Video Games: Keanu Re3ves Is Breathtaking

[Caligula_K3]

I've liked CDPR's last two games as much as the next person, but they're just as manipulative with advertising as most other companies. They also are very good at PR and know how to say the right things to appeal to the gamer crowd: I remember the hubbub they made when the Witcher 3 came out about giving you 16 free pieces of DLC!!! Most of which were the sorts of minor updates that all sorts of developers patch into their games for free without calling it DLC to begin with. 

I also hope Cyberpunk is a great game, but they're doing what every other gaming company tries to do at E3: hype their game as much as possible to get them full price pre-orders in. They've just succeeded better at it than most companies. If it turns out not to be the second coming of Jesus, even if it's good, my feeling is that the backlash is going to be intense (just as it was for Bethesda after Fallout 4).

 

[sifth]

My favorite criticism on this game is the fact that "too many black people get shot". Apparently 2019 you're allowed to kill as many white people as you want, without anyone giving a dam, but if you put too many black people NBC's in a video game you're a racist. What a world we live in.

I get the feeling most of these people complaining have no idea who Mike Pondsmith is.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

45 minutes ago, Fez said:

Why not take that $60 and open a free interest-bearing savings account with any of the FDIC-insured online banks? Your money is totally safe, in a place separate from your regular funds, and in one year you can withdraw your money to buy a copy of the game and have an extra $3 you otherwise wouldn't have. Which you can use to buy a two-litter of something to drink as you start playing.

This is just a better deal for me. I got it, I don't have to worry about it. Spring is always tight with funds because I'm not coaching or teaching summer school to get extra funds. I have a small amount of emergency savings, and I don't see the small interest benefit off-setting the trouble. This works. I know pre-ordering has its concerns, but for me, I typically only do it with certain companies. CDPR being one. For example, I'd never support when Bioware made a DLC character (Javik) only available (at first) through pre-order. Those practices are bad. With CDPR, they haven't promised anything with the pre-order...or I might have gotten 10 percent off actually, but either way, this seemed worthwhile.

Another game I want next spring is the new Bloodlines. But I won't preorder that. As much as I loved the original, I don't have enough trust in the company. That will be something I buy when I have the cash!

I'll be honest, the only other franchise I'd probably pre-order for is if a new Dark Souls came out.

[Ran]

The closest I've ever come to a game preorder is supporting a couple of Kickstarters, but those at least offered incentives like "Hey, we can't make this game without some money from people who believe in us" and "Here's some extra stuff you get with the game if you're one of our early supporters".

[sifth]

53 minutes ago, Ran said:

The closest I've ever come to a game preorder is supporting a couple of Kickstarters, but those at least offered incentives like "Hey, we can't make this game without some money from people who believe in us" and "Here's some extra stuff you get with the game if you're one of our early supporters".

Part of me always views Kicstarters as a scam. I've known people who weren't able to get their money back after a project failed to meet it's target goal.

[Ran]

1 minute ago, sifth said:

Part of me always views Kicstarters as a scam. I've known people who weren't able to get their money back after a project failed to meet it's target goal.

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't! I got exactly what I was promised with the Kickstarter for Dreamfall Chapters, the third entry in the Longest Journey series from Ragnar Tornquist and co. I also did the entry-level donation to ... uh, Star Citizen. I kind-of sort-of have gotten (some) of what was promised, but being able to fly my 300i around in the arena or whatever isn't exactly what I _really_ want, which is Squadron 42, which is perpetually on the horizon. Jury's out as to whether I'll ever get the game, and if the game is good enough to merit the price tag, but I don't mind really. Well, not much anyways. 

 

[The Anti-Targ]

7 hours ago, Mr. Fancy Pants said:

I agree with this, but why is CDPR the only one we're hearing about. It's one company being targeted as opposed to a journalist saying, "You know, CDPR's crunch is fucked up, let's see who else is doing it too and build a report." These targeted pieces toward a single company create an image that this company is the only problem. If Kotaku were writing non-stop about this issue, but they continued to include/reveal bad practices from many companies, then that'd make sense. Right now, all they're doing is acting like a watchdog for a single company among many. 

I bet everyone has already read this, but if not, here is an interview with the artist of the transgender advertisement: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-06-12-a-conversation-with-the-artist-behind-that-cyberpunk-2077-poster

She seems to be coming at this from a perspective of women being objectified through corporate advertisement, and she sees this as an extension of that. I think it's not hamfisted at all, but an almost Verhoeven style of satire. And that should be okay. But I have to point out--I am a straight white man. I don't think it's probably fair for me to say much more on this issue. 

Thanks for hearing me out everyone. I'd be happy to continue the discussion, but I don't want to beat it into the ground.

How about the Final Fantasy VII remake though, huh? I'm stoked.

I get most of my crunch criticism from Jim Sterling, and from memory he's talked about almost every major developer aside from CDPR when riding that particular hobby horse, though I'm sure Jim has mentioned them at some point. So in terms of my sources of information I don't really see the sort of unfair laser focus on CDPR that you are expressing. You should hear the shade he throws on Bioware about crunch, "Bioware magic" is what Bioware calls its crunch. Kind of apt for Bioware, so long as they admit they are using blood magic to meet their deadlines.

[House Balstroko]

7 hours ago, Fez said:

It's a bit smaller a game, but don't forget about Thronebreaker, which was their standalone single-player Gwent game. It apparently tanked, since for a while it was a GOG exclusive, but it really good. Most importantly, the writing was great, which at least shows that Witcher 3 wasn't a fluke. 

Though, granted, its set in the same world as Witcher 3 and I don't know who worked on it, it might've been the Witcher 3 writers before they left the studio.

Yeah, I remember that one. Never played it though. Gwent is one thing I completely skipped in Witcher 3. 

4 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I've liked CDPR's last two games as much as the next person, but they're just as manipulative with advertising as most other companies. They also are very good at PR and know how to say the right things to appeal to the gamer crowd: I remember the hubbub they made when the Witcher 3 came out about giving you 16 free pieces of DLC!!! Most of which were the sorts of minor updates that all sorts of developers patch into their games for free without calling it DLC to begin with. 

I also hope Cyberpunk is a great game, but they're doing what every other gaming company tries to do at E3: hype their game as much as possible to get them full price pre-orders in. They've just succeeded better at it than most companies. If it turns out not to be the second coming of Jesus, even if it's good, my feeling is that the backlash is going to be intense (just as it was for Bethesda after Fallout 4).

 

CDPR is in a position where they have a lot of goodwill coming their way, especially when pitted against behemoths like EA and Ubisoft. I was really upset at the fact that they decided to once again show Cyberpunk behind closed doors. I firmly believe that once a company announces a release date and puts their game on the market through pre-orders, then they needs to showcase their product to the consumer without delay. It would also help as they would be getting a lot more feedback at this stage. I just hope the game launches with less bugs then the Witcher 3.

The other reason this game is getting so much hype (beyond the obvious) is that nothing of the sort has ever been attempted before (at least, to my knowledge). Sure, we've had a number of cyberpunk themed games in the past, but none of them have been full fledged open world. 

[Ran]

7 hours ago, House Balstroko said:

I was really upset at the fact that they decided to once again show Cyberpunk behind closed doors. I firmly believe that once a company announces a release date and puts their game on the market through pre-orders, then they needs to showcase their product to the consumer without delay.

There's a 48 minute video from last year already. That's more showcase than some triple-A games get before their release.

And they're rolling out footage of the E3 demo to the public at Pax West, so that's going to be another 30+ minutes of gameplay a year out from release.

[Inkdaub]

Well I finished my second play through of Horizon Zero Dawn.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to play next so I started a Witcher 3 replay and it's been good so far. 

I doubt I will play Cyberpunk at all because it's first person.  Hopefully people enjoy it, though.

[Caligula_K3]

I'm definitely feeling a Witcher 3 replay at some point, especially with all this talk of CDPR. I guess the question is whether I play through the whole trilogy- I've never played the first one, scared by reports of its heavy jank and sexism, but I really love the second one.

Too many good games to play and replay, too little time... the opposite problem of my childhood, when I had few games and so much time to play them. Who knows how much of my life I spent playing games like these (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Yoda_Stories ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission:_Impossible_(1998_video_game) because they were the ones I had...

[Centrist Simon Steele]

1 hour ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I'm definitely feeling a Witcher 3 replay at some point, especially with all this talk of CDPR. I guess the question is whether I play through the whole trilogy- I've never played the first one, scared by reports of its heavy jank and sexism, but I really love the second one.

Too many good games to play and replay, too little time... the opposite problem of my childhood, when I had few games and so much time to play them. Who knows how much of my life I spent playing games like these (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Yoda_Stories ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission:_Impossible_(1998_video_game) because they were the ones I had...

I think you can avoid most of the sexism in the first Witcher (just don't have sex with every woman you see and you won't get those nudity trading cards). I do think it'd be hard to go back to that one, though. It is just so fundamentally different in how it plays. If I remember right, it's more like an MMO where you select an attack type and Geralt just does it, and sometimes you can hit the mouse button for added impact. I'd have a hard time going back. Even at the time, I liked it a lot, but I willfully had to look past the way it played. 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

19 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I get most of my crunch criticism from Jim Sterling, and from memory he's talked about almost every major developer aside from CDPR when riding that particular hobby horse, though I'm sure Jim has mentioned them at some point. So in terms of my sources of information I don't really see the sort of unfair laser focus on CDPR that you are expressing. You should hear the shade he throws on Bioware about crunch, "Bioware magic" is what Bioware calls its crunch. Kind of apt for Bioware, so long as they admit they are using blood magic to meet their deadlines.

I'm not familiar with Jim Sterling. Just kind of whatever comes across my news feed. Who is Jim Sterling? Podcaster or something? Worth checking out, it sounds?

[Jace, Extat]

17 minutes ago, Mr. Fancy Pants said:

I'm not familiar with Jim Sterling. Just kind of whatever comes across my news feed. Who is Jim Sterling? Podcaster or something? Worth checking out, it sounds?

Jim Sterling is like the OG of youtube video game 'journalism'.

He used to be on The Escapist Magazine before they sold themselves to that dead eyed fuckboi Zuckerberg.

[Toth]

So I've continued my Surviving Mars mission as the US this weekend, though I'm still not exactly far. Mostly because, once again, I essentially ended up building two self-sufficient bases simultaneously, both of which have only two small domes. One base mines metal and produces fuel and machine parts. The other mines rare metals and produces polymers and electronics. Thinks have evened out pretty much, at least until three of my four concrete mines ran out of raw materials. I now built a fifth outside of my range and then noticed I forgot to research drone hubs to keep it alive. For the same reason my fourth water extractor in a dried out lake outside my range is useless as well until my next supply shuttle with some prefabs arrives.

But otherwise, since my base is so stable, I ended up experimenting a bit with my options. I started to pump super-greenhouse gases into the air to raise the temperature of the planet, but as expected the needle barely moves. Throwing some ice asteroids at the planet to get some more surface water proved considerably more effective, but until I raise the temperature to 25% (right now I'm at 8%) all I do is get ice cubes dotting the landscape. I guess filling up a lake would be similarly idiotic... Despite that I have started to make some patches of lichen grow outside my dome, raising the vegetation level to... 0,014%? Wow. Terraforming is understandably hard. Unfortunately I have yet to research techs that allow me to improve the atmosphere level (all I can do right now is importing some more green house gases from Earth, which I will do soon enough since I do have the spare fuel). But then again, I am not really trying hard to change the planet as of now, I am just trying out what I can do at this stage without investing much of my resources. Admittedly, I also have something of a food shortage at the moment, one that I am trying to counteract by building a medium dome in the south to build a farming/research center. I also have built a shuttle hub that I am on one hand glad at how it automatizes ware transfer between bases, but also irks me to a degree whenever they waste fuel through stupid runs. Recently I wanted to sell some rare metals, but only had a rocket parked at my machine parts base, so I filled my transport rover with it, filled up the warehouse next to me rocket and then watched how a swarm of shuttles suddenly made an attack dive and brought my rare minerals back to my initial base for some insane reason. -.-

Edit: Also I recently watched a penguin waddle through one of my apartment districts. I... I am not sure what to make of that.

Edit 2: Also who else has the Firefly style frontier channel as their default radio?

[Werthead]

Interesting news on Jedi: Fallen Order. The game has so far been publicised as a linear action game, but it's actually a semi-open world, story-driven adventure. Comparisons have been made with the Arkham games and Metroid. As you go through the game, you might pass doors and passageways you can't get through, but as you go up the skill tree you will unlock new abilities, and can return to those areas later on to open them up.

You have a hub which is your spaceship, which you can fly between each planet after you've discovered it. You also have characters on the ship you can interact with (KotOR-style, through presumably with less dialogue and quest options).

There's also entire planets that only exist for side-quests and bonus content, which you can totally ignore if you just focus on the main story.

This has moved up the game to "definitely very interested now" on my game-o-metre.

On 6/17/2019 at 2:52 PM, Mr. Fancy Pants said:

I agree with this, but why is CDPR the only one we're hearing about. It's one company being targeted as opposed to a journalist saying, "You know, CDPR's crunch is fucked up, let's see who else is doing it too and build a report." These targeted pieces toward a single company create an image that this company is the only problem. If Kotaku were writing non-stop about this issue, but they continued to include/reveal bad practices from many companies, then that'd make sense. Right now, all they're doing is acting like a watchdog for a single company among many. 

This is, once again, untrue. Kotaku and RPS have reported on crunch extensively at many companies including (but not limited to) BioWare, Bungie, CDPR, Blizzard, Epic, Naughty Dog, Obsidian, LucasArts, Ensemble and Yacht Club. Jason Schreier's book about game development and crunch, Blood, Sweat and Pixels should be required reading for anyone interested in modern games development and the phenomenon of crunch.

Hell, Schreier wrote a whole article about the creator and solo developer of Stardew Valley going through insane levels of self-imposed crunch which affected his health.

[Caligula_K3]

Yeah, Jedi Fallen Order looks pretty fun to me. I enjoyed the gameplay demo and am more interested after hearing it's a Metroidvania. Along with The Outer Worlds, Cyberpunk, and a couple Nintendo games, it looks like one of the more promising titles coming out of E3 this year.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Interesting news on Jedi: Fallen Order. The game has so far been publicised as a linear action game, but it's actually a semi-open world, story-driven adventure. Comparisons have been made with the Arkham games and Metroid. As you go through the game, you might pass doors and passageways you can't get through, but as you go up the skill tree you will unlock new abilities, and can return to those areas later on to open them up.

You have a hub which is your spaceship, which you can fly between each planet after you've discovered it. You also have characters on the ship you can interact with (KotOR-style, through presumably with less dialogue and quest options).

There's also entire planets that only exist for side-quests and bonus content, which you can totally ignore if you just focus on the main story.

This has moved up the game to "definitely very interested now" on my game-o-metre.

This is, once again, untrue. Kotaku and RPS have reported on crunch extensively at many companies including (but not limited to) BioWare, Bungie, CDPR, Blizzard, Epic, Naughty Dog, Obsidian, LucasArts, Ensemble and Yacht Club. Jason Schreier's book about game development and crunch, Blood, Sweat and Pixels should be required reading for anyone interested in modern games development and the phenomenon of crunch.

Hell, Schreier wrote a whole article about the creator and solo developer of Stardew Valley going through insane levels of self-imposed crunch which affected his health.

Schreier is specifically my issue with Kotaku. 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

8 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Yeah, Jedi Fallen Order looks pretty fun to me. I enjoyed the gameplay demo and am more interested after hearing it's a Metroidvania. Along with The Outer Worlds, Cyberpunk, and a couple Nintendo games, it looks like one of the more promising titles coming out of E3 this year.

I just got this game called Timespinner--it's a Metroidvania, but in the vein of Metroidvania's I like: Symphony of the Night. I'm not sure how much you like those types of games, but if you do, I'd recommend giving it a go. It's a lot of fun.

[Jace, Extat]

So all that talk about the Jedi game is absolutely not what they showed in gameplay. 

EA are liars.