For someone who once lectured me about differences in opinion, I appreciate that you ascribe mine and other's poor impression of this game as jumping on a hate train.
I thought people were overreacting about the animations and normally this kind of thing doesn't bother me, but ... that conversation with Addison at 14:30 really struck me.
And I really like Mass Effect but when a very significant amount of the game is spent close-up on people's faces and bodies, you really have to nail it. Whether or not it bothers you is subjective but it certainly seems off.
EDIT: Hearing that they just straight up categorize dialogue options really bums me out. Like, way to whittle away the cinematic feel of the game.
It's always fascinating learning about exploitative mobile / F2P game design, as someone who never plays them. Drew's comparison between the awful Mobile Strike model and the less gross Forge of Empires (or whatever it was called) was really enlightening about what is considered a 'bad' mobile game, as otherwise they all look roughly the same to me. As long as folks know what they're getting into I don't really see a problem with the F2P model in general. Like he even called the Fire Emblem game a decent one of those.
While I do think this video is starkly illustrative of a real problem, as someone else said I would imagine at least a few of these types of games do have scheduled community events to try and overcome it.
That said though I don't think this is negative at all. The setup is representative of what a consumer would experience: "I wanted to play these games because they looked cool. I literally can't. Also they're like $20-$30." The only mean-spirited one may be Umbrella Corps if you're of the mind that it deserves to be a ghost town.
Still, people wake up in the morning to work on these games that possibly dozens may ever play. That sucks and I don't think anything short of them hitting it big somehow or an artificially contrived Indie Showcase feature will change that.
That's been an odd complaint on that game. Like, maybe Jeff has a different idea of what 'parties' are but it seems perfectly fine for a get-together with a half dozen friends.
And as an attempt to recapture the Wii Sports magic, it looks fine. I don't think it'll be a new Wii Sports, but it'll probably be better than Nintentoland or whatever.
Man this looked like such a throwback to the Vinny+Drew+Dave+Alexis weird simulator QLs from back when. I'm pretty bummed that Old Dan took over the whole hour, but I'm not frothing at the mouth about it either.
Oh man Rorie is so on point with that early HD era "everything is too big or too small" nonsense.
I loved the first two games but as they got more zany with the weapons and stuff it stopped appealing to me, and 4 just seems watered down to me. Although I certainly understand and accept that people enjoy 3 and 4.
While I don't think this is looking like some huge disaster, the online service and the catalogue of games really seem like major negatives. I simply don't understand the phone-app chat stuff, and I feel like there *must* be more to it. Of course they did say the full online service will be implemented in the fall, so we'll have to wait until then for a comprehensive judgement on it. But like Jeff said in his stream, if they are making it a paid service it will have to be a BIG step up from the prior systems.
As for the selection of games... it was so dispiriting to hear Dan basically say that it's acceptable for a Nintendo console to have nothing to look forward to but a new core Nintendo game every three to four months. Like, that is NOT a successful system right there. Play Zelda, gather dust for several weeks, play Splatoon, gather dust, etc. Even if you want the Switch why would you get it prior to Christmas season? It looks so sparse.
P.S. You can totally have parties of like 6-12 people. I think 1-2 Switch is an acceptable party game in the Wii Sports mold of "Absolutely anyone can play this game". Whether it's fun or not is yet to be seen.
Alex's review reminds me of a game I played a year or two ago called Rodina currently in early-access on Steam.
There's a lot of barren gameplay, barely-implemented mechanics, and a near-total lack of things to do outside of following the story. But much like Alex's experience with No Man's Sky the freedom to explore and create my own narrative through my travels draws me in despite the rest of the game. I think I would have the same experience with No Man's Sky, although I will certainly wait a long time until it drops in price and/or more actual gameplay is available. Excellent review and spot-on assessment.
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