Starfield and Baulders Gate 3

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar, even Valve... when is the last time any of these so called triple A companies actually made a great game?

Don't even get me started on Bethesda; a company that has literally re-released the same game at least ten times; a game they recently put paid modifications into... with a patch that broke a lot of free mods. I mean, really? Great mods and modders already get decent money without Bethesda's help but where there's an easy profit to be made; there is Todd, waiting with cap in hand and a cheesy grin on his face. Ready and willing to spout whatever is necessary to get a woop from the crowd for whatever slop is just about to come out.

Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies, eh Todd?

When I first heard of Starfield, from a friend on discord around a year ago;  the best I could do was grunt and dismissively respond with something like "So what? Haven't I been scammed by Toddy enough?". I hadn't heard of the game, hearing about it didn't excite me, it barely moved the needle for me in any way except that I might have something to laugh at in the future... and laugh I did.

But at that stage, cyberpunk 2077 was still kind of shit, and there weren't many great games around... but now here we are; at the end of 2023. We now have Balders Gate 3; the cyberpunk expansion as well as all of those free updates, impressive indies and boomer shooters... and what do we have from Bethesda? Staryawn and paid mods for Skyrim. Thanks Todd.

While I'm focusing on Starfield, Bethesda and Todd Howard... these are really just convenient examples that are relatively easy to compare to BG3; as a game, studio and talking head that might once have elicited excitement and anticipation... but are now, at best, playing second fiddle to what might be called a double A production. Those other companies don't get out of it just because there's one particularly excruciating example of ineptitude; I just care less about them atm and I find Bethesda's track record to be particularly egregious except perhaps compared to Blizzard... it's just that I see Blizz as a lost cause by comparison.

Starfield sucks; it looks and feels empty, there's no actual role to play, it's content for the sake of wasting your time, it's full of bugs, the engine is bursting at the seams, the combat is shallow with mediocre gunplay, there's no real decisions to make... why play it all? Because the graphics are nice? They haven't even got the respect for the people that actually make their games passable; with no official mod support until at least "early 2024". Let's see exactly how long that actually takes.

I strongly suspect that some companies that have been mainstays for some time are going away; in particular I see Blizzard and Bethesda on the chopping block. Microsoft won't just erase them, but I suspect that if there isn't good performance they'll gut them and just use the names to sell other crap like many before them (Westwood, Bullfrog, etc, etc). So hopefully they start making better damn games!

We'll see, I guess.

Lately thought, there's been this backlash against this idea; people attempting to claim that BG3 is some magic special game that can't be used as a stick to beat crap games down because it'll kill studios and suffocate indies or something... The MEGA GAEM!

Stop; all AAA games have dumb, anti-consumer elements that are all about money; and that's the better ones, the worse ones tack on excruciating bugs and missing content or are just simply terrible games. All of this can be avoided and doesn't involve indies at all. I didn't mention Indies above, and most people are not referencing indies when making similar arguments. Ok? Ok.

Balder's Gate 3 isn't some strange anomaly; it's more like a return to form... games in the past were more like BG3 than Diablo 4, we should demand better and not allow anyone to tell us otherwise. And better doesn't necessarily mean bigger; it means QUALITY and CUSTOMER FOCUS. What does the player actually want in the game? BG3 delivers, in small details all the way up to the whole world. How about Diablo 4? Yeah, I thought so.

I love indies, and it makes utterly furious to see them wielded as a shield for the filthy practices of AAAs... almost more angry than the practices themselves, almost.

Mechanics or Meh-canics

This was originally written in January this year; but I re-read it and I think it's awesome so I'm going to review and push it out. :)

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Something I've been thinking about a lot recently, is how it seems that almost without fail... that sequels to great games will be better in almost all ways except the actual game mechanics.

I'm not really talking about remakes, such as XCOM or Dues ex, though it's true there too. I'm really taking aim at sequels released by the same publisher, developer and often the same team (though presumably not exactly the same...).

My prime example is Rome, Total War 2 against the original Rome and Dishonored 2 vs Dishonored. Both games are perfect examples; Rome 2 with it's lackluster physical interaction between troops where they move around as if the solders are just water flowing around and mixing. Dishonored 2 with it's baffling move away from deterministic movements and instead making everything scripted.

For Rome, I feel this takes away from a few critical elements but also immersion; watching soldiers float around when they clash instead of hitting and looking as if there's real momentum and impact just feels stupid and surreal. It actually make several simple strategies fall over because there's no such thing as a truly solid mass of troops... as well as losing simple cool elements lost from the original game, such as when a "cilvilised" army like the Romans has units make way so that others can pass through them faster.

For Dishonored 2, it's a little more difficult to explain; because for most players you won't even notice it... I didn't at first, but in short: in the original game when an enemy made an attack then they would make some sort of movement and their weapon; normally a sword, would move through space and if you were in that space then you'd get hit when it made contact. In Dishonored 2 when an enemy makes an attack a script runs immediately and decides if you've been hit or not. What that actually means, is that in the original you could dodge or do something to simply avoid an attack; in the sequel you either hit the specified block button at the right time and block the attack or you get hit and that's it.

I learnt about this one from people who spent a lot of time making videos for YouTube of cool runs in Dishonored 1 and 2; you can actually see a different between how videos feel between each game, it's amazing.

So; what does this mean? What can we do? Do "we" even care?

I care, so what I do is play the older games. I'm not really interested in Rome 2 or any of the later Total Wars for that matter; and I've never played Dishonored 2.

If this is something you've not seen or noticed; dig a little into your favorite games and try to understand how your game functions... if nothing else it might make you a better player.

Ownership

This was originally written in July 2021; I've decided to review it and push it out because it's a decent article and an issue that continues to be more apparent... so here we go.

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I have a concern; it's not a new concern to any modern gamer but I think it is one that now cannot be denied by the various corporate shills that make up the current cadre of games journalists.

Not that I'm a particularly big fan of those vestigial waffling morons at the best of times.

We don't own our games anymore.

Yeah, I know; it's been at least 10 years since this was true. Steam was the first real step towards this but recent actions by Blizzard really brought this home to me. There are two prime examples:

1. Warcraft 3 "Reforged"
2. Diablo 2 remake

For both games, the remake was announced and we were told the old games would likely be taken offline; we were promised that the old game would be accessible via the remake. The Diablo 2 remake came and went with poor player response that I didn't even notic but if you know anything about modern gaming then you already know that the Warcraft 3 remake was an epic disaster.

1. Remake graphical upgrade promises were not kept
2. Connection problems made actual multiplayer matches fail regularly
3. Edits to the story made fans angry
4. Many features from the original game were broken or missing

The above can be summarised thusly: The remake was a worse product than the original. They should have left well enough alone... and if you wanted to go back to the old game you could not... your "license" for the original had been revoked.

I actually wouldn't mind loading up Warcraft 3 and play through the single player again, but I refuse to pay for a remake I didn't ask for and is inferior... and since Blizzard won't allow me to play the original it seems my choices are to find a pirate version or just forget about it.

I like playing old games quite often, so it makes me quite sad to know that any games from the 'always online' era will eventually disappear and I'm not given a choice... and I know as someone trained in software engineering that these developers could easily design the game such that they could release a "last patch" prior to shutting down a server to allow for determined players to continue enjoying a game when support ends... you know, like every non-always online fucking game since Pong!

I think it's time for governments to at least threaten deep and broad regulation of software companies; where these bastards simply aren't allowed to sell mere "licenses" to use software but an actual share or something like property in said software... Licenses can be revoked, a share is property and that implies a right that can't simply be disregarded.

This is something that should be considered at least as seriously for commercial software like AutoCAD or Windows itself if not more so; as the problem there is how often companies are trying to turn all useful software into a damned rental... they'd do that with games if they could, but people mostly play a game for a while and then forget them, so it doesn't work and thus we get always online and DLC up the bum instead.

Imagine a hammer you HAD to rent... or a toaster, frypan, TV...

I'm not suggesting that this model of software shares and such would mean that companies would have to support the software in perpetuity... that's not viable. But what it means is that the company could be compelled to ensure that access to the software and all basic functions are available. What do I mean by "basic"? Well, for example: warcraft 3 would allow single player and multiplayer via LAN, direct IP (maybe some 3rd party multiplayer support?), etc would be usable. While the servers and such for Bnet would be considered an "advanced" feature.

Essentially, basic features are all features that do not require continued financial resources from the developer/publisher to use. If I play Dune 2 on my PC right now, I don't need Westwood to do anything... which is good because Westwood disappeared a long time ago. Much of the warcraft 3 experience can be considered basic though much of what doesn't work or just straight up missing in the remake can be considered advanced anyway. Whoops.

This is not a simple problem... but it could be fixed or mostly avoided if the big companies like Blizzard/Activision, EA and Ubisoft would just stop being a bunch of cunts with their shitty live service games.

I'm sure this will continue to be an issue until the next AAA game crash (that as of 2023, might actually be coming); unless we get lucky.

We need to regain ownership of not just our games, but everything.