KippDynamite

I used to love how gaming sites would have articles like "the top 10 explosive barrels" or whatever. Sometimes we take gaming too seriously and, as much as I think it's important to discuss serious issues within the industry, I also think some articles can be about dumb fun.

Has anyone played the original? Isn't it supposed to be not very good? I seem to recall that everyone was surprised that Automata was good because the game before wasn't.

I'm completely out of touch but I've heard of her, so she must be at least a little famous.

I'm honestly surprised Xbox has sold that many considering it is basically a backwards compatible machine with no exclusives.

Are people throwing away their game cases?

@Hopewell
If the content was ready on day one then it was obviously removed from the game and sold separately.

The issue to me is that the family members of those who were killed are still very much around. I think this type of thing needs to be addressed carefully and with respect to those affected. If this game can highlight the horrors of war, then great. If it's just another game that worships the military then I think that's gross.

"My actions add nothing of worth or value to society, and I disadvantage and exploit others solely for my personal enrichment."

Is he honestly surprised people are frustrated with this sort of thing? If so, he may actually be delusional. The other major possibility is that he's a selfish jerk.

Remember this video the next time someone preaches about the necessity of microtransactions because of rising development costs. Developers have been getting tech like this for trees, etc. for years, and it streamlines certain aspects of development and actually makes it cheaper.

Also, I've still yet to see a digital human smile in a way that didn't look slightly weird. Are animators aware of this? Why is this one facial expression so difficult to pull off?

I need to drift with the Dualsense in order to properly control the Jaeger.

The leadership of Ubisoft is absolutely disgusting. It is an admitted fact that they shielded sexual predators who committed acts as heinous as rape on their employees. They acknowledge they shielded the predators because they led teams that produced money. Some of the people who committed those acts are the ones profiting the most from this news. I think the internal struggles of a company can sometimes be kept separate from customers, but with Ubisoft it's just way too severe. It's a shame blogs and news outlets usually do little more than regurgitate their press releases.

It's like patenting taking a photo from a low angle, or patenting zooming in on a character in a movie. It's ludicrous that something like this could be patented.

Did you know the reason loading screens don't have mini-games is because Namco holds/held a patent on it?

All this does is make games worse. Period.

Last years "event" was so fragmented that I literally didn't even know it happened.

Also, anything with Keighley guarantees lots of hype with standard delivery.

It made sense in the pre-internet, pre-free-video-hosting days, but there isn't much point to it now and, unfortunately for the ESA, virtually all the publishers and developers now realize it. Why pay someone millions of dollars only to be overshadowed by someone bigger than you? Why spend 3-6 months creating an E3 demo when you could just work on the game instead?

Is anyone honestly surprised by this? Is it shocking that Ubisoft would conduct itself in this way? It would be surprising if this WASN'T the case.

By the way, it is a fact that Ubisoft management actively protected sexual predators for years - one of which was the director of this game.

A shame for the devs involved, especially Jade Raymond and more especially Shannon Studstill.

Less than a year ago even the big players like Sony and Microsoft were hedging their bets with game streaming. It's now obvious, once again, that this isn't the future. For those of you keeping track, this is not the first game streaming service to collapse. There are issues inherent to the business model that seemingly can't be solved - specifically lag, inferior performance, and offering the service at a profitable price that is also appealing to customers.

@DeepSpace5D
I was one of those people who predicted they would not do a State of Play for this. I was incorrect. Good on them for supporting the development team.

This really is a big accomplishment, and it shows that some of these relatively big developers might do better on their own rather than tied to a giant corporation and their directives.

@clvr
Well said.

If people are all-in on the digital future then they are completely subject to the whims of corporations. This is why, to me, the digital versions of the new consoles actually look very expensive.

@BAMozzy
You have some good points and you could be right. Perhaps it will take pressure off the studios and the quality will increase. However, Microsoft has so much money that Xbox studios have essentially already been in that position, and their exclusive offerings are not nearly as good as the competition (in my opinion). My bias is that Microsoft will still push for games to come out and that quality will not improve, because that's how they've been. They also need to attract subscribers with new games. But I could be wrong and I'd be happy to be wrong about that.

Generally speaking, I think almost no new "innovative" business practices will work out for customers. They are dreamed up in order to serve the business - not the customer. Everyone goes to Vegas thinking they'll come out on top, but they don't realize there's a reason why all of the buildings are so fancy - the house always wins.

I'm glad I'm not bought into the Xbox ecosystem because this price hike would really make me angry. There a good chance I'd just stop paying and/or switch to PlayStation. And online gaming is free on PC!

If this is about promoting Game Pass then I think we'll see more of this type of thing as the subscription model becomes more and more unsustainable. There are very few industries where subscription models work.

Netflix is (barely) sustainable because it costs $10 to buy a 2 hour movie, but $12 for access to near limitless movies per month. That's a good deal to the customer, and since the movies are mostly bad they don't cost a lot for Netflix to license. A game cost $60 but can often be found for $20, but they also take sometimes more than a month to play. Why pay a subscription for that? The savings is marginal for most people, and it costs a lot of money for Microsoft to get those games (for example, 7.5 billion from one publisher). There are also way fewer games on Game Pass than there are shows on Netflix.

@BAMozzy
If studios know that it doesn't matter if anyone buys their game, the quality will nosedive. Why make a quality game when the income happens regardless?

You are also describing the machinations of a private company, not a publicly traded one. Microsoft doesn't need "money" so much as it needs "more money than last quarter" - that's the only thing investors care about. The money from subscriptions is funding stockholder dividends, not new studios or games.

If that $150,000,000 per month figure is accurate then that's pretty good. However, consider that they just spent $7,500,000,000 buying Zenimax. It will take them more than 4 years just to break even from that purchase. Not only that, they are giving away all of the games those developers produce as part of the subscription, i.e., they will make no additional money from them. So they'll have to fund those studios for several years and effectively won't make money from them because they are effectively still paying off the "debt" of purchasing them.

Also, they are giving something like 10% of profits to GameStop if customers bought the console there.

I honestly don't know how the Xbox brand can turn a profit with this business model. They would need to have a drastically higher income base from subscriptions. If they can't get more subscribers, they will need to raise the price.

Regardless of all of that, since they always need more money than last quarter they will likely need to make regular cost increases to Game Pass.

@nessisonett
Generally speaking, people who become very preoccupied with violence are the same people who have experienced a lot of violence themselves or have been exposed to lots of violence (seeing their mom beat up, etc.). Essentially they have been traumatized and their mind is trying to process what happened.

I think there is actually a decent argument that playing a game is a more socially appropriate way of experiencing/processing violence than any real-life exercise.

@nessisonett
I assume you are now a mass murderer since you played Hitman as a child?

I don't know how young I was, but probably 7 or 8 when I played Doom and Doom 2. I don't even remember thinking it was intense. It was obvious to me that it was pretend. Same with Mortal Kombat.

Actually, research shows that such games don't tend to affect people much (though I'm personally a strong advocate for game ratings). What does increase aggression, though, is real life competition. So multiplayer Mario Kart is far more likely to lead to aggression than Hitman!

For my job I routinely talk with actual murderers and almost none of them have ever even played video games. They all had really crappy childhoods, though.

I have an LG CX which does support those features. However, only a couple of games currently support those features so maybe I can get away without swapping cables for a year or so. Either way, it's annoying that it's not seamless - but understandable.

@thefourfoldroot
Exactly. I got an HDMI 2.1 cable to connect my PS5 to my expensive TV, and I'll need another cable to hook up the breakout box to the same standard. I doubt the breakout box supports 2.1, and I don't want to be switching wires around just to play a VR game.

A new photo mode frame? Oh man, who cares . . .

I think Resident Evil Outbreak is completely out of the zeitgeist and people wouldn't even realize it was a reboot. I think if they were going to create such a game they'd make a new (sub) IP, and then pay homage to outbreak in some way or another for the hardcore fans.

Destruction All Stars doesn't warrant a State of Play - they are releasing it for free at release, which indicates they don't have faith that it will stand on it's own feet. It'd be bizarre to champion a game they don't believe in.

The start of March gives them time to remind everyone of the upcoming games (Returnal, etc.), and they'll show a few updates for big hitters to get some headlines.

A turn-based tactical politician simulator with Move-supported dance/rythym mini-games.

Or else they're rehiring for temporary jobs and those who quit after TLOU2.

The pandemic was well underway when Sony announced the PS5 and the games, and their release windows. I assume they took into account that the pandemic would be ongoing, as that was obvious at the time.

I hope the gameplay, assassinations, and NPC chatter is as goofy as ever. No need to take itself too seriously.

God help Push Square whenever one of their staff quits. By it's own logic, it could mean anything from serious issues with their products all the way up to a complete shutdown of the website. It always seems the least likely conclusion here is "someone thought about their life and decided they wanted to do something a bit different for 40 hours a week."

It is a completely false narrative that these multi-billion dollar companies need microtransaction to fund small updates. Their games sometimes make close to a billion dollars just from initial sales. The one and only reason microtransactions exist is to make more money for the shareholders - who are, generally speaking, already rich and clueless about games.

@Enigk "Playing indefinitely until I lose the will to live"

Exactly! Think about how much time and effort goes into crafting a story for a movie or a game. A good ending can have many features, but essentially they bring everything together in a way that is satisfying. Then it ends, and you are left with the whole story.

The experience of leaving a live service game is that you're exhausted by it, sick of it, or even hate it - not a great way to leave something. Certainly not how an artist would want someone to leave their work. This thread has several people saying things like "I stopped and it's the best decision I ever made."

For those of you who jump between games all the time - do you finish any? I only have one friend who plays several games at once, and he almost never finishes anything. My play style is I start a game, finish it, never play it again, and move on to the next one.

@Rob_230
If you lock on (R3) and hold up your shield, they can't get you. Just take your time and notice their attack pattern, and then swing when there is an opening.

The game is all about stamina management - you need stamina to deal damage, but also to avoid damage. When you attack, make sure you have enough stamina left over to avoid whatever damage will come at you right after your attack.

If you make it to the top of the tower, there is a shortcut you open so you don't have to do the tower again. You also get a ring that gives you 75% health instead of 50%.

I think it's actually better than Astro's Playroom, by quite a margin. Astro's Playroom is heavy on nostalgia, but Rescue Mission is all about the gameplay. I think saying it's as big a revolution as Mario 64 is not hyperbole - in my opinion Mario 64 was a big deal, and VR is the only thing that has wow-ed me to the same degree. Astro Bot is the full realization of VR platforming.

And the music is better, too!

???
They didn't really make Bloodborne and Demon's Souls - they offered support to those studios. They actually made Knack and Knack 2!

I imagine the devs are having a rough time, but the silver lining for them is that they are one of the rare studios where each developer gets a share of the profits. So those 13 million sales are probably keeping them warm at night. If they're allowed to sleep.

How are they going to make a TV series out of Vibribbon?!

@ShogunRok
Is there a reason why reviews such as this only use developer-supplied screenshots? You mention a lot of issues with the game but the only photos we see are immaculate. Are you not allowed to use your own screenshots or something?

Liam, I think it's great that you highlight these videos. Housemarque make great games but have poor visibility, so stuff like this really helps!

I almost never buy games on release and this was no exception. Because the game has so many problems I've thought "Bummer. I guess it will take longer for it to be ready for me." And that's pretty much it. I am confident that when I eventually play it I will love it and consider it a special game. Until then, the internet will have it's fit until the next big news story rolls around.

But it starred a lesbian and a muscly woman?! How could it be good?!

I thought it was a really amazing game that pushed the video game medium forward. It's not the only one that did that, but it's well deserving of it's praise.

@Hopewell
I think different people have different opinions of what grinding is. I don't mind grinding in, say, Dragon's Dogma because I like the gameplay that is considered "grind." I like the gameplay in FF15 that's considered grind, ergo I don't mind it or consider it grinding.

I think, at the end of the day, if the moment-to-moment gameplay is fun then people won't consider it grinding and there would be no need or desire to skip portions of the game. This is true of long or short games - I've played 2 hour games that seemed tedious because the gameplay was bland. I've also played 100 hour games where I enjoyed almost every minute.

The games are released before they are finished because, ultimately, they need to meet a deadline that has been publicly announced. You can only delay so many times before the public is cautious. The solution is to not announce the games so early. Don't announce them at all until it is fully working and will be released in less than a year, and there is almost no predictable chance of a delay.

With Cyberpunk, I can only assume various employees in various positions all knew the game wouldn't be released on time. Some developers and publishers might struggle with this financially, but almost all of the examples mentioned in the article have sufficient funding and could have had more time.

On this very article I am still getting ads for Cyberpunk 2077. Will PushSquare join Sony on the moral high ground?

Unprecedented for a game of this size. Life of Black Tiger is still on there, for heaven's sake!