Video game thread

Anyone try Silent Hill F? The only thing I’ve gathered so far is that it’s more combat-focused than other entries, because it’s been getting memed so hard.

@ANoobis
Indeed. Remember The Callisto Protocol? That terror game that was more a Beat ’Em Up game than a survival horror in the space? Well, put it a Silent Hill skin with all the characteristic terror of the saga diluted, add poorly executed puzzles, put everything in a blender, and, VUALA: Silent Hill F.

If it weren’t for the amazing soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka and the excellent sound design, I would say it was a complete waste.

@ANoobis
It’s Silent-Elden-Resident-Blood-Souls-Ring-Bourne-Evil: Babies Die Twice, a hack and slasher game about how marriage is evil and oppressive for women.

No really, I’m not reading too much into it…literally they beat that theme into you so hard, if anything I’m downplaying it.

Because subtly and inference is for filthy gaijin, I suppose. XP

Too be fair: maybe the game’s message makes more sense if you live in Japan…then again, if you’re going to hammer on about how toxic social expectations are in Japan, why stop at marriage? This is the country where trails derail and kill hundreds of people because the driver was running 30 seconds late.

That could be a good premise if that was her hang-up, and Silent Hill was working its claws into her psyche, but I’m guessing the game just says that stuff outright.

I’ve seen it described as “Silent Hill meets Dark Souls”. Because anything with melee combat and a stamina bar and a parry system is considered Souls-like nowadays.

For what it’s worth it’s getting good reviews and it looks less combat focused/more focused on scares than Homecoming, so it passes that low bar.

@Anonymous #167B
Does anyone other then me remember a time when “Hack n’ Slasher” was a genre of Game?

I do…

now we just have “Souls-Likes” XP

@FeatherTrap
That would be the Warriors series. Still love them.

@FeatherTrap
Remember RE6? Yeah that’s what most horror games are nowadays. I guess you could say it was at least influential.

Yeah but most hack n slash back in the day were like God of War. Very ‘Rock em Sock em Robots’ esque gameplay, with the occasional dodging rolls and blocking.

Souls-like has overtaken the genre, with an emphasis on you getting one-shotted unless you do the occasional dodge rolls and blocking parrying.

Just two months later, Avalanche is shutting its Liverpool studio down and laying off an undisclosed number of employees at the remaining Malmö and Stockholm studios.

There’s finally going to be a new main-line Onimusha releasing in 2026. The player character is Miyamoto Musashi, so I’m guessing it takes place well after Dawn of Dreams.

Finally!

A leak coming out of Sony Japan states that Ghost of Yotei is already getting its advertising cut, because sales have slowed to the point that they don’t see it as a worthwhile cause. I’d be more skeptical of some leak claiming to be an insider with no other proof, but the games boosters believe it, so I guess it’s true. Just yesterday they were claiming victory over the chuds with GoY’s massive success, and today Bluesky is awash with death threats and murder fantasies aimed at anyone who doesn’t worship their game of the week.

The other thing causing people to spazz out today was the cancellation of the proposed Assassin’s Creed game, where you play as an ex-slave assassinating the KKK in the reconstruction-era South. The normal people on Bluesky want to kill gamers for it being canned, but after the Tencent deal, they’d really have to take it up with the bean counters in China.

Ubisoft said it was “too political in a country too unstable, to make it short.” Saying “the Klan was bad mkay” is now a controversial opinion apparently.

@Anonymous #167B
Reducing it down that far is dishonest, and you know it.

Perhaps if there wasn’t a growing sentiment of the demonization and disenfranchisement of people purely on the grounds of having paler skin tones, or anglo and/or european heritage and paired glorification of those with darker skin tones and/or african heritage,

Perhaps if there wasn’t a strong political will that’s present among those traditionally viewed as the moral and intellectual elite who - among other things - push this sentiment onto the public against their own stated wills; seen as some sort of righteous moral crusade to “fix the mistakes of the past” at best, and often perversely fetishized as some act of cosmic race revenge at worst,

Perhaps even, if someone who was speaking out in a small way against this political will hadn’t been fucking shot by someone deep in it’s thrall in the last month or so,

If we just discount all of that, toss that into the void and pretend it doesn’t exist in our own self-made La-La Land, then I suppose you could view it as Ubisoft saying “the Klan was bad mkay” is a controversial opinion, and feel morally superior to ourselves because we don’t like the bad people and that makes us the good people.

You know, if you’re an ignorant child.

However, I do feel the need to stress that: Ubisoft might be making a videogame, containing a fictional story with fictional elements, all that is true…however, they are trying to market and sell that game in the real world, which does not exist in a void of context.

I’m not really one in the mood to defend the honour of the French - being of Anglo descent myself - however, given the recent shooting of Charlie Kirk, I can reasonably infer how some people that were attached to this project - be they publishers, executives or even the devs themselves, whoever they are - decided, given that event and the backlash from it, that a game with themes and a narrative that so closely aligns itself in allegiance to the same political will that motivated the assassin - and indeed, seems to reinforce the idea that the past can be “fixed” if we just “kill the bad people”, came to the conclusion that

At the very least, wait for a time for the political tensions to calm significantly before attempting to tell a story like this.

It would be one thing if they just gave me a game about killing the Klan to free slaves and it was all some fun adventure.
It’s another when the devs make it very clear they consider me to be part of the Klan, purely because I’m white, and don’t consent to being mistreated by those of other races. That takes the fun out of it, I must admit.

This is why say: no-one bats an eye that Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood has a significant part of it’s runtime shooting Confederate Holdouts - because the game has no inherent anti-white bias (perceived or otherwise) therefore it’s just part of the fun adventure. It was also made in a different era of gaming, when people weren’t so paranoid about seeing hidden messages that show allegiance to that political will within the work itself.

So yes, not quite as simple as “durr, Ubisoft thinks Klan gud now actually”, is it?

Ninja Gaiden 4 is getting all positive early reviews. Hopefully it turns out that it’s as good as it sounds.

Outer Worlds 2 scandalized potential pre-orderers with the reveal that the physical copy is an empty box. Figuratively in the PS5’s case, where it comes with a disc that has 1.32 gigs of data for an over 70 gig game, and literally for the Xbox standard edition. You get a paper slip with a download code in the case. If you’re willing to pay $130 for the premium edition, they’ll actually include a disc for the Xbox now, but they weren’t even doing that before people complained.

Its a fucking SHAME AND DISGRACE that Astro Bot never came to the PS Vita.

Ghost of Yotei is already confirmed to not be getting DLC. The sales haven’t been strong enough.

Outer Worlds 2 pre-release numbers aren’t looking good. Considering how quickly they gave up on Avowed, I’d be surprised if the game journos try to make a fight last more than a week or two.

Outer Worlds 2 gives you the Consumerist flaw if you bought the $100 edition. It isn’t mentioned in the flaw’s description, but people are reporting that it also gives you dialogue options from low intelligence builds.

@ANoobis
Hmmm…
Stock communism, perhaps? Also, smells of social credit system that Xi Xin”asshole” Ping loves to keep being present under ““PRC”” law

I had forgotten that Outer Worlds 2 is $70. Or that after its announcement that it was originally meant to be $80.

I’ll play it eventually but I don’t think it’s critique or satire of consumerism is going to be very deep.

Bloodlines 2 is all but done already.

The Metroid 4 trailer has sent a sizable portion of the fanbase into despair. The addition of Myles MacKenzie has people ready to give up on the game already.

I’m glad Clair Obscur is getting so many nominations. But I’m not going to be happy if it sweeps the competition.

Come on, 3 nominations for Best Performance alone? Yeah Gustav, Verso and Maelle were great but this is practically rigged.

Black Ops 7 has been taking flak from all sides over its use of generative AI to make art assets. Even some mainstream outlets like Forbes are turning on it.