Featuring: Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen
This show has a wide variety of topics that don’t really connect up. Bel starts with talking about how easy it was to reinstall steam after losing a hard drive, and how impossible it has been to install either Origin or Epic Game Store as they appear to be in a state of limbo, both installed and not uninstallable at the same time. Grace talks about her recent adventures in figuring out what she wants to play on her brand new Switch without peer pressure of playing a specific title. This goes into a side topic about Pinball games and also a side topic about a missing style of Arcade Racing games. We dive into a topic of virtual tabletops and iTabletop specifically as well as a run down of the various options we have tried over the years. Finally we land on some discussion of Not-E3 and the wide variety of shows surrounding it the biggest being the PS5 reveal.
Topics Discussed
Why Steam is Best Storefront
Limbo of Origin and Epic Game Store when a hard drive dies
Pressure Free Switch Exploration
Grace gets a Switch
Talking about Pinball Games
Talking about the missing style of Racing Games
iTabletop and Virtual Tabletops
Not-E3
Talking about some of the wide variety of shows happening this year without E3
One of the things that I generally look forward to at this time of the year are the big reveal shows. Traditionally these were part of the giant cluster of events that was E3, but with Covid still boiling through the country those are all rightfully cancelled. What exists in its place however is a number of individual productions by the big companies themselves. Last night was the big PS5 reveal event and to be truthful it felt pretty much like one of the good Sony shows of old. It was chock full of interesting titles, a number of which were console generation sellers for me personally.
The above embedded video should be queued up to the beginning of the show if you want to partake of it. If for some reason the embed is not working for you, then it is roughly 40 minutes into the Gamespot coverage. I would say the best part about getting the presentations in this manner is that it was completely devoid of big showy in person events or the horrible before and after the show hype squad trying to get us excited about what we are about to or just saw. Instead the games themselves stood on their own, which is ultimately the way I would prefer everything work from this point going forward. I am not a fan of the correspondents telling us how we should be feeling with their ever Plasticine sheen of being paid to be excited for something.
If you don’t want to sit through the entire hour and some change show, here are a list of trailers for the games that were shown off specifically.
I didn’t get to watch this as it was actually happening live, but when I got off a conference call and clocked out I picked up the stream from the very beginning. So for those who were watching it in real time my “live tweets” were delayed by about thirty minutes. If you are curious about my in the moment reactions as I was watching the presentation you can check out that twitter thread here.
The Games that Sold Me
Ultimately when it comes to a new console generation, what matters most are the games that are on it. I am by nature a PC gamer, and as a result when it comes to playing a console, you have to hook me on the exclusives. That traditionally has been the reason to own a PlayStation console, is that they have games that never (or very very very belatedly) arrive on the PC. Xbox looks like a great console but since my play method of choice is with the mouse and keyboard and the vast majority of games ultimately release as well on Windows, it is an uphill battle to make me care. So as a result I am going to talk about the three games that will have ultimately sold me this PlayStation generation.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales
I love that we are seeing a hand-off between Peter Parker and Miles Morales with this next Spider-man game. It looks every bit as amazing as the first one, with updated graphics for this console generation. Into the Spiderverse is one of my favorite comic book movies in general and is most definitely my favorite spider film, so I am super on board for this game. Miles is just such a great character in general and this being a launch title has me real excited.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
I love the Ratchet & Clank franchise. It was probably the game series that I spent the most time playing on the PS2, and I was super into the most recent game that released a few years ago. This alone probably would have sold me a new console to be honest. I like the whole set up of dimension hopping, which should add a really interesting flair to the already frenetic gameplay. The thing about this franchise as a whole that I love is the creativity that it always brings. Super on board with this.
Horizon Zero Dawn II: Forbidden West
I love Aloy and I love Horizon Zero Dawn. I will absolutely buy the first game again when it releases on PC and I will absolutely play through it in its entirety. This was the game of the generation for me when it comes to the PlayStation 4, and I have been anxiously awaiting the sequel since 2017. The big take away from the trailer is it looks like this game is overall much larger. HZD had plenty of room to roam around but was not on the scale of many of the big open world titles. It seems like this generation is going to change that because it feels like we are covering a large area in the various biomes displayed, at least more variety that we saw in the first game. It also gives the impression of underwater combat and I really hope they stick the landing on that, as it is something that most games struggle with. I had hoped this would be a launch title, but I am guessing we will have to wait awhile.
Other Things of Interest
Little Devil Inside
There were a ton of titles that I thought were interesting. Godsfall still looks really cool but I am somewhat concerned as to what sort of game it might be. Right now it looks very much like a significantly higher resolution Skyforge, which isn’t a bad thing but definite the vibe I am getting. Pete and I talked a bit last night about the concern that this is a launch title and the game didn’t really show much as far as varied environments, which gives me a concern that this might be some sort of an arena brawler which lowers my excitement considerably. It also seems the type of thing that will eventually release on PC.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits
Kena: Bridge of Souls looked adorable, like a blend of an action rpg with Pikmin as you appear to be gathering fuzzy adorable critters to do your bidding. I was also into the trailer for Little Devil Inside which appears to be some sort of monster hunting game, or as I referred to it Arthouse Monster Hunter. Stray was a weird game full of robots and apparently cats, which could be cool or could be incomprehensible nonsense so it is too early to tell. Goodbye Volcano High gave a strong Night in the Woods vibe, but realistic looking Anthros are always a hard sell for me personally. Deathloop was the other big title that I am looking forward to, but it isn’t a console exclusive so 99.9% chance I will just be playing this on PC.
The Big Reveal
One Generation, Two Product Offerings
The other big reveal of the night is that we finally got to see what the PlayStation 5 look like. I gave it some shit last night, but overall I like the look of it. I don’t like it anywhere near as much as I like the controller design, and quite honestly it reminds me of a fancy USB hub or a cable modem. The key concern that I have is that it is vertical orientation, and I question if it will be a good thing sitting it on its side. Both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 appear to be designed so that all heat is vented through the center of the console out and out the top. Tipping the unit over may cause heat to evacuate the system less efficiently, and given the power that both are packing I would imagine heat dissipation is going to be key to sustained performance.
The other concern that I have with the horizontal orientation is that it appears that a large chunk of the unit is cantilever out over the base. I can absolutely picture my cats trying to hop up on top of this and flipping it off of the shelf. All of that aside it does at least look unique, and isn’t just a box… though admittedly I still greatly prefer the appearance of the Xbox Series X. The internet is already full of memes as is expected, but if I remember correctly there were a similar batch of memes floating around with the Xbox reveal so I think that is just part of life. The more I get used to this design the more it grows on me, but it does look like it will be a pain in the ass to break open for repair work, and this is coming from someone who has changed out several PS3 bluray drives for friends.
It’s About the Games
Horizon Zero Dawn II: Forbidden West
In the end however the design ethic of the console doesn’t really matter that much. When it comes down to purchase, it will rely solely upon the catalog of games available and this reveal hearkens back to some of the great shows from the past. The only part that was left out however was the price point, which I guess matters significantly as well. If this is a $600 console, I am not sure if one great launch game is going to make it worth the price of admission. If it is a $400 console this is an instant pre-order for me, but Sony has not shown a great willingness to launch consoles at a significant loss in the past and I fear a repeat of the PS3. I am more than likely targeting the all digital unit, given that I just don’t buy physical games and my hope is that comes with at least a $50 price break.
So what were your thoughts? Are you more interested or less interested in the PlayStation 5 at this point? Will you be instead following the path of Green and Black and going with the Xbox One X? Drop me a line in the comments and let me know your thoughts.
The post Sony PlayStation 5 Reveal Thoughts appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
If you have read this blog for any length of time, you will know that I have a habit of jumping around between massively multiplayer online games. One of the challenges of this is the fact that each game has its own infrastructure of websites and tools that I end up using. Occasionally I will compile these links into a single post, but more often than not I just pepper them in among dozens of posts as I happen to be talking about them. I know for example I have mentioned and linked to Destiny Item Manager a significant number of times, because it is one of those tools that I find indispensable.
Last week when I added the “Core Beliefs” section to the top nav of the website, it got me exploring various things that could work better. One of those was the [Game] section, which in theory was just a series of links to the categories associated with specific games or specific genres. The truth is, I am not sure it made sense nor do I think anyone probably ever clicked on it. From there I had some breakouts for specific games since there are a handful of games that I tend to play often enough to deserve their own category.
Yesterday on a whim I decided to restructure this into what is now the [Game Tools] menu. The idea is pretty simple, that I would take all of those sites and tools and plunk them down into a menu structure. The name of a specific game still links to the category of blog posts, but now expanding out from it is a series of tools that I regularly use when playing those games. For now we have a pretty short list of games, but I will probably continue to expand as I dive into other titles. For now I have collected some of the links and tools for the following games:
Diablo 3
Destiny 2
Elder Scrolls Online
Final Fantasy XIV
Grim Dawn
Guild Wars 2
Phantasy Star Online 2 NA
World of Warcraft
The [Games By Type] option functions much like the previous menu did, where it just links to broad categories based on game type. I’ve contemplated adding a General section for linking to tools that I regularly use like Parsec or GeForce Now. Before I do something like that, I probably need to spend some time reorganizing my categories to group some of those things together. WordPress Menus don’t really allow you to create just a sub menu title, but instead expected to be linking to something and for now categories have seemed to make the most sense.
Now comes the part where I ask for your help. I’ve gathered up some of the best tools that I use when playing these games, however I am sure I missed something you consider to be crucial. Please drop me a line in the comments with anything I might have missed for your favorite game and I will check it out and consider adding it to the list. My hope is that this can serve as a helpful resource for folks to return to in the future. Additionally since I seem to always be wracking my brain to figure out what that one thing that I used in the past was, it gives me a menu structure to keep returning to for my own benefit.
The post Game Tools Section appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Yesterday was the big reveal stream for where Bungie is going in the near future laying out a long term road map. As the countdown ticked to the show beginning, the screen showed a sequence of all of the places we visited starting with Destiny 1 all the way through Shadowkeep. All of this to hype us up for the big reveal, and then as the countdown ticked to zero we were presented with this screen. We sat in 8 minutes of 46 seconds of silence as a sequence of slides played out in front of us ending with a number of links to organizations that need our help in the Black Lives Matter movement.
I have to give Bungie huge credit for the way this played out. By hyping us to a fever pitch with the “best hits” reel playing out in the moments as the countdown ticked down, this came across with maximum effect. Those 8 minutes and 46 seconds that the Derek Chauvin kneeled on George Floyd’s neck felt like an eternity. I guess I must be following the right crowd because I saw nothing but respect for the display. I still throw some serious side eye that it is to corporations we turn for solace in this time of global need… but it only makes me think more than we are sliding into a shadowrun esc corporate hellscape. That doubt aside however, I still greatly respect Bungie for their actions in not only donating to causes but also in taking time out of their big moment to make sure we remember.
Over the last week we have been getting fragments of a video showing two characters heading towards what we can only assume is Europa. Eris Morn and the Drifter have been characters that are all too willing to blur the lines between the Light and the Dark, so it is befitting that they represent what is ultimately the envoy in dealing with the Darkness. Over the last season the ships were a present threat looming on the Horizon, but now they have arrived and are interacting with the various planets in our solar system in what appears to be a similar manner to how the traveler was described.
The big reveal however is that we are adding a third to this rogues gallery. The Stranger is a character that we have heard nothing from since Destiny 1. She is the infamous source of the line “I don’t even have time to explain why I don’t have time to explain”. She is also the one who called our Ghost “Little Light” and represented a character that knew far more about our circumstances and predicament than our then fledgling guardian first stepping foot into the Ishtar Sink on Venus. Now she has returned at the same time the darkness has returned and appears to be the individual ushering us into the new expansion.
I said earlier that Bungie laid out a roadmap, and in doing so they have announced the next two expansions and with that dispelling any rumors that a Destiny 3 was waiting in the wings. This in theory begins a regular release cadence of a new expansion coming out every September with the first being Beyond Light in 2020, The Witch Queen in 2021 and Lightfall in 2022. Additionally we have an established structure of four seasons per year, which in theory means every three months an infusion of new content. The feature addition for 2020 is that console generations will be able to play together without purchasing the game again as we transition between the PS4/Xbox One to the PS5/Series X. They also hinted that a feature on the longer term roadmap was unifying the players so that there was a single Destiny platform.
I played through the first mission, but that is pretty much as far as I made it last night. I’ve had this fraught relationship with Destiny since the introduction of the seasonal model. Especially with the season pass unlocking a number of items, but only if you manage to make it to level 100 each time. Instead of prompting me to engage and grind away, this has prompted me to check out since I know I won’t actually manage to achieve that goal unless I swap to ONLY playing Destiny. One of my frustrations has been that the seasons set up content that only lasts while that season is currently happening, and in theory content will be sticking around for several seasons afterwards solving one big problem I had.
They also however presented a new problem. They talked about the introduction of the Content Vault, and shelving old content that isn’t seeing much play time. This means that they are going to be removing a number of destinations and activities connected to them including the Leviathan with the release of Beyond Light in September. They said however that they were going to dig into the Destiny 1 vault and pull back out some content from there like the Cosmodrome. Pending they cycle content in and out of the vault on a pretty good schedule, then it might not be a bad thing. I am just not entirely certain how I will feel about losing what is currently my favorite grinding Destination… Titan.
In truth I am not really sure how I feel about the entire model going forward. Like I said, last night I only played long enough to make it through the first mission and even then only because the game didn’t give me a choice. As I loaded into the game the mission started without me having any ability to stop it. After playing through, I went to the Tower, did a bit of maintenance and then logged out to play PSO2. I am not nearly as the friends who are deeply engaged with this franchise. Yesterday for them seemed to be a re-ignition of a spark, and I am pretty jealous of.
It would be a lie if I said I would not be there playing Beyond Light in September. I like the concept of wielding the darkness and growing the abilities we have access to. However due to the stance of rolling out new content and removing old content, I am wondering what exactly we will sacrifice in the process. My preference will always be with constantly expanding the world, making it a more exciting and vibrant place to play. However it seems Bungie feels like they need to shrink it down a bit to keep from having to restart once again with a new game to keep the scope manageable. I understand that desire, and I absolutely do not want Destiny 3 to cause the same big reset that Destiny 2 did. For now I mostly just have to mull over these thoughts and determine at what point I will engage with this franchise again.
The post I don’t Even Have Time to Explain… appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
