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Fable 3 was fucked up by Kinect integration that was abandoned half way through development. Sam Lake has more or less said that he wants Alan Wake 2 to be Remedy's next project after Quantum Break. Whether that actually happens or not, who knows, but they clearly haven't given up on Alan Wake. (The gist of the explanation about the no-sequel was that, while it sold quite well, it was a slow burn and early on wasn't looking like it would do well enough to justify a sequel. Remedy is a business and needs to make things, and so development began on Quantum Break instead of Alan Wake 2.) Hey, and Quantum Break sounds awesome. Remedy doing an X-files/Fringe sort of thing? Eff yeah.

Wait, is this the XBO thread too now? Anybody else been reading about some of the microtransaction stuff going on in XBO launch games? Crimson Dragon is a twenty dollar game with progression systems built around an, apparently, crucial and explicitly finite resource that, when it runs out, can only be obtained through microtransaction purchases. I understand Forza 5 is doing some pretty gross stuff too, but the Crimson Dragon stuff breaks my heart. Killer Instinct is also doing the microtransaction thing, but on a free base game and with what seems to be a relatively reasonable business model.

This comment bothers me. In part because of the implicit assertion that no mature story-telling existed in games prior, and in part the assertion that story-telling in games is mature now. At the very least, i find Braid incredibly pretentious. We're venturing into incredibly subjective territory though, so i'll tread carefully.

MOTION CONTROL. ACK. As consistently horrible as motion control has proven itself to be, there's clearly a strong draw there for casual gamers. It's baffling and i don't understand it. Mapping vague, arbitrary gestures with unreliable detection to would-be simple binary actions is not more fun or more playable than giving you a button and telling you to push that button. Motion control is horrible, none of those games have ever worked right. The grisly specter of motion control will haunt us for years to come. Edit: Hey, touch controls also really came about this generation, right? Really started with the DS, didn't it? I feel alright about touch control for the most part. I don't like touch-only interfaces like the smartphones, but i think touch has proven itself as an acceptable thing for the most part.

I'd like to throw this thought out there: I think this earlier half of this last console generation was the generation where PC devs sort of "won" out against Console developers. Companies that built their legacy on the PC successfully transitioned to the consoles and sort of took over the world and obliterated mostly everybody else. Those efforts began in the X-box/PS2 generation, but when some of the most notable examples include games like Deus Ex: Invisible War, it's probably fair to assert that it was just this last console generation where it really found momentum. Zeus: A big part of where games like Assassin's Creed innovated was in simulating crowds. Don't forget that it was a big push in the earlier part of this cycle to render large, believable crowds of people that all had their own AI and collision. Look to a game like Hitman: Blood Money's Mardi Gras level to see a slightly earlier example of those efforts, where the NPC's are all clipping through eachother and are obviously being faked. On top of that, Assassin's Creed had some big aspirations about having the player blend into those crowds as a mechanism for stealth. It's been marginalized as the series went on, but it was one of the big focal points of the original game. Oh hey, and Dead Rising was, of course, another game that pushed crowds really hard. It's become something that gamers are now taking for granted, but it was definitely something that a lot of games tried really hard to make work earlier on in this generation of games.

I was simply agreeing with Lobotomy about Nintendo being at their best when their back is against the wall. Very recently, their output on the 3DS has been absolutely marvelous, it might end up being one of my favorite Nintendo handhelds ever, and even the Wii U is starting to look up. I certainly don't buy into any ideas about this generation being void of artistic achievement. (Hell, even Assassin's Creed started out as a bold creative risk, regardless of the annualized behemoth it's become. I mean, it was an open world stealth game built around innovative crowd mechanics and set in Israel during the crusades, it's pretty wild that it got the huge AAA treatment.) A lot of what Lobotomy is railing against is just the natural cycle of games development. Somebody has a good idea, and everybody spends the next few years trying to copy it. I think we're currently in the "everything is a Lords Management now" phase. In the early 90's, everything was Doom. Then everything was Command and Conquer.

I think the DS Zeldas are two of the weakest games in the entire series, but putting that aside, Galaxy is the exception that does not prove the rule. I feel that Nintendo had put out much more interesting games on the GC, more of them, and in a much shorter console cycle than they got with the Wii. I think the Wii is more than justified by games like Galaxy, Corruption, and Xenoblade, but i think the GC saw a better overall output from Nintendo. Hey, and since Lobotomy's going to take us down the "let's all feel bad" road, let me get on board with that: I goddamned hate DRM and service walls. Fuck that shit. I hate it, i want it to go away. I mean, DRM's more or less acceptable by now, i no longer feel like i am being more inconvenienced by it than pirates are. Service walls, however, are only going to get worse. Everybody wants your e-mail and your name, everybody wants to sell you something directly and sell your information to someone else. It's so gross. Halo 3 came out in 2007 too, which i think is probably the best straight-FPS of the last cycle. In my mind, 2007 is as good as that stretch around 1997/1998 was in the 90's.

Both the Wii and XBLA might be cautionary tales about the complacency and slow-to-react nature of massive corporations, because even when they strike upon something really prescient, they're still much too large and cumbersome to evolve along with it. Valve could really be described as nimble, when they see something disruptive, they're quick to act upon it and embrace it, turning it to their advantage.

The general internet response seems to be kind of a shit show, people are really freaking out about the state the game was released in. (The Steam board was filled with some pretty remarkable vitriol, and apparently Egosoft's site got revenge-hacked at some point?) Still, I have a friend who's pretty into the X series and he seems pretty happy with Rebirth. It sounds like a lot of the issues are standard course for Egosoft games, though there definitely seem to be some pretty gnarly bugs and omissions. Oh god, there's no auto-pilot?

I have played it, it's pretty good. Nothing amazing, but i was never a fan of the Wario Land games to begin with.

For 3DS-native stuff, the Guild games are mostly wonderful. (Liberation Maiden, Attack of the Friday Monsters, Starship Damrey, and especially Crimson Shroud are all easy recommendations.) Tokyo Crash Mobs is Puzz Loop with insane FMV from the people who originally created Puzz Loop, i think it's pretty damn wonderful. The two Mighty Switch Force games are awesome. Also, Mutant Mudds and Gunman Clive. Nano Assault EX is pretty great too. For the DSi, Mighty Milky Way is cool. (Mighty Flip Champs is alright too.) X-scape is a phenomenally slick Battlezone-like that way more people need to play. Dark Void Zero is also really rad. (No, really!) Metal Torrent is a rad little bullet hell shmup with randomized stages. The DSi ArtStyle games are pretty neat too. (I like DigiDrive.)

I think if you do a full system transfer, it formats any memory at the target 3DS? So don't move your SD card over first? I think that was a thing i heard? People accidentally wiping out all their saves? I'm not completely clear on all the details since i haven't done it myself.

As i understand it, once the licenses are transferred, you just pop the SD card out of your old 3DS and pop it into the new one and resume as normal. No save data should be lost.

I always really liked 3, i think Presto did a great job with it. (It was their last game, wasn't it?) Of the two games designed by developers outside of Cyan, i feel that 4 has way more problems. So many plot holes, all that terrible acting, and a lot of really random, arbitrary puzzles that have virtually no contextualization. 4's a remarkably beautiful game, but problematic in most other ways. As for the Myst Online/Uru thing, i haven't spent any time with Myst Online myself, but i've heard it introduces a lot of bugs into some of the ages that don't exist in the offline version of the game. Uru/Myst Online does have some really great ages though, it's worth playing... Just maybe not as a first Myst game. I think it's fair to say that Riven is the best Myst game though? Nobody would argue with that, right? I'll also say, with Myst V being the last big game Cyan made, i have some small concerns in the back of my mind about Obduction. I know the game was very rushed through its development and built on a tight budget, but i don't think that completely excuses it just not being very good.

The myst games are well worth playing, they hold up quite well. (The first 3 games in particular, and Uru with a few caveats. Myst 4 and Myst 5 aren't as good, however.) If you don't have any troubles getting Real Myst running, i think that's a pretty great way to experience the original game.

In the months leading up to these launches, there were a lot of stories coming out of Microsoft about them overclocking their components to make up more of the difference between the XBO and the PS4, so it may totally be the case that the XBO runs fairly hot.

I don't think roguelikes can really apply for that Groundhog Day comparison simply because you're being dropped into what is essentially a new scenario each time you start over. Since it was mentioned earlier on, I don't think Majora's Mask fits either, since you carry so much quest and character progress back to the start of the game every time you reset the clock. It's effectively only a time limit on individual quests. Dead Rising has you seeking mastery over a set campaign that spirals out in different directions as you poke and prod at it, trying to figure out an optimal route through it that will also allow you enough time to handle as many side tasks as possible.

The way i had heard it was that the X-box One's shell has been designed to ensure as much airflow as possible, there's huge vents all over the thing too. Microsoft is probably wary of another RRoD fiasco. (Which was, ultimately, an overheating issue.) If the XBO's case being a bit overszied prevents it from cooking itself, it's probably an alright trade-off.

I just finished a playthrough of System Shock 2. Hey, that game's pretty good. I played on hard, but since it was the first time i had played it in a few years, i stuck with a pretty basic navy-path hacker. I'm thinking about starting up a psi-character, but maybe not right away. I always really loved the research system in that game, having to check in with supply manifests to see where you need to go for required materials. The last few levels are still really clunky.

Have you played Dead Rising? Narratively, it never acknowledges that there's a loop, that's not what it's about, but the loop is entirely what the gameplay is about. Playing the game over and over, better understanding the flow of the environments and the questlines so that you can better manage your time and accomplish more in the game's time limit, while your character also retains his developed skills through each successive playthrough.

I really wish they would, i think the Armored Core games in particular might find a much more accepting audience on the PC.

Verdict Day's pretty awesome, i strongly encourage checking it out.

So who else might they have? Yoshi? Wario?

Yeah, Miiverse is heavily moderated.

I am pleased.