Comments 418

Re: Poll: Are You Sick of Soulslike Games?

ThomasHL

As soon as I saw that restoring health in Stellar Blade respawned enemies, I switched the demo off and never came back.

I've never liked them, and I'm frustrated that all these action games with interesting (but far too gloomy) characters and worlds go down the same path again and again.

Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Zenless Zone Zero?

ThomasHL

It's a very lacking game, even without thinking about the monetisation.

The lack of a proper world map to explore, the repetitive environments - there's just not a lot of things to do.

The things that are there are copying Persona without copying any of the things that make Persona work - choosing to interact with particular characters, managing time because you have a strict deadline etc.

The combat is fun, but compare it to any other action game - God of War, Devil May Cry, Warframe, even Dynasty Warriors - it's like they've preserved the combat and stripped out every other element of that game.

Yes it's free. But it's bogs down the action with all this F2P stats and grinding that don't make sense, and at the end of the day there are better things to do with your time. I kept waiting for it to click, and it didn't.

If you ignore monetisation, Genshin has 10x more to it than ZZZ, as does Honkai Star Rail

Re: Batman: Arkham Dev Allegedly Enlisted to Work on Hogwarts Legacy After Suicide Squad Flop

ThomasHL

@AK4tywill Directors cut has always been a meaningless term. Very few things released as a director's cut were actually the original vision of the director. It was a marketing gimmick to double dip on DVD sales for die hard fans.

The director is the person who cuts the original version of the film too (usually). And there's zero guarantee that the director has more freedom in the "directors cut" than the original. Often execs just want extra scenes included that they can market on the back of the box. Sometimes directors cuts even involved filming extra scenes - they aren't even cuts!

When Villeneuve was asked about directors cuts he replied "Arrival is the directors cut".

There are directors cuts which are genuinely the director getting the chance to undo some meddling that prevented them from presenting their original vision. But that's not what studios are considering when they stick the directors cut label on something.

Rebel Moon is a perfect example of how stupid the term is and has always been. Zack Snyder was in total control of the original cut for Rebel Moon. The "director's cut" was planned by the Netflix executives before the original cut had even been released.

Re: Publisher Nexon Investigating Cause of The Finals' 'Lower-Than-Expected' Performance

ThomasHL

I tried to get into The Finals, but to me it lacked some of the sheer complexity of other live service games. In Overwatch there's always a new character to learn, a new way of holding off an ability until another ability has been used.

The gap between where you are and the top is full of obvious steps, and some of them are just chunks of knowledge, not 'reflexes' or 'aim'.

The finals felt too short, too ephemeral. One round plays a lot like another round, any one moment is a lot like another moment.

Re: Strategy Legend Jake Solomon Explains Where Marvel's Midnight Suns Went Wrong

ThomasHL

I can see cards not having the same visceral appeal, but it played well.

Mechanically the games biggest problem IMO was the wider game loop was built around all these finite resources - do you do a mission to get currency, get ability points or get upgrade materials? Yet there was no limit to the number of missions you can do, so it was all faff.

I think they built an iteration of the game that had more of a hardcore Xcom feel, but late in the day tore that bit out.

Re: Founders, Long-Time Employees Reportedly Say Xbox Now Effectively Microsoft Gaming

ThomasHL

This is exactly why, during the Bethesda merger, I said I was afraid of MS shutting studios down.

Because MS isn't primarily a gaming company, they have constant shifts in the direction and targets of their executive. When the wind blows a different way, studios get closed.

It's been that way right from the start. Ensemble studios made great PC games, but the executive direction shifted to console and they were shuttered

Re: Mini Review: Pentiment (PS5) - A Slow-Burning 16th-Century Murder Mystery

ThomasHL

I heavily dislike the type of murder mystery structure Pentiment uses, similar to LA Noire, where you spend most of the game 'solving' crimes knowing that the real perpetrator has got away.

The real perpetrator was guessable by the start of act two but the games makes you play on for hours before letting you do anything about it.