Yep! I am still going to post these every Sunday because gosh darn it I really do find pleasure in reviewing the happenings in the video game industry every week and talking about them. It’s fun, cathartic, and does not take up a lot of my time. As such, Rundowns will carry forth for the next… however long. Also, I completely failed to contribute to a conversation for 3.5 hours yesterday, so I’m feeling like a ripe little turd at the moment.
It has occurred to me that I simply am not the target demographic for VR. What with me being a young person of European descent with plenty of disposable income. I simply don’t believe in the idea of a physical barrier truly increasing your immersion when you are aware that what you are seeing is just an electronic game. Also, I have never played a game and wished that I could be sent into that virtual world, removing you from all awareness of your three dimensional space in real life. I know that’s the point, but this is just an uncanny valley of virtual reality for me. If you could actually transplant your consciousness into another plane, then I would be interested.
Anyways, the Playstation VR is coming out this October will cost $400… Plus the costs of the PS Camera and the motion controls. A few months later and a third cheaper than the Oculus Rift, whose launch titles revealed how there is nothing in the VR space that I truly care about. I’m pretty sure New Danganronpa V3 will be getting some VR support, but I’d rather play it like I did the last two games, on a regular screen. As will be the case with Danganronpa 2 when it comes to PC on April 18.
Yes, Spike Chunsoft has become fond of the platform, and are going so far as to bring Zero Escape 3: Zero Time Dilemma to PC after its release on 3DS and Vita on June 28. That said, I will still pick up the Vita version, as I skipped out on the physical bonus for the past two titles. And I really want one of those watches. Although, that will probably be my last Vita game bought at launch.
For as much as I believe that handheld to be great, I would rather play games on my PC. That’s the running theme here. Meaning I am glad that Project Setsuna, now known as I Am Setsuna is coming to PC and PS4 this summer, but the fact the Vita version is staying in Japan unless there is enough demand is bullcrap. You could say Square Enix, the publisher, has a good reason to, but these people were shocked when Bravely Default sold 200,000 units in North America. Square Enix can be pretty goldarn stupid. They even changed the Japanese title of Setsuna of Sacrifice and Snow, or rather The Split-Second of Sacrifice and Snow to a title that literally means I Am Split-Second. The former at the very least has a sense of poeticness to it, while the latter just sounds like a bad translation.
Speaking of just bad company decisions, Hyrule Warriors Legends runs like crap on the original 3DS. Which makes sense given the nature of the game, the plentiful enemies, and so forth, but the lack of 3D, generally poor performance, and the constant sub-30 fps should not be acceptable. It runs just fine on the New 3DS, but it is not marked so because it is technically playable. It is a generally unsavory move, and could have been avoided by inadvertently lowering their profit margins.
It is a particularly interesting example of the more negative side of hardware revisions, which Microsoft spoke of recently, and Sony may be exploring as well. A supposed PS4.5 is being made as a beefier PS4, one with better performance, visuals, and a higher resolution. I understand why this is happening. Higher resolutions takes a higher toll on games, as do higher framerates, and trying to combine those with graphical fidelity can be quite difficult. However, the notion of consoles shipping an inferior version at launch only to eventually replace it years later is a rather grim idea. “Just one more luxury that consoles appear to be losing in comparison to the PC,” I think as I punch myself in the gut.
Yes, PC is my platform of choice, but that does not mean I don’t see the nonsense that comes with it. Granted, cool and interesting games come with it as well, such as Obsidian’s Tyranny, a game where you work for an evil overlord who conquered the world and now you need to go through a very grey fog of morality in what sounds like a particularly interesting setting. I mean the set-up at the least. I’ve grown a bit tired of the default fantasy aesthetic, and it is present here. As is the CRPG gameplay that I could never get into.
I recently tried to get into Oddworld with Stranger’s Wrath and New ‘n’ Tasty, but I didn’t find either enticing, meaning I can’t express my interest in Oddworld: Soulstorm, a remake of Abe’s Exoddus. I mean, the only interest I have in the game is how Jim Sterling is doing a voice in it, and I’ve adored that man for the past six years. From Videogame Show What I’ve Done to Podtoid to Jimquisition, it’s been quite a fun and impactful ride to follow that man, and now he’s being sued by the hacks at Digital Homicide, a peddler of shit games that abuse the good graces of Steam Greenlight… I’m not worried about him losing, but this could blow up and become something really big and possibly even impactful to the game industry. And that excites me greatly.