Cookie, icecream, and various other snack makers of the world, listen up.

There is no such thing as "birthday cake" flavor! There's nothing special about cakes on a birthday that cakes at any other time don't already have, and the cake someone gets on their birthday, traditionally, is WHATEVER THEIR FAVORITE FLAVOR IS! There is no absolute standard of what "Birthday Cake" is!

You COULD have just said "cake flavored". It would still be pretty nonspecific, but no, you had to go and invent the concept of "birthday cake" as a flavor. The only thing I can figure is some idiot in marketing said "people like birthdays, so we should call it birthday cake to associate the flavor with something people like".

This has been another random rant on something that doesn't matter.

For another example of how much I dislike open-world design, I would say that StarTropics is a better game than the original Legend of Zelda, because it's also fatnastic, but is a more focused, fun experience that doesn't rely on stupid crutches like "go find the random hidden stuff" or "wander around pointlessly for no good reason". I've beaten StarTropics 1, did so in the late '00s, and loved it. But Zelda 1? I've still never gotten past the sixth dungeon. Sure, it's a classic and a game I remember playing back during the NES'es lifespan various places, while StarTropics isn't (I'd heard of it in Nintendo Power, but not played it until the '00s), but while Zelda is fun, it's also flawed and frustrating. StarTropics is better for sure, and it's the best action-RPG I have played for the NES.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:I... just can't possibly understand your opinion on Link to the Past. I think just about everything you said is simply... entirely backwards! I mean, the sense of adventure as you get new abilities and unlock new areas is completely lost?

Quote:I've said this before but, did you even play the same game the rest of the world did?

Quote:Well, it's a matter of personal taste, and I could accept that if you just weren't so absolutely certain about LTTP's supposed failings with all your "obviously"s thrown in there.

I thought I'd make a proper thread dedicated to the hype train this particular game has started.

I for one am very excited about this one. I've noted how many gamers have found Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword to be disappointing. Their reasons have been all over the place, but at this point I've got a good handle on what's changed (and for what matter, what Wind Waker did right). Namely, the freedom to roam was taken away from players in both Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. This has been a steady trend going back to when Zelda games got more cinematic. In order to direct those more movie-like moments, they had to funnel the player into a number of "plot gates", and Nintendo's been feeling the pushback as of late for such choices.

This also goes for their recent 2D games. The Capcom-made ones suffered from "gating" the player through and not really allowing a full sense of exploration, though to a lesser extent than TP and SS (huh, those are some problematic acronyms).

For my part, my favorite Zelda games are universally the oldest ones. Link to the Past, in recent years, has finally surpassed Link's Awakening in my standing. Link's Awakening is good, but Link to the Past allows more freedom. The very first Zelda game, while it has the least to do and least variety in puzzle design, had a truly open world more open than any later game. Link to the Past is a close second though. Link to the Past, once you get past the opening, lets you go wherever you like. You can break sequence right from the start, although clearing Death Mountain before the other two palaces does require some creativity that the designers may not have intended. Once you reach the dark world, once again you're free to take on the dungeons in an almost completely free way.

Ocarina of Time will always have a place in my list of favorite games, but it's luster has faded a bit. It is still a very well done game, but it was the start of a bad trend. Everything I can complain about with newer Zelda games got it's start with OOT. I never "hated" Navi like a lot of gamers, but her basic design of "hint giver" was not well done. She forced herself on you far too often and annoyed you into listening to her hints when you might have wanted to solve the puzzle yourself. While the overworld is far more open than later games like TP, it was also the start of forcing you along a gated path. There wasn't much of a way to do dungeons out of order, with only a few notable exceptions. It still did at least allow you to wander off to other locations and explore a bit though. I think we all loved finding that fishing pond for the first time.

Majora's Mask continued that trend, but it did offer an amazingly well designed experience in it's own right, and I gotta appreciate it for what it is. It is still one of my favorites just for being such an odd one.

Link Between Worlds was Nintendo's first attempt at a return to form. It is great, and really challenges Link to the Past as my all-time favorite game. It does have a more "open" design than LTTP, which is saying something, but that does come at a cost. In their effort to give the player choice, it skews a little too close to Megaman-like stage design. All the dungeons are "equal" difficulty, save the "final" one unlocked after beating them. For that matter, every dungeon only requires one specific item to solve it's puzzles. There's no sense of steadily using more and more tools to solve ever more elaborate puzzle design. The items themselves can all be obtained without needing to dive into the major dungeons, but that's because you just buy them all from the sales bunny camping in your house. There's no real sense of accomplishment in getting those items. You just grind up money and buy them. That's a shame, because the "side dungeons", those little caves dotting Zelda games with smaller scale challenges, would have been the perfect place to stick those items in as reward. You could still do things in any order, but you'd still need to find each item and solve puzzles to reach them. For all that I said, it is still a very well made game and I go back to it more often than I have a lot of recent Zelda games. I still highly recommend it.

So that leads us here. Not only do they seem to be learning from the design issues of recent Zelda games, they're adding in all sorts of fun things to do. I'm not a big fan of item durability in my Zelda games, but if they do it right, maybe those items will just feel like those "temp" weapons you could pick up off enemies in Wind Waker (Double Dragon style weapons, basically). The open world design should have that sense of a vastness that Wind Waker had, but on actual land. Even the art design really calls back to Zelda 1. (I've always loved how Zelda, as a series, isn't afraid to completely reinvent it's art style every few games, so if you aren't a fan of one art style, don't worry, they'll be trying something else in a few years.) The sense of loneliness in this vast world means they will be skewing away from cinematic narrative in favor of letting you put together the story by just exploring the world. Think something like Myst or the Souls series. I don't need everything spelled out for me, so this is great.

Lastly, the things I've seen hint at a focus on sequence breaking and emergent gameplay. The game I enjoyed the MOST last year was Phantom Pain, and it wasn't even finished :D. The reason? The designers focused on giving the player a bunch of tools, yes, but more than that, focused on making the tools interact with other tools in interesting ways, and the environment besides. Phantom Pain is a game that is designed with the ethos "if you can do it, cool!". The sheer variety players have come up with to solve problems in the game is amazing. There's many a time you may find yourself surrounded, about to be discovered, and you end up just pulling up your list of items and saying "okay, what combination will open this lock?". For example, helicopter parked somewhere and you want to take it out? You could shoot a rocket at it. That's boring though. Air drop a tank on it!

As an aside, a quick fix to the gender issue would be simply letting a player pick their own pronoun at the start of the game, with the game script accordingly switching that pronoun around as you play. Link is androgynous enough for that to work with minimal effort.

So, there is no female playable character in the new Zelda game because Aunuma is sexist. To explain why there won't be a playable female character in this game that should have one, he said "Zelda isn't playable because then what would Link's role be"? WHAT? That's a ludicrously sexist thing to say, for fairly obvious reasons! It's a modern version of the good old sexist stereotype that 'girls' have no place in adventure stories [because they should stay home, etc.]. This is a stereotype we're breaking down here in the West, but Japan sadly still holds out against the modern world. It's sad given how much I love the Zelda series, and it always has been one of the best in gaming, but that is the only way to explain his incredibly flawed "logic" in the quotes in the OP, sexism, from an older man in one of the most sexist countries in the developed world.

Sadly enough, due to series history and Nintendo's own bad record of womens' roles in their games this is exactly the result I expected, but it's still extremely disappointing even if it is in no way a surprise.

Full quote:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/why-zel...0-6440862/

Quote: During the conversation, which was translated by a Nintendo representative, we asked Aonuma if the rumors of having the option to play as a female version of Link are accurate. He said that he's aware of the conversations happening online, stating: "So yes, there were rumors like that, and we did discuss as a staff as to what would be possible if we took that route."

However, instead of entertaining the idea of the player being able to choose the hero Link's gender, Aonuma said his team considered what they deemed to be the simplest option; making princess Zelda the lead character. "We thought about it," said Aonuma, "and decided that if we're going to have a female protagonist it's simpler to have Princess Zelda as the main character."

This idea was ultimately rejected, because according to Aonuma "...if we have princess Zelda as the main character who fights, then what is Link going to do? Taking into account that, and also the idea of the balance of the Triforce, we thought it best to come back to this [original] makeup."

So, E3 may be smaller than last year, with many major publisher either gone or significantly scaling back their appearances, Nintendo included of course, there is still an E3, and there are still some exciting things for sure.

So, so far I haven't seen the PC Gaming show yet but I'll post again once I watch it. For now I'll cover Bethesda, EA, Sony, and Ubisoft, since I watched those live, and Microsoft, which I just watched while posting this. All four have lots of first or third person shooting games, the kinds of games I rarely care about much or play often. Some things were of interest, though.

One of the most noteworthy things here is a serious absence of actual surprise announcements. Part of that is that many conferences had serious leaks of the more interesting parts, but that's not all;' nobody seems to want to announce many actual new surprise games, unlike last year which was full of surprises. It's unfortunate. There were some new announcements, but not on the level of last year.


EA - EA and Bethesda had their conferences on Sunday. EA's not at the show, but they have an event nearby. Their conference was Sunday afternoon, the first of the show. This conference was about an hour long, though it was followed by an hour-plus Battlefield 1 stream showing off that title. Mass Effect Andromeda could be good, but this teaser showed almost nothing beyond that the default/cover character will be a female this time, instead of male (on the box and ads) Shepard of ME1-3. They also showed a potentially interesting indie 3d adventure/platformer thing from Europe called Fe, I do want to see more of that one. They also had a segment on their Star Wars games, including a mobile game, new content for the MMO and Battlefront, and a very short teaser of something for Amy Hennig (Legacy of Kain)'s upcoming original, not movie-based Star Wars game. I haven't played her games so I'm not excited for this specifically, but I do want to see more Star Wars games, so it's good they're doing something. They also showed FIFA and Madden of course, and Titanfall 2, which now will have a single player campaign and will be on PS4 as well as Xbox One and PC. I doubt I'll play it though.

As for Battlefield 1, it looks like a standard Battlefield game wit ha World War 1 skin on it. Considering how seriously a lot of people in Europe still take WW1, and how different trench warfare is from what you find in a modern online shooter, I was interested to see if this game would be different from past Battlefields, but... nope, it's just more Battlefield. I remember finding the original BF1942 demo kind of fun, but haven't played anything else in the franchise since. Also, apparently the list of playable nations is out... and it's the US, UK, and Italy v. Germany, Austra-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. What the heck? The core of that war was the Germany-France rivalry. The biggest front was that between France and Germany, and the best-known part of the war took part in France, fought by French soldiers first. The US and UK troops were there too, but France bore the brunt of it... and they're not in the game. I presume there'll be DLC, but still, that's a really bad decision.

Overall though, it's a very EA conference: it was okay, but not great. Disappointingly they didn't have any racing games to show. No Need for Speed this year? Too bad, those games are fun. And yeah, no big new surprise announcements.


Bethesda - Bethesda is, of course, one of my least favorite of the major publishers. Their owner ZeniMax are horrible, and Bethesda itself's Elder Scrolls games have never interested me. However, Arkane and id do make games that interest me, and both of those showed stuff here. The main headliner at this show is Dishonored 2. The first Dishonored is a good Thief-style game, apart from its "if you killed many people you get an awful ending but there are few rewards for not killing people" design. We'll see how the new game handles that element, but everything they showed looked pretty good. The choice to let you play as a male or female character's a nice addition too. I'm definitely interested. Beyond that, Bethesda also announced Quake Champions, a new Quake arena shooter which has some kind heroes & skills element, though it's supposedly a traditional shooter. It's got a mediocre co-developer working on it, and they showed no gameplay, so we'll see. They also showed some Elder Scrolls stuff, including a graphically enhanced PS4/X1 remake of Skyrim, new content for the MMO (with an overly enthusiastic person in the audience during this segment) and a card game, surely inspired by Heartstone's success. There was also a bit with some new DLC and stuff coming to Fallout 4. And of course they talked a bit about stuff coming to DOOM, and some VR things that probably aren't actually full games. As for anything new... Quake Champions is it, and we know very little about the game. So yeah, there was some good stuff here, but sorry, I dislike Bethesda regardless.


Ubisoft - Ubisoft's conference was Monday afternoon. This two-hour conference was the longest one of the show, I believe, so it's Ubi's longest yet, while Sony's conference, usually the longest, was much shorter than usual. EA moving to Sunday allowed Ubisoft to extend theirs, and they did. Ubisoft's conferences are usually among the most entertaining of the show, and that was true again this year. Aisha Tyler hosted for the fifth year in a row, and she said some interesting stuff as usual... watch the show. The show started with a dance number advertising the next Just Dance game, too. Beyond that, though, a lot of the show was taken up with open-world modern-military shooters, including Tom Clancy stuff and such. They did show other things too, though, thankfully. There's a new '90s cartoon show-themed Trials game and that trailer was fantastic, it's perfect for any of us who remember '90s advertising. The Trials games are fun stuff, too. Ubisoft also had a VR segment, covering a cartoon-ish flying game Eagle's Flight for Oculus which looks decently good and a Star Trek VR game. The Star Trek game had LeVar Burton there to say how much he liked it, and he's quite good at that and made it sound good, whether or not it actually is. Will it be? Who knows, we'll see... but Star Trek's gaming history is oddly mediocre, so I'm not expecting something incredible. Still I'm sure it'd be neat.

They also showed the medieval action game For Honor again, with its intense bearded producer. The game looks good, with some Dynasty Warriors influences but with much more challenging combat. You have left, right, or overhead attacks, and need to attack and block to defeat tougher enemies. The game is a war between Vikings, Knights, and Samurai, in a ruined world where they are fighting for what remains. Now, normal enemies are easy to kill, as usual in this kind of game... and that's fun, but is quite unrealistic. Still, the game does look interesting. It releases early next year. They also announced a sequel to last years' popular little 3d platformer Grow Home, titled Grow Up. It sounds like more of that, with a much bigger world. Maybe there'll be more to do also? It looks good, and it was great to see at least one cartoony game in this lineup even if Rayman is still sadly absent. There was also a gameplay-free trailer for some upcoming The Division content... whatever. And last, they announced an actual new game... an open-world extreme sports game set in the mountains in France, with winggliding, skiing, snowboarding, and some more. I'm no open world game fan, of course, but it was exciting to see Ubisoft announce something like this -- just before they announced it I was thinking 'it's too bad Ubi hasn't shown any racing games, they make some good ones... but this'll probably be another shooter'... and then it was this! So yeah, that was pretty cool. And the game does look quite good. I'm sure I'd like it. Overall Ubisoft's show was long


Sony - Sony's shows in the past are usually overly long and kind of boring, but they made their show shorter and more gameplay-focused, with very few parts with someone on stage talking. That's alright, but a little bit of explanation for some of these might have been good. They also showed no indie stuff at all. They started with the big reveal, though it'd leaked: the new God of War. This time it's Viking-themed. The new protagonist looks like Kratos with a beard and somewhat Viking clothing, so he's not as different as you might expect, but the tone and gameplay look different -- the pacing, combat, and exploration don't look like old God of War, there seem to be Dark Souls elements, and more. It could be good, though I hope the story isn't as terrible as the old ones. The trailer leads you to believe that it might be open-world, but apparently it isn't. I'm quite fine with that of course. After that they show a new post-apocalyptic-with-zombies shooter, Days Gone, that looked decent in the first story-only trailer but totally uninteresting once they actually showed the gameplay; more of the good-looking action-adventure game Horizon: Zero Dawn. Sony also revealed the new Crash Bandicoot project: a remaster collection of the original three PS1 games, and he'll be in Skylanders this year. Yes, there isn't a new Crash game, it's only a remake collection. Blah. No gameeplay is shown either, only the announcement.

As with many publishers, Sony showed a bit of VR stuff too, though it's not clear which are actually full games and which are just 'VR experiences' and the like. Resident Evil 7 was announced, is it all VR? Not sure. Looks more first-person and horror this time. Sony also showed a Spiderman game which may be exclusive? I don't know. The Last Guardian also has a short appearance, and will apparently release later this year. It does look good, but the long delay... well, we'll see. And the only other Japanese game shown, if it is a game, is Death Stranding, an engine test ... thing ... for Hideo Kojima's next game, which Sony is bankrolling. This is a really weird video I won't try to explain that only Kojima could have come up with, though I've never gotten into his games of course. Also apparently he hasn't even chosen an engine for the game for sure yet, much less gotten far with the design, so it's quite a ways off. Sony also showed a Call of Duty trailer. It's gone sci-fi this time, and you have a spaceship and stuff... but it's mostly CoD, so I don't care. Sony didn't have a reveal at the end, either, the conference just ended. There was no mention of the PS4 Neo, even though the system is supposed to release by mid next year, and not as much PS VR as you might expect. So yeah... meh. Sony showed some good stuff, but some games could have used more shown and this was a AAA-games-only conference, unfortunately. It was okay but not one of Sony's best conferences.


As for Microsoft, I've been watching their show while writing this. It's a solid show, and I really like the new PC push, to have the first-party titles also release on PC with cross-save, some cross-platform multiplayer, and more. MS's PC support has been poor ever since they moved over to Xbox, so here's hoping this time they actually care... we'll see. MS showed a lot of games. Recore looks like it's actually a third-person action game... huh. Could be okay I guess? I'd need to see more, the trailer is short. They also cover Minecraft, showing cross-platform multiplayer between an iPad and a Surface... and also John Carmack on an Oculus. Yes, Carmack is here, playing Minecraft. Huh. I would not have guessed that. Amusing stuff. The custom Xbox One controller thing sounds pretty cool too, that'd be great. Inside, the new game from the developers of Limbo, could be good as well, if it's as good as the first one.

They also have an indie roll, which is welcome to see given Sony didn't bother. Most of the games I'd like most in these conferences are probably in this indie roll -- it includes Yooka-Laylee, among others. MS also had on-stage Final Fantasy XV and Tekken 7 demos, for some Japanese games. Akuma is in Tekken 7, though Tekken v. Street Fighter is still dead apparently. I don't like Tekken, though, so whatever. Dead Rising 4 is shown too. If you are going to do that super overdone zombies thing, at least make it ridiculous like this, instead of the far too serious Days Gone. Scalebound is at the MS conference as well. It's about a guy and his dragon, third-person fantasy action game. It could be like fun stuff, though the protagonist is annoyingly cocky. The game has great graphics, but the gameplay looks pretty average. Maybe it'll be better than it looks here, though? It is a Mikami game, but... we'll see. Forza Horizon 3 was also announced, with a Australian setting this time. I don't care for those games though, they're a bit too simmish... sure, Horizon is less simmish than Forza, but it's still a bit tricky to drive, you spin out somewhat easily.

And from Rare, they show Sea of Thieves, Rare's first-person pirate-themed online game. The art design is fantastic, really nice cartoony stuff. The game looks great visually A third-person view option would be good, it'd be nice to be able to see your characters. As for the game though, it's an online game/MMO for sure. The gameplay video has some teams of people, and they sound like real people and not the ridiculous scripted "game speak" of Ubisoft conferences, which is cool. You and your team run a pirate ship, exploring around, fighting other players, and such. I doubt it's a game I'd play a lot of, but you never know? I do like fantasy pirate settings, they're of ten great fun stuff. The online MMO team focused element, though, that's never been a thing I've liked. But who knows. MS also showed State of Decay 2, which is a sequel to some kind of post-apocalyptic zombie game I don't recall ever hearing about before. Seriously, aren't there enough zombie games? This has some good press apparently, but still. MS showed Titanfall 2 as well, though it's multiplatform now. Halo Wars 2 interests me much more, though -- this is a sequel to that Xbox 360-exclusive RTS Halo Wars, this time developed by The Creative Assembly instead of now-dead Ensemble. It's nice to see another one of these, but seriously, RTSes are better on PC, not console. This game will be on PC as well thankfully, but will it be hamstrung by having to work on console as well, as some games are?

And unlike Sony, MS did at least show a LITTLE bit of what they're thinking about for their next console. The next system, codenamed "Scorpio", is actually mentioned! They mention the 6 teraflop power, they show some circuit boards, talk about how it'll have 4k gaming support -- this is what all that power is for, 4K and VR first. It's a good video talking about the more powerful system they'll be releasing, and why they're releasing a new system so soon. Todd Howard says that Fallout 4 VR will be on the system with "the framerate and resolution we expect". Huh. They also say that games will also work on the original Xbox One, though, so will games be able to make full use of its significantly greater additional power? I have to imagine they eventually will, but at the conference they say things will be dual-compatible. They don't show the box, but there is an outlined shadow of a probably-large box, the opposite of the small (and $299) new Xbox One S. [After the conference, we learned that the S will be $299 only for the 500GB model, while 1TB will be $349 and 2TB will be limited-release and $399. And those custom-color-and-word controllers will be $80 to $90. So yeah, they didn't mention negatives like these at the show.]


Overall, right now I'd say MS had the best conference this year, followed by Ubisoft, with the others trailing. Microsoft's conference was good, probably their best so far that I've seen. And after seeing MS actually talk about "Scorpio", Sony still said absolutely nothing about the PS Neo, disappointingly. Nintendo of course has promised to also say nothing about their system releasing next year. And on that note, it is interesting to see how short this generation has turned out to be, before everyone releases more powerful hardware... sure, for now they're saying games will be backwards compatible and that is good, you're heading towards a more PC-like future for consoles here, and this will make things confusing in the future, once you have to say "games work on the third model but not the fourth" or what have you, but isn't that harder with the new "we don't put full new numbers on each system" world? I know it works for Apple, but Apple doesn't actually care about games.

But anyway, it's been an interesting conference so far. MS showing some details of the Scorpio pushes them on the top so far, but I'm really missing Nintendo; their choice to not show much here at E3, so far as we know, is disappointing. Not saying anything about a console coming so soon is a somewhat odd choice. It shows that either they think that the NX won't match up to the Scorpio and PS VR and such and they're still changing things about it, or they just don't think E3 means as much as it used to and want to show it later when no one else is getting attention... but they'd get more now than later, I think, so it does make me wonder if something isn't ready. Of course this applies to Sony as well, but at least they said a bit about the PSVR here, another piece of hardware releasing later this year. So yeah, I really hope that Zelda is great, both because it's Nintendo's main focus, and because I really love that series. (I will say, though, I'm not convinced that it'll have a playable female character. I'd love for that to be true, but Nintendo has been so tone-deaf or backwards on gender issues far too many times before for me to believe that they'd do this until I actually see it. So I'll hope for it, but won't really expect it. And of course I really hope the game is great and recognizably Zelda in key ways, and not just some Zelda open-world game...

http://www.polygon.com/2016/6/13/1192038...-cross-buy

This has been a very interesting development. Microsoft technically has had two "platforms" for a while now, considering Windows as it's own platform. They've got nothing to lose with a step like this. For some background, Microsoft is shrinking down their OSes to a single universal platform. Windows 10 will simply be Windows 10 everywhere, functioning exactly the same (though with a few system settings customized for certain configurations). Windows 10 on PCs, Windows phones, and Surface tablets is already the same. Now, their game console will simply run Windows 10. One configuration difference is that the "Start Screen" (Metro interface) will be turned on by default on XBox, phones, and certain tablet setups (this is the same start screen you can turn on through a setting on the PC, which they have wisely turned off by default in that version).

This also means any and all software made for their Windows Store interpreter will run on anything that can run Windows 10, so long as the hardware specs are up to snuff. Basically, if it's made for that Windows 10 platform, it isn't designed for the hardware but an interpretation layer which then translates the program's instructions to something the processor can understand, so it won't matter if it's x86 or RISC. That said, the XBox One is already an x86 platform, so there's little need for much overhead. There have been some issues with limitations MS is putting on that universal platform, and those are worth complaining about, but the overall idea is a very good one. So, we're at a point where MS is going to go ahead and open the gates so all existing XBox One games run on PCs. They've made a very powerful emulator for 360 games as well, so that's getting ported over too. Who knows, they might even go ahead and set up a better emulator for original XBox games and get all 3 systems fully functioning on the PC.

I do have one major question. I often buy disc games, for a number of reasons, and I want to know if I can insert those discs into my PC and play them that way. At the moment, my PC's Bluray drive tells me nothing's been inserted when I stick an XBox One game in there, but I am not sure if that's a fundamental hardware issue or a software issue MS could easily fix with an update.

That question aside, there's another concern. If MS goes this route, many people would be able to simply use their XBox One AS their PC. I know for a fact it's tempting to me as my current PC is long overdue for an upgrade (the latest Doom is playable only in the barest technical sense). However, I need to be able to install and adjust anything I like. Will MS turn off the software lock so that I can "sideload" whatever applications I want onto the system? Can I install Steam and Good Old Games Galaxy on it and get my whole library ported over and fully functional? I do know that the Microsoft Store is going to host a little application called "XDOSBox", which means at least all my DOS games should be playable, but I'm talking about the rest of my games here. It'd be a major win for MS if they did that.

If not though, they just made enthusiast PC gamers very happy anyway, because they now have no reason at all to buy an XBox console ever again. I myself, even as an avid console gamer and collector, don't see myself bothering with buying an XBox when I can save the money for a major PC upgrade. Again, this doesn't hurt MS. They win either way because Windows 10 is their platform either way. I'm just saying that even as a collector I wouldn't see the point.

In fact, if they truly open up their platform on the console side, they just justified their rapid upgrade cycle for the system. It's still a bad idea for the PS4, but it would actually make sense for the XBox-as-a-PC positioning they are attempting.

I had heard this game get hyped for weeks on Polygon and the like. I finally got a chance to play it, when friend of mine from work practically pushed it into my hands, saying "PLAY THIS FUCKING GAME". I have to agree. Play this fucking game, indeed. It's like the Indiana Jones of games: an adventure of treasure hunting and fighting goons from your rivals. There's stealth, action, puzzles, and a whole lot of climbing around. My buddy was so engrossed that he beat it within a week.

The game's beginning chapter is half cinematic, half gameplay of the protagonist, Nathan Drake, sneaking around a boarding school with his big brother Sam. It shows you the mechanics of climbing, jumping from roof-top to roof-top, sneaking past teachers, and so on. It's a nice introduction of all the controls, along with the setup of the story and characters. The game is heavy on the cinematics, which I don't always love. Stories in video games are little more than a means to an end, even in strong cases like Last Of Us. But the story is above average and the graphics are so gorgeous, the facial animations so well done, I don't mind at all sitting through a little drama.

The cutscenes and gameplay work seamlessly together, and the action is top-notch throughout each of them. The puzzles are easy to medium so far. God DAMN that clock tower was fun to play, best time I've had in one since Mario 64.

Go play it if you have a PS4. This game beats the shit out of Metal Gear Solid V, which I got bored of in just a couple weeks.

It's been getting some good reviews, and I finally checked it out. It's as good as they say. Once you realize the entire storyline of Doom is completely ridiculous on purpose, it becomes a joy to play it. In this case, the narrative of the game is itself treated as an enemy, with the marine regularly shutting up literally anyone who tries to explain anything to him. This marine already knows everything he needs to know. Idiots once again made an artificial portal to hell and demons everywhere, so it's time to kill demons, which is exactly what you do. Doom 3 was an interesting experiment, but it took itself a bit too seriously.

The biggest flaw so far is that it's just called "Doom". Hey, marketing people, cut that out! If you don't want to call it Doom 4 (and why not?), at least give it a subtitle.

http://www.polygon.com/2016/5/23/11748426/uncharted-4-neil-druckmann-interview-women-characters

That... is a very weird person... Oh well, I'm sure they'll be happier when they rant about it back on Reddit.

Yooka-Laylee

All of the writing, enemy names, locations and etc are basically adorable insults. Wii U version confirmed but nothing said on NX. I've been waiting a long time for a new Banjo or DK64 or... anything Rareware and i'm hoping that if this makes an impact in the gaming world we could see a similar re-imagining of IP for Blast Corps.