Minorikawa's Random Gaming Thoughts

[Minorikawa]

I'm a huge fan of the video gaming industry, and I do a lot of following up on upcoming releases, what's new in the industry, and just playing a lot of what's out there. The only thing I don't really do is follow mainstream gaming news outlets like Polygon, Kotaku, IGN, etc. because I find their opinions and takes pretty basic and... well let's leave it as "pretty basic" for kindness' sake.

While I've got a bunch of folks I talk to about games already, I figured I'd start a thread here to do like others do and just share some thoughts on things. Obviously, this is open for discussion as well, so anyone can chime in with their own thoughts on the various topics. Or perhaps I'll just randomly want to bring up an old game I used to play or some smaller game I've come to really dig. Either way, just a place for me to talk about stuff.

Tonight's topic: Hideki Kamiya leaving PlatinumGames.

I was honestly surprised to see the announcement that Hideki Kamiya was leaving PlatinumGames, but more because he's very much the face of the company than anything else. Over the past few years Platinum's been in kind of a weird spot, talking about wanting to publish games and do less work-for-hire, and yet here they are building a live-service with Square Enix (that failed) and then contributing to Final Fantasy XVI. Not, partnerships and work-for-hire aren't exactly the same thing. Hideki Kamiya working with Nintendo on The Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2 is one of the reasons they stuck with Nintendo for Astral Chain, Bayonetta 3, and now Cereza and the Lost Demon. Clearly they have a good partnership with Nintendo as publisher, and their partnership with Square Enix on Nier Automata is on record as basically revitalizing the studio's morale after so many failures with Activision (the Legend of Korra game, Transformers: Devastation, and their Ninja Turtles game). It makes sense that PlatinumGames would develop a similar relationship with Square Enix as they had with Nintendo, only... despite what's been said in interviews about Babylon's Fall always intended to be live-service and Platinum wanting to do such a game, something seemed fishy.

Yet lately other studio heads at PlatinumGames have discussed dabbling in things like live-service and other aspects of the industry that just feel contrary to the company's philosophy. So, with this in mind, is it really that surprising that Hideki Kamiya would eventually leave? The man is not shy about speaking his mind, and he clearly has an old-fashioned philosophy regarding what makes a video game great. There's also the question of Tencent's investment. Kamiya himself went on record that Tencent's deal meant no interference with the creative process and Tencent got first licensing dibs on any potential mobile spin-off of a PlatinumGames property, but is it possible the company went back on their word? I mean, Kamiya was making his big Ultra Man inspired Project GG. What would cause him to leave without at least shipping the game first? Especially since he'd already had to face the cancelation of Scalebound?

I'm really curious to see if more information comes out. At first I was wondering if NetEase had poached him like they had Nagoshi from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, but given Kamiya's latest update he's undecided on what he'll do next. The question then is, who will try to court him? I know a lot of folks want to see him back at Capcom, but I'm not so certain they'd even have the resources to suddenly help him work on a game. Given comments between Kamiya and Phil Spencer, I also wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft tried to grab onto him for an Xbox/Windows exclusive. I guess we'll just have to see.

Hm, I actually wrote more about that than I expected. What are your thoughts on the matter? Where would you like to see Kamiya go? Let me know what you think.

[Minorikawa]

Wasn't expecting to have a new post so soon, but ya never know when drama in this industry is gonna drop. The latest: gaming statue manufacturer Gaming Heads has released an open-letter (visible there on their website or on their official TwiXer) announcing/accusing Sony of demanding all licensed product be destroyed, even if it is ready to ship. Sony's reasons or unknown. The company is directing customers to Sony for refunds and claim they have already paid royalties.

Naturally, there's a lot of questions to be raised, such as the onus of refunds not being on the licensor, but the manufacturer. Simultaneously, it seems this company already has a bad reputation of not delivering, particularly with Tomb Raider/Lara Croft fans. However, who is at fault is not the topic of this discussion, especially since we only have one side of the story (and even if we get Sony's, it's still a bunch of He Said, She Said).

What got my brain boiling over was not this drama, but the inevitable console warriors jumping out on both sides to sling mud at one another. Granted, to call them all "console warriors" is disingenuous, as there are plenty of former Sony supporters that have abandoned ship for PC and Nintendo, not Xbox. However, because discourse is dead, any criticism of Sony automatically gets one labeled an Xbot and fanboy. There are also plenty of signs of Sony fanatics review-bombing select competition on sites like Metacritic while maxing scores on nearly every Sony first-party. Despite this, I've seen more than enough Xbox loyalists taking every opportunity they can to accuse Sony of being the real threat the FTC needs to be investigating, or recycling that one bad, misrepresentative screenshot of Aloy from Horizon, or taking the obvious jabs at The Last of Us.

It's tiresome, because, honestly, both companies suck for different reasons, and it's just a matter of which you perceive to be the lesser evil. Admittedly, I've never been a big fan of Sony to begin with. I grew up on Nintendo consoles (I'll get to them in a bit) and only got a PlayStation for select generations. The original PlayStation was to follow Final Fantasy, and the PlayStation 4 was because the Xbox One was... well, it was the Xbox One. However, Sony has always tried a bunch of tricks in order to encourage third parties to develop for them exclusively, they've rarely created anything unique and have always tried to imitate the competition and rebrand it as their own innovation, the rare times they do innovate it's often a product of hubris (CELL architecture) or completely falls flat (the EyeToy), and now that they're being run by English-speaking countries instead of Japan, they're trying to dictate what content is and isn't okay to the most ridiculous degrees. We're not just talking censorship of Japanese games, but censorship of indie-game LISA reminiscent of what Nintendo was doing in the 80's and 90's.

Needless to say, I do not trust Sony. However, I cannot lie and claim they don't have a lot of good first-party exclusives, and always have. They always had it in the one area it counted, and that was the games. Unfortunately that's changing now that they've dissolved most of their Japanese first-party development and are chasing the live-service choo-choo train, but I'd be lying if I said games like Spider-Man 2 didn't interest me, or that I didn't like the new God of War games or Ghost of Tsushima.

The thing is, I don't trust Microsoft, either. I confess that I really did love the original Xbox. It was a big console for me, introduced me to a lot of favorites, and got as much play as my Nintendo GameCube. If you watch the documentaries about the making of that system, it's clear that the original Xbox team got it. The problem is that most of that team moved on shortly after. The Xbox brand was always cursed to just become another Microsoft product that didn't get it. Really, consider how much that system influenced the direction of modern gaming, and then Xbox 360 pushed those ideas forward. The hard-drive, online gaming with a headset, the party chat system, these things were kickstarted by Xbox... and now are all worse than Sony's implementation.

The writing was on the wall halfway through the Xbox 360's lifecycle. It wasn't even the whole red-ring of death thing, though that was a major, critical oversight. The 360 started with so many first-party games, but by the end it was just Halo and Gears of War. What did the Xbox One have? Halo and Gears of War, pretty much, and both franchises had gone downhill (though Gears 5 seems to have been received decently? I tried it, but it's just not the same). So what is Microsoft's solution to this problem? Just buy studios!

Admittedly, they're also trying the "hands-off" approach, but given Zenimax themselves have issues, well... you can just see what happened with Redfall. That was all Zenimax, but Microsoft took the blame. Can't blame 'em, Embracer tried the same approach, and as a result the Saint's Row reboot happened.

Thing is, you can't trust Microsoft because they're a big, silicon valley tech company that wants you to own nothing and be happy, they take their customers for granted, and they'd rather buy the competition than actually compete. Game Pass might seem like a good, consumer friendly deal, but it's just easing you not only into losing ownership of games, but into accepting the All Cloud Future. And hey! Maybe that sounds great to you, but to a lot of folks, they like owning things. The older of us also know what it's like to see favorite games become lost to old tech or expired licenses. The impermanence of art is not exactly appealing.

So, what's the point of all this? I guess it's to express my frustration that we're still having petty little console wars when both companies stink. Remember how I said I'd get to Nintendo? They're not clean, either. Consistent cease-and-desist letters and an inability to capitalize or recognize modern times due to their desire for absolute control, their insistence on reselling the same games repeatedly, and the demand of control. There's a lot they are guilty about.

However, I think there's one reason Nintendo is able to get away with it: their worst practices rarely affect their actual game development. They offer some of the cheapest DLC there is for the content you get, their Splatoon franchise has continuously offered free weapons, maps, and outfits throughout the product lifecycle, and even their Nintendo Online service is cheaper than the competition. Preservation still sucks, especially when you look at games like Super Mario Bros. 99 or the 3-D All-Stars Collection being available for a limited time only, but at least you know their new games are being developed to be some of the best games around.

With Nintendo, the games are their primary focus. With Sony and Microsoft, it feels like the games themselves are secondary, sometimes tertiary.

So, really, at the end of the day, the only people that win out are the PC Master Race... that is, until nVidia pulls some shady graphic card trash, or you run into driver issues, and let's not forget how many games are lost to the days of MS-DOS, floppies, and... oh yeah, it was PC that started the rush to kill physical ownership of games, wasn't it? Thanks, Valve and Steam!

Yeah...

What a crappy industry, sometimes...

[Minorikawa]

Steam Next Fest is on meaning demos aplenty to give a try. Sadly I haven't had time to really sink into many yet, though I did get some time with the demo for Robocop: Rogue City. It's... charming in a way? I'm not exactly a superfan of Robocop as a franchise, just that first movie and somewhat the remake that's fine as a movie but a shitty attempt to remake Robocop. Never saw the sequels and honestly don't really care to. So, seeing Rogue City go all in on "Murphy's not over his wife and son" still is... eh, especially when he was basically done his character arc of accepting his cyborg humanity at the end of the first movie.

But how's the gameplay? Well... it's definitely a budget title, but it's not awful. The slow stomping as opposed to quick movement is appropriate given you're playing Robocop, and enemies tend to go down quick with heads popping explosively when precisely shot. Despite not offering much strategy, there's something appealing about its criminal scum shooting gallery occasionally broken up by rooms with minor little experience bonuses, like recovering stolen wallets, drugs, or investigating other items that provide experience points.

The thing is, I'm not sure of the game's longevity. It's a neat novelty but I'm not exactly feeling compelled to play more. But, maybe some Robocop superfans are all about it. The tone isn't right for me, though, and the gameplay isn't strong enough.

Most of the other demos I downloaded are 2D Metroidvanias like The Last Faith, as those games are my bread and butter.

What about you? Grabbing anything to try out? Any games got your eye?

[Minorikawa]

Blows the dust off of this thread, only for a pale cloud to erupt right back into his face and send him into coughing fits.

So we're approaching the end of the year, which means The Game Awards just happened and lots of game of the year lists and videos will be showing up all over the place. Figured I'd touch a little bit on both.

Evidently the Game Awards are getting a ration of criticism as an actual awards show, but I don't see the point. Maybe it's because I've done this song and dance for a long time, but the idea of the game awards being a legitimate awards show is an absolute joke. I'm sure in his mind Geoff Keighley actually thinks he's putting on something meaningful, that he's rewarding the hard work of all these developers and shining a spotlight on DEI initiatives that he's got to be more and more sneaky about as public opinion turns more and more against such forceful soap boxing, but at the end of the day it's all one big marketing event. All he's doing is showing a bunch of trailers that help pay for the event. He touts the numbers as if they're some big success but no one tunes in to see who won what, they tune in to see what's getting announced.

Do I wish there was an alternative? Well, technically there are some. You have the equally pathetic Golden Joystick awards, and then you have the DICE Awards and Game Developers' Choice Awards, with the latter being the closest to a real awards show given the jury is made up of actual game developers. Y'know, kind of like how the Oscars are voted on by people that actually work in the film industry?

But the reality is, just like the Oscars, all of these things are victim to corporate politics, hob-nobbing, efforts to sway and manipulate public opinion, and just good ol' boys and girls club high school cliquish bullshit. In other words: there's no such thing as a good awards show, and of all the overdone post-modern cynicism that has latched onto pop culture like a filthy parasite, I wish the disillusionment of awards shows would be the one that sticks.

However, I love reading or watching game of the year lists by my favorite content creators. They are individuals I already care about, and therefore their opinion already has more meaning to me than a vague, undefined jury of incompetent or obsolete games press. They are the ones most likely to encourage me to try something I haven't played before, and their thoughts on what was and wasn't best are far more interesting to me. And y'know what? That's how it should be. Mainstream press and organizations will always be ass in regards to what they can offer. Stick to content creators you like, find your niche, find where you belong.

As for me, honestly, I think my favorite game this year might be Armored Core 6. It felt "classic" in its approach, like how video games used to be, but didn't feel like it was stuck in the past. The design still felt new, it provided a unique new type of fun that was unlike any other game I played this year, and it just left me wanting to play more and more and more. The only other game that might have come close was Remnant 2 with my buddy.

What about you? What are your favorite games that you played this year?