Community MetaSteam | January 2021 - It's Rare to See a Medium So Well-Done
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ugHI:
Community - MetaCouncil's PC Games of the Year Awards 2020
Welcome to the third PC Gaming MetaCouncil GOTY (Games of the Year) awards! The main award focuses on PC games which we deem GOTY worthy. This year, we will also vote for the best ongoing game, the best Early Access game, the best VR game, and the most disappointing game. Previous Year's...
metacouncil.com
Don't feel like participating in MC's GOTY 2020 voting. My picks would get lost in the ether as I'd be voting for titles not many had played
Will see about 2021 GOTY in due time.
Will see about 2021 GOTY in due time.
Even if you didn't vote, it would still be interesting to see your choices.Don't feel like participating in MC's GOTY 2020 voting. My picks would get lost in the ether as I'd be voting for titles not many had played
Will see about 2021 GOTY in due time.
It might help to know that if there's nothing bound to the share button it's quite literally impossible to see in the config screen. There's no faint line from the button like all the other buttons, so it's easy to miss.
Finally finished Mankind Divided after two years since starting it.
While you can go all Rambo, the stealth/hacking route is without a doubt the way it's intended to be played.
And it's here where the game truly shine. Tried pure action for fun, and it's unremarkable.
Overall, I recommend it but there's much more to it than just that.
Pros
World-building, Enough material to get immersed, slow-burn
Enhanced mechanics over Human Revolution
Lots of freedom how you want to play, Stealth/Predator/Action
Good visuals overall
Music, esp. ambient, is top-notch
Good voice acting
Solid stealth gameplay
Cons
Literally unfinished, Ends on a dime
No satisfying conclusion to build-up
Many interesting characters/organizations only teased
Repetitive level design principles
Highly uneven pacing, Way too much time spent in Prague hub
Prague hub is simply less interesting than prior ones
Not enough (mechanics) has been reworked/added from Human Revolution
Animations repeat too much, feels stilted
Too few major characters, Most of them are too shallow
Side missions are a wash, Fail to be impressive both in scope and quality
Long load times, coupled with constant need to travel for missions, it's a pain
In the end, it's a formidable sequel to the great Human Revolution. But it's an inferior one in most important aspects.
Especially, the fact that conspiracy groups and theories that are quintessential for the Deus Ex series are painfully underutilized. Let alone, expanded upon with interesting new layers or theories.
Squandered opportunity, where I understand that publisher Square Enix can be pointed at for the most part.
Ultimately, reasons don't matter. The end product and experience does.
In that case, it underdelivers by way of too little innovation, too few locations, too much focus and thus overuse of Prague hub. Most disappointingly, a story that lacks in impact. For a series that regularly put the player at the helm of globe spanning and human destiny affecting levers, you feel like a small-town detective who does menial work most of the time here.
Brilliant. Want to play Outer Wilds. First screen the game gives me is 'this game is best played with a Joy Pad'
Joy Pad doesn't work. See that its a known issue on the forums. Ive spent 20mins trying to get it to work.
Joy Pad doesn't work. See that its a known issue on the forums. Ive spent 20mins trying to get it to work.
The Zephyrus G14 for 2020 is a beast. I will probably be in the market for a new laptop in late 2021, so I'm hoping to get a nice deal on the 2021 G14.
Please do! You might be surprised!
It was a post of mine.
steam://nav/consoledownload_depot appid depotid manifestid
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Yeah, it was like this. Yesterday I could not interact with anything there but when I tried it earlier it worked.
Yeah that's BS. Played it on KB&M and the only time a gamepad is kind of better is circumvented by applying no input at all.
As long as Sony doesn't get anything that's making multiplatform games... (Epic and Ubisoft should also stay away). Probably too much to ask though
I can see Microsoft going after
Bungie
Larian
Techland
Asobo
Sony going after
Bluepoint
Kojima Productions
Remedy
It's more likely that Epic buys Remedy than Sony imo.
Honestly? I could totally see this happening if only because I absolutely fucking love Remedy's games and they seem to be dead set on making it, at best, difficult for me to play them. First, it was Alan Wake becoming a console exclusive. Then Quantum Break was more of the same along with, IIRC, a period of timed WinStore exclusivity once it came to PC. And then Control took an EGS moneybag. At this point I fully expect them to eventually release something I just straight up won't be able to play. Probably that Epic-funded game they're working on, I imagine that's going to be a lifetime EGS exclusive.
Watch it be Alan Wake 2 as a bonus fuck you lol.
This is horrifying to see to me. Those are the companies promoting exclusives and already holding way too much power over gaming. Consolidation is never a good thing, especially in this industry. EA is a historically damning example.
I'm going to cross post from the VN thread, cos eh
Ok, I'm at chapter 9 of Chaos Head now, and I believe I'm nearing the end at this point. I've not finished it yet so impressions with that in mind, but coming from Stein's Gate to this I am frustrated and confused as all heck.
It's got a pretty slow start but I can forgive that, many great VNs have this issue.
What has irked me is that it's just outright confusing to the point that I struggle at times to really grasp onto any core plot point to drive the story. I feel like I need to keep notes of all the plot strands at this point.
Now it's clear that the game is meant to be confusing given its themes, and certainly its tense atmosphere is great, but by the half way point of Steins Gate there is a clear motivation and goal to drive the story; here its largely the same as it was at the very beginning of the story.
With how little is seemingly left I struggle to expect that it will all be tied up nicely by the end (I feel like I'm going to need to deep dive a wiki tbh) but even if it does that has been a frustrating read.
I really hope that Chaos Child is better than this.
EDIT: oh how could I forgot to mention, the main character is such an arsehole, its really hard to empathise with him. It's clear what's being aimed for here as the socially awkward otaku type but he has little to no growth and has remained irritating throughout. Okabe in Stein's Gate started irritating but you definitely warmed to him in time.
Ok, I'm at chapter 9 of Chaos Head now, and I believe I'm nearing the end at this point. I've not finished it yet so impressions with that in mind, but coming from Stein's Gate to this I am frustrated and confused as all heck.
It's got a pretty slow start but I can forgive that, many great VNs have this issue.
What has irked me is that it's just outright confusing to the point that I struggle at times to really grasp onto any core plot point to drive the story. I feel like I need to keep notes of all the plot strands at this point.
Now it's clear that the game is meant to be confusing given its themes, and certainly its tense atmosphere is great, but by the half way point of Steins Gate there is a clear motivation and goal to drive the story; here its largely the same as it was at the very beginning of the story.
With how little is seemingly left I struggle to expect that it will all be tied up nicely by the end (I feel like I'm going to need to deep dive a wiki tbh) but even if it does that has been a frustrating read.
I really hope that Chaos Child is better than this.
EDIT: oh how could I forgot to mention, the main character is such an arsehole, its really hard to empathise with him. It's clear what's being aimed for here as the socially awkward otaku type but he has little to no growth and has remained irritating throughout. Okabe in Stein's Gate started irritating but you definitely warmed to him in time.
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Ah OK I found a similar set of instructions but I was thinking it was something new - that method still sort of works, but you have to patch the Steam client to get access to the console now, as far as I can see.
It might still be worth me doing, because I straight up cannot play the 1.0+ version of Until You Fall and it's been 3 months since the devs really did anything.
Edit: Small correction, you can still open the console in Steam, but it won't let you download manifests (maybe anything?). That is what the patcher fixes, it's just a memory edit, so that seems relatively safe. Could also use the depot downloader but this seems easier so far
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Getting a copy of Pathologic 2 . The first game isn't story connected from what I heard? Anything I would miss from not playing it? If I should are there any needed fan patches or is it fine as is?
. The first game isn't story connected from what I heard? Anything I would miss from not playing it? If I should are there any needed fan patches or is it fine as is?
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Its just very beneficial for all the parties involved at the moment. Gaming has blown up pretty big over the past couple of years. Most of these big companies have a ton of money + digital services and new content seems to be the only way to continue growing these services. There is very little risk involved so even if you buy a dev and they release some flop...you'll still make billions every year like MS is doing with gamepass.
Selling makes sense too as developers seem to love the financial security as games are getting larger and larger while becoming more n more expensive to make. Selling to MS makes even more sense as you are still able to release your games to millions and millions of PC gamers.
Maybe in a few years things slow down but until then I expect a lot of acquisitions and consolidation to continue.
I hope I don't come as an elitist prick but I miss a bit when videogames were for fucking nerds, in the sense that they weren't this kind of multimillion dollars productions that threatened to kill companies if they didn't sold more than 2 bajillion copies. They were a bit more expensive (relatively speaking) but you had a sheer variety of them, and the so called competiton was about who was giving you more rather than who's screwing you less.
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I beat Outer Wilds entirely on KB+M a few days ago. The controls are still janky regardless of whether or not you use a controller. You really don’t need one.
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シリーズ公式Twitterは2017年12月の投稿を最後に稼働停止しています。
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I think Sony is moving on.
Good, Killzone sucks.『KILLZONE』シリーズ公式サイトが閉鎖―跡地には感謝のメッセージが掲載 | Game*Spark - 国内・海外ゲーム情報サイト
シリーズ公式Twitterは2017年12月の投稿を最後に稼働停止しています。
I think Sony is moving on.
I understand this sentiment.
During the 2000s, especially following the recession, investors seemed to begin realizing the upward trajectory video games and how resilient they were to economic downturns. There has been such an influx of investments and speculation which has lead to more and more of a profit-driven model. That is not to say there has ever been any different goal, but gosh does it feel more and more the only goal some days. Heck, the latest downturn due to the pandemic has only resulted in more folks gravitating towards video games, only further reinforcing this idea of video games being a vehicle for investors to see large returns on their investments.
I am just super thankful indies have taken off within this same timeframe, because if it was just up to the large publishers, it would be bleak.
Interview with the team behind Prince of Persia games during the 2000s
I've refunded it. Ill pick it up again in a year or two.
ugHI:
Community - MetaCouncil's PC Games of the Year Awards 2020
Welcome to the third PC Gaming MetaCouncil GOTY (Games of the Year) awards! The main award focuses on PC games which we deem GOTY worthy. This year, we will also vote for the best ongoing game, the best Early Access game, the best VR game, and the most disappointing game. Previous Year's...
metacouncil.com
You don't need to know the first game, I think of Pathologic 2 as a Directors cut of the first game. In saying that you also don't get to play everything that was in the original, so I would still recommend giving it a go.Getting a copy of Pathologic 2
I strongly disagree that it is beneficial outside of financial security. From the developer standpoint, they no longer have full creative control, nor do they choose what they make anymore. As much as PR would like us to believe, what they will make is now mandated from on high, or at least can be. Then there's also the fact that how these projects happen, are managed and furloughed or killed no longer is up to the creative leads either. In a nutshell, it's the publisher problem, where the lowest possible risk is taken and the safest road mindfully followed.
From a gamer perspective, it gets worse. That means potentially more exclusives, more anti-consumer practices, it means more of those games start belonging to a side that more often than not has more vested interests in consoles than the PC or multiple platforms. It means that the line of communication between a studio and its consumers now has the looming monolith of a large corporation towering over it. Id being owned by Zenimax didn't really go well, and neither did it go all that smoothly for Bioware and Blizzard.
I can't see this as a good thing other than in the very special cases of studios in precarious situations like Obsidian.
Edit : Also, they control the pricing as well as a lot of other things that I'm not sure people realize. For example we all know, I think, how hard they want to raise the prices this gen, from Microsoft trying it with FS2020 to EA and Activision writing that wish-filed letter to Santa for the next gen. The can also have the final say in business models for said games. Microtransactions in a narrative-driven, immersive sims are a bad thing? Well not for Square Enix they aren't.
I would never let bean-counters and corporations anywhere near art and games to be honest, they don't want to take risks, mostly don't understand the messy process of creating something truly amibitious and I loathe that they are claiming the creative output of this industry more and more.
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I always see these acquisitions as big players controlling more and more IPs (which is what they ultimately want) and eventually downsizing or killing the studios they bought, sure they'll keep some but they might as well be a different team.
Monolith Soft would have never continued making Xeno series, not even mentioning how the series finally receive proper public appreciation, if it was not bought by Nintendo. I think both sides of this issue have arguments and it really depends on how the consolidation is managed.
That falls more into the case I mentioned of companies in, I assume, precarious financial straits and, if I don't misunderstand, where the IP is owned by the platform holder?
You are describing a case of financial security, which I understand and acknowledge is valid for some studios. Still, the general argument against consolidation I think is far more wide-ranging and applicable. I think we have no shortage of proof of why this is a terrible thing more often than not.
No time was announced yet for the stream other than it being tomorrow, hmm...
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