It's the kind of thing you’d expect to be followed by a punchline. The executive of a game company, talking about charging gamers real money for individual bullets in an FPS game. Yet, with a straight face, this was a legitimate proposal by one such industry big cheese some years ago. It is, of course, a completely ridiculous idea that gamers would dismiss out of hand. However, this is the greedy mindset of people who would ruin gaming without even thinking twice. Like the frog in the pot, the landscape of the games industry is slowly being changed beneath our feet.
These are the same small-minded pricks who lop thousand-year-old trees down to grow rape seed or dump raw sewage in waterways because it's cheaper to pay the fine. So why am I ranting about selfish executives (again)? Because this month Dragon's Dogma 2 launched to a litany of bad press due to this exact issue. There are some wrinkles of the more common variety, namely awful optimisation and some annoying game bugs. Given this is a Capcom game I'm not banking on them being fixed any time soon, but we can always be surprised. The bigger issue is a design decision to limit the game to one save slot, which will be overwritten automatically whenever the game thinks it should: great if you love losing hours of progress. On top of that players can't even restart with a new character, once you're locked in: that is it.
I have not played it to be fair, but if the reviews are accurate this is actually a fantastic game with a lot to offer players. An interesting Pawn system that manages your NPC helpers and even makes them available to other players. Fun combat that is great at creating emergent gameplay and those hilarious, one-in-a-million moments we all love. An interesting story and world to explore as you develop your chosen class. Yet, after the review process was finished those sneaky bastards quietly slipped in a whole suite of microtransactions ready for launch. Even this act alone makes me want to opt for a boycott.
This is a game being sold at a premium price and for a AAA game, this is acceptable. However, deciding to then add extra charges into the game on top is the kind of thing you’d expect from EA or Ubisoft. The fast travel system, for example, requires hard to acquire resources but wouldn’t you know it: there's a way to buy this resource for real money. It’s the same with bringing characters back to life or changing your appearance. ‘But wait!’ say the hordes of copium-addled defenders.. ‘you can find most of these items in the game!’ Maybe you are a person who can resist these tempting conveniences and just play the game, but as Capcom damn well knows, there are a lot of people out there who will just pony up the dough. I think many, including Capcom, have been caught off guard by the backlash. I'm not expecting anything to change, but it does feel like gamers are starting to tire of these schemes.
It has been my thing for a while now to have a main game to plough through with another game on the side as a palate cleanser. My ‘on the side’ game for the last month has been Helldivers 2: which is still, thankfully, alive and kicking. I think anyone who has seen a few gaming winters will know the score, in that all games will lose players after launch. Some will settle into a nice stable community while others will just fade away. You will get spikes in activity, usually around DLC or expansions, before dropping back down to the baseline again. While this decline can be seen in Helldivers 2, the numbers are still holding in the hundreds of thousands. One thing that will certainly have kept people spreading managed democracy, is the astounding amount of content dropped since launch. Humble, honest and for the love of gaming: this is how you actually run a live service game.
This week I published my take on a game I've been dying to review for years. As more of the Sony exclusives march towards the promised land, my PS5 continues to sit gathering dust. This week another of these juggernauts released on PC and it's a corker. Horizon Forbidden West came out two years ago to wide critical acclaim, yet it was overshadowed by another massive title called Elden Ring. To be fair, it was the developers of Elden Ring that moved their release date nearer to Forbidden West. Looking back with hindsight, the whole series has been beset with launch woes. The original game had a little game called Breath of the Wild to contend with. Even with the PC launch, the publishers decided the day before Dragon's Dogma 2 released was the way to go.
I absolutely love the Horizon games and when I heard Nixxes was handling the PC port it was a huge relief. Nixxes have proven themselves to be one of the best companies for this kind of work, with Spider-Man being an excellent example. This version has all the features PC gamers look for such as ultrawide support, upscaling like DSLR etc. As well as being extremely well-optimised for PC, all the menus are snappy and responsive which makes such a huge difference. It is this fantastic port of an already amazing game, which has left me bewildered and pissed off by the PC Gamer review.
Unfortunately, PC Gamer are still seen as the IGN of PC gaming and attract the most traffic for our platform (although this is changing). Not only have they given the game 70/100 which is devastatingly unfair, but the reviewer has made some frankly bizarre claims. Playing on a mid-range PC (red flag number one), Oscar Taylor-Kent, suggests that little has evolved in the sequel. This ‘review’ is a joke, with bad take after bad take and doesn't even cover some of the basics like sound, PC-specific features and controls. It is painfully obvious that the guy just flat-out dislikes Aloy and either doesn't understand or care why she is the way she is. I know people are entitled to their views, but many of these opinions are patently wrong. With such a wide influence, it is a crying shame that so many PC gamers will now never play this stunning game.
Compared to the start of the year we are now heading into a relatively quiet period with more time to catch up on the never-ending backlog. A few titles of note are coming out this month, namely Manor Lords and No Rest for the Wicked: the latter coming from the developers of Ori and the Blind Forest. Then heading into May we are getting the 1.0 release of V-Rising, an amazing indie game that is a fresh take on living the life of a blood-sucking Vampire. With exhilarating combat, satisfying base building and stellar boss fights: this is looking like a surefire hit. I very much look forward to bringing you my full review in May. As for my slower release of blog posts, I think I've settled into a more manageable three-month turnover. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, take care and I'll see you all next time.
