dwarf

Nintendo are gay

Disgraceful, pathetic, bewildering, greedy - but enough about your mother's appetite for cock. Just get the standard edition like a rational human being. It's staggering that anyone would pay almost double the price for a case and (minimal) content which should be available to all buyers. Thick, whiny teenagers who fall for such wank as "ultimate" editions make me feel physically sick. Fuck off.

Exploitation shouldn't detract from your actual enjoyment of the game, but consumers should stand in solidarity with developers when they demand better rights. Industry standards are shocking across the board in terms of the unpaid overtime, staff mismanagement, and mass lay-offs. That's why there's an international movement pushing for unionisation at the moment. Most developers love playing games themselves, so they want you to play what they make. However, when the time comes everyone needs to support their strike action. When you consider how important it is for publishers to release games in a narrow launch window, strike threats should carry a lot of power. Hopefully fairer pay and safe working hours will result. My concern is that entitled consumers will side with bosses over workers if it looks like their game is at risk of being delayed. Ultimately we need to back the Absolute Boi and seize the means of production. Check out this cool left-wing pod if you wanna learn more about games industry unionisation: https://deleteyouraccount.libsyn.com/episode-107-press-start

You'll likely feel vindicated by either decision (and you've probably already made one deep down). Having played online multiplayer FPS games for around 10 years now, for me CoD doesn't offer enough anymore. It has longevity simply because it's addictive, but the addiction is pernicious. Everything becomes routine. From the way you move around the maps, to the endless deaths from indirect, non-skill-based weapons (explosions, gadgets, killstreaks, etc), to the inevitable attachments you form with particular class set-ups. Moreover, the frustration of playing the game becomes routine. But the addiction is such that you don't notice the frustration - instead you play through it to improve on your last round or rank up. Anything that reduces you to that state of unthinking should be avoided. Battlefield by contrast is more open-ended and keeps you from settling into a routine. There are more ways of using space and movement to outplay opponents. You have to use your head a bit more, and landing a kill requires more skill/precision. And at the end of a session, you might just come away with a moment or two that's worth using the share button for. Battle royale might change things for you, understandably. For me though, within the span of the Blackout beta, I grew bored of the sheer amount of time you spend looking at the floor scavenging for items, and dicking around in the inventory, often for very little pay off - either because you get killed unexpectedly, or because the round ends with a tepid final encounter which didn't require you to be armed to the teeth. Don't get me wrong, Blackout is way more interesting than the base multiplayer, and as a BR mode it's executed well, but I guess I'm not as taken aback by BR as I thought I'd be. If a BR game/mode comes along that's less oriented around OCD scavenging and more about concentrating on your environment, I might be interested. We'll see if Firestorm's focus on objectives adds something new to the mix.

Me, on PS4. Let's rinse.

Going by the footage floating around today pvp is completely optional. However, the premise of the game remains terrible. The biggest drawback is the lack of NPCs - it means the world is completely dead, reduced to a 20 frames per second arena for mindless shooting (sans VATS) and stat-grinding. I don't understand what the player's motivation is supposed to be. If multiplayer was implemented in a way similar to the Souls series, or Journey (i.e. sporadically and organically, but only as something that gives flavour to the campaign) then I'd be open to that. With that said, I'm really not arsed about another Fallout game on this engine, especially if they don't take an interesting direction with it. As it is, Bethesda is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

What games are people most hyped to play from now til new year? For me it's Red Dead and Battlefield - love having the option of switching between a campaign-driven game and a multiplayer behemoth. All itches scratched - get bored of one, start up the other.

You can tell this is going to be lit. Everything Danny from NoClip said has me hyped (lots of intricate, hidden systems that interconnect to produce organic gameplay *cough BotW*), so I stopped watching this trailer 20 seconds in. What's the point of spoiling it now? This will be my first Rockstar game. Left it long enough.

Rolls off the tongue

I was going to say, if Blizzard were handling it you could be sure they'd pour in the love the franchise deserves. Just look at the effort Free Radical put into their character select screen: Future Perfect had a solid campaign, a raft of co-op missions, a beefy multiplayer mode (including online) and a map maker. For the time it was released, that was a ludicrous package. Thing is, arena multiplayer shooters aren't that popular any more, so that whole mode would have to overhauled. Linear, arcadey FPS campaigns are also less common now. There's definitely space for a comedic, arcadey shooter, but it's such a mammoth task to take on considering the wide range of environments (as you mentioned) and huge cast of characters required. It's a big legacy to live up to and I'm not sure why people have so much faith in THQ Nordic to deliver it. This is beside the point though as they're probably only interested in remastering the trilogy.

Loved Timesplitters and Second Sight but I feel they'd both need full on remakes rather than remasters to be worth revisiting. They're very outdated now and I don't see how they could easily be modernised. Also, what are people finding inspiring about THQ Nordic?

There's a big difference between 'something' and 'everything.' Sheikah was saying that there's no need for a company to come up with every new idea themselves. He wasn't saying, as you spun it, that there's no need for a company to come up with anything new at all. As he points out, every major console maker has made innovations in hardware and software, and those innovations become standards. Customers of all three consoles benefit from those standards. Nintendo are a bit quirkier and have come up with unique controller designs more often - few would argue otherwise. Microsoft and Sony have made equally important innovations in other areas. What gives? There's that famous quote Steve Jobs attributed to Picasso: I guess I don't understand what's funny about the Classic because this stuff literally happens all the time. As people have said, it's not a particularly new concept to make hardware smaller. You can say your amusement over the Classic console similarities isn't a criticism, but we all know you still buy into the console wars and keep tabs on this shit. It's very trying. Sometimes calling out a copycat idea is a reasonable thing to do. If something is truly original, and a company shamelessly rips off every aspect of it so as to infringe on Copyright or a patent, then yeah, potentially a funny thing worthy of derision. I could maybe understand where you were coming from more if this was comparable to the Wii Remote/Move controller situation, but it just isn't. There's not exactly anything worth innovating here. Apple had the iPod 'classic' before Nintendo had theirs, but there's no need to rag on any company for using a common and apt word to describe a retro product. I don't buy into the console wars nonsense, hell I just slated the PS Classic because I think it's shit. But by saying you'd still buy one even though it's your 'least favourite console' and 'crazy overpriced', I mean 1) that's stupid 2) it doesn't convince me that you're over these petty console wars. Your amusement is poorly veiled criticism. You still have an axe to grind, you still have points to score. Saying you'll buy the console doesn't make you more logical in argument, or magnanimous, and it doesn't disguise your true intention which is to have a pop at Sony. Why do I bother?

Sheikah dealt with the reasons why the copycat criticism is dumb, but you customarily ignored them. Also, you have to have already bought those Xbox games for them to be 'free', so that's pretty disingenuous.

The copycat criticism is dumb. Sony will make a small killing on it. I don't like the Classic on the grounds of crapitalism. Most people buying one will already own a PlayStation console with more functionality. If the 20 games were released as a disc collection there'd be little interest, but because it's packaged as a nostalgic collector's piece people will go mad for it. And then they'll buy the PlayStation 2 Classic, and the PlayStation 3 Classic, and so on for the sake of completing the set. But crucially the consoles won't satisfy any itch, or make the owners feel whole. To the guys who've pre-ordered: why vote to clutter up the planet with more needless shit when you could put the money towards something worth buying? Hell, make a donation to charity. Almost anything would be better. I will take some of this back if it comes loaded with the PS Store.

Managed to get a solos win earlier. I'm pleasantly surprised by how well it runs and the map size/variation is spot on. They should add another 20 players to the game if possible though. At the same time, I'm not bowled over by it. Perhaps quads is more enjoyable when playing with friends, but I see myself getting Battlefield V over this. Even if BF didn't have a BR mode, I'd still prefer it.

I tried the pre-order trick today, entered the GAME code after making my CoD account, but I've still got no beta key from the CoD website. It's as if they know I've cancelled the preorder already but others have had similar problems getting the key so either there's a hefty delay in them sending it or there's been a fuck up.

Rotterdam is one of the best maps I've played in any FPS. Every flag is a miniature map unto its own, but there's a brilliant flow between them all with plenty of different avenues and a mix of ranged and close-quarters gunfights. Hats off.

@drahkon If you control more flags than the opposing team, their tickets (or lives) are depleted faster than yours. If your team controls every flag, the enemy team will lose tickets very rapidly. If both teams control two flags each, tickets for both sides will deplete at a slow rate. However, you can also deplete the enemy team's tickets by getting kills. So the idea is to do both, and they go hand in hand with each other to some degree. Battlefield is projectile based but the gunplay is a bit more similar to CoD this year as weapons have predictable recoil patterns that you can learn to mitigate e.g bursting when using assault rifles, pulling down on the control stick to mitigate recoil as you fire, etc. Guns also have skill trees - some weapons can be upgraded with 'faster bullets' so that you don't have to lead targets as much when firing. Snipers have to factor in bullet drop at long range. As far as I'm aware, you only show up on the radar when a sniper/recon uses a gadget to spot you - either with binoculars or a flare fun. I think all players can mark an area they're pointing at with R1, which comes up as a shield symbol on the radar and in the world, but there is no 3D spotting system for every player as in previous BF games, which is a huge improvement in my opinion. I think they've compensated for this with louder enemy audio cues such as gunfire and footsteps. /// So far I'm impressed by the game, but I'm conflicted about the more hardcore avenue they've taken. In theory, I'm completely on board with the ammo limits, health regen limits, bandaging system etc. On the face of it, it's a good way to encourage squad play, get people to play the objective, and the classes feel properly distinguished from each now. The multiplayer is more intense and tactical as a result. I assume it's a riot to play if you're in a squad with group chat. But there's only so much teamwork you can foster through mechanics alone. Overwhelmingly people still play the game like headless chickens because they don't use headsets. If you're in a random squad, and you don't have any way to agree on your next team objective, then everyone will just go lone wolf, which BFV punishes harshly. In Overwatch, the constitution of the team is front and centre. The game promotes a balanced team by telling you which classes you're lacking. And with it being 6 vs 6, the maps are fairly small and linear, so everyone is working towards the same objective. Players have broadly learnt not to Roy Jenkins onto the objective without the support of their team, and they can apply that knowledge to every single round of Overwatch they play. The maps in Battlefield by contrast are enormous, with up to 6 objectives at any one time. So if your medic decides to capture B flag, and your ammo supplier goes to C flag, but you've gone to A flag because it's the most urgent/sensible option... you're pretty much fucked. I can see why they've limited the ammo/health stations around the map to keep squads together, but at the moment I think they could potentially add a few more. The problem might not be so bad once the meta of the game changes, and players start using the deployable ammo/health kits (which need to be unlocked, and selected), but I doubt that will happen because those abilities are less appealing to headless FPS players than the current alternatives (e.g. a grenade launcher), and it's easy to forget to use those team-oriented abilities in the heat of a battle. Realistically, more of my game time is going to be spent without access to a group of mic'd up friends, which begs the question: is this game still enjoyable enough to play without them? Haven't decided yet. Maybe I should just encourage people on here to play/find some reddit users who'd be up for squadding. /// Spawning needs a tweak. When you die you're given a view of what your squad-mate is doing, but there's no indication as to where they are on the map. DICE should just combine the map view with the squad player cam like they did with BF4. Also, the bleeding out screen is pretty irritating in its current form. It needs to be more obvious if there are squad mates/medics nearby to heal, and holding L2 to speed up the bleed out shouldn't prevent you from looking around for medics. Being forced to stare into the sky is pointless. Final niggle - dishing out health and ammo is mapped to left on the d-pad, which is really cumbersome when you're trying to chase teammates without being able to use the left thumbstick to move. Could change it to R1, but in truth there just aren't enough buttons on the controller. Edit: you can't customise the controls in the beta. FML

Squad spawns and revives aren't working at the moment. Shambles.

Got my code from GAME without any issues. Hype.

Can you pre-order and cancel to get the code? (providing they do actually send one, unlucky Choze!)

I played Borderlands in single-player and regretted it. If something's designed for co-op that's how I want to play it, but I don't have a core group of people to go through Destiny with me at the moment - so I was just wondering if you can plough through the game with strangers online.

Can you make your way through the Destiny 2 campaign with randomers who drop in and out? Tempted to try it out seeing as it's free but I'd have no interest in doing it solo, if that's even an option.

...and CoD - it was sandwiched between both. People are suggesting there's a fair bit of bug-fixing to do too. Game delays are always the right thing to do but I am a bit gutted all the same.