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I agree with the author’s assessment that Uncharted and the Last of Us use the right tool at the moment for their stories.
I don’t get the criticism about Call of Duty and Halo following Half-Life’s success of limited cutscenes and scripted events to tell their stories. In fact as soon as the article started these were the exact games I thought of to rebut his point. They are the best story based FPS games of their generation and they don’t need an open world that’s believable in absence of its own protagonist.
Far Cry/The Division/Ghost Recon are all Open World shooters with a believable world. They have terrible (IMO, feel free to disagree) stories though.
I thought his analysis was interesting just not sure what the point was and if it was what I thought it was that Half-Life negatively influenced stories in games then I disagree.
All time favorite game is so hard to narrow down. I’d traditionally always say Mario 3 and I stand behind that but there are so many great games that stand beside it. Donkey Kong Country, Half Life, San Andreas, red dead redemption 1 and 2.
I think if I was trapped on a desert island, I’d be fine with any of these as my only game
My kids don’t play it, but the whole model is so exploitative to both the “game makers” (the ones who make the various experiences) and the players.
Basically every second of every game you are being bombarded with a prompt for a microtransaction that lets you skip to the end, or buy a pet, or buy ways to grief the other players.
It’s then marketed by YouTube’s who acquire $1000s worth of in game currency and spend it on every single thing in the game. I don’t see how any of those things are fun but it makes me sad that these are the kind of games the next generation have as there foundational games.
Anyone who thinks gaming isn’t shit now and was better 20 years ago is kidding themselves. And thanks to Roblox and Fortnite it’s only getting worse
I don’t think we are going to convince each other, I am glad that you find value in being able to sell skins that you don’t want on the marketplace for credit. That is why the system was designed, not for it to be abused by others for gambling.
I more-so have problems with how the system is rife for abuse, and I think that it should be up for debate whether valve should have to do anything about it.
I actually don’t think they should have too, I think more responsibility should be on the individual and responsibility on the parents for minors.
I do think that we should expect easier parental controls with more granular settings to be able to allow parents to protect their kids from risky trades rather than basically just enable or disable the entire social features.
You can’t convert steam credits to cash directly, that’s true. But if you put all the necessary systems in place to be a casino, but then just rely on 3rd parties to launder the credits to cash/crypto, I don’t consider that an real distinction even if it is a legal loophole. It’s just the same as a pachinko parlor.
I guess that makes it more on the level of Dave and Busters or Chuck E. Cheese, except nobody is really serious about exchanging prize tickets from those places to cash/crypto like they are on steam. I suspect if they had a black market like skin gambling in CS:GO does though, there would be a similar push back as there is vs Valve in this scenario.
I do agree with your point about TCGs, they get by on the fact that commons technically allow you to play the game but they are similarly exploitative.
Lootboxes are literally gambling and redeeming them even look like slots.
Allowing the selling/trading of skins allows for a black market to emerge to convert them to currency. Valve created the conditions for this exploitive system to emerge and does nothing to stop it. You can debate whether valve has a duty to stop it but they are forever a black eye on gaming in my eyes. Just because they sell cheap games twice a year doesn’t white wash them
I don’t know if I’ve seen split opinions on Naughty Dog Crash games. It’s pretty much always been praised. Post Naughty Dog is a different story as well.
I think I like the author’s point of comparing the nostalgia most gamers feel for series like Crash Bandicoot compared to the nostalgia that modern day viral games will bring Zoomers and Gen Alpha but I also can’t help but be deeply offended by it.
If Apple wants to compete in the gaming market they need to release an Apple TV powered by the Apple Silicon M series processor and a big SSD.
Only the $1000 latest pro phone can play the AAA games. No one is buying a thousand dollar phone for Resident Evil when it’s $70 for the console they probably already have.
If you can convince people to get a $300 Apple TV whose games you can also natively play on your phone you might have a chance
The RPG mechanics didn’t ruin the genre although I did prefer the mechanics of earlier CoDs where in multiplayer everything is unlocked and you just use whatever you want.
What ruined the genre was the free-to-play style monetization and season pass paid update model.
Black Ops 2 was the first CoD to have paid skins, but we would have no idea how bad things would become. By the time Fortnite came along the multiplayer FPS genre was already long ruined
I think it’s really hard to quantify. They are both masterpieces even if you just consider the state they are today and not just the era they are made in.
Sure Red Dead Redemption 2 has “better graphics” but Link to the Past looks great in its 16 bit art style. I wouldn’t want to change the graphics. I don’t think A Link Between Worlds or the switch remake of Link’s Awakening improved the graphics for instance.
Red Dead Redemption 2 might have “deeper” gameplay mechanics but I don’t actually care for them very much. The cores system I think distract from the game, and Arthur is honestly a bit slow and clunky to control during fights; unlike A Link to the Past where fighting with the sword is smooth, blocking with the shield is easy to understand and the items add a element of strategy to the combat.
Ultimately I think that red dead redemption 2 is the better game and part of it is because the modern era it is in allowed the developers to tell an story and create a character that I was invested in more than any other in gaming. But ultimately I think it comes down to personal taste. Earthbound is another game that made me feel similar to RDR2 as far as story beats go. And if I had to pick one game to play for the rest of eternity, I’d be fine with either choice.
Good games are good games no matter the era. I don’t think you can find many serious people claim that Barbie’s Horse Adventures is better than Red Dead Redemption 2 just because it’s retro. And No serious person is going to claim that Suicide Squad is better than A Link to the Past, just because it’s a modern game
I mean who really cares for pub matches? If you are worried about competitiveness then play pugs. Team stacking and pub stomping isn’t competitive