Sheikah

I do think if they've already abandoned Switch in the sense of bringing (non-remaster) new games to the system that that would be kind of crazy. That'd be about 3 and a half years of support.

Fair enough, there are obvious judgements being made here, and we definitely don't know your situation. If you are suddenly finding yourself in hard times then that really sucks and I definitely wouldn't begrudge you getting a refund. Perhaps if you find yourself in better circumstances down the road you can buy another copy to support the devs since it sounds as though you did enjoy it.

Quite easily, drahkon is clearly a chancer who wants to have his cake and eat it. [emoji14]

For a Sony console that is also well supported by big third party games this is really good.

For me it's a case of at least 10 seconds finding the cable then a few seconds more plugging it in, then setting it down. It probably takes me just a few seconds to slot it in the bay on the charging dock, though. I keep the dock right next to where I play.

That is one very cool looking record.

Fair enough, there are geeks on this forum. But honestly, if we discounted every game because it used the same engine or assets then there'd be a whoooole lot of games we couldn't could because of Unreal Engine 4.

I have a bunch of cables plugged into an extender so yeah, it's not instant for me to grab the right cable.

I can definitely recommend the official charging station, if you can find one. The controller slots in easily and it saves looking for and hooking up the cable each time.

Feels like you're moving the goalposts here. You said that that the Wii U's first party library runs rings around the Switch's, then when people started reeling off game after game that the Switch had that the Wii U didn't you're then more or less saying "you're forgetting they've combined their handheld library into it". It is a fair discussion that they've combined their outputs and arguably we're seeing less from them overall, but that doesn't change the situation that there was more of significance released on Switch than Wii U (and the Switch is still live and kicking). We're also seeing discussions here about reusing game engines and whether games were built on previous Wii U games. That's not really the point, is it? If a Nintendo game came out on Switch that wasn't released at an earlier date on a previous console then it counts. Nobody really cares if they saved time and money by building on a previous engine, that's geek stuff!

They invested a lot of money into developing/manufacturing it but it wasn't well spent. There were android devices being sold for peanuts that were made of better materials and to a better spec than the Gamepad. It's made of a cheap feeling plastic, the whole things feels like plastic, and they didn't sufficiently weight it so it felt like a premium product. You can't tell me it's a well built product of quality - as I said before, it feels like a Fisher Price toy.

I'm really enjoying it too, I'm currently in Shropshire, around power level 180 or so. I've put a lot of hours into it and still really finding it fun. I think the way the game is divided up by pledging to a territory is quite clever and gives a unique flavour to each main quest arc. The biggest improvements for me are how treasures have puzzles tied to each one, so they're rarely just lying there for the taking. That, and it's clear which are "main treasures" so you can just focus on them if you like. Also enjoying the Animus glitch platforming sections, they're rather like Zelda puzzles. I picked the male protagonist this time, since it felt more of a fit for the Viking theme. I really like the voice actor for male Eivor, very softly spoken and not what you might expect for a Viking, but it works.

One of the definitions of flimsy is "made of inferior materials and workmanship". That suits the gamepad to a tee. I was meaning more or less that if feels cheap.

Have to disagree with you there. I don't think the Wii U lineup can be praised that much compared to the Switch. Mario Odyssey was better than 3D World, BoTW was basically on both, while both consoles had a Splatoon game of their own. Switch also had a new Smash, Animal Crossing, and mainline Pokemon game (huge games), as well as a Fire Emblem whereas Wii U didn't. Wii U had Mario Kart which was ported, but much new content has since been released for Switch and to be honest I don't feel that Mario Kart really even needs a new game every time - it could exist as a title supplemented by DLC for a long time. The best case for Wii U was Pikmin 3, to be honest.

Well I don't hold them, because I have a pro controller. They still have a more solid build quality than the gamepad; that thing was flimsy, lightweight plastic with a low resolution screen - compare it to the feel of the Switch itself and you can't go back.

To be honest I meant more that the world design was dated in the sense that many new open world ideas had since come along that made for my more interesting gameplay. For instance, Breath of the Wild introduced mini puzzles throughout the world in the form of Korok seed puzzles and those miniature dungeons, ensuring there was plenty of stuff to entertain you minute to minute. AC Valhalla goes with the BoTW formula in that treasures and "mysteries" (mini quests) are rarely just throwaway - there's a small puzzle involved to complete each one. For instance, you might need to figure out how to get into a building and to do that you have to climb to a position where you can shoot an arrow at a door's lock through an open window. GoT doesn't do this sort of thing at all, and there are repeated location types over and over with very little nuance to anything you might find there. One or the worst offenders are fox shrines, where you just follow a fox a short distance to a small shrine to pray at - there's really nothing clever or interesting about them. One of the most interesting parts of the game are bamboo shrines but they are over in a flash.

@drahkon will you be getting this?

Switch bests Wii U purely for not feeling like a Fisher Price toy.

I completed GoT a few weeks ago and felt the same, and really wasn't very impressed with it in the end. It's a very pretty game but full of guff that doesn't contribute to interesting gameplay. So many vanity items (that don't affect gameplay), repetitive enemy encampments, lack of ways to explore (pretty much just by horse), and generally not very interesting quests or story. The whole idea of stealth killing being unthinkable to samurai and this being the driver of the story is also completely bogus. When you compare it to another recent open world game - AC Valhalla, the level of enjoyment I got from GoT was so much lower. There is just so much more interesting going on in Valhalla that is sadly missing in this game. GoT feels like an open world game from about 5 years ago but with breathtaking graphics. Sorry if I'm raining on anyone's parade but this was a massive disappointment for me, especially for someone who loves Japan so much. Eurogamer's and Yahtzee's reviews of GoT are spot on IMO.

If only it had 2% more, you might have played it then.

Unfortunately that would never happen - people will never stop buying the games they want. The next best thing we can hope for is that mounting pressure/coverage causes companies to react (which they have done in the case of Battlefront 2). Also I don't agree with your primary solution to the loot box issue, we can't say the effective solution is "everyone needs to just avoid it" - loot boxes are gambling (and have been identified and regulated as such in some countries). Once you know that, you see how that response doesn't work - "the thing about gambling, everyone just needs to avoid it". Loot box coverage (including online discussions) has absolutely helped thrust this issue into political spotlight. I have read accounts of how gambling addicts have blown thousands on them, it's really quite an insidious practice that benefits from the exposure.

This is a difficult one because there are obviously people that take it too far, and real assholes who send death threats and get off at the misery of others. On the other hand, discussion around workplace practices (e.g. with Jason Schreier's journalism) has given a voice to those who have suffered mental health issues due to really bad crunch practices, and has caused companies to respond and start to bring about change. Continued discussion around lootboxes and predatory practices has led to countries starting to (or already) regulating them. And backlashes against certain anti-consumer game design decisions like with Battlefront 2 resulted in very positive (and swift) changes due to the public reaction. That's not to say that it's not exhausting to see the discussion often focus on 'non-game' aspects of games all the time, especially when it wasn't like this in the past. Ultimately though, being completely quiet about issues like you're suggesting would do more harm than good, and you can generally ignore news articles or threads that discuss these issues if you want to.

See I would say this game has been an unmitigated disaster for them. Saying it "isn't in the best condition" has to be one of the biggest understatements on this forum I've seen in a while. 8-) See but that's arguing a different thing. Making room for people to work late is a lot different to enforcing crunch. Crunch in general is an unwanted, prolonged period of pressure applying to a lot of people in the company. It's not the same as allowing some people to work late if that's in their nature. I also don't believe that people who work much later than others necessarily end up being as productive or achieving as much as people who work normal hours. It's certainly not better for creative people. Saying "you can get another job" because your company does something a bit shitty isn't an option for a lot of people, especially people with financial commitments, and people now during the pandemic where job security is compromised. I honestly don't think consumers play a part. Why would they release a game sooner because people are crowing about it on the internet? Far more likely they are rushing a release to meet financial objectives. And the shareholders? They aren't crunching. They are crunching the people below to see a faster return. It's pretty shitty, really. That's what disciplinary action and firing is for. Arguing against the minimum wage is kind of ridiculous really, it's there to protect people from being taken advantage of. But again, this is a mandated period of crunch, it's not the same thing. Even in other cases where it's not officially said to be mandatory, due to many reasons it pretty much is. If it's necessary then why have some devs managed to completely avoid it? I fundamentally disagree with your point of view here. Just because most companies do it, doesn't mean it's needed. It's probably difficult to rethink the way of doing things but it's by no means necessary, and avoiding it will have a lot of benefits for workers in the long run. You can set targets for employees and have performance reviews to ensure productivity without instigating several month hellish periods where people burn out. If you don't want to crunch in these companies you will probably be gone before long, let's be honest. If you read through any of the stuff Jason Schreier put out while he was at Kotaku he interviewed a number of employees about crunch conditions. At the end of the day if you keep telling yourself it's a necessary evil then you're part of the problem. Many work-related issues in the past, like people not receiving minimum wage, could have been justified as "a necessary evil" to ensure the status quo was maintained.

That's not what I was getting at. I was suggesting that based on your other comments, you were implying that it wasn't really crunch at all, which I disagree with. Cyberpunk is neither groundbreaking nor a particularly great game, so how can you justify crunch in this case? 2 months is the minimum. In reality it was probably closer to three. Three months of 6-day weeks and long days - absolutely that is a long period of time that will burn the employees out (in fact there are complaints that happened). These people are not saving lives here, they are making games. There's literally no need for crunch here. The sad thing is that's it's to serve the stakeholders. What is the worst that would happen if they didn't have 6-day week crunch and long days near the finish? It would take 20-30% longer at the end to do the same amount of work? Perhaps less as rested, contented employees do better work. You see what I am saying here? Maybe bitterness is the wrong word. Rather, some level of normalisation leads people to think bad practice is fine, because they experience bad practices themselves. Or people suffer bad work conditions then don't want to see others have better working rights, especially not if the other people are getting paid more. Your post here what I am getting at. Why do you respect them for working like dogs, when they are basically made to do that? In my view I hold the greatest respect for companies that value the wellbeing of their employees and who manage to develop games without doing that. There was one big game dev, I forget who, who said they don't crunch at all - so it's very much possible. Crunch is essentially a failure of management. If you can develop games but without burning out your workforce, surely that's better, no? If you want to work long hours then good on you, but I don't see what that has to do with anything we are discussing here. Wah...okay. I'm surprised to see you say this - you know the cream "at the top" are the ones crunching the people below? So is the ideal to have a bad ending to the Hunger Games scenario - fight to the top to impose misery on everyone else? I don't think so... I don't think I've more strongly disagreed with a statement in a looooong time. You could go back through history and utter that sentiment time and time again. Oh you want minimum wage do you? Well sounds like you're just not cut out for this!

A lot of your points about how they haven't been crunched have been made before but I really don't agree with them. They're being paid so it's fine, nobody explicitly said they had to crunch, they could leave if they wanted; or the worst one - I have to work hard too, so why should they have it good? That last one is a real sticking point for me, and generally a problem I see often in society. People themselves don't have a nice thing, so feel some bitterness towards the prospect of others having a nice thing. Just to note, I'm not saying that overtime or long hours aren't normal sometimes for everyone, but this is a case of extended months of 6-day weeks and very long hours. It's easy to say nobody is forcing them to work like crazy but often the case is that you're expected to do it. If they don't do it then likely they won't be put forward for promotion or have it otherwise marked against them. It can be very difficult to break out of an estsblished norm if the company has one and the end result is people getting burned out. It's a bit of a shit situation. I agree completely that higher ups/stakeholders are to blame here, but let's not go down that well-trod path of playing down crunch as a non issue. Even if they're well compensated, extended periods of (implicitly) forced crunch to serve the deadlines of higher ups is not good, especially for the mental health of employees. Not least because it resulted in a bug ridden game in spite of them doing multiple crunches for each of the many release dates the game had. They would have been better off not crunching and actually finishing the game properly.