Exactly. I think there are legitimate usages for this technology (eg voices for dynamic content, or when the original voice actor is dead or not available to voice again his/her characters). But everything should be done with the consent of the voice actors, and not in an attempt to replace the work that could be done by a voice actor in the first place.

It probably won’t happen, since money leads the way :/.

The difference is that developers in the past were much more involved in the games. Nowadays, they are just following instructions of a few people and their scope is extremely limited.

At the same time, if a game does not sell well, they are the first to be punished, not the ones who designed the game.

Moreover, the games are not designed only by passionate people. They have to think about DLCs at the beginning, deciding which part of the whole game must be cut and how to frustrate gamers just enough to buy them. It’s no more an add-on for a game that sold very well, or adding things that could not fit into the game at the time.

Ubisoft has also a structural issue because it optimized everything too much. All their games are similar, because it’s easier to use again and again the same game structure than trying new things. Their teams are built for developing such games. Sadly, when they try they generally fail (like the last Prince of Persia or Mario & Rabbids).

But as I said, it’s not the fault of the developers themselves, but the people managing them. And those have too many constraints from people who want to make as much money as possible. Bugs are acceptable, games should be filled a with DLCs from the start, and repeat the same formula for every game so that production cost can be as low as possible. And if it fails, it’s the developers’ fault who just followed orders, even he can’t have a say about the game.

Same for me. I wanted to upgrade from 3070 to 5080, but missed it. I was too afraid to wait for the 5070 TI release, so I instead bought one of the last 4070 Ti Super at MSRP.

I will stop trying to upgrade on day one. Just buy the previous gen a few months before the new one, and it will be perfectly fine.

I do not understand how such practice is still legal. No one care, and it is a plague in more and more fields (I really hope Nintendo will produce enough machines to avoid the PS5 launch fiasco which lasted 2 years).

If you see no problem when TOTK is playable on an emulator a few weeks before its official release, thanks to specific patches provided by some emulator developers behind a paywall, I cannot say anything else. For me it’s unethical to promote such thing when the console is still in activity.

I say « unethical » because even if it’s legal, it has the same negative impact as piracy, and that’s why I think it’s a problem. I have no problem with emulation when the console is « dead » (and I think it’s even necessary for preservation).

Nintendo would not be as aggressive if Switch emulation waited 10 years. Developing an emulator for a machine that they are still selling, running commercial games even better then their own system, and allowing to play new games that are not even released officially yet, I do not expect another outcome.

In addition to that, some people got paid for that. It’s a very different situation than any other emulator in my opinion.

Again, I am not against emulation, but the timing for Switch emulation is very bad and unethical. It’s not only about Nintendo, but also third party developers. A situation where Switch emulation is very easy (especially with all those handheld PCs) would greatly impact game sales. It won’t kill Nintendo of course, but third party on the system will just leave because they will not sell anymore (see what happened to the Nintendo DS because it was easy to pirate any game).

Exactly. I do not understand people defending this. An emulator playing games that are not even released, it’s a step too far. What’s the difference with piracy?

And I say this as someone using emulators on a regular basis for 15 years. Emulation is good (and necessary) for preserving video games, but the timing is important not to cross the (thin) line between « preservation » and « piracy ».

It’s more complicated. Apple allows it, but apply a lot of fees so that it is really expensive (and probably not viable). If I remember correctly, you can propose your own store but you have to pay a fee for every download on the store (even for free apps).

I could be interested in Overcooked :).

It’s great news because it will now be available in other countries which ban F2P games with « gacha » mechanics. I think I will give it a try in December (but I have to get some info on it first, I like Animal Crossing games but I have no idea how good this mobile version is).

Fair point. I am not interested at all, but I can understand ;).

And then, they will blame the studio when the game fails :/. There is no point to force a studio specialized in single-player games to develop a multiplayer one. And using an existing IP for that is not very effective imo (it reminds me a lot when, during PS360 era, all single player games had an uninteresting multiplayer mode solely to justify the online membership, like Fable 2 or Mass Effect 3). It’s exactly like the last Crash game no one cared about.

It feels like they are buying lottery tickets, hoping a winning ticket will cover all their expenses.

It’s sad, but I think the only way to preserve video games is through piracy and emulation. The companies do not care, states do not care, and most people do not care until it’s too late (and the games are seen as consumables by most people, which imo explains why they are « happy » to buy the same games again and again).

I heard they sue Pocketpair on copyrighted systems, not on the design of the Pals (eg: using an object like a Pokeball to catch the creatures). They certainly have solid legal arguments, which explains why they took their time to find some flaws they could exploit to sue them.

Not exactly. It seems it was 30 fps on the map and 60 fps during battle.

Not an excuse, but I believe that’s because they are porting the PS3 version (which already had those limitations if I remember correctly).

Probably one of my all-time favorite RPG. It’s a good classic RPG with good graphics and music. The gameplay is good and unique as well, but I remember from my first playthrough back in the days that it took me some time to get used to it. The game is not easy at all (because 2/3 bosses in the game are very hard).

It’s important not to make a big pause when playing this game. The gameplay starts slow and becomes very fast at some point. It is so unique that, if you stop and play again after a month or so, you will likely have a hard time to become fast enough again (when I played it for the 1st time when I was young, I did this mistake and had to start the game from the beginning).

I can’t comment about the 2nd game because I never played it.

Clair Obscure reminds me a lot Lost Odyssey with its dynamic turn-based gameplay with QTE to alter the outcome. The plot is also quite interesting. Perfect Dark also surprised me. It seems to have Mirror Edge vibes with a bit more infiltration / action phases.

I guess it’s time to invest in a mobile controller 😅.

It’s true for TCG online, but I doubt it will be the case for this one. They announced nothing regarding micro transactions nor how to get extra packs. They can totally make this one free, as it’s marketing value for physical cards is enough by itself.

Yes but if it’s free, I don’t think it’s a big issue. Very different than allowing people to buy lottery tickets (it could be the case, but I don’t think so).