MFTWrecks

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.

Sony throws its money behind this, a poor Ghost of Tsushima knockoff, but doesn't greenlight a Days Gone sequel. Make it make sense.

@MrMagic That's why I clarified it's still not gameplay.

For anyone doubting, they said this was all pulled from in-engine (Unreal 5.4). It's not CGI. Though obviously it isn't gameplay, either.

@Boucho11 Nah. Not worth my time. They couldn't fix the game a year after release. That's on them. I have better games to be playing.

I wanted to like Callisto Protocol, but I played it months after release and it still had game breaking bugs and glitches. I abandoned it after a few hours. It wasn't amazing, but the vibe was spot-on and I liked what it was trying to do... not so much its execution.

THIS looks right up my alley, though. Dig the cell shading and I love me some rogue-lites and top down shooters. It's like they made this just for me. Yes, please!

Nooooo. I ***** hate hero shooters. I want to customize my character and make them MINE with lots of armor and gadgets and doohickies all over my character. The aesthetic of that teaser trailer had me by the BALLS it was so cool looking to me. I do NOT want this to become a Valorant-like game, where they try to force me to care about a character whose lore I will NEVER engage with.

@Professor_Niggle That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me on PushSquare.

I'd rather have action figures that have a button that separate all the limbs like the old Crash Test Dummies figures from the 90s.

Then just release figures for the different armors and, because of the ability to disconnect the limbs, you could mix and match to make your personal in-game diver.

Package 'em in a little cylindrical pod-shaped package with 3-4 accessories (the way Fortnite figures release with a wide variety of weapon accessories).

Have enemy figures come in two-packs. And offer special, larger figures like chargers and bile spewers in packages with battle damaged diver figures.

@matekomlosi Considering their last notable releases for Prince of Persia and Ghost Recon underpeformed... the fact you never hear about The Crew or Avatar outside articles like this... and Skull & Bones crashed and burned on release... the time hasta be nearing if not past. Most of their releases come and go like farts in the wind. And that's as someone who loved Ubisoft games just a few iterations ago (Division 1+2, AC Origins + Odyssey, Farcry 3/4/Primal were all my JAM).

@ironcrow86 Giving Watch Dogs any credit for innovation or originality is rich. I never played 1, but 2 was literally just modern AC mixed with some bog standard TPS shooting. It was one of the "most Ubisoft" games I've ever played.

They couldn't even keep to the same character across storylines. Just kept reinventing a boring story and world every entry.

It's like Ubisoft is allergic to doing anything no one else has already done better. Their own past entries of titles included! (I'm still pissed Farcry 6 was such a dumbed down iteration of that series.)

@Jill_Sandwich I was going to ask the same thing. They literally gave it away for a while (I think they may still).

I'm sure Fortnite doesn't have a ton of issues pushing product, but I will anecdotally note that the Fortnite section of toys in my local Target and Walmart have grown much smaller than they were a year or two back. And given that, I always thought it'd be a better, more cohesive idea if Epic packaged a code for the in-game content in with every purchase of a Fortnite toy or playset.

Buy a Nerf gun with a cool skin? Here's the code for the skin in-game. Buy a cool action figure? Here's the code for the character in-game.

Forcing people to double dip on the content they love may be better economics short term, but the long term lack of goodwill will NEVER work in a company's favor. Ever.

It would cost them pennies, if anything, to give away those codes. But the excitement, joy, and positive word of mouth amongst fans would return multiple thousands upon that small investment.

If you charge me $15-20 for a cool skin in-game, and then I see that character sitting on a toy shelf, I MAY say to myself, "Ah, yeah. That's cool. I'll spend ANOTHER $15-20 on that." (I've done this with ONE Fortnite character/toy when it was on clearance). However, if I saw a cool character/toy and realized I could then put that character IN THE GAME?! That seems like magic! It'd get people to buy way more merchandise. And then you've got a free advertiser walking around telling their friends, the kids on the schoolyard, etc. all about the awesome deal you got on a toy AND a skin. (PLUS, it would have played well into their emerging metaverse push.)

The key is to always make the customer feel like they're getting a deal or pulling a fast one on the company selling them things. Customers want to feel like they got away with something they shouldn't have.

Epic could have done that a long time ago and they just... didn't.

@T-Bone09 You'd think Ubisoft would have jumped on the extraction shooter bandwagon a long time ago, seeing as the Dark Zone is The Division was basically a small scale extraction shooter.

They nearly invented the genre and yet can't figure out a game like that could do business for them...

It's sad. Ubisoft hasn't done anything innovative or groundbreaking in years. They're just chasing trends and gameplay designs and not doing anything substantially different or impressive in nearly any of their titles that hasn't been done before or better by a someone else. They've become industry trend chasers.

Man. It's going to suck having to play the first 8 just to get up to speed on wtf is happening.

There is no one in a leadership position under the entire WB/Discovery umbrella (save for James Gunn) who seems to have a single braincell.

Helldivers 2 has completely ended my play time of Fortnite this season. And it is also SEVERELY reducing my progress in Cyberpunk.

But I'm not that mad. It is FANTASTIC with a group of buddies.

This looks like the sort of atmosphere and attention to detail I'd expect from a big release like a Diablo title or something. So stoked for this game. Diablo + Souls-like is right up my alley.

It really makes you wonder why big name studios can't come up with stuff this focused nowadays. They must be such giant, bloated corporate messes.

Sony out here canceling potential hits but then dropping one box office dud after another. Make it make sense.

@GuttyYZ Are you me?

@eduscxbox Not everyone has a PC capable of playing the latest and greatest titles, mate. Never assume...

@breakneck It's a separate article.

If this means I'll eventually get to play Avowed and the next Perfect Dark without shelling out for Xbox hardware, I'm all for it.

Did Marvel and Insomniac, working with arguably the most iconic comic book character costume of all time, just repeatedly talk to artists and designers and go, "Ruin it."

Because holy ***** the outfits for this game are absolute gutter trash, on average.

I'm ready to be hurt again.

@mazzel That's why I said it should support existing PS4 libraries out of the box. I don't think it could support everything forever, but seeing how well the PS4 sold and how much the market shifted toward digital sales, I think such a device would do extremely well.

@Savage_Joe I don't know. It was a different market back then. Wireless internet was totally different, people had smaller digital libraries... if the Steam Deck showed anything, it's that digital-first doesn't have to be a bad thing IF your library can go with you.

That's why I think it'd be key for the system to support PS4 titles and carry over existing libraries.

It would be a true shame if Sony didn't have a full-fledged portable PS4-level handheld in the works to compete with the Switch 2, Steam Deck, the proliferation of handheld PCs. Their handhelds are always gorgeous with top tier tech. Just make it all-digital (no PC gamers complain about it), PS4-level internals, and also able to stream directly from the PS5 like the Portal and you'd have a killer handset. $350-400 would easily make sense. They would sell boatloads. ESPECIALLY if your existing PS4 purchases transferred day one.

Do it, Sony. Do it.

This sounds cool. But I can't help but think that a co-op squad shooter a la Ghost Recon Wildlands, where ever squadmate can be customized to the gills with all sorts of armor and weaponry, then be set loose on a giant planet/map where you hunt down all sorts of scum together (or with human allies taking the place of your cohorts) would make for a more cooler blueprint for a Mandalorian game. If I'm bounty hunting, I wouldn't want that to be in a linear game. I want to feel like I have to do the actual hunting. Especially if it's a nameless/unknown character. Want to do a story-focused linear FPS? Ok. Then make me Boba Fett or someone and tell a story. But if it's a blank slate? Let me inhabit a character I make and let me loose in the world. If anything, make it like Metroid Prime where there will be adventuring and stuff. But a COD campaign meets Star Wars? I'm hesitant to get hyped for that.

I had 2 buddies manage to get in last night and we were able to run some missions and clap some insectoid cheeks and it was a gotdamm blast. I haven't had this much silly joy playing a game since probably Rocket League's debut.

It just feel so refreshing. Rare is the shooter that has stuff like friendly fire and incredibly hard ramping difficulty yet manages to consistently make me laugh and giggle like a kid when the ***** hits the fan instead of making me angry and upset.

When failure is hysterical, not frustrating, you know you've struck the right chord.

I want to be spreading democracy with my fellow Helldivers, but I can't stand all the glitches and connection issues the game is suffering.

I'm "settling" for some Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. I'm not all that mad. Game is FANTASTIC.

@Jett I mean, the problem (to me), is those are explicitly NOT characters you're interacting with. Their randomly generated NPCs with a few lines of dialog that go nowhere and don't evolve or change in any manner. There are no big epic pirate storylines or factions. It's just moving numbers on meters saying "these people like you more" or "they like you less." And that means damn near nothing when you think about it. You don't REALLY do anything.

You don't truly walk into a space station and have people cower in fear because the renowned pirate king is in their presence. You can't walk into a fight with an enemy and befriend them. You can't trick them into becoming your ally and double crossing them later on. You can't bribe your way out of a bad situation. You get attacked, you run or kill. And then those outcomes mean you're not in immediate danger and... that's it. It's a game about your immediate circumstance, surviving them, and then forgetting about it entirely.

There is no morality at play where you can be the most overzealous murderous psychopath in the known universe and people fear you. Nor can you be a renowned protector of the innocent, saving worlds from danger and have people adore you and shower you with praise and thanks. You are always just a no name space wanderer. It's all so static and so extremely one-dimensional.

Every planet is just a few space stations and outposts (if anything) over and over and over. It's a whole lot of game with nary a thing in it. And I say that as someone who LOVES the general idea of an explorable galaxy. I do. I swear.

I just find the whole thing so so hollow. The "exploring the unknown" (sadly) wore off on me really quickly. It didn't mean anything to me when it was all just numbers being switched around to generate the same-looking flora and fauna as I had "discovered" half a dozen planets ago.

I give them credit for making it a customizable experience. They deserve those props. But when it all comes down to it, it's collecting things, to make collecting other things easier. Over. And over. And over. But, hey! You can remove that part and just walk around and take pictures and build. Cool? Not so much in my book.

Jet Moto needs to be revived. The world needs more fun, high octane arcade racers.

That crap shoulda been a tweet.

I would love if Sony rebooted Resistance and Killzone. I think Killzone would work great as a COD-style campaign full of bombast and epic scenery, while Resistance could be retooled as a Farcry competitor where you inhabit a Chimera-controlled area and need to liberate it.

I mean, I get his point in that games that need a big player base to generate money and fuel a compelling long term life cycle... yeah. Be on more platforms. But then... how did being exclusive help Sea of Thieves, or Halo Infinite, or Forza, or Redfall, or Gears of War, or any of the Game Pass timed-exclusives and console-exclusives they signed? I wish someone would have asked him that to his face.

@Breekhead I played The Forest. I thought it was awful. There was nothing compelling in the first hour that made me think I'd enjoy myself.

@ThorsHammer I don't yet, no. But I do plan on snagging one at some point. Just waiting for a half decent sale.

@HotGoomba I think you need to edit your post there, bud.

@thefourfoldroot1 I'm fully aware. I'm just saying that survival games often move well beyond "survival" and tend to just become "wander while trying to build another hut" and that becomes extremely boring to me.

I wish they expanded in other ways to be more about a fully realized roleplaying experience. I understand the appeal of "making my own adventure." But when that adventure ends up being "making benches and tables to refine materials to make shinier leather pants or axes that save me a chop at a tree" or "save me three seconds while I travel from A to B"... it just becomes tedium.

And since there rarely IS a compelling storyline... it makes those shortcomings even more glaring to me.

Maybe the genre just truly isn't for me.

@TheCollector316 Their flat Game Pass sub numbers surely aren't helping them. Nor is dropping tens of billions on some of the biggest developers/IPs in the world. How they EVER thought they'd make back that investment by only putting Activision and Bethesda games on half the possible systems in the market is beyond me.

(Half the systems being PC and Xbox, out of them + Playstation and Switch. I'm not counting mobile until MSFT makes it clear they'll support mobile more firmly than using phones to stream Xbox and PC games. Though I admit, having King under their umbrella means it's likely only a matter of time until they do make their own Xbox mobile titles.)

I want to enjoy survival games so SO badly, but they just result in such boredom and tedium for me.

I've put more hours into No Man's Sky than any other, and even in that I hit a HARD wall when I realized I was just wandering, collecting things, to make things, to collect new things or collect existing things slightly faster. It was all just math on top of math. Like a clicker game. Slowly allowing me to "click" faster or "click" on new stuff.

All I could think about toward the end of my play time with NMS was how incredible the game would be if it included actually decent combat. Or stealth. Or morality. Or real enemies. Like if it was Farcry in space, basically. Maybe mixed with a little of Mass Effect's morality system.

All I wanted was to wander onto a planet and find a pirate base. But maybe not fight them. Maybe I'd side with them and become a plundering space pirate that grew to become the scourge of multiple solar systems. Or maybe I'd sneak into their base and kill them all and steal their riches for myself. Or a space Robin Hood who stole from the bad guys to enrich the meager masses, who then showered me with adoration and protection.

The whole static nature of the state of the universe (which was admittedly, VERY impressive) made the game feel SO SMALL. Like I couldn't truly affect a single thing. It made me feel pointless (maybe that was their goal).

I dunno. I just feel like survival games seem to all devolve into tedium by way of collecting crap to build buildings, a piece of the gameplay loop I find extremely boring (I'm not, nor do I ever want to be, an architect). It didn't help that NMS's build mechanics are so grievously aggravating and dumb, even after years of updates to the broader game. (How they let those build systems remain so poor and finicky when they are a key part of the loop is beyond me, but that's a different rant...)

But, yeah. The genre always seem SO COOL to me. But then... it's just repetitive boredom.

@CharlieChooChoo I'm literally finishing Wolves of the Calla for the 3rd time. Been seriously considering a Dark Tower tattoo, too.

Love to see a fellow fan in the wild!

@CharlieChooChoo I'm a simple man. I see Beastie Boys, I upvote.

*****. AND your name is a Dark Tower reference?! Are you me?

Sunset Overdrive is NOT a Microsoft IP. Insomniac owns it and thus it was part of Sony's acquisition of Insomniac.