Poll of the Day > Mobile Suit Geekdam: Geek vs Zeta Geek

(+) Yeah! (+)

Good to have Wave Master back in circulation. I mentioned Smackdown VS. RAW because, though I have never been the biggest wrestling fan (give or take a Fire Pro game, because those are the shit), my friends and I have always enjoyed messing with the Create-A-Wrestler modes. Been a big thing for us since the N64 days (e.g. No Mercy and Revenge).

(Also: Is that GIF Andy Serkis, Zeus? I keep seeing it around the forum.)

In terms of geek stuff today, I have the day off for a doctor visit (stupid ear infection), so I have been scrounging up ways to challenge my players, since we are wrapping up the campaign next week ... or so I thought. I asked them what they would like to do, and they all voted for continuing to play with the same characters (D&D 5E, and they are all Level 7; it was a relatively low-powered campaign).

In some ways, that's a pity, since I was kind of hoping to run Mystara (and I have the Hollow World reprint in the mail), but I don't mind continuing to run Greyhawk. I'll just have to be more clever with the challenges, especially in terms of one player I've mentioned before whose rogue build makes his character pretty much untouchable. ... Well, I've also got Volo's and Xanathar's coming (good deal on Amazon), so he's in for a bit of a rough ride.

We're breaking for the holiday season after next week, so I've got until 2019 to make things interesting, but we'll see how that goes. I'm glad everybody's having fun, but I don't want it to be too much of a walkover.
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It's definitely not Andy Circus
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I_Abibde posted...

(Also: Is that GIF Andy Serkis, Zeus? I keep seeing it around the forum.)

I have no clue. I grabbed it off CE earlier this year and have used it sporadically ever since.

I_Abibde posted...

In some ways, that's a pity, since I was kind of hoping to run Mystara (and I have the Hollow World reprint in the mail), but I don't mind continuing to run Greyhawk

Oo

I know those names. I think I *might* have purchased some of the material on clearance from a KB (or Borders?) back in the day or something.
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Zeus posted...

I have no clue. I grabbed it off CE earlier this year and have used it sporadically ever since.

To be fair to Serkis, up until he'd played Klawe in Black Panther, I'm pretty sure he could have walked past a TMZ papparazzi unnoticed at LAX despite playing so many other pop culture icons...
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Just discovered this, figured Wave might find it interesting:

http://www.cbr.com/tag/if-her-hair-was-still-red

Basically, it's Brian Cronin doing a series of articles on the evolution of Mary Jane's character in the early issues of Spider-Man, taking them all in order.


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Zeus posted...

Oo

I know those names. I think I *might* have purchased some of the material on clearance from a KB (or Borders?) back in the day or something.

This is entirely possible, though Mystara / Hollow World might be more familiar to you as the "Known World" of basic (i.e. red box) D&D from back in the day. (I also recall getting a fair amount of my basic D&D stuff from Kay-Bee, so that seems likely.)
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I_Abibde posted...

This is entirely possible, though Mystara / Hollow World might be more familiar to you as the "Known World" of basic (i.e. red box) D&D from back in the day. (I also recall getting a fair amount of my basic D&D stuff from Kay-Bee, so that seems likely.)

It's also commonly known as the "Gazetteer" setting, because the Gazetteers that came out in the 80s that described the various lands were kind of famous in and of themselves (and you see quite a few ads for them in comic books from that era).

Later it was the setting of the Rules Cyclopedia. Though it hasn't really been supported since 3e supplanted Basic D&D and AD&D (and 3e used Greyhawk as the default setting).

Mystara is probably my preferred setting after Faerun. Red Steel was actually the first D&D product I ever bought.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Mystara is probably my preferred setting after Faerun. Red Steel was actually the first D&D product I ever bought.

PO, y'a don't play DnD.
Like, not even close.

How can you have a preferred setting?
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shadowsword87 posted...

PO, y'a don't play DnD.
Like, not even close.

No, I DM motherfucker.

~throws up double guns~


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's also commonly known as the "Gazetteer" setting, because the Gazetteers that came out in the 80s that described the various lands were kind of famous in and of themselves (and you see quite a few ads for them in comic books from that era).

It helps that Drive Thru RPG also has those Gazetteers. The PDFs are cheap, and they have made for interesting reading, since the Rules Cyclopedia (otherwise a god-tier rulebook, IMO) can only say so much in the space available.
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Stan Lee, dead today at 95. The passing of a legend.
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(Copied from my post on the comics board)

RIP Stan the Man.

I got to see him in person at DragonCon 2017. Paid for the deluxe package so I could get his autograph and get a picture with him. He signed my Amazing Spider-Man #252, plus I got a t-shirt and an autographed poster (so two autographs total).

Very odd coincidence... I wore the shirt to work today.


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Had a feeling it was coming this year. It's still sad.

He'll probably pop up at least a few more times in Marvel movie cameos, because they apparently film those far in advance. Unless they decide to just not use them now.

Would be nice to see him at least show up in Avengers 4, at least.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

He'll probably pop up at least a few more times in Marvel movie cameos, because they apparently film those far in advance. Unless they decide to just not use them now.

I was just joking with a co-worker (she teared up at the news) that the Day 1 of every Marvel film probably has his cameo scenes scheduled, just in case. I'm sure they will still use them.

Least he was 95 and had a long life. Still sad to think that such an icon is now gone.
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CyborgSage00x0 posted...

Stan Lee, dead today at 95. The passing of a legend.

Excelsior! RIP
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CyborgSage00x0 posted...

I was just joking with a co-worker (she teared up at the news) that the Day 1 of every Marvel film probably has his cameo scenes scheduled, just in case.

From what I'd heard, they actually scheduled his scenes so they could film multiple ones at once, with the implication that, in some cases, they were literally filming his scene before anything else in the movie.

The idea being they didn't want to be constantly flying him around all the time with his health being what it was for the last few years, so they'd try to deal with multiple scenes all in one go to get it out of the way.

I have no idea if that's true, though.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

I was just joking with a co-worker (she teared up at the news) that the Day 1 of every Marvel film probably has his cameo scenes scheduled, just in case.

From what I'd heard, they actually scheduled his scenes so they could film multiple ones at once, with the implication that, in some cases, they were literally filming his scene before anything else in the movie.

The idea being they didn't want to be constantly flying him around all the time with his health being what it was for the last few years, so they'd try to deal with multiple scenes all in one go to get it out of the way.

I have no idea if that's true, though.

Yeah, I remember reading that they'd filmed cameos for everything currently on the time table of releases, but after that he's probably done unless they slip him in on background artwork like they did with a few of the Netflix marvel series'.
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Stan Lee passing is horrible, but hes jad a rough 2 years. Now hopefully he can rest in peace. He really hasn't been the same since his wife passed a few years back.
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Still had all his marbles at 95, and he lived long enough to see Marvel become one of the biggest names in entertainment.

Like one of the comics, he had a good run, and we all knew it had to end sooner or later, but it was still a good run.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

I was just joking with a co-worker (she teared up at the news) that the Day 1 of every Marvel film probably has his cameo scenes scheduled, just in case.

From what I'd heard, they actually scheduled his scenes so they could film multiple ones at once, with the implication that, in some cases, they were literally filming his scene before anything else in the movie.

The idea being they didn't want to be constantly flying him around all the time with his health being what it was for the last few years, so they'd try to deal with multiple scenes all in one go to get it out of the way.

I have no idea if that's true, though.

That makes sense, but I have questions how they could do that, logistically. His recent cameo where he's driving for Infinity War, for example...when would they have filmed that with all the others? That means they would have to had known these cameo scenes well in advance. Believable to an extent, but some of his cameos, as I recall, involve him being in large crowds, or with the main characters (Wasn't Spider-Man in the same scene as Stan in Homecoming? I'd have to check).

Would be curious for more info on that.
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If they were really hardcore, they could do new cameo scenes forever the same way they aged Tony down to Less Than Zero era RDJ in Civil War, I mean most of the MCU is a never ending green screen to begin with, so maybe when they say they shot scenes they got enough mocap and voice snippets to keep him going indefinitely...
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Detective Pikachu trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du88WArjb8w" data-time="
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I have such mixed feelings about that movie. My brain is still processing.
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It looks like an abomination.
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At best, it will be a generic mystery flick that fails its punchlines, but ends up being funny for the wrong reasons. At worst, it will be forgotten within the week until THAT ONE ASS brings it up, and continues to treat the movie like a punchline for years to come, causing more vitriol for the movie's name than it might possibly deserve.
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I'm not nearly as invested in Pokemon as many of you are, and given what Ryan Reynolds has done with Deadpool, I'm surprised at the nigh universal pessimism here.
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Stan Lee's death is a major bummer, but I guess it was kinda expected given that he was in poor health and ancient.

The Wave Master posted...

Detective Pikachu trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du88WArjb8w" data-time="

wtf?

Granted, it looked like shit up until Pikachu started talking. The way they handled Pokemon designs look weird, though, and a few are just straight-up creepy like Mr. Mime.

WhiskeyDisk posted...

I'm not nearly as invested in Pokemon as many of you are, and given what Ryan Reynolds has done with Deadpool, I'm surprised at the nigh universal pessimism here.

Oh right, that is Reynolds, isn't it? idk, Reynolds can't save everything. He's been in his share of bombs and fluky indie comedies.
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Just found out that Microsoft bought Obsidian.

...I'm not sure how I feel about this.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

...I'm not sure how I feel about this.

A zombie corporation ate your game dev.
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I_Abibde posted...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

...I'm not sure how I feel about this.

A zombie corporation ate your game dev.

Microsoft tends to have a better track record with devs than publishers like EA or Activision (arguably, Bungie was at its best with Microsoft and was only ruined by Activision), so I'm not entirely bothered by that aspect.

But companies working under Microsoft's umbrella are obviously going to be making exclusive titles, and I really, really don't like Xbox's vision of the gaming future, so it means any games Obsidian makes are likely going to be on platforms I don't play on.

Conversely, they've been kind of screwed for years, so without an acquisition like this they probably would have shut down soon regardless.

So, is it better for the company you love to die, or for it to continue to make games that you'll never play?


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

So, is it better for the company you love to die, or for it to continue to make games that you'll never play?

Option 1, if you ask me. Option 2 is just painful.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

So, is it better for the company you love to die, or for it to continue to make games that you'll never play?

"Never" is an absurd exaggeration, considering that there's always a chance. I'd rather have a slim chance than no chance.
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Ask yourself has Enix been better off without the merger with Square?

There would have been no Enix games, and the company would have just been a memory, or are you willing to take the abomination that is Square/Enix knowing that one day a great game may get released again?

I guess it boils down to whether or not you have Hope or not.
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So I recently came back to a fun thought. One of life's running gags in the last 30-ish years (give or take) is the idea of our reality being a simulator, as some of you well know. Well...

Fancy this food for thought. Glitches and bugs have always been a thing. Some have been more apparent of late in video games. If we were in a simulator, can you imagine people clipping through walls or doors, or random objects and NPCs floating in the air? On the crazier side of this thought, if we do not see these things occur, is it really because they're not happening, or is it because we are the NPCs who are programmed to carry on with our scripts without noticing?
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The Wave Master posted...

Ask yourself has Enix been better off without the merger with Square?

That might not be the best example, IMO. Squaresoft was facing bankruptcy, and Enix was not. ... There is more to it than that, but Square Enix is one of those things that I cannot discuss without becoming irrational and unhelpful (... because I cannot stand Tetsuya Nomura and what the Square half of the company has become during his tenure).

It is telling that the Enix side remains more or less unchanged, setting aside the absolute creative failure that Star Ocean has become. Dragon Quest XI is certainly a very pretty game, but the core mechanics are pretty much the same that we have been seeing from the series for the past thirty years (not a bad thing, if you ask me).
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Entity13 posted...

So I recently came back to a fun thought. One of life's running gags in the last 30-ish years (give or take) is the idea of our reality being a simulator, as some of you well know. Well...

Fancy this food for thought. Glitches and bugs have always been a thing. Some have been more apparent of late in video games. If we were in a simulator, can you imagine people clipping through walls or doors, or random objects and NPCs floating in the air? On the crazier side of this thought, if we do not see these things occur, is it really because they're not happening, or is it because we are the NPCs who are programmed to carry on with our scripts without noticing?

Maybe crazy people are the only ones seeing the glitches. Or maybe ghosts are a kind of glitch and aliens a kind of programmer. Or maybe things like deja vu are a remnant of glitch fixes, a la the Matrix.
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I_Abibde posted...

Option 1, if you ask me. Option 2 is just painful.

I feel like that's my usual stance. It's why I hope Anthem fails and tanks the company - because the BioWare I loved and considered one of my favorite developers ever is effectively dead, and a corpse is walking around wearing their face. If Anthem succeeds then BioWare continues as a company, but they'll just keep making games like Anthem, exploiting old franchises in terrible ways, and generally just serving as a revenue generator for EA.

I don't want EA rewarded for its crimes. I'd rather see BioWare die and the talented minds go to other developers than to see the company continue to shamble along and shit out garbage under the old brand name.

Of course, it's not like we didn't see the writing on the wall for BioWare - I'm old enough to remember Origin as something other than an online service, and C&C as something other than a mobile game.



Zeus posted...

"Never" is an absurd exaggeration, considering that there's always a chance. I'd rather have a slim chance than no chance.

http://wvww.youtube.com/watch?v=wGdhc9k07Ms&t=0m46s

Never may be an exaggeration, but I wouldn't call it absurd. To this point I can think of precisely zero examples of companies absorbed into companies like EA or Activision that ever managed to escape and produce anything worthwhile again. As Wave pointed out, the Squeenix merger essentially destroyed two companies (and has poisoned at least a few other developers as well since). Bungie's about the only major name developer to escape the clutches of a massive publisher - only to rush into the arms of a different one, which proceeded to take a liquid hot shit on them and ruin them themselves. I can't imagine any scenario at this point where Bungie produces another game I care about - even ex-Bungie employees have mentioned that the entire corporate culture of the studio has radically changed to the point where it isn't really the same company anymore.

In the case of Obsidian I worry less about Microsoft than I do EA and its ilk in terms of executive interference or forcing microtransactions into every game, but we've also seen what happened to Rare, so it's not as if Microsoft is a shining beacon either.

And in this particular case, my "never" was referring less to "They'll never make a good game again" as much as it was signifying "I don't PC game and I'm never going to buy a Xbox One, so even if they make the greatest Obsidian game ever I will never be able to play it".

There's always the possibility that Microsoft will release a 9th gen console that is the greatest console ever and I'll wind up buying it (and thus be able to play Obsidian games on it), but Microsoft has been talking about discontinuing the Xbox entirely for years now, and they're pretty clearly pushing the idea of "games as service" and crossover with PC gaming (both concepts I loathe), which implies whatever they come out with next time around isn't likely to be a console I'm happy to buy, as much as it is a cancerous tumor on gaming that I want to scour with cleansing fire.

So yes, I feel kind of justified in the statement that the statistical likelihood of me ever playing another Obsidian game again is REALLY fucking low.


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I_Abibde posted...

It is telling that the Enix side remains more or less unchanged, setting aside the absolute creative failure that Star Ocean has become. Dragon Quest XI is certainly a very pretty game, but the core mechanics are pretty much the same that we have been seeing from the series for the past thirty years (not a bad thing, if you ask me).

Ehh.

Enix used to put out games other than those two franchises, and a lot of those games were innovative or really enjoyable. Post-merger, there hasn't been a lot of that, and I'd argue that both Star Ocean and Dragon Quest have fallen off in terms of quality (Star Ocean WAAAY more than Dragon Quest, but still). Speaking as someone who was a fan of both Square and Enix before the merger, both sides of the company have been significantly worse since.

With that merger, the way I've always seen it is that two creative companies with a long history of success came out the other side with each one being worse off. It's not even a scenario where one company pulled the other one down, or they sort of equaled out in the middle, but both winding up worse than they started, and then acting as publisher to Eidos and Crystal Dynamics fucking with those companies as well.

I have no idea what happened on the corporate side (other than it being more takeover by Enix than a straight merger, because Square bankrupted itself via the film studio fiasco), but whatever it was was apparently a clusterfuck.


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At least Tomb Raider turned out okay
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Tomb Raider copied Uncharted. It wasn't a hard formula to crib, duplicate, and expand. It was a smart business strategy, but I don't think Shadow sold as well as Square would have hoped.
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Robbing the robbers lol
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The Wave Master posted...

Tomb Raider copied Uncharted. It wasn't a hard formula to crib, duplicate, and expand. It was a smart business strategy, but I don't think Shadow sold as well as Square would have hoped.

The trilogy as a whole copied the copycat series, certainly, but the first of the trilogy underperformed due to underwhelming marketing. Rise underperformed in larger part to its initial release being a XBox exclusive when most people who bought the previous game were Playstation players (Squeenix logic here). Shadow did away with so much combat or stealth sections, not even counting the fact that enemies did not return to previous areas, unlike in the preceding games, as well some other minor issues that can be chalked up to a different studio doing so much of the work.

Also, looking at what Squeenix has become, I'm always having to bring up that, when the merger was first announced, I joked that it was going to be the Fat Gogeta of game company mergers. Then I saw how essentially true that approximation ended up being, and the type of humor behind my jape became something a little darker and more sincere.
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Apparently NFI has a new She-Ra cartoon. Kinda weird that they went that route instead of He-Man/Masters, but I guess He-Man has had a lot of shows now.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

And in this particular case, my "never" was referring less to "They'll never make a good game again" as much as it was signifying "I don't PC game and I'm never going to buy a Xbox One, so even if they make the greatest Obsidian game ever I will never be able to play it".

And I was referring to the possibility that you might come into ownership of a XBone at some point in your life.
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445
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GanglyKhan posted...

445

Oh right, reminds me I was going to toss out some suggestions for the next topic name.

Twilight of the Geeks
Dawn of the Geeks
Masters of the Geekverse
Geeks r We
Kingdom Geeks
The Geekbound Heart
It's All Geek to Me

Also the She-Ra reboot is meh. The original was a kinda so-so series, somewhat better than Masters although not as fun as New Adventures. (Still need to see the 2000s He-Man reboot.) The art style is insipid and I'm guessing I'm going to hate most of the new pointlessly-diverse character designs (if chubby Glimmer is any indication), although I like the take on Catra so far.
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It's going to be about Stan Lee, don't be silly.
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I love the art in the new She-Ra. Ibwas never a fan of the original though so I have no nostalgia to be damaged.
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Metalsonic66 posted...

At least Tomb Raider turned out okay

It's mostly because Crystal Dynamics did most of the work, and Squeenix mostly just acted as publisher. But multiple people have pointed out that Squeenix shuffled Crystal Dynamics off the job and took a more proactive role in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider is easily the worst of the three games by far.

A similar pattern can be seen with Deus Ex. Human Revolution was mostly Eidos, and managed to be a strong entry in the series. Mankind Divided was the one that had a much stronger influence by Squeenix, and the game is shit in about half a dozen ways.

Squeenix mostly succeeds by keeping their fingers out of pies and letting other people do the worthwhile work. But they lack the self-control to keep their fingers out of any of the pies once they start realizing how popular those pies are getting.

They've also got the problem where they screw themselves over by having vastly unrealistic sales expectations based on enviously seeing what sort of numbers CoD is pulling - which is why you have stories like Tomb Raider selling 4 million copies (more than any other Tomb Raider game in history), and Squeenix still viewing it as a failure. Which only encourages them to start tampering, which in turn absolutely ruins the good thing they accidentally lucked their way into in the first place.



Zeus posted...

And I was referring to the possibility that you might come into ownership of a XBone at some point in your life.

Yes, but I am pointing out that I have a greater chance of waking up one day and discovering I have sprouted wings than I do coming into ownership of an Xbone. At a certain point, there's no functional difference between a 0% chance and a 0.0000000000000000~1% chance.

I've actually operated on the assumption for years that if I somehow won or was given an Xbox One for free, I'd immediately sell it or give it to someone else instead of using it myself. This assumption hasn't actually changed at any point.

Nearly every game released this generation that I care about at all is available on the PS4. Halo 5 and the Master Chief Collection are the only games that would even potentially interest me in theory, but they absolutely ruined Halo 5 and the Master Chief Collection has been massively broken since release (something they're only starting to fix four years later), so I have zero interest in playing them.

When it comes to other exclusives, the main ones everybody always used to bring up were Scalebound (which was cancelled, but which I never gave a shit about in the first place), Crackdown 3 (which is endlessly delayed, and which I never gave a shit about in the first place), Quantum Break (which never interested me), Sunset Overdrive (which always seemed like overhyped pretentious garbage, like a shit version of Jet Set Radio), Titanfall 2 (which never interested me), Forza (I haven't been interested in sim-racing games since Gran Turismo 3), and Gears of War 4 (I've never liked the franchise, I see no reason to play the game most people agree is the worst one in it).

Oh, and the joke without a punchline that is Sea of Thieves.

I am very, very confident that I will never own an Xbox One. Just like I was very confident that I would never own a PS3 last generation, and I still don't own a PS3. I'm pretty good at predicting my own personal future preference trends (and have been for more than 25 years).

Granted, Microsoft COULD release a console next gen that solves a lot of my issues with the Xbone and successfully courts third-party support reminiscent of the 360, and thus win me back again. But literally none of the evidence out there now suggests that they WILL. Or that they even want to.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Sunset Overdrive (which always seemed like overhyped pretentious garbage, like a shit version of Jet Set Radio)

Hey now. Sunset Overdrive is fantastic. The only XBone title I've played to completion.
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Metalsonic66 posted...

Hey now. Sunset Overdrive is fantastic.

Ehh.

Like I said, it definitely looks/feels like it's just Jet Set Radio gameplay (which admittedly isn't bad, but which isn't incredibly either) combined with trying way too hard to be edgy humor (even reviews which are positive about the game tend to crap on the writing). I acknowledge that some people might enjoy it, but by the standards I used to judge games, it's a whole lot of negative without much positive. It's certainly nothing that's going to encourage me to buy an entire console just to play it.


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