I only properly played 1, 2 and a bit of Black Flag but based on that and what I’ve seen from all the other games I’m gonna stick with the first one.

Investigations were… well actual investigation, gameplay mechanics while simple and satisfying weren’t overly automated and the game wasn’t burdened with all the bloat that came afterwards. Simplified movement system from later games, one that’s fighting you whenever you try to do something even a little out of game’s comfort zone, is probably my major sticking point with the series.

That said, I’m not sure if that would be the best choice for you. If you want to try the classic approach I’d suggest going with the Ezio trilogy (II, Brotherhood, Revelations) as these games are more polished, if a little bloated, compared to the first game. They should still hold up well enough to have fun.

Ubisoft also announced both The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest will have an offline mode (twitter post, screenshot). Looks like the Stop Killing Games campaign is working.

Speaking of, if you’re in EU make sure to sign the The European Citizens’ Initiative petition - we’re already over 30% required signatures!

I think an important step would be to not be afraid of creating characters with actual… well, character. It was somewhat mentioned in the video but it seems like devs are unwilling to make NPCs with their own likes and dislikes, ones that might disagree with players instead of being all over them no matter what. This might be a slight exaggeration but boy do I wish we had more “real” feeling NPCs in games. I’m sure I’m not the only one who couldn’t care less about being the most important being in the universe and would rather be treated as an equal part of the world.

From a mechanical standpoint, relationship system in Scarlet Hollow feels like a good step into making interactions more natural (here is a detailed look by one of the devs) but I realize it’s a lot of work for something a good chunk of players won’t care about. I understand why this isn’t something many (especially bigger) devs would be interested in using but it’s still a disappointment.

Maybe AI will be able to help somewhat with this problem in the future but I’m not going to hold my breath on that.

Can’t say I share your experience with either game but I can understand it doesn’t work for everyone. Personally, I can’t really imaging playing this, Kao the Kangaroo or old Tomb Raider titles without tank controls for example.

To be clear, your comment is exactly what I meant - you tried and don’t like it, that’s absolutely fine. There’s plenty of games I couldn’t get into due to controls or mechanics so I feel you. On the other hand, I met people who refuse to even try to engage with certain mechanics and that’s what I’m not a fan of. I’m all for remakes/remasters/rereleases updating things to let more people enjoy the old thing and hope this will be the case with Croc. And hey, even if they change something in a way I don’t like, there’s always* the classic version.

* Though not always an official way to get it.

Ah, I thought people had some specific issues besides the game having tank controls. Fair enough.

I’m not going to begrudge someone for not liking a control scheme (unless their only reason is not wanting to learn how to play differently) but I do think some people dislike it without even giving it a fair shake. The thing is, these games were designed with this control scheme in mind and switching to a modern one can be detrimental to the experience (compare playing REmake with and without tank controls, the latter makes navigation and avoiding enemies much easier).

Oh well, everyone has their own dislikes.

Edit: I read a bit more and apparently the game always had an option to play with some kind of “modern” controls when using a controller with sticks? I’m guessing they’ll probably polish those.

I totally agree. I just don’t have much expectations towards big publishers anymore, I guess. Not many approach the topic of remakes/remasters from the point of view of celebrating their history unfortunately. Heck, we had multiple instances of publishers removing the old versions from sale just to push people to the new one.

Low effort or not, companies (and many players to be honest) rarely care about their legacy.

As much as I like this idea I don’t think many publishers would look at it and said anything other than “yeah, not worth the money”. We probably have a higher chance for the classic versions landing on GoG than being added as a freebie to a remake - they want you to play the new shiny thing, not the old one after all (that and no need to provide support to the old version).

I’ve seen a lot of comments about the controls and I don’t really get it. I’ve played through both games about two years ago, I think, and didn’t have any problems with either of them. Maybe I’m just used to the jank due to playing a lot of older games but I remember both titles playing fine.

I’m curious how they’ll modernize the controls. The little gameplay present in this teaser looks pretty close to the original and I don’t think they talked about this in detail. Whatever they’ll do I just hope it’ll allow people to play and enjoy this little gem. It deserves it.

I feel like that should be the default stance. One thing that gives me hope is the early access release - there’s a chance they’re approaching the game seriously and will use it to make something great.

It’s a decent piece of hardware designed for ease of use similar to consoles while also allowing people as much control as a normal PC. How well it works depends completely on what kind of games one wants to play.

I tend to play mostly indie and older titles, both PC and console ones, and Deck works great for that. The few AAA games I tried worked without issues but your experience might vary based on when they were released, whether they use third party launchers, DRM etc.

Deck was a bit of an impulse buy for me but I can’t say I regret it. It’s a neat device and a great way to get into PC gaming, well worth the asking price in my opinion.

They could also not do anything at all and leave those players on their own. Sure, it would be great if all of those options were available from the start but most of MS’s work on accessibility wasn’t developed back then. At least they can be used with PCs and should be compatible with their future consoles.

Same here. While I’m very critical of Microsoft and tend to avoid a lot of things they’re involved in their continuous work on improving accessibility is one thing I’ve been really impressed with. I hope this approach will become more and more prevalent in both the gaming industry and in general as well.

This looks really cool. I hope they can pull this off since I’m really itching to play a sims-like again. It’ll probably fry my PC but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Edit: There’s a free character studio available on Steam to play around with.

I focused on game companies since that’s what’s this article is about but yeah, that’s true.

Sometimes I forget how unprofessional the game industry still is or how little respect people have for well being of others. I’d like to say I’m surprised but that would require having some expectations towards those companies.

I hope more VAs speak up about stuff like this so we can have some real changes.

It’s a retribution by the mob because of what he did in the first game. I’ll put it in spoilers just in case:

I’m not saying whether it is or isn’t well written, I haven’t played enough to have an informed opinion on the game. All I’m saying is, some people like it well enough they have no problem treating it as a fun single-player experience with real people running in the background.

So are a lot of single-player games. Players running around in the background just add some semblance of “dynamic life” to the world. There’s also the possibility of “well, I’m not playing with people right now but I could if I really wanted to”.

I’m not saying that your perspective is wrong on that (I tend to bounce between the two views for example) but for some people just being in the same world as other players provides enough dynamism to make it feel more interesting than playing completely on your own.

That depends. If an MMO is well written (as FFXIV and ESO are for many) then it doesn’t make much of a difference. Additionally, all to other people running around make the world feel a bit more alive compared to scripted NPCs, even if one doesn’t participate in the actual group content.

I moved away from Unity after the whole pricing fiasco (it wasn’t the only reason but rather the final push) but I had no technical problems working with it for a good few years. As long as the SDK you need works on Linux you should be good.