Some of the stores became Micromania-Zing (owned by gamestop) which amazingly enough still exists.
Yeah, those have been primarily funko pop stores for years too. Their new games are like 20% more expensive than everyone else, and their second hand games priced like everyone else’s new.
Game doesn’t exist anymore where I live, but the last thing I bought from a similar store (down to overpriced games and being mostly about merch) was a 8bitdo controller several years ago. I was there, price was not excessive, and it was slightly more convenient than having one delivered.
Beyond that… I went a couple times just to pick up a free event pokémon on 3DS, and nothing else, and I think the last actual game I got from them must have been Order of Ecclesia on the DS.
Until they give a “better” reason, I am going to assume the one they hinted at is true, and Microsoft just decided that it was worthless because it wasn’t “Mikami’s studio” anymore. Honestly, I already suspected it.
In which case, fuck them. These games were not made by one person, a studio is bigger than its director. And the rest of them didn’t get even one chance to prove themselves.
Truly shows how little they value the people who make their games.
It’s supposed to be the chronological order, and I imagine the games are separate enough, with only loose connections, that it doesn’t really matter in this case.
Because really, chronological is not the best order for many stories.
One of the best known examples is Star Wars, where episodes 4-5 lose a lot of their power if you’ve seen the prequels first.
A video game example would be Beaten Kaitos Origins, which is IMO one of the best attempt at a prequel ever. It completely turns the interpretation of the first game on its head, and makes both better because of it. It would ruin the effect to play BKO first.
At that point I have absolutely no idea what they’re trying to do with that series.
They clearly don’t care about the dozens of us (dozens!) that just wanted the end of that quirky little game from the 00’s. So they’d want a new market for it, as was clear from that now old E3 shitshow… But why would those new players care about that IP at all?
A direct sequel, as good as it is, would have a tiny reception, and anything else would disappoint anyone who still cares about the first one. And I expect those to be vocal if not many.
I did see a few low-poly, very PS1 or N64-looking indies recently, even going as far as mimicking the weird texture wobbling from the PS1.
But Penny’s big breakaway is not really low-poly, or something that looks like 5th gen/PS1. Not graphically anyway.
Though it’s mechanically rather retro, with the focus on move combos, scoring and speedrunning. It’s almost more of a linear kind of skate or jet set radio-like game than a platformer.
Beyond Good and Evil is a nice game, made by Michel Ancel’s team (the original guy behind Rayman and much later fucking Rabbids at Ubisoft) around 2003 for 6th gen. It’s a quite decent sort of Zelda-esque action/exploration game with good characters, humour, a bit of short alternate gameplay phases like stealth, boat races, etc.
It’s a bit short, but the time it lasts is very enjoyable. And then first problem, it doesn’t really end. It needs a sequel, badly. And unfortunately the game doesn’t seem to have been a huge success commercially.
So a small group of dedicated fans waits for a sequel announcement, that doesn’t come for a long time. After a couple years, a video trailer “leaks” randomly showing the two protagonists on a… road trip? Maybe? And basically nothing else. It’s enough to get people excited though.
Mostly radio silence for a looong time, fast forward to E3 2017, and big announcement at E3 on Ubisoft’s stage with Michel Ancel and company. No, we didn’t abandon the BG&E 2 project. Except now it’s sort of a procedural, planet-wide multiplayer oriented game. A prequel too, with different characters. Also we’re making a weird collaborative contest thing where you people submit art to us and we’re including it into the game.
It was awkward. It looked nothing like the first game was, and it wasn’t a sequel. Fans of the first game are like, where are my tiny but carefully crafted world and Zelda-like dungeons? When will we finally know what happens to the guys whose story we began 15 years before? Why is this turning into “generic Ubisoft game #47”?
None of that mattered, since we’re in 2024 and that game still doesn’t exist.
So yeah, fond memories for the OG, but mostly a huge disappointment.
I don’t have much hope for that really. As I said, BG&E never was a commercial success, and republishing it twice doesn’t seem to have changed much.
I am pretty sure they went for something completely different at E3 because they knew that fans of the first game were already not a lot, and part would have already moved on. They were not going to continue a story like 15 years had not happened in between episodes.
I hope this isn’t perceived as advertising… I’m quite apprehensive about making this purchase and will absolutely update with my progress if/when the console arrives....
To be fair, Nintendo 3DS shells aren’t exactly very high quality either.
I have an original Majora n3DS XL. After a few months, the golden paint started disappearing around the borders, where my palm/fingers would rest.
To their credit, I could get a free replacement shell (with the right colour and pattern) from customer service when I asked about it. But after this I just resorted to using a clear rubber outer case to keep the paint from rubbing off again.
Yeah, I suspect the last minute trailer request too. I am a huge fan of the Metroid Prime trilogy (hunters doesn’t count), and that trailer did practically nothing for me.
Woo, slight remix of the space pirate theme, scanning a dead pirate, and morph balling through a conduit. And three seconds of Sylux, again, because we’re supposed to care about that character for some reason.
It failed completely at being a Metroid game. It’s obvious the single-player “story” was just hastily hacked together from the multiplayer mode.
Maps were linear, without any kind of secrets or exploration. They were mostly boring corridors between multiplayer arenas for fights against bots.
The only abilities were different coloured guns, and while the MP trilogy gives the four beams specific properties to interact with the environment, I can’t remember what most Hunters guns were supposed to do beside opening corresponding doors.
There were three boring and mostly static bosses in the whole game, two of them copy pasted once to make it last a bit longer.
I don’t even think its controls or arena map design felt like Metroid Prime. The very limited Metroid Prime 2 multiplayer felt more like “competitive Metroid Prime”. It was more fun to me anyway, not that I’d buy a Metroid game for multiplayer.
It was hinted that guy would return in MP3’s ending, and apparently in Federation Force too (I haven’t played that one, but of course the reveal has been floating around).
Sure, it was still kind of hidden, but for those who recognized him at all, chances are they’d knew that too.
The trailer certainly failed at making his apparition exciting in any case.
I am sure there are people with good memories of it as an arena shooter, but I had little interest in that. And as a Metroid, it sucked (…sorry)
I remember trying the First Hunt demo, that was a demo cartridge from the beginning of the DS and was supposed to be a short teaser for what Hunters would be. Back then I thought, yeah, with a game around it, it could be great.
Turns out the actual Hunters was absolutely nothing like that, and focused only on multiplayer. The only reason they tacked a half-assed single-player mode on it is so it could be sold to people who wanted an actual Metroid game. I’d respect the game more if they didn’t try to sell it as more than it really was.
Sims 3 tried to approximate that, though in reality Sims that you couldn’t see around at the moment had a very simple alternate simulation instead of the full sim for those you were watching.
The illusion mostly worked and you technically had a full seamless small town you could visit and interact directly with.
Sims 3 was also an unstable nightmare, but it was made for what is now 15-year-old hardware and, I assume, held together with shoestrings.
They got rid of the seamless part in 4, instead splitting the world in tiny groups of a couple buildings each, meaning even EA probably thought the open town was too much trouble. Too bad because the separate blocks are a lot more boring too… Like most of the Sims 4 really.
Sure it’s profitable, but it’s also (correctly) seen as a manipulative, and some companies have stopped using those.
As I said Nintendo and Xbox store used to do that, but they transitioned to prices in real money quite some time ago, and if they got a wallet, they let you fill it with the exact amount of what you’re buying. Same with PS store, most PC game stores, even freaking playdate catalogue and itch.io where the average payment must be like $3.
I expect that from shitty mobile games, because I know mobile gaming monetization is fucked forever, but I didn’t know major publishers still used that garbage unemptiable wallet strategy.
I am almost certain Smash bros’s competitive, online players is a tiny sliver of its user base. The rest doesn’t care much where their favourite characters are in the current meta.
For casual to average players, almost any character is viable. Only at high level do a few characters dominate the whole game.
A friend of mine once showed me that he played Ark on the Switch. At that point I didn’t even know there was a Switch port, and I was wondering how playable it could be.
“The closure of any team is hard obviously on the individuals there, hard on the team,” Spencer said. "I haven’t been talking publicly about this, because right now is the time for us to focus on the team and the individuals. It’s obviously a decision that’s very hard on them, and I want to make sure through severance...
A simulation sandbox game that seems like it’s got potential. I hope it’s got more of an objective than something like Dwarf Fortress with tons of ways to get there, personally.
The way I understand their description, they really want emergent stories rather than any written plot, so I wouldn’t expect any kind of specific objectives from it.
Interesting, but as any procedural game, it will be a difficult balance between believable, consistent simulation and unexpected stuff keeping things exciting.
Terrible article, shit site. Reeks of AI rewriting (tenses are all over the place and extra useless sentences everywhere), no source link (instead clicking on “NASA” leads to more stuff they scraped).
For the first time in 80 years, the phenomenon of the sky will adorn our night sky.
Seriously, no human has ever read this sentence before publishing it. Don’t give these your clicks.
Also internally : “The result of our cleverly disguised market study came in, there is still too much backlash against it right now. Try again in 6 months.”
If only closing it would protect the screen of an OG 3DS…
Without screen protection you’d end up with scratches of two vertical lines and a perfect circle on the upper screen, the imprint of the lower screen border and stick.
I don’t think any Mario Kart map look nearly that dark. Even Ghost Valley/Broken Pier and Mario Kart 64 tunnels are pretty obviously delimited with colourful stuff. And obviously all items and characters are ultra-bright.
They’re talking about giving away their account. They don’t care about what happens to it, except maybe in the sense they’d prefer someone who wouldn’t waste it.
This is what bothered me in the original discussion, making it seem like being in STEM somehow doesn’t prepare you at all for critical thinking in general. On the contrary, I believe too there are people who develop it in part because of the S in there. It’s not necessary, but it’s an important tool.
Hopefully people don’t need a college degree in literature to understand basic subtext. We ask kindergarteners to do that with Dr Seuss.
UK Retailer GAME To End All In-Store Video Game Sales (www.gfinityesports.com)
Xbox executives just cannot give a straight answer to questions about Tango Gameworks (www.pcgamer.com)
6 months after revealing plans to become 'aggressive in applying AI', Square Enix's president announces he's being careful in applying AI (www.pcgamer.com)
Zero-G PvP shooter that sold 100K in a day is closing after a year—publisher blames developer, developer blames them right back, players just review bomb it (www.pcgamer.com)
Hands-on: Dragon Quest 3 2D-HD Remake is a perfect entry point for newcomers (www.videogameschronicle.com)
Beyond Good & Evil’s remaster includes a new mission connecting to the second game. Ubisoft says the added content shows its “enduring commitment to the franchise” (www.videogameschronicle.com)
Indie games using retro graphics
Two examples of this are :...
Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition launches June 25 for PS5, Xbox Series, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC (www.gematsu.com)
Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake will have a performance mode for PS5 and three difficulty settings (automaton-media.com)
The BIG List of Video Game Randomizers (now open source) (video-game-randomizers.github.io)
SmashManiac originally ran the site but recently converted it into an open source project. Here’s the announcement...
I just ordered a 3ds from AliExpress - Wish me luck. (lemmy.world)
I hope this isn’t perceived as advertising… I’m quite apprehensive about making this purchase and will absolutely update with my progress if/when the console arrives....
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond – Announcement Trailer (www.youtube.com)
Sims competitor Life by You has been canceled (www.theverge.com)
Bethesda Is Charging $7 For A New Starfield Mission, And Players Are Upset (www.gamespot.com)
Moonring on Steam (free beer alert) (store.steampowered.com)
“A dark-fantasy, turn-based, retro-fusion of classic turn-based RPGs and roguelikes, all presented with a unique neon aesthetic.”
Senior Riot devs say the League of Legends playerbase is getting older, with fewer newbies jumping in: 'Candidly, it's not the same situation it was 10 years ago' (www.pcgamer.com)
Ark: Survival Ascended is the worst optimised Unreal Engine 5 game we've seen on console (www.eurogamer.net)
Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Addresses Studio Closures (www.ign.com)
“The closure of any team is hard obviously on the individuals there, hard on the team,” Spencer said. "I haven’t been talking publicly about this, because right now is the time for us to focus on the team and the individuals. It’s obviously a decision that’s very hard on them, and I want to make sure through severance...
Streets of Fortuna- Announcement Trailer (www.youtube.com)
A simulation sandbox game that seems like it’s got potential. I hope it’s got more of an objective than something like Dwarf Fortress with tons of ways to get there, personally.
All Famicom Games with Expansion Audio - Game Sack (www.youtube.com)
A star exploded in three months, producing a new star (www.infoterkiniviral.com)
For the first time in 80 years, the phenomenon of the sky will adorn our night sky. It will be an opportunity once in a lifetime
The Star Fox-style roguelite whose dev refused to use AI voices to cut costs is adding an entire "anti-capitalist revenge" campaign about a cat-girl destroying AI (lemmy.today)
Since the Link isn’t working for some:...
MultiVersus studio claims ability to purchase extra lives with real money was "a bug" that was "not an intended feature in the game" (www.gamesradar.com)
All play, no work. (lemmy.world)
I’m doing steadicam operating on a TV show. My new (to me) 2DS is keeping me entertained when waiting for the next shot.
Nightmare Kart now on Steam (store.steampowered.com)
Is it possible to safely "give away" a Steam account to a stranger?
I’m pretty sure I’m done with Steam gaming, haven’t launched a game in almost a year, and generally want to move away from DRM....
Skald: Against the Black Priory review - a robust but inessential throwback to the RPG's primordial era (www.eurogamer.net)
11 years after launch, 49M people still use their PS4s, matching the PS5 (arstechnica.com)
Call of Duty's Crossover With Fallout Leaks Early (kotaku.com)
[gameranx] This Video Game Trend is Killing Single Player Games (Live service model) (www.youtube.com)
Why People Don’t Catch The Politics In Their Favorite Games (aftermath.site)