An interesting side effect of God of War doing so well is that it has lead to a boost in popularity in Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Which is great, because Hellblade is one of my favorite games and really touched me, and I think it deserves more attention. Dan Bull even made a song about it recently.
Random Video Game Crap
- Thread starter Frank
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Which is interesting, because Hellblade was already doing well. It's been making pure profit for months; it made back all it's dev costs months ago.
That has everything to do with smart development. It was a relatively cheap game to make, yet didn't skimp any on quality. They even called it a AAA indie game, and proved that there is a market for this type of game. I love everything that Ninja Theory did with the game.
But it's still relatively unknown, at least in the mainstream, and so the more exposure it gets, the better.
Jim Sterling's latest video covers the recent controversy over a new school shooter game on Steam. And it got me thinking.
I'm certainly against this latest school shooting game. It's in poor taste and only glorifies what's happening on a far too regular basis.
However, I wonder if a game about school shootings done in a respectful way could be done. Less glorification and more matter of fact. Something like, say, This War of Mine where it's a very visceral experience. Not necessarily that style of gameplay, but in its presentation. Where, rather than playing the shooter, you play a student trying to survive. Or a teacher trying to keep their class safe.
More than likely, unless a developer took a LOT of care and consideration in creating it, it would come across as making money off tragedies.
Just a quick googling on it tells me the game wasn't exactly a serious take, though. Calling it "Super Columbine Massacre RPG!" complete with exclamation mark is the exact kind of "done in bad taste" example I'm talking about.
GasBandit
Staff member
It took me a while to figure out all three (the second one I had to really dig to find), but the three games are Five Nights at Freddie's, Hello Neighbor, and Bendy and the Ink Machine.
I'd say your son is definitely the target demo of that video.
figmentPez
Staff member
TIL that the randomizer fad now extends to Final Fantasy IV. I'm going to have to watch some video of this to wrap my head around how that's supposed to work.
This could easily belong in the What Are You Reading thread, but given the subject matter, I think it's more appropriate here:
So I started reading the book Console Wars, which talks about the war between Nintendo and Sega, particularly between the SNES and Genesis. And as someone who grew up in that era, reading the behind the scenes stuff is fascinating. For some reason, I thought Sega was an American company. I had no idea it was just as strongly rooted in Japan as Nintendo. I knew that the Nintendo name originated as a playing card manufacturer, but I had no idea the name went all the way back to the late 1800s.
I skimmed a bit about Sega and how they slowly fell, especially with the failure of the Dreamcast. And it's kind of sad. There are some things that they honestly did well. I was always a Nintendo fanboy, but I appreciated the competition and variety Sega provided.
So I started reading the book Console Wars, which talks about the war between Nintendo and Sega, particularly between the SNES and Genesis. And as someone who grew up in that era, reading the behind the scenes stuff is fascinating. For some reason, I thought Sega was an American company. I had no idea it was just as strongly rooted in Japan as Nintendo. I knew that the Nintendo name originated as a playing card manufacturer, but I had no idea the name went all the way back to the late 1800s.
I skimmed a bit about Sega and how they slowly fell, especially with the failure of the Dreamcast. And it's kind of sad. There are some things that they honestly did well. I was always a Nintendo fanboy, but I appreciated the competition and variety Sega provided.
I think for me, the reason I never got into Sega systems is the games. Few of them really appealed to me. Sonic didn't interest me in the least. But mind you, I was still happy playing my Marios and Zeldas.
Plus, the SNES had Final Fantasy games. Instant winner for me.
I got into Sega games because my parents bought a Sega Genesis. 
TRAITOR! Filthy hedgehog lover!I got into Sega games because my parents bought a Sega Genesis.
GasBandit
Staff member
Depends on if it's MMO like WOW/Elder Scrolls Online, dedicated server large number multiplayer like Minecraft or DayZ, or drop-in-drop-out limited multiplayer like Saints Row/Borderlands. That last one is what everybody wanted Skyrim to be (and what everybody wanted instead of Elder Scrolls Online), and why there's an entire multiplayer mod for Skyrim still in progress.
For what it's worth, ESO is easily in the top 3 MMOs right now (after WoW and FF14) and isn't a bad experience as long as you aren't expecting it to be Skyrim or something. It's a perfectly fine, if basic, mmo with interesting story threads.
GasBandit
Staff member
Well, I mean, who does it really have to compete with aside from WoW and FF14? MMOs as a genre have kind of dried up over the last 5-10 years.
I was just going to say, that's pretty much all the MMOs
Ehh... not really.
Star Trek Online is everything a Star Trek fan would ever want. Yes, it's F2P, but all of the content is free and they give away great T6 ships at least 3 times a year, if not more. It's perfectly playable with no investment and they have a free expansion (Victory is Life) coming on the 5th that features most of the cast of Deep Space Nine reprising their roles as the Dominion joins the Starfleet/Klingon Defense Force/Romulan Republic alliance to help fight a threat to the Gamma Quadrant. That's not counting previous expansions which brought back a good chunk of the Voyager cast, as well Worf, Spock, Geordie LaForge, and even Chekov in his role as an Agent of Yesterday.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is still up and kicking, getting new content all the time and the Story of Knights of the Eternal Empire/Eternal Throne is still pretty damn good. Don't expect it to go away any time soon.
Champions Online is still around for the superhero crowd. Neverwinter is getting a Ravenloft expansion soon. The Secret World Legends JUST launched Season 2. Lord of the Rings Online is still getting expansions all the damn time. That's not including a bunch of other also rans like Wildstar and Guildwars 2.
MMOs aren't dead. They just aren't in the limelight any more. People aren't willing to invest in the large scale ones anymore without a big IP attached and people aren't going to be looking to move to a new MMO until fucking WoW dies.
I've played all of those, and I stand by what I said.
Though, you didn't list EVE, which is the only other 'good' mmo I would accept.
If I wanted to play a spreadsheet, I could go to work.
It looks like Dark Souls is still a mess, eh?
(I want to play it so bad ...)
GasBandit
Staff member
If you want to play a spreadsheet, there’s always Diablo III.
See? SEE? Now YOU know what it feels like when someone repeats your post on the same page.
—Patrick
Oh goddamit
And since we were talking about MMOs here...
Bless Online is a pass. So we wait still for something new...
Bless Online is a pass. So we wait still for something new...
figmentPez
Staff member
After watching a couple of people play, I've had the randomizer whip me up a seed, and it's been crazy fun. I'm nearing the endgame, and all five of my party members are wearing Adamant armor (found in 5 different chests scattered throughout the game). The settings I chose are so broken, but I'm having a blast.
The amount and type of randomization is highly customizable. Regardless of what settings you choose, you start with a Free Enterprise (the name of the mod), and can travel much of the world. From there you can choose to have a mostly linear progression through the locations of the original, with characters and bosses randomized or not (bosses always get scaled to be the same level as the one they're replacing), but with mostly area appropriate gear; or make it so that high end loot is randomly distributed through the world, or even have randomized shops with free items (including items not usually in shops, like the Adamant armor and Crystal sword). Key items can be left in their usual spots to force a more linear progression, or randomly distributed in a number of different ways..
You can reduce random encounters, put them on a toggle in the menu, or disable them all together and make leveling done only by facing bosses. You can change how exp gain works. You can turn off glitches that are used in speed running. Even replace the Zeromus sprite with random other sprites (like Glados or Darth Vader).
If you're a fan of Final Fantasy IV (FF2 US), then I highly recommend it. @ThatNickGuy you're a fan, right?