Fuse, Insomniac's new multiplatform game

Binary Domain was also a by-the-numbers cover-based shooter with Regenerating Health and tanky enemies. It was also a commercial failure.

Seriously guys, this game debuted at 37th. That's... Insane. It's getting outsold by five year old games.

...in the UK. Can we at least see the US rankings?

Yes but it at least had some personality, so when I did play it, it was enjoyable.

I don't know why, but the UK are the ones that everyone focuses on. Probably because they consistently release the figures. But do you honestly think the results will be that different?

If you wanted to play a cover-based shooter with regenerating health you could play Gears Of War, Mass Effect, Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Binary Domain, Rainbow Six, Resident Evil 6 and probably a couple others I can't think of right now.

And this is also directly competing with FPS games like Call Of Duty, Halo, Battlefield, Far Cry 3, Crysis 3, Bioshock: Infinite, Borderlands and others.

And then there are TPS game with a bit more to them, like Transformers Fall Of Cybertron or Warhammer 40000 Space Marine.

Many of which can be gotten for much cheaper prices. Many of which have established features, fanbases and franchises that Fuse lacks.

But DAMN. I didn't expect it to set the world on fire but I didn't expect Fuse to fail. Especially not this badly. Even if the charts only account for a day or two of sales (Which I don't think is the case.) these numbers are ridiculously pathetic. I heard someone say Pachter expected it to go past five million too. Ha.

I liked Binary Domain too. But I'm not gonna pretend it wasn't a Follow the Leader game that didn't bomb. I'd argue that it's just as good as Fuse from what I've seen and played.

edited 5th Jun '13 11:03:48 AM by ShirowShirow

New games are released on Fridays in the UK, so Fuse did only get a day or two worth of sales. It was probably hurt by Insomniac's reputation. Ratchet And Clank games are bursting at the seams with imagination and creativity, Resistance has the creative weaponry of Ratchet and Clank and an intriguing alternate history setting (The first one does anyway. Is that still in the sequels? I've only played the first one.) The PS One Spyro The Dragon games are still considered the best years later. To see the people behind those games making a generic, soulless shooter-by-numbers is rather depressing. Fuse is also Insomniac's first multiformat game after being exclusive to Playstation from their inception, so the name means jack shit to Xbox and Nintendo players.

Frankly, Binary Domain was the only cover shooter I ever played and liked for the gameplay. Loved how it almost became a straight up run-and-gun game with the right nanomachines and gun upgrades, and the sheer number of bosses, unique bosses at that, was just staggering this generation. I mean, normally you're lucky to get an Elite Mook bullet sponge tossed at you at the very end.

I love boss battles. The ones from Binary Domain severely suffered because they didn't include a game mechanic that we've had since closely after gaming's inception (Boss health bars) but they still shook up the game a lot. FUSE looks like it has boss battles too, which are probably the only reason I'd ever play it. I'm sure I'll be able to get it for 10$ soon enough... Which is how much I spent on Binary Domain. And guess what? I'm gonna play single-player and I'm gonna like it.

Probably the first of many articles regarding this event.

Oh, and I read that eurogamer article linked last page. The last paragraph held my attention.

Note the use of the words "Exploited" and "Even broader".

edited 5th Jun '13 3:36:36 PM by ShirowShirow

Great article. What's Singularity?

A game where you shoot Russians.

edited 5th Jun '13 5:22:16 PM by ShirowShirow

Sounds interesting. Not too fond of 'Murica though.

You know, I'd like to offer another insight: A lot of reviewers slammed the plot as boring and generic and I think a big part of that was because it was originally supposed to be stupid as Overstrike. As a big cartoony joke-filled Affectionate Parody of action games it could have worked. The generic setting would have possibly made it better since they could play the Lampshade Hanging card to help the humor along.

But then they needed to make it more serious, and in the process ended up playing all the tropes they where going to make fun of straight.

Man, I can't get this game out of my head now. I'm eager to hear more information.

edited 5th Jun '13 5:37:10 PM by ShirowShirow

The sad thing is, FUSE does pretty much everything right that Binary Domain did wrong - and vice versa. If you could merge the best from both titles into one, it might actually turn into a pretty damn good game.

That game already exists.

God, yes.

I think I'm now obsessed with this game's failure. I feel like I've read every single article about it on the whole internet. There are actually very few.

It's funny, Reviews kept saying "Good luck finding three other friends to pay 60$ to play it with you" and I thought that was ridiculous. We could just play Splitscreen. And then it hit me that the game doesn't have four-person splitscreen.

A game built with four-player co-op in mind, on consoles where four controllers can hook up, meant for TV's with giant HD screens, where the developers went on record saying "Games are more fun with your friends", going so far as to say single-player games where pointless or obsolete. And it doesn't have four-player splitscreen.

Is it wrong that part of me is saying I should be thankful to even get two player splitscreen?

Not that the co-op angle is really used in any meaningful way. Say what you will about Army Of Two, but it had the "Aggro" mechanic, the "Back-to-Back Badasses" mechanic, the "One guy holds a shield up and the other guy shoots from behind it" mechanic... Fuse has... Uh... Co-op door opening. Yay.

I honestly don't get what's with current shooters' hateboner for splitscreen.

Oh that's easy: processing power and screen space. You've gotta optimize the game good enough so that two players in separate areas of the map, doing separate things won't bog down the system, as well as make the screen space comfortable enough for someone not to go blind trying to squint at their shrunken HUD.

My N64 seemed to handle all that pretty well back in 1996.

They hate split screen because it means more than one person can play the game when they CLEARLY should have to buy their own copy. Filthy leeches.

Fuck that. Star Wars Battlefront remains more entertaining than most TPS just because of this. And considering how much power they're pumping into next gen's consoles, I see little excuse.

All my best multiplayer experiences have been with people in the same room as me. Usually Halo this gen, because of their awesome splitscreen-online modes.

Insomniac went on record spewing that "Games are more fun with friends" stuff. There's obviously a level of truth there. Human interaction makes games more enjoyable, but there are so many caveats to that. It makes hard manual labor and daily chores more fun too, there's nothing special about a co-op game. You don't actually need multiplayer to be playing with a friend, since if you're hanging out you might boot up a single player campaign just to have something to talk about (See two best friends play.) And forcing said human interaction to be on the other end of a mic defeats much of the purpose. Not to mention the fact that I like single player. It lets me move at my own pace, to absorb the world, to not feel like the unfeeling eyes of three other gamers are constantly judging my performance.

Vanquish, as great as it is, does not count, because it's not a coop game (granted, the coop mode in Binary Domain is hardly worth mentioning).

edited 7th Jun '13 2:53:16 PM by TAPETRVE

It's completely off the charts now.

As in, it's not breaking into the top 40 anymore. There gonna be a lot of this game in the bargain bins.

Aww, Remember Me only managed third.

At least it's selling. I honestly thought that game was gonna tank as well!

Fine with me. Once it hits €20 max, I'll grab a copy.