RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS

[Drowsy Emperor]

If you want the more detailed version, Jim Sterling has a number of videos about the thing on his Youtube channel.

 

TL:DR 

Its two brothers throwing out shovelware out of Unity assets, got slammed by Sterling, attacked him and tried to sue him over it - managed to blow the whole thing so out of proportion that Steam is kicking their ass.

 

I'm in full agreement with Jim that Steam needs some form of quality control, because the kind of **** that's appearing on the platform now is worse than at any point in the last 20 years. Its not that hard to identify the scammers, but they shouldn't be allowed in the first place.

[Drowsy Emperor]

While I agree with you that SMT IV was a big letdown (and shouldn't ever be put in a 9/10 score), if you don't like SMT:Nocturne, Persona 3, Persona 4, Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army or Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon then the SMT series as a whole is probably not ever going to be for you.  Because to me those were all excellent games that I enjoyed playing multiple times.

 

I realized the series is not for me - in fact Persona 3 burned me out on the genre (mostly) for good. 70 hours of grind in a randomly generated 200 level dungeon (all of it very similar) to see the outcome of a story that ultimately collapsed in on itself and amounted to nothing was the most soul draining experience I ever had in my 18 years of gaming.

 

Haven't touched a jRPG for any length of time since.

Edited September 19, 2016 by Drowsy Emperor

[the_dog_days]

I never thought I'd say it, but good for you, Valve.

[Amentep]

 

While I agree with you that SMT IV was a big letdown (and shouldn't ever be put in a 9/10 score), if you don't like SMT:Nocturne, Persona 3, Persona 4, Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army or Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon then the SMT series as a whole is probably not ever going to be for you.  Because to me those were all excellent games that I enjoyed playing multiple times.

 

I realized the series is not for me - in fact Persona 3 burned me out on the genre (mostly) for good. 70 hours of grind in a randomly generated 200 level dungeon (all of it very similar) to see the outcome of a story that ultimately collapsed in on itself and amounted to nothing was the most soul draining experience I ever had in my 18 years of gaming.

 

Haven't touched a jRPG for any length of time since.

 

 

I admit that my tolerance for level-grind in JRPGs has diminished from what it was in the 1990s (when, for example, I got the entire roster of one of my multiple run-throughs of Final Fantasy III (VI) to level 99).  That said I've tended to find the SMT games less reliant on grinding, but its still there and in some cases required (particularly early on when you don't have enough Macca to just summon what you want from the Codex for fusing).

 

That said, I liked Persona 3's story - didn't really feel let down by it and I didn't mind the way the dungeon was set up either; after the first 10-20 levels, there was a rinse/repeat approach to levels, though.

[Lexx]

 

While I agree with you that SMT IV was a big letdown (and shouldn't ever be put in a 9/10 score), if you don't like SMT:Nocturne, Persona 3, Persona 4, Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army or Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon then the SMT series as a whole is probably not ever going to be for you.  Because to me those were all excellent games that I enjoyed playing multiple times.

 

I realized the series is not for me - in fact Persona 3 burned me out on the genre (mostly) for good. 70 hours of grind in a randomly generated 200 level dungeon (all of it very similar) to see the outcome of a story that ultimately collapsed in on itself and amounted to nothing was the most soul draining experience I ever had in my 18 years of gaming.

 

Haven't touched a jRPG for any length of time since.

 

 

It's especially funny considering how hard it was for games like Deponia or A New Beginning to get on Steam just a few years back. Now it's like Valve just winking through whatever comes by.

[HoonDing]

Valve bans developer from Steam after it sues customers over bad reviews.

Clearly SJW NAzis.

[Zoraptor]

It's especially funny considering how hard it was for games like Deponia or A New Beginning to get on Steam just a few years back. Now it's like Valve just winking through whatever comes by.

 

There's certainly a happy medium between the two systems, especially for a company that makes that much money. Of course that happy medium costs money so you get either the equivalent of the office intern approving one game a week from small companies (old system) or the current one where that intern doesn't even do that any more and you have, basically, open slather limited slightly by a greenlight system which nobody likes. Not only does there tend to be a lot of crap and drivel let in- and more importantly games that don't or are basically scams- but that dross also tends to obscure the quality small scale titles too.

 

GOG has curation, imperfect curation certainly but there's still a lot less shovelware and stuff that doesn't work there, and GOG is an order of magnitude smaller than steam is.

[Drowsy Emperor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z6YPVsohzQ

 

Random encounter with a new type of pokemon

 

And he wasn't even standing in tall grass

Edited September 19, 2016 by Drowsy Emperor

[HoonDing]

Looks like he got caught by a Dindunuffin.

[Lexx]

What the hell, that's brutal man. Lucky they got such a clear image of his face.

[Katphood]

Big kick in the balls from CD Projeckt Red: The Witcher 3 won't be getting any PS4 Pro updates which basically means CDPR are telling Sony that they don't have time for nonsense like this.

[Lexx]

I thought they would just increase the resolution and be done with it. The bad frame rate from these other games suggests this at least.

[Mamoulian War]

Now that I am home from few business trip I started to look more for Squadron 42 info, and I found that there is little bit confusion about Squadron 42 release date. Some people report about end of 2016 some mid-late 2017. I am getting into crazy mode reading more info about it and the possibility of having it so soon...

 

Anyway the official words about release date is still 2016.

 

http://www.gamereactor.eu/news/452973/Squadron+42+release+date+confusion+clarified/

 

But we'll see how that will hold on October 9.

 

Can't wait!!!

[Ganrich]

Now that I am home from few business trip I started to look more for Squadron 42 info, and I found that there is little bit confusion about Squadron 42 release date. Some people report about end of 2016 some mid-late 2017. I am getting into crazy mode reading more info about it and the possibility of having it so soon...

Anyway the official words about release date is still 2016.

http://www.gamereactor.eu/news/452973/Squadron+42+release+date+confusion+clarified/

But we'll see how that will hold on October 9.

Can't wait!!!

As someone that has kept a close eye on SC, I would recommend you not get your hopes up. They haven't hit a deadline, yet. I expect mid-next year, myself.

[the_dog_days]

Big kick in the balls from CD Projeckt Red: The Witcher 3 won't be getting any PS4 Pro updates which basically means CDPR are telling Sony that they don't have time for nonsense like this.

The truth of the matter is that few developers are going to up res their recent backlog for either the PS4 Pro or the Xbox Scorpio.

[Lexx]

I am pretty sure SQ42 will *not* arrive in 2016. In fact, I seem to remember that it was already said to be something of early 2017 or similar. The next big chunk of information about come out at the Citizen Con on october. So we'll see what they are telling us this time.

[Mamoulian War]

 

Now that I am home from few business trip I started to look more for Squadron 42 info, and I found that there is little bit confusion about Squadron 42 release date. Some people report about end of 2016 some mid-late 2017. I am getting into crazy mode reading more info about it and the possibility of having it so soon...

Anyway the official words about release date is still 2016.

http://www.gamereactor.eu/news/452973/Squadron+42+release+date+confusion+clarified/

But we'll see how that will hold on October 9.

Can't wait!!!

As someone that has kept a close eye on SC, I would recommend you not get your hopes up. They haven't hit a deadline, yet. I expect mid-next year, myself.

 

 

I know, I know. I am just trying being positive. Lot of positive energy channeling makes dreams come true. AMIRITE?

[Sarex]

What the hell, that's brutal man. Lucky they got such a clear image of his face.

 

That really doesn't matter that much, unless the perp is already know to the police.

[Mamoulian War]

New Armored Core in the works.

 

http://www.siliconera.com/2016/09/21/software-working-3-new-games-includes-new-armored-core/

[Drowsy Emperor]

One interesting trend:

 

The PS4 is considered the "winner" of this generation. However, if you look at the numbers, its the lowest selling Playstation ever: PS2>PS>PS3>PS4 and whether it will crack PS3 sales during its remaining lifetime is still uncertain. 

 

And this is not an insignificant shrinkage - if we ignore the all time high of the PS2 and go with the PSX instead its: PSX: 100 million to PS4's 43 million.

 

Competition sales are even more revealing: the Xbone and WiiU are both a clear debacle, selling little better than the Sega Dreamcast numbers at 18 million and 13 million respectively. The only reason they haven't tanked their respective companies is that these are huge players that can absorb big disasters.

 

Since this contraction cannot be explained by the PC, the only remaining platform, the only explanation is that the core gaming market on the whole has contracted and a lot of people have either stopped gaming or moved on to something else. It seems that all the major players anticipated this, since they all made cheap consoles with weak hardware instead of spending insane amounts of money on R&D like they used to do. And even that wasn't enough.

 

So, have consoles reached the end of the line? If development costs keep rising, as they shall, but the platforms don't sell hardware units and by extension software to sustain these costs in the long term (as is apparently happening), but games and consoles remain at the same price point then the profit margin will narrow down to nothingness for everything that isn't Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed. 

 

After becoming the past-time of a generation, is "core" gaming slowly going back to being a niche thing?

Edited September 22, 2016 by Drowsy Emperor

[Keyrock]

After becoming the past-time of a generation, is "core" gaming slowly going back to being a niche thing?

Maybe the rest of the world is following in Japan's footsteps, where the home console market is effectively dead (or at least on life support) and gaming on the go is king?

 

Homestly, the AAA gaming market is due for a crash. The current model is unsustainable with costs continuing to skyrocket and game prices remaining the same. A price hike in game prices would also likely backfire and shrink the market even faster, hence why publishers are instead going down the DLC and microtransaction shenanigans route.

[Mamoulian War]

Well people might be tired of seeing all the time same and same rehashes of games with little update to playability and almost no originality. Console gaming is not dead yet even in Japan, they are just not that much interested into PS4 and still gaming on PS3. Japanese companies still relaese for this console, unlike here. And they are getting loads and loads of content for handheld consoles, unlike here as well.

 

The PS3 launch line up was weak, but tbh current PS4 line up is for me even more uninteresting than the PS3 one. Still going to buy PS4 Pro, because I already found 5 exclusives and 3 more in the making, which will be worth investing into new console.

 

I don't own PS4 yet.

[Nonek]

So this PS4 Pro I assume is going to be a beefed up version of the regular PS4 with 60+fps and higher resolution graphics as standard, are there any downsides I can highlight to stem the tide of requests from the offspring?

[Lexx]

Haha forget about that 60fps standard.

[Ganrich]

If you look at the type of games that the AAA market keeps pumping out then you will see the trend of FPS, 3rd Person action game, etc covering the landscape.  It doesn't surprise me to see the AAA market shrinking when their portfolio has done the same thing.  lets look at the games they make, and then some of the IPs they own.

Ubisoft:  Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Tom Clancy shooters, etc.  Many of their titles use the same mechanics of Open world, tower climbing to unlock map which makes their titles a bit too mind numbing anymore.  We will see how South Park pans out, but I am a bit miffed Obsidian isn't at the helm.  Where is Beyond Good and Evil 2?  Why not try another Dark Messiah game?  Might and Magic?

 

EA:  Battlefield, Star Wars Battlefront, Titanfall, EA Sports, Bioware (too few and far between and mostly just action games with RPG elements strapped on loosely).  Wing Commander, Ultima, Kotor, and Jade Empire would like to see the light of day. 

 

R* :   GTA, GTA, GTA, LA Noire, RDR, Max Payne, Bully.  <( RDR, LA Noire, and GTA are very similar games and the first two are basically GTA with a new skin)  I may be over generalizing.  Bully is similar enough too.  They don't have much else that I am aware of.  Oh, Manhunt. 

 

Activision:  CoD and Blizzard games, and Blizzard is still not enough to stop this trend.  They have Arcanum, and don't use it.  Need I say more?

 

Bethesda:  Elder scrolls, Fallout, whatever they let idsoft do (DOOM) or what they let someone do with an old idsoft shooter IP (Wolfenstein).  They don't have much else. 

 

Konami seems to be digging their grave after the Metal Gear Debacle and Castlevania LOS2 was mediocre as a sequel.  Doesn't matter.

 

Capcom keeps pumping out street fighter games.  Also doesn't matter because we need 8 versions of Street Fighter V over the next 5 years.

 

Sega is in shambles.  Anything they own that isn't Sonic... isn't Sonic so you won't see it.

 

Nintendo isn't played by the largest subset of gamers because of console exclusivity.

 

Take Two Interactive:  They have a few, and their biggest FPS was Bioshock (hey look a remastered Bioshock trilogy!) :rollseyes:  They make Xcom, though.  So, kudos to them. 

 

Now let's look at MS and Sony themselves...

 

MS has Forza, Halo, Gears of War, and I doubt we will see another Fable (who knows).  MS is like EA and have a good many interesting IPs that go unused.  Mech Warrior and Shadowrun (I think they still own it and Battletech but let HBS make those RPGs since they weren't going to do anything with it). 

Sony has Bloodborne and anything NaughtyDog (Uncharted and Last of Us).  Just look at their first party PS2 list to see IPs languishing.  Legend of Dragoon 2 will never happen.

 

Go back ten years and there was a large amount of variability in AAA games.  There was still a lot of FPS and action games, but there were more than the same one year after year. 

 

The PS2 had a lot of jRPGs, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, etc.  The original XBox had Kotor 1 and 2, Psychonauts, odd games like Steel Battalion, etc.   These days the 4-5 big publishers have a list of 3-5 games they release sequels to year in and year out.  If you aren't a fan of their current lineup then I can't blame you for checking out.  For the most part.. I have.  Of the games currently being produced by these companies... Battlefield, Titanfall, and RDR are the only 3 I care enough about for a day one purchase (though I am likely to pick TF over BF this year unless I have some extra cash).

 

The PC isn't much better.  It seems everyone is jumping on the Moba bandwagon (even Epic games is making a Moba), and after learning that Titanfall will have a card game (like Hearthstone)... I expect that digital card games will be the next bandwagon.  At least they have stopped trying to get that WoW money.  The industry seems to just follow trends anymore to scavenge for whatever scraps the original product drops on the floor.  It is kind of sad.