This looks gorgeous but the more the trailer went in the more I felt it was all very scripted and I’m struggling to get a sense of how it will actually play.
Regardless I’m surprised it was shown given the continued stories coming out about how it’s not in a good state even after years of development and crystal dynamics being brought in to help. Hopefully a sign it’s getting there but the cynic in me feels this was ordered to quell the rumours.
Played about 3 hours yesterday and after a frustrating entry period it started to click and had a good time. It’s a weird mix of battlefield & Apex wrapped in a gaudy game show. It’s solid enough at its core but different enough it stands out.
Im not sure if I’ll stick with it but it has potential. Time will tell if there’s more fundamental issues with it but given its free id say try it.
The recent trailer showed there will be modifiers applied ( looked like a flaming melee mod from the very brief clip). I think this mode will be great as TLOU2 has some genuinely good gameplay that often gets overlooked due to the heavy story focus and general controversy it had at launch.
Yeah, we’ve not had a generation run short for 20 years. Even then most last 6 years historically and I think people’s perception is skewed because Microsoft rushed out the 360 quicker than normal.
What would new consoles even be at this stage? They’re still fast, can do 4k, some ray tracing etc. and yeah they compromise on things but you need to spend more on a graphics card alone to get more on PC. The cost vs benefit isn’t there yet not to mention (anecdotally) the “general public” talk about current consoles as if they’re new, so I don’t think there’s an apatite or need.
I tend to think about Infinite this time of year and jump back in for a few weeks but holy shit! Let’s fucking go with firefight! I love this mode and if this is a good version it might get me to stick longer this time around.
What a load of crap, only a few minutes in and it’s all “games are getting worse…” when we’re in one of the strongest years for releases in ages. We’re in a year where TotK is likely to miss out of GOTA awards, that’s how good it’s been.
Games aren’t the issue here, it’s folk like the videos creator who are.
The weakest CoD in years (ever?), in a year or nothing but gold releases across every platform and it still causes waves and records. No wonder this DLC was pumped up into a full game and pushed out half arsed, why try when you win without effort.
For me, it’s not so much a question of length but whether a game should last as long as it does. There’s got to be something that makes it worthy of its run time.
Case in point, I played about 24 hours of Assassins Creed Valhalla when it came out, only to sack it off when my friend informed me that he clocked about 100 hours in it to play through. Fuck that! That game would have been a decent 20 hour Viking romp but it’s got nothing to say, show me or keep me engaged at 5x that length. Hell even at 40 hours I’d have said it was inflated, but 100! It’s madness.
On the flip side, I played Elden Ring through to completion over 80 hours and would have played for 80 more had it asked. It was engaging, exciting, full of interesting locations, characters and things to fight. There’s tension in and intrigue in just exploring this unique setting and it all adds up to an experience that’s worthy of its runtime.
Similarly, one of the only JRPG’s I’ve finished in recent years is Persona 5 Royal, which took me a huge 109 hours to finish and yet I loved it. It’s full of style, flair and a sense of fun often missing from this genre that it just got me hooked. It’s not even that the story is all that great but the characters are well realised and there’s a wonderful dynamic in the core cast that really got me to go along for the full journey. I also think P5R also did the one thing many games fail at and it’s pacing, the thing just goes and despite facts like the tutorial is about 8 hours long I never felt like I was just killing time.
My point is, my feelings these days are that most games aren’t worthy of being over 10-20 hours, and even less so of being 20+. It’s not a one size fits all answer and individual mileage might vary person to person but there has to be a hook (gameplay, game feel, story, characters, setting, playing with engaged friends , etc.) to warrant time invested beyond a point.
I very much do move on when Im done with a game, rather than when it’s done. I mentioned that I moved on from AC Valhalla only 25 hours in, and a more recent example is when I stepped away from Armoured Core 6 after only about 5-6 hours realising it wasn’t really for me.
The problem with length is when length is the reason I stop playing. I can love a game at first and think it’s great 4 hours in. That love can turn to like if the formula is getting a little stale or the plots not going anywhere. If this continues then my like might turn to just “consuming “ to get it done, and if I’m still plugging away for long enough in this state it’s easy enough for things to slip into a negative view of the game because it’s asking more of me than it’s giving back.
Take Final Fantasy XVI this year. It took me 44 hours to finish, but imo it peaked around the close of act 2 (a certain boss fight that went hard about 30 hours in). By then the gameplay formula was established and it’s largely the plot carrying it but (imo) neither ever really got any better in act 3 but I still had another 14 hours to go. I was invested enough to keep going but I went from loving it to just liking it as a whole because it never escalated and 14 hours of treading water is a bloody big investment. This was main-lining the game too, I gave up on side quests early on, so we’re not talking about completing a game just getting through them.
It comes back to games justifying their lengths. This is going to mean different things to different people, as well as the games themselves doing different things so there’s no one size fits all.
It’s exactly a DLC that Activision realised they could make people pay £70 for instead of half that. Only a few weeks after MW2 came out it was being floated that there was no COD for 2023, and instead a Ghost focused expansion would come out to fill the void.
Don’t like it don’t buy it but FFS stop with faux shock and horror. COD is of the most aggressively monetised franchises in mainstream gaming, from a company with zero scruples. Facts that have been valid for a decade or more and the regular news cycle attached to it all gets tiring.
Ignore the bugger and maybe they’ll be forced to do better next time when this sell’s poorer (you can hope at least). It’s not like this is some long awaited sequel either, just skip this one. There’s so much more to play this year in particular.
Can’t agree more. I don’t think there’s a studio under MS that’s done better under their leadership/portfolio than they’d done prior to their acquisition. The studios created to shepherd Xbox franchises that original studios move on from generally have never matched the highs previously seen either.
I also don’t appreciate them hoovering up franchises, via acquisitions whilst failing to develop much new that’s if any note. All it does is condemn a growing back catalogue to mediocrity or have them disappear into the vault.
Sony aren’t perfect but their studios tend to produce top tier games that look and feel like they’re a tier above most, making the most of their “exclusivity”. Most (all?) their major releases are their own franchises developed in house too, and it feels like there’s a steadier turn out of new, quality IP to boot.
Perfect Dark - Gameplay Reveal - Xbox Games Showcase 2024 (www.youtube.com)
The Finals Hits 200,000 Steam Concurrents Within 12 Hours (www.ign.com)
The Last of Us 2 Remastered director says No Return was inspired by "a renaissance of roguelikes" (www.gamesradar.com)
GTA 6 is likely to skip PC again and only launching on current gen consoles (kotaku.com)
I’m confused why Kotaku mentioning next gen in the title when Rockstar only commented on current generation PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
Halo Infinite | December Mid-Season Update Preview (www.halowaypoint.com)
Sweet Baby Inc: Why Modern Gaming has Become Woke Political Garbage (www.youtube.com)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 release sees UK's biggest-ever gaming traffic for internet service providers (www.eurogamer.net)
The Hidden Costs of Long Playtimes in Modern Gaming (youtu.be)
Modern Warfare 3 Accused of Being A $70 DLC by Fans: "It Feels Like Half a COD Game" (comicbook.com)
Microsoft’s CEO say it’s ‘doubling down’ on being a game producer and publisher | VGC (www.videogameschronicle.com)