I'm might wait for a GOTY edition of Skyrim before I buy it. More stuff that way. It'll also stop it conflicting with the shitload of other games getting released around now like Deus Ex.
I'm looking forward to Ico and SoTC if they haven't been released yet. That was still this month last I checked.
I'm might wait for a GOTY edition of Skyrim before I buy it. More stuff that way.
That's often the way to go with these things; a big world means lots of little problems. Best wait as long as you can cope. Elder Scrolls games are always buggy as hell when released, and it gives you a chance to say goodbye to all your family before you disappear into your bedroom for the next two years.
Unpatched Oblivion is truly a thing of horror.
Now, while we're on the subject of Skyrim, I'm afraid I'm going to be a miseryguts for a little while.
You see, I'm a PC gamer. Have been since the days of the Mega Drive. I'm not going to go into the reasoning again; Everyone thinks their own team is the best, I've got my reasons just like everyone else and I'm not going to fight about it. But one thing remains as a niggling quirk significant, if not unique, to our platform.
PC gamers get treated like shit.
We got cast aside by the larger gaming world a long time ago, and it's a good thing people like Valve were there to give us sanctuary. But the backstory basically goes:
Once upon a time game reatail stores stocked PC games. PC gamers bought them, paid the mark-up for the convenience, and everyone was happy. Then as more and more consoles were released, the stores had to keep splitting their shelf space to make money from all these new demographics. The PC section was the first to shrink, I don't know why. I guess the PC sales were always steady, wheras consoles boom and dwindle. Maybe it was the higher piracy rate. Anyway, less PC games instore means less PC sales. They blame this sales drop on the customers, like they were supposed to buy multiple copies of the same game instead of games from the wider range they used to have. So they shrink the section more to make room for the other platforms, sales go down more, leading the stores to a big, stupid conclusion:
"The PC is the least profitable platform to cater for."
This is absolute bollocks.
I'm not attacking consoles, by the way. I'm not even blaming the game stores, they just want to turn a profit. I'm blaming whatever vacant moron they had in their PC marketing depatment.
So, with only two shelves of of the PC "section" remaining, stocking countless copies of The Sims, Oblivion and World of Warcraft (This is their legacy to PC gaming. They only stock the PC games that sell best, but they gather sales data from their own stores. The only games they will sell are the ones they stock. So you end up with a loop, and their Top Ten Sellers remain permanently frozen at whatever they were selling before they stopped stocking everything else.)
The dejected PC gamers escape onto their PCs, and their saviour is right on their doorstep. The stores gave us two shelves and and the internet gave us everything. Steam appears, and all the others, and the prices are a fraction of what the real world could give us, and we never have to leave the platform we hold so dear.
The net does what the stores didn't and commits to making a good, profitable business out of PC gamers, and we're so happy that someone cares that we pretty much just hand over our wallets.
The stores don't like this. They know that Valve are making millions essentially out of their own former incompetence. So they throw a big fat hissy fit and basically declare "But those are our customers! Waaah!". Yeah, well screw you. You should have treated us nicer when you still had us. If they were sensible they'd just cut their losses and lose the PC section entirely. I don't know anyone who uses them any more. The last game I bought physically was Starcraft II. I almost fainted, I had genuinely forgotten how expensive it was.
So now they're getting really jumpy (and now I am bitching about the companies in their entirety), because Steam has all but monopolised the PC market. While I love Valve dearly, even I can see that that's a very bad thing. No one company should control the PC, that's one of the biggest things going for it as a platform. The way the stores and publishers (who can also be bastards) are fighting it, however, is nothing short of disgusting.
Rant over, this is the point.
I recently decided to preorder both Space Marine and Skyrim (sorry Phylum). These both look like wonderful games and I would be delighted for the developers to have my money.
Except I can't.
Space Marine has been on my Steam wishlist since it appeared, and so has Skyrim. But now the links don't go anywhere. Their pages have completely disappeared.
The reason? The stores are biting back at Steam, and essentially bribing publishers to deny Steam users their games in order to try and force gamers back into their stores. Currently the period of denial is only 30 days or so after release, but we all know they're going to expand it as much as they can. But 30 days isn't the real issue. This period also applies to all the time before release.
So in other words, if I don't want to join another, inferior game client (I don't), I'm not allowed to preorder it.
Definitely Borderlands 2, although the fact that the original cast will only be appearing as NPC's instead of fully playable is pretty lame. Fingers crossed for DLC, because I really fell in love with Brick and Mordecai. The other two...not so much. Fingers also crossed for more backstory.
Even though it's out in a few days and it's almost not worth talking about at this point, also looking forward to Rise of Nightmares. Hoping it's good. Really good.
Also, Gunstringer.
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Here is a link to some new Borderlands 2 stuff, and I have to say, it looks improved as hell. Graphics and animation look leaps and bounds above the 1st, but more importantly, the AI and gunfights look to surpass the original by a large margin. This pleases me greatly.
“I always believe the movies I've made are smarter than the way they are perceived by sort of mass culture and by the critics,” Snyder said, a statement he immediately followed by saying, “Also, ‘It looks like a video game.’
Well, I lasted a grand total of a minute before giving up due to extreme nausea. Thanks!
Weak!
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“I always believe the movies I've made are smarter than the way they are perceived by sort of mass culture and by the critics,” Snyder said, a statement he immediately followed by saying, “Also, ‘It looks like a video game.’
I pre-ordered Sonic Generations today so I could get the Casino Night level. I'm not waiting on reviews because I enjoyed the beta, the controls were really tight and there was enough new stuff to make it feel like more than a graphical update. Plus they're remaking Speedy Highway, my favorite level from SA, so I'm psyched!
