This presentation was completely pedestrian. They kind of stuck with the "you can play games from any device" theme but I was hoping they go more into detail about the other cool things they mentioned in the launch presentation.
Where's the talk about the snapshot feature where a designer/player can save a snapshot and share it with others?
What about the asynchronous split screen functionality?
Where are the exclusive killer titles? Others than Baldurs Gate 3 and Glyt, everything else is stuff we've seen before.
Despite what I said, my coworkers were pretty stoked. It's a good deal if you aren't obsessed with high framerates. A $70 controller plus $10/month to play a set of games at up to 4k HDR 60 fps is pretty damn good compared to buying an XBox One X or PS4 pro for >$350 plus buying the games, plus dealing with downloading and installing updates.
My coworkers are the kind of players that just buy the latest CoD, FIFA and Madden, so if Google Stadia covers those games, I think they'll attract a bigger market than people expect.
Oh boy my thoughts are completely opposite to Vinny and Dan. It's definitely a generational thing. FF7 was the first Final Fantasy I played and it was life changing.
Before FF7, I had absolutely no interest in JRPGs or RPGs in general, mostly I settled on playing Counter-Strike, Diablo and Starcraft.
While FF7 might not be the best Final Fantasy (imo it's FF6), it was groundbreaking for the industry. The graphics were the best in the business at the time, the game was whoppingly large and took over 70 hrs to complete. The music deserves an accolade on it's own, Nobuo Uematsu outdid himself yet again and produced some of the most memorable soundtracks in gaming.
To this day, I still fondly remember this game and I know playing it now would just ruin my nostalgia for it. It sucks that I can't relate with Final Fantasy nowadays. The newer Final Fantasy games just don't appeal to me.
I was looking forward to listening to the GOTY deliberations... but they were WAY too long. I would have preferred everyone to have well written, impassioned, detailed arguments of why their games should be on the GOTY list, like how Austin argued for Invisible Inc.
I think Abby is a great addition to the team and she's more vocal about her points than Austin or Patrick ever was in GOTY discussions. But I completely disliked how she argued her points using the same adjectives to fight for games she liked. Saying that a game is "super fun", "compelling" and "really good" hundreds of times isn't going to convince me that Cuphead should be GOTY.
Also Horizon Zero Dawn not even getting a 10th spot is a completely shocker. I believe this is only the second time a 5 star rated game, since Axiom Verge (2015) to have been left out on the GOTY list. Even after listening through the deliberations, I refuse to accept that there were 10 games better than Horizon Zero Dawn this year.
@vasta_narada: Ah yeah your right, I stand corrected. The gist is, if Tiny Metal sells well, a group of investors will help fund Project Phoenix. In the backer update it does NOT state that they will use profits from Tiny Metal for Project Phoenix which is how I interpreted it earlier.
@sgtexo: Yep pretty much. The developers originally wanted to create an action RTS called Project Phoenix (I'm a backer). They ran over their Kickstarter budget and shifted development into Tiny Metal. They said that if Tiny Metal sells well, they'll use those funds to restart Project Phoenix. Also keep in mind Project Phoenix has been in the works since 2013.
@gning: I can relate. I'm Chinese, my last name is Wang and you can imagine all the dick jokes that get told to me.
It's low brow humor, it's stupid and juvenile. If you need a more extreme example understanding why joke Asian names can be racially insensitive look up "Asiana Airlines KTVU". That right there shouldn't be funny to anyone especially because it's a real life incident. The passengers were seriously injured and three people died, but the top rated search results only talk about the joke itself.
With all that said, I think the conversation that Dan was being intentionally racist has gone overboard. The game, not Dan generated the name "Dong Song". I think he saw the name "Dong Song" funny from the name only and not because it was specifically assigned to a Chinese X-COM soldier. As much as people like to bash on Dan, I don't think he did anything wrong this episode.
Lots of ups and downs in this episode but mostly ups!
Really excited to see them finally use the Meld and see how bonkers MECs can be.
Some small bits albeit repeating some of the comments made before:
Abby please spend more time reading what the game is telling you. What's the point of researching if you have no idea what it even does for you!?
You missed because the dumpster was highlighted red instead of the Muton. It's the exact same UI as how grenades/rockets work: all affected targets are highlighted in red.
Vinny, I like how you tried to reign it in and let Abby make her own decisions. But I was kind of bummed that you suddenly shouted out to Run and Gun and shoot that last alien in the face.
With all things considering Dan did as well as one can hope for.
If he didn't lose his cool when the Cyberdisk showed up, I think he had a chance of saving some of his squad. Dan literally personified an X-COM panicked soldier by suddenly making quick snap decisions that put his squad in even more danger.
Greg's death was reasonable. It was impossible to know there was a Cyberdisk hiding on the other side since all encounters prior to that have been Thin Mans, Sectoids and one Chryssalid. so his chances of survival was pretty low.
Mary could have been saved if Dan didn't have her reload and instead retreated her by dashing away. Dashing reduces Overwatch hit chance so she would have most likely survived.
Austin's death was kind of bad luck with that 7 dmg Muton blast. I will blame poor positioning on this one. Zhang and Austin shouldn't have been on that left hallway in the first place.
Also, please can someone use that sweet sweet Meld that's been stockpiled since the beginning of this series? You can make MEC soldiers that make the game much more manageable.
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