At the Game Awards last night there were trailers for a bunch of stuff that probably won't all have the weight to support their own thread, so here's a place for all of it – starting with the unexpected(?) Perfect Dark reboot.
There were also CGI-heavy teasers for the new Dragon Age
and Mass Effect
And probably only of interest to me is the first in-game footage of the new on-foot planetary exploration and FPS elements coming to Elite Dangerous when the Odyssey expansion lands next year:
Perfect Dark is an odd one. It's obviously exciting they're making a new one, but at this point it's nothing but a name. It's not like there's a solid gameplay foundation they can bring over from the N64 game, and no-one is holding their breath for a story continuation (what even was the story of Perfect Dark?).
It was great 20-odd years ago, but I'm intrigued to see where the new developers go with this, that isn't just 'could be any other FPS'.
(what even was the story of Perfect Dark?)
Corporate conspiracy, blah blah, aliens, blah blah. This new one seems to be a bit more grounded, though, so I'm not expecting to see any missions rescuing aliens from Area 51 this time.
It was great 20-odd years ago, but I'm intrigued to see where the new developers go with this, that isn't just 'could be any other FPS'.
There's an interview with the development team – some MS-owned(?) startup called The Initiative – where they try to talk about making an FPS with more dynamic "spy combat", referencing bodycam/GoPro footage, but there's very little in the way of concrete details.
Perfect Dark wasn't great. I'm unsure why it's held in the regard it is.
Ah I loved it at the time. It was Goldeneye with added bells and whistles.
If I'd owned a PC and played Half Life first, fair enough. But I hadn't, and it was great for couch multiplayer battles.
Perfect Dark Zero happened. I vaguely remember it being….OK?
Perfect Dark Zero happened. I vaguely remember it being….OK?
You remember wrong. Very, very wrong.
Perfect Dark Zero is a game that I keep as a reminder how bad it was.
The level design and signposting is so bad, they included an option to turn on a glowing line on the floor to show you where to go, which I relied on more than once. The last boss is a sword fight with an old man who shoots green fire on a floating island.
It was real bad.
I remember having some fun with the multiplayer, at least. I mean it wasn’t great, but as a launch title I got more fun out of it than, say, Kameo.
The original is a complete classic, of course.
Yes…. maybe I'm remembering multiplayer. I think I have a copy of it somewhere. Maybe we should have a Soc launch game retrospective for the 360 PS3 era….
The multiplayer was alright, yeah.
This looks like it could be interesting (or insufferable?):
Supposedly, last night's Game Awards was due to feature at least two 'Holy shit!' moments. Reading the round-up of announcements… well. There were big ones, sure. But 'established game dev has new game in development' isn't a 'Holy shit' moment. Cinematic trailers with no actual gameplay shown isn't a 'Holy shit' moment. Footage of new games that just look like slightly shinier versions of existing games isn't a 'Holy shit' moment. Sometimes, just sometimes, I do wish people would just wind their necks in and stop overhyping this nonsense. It's videogames, it's not time travel or the next great advancement of mankind.
If you're the kind of person (not folks here, the general 'you') who says 'Holy shit' at the news of a new IP from a developer with no further details of why it might actually be worth your time, get a grip. Unless it's in the context of 'Holy shit, they're finally doing something that isn't Last of Us', I guess.
(I saw a post from Epic Games promoting the new game from the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus guy, calling it 'highly anticipated'. How can something be highly anticipated if you don't even know it exists?! Fucking bullshit marketing, I hate it… he says, working in fucking bullshit marketing)
That said: new Okami was very much a 'Fuck yeah' moment. Not the same thing, but sure, I'll take it.
I don’t even watch these things any more. No point getting excited over a CGI trailer for a game that’s years off that won’t look anything like that anyway. Nowadays I mostly just wait for stuff to come out and then judge whether it’s worth looking at by how excited everyone else is getting about it. I knew nothing about either Metaphor or Indiana Jones this year before they came out (I don’t think I’d even heard of Metaphor) and I think my experience was all the better for it.
Yeah I saw that Schreier comment and besides the Elden Ring thing I was waiting all night to be shocked speechless and I just wasn't.
The new Naughty Dog game looks excellent (and was an in-game cutscene by the look of it). Definitely here for Pet Shop Boys in space.
My two 'fuck yeah' moments (if I had those energy levels in me) would have been Okami 2 and Fumito Ueda's new game.
I think I'll play Okami into Okamiden or whatever the DS game was called at some point
Okami holds up pretty well on Switch.
The new Naughty Dog game looks excellent (and was an in-game cutscene by the look of it). Definitely here for Pet Shop Boys in space.
I very much like the vibes, but I'm a sucker for that kind of lived-in, slightly grubby sci-fi. I was surprised by the amount of real-world stuff in there - obviously the Sony stuff, but the ship being a Porche (thought she's supposed to be struggling..?), and Adidas trainers. Definitely want to see more of it.
Wait… does the GAME look excellent, or just the concept? I didn't see any game. It's just an idea made visual. Nothing actually being played. So everyone doing back flips over its existence is just bemusing… there's nothing there to get feverish over.
Gar's approach is mine, and has been for a long time. Fuck anything before, I'll get excited when it's actually here thanks.
Yeah, as slick as that Naughty Dog trailer was it didn't exactly give a lot of details. Maybe it's the retro-futurist styling that's mostly giving me Starfield vibes, but I'm gonna wait for more information before I get excited - we already knew that ND can do good mocap cutscenes, and there's nothing else to go on yet.
I am curious about the new Okami, but until I see it running I'm keeping the hype in check. As much as I loved the original, it's not held up great on repeated plays (there's frankly just too much of it), and I'm struggling to imagine what new ideas it's going to bring to the table beyond the trailer's What Dreams May Come oil paint aesthetic (which I'm honestly not sold on compared to the sumi-e minimalism of the original).
I need to see Okami on a great OLED, that's a current mission of mine. I have it on the OLED Steam Deck but I dunno, the Retroid Pocket 5 OLED looks eye watering. >_<