I have barely ever bought anything for my Switch, only a couple of big titles for Zelda and Mario. It’s just too expensive and there are hardly ever any sales. And any third-party games I can get much cheaper on PC anyway.
The pricing also made it really difficult to understand which games were newer, like I looked at Pokemon games and the much older ones were also still priced as if they were new.
I don’t know, it just looks like a €50 stand-alone expansion that could’ve been DLC for the first game. But now they get to sell it for more, and add new/more individual smaller DLC for this one.
Not been much of a fan of Frontier ever since Braben left. They started focusing very heavily on paid DLC since, especially back when for Elite Dangerous it was first just cosmetics, but they got greedy and now have paid early access for new ships, after the game was content starved for years. And before that instead of focusing on new content there was a long period where the only thing that got updated was a new microstransaction currency and raised prices of the DLC.
Doesn’t feel much different with the Planet Coaster and Zoo games. They get littered with paid DLC, and it’s almost taking The Sims forms of additional paid content.
Rather than actually include their soundtracks on popular platforms, Nintendo graciously offers their own mobile app locked behind the Switch online subscription…
Even if they had put it on Spotify they would’ve gotten royalties from there. Which would be a nice bonus for them, because I can’t imagine anyone paying Nintendo Online just for the music.
Would be interesting to know what positions they’re firing.
I bet it’s yet again none of the project and management level staff. Since they’re talking about “saying goodbye to a number of incredibly talented and dedicated team members”, after they said “we made the difficult decision to restructure our studio to ensure our long-term sustainability”.
So you have to fire people, but you fire the “incredibly talented and dedicated” employees. All this tells me is that projects they’re working on aren’t going to improve, if they ever get wrapped up even.
There are plenty of games that don’t do high-end graphics and are still very good, even games that look intentionally low res/quality like Valheim did very well.
Graphics are only really a thing for games that aim for realistic visuals in the first place, but even then it doesn’t need to be so overly high in visual fidelity and pushing better graphics every time. The average gamer isn’t going to care about being able to see reflected objects in windows that you can see in the reflections of puddles, or that a leaf from a tree has a diffused shadow 300 meters away. Yet a lot of these big studios are pushing this tech and stuffing it in their games.
Not saying that’s a bad development, but they’re creating a lot of these budget problems for themselves by setting bars so insanely high and focusing on side-stuff that only increase the scope of the project. Where small indi developers create masterpieces on a budget barely a percentage of what those corporations are throwing at their projects.
As long as the delayed time is actually enough to fix fundamental issues, usually a short time of a few weeks, or even months, is hardly enough to fix core issues with a game.
The article says it’s about the network infrastructure. Which frankly seems like something pretty significant for this kind of game. The 3 weeks delay makes it sound like it’s not an easy “just upscale the server capacity” fix, so hopefully it’s nothing too complicated that cannot be fixed within that time.
That said, I would rather that studios would just stop publishing release dates if they don’t even know if they can uphold the deadlines. I know it’s become part of the hype culture and pre-sales and everything else pre-release, but I had much preferred that games would only get announced when they’ve practically gone gold, and worst they’d need to do is to iron out some imperfections.
It’s like moving release dates has become part of the project development and PR in the past decade, just to hit players with that “We wish to deliver the best experience possible, so we decided…” yadda yadda. Some might be genuine, but a lot of games still release in an absolutely garbage state after being delayed (multiple times even). It just gives the impression they do it to drive up pre-orders and hype. Like I wouldn’t be surprised if Rockstar would hit us with that crap sometime next year, and move GTA6 to late 2025 or somewhere 2026 or something.
I’m still gonna wait and see, I think user reviews might turn out very mixed in contrast to the critics reviews. Not that I value user reviews all that much, but I’d like to see a bit more from the game before deciding anyway.
What really put me off from this game was the insanely boring dragon fight they recently showed in the PlayStation presentation, it dragged out so long too and nothing really interesting seemed to happen, it felt like a really outdated kind of boss battle, especially after games like God of War and Horizon. It just did not look that fun honestly, but perhaps story and other parts of the game are more entertaining.
Just watched the first part of his video. It seems to line up perfectly with what I was expecting based on the gameplay we were shown so far, it’s just outright boring. The amount of criticism and the footage in his review does not line up with the high ratings this game got.
Looks llike it’s gonna be a skip. Shame, because visually it looks nice to me and I kinda dig the art style (except for the Qunari), but if story, animations and gameplay are bad and boring it’s gonna be a no from me.
Amazing how this cash grab of a game has been in early access alpha development for about 8 years now, finally releases, and this is the best they can do
I never expected graphics to improve honestly. Plenty of good games out there that have been in development for a long time and look like old games, like Project Zomboid.
I thought this was a joke but it seems like it’s actually legit. WoW, which has a subscription and paid expansions, just added a $90 item to their store. This is Korean MMO levels of absurdity. What do you think of this?...
Transactions are from two parties, if the product didn’t sell they wouldn’t keep doing it. The product wouldn’t exist if it failed to sell in the first place.
Plenty of shitty products in the world that never get sold, and then stop being produced.
I was hoping to keep up daily Halloween-themed posts through all of October, but I had way too much on my plate yesterday and didn’t get a moment to myself until almost midnight. Who knew retired life could be so busy? Oh well; at least I never promised to do daily posts. Maybe I’ll make a double post sometime to make up for...
I tried getting into horror games a couple of times, but it’s such a mixed bag of good games and just games throwing cheap jumpscares at your face.
I tried Alan Wake 2 recently, but I found nothing enjoyable about the loud flashing jumpscares they constantly throw at the player. Even with reduced visuals and sound options it just feels like such a cheap thing that the game doesn’t really need. Like someone exploding a plastic bag behind you, of course I get startled by it, but it isn’t the same as being scared.
Oh I’ve got no problem with rollercoasters, you know what’s going to happen and you can see ahead to know what you’re in for. That’s more a thrill than scare I’d say, although perhaps for some people that might be a thin line.
I just feel like jumpscares have no place in horror, at least not the way it’s done with loud and flashing images in Alan Wake 2. I wish games like Alan Wake had the option to turn it off entirely or something, would love to experience the story, but not with the cheap jumpscares being thrown in my face. I read about people that don’t mind jumpscares like that got annoyed by the excessiveness of these during gameplay, getting particularly worse further in the game too.
Information originally from MinnMax’s Ben Hanson. There is an existing game used to describe this new game to Hanson as a point of reference, and all we know is that that game is not Hitman.
Alright, can’t really get hyped without anything else to go on.
I was pretty fine with the way Last of Us 1 and 2 were handled, did a pretty good job at telling a story, without making it feeling like a linear corridor game. More freedom in a similar type of game would be nice, but generally it just seems to mean more downtime traveling between objectives occasionally interrupted by random encounters. If that is what they mean with more freedom, and not something else like character creation or branching storylines or whatever.
Reading the article, he refers to Elden Ring. I personally hate that kind of story telling though. I know a lot of people are absolutely lyrical about the game, but that’s probably more thanks to the gameplay. The story in that game is just being dripfed without much context and they are being intentionally vague about so many things. It’s more like a passive way of revealing little bits of the world without ever fully explaining anything.
Depends on which games though. Like a CoD or FIFA will continue as usual, small visual upgrades but still yearly releases with minimal changes. Going from a PS4 to a PS5 with those games will hardly be a difference. I think current generation consoles focused more on higher resolution and higher framerates anyway, which was a welcome change to me, since a lot of games on PS4 ran like sub-par 30 FPS.
But if you take games like Horizon Forbidden West, it’s a pretty significant visual upgrade from Zero Dawn. Same goes for Spider-Man on PS4 and then Miles Morales on PS5, visually looks like a pretty significant upgrade.
Perhaps not everyone notices the visual fidelity moving up in consoles, but honestly that’s never been all that different with previous console generations. Unless you compare games from early in the life-cycle of a console, and then another game from the end of a new generation console. It still mostly gradually happens over the lifetime of a console generation.
I do think graphical progress has been slower than before, mostly because they seem to have shifted focus on higher framerates and resolutions. But in 5 or 10 years we’ll look back at these visuals as laughable. I remember feeling like this every few years, like thinking something looks like the most realistic game ever, and 5 years later you look back at it is being pretty mediocre compared to new standards.
Ehh… lack of user reviews are exactly what made OpenCritic better than MetaCritic.
It will probably just end up the same as MetaCritic. Where anyone, including people who never played the game, can leave reviews. And it’ll sooner or later just degrade into yet another review-bombing platform where you’ll find absolutely nothing constructive in the user reviews (both negative and positive review spam).
Also, walling the user score details behind a forced registration is just shit tier level.Apparently that’s just to post reviews, can’t see individual user reviews yet I think(?)
I’m curious what argument the people that are just downvoting comments in this thread actually have. These days nothing good comes from gaming platforms that have user reviews. It’s just a cesspool of haters, trolls and fanboys circlejerking over 0s or 10s and hardly anything constructive and unbiased in between.
You can’t really gauge its Steam reviews because there are only 13(!) total so far, reflective of a game that has launched with just a few hundred players. 224, as I’m writing this article. Sub-Concord levels. Yes. Concord is a unit of measurement now....
From what I know Sweet Baby Inc. is involved. Which is a studio that focuses a lot on DEI when it comes to narratives/story in games.
They already did not have the greatest track record, some good games, but a lot of mediocre and even bad games. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the game scores are related to DEI, but the fact it keeps happening to games they’re involved with says at least something.
I remember it from one of the recent game conferences, but basically only because of the actress that played in the Witcher show too. Pretty much forgot about it immediately.
Like I said, some good games. Which by the way still received criticism from people about certain DEI related involvements, whether you agree or disagree with that is different thing, but the criticism was there too.
Not sure what I’m being misled over? It literally says on Wikipedia as well:
Sweet Baby Inc. is a Canadian narrative development and consultation studio based in Montreal. Founded by former Ubisoft developers, including scriptwriter Kim Belair and product manager David Bédard, the company consults on video game narratives during development to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion within game narratives and studios.
Also, in every game they’ve worked on it’s quite obvious which part they’ve been involved with, based on the above.
But people on this sub really just like to keep shooting the messenger huh 🙄
I enjoyed plenty of phone and tablet games back in the day, when it all started (god I feel old). When there were both amazing free and paid games. But then they started including ads, and microtransactions, and then battle passes, and then unskippable ads and promotions, and then progression got locked behind paywalls, etc.
I’m sure there are a few good games out there, but the few attempts I tried a few mobile games again it feels like I always run into having to pay to progress sooner or later. It’s most definitely nothing like the golden ages back around 2010.
One of the few games where I thought storms were an actual danger.
The way those storms rolled in and turned peace into pure chaos. Driving around avoiding thunderstrikes. Going on foot meant having to dodge pieces of debris or getting yeeted to some unknown part of the map. Actually required to take shelter somewhere. Storms felt actually like it really added something to the game beyond just a different skybox and rain. That was good shit.
I think it’s kind of weird that this trend is happening that early access games, games that are not finished, get title updates that are practically advertised as expansions would’ve.
I always figured early access meant early access to a game until it is a fully developed base game, then start to do “named” expansions.
It’s not exclusive to this game, but it just seems like a strange development and frankly not a fan of it. Some games linger in early access way too long, but they can always use it as an excuse to get away with bad optimisation or game breaking bugs and what not.
Really can’t stand his dumbass face. The fucking epitome of click bait and reaction faces on thumbnails. Usually just riding whatever negativity hate-train is active for his free clicks and internet points. It’s honestly baffling how this goblin garnered such an army of followers.
Such an expensive gimmick, especially considering it’s primarily aimed for kids that can’t afford it.
For that price I would’ve expected it to have more features. Like maybe be able to use Amiibo figures to unlock more content. Or a ceiling projector to play Nintendo videos/animations or ambient lighting. Or if they’d go the extra mile, be able to project the Switch display.
I know, but it’s still such an expensive gift. I think many parents that buy gifts are more likely to spend that amount of money on multiple other gifts instead. And even for people with more money to spend it just seems a bit excessive. I know some people that would like this clock, but I (and others I know) would not pay like €100 for a gift clock with quite limited features lol
I feel like this thing could’ve easily be priced half, and it would still be kind of expensive. But at least a much bigger group of potential buyers would open up, and Nintendo would probably still make a huge profit out of it.
The problem is that they had stuff like Virtual Console and then decide to pull the plug. Then rebrand as some other feature in an online service, which is yet another service that’s gonna be a wait and see on whether or when they’ll pull the plug again. Forcing people to pay for old stuff over and over again.
They should sell this kind off stuff independently from their consoles/handhelds, preferably something that runs on a PC or any platform.
The NES and SNES mini were great examples of how it could be done, except there too they decided to only make a limited amount, essentially the same as pulling the plug.
Nintendo’s truly an awful company. It’s baffling how often they get praised for their stuff, they only dangle some 15+ year old reskinned game and people forget all about it.
I think, like that post mentions as well, that prices were the biggest issue. The points system being a garbage system in the first place, easily a system I would instantly be turned off from, I absolutely hate buying currencies to buy something, instead of just outright seeing the actual prices in the store. But if you’d want to buy a small collection for a couple of decades old games it would add up quickly.
The problem with Nintendo’s always been the insane prices. I’m especially hesitant to buy anything digital or any services from Nintendo. Knowing they could decide to pull the plug any time again.
They’re not even hiding anymore that they’re just straight up advertising. And then proceed to not even include a link or whatsoever lmao
That said, I’m so over this aesthetic. The ‘gamy’ look has become so cheesy. Sharp angles and edges, lots of unnecesary seams and individual parts glued together, lots of places that collect dirt and hard to clean. And led lights that just highlight all the garbage that gets behind the keys.
Lol that comparison was also going through my head. I remember it being a fun game though, more than any Bethesda games from the past decade or so, but frankly that bar wasn’t really high either.
They gotta stop trying and just let it die already. No need in trying to salvage anything out of it.
Like the article states it already failed to garner a reasonable crowd in the beta, and even less as a paid game.
It was just a bad game, plagued by terrible development. It has cost enough already, why would they even bother investing anything more in it, take the loss and just move on and make something actually fun and creative.
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I was hoping to keep up daily Halloween-themed posts through all of October, but I had way too much on my plate yesterday and didn’t get a moment to myself until almost midnight. Who knew retired life could be so busy? Oh well; at least I never promised to do daily posts. Maybe I’ll make a double post sometime to make up for...
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Information originally from MinnMax’s Ben Hanson. There is an existing game used to describe this new game to Hanson as a point of reference, and all we know is that that game is not Hitman.
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