Shagger

A standalone Quidditch Game has been announced. Harry Potter Quidditch Champions is coming to PC and console at, as yet, an undetermined time, but one can sign up to a playtest of the game now at this link. Full story from Push Square. Not too many facts about it yet, but this is looking like it's going to be a team based, competitive multiplayer game based on the famed fictional wizard's sport. This is from the same publisher (Warner Bro's Games), but not the same developers as Hogwarts Legacy and apparently has been in the works for a number of years, which when combined with the timing of this announcement is why there is no doubt in my mind that the absence of Quidditch from Hogwarts Legacy is all down to this. So if you can't tell, I'm annoyed. Not because Quidditch was absent from Hogwarts Legacy, but why it was in an otherwise brilliant game. In a strange coincidence, I actually beat it last night just after this was announced. Still, I don't want to come down too hard on Harry Potter Quidditch Champions because it does sound like fun. It's a multiplayer game, a good move, and so long as they get the balance of the game right whilst still staying as true to the source material as possible it has real potential. Getting that aforementioned balance I think will be an unenviable task as the sport was created as a story ark to empower the hero of the books and was never intended to be a real competitive arena, but I'm hoping for the best. And for the love of God, do NOT make this some free-to-play, pay-to-win dross, Quidditch deserves better than that.

I have played on a PS5 yet, but I see people remembering and creating thier own versions of Haptic Feedback. Or then again, maybe they'll get sued into oblivion y Sony for trying, but the point is that is what people will remember the most.

I feel that what @Reality vs Adventure has described is muscle memory and getting to know game controls. As for weather gaming can help with memory issues, I can see it, but I don't know for sure. And even if if does, I doubt it's a better alternative to reading and metal exercise.

MGS3, whilst a brilliant game, I feel was overrated. I actually preferred 4 and had as least as much fun with MGS2. Still, I would like to see this happen if I wasn't convinced Konami would make a mess of it.

All we can do is try to post and comment whenever we can. I have been preoccupied in recent weeks, but I will try to be more attentive and more active.

RIP Lemmy Kilimister and all of those unnamed hero's.

I use passwords that are impossible to guess, so just because some idiots use a birthday and thier name, doesn't mean the rest of us are that stupid. @Ravenfreak, what other forums are you on? I'm asking as a member not a mod'. I just want to know what gaming forums are out there. PM me if you feel more comfortable that way.

I really can't put it better than James Stephanie Sterling does in this video. What I find particularly bad about this is that they waited until the game had been out, got it's positive praise and review and now with those reviews on the internet forever and never to change, they add this shit in retroactively. As stated in the video, this is practically bad for people who know that are, for one reason or another, weak against these types of practices. What if, for example, games like FIFA and Madden were given adult rating because of thier lootbox mechanics(as they fucking should be), what would stop companies like that from releasing those games to get that E rating then adding thier microtransactions later. So what Capcom have done here is, at least in my opinion, worse that having these microtransaction in from the very beginning and Capcom should be ashamed of themselves. The regulators need to get on this kind if practice because it sets a very bad precedent.

There is a chance they may look at video games the same way as literature, music and artwork as expressions of our culture (And I'd say they should), but because video games are an expression of our technology as much as anything else, I do see it being more likely they'll see it the way @killamch89 described. If this alien civilisation was advanced enough to have the technology to reach us, odds are they would see video games as jejune and puerile.

This has been in the works for a while. I first heard about it a few years ago and I was (and still) really exited for it. I love Oblivion, I really do, it's story especially, but I have real issues with the balance of the game and it's terrible levelling system. Skyrim's mechanics in Oblivion sounds like a match made in heaven. I wish I had something to contribute to this project, by my skills in this field are less than zero. This is a great project and I can't wait to see it realised.

This Monster Hunter style RPG launched back in February and is free to trial for up to 10 hours until April 13nth through EA Play. That makes it available to Xbox Gamepass Subscribers too as as EA Play is included with that service. Full story from Eurogamer. But, Shagger, why are you discussing this as Gaming News? Surely this belongs in the Video Game Deals Sub-forum? Well that was plan, but then I looked into the game a little more, more specifically the Steam Page and there appears to be one teeny, tiny problem... ... The game doesn't work. And according to the article, the console version has problems as well. That's why I decided not to discuss this on on the Video Game Deals sub-forum because I couldn't in good conscience recommend this in it's current state. And given the fact the game has been out almost two moths at this point, it's unlikely these issues will be fixed before this deal expires. This looks less like a genuine promotion from EA, who as far as I can tell have barley promoted this game until now, and more like a desperate ploy to up the player count before making some report to investors or something. I can think of no other reason they would only now heavily peddle a game in such a poor state. It's also significantly more expansive than Monster Hunter Rise, a game that also has a demo on PC that isn't a limited time offer, is also available with Gamepass and is available on both previous and current generation consoles. What the hell were they thinking?

Maybe I didn't make it very clear, and if I didn't I apologise, but what I mean is in open world RPGs and action/adventure games, or at least the good ones, the reward is both adventure and the more vain stuff like loot, experience or whatever because that's the whole point. You want to know a game of that type that offers no adventure, nothing fun or interesting to discover and no stories to tell the player by exploring? Well, I'll tell you; In other words, not a very good one: While I'm at it, I wonder if Metacritic lists HZD as a looter shooter? Apparently not. Getting back to the point, Forspoken, like as aforementioned almost every RPG, also loot in it in the form of cloaks; Jewellery; And... nails? OK, so this game is a little unconventional; I haven't even played this game, but I knew there would be loot in it because that is what these games do, and yet the rest of us, who must be crazy, don't call them looter shooters. The point is, just because a game has loot, doesn't make it a looter shooter, and I can't believe I need to explain that to you because It's an obvious fact! So obvious in fact that it's actually quite hard to frame and explanation why into words. It's like trying to write the dictionary definition for the word "word". I really can pick out just about game of this type and find these kind of look mechanics in them... Hogwarts Legacy AC Odyssey Dragon Age Inquisition I could go on forever. It's, of course, not limited to equipment either, there's often weapons, resources and other things, but it's same thing of it's random, you find it, it's yours. Maybe it's something you want, maybe it's not. Regardless of what the "loot" specifically is, it's this thing with each game's indigenous spin on it throughout video games the world over, looter shooter or not. Nobody, not even you who has proven time and time again that his pride far out measures his cognitive abilities and logical reasoning, can be this stupid. Which is why if this sound patronising I apologise in advance, but if you don't get it, I have little choice. Just because a game has loot, it is not a looter shooter. Just like how a game can have a focus on story (The Last of Us) and not have it be an interactive narrative (Examples of Interactive Narratives: Life is Strange, Detroit Become Human, Telltale's The Walking Dead). It is not difficult, so either you are slightly stupid, or you know you're lying when you mislabel a game's genre like you have HZD. Why you would lie, I don't know. Maybe by calling HZD a looter shooter you feel that can influence somebodies pre-conception on the game, but whatever the case those are the only two possibilities here. I'm going to admit to something that I probably shouldn't admit to. My pride is pleading with me as I type this not to it, but I'm going to honest. You calling HZD a looter did upset me, and I'm going to explain why. It doesn't matter if you only write reviews for fun or a form of self expression (I do as well, believe me I get it), the very fact you expect or hope for people to read them means it's your responsibility to get your facts right. I agree, genre labelling is inherently restrictive because is shuffles works of creative expression with thier own unique identity into a conformed order and that's annoying. I understand that, I truly do, but that doesn't change the fact that when people are looking make a well informed choice about what they want to watch/play/read/listen to, understanding the genre of that creative expression is one the first and most important steps people take in making that choice. And in the end, regardless of why you wrote the review, the reason people read it is to use that review as a tool to help them make that choice. Like it or not, there is a general consensus to what fits into the conformed ideas of what genre. That is why it pissed me off when you called HZD a looter shooter because it's not your opinion, it was an obvious and glaring error. As somebody who has also wrote reviews in the past just a form of self expression, that grated me. When I write I review, I feel obligated to reader to as honest and as correct a possible, and I'm sure you do as well. However, I have enough humility to word what I right in such a way that it is fits to the conformed and defined parameters that I expect to be established in the mind of the reader, not my own interpretations. How glad I am you didn't actually call it that in you review, that's the silver lining, but I still find it incredible that somebody who writes reviews, even for fun, could make such a mistake and worse, take pride in it. If you say is true (And it barley is, the specific controversy stemmed more from the game being too far from the stealth roots of a Tom Clancy game to carry the name as well as the inclusion of NFTs.), then is looter shooter even a genre? You can removed microtransactions from an RPG and it's an RPG. This is nothing against what you've said here, you're not wrong, it's just now I've thought about it can a genre even qualify as a genre if begging back a controversial feature changes that genre? Maybe I'm thinking to hard about this and Ghost Recon Breakpoint was simply a poor execution of an even worse idea, but it does make me wonder. I already explained that character customisation, especially with acquired loot, is a huge a part of what defines a looter shooter. I didn't make it up, it's a common observation I've make in several of these types of games. I never said it was THEE defining feature. In fact the definition of a looter shooter is so loose (To the point whare I'm now questioning to myself whether it's even a genre at all) that I don't think there is such a thing as a defining feature for a looter shooter. Like I said, it doesn't matter whether people understand it or not, it's about what they think about when they hear the term. Certain terms carry certain meaning beyond the literal meaning of the words. That is why I would describe calling that mechanic in HZD a "lootbox" as misleading, even though it is literally a box you open with random loot in it. Again, as somebody who writes reviews, albeit only for fun, you should know why calling an in-game randomised look mechanic that is not attracted to any for of microtransaction a "lootbox" is a problem. Em, how about loot? With your broad, but stubbornly literal definition of a "lootbox" an argument can be made that looting the chests you find laterally everywhere in RPG's count as lootboxs. You don't know what you're gonna get and it is not revealed until you open it. It's the same thing, really. It could also be the same thing with looting dead bodies in these types of game. I admit that's a bit of a stretch, but the mechanics are essentially the same.

I don't think hunger, or lack thereof, has anything to do with it because I'm starving and I feel sick looking at it.

The big challenge presented to people when making a game about less obvious disabilities and mental health is, well, having to make them obvious. Ninja Theory managed to show schizophrenia and psychosis in Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. I posted about a while ago it in the form of a kind of mini review (Find it here), but to summarise it worked well in that game because the nature of Senua's condition. When observed from her perspective it is very apparent, the difference between her mind and a healthy one is very clear to the player, but still really brings you into her situation by blending your perspective into hers to the point whare you can't tell whether any of this real or not. With something like depression or anxiety, it's a much more passive and subtle condition that would be cumbersome and unintuitive to work into a gameplay mechanic. Even I as a suffer of depression can't think of a way to make that work that wouldn't be, frankly, embarrassing. The world looks normal, sounds normal, feels normal and undistorted. So what would you do, a quick time event to pull the character away from the edge? A button mash to help the character fight a panic attack? It's just awkward and wouldn't really convey it the right way. It works much better as something observed in a story that you can then influence from the outside, like with character Kate Marsh in Life is Strange. That way you see the full effect of the debilitation because that's the nature of it and how it's best observed. So whilst there are games that have done this well like Hellblade and Life is Strange, there are games that have done this sort of thing badly, like The Quite Man. It's a game whare you play as somebody who's deaf, so there isn't any audible dialogue or sounds. This had potential, it did, but the problem is that you are expected to be able to lip-read, like the protagonist can, to understand any of the dialogue because there are no subtitles by design. And even if you could lip read, you are at the mercy of the third person (Yes, third person) camera to be pointing in the right direction, which it often isn't. There are even points whare there are things he reads, and clearly read them, but you don't get to because the camera didn't give you a chance to. The game has other issues as well, but the problem is this context is that you simply can't relate to the character because you can't understand what's going on, so you can't sympathise with his motivations nor admire him for moving past his impermeant because he isn't struggling. You are struggling as the player, be he isn't. An admirable concept, but deeply flawed in it's execution. Maybe there was no way to do that in a way whare it would actually make the game playable, but still accurately simulate what it's like to not be able to hear. I don't know, all I'm sure of is that it would take somebody with more brains than me, not to mention more brains that those responsible at Human Head Studios and Square Enix, to make it work.

Let me answer you're very first question. Yes, this is real: Sonic is dead. He's been murdered, and it's on you to solve the crime. This is a point-and-click visual novel by SEGA that is free on Steam right now. Whilst I can't believe that this is real, the game looks to have been well received well by fans with it's story and art style receiving praise all around. So, if you ever wanted Sonic dead, good for you because I suppose it's cannon now.

OK, who asked to play as John Cena in a golf game? Seriously, who? This is ridiculous! This is like announcing Lewis Hamilton as a playable character in Call of Duty. Even as a fan of both, and I am, this just doesn't make sense.

Really? A Plague Tale: Innocence made you rage quit? I know that game doesn't exactly offer much in ways to defend yourself, but its not really that kind of game and the difficulty balance I felt was actually OK. A little easy, if anything. The sequel certainly fixed that (My Review), maybe even over-fixed... But anyway, onto the topic. Pretty much every "souls" game I've tried have compelled me to give up quick. Not because they were hard, I understand that's the intention, but because the difficulty was built around a trial and error approach. It's all about try-die until you figure it out, and to me that's not challenging, or at least not legitimately so. Except Nioh, that game I quit after a few moments (after taking an hour to get it to work) because it killed me for pausing to change settings, to fix a problem the game itself created in the first place. I'm a patient guy, but that style of game jus grates me.

Whilst the limitations imposed om modding on the PS4 version of the game are a problem, a positive consequence is that mads on PS4 aren't complex and thus don't tax on the system too much and there isn't much to go wrong. There should be no issue with loading an older save file after installing new mods, but be aware of is that if you load a save file that included a mod you no longer have installed, there can be problems. If it's a mod that adds a certain item (like the increase carry weight ring I brough up earlier), that item will no longer exist. So if you disable or uninstall that increase carry weight ring mod then load a save whare you had it equipped, you'll be stuck in the overnumbered position because the ring is no longer in you inventory. Be especially careful if you install mods that add new buildings or environments in the game becasue if you remove those mods then load a save whare you are in those said environments, the game probably won't load properly. I have used faster levelling mods before and they are what they are. It's a personal choice whether or not to use them as you might feel you level up too slowly in the vanilla game, but I from experience this can be a double edged sword. Some skills can get, lets say, "left behind" very easily and you might fnd some parts of the game a stuggle because of it. I have no experience of mod organizers on console, but on PC load order isn't really about loading the bigger mods first, it's more about what mods take priority. For example, if you installed a mod that alters the colour of the game's leather armour, but also a separate mod that changes the texture of the leather armour, you may have to load the two mods in a specific order for them to work in tandem. Again, I'm speaking from experience on PC, but I think it will be the same on console, priority mods get loaded after lower priority ones and will appear nearer the bottom of the list, not the top. Mod managers are generally pretty good at helping you load your mods in the correct order, so trust what the organiser is suggesting to you and you should be fine. Most modders will state in the description whether a mod should be placed before or after other mods in the load order, so read the descriptions fully every time to check.

After pretty much all the major players, including Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo and Ubisoft already confirmed that they would not be a part of E3 2023, this comes as no real surprise. The Entertainment Software Association, the organisation behind the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) sent e-mails to it's members confirming the this years event had been cancelled because the 2023 event "simply did not garner the sustained interest necessary to execute it in a way that would showcase the size, strength, and impact of our industry." No shit. Full story from IGN. I think COVID hammered the final nail into E3's coffin. Not because of the events cancelled or heavily scaled back due to the restrictions (although that certainly didn't help), but because it gave publishers and console manufacturers the chance to see the benefit in just hosting thier own digital events and announcements on thier own. I really believe that this is it now and won't see E3 back. And you know what, I'm OK with that. E3 put too much pressure on game publishers to make big announcements when the timing may not actually be ideal. I think it's better to let game companies make announcements to thier own schedule, that way it's surely less likely they'll do a "Cyberpunk 2077" and announce release dates too early to know that they can honour them. It's not like I enjoy seeing E3 collapse, but that doesn't change the fact the idea of it was archaic.

I think I have the answer;

Another day, another game released busted. This time it's the PC port of one of the best games ever made, The Last of Us Part 1 that is now sitting at a mostly negative on steam. Also steam reckons that game might suit me for being similar to Fallout 4, which seams crazy to me. The complaints range from bad optimisation to stability problems with crashes and the game running poorly. This port was developed by both Naughty Dog themselves and Iron Galaxy who are a developer who mostly do ports and support development for other developers. They have had mixed success with good ports games like Skyrim on Nintendo Switch and Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy on PC, to Batman Arkham Knight on PC (That really was a train wreck). I also hear that that the game itself was cracked on day 1 of release, not that one would want to pirate this in it's current state anyway without the patch's the game sorely needs. If you or someone you know is interested in this, it's best to wait until the game has been fixed and Naughty Dog have confirmed that they are working on it. Even so, it's really disappointing to see this happen yet again. There's no way they didn't know, so why not just push it back to make sure it's ready? I don't know why in 2023 game publishers and developers continue to do this. They know what happens, we've all seen it time and time again. The best advice being offered to anyone interested in this game right now is to wait. HZD had some issues at launch as well (but nothing like this) and did end up as a great PC port, so faith in Naughty Dog to fix this would be well placed, but they deserve the criticism for allowing this to happen in the first place.

And you know what, screw it. I'm going to give you all crash course, or in @m76's case, a "reminder" as somebody who actually knows his genres to what constitutes as a looter shooter. A looter shooter is focused (and that's important) on the player obtaining in-game items of various rarities to customise the appearance, characteristics and performance of the player in a 3rd or 1st person person shooter gameplay environment. The heart of a looter shooter is a quest to become better equipped, more powerful and, well, look cooler. Customization is key in a looter shooter with the ability to alter an item's appearance all the way down to the colour and even texture is all but a necessity. That is the core gameplay of a looter shooter. Not story, not roleplay, or even the combat. In a looter shooter, it's all about the customisation and the reward of obtaining top-end gear. A looter shooter doesn't need to be a primarily multiplayer game (Take Borderlands, for example), but multiplayer and/or social integration are a staple of the genre. Loot is almost always entirely randomised, not like in HZD with it very limited amount of randomization and predictability depending on the strength and type of enemy. You can't even dye your cloths in HZD, much less customise Aloy herself. No looter shooter worth it's weight in dung would be without full character customisation. Even in HFW where you can dye the clothing (But still not change Aloy's base appearance), these options are mostly earned through in-game trading with merchants, not as loot drops like how it should be in a looter shooter. In the Horizon games, the reward for playing the game, like any game of it's type, is the adventure, not the loot, so it is not a looter shooter. And I can't believe I just had to explain that to human adult to claims to be a gamer.

This was going to be a reply to @m76 on the thread I started in tribute to the late actor Lance Reddick, but since I didn't want that of all threads to devolve into some irrelevant debate, I decided to just do this as a new topic. This is here to basically debate what qualifies a game to be a part of a certain genre. I'll go into some details about my own specific nuances about this further down, but first my response to @m76 with regard to this: You earn loot from defeated enemies in most, if not all RPGs, because that's what HZD is. And to be honest, that is debatable as even though you play as Aloy, you don't really decide much in terms of her fate and how the story goes, so it could be described as an open world action/adventure and I wouldn't argue. But either way, it's definitely not a looter shooter. The same mechanics you described exist in Assassin's Creed, Diablo, Hogwarts Legacy and not to mention pretty every MMO and MOBA, are they looter shooters too? Seriously, you review video games, don't you? How can anyone be expected to take your reviews seriously when you can't even get the genre of a game right! I know genre definition is open to interpretation (The whole purpose of this topic), but that is WAY off. And by the way, I'd advise you to be careful when you through the term "lootbox" around because, for most gamers, it doesn't mean earned-in-game-only loot from destroying enemies in the form of a box you open with a random selection of items inside that can't buy through a microtransaction. People might misinterpret your meaning. Proper, professional reviews know how to make that clear. Onto the topic. RPG or JRPG? I briefly touched on what sets an open world action adventure from an RPG already, and to be honest I'm still trying to define for myself on what that difference is, so how about what the difference is between Western Style RPG's JRPGs for a kick-off. This has been discussed before both on and off the forum, and before I give my two cents I want to call attention to this video Jim Stephanie Stirling posted a few weeks back as I think it's quite interesting; Anyway, to me calling something a JRPG was meant meant to be derogatory, all it meant to me was calling into attention a certain style and philosophy of RPG gameplay made famous primally by Japanese developers. Whilst the gameplay itself can vary greatly, that philosophy to me was about combining strategy into the action and making it more of a focus. Western RPG's tend to be more about skill in combat itself. The art style is also a big thing for me as JRPG also tend to be more stylised whereas Western RPGs try to emulate the real world a little more closely. One is better than the other, it's just a different philosophy. I love both and do think that can be considered separate genres because to me there is that separate philosophy and style that separates them. for example, Dragon's Dogma is a western RPG. That's how it it plays, that's how it looks, that's how it feels, despite being the work of a Japanese developer/publisher, Capcom. Traits one would more associate with JRPGs have been in western made games too, like Child of Light, Temtem and Indivisible. There certain in life, but for sure the sun rises in the east, it sets in the west and this debate will go on for every moment in between until we die. What you have read is merely my opinion. Strategy Games For me this is very simple. A pure strategy game should take no skill to play. Nobody will be impressed by you juggling the pawns in a chess tournament, and it's the same with strategy games. It's not easy to generalise these terms to suit every strategy game out there, but rhe user interface is there to allow you to place your pieces, units, buildings or whatever whare to want them to best execute your desired strategy with no direct input no thier actions from you. Some strategy games will allow for direct control of things on occasion, like the possession spell in Dungeon Keeper, and that's ok, but the mean of the game is and should be and hand of approach. You tell things what to do, you don't actually do it. That's a strategy game. Obviously, there can be strategy and tactics in other types of games too, but when that combines a skill based input, then it's not a strategy game. It's some other kind of game with strategy elements, strategy mechanics. Bringing us back to to JRPGs, a lot of them are like that and may even be pure strategy games in combat, but there's still role-play, you're still being the character, so it's not the same thing. Anyway, that's enough from me for now. What's your thoughts on what defines a genre?

I've been playing World of Warships a lot the last few days and, I must say, I'm diggin' it. The subject matter itself is interesting to me anyway and the game is fun to play. I even find myself to be pretty decent at it and usually rank well. One match I had recently had an interesting ending for me. We lost, but I was the MVP with the best score I've ever had in anything; Anyway, if anyone's interseted in adding me me on the game's friend... social... clan... whatever the hell it is, feel free.

I can see exactly what she's trying to do. She thinks she can trip democrats up into saying "we don't care about babies" then selling that statement and obviously false narrative to stupid voters. However, I don't think she understands that just because she's "smart" enough to come up with this cunning plan, that other people aren't smarter than that, and thus won't fall for it.