It was straight-up free (as in: no tiers, just free) for a long time to early adopters of the Nvidia Shield. I can’t remember when it was introduced but I think it was with the first iteration of Shield TV.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a patent Microsoft just hasn’t been willing to license use of.

I remember when the Sixaxis came out. It was missing vibration. It was because Immersion sued Sony (and ultimately won) over patent infringement of rumble motors. Sony ended up having to pay somewhere around $100 million.

I can’t comment on this title in particular but if you load it on your PS5 and receive a toast which reads something to the effect of “when playing on PS5, this game may exhibit errors or unexpected behavior” then it means some part of the game is absolutely fucked up but still “playable.”

For example, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time messes up very late in to the game on the PS5 where a space ship environment zooms very far out, the controls become locked in such a way where camera control doesn’t work, and directional movement controls seem arbitrarily mapped. While someone more patient and talented than I may have been able to navigate through that issue, I couldn’t proceed until I continued the game on my PS4 via cloud save transfer.

I thought the protagonist was great. It was a man coming to the realization that he wasn’t so much a heroic renegade as he was a malicious bad guy.

Ninety god damned dollars.

You don’t really need to start with First Departure.

I (genuinely) don’t understand. What exactly was disrespectful?

I think it’s just an effort to collect a licensing fee.

You have to take stock of your goals for the evening. E.g., does the game need to wrap up at a certain time?

I’m someone who doesn’t mind playing a game for literal days. However, if you need the game to end at a certain time, then that means there’s an implicit time-limit on play. That, to me, strongly suggests you want to keep the timer in play.

I would make the decision up front that the timer will be in play and decide for yourself what a maximum timer duration could be for your time requirements. Then, I’d announce it to the group ahead of time and allow the group to discuss what a reasonable timer duration should be.

As an aside, time limits like these are often not arbitrary and are part of the rules for game or experience reasons. Bullet is supposed to invoke similar feelings to a bullet-hell shooter. Removing the time limit, to me, seems like just choosing to play an entirely different game. A significant part of the game is being able to make decisions while under the stress of a time limit.

Similarly, I view the timer in Cosmic as intentional. The original Eon edition called the cards “Compromise” cards. I believe the intention was to force a compromise (as in, neither player necessarily gets an optimal outcome) I think it hurts the game to allow players to be able to entirely analyze the situation in order to make an objectively optimal decision.

Price per unit time suggests that the only value of a game is in how much time it consumes.

The value calculus is going to be different for everyone but for me, I tend to look for:

• A game which is a game first and foremost rather than an entertainment experience. That is to say: something that demands decision making of me in which I can either increase or decrease the payoffs of those decisions. Games which focus heavily on cinematic scenes, heavy QTEs, or long dialogs disinterest me.

• I am often willing to take a punt on a game that tries to do something creative and interesting.

• I tend to not like games that demand a high degree of memorization and/or dexterity.

• Games which perform well. A recent example of a regretful purchase I made was with Shin Megami Tensei V. I adore the series but the framerate on the Switch really brought my experience down to a level where I just didn’t want to play anymore.

The weights of these things will change from game to game and other elements may enter or exit the equation from time to time, of course.

tri-Ace games have fantastic combat mechanics, imo. Give the original Valkyrie Profile, any Star Ocean (later games have more intricate combat), or Resonance of Fate a spin.

I’m not sure how ad blocking is going to work once more and more ads are delivered via the domains you don’t want to block.

Most jobs in the game industry are employment, not contracts.

I recoiled when I read, “my dad actually owned a PS2 when I was born.” Oh time, you cruel beast.

People have different preferences but generally, “up” is the thumb button.

There’s an “up” button as well.

It’s basically just an arcade stick where you replace the lever with buttons.

As much as I want to like VR, it just makes me so nauseous. Even games attempting to mitigate motion sickness make me nauseous.

There’s a game on PSVR called RIGS. It’s a high speed sports game. That game made me nauseous in about thirty seconds and the nausea lasted for hours. Such a dreadful experience.

deleted by creator

deleted by creator

deleted by creator