Nals

He mentioned it's got a Lyft app you can sign up for. I'd guess that's what that is.

Yeah this is perfect.

The Dan/Vinny chemistry is spot on, and it gives Alex a chance to actually play the straight man for real. Dan/Alex also have fantastic chemistry.

I liked Jeff/Dan, but Dan/Brad always felt a bit forced, and the Jason/Dan stuff wasn't my favorite. And Jeff/Dan has nothing on Dan/Vinny.

Vinny needs a person to say YES DO THING, and Dan both offers that, and then encourages him to do even worse things. Alex needs someone to draw him out of his shell, and Dan did that as well.

I wasn't sure about this at first, but the last month has me fully onboard.

Duh?

Games have to be released at some point. The question is what was left before they go out the door.

You then have the time between Gold and release. In the past you went on vacation because digital/patching wasn't a thing, or you needed people to play the game before you could QA/patch it.

In the present you have groups like EA that use that time to start on the first DLC. If the game is way behind schedule but needed to come out due to budget, you'll often see them use that time to do QA/set up the patch for the major issues they expect they'll see.

There isn't anything wrong with devs working on a game after Gold, or setting up a day one patch so they can get it out faster/earlier. Or using that time to start DLC/additional content/features. This nostalgic rumination of how in the past "We didn't need no day one patches/content!" is stupid. We didn't need them because the devs couldn't actually make them, not because they didn't want them. As long as the game works fine on day one with the additional content/patch, it's no different for the consumer.

No. It wasn't.

Assassins Creed 1 had extreme problems. The maps were small and further constrained by the limiting mechanics. The world was under-realized, only existing to supplement the tower climbing. The combat was anemic and barely existed, the game outright told you that if you got caught, dying was the fastest way to get back to a playable state since the combat was so iffy. Objectives had no variety outside of "Kill the main man. Do the same 5-6 miniobjectives ( pickpocket a guy, listen in on a conversation, beat up a preacher, etc ) over and over again to learn more about where he is hiding so you can unlock the actual kill mission.". The world was a setpiece you barely existed in.

Assassins Creed 2 succeeds because it plays -nothing- like Assassins Creed 1. The world map is large and varied. Side quest content is hefty, varied, and everywhere with great rewards. The story/main arc has been refurbished into a more action style of almost GTA missions, unlike the previous "hits" system. Combat has been completely overhauled with a greater focus on counters/light and heavy attacks, which gets further overhauled in Brotherhood.

I like AssCreed 1. Don't get me wrong, it's still a solid game and a solid start to the franchise. But every game that came after it in the series took almost nothing from it outside of the ideal of historical tourism. The way the missions are doled out, combat, assassination style, plot, world style ( medium sized cities with countryside/horse to large cities with fades in between, etc. ) everything was changed in the process of making it's sequels. The difference between AssCreed 1 and AssCreed 2 is the difference between Far Cry 1 and Far Cry 3 if you get into the actual nitty gritty.

Watch Dogs needs significantly less change to hit those same notes as AssCreed 2. The protag and his allies need to be replaced with better/more interesting people. The hacking needs to be a bit more extensive/mission driven rather then just casual fuckery. And the driving needs a slight re-tuning to be a bit less floaty. None of that is exceptionally difficult to pull off. This isn't to say Ubisoft -can- pull it off, but it's not like they have to reinvent the wheel here.

Here's the thing.

You probably didn't play Demon Souls on day 1. You probably didn't play Dark Souls on day 1. Maybe Dark Souls 2 and Bloodbourne, but Demons/Dark Souls 1 were still very niche at the time.

Hell, a lot of people only ever got to play Dark Souls 1 when it finally came to PC, years later, well after they assumed it'd never make the jump.

The zeitgeist around Dark Souls 2 was great. And it'll still be great for DS3 on sites like GB, SA, or potentially Reddit/Gaf. Those communities by and large are respectful, and the people who ARE playing now from those communities have mentioned they'll do their best to stay out of early day discussion until everyone catches up. You'll have a few assholes/spoilers up on Reddit I'm sure, but for the most part, that zeitgeist will be maintained.

And even if it isn't, will it really ruin the game? To tie back around to Demon Souls/Dark Souls 1, by the time 90% of Souls players touched them, everything was mapped out. Everything was discovered. Everything was known. It didn't stop people from enjoying the game, it just stopped people from having to wonder what a few of the more obscure/archaic design choices were about.

It's easy to get wound up over this, but the more you think about it, the more it's going to bother you going towards release, and the more it's going to spoil your initial impression of the game.

I can't wait for Pokemon S&M.

Wait......

No.

The game spells out pretty clearly what happened.

Why though?

Price is never consistent, something that's $15 on Steam could easily be $10 on GMG or Amazon. Which price do you report. This is especially true across all the storefronts/console storefronts.

It also introduces the problem of longevity. While QLs are nice upfront, they are also nice going into the future. If I see a game that looks cool, I'll go check the QL for it to see if it was cool when they played it last. Having them say OH YEAH IT'S $10 doesn't help me at all, unless I'm SUPER LAZY and can't just go check it on Steam day of. And even then, I'll be going to the storefront anyways to add it to my wishlist.

Like the only point to them saying the price day and date is if someone would only ever buy it that day, and needs to know right then and there. If they'd never wishlist it/mark it for later, and abandon the idea of ever touching the game again if they weren't going to buy it day one. Because otherwise you need to go to the storefront anyways to mark it/wishlist it, and you can see the price while you do that.

Here's the secret.

You know that big gaming population explosion a few years back? When gaming went from the thing "nerds" did to something everyone did thanks to the 360's marketing team/a bevy of great High School/College focused games? Yeah, a lot of that was when Halo 1 came out, and Halo had a lot to do with getting those people into gaming. Halo's "market" was teenagers/college kids, and it's entire Campaign/Co-op/Multiplayer was built around that ideal as well.

Halo 2 came out while those people were still in school. So did Halo 3. By ODST and Reach, the people in College at Halo 1 were now leaving, but they still had time for some Halo.

By Halo 4 and 5, that entire demographic has left High School and College. They've started careers, started families, and either got further into gaming ( and thus diversified their interests past Halo ), or left gaming ( as it was just a fun thing to do back in College ). Halo is now only the "core" game of a very, very small subset of gamers. Microsoft didn't get that memo though.

That's why both games seem to have had a nonexistent community. The people that still care loaded it up to see what Chief was up to, and then went back to Call of Duty.

I still want VR. It's too good/important I think for gaming going forward.

I have a PC that meets the requirements barely ( 970, OCed 3570k ), but since we have no base for VR yet, I don't want to see what "meets requirements" is for something that needs to stay 90fps on two screens unbroken with no tearing. I'm also not willing to jump up a card/processor AND pay that kind of price just for VR.

I will be waiting until the other big ones ( VIVE/SonyVR ) come out, and see what they get priced at. I assume VIVE will be more expensive, and SonyVR will be less expensive. If Sony does a SonyVR/Ps4 bundle, I might look into getting that, even if the price is $700-$800 combined. It'd also be enough for me to start buying VR enabled games for the Ps4, rather then for the PC ( I usually just buy consoles as exclusives boxes. ).

If they all come out and are too expensive, I'll probably wait until second gen VR before I adopt. As with all new tech, the price is the first thing they try to bring down, once they realize the market exists for it. I'd say something pithy here about how this might damage the industry while it's still in it's fledgling state, since who the fuck is going to spend $600 on VR, but it's sold out till June, so that doesn't seem to be an issue. If I wait long enough, eventually VR will drop in price. Hopefully many people are buying now/in the same boat as me of waiting till 2nd gen, so we can also start getting some VR only games, which'll only further enhance the market ( though I was already pretty fucking sold when I demoed Alien Isolation in VR at PaX. ).