Game News 2.0

EoinMcLovin

https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/1430893176953327619?s=19

https://youtu.be/X4vPPizyXjc

Just saw this pop up on my Twitter feed

ahnowbrowncow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117809771#Comment_117809771

I haven't seen too many claiming Skyrim to be the one of the greatest games of all time so there's no pretending needed for me. I'm not naive enough to think popularity is an indicator of quality.

I even remember being somewhat disappointed when playing it on release 10 years ago, mainly because expectations were so high.

The combat wasn't great, even for back then. Dark Souls had released 2 months earlier and put it to shame.

The story and characters were a bit meh with very few memorable world locations. The guild quests weren't anywhere near as interesting as in Oblivion or Morrowind and many felt like padding.

It's a good game but lacking in certain areas when compared to it's two predecessors and many other RPGs.

pixelburp

Whatever about comparing Skyrim to something genetically related like BotW, I don't see how it's fair to put one genre against another? No, Skyrim doesn't play like Dark Souls ... cos why would it? Dark Souls is built from its foundation upon very precise combat mechanics; Skyrim isn't (and yeah, the combat was janky but as someone who consistently plays stealth and archery characters wasn't ever a problem for me)

The Raging Bile Duct

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117809949#Comment_117809949

Who thought that was a good idea? It's horrendously crass.

Retr0gamer

Well I never said Skyrim was bad. It's grand but I felt it could have been and should have been way better. The reduction of depth in the game's systems meant it got dull mechanically very fast.

As for Skyrim being one of the best games ever made, not for me, not even close.

Then the BotW comparisons, I think it's a fair comparison for any open world game. Skyrim is one of those games where the open world just seems to exist to have content dotted across it. BotW on the other hand makes great use of its open world where the fun is in exploring and discovering the open world. Now imagine a Bethesda open world game with the same joy of exploration of BotW. Now that would be something to get excited about.

I feel the Bethesda approach to game design has gotten very dull. They used to be able to lean on good quest design and writing but most of the staff that contributed to that have left and you are left with very pedestrian quests of Skyrim and even more so the boring as all hell Fallout 4. New Vegas shows that good writing and quest design can go a long way for Bethesda's bread and butter but I feel it's an area that Bethesda have worse in. Maybe, hopefully, they got a much needed injection of fresh talent.

Retr0gamer

It's not revisionist history. You can see time and time again critics in videogames getting caught up in the hype and then re-evaluting later their thoughts. Happens as well in other media like literature, music and film. I find it's very healthy and makes things a lot more interesting. In games I can think of stuff like Aladdin (Megadrive), Red Dead 2, Bioshock Infinite just off the top of my head that had this initial flurry of excitement leading to crazy reviews until that died down and a more measured response and discussion can occur. Feck sake, even IGN gave Sonic Adventure 2 a crazy score on release.

And again Skyrim is far from bad. It's more disappointing. When you measure it up to something like New Vegas it's severely lacking. I'm not saying you can't love and enjoy the game either. It's just objectively speaking when taking into account the games peers and competitors in the genre, it's kind of lacking in a lot of areas.

johnny_ultimate

I lost interest in both Skyrim and Fallout 4 after 10 or so hours in each (more in Skyrim IIRC), despite having played and enjoyed both their predecessors. Skyrim felt like 'Oblivion but more and bigger', which is absolutely fine but I had plenty of Oblivion. I can see why Skyrim appealed to so many people at least, but to me it was more akin to a really massive expansion pack than anything. Fallout 4 was much worse - a studio completely out of ideas on how to make an open world more interesting. The ideas they did have (base building etc) were of no interest to me. To make things worse, there has never been a studio so utterly bogged down by their own technology as Bethesda and their janky-as-hell engine.

So yeah, my lingering view of Bethesda over the past decade is of a studio that had little idea of how to build on their past successes and move the open-world genre they helped revolutionise on. Meanwhile, games like Breath of the Wild or Outer Wilds thrillingly shifted my expectations about the gameplay possibilities of a wide-open world. I find it very easy to get excited about BotW2, but hard to get excited about Starfield based on that. But who knows: it has been a long time since Fallout 4, and Psychonauts 2 just this week shows how some studios have actually blossomed under Microsoft ownership rather than just crapping out half-baked games for GamePass.

The Raging Bile Duct

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117810184#Comment_117810184

We're going to have to agree to disagree here and I'm not having a knee-jerk reaction to it - I've seen the implementation of it. Shoehorning a reverential figure, especially one that was assassinated, like MLK into a virtual tour on a fúcking battle royale game to try and make your cash-guzzling company look a bit more right-on is completely vulgar in my opinion.

'I had a dream that people of all colours and creeds would avail of our new Fortnite Club subscription offer!'

pixelburp

Kickstarter success story Blasphemous is getting a sequel; due in 2023 mind you, was announced in parallel to more DLC for the game.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117811321#Comment_117811321

Must get back to that. Loved it but was burned out on Metroidvanias and Souls-likes.

johnny_ultimate

I always wonder about sequels to indie hits. It feels like it’s often diminishing returns regardless of the quality of the game. Lots of sequels to popular hits - Hotline Miami, Guacamelee, Spelunky, even Super Meat Boy, Rogue Legacy and Axiom Verge more recently - never seem to get the same level of momentum behind them, even the really bloody good ones. I’m sure most or at least some of those games were financially successful, but it just seems in the indie space it’s really, really hard to reignite the spark a second time around. While something like Super Meat Boy Forever seems doomed to be a stinker for quality reasons, some of those other games I’ve mentioned are actually pretty damn good follow ups by all accounts.

There are surely exceptions to the rule - and I reckon given the hype levels Hollow Knight Silksong will be one of them. Equally, ‘difficult second album’ seems a wider problem in the indie space - even for those studios that do something a bit more original and ambitious for the follow up to their initial hit.

Dr. Bre

Skygrim

The Raging Bile Duct

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117811609#Comment_117811609

Wait a minute, do you think I'm annoyed about this because MLK is black? Jesus, it couldn't be further from the truth. I find the crass commercialisation of a figurehead of the civil-rights leader and one of the most positive forces of the last hundred years as a PR exercise for a corporation like Epic distasteful in the extreme. The man and his image deserve to be treated with a lot more reverence than that.

Zero-Cool

Golf Club: Wasteland looks kind of incredible. Out this Friday. It's 10 dollars on the switch so should be 10 euro over here, we will be on PS, Xbox and PC also.

https://youtu.be/j5VGnxpL1iE

https://youtu.be/adBjAmojmyk

marcbrophy

Looks like something fun!

I'll have to give it a blast 🙂

ERG89

https://twitter.com/6d6f636869/status/1432215828112437249?s=19

Probably one of the bigger news stories this year if this happens.

Zero-Cool

Shawn Mendez is executive producer on the Life is Strange TV show in the works. He will be in charge of deciding the music used. I still listen to the soundtrack from the first game, will be weird to hear different music to go along with it but then apparently the show has been in development hell fire 5 years so probably best to keep expectations very low anyway.

Mr Crispy

I see Brendan PlayerUnknown Greene has started a new independent studio following his departure from PUBG owner Krafton. Based in Amsterdam, the new studio will be called..... PlayerUnknown Productions. Hopefully that's only a taste of the imaginative ideas to come.

Mr Crispy

From GamesRadar - Uncharted Collection PC leaks and includes all five games

Grain of salt and all that.

Retr0gamer

Could be true. Rumours of an uncharted 4 port. At least in a collection of 5 games you get 4 good ones instead of a shite one.

Zero-Cool

Beyond a Steel Sky releasing on all platforms on 20th November. People on boards use to rave about Beneath a Steel Sky and it looks like Beyond was released last year on PC. Is this worth a look?

https://youtu.be/nUX04s1famA

Retr0gamer

The original is an absolute classic. Loved it. Not sure what the new one is like. It got praised for being very good but the release was marred by a buggy launch. Pretty sure it's all fixed now.

But if you like point and clicks the original is one of the best.

KilOit

I have fond memories of Monkey Island, Beneath a steel sky, Day of the tentacle, and Broken sword back in the day. Couldn't for the life of me play anything like that these days, think I'm broken 😪

RobertFoster

I stopped playing after 6 hours to play something else. Meant to go back to it but never did...