What PlayStation games are you playing ?

"Boozer, you there, man?" lol Thanks, that's now my new meme for Days Gone.

While we're on the subject of Days Gone, there is a very, very interesting article with Jeff Ross, one of the creators of Days Gone, that was published today. He basically gives his side of the story which, to be honest, reads like a psychologist's wet dream. The level of delusion is unreal. The amount of excuses he makes not only proves he just doesn't get it but it shows that the game deserved to be panned. He keeps using "realism" as an excuse for badly implemented game mechanics. There are many games that do the whole post apocalyptic survival thing far better, one of which is Mad Max, which Ross directly name drops the developers for. Apparently, players are dumb and would have accepted the sh*tty fuel system if only Deacon St. John had provided narrative justification for us. Uh, no. It's because it burns far too quickly even fully upgraded which is compounded by the game deliberately wasting the player's time and fuel by making you travel back and forth for unnecessary reasons - one of which Ross even mentions himself which is the 50 second missions where an NPC delivers one line of dialogue and then the mission completes (which he admits was bad but was too late to do anything about). I actually platinumed Mad Max last year but didn't put it on my 2021 list because I don't regard cleaning up 1 or 2 trophies as a full playthrough. The fuel system in that game is so much better and it's a better game overall.

As well as Avalanche, they name drop Ubisoft and Rockstar which confirms my theory about the game trying to take examples from those devs (while completely missing the point). He then has the audacity to say that Batman Arkham Asylum - a comic book game masterpiece that influenced so many games thereafter due to its unique combat style - is "basic". Keep Arkham Asylum outta your mouth!!! Oh, and he's doing the whole Todd Howard, "it's not how the game starts but what it becomes!" sequel baiting nonsense. The whole article is just one gaming cliche after another.

He does admit that the final boss fight is terrible (just one of the many examples of how the game forgets its own mechanics, including your bloody inventory, for the sake of drama). He also says the auto fail stealth is terrible but that it was the, "only thing they could think of". Well, there is something else he could have done: don't write it that way. If the narrative is impeding your gameplay in such a way that it means you have to do dated 'game overs' in a world that is supposed to be "realistic" then that is proof that whatever story you're telling at the time doesn't work. In Assassin's Creed II if the player gets caught during crucial missions Desmond would "desynchronise" and be forced to start the sequence again, but the animus and how memories worked provided narrative justification for that because Desmond had to follow Ezio's movements to the letter. In later instalments, Ubisoft gave provided leeway with this by introducing optional constraints allowing for you to lose up to 50% of syncronisation before desynchronising entirely. That sh*t was figured out over 10 years ago for goodness sake. There's no excuse.

This Ross guy is insane - he thinks Days Gone should have got an 80 on Metacritic 🤣🤣🤣and that the only reason why it didn't was because of technical issues (despite the creative director challenging him on that). If anything, the Metacritic was generous. Most reviews I saw of Days Gone didn't talk about the technical issues as much as all the aforementioned issues and writing. Kinda Funny did a wonderful review listing all of the problems with the game and I don't recall technical issues getting even a minute of air time, if at all. What I loved is that, Kirk McKeand, the journo, cheekily noted right under Ross' comments that the PC Metacritic sits at 76 when most of the technical issues would have been solved haha.

Furthermore, even if it was entirely due to technical issues (which it's not) so what? So. What? I don't know when it became a requirement of journos to disregard technical issues. Bugs and performance issues actively take you out of the experience. QA testing is as much an art as the story and mechanics which is why it's truly an accomplishment that The Last of Us II and Red Dead Redemption 2 can look as amazing as they do (despite making the PS4 sound like it's about to take off) while having little to no technical issues. That is why Fallout 76, Cyberpunk 2077, AC: Unity and other games got absolutely pilloried at launch. Even a game as beautiful as Cyberpunk 2077 which IMO is the only true next gen game released so far (to the point that it literally doesn't work on last gen consoles) is cheating because it's cutting corners in the technical department to achieve its look. I love Arkane's Prey but it absolutely deserved that 4/10 score for having a game-breaking bug that would have been caught earlier if not for Bethesda's crummy review policy. Most journos are generous when it comes to bugs because they know that a day 1 patch will date their review so they tend not to mention them. Therefore, if they do mention bugs it's because it's spoiling the experience and not likely to be fixed by a day 1 patch. Days Gone was doling out patch after patch in its first week IIRC. So, "it's great after the patches!" is not acceptable.

And regarding the entire false equivalency Ross keeps drawing between Ghost of Tsushima and Days Gone sales: Days Gone was always on sale; I got it on sale and given that the other director recently yelled at fans for not buying the game day one I think Ross is being less than honest by not giving the full context. Additionally, Sony would have had higher expectations for the "Sons of Anarchy meets Walking Dead" pitch which really sells itself whereas GOT would have been seen as more of a risk. Lastly, given the development issues that Ross admits to, the budget for Days Gone would have ballooned. So taking all that into consideration, Days Gone is not as successful as Ghost of Tsushima, and what an insult it is to Sucker Punch and everyone who worked on that wonderful game to not only dare mention your **** game in the same breath but to steal its thunder on the day its mega sales were announced. Classless.

Days Gone would have been an OK game if it was about 10 hours long but at the length the creators chose it to be all its problems pile on top of one another making for a truly terrible game from the roof to the basement. I can understand how heart-breaking it must be for Ross who clearly poured his heart and soul into this project to then not have it turn out how he wanted, but his behaviour afterwards makes him look like a loser and a sore one at that. Creating conspiracy theories and whipping his rabid fans into a frenzy is not a good look, and cycling over and over in your mind about a previous project that went badly is not healthy. He should take it as a lesson learned and move on to his next endeavour which I'm sure will be a success if he approaches it with the right attitude.

Colin was a nasty piece of work even before he was exposed as a misogynist and him deliberately sending his fans to harass Kallie Plagge - who is often the target of sexist harassment for daring to be a woman with an opinion - was disgusting. Good riddance. Also worth noting that his girlfriend being mixed/ethnically ambiguous (not "black") has nothing to do with his political views. "I can't be this because my friend is this" is actually a meme amongst black people that we joke about because it's a lame excuse and makes no sense - the entire point of racism is prejudging someone negatively based on race before you get to know them. Therefore, it's not about how you treat the black people you do know, it's about how you treat the ones you don't. Of course, that's not a strict rule as many racists do treat black people they do know horribly, but the race serves as a barrier to getting them to embrace the person properly so my point still stands. All that being said and as mentioned by another poster, I haven't seen any examples of Colin being racist nor him being accused of it...

I enjoy the Kinda Funny crew for the most part. The only person I can't stand is Snow Bike Mike but I seem to be in the minority with that opinion. I enjoy the Gary Whitta and Greg Miller banter especially when they're just yelling st each other haha. Gary, in particular, gives no **** about remaining friendly with publishers or appeasing fans and will say whatever is on his mind. Parris is always insightful and I would like to see more of Barrett as I enjoy his stand alone shows. I miss Andrea Rene, Jared Petty and Imran Khan though. I also miss them all being in the studio together but the current setup is understandable given the circumstances. As for Tim, I always thought of him as a really sweet, genuine guy. I don't think anyone on the show is "fake". It's hard to judge an internet persona as being real or fake when we don't know them in real life because we're only getting a snapshot of who they are. To me, the Kinda Funny crew come across as really earnest, pleasant and fun people...which is why Colin was never a right fit.

Also, Days Gone is awful but I do remember it being obvious when it was day and night. As for the nests, IIRC, there's a big red circle on the map indicating the general area of them.