cryptologous

@Heavyarms55 You know what encourages widespread piracy? Making digital content impossible to legally acquire. Nintendo literally just have to throw their games on an eShop to massively decrease chances for piracy. Since the advent of affordable online streaming and purchase options for music and film, piracy has seen a massive decrease. There are dozens of research articles on this. Music streaming actually boosts concert sales which is where most of the revenue for artists comes from (selling merch, etc). It shouldn't come as a surprise to ANYONE that pirating Nintendo games is as common as it is because Nintendo aren't offering a legal alternative.

Edith Finch is a stupidly impressive piece of work. Anyone who is even remotely interested in narrative driven games owes it to themselves to play it twice over.

@fozzyrock1986 because individual reviews aren't written by the whole staff team. They are written by one reviewer per game. It even says in the description "but its ludicrously over-the-top violence and comedy elements still won over enough members of the team to see it reach second place in our list this month". It'd be insane if one reviewer's review were considered indicative of a whole website's views on a game.

@StevenG Very fair point. Paladins has had issues with cosmetics affecting perceived hitboxes in the past.

@Xelha Your PFP made me think of Animal Crossing with microtransactions and I had to pray for forgiveness immediately

@Rudy_Manchego If these surprise mechanics were nothing more than cosmetics, I'm sure no one would have a major issue with it. But this is EA. A company notorious for endless season pass campaigns, endless DLC additions to incomplete $69.99 packages, endless loot crates providing statistical advantages in PVP arenas, etc. People want to pay $69.99, and get a $69.99 experience. People want to pay $69.99, and perform online with the same game balance as someone else who's paid $150.00.

Honestly don't see any reason why microtransactions should exist in games that aren't free if the purchases aren't purely cosmetic.

Games like Paladins are free, PVP, and only sell cosmetics. HiRez are a pretty bad company but relative to EA's monetising schemes, they are angels.

"Does the game force you to them?"

No, as you said. But the way they are pushed isn't anything short of obnoxious for many of these games. Find me an EA game with a main menu that isn't just "Campaign / Multiplayer / Store / Options". So many are pushing tiled menus covered to the brim with things to buy and season passes and DLC and crates. I've heard stories of people using games to cope with gambling addictions. Imagine picking up FIFA for some innocuous football and getting blasted with a gussied up slot machine. It's predatory, and you get no forewarning unless you are actively involved in online game discussion which 90% of people aren't.

@sanderev ah. You got me. 10/10 GOTY.

Imagine someone working for a Nintendo based publication interviewing someone who plays Nintendo games at a high tournament level who's recently won a tournament being considered opportune time to make arguments half the internet has already made that are largely unrelated to the sentiment of the article because you think its useful to throw shade at people who enjoy a game played in a way that you personally don't.

Just don't play the game. Let people enjoy things. Why is this so hard

if the game wasn't such a colossal snore I'd probably love getting my hands on this

More hyped for this than any Zelda ever, probably. Was apprehensive going into BOTW and ended up feeling bittersweet about it but felt like it had potential to have an asset flip followup (ala MM) that'd fix the main issues and create something spectacular. Little doubt this'll be a monumental entry in the franchise.

@HobbitGamer Lets compare it to a standard national tournament.

1. Travel to the tournament (accomodation/fuel/flights/etc) /// open Discord
2. Sign up /// contact Discord TO
3. Find out who you are playing against by finding a TO /// see above
4. Find an available setup to play out your games which can often take upwards of 20 minutes /// chat to opponent and decide on host, start playing immediately
5. Report your match scores to a TO /// report your match scores to Discord TO

It is almost like it is the same process as a regular tournament but easier. I'd be more concerned with latency and the in-game ruleset than what seems to be fairly standard get-up for large scale tournaments (minus spending money on travel/accomodation, potential public space anxiety for some, and the general smell).

coulda sworn Hob was already on Switch. hyped to high heaven for Torchlight 2, absolutely stellar game. definitely double dipping

@misterMike idk if you know about global agenda, the game paladins is a spiritual successor to, made by hi rez, but it lowkey came out years before overwatch was even considered. OW has a lot of characters that could almost be considered direct clones of GA characters. Please stop pushing this narrative lmao, it’s such old hat at this point. Paladins and OW are fundamentally different takes on hero shooters.

Brilliant news. Would recommend anyone on the fence about this game just bite the bullet. They’ve added dozens of tracks for free over the months, and the gameplay is fantastically addictive. Never liked rhythm games before Voez came along. It’s a fantastic entry point afaic. One of the rare few games where I try and keep in the loop with regards to updates; very excited to give the new tunes a spin after work!

@SpacedDuck as it currently stands, no. However, I’d be hopeful. Hirez have recently implemented cross platform progression/stats for Xbox and PC on Paladins and have said they are capable of doing so for other consoles, it only being a matter of opportunity. Given Smite and Paladins already have cross platform play, I have little doubt they’ll be adding the option to link your accounts in the near future.