Video Games Thread

[harv]

Number 261 in Europe and 40 in the UK now for online matches, Played 33, Won 18, Drawn 3 and Lost 12. Not too shabby

Thought I'd get automatically promoted after winning the League but it turns out you enter a playoff with the relegated side of the Pro league to fight for promotion/survival. Oh well, wasn't much in it, I'll have it next season.

[Late]

Games With Gold for June:

Xbox One:
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood
Halo: Spartan Assault
(As with PS+ the game will only be available while you keep your subscription going.)

Xbox 360:
Dark Souls
Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition
Charlie Murder
(Available to play even if your subscription lapses.)


They're also starting a "Deals With Gold" initiative, offering discounts of 50%-75% on select games. In June these will be Ryse Son Of Rome and Forza Motorsport 5.

[harv]

I wonder if Microsoft are going to implement a 3DS-esque Ambassador Programme..? Would do them a bit of good, a 6 months ordeven 1 year subscription of Live Gold for free for early adopters perhaps..? There must be a fair amount of people a bit pissed off that they've been forced to pay a premium for Kinect.

I'd imagine there would be a fair few developers a bit pissed off that Microsoft are making Kinect an optional extra, I can't see that many people choosing to buy it if they don't have to and that will mean the userbase is going to be split.

[jman]

There won't be any developers pissed off.. they will be pleased I'd imagine... initial adopters could be left feeling a bit ripped off... especially since Microsoft categorically said there was no way to remove Kinect.

... me, I'm a bit meh over it.. lets face it, its not been the success Microsoft wanted it to be.. I still think there is merit for it and the technology is pretty fantastic.. I use it everyday to turn my "XBOX ON" at least - but if given the option of a Kinect-less/Kinect-included SKU at launch - I don't honestly know what I would of chosen.. with hindsight, probably Kinect-less - as I don't think its worth the extra £100 or whatever it added on to the cost - bear in mind that over time I did get quite good usage over Kinect v1.0 but I did wait for a drop in price before buying it.


The Games With Gold news is pretty good.. but as usual with these things - I already own the best half of what they are offering...

[Late]

lol @ Sony announcing that WatchDogs will be 1080p @ 60fps - only for Ubisoft to come along and rubbish those claims. 

[harv]

The game really has been in Development Hell, I hope it's going to be good by the time it comes out but I have my doubts. I'm expecting a bug-ridden mess

[Late]

TBH I can't see them going far wrong. The engine and a lot of the movement mechanics etc look to be taken directly from Assassin's Creed - and they've ironed out any problems with that over the years (and to be fair it didn't have any from the start - the only problem with the first AC was the combat). And whilst the graphics maybe don't look quite as crisp as they did in the trailers a year ago, they still look good, as do all of the gameplay trailers we've seen.
There's a possibility of it being bad, certainly, but I'm pretty sure it'll be good, and I'm looking forward to buying it.
(I've not preordered it, though. I'm not stupid...)

[jman]

I'll be giving it a miss unless the reviews are really good for it.. being anything like AC is a bad thing in my books.. maybe it will have an original story which Ubisoft will destroy over the next 6 or 7 sequels that it churns out year after year too 

[Late]

The new "Deals With Gold" initiative has me wondering whether to buy new games now, tbh - especially digital ones. Buy it when it's new for about £50, or wait a 6-12 months and maybe get it digitally for £15, and wait 12-24 months and maybe get it free then there's a bit of an incentive to just ignore new games.
And that's how it should be, tbh - as with most products, the price goes down when the product is old.

But it can work against sales of new things. I wouldn't buy a game new to Steam, as I know it'll be dirt cheap less than a year later. I wouldn't buy an indie pc game because I know it'll be in a humble bundle along with a half dozen other games for about 66p within a few months.

[harv]

Yup, I won't be needing to buy any games for a while when I eventually get my PS4 next year.

I don't normally pay full price for games anyway tbh, this generation my limit is £30 maximum...although that has changed as far as Nintendo games are concerned because they rarely go down in price by much.

It's a real shame that Flubit went down the loo and only deals with Amazon prices because I got some really good deals from there. The Wonderful 101 and I think Pikmin 3 set me back somewhere between £22-28 if I remember correctly.

[Late]

lol at Phillips not noticing the Wii's existence for five years.
They're taking Nintendo of US to court for deliberately and without permission using tech that they (Phillips) say they patented, and are seeking to make sales of Wii and Wii U in the USA illegal, and to obtain substantial damages.

Law isn't my strong suit, especially US patent law, so I'm not going to make a prediction, but it sounds like the usual US patent trolling to me - which usually results in multiple counter-suits.


1996 - the date of Phillips' patent for motion-control pointing devices
2006 - launch of the Wii
2011 - Phillips contact Nintendo on the subject
2014 - Court petition

[Late]

Ubi have announced Far Cry 4, set in the Himalayas, will be released in November 2014 on current and last gen platforms (excluding Nintendo).

Hated Far Cry 2, but Far Cry 3 was fantastic. I have high hopes for this fourth instalment. 

[jman]

Yeah but god, I didn't half have to tell you to play FC3 enough times before you got it 

Was talking about FC3/FC4 in the office earlier.. Vaas has to go down as one of the best bad guys in a game ever.. such realistic voice acting, you really got the impression he was fucking insane!  FC3 was definitely a top 5 game from last gen for me.

I hope FC4 is not a rinse/repeat of FC3 - am looking for another original strong storyline and some totally new features... not just a change of setting with different animals to hunt.. although hunting and killing animals was pretty fucking cool!!

[jman]

Just seen that Halo 5 : Guardians got announced today for Fall 2015 - great news.. but they are holding something Halo related back for release this year (probably Halo 2 Anniversary edition with the Halo TV series thingybob) - not to be announced until E3 - which fuck me, has crept up really fast.

Microsoft dropping all these newsbombs before E3 - hopefully they have got something left to show... VR possibly...

[Late]

I think they said you can ride elephants, so it's already a winner! 

Yeah, I took some convincing.
FC2 was just so annoying, though! If there's even a hint in FC4 of having to inject yourself with antidotes, or respawning baddies then I'm out!


"Halo 5: Guardians" has been announced for Xbox One in Q3 2015.
They've also stated that there'll be some Halo stuff in 2014. That's almost certainly going to be Halo 2 Anniversary.
Great news on both fronts.

news.xbox.com



Edit - beat me to it