What new games have you played this year?

[evil_ash_xero]

I was curious as to what new games you guys played this year? I think it's been an interesting year for games, even though some
of the fan favorites didn't really click with me.

I'll run through my thoughts on the games I have played so far.

Astro Bot - OK, now this is my favorite game of the year. It's actually a great game. It is easier than I'd like (I do get killed
a lot in later levels, but there are so many checkpoints that it doesn't matter much), but
it has challenge levels that do get pretty sweaty. The graphics and presentation are great. It really seems like the
devs had a ton of fun making the game. It takes me back to a simpler, BETTER time. Why can't we get more games
like this mixed in with those gajillion dollar behemoths that can sink a company?

Stellar Blade - This was actually a really good time. The game play is way more Sekiro/Souls than DMC/Bayonetta, although
it looks like it would lean towards the latter. I do have some complaints. The characters are cardboard. Not the biggest deal, as
I am playing this for fun and not for story. But it is what it is. The open world sections aren't very good. The linear levels are well
made, though. However, yellow paint can go to hell. By the end of my run, I was really getting into it. One thing... this game has a zillion outfits to collect,
and I barely like any of them. Not a fan of how her skirt goes up constantly and you can see her thong. I don't mind it, like it doesn't bother me, but
I don't like the aesthetics. Maybe a "non-coomer" toggle would be a nice add on?

Unicorn Overlord - This is a very good game, even though I have issues with it (I'm seeing a pattern here). The game is big, has great Vanillaware visuals,
all kinds of cool classes and whatnot. But the difficulty is not thought out well. The "forecast" before each fight should not be so pinpoint accurate. Also,
if you watch YouTube videos of classes and groups to destroy the game with, I doubt you'd have much fun. I didn't watch any of those, so I didn't steamroll
over it. The most difficult mode is only unlocked after you beat the game, and for me, it makes the game harder. I relied pretty heavily on items to restart
the timer when it ran out, and to revive dead allies. The harder mode does not allow you to restart the clock, and you can only use 5 items per battle, which
really limits how many people I can bring back, or what buffs I can use. A lot of it is still easy-ish, but important fights can get pretty frustrating. Also, the second
to last boss is complete bullshit. Just absurd. Anyway, despite all that, really high on my list of games I played this year. Probably second after Astro Bot.
Now we just got to wait 5-6 years for the next VW game.

Black Myth Wukong - This is one of those fan favorites that has not clicked with me. The graphics are amazing, and the boss fights are pretty wild. But I'm not
a fan of boss rush games. Also, your character has this slow way of moving that feels like you're underwater or something. It also has a lot of invisible walls that are
just not well hidden. You can tell this is their first time making a big game like this, but they didn't have a company like Sony or whatever help them iron out
the kinks (which probably happened with Stellar Blade). The boss fights are pretty cool, so they did nail that. But I just can't get motivated to play this much.
Maybe later on...
On a personal pet peeve note... I really don't like the sound of Mandarin. I wish they would have used Cantonese.

Space Marine 2 - The other fan favorite I wasn't too into. I like the manly vibe of the game, but holy hell do they talk a lot. And they talk a lot of shit too. It's
actually pretty silly. I wish video game companies would get writers from other mediums to write more scripts for their games. These devs just cannot write
dialogue. The game is fun, but it's monotonous. There's no level design... you're just kind of running down corridors. That's OK for some games, but it hurts this one
for me. That's my main gripe. The stages need more going on. It's just too simple. I'm close to the end, but I got bored with it. I'm hoping some of the DLC adds
some more interesting missions or something. This was a big success, so I hope that cash goes to good use.

Shadow of the Ninja Returns - This game is frustrating. It looks great. I think the level design is quite good. But the controls are just not tight enough for the tougher parts,
or later levels, and it drives me nuts. They expect you to really bust a move, and your guy's controls are not up to the task. Yes, you can "get used to it", but that doesn't mean
it's OK. I do like the game, but the later levels really demand tighter controls. I think I'm on the last level, or second to last. They nailed everything pretty well but the controls.
Which is one of the top 2 things in a game like this. Good game, but frustrating.

Dragon's Dogma II - This game has really upset some fans. It's weird, because I didn't like the first one, but I like this one. The complaints are valid. It does not have enough enemy
variety. The story is nothing (which doesn't matter to me), and it could could stand for some unique caves or buildings. The quests are lame, but are they EVER good in games like these?
Still, I really enjoyed it. A patch that added a good number of new enemies would do wonders, but I doubt that will happen. Towards the end, it was getting quite repetitive. New Game
Plus is useless, as the difficulty doesn't go up. Hopefully they'll fix that. Also, when it came out for PS5, the performance was a disaster. They have patched it to where it's not bad now. They
obviously rushed the release to get it out by the end of the fiscal year.

And that's it. More interesting year than last. Just waiting on the Blasphemous 2 DLC.

How about you guys?

[evil_ash_xero]

Over 800 views and no replies. I'm sure someone has played these.

I finished Stellar Blade, and I quite liked it. The last stretch is pretty cool.
It gets attention for the main character's body, but the game is quite good. You could swap her with some cool looking guy, and it would just be known as a high
quality action game.Although, the controversy probably helped it sell more copies.
Not perfect, and I hope they improve things in the sequel, but it was definitely more polished and impressive than I thought it was gonna be. I hope if there is a
PC mod, you can get rid of the yellow paint. Blech.

I haven't played much more Black Myth, yet. I'm still in chapter one. The invisible walls mixed with stellar graphics is jarring. And I'm not a big fan of boss rush games (except Alien Soldier, and I like Cuphead).
It might start to click with me. I just like more stuff in between bosses, but this isn't that kind of game.

[BIL]

I've just been enjoying the Concord horrorshow, tbh. How the fuck did that thing eat so much time and money, was it a tax fraud? I could do a better game spinnin on me fookin nob m8!

[orange808]

I'm still waiting on a PC release of Stellar Blade. Looks promising. I will never ever ever pay a monthly fee to own a gaming machine. That's fucking bonkers.

Black Myth looks derivative. I'm skipping it.

[ryu]

I watched a friend play Steller Blade and it looked like a Nier:Automata knock-off with less atmosphere to me and I don't understand why they felt the need to introduce color-coded hints to the game's combat. Is there no way to turn that off?

[it290]

My issue with Stellar Blade is that the combos get kind of repetitive. Yes, you can do some more advanced stuff, but I don't feel the game really incentivizes you to, and I was able to clear most of the bosses first try by basically doing what I would characterize as mashing and spamming the thrust special attack. It's a solidly made game, just not as technically deep or challenging as something like DMC or Bayonetta. Agreed on the hyper-bland characterization as well. The VA for Adam sounds like he's reading off cue cards at all times, and none of the characters were at all interesting.

It definitely has some similarities to Nier in setting, tone, and obviously the music, but I wouldn't characterize it as a knock-off. SB plays nothing like Nier and is far more of a standard actioner.

Re: the color-coded combat hints, I don't think they can be turned off, but honestly I don't think you'd want to.

[To Far Away Times]

I've just been enjoying the Concord horrorshow, tbh. How the fuck did that thing eat so much time and money, was it a tax fraud? I could do a better game spinnin on me fookin nob m8!

The funny thing about Concord is they could have cancelled the game when it was clear that it wasn't going to have a hook and had no original ideas and taken it as a write off. By releasing, shutting it down two weeks later and refunding it, they had to do a bunch more investment and only have their losses to show for the world's most paint by numbers project. Pure hubris and a total lack of vision from management thinking people would play their game "just because" it was new.

[ryu]

Re: the color-coded combat hints, I don't think they can be turned off, but honestly I don't think you'd want to.

Figuring out how to deal with enemy patterns should be integral to every action game. Color coding the patterns to tell players how to react seems absurd to me.

[it290]

That's fair, but it's only for specific attacks that require a particular type of counter. 9/10 of moves are regular attacks that are parried or dodged normally. I get where you're coming from, but I don't think most of those moves are visually distinct enough that you'd recognize them as requiring a special counter without the color coding. Perhaps that's a design flaw but it just seems fair to the player to me.

[Sengoku Strider]

Wukong looks cool, I saw the opening cinematic and that was the first time anything ever justified the current gen's existence to me (feel free to disagree).

I've just been enjoying the Concord horrorshow, tbh. How the fuck did that thing eat so much time and money, was it a tax fraud? I could do a better game spinnin on me fookin nob m8!

The funny thing about Concord is they could have cancelled the game when it was clear that it wasn't going to have a hook and had no original ideas and taken it as a write off. By releasing, shutting it down two weeks later and refunding it, they had to do a bunch more investment and only have their losses to show for the world's most paint by numbers project. Pure hubris and a total lack of vision from management thinking people would play their game "just because" it was new.

The thing with Concord is that it was the result of eight full Earth rotations of the sun of development time. Although two of those years were just incubating various ideas, and Concord's what eventually coalesced out of that. The game makes a lot more sense if you realize the seeds of it started right after Overwatch hit, and when Destiny was riding high with Taken King (one of the leads came straight from Bungie, which is probably why Sony was eventually interested enough to buy them up). Between that and how heavily they clearly spent on cinematics, you can see where all the money went. If it had hit when the PS5 came out and Guardians of the Galaxy was still only 2 films in, maybe it would have been more warmly received.

Funnily enough while it's generic, it also stood out for the gender norm-challenging character designs; I don't think it would have attracted as much vitriol as it did had they gone with more generic sci fi space people, there are so many games like that which come & go without anybody caring. But yeah, either way the writing was on the wall when the demo hit and nobody touched it, they didn't do much marketing so they knew it wasn't going do big numbers. Not quite sure why they didn't just invoke sunk cost and move on, rather than going as far as manufacturing branded controllers and shipping a physical version. But they must have hoped the characters would find a niche audience which would represent some sort of brand value for Sony.

[orange808]

Seems the (mostly) teen and early 20's set are paying subscriptions/micro payments to grind endlessly. They would probably understand what fad they want in the next awful grindy cash grab.

I'm sympathetic to devs. I can't even begin to understand what would encourage other people to dump their precious time and money into a grindy black hole fake online "universe" where the actual gameplay is lukewarm regurgitated milquetoast twaddle.

[Sengoku Strider]

Seems the (mostly) teen and early 20's set are paying subscriptions/micro payments to grind endlessly. They would probably understand what fad they want in the next awful grindy cash grab.

I'm sympathetic to devs. I can't even begin to understand what would encourage other people to dump their precious time and money into a grindy black hole fake online "universe" where the actual gameplay is lukewarm regurgitated milquetoast twaddle.

Because the live service games that last are built on a solid foundation of very good and addictive gameplay, and a season pass costs like $10-15 for 3-4 months so it's actually way less cash-grabby for a kid than your average game. Those games make their real money on whales buying cosmetics that don't affect gameplay. I had to concede years ago that a lot of this F2P stuff is way less exploitative in terms of bang for buck than arcade machines.

Except for gacha games, those seem to be outright theft masquerading as gumball machines.

[spmbx]

The fact that some estimates for concord's development cost put it at the same level as GTA5 (excl marketing, adjusted for inflation) really blows my mind

[Lemnear]

The fact that some estimates for concord's development cost put it at the same level as GTA5 (excl marketing, adjusted for inflation) really blows my mind

Condord cost between 50-150 million dollars, in 8 years of development...
What a waste of resources and time...i don't understand how they came up with the idea of ​​making a game whose main feature is "let's make an Online FPS where every character has zero appeal".
They closed the online and are giving the money back LOL...
Then there's the issue of LGBTQIA+ representation in the media, but the game didn't have an economic impact, while Wukong was very successful... surely a monkey better represents the average user at this point

[orange808]

I understand Concord has a lot of lore, but can't present it all. They should have used their characters and setting for a single player game. Under those conditions, it would have come out years ago at a reasonable budget.

That also would have untied the dev's hands to experiment with gameplay mechanics. I wouldn't mind the character design at all if they had a good game behind it.

What is a good main character, anyway? The Tomb Murder series (no real puzzles allowed after the reboot) made Croft boring. I can't even take her seriously. If memory serves, there's some hired local guy trying to fix a generator to open the last one. I could have taken his tools from the brush and easily slipped away. Instead, the game uses it as a tutorial to learn the stealth kill--on an unarmed local South American guy that is fixing a generator for some rich guys that hired him

Fuck. She kills everything and everyone. Then, in the cutscenes, she's a completely different person. It's jarring and silly. They also intentionally made her plain, because it's not feminist to have an attractive face. Fuck.

[qmish]

I don't see what's "controversial" about Wukong.

It's a game with huge production values, that was announced some years ago and some people were not believing it will be as good as it looks, but it got released and - surprise - it seems to be as good as it intended to be.
And it sold 18 freaking millions, dayum.

Oh, if you mean some IGN drama or whatever.. well.. system11 is LAST place I'd expect people to care about such.

***
As for Stellar Blade, I heard that mechanics/game design are too shallow (edit: looks like I watched Mark_MSX review on it). Would like to hear opinions from Iconoclast or other local guys who "specialize" on playing such games.
I visited Stinger-Magazine forum, but looks like folks there haven't played it yet.

Black Myth looks derivative. I'm skipping it.

YMMV. Personally I felt it's the most serious and the biggest project out of similar, and extremely fine tuned at mythology/cultural lore it based on. Also I was following page of its level designer on artstation, so maybe i'm biased.

Still, you'd never know unless you play. I mean... originally, I felt very bad about Code Vein and was spectical about Lies of P. But after playing the demo for both (luckuly it was provided), I liked them very much despite initial concerns. On the other hand, some stuff I'm just not interested period! Like "Lords of Fallen" and the likes.

p.s.

You talk about Concord... what about Deadlock though? XD

[spmbx]

Wukong's controversy completely passed me by too, i actually had to google what it was. If i understand it correctly it was based on a mistranslation someone did of some developer comment or whatever. I don't really care tbh.

[Lemnear]

I understand Concord has a lot of lore, but can't present it all. They should have used their characters and setting for a single player game. Under those conditions, it would have come out years ago at a reasonable budget.

That also would have untied the dev's hands to experiment with gameplay mechanics. I wouldn't mind the character design at all if they had a good game behind it.

What is a good main character, anyway? The Tomb Murder series (no real puzzles allowed after the reboot) made Croft boring. I can't even take her seriously. If memory serves, there's some hired local guy trying to fix a generator to open the last one. I could have taken his tools from the brush and easily slipped away. Instead, the game uses it as a tutorial to learn the stealth kill--on an unarmed local South American guy that is fixing a generator for some rich guys that hired him

Fuck. She kills everything and everyone. Then, in the cutscenes, she's a completely different person. It's jarring and silly. They also intentionally made her plain, because it's not feminist to have an attractive face. Fuck.

Why? Has Lara Croft ever had a personality?
She has never had one since the first chapter, in the reboot instead she became the unpleasant and totally sociopathic version of Nathan Drake (which is a much better done character, at least he has a personality, derived from Indiana Jones, but he's there).
The protagonists of some Sony games are absolutely well written, Jin Sakai, Kratos, Sam Porter Bridges.
Then there are also characters (usually Japanese) who are iconic despite not being very structured, but they have attractive or pleasant attitudes and/or designs.

[orange808]

I can't agree. The protagonists of most games are only well written if you're twelve years old.

I liked the way Gordon Freeman was written in Half Life. He never says anything and I just play the game. Corvo didn't bother me much in the first Dishonored, but less dialogue would have been even better.

Good dialogue in a game and likable characters happen on occasion. PoP: The Sand of Time managed it. I didn't mind the cutscenes and plot in Yakuza 0, either--but Yakuza always makes me smile.

The old revenge "Max Payne angry!", "Max Payne kill bad guys!", "Max have nothing to lose! Grrrr!!", "Max very mad about bad thing and Max so-oooo edgy!" is a worn tired trope for me--and it gets copied in some form time and again.

And, of course, the kids lap up all kinds of tired of anime art direction and writing. It's worst in JRPGs. No thanks. Been there, done that.

I still liked Croft better before the reboot. It was ridiculous, but it's better than what we're getting now. And, the convoluted plot was interesting when she came face to face with her zombified mother shuffling around in an icy underwater temple. I can't remember a single plot point from any of the new Tomb Murder games (at all). I just remember all times I could have slipped past unnoticed, but I had to kill everyone instead.

Circling back to Dishonored, the only people I kill in that game are the assassins with the mark. They're too dangerous to leave alive. Everyone else can be locked up a jail cell. I rather like having that narrative and game play option. Now, if the dumb Outsider guy would just shut the hell up...

[it290]

Wukong's controversy completely passed me by too, i actually had to google what it was. If i understand it correctly it was based on a mistranslation someone did of some developer comment or whatever. I don't really care tbh.

It's actually much more extensive than that: https://www.ign.com/articles/how-black- ... o-the-west. Game looks cool but that's some pretty misogynistic BS, and it appears the company has basically taken the stance of just ignoring their sexist history rather than addressing it in any meaningful way.

[Lander]

Wait, Stellar Blade didn't get a PC release? Well then. Already soft-skipped it as thirsty pandering that probably wouldn't tick my boxes for good action game, but if owning a NetGear Station 5 is prerequisite then it can sling its hook for another half decade or so.

Wukong is significantly more on my radar, though I've not gotten around to taking a proper look beyond watching Aris stream it for a couple hours. And nobody sensible watches Aris to figure out what games to buy.
Though I understand that the Chinese dub is much better than the English - if you're not a speaker, at the least - Monkey Boy's western VA isn't exactly Goku, is he? Though regardless, it looks like pure Wuxia / Xianxia excess, which has my attention for being unusual and interesting. I could get down for an odd boss fight game if it keeps up the crazy beyond the intro.

Dragon's Dogma 2... I feel like I got the vast majority of my thoughts on that out in the heaving write-up I did back around launch.
Though hearing that Itsuno finally made good on his repeated threats to quit Capcom is an interesting post-note; naturally all very secret and private, as expected from a JP industry vet, but I can't help but wonder whether all the "Director's True Vision Finally Manifest" marketing contrasted against the sharp lack of things behind the curtain might have factored in there. They made DD play really well, but overlooked the fact that the original was loved for more than just its mechanics.

[Lemnear]

Wukong's controversy completely passed me by too, i actually had to google what it was. If i understand it correctly it was based on a mistranslation someone did of some developer comment or whatever. I don't really care tbh.

It's actually much more extensive than that: https://www.ign.com/articles/how-black- ... o-the-west. Game looks cool but that's some pretty misogynistic BS, and it appears the company has basically taken the stance of just ignoring their sexist history rather than addressing it in any meaningful way.

They may be good at developing games, but as people they are disgusting...strange that there were games that were boycotted for much less, but not Wukong.

[Lander]

I err away from giving credence to memetic anger viruses implemented as journalism sites. They're cognitive predators a few branches down the tree from send this to X other people or the murder man will get you chain letters, and only serve to tilt a given discussion into untenably extreme territory for their own gain.

It seems doubtful that getting lathered over they act like obnxious *channers, put out gauche job ads, and HAVE A SPERM AS THEIR LOGO is actually going to go any way to solving an endemic industry problem, once the dustball dissapates and everyone moves on to the next high-profile launch month.

By all means, get angry at the bottles moving through the production line. Get angry at the factory machines. Both can be replaced at nominal cost, and production will continue unabated unless the structure around and above them is subject to the same degree of passionate scrutiny.

[orange808]

Given the sales of Wukong and Harry Potter, I don't think we can call it a boycott.

Speaking of "journalism", was it Wired or Kotaku that decided to publish a "review" of the last Harry Potter release without actually reviewing the game? They published a political diatribe with their lowest rating attached in place of a proper review. If you don't understand my frustration, the problem is that it's titled as a review. If you want to write an op-ed and publish it, that's your privilege; mislabeling the piece and tossing out a "review score" with no merit (based on the game itself) is just garden variety trolling, spamming, and review bombing.

Like they say at the local pub, "take it outside". You may have a legitimate reason to fight, but it doesn't belong in here.

[it290]

It seems doubtful that getting lathered over they act like obnxious *channers, put out gauche job ads, and HAVE A SPERM AS THEIR LOGO is actually going to go any way to solving an endemic industry problem, once the dustball dissapates and everyone moves on to the next high-profile launch month.

By all means, get angry at the bottles moving through the production line. Get angry at the factory machines. Both can be replaced at nominal cost, and production will continue unabated unless the structure around and above them is subject to the same degree of passionate scrutiny.

I don't know if you can equate a studio founder to a mere cog — they are very much part of said structure, and a clear part of the problem here. The counterpoint to your maxim about scrutiny is that if it isn't continually applied, it loses its potency. Sadly, many will just not care, but even if apathy is the prevailing condition, it doesn't mean it's the correct one.

[Lander]

Continual pressure is what eventually causes the powers that be to take notice and move, but actually making meaningful progress in the discourse of it is much, much harder if the prevailing fora are domainated by (primarily or secondarily) disingenuous noise.

Structurally, further out - where worldly notions like 'good behaviour' cede to hard numbers layer by layer, and the umbrella of interests starts to make writing actual incisive expo pieces less profitable and more pointless professional suicide. Hence the local-minima flame fanning we're left with in the moment-to-moment.

I'll cop to a general disaffection with the wider scheme of things, but what else is an intellectual to do in the face of such mess? Stay the hell out of the Apocalypse World thread to preserve their remaining marbles, that's what!

Anyway, speaking of Concord (and inevitable journo circuit catch-22s), is anyone else morbidly curious about that Secret Level TV anthology thing? I'm wondering whether Sony are going to pull its episode, or just let it roll, stay quiet, and see if there's some modicum of hey, who are these compelling characters? to be salvaged from the whole thing.

Interested in the Mega Man part too, since the blue bomber doesn't get so many outings these days. Though the Pac-Man episode looks like it could fall into overdone what if the yellow circle was an eldritch monster from beyond space? territory.

[evil_ash_xero]

I've just been enjoying the Concord horrorshow, tbh. How the fuck did that thing eat so much time and money, was it a tax fraud? I could do a better game spinnin on me fookin nob m8!

I know, it's absolutely outrageous. There's some stuff coming out from behind the scenes that explains it a bit more... but man, everyone from the studio to the suits funding
it must have been in some kind of gigantic bubble to not know it wasn't going to resonate with gamers.

Stellar Blade doesn't play anything like Automata, but it takes a lot from it's setting and story. It is getting a PC release, so we can get rid of that stupid yellow paint. I had a really good time with
it.

Wukong I'm still not really pulling the trigger on enough. I just am not too into boss rushes. I'm sure it will click more with me, as I get some of my other stuff cleared out. But honestly, I like Stellar Blade better. It's more "rounded out", and has more stuff going on. But if you're into boss rushes, Wukong has you covered.

Been playing Astro Bot, which is impossible not to smile at. It's easier than I'd like, but the energy and passion of the dev team, not just for this game, but for games in general, is so refreshing to see.
Really stands in stark contrast to "we don't use the word 'fun"" current day Naughty Dog.

I'm tempted to play Space Marine II, since it just seems so based, but I dunno. It seems to be lacking enemy variety and stage variety. People seem to like it, though.
It's sorta funny, because I was so sick of the overly manly era of XBox 360. But now, when games seemed to have all testosterone drained from them, it's nice to see. I never thought
I 'd see a Gears of War looking game, and be like "about time!".

[Osirus]

I err away from giving credence to memetic anger viruses implemented as journalism sites.

IGN and PC Gamer basically set to invent "controversy" over the game/studio and then threw a fit because no one cared.

[Lemnear]

I err away from giving credence to memetic anger viruses implemented as journalism sites.

IGN and PC Gamer basically set to invent "controversy" over the game/studio and then threw a fit because no one cared.

in the case of Wukong they are not invented, those comments were on X/Twitter and Reddit, i myself read them right there.
It's almost shocking how people who should be competent and professional, in the end are only competent(ish) but then they have the mentality of a horny kid... and without any shame
But there the public didn't say anything, while i remember that with Bayonetta 3 they even threatened the voice actress, TLOU2 was boycotted with leaks...

Concord on the other hand seems to have expected success only because the characters don't know what gender they are LOL... they wanted to jump on the woke train and instead they ended up under it

Many developers however confuse sensualization with sexualization.

[orange808]

Concord's problem isn't really gender or political. Give me a break. It's not an interesting game to play and it's a service cash grab thing, targeting the Fornite or WoW crowd. It's another mediocre grindy clone that nobody noticed:
dropped into a sea of similar similar get rich quick schemes. Nobody cared because it doesn't do anything worth caring about--and the potential audience is already engaged with other games.