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Posts

  • TallahasseerielTallahasseeriel Registered User regular
    I remember liking the spirits within

    sakaguchi i didn't know you posted!

    You know I'm just a contrarian little shit, that's all

  • I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    one of the things that really puts what a dumb idea Spirits Within was into perspective, was that development started the same year that final fantasy 7 came out

    liEt3nH.png
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Registered User regular
    Shadowfire wrote: »
    Embracer Group bought Crystal Dynamics and I think all the associated IPs in the fire sale from Square Enix getting rid of its western studio assets

    It's better. SE sold all of their western studio stuff to Embracer for $300 million.

    It's been widely reported since then that Tomb Raider alone was sold to Amazon for $600 million.

    Fuckin Square Enix just showing their whole ass again.

    The one thing I will give Square Enix is that they do make some effort to produce new varieties of shit. They don't just jump on the annual release of the latest version of shit lile many other big studios.

    Shadowfire
  • TallahasseerielTallahasseeriel Registered User regular
    Maddoc wrote: »
    Don't worry, they won't make anything with Legacy of Kain

    :'(

    MegaMan001Elvenshae
  • MadicanMadican No face Registered User regular
    I've never seen Spirits Within but I do have a DVD of a Final Fantasy anime that had almost no Final Fantasy but did have a magic gun and world more akin to Alice in Wonderland

  • I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    Caedwyr wrote: »
    Shadowfire wrote: »
    Embracer Group bought Crystal Dynamics and I think all the associated IPs in the fire sale from Square Enix getting rid of its western studio assets

    It's better. SE sold all of their western studio stuff to Embracer for $300 million.

    It's been widely reported since then that Tomb Raider alone was sold to Amazon for $600 million.

    Fuckin Square Enix just showing their whole ass again.

    The one thing I will give Square Enix is that they do make some effort to produce new varieties of shit. They don't just jump on the annual release of the latest version of shit lile many other big studios.

    see when i look at what they actually release, including their mobile offerings, i'm pretty sure the only reason they don't do annual releases is incompetence

    liEt3nH.png
    MaddocOdinMunkus BeaverOlivawPreacherKristmas KthulhuCouscousrhylithElvenshaeMortal SkyDyvim Tvarsarukun
  • ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    Madican wrote: »
    I've never seen Spirits Within but I do have a DVD of a Final Fantasy anime that had almost no Final Fantasy but did have a magic gun and world more akin to Alice in Wonderland

    Final Fantasy Legend of the Crystals is terrible and beautiful.

    WiiU: Windrunner ; Guild Wars 2: Shadowfire.3940 ; PSN: Bradcopter
  • matthias00matthias00 Registered User regular
    I did play the Sea of Stars demo over the weekend and it did not disappoint!

    It feels like a labor of love from a bunch of folks inspired by all the same slightly funky SNES RPGs I loved.

    Bonus points for having good enough graphics and dynamic enough combat for my partner to sit down, watch me manage a turn-based boss fight, and even offer some ideas throughout. That is no easy feat

    BroloLeumasWhite
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Registered User regular
    That was my impression until I recently took a look at what they actually put out as non-mobile games last year.

    For all of these, I'm not including mobile releases or re-releases for a single current gen platform.
    Forsaken Maiden - NEW
    Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden - NEW
    Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster - REMASTER
    Babylon's Fall - NEW, LOL
    Triangle Strategy - NEW
    Chocobo GP - NEW
    Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin - NEW
    Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition -REMASTER
    The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story - NEW
    Live A Live - REMAKE
    Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden - NEW
    Various Daylife - RE-RELEASE
    The Diofield Chronicle - NEW
    Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth - RE-RELEASE
    Valkyrie Elysium - NEW
    Triangle Strategy - NEW
    Star Ocean: The Divine Force - NEW
    Harvestella - NEW
    Tactics Ogre: Reborn - REMASTER
    Front Mission - REMAKE
    Romancing SaGa - REMASTER
    Dragon Quest Treasures - NEW
    Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion - NEW

    They are pretty JRPG heavy, but there's some other genres on there as well (though most have at least some JRPG elements). I think the somewhat niche genre aspect and some high visibility failures when trying to go outside that niche is what makes people think they don't have a lot of output or that all their stuff is bad.

    It is interesting to compare them to a company like Electronic Arts
    The Sims 4: My Wedding Stories - DLC
    Grid Legends - NEW
    The Sims 4: Werewolves - DLC
    F1 22 - NEW
    The Sims 4: High School Years - DLC
    Madden NFL 23 - NEW
    FIFA 23 - NEW
    NHL 23 - NEW
    Need for Speed Unbound - NEW

    or Ubisoft
    Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Extraction - NEW
    Trivial Pursuit Live! 2 - NEW
    Roller Champions - NEW
    Assassin's Creed Origins - NEW
    Rabbids: Party of Legends - NEW
    Rocksmith+ - NEW
    Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope - NEW
    Just Dance 2023 Edition - NEW

    I don't really have much of a point to this, it's just that I had a similar first impression to yours and then did a bit of a re-assessment after actually looking through the list when browsing a list of releases for 2022 in the end of the year round-ups.

  • asofyeunasofyeun Registered User regular
    i'm ending the Meet Your Maker open beta on a high note

    these two folks really, really wanted to complete my death maze - and you know what, good on them for not giving up
    c3kvn48pd2pg.jpg

    If you're curious what it looks like, well, here it is:
    5llvzb9mzb8e.jpg

    There are a lot of guards, mostly ranged and about half of them flying, a few traps of various nature (including a non-visible bomb trap on the ceiling behind where this screenshot was taken). Death pistons, armored melee guards, and an incinerator on the other side of the room to end anyone trying to speed-run through everything.

    It looks intimidating but it's not actually that hard if you have the right tools, especially with 2 people - an upgraded crossbow, sledgeblade, grenades, and the consumable shield, as long as you don't screw up your grappling and spend a little too long touching a corrosive cube, you can get through this in less that 10 deaths, easy. Even fewer if you're actually good at the game! I am not, so I would struggle with this room.

    Anyway, looking forward to the release in April and making even better death traps.

    durandal4532Kristmas Kthulhu
  • I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    i mean my assessment is also based on like, i don't think all 3 Voice Of Cards games entirely qualify as 3 separate new games if we're talking about variety

    liEt3nH.png
  • DiarmuidDiarmuid Amazing Meatball Registered User regular
    Assassin's Creed Origins definitely isn't a 2022 release.

    Unless my perception of time is severely fucked.

    Librarian's ghostSorceFencingsax
  • KarlKarl Registered User regular
    Diarmuid wrote: »
    Assassin's Creed Origins definitely isn't a 2022 release.

    Unless my perception of time is severely fucked.

    I thought Dead Space didn't need a remake. It came out recently

    Dead Space came out 15 years ago

    *crumbles to dust*

    minor incidentMagic Pink101Fencingsaxsarukun
  • SanderJKSanderJK Crocodylus Pontifex Sinterklasicus Madrid, 3000 ADRegistered User regular
    I commented on this before somewhere around here, but Square has really changed tactics.

    I think they saw what other Japanese studios were doing (Create bankable lines of cheaper releases that can be made iteratively instead of a giant bet every 5 years), and said to their studios to copy it.
    Think of Yakuza, or Tales games, or Musous, Pokemon, Monster Hunter... all of these release on high tempo.

    But I don't think it was very successful. All these games show big weaknesses. A blandness in design, or obvious budget cuts. None really got buzz.

    Compare that to say Yakuza: It's a game where everyone accept big asset reusage, because Kamurocho is an iconic stable of the series. And they invest heavily in face textures (And use it as cameos), which hides smaller sets of clothing.

    It really chafes (at least with me) when you see a game with obvious budget constraints and a price of E79,99 too. Like Forspoken.

    Steam: SanderJK Origin: SanderJK
  • PeewiPeewi Registered User regular
    I'm trying to use EA Play from Xbox Gamepass and apparently linking Xbox and EA accounts is broken. I can log in to EA with Steam and Playstation and Google, but when I try Xbox it tells me to reset my EA password. I did that and it still tells me to reset my password.

  • Albino BunnyAlbino Bunny Jackie Registered User regular
    Played till the end of the first mission in Wanted: Dead and stopped on the boss.

    It's a lot of fun but the shooting's a bit limp and the controls are janky. Otherwise when you've got the groove going you really do feel like an action movie protagonist from some forgotten matrix inspired movie. Going from shooting to melee to hocking a grenade at some guys to blowing all your adrenaline to set up a chain of stylish finishers just feels great.

    The difficulty level is uh, pretty severe even on normal. There's a cyber ninja enemy that can kill you in a single combo if you just try to mash out of it and healing is about as limited as early sections of dark souls.

    However I did die like, four times on a melee only section and then the game spawned a literal fucking chainsaw to just rampage through it. Including getting to one tap a cyber ninja with it. Which is a hilarious detail.

  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    Say what you will about The Spirits Within, it's a much more entertaining watch than Advent Children. God, that boring, visually uninteresting bowl of gruel with a single fun scene to its runtime that everyone at the time kept telling me was such a superior movie.

    KarozDuke 2.0Dyvim Tvar
  • 21stCentury21stCentury Call me Pixel, or Pix for short! [They/Them]Registered User regular
    i liked The Spirits Within and i think it'd have gotten a lot more praise had it not had he "Final Fantasy" supertitle. That really got people to expect the wrong thing.

    GlalMagic PinkTofystedethMysstDonnictonDavid_TCaedwyrMunkus BeaverElvenshaeNorgothKarozBahamutZEROMortal SkyEtiowsa3cl1ps3Happy Little MachineDee KaeDuke 2.0FencingsaxDyvim Tvarsarukun
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    It has a dumb ending, but other than that it's just a fun scifi action romp. Pretty good CG for the time, too (and all that studio did was this and one of the Animatrix shorts, I believe).

  • The Zombie PenguinThe Zombie Penguin Eternal Hungry Corpse Registered User regular
    SanderJK wrote: »

    Compare that to say Yakuza: It's a game where everyone accept big asset reusage, because Kamurocho is an iconic stable of the series. And they invest heavily in face textures (And use it as cameos), which hides smaller sets of clothing..

    The monster hunter games are a good example to in that they've got an established brand of quality, a fairly dedicated cadence Eric. Plus a dev team that's willing to iterated and update - even when they bring monsters back, they update moveset etcera.

    Ideas hate it when you anthropomorphize them
    Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
    Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
    Switch: 0293 6817 9891
  • PaperLuigi44PaperLuigi44 My amazement is at maximum capacity. Registered User regular
    Hilarious Shipbreaker failures so far:

    - Pointing my cutter at a fuel tank and firing (I thought I had the grapple equipped [this set off the nearby reactor])
    - Putting my back a couple of feet away from the bottom of a ship, grappling a slice of ion ring and using my new super push to send it to the barge (just kidding it wasn't sliced off properly and I pancaked against the hull and barely reached the shop).

    MysstcaptainkasofyeunKristmas KthulhuKarozTamin3cl1ps3Fencingsax
  • Librarian's ghostLibrarian's ghost Librarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSpork Registered User regular
    I think I saw Spirit Within in the theater. I thought it was fine.

    (Switch Friend Code) SW-4910-9735-6014(PSN) timspork (Steam) timspork (XBox) Timspork


    minor incidentTofystedethElderlycrawfishDarkPrimusDee KaeFencingsaxsarukun
  • minor incidentminor incident expert in a dying field njRegistered User regular
    I think I saw Spirit Within in the theater. I thought it was fine.

    Same. I remember my main takeaway at the time was "I don't think computer graphics can ever get better than this. I can't even tell it's not live action, really."

    Because I was very dumb, you see.

    Everything looks beautiful when you're young and pretty
    DisruptedCapitalistCantidewebguy20Duke 2.0Fencingsaxsarukun
  • SanderJKSanderJK Crocodylus Pontifex Sinterklasicus Madrid, 3000 ADRegistered User regular
    A reminder that Hitman 3 (Now Hitman: World of Ass (assination)) is on Gamepass, which includes all the dlc except that in the "Deluxe edition"
    And the new Roguelike mode is great. It's basically all I've been playing since it released. Getting close to my 3rd win.

    The biggest flaw of the nuHitman series was always that they made a huge clockwork world that you mostly didn't need to interact with, as almost every problem could be solved with lockpicks, silenced weapons and rubber ducks.
    But this really asks you to learn the levels, AI behavior. And the price of failure is high, so the tension is high too.
    You really don't want to lose that bench full of tools.

    Steam: SanderJK Origin: SanderJK
  • milskimilski Poyo! Registered User regular
    Caedwyr wrote: »
    That was my impression until I recently took a look at what they actually put out as non-mobile games last year.

    For all of these, I'm not including mobile releases or re-releases for a single current gen platform.
    Forsaken Maiden - NEW
    Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden - NEW
    Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster - REMASTER
    Babylon's Fall - NEW, LOL
    Triangle Strategy - NEW
    Chocobo GP - NEW
    Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin - NEW
    Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition -REMASTER
    The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story - NEW
    Live A Live - REMAKE
    Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden - NEW
    Various Daylife - RE-RELEASE
    The Diofield Chronicle - NEW
    Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth - RE-RELEASE
    Valkyrie Elysium - NEW
    Triangle Strategy - NEW
    Star Ocean: The Divine Force - NEW
    Harvestella - NEW
    Tactics Ogre: Reborn - REMASTER
    Front Mission - REMAKE
    Romancing SaGa - REMASTER
    Dragon Quest Treasures - NEW
    Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion - NEW

    They are pretty JRPG heavy, but there's some other genres on there as well (though most have at least some JRPG elements). I think the somewhat niche genre aspect and some high visibility failures when trying to go outside that niche is what makes people think they don't have a lot of output or that all their stuff is bad.

    It is interesting to compare them to a company like Electronic Arts
    The Sims 4: My Wedding Stories - DLC
    Grid Legends - NEW
    The Sims 4: Werewolves - DLC
    F1 22 - NEW
    The Sims 4: High School Years - DLC
    Madden NFL 23 - NEW
    FIFA 23 - NEW
    NHL 23 - NEW
    Need for Speed Unbound - NEW

    or Ubisoft
    Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Extraction - NEW
    Trivial Pursuit Live! 2 - NEW
    Roller Champions - NEW
    Assassin's Creed Origins - NEW
    Rabbids: Party of Legends - NEW
    Rocksmith+ - NEW
    Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope - NEW
    Just Dance 2023 Edition - NEW

    I don't really have much of a point to this, it's just that I had a similar first impression to yours and then did a bit of a re-assessment after actually looking through the list when browsing a list of releases for 2022 in the end of the year round-ups.

    I really wanted to like The Centennial Case but I think in the end I found it kind of just whelming. If you want a weird FMV mystery game, you're still better off with 428: Shibuya Scramble.

    I ate an engineer
  • BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FVr-4_5S4s
    Blanc is an artistic cooperative adventure that follows the journey of a wolf cub and a fawn stranded in a vast, snowy wilderness. They must come together in an unlikely partnership to find their families.
    20230214 Blanc (Adventure Emotional Co-op Atmospheric Indie )
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyuXwSP6Rl4
    Ten Dates is the sequel to the interactive rom-com, Five Dates. Misha, a millennial from London in search of that elusive in-person connection, tricks her best friend Ryan into going to a speed dating event with her.
    20230214 Ten Dates (Simulation Dating Sim Choices Matter FMV )
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_-L2BpeKUw
    Wanted: Dead is a new hybrid slasher/shooter from the makers of Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive. The game follows a week in life of the Zombie Unit, an elite Hong Kong police squad on a mission to uncover a major corporate conspiracy.
    20230214 Wanted: Dead (Hack and Slash Third-Person Shooter Shooter)

  • Trajan45Trajan45 Registered User regular
    The Spirits Within was fine, I remember enjoying it as a kid. The problem is, fine isn't good enough when you spend over $100 million on a CGI movie without known properties. You need Citizen Kane to get folks who think "CG? That's for kids" or "That looks too violent for my kids". I remember watching a behind the scenes that talked about how much they had to spend to open a server farm in Hawaii to process everything.

    Origin ID\ Steam ID: Warder45
    TofystedethMysst21stCenturyMortal SkyDuke 2.0Fencingsax
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    $100M feels like chump change with today's budgets. What's that, you don't even need to mix real actors and CG, it's all just animated? You can't afford NOT to spend $100M!

  • MaddocMaddoc I'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother? Registered User regular
    Square Enix's strategy has mostly just felt the same to me for as long as I can remember

    They've always released a handful of one off games that nobody remembers after six months

    97H9G7S.png PSN - Masked Unit | FFXIV - Laitarne Gilgamesh
  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    Plus some games like The Quiet Man

    Brolo
  • MechMantisMechMantis Registered User regular
    SanderJK wrote: »

    Compare that to say Yakuza: It's a game where everyone accept big asset reusage, because Kamurocho is an iconic stable of the series. And they invest heavily in face textures (And use it as cameos), which hides smaller sets of clothing..

    The monster hunter games are a good example to in that they've got an established brand of quality, a fairly dedicated cadence Eric. Plus a dev team that's willing to iterated and update - even when they bring monsters back, they update moveset etcera.

    Monster Hunter devs also play the FUCK out of Monster Hunter.

    Did you know that the lead on Rise is a Hunting Horn main?

    dkj3oHf.jpg
    destroyah87
  • Magic PinkMagic Pink Tur-Boner-Fed Registered User regular
    MechMantis wrote: »
    SanderJK wrote: »

    Compare that to say Yakuza: It's a game where everyone accept big asset reusage, because Kamurocho is an iconic stable of the series. And they invest heavily in face textures (And use it as cameos), which hides smaller sets of clothing..

    The monster hunter games are a good example to in that they've got an established brand of quality, a fairly dedicated cadence Eric. Plus a dev team that's willing to iterated and update - even when they bring monsters back, they update moveset etcera.

    Monster Hunter devs also play the FUCK out of Monster Hunter.

    Did you know that the lead on Rise is a Hunting Horn main?

    all the best folks are

    destroyah87GlalEtiowsaMechMantisDee Kae
  • BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular
    edited February 14
    I'm genuinely a bit gutted about Wanted: Dead. I really wanted the game to be a stylish hack n' slash romp with a quirky, cyberpunk edge. The result, sadly, is anything but. It doesn't know what it wants to be! And in many ways, it's bucket of ideas and force-fed zaniness only serves to make it feel both incomplete and directionless. Save your money folks.

    https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/wanted-dead-review-third-person-action-thats-more-dead-than-alive
    as someone who considers themself an action game buff, Wanted: Dead let me down on just about every front. Its combat may be fun for a few hours, but eventually I realized that it was just a pool of shallow water to splash around in. The fights never evolved in any interesting or meaningful way, the minimal enemy variety never challenged me to change up my tactics, and worst of all I always felt weak, even when I fully maxed out the skill tree. Add on bland visuals, a distinct lack of personality and charm, and frequent crashes, and it all amounts to one of the first big disappointments of 2023.

    https://www.ign.com/articles/wanted-dead-review
    Again, I do have a sneaking affection for Wanted even at its worst, inasmuch as it channels that long-forgotten, early-noughties spirit of abject chaos. At a time when all games above a certain budget threshold seem to have congealed into a single, insufferably complete and glossy open world action-RPG with service-game elements, it's bracing to dip into one that's more like a box of malfunctioning toys at a car boot sale. I can't in good conscience recommend the results, but there's something at the heart of this rickety period pastiche that craves to be understood and acknowledged, if not celebrated.

    https://www.eurogamer.net/wanted-dead-review-a-shambolic-yet-hypnotic-barrage-of-nods-to-ps2-action-games
    There’s a branch of critical theory that believes we must meet art on its own terms — review the media off what its creators aspired to do, not what you wish it to be. And hot damn does Wanted: Dead benefit from such a generous reading. This is the game the trailer promised: way too many ideas crammed into too small of a box. In the same sense that cinephiles love the classic B-movies for their collision of big ideas and even bigger limitations, there’s something deeply admirable about the audacity of this silly video game.

    To put it another way: This game does everything poorly, but mostly because it tries to do everything. It’s an anime, a cooking show, a Family Guy-esque pop culture reference-palooza, a biting critique of the military industrial complex, a meme graveyard, an ode to Tarantino, an ode to Suda51, and an ode to bad taste.

    I can’t recommend you play this video game, but I won’t encourage you to look away. And so, here I am at the end, and all I really know for certain is this: Thank goodness I don’t have to assign a score.

    https://www.polygon.com/reviews/23598212/wanted-dead-review-steam-xbox-ps5

    Brolo on
    IoloShadowfireOlivawDisruptedCapitalistsarukun
  • GundiGundi Serious Bismuth Registered User regular
    The Spirits Within was an insane fucking project run by madmen. People forget when that movie came out. That was way too early to attempt a fully CGI big budget movie. It released in 2001. For reference ReBoot ended in 2002.

    A duck!Munkus BeaverTofystedethDarkPrimusTrajan45Mortal SkyNeveronBloodsheedOlivaw3cl1ps3Dee KaeFencingsaxLokarnsarukun
  • LarsLars Registered User regular
    Shadowfire wrote: »
    Madican wrote: »
    I've never seen Spirits Within but I do have a DVD of a Final Fantasy anime that had almost no Final Fantasy but did have a magic gun and world more akin to Alice in Wonderland

    Final Fantasy Legend of the Crystals is terrible and beautiful.

    The magic gun was Final Fantasy Unlimited wasn't it? Legend of the Crystals was the sequel to Final Fantasy V where Cid had become a giant brain.

    On another note, did we ever find out if Embracer got Sleeping Dogs when it got all the other Western IPs from Square?

  • BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular

    Cupid Hanzo would like to formally invite you to…

    LOVERWATCH: The Ultimate Dating Sim ✨💘

    Make your match NOW at http://loverwatch.gg

    apparently it's okay for a fairly short, browser-based dating sim

  • Albino BunnyAlbino Bunny Jackie Registered User regular
    The Polygon review vibes with my opinion so far.

    The only real annoyance has being that there's a weird de-sync in the ramen mini game which makes hitting the notes on time a pain. Especially when the PC inputs aren't colour coded for readability like gamepad inputs would be.

  • reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    Brolo wrote: »
    I'm genuinely a bit gutted about Wanted: Dead. I really wanted the game to be a stylish hack n' slash romp with a quirky, cyberpunk edge. The result, sadly, is anything but. It doesn't know what it wants to be! And in many ways, it's bucket of ideas and force-fed zaniness only serves to make it feel both incomplete and directionless. Save your money folks.

    https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/wanted-dead-review-third-person-action-thats-more-dead-than-alive
    as someone who considers themself an action game buff, Wanted: Dead let me down on just about every front. Its combat may be fun for a few hours, but eventually I realized that it was just a pool of shallow water to splash around in. The fights never evolved in any interesting or meaningful way, the minimal enemy variety never challenged me to change up my tactics, and worst of all I always felt weak, even when I fully maxed out the skill tree. Add on bland visuals, a distinct lack of personality and charm, and frequent crashes, and it all amounts to one of the first big disappointments of 2023.

    https://www.ign.com/articles/wanted-dead-review
    Again, I do have a sneaking affection for Wanted even at its worst, inasmuch as it channels that long-forgotten, early-noughties spirit of abject chaos. At a time when all games above a certain budget threshold seem to have congealed into a single, insufferably complete and glossy open world action-RPG with service-game elements, it's bracing to dip into one that's more like a box of malfunctioning toys at a car boot sale. I can't in good conscience recommend the results, but there's something at the heart of this rickety period pastiche that craves to be understood and acknowledged, if not celebrated.

    https://www.eurogamer.net/wanted-dead-review-a-shambolic-yet-hypnotic-barrage-of-nods-to-ps2-action-games
    There’s a branch of critical theory that believes we must meet art on its own terms — review the media off what its creators aspired to do, not what you wish it to be. And hot damn does Wanted: Dead benefit from such a generous reading. This is the game the trailer promised: way too many ideas crammed into too small of a box. In the same sense that cinephiles love the classic B-movies for their collision of big ideas and even bigger limitations, there’s something deeply admirable about the audacity of this silly video game.

    To put it another way: This game does everything poorly, but mostly because it tries to do everything. It’s an anime, a cooking show, a Family Guy-esque pop culture reference-palooza, a biting critique of the military industrial complex, a meme graveyard, an ode to Tarantino, an ode to Suda51, and an ode to bad taste.

    I can’t recommend you play this video game, but I won’t encourage you to look away. And so, here I am at the end, and all I really know for certain is this: Thank goodness I don’t have to assign a score.

    https://www.polygon.com/reviews/23598212/wanted-dead-review-steam-xbox-ps5

    I'm still gonna play it.

    In couple of months when it's 20€ or on Game Pass.

    Mysst
  • PoorochondriacPoorochondriac Ah, man Ah, jeezRegistered User regular
    I feel like getting hung up on some minutia, here I gooooo

    Whenever people invoke the grim specter of Family Guy humor, I never quite know exactly what they mean. It has enough different connotations to enough different people that it ceases to have a lot of function as a standalone reference point, to me. Are they referring to the mechanics of the jokes? If so, do they mean quick cutaways? Do they mean excruciating commitment to a drawn-out bit? Are the mechanics of the jokes irrelevant and they only mean "it has a lot of references?" If so, are the references lazy insults of pop culture? Arbitrary mashups of two different pop culture things? Are they slavish recreations of a better work? Family Guy is all of these things, in all of these modes, at some point or another. There are 400 episodes of the fuckin' show, they've sped through a lot of terrible gears, it is not an informative point of comparison.

    destroyah87Dyvim Tvarsarukun
  • Magic PinkMagic Pink Tur-Boner-Fed Registered User regular
    I feel like getting hung up on some minutia, here I gooooo

    Whenever people invoke the grim specter of Family Guy humor, I never quite know exactly what they mean. It has enough different connotations to enough different people that it ceases to have a lot of function as a standalone reference point, to me. Are they referring to the mechanics of the jokes? If so, do they mean quick cutaways? Do they mean excruciating commitment to a drawn-out bit? Are the mechanics of the jokes irrelevant and they only mean "it has a lot of references?" If so, are the references lazy insults of pop culture? Arbitrary mashups of two different pop culture things? Are they slavish recreations of a better work? Family Guy is all of these things, in all of these modes, at some point or another. There are 400 episodes of the fuckin' show, they've sped through a lot of terrible gears, it is not an informative point of comparison.

    I mostly hear it as a synonym for frat boy humour; crass, mean and usually punching down

    PreacherDonnictonCantideShadowfire3cl1ps3FANTOMASDisruptedCapitalistFencingsax
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