jonny_rat

I've never ever had a good time with anything that uses my phone as the screen. The controller snap on things are very weirdly weighted, propping it up to play it with the controller separately always feels off, and I always end up with a little extra lag from the bluetooth connectivity. The enclosure controllers look better but they never seem to have great reviews for the price. The best option seems something like the Razor Kishi for android, which took a big price drop recently.

I hadn't realised that in the announcement they've only - cagily - said that you'll be able to stream your games over remote play via wi-fi. Which makes it sound like it does less than the current remote play app for other devices! Nah, I can't believe that the ambitions for this are as limited as a second screen for the home only. Either journalists aren't buying that either, or they're confused. Eurogamer think that they were touting it as part of their cloud strategy only yesterday.

The mesh is where it all starts to get dicey for me. I've been trying out streaming via Parsec (which is good enough that some industry folk use it for remote playtests) in the last week from a desktop to a laptop and it's utterly excellent if there's a single node between the two devices. More than that though, absolutely not, and 1080p is right out of the window. Maybe it'll do smart stuff to keep latency down, but I don't think it's going to have the simplicity of the Wii U (which basically told you to sit near the console). There's too many factors.

If the thing was going to work like the Wii U, it would have to have tech in both the pad and the console itself to allow to them connect directly via wifi (the Wii U had some weird proprietary wifi protocol and separate chip/antenna for the gamepad signal, I think?). My expectation would be that it all works via your home wireless network rather than a direct connection, but I dunno.

PS5 Mini - a headless cloud game server for the home. Hang on, is that a terrible idea? I think it's maybe a terrible idea but maybe not a terrible idea. Edit: please don't let me manifest this by saying it

I mean, yes, that's also a good reason for changing plans, so that makes sense. It's such a weird way to have this announced. It feels almost intentionally low-key. It must be connected to future cloud stuff; I cannot get my head around it otherwise! Maybe it was just cheap to develop, all off the shelf stuff.

But - again - why announce the device now, with no release date, no price point, no cloud? It all smacks of changed plans.

It feels basically locked on that this will have 'proper' cloud gaming added to it at some point, but I'm just slightly baffled as to why announce it without that OR a release date and price. If I had to go tin foil hat mode, I reckon they pulled the cloud gaming stuff from the announcement while the Xbox/Activision blizzard stuff is ongoing, given that the CMA decision all hinged on it.

With the Ebba thing, whether a ruse or not: i said to my partner when that ended: best TV argument ever. All the awards for those two please.

I'm still playing it: in fact I think I've gone from perverse interest to genuinely enjoying it quite a bit. However the only people I'd actively recommend playing it (over one of Arkane's other, better games, anyway) are people who make games: as an example of how to hide a pretty fun game concept behind a lot of barriers.

Yeah, it's sorely missing something like the Director thing that L4D had to keep the pace up. The spaces between missions are much more sedate (read: empty) here. Although you sometimes come across battles between two opposing sides, which I always approve of in hand.

I think it's closer to L4D with a mission structure, more loot, an open world-y design, and some stuff pilfered from their immersive sim games. Making it more like a service game seems like it'd be tricky, though if it was successful they could add other areas, classes, enemy types etc. It's hard to see how a season pass would fit into this right now for example, unless it was extra story mission branches like Sea of Thieves or something.

What role do you think publishers play in getting great games produced if not in helping their studios?

Maybe I have poor taste (I do) but I'm with Christian from EG on this: there's something weirdly charming amongst all the mess. Without getting into the weeds in what is or isn't an immersive sim, it's nabbed a few bits from the Arkane immersive sim template and it's okay! I like that for all the bits where the room design is weird, or empty, or undercooked, the town is a nice place to explore, and it feels laid out like an actual place. I've seen some nice character moments, even done a couple of missions I enjoyed. I like activating multiple missions in the same area and working through them. There's absolutely loads that doesn't work: like, almost too much to get into. The first hour is such a problem - much more so than the bugs or 30fps. It's not just that it isn't a fun hour (it isn't) - there's so many roadbumps and points of friction that need more work. Also: when did they start making this? Was it.. just after stranger things became popular, perhaps? Either way it's got some minor Stephen King vibes and I like it. The voice acting on my guy Dev though: yikes

Another fun set of litmus tests for developers: watching footage of regular/target audience players get their hands in their game for the first time. And more specifically: them watching execs seeing that footage. I love the God of War anecdote, but you're not always making games that are to the CEO's tastes.