Coming up with a title for this week was a little tedious because there wasn’t a central theme and that’s okay. I still want to talk about what I thought was notable this week. I’m also omitting the GTA 6 stuff because you literally can’t open a single social media platform without seeing it.
Newer Better Hardware
The Steam Deck is one of gaming’s greatest accomplishments in recent years and now Steam is releasing an upgraded version. Allowing gamers to take their Steam library with them, I’ve heard nothing but good things about this piece of hardware. With that being said I still don’t have one. I already don’t play games on my PC as often as I should but maybe this is the way that I’ll get through the part of my backlog that resides on Steam. I don’t have too much to say about it but it’s cool. The same way that I was welcoming of the Switch OLED I am of this product offering a brighter screen and 90hz inseam of the previous 60hz. The 512 GB model is priced at $549 and the 1 TB model is priced at $649 I’ll list the display specs below just to compare the old and new one. Maybe I’ll pick one up next year, we’ll see.
IPS:
OLED:
N7 Day Breathes Life Into Us Fans
So November 7th, a.k.a. N7 Day, was this week and in case you missed it, we got a trailer and a bit of news regarding Mass Effect 4. The trailer was really brief as it’s literally just a person (or alien) walking and then pulling out a weapon. This was paired with following-day coverage on Game Mess Mornings stating that we probably won’t see this game til 2028 or 2029. I only included this because I love all things Mass Effect related including Andromeda to a degree and wanted to talk about some things I want to see in the next title. First, I want them to expand on the vehicle traversal and exploration that we saw in Andromeda. I don’t think it was talked about enough and was, IMO, one of that game’s redeeming qualities. Second, I want them to explore a bit more with the classes and abilities. Everything was kind of set as soon as you picked your class at the beginning of the game which is fine, I don’t dislike that. But I want to see what it would be like if they gave us free rein on what powers and attributes we wanted with a set number of skill points. I think that would boost the game’s replayability and give us more freedom. Lastly, I think I want ship customization and space combat. Playing Starfield this year spoiled me in both of those aspects and I think they should be at least considered in space-themed games moving forward. They don’t have to be as expansive and detailed as some other titles but I think it would bolster immersion in the universe of Mass Effect.
The Godfather Returns
I’m always happy to hear about new IPs being developed but when an industry godfather is involved there’s a higher level of excitement. Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy and Blue Dragon, has started development on a new game. This tweet sees Sakaguchi being thankful for his health and the start of his new project. Late last year there was an interview where he stated “…I’ve also started writing the scenario for an unannounced dark fantasy game which is now in development,” the statements read.” which gives us an idea of what to expect. I cannot wait to see what this will look like once revealed. I like to see experimental takes on the classic JRPG formula, assuming that’s what it is, like the Kickstarter game Penny Blood. I’ll be on the lookout for this game and any news relating to it.
Beginning of the End?
I saw this get announced this past week and I instantly knew what the feedback would be. Microsoft (MSFT) has teamed up with a company to provide developers with AI tools to make games. What does this mean? Well honestly not much more than it says and I think that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The majority of the people I see talking about this topic have been giving MSFT a lot of blanket disdain when I think there should be a segmented conversation. To preface this I DO NOT WANT AI MADE GAMES! Videogames are art and robots cannot produce complex, multi-leveled, subjective interpretation art. At least not yet, and I don’t want more people to lose jobs. With that being said, games do take a long time to be developed and I can’t help but think that AI would shorten that timespan somewhat. If employed ethically and reasonably, AI could help deliver great projects. Think about characters who aren’t voiced due to budget constraints, creating non-essential assets, and other unimportant things that I cannot think of at this moment. This is all stuff that developers have to give their attention to that could be relegated to an AI while the humans are writing the story designing the art and doing more of the passion-intensive work. I can understand the dislike of this but I think we should be hopeful until we are given a reason to be angry and upset. I’m holding out hope but then again this is a megacorp and they’ll do anything to save money so we’ll see when the time comes.
Things That Don’t Belong
After that last piece I started thinking about stuff that already exists in the gaming industry that really doesn’t belong.
The first thing being bad remasters. The MGS Master Collection is the latest example and it’s pretty disappointing to say the least. The point of a remaster is to give us the consumers, an updated, better, newer version of a product that we already knew and potentially owned not just to repackage older versions of it and sell it to us again. It’s lazy and pitiful. Any company that names this a product of this quality a remaster should be in trouble under the guise of false advertisement by the definition of multi-media remastering.
The second thing being Games As A Service (GAAS). This could be seen as the bane of good games’ existence. Sony, the leader in quality singleplayer experiences, stated that they were shifting their focus to developing GAAS titles with the original count being 12 and then slashed to 6. Warner Brothers then followed behind Sony on the same track saying they want to make more live service games going forward. We’re at the point in gaming where everyone pretty much has their live service game of choice so companies investing money and resources to develop new ones are fighting an uphill battle dooming some of our favorite franchises to fail and be dropped into the ether. Both of the aforementioned companies going on this push this later after the surge is a huge misstep and shows their lack of industry awareness. Of course if they’re good and unique games I’ll probably change my tune but the chances of that happening are slim hence Sony taking the approach of making many and seeing which ones stick.
Lastly, I don’t want anymore rushed games. I understand the implications on the business side of game creation and why this might be beneficial but I think the more time and work that goes into shipping a good finished game could yield the same, if not better, results. People will buy a good game. It gets no simpler than that so when I see games that have a good premise or setting but the quality of gameplay isn’t there, it lets me down. My mind starts to wonder about what this would look like with propper care and it makes me dislike the product I have. MW3 was outed to let us know that it was developed in just 16 months and it shows. As much as I dislike the annual CoD releases this is an all-time low and it pains me to see it. I’m always going to be team delay, always.
What I’m Playing
Not too much going on this week as I’m trying to keep it light for Baldurs Gate when that releases on Xbox given Larian saying its still releasing this year and we’re already in November.
- Star Ocean: Til the End of Time
- Hitman: Absolution
- Spider-Man Miles Morales
- Bloodborne
See you all next week!
36th Gen 