🚀 go-pugleaf

On Wed, 30 Nov 2016 09:14:54 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tue, 29 Nov 2016 20:37:05 -0500, Rin Stowleigh
><rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>I'm holding off on Watch Dogs 2 for now, for several reasons. First,
>and most importantly, is that I've found Ubisoft open-world games to
>all be pretty much the same, with a gimmick or two to differentiate
>FarCry from Assassin's Creed from even The Club. They are big,
>beautifully rendered maps filled with collectibles and side-quests,
>and an almost tangential main quest. That is not to say I don't like
>the games - I think they are well produced and very engaging - but
>there is an unfortunate sameness to the experience. As such, I have a
>hard time justifying spending $60 on what is, essentially, a skin-pack
>for a game I've bought and played a dozen times before. 
>
>The second reason is that it's based in San Francisco. SF is a lovely
>town - I even used to live there briefly - but it is probably the most
>overused location in computer games, and I'm rather disappointed that
>Ubisoft decided to go there. One of the fun things about the original
>game was that it presented us with a much less frequently used city -
>Detroit - to explore. For a game already suffering from ennui because
>of its re-used mechanics, re-using a location just makes it less
>likely I'm going to buy on release.
>
>Plus, Watch_Dogs 1 wasn't really the greatest game to begin with (it's
>hacking was disappointingly underused), buying a game on release day
>is a terrible idea anyway, and - in an era where I can get 30+ hours
>of fun from a $1 phone app, it's hard to justify a $60 expenditure
>just because the graphics are a bit sharper with a PC game. Not to
>mention that huge Steam back-log I still have to work through...
>
>

Just FYI, the setting for WD1 was actually Chicago rather than
Detroit.  Detroit would be a good setting for a new Bethesda title :
"Fallout V - Industrial Apocalypse"  :).   Then maybe they could do
DLC where Donald Trump brings back automobile manufacturing and turns
the whole city into a Roller Coaster Tycoon sort of game. lol

About the Ubi quest formula, that may be true but it's hard for me to
comment on WD2 from that angle, in fact it's hard for me to comment on
WD1 with regard to questing similarity since I spent all my time on MP
(which of course results in a different experience every time you
play) and never went back to SP.  My initial impression of WD2 is that
if there is a "been there done that" syndrome attached to the SP
campaign, it's probably because it shares a lot in common with the
Grand Theft Auto series.  But, that can be a good thing to some
people, especially if you enjoy exploring the peculiarities of a
modern-day city environment as opposed to a purely fictional fantasy
or sci-fi environment.  I picked up Dragon Age : Inquisition on a $5
black Friday special, played it for maybe 30 minutes before the
typical agony I feel from these D&D themed games sets in.  Despite
being highly technical in my career, I just don't have the nerd factor
in my personality to relate to all the magic and wizardry crap.  I
like games that have some semblence or reflection of reality, and as
much as I'd like to feel immersed in fantasy settings, I just can't. I
can play fantasy and sci-fi games, but they must have great gameplay
mechanics above and beyond the setting or story to appeal to me.

That brings me to my point about Ubi games.  I think my preferences
are not the norm, and that a lot of players care about story,
character development, cinematics, etc. when it comes to single player
games.  Therefore, Ubi and a lot of other games try to tick all the
boxes with the basic feature set players want (quest grinding,
crafting, etc) and use the setting and story as the differentiating
factor.  

The size of the budgets required these days to produce a AAA game make
it much harder to take new risks.  There may be an increasing reliance
on lower budget indie games to carve out new niches and trends rather
than to take on risky experiments with budgets like $50 Million.  It's
tough for creative types to try new things when there is a douchey
board of directors hovering over the company giving the stink eye to
anything they don't understand.