What a crazy, whirlwind year! For those of you who’ve stuck around through 12 months of very few posts…thank you. I can’t speak for Ace or Nick, but FBTB is an important site for me and really informed my earliest brushes with LEGO and video game fandom. I’m grateful to you all, even if this is your first time here.
What have I been up to? Well, this and that. My life is in a complete different place than it was a year ago. I left my job and started a new career. Fell in love. Moved apartments. Learned guitar. Bought a car. 2024 has been a monumental year for me and my personal growth. It’s been hard, but hard is good. Hard makes diamonds.
But: my media consumption has dropped. Gone are the days I could spend hours playing video games. My list of movies to watch is ever-growing. I haven’t watched any long-form TV this year. But from what little I have consumed, there are some real gems.
⋅ 10333 BARAD-DÛR ⋅
I am sure that somewhere on this site is an article of me bemoaning missing out on the original wave of Lord of the Rings sets. I got two and no more because I A.) was a child and B.) had no disposable income. Well, those are no longer true!
So I bought a big tower.
Like, big big. This thing is almost three feet tall. I put it on my bookshelf so that Sauron peers down at all my guests and makes them really uncomfortable.
A lot of large LEGO sets look cool but are God-awful to build. Repetitive. Mind-numbing. Not Barad-dur. Every bag is something new.
There are so many references to LOTR in here, tucked away in secret spots along the tower. I will never see them again once the tower is built, but that’s okay. They made me smile while I was building, and that’s plenty for me.
This is the largest LEGO set I own and one that I am completely satisfied with.
Is it worth $459? For me, 100%.
⋅ SIFU ⋅
I broke my pinkie finger playing this game. Seriously. I got so mad at this game that I punched the floor.
On paper, Sifu is simple: five levels, five bosses. When you die, you give up years of your life to continue. Get too old, you restart. Simple.
But not easy.
As you play, you will unlock a bunch of moves and combos to the point where you’re flicking around control sticks and punching buttons at the speed of light.
Palm strike into flurry of blows into leg sweep into a face punch – OH! – someone throws a bottle at you so catch the bottle and throw it at someone else then kick a stool and knock someone over then parry another attacker and take his sword and…
You get the point.
Only Sekrio: Shadows Die Twice can compete with this game for its combat flow. When you are in the zone, you are in the zone. When you’re not…you break a pinkie.
⋅ SLY COOPER ⋅
In the third level of Sly Cooper, I said, out loud: “They don’t make games like this anymore.” The PS2 was perfect for action platformers like Sly Cooper. It easily sits among its peers Ratchet & Clank and Jax & Daxter.
Every level introduces a new mechanic, and every level includes an unlockable move (or upgrade). No points, no shop, no skill tree – just find all the hidden bottles and open the safe.
It’s so perfect in its simplicity. So much of the fat is trimmed away, save for the last few levels, which is when I said, out loud, in a different tone: “They don’t make games like this anymore.”
Annoying hitboxes, janky physics, and awkward camera controls.
Do those damn Sly Cooper? Not one bit. It is an absolute treat to play, and a refreshing break from the graphics-pushing, mechanics-full games of today.
⋅ RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 ⋅
Perhaps the above sentence is a criticism of RDR2. Perhaps.
I should hate RDR2. It is sluggish. Slow. Obtuse. I’ve never been motivated by graphics or story. If the game isn’t fun, why would I play it?
I…don’t know. I wondered that often. I wondered that while sitting at a campfire and carving notches into my bullets, one at a time. I wondered that while turning through magazine pages looking for a holster. I wondered that while dying in combat time after time because the aiming…sucks!
It’s badass to be a cowboy. It’s badass to fight off a bear. It’s badass to build a house for your wife and son. Simple as that.
It ain’t gotta be anything more.
⋅ LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL ⋅
I’d like to thank my girlfriend for introducing me to some really great horror movies. Late Night with the Devil stands above all of them.
It’s a failing late-night talk show where the host decides to bring in some supernatural types to spice things up. And spice things up they do. A little too much.
You know going in that things will go wrong. But you can’t wait to see it unfold.
Almost everything in the movie is played straight, like a live broadcast of, say, The Tonight Show. You’re seeing what viewers of the show would see.
The core concept is so fun, so engaging, and so unique that you will be glued to the screen. It’s a wild ride that any horror movie fan needs to watch.
⋅ THE HOLDOVERS ⋅
This is a Christmas movie that I watched four times this year. None of which were in December.
I really cannot say more without saying everything, and that would take up a lot of space.
If you want to have your soul warmed and your heart broken, then you need to watch The Holdovers.
Just trust me. It’ll change you.
⋅ CARRIE ⋅
Is this the only book that’s been on one of these year-end lists?
I avoided Stephen King for a long time. To me, he was the book equivalent of Quentin Tarantino: the director all the annoying kids at my film school lauded.
But then I read Stephen King’s book Carrie and I got it. Turns out that King’s fame is not overrated. Turns out this guy know how to write a really damn good book. I know, the popular writer is a good writer. Surprise.
The most unbelievable part of Carrie is that it is Stephen King’s first novel. His FIRST! King has such confidence and conviction in his plot and setting that you’d think this would be his magnum opus.
But nope. Most lists don’t even put it in the top 5.
Amazing.
2025?
Usually, here I’d talk about my predictions for the next year: the games, sets, and movies I’m looking forward to. But, to be honest, I’m not sure what I’ll have time for in 2025. Life changes fast and hobbies ebb and flow. Perhaps I’ll play the newest, hottest games. Perhaps not. Either way, I’m excited to see what unfolds.
But it’s clear that the cost in making those games, in the very real toll it’s taken in a very real way, up to and including the loss of life and real lasting trauma, that the whole company, the whole company, needs to be burnt to the ground. The allegations that have been pouring out, and the evidence to back it up from former and current employees of the studio, mostly women but also men, are damning to say the least. There’s nothing to salvage, and it’s just the latest in the long line of terrible companies full of terrible people doing terrible things. Fuck Blizzard.
Fuck J. Allen Brack and his notpologies and denials, and his tepid denial in internal emails. Fuck the founders and their empty “we failed” messages. Fuck the people that built this culture. These cultures do not grow in a vacuum, and they do not come up without people at the top knowing about, and condoning. We saw it with Ubisoft, where those from the CEO on down shielded and protected predators from legal action.
I mean, 2021 has now, somehow, made it so that Blizzard is the more evil part of Activision|Blizzard. And Activision employs actual war criminals and a torture apologist (in fact, that’s who they put in charge to handle the PR on this). I’m not going to rehash the story here. You can read it on any number of gaming sites… or on big news sites. That’s how big the story is – no matter how many of the real dedicated fanbois doing mental backflips are trying to deny it now. Once you start seeing coverage like this in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Rolling Stone, shit has gotten very real.
I have a friend who has a great saying: there’s no such thing as ethical consumption in capitalism. That’s true… but at this point, I can’t see any path to do the mental gymnastics to purchase their games and services in the slightest. I’ve got a World of Warcraft sub that runs for another three months… and the game has already been uninstalled. I’m going to just send a note to my guild via our discord that I’m not going to log in to even remove myself from the guild. I hadn’t been engaged in the game for awhile, but this is the sort of sour taste that is likely to linger on forever, and doubt I’ll go back.
This will likely be the last post, of any sort, I give coverage to for an Activision Blizzard game or service – or Ubisoft or any other abusive predatory company. Someone else here might feel like covering something, but in general, I was the only one who played those games, so likely they’ll just go ignored, as they should be. They don’t deserve our time, our dollars, or our support. They only deserve our scorn. Their workers deserve restitution and support, and a better place to work. Their billionaire CEO deserves to lose every cent he has and be put in prison for allowing this to happen, and all of the leaders and managers that were responsible or negligent deserve the same. In a just world, that’s what we’d get.
Sadly, instead, it’ll likely all be forgotten as soon as they decide to whole their next convention, do a little announcement on a game, and issue a notpology to thunderous applause. Just like they did before.
I may still play some of the games I have, but I won’t be purchasing them. We’re not a big site, by any stretch, or even honestly a small fish. We’re not a games media in… just devoted fans a lot of the time. But this is the sort of ugly evil that need to be driven out and destroyed.
Down with Blizzard. Don’t play World of Warcraft. Or Diablo IV. Or Overwatch II. Or Hearthstone. Or anything else they try to shit out in order to distract from this. Until they are held accountable, and the people who did this, and enabled this actually brought down, they deserve nothing.
Also, it’s well past time for Games Development to unionize, so that they have a bit of protection from crap like this.
Mark this under the “posts I meant to write weeks ago”. But here we are. A great little game called CrossCode leaves Xbox Gamepass on July 15th. And this is my pitch to get you to play it before it does.
What is CrossCode?
So CrossCode is a 2D, top-view sort of action RPG. Like Secret of Mana but made for our modern-day gamer sensibilities. There’s a ton of combos and special moves, and I never found any that were so broken that I’d exclusively use those. There’s a lot of variety here. Like, seriously, this thing is huge.
You have four elemental powers, and every enemy has a weakness to one of them. It’s not a particularly puzzling combat system, but it’s pretty fun. Combine that with some genuinely tough enemies, melee and ranged combat, and a slick dodge move, and you’ve got a pretty great combination.
The setting is really cool, though not necessarily breaking any new ground. In the story, CrossCode is a MMORPG played by thousands of real players. You are one of them. While the game is actually single player, pretty much every “NPC” you meet is actually a “PC”. They’ll reference real-world stuff, like having to go to bed, or school, or jobs. Personally, I found it very refreshing after playing one too many fantasy games that vomit a bunch of confusing words and lore at me. Because the story isn’t contingent on you understanding a bunch of ancient legends, but instead, just real life. I know real life pretty well. It’s nothing new, and it’s something I think Sword Art Online did better, but it’s not a concept that’s been trodden to death.
The actual story of the game isn’t bad. It’s perfectly serviceable, though a bit…conceptual towards the end. But the characters are the best part, especially as you forge relationships with them over the course of the game. While you do have some of your basic RPG party stereotypes, many of them are just people playing a character they think is cool.
But What’s the Gameplay Loop?
I’m glad you asked. So in a very SNES-like RPG way, the majority of the game has you going to get four main items. You explore different areas, collect special items, and attack enemies. One pretty great addition is the Botanics Menu.
Every area has different plants, which have a certain chance of dropping items. This log keeps track of how many of each plant you destroy. If you get enough of every plant in each area, you’ll get some really cool items. For a collector nut like me, this is a great way to get me to engage with a level. Instead of looking for a chest that may or may not exist, instead, I’m scanning the environment looking for specific types of plants. And some of these plants are actually really damn hard to grab. You’ll have to get clever with how you move around the level, as well as how you use your bouncy ranged attack.
At the end of each area is a dungeon. You’ll either love these or hate these. Personally, I think these are on the same level as the best Zelda dungeons. While they might be pretty plain visually, the puzzles in here are honestly really tough. They’ll force you to engage with the environment and your different elemental powers. Although, sometimes they can get a bit tiring in their length. For instance, one of the last challenges in the game takes this long to beat perfectly:
This is an RPG, so What About Sidequests?
Oh, we’ve got sidequests. A bunch. A ton. Some of them are really cool. Some of them are fetch quests. But there’s a great variety. One that stuck out to me was a tower defense-like area. You had to balance energy maintenance with enemy weaknesses. All of a sudden, it was like I was playing a totally different game.
The point is – there’s enough unique optional content here that you won’t get too bored with a gameplay loop, because of how much the game switches it up.
Conclusion
So, yeah, that’s my pitch. Like the best RPGs, it’s not annoying, and has plenty of content to reward you if you take your time. It leaves GamePass in a few days, so I say give it a chance. If you don’t get hooked, no problem. But if you do…well…hit me up on the Discord after you beat it and let’s talk about it.
Here’s a simple fact: Sony cannot win in an arms race against Microsoft when it comes to purchasing studios and sweeping up talent in the west. Microsoft is simply a bigger company, with more value and a bigger warchest, and has the infrastructure and assets in place to purchase and support a lot of studios. Sony can fund exclusives, get access, and purchase studios that make their content… but they’re never going to be able to go and drop $7.5 billion to bring in the largest private video game publisher out there. It’s also not clear that most companies would want to take that offer from them if it was there.
Say what you want about Microsoft, and there are many things to say, but how they treat game studios has seemingly been overwhelmingly good… especially when compared to companies like EA and it’s consume and destroy approach, Activision with it’s gut and restock, or WB with it’s layoffs. Microsoft has ended a couple of big studios, like Lionhead and Ensemble Studios, but for the most part, let their studios continue to do their thing. I know a lot grumble about the fact that Rare hasn’t done much outside of Sea of Thieves, but it’s also hard to imagine other publishers letting a studio just keep trucking like Microsoft has with them (and Everwild looks pretty cool).
Let’s take a moment to look at the pretty impressive roster of studios that Microsoft has tucked under their belt (not putting in founded first party studios), and some of their franchises:
Compulsion Games – The meh at best We Happy Few, which was an interesting idea with poor execution. Presently working on undisclosed projects
Double Fine Productions – Psychonauts series
inXile Entertainment – Wasteland and Bard’s Tale series, including the new Wasteland 3
Mojang Studios – Minecraft
Ninja Theory – Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice and the upcoming Hellblade 2
Obsidian Entertainment – The Outer Worlds, Pillars of Eternity, Grounded, and the upcoming Avowed
Playground Games – Forza Horizon and the upcoming Fable game
Rare – A lot of old classics, Sea of Thieves, and the upcoming Everwild
The Coalition – Gears of War
No, there aren’t any games in there that are going to stand toe-to-toe with something like Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, or Uncharted… yet. With a few exceptions, most would be more mid-tier games that add spice but don’t move consoles. So let’s talk about what IPs Microsoft now owns with their purchase of Zenimax and it’s IP brings.
Arkane – Prey, Dishonored, and the upcoming Deathloop
Bethesda Game Studios – Fallout, Elder Scrolls, the upcoming Starfield
id Software – Doom, Rage, Quake
Machine Games – Wolfenstein
Tango Gameworks – The Evil Within and the upcoming Ghostwire: Tokyo
Zenimax Online – Elder Scrolls Online
Interestingly, there are two PS5 timed-exclusives in there, in Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo. That won’t change… history has shown that Microsoft keeps the contracts and allows studios and subsidiaries to operate pretty independently. According to multiple posts from Bethesda, they’re still going to act as “publisher” on existing titles and stuff that’s coming out soon, but who knows if that will change.
The Game Pass Future
Right now, and in the immediate future… not much is likely to change. Bethesda titles that are on Xbox Game Pass (Fallout 76, Fallout NV*, Rage 2, Dishonored*, Dishonored 2, etc) are now likely to just stay there; the Dishonored titles say leaving soon but who knows. Other stuff is likely to show up in the near future as well… and eventually, I’d expect to see the whole back catalog on game pass where available.
Stuff that’s already on other platforms, or scheduled to go to other platforms… is going to remain there. Those timed exclusives on the PS5 will stay on the PS5, though the minute they can come out on the Xbox they’re gonna show up. The biggest change we’ll probably see is that both games, which were coming to PC, are likely to hit Xbox Game Pass on PC on day one as well. We saw this with Wasteland 3 and the Outer Wilds, and it will probably continue.
I need to buy the DLC for Outer Worlds, still… but don’t own the base game because Game Pass… which I won’t be getting rid of anytime soon
Microsoft already makes its games available on other platforms on PC… and orders will likely be there for some time. I’ll go so far as saying the big games that are coming soon, and by soon, I mean sometime in the next twenty years, like Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6, are likely going to be cross platform as well. After that, who knows… we know Avowed is an Xbox and PC title, and that will likely be the thing in the future as well.
Xbox Game Pass is already a fantastically good value with everything that’s on there right now. The PC version just doubled in price to $9.99, though the combined version is still $14.99, but that’s still amazing. This just makes it better for the same price. Sony’s new PS Plus Collection was already kind of meh, but the PlayStation Now and PS+ are asking the same or more, and delivering a whole lot less.
Everything we know about Starfield so far: it’s name, it’s a video game, it’s… uh… space?
This is ultimately the question that’s going to be asked when looking at a console… do you want games included in the price or do you want to pay more for them? You can pay $60 or $70 for Deathloop, or you can just get a subscription and play it on PC or eventually on Xbox. The same will apply for Elder Scrolls and Starfield. Xbox doesn’t have the power of Sony on first-party exclusives, still, but they just made the amount of cross-platform exclusives shrink.
What’s Not Likely to Change
Unfortunately, one thing that’s not likely to change is Bethesda’s bad behavior on games like Fallout 76… Microsoft has it’s own microtransaction-laden games (Forza and Sea of Thieves come to mind); they don’t do loot boxes, typically, but they do stuff like that. It’s not across everything, so I don’t see it suddenly exploding everywhere (unlike, say, if Activision or EA got these titles).
Fallout 76, and its monetization schemes, were often seen as a way to start courting a buyout of the private company by a bigger corporate parent. A lot of the old guard in Bethesda is going to be taking a big payout on this buyout, and making some real bank (remains to be seen if the rank and file make anything, depends on what their equity stake was like there)… so we could be seeing some of those guard taking their leave in a few years.
Microsoft needs to fix their stupid Perks site… I’m tired of it prompting me to join Xbox Game Pass, something I’ve been part of since it launched
What we are probably going to see is some things, like subscriptions, perks, and releases, folded directly into Game Pass. Elder Scrolls Online has an optional subscription / pass system that I could see become a perk; same with the Fallout One subscription. Bethesda has always released games with DLCs and expansions, and those aren’t included in game pass, but they are baking in a discount just for having game pass, so now DLC becomes a “if you want to play more” proposition.
Microsoft isn’t a taskmaster owner, as we’ve seen in other consoles, so they’re also not going to start turning these studios into a churn factory. In other words… we’re still gonna be waiting forever for Starfield and TES6. Historically, they’ve given studios pretty wide latitude to do their own thing and run their own show, so that’s going to be there.
Playing a Long Game
The only silver lining in this, right now, is that Microsoft isn’t looking to deny players access to games and support. The Xbox strategy has been inclusivity all along, not exclusivity; there are exclusives on Xbox, but they’re also showing up on PC at the same time. The Xbox Series X goes up for preorder later today, with the promise and potential of day one games in game pass for the whole generation.
Xbox had pretty incredible mod support for Skyrim and Fallout 4, while Sony crippled a lot of them with size and access restrictions
It’s possible, though not assured, that Elder Scrolls 6, Starfield, Fallout 5, Dishonored 3, the next Doom, and all the other franchises out there become Xbox exclusives to sell consoles. There are a few statements from sources at MS and Bethesda that say they will be published by Bethesda, but games will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. If they do come out on other platforms, the question will be “do I pay $70” or just use the subscription on PC or Xbox Series X the same day.
This has been Microsoft’s strategy for some time, and this is both a flex and showing off the massive financial power Microsoft has compared to either Sony or Nintendo. It’s also likely that they’re not done yet, as well… there are plenty of other studios out there they could look to snap up (like, say, Gearbox). Microsoft has never managed to break into the APAC market and Japan, but now has a studio based in Japan (Tango Gameworks).
Microsoft isn’t going to dethrone Sony any time soon, and the PS5 will sell tens of millions in the next year or two. It’s also clear that Sony and Microsoft are playing for different things here, and that the more you try to compare offerings, Sony is starting to be in a harder and harder place. For my own take, this looks like it could be a reverse of what we got in the PS3 and Xbox 360 generation. Sony had some amazing games in that generation… first party exclusives like God of War 3, Uncharted 2 and 3, Last of Us, and Demon Souls… but none of those were enough to claim the crown.
Man, I miss making off color jokes about the Wii
The Wii buried everything back then, before it sort of vanished, and technically, the PS3 outsold the 360 in the end by a couple of million units… bolstered by being for sale well after the Xbox 360 left the market. Software wise, it was also kind of a wash, though most of that generation on the Sony side remains locked on the old console, while a lot of the 360 is available to play on the Xbox One and upcoming Series S and X.
Part of this is our bias and perception as well, that really clouds the success and failure; the Xbox underperforms in APAC regions, while the Xbox overperforms in North America and Europe. However, as I covered in the next gen FOMO article I did last month… console sales are somewhat deceptive. The real value for Sony and Nintendo have been Software sales, while Microsoft has relied on 3rd party publishers to really deliver value on a system. Game Pass, and the studio purchases, are changing that… and now, they’re going to get a cut of software sales on other consoles as well.
Obsidian is setting up to elate us and/or break our hearts
It could also be argued that Microsoft lost this generation by focusing on publishers instead of gamers and customers – the Xbox One was a publishers dream and a consumer’s nightmare when it was first announced. The “death of the console” has been declared for years and years, as technology advances faster than developers and studios can push them, and the gains in graphics become less and less. Microsoft, without ever saying it, is giving a compelling case for the post-console future, where the service is what matters more than selling the box that delivers the service. We’re not going to see Game Pass suddenly show up on Switch or PS5 any time soon, but this move puts Sony, in particular, in a spot to justify how it’s still doing business.
Make no mistake, this is a shakeup that’s going to alter gaming going forward, and I’m kind of curious to see where it goes.
I declared before that Tetris 99 is the best Battle Royale game out there and I still stand by that claim, but Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout comes in a pretty close second. As part of PlayStation Plus free downloads for August, there was no risk for me to give it a shot so I looked up some stuff on Twitter and YouTube to see what it was all about. And what I saw looked like a whole lot of fun. And it is!
You play as a little bean-shaped avatar and the goal is to be the last man standing through a series of mini games styled after obstacle course TV game shows like Takeshi’s Castle or Wipeout. Each game is considered an episode with several rounds of mini-games that whittle the field down smaller and smaller. The controls are as simple as can be: there’s a button for jump, one for dive, and another for grab; you use the left stick for movement and the right for the camera; and finally the D-pad is used for gestures and that’s it. Pretty much anyone can pick up and play and in that regard it’s very welcoming.
Each episode has a max of 60 players. You’ll bump into each other, trip, be pushed down, pulled to the side, and just like the name implies, fall. A lot. The way the little beans are animated is cute and the nonsensical sounds just add to their charm. You’ll almost welcome getting knocked down by obstacles, flung across the field by a giant fan, or pulled off the stage by a fellow player. It’s chaotic fun.
Yes, there’s griefing but griefing is part of the game. As insidious as it can be in some games, you can’t really help but laugh at some of the antics and chaos that it can ensue. These kinds of clips are probably my favorite ones to watch and, dare I say it, even do myself to others in the game. In one game, Rock’n’Roll, you work as a team to push your giant ball from one end of the field down to the other and into a basket. The first two teams out of three to do this advance to the next round, but more often than not you’ll find members of the opposing teams trying to stop your ball from advancing. Your only defense is to do the same to their balls and grab and block opposing players.
Some of the other games include Fruit Chute where you have to race up a conveyor belt going in the opposite direction while giant fruit is shot at you from all angles by cannons placed around and above the course. Slime Climb has you racing up an obstacle course while the course is submerged slowly in pink slime. My favorite is Hex-a-gone, a very Q*bert-like game where the hex tile you’re standing on will disappear after a second or two. There are multiple levels you can fall through before you hit the inevitable pool of slime:
Hex-a-gone is my favorite game mode and only appears as a final round.
There’s something deceptively simple about the game that makes every round feel winnable. But when you lose due to a bad luck or being griefed, you can easily find yourself yelling at the TV. It’s rare that I’ll loudly express myself in any online game in victory or defeat, but I’ve yelled at the TV playing Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout more times than I ever have playing video games. Royal Fumble is, like Hex-a-gone, only played during a final round. There are many players but only one tail and you have to be the one holding it when the timer runs out to win:
This one match had the whole family yelling and screaming at the TV like no other game has ever done. It was a good time.
You can dress up the bean in a variety of costumes that can be unlocked as you level up or bought using the in-game virtual currency called “kudos”. Like other games featuring skins, there’s a micro-transaction model where you can buy more kudos but it’s unnecessary as they are really easy to get and amass. There are other DLC packs as ranging from $5 – $10 and the offer some combination of unique costumes, kudos, and gestures, all cosmetic items which have no impact on the game other than your own enjoyment. I normally loathe micro-transactions but I’m okay with cosmetics. Fall Guys makes earning costumes and gestures so easy that there’s little to no FOMO. Because even if a particular costume is slightly out of reach, there is no shortage of other great ones you can dress your bean in.
The other type of in-game currency are crowns and you can’t buy these. You can only earn them from winning an entire episode or as a level up award of which there are exactly 4 on the whole track from level 1 to the cap of level 40. And the crowns will net you some of the more premium costumes.
P-body from Portal is one of the most expensive costumes in the game costing 5 crowns each for the top and bottom halves. It’s the first crossover costume but I guarantee it won’t be the last. The popularity of the game combined with how easily the beans can be dressed up as pretty much anything creates an opportunity for brands to want inject themselves into the game. Even Mediatonic, the developers of the game, are aware of this. They are currently auctioning off the chance to have a branded costume in game with all proceeds going to charity.
The game is all very cute and fun with its bright colors and non-violent game play. Shooters certainly have their place in the Battle Royale genre, but it’s not really something that appeals to me. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout though is a fresh take on the formula and well worth the asking price. Sony recently declared it as the most downloaded PS Plus game of all time globally. I’m honestly not surprised by that at all. Fall Guys is easy to pick up, appealing to all ages, and, most importantly, fun. There’s a certain kind of joy that can be felt from the cuteness, the colors, and the presentation of it all. It easily gets a 5 out of 5 stars from me. It’s replaced Splatoon 2 as my go-to for a quick gaming sesh and that is saying something. The only thing I can knock the game on is that it’s only on Steam and PS4. I’m hoping and guessing it’s just a matter of time before it shows up on Switch and Xbox because I want everyone to have a chance to play this.
If i had any skill iId have made this a looping gif.
You can get Fall Guys for PC through Steam ($19.99) and on PS4 ($19.99 or free for PS Plus subscribers until Monday August 31).
Remember 2019? Or even the beginning of January this year? Before things got all quarantine-y? I like looking back on those old days and sighing at the simpler times. Sighing through a mask, of course. Anyway, about eight months back, we threw up ourannual “Best of†post for last year, and I felt really conflicted on what my favorite game was. Not because I played so many, but because I played so few. I really only chose Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice because I love From Software games. And believe me, it’s a great game, but I didn’t fall in love with it. So here I am, over half a year late to the party, to talk about two 2019 games that really took my breath away, and if you haven’t played them, drop everything (except the mask!) and boot them up.
Resident Evil 2 Remake
I’m sure everyone knows this by now, but good lord this game is good. A huge evolution from the tank-controlled, pre-rendered backgrounds of its original version. The atmosphere, sound design, and music (sparse as it is) all contribute to make one of my new favorite games of all time. If you’re a fan of horror games, I can’t think of any way you won’t love it. If you’re not, you’ll still love it. Trust me. I hate cheap jump scares in games like Outlast or Until Dawn, so playing through a game where the scares respect my blood pressure means a lot.Â
I played through this game on a snowy February weekend, and the rainy atmosphere of Racoon City is both cozy and terrifying. As with the best Resident Evil games, you’re pretty much in one central location – the RCPD Station – and by the end of the game you know the map by heart. It’s a station full of warm colors in some sections, like the main hall, and creepy, bloodstained hallways full of groans and the pitter patter of rain on windows.Â
The gameplay is smooth and simple to grasp without the game becoming too easy. (lest you remove the awkward tightness and risky gunplay so perfectly epitomized in Resident Evil games). The inventory, which in past Resident Evils could be a source of annoyance and backtracking, has been streamlined, though without being too risk-free. I’m at the point where I’m trying No Item Box / No Saving runs, and things get tense in a way that has nothing to do with zombies.
And, of course, you can’t talk about Resident Evil 2 without mentioning Mr. X / Tyrant. The entire game is completely changed when that big boy shows up, and zombies are now only a way to make shooting a gun even riskier. Mr. X isn’t the hardest enemy in the world to avoid, and you can bait him pretty easily if you know what you’re doing. But, several playthroughs in, I’m still startled when I see him stomping towards me out of nowhere.
I love these two.
The story and performances, too, are top notch. Resident Evil’s always done this weird thing where some games, especially the early games, all seem like first acts to a larger story that resolves off camera. Resident Evil 2 isn’t different in that regard, but the story that we do get is great. I always love the beginning of zombie movies, when the outbreak is just happening. Resident Evil 2 covers just that, both from Leon and Claire’s perspectives. Piecing together what the hell is happening in Racoon City is so exciting, as the plot of Umbrella slowly unfolds (get it?). The motion capture and voice acting is up there with Naughty Dog, and it’s doubly impressive because this is a Japanese game, which, historically, have less-than-stellar performances from its English actors. Every time Claire sees a zombie and says something like “what the hell is up with you†just like I probably would, I get incredibly happy.
Unfortunately, the incredible legacy of this remake will be somewhat soiled by 2020’s Resident Evil 3. A game that is by no means bad, but not anywhere near the masterpiece of 2. These two games could have been a stellar duo, but it’s more like the Golden Goose and it’s less cool neighbor, Gerald.
Still, I can’t recommend Resident Evil 2 enough, and I give it one of my rare 5/5 ratings.
The Outer Wilds
A game that everyone probably confused (understandably) with the far less inspired The Outer Worlds, the Outer Wilds is a game that few have played but those that have love.Â
And I will try my best to not spoil this game, but it’s incredibly hard, because of what this game does so right.
Most games – heck, pretty much all games – reward skill over the time spent the game. You start out the game as a Level 0 whatever, and rank up, building with the tools that the game gives you, and by the end, you’ve pretty much mastered the game. It’s a great formula that clearly does something right, as 99.9% of games follow it. But The Outer Wilds swings left, and instead of collecting abilities and levels, you build up knowledge.Â
To give a very broad setup, the Outer Wilds is set in a solar system, and your job, as an astronaut, is to explore. It can be daunting to start out, to have the whole solar system available to you. I imagine many players, as I did, just said “well that planet looks cool, I’ll check it outâ€. And as you do, you slowly build up knowledge, represented visually by a detective investigation-like board. Then you slowly connect the dots, and see how everything in the game has a very specific purpose, and it’s up to you to connect the dots.
There are genuine “eureka!†moments, when you try something you’re pretty sure won’t work, and it does. I really wish I could talk about an example, but I want everyone who plays this to go in as blind as I was. It’s so hard to write about this game, but I guarantee if anyone’s played through this game to the end, 100% agrees with me. It’s such a special game in a way I’ve never seen, and the only detraction is that I can’t play it without knowing anything. That’s the curse of basing your game around learning knowledge: you build an incredible experience, but repeat playthroughs will never hit that initial high. Not even close. I mean, by this point I could probably beat the game in around 44 minutes.
No spoilers.
Since I can’t talk about why I love the game too much, let me talk about why you, reader, might not like the game. If you like being guided by modern, AAA games, then this game may not be for you. You’re led only by your intuition and natural curiosity. The game can also be extremely vague, and sometimes a lead doesn’t go where you expect, and goes cold. You just have to press through and keep trying things out, and if you expect a result every time, then prepare to be disappointed. There are very specific rules to this game’s worlds, and it’s up to you to learn them – there’s no guide.Â
All that said, the experience is so great, and so well crafted, that I can’t help but give this game another 5/5.
We fossils that grew up in the 80s and 90s likely remember the start of the console wars, the idea that it was SEGA Genesis or Nintendo, and you had to pick a side. There were battle lines drawn, arguments made, and so many insults lobbed back and forth at one another. Full disclosure… I was a Nintendo kid through and through. I had an NES and an SNES, I watched Captain N the Game Master faithfully every Saturday morning (and I’m terrified to go back and watch it now), and I poured over my Nintendo Power when it showed up every month.
You know what’s kind of weird, especially in light of me recently writing about toxicity in communities? I remember those arguments and insults being intense at time, but they weren’t what the internet has since made possible. My best friend owned a Genesis, and we gave each other bantha poodoo all the time over the systems, but still frequently played the consoles at each other’s house. He owned Mortal Kombat, with its blood animations, and I owned Mortal Kombat, without them… and we had fun playing both versions.
I’ve mentioned the book before, but Blake J. Harris’ The Console Wars does a fantastic job of laying out how this played out on the business side, the back-and-forth between Nintendo and SEGA (and how SEGA ultimately imploded and Nintendo kept going). It talks about how EA and Activision were always kind of evil, Nintendo hasn’t really changed their business model in the decades since, and SEGA really hated the branch in America that made them what they were. More than any of that, though, it also points out how superficial a lot of the war was, and is… drummed up by marketing and pushing that initial Fear of Missing Out to lay seeds that have recently choked out everything else.
Communities have become more toxic over time. Gatekeepers crop up all the time to exclude people and belittle them for enjoying something wrong. Again and again, other factors come in and poison things; racism, classism, and misogyny frequently pop up in places we probably don’t expect, and privilege is just rampant among fan communities all over the place. I mean, just having this conversation, and discussing consoles that are going to cost hundreds of dollars, and gafmes that cost a couple of days of work at minimum wage (assuming you’re going to give up things like eating, having a roof, etc), and just ignoring that reality, is a privilege, especially given the state of the world and the economy right now.
Diminishing Returns and Console Power
The AAA industry and console manufactures have always banged the drum of the constant need for the latest and greatest, that the old is junk and the new is great. Really, technology as a whole has been going like that for a long time, with planned obsolescence seen as a valid business strategy. Unfortunately for gaming in general, they’re running into the reality that the roads they decided to go down can only take them so far.
I’m an Apple user, with my phone, my tablet, and my primary productivity computer (I have a gaming desktop that runs Windows, because it’s still really the only viable platform for doing the most). They are absolutely notorious for this, with the latest tech being the best tech, and pushing the constant need to upgrade. They’ve been smacked down on breaking things, leading to lawsuits and settlements that are great for lawyers but don’t really do anything for consumers, but they still introduce new things in the tech to make the old ones look unattractive.
Here’s a secret, though… older devices work just fine for a lot longer than they want you to believe. Sometimes, there will be valid reasons to update, say for a specific feature or the old device is failing, but most of the time, we’d be better served hanging on to our devices for longer than we do.
Consoles, in particular, are a weird technology. They effectively launch already being out-of-date to the best technology at the time (since their stack is locked in months before hand), and need to push on as long as possible with the same basic hardware to be viable. Your average console generation tends to go 6-8 years (the Xbox One and the PS4 first launched back in 2013), and the 360 was around for eight years before that. This generation, we were treated to the worrying development of a mid-generation “upgrade” that added more power, in the form of the Xbox One X and the PS4 Pro… though if anyone upgraded specifically for that, they were in for some disappointment on what it really provided.
Those particular upgrades were done to support “4K gaming,” though in truth, only the Xbox One X really support it, and it was fairly limited. If you buy a TV now, 4K is basically the only option available (or, if you have more money than brains, you can get more than that). Yet less than a third of all installed televisions were 4K as of 2018 (and that’s not even accounting for multiple televisions in a household); I’m sure it’s gone up since then, but that particular electronics segment had been lagging for years. I don’t own a 4K TV (our primary TV is also old, I think 12 years at this point), and I know I’m not the only one in that situation. I mean, yeah, if my TV dies, I’ll get a 4K model, but I’ve never been one for spending a fortune on my TV setup.
That’s not to say that the current generation of consoles don’t have problems. The Nintendo Switch, while an absolutely amazing little system, is an underpowered tablet that struggles to run games from early this generation, or sometimes, remasters from the last one. Both the PS4 and the Xbox One have pretty terrible storage options, especially given that most AAA game studios seem to have no care whatsoever for people with iffy internet speeds, bandwidth caps, or using the storage on a console.
That being said, all of that alone don’t really feel like enough to push to the next generation. Sony is apparently banking almost entirely on the fact that they discovered that SSDs exist (while PC and Mac users just snicker); Microsoft is reintroducing memory cards (though it’s not as sinister as that, and the devil is in the details when it comes to pricing). The reason behind this is that when you look at the breakdown of the consoles, they look almost identical from a technology perspective.
Sony has shown basically nothing when it comes to gameplay for the PS5, and Microsoft hasn’t done much better, despite having two different streams promising gameplay (and pretty much just showing us Halo). What has been shown has been pretty well slammed or praised, mostly because so little of what we’ve seen looks drastically better than what the current generation of consoles offer.
There’s a reason for that…
The Graphics Dragon has been Slain
So, fun fact about the Microsoft gameplay video for Halo on the Xbox Series X… it looks better if you stream it, and watch it, on a 4K display and stream. Of course, while 4K screens are getting more common, even if they aren’t the majority (my 4K screens are on laptops and my primary desktop, so I’m not without it) – but 4K videos and streaming are far more rare than having the screens available. The digital revolution is here, from streaming videos, getting games digitally, and pretty much everything being the cloud has ended the era of media… but bandwidth and networks, especially here in the US, haven’t kept up.
Ultimately, though… graphics can only go so far, for two reasons, really. First and foremost… as resolution goes up, it’s takes more and more effort to make and create textures. The defenders of the AAA industry and their bad behaviors, like raising prices on games and including predatory monetization schemes, are right in the fact that it’s more expensive to create games (but ignore all of the other things that offset that increased cost). This chase after graphics and resolution has been going on as long as there have been games, but it really kicked into high gear with the 3D revolution and the introduction of consoles that supported it.
The second reason is a lot more basic… things can only improve so far and still be viable and accepted by consumers. We’re seeing that with characters and facial animations in games. The biggest gains were the jump between PS2 and PS3… and while the PS4 looks better than either of those, it wasn’t nearly the jump as before. As we’ve already seen from the “next gen” gameplay / not-gameplay trailers… the just to the PS5 will likely be even less.
Metal Gear Solid has seen a release on every Sony console, but that’s going to change with the PS5, because Konami is the worst
That’s not to say that graphics aren’t improving… they absolutely are, just not in the centerpiece items. Increasing stuff like draw distance, pop-in, environmental density, and effects are all important pieces, but they aren’t what wow the audience and sell the marketing. Unless you’re Square and you’re putting out a boring-ass movie and want to talk about strands of hair, I suppose.
PC gamers have seen this development coming for some time; it used to be that there were generational jumps with video cards in the PC space used to be excessive, and the gains were fairly marked. Since the previous generation… that’s fallen off quite a bit, and it’s been two years between releases with no real sign of what’s coming next and it looks like the next generation of nVidia cards will get announced in September. The gains were not really gaming related (the virtual currency bubble sucked up a ton of GPUs), outside of the same things that the updates to the current console did… 4K support and support for VR for the couple of dozen people that still care about VR.
For a long time, the gains in PC gaming have been in things other than raw horsepower… its been power efficiency, thermal ratings, and utilization. That’s now coming to consoles, and it’s why they’re so eager to talk about the memory architecture and the storage solutions.
Of course, there’s also the fact that a top-end graphics card on a PC costs more than a PS4 Pro and a Switch and a game or two…
Yes, graphics in games could absolutely be improved, but the more detailed and demanding they get, the more it will run up against the uncanny valley and the more money it will take to do less and less. There’s long been this idea that gamers will reject titles that don’t look as good, or don’t keep improving, or don’t push for the latest and greatest. It’s this weird blend of FOMO and a need to constantly make more and more from the companies (which is a whole different issue) that seems to press it, and why we get a new generation when the games on the current one, games like God of War, Forza Horizon 4, Ghosts of Tsushima, and so many others look amazing.
There’s also a simple way to refute this push and drive, and show that gameplay is and has always been king. Let’s point to some of the biggest games of the last decade: Minecraft, which is never going to win any graphical awards; Fortnite, which I think runs on more devices than Skyrim does at this point; the Nintendo Switch, which is never going to win awards for its graphics but is still, arguably, the star of this generation. Yeah, the PS4 has sold more units overall, but the Switch has sold more than half of what the PS4 has in half the time.
These games were from the same generation. Want to enjoy what is effectively engineering porn? Go read up on the crazy hacks they were doing to make music and graphics work on the NES
Nintendo as a company has always understood that gameplay is ultimately what wins, and they’ve found ways to push their hardware constantly to get the most of out it while still delivering things that gamers love to play, rather than just stuff that looks cool. Just look at their best selling titles of this generation, Breath of the Wild (14.7 million), Super Mario Odyssey (17.1 million), Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (18.8 million), and Animal Crossing: New Horizons (13.4 million after 6 weeks).
In case you are curious, only Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Marvel’s Spider-Man have sold more than any of these games among Sony’s first-party exclusives. Only Grand Theft Auto V has sold more copies than those two games (and really more than anything else in the generation)… except for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which has sold a staggering 24.77 million copies. That’s close to one copy of the game for every two switches sold, which is just mind boggling.
I’d take Breath of the Wild over almost any AAA game of this generation, and I have some serious hang-ups with the game
Yeah, the Switch is underpowered, but turns out that a lot of consumers don’t mind. No, you’re not going to go and play Grand Theft Auto V on there anytime soon, but you can go play The Witcher 3… even if it makes compromises on the graphics to get the gameplay and fun there.
Past that, you can also look at the biggest sector in gaming, by far, and see that power isn’t the real driver for it: mobile gaming. Almost 60% of the revenue being made in the entire game industry is made on mobile at this point. Sadly, a ton of that is on predatory microtransaction games, but there’s a lot of it that isn’t. Apple Arcade has shown that there’s still a market for good games without all the nonsense, and there are an increasing number of ports of classic games coming to mobile that aren’t available anywhere else (looking at you, Final Fantasy 1 and 2).
The Remake Generation
If it feels like there have been less new and unique titles coming out this generation, that’s mostly because that’s true. Much like how movies feel like everything is a sequel or a remake (contrary to popular opinion, Hollywood has always been like that, it’s not something new), games feel like they’re following the same path. The reasons behind that are simple economics, really… there’s more risk to a new IP and property, and more cost in its development and design than using an existing game.
Both the PS4 and the Xbox One, specifically the upgraded versions, are the most powerful consoles ever made. They’re capable of making some amazingly beautiful games and environments, and some of the most amazing games released in the history of gaming have been on those systems. They’re also the systems most defined by remasters, re-releases, and remakes… and given that the next generation is touting the “free upgrades to next gen,” that pattern isn’t changing anytime soon.
There are a few decades worth of games that could get the remaster treatment on the Switch
Controversial opinion time… but I don’t see that as a problem for the most part. I don’t tend to keep the older generation of consoles around, as I rarely come back and play the older games (especially if they’re available on PC) on those machines. The consoles take up space, and I’ve only got so much living room and closet space available.
Backwards compatibility is a weird thing in this space, one where Xbox has a clear advantage, because, you know, they’re actually doing it. The numbers are on the side of Sony, to an extent, here… the majority of consumers don’t go back to previous generation to play games. At the same time, how much of that is because it’s so difficult to actually do that? They’re relying on the PS2 to PS3 comparison when those systems still had it, but ignoring that the PS3 took a long time to catch on, and didn’t really hit big numbers until after they removed it.
For my own point of view, I would love to get some older PlayStation titles available on my PS4… like all of the Metal Gear Solid series, which is only available on the PS3 if you purchased a very particular version of the game. Or the old PSX Final Fantasy anthology and chronicles titles, which are the only way to play some of the classic games without using my iPad for it (with those controls, just ick) or paying a fortune for an old GameBoy advance, DS, and 3DS (they’re spread out across all of those systems).
The value of Game Pass cannot be overstated
All of the major three consoles have survived and thrived on remakes this generation. The Last of Us Remastered is one of Sony’s best-selling titles. The Witcher 3 is another top-seller… and a last-gen title. Same with the number one selling game, Grand Theft Auto V. On the Microsoft side, backwards compatibility was a killer feature when it launched, and they’ve continued to build on and expand it. They’re not without their own remasters, though, with Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Gears of War: Ultimate Edition both coming in (along with AAA titles like GTA V, the Witcher, Skyrim, etc.). The huge draw of the Switch is that a great deal of the releases have been remasters and remakes of great games people missed out on because they never had a WiiU.
There’s something distinctly different in how Microsoft and Sony are going about the philosophy of gaming, with Sony trying to present a narrow “you should enjoy it this way” and creating limits to how you consume it, and Microsoft putting up the big tent and trying to give as many avenues as possible to enjoying gaming the way you want to play. That’s kind of stunning when you think about it, and compare it to what the generation looked like at the outset, with arrogant Microsoft crapping the bed and the PS4 firing on all cylinders.
Of course, that’s all in the marketing.
When is a Console Worth it?
Ultimately, it was all just marketing. Microsoft had some real anti-consumer and pro-publisher stuff baked into their consoles (like an always-online requirement or games would stop working), were requiring a Kinect at purchase (which isn’t even supported anymore), and had the more expensive console. Sony touted their game sharing, the lower price, and showed off a lot of potential in it.
I bought a PlayStation 4 the day it came out; I still have that same machine, actually… I’ve never had to upgrade it or replace anything on it. I did have to take it apart once because a certain child of mine decided that it would be a great idea to get into his mother’s purse and jam a couple of cards inside the disc drive, but it survived unscathed once they were removed.
Not the playing kind…
I’ll also let you in on the secret… buying the PS4 on release date was a mistake. The initial console lineup was a joke, it didn’t have backwards compatibility (and still really doesn’t), and there wasn’t a “big” release on it that I couldn’t get elsewhere for a couple of years after it came out. All of those first-party IPs that people point to when they call the PlayStation the superior console? They weren’t really there, and most came in the latter half of the generation.
Killzone: Shadow Fall was a release title and it was… honestly, I can’t tell you anything about the game. I got bored with it and ended up trading it in. Knack was also a launch title, and it was terrible. inFamous: Second Son came out six months later, and it was a fun game, but not one that gets talked about in the “great” games of this generation. The first game that could be called great (even if it’s not my jam) would be 2015’s Bloodborne. For me, the first “I need this console” game was 2016’s Uncharted 4 (I was one of those sales mentioned above). I could have easily waited the two years and just gone along happy with my PC or the Xbox One I picked up a couple of months after launch.
I need to go back and periodically replaying these games, like I do the Mass Effect games
Though it’s not like the Xbox One fared all that much better for releases; I bought the console so I could play Titanfall, which was a mistake in and of itself… the first Titanfall is terrible. The sequel, which EA has gone out of its way to bury and kill, is one of the greatest first person shooter campaigns that has ever been made, and is absurdly fun to play. It was also available on other consoles, while the original was an Xbox exclusive.
I was on that console because my friends and I had been playing on the Xbox 360 together for years, so we stuck with the Xbox One… mostly for games like Call of Duty, Forza, and other multiplayer titles. That being said, I don’t even remember the last time I played a game on my Xbox One… it’s been just a streaming console for the rest of my family (anything else aside, it’s interface is vastly better than the PS4; didn’t start the generation that way, but certainly has ended it like that).
This is my current binge. It has nothing to do with video games, LEGO, Star Wars… and certainly isn’t for younger kids. It’s just really good.
Xbox has, and has always had, the superior online experience over Sony’s “okay, just go do whatever” approach. Yeah, the original console announced had a lot of extra junk, and focused on a lot of features that few needed or wanted, but it still had a better core. What Sony did with the interface that was so smart was basically ripping off the 360 interface and making it all slick. Which was fine when the amount of titles and utility was limited, but really doesn’t work now with the place gaming is at and what consoles represent in most people’s lives.
Like I mentioned, my Xbox is mainly a streaming station. It’s got Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, CBS All Access when I need to watch some Star Trek (that reminds me, Lower Decks came out, so I suppose I should go renew it)… it’s also got Vudu, which is where most of my digital movies are. The Blu Ray drive crapped out on me ages ago, but I rarely pick up games on disc, and luckily, the PS4 has a Blu Ray for the movies I have there and don’t have digitally. My TV is older, and not a smart TV… even if it was, I likely wouldn’t use it, because I’ve never found a Smart TV interface that didn’t seem to be like some exercise in rage and hatred of the users.
Sometimes, missing out will save you
FOMO got me in both of the consoles in the last generation, when I would have probably been better served enjoying my PS3 and Xbox 360 for longer. I did that with the PS3… waiting until the release of Uncharted 2 before I picked up the console. You know, like everyone else, because Sony charged a fortune for it and no one wanted to pay what they were asking. Marketing worked, and looking back on it, I want to kick myself for it.
I keep having to tell myself… the really good games won’t be out for some time. Yeah, we’ll get graphical overhauls of some late generation titles, and newer stuff like CyberPunk 2077 will run great (and other stuff like Watch Dogs Legion and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will likely go unplayed for some pretty obvious reasons). I don’t have a 4K TV, and I don’t plan on getting one before the new consoles come out. With Xbox, everything is on Game Pass, and most, if not all, will also see a release on Windows as well.
There’s Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales, slated as a launch title, which is either an expansion pack, a stand-alone game, or a “new experience” that’s bundled with a remaster of the old game. Sony and its own dev studio can’t seem to agree on the specifics. After that, until Horizon Forbidden West comes out, supposedly next year but likely 2022, there isn’t a marquee title that’s been officially announced. I’m not even aware of anything being rumored… there are some smaller titles, and the normal AAA stuff, but that’s about it.
For the Xbox Series X… I’ve got a PC, and I’ve got Game Pass. If I want the console, it honestly makes more sense from an investment standpoint… my Xbox One has been slowly dying and the drive doesn’t work. But do I even really need that, if I can play the games on PC and enjoy them? Their big title, Halo Infinite, just got delayed until 2021 and won’t be a launch title either, so is there much to chase after?
Does this Generation Even Make Sense?
In case you haven’t noticed… the world is kind of messed up right now. Do people even remember that the the fires in Australia were this year? I’m not going to do a run down of the life we’re all living… but let’s suffice it to say, it’s kinda been a year. What I will focus in on with that is the thing that’s often getting overshadowed by all of the other terrible things… the economy is kind of in the crapper right now.
I’m not talking about the stock market, which only tells us how the 1% and the companies that exploit us as consumers and workers are doing… I’m talking about the actual economy, production, and GDP. Here in the US, about 20% of the working population has filed an unemployment claim this year. The actual unemployment numbers are at a level worse than the great depression in the US, and the effects are rippling worldwide. Yeah, sorry world… you’ve all done better at this whole “actually doing something” in the face of a pandemic and meltdown, and we’re mostly at “it is what it is” and we’re yelling at store clerks because of a bit of cloth might accidentally help someone other than ourselves, and that’s un-American now.
Think of how many board games you could get for the price of one of these console. Like… four!
All of that is to say… who is going to be able to buy these consoles? Yeah, there was a real boom in the market when lockdown started and we were all stuck at home, and there’s still demand that’s being pent up because the supply chain was so thoroughly emptied… but I have strong doubts of that carrying forward. Especially when you look at the real cost of a new console being likely a couple of hundred more than your initial investment, and that two of them are coming out at roughly the same time.
Yeah, Sony and Microsoft have poured a ton of money and R&D and marketing capital into making these consoles… and those are creating some jobs. But they’re also gigantic companies that could easily still put that effort into the existing generation, and hold off on this release because it’s not especially needed. The world won’t end if the PS5 and the Xbox Series X don’t come out this Christmas. I’ll survive, you’ll survive… everyone will be able to hold on a bit. They don’t need to whip up FOMO on this at a time when people are struggling to pay rent and groceries and medical bills.
I really like the Dual Shock 4… remains to be seen on the 5. Honestly, though, the Xbox S-series controller, which dates back to the late Xbox, is the absolute best controller available. Even if I don’t grab a Series X right away, I’ll get the controller for my PC
There’s a weird mix here, as we’re a pop-culture site devoted to things that are all “nice to have” purchases. No one needs video games, LEGO, movies, or toys… but they all make our life better. All I’m saying that, right now, maybe we should be focusing on a bit more basic stuff and preparing for what’s ahead, because I’m going to let you in on an unfortunate truth – we’re not through the worst of this yet.
I won’t hold it against anyone who’s still excited for the new console generation, or who plans to buy one. I won’t hold it against anyone who wants to get both… only hope that you’re able to do it and get your bills paid while we wait for the Bell Riots and our United Earth future to finally start to materialize. I’m still not certain where I will fall in this, to be honest, or if the FOMO monster will get me despite repeating over and over and over that I don’t really need these things.
I’m not thrilled with this controller… but I’m going to reserve judgement until I can hold it in my hands and get an idea. Not like I haven’t had a terrible controller before… I’ve own a WiiU, had an N64, and a PS3, and a PS2, and the old Xbox Dinner Plate controller…
All I’m really saying is that this generation jump, more than a lot of them, feels forced and artificial. The game that they keep playing, pushing for technologies and forcing the upgrade or else, all feel wrong. Xbox is doing a better job, with at least giving an outlet for games that sit between generations to come out both places; Sony is taking a much harder stance, and they’re apparently already done with the PS4, as there are no more big releases slated for the system in their pipeline (the AAA companies will support it for a little while). The current generation of consoles look and play great, and more than ever before, it just doesn’t feel like we need to make the jump.
Beyond that, in the immediate hype cycles and the upcoming release… the consoles are going to still be around after Christmas. There’s an excitement to getting something new on launch day… followed by a sinking feeling when you see what you spent and realize there are only like two games even worth playing on it. The only way this cycle will change is if enough of us stop buying into it… or more tragically, aren’t able to buy into it because the world is a wet dumpster fire right now.
It’s amazing what can come along and burst your hype bubble; sometimes, it’s saying how a product won’t have NPCs (Fallout 76), sometimes it’s because you are really getting skeptical about the company making it, and sometimes… it’s taking an important member of a Superhero team and locking it to a specific console. After it being leaked yesterday, and then the companies involved just lying to us, it’s been revealed that Spider-man will be console-exclusive DLC in Marvel’s Avengers… on the PS4.
So, full disclosure… I think when you just look at the raw value and quality of titles, the PS4 is the best console of this generation (though the Switch is the best and we all know it… it’s just different). The Xbox had a really rocky launch, but they’ve pivoted what they offer (through updates and the insane value of Game Pass), to have a decent system. For me, though, most importantly… it’s the system that most of my friends have. Including the friends that I was planning to play this game with.
I know, I know… pre-orders. I’d been planning on playing this to cover here. WAS planning…
I can understand why Sony wants an exclusive like this, but it’s become increasingly out-of-step with what consumers want. Cross-play and multiplayer have rendered these out as a negative in the mind of a lot of consumers (and developers), where having a timed exclusive means you have to start sectioning them off. They’ve been screwing things like this up all generation, and repeatedly take anti-consumer moves in how they handle things. It’s disappointing, but not shocking. Sony does the wrong thing until they’re forced to do the right one.
What is more shocking, here, is seeing Marvel and Square|Enix go down this path. The PS4 is the number one selling console of this generation, but PC and Xbox are still a pretty massive chunk. Especially in the United States, which will be the main market for the game. They just took one of the most popular characters and told a big chunk of their market “please pay the same price for a worse version of the game.”
I’m sure plenty of people are going to be just fine about that; because gamer’s are often terrible, more than a few are taking the opportunity to make fun of and rip into Xbox and PC players because even though the idea of the console wars is asinine, a lot of people just love them. Thinking past our own selfish needs and wants, though, and it’s hard to see this as anything other than an anti-consumer move. I own a PS4, and could play this on there if I wanted to, but I don’t feel like this is behavior that should be rewarded at this point.
It’s also not a matter of Sony having an sort of exclusive rights; their rights extend to the character in movies. TV is produced and Disney’s own animation studios, and Spidey has been in plenty of other video games (the PS4 game was a single exclusive on the console, and not part of Sony’s contract for the character). I don’t know if Sony was able to hand over enough money that it would offset the sales they will be lost on other platforms because of it.
In one little anti-consumer move, what was my most anticipated game of the next couple of months just became a “yeah, no thanks” or a “maybe later” game for me. I know I’m only one order, but it’s one they’ve lost.
This game continues to confound and confuse me… I love Marvel and desperately want a comic game, but I generally don’t like live service games and have never gotten into Destiny, The Division, or similarly structured games. I’m in my 40s, and time is a valuable thing to me, so I don’t like games that make and force a demand that I need to play them or fall behind. It’s taken me a long time to break the habit of “have to log in every day” in games, but I’ve been happier for it.
I mentioned in the story trailer post that my last comic game that was a regular “I’m gonna play this” game was Marvel Heroes. It was a Diablo-clone at first, and a pretty middling one… but over it’s sadly too-short lifetime, it turned into something very fun and unique. It’s business model was… typical free-to-play, which means it was too expensive, but they also added a ton of characters to it and gave a lot of interesting play modes with it.
This game isn’t quite that, but watching through the Beta Deep Dive, I get the feeling that it might scratch a very similar itch. The ability to switch characters, to enjoy different powers, or to just play through different stories is all really attractive to me. The real game-changer, here, though, over other looter shooter games, is the addition of AI heroes in content. You can play this whole thing single-player if you feel like it (which I usually do), or get some friends and enjoy it together. That’s vastly better than anything Borderlands 3 or Destiny 2 have ever offered.
With the announcement of Hawkeye, we also get a look at how the game will be after launch… though, we don’t know if he’s a free or paid upgrade yet, and that will be a pretty big qualifier on if it’s worth it or not. Gonna be honest, I don’t care about Hawkeye even a bit, unless it was the Kate Bishop version (or the two of them together), so that doesn’t excite me. But I do like that additional characters are going to come with story and mission content.
The “please do this job we should pay others to do” stress testing – really a paid demo – starts next week, August 7th at 9PM, if you’ve preordered the game on PS4, but it’s only available until 9PM on August 9th. After that, Xbox and PC preorder customers get a beta on 9 PM August 14 until 9 PM August 16, and an open beta (without a preorder, I presume), will be available on PS4. All platforms will get an open beta again at 9PM on August 21st until 9pm on August 23rd. The game launches a week and a half later, on September 4th – customers that pre-order the Deluxe or Earth’s Mightiest versions get a 72 head start, though it’s unclear how that works with the disc-based versions of the game.
Of note, both the Xbox and PS4 versions will be offering free upgrades to the next-gen versions, so long as you stay within the same console family. Again, unsure how that works with a disc-based game, but nice to know you’ll get the fancy version later.
In other news, Halo still looks like Halo. Which, to be honest, I’m kind of here for. I’ve never been a huge Halo player… the single player is fun, but the multiplayer only latched me on modes like SWAT and King of the Hill. With today’s Microsoft Game Showcase, which still didn’t feature a ton of actual gameplay videos (which, honestly, I don’t care that much about), we have a good idea both on what Microsoft is bringing to the table and what their strategy going into the next generation is.
Watching through the whole stream, you can see that Microsoft is charting a much different course than Sony is for the next generation. Throughout the videos and teasers and even the gameplay, one thing that felt kind of obvious is that not that much of this really feels “next gen.” The reason for that, which we’ve seen coming for awhile, is that we’ve hit a point where the advancement from console generation to generation is less and less stark. The jump from PS One to PS2 was gigantic (especially when you mix in the Dreamcast and Xbox in there). The jump from PS2 to PS3 wasn’t as big, but still pretty stark, while the jump from Xbox to Xbox 360 was as big as the previous generation. Moving from 360 and PS3 to Xbox One and PS4… it was even smaller.
Yes, PS4 games look better than PS3 ones… eventually. They didn’t when the console first launched with precisely nothing of note to play on it. We’ve gotten games like Spider-Man, God of War, Last of Us Part 2, and many others that have pressed the technology to go as far (on the Xbox side, games like Forza and Gears of War equally push the amazing envelope). The jump though, was smaller than you probably remember. It’s easy to see it if you put a game against the last console, but just play through an old 360 or PS3 game and they’re just fine.
Microsoft seems to understand that the jump between generations is going to be smaller… which is why they’re positioning game pass, cross-play, and cross-generation upgrades as part of what they offer. They’re playing a slow ramp-up of the console, instead of a blitz to get it, and making sure that the Xbox seemingly has something for everyone. Sony is going to continue to have the best IPs and exclusives at their disposal, but if history is any indication, those are years off from being available… and may not be enough to justify the jump.
Microsoft is giving more with Game Pass, where you can play it on your Xbox One, upgrade to the Series X, or play it on the PC. That feels brilliant, and more than anything, offers a whole ton of value, to the consumer and to developers. The games may not have the flash that the others do, but I know looking forward to the next couple of years, I’ll likely play my Xbox Series X more than a PS5. Anyway… on to the games! Because there was a lot of them; they also hinted that there’s more to come, because they didn’t hit all of the studios coming up.
A lot of the things being announced were games that have been available elsewhere, but are finally coming to Xbox, or getting new versions. The most important thing, though, is that everything in the showcase, first and third party, are coming to Game Pass as well as for purchase. So things like Dragon Quest XI S, Destiny 2, and others are going to open up to a full audience.
Okay, there was one game that grabbed me, immediately, even though it was mostly a reveal trailer and very little gameplay:Â Avowed by Obsidian games. Obsidian is one of my all-time favorite developers that has consistently been shafted by studios they worked for. Since being acquired by Microsoft, it feels like they’ve been given freedom to make what they want. They gave us my favorite game of last year, The Outer Worlds (which is also getting a pair of story DLC packs), which proved Obsidian could make a better Fallout game than Bethesda can. I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising, given that they already made a better Fallout game than Bethesda ever did, despite being screwed over, shorted, cheated, and robbed by Bethesda to do it. So now they’re going to make a better Elder Scrolls game. And I am here for it.
In one of the weirder trailers, we get a Jack Black Music video to reveal Psychonauts 2. One of the cool things that you’ll notice for some of these games, with studios Microsoft has acquired, is that they’re still planning to launch on the systems that were announced.
They did drop a “one more thing” reveal at the end, which I know that a lot of people are going to go nuts about, and confirmed a rumor that a new Fable game is in the works. I wonder what a Fable game that’s not mired by the BS that consistently flows from Peter Molyneux’s mouth would be like. Curiously, it’s being worked on by Playground games, who is better known for the fantastic Forza Horizon games. They’ve never made a non-racing game so far as I know, but they’re a capable developer that can write a good story.
A few other Xbox exclusive-ish titles were in the mix as well… though all of them are also seemingly coming to PC, and not just locked to Game Pass. State of Decay 3 was officially announced, and that’s about all I can tell you about it. I’m not huge into survival horror games, but I know some people that just love this series.
There were a couple of other reveals that shined a light on things we didn’t really know about, or things that were a surprise, like Remedy’s CrossFireX. It’s a military shooter based on a Free-to-Play multiplayer game released on windows 13 years ago. It wasn’t big in the states, but was a big hit in Asia. This is the single-player story mode, spun off into it’s own thing, so… that’s a thing.
Another in the realm of old games brought back was shown with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, the sequel to a game just as old as CrossFire, and was cancelled back in 2014. There’s very little to go on, but it’s another survival horror game.
Another interesting reveal was a Warhammer 40k game, Darktide. You’d think something based on Warhammer would be an instant-hit in the video game space, but the games have mostly been pretty bad. Space Marine was a really underrated FPS that had some jank controls, but other than that, it’s been somewhat… yeah. The most interesting thing here is that the troops are seemingly Imperial Guard, not Space Marines, sent to fight Chaos forces and presumably about to be eaten.
Changing gears, a visually unique trailer that really threw a curveball on what it was belongs to Tetris Effect: Connected, the multiplayer expansion for the PS4 and Windows audio game that came out back in 2018. More than that, it’s a timed exclusive on Xbox, which would presume to marry the multiplayer model we saw on the Switch’s Tetris 99 with the unique gameplay of Tetris Effect.
Okay, Grounded clearly had some fun making the trailer. Opening up with talking about waiting for the biggest game of the year, Cyberpunk 2077, and how the studio behind it, Obsidian, “makers of games nothing like this,” it relied on some deprecating humor. Ultimately, it looks like Honey I Shrunk the Kids, the game, and comes off as unique and kind of fun.
There were a lot of other new games, like The Gunk from the creators of Steamworld. I own Steamworld, I’ve heard great things… but haven’t gotten around to playing it.
The Medium, a psychological horror game with an interesting technology called “Dual-Reality rendering.” Horror isn’t my bag, but it looks unique, and that shouldn’t be dismissed.
Rare is getting into making games that aren’t boring pirate games, with Everwild – Eternals, which has a unique and frankly beautiful art style. No idea what it’s about, but it’s great to see Rare getting back to making games not called Sea of Thieves.
What looks to be an interactive story game, As Dusk Falls, looks interesting, if vaguely “GTA Load Screen” inspired. One of the great things about what Microsoft does, more than Sony and even Nintendo, is shining a spotlight and marketing indie and small studio games.
Forza Motorsports, without a number now, apparently (it should be 8), made a showing. I’ve always preferred Horizon over the more simulator-oriented big brother, but it’s still often the best-looking game on the console. It didn’t show any gameplay, but everything was rendered in engine… so I’d expect gameplay would be close to that. Expect 4K, HDR, and whatever else the console can throw at it.
They ended the show telling us that there’s a lot more to show off. Ninja Theory showed up to talk about Hellblade 2, but there wasn’t anything to show off. The Coalition, devs behind the Gears of War series, didn’t have anything. inExile is prepping for Wasteland 3 next month, but they didn’t have a next gen version to show, I guess? Compulsion Games, maker of the absolutely terrible We Happy Few, wasn’t there either, and there’s no word on what their next game will be. Whatever The Initiative is working on remains under wraps, and World’s Edge continues to be anyone’s guess.
