General gaming discussion

recyclops

Another one for spiritfarer, great couch Co op too, some of the little tunes were in my head for months.

Retr0gamer

That's playstation showcase last night was pretty disappointing. Only thing that stands out was dragon's dogma 2.

For console players I'd highly recommend teardown, it's a bit of a gem. Been out on pc for a long while now.

The Marathon announcement was a **** travesty. What a way for Bungie to piss all over it's legacy.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120638003#Comment_120638003

Expectations were definitely set too high, particularly with fake leaks.

That said, what I did like about the showcase was that we didn't get a bunch of teases about stuff that's probably a year or two out. Most of what we saw was 2023.

Plus Snake Eater Remake finally confirmed after all these years. Screenshots seem to show the locations at the very least are very faithful to the original.

https://twitter.com/YongYea/status/1661508902507380738?s=20

Retr0gamer

I was just expecting more since this would have been their big E3 showcase. I guess things are different now. I wonder if nintendo will do a big direct that would be a E3 one or is E3 well and truly dead.

Also can't overstate what a sour taste the Marathon announcement left

TitianGerm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120638003#Comment_120638003

I was reading this morning that Alan Wake 2 is going to be digital only release.

johnny_ultimate

Honestly, I think the hype cycles around these showcases / direct-style events have gotten preposterous anyway. People always go in with sky-high expectations, expecting a parade of mind-blowing announcements based on all kinds of rumours, that are often disproportionate to the amount of hype even the companies put behind these things. I've said it before, but I'm sure other industries look on with envy at the sheer absurd hype levels and 'volunteer marketing' efforts that go on in gaming. Even in the glory days of E3, the big triumphant, all-guns-blazing presentations were exceedingly rare.

You see it every time with Nintendo Directs - levels of excitement they can't possible live up to, whereas Nintendo themselves will often just casually announce them a day or two before they happen. Was the Playstation one fairly underwhelming? Sure, but I'm not sure why people were expecting something extraordinary either.

I do think Microsoft has been doing a lot more to hype up its upcoming event, announcing it months in advance, so I suspect they do have a bit more to show than a standard one of these things. But even then, Phil Spencer has quite rightly acknowledged they have set expectations way too high for previous events, and has tried to bring anticipation levels back down to earth. And that's wise, because in so many cases it's not Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft themselves cueing up people to be super hyped.

JimBurnley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120638025#Comment_120638025

There were several games last night where the trailer was so brief and vague that i had no clue what it was. Marathon being one of them, also Talos Principle. What's the point of them even been shown.... i did think ot was a good (if not great) show overall tho, plenty to be excited about... some good if not highly original VR stuff, AC Mirage out on my birthday, Spiderman looks a shiny version of more of the same but loved the first one and MM, Ghostrunner 2, Teardown looks good craic, Phantom Blade and of course MGS :-)

J. Marston

The original cast are coming back for Snake Eater. That's good. I also never knew that Eva's voice actress is still a mystery to this day. Still credited to a pseudonym; Suzetta Minet.

Thankfully Kojima has no input. Otherwise it'd be Kiefer again, Lea Seydoux as Eva, Mads Mikkelsen as Volgin and Norman Reedus as Ocelot with Chvrches doing a cover of Snake Eater. (I do like Chvrches though).

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120638167#Comment_120638167

In fairness, the Talos Principle is pretty hard to show off. Yes, it's a puzzle game, but it's one long discussion on what intelligence is, what a soul is, etc. Having loved the first, I can tell you that the trailer for the second was perfectly pitched to me.

Mr Crispy

I think some disappointment is justified at the Sony showcase. This wasn't a State of Play, and they didn't have a showcase last year. So they should have had a lot to show from their first party studios, but didn't. In fact, there wasn't one new single-player game from a first party studio announced yesterday. That's their bread and butter, surely?

Instead we saw the start of the shift to GAAS. But instead of having TLOU Factions (or whatever it ends up being called) as their live-service poster child, they had teaser trailers for games from brand new studios that told us nothing about gameplay. Hardly inspiring.

Spidey aside, the best stuff was third party and some of the titles do look like they're worth keeping an eye on (even though most will be coming to other platforms anyway). But Sony's own studios left a lot to be desired imo.

johnny_ultimate

No problem people being a bit disappointed with what's on show, but I do think expectations for virtually all industry marketing events have ballooned out of proportion with what is actually likely to be shown. There's a whole mini-industry now built on rumours and leaks - from credible to bullshit.

The big problem is that AAA games are taking so long to develop now* that inevitably there are going to be longer gaps between studios releasing a game and being able to announce their next one. On one hand, you have complaints when games are revealed with a logo or cinematic trailer. On the other, there are complaints when any update isn't forthcoming. It's sort of a no-win situation. My own opinion is that developers and publishers should be more casual and open about projects in progress (like is the case with film) without relying on big marketing reveals to simply confirm a project's existence, because Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have all learned the perils of a splashy marketing reveal followed by years of silence or inactivity.

*except for Insomniac and Obsidian, who are both absurdly prolific by modern standards

Retr0gamer

The difference between games and other entertainment media is a big majority of projects get cancelled, some quick a bit into development. If nintendo or Sony were more brazen with announcing games well in advance people would be baying for blood for games that never make it out or get completely rebooted in development. I think it's a lot better to keep expectations more realistic. I mean look at all the nonsense around Metroid Prime 4 that was announced waaaaaaay too early.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120639170#Comment_120639170

Agreed. I think that's why they likely kept this showcase to just games likely to release in the next 12 months. It meant we didn't get huge reveals, but it keeps expectations reasonable.

johnny_ultimate

I do fully accept that game cancellations are more common, but I also think there's more room for developers to be more open about where they're at in the development process and set expectations accordingly. Like even just annual or bi-annual general updates from studios to say they're still in pre-production or moving into production on their next games and not to expect updates for a while would be healthier than years of silence IMO. There doesn't even need to be any specifics about *what game* they're working on mentioned too early - just a bit more openness and transparency to help foster understanding of how long these things take. This is of course mostly for first-party studios, as obviously independent ones are working under different conditions.

Mr Crispy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120639151#Comment_120639151

That's all well and good but if they've nothing big to show, just do a State of Play instead. Sony added to the supposed hype by making it a showcase.

Zero-Cool

I was hoping for Factions, Silent Hill 2 and Death Stranding 2 but I've a feeling Sony want to keep some big hitters for Geoff's show as they can't leave Xbox 'win' that one by putting all their eggs in the showcase basket.

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120639316#Comment_120639316

They really didn't though, they only announced it was happening a week ago with a short blog post and nothing more, they never hyped it up at all. It was twitter and the games media who went wild with unsubstantiated rumours. This is why I wasn't too fussed about it as there was nothing to suggest it was intended to be a big deal and it delivered exactly what they said it was going to in the blog post.

They included the two big hitters for the year we already knew about, they teased 3 new games of which 2 were completely new IPs and one might as well have been, then they left room to showcase lots of interesting 3rd party and indie games.

Mr Crispy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120639452#Comment_120639452

The blog post announced a Showcase, not a State of Play. Is there not a marked difference between the two? I've always been lead to believe that there was, by both the media and Sony themselves.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120639505#Comment_120639505

Was it that different really to the Showcase in 2021? Seems like a very similar size / selection of games: https://blog.playstation.com/2021/09/09/playstation-showcase-the-complete-recap/

Again, absolutely no problem with people being underwhelmed with what was shown - outside of some of the indie titles there's not much there that's particularly exciting for me. But I just think the hype was disproportionate to something that was announced in a blog post a week ago with a pretty accurate description of what the show ended up being :) And as @Zero-Cool mentioned, I wouldn't rule out a few more announcements in a few weeks so others don't completely run away with the coverage cycle.

Whereas Microsoft has been bigging up their event for months, and I even see they're doing *cinema screenings* of it in the US! I think it's fair to say there's a slight difference there in terms of hype-building, even when a lot of that happens independently of the companies themselves.

I do think this is a fair take from Keza MacDonald though, that increasingly there's not really the extra detail and coverage that you used to get from E3. That had its own problems, but better than the fact that a lot of the rumour / speculation stuff these days is all around the build-up and hype cycle.

https://twitter.com/kezamacdonald/status/1661495401453694977?s=20

It's the first time in a long time that xbox might actually steal the "E3" show. Forza and Starfield alone are enough to trump what PS had on show last night. Outerworlds 2 is another.

If Spencer is true to his word then we should start seeing 3 big games per year (one per quarter). So I expect nothing less than 3 good games in their showcase. Forza, Starfield and then 1 other. No idea when outerworlds 2 is planned for release, so remains to be seen if that will be the 3rd game.

Mr Crispy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120639552#Comment_120639552

I mean, that list leaves out Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine which had the internet going hyper afterwards. It also had release dates and first looks at multiple big first party studio titles, unlike last night. There was certainly little disappointment after it, from the media or fans "in general".

As for the XB show, well MS aren't known for their humility! But in their defence I think this cinema thing is a Keighley manoeuvre rather than a Redmond one.

Exclamation Marc

It was clearly let down for some people by the hype that Sony themselves didn't create. I would have loved to see TLOU Factions there but....it was never announced to be there, so that's on me. A lot of people are shítting on it for what it wasn't, rather than what it was, which is the wrong way to look at it entirely.

I do agree that the siloed 'showcases' mean that there's probably slightly less impetus to try be a show stealer but that has its benefits too.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120639836#Comment_120639836

It's nothing to do with hype. It was just a damp squib even without any hype. I was not aware of any of the hype, I just went in to see what Sony have to offer. Was pretty sure I'd see some spiderman and that was it. Even what I saw of spider-man I was a little uncertain. Oh I'll pick up the game for sure, but it will be on PC. I've yet to be convinced to buy a PS5.

https://twitter.com/Xbox/status/1661489113814679553?s=20

Xbox stoking the console war flames. Ive a feeling things are going to get nasty from now on since the merger debacle.

J. Marston

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120639552#Comment_120639552

Translation; "No fair. We'd used to be flown out to play the latest games and then wined and dined."

Exclamation Marc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120639889#Comment_120639889

That's fair enough. I saw plenty of games that I loved the look of and can't wait to pick up (Spider-Man 2, Metal Gear Solid, Dragons Dogma 2, Alan Wake 2, Sword of the Sea, The Plucky Squire) so each to their own. I have a PlayStation 5 so for someone like me, it did what it was supposed to. 🙂

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120640082#Comment_120640082

There’s major problems with junket / access journalism. But, done well (and on a publication’s expense rather than a publisher’s), having journalists on the ground, interviewing developers and playing games is also a preferable situation than simply having them watching the same pre-recorded live feed as the rest of us. I think E3 is done for, but it’s a shame there are fewer and fewer avenues for in-person reporting.

Zero-Cool

Speaking of... Sam Lake will be live on stage with a gameplay demo and then extended gameplay for the press.

https://twitter.com/SamLakeRMD/status/1661746777215881216?t=D7W0IzSnI-x-QlACV99Qkg&s=19

Exclamation Marc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120640333#Comment_120640333

The mention of Sam Lake has me wanting more info on the Max Payne remakes

Zero-Cool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120640366#Comment_120640366

I was really hoping for Max Payne news but the fact he's at summer game fest makes me think they might show a glimpse. Christ, thinking about MP 1 & 2 with the graphics and control of 3 is crazy enough but should be even a LOT better than that, can't wait to see it.

Anyway **** Sony for passing on Days Gone 2, director said we could all be playing it a month ago (very specific development timeframe for game that only made it to the pitch stage).

https://twitter.com/JakeRocket/status/1661527144676364290?t=YlPdKWvaDTEv2IcaR9A7bg&s=19