Gaming thoughts, bite-size chewables - new orange flavor!

[Diabolical]

RIP Humble Games

https://aftermath.site/humble-games-layoffs-closure-ziff-davis-ign

Wow.
Okay. Well.
That's shitty. And VERY Ziff Davis.

List of all the games they published - takes you to the list of published games section.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humble_Bundle#List_of_published_games
There are some really good games in that list that they helped bring about. Lots of games I've owned and enjoyed a LOT. Slay The Spire, Signalis, a bunch of others. And even more on wishlists that I fully intend on purchasing to play. Wizard of Legend 1 and 2. Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus. Stray Gods. Unsighted. Project Wingman.

And they have a lot of games currently under development as well.

Bummer.

The Humble Store (and the Humble Bundle) is apparently not affected, but I wouldn't trust a fucking thing that Ziff Davis says.

 

[Frosty Grin]

And if you haven't visited Destructoid lately, maybe don't. It's almost transitioned into a content mill, with maybe a couple of old writers still left and writing something worthwhile. Bought by "Gamurs" and repurposed...

 

[GloatingSwine]

I can't remember where I read it, but the developers didn't intend for most people to do no-kill, hand-to-hand-only runs; that was why completing the game without shooting anyone had a special achievement. If you feel the need to grab a gun to take down some mercenaries in the end phase of the game, there's no need to feel too guilty about it. Heck, even Mortus got angry and went to the dark side back when he played it twelve years ago.

I'm pretty sure I got that achievement and don't remember it being particularly onerous. IIRC the sliding attack into combo usually knocks a guy out.

 

[invertedpanda]

August/September is going to be an interesting time for gaming.

Black Myth Wukong comes out August 20th; will definitely grab that.

Star Wars Outlaws comes August 30th; It has been a while since I've played an Ubisoft open world, and the fact that it's stealth-focused makes me curious.. This one I may wait a month or two for, though, because..

..Stalker 2 comes out Sept 5.

The Stalker subreddit has been going all sorts of salty suddenly because of the pre-order/edition bonuses.. People griping about the deluxe/ultimate editions having more campfire songs is actually insane. They care more about that than the fact that deluxe/ultimate get an additional story mission.

Of course, those same extras have been a part of those editions for a while now, so it's a little dumb that folks are only now getting in an uproar about it.

I'm personally pretty OK with it, but that's just because I want to support the devs with all the shit they've had to deal with while still making the game. Figure I'll grab the Deluxe edition just for the extra mission and to toss the devs a little more money.

 

[swiftdraw]

And if you haven't visited Destructoid lately, maybe don't. It's almost transitioned into a content mill, with maybe a couple of old writers still left and writing something worthwhile. Bought by "Gamurs" and repurposed...

I kinda assumed they were that for a while. They were trending that way a decade ago.

 

[Frosty Grin]

Star Wars Outlaws comes August 30th; It has been a while since I've played an Ubisoft open world, and the fact that it's stealth-focused makes me curious.. This one I may wait a month or two for, though, because..

My first thought when the game was announced was, "Can we have something like that, but without Star Wars"? But big games like that probably need existing franchises.

I kinda assumed they were that for a while. They were trending that way a decade ago.

There's "trending" - when pretty much the whole industry has been trending like this. And then there's what happened a few months ago, which I initially assumed was a temporary issue, maybe related to a new platform or something. Then the reality set in.

 

[Mister E. Meat]

RIP Humble Games

https://aftermath.site/humble-games-layoffs-closure-ziff-davis-ign

To clarify for those who didn’t read the article, this is the (indie) publisher, not the bundle / storefront. They have published a decent number of games, most notably Slay the Spire.

Edit: see I was beaten to the clarification by Diabolical. Not sure why I did t see this page when I made my post.

 

[Chris FOM]

And if you haven't visited Destructoid lately, maybe don't. It's almost transitioned into a content mill, with maybe a couple of old writers still left and writing something worthwhile. Bought by "Gamurs" and repurposed...

There really aren’t many great game blogs anymore. Games Radar is a perfectly adequate news aggregator, but little more than that. Joystiq is long dead. Kotaku was gutted years ago, Destructoid’s slow decline accelerated rapidly recently. Polygon doesn’t know what it wants to be. Eurogamer is a shadow of its former self but still probably the best of what’s still out there.

Star Wars Outlaws comes August 30th; It has been a while since I've played an Ubisoft open world, and the fact that it's stealth-focused makes me curious.. This one I may wait a month or two for, though, because..

With Ubisoft games unless you really want the experience of being there day 1 (which is a perfectly valid thing to want, I’ve done it plenty of times), waiting is always the right move. I can almost guarantee you that the $130 ultimate edition will be on sale for <$50 by the end of the year, and quite possibly <$30.

 

[Backstop]

Tunic is very refreshing for me, the little fox is cute but the combat is challenging. The soundtrack is fantastic. I like not having my hand held but they do drop clues in the form of "pages" from an NES-style instruction manual. I'm getting a real buzz from figuring stuff out rather than following the prompts, or having my character say to themselves "I should try using my focus!"

Sports games don't seem to generally get a lot of love here, but I can highly recommend EA Sports College Football 25. It's everything I had hoped(so far) and it's well worth the, gulp, $70 price tag. Dynasty mode seems super deep and I've only spent a couple hours with it but I can see myself really getting sucked into it.

Haven't touched the Road to Glory mode yet but I've heard great things about that as well.

I find part of it extremely unrealistic. There's no way so many Ohio State Marching Band members are so out of step!

Running is more fun for me than passing, I'm always sucking in my breath when the ball is in the air. Maybe because I haven't played a football game in so long - I don't have a very good grip on who looks open but there's a DB within easy striking distance.

 

[Thorvard]

Meanwhile, I can't run to save my life haha.

I created a 5 star recruit and signed with....Navy. We came within a hair (41-38) of beating Notre Dame in my second year.

 

[Ryan B.]

Tunic is very refreshing for me, the little fox is cute but the combat is challenging. The soundtrack is fantastic. I like not having my hand held but they do drop clues in the form of "pages" from an NES-style instruction manual. I'm getting a real buzz from figuring stuff out rather than following the prompts, or having my character say to themselves "I should try using my focus!"

A combat tip, spoilered in case you want to figure it out:

Spoiler

Try pushing roll and attack at the same time while running.

 

[sword_9mm]

Tunic is very refreshing for me, the little fox is cute but the combat is challenging. The soundtrack is fantastic. I like not having my hand held but they do drop clues in the form of "pages" from an NES-style instruction manual. I'm getting a real buzz from figuring stuff out rather than following the prompts, or having my character say to themselves "I should try using my focus!"


I find part of it extremely unrealistic. There's no way so many Ohio State Marching Band members are so out of step!

Running is more fun for me than passing, I'm always sucking in my breath when the ball is in the air. Maybe because I haven't played a football game in so long - I don't have a very good grip on who looks open but there's a DB within easy striking distance.

It was a lot easier on Joe Montana on the Sega CD.

I think the process was 'choose Green Bay, pick passing play, always pick C'. Probably not accurate as it's been a LONG time but yeah. Not quite BoJackson in Techmo easy but it was pretty darn easy.

 

[BO(V)BZ]

It's a bit older now, but I've been playing Nightmare Reaper a lot lately, and it's pretty addictive. It's a procedurally generated Boomer Shooter, so low-res graphics, 2d sprites, random levels, and most importantly, random weapons. There's at least 50 different guns / swords / magic items and most are pretty fun to use, and there are LOTS of modifiers to the weapons so it's possible to mix things up massively if you get different rolls on a weapon. I've started over on New Game+1 and found a sawed off double barrel shotgun that does 4x damage and shoots giant metal spikes. I've had a minigun that shot tennis balls, another that shot ice crystals, a gun that shot Serious-Sam sized 8ft cannonballs, etc. There's a TON of weapon possibilities. There's 3 tiers of weapons, but in NG+, at least as far in as I am, only the tier 1 guns can have the 3 or 4x damage multipliers so it's a good excuse to cycle out from your tier 3 weapons and use new things.

Levels are small so it's really easy to just say "I'll play one more" and then it's 12:30AM and you still need to shower and prep lunch for tomorrow.

 

[S2pidiT]

I find part of it extremely unrealistic. There's no way so many Ohio State Marching Band members are so out of step!

Leave it to EA to put in minimum effort...

I think we need Marching Band Simulator 25. Bring your drill sheets! Memorize your music! Your bandmate forgot their drill, go run to the far goal post and back! Another bandmate isn't paying attention, do 20 pushups! Bad marching form, time to march the whole field until you get it right! Do box drill! Do figure 8! Keep proper posture for 3 hours straight of practice!

Of course, I'm leaving out the parts of marching band that were the most fun... Performing the halftime shows, the competitions... The satisfaction of performing your best...

Running is more fun for me than passing, I'm always sucking in my breath when the ball is in the air. Maybe because I haven't played a football game in so long - I don't have a very good grip on who looks open but there's a DB within easy striking distance.

Interceptions are "exciting" parts of the game, so even if a DB isn't watching the football, he will see the football and go for it. Unless it's your DB, in which case he gets burned or misses the INT/swat and it's a touchdown for the other team.

It's why I don't play sports games on higher difficulties (usually third highest difficulty is max for me). Just like with FIFA/FC, I get frustrated by being unable to do anything and resort to manipulating the CPU's tendencies. If others enjoy doing that, go for it. I don't personally consider that playing the game, so I turn the difficulty down and then it's easy but enjoyable. Defeats the whole purpose of "simulation" but hey, it means Michigan takes the Championship/Lions win the Super Bowl for the next decade.

 

[Frosty Grin]

There really aren’t many great game blogs anymore. Games Radar is a perfectly adequate news aggregator, but little more than that. Joystiq is long dead. Kotaku was gutted years ago, Destructoid’s slow decline accelerated rapidly recently. Polygon doesn’t know what it wants to be. Eurogamer is a shadow of its former self but still probably the best of what’s still out there.

It's a bit baffling when gaming is getting bigger and bigger. Is it just that the business model isn't there? Or that people don't want to read about games?

 

[Lt_Storm]

Accent is, by definition, distinctive. If it doesn't sound distinctive to you, then it's not an accent from your perspective. And we were talking specifically about personal experience.

It's not actually immersive because Italians don't sound "Italian" to themselves. And they don't sound like second language speakers. So I suppose it may feel immersive for an American to hear characters speaking English with an Italian accent - but that's kinda like cosplay, I think.

When I want "immersion", I usually go for original voiceovers with subtitles.

Linguistically speaking, distinctive doesn't mean strange or different, it just means it can be contrasted to some other accent. The mere fact that someone else's accent can feel distinctive to you should be enough to convince you that your accent is likewise, even though you are used to it.

That said, I think that you are walking around a larger point here: for various reasons (stereotype, language differences in how voice tone is used to convey information, culture, etc.) accents tend to suggest all sorts of character attributes. So, while Russian translated in a Russian accent may be immersive in one sense, it does also break immersion in another sense that I think you are getting at quite well.

 

[MichaelC]

It's a bit baffling when gaming is getting bigger and bigger. Is it just that the business model isn't there? Or that people don't want to read about games?

They want to save money by firing qualified journalists and editors and using AI instead. I have seen so many badly written articles and headlines. And of those that looked like they might be interesting, they were empty fluff. I just started blocking some magazines from my feed.

One of the things I see a lot of is a lot of filler in articles and in videos. There is a pattern to it. So I skip to the meat... Or what I would hope to be the meat and instead it's a limp McDonald's burger, tasteless and unfulfilling.

So now they are removed from the feed.

 

[Ryan B.]

It's a bit baffling when gaming is getting bigger and bigger. Is it just that the business model isn't there? Or that people don't want to read about games?

Web publishing in general is getting destroyed by the broader economic climate. Low ad rates, ad blockers, etc. Gaming may be big but it's still a niche, so it makes sense to me that any publication with a limited audience would have a hard time surviving.

 

[Nauls]

It's a bit baffling when gaming is getting bigger and bigger. Is it just that the business model isn't there? Or that people don't want to read about games?

My guess is it's partly a generational thing.

With today’s youth consuming most of their media via short-form and (to an extent) long-form video, actually reading about a game (even one they’re heavily interested in) is just not high on the list. There’s certainly no shortage of TT/Youtubers churning out content for that purpose. Traditional gaming websites are turning into content mills because unfortunately that’s largely what people are resorting to web searches for. Random hyper-specific crap like “how do I farm material X in game Y” or endless “best in game” lists.

Edit- I'll add that Steam contributes to this too. Why look for a well-written review when you can just glance at the store page and aggregate review score? Regardless of all the group-think and meme reviews, it's a reliably low-effort way to take a game's temperature, right or wrong.

 

[Nekojin]

It's a bit baffling when gaming is getting bigger and bigger. Is it just that the business model isn't there? Or that people don't want to read about games?

Actual journalistic companies are being bought by venture capital firms, who don't see the value in high-paid writers when they can get someone else to do "the same job" for a third of the price.

Or to put it another way: Their new overlords value profit over anything else, including journalistic integrity.

 

[Frosty Grin]

Actual journalistic companies are being bought by venture capital firms, who don't see the value in high-paid writers when they can get someone else to do "the same job" for a third of the price.

If it's not "the same job" and people actually value quality writing, wouldn't the owners see it reflected in the profits? And it's not like high-paid writers are actually paid all that much - or can easily find a higher paying job.

Or to put it another way: Their new overlords value profit over anything else, including journalistic integrity.

And this is where another question arises: Why do the writers need the "overlords" in the first place? It's not like news reporting, where costs and risks can get enormous. And it's not like video, where bandwidth costs can get significant. It seems like barriers to entry are as low as can be. If we're seeing Youtubers getting big - why not writers?

Gaming may be big but it's still a niche

Gaming is already bigger and culturally more significant than movies. I've read established actors like Kirsten Dunst expressing that movies are just not as important these days as they were, say, 20 years ago. And it feels the same to me too. Gaming also just became an Olympic sport. So if it's a niche - it's only as much as anything else is a niche.

All in all, I guess I'll settle on game reviews no longer being as valuable because of user reviews. Then what's left is straight up opinion - but maybe this is where diverse and direct opinions and conversations of gamers may be more interesting than well-written opinions of writers.

 

[Papageno]

With today’s youth consuming most of their media via short-form and (to an extent) long-form video, actually reading about a game (even one they’re heavily interested in) is just not high on the list.

Tell me about it. And one thing that drives me a bit nuts is when I'm stuck in some game because clearly I've missed some clue or other and do a search on "where to find the doohickey in Area X" and all the search results are videos. There are times when that is more useful but most of the time a couple of sentences would fit the bill. In another age the search would have taken one to GameFAQs, not so much anymore.

 

[Thorvard]

Just finished The Immortal Lock for Quake. A huge difficult(really, it's hard as hell) level for Quake. It needs vkQuake which is easy enough to get set up.

Because of it's size I had issues with getting lost and probably would have preferred it to be a whole mini-episode, but it's still well done. There is something like 100+ secrets and I don't think I even found 25. I'll be playing this again and again for sure.

 

[Ajar]

And this is where another question arises: Why do the writers need the "overlords" in the first place? It's not like news reporting, where costs and risks can get enormous. And it's not like video, where bandwidth costs can get significant. It seems like barriers to entry are as low as can be. If we're seeing Youtubers getting big - why not writers?

The skills needed to write good articles and the skills needed to run a successful business don't necessarily overlap, although I agree that doesn't mean writers need "overlords" as such. Certainly the VCs and bigger businesses that have been buying up and gutting popular gaming sites are garbage tier businesspeople. Without a "big name," though, and therefore most likely limited traffic, smaller sites are a lot more likely to be subscription-based.

But there are independent sites out there, for example a group of mostly ex-Kotaku writers started Aftermath:

https://aftermath.site/about-us

 

[Diabolical]

The skills needed to write good articles and the skills needed to run a successful business don't necessarily overlap, although I agree that doesn't mean writers need "overlords" as such. Certainly the VCs and bigger businesses that have been buying up and gutting popular gaming sites are garbage tier businesspeople. Without a "big name," though, and therefore most likely limited traffic, smaller sites are a lot more likely to be subscription-based.

But there are independent sites out there, for example a group of mostly ex-Kotaku writers started Aftermath:

https://aftermath.site/about-us

Unwinnable (ex-Vice, Kotaku, and a few others) and Remap Radio (ex-Vice - Rob Zakney and Patrick Klepek on the editorial front - mostly podcasts, but occasional longform written content) put out good content as well in the space. Unwinnalbe produces monthly longform content that you can mostly access without a subscription. Remap Radio gives you a lot of audio content, but about about half of their written words are sub-only.

That's it for longform. I also regularly look at rpgsite.net, adventuregamers, and Alpha Beta Gamer (for demos), but those are a LOT more niche. For daily news/blog like coverage, I look at Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and PC Gamer. At least I know the articles will be written for human beings instead of being filler for SEO farming.

 

[Artichoke Sap]

Tunic is very refreshing for me, the little fox is cute but the combat is challenging. The soundtrack is fantastic. I like not having my hand held but they do drop clues in the form of "pages" from an NES-style instruction manual. I'm getting a real buzz from figuring stuff out rather than following the prompts, or having my character say to themselves "I should try using my focus!"

The only spoiler I had was hearing people talk about was something that let me get stronger just a little bit earlier than happens naturally (being deliberately vague). Other than that, this has been a delight. We had just finished White Knight Chronicles, and was looking through the PlayStation Plus catalog, and I was like "Oh! Tunic! I've heard great things about this one!" And it's been a great time, family working together to figure out how the game works.

 

[Backstop]

The only spoiler I had was hearing people talk about was something that let me get stronger just a little bit earlier than happens naturally (being deliberately vague). Other than that, this has been a delight. We had just finished White Knight Chronicles, and was looking through the PlayStation Plus catalog, and I was like "Oh! Tunic! I've heard great things about this one!" And it's been a great time, family working together to figure out how the game works.

I have looked for a hint or two so far, big shout out to the Tunic subreddit for "playing along" and also being vague-but-guiding with their hints. The two threads I looked at weren't like "go here and do X" they were like "have you thought about clouds lately?"

 

[CPX]

I've been replaying RDR2 on my shiny new RTX 4080 Super. All these years later and the game's still one of the top visual experiences of gaming.

Still in the middle of chapter 4. Both eager and dreadful for the epilogue. I remember it being super uneven more than anything.

One striking thing to me is the music. It's super high quality, but it's thematically all over the place. There's only two consistent leitmotifs I can identify (RDR2 Outlaws from the West and RDR1 John Marston theme). May I Stand Unshaken seems to be Arthur's theme but it only arrives super late and can't be conveyed without words. No other consistent themes seem present in the score and the soundtrack songs seem a bit disconnected. Ah well.

 

[Ajar]

Unwinnable (ex-Vice, Kotaku, and a few others) and Remap Radio (ex-Vice - Rob Zakney and Patrick Klepek on the editorial front - mostly podcasts, but occasional longform written content) put out good content as well in the space. Unwinnalbe produces monthly longform content that you can mostly access without a subscription. Remap Radio gives you a lot of audio content, but about about half of their written words are sub-only.

That's it for longform. I also regularly look at rpgsite.net, adventuregamers, and Alpha Beta Gamer (for demos), but those are a LOT more niche. For daily news/blog like coverage, I look at Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and PC Gamer. At least I know the articles will be written for human beings instead of being filler for SEO farming.

RPS was bought out and they canned the editor. :/ It still seems to be itself for now, but it may be on a similar trajectory to Destructoid et al.

 

[krimhorn]

I'm pretty sure I got that achievement and don't remember it being particularly onerous. IIRC the sliding attack into combo usually knocks a guy out.

The server room was literally a coin flip whether you could get through it with a ton of enemies shooting at you throughout the entire run. There were a couple of speedrunner tricks to get through it but 99% of people would never think to pull them off let alone be capable of it.

Most of the game could be passed with some trial and error and foreknowledge of what was coming. The end of the mall and the parking deck of the container ship were, easily, the two hardest sections but they were nothing compared to the last level.

 

[krimhorn]

With today’s youth consuming most of their media via short-form and (to an extent) long-form video, actually reading about a game (even one they’re heavily interested in) is just not high on the list. There’s certainly no shortage of TT/Youtubers churning out content for that purpose. Traditional gaming websites are turning into content mills because unfortunately that’s largely what people are resorting to web searches for. Random hyper-specific crap like “how do I farm material X in game Y” or endless “best in game” lists.

I stopped reading most gaming websites 10+ years ago because they had all completed the 10-year march to being the same drab and boring press-release regurgitator. And reviews got so short as to be worse than just watching 2 minutes of a gameplay clip to see if it's a genre that I tend to like then checking reddit for 30 seconds to see if there was a meltdown over bugs/instability in the game.

Hell, it's been trending that way for the past 20 years but occasionally we'd get something new and fresh that stayed that way for about 6 months before it became old and tired because it got ran into the ground since it was the only thing driving views. Very, very rarely would something hit upon multiple winning writers/presenters but then they'd treat them like shit, sell to a bigger company and drive them away.

So, uh, yeah, game's "journalism" is just a microcosm of the greater shit that is the top-cost part of the industry. Not worth anyone's time. Especially the people working there.

 

[Thorvard]

I honestly can't remember the last time I've really followed gaming news websites. It's gotta be close to 10 years as well.

It's probably not the best but I use a combo of here, Reddit, Youtube and Steam to find out about new games. I just don't care about the news aspect of gaming like I used to. Before I'd follow .plan files religiously and now I think "Finish the game already, who cares about the rocket launcher being OP"

 

[Mortus]

Fallout London has released.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rahBCfRdVac

 

[CommanderJameson]

A Yorkshireman narrating. Interesting choice.

 

[krimhorn]

"Finish the game already, who cares about the rocket launcher being OP"

Worse: I usually want them to leave that OP if it's single-player. That's more fun than their following the market to try and make a bad Soulslike. Again.

 

[LordDaMan]

Fallout London has released.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rahBCfRdVac

Downloading as we speak. Thankfully my internet had a nice upgrade in speed lately as this will take maybe 40 minutes to download and install, instead of the like 4-5 hours before

 

[Ryan B.]

Gaming is already bigger and culturally more significant than movies. I've read established actors like Kirsten Dunst expressing that movies are just not as important these days as they were, say, 20 years ago. And it feels the same to me too. Gaming also just became an Olympic sport. So if it's a niche - it's only as much as anything else is a niche.

Emphasis mine, because this is what I meant. Every special interest is a slice of the pie. Sports are a slice of the pie (though such an enormous slice that they seem to still be doing fine). Gadget reviews are a slice of the pie.

Take Ars for example. It stated out as a pretty narrow-interest tech website. (I remember reading Jon Stokes's CPU articles on Ars in the 90s.) What does it cover now? Just off the top of my head: Tech, gadget reviews, gaming, space, science, cars, politics (!). And it still had to sell out to survive. Thank goodness they have a successful subscription program so they don't have to rely wholly on ad revenue.

 

[invertedpanda]

Well, maybe I will have some time to play other games in September, since..


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxeGyXSM5Pc

 

[CommanderJameson]

Well, that’s nice. Turns out the “next gen” update to FO4 (a) requires I unplug my controller because it disables the mouse if it sees a controller and (b) crashes when I start the game. Good old Bethesda!

 

[Diabolical]

Just remember folks, if you are going to be trying to play Fallout London, look at the reqs.
https://www.ign.com/articles/how-to-play-fallout-london
The next-gen upgrade is NOT compatible with Fallout London, you’ll have to downgrade back to the previous patch. That IGN article has instructions for the GoG and Steam releases.