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Edit: Slightly off topic post incoming but i think about this a lot
This particular argument i dont think we're going to have to choose between story and gameplay. GOW 2018 played as great as its narrative. Gaming is a weird medium though. Some of my favorite experiences have been visual novels. 13 sentinels is 80% VC 10% combat and 10% exploration. The "game" aspects are minimal. Outstanding game all the same. Some greta VCs have no gameplay whatsoever which begs the question "are they even games?" Then you have the interactive narratives like Detroit, Until Dawn, Walking dead etc. What even is a game? Is having a controller in your hand all it takes? Would the same "game" on your phone still be a game? Ive thought about this a lot before as a medium when you start to push around the edges its honestly not very clear philosophically. This thought really hit my mind when death stranding was making its waves. The argument for it being a bad game was most commonly "its not fun." Now if i wrote a film review and said "its a bad movie its not fun" for Schindler's List i wouldnt be a credible critic. Its not meant to be fun. So if games are only good when theyre fun then they are not games. They're toys. But if gaming is a serious medium fun cant be king. Which isnt to discredit fun. There's nothing wrong with that. My point is if the medium is to truly evolve, not just genre but the entire medium, its these kind of boundries that are going to have to be explored. Things like Alan Wake where the gameplay is pushing the narrative devices forward. For example. Fun games will always exist, i hope atleast. But the conversation of what makes a game is the one i want to see pushed, ignoring what makes a good game, atleast primarily. Lets find out what makes one good later; first lets find out what one even is. tl;dr I definitely enjoy having things that are fun to play just like i enjoy fun movies to watch. But not always. |
I've said this before in regards to Death Stranding.....I don't know if I loved it, or hated it, or what I felt. I just know I couldn't stop. Weirdest gaming experience of my life.
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Still think about that game all the time.
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Say what you will but Kojima was aiming for something. An experience that challenged the audiecne as gamers. Not in dexterity or git gud but with the form itself. Love it, hate it, whatever it. you cant discredit it though with "oh well it wasnt fun." That seems smoothe brained AF.
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By all rights hate though, im not saying thats not valid
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The best word I can use to describe that game is "compelling". I was driven to play it even though I had no idea why.
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Right. Exactly. Captivating, engaging, intriguing. These are reasons we might read a book, for example, outside of fun. Dare i even: informative? Is there space in gaming thats not geared toward 4 year olds thats informative? Can we mix informative with compelling? Great novels mange it.
I dont know if we'll ever really explore much in gaming beyond fun but when i think of boundaries pushing that's where my head goes. Elden Ring pushing the souls like genre forward isnt nothing and it isnt small either. What Hades did the the rouguelike genre is comparable. im not dismissing that kind of achievement but i do think pushing the mechanisms of narrative delivery in games like GOW 2018 are definitely at the edges of gaming too. |
Its an interesting topic is all im saying im not trying to take sides i havent played ragnarok
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Elden Ring will be looked at as nothing more than a stepping stone once someone comes along and releases a clone of it with a fleshed out narrative.
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Its still one of my favorite games of the year though. The world design is pretty fucking peak. Had fun exploring it.
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Elden ring felt like the biggest game since animal crossing. Everyone was playing it.
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It was stunningly huge
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I don't say it should go over ragnarok lightly. Elden Ring was more than just a great game. It challenged how we look at open world games in an era where they are immensely prevalent. It put the rest of the industry on blast so hard that some devs couldn't handle it and got defensive on twitter.
Its ripples it caused are going to stretch beyond this year and influence how people make open world games in the future. That is why I give it the edge, combined with why it innovates so much. Every piece of the map combined with the enemy placement in that geography, all specifically placed to offer unique challenges. Nothing just copied and pasted. Everything there for a reason, and so many subtle details and hints that people are still discovering to this day.ACTUAL exploration, and discovery. Not just climbing a clearly visible tower and having 50 icons on your map, telling you where to go and what to find. And I've felt this way since the first dark souls but the extreme vagueness of the story and lore is what adds to the incredible mystique and atmosphere of the games. Dark Fantasy is my wheel house and in almost all the different series I've experienced, it always gets to a point where you've learned enough about the world and experienced enough exposition where it doesn't hold that same mystique as when you first started. If souls games have mastered anything, its retaining that feeling of mystery from start to finish while still giving you just enough where you have cool relevations and plot lines coming together as you connect the dots. To me, that is just as impressive as a more substantial, more traditional well told narrative. |
Comparing Elden to a Ubisoft game for example definitely should be embarrassing for the guys over in France. Thats how ive felt about what The Witcher 3 did. All the detail in that world and they still lazily churn out the same game every few months and wonder why it goes stale.
And the sense of discovry in ER (Miyazaki games in heneral tbf) is something that you can basically only get in his games. Like i said from the get go those that get hooked on his method of lore delivery will only be able to get their fix from him. Its truly unique. I think for mass audiences that works against it in direct comparison to more organic methods but not because i think its bad at all. Just that when we get into the general perception its weaker. But against my own point Sekiro, which is my favorite Miyazaki game, won GOTY and while the pack was pretty weak that year there was very little push back when it did. And ER is 5x more popular than Sekiro was. ER was CoD popular. |
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This just made me think of Nier Automata. That game will forever stick with me. The game I started playing was not the same game I finished. The way this was presented was unlike any other ever, nor will there ever be another for me. Maybe it's because I often wonder about this existence/life and what it's all about / why we're here. I couldn't stop playing. I found myself wanting to move forward regardless of what was in front of me. And the "ultimate sacrifice" at the true end (5th play through I think? That story is unrivaled IMO. I honestly felt a heavy "lift" when I finished the story, exhaled deeply and just kinda sat back and thought about it all. It was incredible, and yet I don't know if I could ever play it again at the same time. |
Nier: Automata is on my short list of favorite games ever honestly. Only game besides Chrono Trigger that I actually felt invested in getting every single ending. And they all ruled, even the 20ish little "side" endings.
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I remember accidentally stumbling onto one of the endings just by going the wrong way at the 1st mission.
Something along the lines of "2B never showed up, the end" or something, lol. My first "WTF" moment of the game. |
I need to give nier a 2nd chance. I played maybe a half hour and the combat really didn't gel with me. I dont like bullet hells
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Eh, it is not a difficult bullet hell game at all. It looks like it, but the movements are so fluid and fast, it's quite easy to maneuver around. Not only that, but I feel like the game quasi-leaps gaming genres from moment to moment, it keeps it fresh. Then.... proceeding playthroughs only increase the ways you play, and keeps you on your toes.
The narrative too, is just.... man it's fucking heavy but so well executed. |
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Also just remembered this was my first experience. Think I got to the first little town/village and it just didn't click. When it does though, insanely hard to put down. |
Death Stranding ruled. I enjoyed it a lot and I'm not sure if I classify it as fun but it was definitely very close. I loved playing it. I also love doing very boring tedious tasks as long as theres a long term goal I care about in sight, so building those fucking roads was very enjoyable and rewarding for me. I love that game. I also loved and enjoyed reading Anna Karennina, if that means anything.
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We've talked about my gripes with Tolstoy before so I'll save it but id def say those books arent fun but they almost required reading and def work as a great example of what im driving at.
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lol Nintendo flirting with the idea of increasing the price of the Switch. Says they won't right now but will continue to look at the option.
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Virtually everyone who wants one has one but there's no reason why they shouldn't increase prices to match the failing currency. A switch selling at the current price after 8% inflation and climbing is shrinking the very narrow profit margin the consoles always have.
Microsoft is having the same issue on the xbox side. Theyre now losing $200 per unit sold. Those prices will likely increase in the next 18-24 months. Their situation is different of course as theyre trying to tank the losses and use the lower price to gain a market share advantage, grow game pass, and then adjust the price. |
None of the current prices can hold though industry wide.
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Yeah but Switch was never sold at a loss like Xbox and PS. It has been profitable since day 1. And that 8% inflation has been more than offset by the price drop on 6-7 year old components that make up the switches guts.
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We aren't exactly talking about current tech at this point when it comes to switch. That system was woefully weak at launch. It's just laughable now. The steam deck is only 50 bucks more and somewhere around 60% more powerful.
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Oh man those are BS inflated power ratings I used for switch. The steam deck might be in the 2x-3x more powerful range in reality.
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Shit I did it again, found the actual FLOPs a switch does. Steam Deck is 4x as powerful as undocked switch, 3x as powerful as docked.
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Steam deck is way more powerful than the switch that cant even be in question
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At launch the switch was reported to be making $5-10 per unit and if we go purely on that loss wouldnt be so major but the real issue is the shipping/logistics cost. Everything has to increase prices its just the reality of having the unit of account (USD) be devalued so heavily, especially with there being no end in sight. Nothings prices can hold.
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So the question is...whats the new price? If we're talking $20...seems about right. If we're talking $50...well good luck with that. Sales are slowing as is. Probably not going to see many sales.
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If they increase the price 50 bucks and match price with Valve then anyone who buys that and not a steam deck is literally dumb considering the deck can emulate switch, and for the most part, run the games better than the switch can.
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And it has a much better/larger library of games, obviously.
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Cant argue there. Well, nintendo 1st party IPs do have unique value... so there's that. Id over pay to support zelda. Im a sucker that way... in any case the real competition would be the resale market on ebay
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That many units in the wild...like billion store fronts that can out price you on a whim
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But you arent wrong. The pirate community on steam makes buying anything obsolete really
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Well like with me playing switch games via PC, I actually buy like 95% of the games. I still believe in supporting the companies as long as it's a current product (ie I am not going to pay the secondary market for some old SNES or PS1 game I want to play that I have no access to any other way). Occasionally I will pirate a game I am iffy about and try it out and if I like it I will go buy it. If not, I'm not gonna play it anyways and just delete it.
I guess I kinda keep to the grey area of emulation/piracy in a way. If they ever come knocking on my door (which they won't because I don't upload ANYTHING ever and the amount of actual d/l I do is minimal) I'll just bust out the game cart and show ownership. It's not illegal to play your games on another platform if you can use the same files, no matter how much they dislike people doing that. |
I used to pirate A LOT more. Denuvo fucked that all up. Seems like almost every game I wanna play that I would consider sailing the digital seas to acquire has that ultimate bullshit DRM that takes a dickyear to crack.
Wanted to try out the new Star Ocean before I bought it considering the series had been on a downward trend and the last one was absolute ass. Denuvo said no.:fu: |
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey claims that he's designed a virtual reality headset rigged with a small bomb that will actually kill you if you die in the game.
He's even said he's exploring anti-tampering technology so you wouldn't be able to take it off, you either beat the game or you're dead. Woohoo, let's turn real life into a sci-fi. |
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