MFTWrecks

@MrMagic I think it's partially the mentality of racing. It's so straightforward: "I want to go fast and do things fast and be the fastest."

Slowing down the action, which can be SO IMMEDIATE thanks to the technology of a videogame - it can so easily feed on that impulse/thrill, just ends up taking more away than it adds.

Yes, because what racing game fans truly, DEEPLY desire is more story.

These companies are run by buffoons.

I've been enjoying it more than recent CoDs, but then I'm the type of player who likes new maps and abilities, not the same old stuff rehashed ad nauseum the way CoD does it. No, I DON'T like playing maps I played 15 or so odd years ago, Activision. That's NOT progress to me.

So, yeah, this has been pretty decent. I just hope they fix/tweak the hit registration and weapon progression. Those are the two things I see doing some harm long-term. I also hope they have a solid pipeline of factions and maps and other content. Guess we'll see!

This is the main reason I haven't bought Enshrouded yet. I REALLY like what Hello Games does, their ambition, and how well they support their work. It's nearly unheard of. Can't wait to see what they're up to with this.

The fact they thought players wanted a pirate game where you just (more or less) stay in your ship to do all the activities is just baffling to me. Like... it's bonkers stupid.

They had the tools and the framework to make an EPIC pirate ARPG and spin off an entirely standalone IP with it. Put it in a region of the world like the South Pacific (which I think is where this is based?) or the Caribbean (which is where I think Black Flag was based) and make it a full third-person ARPG a la AC with violence and action ON FOOT. But then throw in a fully customizable ship AND an island fortress.

Have the player build up their base of operations while they loot and pillage dozens upon dozens of small island havens. Make it MASSIVELY large. Like AC Odyssey but all island-based. No huge land masses, necessarily. Have each island have a strategic purpose. And then spin out resource/control mechanics almost like that old Scarface game. Let the player build a friggin' piracy-based empire and become lords of the sea.

It coulda been friggin' WILDLY cool. But we got... this. Ugh.

I'm close to hitting 100 in Diablo 4 and I have been having a surprisingly decent time with Xdefiant (boy, do I loathe that name). Probably sink time into both.

Considering I don't think Ubisoft games or characters are nearly as iconic as Ubisoft thinks they are, I like the fact that the characters themselves are basically just generic skins. We all know if Sam or Vaas were in this, they're ALL anyone would play as. It's smart to give people generic players so that it's truly not all the same people jumping about.

As for gameplay, I think their biggest issue right now is hit detection/net code. It can feel very very hit or miss (pun intended).

A very close second is the unlocks. The cadence for them is far far far too slow. And the fact they're also tied to the gun, not the class, it's going to take players a ridiculous amount of time to make any new gun they get late into their play time (or introduced down the road) viable, which will annoy and drive players away. Why play with the newest AR and go back to basics and lose fights when ole reliable is sitting there kitted out?

Otherwise, I think it has potential. Hopefully they support this like Siege and For Honor and less like Hyper Scape.

Who the hell pronounced it with a hard G? It was very clearly short for giblets. How did people not know that?

So why are we getting this style of article and not others lamenting other console-exclusives we don't have access to on PS4/5? This seems like a supremely odd change of pace for Pushsquare and it has no place here, just like I wouldn't expect quasi-reviews of PS5 exclusives showing up on an Xbox or Switch-enthusiast site.

Literally no one cared.

@HonestHick They now have a very small handful of IP that sell new games in high enough numbers to crack billions in sales (Minecraft and COD... maybe Diablo and Warcraft). But the underlying companies they purchased had been making their own mistakes for ages (especially the Blizzard IPs). The jig is up for many on the quality of Bethesda games after Starfield landed like a wet fart.

It is going to take them YEEEEEEEEEARS to make back the money they spent on the purchase.

You're not wrong in that they'll make hand over fist if they go purely software. But they spent an ungodly amount on these studios and... there's nary a system-defining or chart-crushing title among them (besides the stalwarts mentioned).

One could argue it was a really really bad purchase. If it was so great, do you think they'd be in this specific position? Because I don't.

I simply thought it was boring and frustrating. It immediately had an annoying meta and the highly-touted destruction mechanics were buggy and did way less to impact the matches than I anticipated. Mostly, they just annoyed me when they didn't work properly and I'd have debris blocking my path or that I couldn't climb over swiftly enough.

It would rapidly swing from slow and cumbersome to so friggin' fast it made me head spin. Like it could channel Siege or Counterstrike at one moment and then Unreal Tournament the next. It felt like it didn't know what kind of shooter it wanted to be.

The fact it had no system to fill in lost allies in a match (I dunno if they ever addressed that) was also idiotic. The moment you were down a player, you knew your chances of winning were basically nil. So why bother trying? It was easier to quit because a full team steamrolled in ways that other shooters don't necessarily allow (it's far simpler to 1-man a full squad in Fortnite than it was for a team of 2 to take out a team of 3 in this, somehow).

The base gameplay was okay, at best. But the gimmick ended up being just that: too gimmicky.

I also don't think it had NEARLY enough content at launch. It got too old far too fast.

This reminds me of Ashen, in that it's from a smaller team, trying some unique things within the broader genre, and clearly has a passionate developer behind it. Plus, it's in a uniquely stylized setting/world.

Definitely keeping my eye on this.

Good. I love the deliciousness of Microsoft spending such massive amounts of money to buy up exclusives (instead of making their own games) only to pull an about face and put all their IP on the competing platforms they were trying to defeat with the purchase, anyway.

And to be clear, I'd feel the same way if this was Sony doing this and then being forced to put God of War and TLOU on Xbox. It's just such a boneheaded move that bit them in the ass. No matter who it is, I love watching big dumb corporations eat crow.

I mean, for me it was the fact it was turn-based at all. I've never enjoyed the cognitive dissonance of watching people in a fight take turns slapping each other. It's always perplexed me.

If you're throwing me in a game with a ton of wildly fun and powerful superheroes, I don't want to watch them standing around. Period.

The moment they said it was turn-based was when I knew it wasn't for me. Had nothing to do with cards.

Welp, that'll be a no for me, dawg. Hate turn-based games.

By all means, divert resources from a brand that is known to sell and put them toward a game nobody asked for whatsoever that will be in direct contention with thew biggest name(s) in FPS gaming.

Make it make sense, Ubisoft.

Side note: I've always felt Ubisoft had a unique opportunity with The Division. They could have made a pretty damn great battle royale/extraction shooter (the Dark Zone is arguably one of the first extraction shooters conceptually) within the universe.

Build out a giant, unique city (as in one not seen yet... like Baltimore, LA, or Vegas). Stuff it with all the great detail Snowdrop is capable of (no one has ever argued Division games look bad) and have your player character be a complete random person. Then the overall concept would be it "tells the story" of everyday survivors of the outbreak as they fight to survive in the new world. It'd be like every match is sort of in the immediate aftermath of the world collapsing and you are someone merely trying to survive it and escape before it's too late.

You start with nothing and fight to scavenge guns and whatever else. But then you can also find Division (and other enemy faction) loot caches, just like you'd find guns in chests in Fortnite or whatever, that house higher quality gear. But given the IP, THAT'S also how you find your Division tech like the sentries and rolling bombs and whatnot.

So each match, you sort of gear up and have to make an effective kit like you would over the broader course of a Division game. Have government helicopters around the map that will extract you and "save you" from the city before it's overtaken or destroyed (whatever the "story" calls for).

Throw in roaming bands of the gangs they already have (in order to steal their loot), and Division agents you can hire to fight alongside you (like Fortnite has characters who can help), and you've got the makings of a pretty damn decent multiplayer experience. Support it with cosmetics you could earn through XP or some currency so you can create a unique-looking survivor and WHAM. That's a fun time imo.

But Ubisoft doesn't create. They just copy (often poorly). So we never got THAT game. We got AC #24849873, Skull & Bones, and Hyper Scape.

I could easily see this collaboration being built into Fortnite. Sony HAS invested a ton of money into their relationship with Epic. And Epic could use another premium experience within Fortnite...

@Jdubz Or, ya know, use the IP in a way that makes sense.

Why TF would the Suicide Squad ever be set up against Brainiac AND the most powerful heroes on the planet? It's dumb even by comic book standards.

If you want a Suicide Squad game, take equal parts Ghost Recon Wildlands and the old Mercenaries IP, blend it with full four-player Suicide Squad shenanigans and crank it up with some good uber violence.

Make a game that makes more sense than a poor looter shooter grindfest.

@get2sammyb Says a dude whose job, in part, is making their opinion as widely known as can be to try and push a needle within a broader community.

If you're complaining about people being noisy, you may be in the wrong profession.

Lol. The Discord is full of Arrowhead bootlickers. The general community did NOT like Spitz. Check Reddit. His support is FAR less community-wide than you make this sound.

@OmegaStriver Don't disagree. But even beyond that style of more kid-friendly ARPG, I really think Ubisoft has the pieces to make a Witcher or Dragon Age competitor. Some of the design and visuals in the Origins and Odyssey DLCs were just superbly done. (I hear good things about Valhalla's Ragnarok DLC but haven't played Valhalla.)

Heaven forbid Ubisoft makes a new IP with the AC games as a blueprint. AC lost itself long ago with a bit here or there. But this is straight overkill. Color me uninterested.

What they SHOULD do is let the teams that make the admittedly awesome DLC into a full-on fantasy RPG series. I think with their skill at large open worlds and ARPG mechanics that they could make a Witcher-style epic if they tried.

Plus, it'd give 'em another IP to run into the ground.

I was afraid this was the Control-adjacent one for a second! Since we don't know what Kestrel even was, it's hard to feel bad about "losing" it.

I'm surprised they didn't absorb all these developers and give them the fate worse than death: COD support studio.

I'm the perfect market for a streaming handheld, I just can't justify the price on the Portal to only play PS5 stuff. So I'm trying to find myself a Logitech G Cloud on the cheap so I can also stream from my PC.

Perfect Dark. Avowed. State of Decay.

If not avowed, then Fable.

Those would be my top IP (I think Avowed shows that much promise).

@Rangers420 I mean... it literally is.

@BossBE Why? Ubisoft has a terrible track record with BR games.

Hyper Scape was one of the worst-feeling shooters I've ever touched. And they couldn't even get the Ghost Recon one off the ground.

@sentiententity Agreed. I thought they'd release more of their smaller games like Ori, or maybe even some of the console exclusives they got for Game Pass. Smaller, simpler stuff to port over (I would think). I was surprised 2 of their initial releases were larger-scale GaaS titles that themselves sort of compete with one another.

I don't like what they've put out so far, but shiiiiiiiit would I be hyped if I could snag Avowed and the next Perfect Dark. I'd take State of Decay 2, as well. Always liked the first one, even if it gave me terrible anxiety.

I think this looks absolutely stellar. And it stands as one of the more innovative ideas (who would think an FPS makes sense when you don't truly have to aim??) that big AAA game makers just don't come up with anymore.

GOTY 2023 for me. I haven't had time to get to the first DLC (thanks, Cyberpunk), but I may hafta dive back into some other games and knock off DLC. There's so much mounting in my backlog between this, Horizon, and Cyberpunk.

Look: a tale of two pricing models.

What publishers and developers need to take from Helldivers 2 is is that live service/GaaS titles are NOT necessarily dying. The market isn't necessarily outright against them. What is against them is their egregious price gouging for worthless/trivial *****.

You can make a hit game in the space. But focus it on fun and respecting players' time and wallets and you can have a hit on your hand that exceeds all the wildest expectations.

@Shakybeeves It's incredible how quickly people forget a season pass is the term for a collection of post-launch DLC and has LITERALLY NOTHING to do with seasonal battle pass-like content which you'd see in a F2P game like Fortnite or The Finals.

We became so dumb.

As a big Helldivers 2 fan... I loathe playing against bots. I do not find them fun to fight against. At all. It's like they're a notch or two higher in difficulty compared to the equivalent bug missions because of a whole host of BS the bots get away with like rocket sniping, tracking through objects, inconsistent damage taken from falling dropships, and a bunch more. I just truly, utterly, despise playing their missions.

Wait a gosh darn minute. Are you telling me game companies are going to have to start being responsible with their money and budgets?? Nooooooooo. Could never happen!

Sarcasm aside, $70 wouldn't need to be the norm if companies making games were REMOTELY good at managing the money spent to make their games. They're (generally) horrendously managed companies who lucked into the successes they've had in the past and rarely learn how to become efficient businesses. THAT'S a big reason why game budgets have ballooned.

@REALAIS Yeah. It's WILD to me to think a company should take what works, iterate on it, and deliver a working product.

Or, oh I dunno, deliver on their marketing and promises?

I ***** LOVE Diablo, but 4 left a really bad taste in my mouth. They changed the Paragon point system by hard-capping the points available. I much prefer D3's endless system that let you feel as though you were always making SOME progress. There's no carrot on the end of the stick once you max out in D4 and I think that was a bad design decision.

Obviously the other loot and XP issues and general design problems were worth critique, but it was the hard-capping that made the least sense to me.

Plus, for an "MMO-lite" they removed waaaay too much of what made D3 a fun game to play with others (gifting, trading, death demon invasions, for example). The only "improved" aspect that made it more social was running into other people and... that barely mattered.

They still have a LONG way to go, even after the loot changes, to make it feel like the sort of game they claimed they wanted it to be.

Outlaws, a look at Division, and a new Splinter Cell and/or a new Ghost Recon is all I really care about. Maaaaybe a release date for that shooter of theirs would pique my interest. They really don't have much that would definitely excite me, no question, these days. They're too formulaic.

Yes. More of this, please.

Well that saves me the $20 I was willing to spend on Immortals on Black Friday at some point, so... HUZZAH!

Ashen was so damn good. First Souls-like I ever finished, actually (and one of the hardest). Can't wait to see how this turns out.

"...it’ll probably occupy a worthwhile slot on your hard drive..."

Very much doubt.

I can never read this man's name and NOT immediately misread it as "Balrog" and think of LOTR.

I cannot be excited for what is, up to this point, simply vaporware.

I got excited for the Switch Pro and that did nothing for me except lead to disappointment.

Did they ever address how wonky the build controls were? It wasn't fun having to get the PERFECT alignment on things, or that changes in terrain severely hampered where you could place things.

It's almost as though giving away your titles that cost tens and tens of millions of dollars to develop to a dwindling player base for a pittance wasn't the best business strategy. Who could ever have seen THAT coming?!?

I've been spreading democracy every chance I get, while trying to to find time to chip away at Cyberpunk, which is taking me forever, despite how much I enjoy it.

And I just picked up a Quest 3, so I have become newly addicted to Pistol Whip.

Don't get fooled by the cheap Back 4 Blood pricing. There's no one playing and it's nearly impossible to find a match... that was true last summer when I tried it because it was part of Premium. First game on there I was excited to get to try. Terrible.