cikame

@liquiddragon: I thought about saying MGS2 as it's so incredible but i don't know what specific things it exceeds in, for example i think Splinter Cell is a better stealth game, and while for PS2 the in-game cinematics are amazing i'd put MGS4's above them on a technical level.

I'd happily give MGS2 10/10 i'm a super fan, but the overall package is better than the sum of its parts.

We need a better example than Suicide Squad because it had such a huge amount of negativity around it, oo i know, Dead or Alive 6 :D, at least in the UK.

In the US DOA6 launched at the then standard $60, in the UK the standard new price for a AAA game used to be £39.99, sometimes £44.99, but EA realised fans would happily buy Fifa at £54.99 and companies like Koei were happy to follow, people were definitely put off at the time despite good reviews at least i couldn't convince any of my friends to buy it, as non fighting game fans they were actually insulted by the price, non of the big AAA games they were used to buying were that expensive, if it was £34.99 it would have been way easier to get people to try it.

In the case of Suicide Squad i guess we could use the price drop as a data point, it was getting around 400 peak players every day on Steam before a 40% sale and it rose to 1000, it's safe to say the damage was done already but some people were still willing to get it at a lower price.

@bigsocrates: One small note i'd like to add on top of that from the consumer perspective, making games is more expensive but the cost of living is also higher and video games are a luxury item, so people are being more picky with their purchases and publishers need to consider that. People will justify $70 for a GTA6, definitely not $40 for unimpressive looking Contra.

Similar to how removing manufacturing didn't lower the price of games do you think that replacing developers with AI will lower the price? I don't think it will, outsourcing to countries with cheaper labour hasn't lowered it either, you also have to wonder why a $70 game that's poorly received can go on a hefty sale so soon after release if the higher price tag was so necessary.

"Benchmark" does make me just want to say Crysis or Flight Simulator but that's boring.

The Brutal Doom mod for GZDoom gives me a sense of absolute visceral mayhem i have not experienced in any shooter since, the constant gratifying feedback of simply shooting things never gets old.

"Goldeneye" never became a genre really, i did try TimeSplitters but fell off of it, and while i love the post cold war atmosphere of Goldeneye and the simplicity of its levels which makes it fun to try higher difficulties, i think Perfect Dark is the best game in that "genre". Additional objectives is a core part of it, and the increased variety of the levels, gadgets and guns over Goldeneye helps complete the experience.

Flight Simulator, i included it anyway, not because maxing out the graphics on a high end rig delivers amazing visuals but because it realises the idea of playing Google Earth the video game, recreating the planet in that level of detail is game changing in the flight sim genre, and not something anyone else can match without richest company in the world levels of server bandwidth.

I love Hard Corps: Uprising.

Game prices are screwed i very rarely buy games outside of a sale anymore, changes in my gaming habits and motivation lead me in that direction anyway but increasing prices probably would have done it too, as i get older the word "value" means a lot more to me. I was quietly hoping Vampire Survivors could have been an extreme example to publishers of how a low price can lead to runaway success but i guess it went ignored in meetings, Helldivers 2 is a good example for higher budget games, but we also had Battlebit outselling Call of Duty and Battlefield for a time.

It doesn't take much looking to find games that might scratch that Contra itch on Steam that seem like no brainers compared to the new expensive one.

Also i watched a video a couple days ago which brought up game prices if you're interested, i remember when publishers were trying to sell people on digital because removing manufacturing costs would result in lower prices... imagine that.

For lack of an actual answer i'm going to say Vaporeon ...........................................................................................................................

I think the scale of the backlash toward the game is more about people being fed up of AAA shenanigans than the game itself, plenty of AAA games have released with issues before and besides a little vocal annoyance the game gets patched and people are ok again, same with the mtx it gets sprung on people at launch then the anger dies down once people actually play the game, but it keeps happening and the anger can only build and build for so long before something has to change.

It seems pointless to me to spend hundreds of millions making these things just to screw up the delivery, and the damage for doing so is going to get worse.

@topcyclist: While DOA isn't shy about its ladies, they aren't the only ones.

The amount of content and polish in HoloCure considering it's a fan game and the developer has received $0.

@bigsocrates: I was referring to the game itself, roster, stages, modes, graphics, healthy amount of unlocks, polish, netcode, it did everything right.

I never understood the weird backlash about the mtx, i remember articles reporting that "YOU CAN SPEND OVER $1,000 ON DOA6 DLC!!" but... it's costumes... an optional cosmetic, the season passes were mostly just costume bundles where you could get a new character or two and 50-70 costumes for around £70 but you can buy anything you want individually so... don't buy the season pass? That's the sort of thing i'd describe as a nothing burger, having lots of optional costumes is not predatory there's no tricks or gacha or luck based anything in the game, if you walk into a shoe shop and leave with 30 pairs of shoes that's your problem.

There's 4-6 free unlockable costumes with a few colour variations, alternate hairstyles and glasses for each character just by playing, which is more generous than any other fighting game except for Tekken with its customisation, there's also the Core Fighters free to play option but i don't know what comes with that.

The only thing about DOA6 i will not defend is its Koei premium price, £54.99 for DOA6 is high and you should try and find it lower than that, since then it's become more normal to charge that much, Tekken 8 is the same price, but in 2019 it was high and because Koei think they are Nintendo they haven't dropped the price except for sales, it is currently £10.99.