deerokus

@Tim_the_Corsair said:

Is the game moddable? I could see that being a fairly easy to implement solution

Yeah, it seems that the other voices for each different language are included, so it shouldn't be too hard to mod those into the game. It's mad hearing Japanese, Scottish and German guys all speaking with American-accented English.

*I noticed that Scotland seems to be an independent nation in the game, as its flag is in separate from the UK flag. Someone clearly predicting the result of the independence referendum in 2014 :)

Game of the year for me is Walking Dead so far. Closely followed by Crusader Kings 2, Trials Evolution and Sleeping Dogs.

ME3... mair like Meh3.

The problem I have here is that there's now an arbitrary distinction between games from big companies and games from 'indies', where the former can get on, no matter how awful (diner dash clones, crap tower defence games, etc), while latter have to win a simple popularity contest to get onto the service. A popularity contest of games that, for the most part, no one has played!

It's demeaning and it creates an indie games ghetto. It seems like this could have the effect of making it much more difficult for a Binding of Isaac or a Dungeons of Dredmor to succeed, games which were put on an equal footing with everything else on the service and got good word of mouth only after people played them.

It reminds me very much of the disaster area that is Xbox Live Indie Games. The $100 fee won't make much difference. Hopefully it'll result in a boost to more indie-focused competitors like Desura or GOG.

@LordAndrew said:

I don't think the previous method of getting a game onto Steam is going away or becoming more restrictive. It's just an additional venue one can use.

It is. All games not from major publishers now have to go through greenlight. Which is terrible, frankly.

Down with cupcakes. They suck and are twee. They should send them chocolate brownies or muffins or something.

I didn't realise Interplay still existed.

Looks like all they put out these days is downloadable versions of old games

@SomeJerk said:

Shutters always sounds wrong. It sounds like the language has been broken, no matter where I read it. Whatcha say linguists?

It's American English for sure, and it's using the infinitive as the present-tense form of the verb, which seems weird.

UK people would just say 'shuts'.

@EvilNiGHTS said:

Had a bit of a bit about this earlier. It's sad to see any studio close, especially one with a tenure like Psygnosis, but it's especially biting considering their particular legacy. Psygnosis were a studio that made games very much synonymous with the Playstation brand in Europe early on, and it was Wipeout that Sony demoed in nightclubs to directly appeal to the 18+ demographic. Not only did they lend credence to Sony as a console manufacturer early on (as in "I don't think they'd be were they are today without some of those games), but they were a large part of pushing gaming into the mainstream in Europe and making it socially acceptable for adults. "Sad day for the game industry" doesn't do it justice.

This was exactly what I was going to say. They were THE key PS developer in Europe, early on, at least. Without their games, which had a very specific identity to them, Sony probably wouldn't have been able to succesfully pitch to the mass-market 18-35 crowd of the era as they did so brilliantly, they wouldn't have destroyed Sega and Nintendo, and the games industry would be completely different. They convinced people that playing videogames was a viable alternative to going to nightclubs and taking drugs and having sex!

Wipeout, for a long time, was Sony's Mario or Sonic (at least in UK and Europe), so strongly was it identified with the PlayStation and what it represented.

Also, the vast majority of what they released on PS1 was amazing, and often very ahead of its time. Sad.

It seems to be called Check vs Mate in the US and Battle vs Chess over here in the UK (and maybe other countries other than the US?).

@jakob187 said:

This game has dating crap?

Thanks for this information. Now I don't need to waste my money.

Not really, there are some side quests where you have a woman with you, but it's not a dating system.