Kotaku Sunday, August 25, 2024 10:00 AM  This week's catch-all of gaming "tips" has caught all manner of things, from an early look at just how mages will play in Dragon Age: The Veilguard to pointers for the best skills to invest in early on in Black Myth: Wukong. We'll also point you toward a host of deals on must-play indie gems, and show you what the… |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 25, 2024 11:00 AM  The appeal of tight, single-player games cannot be overstated; the type that stands the test of time, that you can revisit again and again, and that leaves an indelible impression after just a handful of hours of play. Early Resident Evil and Silent Hill, Max Payne, Portal - you know the ones. In fact, outside of megahits like Elden Ring, there seems to be a bit of open-world malaise setting in, opening up the door for shorter, stranger surprise hits like Crow Country and Dredge. For me, one game that has hammered home the importance of not overstaying your welcome is Alien Isolation. Continue reading Ten years on, Alien Isolation's biggest problem is its runtime MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best horror games, Alien: Isolation review, Best VR games |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 25, 2024 10:43 AM  Bethesda's games have become legendary for their ambitious modding scenes, and no title is a better example of that than Skyrim, the most-modded game of all time. Arguably the most ambitious mod on the way for Bethesda's nearly 14-year-old RPG, however, is Skywind. In a massive two-hour development update stream, the mod creators have toured its impressive map and even revealed new features that take the mod project to new heights. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best Skyrim mods, Elder Scrolls 6 release date, Games like Skyrim |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 25, 2024 9:46 AM  August 25, 2024: We've added two new Monopoly Go dice links for free dice rolls. How can I get Monopoly Go free dice links? The household favorite board game has been reimagined as a free-to-play app on smartphones, allowing everyone to experience the thrills of Monopoly on practically any device. Everything that makes the board game special is here in Monopoly Go, so you'll be collecting properties and building hotels as you go around the board, and there are a variety of multiplayer minigames to get through along the way. You're going to need to get your hands on Monopoly dice rolls, but they are difficult to come by no matter how far you are into the board game. There are ways to earn additional dice rolls, including logging into the game every day to collect daily bonuses, progressing further in the game, and inviting friends to try Monopoly Go. While you can also spend real money to unlock more dice rolls, you may want to give our list of Monopoly Go dice links a try instead, especially if you're waiting for the next Monopoly Go Golden Blitz event. Take a look at all the currently active Monopoly Go free dice links for today. Continue reading Free Monopoly Go dice links August 2024 MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best board games, Monopoly Go events, Monopoly Go dice |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 25, 2024 7:53 AM  Selling over ten million copies in just three days, Black Myth Wukong has sprung onto the scene, even breaking Steam records set by some of the most iconic games out there. Nevertheless, it's far from perfect. In fact, many are suffering from poor performance on PC. What if there was a way to fix it? Well, worry not as this new Black Myth Wukong mod could do just that. Continue reading New Black Myth Wukong mod will help you fix its poor PC performance MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Black Myth Wukong bosses, Black Myth Wukong abilities, Black Myth Wukong weapons |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 25, 2024 10:47 AM  Although The First Descendant is finally giving it some tough competition, Warframe has continued to go from strength to strength since its release over ten years ago. It's effectively an entirely different beast from its early years. While the new Warframe Koumei and the Five Fates update isn't a dramatic overhaul, it does finally put a name and reveals tasty new details to the eloquently named Unannounced Fall Update that Digital Extremes has been teasing us with. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Warframe on Steam Deck, Warframe builds, Warframe codes |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 25, 2024 8:20 AM  It's become a tradition that whenever a HoYoverse game wins awards, we get given freebies. Does it feel somewhat like rigging things in your favor? Yes. After all, we've got to guarantee we get our new favorite character in the latest banners. Well, it's your lucky day as Genshin Impact has won even more awards, and you've won a free bundle of Primogems in return. Continue reading Genshin Impact offering hefty free Primogem pack, but not for long MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Genshin Impact codes, Genshin Impact character tier list, Genshin Impact leveling guide |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 25, 2024 5:33 AM  Can you believe it's been 20 years since Half-Life 2? In that time, Valve has done everything in its power not to reveal a sequel, instead releasing various episodes for Half-Life 2 and the incredible VR spinoff Half-Life Alyx. It's also been hard at work on other titles, including the new shooter Deadlock. With 20 years of waiting, we've all grown weary, wondering whether Half-Life 3 even exists, let alone when it will be arriving. Now, the Valve insider behind the Deadlock leak has come on record to say that, yes, Half-Life 3 is real, though it's not quite what we expected. Continue reading "Half-Life 3 is real," claims Valve insider behind Deadlock reveal MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Half-Life 3: the entire story, Who should make Half-Life 3?, Half-Life 3 is now Project Borealis |
Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed Sunday, August 25, 2024 11:00 AM  Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week - our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books! As is customary, I must jam my new cat into every article. I've tried to offer her several books, but she's failed to turn even a single page so far. What a big dumbo. The best dumbo. The sweetest, smartest dumbo in the world, yes she is. Ahem. This week, it's Supermassive, Niantic, and Sensible Object narrative designer and Limit Break mentor, Anastasia Dukakis! Cheers Ana! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelf? |
Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed Sunday, August 25, 2024 6:00 AM  Sundays are for more cat. She's flop and headbutt-level comfortable around me now, but she still seems a bit terrified of my house in general. I'm going to hang out with her a bunch and see if I can instill some sort of object permanence re: my presence in the home. Before that, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things!) |
Siliconera Sunday, August 25, 2024 9:00 AM
Every time a new Pokemon game comes out, the fandom seems to split into two: those who enjoy it and those who claim that GameFreak has reached another layer of rock bottom. When Pokemon Scarlet first came out, my opinion was close to the second camp due to the numerous bugs and the lack of interesting new Pokemon in the early game. But then, I finally decided to get the DLCs and actually clear Scarlet, and you know what I realized? I was wrong. Pokemon didn't get bad or go downhill or anything like that at all. It still gives the exact same feeling as it did when I first booted up the game as a kid.
Pokemon is one of those franchises that suffers from having a huge fanbase. With most popular series, people know what they want and what they're getting into. It's not like Person A can play, say, Final Fantasy XVI in a way so different from the way Person B does that they come out of it with an entirely separate experience. But Pokemon is like The Sims. There are so many people with so many different expectations or wants that it's virtually impossible for GameFreak to please everyone. Players who only care about the story, characters, or Mon collection aspects probably don't care as much about the meta or the difficulty. Hence, their opinions on various aspects of the game will greatly differ from those who play Pokemon mostly for the PvP elements. It's a precarious balancing act with no right answer outside of simply making separate games for separate demographics.
I'm a player who cares about clearing the story, taking pictures with my favorite NPCs, putting together cute outfits, and completing the PokeDex. My friends are the kinds who make OCs. It's pretty similar to how I play, except there's an additional layer of imagination involved. Our conversations are different than the ones I have with my friend who plays more competitively. Reading and listening to people compare the stats or movesets of Pokemon A and B in order to decide who they want on their team is like watching my favorite show in an unfamiliar language. And I doubt they can relate to my having Froslass on a team for no reason other than "It's Ice/Ghost and pretty."
Everyone's way of playing Pokemon is valid. It's not like we live in the Pokemon world where Paul's method of picking and choosing Pokemon based on their stats is regarded as villain behavior. Since I'm not a competitive player, I don't quite understand the beef that people had with mechanics like Dynamaxing or Terastalizing. I don't engage with them beyond story battles, so they're about the same as Mega Evolution, which the PvP people apparently loved. Not to sound like the most stereotypical female gamer ever, but the only things that can truly bother me about Pokemon now are a lack of interesting characters and avatar customization. Surprise! I care more about hanging out and looking cute than I do about battle mechanics. For those thinking, "God, I bet her favorite Eevee evolution is Sylveon (derogatory)," yeah, you're right...it is...
But does that make me less valid a player? It really shouldn't. That would be like saying kids who only care about collecting a team of legendaries are playing the game wrong. Heck, you can argue that they're the actual target audience for GameFreak. That's something we should all keep in mind. These games are E for Everyone and yes, that includes the little kid who doesn't bother looking at whether a move is a Physical or Special one when letting their Pokemon learn it.
A common complaint people have about Pokemon these days is that they're too easy. Mechanics like camping and Amie make raising Friendship a breeze. Even if it's up to chance, Friendship in NPC battles can feel overpowered. NPC trainers challenge you with only one or two weaklings in their team. The universal Experience Share severely reduces the time and effort it takes to level up a weaker Pokemon. Honestly, I feel like the old method of starting with a weak Pokemon you want to train and then swapping them out with something stronger was annoying as heck. It wasn't fun and it didn't make the game harder. Tedium doesn't equate difficulty, and difficulty doesn't equate fun. I'm on Team Universal Experience Share. But yes, it sucks we can't turn it off.
What got me thinking about how Pokemon's quality is just as good, if not better, than the previous games is the feeling of excitement. Isn't that what the games are all about? Exploring Paldea reminded me of when I first set off from Twinleaf Town, and the newer Pokemon games giving gym leaders and rivals more depth beyond one or two traits makes the game actually feel like an RPG.
I know people hated Sword and Shield, but I personally really enjoyed it for the character writing and camping. Bede, Marnie, and Hop all had such satisfying character arcs throughout the story, and the gym leaders felt more fleshed out than ones in the past games. I'm glad that GameFreak continued this with the rivals in Scarlet/Violet, as they were really the best parts of the game. Yes, I'm aware that characters like Lillie and N existed, but I felt like their games only had one or two really interesting characters compared to the Switch generations.
Okay, Scarlet has a lot of issues. There's a reason I dropped the game for as long as I did. The open world is really buggy. There are also way too many old Pokemon. This is its own problem with very little resolution outside of something similar to Black/White where older Pokemon are only available after the story. Some people really like using or catching Pokemon that debuted in past entries. Others prefer new ones. The camping mechanic was terrible compared to Sword/Shield's. My biggest beef is with the marketing. While it's not impossible to complete any plotline or challenge any gym leader/Team Star boss/Titan in the order you want, the lack of level scaling can make it either much too hard or much too easy for your team.
I appreciate GameFreak's half-successful attempt at doing something new and ambitious. It didn't always work and games are too expensive now for the "Well, you tried!" participation trophy. But if a major complaint from fans is that the games are stagnant and never change up the formula, then being mad that GameFreak did change up the formula feels silly. Also, this is yet another problem with the huge fanbase. Not everyone dislikes the fact they follow a formula! I didn't care, but I still liked the way Scarlet went about fusing multiple storylines together. If the new direction of Pokemon was to focus on the story and characters at the expense of PvP, I'm perfectly fine with that. Granted, from what I hear, the current meta is genuinely enjoyable so now I'm not quite sure why people talked about Scarlet and Violet like it's irredeemable trash.
Honestly, every time "New Pokemon games SUCK!" discourse comes across on my timeline and I read through it, I never see an actual concrete complaint. It kind of feels like people like Pokemon the franchise, but they haven't quite accepted that the Pokemon games were never so difficult that they'd present a challenge to someone with a general understanding of game mechanics. GameFreak always designed them with children in mind. With GameFreak remaining mum on what's in store in Pokemon Legends: Z-A, as well as the future of the mainline games, it's hard to tell what we'll see next year. Here's hoping the fan reception will be better than past games.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are readily available on the Nintenedo Switch.
The post Pokemon Is Honestly Still a Good Series; People Are Just Old appeared first on Siliconera. |
iDev Games Feed Sunday, August 25, 2024 7:11 AM You are a criminal trying to escape from the police. Use the arrow keys to escape .... |