Yahtzee Croshaw (Zero Punctuation, Fully Ramblomatic)

> No, but the most recently reviewed game is an Assassin's Creed game, so it's not irrelevant either.

Isn't the most recent reviewed game Sonic Forces? Of course, the review is basically just "it sucks", so there isn't much to talk about there.

edited 2nd Dec '17 5:21:47 PM by storyyeller

It wasn't at time of post

At no point during the time we've been discussing Origins has it been the most recent game reviewed.

This thread generally discusses only the youtube vids (uploaded a week later) because we hate the escapist's video player. So the discussion is a week behind.

Well, here's Sonic Forces for everyone to pick over on You Tube. So, there.

I like it when Yahtzee unequivocally hates a game. I can't speak knowledgeably about past Sonic games or about the Sonic fanbase because I don't, haven't, and won't ever play them, so all I can say is that it sounds about right that a twenty-year old franchise about a porcupine hedgehog who runs very fast would be getting a bit stale.

Well, apart from the fact that letting the player design a custom protagonist and then only letting them use it for half the game is a serious dick move in anyone's playbook.

The quips about Sonic fans developing unnatural sexual fetishes for their pets are just gold, though.

edited 6th Dec '17 9:19:17 AM by Fighteer

It's low hanging fruit, but it's impossible not to.

Is the Sonic franchise just memetically associated with furries, or is there some truth to it? I'm not sure I actually want to know the answer...

You know the old gags about Deviantart being flooded with poorly-drawn Sonic OCs in highly fetishistic scenarios? It's not an exaggeration in the slightest.

Yeah, before My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic made pony OCs the hip new thing, Sonic OCs were all the rage.

I guess I know what I'll be drinking heavily tonight to forget I learned about. Well, I doubt that Yahtzee waxing graphically sarcastic about it will convince either the fanbase or the developers to feel shame, not if it hasn't worked for any of the previous entries in the franchise.

edited 6th Dec '17 12:05:34 PM by Fighteer

Because there shouldn't be shame. Furries are a thing, have been a thing for years now, and they're just people with quirks who aren't hurting anyone. Acting like "some people being into different stuff than I am is the end of the world" is juvenile at best.

Obviously, it's nobody's business what your sexual preferences are, unless you act on them. However, it seems that some of these folks are unable to have normal sex lives, and that's where it crosses the line into pathological states. Anyway, that's a digression and it's probably best not to go there any further.

edited 6th Dec '17 12:52:42 PM by Fighteer

I'd like you to know that I went through six different drafts of a really long post to make sure the response is not too fiery for the forum rules, but I could not. So I settled for a simple couple statements:

Whatever "pathology" you think they have, it doesn't excuse these cheap attempts to draw out some easy-to-hate Acceptable Targets for lowbrow comedic gratification. As hard as it can be to actually start running out of sexual preferences to mock ever since BDSM became acceptable, you can't pretend it's still 2006 and furries are somehow "new and scary". Furry mockery is stale, lazy, and widely uncalled for.

Whatever you say. I don't want a fight, but I don't share your belief.

Star Wars Battlefront 2

I remember when Yahtzee covered the first game (in the reboot/remake/re-something series?) and, since there was no single-player campaign, spent his time observing that the nature of the multi-player system turned people into raging, sadistic maniacs mercilessly hunting down newbies so they could advance in the rat race.

Well, now the new game has single-player, so of course he's going to see what it's all about. After noting the utterly predictable and ham-fisted plot, and covering a few irritating game mechanics, he determines that the campaign mode is intended to send people into multi-player to get a resolution.

His closing statement seems apt, but is there any kind of gamer that EA hasn't pissed off at this point? You'd think being as unpopular as they are would cost them market share. If the money train keeps rolling in courtesy of players who are willing to mortgage their future to dine at the microtransactions buffet, why should they ever change their ways?

edited 13th Dec '17 11:24:37 AM by Fighteer

Legally, they might be forced to.

The Jimquisition talks a lot more about this predicament but suffice it to say, lawmakers in various companies have been looking into lootbox-driven games recently to determine whether or not they should be considered a form of gambling and legislated accordingly. Battlefront II is, very specifically, the smoking gun that set this off.

Vocal minorities and silent majorities. The people who go online to see the complaints about EA's predatory, anti-consumer tactics and see them making asses of themselves in public forums are a tiny segment of those who see the latest shooter or sports game or Assassin's Creed, watch the ads and decide it looks great.

Well that's very interesting. I wonder if it'll turn into anything.

Umm... Assassin's Creed is a Ubisoft game. Did EA buy them when I wasn't looking, or are you speaking more broadly about the silent majority of consumers buying the games regardless?

I, for one, refuse to pay for microtransactions in most games, but I'd guess that not everyone feels that way.

edited 13th Dec '17 11:38:21 AM by Fighteer

Battlefront II also pissed off the owner of the Star Wars brand, Disney, who were utterly livid about the way EA's blatant cash-grab scheme wounded their image of being child-friendly. Having one of their properties accused of trying to hook children on gambling did not sit well with Disney. After a conversation between Disney executives and EA, the game was forced to remove its microtransactions entirely. Now it's in an awkward state of shitty game limbo where its shitty progression mechanics are designed to push players towards an alternative progression option that's no longer available.

So instead of "Spend 40 hours to unlock Darth Vader OR pay us some more money," the game is now just, "Spend 40 hours to unlock Darth Vader." From microtransaction shill to just plain garbage.

edited 13th Dec '17 11:48:23 AM by TobiasDrake

Oh, really? I didn't hear about EA actually acquiescing to that demand.

Well, I'm sure EA would LOVE to buy out yet another fat cash cow franchise it can corrupt and butcher on its Altar of Greed...

Not that Ubisoft doesn't have microtransactions or lootboxes, but it is a bit less exploity about them.

Assassin's Creed Origins doesn't even have multiplayer, except in a token, asynchronous sense, and all its microtransactions are for gear/costume unlocks or in-game currency/aids, which are absolutely unnecessary to beat it. So Ubisoft wins on that front, at least for the games that I personally have an interest in.

Not that the fact that they crammed all that in there isn't kind of shitty in and of itself...

Yeah I was generalizing there. Ubisoft isn't as shitty as EA.

Even Konami isn't as shitty as EA purely because most bad game companies sort of just make terrible games and/or try to rip you off but EA buys other companies and runs them into the ground. No other company ca touch EA for actual damage done to the industry.

I dunno about that. Konami actually psychologically torments its employees.