The Hot Topic Returns

[Sly Reflex]

There's a few things that I really like. I might break this up over a few posts so it doesn't run long.

 

One thing that I really like that I've not seen done a lot is the active reload. The Gears one is the place I saw it first and is the best example of it. It's such a simple idea and because you're doing it so much you get to the point where you don't have to think about doing it, but that's the genius behind it, especially if you like to swap weapons since all the reloads are different and have the bonus at different points along the reload. The way that it works by giving you bonus damage for the amount of rounds reloaded trains you into expending all or most of your magazine to get the most bang for your buck, and since the powered up bullets have a limited shelf life it's forcing your hand to be really aggressive to get the best out of it. What happens when you are aggressive? You tend to make mistakes, so you get treated to normal active reload, or at the worst extremes, an extended reload for fucking it up.

 

Getting an active does this really nice sound effect that I can't really describe, but if you know what I mean you just heard it. It's accompanied by the weapon you're using being juggled and held back in a shooting pose, as well as those ever  important glowing rounds in the HUD. Your player character might celebrate by shouting something, which again is a nice bit of design, since you know this person just got a self buff. If you fuck up, you're treated to a jammed weapon animation reload where they fumble and chunter to themselves about what a mess you made of it. It's really simple, but you can see a lot of through went into it.

 

Another one is long and short reloads of weapons. This covers a lot of games. I think I noticed it most in the Left 4 Dead games, but it's also really important in stuff like Battlefield and Call of Duty. The simple act of not completely emptying a weapon so you can avoid having to cock it since there's a round chambered was something I never really imagined would have an effect on playing, but then when I play now I'm always trying to run the magazine down to a point where it's worth reloading, but I'm not going to get punished for it. The balancing between reloads as well, those few second ones for the smaller guns compared to the 5 or 6 second ones for the boxes that seem to take a lifetime to swap over. You know that a group of people have agonised over how long each one of these should be and made sure that each type of player is catered for.

 

Just making the reloads nice to look at as well. Battlefield does particularly well here, since each reload depends on how many bullets you've shot. For instance topping off the mag if you've only shot a few bullets off, rotating a mag if they're taped together, or flicking the used mag out with the new one, there's so many visually interesting ways they can make reloads look in more realistic based games.

 

Then of course you get into the fantastical games. Gears I'm going to mention again. The way your player thumbs the shells into the shotgun is superbly done, both long reloads and active are stunning to watch. The rolling it over and having a hand on it all the time vs the active where it cuts the handling out for a throw and catch never get old. The quick reload of the hand cannon where you flick your wrist to get the cylinder back in. 

 

Borderlands is the other fantastical game I want to give credit for having interesting reloads as well. Along with the completely mundane, but just as well executed vanilla ones, we've guns that load from a spool, from hubcabs, from belts, guns that break apart and have the mags put right inside them, guns with batteries, guns that load from the top and side, guns that use loaders, guns you throw away and they rebuild themselves in your hand, an ungodly amount of work when into making pressing reload an interesting thing to watch despite you ignoring it most of the time.

 

For a lot of people, this sort of thing might seem like a bit of a weird focus for admiration, but then again if you've ever played a game where reloads were terrible or just uninspiring you just never noticed them much.  Credit where credit's due though, if a game does them right, it normally knocks them clean out of the park.

[Maryokutai]

Another +1 for Platinum's Dodge & Parry fighting systems as well.

 

As for RPGs I'm going to name Baten Kaitos because it was sch a unique and fun spin on the card battle mechanic. It takes some time to fully develop but as soon as you have some proper decks and starts picking your cards with the right stick to build some strong combos it become so satisfying.

 

In the shooting genre I have to say I really like Control. I've never played a game that so effortlessly lets you do to telekinesis stuff. Compare that game to Jedi Fallen Order and it's night and day how much better Jessie is at handling "the force", so to speak. Just tap a shoulder button and she either grabs an items in your vicinity or just pulls a bunch of concrete out of the floor or a wall – you don't have to first lock-on to something to levitate and throw it at an enemy but you can focus on the combat while the game des the rest. 

[Nag]

 

Quote

GameCentral readers discuss the final price reveals of the next gen consoles and try to make their choice between Xbox and PlayStation 5.

 

The subject for this week’s Hot Topic was suggested by reader JAH and others and started off by asking whether you’re considering buying an Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S. But since the PlayStation 5 announcement on Wednesday it became the usual question of Sony vs. Microsoft.

 

There’s no easy answer this generation though, with readers being evenly split on the issue. As you’d imagine the biggest factors where the high value for money with Xbox and the better exclusives on PlayStation.

 

Sorry, boring question this week.

[OCH]

The general gist I've picked up on, from reading between the two threads. If you've been an adopter of X-Box prior, you're getting it in spite of an overall lack of impressive software. The largely academic debate seems to be between 'X' or 'S'. Meanwhile, PS 5 chatter largely suggests software is the draw, in spite of a general dislike for the hardware aesthetic.

[mfnick]

Already covered basically, I’ll eventually have both. As for which will be first - most likely Xbox SX. The value proposition is just so much better for me. The “All Access” sub thing they’re doing & the fact I don’t have to spend £70+ on new games as well as paying £450 at launch just means that’s the one I can afford more easily. Im not going to cry if I can’t get a pre-order though as I’m not that bothered. 

No doubt the PS5 has the better software but I just can’t comfortably afford that cost at the moment. I’ll buy one in future - hopefully when a full black or redesign redesign is released and catch up then. 
Plus since they’ve confirmed their exclusives (apart from Demons Souls) are still coming to PS4 I don’t feel like that’s as much of a issue anymore. 

[one-armed dwarf]

On the previous question, I've actually gotten really tired of the platinum last second dodge stuff. It's in so many games now, even Avengers has it. I think it sort of just encourages very passive gameplay as you're basically baiting enemies for power ups.

 

Last second parry is still cool tho. Cause there's that sense of danger if you mess up.

 

I won't be buying either system for a long while. I just see no reason to, they have nothing really much to offer right now and for a good while too.

[bellow]

43 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

I won't be buying either system for a long while. I just see no reason to, they have nothing really much to offer right now and for a good while too.

With the PS4 cross gen admission, I'd probably be in this camp if it weren't for the new Xbox strategy. Of course it works for me because I've never really gamed on Xbox, so the amount of quality games on the game pass list, as it is now, means a lot more to me than it would to a long term Xbox player.

 

I can look at that list and map out a year's worth of gaming, with a little help from Switch and PS4. And then there's the upcoming exclusives thrown in for good measure. There must be a catch (no access to God of War Ragnarok might be a catch) but as it stands Microsoft seem to be on the side of the consumer, while the Sony outlook seems a bit punishing at first glance, especially their  1:1 exchange rate game pricing disparity between the USA and Europe.

[OCH]

I think that's where I might be in a better place for this gen. Since I missed out on the last one, so essentially all of this will be fresh to me. 

[mfnick]

8 minutes ago, OCH said:

I think that's where I might be in a better place for this gen. Since I missed out on the last one, so essentially all of this will be fresh to me. 

You’re going to have a ton of awesome PS4 games to try out when you get the 5. 

[DisturbedSwan]

If you ever discover the Internet on consoles @OCH I’d quite like to see you stream Bloodborne when you get your PS5.

 

As for me, I think it’s no surprise that it’s PS5. Ground breaking single player AAA games are my jam, there’s no one out there that does them better so it’s a very easy choice for me.

 

I may pick up an S or X at some point in the future but it won’t be until some meaningful software drops for the machine. Game Pass as great value as it is just isn’t enough for me and just gives me choice anxiety. 

[Sly Reflex]

Neither for me, not for the foreseeable. As nice as some of the games look graphically, I just am not set alight by them at all. It's all a bit tepid. 

[HandsomeDead]

I don't know how much of a rush I'm in but it's actually the Series S appealing the most.  I don't have a 4K TV, or plan on getting one any time soon.  So it's the most practical for me, and especially with the All Access deal they're doing.  It's certainly the only way I'd be getting in the next gen this year.

[Nag]

I've already got a preorder on for the disc PS5 and I'll be getting my order in for a Series X come Tuesday...

 

Like most people have said the launch games aren't exactly setting my heart racing but I'll have these machines for years (hopefully) and I've got the cash so there's no real reason not to pull the trigger.

[mfnick]

Got to say, I am getting really excited about the fact there will be next to no loading in future. That’s worth quite a lot to me. 
 

I am worried that we’ve not actually seen these consoles properly in motion yet though. They’re out very soon but no footage seems to be captured directly from the new consoles yet showing what it looks like to actually play a game on them. Surely that should be part of their marketing? Showing how instant it is to get into a game from the dash and how quickly it loads. Why haven’t we actually seen it yet?  

[spatular]

Pretty sure I’ve seen a video where they’re switching between games quickly on an Xbox, maybe it was just a faked mockup of what it should be like though? Not sure.

[one-armed dwarf]

Bouncing between games still seems pretty niche to me but eliminating long loads is really cool. I've had a taste of it with gen 3 nvme. I think you could replace a lot of load screens with a black screen and shave off a second or two with it.

 

Witcher 3 still takes way too long imo. I wonder if the next gen version will take out the 'previously on The Witcher' thing that it always does.

[OCH]

It is strange to think that games like Soul Reaver pioneered no load times, back in the 32-Bit era. Yet they are still a thing several generations later?

 

 

15 hours ago, DisturbedSwan said:

If you ever discover the Internet on consoles

? That made me laugh more than it should have.

[one-armed dwarf]

Well games grew more complex and we might have ditched CDs but we have been limited by slow to startup mechanical hard drives for a long while now.

I think really though it was this gen where it started to become a noticeable problem, what with all the squeezing through cracks constantly. You wonder how the denizens of Midgar don't get tetanus with all the squeezing through garbage they have to do just to go to the shop

[Nag]

I quite enjoyed watching Lara squeezing through gaps to be honest, I'll miss that.

[mfnick]

I know I just said having no loads is a big deal, but the squeezing through gap thing has never bothered me. Not even in the slightest. ??‍♂️
 

It’s the long loading screens I’ll be glad to see the back of, plus fast travel loads and long boot up loads for games such as Forza Horizon. For games with selection screens it’ll be great too. If it can load characters and costumes, cars and/or cosmetics instantly it’ll be a big factor for me too. Take Tony Hawk’s as the most recent example I’ve got - when selecting clothes and boards etc. It takes a few seconds to load them in which is enough to put me off even looking through them, but if they were instant it’d be a different matter.