Random video game news... renewed!

[kanisatha]

On 1/10/2025 at 6:13 PM, melkathi said:

Conspiracy theory time:

They set release price at $70 to drive people into subscribing to Gamepass.

In which case they'll be getting neither from me. I also will hold off to get it cheaper later.

Nowadays I find myself willing to pay full price only for games I like from small indie developers.

[kanisatha]

8 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

I'm no longer really their target audience I suppose.    Edit: nor any AAA's target audience, basically

Sadly, I've come to this same conclusion myself with respect to the big/AAA studios.

[Sven_]

On 1/12/2025 at 7:33 AM, LadyCrimson said:

Avowed may be some fun but I never even finished Outer Worlds/didn't play Pillars2, so (for me) I'd wait until it's $40-50 or something. If I remember at that point. It gives me a sense so far, of colorful mediocrity (sorry, Obsidian). At least for my tastes. To be fair, I'm no longer really their target audience I suppose.    Edit: nor any AAA's target audience, basically

Blockbuster gaming doesn't really seem to have a target audience -- which is part of the problem. It's "one size fits all", which is why I'm glad that there's been a resurgence of more specialized games more lately. Stalker 2, Kingdom Come, From Soft -- even Larian didn't bend over and suddenly did an entirelly different game just because they balooned their budget. They're all doingn fine as well. Better than most "one size fits all" product.

Often times though, these blockbusters literally aren't worth it (at least when approached with the rational parts of your brain...). You pay a higher price for the product itself in advance. Then you need better hardware to be able to at all run it. Then that hardware consumes a lot more power, as the latest tech is always the most taxing -- not that people living on cheap electricity in say the US would care about that specifically, but surely about the heat produced during Summer. Either way: I'm still enjoying Indy for instance. Do I regret buying it? No! But do I have a superior experience with it than with say, Drova? Desperados 3? Aliens: Dark Descent? Nah. 


tl;dr: Then what are you always upgrading your machine for? Showing off the new gadgets to the missus? My house, my car, my GeForce RTX.  




PS: 22 days to Bohemia. It seems Berlin's going nuts already. 

 

Edited January 13 by Sven_

[Wormerine]

Mai!

 

[Mamoulian War]

"Hey, what are you looking at? Up here!"

- Capcom, 2025.

[Sven_]

Germany's GameStar is gonna publish an extra issue just for KCD II. Not even Swen Vincke managed to get one for BG3. DA HYPE IS ON.

Wait, there's more. Not only will it contain the usual quest guides, a walkthrough, hints for making money quickly (HELL YES), maps and a poster. It's gonna ship with a Papercraft Kit for your very own Trosky Castle! The only caveat (marked RED): It's not gonna be one for living and taking shelter in.

 

Edited January 15 by Sven_

[Lexx]

I wasn't aware they are still doing stuff like that. Can't remember any such special edition ever since... I don't know, 20 years or what?

[Wormerine]

15 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

"Hey, what are you looking at? Up here!"

- Capcom, 2025.

Oh they know Mai's fanbase. The written updates have been drowning in innuendos. Below are all official updates from Capcom:

Quote

"Time to look Mai directly in the eyes."

"Mai from Fatal Fury promises to warm you up when she bounces in to #StreetFighter6"

"Bouncing in from SNK’s Fatal Fury series, Mai Shiranui promises to be the good girl you dream of when she arrives in Street Fighter 6 on February 5."

"You’ll want to play Mai for two huge reasons:"

"Get this outfit with Fighter Coins or by maxing out your bond with her in World Tour—something tells us a lot of you bad boys and girls will be doing this."

"Our scouts tell us more footage of Mai will be released in the coming days, so keep an eye out to see what more she has to reveal."

 

Edited Wednesday at 03:20 PM by Wormerine

[Wormerine]

looks good. I finally installed KC:D1, and am looking forward to trying it out within the last couple months. I will probably wait till I am done with Avowed though.

[MrBrown]

12 hours ago, Sven_ said:

Germany's GameStar is gonna publish an extra issue just for KCD II. Not even Swen Vincke managed to get one for BG3. DA HYPE IS ON.

Wait, there's more. Not only will it contain the usual quest guides, a walkthrough, hints for making money quickly (HELL YES), maps and a poster. It's gonna ship with a Papercraft Kit for your very own Trosky Castle! The only caveat (marked RED): It's not gonna be one for living and taking shelter in.

Well, they better hope it turns out good then.

[Mamoulian War]

8 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Oh they know Mai's fanbase. The written updates have been drowning in innuendos. Below are all official updates from Capcom:

Oh yeah, someone pointed me to these “puns” on its Steam page as well. Had pretty hefty laughs, that some company proud to market their software to “core audience” in a way, that would probably sparked massive cancel campaign against them few years ago It is getting even more hillarious, when looking back at the Netherrealm Studio lecturing  their “core audience” after the first reactions to Mortal Kombat 1 cast premiere in trailers

I bet NRS and WB are still wondering why MK1 player numbers are still lower than half decade old MK11

[Gfted1]

Civilization VII preview: The most complete package since IV - Ars Technica

[MrBrown]

2 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

Civilization VII preview: The most complete package since IV - Ars Technica

Don't think the writer understood how VI diplomacy and war works, if he constantly ended up being hated by everyone. It's really easy to be friends with almost everyone.

[Wormerine]

2 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

Civilization VII preview: The most complete package since IV - Ars Technica

Shouldn't it say "most complete package since VI"? I can see the writer is clearly in the CivVI hate train, but it did launched really well rounded as far as systems go.

Eitherway, CivVII looks intruiging. It promises a much needed shakeup and I am curious how it will turn out.

[uuuhhii]

stellaris are making the second major change to pop and economy

looks likely it will stay the best paradox studio game

sadly the bar is pretty low for that

[LadyCrimson]

On 1/13/2025 at 1:02 AM, Sven_ said:

Blockbuster gaming doesn't really seem to have a target audience -- which is part of the problem. It's "one size fits all"

When did (PC) blockbuster/AAA gaming become an association anyway. I mean, I'm sure there were ones that always had bigger budgets vs. others but I used to go to the store, there were 10-30 titles on shelves, I'd ponder if any were good, randomly pick something. Store shelf wise, it's not like there was 70k+ pc games existing at that point. Like, Myst was originally published by the same who published Mavis Beacon Typing. >.>   I wasn't enough of a game-geek back then I guess to be aware of "AAA" gaming, they were just ... there, like picking a can of soup. Although magazines made you aware of popular-game developers.

But yeah ... AAA today mostly means "attract as large an audience as possible for sales numbers", which for some reason is equated to mega development and marketing budgets. So they tend to become pretty generic, or just sequels of sequels. edit: and these days, remakes and reboots...

Edited Thursday at 11:49 PM by LadyCrimson

[Wormerine]

6 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

stellaris are making the second major change to pop and economy

Jeez, they still work on this game? Checked the story and amount of DLC is impressive/terrifying. It even has monthly subscription, which considering the price of the DLC might be fairly good value proposition .

I tried Stellaris couple times. Tend to loose interest after couple sessions. 

[MrBrown]

6 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Jeez, they still work on this game? Checked the story and amount of DLC is impressive/terrifying. It even has monthly subscription, which considering the price of the DLC might be fairly good value proposition .

I tried Stellaris couple times. Tend to loose interest after couple sessions. 

It's a bit weird, at some point a few years ago, it definitely seemed like they were downsizing resources for the game, with patches becoming sparser and less/smaller DLCs.

Then they completely switched their approach, and the game now has two teams working for it, a "custodian" team that creates patches and balance updates (and not just small ones) for existing content, and a team that makes new content for DLCs.

I'm not sure how they make money of it. I guess the DLCs sell enough, even after all these years. (I've certainly bought them all :p)

[Sven_]

On 1/15/2025 at 8:08 AM, Lexx said:

I wasn't aware they are still doing stuff like that. Can't remember any such special edition ever since... I don't know, 20 years or what?

It's only for the crazy popular games....... like Veilguard.  They wanted to do one for BG3 apparently, but would have needed review keys way earlier... You can only offer guidance for games you actually got to finish, after all.  GameStar Sonderhefte | Hefte | GameStar Shop

Speaking of which, Warhorse seem pretty confident giving it all out early. A Czech tech site immediately put performance to the test. Not by firing up the nearby nuclear power plant to fuel a Ryzen X3D with two RTX 4090 in SLI mode. But by installing it on a quad core Ryzen, 16GB, GTX 1070. Which is, the same PC you may have played KCD I on in 2018. And it was a "shock" to them (the original still isn't the most optimized game, at least some areas can tank hard even on modern machines on ultra settings). Anyway, KCDII apparently ran in 30-50 fps, medium to high details, 1440P on that machine. Also: Steam Deck'd! Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Final Preview - Steam Deck HQ I think if KCD doesn't bust its launch, it will become quite big.

Currently laughing at all the duds getting triggerred by the "gay stuff" that's supposedly in KCDII. Must have never played the original. Or made a format C to their memory sticks. After all, clearly gay Istvan Toth slapped their sweet little butts whilst they were rope-tied in this one. Amongst a few other things.   

Edited Friday at 08:23 AM by Sven_

[Malcador]

On 1/16/2025 at 10:34 AM, Gfted1 said:

Civilization VII preview: The most complete package since IV - Ars Technica

Isn't the modern age coming after release?

[Wormerine]

22 hours ago, Malcador said:

Isn't the modern age coming after release?

No, the game end on modern age, however, that form what I understand reaches up to 20th century events, and we don't have information/futuristic age. So perhaps in an expansion? I wouldn't count on simple update as new age comes with new systems and it's own civs. . But on launch the game will have three eras, with the last one being modern.

With how ages became it's own mini-Civ games with their own mechanics, I wouldn't count it against them if they treated Ages as expansion material.

[melkathi]

Maybe they'll follow the Warhammer Total War model, bring out a different Civ game for each era and then have a patch each time to combine it with the previous ones.

[Malcador]

Definitely will wait and get this in 2034.