Ben-DutkaThe review blitz continues…tiring as all hell, but at least the games are good. 😉
Vue might be the straw that breaks cable's back
I am so tired of cable TV.
There's never anything on it I want to see (most of the stuff is so disgustingly stupid or depressing I can't fathom how it's deemed "entertainment) and the commercials have become overwhelming. The only thing I use it for is to watch reruns of old – and actually decent – shows and some sports. And it's stupid expensive to boot.
But this new cloud-based TV service of Sony's, PlayStation Vue , might be all I need to finally cancel cable. I'll keep the Internet and stick with Netflix, Hulu and Vue. That's what I'm hoping to do. I'll probably be able to get just about everything I'd want to watch, with the exception of my tennis channel and the Super Bowl. And I can get it all for a fraction of the cost of cable, with a fraction of the commercials, and I can watch everything whenever I want. I'm hoping I'm one of those select PS3/PS4 owners who get a chance to try out Vue this month…
Just Cause 3 is definitely coming but it better be FIXED
Everyone's whining about the technical flaws in Assassin's Creed Unity but the flaws that really bug me are unforgivable mechanical issues, like the ones that made the previous two Just Cause entries so painful. Yeah, I know, there are staunch supporters of the games, and that's cool. It just means they were able to look past mediocre gameplay design and performance. Now, it seems Avalanche is cleaning up their act with Just Cause 3 , if that early news from Game Informer is any indication. They're saying we can expect better physics and gameplay systems, which is great.
The concept of these games has never been in dispute. They've always been completely over-the-top, more so than Grand Theft Auto and even more so than Saints Row . They just needed a lot of refinement and polish and I'm hoping we see that in the next entry. Not sure what's going on with Mad Max but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that it was shelved. It didn't receive the best feedback when a sample came out earlier this year.
Personal gaming update
I have no idea how it's going to happen but I'm going to try to finish both Assassin's Creed Unity and Dragon Age: Inquisition . I'm aiming for a February completion of both. 😉 But don't forget there's Grand Theft Auto V on PS4, which I definitely have to play (and I told Rockstar I'd deliver a new review), and I still like playing Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare . On top of it all, I expect to see Far Cry 4 first thing Monday, and I'll probably get LittleBigPlanet 3 as well. 'sigh'
I told the Ubisoft rep that I was disappointed with the way some of my critic colleagues handled the Unity review. And I am. It sort of shows where our priorities are as an industry and why artistic sensibility is very rarely rewarded in any entertainment medium these days. That's where I stand on that issue and no, I won't be altering that stance.
JC2 is one of the very few times I disagreed with you on a game. I'm hoping JC3 is more refined to your liking.
I'm excited about getting a PS4 in the next few weeks. My birthday is next week so I'm hoping to get lots of PS4 goodies from family and friends. I also expect to be showered with praise and admiration from the PSXE community.
Forgot to mention Far Cry 4 is incredible. I couldn't wait for the game to unlock on the 18th so I showed TPB some love 😉
Last edited by LimitedVertigo on 11/15/2014 10:06:42 PM
I ain't praising an eggplant alien. Icky ew.
Same here for Farcry 4. Not sure if I want to buy it just yet, but I probably will during the Steam Christmas sale.
You will praise me!!!!
I seem to be one of those people who can look past technical faults because I really enjoyed Just Cause 2 (although I agree the gameplay mechanics were terrible) and the issues in ACU haven't stopped me from loving it and I agree that it is a work of art, the effort put into making a living, breathing and beautifully detailed 18th century France deserves far more recognition than it has received. It's so disappointing that most reviewers choose to completely ignore that and focus on technical issues that do not take away from the experience in any significant way.
JC2 created so many amazing gaming moments for me I didn't see the big issue with any bugs the game may have had.
Ya I really enjoyed it too, especially the mid-air hijacking from one plane to another…so many great moments.
I know! I must have spent 50+ hours doing mid-air stunts.
Unity and Rogue were…not good. Artistically speaking, they're even worse than previous AC games.
Played some Mass Effect 3 this week after that HD thing. Love Bioware so much. Played AC rogue and beat it in 4 hours. Ending was unity's intro.
Just Cause 2 was…alright. I know it was a strange game in its gameplay but if you were in the mood to run around a beautiful massive world to blow stuff up. there is no other game but JC2. I expect good things from JC3. They better aim for 60fps though, its an action game. It needs to have high FPS. Don't follow in Unitys foosteps and make an action adevnture game 10fps.
All I look forward too now is the future challenge runs I will be doing on Evil Within and playing Dragon Age. GTAV will be great, but, Biowares got me absorbed in the worlds they create.
You played and finished Rogue and Unity? In another comment, all you did is copy and paste the problems Unity had from another news article.
All this does is make it sound like you've never touched either game.
Last edited by Ben Dutka PSXE on 11/16/2014 1:36:37 AM
I can look past bugs if the game is good. I do it all the time. But one thing that really gets to me is frame rate drops and freezes. Those two things are inexcusable. And whether it's because the games "artistic sensibility" is to try and achieve something next gen or how many enemies they tried to get on the screen or if it just needed more fine tuning, you can't let aspirations get in the way of quality. And to that point if you do aim for the sky just put the necessary time in to make it right.
A perfect example is Borderlands. They struggled to make the game right and so they made a sacrifice and the game ended up being cell shaded. And it worked in their favor.
PGU: Still playing DC Universe but not much since I downloaded Advanced Warfare. What a great game. It seriously is the best one to come out since MW. It's reminiscent of MW in a lot of ways but still progressive. I'm not a fan of the Uber small maps that are very tight and more City scape but that doesn't make it worse. It's just more simple, and you don't have these insane perks that make you knife farther or reload 10 times quicker or kill streaks that put you in a helicopter for 20 seconds. The game just does what CoD used to do. Good game, lots of fun.
Your definition of quality isn't the same as everyone else's.
Wouldn't expect it to be either. Quality can be used in many ways in this industry. Every game has different qualities.
But the point stands and I think most people, including yourself know the type of quality I am referring too here.
Railer, as much as it pains me to agree with Ben, speaking strictly from a review standpoint, if glitches and bugs were to be a black mark against a game despite its lofty aspirations, then Fallout 3, New Vegas, and every Elder Scrolls in existence don't warrant a score over 7. Despite the bugs, even game breaking, these games were embraced. Why any different for AC Unity? This is a case of the good FAR outweighing the bad. And as an aside, Im not experiencing as many glitches and framerate drops as others claim. At least not many more than the typical AC game…
Last edited by n/a on 11/16/2014 3:12:37 AM
Fortunately for AC Unity I'm not strictly speaking about it. I haven't even played it so I can't say much about it other than hear say.
But that's beside the point too. In my first sentence I said I can look past bugs and glitches if the game is good. The games you mentioned I was able too look past some things. Because they had *other* qualities. But in reality they did have issues and it's starting to reflect more in the industry and it should. While I loved Fallout 3 and I'd personally give it a high 8 to mid 9, it's expansions were so terribly developed on the PS3 I couldn't even play them. And while they had the same inherent quality of this huge open world with choice and freedom, I'd never recognize them as anything over a 7 purely based on me literally not being able to finish them. And didn't Ben just write an article that 7 's doesn't mean the game is bad?! Just that issues are relevant!
The Elder Scrolls Oblivion had issues but nothing that stopped me from playing the game. But Skyrim froze a lot. Frame rates dropped so low at times it would just freeze. Every time I walked through water it would freeze. Again I could never finish it despite the hours I dumped into it. That should be taken into consideration. In fact if I remember right Ben got ridiculed for his review because of the issues. And it's strange because Skyrim for me actually ran fine until they started patching things like the dragon glitches and the large save files and so on. It wasn't until later when the game started crashing.
But again the point of all this isn't to sit here and try and justify a games score or how it should be scored. If you have read my comments over the past few days regarding AC, I always refer to development time. All these games would have benefited from the teams taking the necessary time to work these things out. That's my point and I thought I made that clear in my first paragraph. So yes despite a teams aspirations – that yes should be admired – they still have a responsibility to release a finished, well running video game. If not to fulfill their aspirations than at least for the customers who will be playing them.
Last edited by bigrailer19 on 11/16/2014 4:08:29 AM
Why would it pain you to agree with someone? Are you that averse to fact that you are more inclined to want to disagree with a person rather than the truth of a matter?
This is what really bugs me about the Unity backlash. It seems to me that the VAST majority of people bashing the game haven't even played it.
I don't get how they can do that in good conscience.
Yeah I don't know how they can either. I'm trying to leave Unity out of this, despite the things I've heard, to keep on point.
Last edited by bigrailer19 on 11/16/2014 11:19:37 PM
PGU:
I can play video-games now. Those fun things (Y), much love.
thats fine stand ur ground i won't blame you can props to you for that giving props for something that doesn't get alot of it props to you for that as well as for just cause 3 looking forward to that JC2 was awsome loved it so bring on number 3 as for PS Vue from not such a big deal for me in NZ but could be cool anyway but i don't blame you for that either. as for mad max i'd say thats gone on stand by even though that could have been a really cool game. and glad ur enjoying all the games ben but just one thing let me know how u like LBP 3 cos i haven't been able to play it yet myself and i was keen for that. and lastly AC unity that launch was disappointing even though i wasn't part of it just from a gamers point of view its really quite sad to see stuff like that happen they should know better
happy gaming
Which game would you choose out of Assassins Creed Unity or Far Cry 4? I am on the fence & only plan on getting one at the moment.
Far Cry 4, but I'm extremely biased.
PGU: I finished the main story in Borderlands 2 last thursday! The end battle was a bit too easy, but other than that I'm pleased. I really liked the story in this one!
I don't think I've done more than half the side quests yet, nor more than one of the arenas. It really is an *enormous* amount of content in those games. I'm a slow player, but still: I got more than 80 hours counted in that game now. That includes one restart of the story with a different character, but still. It's staggering.
Now to start on the DLC stories. I had a little peek on the Tiny Tina DLC, and it looked absolutely hillarious. Such a genious idea of an addon story: Mordekai, Lilith and Brick (the player characters of the first Borderlands, now three npc friends in BL2) are playing a board RPG game with Tiny Tina (a little girl NPC we meet in the main campaign), and Tiny Tina is the game master, the one making up the story of the board, in a typical whimsy way of a child. And of course, you are playing the story she tells.
A really funny idea, and the voice actor of Tiny Tina is doing a f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c job.
I've bought the pre-sequel already, but with Inquisition coming soon it'll have to wait until well into 2015. But that's ok, it's a good feeling to have great stuff awaiting.
But seriously: Borderlands has sailed up to one of my top spots on favourite franchises of all time.
Last edited by Beamboom on 11/16/2014 6:31:13 AM
I've been playing Assassins Creed Unity and I've only experienced a minor frame rate issue while searching for Nostradamus Enigmas. It happened when I was climbing across some stained glass windows on a cathedral. I figured it happened because they just got finished cleaning the glass and I came along and got them dirty again, triggering a frame rate penalty.
Seriously though, that's the only time I had any problems and they were very minor. I still have a long way to go before completing the game.
France is beautifully rendered and it is huge. Thank God for fast travel.
After watching someone stream their early copy of Dragon Age: Inquisition, I'll pass on it and save my money for The Witcher.
Little late to the Sunday update but whatever.
Cable TV has gone past it's prime imho. Industries shift and I'm all for the new streaming like services that we are seeing now to take over. So here's to hoping Vue does well.
I really liked the PS 20 year anniversary video. I didn't even notice it was fall of 2014. I found the december issue of OPM on ebay. I haven't opened it yet. Might wait till Xmass. It has a picture of Crash on the front cover and says "Bash" Anyone remember that one. The PS2 release was such a bug deal to me. I didn't want to be the last one to the party like I had with PS1, Genesis, and NES.
PGU: Still Borderlands 2. The cartoonish cell shading make the game an auto classic. It will always be awesome!
Can't wait to see how FC4 ends up. Still don't plan on getting any new games for a while, but who knows.
I've put 8+ hours into the game and it's fantastic. If you liked FC3 you'll love FC4. Pagan Min so far is a better villain than Vaas.
Hooray for Borderlands! 🙂
Vue is very interesting indeed.
Next friday i get a white ps4 and i'm curious if it's the "old" model cuh-1000 or the new one cuh-1100 with a chanched heatsink/wifi.
PGU:i finished the evil within,hmmm i liked it… but….it did the same as res.evil 4:they went the action way,and i wanted a scary game and it is NOT scary,it is only a action game[with some stealth] in a horror scenery.
As an action game i liked it,but yeah i wanted a scary game but maybe the scary games are not wanted enough anymore?
Therefore i'm glad ps4 gets the res.evil remake remastered,old but a scary game,and still one of the best[the new silent hill wil take a while].
Friday i will have an ps4,with metro redux and The last of us remastered,beginning of next year the true next gen games will come ,the order and the witcher 3 and more.
Last edited by slow and smart on 11/16/2014 2:34:42 PM
hehehe i meant changed heatsink/wifi
Playstation Vue will succumb the faith of so many hopefuls trying to enter the area that's monopolized. The moment I read about it, I instantly had a flashback of the crippling blow Netflix endured. It's still not the same. I'll be the first to cheer Sony's effort, but am trying to contain my perhaps delusional high hopes.
Then there's the broadband problem. Comcast continuously hikes the price of broadband-only consumers. $80 for Internet alone is a tough pill to swallow. Especially when the digital starter package is $98/mo w/Internet.
I'm still on dark souls 2. I'm losing friends, my girlfriend hates me, and my coworkers think I'm crazy. It's all worth it, damnit! Totally enjoying this!
Last edited by DemonNeno on 11/16/2014 5:52:31 PM
The only issue with getting rid of cable and moving things more digital, is once things aren't all bundled together (for I agree a high price) cables channels will probably start selling their individual channels over the net. They'll strive only for things that are mainstream already and most niche stuff that barely survives but are actually awesome will be gone with the wind.
Just opinions but that's how I feel that'll turn out.
Gaming wise I haven't used my ps4 for about a month now :c and probably not for a few more. Smash is coming out so my Wii U will probably get some love and then in Feb with The Order my ps4 will probably be used again.
World! Where's muh meditation!