Tehnically speaking, the virtualization going on in the OS is a bit spectacular. I thought it was overkill at first, but the more I see and hear of it, the more impressed I am. Between this and Sony's potentially killer cloud gaming, this could be a great generation for technical advances. It's not great hardware that's marking this next gen--it's good software. Sony and MS both seem on the mark on that front, even if they're off in different directions elsewhere.
Their "strategy" stole the show? That's telling. I'm not interested in strategy. I'm interested in the consoles and the games. And nothing I saw changes anything--the consoles are virtually identical in hardware, and Sony is still be ultra-cagey about third-party DRM. So nothing's changed. Sure, they still have an edge over Microsoft. I'm still leaning PS4's way over price and the lack of Kinect. Otherwise--despite Sony's "strategy"--they're not showing off anything that's all that distinctive. They might be confident, but how much of that is posturing over Microsoft's policies that no longer exist? No truly great exclusives, for instance. Killzone? Sure, right. Microsoft isn't any better. This next-gen is turning into a snorefest.
As far as I can see, all they did was sit down and play the console. If the gaming press is impressed by that, then, well, they've lost what little credibility they have left. The gaming press is always bemoaning console wars, but then they give us articles like this. Who can take it seriously?
Too preachy and self-righteous in tone for my taste, but that doesn't mean it won't be fun to play. Still, the gameplay I've seen hasn't exactly wowed me. It does look nice, though, I'll give it that.
Behind the scenes, I imagine the writers of The Last of Us are mostly saying, "This is bullshit." Because it is. If other companies want to waste their time making every subgroup happy by appeasing their ideological demands, let them. No one seems to get how creatively stifling all this is--when you've got to worry more about offending people than writing a good story. I get people's concerns about discrimination and diversity, but do we really want all our characters in games to conform to some uniform PC stereotype of what people should be? I don't.
I'm a little bored with the PC nonsense. Just write good games. Good writers get different viewpoints. The problem with writing in PC games isn't that they aren't diverse enough, it's that there are so many lazy writers not bothering to do their job well. I'd bet there is not a single person here who cares about the race or sex of the person who is writing the game. We just want good games.
I'm tired of all this shit becoming so damned political.
@kagento @Djmaster214 @CoolCoke Sorry, I've played a lot of games and I agree with him. If I was listing the top, say, twenty games I've played in the last five years I would almost certainly have a place for it. You're making the mistake of thinking that your opinions somehow represent gaming more broadly than they do. What you call "virtues" of games are ... your opinions. They're not objective.
The opening complaint here is interesting. The game fails because it doesn't give Laura's backstory? Wow. That's what the game is, from beginning to end. You could call it impatient, I suppose, that the game gets right to the action--but that's what most good stories do. We learn about her background, her relationships, and her internal life throughout the game. That's what the game is about. Sure, they could have dumped all that on us at the beginning of the game--and then he'd be complaining about the draggy, exposition-heavy first act.
Sorry, the Tomb Raider reboot wasn't the best game I played in the last few years, but it was far better than average, and an excellent reboot. It had many flaws, but none of the critical. Aside from the occasional clash of narrative tone with gameplay, it was a decent game that fulfilled its expectations. The blogger here doesn't quite seem to understand that the game is trying to explain why Laura is what she is. That's what prequels do.
I suppose it's a "better late than never" sort of thing. Sure, Microsoft listened--over a decade after people started complaining. It's a good move, and so I shouldn't needle MS over it, but jeeze, it's about time. I've got 70 MS points that I've had for about six years now that I can't use because nothing much is that cheap anymore. Bugs the living hell out of me.
@Magus_BR Uhhh...you'll see prices in your currency. Everyone does this, from Amazon to, well, just about everyone. It's so common that it's not an issue at all. Prices are usually fixed, not adjusted for exchange rate changes. It's so common as to be completely uncontroversial.
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