Shagger

I thought they did have that in the GTA games since San Andreas? They had a kind of system in place for Vice City, but it didn't work that well.

First off, welcome to VGR. The short answer is, it's pretty much essential. The storytelling elements of a video game are no less important than they are in a movie or TV these days. True, video game are more than that with gameplay elements such as tests of reflexes, strategy, teamwork and so on, but a poor storytelling experience can easily nullify all that. I'm temoted to say that because of that active element and direct connection you have through the gameplay, that games may have more potential than a movie or TV show. Of course there are game with no active storytelling elements like competitive online games, but very often even those have lore, characters and things to learn about the worlds they are set in. I'm not gonna say a game needs a good story to matter (Although I will say that about single player games), but exploring and discovering new worlds and following, or even role playing, the characters through those works is my favourite thing about games.

Starfield will be a big deal, but not much after that.

This is a game that has blown up, big time. Praised universally for it's wealth of content, it's lack of microtransactions, being hailed as a new bar for RPG's. It's a game that's so good, that even other developers are feeling compelled to point out to the public that they shouldn't expect the same quality from them going forward. OK.. wait, what? OK, I want to first make what every other news outlet and the "Court of Public Opinion" has made clear. That is bullshit. A new yard stick in the gaming industry is a new standard to adhere to, and people comparing future games to that games is both fair an inevitable. Even if it is "lightning in a bottle", it's still totally fair. It happened with Skyrim, it happened with Goldeneye on N64, it happened with Super Mario, Zelda and so many others throughout history. A new game setting a new slandered to meet, or better yet, try to surpass. Then somebody did, and the cycle begins again. However, these "complaints" mostly came from indie dev's terrified of feeling forced to meet a new slandered with limited resources, and and I get that. Technically, Baldur's Gate 3 is an indie game. However, far too few people understand this, but an "indie" game is one that is independently published. This could mean a single nerd working in a basement with no money, as is the cliché, but it can also mean Skyrim, Oblivion, the earlier GTA games, Fallout 4, The Witcher Series, Cyberpunk 2077, The Assassin's Creed series and even the The FIFA franchise because "indie" means independent, as in independently published, as in being published by the same company who developed the game. The scale of the game in question is irrelevant, but unfortunately most people see it's an "indie" game, they see an underdog, like that one guy in a basement somewhere. That is not Larian Studios. They are more akin to a Bethesda or an Ubisoft in this scenario. They have hundreds of employees, several cooperate holdings and many, many millions of dollars to play with. So instead of berating actual small, limited developers for realistically saying they cant do what Larian did, encourage them to lean from what the did and whilst not expect the same level of scale, pursue the level of fun? What those dev's did, who I wont name, was stupid, I won't deny that, but people shouldn't feel the need to suffer to produce something at an unrealistic standard just to avoid being berated online. And before anyone says it, I do own this game. In fact, thanks to @DC and "Bid for Rewards", I owned the game two and a half years ago as it was going into Early Access on Steam. Here's a screenshot as proof I did own and try it back then; And if you need more, here is the post I made on this very forum (as one is required to do in the "Bid for Rewards "My Confirmation Post"), and I don't get it... And honestly, I'm struggling to get into it. Even now that it's out of early access. It's a tactical, turn based RPG, something that's not really ben my thing in the past. I wasn't a fan of XCom, so.... yeah. This, however, may be more annoying because chance has a role. Now, I get, It's very faithfully based on Dungeons and Dragons and the mechanisms that exist in the tabletop game, but I don't think I'm being a bitch by saying that in a video game having your fate decided by chance in certain moments as being a little unfair. I get t, I do, and I am loving the combat. I also love how that "narrator" explains the upcoming situations, choices and consequences like an actual DM, but I just don't know if I could bear it. This makes sense in actual D&D, but in a video game, I'm not so sure...

GTA RP is essentially a mod, and given the sudden exception to mods Take Two expressed out of nowhere a few years ago, it's unlikely they'll embrace GTA RP. Knowing TT, the likely see GTA RP as something that deflects players away from the standard GTA Online, so will probably throw down the ban hammer and try to shut it down.

I know I'm not exactly neutral on this topic nor do I claim to be an expert, so don't take my word for it. That's why I would encourage @Empire Of Sight to get involved again in this discussion as he recently launched an NFT based game himself and could offer the "other" perspective. I did post a metaphor in another thread ages ago about the basics of what an NFT is, and here it is... Check out the other responses in that thread as well as other did go into some more detail. The longer version is, an NFT is a Non-Fungible Token. It's a kind of receipt for a digital asset, usually a piece of artwork, tied to a market revolving around a kind of cryptocurrency encoded into a blockchain. A blockchain is essentially a market management system that facilitates trading on this system. If you imagine cryptocurrency being to stocks what the stock market is to a blockchain, and that's the basic idea. Unlike the stock market though, profits can be made simply through interaction, like through a video game. The more people interface with it, the values of a blockchain and cryptocurrency increase as that value is determined by the size of the digital space that blockchain influences, and thus the assets held within it. Again, kind of like the stock market whare shares can go up of down based upon the economic conditions, the value of a blockchain and cryptocurrency can change based of the state of the digital landscape. The short version is, it's an unstable investment at best and a scam at worst. It's people who run those blockchains and own the cryptocurrency who are the only ones likely to make any money because the have thier own digital assets grow the more people feed into thier blockchain, it's basically a pyramid scheme for the 21st century.

I like those buttons too, but hate with a fiery passion when I can't reassign them. Especially when they're attached to what's supposed to me a gaming mouse.

I know it's a classic, but it's not something I've ever really enjoyed that much. Combat, Space Invaders, Missile Command and even Basketball fill more of my fond Atari memories.

Quite honestly, the biggest uproars I've seen about video games have come form gamers themselves, and with far more frequency. Some of what you described was back in the 80's and early 90's honestly was kind of justified back then because the ratings system didn't exist and video games were still marketed as kid's toys, not the age-rated, entertainment medium that they are today. If today something was marketed as a family film, TV show or why not, a game that featured the kind of violence Mortal Kombat had, I think parents would be justified in being upset and angry about it. As people who grew up with it, we know it was harmless fun, but the concerns expressed at the time, whilst extreme, I'd say were mostly fair. Now though, with the ratings systems and regulation in place, if Mummy Karen was to notice little Jimmy getting a lapdance or blowing somebody's head off while playing GTA5, she has nobody to blame but herself. I will agree with you the whole devil worship thing was complete nonsense. Onto the uproars from games. Sometimes they are justified, like the backlash that faced Battlefront 2 and it's horrendous monetisation or companies like Ubisoft and Activision/Blizzard have got over the abuse suffered buy thier employees. Destroying fun for greed or producing games at he expernce of the physical and metal health of employees is never justified. I would burn all of my favourite games out of existence, like The Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West, C&C Red Alert 2, Dungeon Keeper, Skyrim, Fallout, Final Fantasy, Tales of Berseria, all of then if people didn't have to suffer to make them. Expecting people to work hard and be productive and dedicated is one thing, but abuse is quite another. Other times they are at least as ridiculous as some of the things you described. Like the TLOU2 when people who choose to view the leaks, and thus likely had no intention of playing the game anyway, review bombed the game for having "trans" in it. Or Battlefield V. LOTS of good reasons to hate on that franchise and the companies behind it, but putting a woman on the cover because "Woman didn't fight in WW2" (When they did) whilst ignoring the fact that same woman was wearing a prosthetic limb well beyond 1940's technology was apparently OK. In the end, uproars are mass expressions of an extreme point of view, and extremes in points of view rarely represent the logical truth and the approach to a beneficial outcome. They can draw attention to something wrong and even start progress towards something better, but without filtering them though a process of rational, impartial discussion and civilised debate, it is likely to just make a problem worse.

I'd like think that now EA can't use the FIFA name and it's copyright protected assets that they might actually put some damb effort into this franchise for a change, but until another company starts making the official FIFA games, EA FC remains as the mainstream monopoly of these genre, so it's going to be the same shit. The best I'll expect from EA on this game is them actually changing the all the logos and banners that appear in the game and nit show the ones from last year because they were either too lazy or incompetent to change them. I'm not joking, that has happened in the past. But back to the point, it'll be the same half-assed, copy-paste, reheated leftovers from last year with the same egregious microtransactions and monotisation.

They are both fantastic games, you're in for a treat.

Have you posted this somewhare before? I swear I've seen this before... Regardless, looks interesting but a concept/idea is one thing, what actually comes out of it if the idea is developed into an actual game can change considerably for a number of reasons, and in this case I do see difficulty balance being a big potential issue.

Gravity Rush 2 and Sunset Overdrive are both phenomenal games that deserved way more success than they got. Gravity Rush 2 in particular is one of my favourite games on PS4. I've always been interested in Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, but never got round to buying. Maybe I need to change that...

You can play the original PS1 classic on your web browser at this link. Credit to PushSquare and Thier article for brining this to my attention. That's really all I had to say. I just wanted to share this. Enjoy!

There were a smattering of G.I. Joe video games on home console and arcades in the 80's and early 90's, but in more recent years there has only really been two. G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra (2009). A licenced tie-in (Although technically a canonised sequel) to the movie of the same name, and was received about as well. Then only two an a half years ago, there was G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout, third person shooter that, as far as I can tell, the entire world on every platform agrees to be "meh". Painfully average. Can't say I'm surprised, though. For obvious reasons G.I. Joe has never been very popular outside the US, so would never have the same kind of support a more internationally recognizable franchise would. And let's be honest, it would be wrong to expect much from something that, in the end, is based on toys from the 60's turned into the 80'iest of 80's cartoons.

More information has been coming out about these ports of RDR coming to PS4 and Switch and it not's not good. For a start, they are posts of the game that was on XB360. Not a remaster, not a remake, just a straight port with no enhancements other than the game running at 1080p on the PS4 and the Switch in docked mode. So even on the PS5, it won't run at 4K. Also, because it's just a straight port of a 7nth gen game, its 30fps across the board. And for this, they want $50. Rockstar and Take Two can go shove one of them 13 year old digital cactuses up thier ass! No wonder they aren't brining this to the Xbox Series X/S as you can already play that game on that hardware through Xbox's backwards compatibility, and at 1440p on the Series S 4K on the Series X! You literally buy RDR GOTY with all the DLC and multiplayer for XB1 for nearly half the price of this bullshit port with more content and enhancements right now. Yes, it's still 30fps, but it's better than what this "new" version is offering. This is a shitshow and the fans deserve better than this.

Honestly, I don't get why so many people are just not noticing how many single player games have been coming out, especially this year. Hogwarts Legacy, Forspoken, Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, Zelda: TOTK, Atomic Heart, Hi-Fi Rush, Dead Island 2, Remnant 2, Final Fantasy XVI, Baldur's Gate 3, Spiderman 2 and with big hitters life Life of Pi, Robocop and Starfield still to come. That's just to name a few. Most of the popular live service multiplayer games right now have been out for a while with more recent games not doing that well.

I sympathize with you in this situation, I really do, but posting about it like this can't exactly be helpful in avoiding this person tracking you here. Don't draw attention to yourself with this. The last thing any of us want is this person stalking and harrasing you on VGR. If he does show up, he will be dealt with, but please stop poking the bear. Thread locked.

This Web3, NFT stuff is just not something I'm interested in I'm afraid, but congratulations on this launch and the very best of luck with your game.

I'm in the same boat as @Reality vs Adventure and am pretty much a solo gamer these days, so would obviously want that to be more of a focus to game publisher/developers. However, trying to think outwardly rather of just myself and online multiplayer obviously has mass appeal, and there is nothing with that. However, I don't think the situation now is as bad as it was a few years ago when companies like EA were trying to claim single player games were dead in a pitiful effort to make them dead to the public when that clearly wasn't the case. A lot of great single player games are still being made and a lot of them, like Hogwarts Legacy The Last of Us and just recently Baldur's Gate 3 have been massively successful. I would like to see games offer quality in both multiplayer and single player as well, and it's in THAT area we're in a bit of a slump. For some reason game dev's/publishers can deliver good games dedicated to one or the other, but not both in the same package recently. This could be for a number of reasons; Game dev's aren't getting the resources and time they need to make games that offer both single player and multiplayer options. Game dev's themselves are spending to much time working only on one or the other because that studio is specialised and thus are not developing the wider range of skills they would need to make games that offer both single and multiplayer options. It could be sheer incompetence and laziness. Or it could be like @Reality vs Adventure said and publishers can't help themselves, thus detract focus from single player in these types of games and pull resources to focus of the potentially more lucrative multiplayer options and microtransactions. It's not there aren't games that have had both done well, like Titanfall 2, COD MW, Halo, Gears of War and Bioshock 2. Even The Last of Us and The Last of Us Remastered when they first came out had Factions, a fantastic multiplayer mode, but Naughty Dog and Sony have long since abandoned it. However, it feels like its been ages since we had a really good game like that and they are sadly missed.

I just want to point out that you don't need to use BB code on this forum. The UI for posts include word processing tools, including an italics tool. You can find these tools at the top of the space whare you type your posts and messages.

It's been a long time since I played these games, but I feel you can just jump right into Second Son and be fine.

Important Announcement It has been announced that on September 1st 2023 Xbox Games with Gold is coming to an end and will be dissolved into Xbox Gamepass as a new, starter tier called Xbox Gamepass Core. Current Xbox Live Gold members will be added to this new tier of Gamepass automatically. Full story from Gamespot. When this change occurs, this thread meant to keep VGR members up to date with the latest offerings through Games with Gold will become obsolete. There is really two options to choose from when it comes to moving forward. Reorganise this thread into a Gamepass Update thread. Retire and lock the thread. Having considered these options and consulted with my fellow staff members, I have decided to retire and lock this thread once this new service goes live. Trying maintain this thread as a Gamepass thread in such a way that is is useful would be laborious and time consuming. Xbox Gamepass user's receive updates on what is happening with the service that I don't think that a Gamepass Update thread would be worth the considerable effort that it would take to keep it up to date. If there is enough support from VGR members to have a Gamepass thread, I will of course make it so. Please share your thoughts on this in the replies.

And @LeoGrun, I need you to stop poking fun at @CawayGeway. Yes, even I and my fellow moderator @The Blackangel had a little fun with this at first and your posts have made me chuckle, but this has evolved from something comically odd to something more concerning, so please stop.