Q&A: April 10th, 2024 (Patreon)

Fário Asks
A discussion I always seem to stumble on social media and group chats is that "AAA games are leaning more and more towards being intractable movies and that is bad!", an eternal debate where everything is about "The Sony Exclusive mOvIeS" and almost nothing else. What is your stance on all of this? Do you worry AAA games lean more and more towards only one gameplay and narrative style or is this all a nothing-fest?

I don't think this would be nearly as much of a problem for people if the AAA alternative wasn't almost exclusively battle-passed ridden seasonal grind-fests.

What I find fascinating is how welcomed Sony games are to PC, because in that market, a polished feature complete single-player focused game is just as much a rarity, but more appreciated probably because people's other experiences on that platform, aren't just other Sony games doing the same thing, or the grind-fests.

I don't think Sony needs to make fewer Last of Us-esk Cinematic Campaigns, I think AAA needs to do more than two styles of gameplay.

Matthew Malone Asks
Do you have a game where you would stop and just appreciate and take in all the scenery and atmosphere, wishing you could explore more of that world? For me it’s Alan Wake II, the Dark Place specifically.

Far Cry 6 really did make me stop in my tracks multiple times, though I think the easiest answer is Cyberpunk 2077, and its expansion Phantom Liberty in-particular.

It's not just the art-design in that game is an absolute 10/10 tight-rope of believability and sleeve-worn influences, it's that more than any other game I've played (Far Cry hinted at this occasionally), it "frames" scenes.

Despite the player's ability to do what players do and put the camera anywhere, they somehow manage to construct sequences where the player can't help but direct themselves to the game's visual storytelling, and it's doubly impressive when it works regardless of time of day.

That kind of detail is beyond commitment.

Jake Malone Asks
Alpha protocol had the concept for the 3 JBs in their tone selection. Do you think a similar concept could work with a mass effect game? A tone selection that mimics the three star trek captains (Kirk, Picard, and Sisco)

I've heard several people say they wouldn't want it in Mass Effect because of the anxiety it stresses upon the player, but I just won't be fully convinced by that until more than one game uses that system.

I definitely think that the main improvement Mass Effect could use is constructing the dialogue wheel not to just be...

-Cadet
-Boring
-Douchebag

And as I listed in my Andromeda video, that game screwed up by having four "tones" that most of the time couldn't be selected, forcing your player to pick one of two extremes even in situations that don't make any sense.

One of the details of Alpha Protocol's system is that "Professional" has by far the highest ratio of success, with the most amount of appreciation, and the least amount of punishment... and yet, no one I've seen playing the game just keeps picking "professional" because while its reliable, it often won't get you what you want.

It's safe, but it doesn't often payoff.

For conversations to be immersive, you can't just treat them like balancing guns in a Comp FPS... I just really hope they don't reintroduce Para/Rene with no Reputation system in the name of nostalgia.

That would truly be going backwards.

The Phantomnaut Asks
With Gearbox’s announcement of another new Borderlands, post-Take Two acquisition, is it even realistic of them to ever return to Brothers in Arms with the fourth and seemingly final entry of the established storyline? If not, what’s a realistic way to get them back in? A reboot? Or is this series just a lost cause only to exist as a mark in Gearbox’s portfolio?

Brothers in Arms was an extremely late bid on the World War II shooter craze, pumping out two games within twelve months for a new IP, so while I'm sure the people who made those games have lots of love for them, I assume it's hard to pitch a straight-up no-nonsense no-gimmicks WWII game to publishers.

That's probably why Brothers in Arms was attempted to be rebooted back in 2011, though thankfully, even they saw the lack of interest from the general public in using an unique name to copy/paste Inglorious Bastards set-pieces.

I honestly don't know the best way for that series to come back, I'm always in favor of continuing it rather than just doing another god damn reboot/remake just to then not make a sequel, like we just found out with Dead Space.

The main problem with Brothers in Arms, is that its gameplay is extremely dependent on AI, which (unlike the Machine Learning craze mislabeled as AI) is extremely difficult to structure development around for publishers. It's not like graphics where you can keep a relatively linear progression of improvement as the game's developed, AI is as varied, dynamic, and unpredictable as the AI itself.

Duncan Gohl Asks
What is your process of picking a topic for a video? Is it random or do you like to pick a topic/game to make a video about when it is relevant? An example would be, say, making a Bad Company 2 video if a new bad company game where to come out or if the servers were to be shut down.

There's examples where I combined passion with opportunity, the Mass Effect videos for instance where certainly spammed up to Andromeda's release, as time's progressed though, the benefit of that is less necessary, giving me even more flexibility to just pick what I want to make, regardless of timeliness.

Had BC2 closed down its servers earlier during my time on YT, I might've made a video on it, whereas I wouldn't today, not until I feel I truly want to do it.

And frankly, it's something of a red flag for me.

When I see a channel that seems to only post what's popular and relevant, I can't help but question their sincerity. We all need to play the game to some extent, but if you're not doing what you want, you might as well kick back at a 9-5.

Kizza Lee Asks
Any plans for making a NFS Pro Street video? If not, give me some quick thoughts.

It's something I wouldn't have considered at all previously, but after playing a bit of it two years ago, it's become more interesting... though, there's still other NFS games that would take priority over it for me.

Submit your questions in the comments below, for future Patreon Q&A's.