Withywarlock

I prefer playing during the day, but enjoy staying up just that little bit later each night to try and make some more progress in a game. With it being Summer nights and mornings are brighter, so my sleep habits go askew. In Winter I rarely stay up as late as I have to game.

You vastly underestimate Blizzard fans. During World of Warcraft's worst expansion dips and subscription hikes and schemes, not to mention the premium cash shop, Diablo 3's art style and RMAH debacle, Overwatch being announced and released, Hearthstone's announcement (and continued drubbishing, but then what card game doesn't catch flak?), Heroes of the Storm quietly vanishing into the ether, Warcraft III: Reforged, the Blitzchung Incident, and last to my knowledge sexual harrassment among other distasteful things going on there, people still play and more importantly hand over money. No doubt people will harrumph and grumble, but the core Diablo playerbase will buy 4 in a heartbeat because it looks grittier and some other excuses along the way.

Indeed. They're either seeing what reactions they get or they need to change their terms. And I appreciate them wanting independence, otherwise they're just another company that gets absorbed, forgotten and faceless like their development studios. The reality's different, however: there's other companies which are out there that are better and will surrender so much more for so much less. EA vastly overestimates their market value, especially now they've lost the FIFA license and Disney exclusivity. If anyone ever struggled with the phrase 'wanting one's cake and eating it too,' this is a prime example. Electronic Arts' CEO wants the acquisition money for changing absolutely nothing.

Frostpunk's good once you get to grips with it. It takes some practice, maintaining people's happiness with the energy required to keep the different buildings running. Like a lot of city management games it's easy to lose control; one moment you think it's safe to expand and all of a sudden it becomes difficult to provide the energy required to keep your people from migrating or dying of cold. I recommend it. It's one of the few RTS that didn't have much of a competitive scene, and its one meta (Warthog Rush) got tiring so quickly that the playerbase dropped it. As for its sequel, I couldn't speak to that but I hear it's everything the first game does but better. I didn't realise C&C was underappreciated, I've always heard it's the RTS to play. Still, you appear to be more knowledgeable about it than me. RTS isn't really my thing I'm afraid.

The games I'm most interested in are Scorn, a horror game heavily inspired by H.R Giger's art style. It's exactly the sort of game that makes me think of what they can do that films, television and books can't do. Nobody's going to make this with practical effects, and nobody's going to do it with convincing CGI... but they can make a believable world via video games. Also Stray, coming out in July. You play a stray cat in a cyberpunk setting, solving puzzles and platforming. I imagine it's more of an artwork showcase than anything else, which would be a shame because I like playing four-legged characters. Spyro the Dragon, Jake from Dog's Life... needs more cowbell sandbox. Finally, and I've not much hope for it, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. It won't come out anywhere near as healthily as I would like it to, but I'm a sucker for V:tM (no pun intended).

I should say that Heatman is correct, and I do thank him for remembering that (though do free up that brain space for something more important 😅). I was going to post but Clasher changed their nomination before I could clarify. I also didn't want to make a post here to say "don't nominate me" as I felt it was meaningless, but I say this now to ease what I perceive to be tensions brewing. But I'll say again as it has been a while: please do not waste your nominations on me. Previously this was because it would be a violation of my code of ethics to potentially receive cash prizes being offered at the time, but my reasoning now is because meaningful conversation is reward enough for being here.

The first game I felt time fly by with was Dragon Age: Origins. Seven hours had passed and it'd only felt like three, and I only knew that because my dad got home from work and I was shocked he'd got back so soon. However lately I've found a lot of management games eat up my time. Stellaris in particular is great to have on in the background while I talk to my girlfriend over Facebook, and Civilisation is notorious for its "one more turn" addictiveness. It's those games where there's always one more button to press, one more widget to spin, and one more lever to pull that make time fly. I have to agree with you about JRPGs; when I'm into them, I'm really into them - just one more story beat, just one more random encounter, just one more item... it's amazing how simple and effective their pull can be.

I'd say its sensible, but I imagine a lot of marketing teams would say sensible is exactly how not to market something. Shagger's response above is far better than what I can put out, but for my most detailed answer see my Reddit post on Cyberpunk 2077's reception. Part of the reason was the game's development was announced nine years before it saw the light of day, with much chopping and changing going on behind the scenes before even the nucleus of the idea of Keanu Reeves hitting the stage was developed. Its release date was only one of its many problems leading up to launch. I would like to think developers and publishers have learned from this. I get that you need a proof of concept to get investors on board, and I get you need something for people to talk about but this should be for expos and not conventions (as said many times on this forum, E3 struggles to be either); the former is the business side of the industry, the latter the leisure side (i.e most of us here).

I think I had either two or three Xbox 360s end up that way. I was lucky enough to escape the initial Red Ring of Death (RRoD) manufacturing faults at the time, but they caught up with my system eventually. Then again they weren't really made for moving out of one place, which I did quite frequently to visit family elsewhere in the country. Fortunately I've never lost any other system besides a PC, part of which I'd mentioned in an earlier post.

I'm of two minds on the subject. On the one hand, 'it's better with friends' is neither a valid critique nor valid praise, as most everything is better with friends. Having teeth pulled is better with friends because it's a bad activity that is dampened by the comfort of having friends nearby. Likewise, enjoyment of a good game can be amplified by having friends enjoy it because you're having fun together. And things that are so bad they're good are best (or only) enjoyed with friends because you're laughing at your friends laughing, not necessarily the bad thing. My point being that online play being good with friends or company should be expected, otherwise why is it online in the first place? I play Paladins: Champions of the Realm not to play with its abhorrent playerbase, but to play characters and modes I enjoy, the online being secondary to me. On the other hand, not every game needs to be experienced with others. I don't like taking charge in multiplayer so it gets real irritating for a friend of mine to be told 'you pick' or 'it's up to you' when they ask if we want to play another round, a different game, or so on. I tend to focus more on the other player than myself in cooperative efforts: am I going too fast, too slow, am I doing something they don't want to, and what do I do if I don't like what they're doing? Being able to enjoy my own company is fine too. What I'm absolutely against is a tacked-on middle-ground. This I cannot compromise with. Co-op in primarily single-player games where the other player is just a guest, ignored by NPCs except for combat, tagging along like an imaginary friend. Likewise, dissatisfying campaigns or multiplayer. This was particularly prevalent during the days between the genesis of online multiplayer on consoles and F2P becoming standard. Companies had to justify the $50/60 price tag but players focus groups didn't want to play a game that was just a campaign or just multiplayer, so they got both and were not satisfied by either. Fortunately developers and publishers were empowered to do one or the other afterwards outside of tech demos (tech demos practically ending with Ryse: Son of Rome and Knack). and so we can appreciate the best of both worlds these days. There's merits to both means of making a game. What matters most to me is that developers and publishers learn from the mistakes of the not-so-distant past, know one's audience, and stick to the design that works. When you try to have your cake and eat it too, one part of the game will fall behind. It appears Halo: Infinite, for instance, did not learn from Frontlines: Fuel of War or most of its seventh gen ilk. TL;DR - Either works for me, but if a game is going to be either online or single-player, it must do only one of those things and do it well.

When my PC died on me, I had to wait over 30 days for it to be repaired. I spent that time completing Spyro the Dragon on the Playstation One about 15 times: one day to get half way, one day to finish it, over and over again before and after work. I use this story as an example of how to do replay value: make a game simple, but more than that, make it worth playing for the pure heck of it. I got my PC back, and it was bittersweet returning to my restored rig when I could've played Spyro just one last time. Thankfully I don't have many hardware failures like that any more. I no longer trust the store that sold it to me, and won't be going there - or any place - that sells me tech that dies before I've had it for 12 months.

All the time, it's why I frequently critique games for being too long. Especially in today's market, too many games go for too long without helping realise the developers' artistic vision, be it publisher pressure to monetise and market it, or the lack of an editor/compromise with an editor who will make the necessary calls to trim it down to its best parts. That's usually single-player games though. Multiplayer games like World of Warcraft have me take huge breaks because I have the time to do the content, but it's 'gated', meaning the game will not let me progress even though I'm available to do it. For all this "always online" business, games sure want me to be online less and less. I wish I could tell you when gameplay took a backseat for retention, but I fear that goes back further than I'd like it to (see arcade machines).

CIV games are as complicated as you make them; military routes are the most straight forward but trying to achieve the space race, economic or religious victories are where you'll find hurdles. They are turn-based too so you get to take your time with developments, and it's not like a single turn can ruin your game. I'll think on management sims for consoles in the meantime.

There's not a whole many Real Time Strategy (RTS) games on console to begin with, but here's a quick list: Halo Wars (Xbox/PC exclusive): made with controllers in mind, Halo Wars takes place prior to the mainline games when the Spartan initiative was still around. There's more to it than its famous Warthog Rush strategy, with units that are quite customisable and have no small amount of uses in the great open maps. Starcraft II: One of the last big pushes for RTS on console, Starcraft 2 is as vanilla as they get: a story easy enough to follow, loveable characters and instantly recognisable and memorable troops and mechanics. Warhammer: Battle March: The precursor to Total War: Warhammer, a reverse-engineered 'tactical RTS' that focusses on more intimate squad play in small linear maps and progression. Keep your units and upgrade them between battles to advance through the story of the Empire, Warriors of Chaos and the Greenskins (with some Skaven and Dark Elves thrown in). I can't speak to Command & Conquer, I've never played the games myself but I've heard nothing but good things about them. And if you're playing on PS2, Goblin Commander was an alright game but I don't remember much else about it.

Diablo's no longer the market leader for ARPGs so I have to agree with others here: it's going to flop. Immortal has burned its users since its announcement, and people know what to expect from the monetisation of other, better established ARPGs like Path of Exile and Lost Ark. How much it can redeem itself depends on who's doing what. Is it going to be Blizzard with all the pressure of sexual misconduct, piss poor leadership and acquisition on the way? Is work going to be outsourced to companies like LemonSky Studios (Warcraft III: Reforged), or NetEase (Diablo: Immortal)? Or is there another wild card yet to be played from Blizzard's hand? I doubt it. No offline functionality was brought to Diablo III after the Real Money Auction House (RMAH) was taken down so I don't see there being an option here.

I want to be glad about this news because it might mean the talent behind these games gets recognised and put to good use with reasonable expectations. Square Enix had ludicrously high sales targets and was disappointed when Tomb Raider only sold 3.4million copies, for instance. That was the first sign of them not deserving Crystal Dynamics and all the rest of the companies they want to help extend their reach into the West, and it's astonishing it's taken them this long to get rid of some of their best IPs and the studios with them. $300m is not a lot for that kind of value. For context, if Tomb Raider (2013) was only getting half of its box price of £40, 3.4million copies would still have made them £68,000,000 in 2013 (£78m today). In United States Dollars (USD) that's $83,000,000 today. For one game. Out of the multiple properties that "did not meet sales expectations" such as Hitman and Sleeping Dogs. When DLC was still the additional content before the permanent residence of microtransactions, loot boxes, and battle passes. What internal haemorraging is going on at Squenix to ask for such a low price, or have they still not adjusted their sales expectations, ability to correctly read and gather data (i.e counting digital sales)? I suppose it's the kind that makes them think chasing NFTs is a good idea. At least Ubisoft has demonstrated loudly the shortcomings of the idea, and they're normally persistent about their initiatives.

It's interesting but not unsurprising Amazon and Facebook have met with them given they'll likely want the methods that work for monetisation. Electronic Arts have never been leaders in bad practices, only the ones to take what works for them and roll with it. In terms of game companies, I see the following as likely: Microsoft. I've said previously that Sony wants talent and Microsoft wants intellectual properties. EA has intellectual properties, and I doubt the talent will stay come the merger (see Bungie breaking out of Microsoft to make their own projects with Activision, and then being bought by Sony). Take 2 Interactive. One of the three biggest publishers, likely to be the last with the way the feeding frenzy is going, T2I probably wants them for their monetisation methods and audience retention models. If they can take properties like Need for Speed and Battlefield, they'll have plenty of games between their blockbusters such as Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption. Tencent. The biggest publisher in the world, most prominent in the East, Tencent could well gobble up EA to help get a more firm grasp in the West. It would make sense for them to buy up the company easily, but for what purposes I couldn't begin to predict besides furthering their usual work.

While I wouldn't mind giving this a go, I certainly won't be paying £50 for it. Sonic Frontiers looks like it's the very worst of open world game design: empty because the character has "gotta go fast" meaning few obstacles and worthwhile challenges. Their one boss concept is essentially Egg Golem, which was great 21 years ago, but there's no way this is going to be the next Shadow of Collossus which they so desperately want it to be. The thing is there's already much better looking, more faithful open world Sonic games like Sonic: Utopia. The only thing that game seems to lack is purpose; what's the objective besides going fast around awesome looking levels listening to a great rendition of Green Hill Zone? It's difficult to come up with a reason that isn't just radio towers and bosses that have some vague reason to spawn where they do. If we don't understand the concept Takashi Iizuka's job is to make that clear, or at least their marketing department is meant to. I get enough yOu JuSt DoN't GeT iT from fandoms and forums, I don't need a studio head telling me that also. Your marketing has failed if we don't get it. As for delays, they won't automatically make the game good: delays still mean crunch is necessary, which means exhausted developers making more mistakes than rescue efforts. The whole proof of concept needs reworking from the ground up, and given to a team that is fresh enough to see it through to the end. I will say in sympathy that Sonic is a victim of his fame: you can't do much else with him besides Sonic Mania again or hope to strike gold with the Adventure games (so far '06 and Unleashed have been found wanting). At least Sega take on the developers making good fan projects. Technically no. Sonic Adventure and Sonic the Hedgehoog (2006) were hub-based, but if we're talking the scale of Assassin's Creed or as @HowHammerYou mentions Fallout, no. Sonic's never been 'this' open-world. The reasons, if they aren't clear from the marketing, will be apparent come release. 😞

I'm on the fence with them. On the one hand I think they're one of gaming's many Pandora's Box(es) because they've spoilt a lot of the joy I have in games now and find the need to complete them when I ordinarily wouldn't be bothered. On the other hand, I think if you get used to playing games without them or the achievements being so out of reach, you get to appreciate the game more. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Microsoft finally tied achievements to Microsoft Rewards, which was what the initial speculation for them was supposed to be: you could redeem Gamerscore for games, DLC, and profile ornaments. It's a shame that never really kicked off given their presence, but then, why give stuff away for free when people will pay out the nose for it?

I'm not so optimistic about this news: it could be anything from a port of the first game to mobile to a runner game... on mobile. If it is going to be a remaster, I can see it being successful given Ty the Tasmanian Tiger and Kao the Kangeroo have come out swinging after over a decade of silence. But honestly, I don't see Squenix doing much original with the property. In the 3D games there was a lot of environmental jokes and crude humour from Gex. I suppose the appeal was a vocal character (who said more than "woah!") and appeared on multiple platforms. Interestingly Rob Cohen - one of the writers for The Simpsons - penned the script and most of Gex's one liners, voiced by actor and standup comedian Dana Gould. I didn't really get on with the games myself, but I can totally appreciate the rather rabid cult fandom behind the games.

It's my understanding a retcon happens within the same series, like the mainline games. A spin-off isn't retcon in and of itself, however if the events of the spin off were canonised and ran contrary to previous lore, it would be a retcon. It's essentially only a retcon if the designers choose it to be, though there's a lot of stigma surrounding it because it's oft controversial. Going back to my Warcraft example, the Warcraft RPG books are no longer considered canon. That means that in citing Warcraft lore from those books makes for an invalid case. The lore from the Warcraft RTS however is mostly intact going into World of Warcraft, a spin-off that takes place within the RTS games' future. Another simple example that applies to most of the above (Warcraft, Buffy, and comics) is "nobody dies in [intellectual property]." Illidan Stormrage has the iconic quote of "death was merely a setback"; Buffy died about 3 times during the show; and how many comic book characters have died, only to get better? One of my favourite comics is Marvel's Ruins which shows the most grotesque ways the supes are transformed by the means they would ordinarily get their powers. Peter Parker developing a highly infectious rash all over his body thanks to an irradiated spider isn't canon or a retcon; him becoming Spiderman remains canon. Marvel explains this by calling Ruins' Earth "Earth-9591", and the Spiderman Earth to be "616". Ruins isn't meant to be a replacement (which is what a retcon would be), rather an alternative or complement. I wish I could explain it better, so I shall have to link the retroactive continuity (or 'retcon' for short) article on Wikipedia in the hopes that might make things clearer. I hope that helps all the same, and I apologise for going around the houses with an answer.

It depends entirely on the circumstances. As much as I agree with AVGN's assessment of one of the Atari consoles ("what's the most important thing about any video game? Well how about being able to f**kin' play it?!"), being able to play it is pointless if it isn't enjoyable. So gameplay (whatever that means these days) and controls, or performance as Empire says, are my number one priority. Presentation in most games is awful, I don't know why but so many insist on using all four corners of the screen which is really unhelpful in games that require a lot of focus on different aspects (then-World of Warcraft streamer Preach Gaming did some eye-tracking, noticing how much time was lost in total to looking at user interfaces). It's my understanding that fighter aircraft head-up displays (HUDs) are more in the centre and don't get in the way of what they're looking at to help with peripheral vision and clarity of UI elements. Presentation doesn't matter to me so much as customisation of that presentation does; Final Fantasy XIV seems to get this, I don't get why being able to change the UI in most games isn't an option. Story and characters... in the context of this, these rank quite low. In the context of "versus lore," however, they rank significantly higher. I'd rather have a game with personality over more text-dumps than a goose in a library (looking at you, Pillars of Eternity). Graphics and soundtrack I can take or leave. As long as the game's most important elements are clear and the art style is consistent, I'm generally fine with the visual aspect of games. As for the audio, a game's soundtrack being so good I want to buy it is always welcome, but I'll hardly notice it considering I don't play games without something else going on in the background.

Furthermore, but less relevant these days, was that Fortnite wasn't always free-to-play. It's one of the few games that had a (pricey) entry fee to get into its closed beta stages and only because of the Battle Royale boom did it take off. For all the harumphing that goes on about it (myself included back in the day), Fortnite got that right. So many great multiplayer games would survive if their developers/publishers would get their acts together and cobble together a F2P economy.

I was going to say "it has to be Dead Island," but it'd be criminal if the OP didn't mention that one. I will however provide something similar: Left 4 Dead 2's trailer, which became the game's intro. The music is great, however the gunshots, zombies squealing as they get punched, and the timing of all the transitions is perfect. "Kill all sons o' bitches, that's my official instructions!" Moderator Edit: Pasting the the video's URL should make the video embed itself automatically, but sometime it doesn't work for reasons that escape me. I think it's something to do with the setting and/or compatibility with certain browsers. In any case, I've fixed it so the video has been embedded now.

The forum's looking a lot cleaner and discussion is far easier to take part in now that the cliques have been mopped up. I look forward to finally being able to rejoin conversation rather than derailing one that's gone on for pages. It's not nice to see full pages of "you've chosen to ignore content from [x]," and I'm glad to see those running the place agree. I hope this message becomes loud and clear to any would-be points farmers that think this place is easy pickings. For now though, I commend the admin and moderation crew for making the tough - but absolutely necessary - calls to get rid of those users who had been frequently warned. All of this said, getting back to the original point: there is still room for a chat box or casual message space (see DarkSpyro's walls, etc.). This may well be the prevention before the cure that's needed. Otherwise, my feedback in other thread still stands. I appreciate that it's been acted upon.