Gaming thoughts, bite-size chewables - new orange flavor!
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Putting in my strong recommendation for Into The Breach.
A little Xcom, Advance Wars, and Panzer General mixed together then distilled down into their essence. With a sprinkle of Kaiju on top.
Plays tight and quick with very little RNG effect. Right now it feels like there always a solution. Which is really impressive gives the random maps and enemies. They've got some magic going to make the AI fiendishly clever, leaving you a Gordian knot of interlocking problems... And yet there always seems to be a loose string to pull. I just often see it *after* I've hit the commit button. Though after you've made a mistake or two... It snow balls very quickly. The AI will punish your mistakes.
I've got a feeling I'm going to be buying this again soon for my iPad too. This is the kind of flavourful tactics game I've been looking for on a mobile device for some time.
A little Xcom, Advance Wars, and Panzer General mixed together then distilled down into their essence. With a sprinkle of Kaiju on top.
Plays tight and quick with very little RNG effect. Right now it feels like there always a solution. Which is really impressive gives the random maps and enemies. They've got some magic going to make the AI fiendishly clever, leaving you a Gordian knot of interlocking problems... And yet there always seems to be a loose string to pull. I just often see it *after* I've hit the commit button. Though after you've made a mistake or two... It snow balls very quickly. The AI will punish your mistakes.
I've got a feeling I'm going to be buying this again soon for my iPad too. This is the kind of flavourful tactics game I've been looking for on a mobile device for some time.
Looks like Sea of Thieves is having an open playtest from March 2nd through 4th on XBox and PC.
https://www.seaofthieves.com/news/scale-test
https://www.seaofthieves.com/news/scale-test
Open-ish. Xbox Insiders and previous testers are in. No one else is. Though, I seem to recall that they made it easier to become an Insider in recent months.
About a week ago I managed to get the old 40K game Chaos Gate running*, and I'm loving it (about fourteen missions in so far, but that includes all the side missions). It's often compared to X-Com (what TBT game from that era wasn't?) since the combat layer is similar, but I think that does it a dis-service, since the balancing and interaction with the campaign layer is quite different.
Couple random thoughts:
- I love the laspistol sound. It's this odd mix of a blaster and a Hollywood-silencer thwip, and is totally unlike any other interpretation of a laser gun that I've heard. I wish it were a little higher resolution so I could grab it for use elsewhere
.
- I like the idea that there are limited resources that gradually drain over time, but it really hasn't been an issue, since the starting bolters and krak grenades are effective enough and are functionally unlimited (close to a thousand in stores at the beginning of the game, and I don't use more than a handful per mission). The heavy bolter and missile launcher have much more limited ammo supplies, but the magazine sizes are large enough that I don't go through more than one per mission, and the in-mission supply crates have more than made up for what I use. I suppose the marines also count as a limited resource, but I'm a dirty save-scummer.
- The combat mechanics are a bit opaque. It's based off a d100-ish implementation of the traditional Warhammer statline, but I don't really understand how the damage/AP numbers interact with toughness, armor points and HP. There wasn't a large enough community for folks to really dig into the datafiles and figure it out, unlike X-Com. That being said, the end result of the interactions reasonably simulates the to-hit, to-wound, to-save roll system of TT 40K without actually aping it, which I like.
- The Thunderhawk has sponsons on its wingtips, with visible gunners. Apparently that was part of the original design
It's too bad there weren't any sequels or follow-ups, since the modder part of me immediately started statting out other 40K units/weapons in my head (at least the .dat files aren't obscured and are easy to parse). It appears that there were a number of fan campaigns, but the community mostly had Geocities sites and the campaign files weren't backed up on OOCities, so I'll have to dig around archive.org to see if anything was scraped there.
*Windows 7, 64-bit. Installed just fine, ran in XP compatibility mode without issues (no display tweaks or the like necessary). I didn't have the laspistol sound crash issue that many other folks have, since my WeapDat.dat didn't have the incorrect filename (I checked), but about six missions in those crash issues suddenly manifested (and the incorrect filename spontaneously appeared in the .dat). Odd, but an easy fix.
Couple random thoughts:
- I love the laspistol sound. It's this odd mix of a blaster and a Hollywood-silencer thwip, and is totally unlike any other interpretation of a laser gun that I've heard. I wish it were a little higher resolution so I could grab it for use elsewhere
. - I like the idea that there are limited resources that gradually drain over time, but it really hasn't been an issue, since the starting bolters and krak grenades are effective enough and are functionally unlimited (close to a thousand in stores at the beginning of the game, and I don't use more than a handful per mission). The heavy bolter and missile launcher have much more limited ammo supplies, but the magazine sizes are large enough that I don't go through more than one per mission, and the in-mission supply crates have more than made up for what I use. I suppose the marines also count as a limited resource, but I'm a dirty save-scummer
. - The combat mechanics are a bit opaque. It's based off a d100-ish implementation of the traditional Warhammer statline, but I don't really understand how the damage/AP numbers interact with toughness, armor points and HP. There wasn't a large enough community for folks to really dig into the datafiles and figure it out, unlike X-Com. That being said, the end result of the interactions reasonably simulates the to-hit, to-wound, to-save roll system of TT 40K without actually aping it, which I like.
- The Thunderhawk has sponsons on its wingtips, with visible gunners. Apparently that was part of the original design
It's too bad there weren't any sequels or follow-ups, since the modder part of me immediately started statting out other 40K units/weapons in my head (at least the .dat files aren't obscured and are easy to parse). It appears that there were a number of fan campaigns, but the community mostly had Geocities sites and the campaign files weren't backed up on OOCities, so I'll have to dig around archive.org to see if anything was scraped there.
*Windows 7, 64-bit. Installed just fine, ran in XP compatibility mode without issues (no display tweaks or the like necessary). I didn't have the laspistol sound crash issue that many other folks have, since my WeapDat.dat didn't have the incorrect filename (I checked), but about six missions in those crash issues suddenly manifested (and the incorrect filename spontaneously appeared in the .dat). Odd, but an easy fix.
Square Enix Publisher weekend sale happening on steam right now. Deus Ex Mankind Divided at $6. Cheapest I've seen.
Deus Ex is 97 cents only Please play it if you havent.
Deus Ex is 97 cents only
Please play it if you havent.
Square Enix Publisher weekend sale happening on steam right now. Deus Ex Mankind Divided at $6. Cheapest I've seen.
Deus Ex is 97 cents only
Sheesh, six lousy bucks for Deus Ex MD (his mom just can't shut up about how he's a doctor!
)? Is the DLC on sale too (I gather "A Criminal Past" is supposed to be good)?Is it just me or is it crazy how fast Deus Ex: MD got cheap? Feels like it just came out and it's already in the bargain bin.
I too have been surprised. Maybe it's because a bazillion other games came out around the time it did, or soon after, combined with the fact that it wasn't as well-received as Human Revolution (which got cheap fairly quickly as well, if I recall--fairly certain I grabbed a Steam key from Amazon for 12 bucks during an end-of-year sale a few months after it came out)?
Frosty Grin
Ars Legatus Legionis
Frosty Grin
Ars Legatus Legionis
Actually, it's not as bizarre as might seem. There are so many games now that playing hard to get only works so far. I too haven't played the Mankind Divided DLC even as I intend to and it already costs very little - but it's on the backburner right now. Just played a Hitman Elusive Target - a time-limited event. Multiplayer games have community-driven urgency. Plus I have an almost 200-item Steam wishlist and a few games, mostly freebies, already on accounts. What got Mankind Divided in front of the line for me was the (time-limited) free weekend - and that it turned out much better than I expected. And now they're turning to the last remaining tool - low prices.
And to think, every "AAA" publisher seems to think the future is in "Live Services" that hook you into playing over, and over and over and over again keeping you paying little bits of money over time. It's like they forgot the MMORPGocalypse.
I've noticed that Ubisoft and Nintendo seem to be the only companies now that don't heavily discount games and because of that even 50% off deals for old games sound really good. Not so bad because it does keep the value up and at least Ubisoft does tend to lower the prices. There are certain indie titles as well that never discount more than a certain amount and it does raise the perceived value.
EA seems to be going the root of making the main games free or almost free and then charging more for the DLC. Ubisoft does a little of that as well.
My feelings are mixed. I love to get super cheap AAA titles, but I also want to see more and if the value goes down too quickly, great single player non-loot box experiences are going to come to an end.
EA seems to be going the root of making the main games free or almost free and then charging more for the DLC. Ubisoft does a little of that as well.
My feelings are mixed. I love to get super cheap AAA titles, but I also want to see more and if the value goes down too quickly, great single player non-loot box experiences are going to come to an end.
I was admonished in the Switch thread for saying that I thought Bayonetta 2 being $60 was outrageous, and that game is over 2 years old. I wasn't even looking for a price point like DE, just like $30. Obvious differences, but age of game doesn't mean anything anymore. Call of Duty World at War is still going for $20 and that game is 10 years old. Dying Light came out in 2015 and is still $40.
DE:MD got cheap, quick. I'm guessing since it's Singleplayer it doesn't have the legs that other games do.
Frosty Grin
Ars Legatus Legionis
It's not like they forgot. It's more like they don't have a choice. It is their future, even if a few of them seize to exist eventually. There are other models, of course, e.g. Kingdom Come: Deliverance, but it isn't AAA, and probably won't be. The Witcher 3's developer eventually got to the AAA level, but that's largely due to Eastern European wages combined with the Western market. The rest of the developers/publishers need other ways to make it work financially.
Ubisoft recently gave away Assassin's Creed: Black Flag and Watch Dogs though. I guess they think they need to keep franchises going.
The thing is, there are multiplayer games that also work as single-player games. Dark Souls is a great example. And then there are emerging subscriptions - from Origin Access to Humble Monthly to the upcoming Xbox/PC subscription (and Microsoft even intends to include new first-party games right at launch). $15/month may be easier to swallow than $60 at launch, especially in comparison to "live services". Unfortunately, people seem to dislike episodic gaming (like in the initial launch of Hitman), even when the game is a good fit for this model.
Edit: But ultimately there's no point in sustaining the "value" artificially.
I love the idea of the Microsoft/EA subscriptions and the Microsoft program is an exceptionally good value. Really hoping they bring it to PC or if Steam could somehow develop a subscription model maybe for certain publishers. Origin Access is not a bad deal, but many of the games lack their DLC.
2017 was full of spectacular single player experiences, but I'm not sure if they bring enough profits in compared to the MP/loot box titles. Nintendo being the exception of course.
2017 was full of spectacular single player experiences, but I'm not sure if they bring enough profits in compared to the MP/loot box titles. Nintendo being the exception of course.
Activision's price floor is $20. This is a fixed thing. Everything in Activision's stable is $20 base price when they stop dropping. That way they can give a 50% reduction to $10 or a 75% reduction and still get $5 for their games.
Dying Light is a little bit of an oddity because it received an expansion in 2016 that was rolled into the game and sold together. I definitely agree that age isn't as strong an indicator of expected price (see: Bethesda, after a couple of years post Skyrim where they'd drop the price 10-15% during the first big post-release sale, they've taken to 30-40% drops during the first big sale, often only weeks after release) but it's still a pretty decent indicator for most of the industry. A game that's been out for 18 months has received most of the sales that it will ever get at any price over the bargain bin. Might as well drop to $5 during every sale and see what they can drag up from the bottom of the price barrel.
Sometimes low prices can end up hurting you more than helping. When I worked at a supermarket many years ago there was a huge focus on fresh fish (to be honest there still is). Like all perishables the quicker it spoils the better the gross margin. I'm sure you're aware fish spoils very quickly. Well, towards the end of day they would mark down the stuff they'd have to throw out. Better to make 50% than nothing at all, right? Well in this case they had trained the customers to wait until later in the day to buy it cheaply and unwittingly cannibalized the full margin sales. Once they caught on they moved to discourage the profit takers. While the units sold decreased the total sales *and* total profit increased despite the higher spoils.
The same holds true for games (they don't spoil though, and the cost of goods is a different structure). If you discount too soon/deep/frequently (this includes the GOTY editions) you may drive some of your full/guaranteed margin sales towards less desirable rates and discourage presales. Worst of all you may lose sales entirely as interest drops off. Training your customers to accept cheaper is easy. Trying to reverse that is painful.
Everyone's favorite whipping boy EA is an example of training its customers not to expect steep discounts on DLC. They'll tease and hook you with the base game later on after release but pretty much removed the "I'll wait for the GOTY edition" angle. Young or old when you want the DLC you buy the DLC. No waiting for a sale. That's their thing. Bethesda has a completely different model. They discount right out of the gate with DLC season passes and a few months after the final DLC release a GOTY. The difference is EA games don't have the legs Bethesda's do. For EA most of the games are discarded when the next version comes out like clockwork and the mod community is pretty nonexistent. Bethesda on the other hand releases games very slowly but stays relevant due to among many other reasons mod support and discounts.
Seeing how sales marketing works up close, particularly with price and promotion points, has been fascinating and makes a lot of the WTF stuff you see out there make sense. Sorry if too boardroomy.
Giveaways are usually a lead-in for DLC purchases, a platform-building exercise (hey, remember that Origin and UPlay exist) or a brand-building one (while you're at it, look at the new game we're about to release). Nothing wrong with this, but unless it's an indie releasing something to the public domain, it's usually pretty easy to discern the business motive.
I'm starting to look at game buying as more of a form of patronage/speech than a direct entertainment equation. I have gobs of games that I'll never play. I try not to waste money, but it happens. But a lot of times I feel like it's saying "I support" the developer or game style or model in which case I care less about the value proposition of the specific game and more about the lasting ecosystem that produces things like it. Having a long tail of free or subscribed games doesn't remove the hype/word-of-mouth/cool-new-thing motivations from the front end, but it will be interesting to see whether games can continue to survive mainly on direct sales. I'd rather not see products perverted into platforms to capture an ongoing revenue stream, but it's easy to see why publishers like the idea. I'm a Fig investor on a couple of projects, but I still see that as a pretty big gamble where the main draw is just seeing the game get made in the first place.
Apropos of nothing, I saw this on the front page of isthereanydeal and I'm simultaneously surprised and not surprised that it exists. The solution for gamers being shut out by the mining boom is to find a way to turn Steam achievements and trading cards into a cryptocurrency.
I'm starting to look at game buying as more of a form of patronage/speech than a direct entertainment equation. I have gobs of games that I'll never play. I try not to waste money, but it happens. But a lot of times I feel like it's saying "I support" the developer or game style or model in which case I care less about the value proposition of the specific game and more about the lasting ecosystem that produces things like it. Having a long tail of free or subscribed games doesn't remove the hype/word-of-mouth/cool-new-thing motivations from the front end, but it will be interesting to see whether games can continue to survive mainly on direct sales. I'd rather not see products perverted into platforms to capture an ongoing revenue stream, but it's easy to see why publishers like the idea. I'm a Fig investor on a couple of projects, but I still see that as a pretty big gamble where the main draw is just seeing the game get made in the first place.
Apropos of nothing, I saw this on the front page of isthereanydeal and I'm simultaneously surprised and not surprised that it exists. The solution for gamers being shut out by the mining boom is to find a way to turn Steam achievements and trading cards into a cryptocurrency.
Frosty Grin
Ars Legatus Legionis
Ha! A local bakery was doing the same thing - with the same results. Now they have a 20% discount in the evening and a 50% discount the next morning.
Sure, but my point is more that with games it's more of a natural state of affairs, not training. There are so many games that a year or even two won't make a difference to me - unless you're arguing that they should never get very cheap. It's often not even a matter of price. Life is Strange: Before the Storm is already cheaper than I'd pay for it, but I don't have the time for it right now. Even as Life Is Strange proper was among my favorites. On the other hand, the longer I wait to play it, the longer I'll wait to play Life Is Strange 2, as I wouldn't want to play them one after another. So it's in a publisher's interest to push the games through rather quickly, using low prices if necessary.
EA with Battlefield:
$60 game
$80 Deluxe. Cosmetic stuff.
$50 Premium Pass - 4 DLC drops. Maps, Modes, classes, weapons, skins, dog tags.
8-10 months later release a Complete Edition for $60 (Deluxe + premium pass) before the 3rd DLC drop. 12+ months you can find it on sale starting with the holidays for $30.
Dragon Age got full DLC Complete Editions. EA just never updated Mass Effect Trilogy to include it all.
A big part nowadays for many to buy a game at release is to either be playing with friends or be a part of the height of its popularity (streaming, discussion, social media).
Most AAA games start to get their first sales as soon as 30-60 days after release. Heavy and more frequent if unit sales start to falter.
You can look to SteamSpy to see Playtime (median) and Players vs. Owners is. Quick glance most games its 75-85% Players only and low median playtime.
$60 game
$80 Deluxe. Cosmetic stuff.
$50 Premium Pass - 4 DLC drops. Maps, Modes, classes, weapons, skins, dog tags.
8-10 months later release a Complete Edition for $60 (Deluxe + premium pass) before the 3rd DLC drop. 12+ months you can find it on sale starting with the holidays for $30.
Dragon Age got full DLC Complete Editions. EA just never updated Mass Effect Trilogy to include it all.
A big part nowadays for many to buy a game at release is to either be playing with friends or be a part of the height of its popularity (streaming, discussion, social media).
Most AAA games start to get their first sales as soon as 30-60 days after release. Heavy and more frequent if unit sales start to falter.
You can look to SteamSpy to see Playtime (median) and Players vs. Owners is. Quick glance most games its 75-85% Players only and low median playtime.
Tried this as I really want to try the game out but MS store is telling me I'm offline. MSRefresh.exe command doesn't seem to be fixing it :/
edit: Windows reinstall seems to have fixed it. Had some other issues that were bothering me too so figured I might as well. Got it downloading now
Quadrilateral Cowboy a hacking heist game and it's true to the concept. The game starts out teaching you the basics in a series of 5 3 part heists. Drop your deck (an old school computer) and enter door_a.open(x) (where _a is the number of the door shown in game and x is a time in seconds) to open the door. Connect to a weevil (a robot thing that can move around and interact with datajacks to perform actions in the world) to get past problems that you can't get to. Write an action script tied to a number of times you blink to trigger actions remotely and set up some really cool sequences (mostly used for escapes from later missions). It's basically Ocean's Neuromancer.
There are 21 total missions (I think, didn't exactly count) arranged through 10 locations with little narrative interludes between where you interact a little with your co-heisters and pick up upgrades from the black market. The game lasts exactly as long as it needs to (took me about 4 hours to complete each mission once) and not a moment longer. There are also a handful of user missions available in the Workshop but I haven't tried any of them. Replay value is in optimizing your runs (and there's definitely room to optimize all of my runs) but I didn't see a level select option.
I'd say it's well worth $20 but I think I paid $12.50 for it on sale. Might have been $10. Definitely worth $10 if it gets that low on sale.
There are 21 total missions (I think, didn't exactly count) arranged through 10 locations with little narrative interludes between where you interact a little with your co-heisters and pick up upgrades from the black market. The game lasts exactly as long as it needs to (took me about 4 hours to complete each mission once) and not a moment longer. There are also a handful of user missions available in the Workshop but I haven't tried any of them. Replay value is in optimizing your runs (and there's definitely room to optimize all of my runs) but I didn't see a level select option.
I'd say it's well worth $20 but I think I paid $12.50 for it on sale. Might have been $10. Definitely worth $10 if it gets that low on sale.
I just finished Torment: Tides of Numenera. It was decent, but unexceptional; trying desperately to be Planescape: Torment 2 was to its detriment. Minor spoilers:
The core gameplay systems are quite innovative, but unfortunately the balance is so out of whack that after a few levels pretty much every challenge in the game is trivial. You spend a limited pool of Effort to make tasks easier; but the game throws so much free Effort at you that you never really have to think about where you're spending it. Cutting back on this would go a long way to making conversations feel more dynamic than, "Ask all questions, then pass a skill check to resolve the quest". When you pass every test with flying colours, it's not really a test at all.
The Crisis system (the turn-based combat engine) has a lot of potential. General combat, eh, it's okay... but where it really shines is that Crises can also be resolved through non-combat actions. In most cases it's fairly simple ("Kill the thugs, or hack / power the turret and it'll shoot them for you") but there are a handful of neat Crises that really show off the flexibility. The best is a heist where your party infiltrates a spaceship, with one party member breaking through doors and hacking computers, while another distracts the guard; and another has a guided tour of the ship, taking every opportunity to slow the tour guide to buy more time. Very clever.
Strangely, I think the weakest aspect might be the story and characters. It's not bad by any means, but it feels like more effort went into mimicking PST than crafting a unique story. Of course you have the hero who dies-and-is-reborn across countless lives. Of course you have the faceless horror chasing him through reality. Of course you have the outwardly-happy-but-tortured-inside companions. Of course you have the philosophical question which (allegedly) ties it all together. But all these elements are only there because PST did it first, not because they build a memorable story in Torment: Tides of Numenera.
When you explicitly parallel the best video-game story of all time, decent isn't good enough.
The core gameplay systems are quite innovative, but unfortunately the balance is so out of whack that after a few levels pretty much every challenge in the game is trivial. You spend a limited pool of Effort to make tasks easier; but the game throws so much free Effort at you that you never really have to think about where you're spending it. Cutting back on this would go a long way to making conversations feel more dynamic than, "Ask all questions, then pass a skill check to resolve the quest". When you pass every test with flying colours, it's not really a test at all.
The Crisis system (the turn-based combat engine) has a lot of potential. General combat, eh, it's okay... but where it really shines is that Crises can also be resolved through non-combat actions. In most cases it's fairly simple ("Kill the thugs, or hack / power the turret and it'll shoot them for you") but there are a handful of neat Crises that really show off the flexibility. The best is a heist where your party infiltrates a spaceship, with one party member breaking through doors and hacking computers, while another distracts the guard; and another has a guided tour of the ship, taking every opportunity to slow the tour guide to buy more time. Very clever.
Strangely, I think the weakest aspect might be the story and characters. It's not bad by any means, but it feels like more effort went into mimicking PST than crafting a unique story. Of course you have the hero who dies-and-is-reborn across countless lives. Of course you have the faceless horror chasing him through reality. Of course you have the outwardly-happy-but-tortured-inside companions. Of course you have the philosophical question which (allegedly) ties it all together. But all these elements are only there because PST did it first, not because they build a memorable story in Torment: Tides of Numenera.
When you explicitly parallel the best video-game story of all time, decent isn't good enough.
I've been getting facebook ads for iphone games where you design a craft and have it go up against other players in arena battles. Ones that you don't actually control.
One is C.A.T.S. and the other is SpaceArena.
And I've also been playing the dumbest RPG accumulation game: Cat Condo.
These games distill the essence of what makes games addictive. Cat Condo especially is great mimic of the World of Warcraft addiction mechanic.
One is C.A.T.S. and the other is SpaceArena.
And I've also been playing the dumbest RPG accumulation game: Cat Condo.
These games distill the essence of what makes games addictive. Cat Condo especially is great mimic of the World of Warcraft addiction mechanic.
Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice is a fantastic game. It's an exploration, puzzle solving and combat adventure seen through the eyes of a psychotic Celtic woman whose psychoses influence, and assist at times, her perception and ability to progress through the world. While the slow and brutal combat might seem very Dark Souls like, it's not really a Souls like game. Combat is far and away the least used component of the game. In fact, there's a stretch (around a third of the game long) where there's zero combat. Instead, the combat is more of a punctuation between periods of exploring and puzzle solving.
The gameplay itself is so linked to Senua's psychoses that the game would be very different without that aspect of her character. In talking with experts, and people who experience various psychoses, the developers came upon concepts that could present psychotic elements in a way that only video games can. One thing that some individuals experience are, for lack of a better term, connections (or maybe patterns) in the world that feel almost like puzzle pieces to them. That is where the environmental rune matching door locks came from. Similarly, the fluidity of her perception of the world fed into the puzzles that involve looking through something to make a change in the world itself. Look through a "portal" and a bridge might be repaired but another path might be blocked off. Learning to work through the multiple perceptions in the puzzle arenas is a critical aspect of the navigational puzzles.
The sound design is the highlight here. I'm not just referring to the use of binaural recording to present her "Furies" (the presentation of voice-hearing that many psychotic people experience) that challenge, and threaten and beg and warn Senua of danger but that's the most noticeable. In fact, the rest of the sound design is equally fantastic. The music is understated but quite excellent when it becomes pointed. The environmental sounds are all minimal but when there's something in the environment that should be making a loud noise it can cut through the din in a powerful way. The only disappointment that I have is they could have used that to great effect in the navigation and puzzles but they really didn't.
Much has been made of how this was a small (in game development terms) team on a very small budget that managed to make a 7 or so hour game that looks every bit the part of a "AAA" game. As I was playing I began marveling at how they could make several large and varied areas within the cost restrictions that they had, so I began looking. When I really looked the signs of reuse are all over the place. Have several houses in an area? They're all the same model but with different orientations, different pieces missing, big differences in terms of the static items placed on and around them as well as differences in terms on pieces that might be missing (simple removal of boards and that are fairly easy to do) rather than building multiple models as one-offs. Have a row of spikes? They might all be only 2 or 3 individual models but their orientation, scaling and rotation are all different so it doesn't look (until you look closely enough) like they're all the same. Clever design (assisted by the decision to make a linear adventure) allowed them to make the absolute most of their limited resources and craft a game that looked the part of a big-budget game on a shoestring of a budget. Any big publisher that doesn't look at Hellblade and ask themselves why they always seem to need thousand person teams and hundreds of millions of dollars in the budget to make their games is just pissing away money because they can. It would be fantastic to see what other, already highly clever, development teams could do with the budgetary limitations that Ninja Theory had.
Hellblade isn't a perfect game. It does almost nothing to communicate the combat mechanics. I didn't realize that I had a block button until I looked at the controls but by that time I had already figured out a groove to combat that didn't need it so I kept forgetting it was an option. There are also enemies that begin as smoke clouds that you have to use your Focus (a time-slowing mechanic that gives Senua an edge that fills as she hits enemies) to reveal that can also be revealed by doing a perfect parry (something else I didn't realize was in the game) that I didn't realize was possible. Still, where it succeeds, it does so handily. The sound design is spectacular and the interleaving of narrative, character and gameplay is top-notch. Despite its stumbles Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice is an easy game to recommend.
The gameplay itself is so linked to Senua's psychoses that the game would be very different without that aspect of her character. In talking with experts, and people who experience various psychoses, the developers came upon concepts that could present psychotic elements in a way that only video games can. One thing that some individuals experience are, for lack of a better term, connections (or maybe patterns) in the world that feel almost like puzzle pieces to them. That is where the environmental rune matching door locks came from. Similarly, the fluidity of her perception of the world fed into the puzzles that involve looking through something to make a change in the world itself. Look through a "portal" and a bridge might be repaired but another path might be blocked off. Learning to work through the multiple perceptions in the puzzle arenas is a critical aspect of the navigational puzzles.
The sound design is the highlight here. I'm not just referring to the use of binaural recording to present her "Furies" (the presentation of voice-hearing that many psychotic people experience) that challenge, and threaten and beg and warn Senua of danger but that's the most noticeable. In fact, the rest of the sound design is equally fantastic. The music is understated but quite excellent when it becomes pointed. The environmental sounds are all minimal but when there's something in the environment that should be making a loud noise it can cut through the din in a powerful way. The only disappointment that I have is they could have used that to great effect in the navigation and puzzles but they really didn't.
Much has been made of how this was a small (in game development terms) team on a very small budget that managed to make a 7 or so hour game that looks every bit the part of a "AAA" game. As I was playing I began marveling at how they could make several large and varied areas within the cost restrictions that they had, so I began looking. When I really looked the signs of reuse are all over the place. Have several houses in an area? They're all the same model but with different orientations, different pieces missing, big differences in terms of the static items placed on and around them as well as differences in terms on pieces that might be missing (simple removal of boards and that are fairly easy to do) rather than building multiple models as one-offs. Have a row of spikes? They might all be only 2 or 3 individual models but their orientation, scaling and rotation are all different so it doesn't look (until you look closely enough) like they're all the same. Clever design (assisted by the decision to make a linear adventure) allowed them to make the absolute most of their limited resources and craft a game that looked the part of a big-budget game on a shoestring of a budget. Any big publisher that doesn't look at Hellblade and ask themselves why they always seem to need thousand person teams and hundreds of millions of dollars in the budget to make their games is just pissing away money because they can. It would be fantastic to see what other, already highly clever, development teams could do with the budgetary limitations that Ninja Theory had.
Hellblade isn't a perfect game. It does almost nothing to communicate the combat mechanics. I didn't realize that I had a block button until I looked at the controls but by that time I had already figured out a groove to combat that didn't need it so I kept forgetting it was an option. There are also enemies that begin as smoke clouds that you have to use your Focus (a time-slowing mechanic that gives Senua an edge that fills as she hits enemies) to reveal that can also be revealed by doing a perfect parry (something else I didn't realize was in the game) that I didn't realize was possible. Still, where it succeeds, it does so handily. The sound design is spectacular and the interleaving of narrative, character and gameplay is top-notch. Despite its stumbles Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice is an easy game to recommend.
I agree entirely with what you said, but I want to single out and highlight one point in particular:
The voices aren't just in Senua's head, they're in your head, too. They're instrumental in merging gameplay and narrative as well as reducing the barrier between the player and the character they're playing as.
It cannot be overstated how well this is done. The voices aren't just there to create atmosphere or help tell the story, they're also there to guide the player. Being able to consistently perfect-parry enemies that attack you from outside your field of vision with no indicator other than the voices warning you is a wonderful feat of game design.
The voices aren't just in Senua's head, they're in your head, too. They're instrumental in merging gameplay and narrative as well as reducing the barrier between the player and the character they're playing as.
Frosty Grin
Ars Legatus Legionis
Ugh. No. They'll be spending more on marketing anyway, but games that cost hundreds of millions of dollars are often 50+ hour experiences, often with multiplayer. Hellblade is a success and may be hugely profitable relative to the expenses, but I don't think absolute figures are all that impressive, compared to what AAA games make. And you can't scale it up by making 10 games like Hellblade.
"AAA" games are maybe 6 hours of actual content and 45 hours of contentless filler these days. The number of games that actually manage to fill out their 30+ hour span with actual content can be counted on one hand. Considering how much they're spending on making these games that's fucking sad.
Umm, what is the appeal of Minecraft?
I get that people like building, but canttge same thing be done with a CAD program? Having artificial timers and requirements for certain elements just gets in the way of creation.
I get that people like building, but canttge same thing be done with a CAD program? Having artificial timers and requirements for certain elements just gets in the way of creation.
Sadly, it doesn't look like it. It's the first game that they developed and published themselves so it looks like they stuck to the PS4 and Windows. It's not an impossibility (since it was self-published it's not like there's going to be any contracts holding them to PS4) but considering they haven't said anything about a port I picked it up during one of the last sales on the PC. The good news is that an RX480 holds a nearly perfect 30FPS @ 1440p with everything maxed (it drops a little below 30 during some cutscenes but never during gameplay).
To another game: Squidlit is a "Gameboy game" made in the Year of Our GabeN 2018. They went out of their way to be Gameboy accurate (and the store page includes a little blurb about what that entails) and they nailed it. I could see this running on a tank while playing. The biggest issue is that the accuracy means the framerate is 25FPS which means the quickly scrolling backgrounds can end up blurring and my eyes would just stop trying to see anything other than the enemies and the titular squidlit. It's a naturally short game (took me about a half-hour to beat it) but charming and cute throughout.
No? Minecraft is digital Legos. CAD programs are...CAD programs. Try having an 8 year old entertain themselves for hours on end with AutoCAD (or videos of YouTubers playing AutoCAD). Not gonna happen.
There's also Creative Mode which drops all of that.
I've never seen a Minecraft/CAD-program comparison before. Remarkable.
I think what made Minecraft as popular as it was is that there isn't just one simple way to play the game. For some people it's building things (both the mundane and the unusual), for others there is the technical aspect of trying to make the game do things that it should theoretically be capable of but was never intended in the design, and then for lots of others (especially the younger players) it's about the adventure of fighting and surviving in an 'endless' world. And that's just in the base game! Once you add on mods then it basically turns the dial up to 11 on all of those, as well as adding more technical challenges with the quest packs and sky island maps.
I understand what you're saying regarding the building aspect of the game being limited, but I know a few people who enjoy trying to build outlandish things in the game BECAUSE of the limitations. It puts a constraint on what shapes you can create and your materials/palette is somewhat limited, so it forces them to be more creative with perspective and scale.
Maybe Minecraft is best thought of as a CAD program with gravity and physics and which can be played with a controller. Having a little avatar you control is also a nice humanizing touch.
Having done some CAD in the past, the precision required is a little frustrating.