True Gaming Have you ever chosen nostalgia instead of new games? |
- Have you ever chosen nostalgia instead of new games?
- Celeste elevates the medium, using gameplay to convey overarching meaning
- Assassin's creed 3 was pretty underrated
- Xbox Game Pass concerns me for the future of gaming
- Getting a GameCube instead of PS2 ruined one generation of gaming
- What is the purpose of the jilted economy in most RPG games and others with shops that will pay you pennies on the dollar for items?
- When is screen shake or motion blur "good"?
| Have you ever chosen nostalgia instead of new games? Posted: 03 Feb 2018 03:48 AM PST So, like many people, I have a huge backlog of games I bought but haven't gotten around to playing. Or games I started and really want to finish. Right now, I've got Tales of Berseria to finish, new game plus in Persona 5, the last DLC of Dark Souls 3, both the Dishonoured games, Planetary Annihilation, and Dragon Ball FighterZ. And these are only the games I'm actively wanting to play. But along comes Ultima Underworld 1, which I got from GOG a while ago for a few bucks. As a child I had played it a bit when it was new but never finished it. I booted it up just to see how it runs in dosbox, and 15 hours of unintended play later I'm wondering what the hell happened to me lol. Putting aside the fact that it's a great game, maybe the other part is the comforting familiarity and simplicity of those old games? I'm not sure what sucked me in at this time, but it feels like the game is less of a commitment and easier to get into that the other stuff in my backlog? Have you had any similar experiences? [link] [comments]  |
| Celeste elevates the medium, using gameplay to convey overarching meaning Posted: 03 Feb 2018 08:50 AM PST I've seen some similar sentiments around reddit but wanted to start a discussion on one specific aspect--how Celeste uses its medium for a broader purpose. Every medium has specific advantages in storytelling. For novels, an author might use literary devices or reference a classic text to convey meaning. Poetry has economy of words. Film directors guide actors a certain way, oversee lighting choices, and convey meaning through camera movement as well. Video games are (still) an emerging medium where meaningful storytelling choices continue to be innovated. Games like heavy rain tried interactive cinema where the player is forced to interact with the overarching theme, personalizing it on the way. Bioshock's Infinite's story would be the same in any other medium (e.g. how "dying" in that game ties into multiverse storyline). Celeste is no different, by innovating how storytelling can be done in video games, it elevates the medium. Its plot is not complicated or groundbreaking--it is pretty straightforward. Yet, the real power is how its effect is much stronger and meaningful because of how it is told. It uses the very mechanics of its game to add to the story's meaning. Like an author might use a literary device to convey a theme, Celeste uses its gameplay and level design. So we have the mountain Celeste, which is essentially a metaphor for Madeline's struggles in life. If she can conquer the mountain, then, as a metaphor, it follows that she will be able to conquer her struggles. We see this happen when her dark 'part of her' is personified by the mountain. The further she climbs the mountain, the closer she gets to coming to terms with this 'darker side.' That stands as the main plot progression. This is where gameplay and level design convey meaning. For Madeline, facing the suppressed 'part of her' and coming to terms with it is absolutely the most difficult thing she has to do in life. As she gets closer to coming to terms with it, the levels become more and more challenging. With such difficulty, this forces the player to literally feel exactly what Madeleine is feeling: frustration, anxiety, impatience, rage, etc. The player is forced to empathize, even if they do so unconsciously. It is worth noting that though the levels become very challenging, they never become impossible. The next screen is always just in reach and the steps to get there (although they sometimes require problem solving) are always straightforward. This is the same exact process Madeline needs to come to terms with for her 'part of her.' What she needs to do is always in reach and the steps to do so are straightforward, even if they need some critical thinking and problem solving. It is a challenge for Madeline, but never impossible. The trials of Celeste the player has to work through mirror the trials Madeline herself must work through. This is the "literary device" of video games that is used so well throughout Celeste. The very design of the game is used to invite player engagement with overarching themes. It's one thing to make a good platforming game. It's another to have gameplay inform themes and themes inform gameplay. That is very rare in video games and that is why Celeste is a groundbreaking platformer. [link] [comments]  |
| Assassin's creed 3 was pretty underrated Posted: 03 Feb 2018 04:01 AM PST This soundtrack was very depressing and catchy for me. It still gives me many chills https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvU7Tu40K-A&t=227s It shows how sad is connor's life. It's even sadder how people hated him People say Connor is a boring person when he watch his mother burning alive, his whole village burning down, his dad and everybody else is trying to kill him, almost everybody hates him, failed to protect his people, had to kill his best friend and his father, even the people who he sided with betrayed him, lost his mentor, probably lived alone after the ending. Such a poor creature. Also for those who says that he lacked personality they probably didn't play the homestead side missions. They were all pretty great and showed the deepness of character. Also it was meant for him to be serious unlike Ezio which isn't something bad. Also for the game itself I don't get all the hate on it. It had such great gameplay and introduced new features and combat system with new moves, naval missions, animal hunting, great number of outfits to choose. Also it's combat moves were fresh, most badass and brutal. There's also hell alot to do other than main missions like homestead missions, collectibles(feathers, pegleg trinkets, treasures, etc), pegleg missions, naval missions, undergrounds, citizen missions, forts and much more. That's why I consider it to be underrated as well as the character. Sorry for terrible English [link] [comments]  |
| Xbox Game Pass concerns me for the future of gaming Posted: 27 Jan 2018 03:48 PM PST As you probably all know, Microsoft has announced a big push for their Game Pass subscription service. They will be releasing their big first party exclusives day and date with full access to Xbox Game Pass. Considering that this means you can theoretically skip out on the 60 USD price tag for something like Crackdown, it's a pretty big thing, and a possible sign of things to come. Now, to be clear, this might not pan out the way MS is saying it will. If Sea Of Thieves, Crackdown 3 and State Of Decay 2 disappoint as many believe they will, then the stigma against the nature of the Game Pass I'll be talking about will be partially solidified already. And they've gone back on similar "industry changing" ideas before. Remember the "end of console generations" rhetoric they were spouting around 18 months ago? Any time a game company talks about "changing the way games are made and bought" it just sounds, to me, like corporate speak for "We're gonna figure out ways to generate more revenue for less work, and (in terms of digital distribution) assume more control of our products post-transaction". This feels like a more on-the-surface-friendly, insidious and long-con form of Microsoft's DRM filled dream that they did the disservice of revealing to us in 2013. Problem is that people are eating it up in the early days because it's "great value for money" and because Microsoft is "looking out for the consumer". Games-As-Services became the industry buzzword last year, and for good reason. Ubisoft, WB, Activision, EA and Take Two were boasting about how much revenue "recurrent consumer spending" was pumping into there balance sheets, and projected that it's only gonna get more aggressive in the future. Strauss Zelnick not only said that Take Two is planning for every major game to have revenue tails, but he said that they're not monetising enough, implying that their microtransaction models are going to get more aggressive than GTA5. The revenue Ubisoft gets from their digital game sales has now been exceeded by microtransaction revenue. And this was before the recent tweaks to their games like Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six. While there's no actual definition of GAS, when ever execs or marketing departments use the term, it often refers to multiplayer games that have continued support in the form of sporadic content updates and constant patches and adjustments. The amount of content they launch with is generally pretty meager, and they aren't received as the most robust experiences. They usually entail some sort of focus around microtransactions and/or lootboxes. This emphasis on heavy monetisation and in some cases, seemingly low cost of initial development, doesn't stop publishers from charging 60 USD, whilst selling 10s of millions of copies. Yes, I know PUBG is 30 USD. All of these factors culminate in publishers being incentivized to make most of their games in this vein, as at this current moment in time, it makes them more money. That's part of the reason why the "death of AAA single player games" rhetoric skyrocketed last year. And the best part is that it works. Despite initially poor critical reception games like Ghost Recon Wildlands, Battlefront 2 and others, the games are still at the top of the charts. So the problem with a shift in consumption via a subscription service: These third parties would not get to charge that initial 60 USD. They would get some sort of lump sum and then residual payment from the platform holder (Microsoft), but they generally don't benefit from those 10 dollar subscriptions. My concern then is that we'll see even more low effort, non-cutting edge multiplayer GAS, the core design of which being based on how much microtransaction revenue they can milk for players. Hence, worse games. Some people seem to think that this allows for an increase in single player games, using the Netflix comparison as a justification. The problem is that movies and television are very different to games. Yes, Netflix spends a lot of money on original content now, but that wasn't always the case. It's happened now because of the fact that they have almost 110 million subscribers and are threatened by the competition of other streaming services such as Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Go, CBS Access, Disney's upcoming service and more. For Xbox, it's a completely separate thing. The Xbox is a closed ecosystem that Microsoft would have a complete monopsony and monopoly over. You want your game on their platform, you gave to go through them, and if you want to play a game on their platform, they own the only storefront. Microsoft is not going to be pumping out a bunch of single player games all of a sudden either. Spencer may say that they "might" do it, but he's said a lot of things to sweeten up PR and he has rarely delivered. The emphasis on Gears, Forza and Halo in the latest press release also indicated to me that they're not actually going to be investing in first party stuff as much as they make it out they will be. It's to sell people on the idea of this, and some have bought it, hook line and sinker. We also have to remember that not every Netflix original movie and TV show costs 100 million and that publishers aren't going to invest in single player games with similar budgets if they can't charge 60 USD. There's also no such thing as "movies as a service" or "television as a service". Once you pay for a Netflix subscription, that's it. No more money out of your pocket. They can't charge you to watch the last half of a movie or TV series, like they do in games. Single player experiences require more thoughtful design that doesn't live or die on the novelty of playing with friends, and don't offer the same ease of implementation of microtransactions and loot boxes. These types of games are almost like consumables: They have a definitive beginning, middle and end. And there's not much potential for "audience retention" in that. That's not even including all of the ownership nonsense as well. 5 years ago no one was okay with Microsoft taking away ownership for games from the consumer, so what's the difference now? Now this is all assuming multiple things that might not pan out.
It may seem like I'm jumping the gun, but too many times in the games industry have people looked at something, and thought it was harmless without recognising the possible long term effects. We started with Horse Armor, now look where we are. These are just my thoughts though, what are yours? Ubisofts digital game sales exceeded by microtransactions: Strauss Zelnick wants more microtransactions: Destiny 2 losing players and goodwill at an alarming rate: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/77kiu3/destiny_2_has_lost_78_of_its_players_in_6_weeks/ https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/23/activisions-destiny-2-is-struggling-right-now-cowen-analyst.html Jorgensen tells us that EA ain't giving up on microtransactions: Activision's microtransaction engine: EA's matchmaking tampering for more revenue: GAS is a bubble waiting to pop: https://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/7omf2o/gamesasservices_are_a_bubble_waiting_to_pop/ TL;DR: Xbox Game Pass will incentivize Microsoft and third parties to make the game equivalent of direct to DVD movies as opposed to premium high quality consumable Netflix movies and series. Specifically, Free-2-play lite games that are designed around microtransactions. There will be less cutting edge single player experiences as a result of this taking off, but luckily there's a chance that it won't. [link] [comments]  |
| Getting a GameCube instead of PS2 ruined one generation of gaming Posted: 26 Jan 2018 03:30 PM PST I live in Finland (I'm interested in hearing about the situation from people who reside in other countries) and received a Nintendo GameCube as a gift from my parents in 2004. The console was selected due to its "better selection of games suitable for children" as suggested by the electronics store employee, but of course GameCube in reality only had less mature-rated titles. Three games purchased with the system provided fun, but weren't optimal choices as I wasn't allowed to purchase any new games for a long time even with my own money. The availability of GC games in retail stores was poor and to my knowledge first-party Nintendo titles don't generally drop in price. GameCube selection seemed to always be under 5% of the PlayStation 2 library (I remember seeing only few GameCube games on the gaming department of a large department store), the games were overpriced (full-priced games cost more than 60€, I've confirmed this by looking at older magazine advertisements) and the stores commonly stocked the games I owned. We lived in a rural area and as stated above had no internet access, the games had to be bought during our infrequent visits to a city. First-party games dominated, popular multiplatform series such as Need for Speed, Harry Potter and EA sports games were nowhere to be found. I eventually discovered specialized gaming stores, but at the time GameCube had reached the end of its lifecycle as the final games for the system were being released. I believe that my childhood would have been more enjoyable, to a certain degree, if I would have had a PS2 instead. I don't know how the original Xbox compares, at least third-party support was significantly better. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Jan 2018 07:09 AM PST I just saw this meme and it got me thinking. What is the value of this kind of system where shops overcharge you for all items? Why does a 1000 gold sword only get you 300 when you sell it back to the same merchant? I understand the concept of weapon scaling and it makes sense that better items cost more. However I don't understand why they would make this a part of nearly every game. Is it fun? In most games this is only ever a problem for the first few hours of gameplay, after that it seems that in most games gold becomes completely irrelevant to the player because you end up with so much. Is there any point to this economic nusiance that would not be mitigated by a level cap system that most games have any way? [link] [comments]  |
| When is screen shake or motion blur "good"? Posted: 25 Jan 2018 10:20 AM PST Motion blur is in most games lately, and usually with an option to turn it off. Screen shaking is also quite prevalent, but less likely to be optional. Thing is, I don't consider either of these..."experience enhancers"(?) to be well implemented in most games, either because of issues they cause or the quality of the effects being underwhelming at best or overwhelming at worst. Is there a game the exemplifies proper use of these mechanics? The only game that comes to mind is Shadow of the Colossus, but I can't quite pinpoint why I feel motion blur in that game is better than most others, and I would hardly say it is necessary for the game as a whole. [link] [comments]  |
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