T w e n t y S i d e d
I have a history of not getting especially excited over unreleased games. I didn’t trust the hype on the lead up to No Man’s Sky. I was very apathetic about Cyberpunk leading up to its release. I have ZERO interest in GTA6’s release. I just don’t trust that a game is going to be as good as the marketing and hype machine insists it will be.
In the coming year I have nothing in particular I’m looking forward to. I’m knocking out my backlog one game at a time, whether it’s by completion or an acceptance of lack of interest. I suppose I look forward to the Fallout remakes, but other than that I don’t have anything on the horizon to care about.
I’m happy to be wrong here because I like anticipating things if it doesn’t feel overblown. So tell me, what else should I be hyped about in the next year or so?
My wife and I are helping friends with a sudden and difficult move. Plus I’m having some fun PTSD symptoms that need to be endured. So that’s the reason for the brief post and there’s a good chance that I miss posting next week. Everything is fine, exciting even. Its just a lot. This summer has been crazy and fall is looking just as nuts. Thanks for hanging in there.
Also I really appreciated your insight on my thoughts last week. I just don’t have the wherewithal to respond individually right now.
Marvel's Civil War
Team Cap or Team Iron Man? More importantly, what basis would you use for making that decision?
Linux vs. Windows
Finally, the age-old debate has been settled.
Revisiting a Dead Engine
I wanted to take the file format of a late 90s shooter and read it in modern-day Unity. This is the result.
Who Broke the In-Game Economy?
Why are RPG economies so bad? Why are shopkeepers so mercenary, why are the prices so crazy, and why do you always end up a gazillionaire by the end of the game? Can't we just have a sensible balanced economy?
If Star Wars Was Made in 2006?
Imagine if the original Star Wars hadn't appeared in the 1970's, but instead was pitched to studios in 2006. How would that turn out?
I have some games on my wishlist which are yet to be released which I’m kinda looking forward to. Things like Quiet Express and Double Shake, for example. That said, I’m not as hype for them as I was for Time Stranger or Assetto Corsa Rally (I kinda am still hype for ACR because it’s still in early access and I can’t wait for the update to land which adds full modding support). It may be just the combination of nothing super exciting being announced and my head chemicals not being in a hype balance.
In the building game area, Transport Fever 3 is due Sept 29, and it’s trying to expand its logistic empire roots into some city-building elements, invading Cities Skylines territory. I’m looking forward to see how they do.
And Star Wars: Zero Company came out a week or so ago, and if you’re into XCOM-like turn-based tactical games this is good. A bunch of the XCOM team bailed from Firaxis a year or so ago, and this is their first. It plays like a slightly more forgiving XCOM (not a bad thing – still XCOM, baby) with a top tier IP story layer and companion bonds formed through sharing missions. I’ve been enjoying it.
I’m also not hyped for anything specific.
But I am very excited about the future. There are so many indies and AA studios rolling out stuff that you just don’t know where the next hit is coming from. A lot of the good stuff from last year were debut games that nobody was expecting. But there’s also a crowd of indies who had a breakthrough hit and are now following that up.
The reality is that gamemaking is hard, and you can’t know how a project will turn out, sometimes it comes together at the very last moment. Sometimes not. And that absolutely sucks for employment and financial stability in the industry. But due to the volume of output, the ever rising experience of devs and some of the financial asshats that have been in charge burning their fingers and getting out I think the quality of games will only increase.
I don’t watch trailers anymore, you can’t trust those. But I read plenty of reviews.
I think I stopped paying attention to gaming entirely late last year. I know about GTA 6, because that one’s big enough to cross ordinary news outlets, but basically everything later than Donkey Kong Bananza remains a black box. Except for, uh… the Dark Pictures Anthology. The last one was bad enough it made me try to write a parody. Which has since stalled, because my attempt at scriptspeak is indecipherable and the plot is lost within it.
So someone let me know about the big RPGs. If they make another Like A Dragon I’ll probably get it.
Big RPGs? Depending on your definition of ‘big’, Owlcat is working on Warhammer 40,000 Dark Heresy. Rogue Trader was pretty good, so I imagine DH is going to be of the same quality or better. That said, I’m not very fond of the 40k setting, so I can understand if you don’t get very excited about the game.
Nothing wrong with ignoring hype, hype is there to try and get you to stop thinking and just buy.
Discussion of the Witcher games – and replaying Cyberpunk 2077 – has got me curious about the upcoming Witcher 4. I don’t care about Ciri at all, and don’t see where the story goes from the end of Witcher 3….but hey, the studio’s last two games were very good, so…