Let's Talk About Games

Last week, my favoured gaming news site, VGC, asked former US PlayStation boss Shawn Layden whether he thought the pursuit of more powerful consoles was still the way to go for the video games industry. His answer was not what I expected.

“We’ve done these things this way for 30 years, every generation those costs went up and we realigned with it. We’ve reached the precipice now, where the centre can’t hold, we cannot continue to do things that we have done before … It’s time for a real hard reset on the business model, on what it is to be a video game,” he said. “We’re at the stage of hardware development that I call ‘only dogs can hear the difference’. We’re fighting over teraflops and that’s no place to be. We need to compete on content. Jacking up the specs of the box, I think we’ve reached the ceiling.”

This surprised me because it seems very obvious, but it’s still not often said by games industry executives, who rely on the enticing promise of technological advancement to drum up investment and hype. If we’re now freely admitting that we’ve gone as far we sensibly can with console power, that does represent a major step-change in how the games industry does business.

So where should the industry go now?

Asking as the last post here was 21 days ago.

We played through it this weekend. tl;dr: It's funny, about 3-4 hours (or maybe more), and worth the money.

It is incredibly silly, and fantastic for it.
imho, if perfectly captures stupid british humour.

Our favourite moments involved vegan sausage rolls, mysterious sausage holes, and a very friendly mole.

You will also probably be quoting the marrow song for a while.

(And I will just clarify since I'm an admin: I paid for the game, and CoalSupper didn't put me up to this positive mention)

I would gladly pay good money for re-released AC games without any of the modern day Abstergo stuff. Am I the only one? I mean, at the time it was interesting, but the modern day missions now just detract from immersion and are usually crap.

Just me or anyone else?

[Just started replaying Revelations!]

Let's see if this community still is active.

I'm not sure if it's officially agreed upon, but I would say the release of Doom in '93 properly marked the beginning of a golden age of PC gaming. Modern homogenisation and monetisation hadn't set in yet and over the next decade or so the PC gaming landscape would be full of innovation and passion, with a sea of classics being released in that time frame... but when did it end? Was there a specific watershed game that signalled a shift in the landscape?

This topic has been on my mind for a while, because I've pondered on whether there is an open niche for a community dedicated to games of this era. They're not quite at home in Retro Gaming subs, but still old enough now that they might warrant their own corner separate from main gaming spaces.

In all the games I've played (one exception being Half-Life, but that's different) I really don't like using crossbows and avoid doing so at all costs. I don't really know why that is, but to me they don't seem to fit the setting of games like Elder Scrolls or Gothic. I love using regular bows, however. Maybe crossbows feel too modern for me? I don't really know anything about medieval weapons or when they were invented.

What about you? How do you feel about crossbows in these types of games or do you have a similar weird thing you just don't like and refuse to do in video games?

Come one, come all! Got a game that's not AAA (or god forbid AAAA) but you loved anyhow? Welcome to show and tell. Talk about your favorite, why people should play it, and what you love most about it. And yes, I'm aware this may just be end up being 25 comments about stardew valley.

I want to start by recommending Kingdom, a series with relatively simple (but elegant) graphics and side scrolling tower defence style gameplay. It doesn't sound like much but the presentation encourages this beautiful sense of exploration of mechanics. Amos Roddy did the music, which tells you just how much I love the soundtrack I didn't even have to look up his name. There are a few games, but I specifically recommend Kingdom: Two Crowns as it includes co-op and has some nice style options (European, Japanese, and more comprehensive Norse DLC that changes more than looks)

If that's not your speed maybe you'd the better known Stanley Parable. I won't say much on it as it's a fantastically written experience I'd recommend to anyone with a pulse. The less you know going into it the better, and it's very accessible in terms of design because it's largely a (hilarious and witty) walking simulator.

Finally, I'd recommend the Mount and Blade series. Bannerlord is the most recent but it's predecessor, Warband is a very loved game too. Essentially this series drops you into a grounded medieval sandbox world as a character you define, then you just go play. Want to be a merchant and make all the money managing a bunch of stores and contending with the unrest and banditry caused by warring kingdom? You can do that. Want to /be/ that bandit raiding caravans? You can. How about the classic Lancelot experience of being a tournament fighting, seige winning, lady wooing, knightly machine? Absolutely. And better yet, when the king shafts you of that territory you really wanted to be granted you can just rebel and become a king in your own right (long term results and stability of your kingdom may vary by circumstance). It's definitely worth a peek if you haven't looked at any of the games in the series.

And that's what I've got today. Hope you guys have some fun recommendations, stories and anecdotes for trade!

SPOILERS FOR FALLOUT 3 ENDING

At the end of Fallout 3 you need to enter an irradiated chamber to fulfill your family dream of bringing pure water to the wasteland. Both of your parents die dreaming of accomplishing this mission. That is until the Broken Steel DLC released adding more options to the game.

Fawkes is Super Mutant, a mutated human imune to radiation. You find him trapped in a cell, and can either release him, end him, or ignore him. If freed he will come to your rescue later in the game, helping you escape an evil faction. In the original ending he refuses to enter the end game irradiated chamber, saying he would be stealing your fate if he activated it on your behalf. In the update, he will say that as you changed his fate, he will change yours.

My friends and I have debated for years whether the game was wrong not to have the option from the start, if Fawkes original refusal makes him a monster, if it really makes sense to follow your fate if it means death, and so on.

When I was younger I hated Fawkes for sending me to my death, but looking at it now I see the devs point. Id be curious were others land.

Some top ones for me would be Brother: aToTS, Blasphemous, Portal, and FF9.

I think all of them would still be best in game form, especially Brother and Portal. A Blasphemous novel would be incredible though. I'd love to read detailed descriptions of the various enemies and bosses. You could also dive into a lot of the tragic miracles in more detail. Its the one I'd most want to read off my list.

Final Fantasy 9 would also work very well as a novel. The game already has a ton of dialogue, and the journey the main characters take would work well as the backbone of the novel. I feel like I can see the outline in my head, and how the story beats could be divided into chapters. A longer novelized version of some of the late Kuja and Garland scenes would make for great emotional drama. The game doesn't feel rushed necessarily, but the game format does require you to keep it moving, even if it is a Jrpg.

Morning all. It's Monday morning which can mean but one thing....What have you been playing this last week?

Xenoblade Chronicles has been one of the broadly popular JRPG series as of late, particularly within my own social circles. I have heard mostly good things about the games, and some vocal criticisms about the second game in particular. After finally picking up a Switch last year, I have now made my way through most of the series.

Before trying Xenoblade myself, I had a mixed history with Xeno series creator Tetsuya Takahashi. He’s had quite a career, having worked on games in the Ys, Final Fantasy, SaGa, Mana, and Chrono series. Xenogears was his first project as a director, and I knew next to nothing about the game when I picked it up at release in 1998. It surprised me in a lot of ways, being my first real dip into the mecha genre, accompanied by a truly massive and thought-provoking script (both big changes from the SNES’s smaller scripts and censorship). My continuing experience with Xeno was less successful. Xenosaga’s move to a more cinematic style gave it a plodding pace, packed with jargon and word salad. I also didn’t connect with most of the trilogy’s characters, I found most of the gameplay boring, and I’d somehow missed the memo that Xenosaga was a reboot and not directly connected to Xenogears, souring me on the experience in general.

I didn’t have a lot of success with Xenoblade Chronicles for a while. I came to the first game late in 2017, spurred by positive word-of-mouth that had resurfaced after the announcement of XC2. While I got along with the characters better than I did in Xenosaga and enjoyed the excellent setting, I ultimately had to make an effort to avoid the game’s numerous sidequests. Being an MMO player, they would have felt dated to me even back at the game’s release in 2010, and their supporting elements in the UI were extremely basic. The game’s saving grace for me would be the gameplay, a fun romp with a squad that I enjoyed tinkering with.

My experience with Xeno changed with XC2. I had a rough start at first when I picked the game up last year, not really sure what to make of the main character and light-hearted tone of the game, a huge departure from the previous games in the series. But when the conversations with Pyra started, a deep hook set in. I immediately connected with this character, someone that seemed eminently competent but had a pensive demeanor, hinting at a darkness within. After I learned more about this character as her whole story unfolded in both XC2 and its DLC Torna, Pyra became my favorite character in the series. For the first time in 25 years, Xeno was finally starting to hit some of those same emotional notes it did for me in Xenogears. Hitting on that nostalgia also led to me thinking about interesting similarities between Fei from Xenogears and Pyra and Mythra.

In hindsight, making those connections across the series seems to be half the fun. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Future Redeemed are packed with little (and not-so-little) nods to much of past Xeno. I had a good time with this aspect of XC3, and in some ways it picked up where XC2 left off with getting me to be interested in this cast and world. I also really enjoyed the gameplay, seeing the results of refinements to the UI in particular that were sorely needed, culminating in my being thrilled at controlling A and seeing her flip around the battlefield in the DLC. An impressive achievement, considering I almost always hate playing healers in this type of gameplay!

I know fans of Xenoblade Chronicles have strong opinions about their favorites, but there were things that I loved (the setting in XC1, the cast in 2, the gameplay and Xeno callbacks in 3), and there were things that drove me nuts in each of the games. I’ve given up on the stories getting some much-needed pruning (every Xeno game and DLC I’ve played has padding or spots that just don’t work), so I can roll with that. I also don’t know if I’ll ever get to XCX or Future Connected. Xeno isn’t exactly my top ongoing series at the moment, but I’m still interested in what Takahashi is cooking up next.

How are we feeling about this?

The game won't have a performance/quality mode at launch, but you will be allowed to tweak a little if you're playing on PC.

Now obviously it's not the worst thing in the world, and I'm sure many will be perfectly fine playing at 30, but I can't help but be disappointed by this news.

On a personal level I'll always go with the framerate over graphical fidelity; oftentimes the differences between the visuals in a quality mode just don't justify the loss of that smooth 60FPS, although I'm willing to grant that mileage may vary on that one.

I understand the constant want to improve visuals. They go a long way towards selling a game to it's audience, but I wish we'd gotten to a point where you could 1) have a conversation about the importance of FPS without appearing like a snob and 2) allow devs to prioritize 60FPS over graphical fidelity.

So yeah???

What an.... interesting list. What are we thinking?

Personally I'm stunned Lara Croft made the top five and Agent 47 seems like an odd choice. Small sample size?

**The full list: **

1. Lara Croft, Tomb Raider

2. Mario, Super Mario

3. Agent 47, Hitman

4. Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog

5. Sackboy, LittleBigPlanet

6. Pac-Man, Pac-Man

7. Link, The Legend of Zelda

8. Master Chief, Halo

9. Kratos, God of War

10. Shadowheart, Baldur’s Gate 3

11. Arthur Morgan, Red Dead Redemption 2

12. Pikachu, Pokémon

13. Steve, Minecraft

14. Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid

15.Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot

16. Cloud Strife, Final Fantasy VII

17. Astarion, Baldur’s Gate 3

18. Kazuma Kiryu, Yakuza

19. Ellie Williams, The Last of Us

20. Nathan Drake, Uncharted

I haven't stopped playing Overwatch since it came out, still getting on with friends 2 or 3 nights a week and putting in a few hours (and I'm still awful lol). I also still log on to Battlefield 1943 from time to time to get in a few matches.

I also collect retro games so there is a good bit of time there. If anything I've struggled to find new games that I'd want to play more than something older and cheaper. I just picked up Dark Messiah for like 2 bucks and its amazing, hard to justify a $60-70 purchase when you can find deals like that on older but still great games.

I saw a lot of the playtime goes to still updated online games like Fortnite and Apex, but I wonder if part of it is that as time goes on there is a bigger pool of games to play. Sure there will always be cutting edge graphics and gameplay, but many people wouldnt be able to tell which indie dropped in 2010 and which dropped in 2024.

Monday! The long weekend is nearly over and if you're anything like our house you've eaten nothing but meat, potatoes and chocolate. And maybe, just maybe you've managed to find some time over the last seven days to play some videogames!

Let us know what you've been playing over the last seven days.

Hello, Good morning and welcome to another fine edition of What We're Playing; our weekly round up everything that's kept us glued (or not) to our TV screens, desktop monitors, portable displays and whatever else you crazy kids are playing games on these days.

So, what have you been playing over the last seven days?

As a beloved cult classic franchise, XCOM has been around a long time and seen many forms of gameplay. While I eagerly await XCOM3 with a fervor that would put half-life 3 to shame, I'd love to hear your thoughts, stories and future hopes for the franchise. Spoiler warning, obviously.

My personal favorite is probably XCOM2, if only for the sheer number of mods that allow me to customize a single character for hours (only for them to die on their first mission) and completely overhaul the challenges and theme of the game.

I started with the XCOM reboot, which was such a delightfully crunchy little game full of steroid abusers wearing armor made out of hastily repurposed fridges. I would later look at a retrospective of the series and appreciate that the reboot simplified inventory management and condensed the base building down to just one base, which meant you could enjoy the strategy side of things without it wearing out its welcome. Just a fondly remembered game experience all around.

The DLC for XCOM was very welcome as well, adding new toys to play with but only letting you have them if you got off your ass and stopped over watching every turn. It was a good change that forced me to be aggressive in order to get a giant stompy mechsuit or a team full of go-go-gadget soldiers. It definitely refreshed the game for a playthrough or three.

Then came XCOM2, which turned the formula on its head and left me stunned that I canonically lost the last game. This inversion of not responding to random strikes all over the globe but /being the one doing them?/ I was SO in. Even on launch the game was a blast but they came out with some seriously solid DLC.

War of the Chosen is the closest I've seen to the universally praised (and regrettably copyrighted) Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor since that game came out, and they adapted it quite well to the style of the game. It rebalanced a few things, added new toys to play with, and gave you just another chance to have a massive wrench thrown into your plans to train up your all-rookie backup squad.

XCOM ~~2.5~~ ~~episode 1~~ Chimera squad. Honestly? I liked it. I think it should stay a side project, a spin-off I can happily say is part of the XCOM family but it isn't required reading to understand the rest of the franchise nor is it a massive experience you can't miss on its own merit. It's good for when you're itching for a change but still want some XCOM. Can't complain.

I love this series, one day I'll go back and try the OG if I can ever get over the controls. Until then I'll just stay here enjoying good company. So, what are your thoughts and experiences with the franchise (pre or post reboot)? Any legendary tales to share?

Congratulations to the team and the community as a whole for this pretty amazing achievement.

Turns out the one level that the group was having trouble with was originally uploaded using something called a TAS, which renders it null and void, so they didn't actually have to beat that one to finish them all.

**Edited title. Making sure that the word 'level' doesn't fit. Have a good day. *

Podcast, word of mouth, magazines, ~~Reddit~~ Lemmy?

I'm thinking games that have traditionally been in one genre, but that you'd love to see take a complete 180.

Mario + Rabbids, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor and the newly announced Callisto Protocol roguelite.

Maybe you'd like to see a Mario platformer in the style of Cuphead or Meat Boy. Maybe it's a new take on Zelda...by combining it with a turn based RPG.

Let's have some fun and see what we can mash together.

I've got a bit of a system.

I'll add games into my 'To-do' list/Group on whatever system I happen to be playing on. Then eventually get around to spending half an hour with it. If I enjoy it, I'll keep playing until it's done or I've decided I've had my fill.

If I've decided I'm enjoying it, but don't have the time or that I'm not in the right headspace for it, the game moves into my 'I'm not done with you' list/group; and I'll eventually find the time for these games... eventually. Games like Hollow Knight and Outer Wilds have come out of this group, and I've enjoyed them greatly.

If I don't enjoy that half an hour, I usually ditch the game entirely and it gets thrown into the metaphorical trash bin, never to be heard from again.

Why half an hour? Well, I don't have much time so the idea of spending 3-4 hours of time to see if a game is worth my time is..kinda impossible for me. The thirty minutes gives me a little time to evaluate if I'm interested in continuing, whilst also forcing me to actually play some of these games.

What's your system?

Like a photograph issued from Buckingham Palace, the weekend is gone, and it's time to regale us with tales of what you've been playing over the last few days. And more importantly, do you think it's any good?