Marketing isn’t cheap either. Can’t rely on word of mouth when that word is “shite”. Fixing the code would have been relatively cheap compared to fixing their reputation.
It was OK when the games were a bit smaller (and also makes more sense when played in the right order).
Going from 1 to 2 was a huge improvement, as 1 felt more like a tech demo. Then they added two more 2’s, and frankly they were the exact same.
3 was a bit shit, and lost the city charm. It doesn’t really work in the countryside.
Black Flag was massively popular at the time, because the pirate ship stuff was cool, and it also featured the least amount of Assassin’s Creed gameplay. I think the more recent games still haven’t matched that feel with any of the ship gameplay.
Unity shoehorned in multiplayer, and managed to annoy both single player fans (who don’t want multiplayer) and multiplayer fans (because there’s like 4 missions you can do in co-op).
I didn’t play Syndicate because I was bored to fucking death of AC by this point.
Origins tried turning it into a massive RPG, with levels and choices that don’t really do anything, and stopped assassinations from actually being a guaranteed kill if your stats weren’t high enough.
Odyssey did more of the same, added the boat back in, and made the whole game ridiculously big. Like, there’s good stuff in there (the Minotaur tourist trap is a favourite, along with some of the fantasy elements), but you’ve genuinely seen most of the gameplay the game has to offer before you’ve even got off Tutorial Island. It doesn’t even really get harder. There’s just more of it. It was in serious need of an editor to bring it down to about a third of the size.
I’m still so burnt out on finishing that like 3 years ago, that I’ve not played Valhalla either.
I played it obsessively for the first season and got pretty decent at it.
The second season started, I got disconnected from my first four games about 3 rounds into each. Played it once more on the day that you could cheese the Infallible achievement by running Hoverboard Heroes over and over.
Never played it again. Certainly never touched it since it went “free”.
Rare spent 18 months developing Donkey Kong Country from an initial concept to a finished game, and according to product manager Dan Owsen, 20 people worked on it in total. It cost an estimated US$1 million to produce, and Rare said that it had the most man hours ever invested in a video game at the time, 22 years. The team worked 12–16-hours every day of the week.
I just started playing COD Black Ops Cold War because I got it through my PlayStation Plus subscription and wanted to try it out. I’ve previously played some others like Modern Warfare (1 and 2) and WWII. While it always felt a bit over the top and propaganda-ish, I really liked it for the blockbuster feeling and just turning...
I mean, yeah. CoD has always glorified it. Even more so in recent years as they push for multiplayer and the massive payday that came with that. The earlier games often had a “war can be bad too” bits. The Russian bit in CoD1. The nuke. “No Russian”. But otherwise it’s a Michael Bay movie in game form.
Spec Ops The Line was the only game I can think of that bucked that. Even the publishers had no idea what it was, despite the antagonist literally being called Konrad.
Even though it was based on events from WW1, stolen under cinematic license for use in WW2 by Enemy at the Gates, and then subsequently stolen again by Infinity Ward.
MS is in the subscription selling business now. Their entire gaming future hinges on GamePass, and while I like the idea of games on tap (I’ve basically bought BG3 for my PS5 and nothing else in the year since I bought it, enough on PS+ to keep me going and I can barely catch up let alone keep up), I suspect the big devs that spend hundreds of millions on making AAA games are less than enthralled with the idea and if GamePass and day one “free” games win, the outcome will be more games that I’m not really interested in.
PS+ is not as good a product as GamePass, but I believe it’s healthier overall for the gaming industry.
The higher tiers. Not sure about the top one (Premium) any more. I got it because I thought I might want to play the older games, but it turns out there’s plenty of PS4 and PS5 games to keep me going, and frankly not enough choice of PS1 and 2 games to tempt me. A more complete library would have made sense, but I’ve literally got more on my shelf than they’ve got on PS Plus Premium.
And my internet is too rubbish for me to want to stream the handful of PS3 games either. It hasn’t even got MGS4 which would be the one interesting thing that hasn’t been anywhere else.
They take so long between entries that there’ll be adults with a PS5 who don’t even know what The Elder Scrolls is, let alone get excited for it.
We’ve had The Witcher 3. We’ve had Baldur’s Gate 3. Another clunky Bethesda “RPG” isn’t going to get the juices flowing like it did… fucking hell, 12 years ago.
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!...
Currently takes about 6 seconds to swap between characters. Every time. Every turn. Click, clunk, click, clunk.
Playing really thoroughly, we’re up to 60 hours, level 7, and just starting Act 2.
It’s bad design that part of Act 1 is behind the exact same prompt as the end of Act 1. I nearly missed a whole zone there, as well as an awesome weapon.
So today Unity announced changes in how they are going to monetize their game engine, and it is, rightfully might I add, poorly recievedHere is how much youtuber Dani would have to pay unity if they consider his games to gain over $200k in revenue Dani’s hypothetical unity payments...
No, I mean that they legally can’t support say PS5 and still be 100% open source. There would need to be a closed source wrapper, and that’s what they don’t want.
Which is fine, they can do what they want, but it means they can never be the choice of a developer that wants to put their game on as many platforms as possible.
It would sure be nice to run whatever I wanted on my consoles. Top of my list would be SteamLink for Switch.
Avoiding piracy is a thorny one for them. They’ve really locked that shit down in recent years. The last time I saw any was for the Xbox 360, where everyone at work had their drives altered and laughed at me for being a mug that still bought games, and then I laughed as they all got banned at once during the Great Purge of 2009. I think piracy was one of the reasons that the PS3 Linux thing was discontinued as well.
According to Hans-Kristian Arntzen, a prominent open-source developer working on Vkd3d, a DirectX 12 to Vulkan translation layer, Starfield is not interacting properly with graphics card drivers.
This is how games and drivers have been for decades.
There are huge teams at AMD and nVidia who’s job it is to fix shit game code in the drivers. That’s why (a) they’re massive and (b) you need new drivers all the time if you play new games.
I read an excellent post a while ago here, by Promit.
It’s interesting to see that in the 8 years since he wrote it, the SLI/Crossfire solution has simply been to completely abandon it, and that we still seem to be stuck in the same position for DX12. Your average game devs still have little idea how to get the best performance from the hardware, and hardware vendors are still patching things under the hood so they don’t look bad on benchmarks.
Bethesda the publisher and Bethesda the developer are different things.
The publishing arm seemed to know what they were doing, certainly enough for MS to buy them.
The developing arm is nothing if not consistent. You know what you’re getting into. An RPG, with lots of character build possibilities (even if a particular build overpowered enough for 90% of players to accidentally stumble across it, like Skyrim’s stealth archer build), a handful of memorable NPCs, no real character development, so-so performance, and a shitload of bugs.
If people are still buying them and still not enjoying them I don’t know what to say. It’s like watching Fast and Furious 10, and going “well that’s fucking dumb”.
I watched the first one many years ago, which appeared to just be Ocean’s 11, but for people who think putting blue lights under your car makes it go faster.
Then I watched F&F9 on Netflix the other month. I don’t remember any of the plot. At one point a car did a Tarzan rope swing.
I love couch co-op, but BG3 has all manner of bugs in co-op on PS5.
Your PSN name and a “mute” icon is overlaid at all times in the top corner of the screen where your rolls and character approval/disapproval information should appear.
From about halfway through Act 1, swapping characters (which you do all the time) triggers multi second pauses for both players.
Cut scene bugs, like invisible characters, no lip sync, no voice acting, voice acting only on alternate lines, one cut scene didn’t actually load at all, just leaving me with the text and a screen full of fog.
We also had no tutorials, but this does appear to be rectified now via a patch released yesterday.
Not sure what happened to the horn-fest other players got, but I suspect that co-op players aren’t getting full “reputation” with NPCs, as this appears to be tracked individually.
Series S performance with it like this would have been something to behold.
I’m not sure why “performance mode” is disabled in co-op either. In single player it runs at a decent pace. It’s just as soon as player two joins that it starts to feel like a PS3 game.
I mean, it’s still fun, the underlying game is clearly good, and occasionally the hitching stops for a few minutes and it’s less frustrating, but it soon comes back again. It’s like it’s doing something daft like reloading the zone between characters.
A patent filed by Nintendo suggests that they’re working on Hall Effect style joysticks for the Switch 2 that would eliminate stick drift almost entirely.
None of my PS4, 5 or Switch controllers have had any drift. I even used the Joycons in Ringfit for ages, and I was sure that spending months being strapped to my leg would bugger it up.
I’m not sure if I’m the luckiest person on Earth, I just don’t use them enough, or others are doing something I’m not (smoking or vaping are possibilities here, along with greasy food fingers).
A new Nintendo Switch 2 rumor has surfaced claiming that the next-generation hybrid console could actually arrive with more memory than a powerful rival like the Microsoft Xbox Series S. The same source has also offered an update in regard to the Switch 2’s potential DLSS support and ray-tracing capabilities.
DLSS or the AMD knock-off would actually be pretty good for them.
RT is kind of pointless in low end hardware though.
Be interesting to see if they support VRR since they control what screen goes into it. A lot more PC users accepting 40fps since Steam Deck. Forcing everything into 30 or 60 is kind of limiting.
I got it on PS5 (co-op) and in the space of 2 hours had randomly silent cutscenes, an invisible character in one, and my PSN Name and a mute icon permanently stuck the top left of the screen where all the information about rolls and characters liking or disliking things should appear.
Didn’t get any tutorials either, which is apparently a thing. So we’re just randomly pressing things and hoping it doesn’t fuck up the story for later.
Quote from the article: “The inclusion of intrusive DRM softwares [sic] like Denuvo is a choice that yields an unfair punishment on the consumer,” Running With Scissors says. “Respect the consumer, make a game they want to play, and you will never feel the need to fight piracy. The gaming industry deserves a better future,...
Crackers: We don’t do it for the piracy, we just like the challenge.
Denuvo: Try this one then.
Crackers: Too hard bro, at least give us a chance!
I acknowledge that this isn’t going to be a popular opinion in a piracy sub, but the main reason people hate Denuvo is that it works.
It’s basically killed the entire game hacking scene, because by the time they break it, nobody is interested in the game any more. There’s like one person left that can do it, and they’re more than a little bit odd.
It may be “anti-consumer”, but you know what was worse? All the other shit they tried on PC. Always online bullshit. Single player games that you couldn’t save any more if your connection wobbled. Actual rootkits.
Most bad Denuvo stuff seems to come from any extra DRM they add as well, just in case Denuvo wasn’t enough. Always online sounds like one of those extras, because I don’t think it’s part of Denuvo itself. I think the Denuvo online requirements are when you install, every X days (seems to vary from two weeks to a month, probably configurable per game), and when you change your hardware configuration.
Denuvo alone is enough, because as soon as Denuvo is removed, the rest can be removed by regular mortal hackers.
Have no real interest in playing it, but do they still do the Skyrim thing where they have like 5 wildly different voice actors, so it feels like the guards are following you from town to town?
Hi all, I’ve been thinking about setting things up so I can play Steam games on my TV but I’m a little confused on the setup. So here’s what I was planning:...
The controllers connect to the Shield. You can also connect keyboard and mouse to it.
I find Steam Link to be slow and low framerate though. Sunshine running on the PC and Moonlight running on the Shield seen to do the trick. I also disabled the image sharpening on the Shield because it looks really odd.
Nvidia GameStream being disabled now is a really fucking shitty thing for them to do. Sunshine lacks the ability to change the PC resolution to match the streaming resolution.
For the price of 2 games (or 1 and a half if it goes on sale, and it always did before), you can game all year. I’ve had mine for a year now, and not bought a game for it yet (apart from GoW Ragnarok which came bundled with it, and likely BG3 next week).
The top tier is kind of a bust. I picked it up because I thought I might play those PS1/2 games but I haven’t used that at all. There’s plenty of PS4 and 5 games still to play, and you can emulate up to PS3 on PC quite easily if you want to play old stuff. There’s scant few PS1 games anyway. It’s far from comprehensive. They should have done so much better here.
I would think that it’s cheap availability on GamePass and likelihood of frequent updates would make for a muted response to this one.
Plus I don’t think it was protected to start with for modding purposes. People will be flying around in Thomas the Tank Engine by the end of next week.
Just got another Crucial one for the wife’s PC. Was like £95, but that is PCI-E 4.0 rather than the Evo 970’s PCI-E 3.0.
Won’t make a jot of difference for what she does, but nice to have it in case gaming actually uses that extra speed in the future. I don’t even think most PS5 games make use of the extra speed right now. Certainly nothing that shows up in loading benchmarks, but I suspect when it does show itself it will be from single frame hitches where it’s loading things on the fly.
SR2 was the peak of the series for me. I played 3 and 4 but they already felt like they were being constrained by budget even back then. They were mostly copy pasted mini games with far fewer missions.
God of War is coming to GOG (www.gog.com) angielski
www.gog.com/en/game/god_of_war...
CD Projekt Spent Roughly $125 Million Turning Cyberpunk 2077 Around Post-Launch (www.ign.com) angielski
Ubisoft just added Denuvo to Assassins Creed Mirage via a day-1 patch a few minutes ago. AFTER all the major reviews went online. (meta.masto.host) angielski
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/0c095e3d-ac73-49eb-b142-65d0c7d2b8af.webp
Report: Fall Guys dev Mediatonic "decimated" by Epic layoffs (www.gamedeveloper.com) angielski
$600 Million And A Decade Later, Where Is Star Citizen (exputer.com) angielski
Game prices are too low, says Capcom exec (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
Capcom's president and chief operating officer has said he thinks game prices should go up....
‘Call of Duty’ Doesn’t Just Depict Bad History—It’s Pro-War Propaganda (progressive.org)
I just started playing COD Black Ops Cold War because I got it through my PlayStation Plus subscription and wanted to try it out. I’ve previously played some others like Modern Warfare (1 and 2) and WWII. While it always felt a bit over the top and propaganda-ish, I really liked it for the blockbuster feeling and just turning...
Microsoft completely misjudged Baldur’s Gate 3 (www.polygon.com) angielski
deleted_by_author
The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion - 18-09-2023 (lemmy.world) angielski
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!...
Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Starring Lara Croft | Nintendo Direct 9.14.2023 (www.youtube.com) angielski
Absolutely hilarious subtitle, as if people don’t know it’s starring Lara Croft
So, Unity is charging game developers per video game install now... (blog.unity.com) angielski
So today Unity announced changes in how they are going to monetize their game engine, and it is, rightfully might I add, poorly recievedHere is how much youtuber Dani would have to pay unity if they consider his games to gain over $200k in revenue Dani’s hypothetical unity payments...
Nintendo has filed a patent for ‘smart fluid’ joysticks, perhaps to eliminate drift | VGC (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
Let’s hope this isn’t just a random patent, and we actually get better sticks next generation.
Open source community figures out problems with performance in Starfield (www.destructoid.com) angielski
According to Hans-Kristian Arntzen, a prominent open-source developer working on Vkd3d, a DirectX 12 to Vulkan translation layer, Starfield is not interacting properly with graphics card drivers.
Couch co-op is finally making a comeback? (www.latimes.com)
New Nintendo patent suggests Switch 2 may solve joycon drift (www.dexerto.com) angielski
A patent filed by Nintendo suggests that they’re working on Hall Effect style joysticks for the Switch 2 that would eliminate stick drift almost entirely.
Consumer Nintendo Switch 2 rumored to have more RAM than the Xbox Series S (www.notebookcheck.net) angielski
A new Nintendo Switch 2 rumor has surfaced claiming that the next-generation hybrid console could actually arrive with more memory than a powerful rival like the Microsoft Xbox Series S. The same source has also offered an update in regard to the Switch 2’s potential DLSS support and ray-tracing capabilities.
Now you have to pay to see lyrics on spotify (i.postimg.cc) angielski
Bethesda says most of Starfield's 1000+ planets are dull on purpose because 'when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there' but 'they certainly weren't bored' (www.pcgamer.com)
Sure Todd, lol
Starfield players pirate the DLSS mod after the developer locks it behind paywall (www.gamescensor.com) angielski
Doom Eternal has Denuvo DRM removed (steamdb.info) angielski
Legendary PC developer says Denuvo is “a punishment to the consumer” (www.pcgamesn.com) angielski
Quote from the article: “The inclusion of intrusive DRM softwares [sic] like Denuvo is a choice that yields an unfair punishment on the consumer,” Running With Scissors says. “Respect the consumer, make a game they want to play, and you will never feel the need to fight piracy. The gaming industry deserves a better future,...
Bethesda hired a Skyrim modder to create the "lighting and clutter" in Starfield (www.gamescensor.com) angielski
Steam in-house remote play (link)
Hi all, I’ve been thinking about setting things up so I can play Steam games on my TV but I’m a little confused on the setup. So here’s what I was planning:...
PS Plus price hike: We'll all pay for a subscription-based future | Opinion (www.gamesindustry.biz)
Starfield has been cracked (i.redd.it) angielski
I Simply Do Not Have Room On My PC For Starfield (www.thegamer.com) angielski
Baldur's Gate 3 is currently taking up all the storage space I would give to Bethesda's sci-fi RPG.
Saints Row developer Volition permanently shuts down (www.theverge.com) angielski