Ben-DutkaWe didn't really need Uncharted 4: A Thief's End for the holiday season, did we? Plenty to play.
To clarify, I like what CD Projekt Red did with The Witcher 3's accessibility
When the developers said they were "amazed" at the far-reaching popularity of one of 2015's biggest games, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt , I had to ask the obvious question:
Is it feasible that the title enjoyed widespread popularity because the default difficulty was actually pretty easy ? I said in that editorial that a player could probably breeze through the game without really bothering with the deeper aspects, and I knew someone who never used bombs and treated the adventure more like an action game. But it's hardly a bad thing. The developers did give the hardcore the option to make the game hard, what with two higher difficulty settings. On top of which, they managed to turn what is normally an experience geared exclusively toward core gamers into a pseudo-mainstream title. Provided you can satisfy multiple groups of consumers, what's the problem? It doesn't really hurt the quality of the product, does it?
However, some think things are going too far. For instance, I've heard people criticize the simplicity and accessibility of Star Wars: Battlefront , in that it's not very demanding at all. I.e., you don't have to think or plan as much as some would've anticipated. But as mainstream/casual gamers are by far the biggest group in the industry right now, you really have no choice as a developer. Yes, things have to be faster and dumber if you want to sell lots of copies. But at the same time, how can the core group complain with the likes of Bloodborne out there? And Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain isn't exactly for dummies, either. The bottom line is that I think there's enough for everyone and The Witcher 3 does a nice job of trying to cross hardcore/casual boundaries.
Well, EA, you really don't have anything I want you to remake or update, anyway
I was a little surprised when I read EA COO Peter Moore's comments concerning remakes and remasters . He says his company is more about "forward progress" and even said that the practice makes it seem like "you've run out of ideas." Firstly, that's really not fair, as the developers and publishers that have produced most remakes and remasters have lots of new projects in the hopper. One could claim they're trying to milk certain franchises but honestly, that's not what I see when I look at stuff like the Uncharted Collection , The Last Of Us: Remastered and Resident Evil HD Remaster . I just see updated games on new platforms that might cater to those who never played the original productions. "Milking" in my eyes is when meaningless and mediocre sequels keep showing up, year after year.
Actually, as I don't care much about Mass Effect , there aren't too many EA franchises I'd really care to revisit. Remakes and remasters might not be "in their culture" but repeated entries in the Madden and Battlefield franchises obviously are. Not sure that's any better.
Personal gaming update
Dragon Quest Heroes is a straight-up waste of my time. And as I explained in the review, it has nothing to do with what I want or what I think a DQ game should be. If you want to turn it into Dynasty Warriors , fine; you'll piss off just about every Dragon Quest lover in existence but hey, no skin of my teeth. If you still manage to make a good game, then I'll tell you it's a good game. But it isn't and that's that. As for Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance , it's great but I really would like to play other video games before 2017. It's just way too huge but I imagine the die-hard strategy/RPG fans will love it to pieces.
I'm enjoying the Hearts of Stone expansion for The Witcher 3 and I'll probably deliver a review when I'm done. In regards to my previous reservations , I'm happy to report that thus far, I haven't run into any glitches or other serious problems. However, I still have to be careful; I've already had to do the first few missions without getting any experience because they were more than five levels below Geralt's level. I like the new enchantment system, even if I'm not a big fan of even the mastercrafted enchantments you can use, and the stories are interesting. I'll definitely play next year's Blood and Wine whenever it arrives.
I'm already swamped with games to play so I can definitely wait for Uncharted 4. Though Uncharted 4 would've been a game that caused me to stop playing most anything else for a week to take it in.
I want Battlefront. It's more for the Star Wars fan in me though. If I start thinking critically about it I'd probably not want to play it much. I just like the idea of reliving the coolest scenes from the movies while I grew up. The graphics and tech these days just make it seem so authentic feeling.
PGU: I'm swamped because I've been busy. It's hard to give the games I want to play enough time these days. A part of this has something to do with the game engine programming I've been somewhat obsessed with. I'll post a link below if anyone's interested to see my progress.
https://youtu.be/jH7UZWODbhk
The model is of Kasumi from DOA5 (not made by me). I wanted to test my obj loader out on a variety of models.
A whole lot of work went into this from the last time I showed the engine. It now calculates normals, and does all kinds of neat lighting effects.
The video's skipped frames is from my laptop trying to record and render together. The engine is pushing around 190-300fps in that scene when rendered alone.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 10/17/2015 9:55:39 PM
Battlefront was fun. The controls felt great. I would like to get it but it seems like a missed opportunity for them to not include a campaign. I mean it's Star Wars.
Last edited by Jawknee on 10/18/2015 12:23:36 AM
I feel the same Jawknee. It should have had a campaign.
When it was announced some time ago that Amy Hennig was working on a Star Wars game with Visceral, I was instantly excited. So I look forward to that.
I feel like the core appeal of Battlefront is for multiplayer, massive scale battles, so I'm okay with it how it is.
But with that said seeing something like Battlefront makes me want a studio to take on a full single player focused project based on Star Wars. I'd love to see a game by Bioware or something like Dark Forces.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 10/18/2015 4:18:37 PM
Anyone see MGS5 made $179,000,000 in its first week? And Konami was mad about the $80,000,000 budget? Pft…
I can't say it enough. This game is amazing. Both the single player and the MGO are phominal. So many ways to approach each mission and battle. I'm going through the main story again for S ranks and task completions. Some feel new given you have to approach them from different angles and stratagies if you want to obtain to S ranks and complete the tasks.
MGO is a blast but can be frustrating when you don't have cooperate teammates. Some steal your fultons or kill a guy you're trying to interrogate. Can be annoying. But it's very satisfying fultoning an opponent. Though I found it a little jarring having to revert back to the default stats. The MGO character runs, reloads and crawls much slower than Snake. Also the shoulder camera is places lower on the character than it is in single player. This could be a mode I get into. But I worry Konami will shut it down in a year or two.
Shame to hear you didn't like DQ Heroes. Never been a fan of DW games. I like fun and people who do. Lol, but I did really like Hyrule Warriors. Probably the bias in me since I love Zelda so much.
Last edited by Jawknee on 10/18/2015 12:13:06 AM
Phenomenal* cooperative* I poke fun at people*
Damn predictive text.
Last edited by Jawknee on 10/18/2015 12:48:36 AM
really?! wow why the hell were konami so mad.
Yup I've been playing mgo with a friend, it really is a game ya need to work together to win at. I was loving helping him out of be fulton'd away or cqcing the guy who just did it to him. Pretty fun online.
Last edited by Godslim on 10/18/2015 5:37:38 AM
I was suprised aswell what ea's peter moore said regarding remakes, the only franchise i replay of ea's from last generation on ps4 or xbox one is the mass effect trilogy and thats it.
Ea has a couple of gems out there which I would be interested to see remade like 007:nightfire or Black from the ps2 era.
My gaming at the moment is hectic, still trying to complete the witcher as well as playing mgo, swbf beta and a little league of legends.
Nightfire was fu%^ing awesome i loved that game
yeh same some many hours playing with friends and family
So with Ben's way of thinking companies shouldn't branch out their franchises with spin offs to try new things? Get out of here with that thinking, that is terrible.
If all Dragon Quest fans hated the damn game then it wouldnt have sold well or have gotten green light for a sequel. The wider appeal this game could have could also help sales once Dragon Quest XI hits the PS4.
So much wrong here.
Last edited by SayWord on 10/18/2015 12:08:25 PM
You could actually read the review and figure out why everything you just said about what I think is completely wrong, but obviously, you didn't bother to read it in the first place.
I said specifically in several places that franchises must branch out if they don't want to get stale. I also said the game isn't very good because the gameplay itself is mediocre, which it is. Rather than making crap up that I never said, you could at least try to explain why the gameplay is better.
yeh same some many hours playing with friends and family
Battlefront was fun. The controls felt great. I would like to get it but it seems like a missed opportunity for them to not include a campaign. I mean it's Star Wars.
Last edited by Jawknee on 10/18/2015 12:23:36 AM
You could actually read the review and figure out why everything you just said about what I think is completely wrong, but obviously, you didn't bother to read it in the first place.
I said specifically in several places that franchises must branch out if they don't want to get stale. I also said the game isn't very good because the gameplay itself is mediocre, which it is. Rather than making crap up that I never said, you could at least try to explain why the gameplay is better.
Anyone see MGS5 made $179,000,000 in its first week? And Konami was mad about the $80,000,000 budget? Pft…
I can't say it enough. This game is amazing. Both the single player and the MGO are phominal. So many ways to approach each mission and battle. I'm going through the main story again for S ranks and task completions. Some feel new given you have to approach them from different angles and stratagies if you want to obtain to S ranks and complete the tasks.
MGO is a blast but can be frustrating when you don't have cooperate teammates. Some steal your fultons or kill a guy you're trying to interrogate. Can be annoying. But it's very satisfying fultoning an opponent. Though I found it a little jarring having to revert back to the default stats. The MGO character runs, reloads and crawls much slower than Snake. Also the shoulder camera is places lower on the character than it is in single player. This could be a mode I get into. But I worry Konami will shut it down in a year or two.
Shame to hear you didn't like DQ Heroes. Never been a fan of DW games. I like fun and people who do. Lol, but I did really like Hyrule Warriors. Probably the bias in me since I love Zelda so much.
Last edited by Jawknee on 10/18/2015 12:13:06 AM
I was suprised aswell what ea's peter moore said regarding remakes, the only franchise i replay of ea's from last generation on ps4 or xbox one is the mass effect trilogy and thats it.
https://youtu.be/jH7UZWODbhk
The model is of Kasumi from DOA5 (not made by me). I wanted to test my obj loader out on a variety of models.
A whole lot of work went into this from the last time I showed the engine. It now calculates normals, and does all kinds of neat lighting effects.
The video's skipped frames is from my laptop trying to record and render together. The engine is pushing around 190-300fps in that scene when rendered alone.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 10/17/2015 9:55:39 PM
really?! wow why the hell were konami so mad.
Yup I've been playing mgo with a friend, it really is a game ya need to work together to win at. I was loving helping him out of be fulton'd away or cqcing the guy who just did it to him. Pretty fun online.
Last edited by Godslim on 10/18/2015 5:37:38 AM
So with Ben's way of thinking companies shouldn't branch out their franchises with spin offs to try new things? Get out of here with that thinking, that is terrible.
If all Dragon Quest fans hated the damn game then it wouldnt have sold well or have gotten green light for a sequel. The wider appeal this game could have could also help sales once Dragon Quest XI hits the PS4.
So much wrong here.
Last edited by SayWord on 10/18/2015 12:08:25 PM
I'm already swamped with games to play so I can definitely wait for Uncharted 4. Though Uncharted 4 would've been a game that caused me to stop playing most anything else for a week to take it in.
I want Battlefront. It's more for the Star Wars fan in me though. If I start thinking critically about it I'd probably not want to play it much. I just like the idea of reliving the coolest scenes from the movies while I grew up. The graphics and tech these days just make it seem so authentic feeling.
PGU: I'm swamped because I've been busy. It's hard to give the games I want to play enough time these days. A part of this has something to do with the game engine programming I've been somewhat obsessed with. I'll post a link below if anyone's interested to see my progress.
I feel like the core appeal of Battlefront is for multiplayer, massive scale battles, so I'm okay with it how it is.
But with that said seeing something like Battlefront makes me want a studio to take on a full single player focused project based on Star Wars. I'd love to see a game by Bioware or something like Dark Forces.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 10/18/2015 4:18:37 PM
I feel the same Jawknee. It should have had a campaign.
When it was announced some time ago that Amy Hennig was working on a Star Wars game with Visceral, I was instantly excited. So I look forward to that.
Phenomenal* cooperative* I poke fun at people*
Damn predictive text.
Last edited by Jawknee on 10/18/2015 12:48:36 AM
Ea has a couple of gems out there which I would be interested to see remade like 007:nightfire or Black from the ps2 era.
My gaming at the moment is hectic, still trying to complete the witcher as well as playing mgo, swbf beta and a little league of legends.
Nightfire was fu%^ing awesome i loved that game