Gaming 2022

[Ingram85]

If I’m understanding it correctly, fair play to the devs. They had a vision for the game and don’t want it compromised. 

[Daweii]

On top of sticking to their vision I also imagine Callisto Protocol is not a game that is easy to edit. 

The Callisto Protocol is gore porn like Dead Space, and just like Dead Space the main character has unique and brutal death animations for every enemy, machine, and weapon that kills him in the game. These aren't non-scripted events; these are motion captured cinematics that play to their gory end. If this game doesn't have non-gore porn versions of these death animations, then they are looking at potentially months of work to comply with regulations in a country where their game will sell 80-100k units' maximum. It's not worth their time. 

I definitely feel for the Japanese gamers that were excited to play Callisto Protocol, but one day a developer was always going to tell the Japanese ratings boards to **** themselves and today was that day. 

[hogso]

Pretty disappointing Callisto Project reviews. Lack of gameplay diversity seems to have hurt it, and although there are lots of variety in environment, it very much seems to be 'run down corridor and kill enemy'.

[hogso]

Game of the year thing yesterday. Elden Ring won I think, something about Bill Clinton, I don't know. The stuff people care about more about, trailers of course. 

A series which I never fancied trying, I did like the old Mech Warrior and Front Mission games...but this was a whole different kettle of fish

Having not played the first game, I have no idea what's going on here...but perhaps no one does! Either way, pretty neat teaser

I'm a fan of Don't nod's work, so I'm interesting in this one. Their non-Life is Strange work has been...mixed. Difficult to discern an awful lot here, but it appears to be a fantasy action RPG.

Always in awe of Horizon's art direction, the big tentacle / kraken enemy at the end here looks particularly cool

Is this the 'big' VR2 game we've all (not) been waiting for...? Bit of an Elden Ring / Shadow of the Colossus vibe

Super Crash Bros

There's some other stuff too, but I'll leave it with this one - Forspoken PS5 demo announcement. I'll hopefully have chance to give it a go today, it really needed a demo, given the questionable marketing so far.

Edited December 9, 2022 by hogso

[Keyblade]

So happy about a new Armored Core

[hogso]

I tried the Forspoken demo on PS5. 

Pros.

It's a very generous demo, no time limit, gives you a really rather large map to traverse, with some map markers you're steered towards, others you aren't, so you can just take it at a very leisurely pace if you want to.

A variety of difficulty modifiers and options with regards to how the dodging mechanic works, auto switching to support magic that isn't cooling down, that sort of thing. 

The very meme-able trailers may put some off, but the incidental conversation which can occur (pre battle, post battle, environment specific, sometimes seemingly random) didn't grate at all for me. In fact quite the opposite in some regards - the Cuff (your snarky permanent companion) will call out upcoming mobs almost certainly before you see them, the idea being you scan them, try and discern a weakness, and then hit them. That worked well for me.

The positive with combat that I found is that once you get in to the flow of it, it's fine, but you're also encouraged to score better during each battle, and when you do you gain XP or item drop boosts. A simple mechanic, but a welcome one. 

You can save during the demo, drop it, and pick it back up when you like which is nice. The last demo I recall like this was DQXI. It didn't really feel like a 'demo', but a proper slice of the game. 

Cons. 

You're given a relatively well powered character, with many abilities unlocked on the skill tree, and XP does seem to come awfully easy, so it doesn't take long at all to feel as though you're an all powerful god like being. Specifically once you start upgrading the Clock and Necklace (which you can with ease in the demo, unclear if the same will be true in the full game), and you figure our the boosts available from the nail paint equips. So, even with the assists turned off (which I did in a conscious effort to try and learn the combat), nothing seemed to be much of a challenge. 

It had been suggest based on previous videos that this was a re-skinned FFXV, the main grip with the open world of that game being that it was an empty husk. This doesn't seem quite as bad, but it's not exactly the most engaging open world, far from it - in fact you could level some fair accusations of Ubisoft-itis. 

A much as the 'parkour' (it isn't parkour!) has been made to look cool - and the animations do give a fair amount of visual flair - it's very much style over substance. Essentially it's just a sprint and climb function with a cooldown. The bad part is the climbing of cliffs. You can more or less climb what appear to be impassable cliffs, as long as you can 'land' on shallower ledges. It feels a bit like going up a cliff in Elder Scrolls*

And the biggest grip is performance and visuals. The lack of loading times is welcome, sure. Outside of performance mode it looks fine, but never even close to spectacular. In performance mode it looks like a very much like a last gen game. Funnily enough, very similar to FFXV. 

*I accept I may be missing something with the mechanic, and there's a better way to traverse!

[Daweii]

I wasn't super sold on the Forspoken demo. 

The combat was a mixed bag for me. I found Freya's magic to be lacking in weight and it never quite felt satisfying, while Sila's magic was the complete opposite and always felt great to use. My issue is enemies have weaknesses, so I can't just play with the flame sword magic all game. I think the game is trying some cool things with the combat, but overall it just felt like FFXV with some added shallow complexities due to spell switching.

The rest of the demo didn't impress me much. The map is mostly empty just like it was in FFXV. Now, it is slightly less empty than FFXV, but that's not really a compliment, it just means there are a few more enemy camps and a few more animal spawns for you to beat up. The game is still mostly a large grass field with some ruins and a walled city every now and then. If you don't mind that then Forspoken will be fine, but this is a game that has a 40-hour main story and I'm not sure the scenery will support the story for the full duration. I also wasn't a fan of the Cuff. I absolutely detest this trend of games leading me by the hand and treating me like I'm an idiot. Fortunately you can essentially turn him off in the accessibility settings, but the 5-10 minutes I played with him set to "default" chatter was infuriating. I can't stand it. 

Overall I don't think I'll be buying it on launch. I might pick it up at a discount when they add it to a sale down the line, but I can't see myself playing this one at launch. 

[hogso]

39 years of UK Gaming number ones

1984 – Ghostbusters (Activision)
1985 – Commando (Elite)
1986 – Gauntlet (U.S. Gold)
1987 – OutRun (U.S. Gold)
1988 – Operation Wolf (Ocean)
1989 – Chase H.Q. (Ocean)
1990 – Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (Mirrorsoft)
1991 – WWF Wrestlemania (Ocean)
1992 – Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Sega)
1993 – FIFA International Soccer (EA)
1994 – FIFA Soccer 95 (EA)
1995 – FIFA Soccer 96 (EA)
1996 – FIFA 97 (EA)
1997 – FIFA: Road To The World Cup 98 (EA)
1998 – The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (Nintendo)
1999 – Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (Eidos)
2000 – Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (Eidos)
2001 – Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone (EA)
2002 – Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Rockstar Games)
2003 – Medal Of Honor: Rising Sun (EA)
2004 – Need For Speed: Underground 2 (EA)
2005 – Need For Speed: Most Wanted (EA)
2006 – FIFA 07 (EA)
2007 – Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision)
2008 – FIFA 09 (EA)
2009 – Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision)
2010 – Call Of Duty: Black Ops (Activision)
2011 – The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim (Bethesda)
2012 – Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 (Activision)
2013 – FIFA 14 (EA)
2014 – Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare (Activision)
2015 – Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3 (Activision)
2016 – Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare (Activision)
2017 – Call Of Duty: WW2 (Activision)
2018 – Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games)
2019 – Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare (Activision)
2020 – Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft)
2021 – FIFA 22 (EA)
2022 – FIFA 23 (EA)

 

I remember that Millionaire game in 2000 being huge, a PS1 game (for me) that the whole family could and did play together.

[HKP90]

On 22/12/2022 at 13:22, hogso said:

39 years of UK Gaming number ones

1984 – Ghostbusters (Activision)
1985 – Commando (Elite)
1986 – Gauntlet (U.S. Gold)
1987 – OutRun (U.S. Gold)
1988 – Operation Wolf (Ocean)
1989 – Chase H.Q. (Ocean)
1990 – Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (Mirrorsoft)
1991 – WWF Wrestlemania (Ocean)
1992 – Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Sega)
1993 – FIFA International Soccer (EA)
1994 – FIFA Soccer 95 (EA)
1995 – FIFA Soccer 96 (EA)
1996 – FIFA 97 (EA)
1997 – FIFA: Road To The World Cup 98 (EA)
1998 – The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (Nintendo)
1999 – Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (Eidos)
2000 – Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (Eidos)
2001 – Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone (EA)
2002 – Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Rockstar Games)
2003 – Medal Of Honor: Rising Sun (EA)
2004 – Need For Speed: Underground 2 (EA)
2005 – Need For Speed: Most Wanted (EA)
2006 – FIFA 07 (EA)
2007 – Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision)
2008 – FIFA 09 (EA)
2009 – Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision)
2010 – Call Of Duty: Black Ops (Activision)
2011 – The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim (Bethesda)
2012 – Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 (Activision)
2013 – FIFA 14 (EA)
2014 – Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare (Activision)
2015 – Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3 (Activision)
2016 – Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare (Activision)
2017 – Call Of Duty: WW2 (Activision)
2018 – Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games)
2019 – Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare (Activision)
2020 – Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft)
2021 – FIFA 22 (EA)
2022 – FIFA 23 (EA)

 

I remember that Millionaire game in 2000 being huge, a PS1 game (for me) that the whole family could and did play together.

How the hell is GTA V not on that list?

[hogso]

17 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

How the hell is GTA V not on that list?

One word. Cod. 

[HKP90]

13 hours ago, hogso said:

One word. Cod. 

It's just weird because GTA was (at least in Britain) the fastest selling game of all time, and it is No.2 behind Minecraft in terms of all time sales. But not the number one game of the year. Rockstar have been ridiculously unlucky there.

[hogso]

24 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

It's just weird because GTA was (at least in Britain) the fastest selling game of all time, and it is No.2 behind Minecraft in terms of all time sales. But not the number one game of the year. Rockstar have been ridiculously unlucky there.

Ah, you may have misunderstood the list. This is just the number selling game for Christmas week, not of the year. 

Although, your point still stands, it is somewhat surprising that GTAV didn't hit number 1 at that time of year at any point since it's release...but as I say, Cod. 

[HKP90]

2 hours ago, hogso said:

Ah, you may have misunderstood the list. This is just the number selling game for Christmas week, not of the year. 

Although, your point still stands, it is somewhat surprising that GTAV didn't hit number 1 at that time of year at any point since it's release...but as I say, Cod. 

Sorry, my bad.