Deceptive video title for a deceptive video.

MS never were, they accidentally disabled a few accounts as part of routine inactive account maintenance, and people ran to make up stories about it for clicks, views, and of course, money.

eRe4s3r wrote on Dec 26, 2021, 06:54:
So basically you never got out of the imprisonment sim you start in?

That would be fucking hilarious if so.

Do recommend the game.

As for neuromods, I really don't remember many of worth outside of the strength ones; those are an absolute must to max out ASAP for navigation (clearing obstacles) and combat (throwing vending machines at things tends to generate very positive results). Hacking related stuff's always worth it as well.

The Half Elf wrote on Dec 24, 2021, 12:49:
At the end of the day IF they decided to back out publishing the game because there is a planned school shooting map that will be introduced then how can ya blame them? At the end of the day, you do what's best for the company and the company image (unless you're Activision/Blizzard).

So lets play devil advocate.... DOOM, GTA, Call of Duty have been the poster childs of blame for child violence. Microsoft Flight Simulator was included in the blame for 9/11. If they do produce a school shooting level, and if it has kids that can be shot, it's gonna cause a shitshow of publicity. It'll probably be labeled as a "school shooting simulator", and even the game's title will be a talking point by talking heads on TV.

I can see both sides of the discussion, but I wouldn't want to involve my company with it.

I would heavily doubt said level (or the game at all) would actually have kids that can be shot or appear harmed; that's likely a big "you're banned off Steam" move.

My expectation for such a level would be it's teachers/staff and adult suspects, for :-reasons-: , but it's still a school (or college).

It'd be pretty dumb if the existence alone of such a scenario in the game were really the cause for the split.

I mean, it's a SWAT simulation/game set in the US, where there's a school shooting every few weeks. It'd be like not having a scenario involving a South/Central American-linked drug cartel.

Hanley wrote on Dec 20, 2021, 06:01:
I've played it for 5 hours now and it's basically SWAT4 with better graphics and refined mechanics. I grew up on Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, SWAT etc and really love this sort of thing. Takedown was a complete and utter fucking joke next to this. This, for the first time in YEARS, feels like they made a tactical shooter properly. I was hoping Ground Branch would be what this is now.

It's very satisfying to make it to the end of a level, it's pretty hardcore. Definitely worth the asking price

yay

Will look into once the end of year madness is over, I miss the days of R6 and SWAT4.

Unrelatedly, the game is pretty good, very decent replayability and good core gameloop and gamplay.

I mean, what is the point?

AFAICT studios bought up by Tencent have retained their employees, hired more, and haven't seen a decline in the quality or variety of the games they produce. Meanwhile studios bought up by EA or Activision or what-have-you tend to see mass firings, title cancellations, pigeonholing into specific genres/IPs, or outright closures.

At this point Tencent is doing everything it can to put as much money in the "western" market so it can be independent of the random whims of the CCP suddenly enacting absurd laws on the Chinese gaming market, and there's been zero evidence of any interference on behalf of Tencent on what their studios can produce/sell in regards to soclial or political themes, and zero evidence of any nefarious information gathering or sharing.

So, what is the point?

Good, Space Marine really nailed the "chunky man-tank" feel, was good fun.

This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

I liked it a lot, controlled well and the combat made you feel pretty powerful if you engaged in the systems properly.

The mountain island towards the end of the game was utter complete bullshit and one of the worst sections I've ever seen in any videogame, though. So many wrong things about it...

I loved these games, were like Hidden & Dangerous as an RTS. Didn't play the latest few, though.

Hopefully this one's good.

Argonius the 3rd wrote on Nov 20, 2021, 11:49:
Xbox games studios is dominating the AAA market for 2021. EA, Ubisoft and Activision have nothing to compete against the likes of Forza Horizon5, Flight Simulator, Age of empires 4, Psychonauts 2 and now Halo Infinite !

Well, there was Death Loop? Which has the odd highlight of being a Microsoft game that's a Sony console exclusive...

Icewind wrote on Nov 20, 2021, 04:25:
I guess people are judging it by the lack luster multiplayer. Me, I'm just anxious for the campaign and hopefully the opportunity to co-op it with some friends.

Coop will still take some months to be patched in, last I heard.

Hopefully the campaign is good; all the Promethean stuff from 4 and 5 was a big turn-off for me. It's not that I love the Covenant enemy types, but damn were the Promethean annoying, and I didn't care for their visual design or weapons, either.

RedEye9 wrote on Nov 17, 2021, 19:19:

Donkey_Punch wrote on Nov 17, 2021, 19:12:
Windows 10 only can emulate older color modes like 16-bit color. Games have terrible frame rate issues without 3rd party apps like DgVoodoo2.

Microsoft themselves can do a lot to help older PC games yet they do almost nothing.

When 95% of their resources are spent on prioritizing ads, bundleware, and service subscriptions and the remaining 5% are used for patching zero day flaws and printer exploits it leaves nothing but lip service for anything else and that's where Phil steps in.

No. MS' priority these days is Azure. Windows is practically an afterthought now, a vehicle for Office 365 apps. Xbox and gaming in general is as it always was: a "fuck you" to Sony.

(and god bless them for that, because fuck Sony)

Confused the hell out of me as well, considering the last year they've been talking a lot about their network stack replacement and last month released some early stuff to the public...

Somewhat tangentially, MP on Unity has been a mess for a decade; their own solution was deprecated years ago and everyone's been using external libraries to get anything working. Hopefully in the near future the answer to "My game is MP heavy, which engine should I use?" doesn't have Unity at the bottom of the list...

Boggles the mind how a company with as much money as Rockstar / TakeTwo could take their most important IP and release a "remaster" that makes the game look worse than it did on PS2.

Goes to show, they saw how much interest there was in the old games from the mods, sicced the lawyers on as many as they could to shut them down, and paid a paltry sum for a shitty rush job.

Wait, wait, what!?

You mean to say the sequel to an acclaimed game now spanning several star systems and simulating entire planets and cities and civilizations with millions of individual NPCs all in a narrative-heavy open-world campaign with multiple characters and loaded with bleeding edge tech might be in development hell?

Who could have possibly predicted this?

Except literally every single human being that saw the first gameplay teaser ~5 years ago.

Could also be it was just incomplete somehow, using placeholder assets or missing some events.

I mean, I know it's Ubi, but, it could be something innocent...

Can't wait for Splinter Cell: Battle Royale, or whatever other multiplayer thing they turn this into. At the very least I expect the MP will be the marketing focus and taints every aspect of whatever pittance of an SP there is.