WHAT PLAY YOU!? Version 3.0

[TildeGuy~!]

So we’re all voting for Rebirth as game of the year right? 

[Cousin Jim Bob]

6 minutes ago, TildeGuy~! said:

So we’re all voting for Rebirth as game of the year right? 

 

I think your assuming everyone on here has a PS5.

[seph]

1 hour ago, TildeGuy~! said:

So we’re all voting for Rebirth as game of the year right? 

Sure not voting for DLC in principal, and certainly not You Die A Lot XXVI DLC.

[LaGoosh]

2 hours ago, TildeGuy~! said:

So we’re all voting for Rebirth as game of the year right? 

No.

[FLips]

On 11/13/2024 at 12:09 AM, CleetusVanDamme said:

Black Ops 6 campaign was a mixed bag. On the one hand, the bread and butter war stuff was really good, the spy shit was great, especially the big casino heist, the open world bit that I was dreading turned out fine (I even did all the optional stuff), and crafting fucked off, hopefully forever.

On the other hand, silent protagonists are always crap, the story falls apart at the end even worse than in Cold War, it has the most hilarious "who the fuck is that guy?" moment, that even when you hit Google afterwards will still leave you none the wiser. And the err, experimental parts were trash, I was desperate for them to be over the second they started...

  Reveal hidden contents

Dream/drug sequences need to banned from gaming. I like Raven Software, I'm not against them trying to stretch their creative muscles, I love Wolfenstein 2009, and Singularity was one of the first things I replayed when I got my Steam Deck, but shoehorning it in here in this cowardly "didn't happen LOL" manner is just lazy. As bad as the Zombies mission was it had nothing on the Harrow "the biggest enemy is the one within during this dream sequence, let's do some ghost maths" section. It's shit seeing reviewers praise these parts, I'm sick of it just from playing the last few Spidey games alone!

 

Having just finished the campaign I can echo pretty much your sentiments word for word, though I wasn't huge on the open world bits either. That last stretch after the Pantheon snow base mission (which was pretty good) was brutal. Also had to google the big reveal and likewise don't recognise them.

[Merzbow]

It's Geoff Keighley and look at all the paid awards I'm giving to my friends time again? I know industry awards are generally seen as a bit dodgy like that but this one always seems far more like it, this year is where people are noticing things aren't right even more than usual. Even people who adore Elden Ring are saying it from the DLC's inclusion.

[Shirtie]

2 hours ago, FLips said:

Having just finished the campaign I can echo pretty much your sentiments word for word, though I wasn't huge on the open world bits either. That last stretch after the Pantheon snow base mission (which was pretty good) was brutal. Also had to google the big reveal and likewise don't recognise them.

Rumors are that is was

Spoiler

Mason, who was "Killed" in Black Ops 2 by Woods

 

[RedTwoster]

8 hours ago, TildeGuy~! said:

So we’re all voting for Rebirth as game of the year right? 

Like @LaGoosh, it’s Astrobot for me. Rebirth could have been my GOTY, but it’s filled with so much unnecessary bloat - the dungeons towards the end are so tedious. They’re not hard, they’re just overly long - and that bit where you play as Cait Sith…fuck me, that’s terrible. The game world is great and I enjoy most of the side stuff and story, but if they’d chopped the padding from the dungeons, the game would be significantly better.

[DavidB6937]

Hoping to get Astro for Christmas and it's genuinely the most excited I've been about a game in forever. Can't wait to share it with the kids too.

[Dr. Alan Grant]

I enjoyed the Black Ops 6 campaign for the most part. Better than last year’s offering. The open world mission was my favourite, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the mannequin hallucination stuff. Felt like it leapt out of an entirely different game. 

I initially was enjoying multiplayer, but I’ve completely gone off it now. Most of the maps are extremely annoying and the new omni-movement is a worthless gimmick. And now Warzone has been utterly ruined since the integration. Piss poor audio, a horrendous new map and sluggish movement. I was looking forward to having Verdansk back next year, but if these are the developers in charge of that, I can’t see it being anything other than a massive disappointment. I’ve been playing COD for many years, but this is the first time I’m genuinely considering taking a year long break until the next one comes out.

[Merzbow]

The modern rerelease of Clock Tower is fun but it barely adds anything other than an official English translation. It's still the super atmospheric 2D horror it was on the SNES, inspired by Argento but it feels like it's from the era being clunky and slow which might not work for younger gamers. I love it though, the multiple endings are all so well done.

I'd love to see the sequel redone, it's from that early PS1 era that's often forgotten so I don't expect it unless someone like NightDive decide to give it a go.

[BomberPat]

finished Tails Noir. It gets very weird, and never really lands the message it seems to be going for. The ending is very abrupt and a bit abstract, which led me to Google whether there are any alternate endings - there's not, and lots of people are very unhappy that the game didn't answer every single question they have about it (even some which are quite explicitly answered in the game, because lots of people are idiots). I liked most of it, not sure it pulled off what it planned for. I think I have a good idea of what's gone on by the end, but I also kind of like that it's not all explained to you. A decent quick play that I'll never touch again.

I started Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core Reunion, or whatever way around the contents of that word salad title go. I had very little to do on Saturday, so ending up sinking a few hours into it. The gameplay is fine, and it has its moments, but it's more a warning of what the Final Fantasy VII Remake could have been. Zack - a character I've never liked or understood the fascination with - is the main character, and rather than the somewhat stoic and moody character he appears to be in the original, he's full-blown generic JRPG protagonist, all annoying voice, sassy dialogue, and endlessly irritating. They get a little too cute with trying to make elements of his life match Cloud's too.

There are bits of the FF7 backstory I think they flesh out pretty well - the war with Wutai, a little bit more of Shinra's backstory, but for the most part this suffers in the way that almost all prequels do, and reminds me of the Star Wars prequels, and especially Solo, in that respect. The things that made Star Wars or Final Fantasy 7 good were the suggestions of a wider, fleshed out world beyond the bits of it you see, of side characters having their own inner lives and stories beyond what you initially see. But prequels just contrive to make those worlds smaller when the writers decide that unrelated elements need to be connected, or that completely meaningless character traits or costume choices need to be "explained" - it doesn't make Final Fantasy 7 better, or the word more interesting, to know that Zack Fair met Yuffie Kisaragi, or that there's a backstory to why Aerith wears a pink ribbon and sells flowers. Those weren't questions anybody ever had, any more than "how did Han Solo get his name?". Because it's his fucking name, nobody ever questioned that!

The other side of prequel-itis is retroactively making characters look stupid. Sephiroth's breakdown in the FF7 Nibelheim flashback feels downright silly given how much he already knows about what SOLDIER and Shinra's science department are up to however many years earlier. And there are so many big, important events going on that you'd think someone in the original game would have mentioned them.

[Merzbow]

A really good article here on what the hell is going on with GAME and all it's fuck-ups since the Sports Direct arsehole bought them out, it's like the articles what Eurogamer used to be known for before they themselves were bought out by Reedpop and lost all the best journalists as they eventually became another side of IGN this year.

https://www.eurogamer.net/inside-the-fall-of-game-no-games-no-accessories-instead-we-received-136-zendaya-action-figures?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-gb

Quote

Staff say they don't believe anything will change until Frasers Group acknowledges GAME's current issues - and that this doesn't seem likely, as the company's focus on cutting costs and staff continues. Some even believe the only explanation for the changes is a form of self-sabotage, they told me.

"The general feeling amongst staff has been that the poor decisions, the firing of almost all the knowledgeable staff and now the low stock with absolutely zero communication of the issues from head office can only be a deliberate, calculated attempt to run the company into the ground," one employee said. "If it's not deliberate, it's total incompetence or desperate cost-saving measures that will only be detrimental to profits in the long run."

"I don't think they know they're doing a bad job," another said. "They think they're saving loads of money, still doing well, customers are still coming back. Well, they're not listening to anyone."

 

Edited November 25, 2024 by Merzbow

[FLips]

I worked at GAME as this happened and the stores started getting binned into the corners of Sports Directs and filled with tat. It was a nightmare but you’ll be somewhat relieved in a sense that most of the staff left in the company are not staff that experienced it. People got let go or voluntarily quit en masse back in 2020/2021.

To put it into perspective our store went from having iirc 19 staff between ourselves and the attached e-sports/party arena one day, to having single digit staff in a week. They told us one day we had a call the next morning and on that call they announced it. They then didn’t hire movers but had all the staff move everything from one store across the retail park to the other by hand during their notice period. Like digging your own grave but then not being buried in it.

By the time I left, there was 1 member of that original 19 left still there. They’re filled with 0 hour contract temp staff now.

It’s a shell of a company and in a sense I’ll be glad to see it go.

[TheScarlettChad]

The GAME in my city, is run by an arsehole who when they had the whole GAME elite shite, tried to scam you into subbing. He'd often say "Yeah we have a steelbook of so and so game but you need Elite to buy it, sorry". And now they're no longer selling PS Plus Subs or Game Pass subs. "Because they put the price up and we can't work it on our tills." Load of shite. Sooner they go out of business, the better. Sucks for the people working there, but I won't miss them.