ampersandrew

Is this the much talked about Steam integration? I’d doubt it (what manufacturer will let you use their service to give money to another platform?!), but…I do hope I am wrong!

It's not just a throwaway line. It's something they've been building up to in their public statements for a while now. The direction the wind is blowing in a lot of countries right now is that of breaking down walled gardens, often times via legislation. Not only is this a matter of them accepting this as an inevitability, but none of their own walled gardens are responsible for their own success. Yes, they've got a Windows Store, but it doesn't make the kind of money that Apple's does. Their competitive advantage is that they can say, "look how nice and open we are," while Sony goes about business as usual. Meanwhile, in a world where the next Xbox is expected to just be a PC, they can legally play the Windows version of God of War on a machine called "Xbox", and there's nothing Sony can do to stop it. All of that exclusivity money they spent is worthless. And the appeal to an Xbox is that it plays all of those games and is a cheap entry point for Game Pass. The part of this most recent PR statement that throws me for a loop is how they're getting the full backward compatibility with old Xbox games, because that's the only piece of evidence that points to them making a traditional console and not a Windows PC in disguise.

As for what I've been playing, I made good progress in a number of games lately. I finally hit the turn in Devil May Cry 4. Even knowing roughly what it would be through cultural osmosis, it's every bit as disappointing to get to the halfway point of the game and realize they're just going to make you go through the exact same levels as the first half of the game but backwards. It's sort of like making New Game + mandatory in order to see the ending.

I also played a number of quests in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and it looks like I'm at about the halfway point in the main story. The biggest problem with the game so far has been anything relating to its stealth systems, as they don't give you much to go on, and the punishment is severe, but the story is pulling me along, and I finally leveled my way out of most of the game's tedium.

And here or there, I've been playing some more missions in Borderlands 3. The upgrade in game feel is hard to overstate. The writing's not great, but it's not so unbearable like its reputation would lead me to believe. The skill trees are much better, the shooting feels much better, the quality of life is vastly improved; all keeping me pumped for the fourth game in a few months. The DRM situation isn't my favorite, but I'll deal with it.

Honestly, much like with Marathon but on a shorter time scale, I think they just bet that there aren't enough fans of the old one to be precious about the name. The name had very little to do with why I (still) haven't played Prey 2017.

What the data pointed to, with tests going around the same time, is that Arc Raiders will likely hit and Marathon will likely bomb very quickly. Destiny isn't proving to logistically be a solution to their problems either. As we've learned more about Bungie since the Sony acquisition, it appeared that they banked on their success continuing forever, but it was very much running out.

It was a single word title that they own. It's probably how Prey 2017 used the same title as Prey 2006.

An extraction shooter from Bungie, wearing the skin of a game that company made 30 years ago, that didn't test well.

I'm playing through BL3 right now, and the game feel is fantastic. The story isn't great, but after 5 hours, it still hasn't hit a point where it's so off-putting that I'd consider putting the game down. Pre-Sequel's story did really bother me, but even then, the level design and bosses still made it worth seeing.

That interrupting turn sequence part is the one that upsets me the most, and I'm not fond of the extra drag on pacing that the "yes, but"s and "no, however"s can have over time. If they are putting their weight behind it, I hope it's resonating with others, but if they intend to ever replace their D&D with Daggerheart, I wouldn't be thrilled with the substitution.

I'll grant you I'm not typically the GM. From your perspective, do you see it making things more interesting as a GM? Because as a player, it's less up my alley, and the GM's response currency without that system is whatever they want it to be, because they're the GM.

It came from here.

Most games trying $70 have a hard time selling at $70 already. They can't will a new normal of $80 into existence even though they'd like to. At least not right now.

I'd seen it written up in other articles as coming from Star Wars, so perhaps it was that writer that was mistaken. I've watched them play, heard the rules explanations and such, and "yes, but" and "no, however" to skill checks aren't solving some problem I've had in other systems.

It's rooted in the light/dark side of the force from Star Wars tabletop, and kind of inherent to Star Wars is making out everything in the world to be light or dark as though it's that simple, but hardly anything in life is.