The Game Awards 2021 - December 9th

[Child of Malkav]

It's sad to see Arkane almost gone but they had a good run for 20 years. I have no hope for Redfall. We'll see what WolfEye Studios do with Weird West and how well that is received. If that flops too then we'll have Otherside Entertainment left. And the occasional imsim from indie studios, like Gloomwood (still waiting to see if it qualifies as one), Peripeteia, Tangiers, Neverlooted Dungeon...
On a brighter note, I started playing Ultima 7 via Exult and I just realized I should really read the manuals that came with the game to get a better grasp of the controls.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Arkane Frog may have declined, but their Austin studio has only done good stuff. Weird West looks like a hack job. "Oh look toss barrels at baddies how innovative!!1 immersuve sim!"

 

[Child of Malkav]

Weird West seems to have much more interaction with the world than Deathloop has. And WolfEye doesn't have the budget of Arkane. How does it look like a hack job exactly?

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Weird West seems to have much more interaction with the world than Deathloop has. And WolfEye doesn't have the budget of Arkane. How does it look like a hack job exactly?

It's all meaningless interaction. Just because you have a sandbox doesn't mean it will be a good game.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Opinions. We'll have to play and see for ourselves.

 

[Gargaune]

Opinions. We'll have to play and see for ourselves.

You know that saying, don't judge a book by its cover? Yeah, that's bullshit. There's an entire industry around making book covers that might convince you to pony up.

 

[J_C]

Opinions. We'll have to play and see for ourselves.

You know that saying, don't judge a book by its cover? Yeah, that's bullshit. There's an entire industry around making book covers that might convince you to pony up.

Actually that is the main reason why you don't judge the book by it's cover. There is an industry for making cool book covers, but you have to read it to actually see its quality.

 

[Gargaune]

Actually that is the main reason why you don't judge the book by it's cover. There is an industry for making cool book covers, but you have to read it to actually see its quality.

That only works one way though - you might sucker me into buying a crap book with a cool cover, but I ain't gonna buy bare-chested Fabio in the hopes it's actually Musashi inside. Point is it's quite legitimate to form a negative or disinterested opinion of something based on its promotional material.

 

[SharkClub]

Eh. Deathloop is fine, as one of the few people on the codex who actually played it and related my experiences with it. It's definitely not the 100/100 A++ video game that all the games journo cucks think it is but it's not a 0/10 piece of garbage either, it's also not as good as Dishonored, Dishonored 2, Death of the Outsider or Prey despite what they might believe. It's above the average AAA by the numbers design-by-committee boardroom vomitcore video game. Something around a 6 out of 10 (if banal shit boring mainsteam AAA ubisoft titles are a 4 or 5, and Deus Ex is a 9.5). The multiplayer component is also downright horrible.

Metroid Dread was the best game I played this year (that came out this year). I don't even own a Switch.

 

[Child of Malkav]

I don't hate Deathloop but it's not anywhere near Dishonored and Prey, especially Prey.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

then the immersive sim genre needs to be doused in gasoline, set on fire and pushed off the highest cliff we can find.

I do agree very much. The genre is in severe need of evolution away from the cookie cutter garbage Bethesda puts its name on these days. Its just so dull seeing the same thing over and over but I mean that's Bethesda in a nutshell really.
Immersive Sims were originally interesting because they were rare and difficult to produce, they also had the problem of nearly always under performing because of their investment to profit hit.

I also believe Ken Levine is very wrong about indies being unable to make immersive sims. Development has become cheaper and easier since that comment was made also who the hell is he to talk given he was always living in looking glass studio's shadow anyway its not like he had to start from scratch like how most indies would. I also think that Ken Levine still to this day has no understanding of the fact that the industry is creatively bankrupt.

I mean eventually I see to genre being inherited by indies the AAA industry is hell bent of a nightmarish NFT driven FPS multiplayer metaverse future and no amount of Dorito Pope whining about it on twitter is going to stop that fact.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Opinions. We'll have to play and see for ourselves.

You know that saying, don't judge a book by its cover? Yeah, that's bullshit. There's an entire industry around making book covers that might convince you to pony up.

Actually that is the main reason why you don't judge the book by it's cover. There is an industry for making cool book covers, but you have to read it to actually see its quality.

if you don't want your book judged by its shitty cover, why did you pick a shitty cover?

Going to spend hundreds or thousands of hours writing a book and you can't go work at McDonald's for two days to pay an artist?

I advocate strongly for judging books by their cover.

 

[Reinhardt]

Opinions. We'll have to play and see for ourselves.

You know that saying, don't judge a book by its cover? Yeah, that's bullshit. There's an entire industry around making book covers that might convince you to pony up.

Actually that is the main reason why you don't judge the book by it's cover. There is an industry for making cool book covers, but you have to read it to actually see its quality.

No, you don't. It's current year. If it's published - then it's shit.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Oh and "immersive sim" isn't a real genre. It's just a tag for a bunch of unrelated game mechanics applied to games that are frequently not very alike at all. At least with RPGs there's a strong "I know it when I see it" vibe.

 

[Infinitron]

I think one of the issues with developing an "indie immersive sim" is that good melee combat (by modern standards) is one of the most difficult things to implement. Melee combat tech is something that programmers at large studios like Arkane or the Batman Arkham devs will spend years refining through successive games. And the same is true to varying extents for anything that requires characters to physically interact with things, instead of just walking around and shooting projectiles from a distance. So as an indie unless you're an autistic physics coder like that Overgrowth weirdo, you might be limited to retro Deus Ex 1 clone type games. Which isn't bad, but...

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I think one of the issues with developing an "indie immersive sim" is that good melee combat (by modern standards) is one of the most difficult things to implement. Melee combat tech is something that programmers at large studios like Arkane or the Batman Arkham devs will spend years refining through successive games. And the same is true to varying extents for anything that requires characters to physically interact with things, instead of just walking around and shooting projectiles from a distance. So as an indie unless you're an autistic physics coder like that Overgrowth weirdo, you might be limited to retro Deus Ex 1 clone type games. Which isn't bad, but...

The explanation is way simpler.
First person games generally require higher graphical fidelity, especially with regards to animations.

 

[Gargaune]

The genre is in severe need of evolution away from the cookie cutter garbage Bethesda puts its name on these days.

I don't recall Bethesda referring to their games as Immersive Sims, have they? I saw Skyrim listed as an Immersive Sim chart in an RPS article ad for Colantonio's Weird West, but then it didn't even feature Thief or Deus Ex, so clearly it was a poor attempt at humour.

I also believe Ken Levine is very wrong about indies being unable to make immersive sims.

I'm with you, it's why I bet fifteen eurobucks on Monomyth proving him wrong.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I don't recall Bethesda referring to their games as Immersive Sims, have they? I saw Skyrim listed as an Immersive Sim chart in an RPS article ad for Colantonio's Weird West, but then it didn't even feature Thief or Deus Ex, so clearly it was a poor attempt at humour.

Yes, Skyrim is an "immersive sim." It traces its lineage right back to Ultima Underworld.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

I don't recall Bethesda referring to their games as Immersive Sims, have they?

Bethesda the publisher not BGS though Todd has specified in the past Origin System's immersive sims being an influence on him even if he's bastardising their ideas severely.

I think one of the main issues with a developing an "indie immersive sim" is that good melee combat (by modern standards) is one of the most difficult things to implement.

I get your point. Most consumers are too shallow for the genre so without a flashy physics based combat system they just won't bother. But I think what you're referring to is a problem with most indie games anyway which is a shallow oversaturated marketplace its not an issue of the genre.

 

[Ryzer]

Daily reminder that "immersive sim" means nothing, of course a game is immersive otherwise it's shit.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Yes, Skyrim is an "immersive sim." It traces its lineage right back to Ultima Underworld.

So just because a game traces its lineage to another that means it's automatically of the same genre or quality?
Ok then, by that logic I will assume that Thief 2014 is an immersive sim and a good Thief game on par or better than T1 and 2, Dragon Age 2 and DAI and Skyrim are RPGs (also good ones obviosluy), Fallout 4 is also an RPG probably even better than FO1 and 2, Underworld Ascendant is part of the Ultima Underworld games and of equally high quality, Firaxis XCOMs are as good as the original.....should I go on?

 

[El Presidente]

Seeing the Codex of all places unironically using this term "immersive sim" is pretty funny, it's like people here putting their pronouns under their names, what a miserable furfaggotry this term is. This genre doesn't exist, it's used by trannies and game journalists (so, just trannies) to refer to "wow this reminds me of the masterpiece from my childhood, Bioshock, first of its kind!"

 

[Gargaune]

Yes, Skyrim is an "immersive sim." It traces its lineage right back to Ultima Underworld.

<fallout4.jpg>

Okay, here's the spiel - Immersive Sim designates a particular school of design in Action games that pursue a comprehensive illusion of embodiment in the fiction at the mechanical level. Emergent gameplay isn't the goal in and of itself, but rather a critical requirement stemming from that illusory embodiment. As a concrete example, stacking boxes isn't desirable simply because it opens up alternative traversal options, but because someone facing a real world problem would naturally expect to be able to move objects and climb onto them to reach that damned spider up on the wall.

Nothing is absolute, but intent is key and that core vision for embodiment is what drives many other design decisions in an Immersive Sim. Emergent gameplay, first-person perspective, time-locked spaces, diegetic UI elements etc., they're all obvious and collectively harmonious design requirements stemming from that vision.

With Skyrim, it's obvious Bethesda prioritised other aspects. There's a lot of common ground, particularly where emergent gameplay is concerned, but TES progressed in the direction of creating a massive fiction, rather than a highly intricate one like Thief or Deus Ex, and this propagates across many facets of the games, from storming Windhelm with a legion of twenty to the collision model not letting you crouch your way under a ladder. And this isn't a diss, mind you, development resources are finite and not everything needs to be an Immersive Sim. I like Skyrim despite my various gripes.

As for Weird West - it's not so much that an Immersive Sim needs to have first-person perspective because someone wrote it down on a sacred tablet, but rather that if you've decided to make an isometric game, you're already labouring from a completely different perspective with completely different values - it could be a great game, but it won't be an Immersive Sim. We can debate the finer points with Skyrim, but not with this one.

Bethesda the publisher not BGS though Todd has specified in the past Origin System's immersive sims being an influence on him even if he's bastardising their ideas severely.

I like Todd, he's a sensible chap. Bastardised or not, I wish more developers specified Immersive Sims being a big influence on them. Particularly some fellers up in Warsaw.

 

[Ryzer]

<fallout4.jpg>

Okay, here's the spiel - Immersive Sim designates a particular school of design in Action games that pursue a comprehensive illusion of embodiment in the fiction at the mechanical level. Emergent gameplay isn't the goal in and of itself, but rather a critical requirement stemming from that illusory embodiment. As a concrete example, stacking boxes isn't desirable simply because it opens up alternative traversal options, but because someone facing a real world problem would naturally expect to be able to move objects and climb onto them to reach that damned spider up on the wall.

Nothing is absolute, but intent is key and that core vision for embodiment is what drives many other design decisions in an Immersive Sim. Emergent gameplay, first-person perspective, time-locked spaces, diegetic UI elements etc., they're all obvious and collectively harmonious design requirements stemming from that vision.

With Skyrim, it's obvious Bethesda prioritised other aspects. There's a lot of common ground, particularly where emergent gameplay is concerned, but TES progressed in the direction of creating a massive fiction, rather than a highly intricate one like Thief or Deus Ex, and this propagates across many facets of the games, from storming Windhelm with a legion of twenty to the collision model not letting you crouch your way under a ladder. And this isn't a diss, mind you, development resources are finite and not everything needs to be an Immersive Sim. I like Skyrim despite my various gripes.

As for Weird West - it's not so much that an Immersive Sim needs to have first-person perspective because someone wrote it down on a sacred tablet, but rather that if you've decided to make an isometric game, you're already labouring from a completely different perspective with completely different values - it could be a great game, but it won't be an Immersive Sim. We can debate the finer points with Skyrim, but not with this one.


I like Todd, he's a sensible chap. Bastardised or not, I wish more developers specified Immersive Sims being a big influence on them. Particularly some fellers up in Warsaw.

Tons of words used to describe this pretentious bullshit that led to Underworld Ascendant, but ... Why?

 

[Gargaune]

Tons of words used to describe this pretentious bullshit that led to Underworld Ascendant, but ... Why?

Pizza's not here yet.