@spudbug: I agree with that concern. They brought up and quickly dismissed the Spotify comparison and the way it's trained people to think of music as a worthless resource that you treat like turning on a water faucet while the artists get virtually nothing... I think it's a more valid concern than they gave it credit for.
OR... it could be a different situation more like Disney+, where one or a couple centralized services become so widespread that they basically decide which games "get to be seen" and everything else is completely obscure to the point of not being economically viable to make.
You have to start playing to the refs, mirroring design trends and/or self-censoring to avoid anything that would turn the megacorps off from choosing your game... ironically, something like Cruelty Squad, which they also talked about, seems like exactly the kind of game that would never exist in an environment like that.
You know I'm almost starting to think that living in the richest most powerful country in history but being structurally constrained from using that power to help anyone, fix any problem, or accomplish literally anything has gradually driven everyone in America insane.
Except for me of course, I have only become more and more powerfully sane
Highly excited about PS5's controller, glad there's already one element of the new consoles that is striking people as viscerally different and cool.
Continue to be annoyed by big game companies invoking real-world issues for cheap marketing heat, then insisting that's not what they're doing, then releasing a game that contains nothing provocative enough to justify doing the dance in the first place.
That's definitely all I'm thinking about right now, not thinking or worrying about anything else. not at all, nope
Huge Spelunky 1 fan, can't wait to play this game! Although I'm not sure about the art style at first glance... it looks a little flat compared to the original. Like it's missing something.
...
Okay, so I went back and checked, and sure enough, Spelunky 1 has a dynamic pseudo-3d shadow effect around the edges of walls and stuff that this game doesn't have. Gave the environment a feeling of depth and weight. Huh.
What a bizarre thing to remove for a seven-years-later sequel on more powerful hardware.
Played this one free on Game Pass since I've been huge into Spelunky, Enter the Gungeon, Binding of Isaac, etc. Seems neat on the surface, but does not hold a candle to any of those. Ended up beating the entire thing and all "final bosses" in a handful of hours by just getting lucky with powerups, which stack in a completely broken way that leads to every final boss fight being over in less than 10 seconds.
So yeah this is basically my PSA to say "play Enter the Gungeon," that game is fantastic
My pithy answer on Citadel DLC, based on what everyone else is saying, is to ask Alex, "would you rather end the series with the guarantee of feeling good, or the possibility of feeling really, really bad." I could see him going either way.
Doing it after the ending would be much better from the audience's standpoint though.
It'll give Alex and Vinny several hours more time to debate and talk about the ending "on camera" after they've experienced it. Otherwise the end of the series might be ten minutes of people sounding highly conflicted and confused over the end credits, followed by no more Mass Alex. Ever.
So I think "after" would be my vote. Make Citadel the emotional "epilogue" it was created to be.
Wow, I can't believe I never played this DLC. Also, I can't believe this was DLC.
In a certain sense, what it does is "fixes" one of the two main problems people had with the ending at release... and, I would argue, the Extended Cut fixes the other main problem. Or again, "fixes," relatively speaking.
Granted, I didn't play ME3 at all until the Extended Cut was released-- and I played it directly after playing the original ending, back to back, which felt like a huge relief. So although I know in a limited sense how fucking awful that OG ending felt, I don't have the visceral sense of betrayal informing my thinking, which anyone who finished the game at release obviously would have had.
With the Leviathan/Javik/Ending DLCs in the main game, there still would have been arguments from some fans about the game being a "letdown," but not the universal hatred and justifiable anger that it got in its original form. Especially when it comes to the ending DLC-- after all, a great or terrible ending changes your view of the entire story which came before. A decent ending? Somewhere in between.
In retrospect, I mostly feel bad for Bioware, and its workers especially-- because between this and the EC ending, you get the sense they could have made this the game they really wanted if given another year, and EA ratfucked them by essentially saying "instead of giving you more time, how about you put out the rest of the story as DLC after the fact."
I mean, there's no way any sane creative person would have thought this didn't belong in the main game. But some dumbass corporate suit? Definitely.
Hearing these three talk for 15 minutes about how "something feels off with this console launch" and completely forget we're in the middle of a year-long global pandemic was a little odd.
Most announced games got delayed, it stands to reason unannounced next-gen games got their schedules screwed even further-- particularly considering you can't work with new confidential dev kits effectively when everyone's stuck at home.
Also, I think it's time for Jeff to just start saying he doesn't like stories at all, in general. He's constantly saying he doesn't watch movies, TV shows, or read books, and now he's added video games to the pay no mind list, so... yeah. Just say you don't like stories. Then everyone can be like "that's weird," take it into account, and move on.
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