If the opening to Redfall is the best part, then they really should have reconsidered everything, since the opening was also weak.
Maybe I am just not a fit for Arkane games, or maybe this is just a bad example, but everything felt lifeless, meaningless looting, and smeared graphically and art style that read Last Gen to me.
Maybe I need to try a different character.
It seems a quintessential Double-A game trying to compete in the AAA space and that isn't doing it favors.
Zombie Gandhi on
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Maybe I am just not a fit for Arkane games, or maybe this is just a bad example, but everything felt lifeless, meaningless looting, and smeared graphically and art style that read Last Gen to me.
That's just Redfall, it's not a signature of Arkane games and that breaks my heart to read this game is making people think this was what Dishonored, Prey or Deathloop was like. All three of those are classics of Immersive Sim gaming and much much better games than Redfall. They are nowhere near similar.
Star Wars Episode I Racer is part of Games with Gold this month. I loved that game back in the day.
I forget GWG exists ever since they removed it from the home screen and made it impossible to find.
All this talk about ads on the home screen, they don’t bother me and are the only way I really know sales are going one since I don’t make a habit out of periodically checking the store, but please add GwG back at least at the start of every month and during the mid-month change (do they still do that?).
0
BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
All of this sounds bad, or at least nitpicky. But here's the thing: I don't want to pick nits at all here. One of the reasons why I'm still so early on in Redfall is because I've been playing it very slowly, savouring the flow of missions, the scraps of notes to read, the lovely atmospheric storytelling that goes beyond the timely satire to deliver a place that feels not just generously imagined but generously observed, that feels like someone loved it and studied something intently in order to make it. I love the fact that my base of operations is a fire house, and I love that an early side mission had me restoring its popcorn machine for morale purposes. I'm not bothered by loot, but I love a stake gun I just found - my third or fourth of this strain of weapon, but the first to really kick - that finishes vampires off in one blast.
I mean the headline is:
A third of the way in, Redfall is characterful and fun and currently a little bit janky
The Eurogamer pre-review hews exceptionally close to my playstyle which is maybe why I've been so initially charmed by it. I've mostly been setting a waypoint for a main quest and in between walking to my destination I regularly stray into buildings to pick up loot and collectible logs and the flavour text and combat encounters has been pleasant enough. The game introduced new vampire types and behaviours slowly and gradually in a way that felt like they just showed up on the overworld organically. And then I went into my first Vampire Nest! etc etc.
Obviously that sense of discovery might fall apart when I stop discovering new nooks and crannies and maybe it'll fall apart on the second half like everyone says, but for now it's a sparse videogame that moves at a wavelength that I settled into pretty comfortably on the first day.
+2
BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
I think it's telling that one of the responses is like "I feel like my game is broken because the enemies in my game have never behaved abnormally like all these clips that people keep posting"
Personally the cave under the helicopter was also one of the first things I hit (on Normal) and those two fuckers absolutely *chased* me. It has to be a detection bug
+1
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
And honestly, as a primary Xbox head, this stuff is not the end of the world, except in combination with "ports are now going to be skipping Xbox for no reason, or for nefarious reasons." How did we go from FF 7-X, XII-XIII, and XV all on Gamepass to no port of the Pixel Remasters at all? From Octopath Traveler on Gamepass to no Live-a-Live at all? From Oxenfree and Afterparty are both Game pass games to no announced port of Oxenfree 2? Are they pissing off devs? Are the devs being bought off? If the former... stop it. If the latter... pay enough money to make them refuse that deal.
I had a long think about this post before responding, but I didn't even realize all of those games were not on the console whatsoever and had to look them up. I actually can't remember, but are all games on Xbox put on gamepass as well (I've not really thought about it much)? Possibly that's why they are avoiding doing so and it does seem exceptionally strange to me that Live-A-Live, which I had never heard of before your post isn't on Xbox but is on literally everything else. I know there was a lot of controversy about Baldurs Gate 3, but I don't see anything sinister there and that's because the Series S is causing them trouble getting local coop to work (and you can't release a different version, EG one without the splitscreen, on Xbox S compared to Xbox X IIRC). The other games did surprise me though.
Thanks so much for pointing out Live-A-Live to me!
I think it's telling that one of the responses is like "I feel like my game is broken because the enemies in my game have never behaved abnormally like all these clips that people keep posting"
Personally the cave under the helicopter was also one of the first things I hit (on Normal) and those two fuckers absolutely *chased* me. It has to be a detection bug
TBH I'm increasingly seeing a divide that might be the fact the game is absolutely rancidly more broken on Xbox than it is on PC.
Which is *really* ironic. I did think about linking any number of tons of examples though at this point, but I liked that one because it's simple and there isn't any complex bullshit happening. Just two guys deciding they've had enough of life in a cave. Adding to this for me is the fact I bought my Series X because I wanted to make sure I played games from Arkane and Bethsoft etc.
I'm beginning to think that was a mistake, but I have no regrets because the amount of fun I've had playing Grounded with my WOIFE across PC and the Series X has been entirely worth every dollar by itself.
I'm on a series X and I don't have an issue with enemies chasing me. Like I've run across some seemingly frozen vamps but the majority of the bastards have no problem chasing my ass.
I do have to say sadly layla just isn't anywhere near the powerhouse dev is. Like her first two skills are not a match at all. I think her umbrella needs a general damage reflect and not specifically ranged damage because it makes it pretty useless against vampires.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Looking at reviews, they are not at all consistent about mentioning a seriously buggy or bad performing game. What they are consistent about is a ho-hum game (which wasn't underheard of back when Dishonored 2 launched, though definitely not the norm either). I'm waiting for an in-depth technical look, since reviews generally don't seem interested in reflecting on performance (and they're largely on console).
It'd be a surprise--I don't recall an Xbox first-party game that didn't have at least good performance on Xbox Series since 2020. It's easy to recall, because they're aren't that many, after all. Even The Medium (a timed exclusive) and Halo Infinite had good framerate consistency. Then again, I didn't think EA would release Jedi Survivor with the worst AAA-developed PC port of 2023 thusfar, so I am prepared to be surprised.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited May 3
Then again, I didn't think EA would release Jedi Survivor with the worst AAA-developed PC port of 2023 thusfar, so I am prepared to be surprised.
Actually, I still think Last of Us has that title (just).
Played through the opening and first Redfall mission after work.
I like it so far?
I totally see where if you are looking for true next gen presentation you could be disappointed - fuzzy textures, etc. But I'm playing stealthy and it was fun.
Then again, I didn't think EA would release Jedi Survivor with the worst AAA-developed PC port of 2023 thusfar, so I am prepared to be surprised.
Actually, I still think Last of Us has that title (just).
The current signs seem to point to no, acknowledging the fact that TLOU was, well, on three consoles before it came to PC, but it's a very undesirable contest to win.
"The Last of Us" was on PS3 and then remastered for PS4.
"The Last of Us: Part 1" is a ground up remake for PS5, and that's the version that is on PC in a terrible state.
+3
BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
Also, just to continue showing my ass on how ignorant I am about this genre: What the fuck is "immersive sim" supposed to mean? I guess I understand the 'immersion' part of it, but what does "sim" imply? What the fuck is being simulated? lol
There's been an entire handful of these games that they made, apparently with this genre definition and predefined expectations, but I'm at a loss as to what is being expected here
I described Redfall to my friend as Dead Island with a taste of borderlands with regards to guns and uniques and stuff. Just swap zombies for vampires. GOD DAMN VAMPIRES!
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Also, just to continue showing my ass on how ignorant I am about this genre: What the fuck is "immersive sim" supposed to mean? I guess I understand the 'immersion' part of it, but what does "sim" imply? What the fuck is being simulated? lol
There's been an entire handful of these games that they made, apparently with this genre definition and predefined expectations, but I'm at a loss as to what is being expected here
The simplest explanation is an immersive sim is a sandbox game, dropping you into an environment and giving you tools to deal with a situation, then reacting to how the player does it. For example creating an escalating situation if the player makes sufficient chaos or making life harder/easier based on what player does.
A good example and arguably one of the best ever is - unsurprisingly - Arkanes own Mooncrash for Prey. Mooncrash tasks you with escaping with 5 characters who all have different strengths and weaknesses. The order you escape in and the method for each one greatly matters, as the game escalates in difficulty with every escape and your options become more limited every time (as every method can only be used ONCE).
I highly recommend playing Prey and especially Mooncrash, which are top tier.
Edit: A good example of my recent Mooncrash attempt was character 1 used a bunch of turrets to kill some Typhon, but in the process got all the turrets destroyed. I didn't think much of it until I needed to summon an elevator with a long ass travel time while being swarmed with Typhon. Because I stupidly wasted all those turrets and the game remembered that I stupidly wasted them, I didn't have the resources I should have to repel the Typhon so it cost me tons of ammo and health items. Then my NEXT character after that didn't have as much ammo and health spare they would like and went down to the hordes of more difficult typhon that had started spawning by escape attempt number #3. Also when you die in Mooncrash you start from the beginning again and the world gets randomly shuffled around (it's pseudo-randomly generated), so I couldn't just beeline the same strategy and would have to reconsider my approach.
Again, cannot recommend playing an actual good game more here and it's cheap as chips, with a 90% positive rating on steam (compared with $70 and 30% for Redfall).
Other examples include Prey, which let you build permanent paths around the station using the Glu cannon, or the entirely different upgrade paths between using alien typhon abilities or being more of a science hacker style, with limited resources making you choose between which one you want to go through. Dishonored has the entire chaos system and pays attention to things you've done in previous levels, making some things harder or easier later on depending on how you want to stuff things up.
And so forth.
Edit2: If Prey is on gamepass, it is easily far more worth the time than Redfall.
BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
So if its about organically providing tools for an open-ended approach to gameplay, I guess Breath of the Wild is kind of an immersive sim, to that effect?
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
So if its about organically providing tools for an open-ended approach to gameplay, I guess Breath of the Wild is kind of an immersive sim, to that effect?
You know, I think Breath of the Wild did really well at this actually and I think I would say Nintendo are doubling down on that with the new game. Honestly I should be far more excited about the new Zelda, but I just don't use my switch anymore and my completion rate of the games I own on it - many of which are fantastic - is so low I've just stopped buying games on it now.
So if its about organically providing tools for an open-ended approach to gameplay, I guess Breath of the Wild is kind of an immersive sim, to that effect?
Yes but its not first-person so disqualifed. (not "immersive")
Same as top-down Zeldalikes not being in the Metroidvania genre.
Redfall is definitely a play on Gamepass kinds of game. I may get it when it is half price or less.
That it one of the great things about Gamepass. You can just mess around with games.
Krathoon on
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Redfall is definitely a play on Gamepass kinds of game. I may get it when it is half price or less.
That it one of the great things about Gamepass. You can just mess around with games.
Honestly, I feel the sentiment of "This game isn't worth paying full price for, so play it on gamepass" is not the ringing endorsement that Microsoft are wanting people to say about their service, or the indication of what quality people should think of about gamepass games. On the other hand, I've seen this expressed so often about Redfall's launch that it makes me wonder if I'm actually wrong about that and maybe they at Microsoft thought "Well, it's a bit of a mess, but that's good enough for gamepass" and just shoved it out. Bear in mind, this game is $70 (Roughly $144 NZ) if you didn't have Gamepass.
Also, just to continue showing my ass on how ignorant I am about this genre: What the fuck is "immersive sim" supposed to mean? I guess I understand the 'immersion' part of it, but what does "sim" imply? What the fuck is being simulated? lol
There's been an entire handful of these games that they made, apparently with this genre definition and predefined expectations, but I'm at a loss as to what is being expected here
It's what old people call FPSRPGs.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I wonder if this means Brian has never played the original Deus Ex, which is one of the best immersive sim shooters of all time. I still love that game to this day.
Redfall is definitely a play on Gamepass kinds of game. I may get it when it is half price or less.
That it one of the great things about Gamepass. You can just mess around with games.
Honestly, I feel the sentiment of "This game isn't worth paying full price for, so play it on gamepass" is not the ringing endorsement that Microsoft are wanting people to say about their service, or the indication of what quality people should think of about gamepass games. On the other hand, I've seen this expressed so often about Redfall's launch that it makes me wonder if I'm actually wrong about that and maybe they at Microsoft thought "Well, it's a bit of a mess, but that's good enough for gamepass" and just shoved it out. Bear in mind, this game is $70 (Roughly $144 NZ) if you didn't have Gamepass.
I'm not sure what's worse.
I think that is what they totally did. They don't really expect people to pay $70 for it. Gamepass is a way to still make money when a game is just ok or not mainstream.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Redfall is definitely a play on Gamepass kinds of game. I may get it when it is half price or less.
That it one of the great things about Gamepass. You can just mess around with games.
Honestly, I feel the sentiment of "This game isn't worth paying full price for, so play it on gamepass" is not the ringing endorsement that Microsoft are wanting people to say about their service, or the indication of what quality people should think of about gamepass games. On the other hand, I've seen this expressed so often about Redfall's launch that it makes me wonder if I'm actually wrong about that and maybe they at Microsoft thought "Well, it's a bit of a mess, but that's good enough for gamepass" and just shoved it out. Bear in mind, this game is $70 (Roughly $144 NZ) if you didn't have Gamepass.
I'm not sure what's worse.
I think that is what they totally did. They don't really expect people to pay $70 for it. Gamepass is a way to still make money when a game is just ok or not mainstream.
I'm curious how that logic should work out. Redfall isn't going to convince anyone to get a Gamepass subscription and we already know, despite Phil's statements otherwise, that Gamepass depresses sales of the game in question as well. So it doesn't seem like a winning proposition to crater Gamepass' reputation as "the place to play games that are kinda not worth really buying otherwise". It also puts ever increasing pressure on other titles coming out for it in future, in particular, Starfield.
I mean, they could always not charge $70 if they don't expect people to pay that much.
Listening to Jez it really sounds like Microsoft doesn't have any grand plan beyond buying up these studios and coordinating some marketing. Its basically up to the studios to decide what they are doing, and sometimes that means doing stupid and bad things. Seeing TLoU on PC though I wonder if Sony is really that different.
I mean, they could always not charge $70 if they don't expect people to pay that much.
Listening to Jez it really sounds like Microsoft doesn't have any grand plan beyond buying up these studios and coordinating some marketing. Its basically up to the studios to decide what they are doing, and sometimes that means doing stupid and bad things. Seeing TLoU on PC though I wonder if Sony is really that different.
Yeah, EA, Xbox, Sony, Etc having bad launches just suggests the state of AAA development in general is having a bad time. See also: Suicide Squad's 10 month delay.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
The thing is Sony doesn't care about PC very much, which is why they don't bother porting their main titles to PC until years after the fact.
But Ragnarok, Forbidden West and so on worked 100% fine on Playstation to begin with and were excellent critically acclaimed games. Like Forbidden West is an incredibly impressive game visually and almost never drops below 60 FPS except when the absolute most crazy shit is going on. I'll be curious how Spiderman 2 goes when it comes out later this year though.
It does seem that triple AAA development, particularly with regards to PC, is in a particular torrid state with the recent spate of releases. I do want to point out though that it's been a bit drowned out in the conversations lately, but Dead Island 2 came out recently and while a throwback in gameplay, technically it was 100% rock solid. Seen no major widespread reports of it being poorly optimized, crashing and so forth. If there was one game I would have picked for "Would be an absolute mess on release" I would have had it number 1 on my bingo card.
Wasn't the original Dead Island kind of janky? I don't remember where I put my copy.
It was a fun game.
Hella Janky.
Played some co op with my wife Devinder and Jacob style. You level up your "bond" and so your guys will talk more, some of the convos or comments were hilarious I knew Devinder would be key to dumb convos.
"As the crow flys eh?"
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I wonder if this means Brian has never played the original Deus Ex, which is one of the best immersive sim shooters of all time. I still love that game to this day.
I played and mostly enjoyed a pretty good chunk of the original Deus Ex before I bounced off it from the obtuse controls, but I mostly considered it a plain RPG
I will say the convos can be pretty involved I'll spoiler the subject of one of the convos between jacob and davinder
Jacob makes a comment about Davinders aim that davinder interrupts to toot his own horn and then jacob says he's an awful shot and Jacob is going to die with him on his six, just brutal.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Deus Ex is considered one of the early imsims, alongside stuff like System Shock 2
A big part of the genre is player choice in how they progress/complete objectives/resolve encounters. This usually means going guns blazing vs. stealth, but with many more paths than that. For example, to continue using Prey, you get a gun that shoots an instant-drying adhesive called the GLOO Cannon that you can use either to lockdown enemies in place temporarily or put solid goo blocks all around the environment, on nearly ANY surface in the entire game. This means there's often many, many ways to approach objectives and explore the space station, as you can stealth through vents and such, or use the gloo cannon to climb up walls and skip whole sections of the game, use alien powers to transform into random objects to avoid detection or get into places you normally couldn't fit, or use hacker powers to get into computers that can open doors, or upgrade your strength to tear down broken doors and just walk in, etc. It's about player choice and creativity and having the game react to that in a gameplay sense, not just in an RPG-style dialog tree or skill tree.
Like in the newer Deus Ex games, Human Revolution and Mankind Divided you can absolutely be a combat heavy psycho and just blast your way through all your problems. You'll miss out on a ton of content and stuff you would normally get from exploring or talking to people or interacting with the environment and hacking, but you can totally just walk in the front door of a mission and just start shooting. Or, you can focus on the social side, talking to certain NPCs to get more information or resources. You can stealthily climb through vents, dodge and weave between cover, use invisibility to sneak around enemies and cameras. Things like that.
tl;dr, Bugsnax is cute, mechanically a bit too simple, and has a worthwhile, interesting story that does not fully pay off because of several compromises made by the ending.
My 3 year old daughter loves Bugsnax because she can't comprehend all the other stuff going on and I skip all the dialog because it bores her. But unfortunately, I read fast and there's subtitles. We're up to the end and I don't want to finish it with her because I know what's coming.
I just wanted a chill, cute game to play with her, not existential horror. Does anyone know any good ones, preferably on GamePass? Alba: A Wildlife Adventure is a great example of the vibe I'm after.
tl;dr, Bugsnax is cute, mechanically a bit too simple, and has a worthwhile, interesting story that does not fully pay off because of several compromises made by the ending.
My 3 year old daughter loves Bugsnax because she can't comprehend all the other stuff going on and I skip all the dialog because it bores her. But unfortunately, I read fast and there's subtitles. We're up to the end and I don't want to finish it with her because I know what's coming.
I just wanted a chill, cute game to play with her, not existential horror. Does anyone know any good ones, preferably on GamePass? Alba: A Wildlife Adventure is a great example of the vibe I'm after.
@Dr_Keenbean Some ideas:
-Super Lucky's Tale
-A bunch of the Rare games (Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Banjo Nuts & Bolts)
-Minecraft, Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends
-Hot Wheels Unleashed
-Costume Quest, Costume Quest 2
-DC Superpets
-Disney Dreamlight Valley
-Disneyland Adventures
-Golf With Your Friends
-Grounded (unless BIG bugs would be too scary)
-Human Fall Flat
-Lego Star Wars (various)
-Slime Rancher 2
-Zoo Tycoon and Jurassic World Evolution 2 (these may be too complex to handle, but could also be a big hit, who knows)
And depending on if they've outgrew these, there's Peppa Pig and Paw Patrol on there.
Re: Bugsnax. Rather than trying to complete the story, maybe encourage collecting hats or doing the optional tasks. There's stuff like "find three GREEN Bugsnax" that they might have a lot of fun puzzling out.
Posts
Maybe I am just not a fit for Arkane games, or maybe this is just a bad example, but everything felt lifeless, meaningless looting, and smeared graphically and art style that read Last Gen to me.
Maybe I need to try a different character.
It seems a quintessential Double-A game trying to compete in the AAA space and that isn't doing it favors.
That's just Redfall, it's not a signature of Arkane games and that breaks my heart to read this game is making people think this was what Dishonored, Prey or Deathloop was like. All three of those are classics of Immersive Sim gaming and much much better games than Redfall. They are nowhere near similar.
Like this is not the Arkane I am used to.
I forget GWG exists ever since they removed it from the home screen and made it impossible to find.
All this talk about ads on the home screen, they don’t bother me and are the only way I really know sales are going one since I don’t make a habit out of periodically checking the store, but please add GwG back at least at the start of every month and during the mid-month change (do they still do that?).
The Eurogamer pre-review hews exceptionally close to my playstyle which is maybe why I've been so initially charmed by it. I've mostly been setting a waypoint for a main quest and in between walking to my destination I regularly stray into buildings to pick up loot and collectible logs and the flavour text and combat encounters has been pleasant enough. The game introduced new vampire types and behaviours slowly and gradually in a way that felt like they just showed up on the overworld organically. And then I went into my first Vampire Nest! etc etc.
Obviously that sense of discovery might fall apart when I stop discovering new nooks and crannies and maybe it'll fall apart on the second half like everyone says, but for now it's a sparse videogame that moves at a wavelength that I settled into pretty comfortably on the first day.
I think it's telling that one of the responses is like "I feel like my game is broken because the enemies in my game have never behaved abnormally like all these clips that people keep posting"
Personally the cave under the helicopter was also one of the first things I hit (on Normal) and those two fuckers absolutely *chased* me. It has to be a detection bug
I had a long think about this post before responding, but I didn't even realize all of those games were not on the console whatsoever and had to look them up. I actually can't remember, but are all games on Xbox put on gamepass as well (I've not really thought about it much)? Possibly that's why they are avoiding doing so and it does seem exceptionally strange to me that Live-A-Live, which I had never heard of before your post isn't on Xbox but is on literally everything else. I know there was a lot of controversy about Baldurs Gate 3, but I don't see anything sinister there and that's because the Series S is causing them trouble getting local coop to work (and you can't release a different version, EG one without the splitscreen, on Xbox S compared to Xbox X IIRC). The other games did surprise me though.
Thanks so much for pointing out Live-A-Live to me!
TBH I'm increasingly seeing a divide that might be the fact the game is absolutely rancidly more broken on Xbox than it is on PC.
Which is *really* ironic. I did think about linking any number of tons of examples though at this point, but I liked that one because it's simple and there isn't any complex bullshit happening. Just two guys deciding they've had enough of life in a cave. Adding to this for me is the fact I bought my Series X because I wanted to make sure I played games from Arkane and Bethsoft etc.
I'm beginning to think that was a mistake, but I have no regrets because the amount of fun I've had playing Grounded with my WOIFE across PC and the Series X has been entirely worth every dollar by itself.
I do have to say sadly layla just isn't anywhere near the powerhouse dev is. Like her first two skills are not a match at all. I think her umbrella needs a general damage reflect and not specifically ranged damage because it makes it pretty useless against vampires.
pleasepaypreacher.net
It'd be a surprise--I don't recall an Xbox first-party game that didn't have at least good performance on Xbox Series since 2020. It's easy to recall, because they're aren't that many, after all. Even The Medium (a timed exclusive) and Halo Infinite had good framerate consistency. Then again, I didn't think EA would release Jedi Survivor with the worst AAA-developed PC port of 2023 thusfar, so I am prepared to be surprised.
Actually, I still think Last of Us has that title (just).
I like it so far?
I totally see where if you are looking for true next gen presentation you could be disappointed - fuzzy textures, etc. But I'm playing stealthy and it was fun.
The current signs seem to point to no, acknowledging the fact that TLOU was, well, on three consoles before it came to PC, but it's a very undesirable contest to win.
"The Last of Us" was on PS3 and then remastered for PS4.
"The Last of Us: Part 1" is a ground up remake for PS5, and that's the version that is on PC in a terrible state.
There's been an entire handful of these games that they made, apparently with this genre definition and predefined expectations, but I'm at a loss as to what is being expected here
I was taking artistic license (DF did the same in their review, with the same choice of words no less), but yes, it's not literally a PS3 port.
pleasepaypreacher.net
The simplest explanation is an immersive sim is a sandbox game, dropping you into an environment and giving you tools to deal with a situation, then reacting to how the player does it. For example creating an escalating situation if the player makes sufficient chaos or making life harder/easier based on what player does.
A good example and arguably one of the best ever is - unsurprisingly - Arkanes own Mooncrash for Prey. Mooncrash tasks you with escaping with 5 characters who all have different strengths and weaknesses. The order you escape in and the method for each one greatly matters, as the game escalates in difficulty with every escape and your options become more limited every time (as every method can only be used ONCE).
I highly recommend playing Prey and especially Mooncrash, which are top tier.
Edit: A good example of my recent Mooncrash attempt was character 1 used a bunch of turrets to kill some Typhon, but in the process got all the turrets destroyed. I didn't think much of it until I needed to summon an elevator with a long ass travel time while being swarmed with Typhon. Because I stupidly wasted all those turrets and the game remembered that I stupidly wasted them, I didn't have the resources I should have to repel the Typhon so it cost me tons of ammo and health items. Then my NEXT character after that didn't have as much ammo and health spare they would like and went down to the hordes of more difficult typhon that had started spawning by escape attempt number #3. Also when you die in Mooncrash you start from the beginning again and the world gets randomly shuffled around (it's pseudo-randomly generated), so I couldn't just beeline the same strategy and would have to reconsider my approach.
Again, cannot recommend playing an actual good game more here and it's cheap as chips, with a 90% positive rating on steam (compared with $70 and 30% for Redfall).
Other examples include Prey, which let you build permanent paths around the station using the Glu cannon, or the entirely different upgrade paths between using alien typhon abilities or being more of a science hacker style, with limited resources making you choose between which one you want to go through. Dishonored has the entire chaos system and pays attention to things you've done in previous levels, making some things harder or easier later on depending on how you want to stuff things up.
And so forth.
Edit2: If Prey is on gamepass, it is easily far more worth the time than Redfall.
You know, I think Breath of the Wild did really well at this actually and I think I would say Nintendo are doubling down on that with the new game. Honestly I should be far more excited about the new Zelda, but I just don't use my switch anymore and my completion rate of the games I own on it - many of which are fantastic - is so low I've just stopped buying games on it now.
Yes but its not first-person so disqualifed. (not "immersive")
Same as top-down Zeldalikes not being in the Metroidvania genre.
That it one of the great things about Gamepass. You can just mess around with games.
Honestly, I feel the sentiment of "This game isn't worth paying full price for, so play it on gamepass" is not the ringing endorsement that Microsoft are wanting people to say about their service, or the indication of what quality people should think of about gamepass games. On the other hand, I've seen this expressed so often about Redfall's launch that it makes me wonder if I'm actually wrong about that and maybe they at Microsoft thought "Well, it's a bit of a mess, but that's good enough for gamepass" and just shoved it out. Bear in mind, this game is $70 (Roughly $144 NZ) if you didn't have Gamepass.
I'm not sure what's worse.
I think that is what they totally did. They don't really expect people to pay $70 for it. Gamepass is a way to still make money when a game is just ok or not mainstream.
I'm curious how that logic should work out. Redfall isn't going to convince anyone to get a Gamepass subscription and we already know, despite Phil's statements otherwise, that Gamepass depresses sales of the game in question as well. So it doesn't seem like a winning proposition to crater Gamepass' reputation as "the place to play games that are kinda not worth really buying otherwise". It also puts ever increasing pressure on other titles coming out for it in future, in particular, Starfield.
Listening to Jez it really sounds like Microsoft doesn't have any grand plan beyond buying up these studios and coordinating some marketing. Its basically up to the studios to decide what they are doing, and sometimes that means doing stupid and bad things. Seeing TLoU on PC though I wonder if Sony is really that different.
Yeah, EA, Xbox, Sony, Etc having bad launches just suggests the state of AAA development in general is having a bad time. See also: Suicide Squad's 10 month delay.
But Ragnarok, Forbidden West and so on worked 100% fine on Playstation to begin with and were excellent critically acclaimed games. Like Forbidden West is an incredibly impressive game visually and almost never drops below 60 FPS except when the absolute most crazy shit is going on. I'll be curious how Spiderman 2 goes when it comes out later this year though.
It does seem that triple AAA development, particularly with regards to PC, is in a particular torrid state with the recent spate of releases. I do want to point out though that it's been a bit drowned out in the conversations lately, but Dead Island 2 came out recently and while a throwback in gameplay, technically it was 100% rock solid. Seen no major widespread reports of it being poorly optimized, crashing and so forth. If there was one game I would have picked for "Would be an absolute mess on release" I would have had it number 1 on my bingo card.
It was a fun game.
Hella Janky.
Played some co op with my wife Devinder and Jacob style. You level up your "bond" and so your guys will talk more, some of the convos or comments were hilarious I knew Devinder would be key to dumb convos.
"As the crow flys eh?"
pleasepaypreacher.net
I played and mostly enjoyed a pretty good chunk of the original Deus Ex before I bounced off it from the obtuse controls, but I mostly considered it a plain RPG
Jacob makes a comment about Davinders aim that davinder interrupts to toot his own horn and then jacob says he's an awful shot and Jacob is going to die with him on his six, just brutal.
pleasepaypreacher.net
A big part of the genre is player choice in how they progress/complete objectives/resolve encounters. This usually means going guns blazing vs. stealth, but with many more paths than that. For example, to continue using Prey, you get a gun that shoots an instant-drying adhesive called the GLOO Cannon that you can use either to lockdown enemies in place temporarily or put solid goo blocks all around the environment, on nearly ANY surface in the entire game. This means there's often many, many ways to approach objectives and explore the space station, as you can stealth through vents and such, or use the gloo cannon to climb up walls and skip whole sections of the game, use alien powers to transform into random objects to avoid detection or get into places you normally couldn't fit, or use hacker powers to get into computers that can open doors, or upgrade your strength to tear down broken doors and just walk in, etc. It's about player choice and creativity and having the game react to that in a gameplay sense, not just in an RPG-style dialog tree or skill tree.
Like in the newer Deus Ex games, Human Revolution and Mankind Divided you can absolutely be a combat heavy psycho and just blast your way through all your problems. You'll miss out on a ton of content and stuff you would normally get from exploring or talking to people or interacting with the environment and hacking, but you can totally just walk in the front door of a mission and just start shooting. Or, you can focus on the social side, talking to certain NPCs to get more information or resources. You can stealthily climb through vents, dodge and weave between cover, use invisibility to sneak around enemies and cameras. Things like that.
I’m just so baffled by this game. There are just so many elements of the game to look at and go ….why? how? What?
And worst of all it’s just boring as hell
My 3 year old daughter loves Bugsnax because she can't comprehend all the other stuff going on and I skip all the dialog because it bores her. But unfortunately, I read fast and there's subtitles. We're up to the end and I don't want to finish it with her because I know what's coming.
I just wanted a chill, cute game to play with her, not existential horror. Does anyone know any good ones, preferably on GamePass? Alba: A Wildlife Adventure is a great example of the vibe I'm after.
3DS: 1650-8480-6786
Switch: SW-0653-8208-4705
@Dr_Keenbean Some ideas:
-Super Lucky's Tale
-A bunch of the Rare games (Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Banjo Nuts & Bolts)
-Minecraft, Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends
-Hot Wheels Unleashed
-Costume Quest, Costume Quest 2
-DC Superpets
-Disney Dreamlight Valley
-Disneyland Adventures
-Golf With Your Friends
-Grounded (unless BIG bugs would be too scary)
-Human Fall Flat
-Lego Star Wars (various)
-Slime Rancher 2
-Zoo Tycoon and Jurassic World Evolution 2 (these may be too complex to handle, but could also be a big hit, who knows)
And depending on if they've outgrew these, there's Peppa Pig and Paw Patrol on there.
Re: Bugsnax. Rather than trying to complete the story, maybe encourage collecting hats or doing the optional tasks. There's stuff like "find three GREEN Bugsnax" that they might have a lot of fun puzzling out.
He doesn't want existential horror.