TheRealTurk

I might go for the sub-trope of "Here's a seemingly important story choice, but the cutscene plays out the same way regardless."

But that might just be because I've been playing Rise of the Ronin.

I have to admit some strange mixed feelings about this one.

Don't get me wrong - I love Hades. It was definitely GOTY material and better than 99% of the stuff that's been released since. Similarly, I'm sure sure Hades II will be really good because Supergiant makes good games.

Having said that, I can't help but be just a little disappointed that they made a sequel to Hades right away. I mean, I get it. Hades was super-successful and put that studio on the map for a more mainstream audience in a big way, so it makes sense they'd go back to that well. And I'm sure it will be really well-made and they'll have little twists to the gameplay to make it feel like a better iteration of Hades.

But that's kind of the thing - I'm not sure I really want Supergiant to be iterative studio. One of the things I appreciate most about Supergiant is that they aren't afraid to take a swing in different genres, so all their games end up feeling unique even though they clearly share DNA from the same studio. There's just a surprise factor I feel is kind of missing here. I don't mind them returning to Hades eventually, but I'd love to see their take on a tactics game, or a dating-sim, or city-builder.

A Ubisoft game that involves traveling between ?s on the map? Noooooooo. Get out of here! That's crazy talk! Noooooooooo.

In all seriousness, though, are we really surprised? This thing has been in development of one form or another for at least a decade and started life as a multiplayer expansion to Black Flag.

Which would have been super-cool. In 2013.

As it is, I'm shocked that this ever lived to see the light of day. I think if it hadn't been for whatever weird deal Ubi had with Singapore's government it would have been canned as a sunk cost a long time ago. i haven't exactly kept up with it, but the most recent thing I remember was some dev talk they gave trying to explain the gameplay loop. It was a masterclass of Ubisoft design buzzwords - "You need to board this ship to interrogate the Snitch to find out which Town to attack so that you can get the Doubloons to buy the Map that shows you which Cliff to look at to tell you where the Treasure is. And that's how you get Infamy."

I think if you look at the consoles, each one has a fairly concise sales pitch:

Switch - A lower price point and portability.

PS5 - Big, AAA, "Prestige" games.

Xbox - Game Pass

However, what Nintendo and Sony do, and what I think Microsoft has really struggled with, is to align the games they offer with the selling points for the hardware. In other words, a lot of the great Switch games lean into the fact that the system is all about portability. Maybe they aren't the latest and greatest graphically, but they're tons of fun on the go. And you want to be on the go, you need to buy a Switch.

On the other hand, Sony tends to stand on big, tent-pole games that make use of every ounce of the PS5's power. They're high-quality, glossy experiences that often dominate their particular release cycle, so you if want to be "up" with the hobby, you need to buy a PS5.

And then there's Microsoft with Game Pass. While it's a great concept, it doesn't necessarily connect to the hardware itself in any meaningful way. For as much great content as there is on Game Pass, it also doesn't scream "You need to buy an Xbox!" Most of what's offered is also offered on the other systems, which are frequently the better places to play those games anyway. For example:

Smaller/Indie Games - Ok. That's something Sony doesn't necessarily focus so strongly on, so that's good. But a ton of those games cross over to Switch, which is both cheaper and you can take on the go. So you should probably just go buy a Switch and spend the money you save on a ton of games.

Big, AAA, "Prestige" Games - Well, the Switch can't usually run this type of game, so the Xbox wins out there. But Microsoft hasn't shown the inclination or ability to produce enough big, quality games in a short enough to time go head-to-head with Sony. It's hard to compete when your answer to Horizon or God of War is . . . Redfall and Starfield.

Older/New Classic Games - Things like Gears of War, or Mass Effect, or Titanfall. Game Pass does have a pretty shocking number of really great titles from the last couple of gens on Game Pass. And that's great! Plus, it's something that neither Nintendo or Sony really do, so it seems like a really good value proposition. But practically, I'm not sure if it really works as a selling point.

Because those games are from prior generations, a ton of potential subscribers probably own those series on prior gen consoles. If I really want to boot up Mass Effect, I don't need to buy a Series S/X or get a Game Pass subscription to do it - I can just boot up my 360. Plus, am I really going to play those games again? I mean, I love Mass Effect, but am I really going to play through it again? Really for reals? Probably not.

I freely admit that I barely watch anything on the site anymore and lurk on the forums more out of habit so I wasn't particularly aware that the Quick Look name had faded to the extent it has. Having said that, it just seems like such a "but why?" kind of change.

I'm all for trying new stuff, but the Quick Look label was so strongly associated with the site that I don't see the gain by dumping it. They basically coined the term to such an extent that it became like Kleenex - technically a specific brand name but just what everyone ends up calling tissues generally. I have to say, I kinda don't like the term "GB Plays" either. It's one of those perfectly descriptive but entirely generic terms that just literally describes the product is while not having any personality behind it.

Honestly, if they wanted Basically-a-Quick-Look-But-Kind-of-a-New-Thing type show, I actually really liked the very few times they tried to play a game blind for review while developing thoughts on it in real time.

I got into the Tales series with Vesperia, which is still one of my favorite RPGs. I don't know that the combat is necessarily as smooth, but I think the story is way better and it also uses actual portraits for skits instead of those lousy looking in-engine comics like Arise, so I'll take it as a net plus.

If you can, get the original version, though, not the "enhanced" one or whatever they're calling it. They tried to go back and voice all the lines, but didn't get all the original cast. Most of them do pretty well, but they guy they got to voice the MC is not very good. God bless him, he tries extremely hard. But he is also extremely not Troy Baker.

@sombre: I stand by my statement. Does Doom use a T2-style reload? No. No it does not. Can you dual wield shotguns that use a T2-style reload? No. No you cannot.

Why would that cause them trouble? So what if some indies got their games on more wishlists and sold more copies? Those indie developers aren't the ones running a non-profit enterprise. They have a perfectly reasonably expectation that participating in Indieland would drive more business. That's how most charity sponsorships work - a brand puts in money/time/celebrity to help run an event in the hope that they get more out of the process in good will and future sales than they put in.

I have to admit that I kinda missed the DOOM train. It was never a game we had in my house, since that ended up being where my mother drew the line. By the time I was able to play anything in the series we were all the way at DOOM 3. I remember liking it in a kind of "this is alright" sort of way, but without the frame of reference of the first two games, I also remember being baffled by why people made such a big deal out of the series.

As far as the more modern ones go, I really enjoyed Doom (2016) and equally did not enjoy Eternal. However, I do feel like this idea of "combat chess" is really overblown. If we're making a comparison to chess, then neither of the recent games successfully replicated it at all. Chess is all a game all about decisions, which is largely lacking in the DOOM games. In 2016, you never needto make a choice, since the Super Shotgun will cover 95% of your needs. On the other hand, Eternal's design is so rigid that there's never a choice to make, you use the counter for the particular enemy and that's it.

Ahem. The Marathon series would like a word . . .

Here's my hot take - neither.

Diablo IV was . . . fine. It's has the AAA gloss if nothing else but very little behind it. It's a game that feels extremely over designed. What I mean by that is that all of the systems technically work, and you can see how they are all supposed to fit together. However, it really feels like the dev team spent so much time making everything neat and tidy that they never spent time thinking about whether any of the systems were actually fun.

As for FFXVI, I hate, hate, hate, HATED that game. I have to think that it represents the absolute nadir of the franchise, because I can't honestly envision it going any lower. Prior entries, even the one's I didn't like, at least had one or two ideas that were interesting in concept. You could see how they could have been compelling even if the implementation was lacking.

However, FFXVI has no original ideas. The combat is mind-numblingly repetitive and feels like a cheap bootleg version of better action games. On top of it, the world they've created feels entirely generic and the characters are pretty much dead-eyed department store mannequins with all the personality of a cinder block. it's genuinely terrible.