[Mentalist]

THQ Nordic is on a nostalgia roll.

They are remaking Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom, rebooting Destroy All Humans, and also there a Diablo-like spin-off Darksiders game in the works.

Destroy all Humans has a kick-ass cinematic trailer featuring Rammstein.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 08 June 2019 - 06:28 PM

[Serenity]

Larian up to their usual shenanigans. No game footage.

[Mentalist]

So, Ubipass is a thing now. And with it, you can also get streaming through Stadia.

So I guess that's one way to circumvent not having a good library for Google- rather then having to buy a bunch of games, take your existing sub and make those games available to stream everywhere.

And Bethesda's streaming tech, "Project Orion" is supposed to cut the bandwidth needed for streaming 4 times. Which is pretty huge.

So Bethesda is looking into selling its tech to any devs who want their games on streaming platforms.

While on PC we now have EA Access, Uplay+ and Microsoft's own GamePass PC as subscription options.

That leaves 2K, WB and Bethesda as the "main" western pubs, plus all of Japan.

Makes you wonder which way this future will go.

[Cause]

Tell me about Mario maker? Do I want it on swtich!

I was always pissed I could not get this game! Wasn't touching the Wii U with a ten foot pole and then the 3DS version seemed weak.

Now however I'm a little apprehensive because Mario maker will require Nintendo online? Also I know it comes with some premade levels, and some fan levels are great and I enjoy Mario but I don't want to become bogged down in endless random lvls of crap.

Talk me into or out of getting this game!

[Aptorian]

Nintendo provide their own levels as far as I am aware. And there's a kind of user curation where popular levels are highlighted.

[Mentalist]

GreedFall, that new Spiders RPG has a release date: Sept 10th.

Some people are saying it'll get killed cuz it's releasing close to Borderlands 3. But it does have the benefit of being the only decently-sized Western RPG releasing this year- especially with Anthem being such a flop

[Aptorian]

I'm expecting greedfall to be such a janky mess. They should have released that game now or in some other slow window.

[Mentalist]

Aptorian, on 12 July 2019 - 03:00 AM, said:

I'm expecting greedfall to be such a janky mess. They should have released that game now or in some other slow window.

Focus is making September their month. The Surge 2 is also coming out at the end of that month.

I have faith in Spiders. Their games are jank, but it's always interesting jank.

And it's not like there are any other big RPGs on the horizon, especially since Ubi's doing Ghost Recon this year as their heavy hitter, and Biomutant seems to be MIA

[Tiste Simeon]

NK Jemisin's Broken Earth series to be made into an RPG:

https://www.theverge...lishing-fantasy

[James Hutton]

Anybody else gonna play WoW Classic, the remake of WoW version 1.12 (vanilla)? I mostly don't need to work during the week that it launches, and I'll be rolling a character to level with a friend. We might make it to 50 before the end of the weekend. If I like it, I'll continue. Else, I'll be going back to the Elysium private server.

I'll be rolling a Hunter and will name pets in Malazan style: bear will be called Messremb, cat probably Treach, desert wolf Ryllandaras.

The game will launch at midnight on august 27th. There will be a stress test next weekend, starting august 8th, during which you can level to 20 max.

[Malankazooie]

Unopened 1987 Nintendo video game could sell for $10,000

Quote

The game, based loosely on Greek mythology, follows a cupid-like protagonist named Pit attempting to rescue Palutena, the goddess of light, who is imprisoned by the evil Medusa.

"Get ready for the action and adventure of Greek Mythology translated to the Video Age," the game's packaging says. "Will you survive to restore Palutena's light and return it to 'Angel Land'? Only you know."

[Serenity]

Grandia HD Collection lands on Switch on 16th August:

https://nintendoever...rfB4fdC_wPjgC2k

[Khellendros]

I recommend you watch this excellent documentary (first part of a series) on IO Interactive and Hitman. It is fascinating.

The interviews with the developers at IO reveal how and why Absolution went wrong and what led to the (ultimately wrong) decision to release Hitman 2016 episodically. Some of the details revealed include:

- Absolution was originally even more linear, but then open-world games became popular again midway through its development, and a TWO-YEAR crunch ensued to retool the game.

- Neither Absolution nor 2016 (initially) hit sales targets.

- But even years later, 50,000 a day were still playing the Contracts mode in Absolution.

- IO expected 80% of buyers to buy 2016 per episode and only around 20% to buy the season pass, but it turned out to be the other way round.

- Critical acclaim did not translate into enough sales - until IO eventually made the first level free. Then they went from 1.8 million players to 5.6 million, and a significant number of those went on to buy the whole game.

- This happened after Square Enix divested themselves of IO. This is one of the most interesting parts of the documentary. It seems to have been a shareholder-led decision at Squeenix, rather than management, so that Squeenix could invest heavily in the new Marvel Avengers game. Squeenix management were sad to lose IO, and involved IO heavily in the whole process. Rather than just selling them off to the highest bidder, they gave them their choice of options, and IO ultimately decided to buy themselves out and go independent.

- This also meant that they had to let go 40% of their staff (part of the reason why several of the levels in Hitman 2 are smaller than in the previous game, and a number of new systems were ultimately dropped). The interviewees state that all those let go found new jobs in the industry very quickly thanks to good HR at IO and the support of Squeenix (though there are also no interviews with anyone who was let go, so we only have their word for it).

- Future of Hitman is currently looking rosier than at any time in the past few years, thanks to the belated success of 2016.

The other parts of this series cover the actually development and complex systems of Hitman, and are also well worth watching.

[Mentalist]

Gamescom starts this week. It's no E3, but there's still some publicity stuff around it. Tomorrow there's a few press events for the "Opening night"

-Microsoft is doing an Inside Xbox episode from Gamescom- and there will be more Age of Empires news there. I'm hoping for the release date for Definitive Edition of AoE2, as well as the Steam release date for AoE DE, but some AoE4 news would be nice, too

-Google is doing another Stadia Connect thing- expect some more exclusives, and I would not be surprised if they announce they bought some studios, because why wouldn't they?

And Geoff Keighley, the man behind The Game Awards is doing a Gamescom Opening Night" stream with multiple trailers and announcements from a number of publishers.

I'm not expecting any bombshell reveals, but I do want the release date for Biomutant. Also if Sega or Capcom have any more PC ports of their prior games planned, Gamescom's the stage to announce those.

Eurogamer has a handy chart for anyone interested in schedules: http://www.eurogamer...ve-streams-6041

I got Mondays off in the summer, so this works out nicely for me.

[Aptorian]

Forgot about this but I'll be home in time to watch the X-box conference live.

[Aptorian]

Dear God, this inside Xbox thing is worse than an EA conference.

[Mentalist]

AoK DE coming to steam Nov 14th. HYYYYPE!

Building new PC during Black Friday/Boxing Week, and gonna finally upgrade to Win 10 on the new machine. Playing AoK DE on that will be siiiick.

Edit| not much else from Microsoft excel cool trailers for GreedFall and Surge 2.

Let's see what Stadia has to offer...

Edit again: Orcs must Die is a Stadia exclusive. Okay...

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 19 August 2019 - 06:03 PM

[Mentalist]

Aight, Opening night impressions running post:

Gears 5 campaign trailer. It looks plenty pretty, but... I just don't care for Gears. Meh.

ooh, new game?
Car? Robots? Mechanical crap? Helicopter!
Whoa, a new Comanche game. THQN continues the retro-revival spree.
-multiplayer only, which is a bit lame. Still, good on THQN, bringing old franchises back.
-also from THQN, some drone racing game.

And now the new Need For Speed
-no loot boxes apparently. But you can customize your car through a phone app. Lol. EA, you just never change.

Hmm, a new space game. ah, the much rumoured Kerbal Space Program 2. That trailer is way too dramatic for the subject matter.

New game from Bamco-some new horror title. Bamco really likes funding niche horror titles. Oh, it's Little Nightmares II.

the Sony Predator game. teamibased shooter/sneaker. And then the predator shows up and insta-kills you.

Most hunter world expansion. There is an ice dragon. It is big and angry.

Oh, that shooter from Yager. The spacey one. Now in early access on EGS.

Ooh, Amplitude is making a historical TBS? Me likey. Sega is trying to make its own Civilization.

more Borderlands 3. Extra modes, okay.


Okay, an indie space game... ooh, everpace 2. Looks like a fun space shoot. I think I own the original.

FIFA going all street footy this year. That's an interesting take.

Ooh, the Disintegration trailer. Sci-fi things with a speeder bike?
Oh, this looks like Destiny, but with mechs.
-hmm, apparently there's some strategy elements in this as well? Intriguing.

The darksiders spin-off trailer. The game's being made by the original series creator, so I will buy it.

Hmm, the stadia exclusive, "Gylt"d

And another horror game. There's quite a few of those.

Let's watch the Epic sizzle reel.
-the 2 grabs are Magic the Gathering Arena and the next Abe's Odyssey game, "Soulstorm"

This just in: Sony bought Insomniac. RIP Sunset Overdrive 2.
-also, Erica is game that exists and out now. Kudos to Sony.

Anno DLCs... where's a new Warlords game, Ubi?


A pirate game... huh? Port Royale 4. Okay then, a new Kalypso city-builder.

Iron Harvest- not just EGS! Woot!
Gimme my GOG copy!
-also, the trailers looks slick.

New CoD. Eh.

More Death Stranding weirdness. I confess to only half paying attention to this. just odd, so much interesting oddness.

Welp, that's it. Nothing super-mindblowing, but a decent showing.

[Serenity]

Seriously impressed with how the Switch port of Witcher 3 is looking. Yeah, they've had to make compromises, but still, it looks completely playable in handheld mode and still looks pretty decent, too.

[Cause]

Is death stranding even a game? I have never been on the hype train for this and I keep waiting for them to tell me something about the game and after a while I stopped even following the news and trailers because I think its all just nonsense, with game journos trying to spin shit in page clicks as best they can. Still my friend last night wanted to watch the new trailer and it starts with the main character peeing! He walks up a cliff, delivers a package and than falls of a cliff. Okay!

So what's the game about? Is this add campaign working? I get less and less interested the more they share with us