gaming Tag

Frontier Development just announced that they aren’t working on console releases for Elite Dangerous anymore:

Over the last several months, we have been wrestling with the best way to move forward, and it is with a heavy heart we have decided to cancel all console development. We need to be able to move forward with the story of the game, and in order for us to do this we need to focus on a single codebase. Elite Dangerous will continue on console as it is now together with critical updates, but we will focus on new content updates on PC on the post-Odyssey codebase.

I bought Elite Dangerous on PS4 in 2018. There was a lot that I liked about it (like exploring a real scale version of the entire Milky Way galaxy), and a lot I didn’t (like the constant grind to get anything good in the game). I played it pretty consistently on console until I bought it on PC about a year afterwards.

I had been playing it on and off since then, and was pretty interested when I heard about the Odyssey update (that’s the one where you can finally get out of your ship and shoot things on foot). I got access to the “alpha” in March last year, which seemed like pretty much the same version as what we got in the real release a few months later.

Like a lot of people on the Frontier forums and on reddit, I was pretty disappointed with the Odyssey release. The game was already too buggy, and this update just added more things that were also too buggy. But I was assuming Frontier would eventually start making some progress fixing things up and at least get the console release done.

I uninstalled the game a few months ago and I figured I would download it again when it seemed like it was in better shape, but it doesn’t feel like there’s much of a point now. The state of the game isn’t great and it doesn’t really sound like it’ll ever get much better.

Reactions:

• Frontier Forums thread
• Reddit thread

I’ve been playing Magic The Gathering Arena (the digital version of the card game) on PC for a while. The mobile version is finally coming to iOS and Android tomorrow. And it has cross-play with PC and Mac.

I am so ready.

Bloomberg just published an article about Google’s struggles with Stadia. Things really haven’t been going well.

From Jason Schreier:

Players also didn’t like Stadia’s business model, which required customers to buy games individually rather than subscribe to an all-you-can-play service à la Netflix or the Xbox’s Game Pass. Paying as much as $60 for a single game, for it only to exist on Google’s servers rather than on your own PC, seemed a stretch to some. After all the hype, gamers were disappointed. Stadia missed its targets for sales of controllers and monthly active users by hundreds of thousands, according to two people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. A Google spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

There’s something deeply embedded in Google’s DNA that makes it great at solving huge (like exabytes of data huge) technical problems, but consistently struggle at creating actual products. If you need to manage lists of data (photos, documents, search results, messages), Google’s got you covered, but good luck getting an actual product that you’re happy holding onto for years from them.

New Cyberpunk updates, new bugs.

I have a feeling this is the fate of the game. It seems pretty obvious that whatever company/process/development/management problems fucked up the launch haven’t been addressed in any real way (and I don’t know how they would under these circumstances).

I would really hate to be a dev at CD Projekt Red right now.

From The Verge:

There’s never been a better time to buy a new game console or PC. While consoles have typically been held back by weaker CPUs, spinning hard drives, and average GPU performance, the next-generation PS5 and Xbox Series S / X are promising some big leaps in performance that will put them beyond even average gaming PCs. Nvidia, meanwhile, is claiming it will deliver the “biggest breakthrough in PC gaming since 1999” with its new RTX 3000 series of graphics cards.

I mostly played Xbox in the 360/PS3 era, and then I switched to PS4 instead of sticking with Xbox One last gen. About 2 years ago I bought a gaming PC and basically stopped playing consoles, but I have definitely been keeping an eye on what Microsoft and Sony are doing.

Xbox Series S info leaked yesterday, and everybody’s sounding real excited. $299 sounds like a really good deal for those specs to me. I think Sony is gonna struggle on price, but it’s obvious the competition has been good for consumers.

I just picked up an RTX 2070 a few weeks ago so I’ve been curious about ray tracing really taking off (especially now that the 3000 series are out). But it’s good to know the stuff I’ve been excited about for PCs are coming to the consoles too. It sounds like a great generation for PC, Xbox, and Playstation gamers. ¹

I’ve heard about Magic: The Gathering for a long time, but I only ever knew it as a physical card game so I never really looked into it or considered playing it. A few years back, a friend told me about the digital version of the game (MTG Arena) so I gave it a try.

It’s a great game that I end up getting really into but then abandoning once I get annoyed. I’ve played it on and off for the last few years. I really like the way the game is played (although I don’t think I have the patience to play physically), the sound design in Arena is dope, and I’m definitely into deck building, but I think I just hate the metagame (the optional deck building part of the game where you do some research and try to create and defend against irritating/janky/overpowered decks).

Anyway, they just launched a new game mode and a lot of new cards. It’s probably a great time to try it out if you’ve ever been curious about it.

From Polygon

An important part of this partnership, Spencer stressed, is the integration of Project xCloud technology onto Facebook. He has previously said that Microsoft’s biggest competitors when it comes to streaming games from the cloud are Amazon and Google. This partnership with Facebook makes sense, strengthening the xCloud platform with access to a massive global audience. Sharma said fans should expect to see click-and-play experiences on the social media platform in the future.

Microsoft announcing shutting Mixer down half way through WWDC was a really bad look. And choosing Facebook Gaming as the destination/partnership is just terrible. It sounds like they didn’t really have much of an option based on the goals they set for themselves, but this still a really bad outcome. Also, integrating xCloud and Facebook just makes it something I’ll never use.

Very disappointing.

Resident Evil 2 is a really good game.

I tried out Risk of Rain 2 tonight and was really into it. I played the first one a few weeks ago because it was in my Steam library (probably through Humble Bundle or something) and I’ve been thinking about the second one.

There are a lot of things I like about the game, but one of coolest part of the series to me is that the first is 2D and the second is 3D, but they’re still both basically the same game. It’s a dope example of literally adding a new dimension to a thing.

I like Microsoft’s vision for gaming. A lot of this sounds familiar to some of what they were trying to do with the Xbox One before they changed all their plans. They wanted to change some of the assumptions about how we should be buying, renting, owning, and playing games, and I was and still am all for it.

https://www.polygon.com/2020/4/1/21197360/xbox-series-x-launch-microsoft-phil-spencer-analysis

I’ve been watching people stream this. It looks good! It seems like a really deep experience that’s unfortunately still out of reach for a lot of people.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/03/half-life-alyx-review-the-greatest-vr-adventure-game-yet-and-then-some/

I played Final Fantasy 7 when it first came out and put a lot of hours into it. I got all the way to the last fight, but then figured I would go back and level up first. But then I thought it would be a good idea to find all the good weapons before the fight. I did side quests for months after that but never actually went back to the boss and beat the game.

I’m gonna actually do it this time.

https://www.polygon.com/2020/3/2/21160767/final-fantasy-7-remake-hands-on-impressions-ps4

My RSS feed looks exactly like the news ticker in Plague Inc right now.

Regarding PlanetSide 2:

I played it for an hour last night and died like 14 times and didn’t kill anything. One of my deaths was a teammate running me over with a truck. The worst part is that the death animation is trash so I got hit by the truck (it went through me) and then I slowly slumped over just like the other 13 times I died.

I’m not really sure I’m ever gonna play it again 🤷🏾‍♂️

I completely forgot PlanetSide existed. I’m gonna download it tonight.

https://www.polygon.com/2020/2/18/21142730/planetside-2-escalation-3-rumors-arena-canceled

I think this is going to happen a lot more over time as everything continues to move towards streaming/licensing. We’ll get used to it, but it’s sad.

https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2020/02/15/the-nvidia-activision-divorce-is-what-cloud-gaming-critics-fear/