X-Box, Playstation, and Wii Game News

[yourbeliefs]

Eurogamer has published a detailed account of the collapse of Lionhead Studios. Fascinating and sad to read. Worth a look.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-05-12-lionhead-the-inside-story

 

[yourbeliefs]

Early Impressions of Doom 4 from players: Awesome Campaign, Crappy Multiplayer. It should be noted that 2 separate companies made each (id did single player, someone who stinks made MP.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/4j5tpv/doom_early_impressions/

 

[king3pj]

The company who did the multiplayer, Certain Affinity, actually has a pretty decent track record. The made multiplayer maps for basically every Halo game since Halo 2. The also made maps for the original Black Ops and did a lot of the port work to bring Left 4 Dead to the 360.

I'm glad to hear that the campaign is good though. That's really all I needed to hear to make my purchase decision.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Well they may have a decent track record but I think as the videos I posted showed, they COMPLETELY missed the mark when it comes to DOOM multiplayer. And that's the thing: They did MP for Halo and CoD, which are basically the antithesis of Doom Multiplayer. I'm not saying they're a bad company, but the idea that Doom players were going to embrace class, 2-weapon based multiplayer was incredibly stupid. Old school Doom MP brought to the modern era would have been AWESOME. Maybe by some miracle Bethesda will give the company the boot and tell id to completely rewrite it, but odds are they won't as that's rather expensive. Still, I'm up for a good SP campaign. Looking forward to when my copy arrives from GF

 

[yourbeliefs]

So, Homefront: The Revolution has dropped, apparently with a thud:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/4jpvlk/homefront_the_revolution_review_thread/

Reviews only seem to vary between mediocre at best to absolute sh*t at worst. Too bad. I mean, I thought the original was a piece of crap in terms of gameplay but had some things possibly going for it in terms of story. Looks like things haven't gotten much better, and it also appears that the PC version is exceptionally bad. Jim Sterling was complaining that he couldn't even get higher than 30 FPS (and he has at least a 980.) To be fair this game has had a troubled development due to changing publishers and studios (let's not forget that the original came out 5 years ago.) I don't see how the franchise can recover after 2 under-performing and panned games.

 

[king3pj]

Yeah, I thought the premise of the game seemed cool when they announced it but I haven't heard anyone speak positively about it since then. Really the podcasts I listen to aren't talking about it at all. I wasn't even aware that it was launching today.

 

[king3pj]

Early Impressions of Doom 4 from players: Awesome Campaign, Crappy Multiplayer. It should be noted that 2 separate companies made each (id did single player, someone who stinks made MP.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/4j5tpv/doom_early_impressions/

I picked up Doom yesterday and played a couple hours. I'm really enjoying it so far. It also looks great and runs great. I'm typically around 115 FPS at 1440p with all settings maxed on my SLI 970s. It's pretty unusual for a game that looks this good to also run this well these days. I should point out that AMD users have a 290 page thread complaining about poor performance on the Steam forums so things aren't great for everyone. A new AMD driver was released yesterday that hopefully fixed the problem.

I still don't think the multiplayer is as bad as old school Doom fans say it is but after playing a few missions of the campaign I get where they are coming from. The multiplayer actually feels like a different game. The walk speed is noticeably slower and the default controls are even different. In the campaign you click your scroll wheel to throw a grenade and F is the melee button. In the multiplayer clicking the scroll wheel is melee and G is grenade. Of course, you can set your own key bindings to make them the same but it's bizarre that you have to do that in the first place.

The other thing that makes the multiplayer feel like a different game is that when you want to switch to multiplayer the game closes to the desktop and automatically opens itself back up in multiplayer mode. If you decide to switch back to campaign the game has to close itself again and re-open. If they were going to do it this way they could have at least made the campaign and multiplayer two separate things in your Steam library like the COD games do. This allows you to only download and install the portion of the game you actually play. Since Doom is massive at 55GB I'm guessing there are plenty of people who would leave the multiplayer portion off their hard drive given the choice.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Yeah, I thought the premise of the game seemed cool when they announced it but I haven't heard anyone speak positively about it since then. Really the podcasts I listen to aren't talking about it at all. I wasn't even aware that it was launching today.

I get the feeling the publisher knew the game was crap so they didn't hype up the release at all and just let it drop. Didn't help either that it came out around the same time as Doom 4 and Uncharted 4, and the review embargo wasn't lifted until 3am EST this morning (aka the beginning of today.) I've read horrendous things though about performance. The PC version is all over the place. Total Biscuit (who has a TITAN GPU) had issues maintaining 60FPS at 1080p. And allegedly the PS4 version was even worse than that.

Update: OH BOY... The Community Moderator for the Homefront Forum is in COMPLETE Spin mode. This one made me laugh the hardest:



Update 2: Sorry, this one is better..



A quick glance at his other posts is just more deflecting of legitimate complaints and bashing the reviewers and fans slogging the game off.

 

[king3pj]

I received an email from Amazon this morning letting me know that my copy of Overwatch was now going to be delivered on Monday the 23rd instead of Tuesday the 24th. Since the release date was supposed to be the 24th this had me curious enough to do a quick Google search and see what was going on.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/overwatch-heads-to-retail-a-day-early-but-only-so-/1100-6439857/

Apparently Blizzard decided to let retailers sell physical copies a day early but you still won't be able to actually play the game until the 24th because they aren't turning on the servers until then. They are doing this to let people who buy physical copies pre-load the game just like those who pre-ordered digital copies did.

In theory this sounds like a good idea but I think it will end up backfiring on them. People who go buy a game disc, especially console gamers, expect to be able to put in their console or PC, install it, and then play. When someone snags an Xbox One copy from their local store only to be greeted with a message that the servers aren't available yet they probably aren't going to realize that Blizzard is doing them a favor and letting them pre-load unless they follow gaming news pretty regularly. They are more likely going to be upset that they new game they just bought doesn't work.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Well, it's not a bad idea in theory, but it's not like game installs take a super long time. I mean I've never sat down and timed it but in most circumstances an install gets to a playable state within an hour. I mean I do GF and often need to install discs before I can play, so as soon as I get home I just pop the disc in the drive and then take care of something else like dinner or watch the kids. This idea that people need to play their games IMMEDIATELY is sort of antiquated in this day and age. We've had to deal with game installs (on console) since the PS3. Did Blizzard picture this massive outcry of people flooding the forums saying, "I PUT THE DISC IN AND JUST LIKE ALL MY OTHER GAMES, THIS NEEDS TO BE INSTALLED AND I CAN'T PLAY RIGHT NOW! 0/10!" ?

Yes at the end of the day this will likely just cause more problems than it solves. Unless you work at Gamestop you're likely not going to know to tell the consumers that the game can't be played that day, and not every gamer is up to date like we are and is aware of these quirky situations. And let's face it: The game isn't going to work well on launch day regardless. Yeah I know it's Blizzard and they had the successful beta but it ALWAYS happens..

 

[king3pj]

Here is the other thing.... If everyone who pre-ordered the game, both digitally and at retail, is going to have their copy installed and ready to go on the 23rd why hold the servers hostage until the 24th? Just activate the servers on the 23rd and let people play the game.

 

[yourbeliefs]

That could be the next step..

 

[yourbeliefs]

Resident Evil 7 is allegedly going to be revealed at E3, and will go back to the series' "roots" of true horror.

http://www.gamesradar.com/resident-...&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=buffer_grfb

 

[yourbeliefs]

Batman: Return to Arkham announced. Arkham Asylum and City in 1 package for Xbox 1 and PS4.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Infinite Warfare is going to bring BLOPS 3's Chain Based movement system (Jumping, Wall running, Sliding with weapons drawn) into its own MP. Certainly some good news. I like that mechanic in BO 3 and to go through a new game without it will feel a little odd.

https://www.vg247.com/2016/05/16/ca...multiplayer-is-a-take-on-black-ops-3s-system/

 

[king3pj]

Batman: Return to Arkham announced. Arkham Asylum and City in 1 package for Xbox 1 and PS4.

Pre-order is available now for $49.99.

Amazon product ASIN B01FSO3X2Y
It looks like a nice visual upgrade and I'm sure this remaster will sell very well. I'll stick with my GOTY Editions on PC though. They already looked and ran great. I finished Arkham City on PC after I already owned my PS4 and Xbox One. I remember thinking at the time that it looked better than many of the Xbox One and PS4 games I had played. That is part of the reason Arkham Knight's problems on PC were so disappointing to me.

 

[WiCkeDuDe]

Wow. I just don't think I'd pay $49.99 for just those two games. I already bought them for x360. Guess my 360 isn't going away anytime soon...

 

[king3pj]

Wow. I just don't think I'd pay $49.99 for just those two games. I already bought them for x360. Guess my 360 isn't going away anytime soon...

Just wait a few months and you will be able to get it for $20 or maybe even less. One thing I have learned over the last few years is that it really pays to be patient with video game purchases. I used to pre-order just about every hyped up AAA game. I would end up with way more games on my shelf than I had time to play and I would often have games still in their shrink wrap when the game was being sold for 50% off or more. If you just learn to be okay with not owning every game on day one you can save yourself a ton of money.

I still occasionally buy games on day one but I'm much more selective about it now and even when I do I'm not paying full price. Green Man Gaming always has a 20% and Amazon Prime both offer 20% off pre-orders now. GMG often goes even lower than that.

 

[Derwin0]

Well, it's not a bad idea in theory, but it's not like game installs take a super long time. I mean I've never sat down and timed it but in most circumstances an install gets to a playable state within an hour

The install may not take a long time, but the Day 1 patch might.

 

[king3pj]

Infinite Warfare is going to bring BLOPS 3's Chain Based movement system (Jumping, Wall running, Sliding with weapons drawn) into its own MP. Certainly some good news. I like that mechanic in BO 3 and to go through a new game without it will feel a little odd.

https://www.vg247.com/2016/05/16/ca...multiplayer-is-a-take-on-black-ops-3s-system/

And the movement in Black Ops 3 was basically taken from Advanced Warfare. There were some changes but it was pretty similar. Going back to the old movement after 2 games with jet packs might feel pretty limited. I think it will be in every COD game going forward unless they go back to a historic setting where it wouldn't make sense like WW2 or Vietnam.