-32+ vs 16-32+ players.
As for Valve not literally, technically, totally inventing VR… sure yeah ok, what I meant was they poured tons of their own resources into doing VR in their own way, they’re one of the only teams that’s made an actual AAA VR game that fully embraces the concept of ‘you are a person in another world, a world that has high graphical realism.’
Virtual reality.
The point there was they turned toward innovating in other areas, that they did more or less start from scratch and invent their own concept of VR.
Your final quip about gacha games is funny.
Just look at the numbers dude, the vast majority of money to be made in gaming is by selling MTX addiction simulators.
That’s not to say there are not still people who really do actually want well crafted, truly innovative or very well put together, fully fledged games… but the way the math of capitalism works on that is uh, those kinds of endeavors are way riskier, and have way worse ROI, than selling waifus to dorks.
I hope that actual games defeat waifu simulators, we are seeing a lot of AAAs crash and burn recently, but uh, I don’t think gacha games are going anywhere… and most of the outfits with the money to be able to undertake a truly groundbreaking project?
Theyre all incompotent morons at the management level, who, after failing hard at their attempts in the last 5 ish years, are now just gonna try and hand that all over to AI, to attempt to further increase ROI.
But, normies love ‘recognizable brand franchise’, normies consistently auto-hypetrain and nostalgia-bate themselves, normies prove that having more than half a game’s budget be marketing does brainwash them very well.
Here, I’ll end with another hot take:
If, after everything that happened with Bethesda, up to the point of Starfield releasing…
You still bought Starfield on day one, or pre-ordered it?
You’re the problem, you’re the normie, you’re the person marketing and nostalgia work on, you didn’t realize your in an abusive, parasocial relationship with Bethesda.
For the Chaz’s coronation day they closed the food banks, and pre-arrested a bunch of peaceful protesters (released without charge afterward the event).
So… im a big supporter of squeenix, buy everything they make… but this tells me the quality of their games is going to go down the toilet. Knowing AI it’ll come up with fake lists of bugs that didn’t happen and all the real bugs will not be listed and they’ll release the buggies shit. One thing I LIKE about square, being one of the few companies I do pre-orders from still, is that their products are fairly bug free on launch FFXVI had some graphics optimization issues, but I’ve been happy with most of what I got the past few years.
Curious. Hadn’t heard of them at all and they seem to have made solid progress.
So I went to their “github” link which goes to their own self hosted (codeberg?) which is a big ol’ orange flag because it implies that either they don’t understand what git actually is or they assume their audience doesn’t… I can see that it is a yuzu fork. Not inherently bad but it does explain the progress for something nobody ever heard of until… today. And that has implications for the project getting a pretty strong C&D because of the shenanigans Yuzu was allegedly doing to get such strong compatibility on release day for so many games. Yellow flag, we’ll say.
Just skimming the last few MRs? Seeing a LOT of “waiting reviews” on the merged side of things which is another orange flag. Best case scenario it means they don’t understand how to map their SDLC to their tools, worst case scenario it means they aren’t actually doing thorough code reviews which is playing with fire when it comes to a console with as many leaks as the Switch.
Also no Releases. Which further suggests they have no idea how to use their tools. So did some digging on the readme and it looks like the project itself probably began 6 months ago with git.eden-emu.dev/…/d29d7b931c6ae8c035992d7a15d96a…
So yeah. Not sure how much they have contributed to the fork but everything I am seeing is just making me want to remind people that a LOT of people are going to make yuzu forks and you should think about what is going into the code you are going to blindly run. And… it kinda makes me think less of whatever blog site ran this interview.
To elaborate. There is nothing wrong with forking a project (assuming all licenses are upheld which, at a glance, this does). But the beautiful thing about git is that it is fundamentally decentralized so ANYONE can make a fork. And EVERYONE does. So the important things to check are if they actually have any idea how to run a project or are fly by night “hackers”. The former is how you make something stronger. The latter is how you get a whole shit ton of unacknowledged CVEs. And a great indicator is how they use their tools and implement an SDLC. And a huge indicator into that is how merge requests are handled.
One more edit. What allegedly sealed the fate of Yuzu (and Ryujinix) was very strong evidence that the devs had been looking at the various Switch leaks/hacks and were using pirated pre-release copies of games to improve 0-day compatibility.
Now, I am obviously not a lawyer so I can’t say whether they WERE doing things nefariously. But if you spend enough time dabbling in reverse engineering, you rapidly spot the telltale “intuitions” that come from somebody “cheating”. Because they aren’t testing code against behaviors or even using tools to speculate what C code created that assembly. They are looking at code and then writing an interface/re-implementation of it. And that is a MASSIVE no no because it gets you well past the bleem lawsuit and starts making you liable for a lot of penalties that we DO have precedent for.
As for the pre-release copies? It is, again, hard to not think they had copies of Tears and what not pre-release. And while it is possible that for every major release all the devs went to stores that broke embargoes… yeah.
And the implications of this for a fork that was very publicly taken down is… they know they are potentially working with poison fruit.
Consensus seems weak environmental design, mediocre graphics, and awesome combat—more Platinum than TN, which fans more or less predicted from the pre-release footage. As a Platinum fan myself, I don’t mind that, but I see why this can annoy the Itagaki faithful.
I’ve seen Steam reviews bring up some performance issues most critic reviews didn’t, but apart from that, I’m satisfied with the reception enough to add it to my wishlist. It’s such a nice feeling knowing there’s a new action game waiting to be bought and played. We don’t get to experience this feeling nearly enough.
Hopefully, Onimusha and Okami 2 will follow suit and we’ll get a DMC6 announcement soon.
To be fair the “DLC” isn’t actually available until 2026, what they have released now is basically a pre-order, still scummy but not as bad as you’re implying. Edit:for clarity, they didn’t cut anything out of the game, they just have a pre-order for the DLC.
I’ve been playing it and its reminding me of terraria as soon as it released. lots of fun but lacking in content and balance, similar to pre hard mode terraria.
It’s true. Reviewers rave about a game, I pick it up and play it, and they’re raving about a new one before I’ve finished that last one. I’ve got a list of 20+ games that came out this year that I still haven’t gotten around to. I might get through 5 of them before the new year. And you know, if wouldn’t hurt my...
Hmm… newest game in my library is Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes from last year, which is a re-release anyway.
I bought 13 old-ish (pre-2022) games this year for less than $100. I have no reason to spend %60-80 of that on 1 game I probably won’t even like, and that’s if it clears the seemingly impossible “playable” hurdle.
Let me count upcoming games I look forward to playing/am curious about:
Ninja Gaiden 4 (Happy to wait for a deep sale)
Onimusha (Happy to wait for a deep sale and may even refund if I don’t enjoy it)
Okami 2 (Happy to wait for a deep sale)
Marvel: Tokon (Will definitely wait for a deep sale—$10 base game)
That’s it.
I definitely went to see more new movies at the cinema this year than I played new games. IDK where the industry is headed and I feel for all the underpaid, overworked developers at risk, but there isn’t much I can do if publishers collectively decided to abandon my favorite genres.
"Thanks to our community for the frank feedback on Bloodlines 2 and the Premium Edition. That feedback made it clear: Lasombra and Toreador belong in the base game, so that is what we are doing," said Marco Behrmann, White Wolf Executive Vice President and Bloodlines 2 Executive Producer....
That’s largely what the pre release reviewers said, too. It’s light on RPG elements but feels like Dishonored. They didn’t say it was bad, just unexpected and a different kind of game than the first.
…and I might even have the hardware to run the average Unity 5 game.
Unreal Engine 5, surely? As that’s what it is. Unity 5 was apparently released back in 2015.
But, yea, BL4 is a “wait for ~20 €/$ sale for the ultimatebundle with all the dlc”. Haven’t really felt the need for BL since Pre-sequel killed it for me. Got BL3 on sale and… eh, it was kinda stuttery mess as well, when I played it.
Yea, this has always been a legitimately good reason for digital pre-orders to exist, if people can buy games before release it really lessens the blow. I think the real issue with pre-orders is the dumb bonuses and such, really
A few weeks back I reached out to RetroStyle Games, the Ukraine-based indie studio behind their first full release, Ocean Keeper: Dome Survival. I had first stumbled across the game (back when it was still called Codename: Ocean Keeper) during a Steam sale, and as someone obsessed with anything ocean-themed—books (The Deep),...
I would hope most of the industry learned a big lesson from Apex Legends. The day before its release, no one knew of its existence. The sole reason that it blew up was because it was fun.
Viral sharing of interactivity is likely the most cost effective way to run a marketing campaign for games - not bus ads, pre-order hype, etc. In other words, Make good games.
You fell in love with a game and it's characters, sunk hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours into it. It became a comforting, immensely satisfying part of your daily life. Then you heard a sequel was coming and got really hyped but when it came out it was utter rubbish......
I got 2 on my Xbox 360 as a hand me down from a family friend in maybe early 2010s cus I also got oblivion from them and remember looking up guides and Skyrim stuff popping up left and right for
Anyways I have 240 in jc3 and find it just fun. And then I have 130 hours in 4
Ngl give me a small graphic upgrade, give me the ammo economy and wingsuit of 3 as well as a new map and I’d be happy
I followed this game like crazy even pre ordering (lesson learned) some upgrade edition that was later released as dlc so yeah I was excited for this
Don’t get wrong definitely disappointed (bought into the hype so that didn’t help) but I occasionally jump back into the game and have some fun
My complaint is the story just wasn’t good. Like no one’s playing just cause for the story but something about it my casual ass didn’t like it
I pre-ordered No Man’s Sky through iam8bit for their Special Edition with the ship model and everything.
That experience was such a nightmare (and I mean dealing with iam8bit delaying orders beyond the games release date and other crap, not that the game was underwhelming at launch) that I cannot in good conscience ever recommend anyone purchase anything from iam8bit.
Timesplitters Remake (www.polygon.com) angielski
How many of y’all loved the timesplitters games back in the PS2 era?
Settings you believe ANY game should have? (This is me advocating for a restart/reboot button on ALL games) angielski
Hear me out. A few games have shader installations that will usually apply any new settings you put down AFTER you restart the game, and a lot of other games have graphics settings that will only apply after you’ve rebooted the game....
The median price of best-selling new games on Steam has dropped in the past 2 years, research finds: "Charging >$25 is getting trickier, as players compare value to the $10-$15 indie titles" (www.gamesradar.com) angielski
Years later, Arkane’s Dishonored is still a modern stealth classic (arstechnica.com) angielski
Show some respect angielski
Square Enix says it wants generative AI to be doing 70% of its QA and debugging by the end of 2027 (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
Preserving Play: How Eden Grew Into the Switch Emulator Everyone’s Talking About (my interview with the devs) angielski
I just wanted to share this!...
Ninja Gaiden 4 | Review Thread angielski
Game Information...
Turns out all you need to do is use what worked before! angielski
It’s actually funny how this all happened THIS October. Reinventing the wheel over and over doesn’t work, people!
Necesse Version 1.0 | Launch Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
EA CEO says company values will 'remain unchanged' under the new ownership of Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner's investment firm (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
Right…
The Video-Game Industry Has a Problem: There Are Too Many Games (www.bloomberg.com) angielski
It’s true. Reviewers rave about a game, I pick it up and play it, and they’re raving about a new one before I’ve finished that last one. I’ve got a list of 20+ games that came out this year that I still haven’t gotten around to. I might get through 5 of them before the new year. And you know, if wouldn’t hurt my...
Forza Horizon 6 - Official Teaser Trailer | Tokyo Game Show 2025 (www.youtube.com) angielski
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 will now contain all clans without DLC after backlash (www.paradoxinteractive.com) angielski
"Thanks to our community for the frank feedback on Bloodlines 2 and the Premium Edition. That feedback made it clear: Lasombra and Toreador belong in the base game, so that is what we are doing," said Marco Behrmann, White Wolf Executive Vice President and Bloodlines 2 Executive Producer....
Borderlands 4 boss tells players "please get a refund from Steam if you aren't happy" as Randy Pitchford continues his very public crashout over the FPS's performance woes (www.gamesradar.com) angielski
First thoughts on Borderlands 4? angielski
I’ll probably get it eventually, but I’m curious about how folks are finding it on day 1....
Hollow Knight: Silksong is out now on Steam - and it broke Steam servers for 30 minutes and counting now (store.steampowered.com) angielski
Picture of isSteamDown showing that Steam is indeed experiencing issues...
Developer Interview: my chat with the creators of Ocean Keeper (an indie game on Steam) angielski
A few weeks back I reached out to RetroStyle Games, the Ukraine-based indie studio behind their first full release, Ocean Keeper: Dome Survival. I had first stumbled across the game (back when it was still called Codename: Ocean Keeper) during a Steam sale, and as someone obsessed with anything ocean-themed—books (The Deep),...
Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 Pre-Order Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
Discoverability is the industry’s "Achilles’ heel," marketing survey finds (www.gamesindustry.biz) angielski
What game sequel ruined a beloved franchise or character for you? angielski
You fell in love with a game and it's characters, sunk hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours into it. It became a comforting, immensely satisfying part of your daily life. Then you heard a sequel was coming and got really hyped but when it came out it was utter rubbish......
Outer Worlds 2 cut to $70 after backlash (xcancel.com) angielski
Supposedly, they’re rolling back the price increase for all holiday releases....
Slime Rancher 2 - Release Date and Physical Pre-Order Announcement (www.youtube.com) angielski
Releasing September 23rd