* Do you ever plan on adding an overt supernatural element to the game, even as an option? Not so far as a magic system, but anything that strays from the science fiction atmosphere?
* Will there be additional combat capable vehicles and/or more of a focus on vehicular combat? We have dinosaur harnesses with built-in lasers, but anything more than that? Missiles, cannons, whatever?
Social engineering (and legwork, so to speak) actually ARE essential hacking tools in real life. All the coding skills in the world won't help you get into a system that isn't connected to the internet, but even a military base can have its closed networks easily infiltrated if you can just find that one, stupid irresponsible soldier whom you know will plug-in that USB drive you told him has games on it. You'd also be surprised by how insanely easier it is to get somebody's password by just calling them and pretending to be the IT guy than trying to go all Hollywood bruteforcing it or guessing their birthdate.
How about a CoD game taking place during the 30 Years War? Muskets and greatswords on the battlefields of what was pretty much World War -1? Playing as a Landskneht in the Holy Roman Empire, being exposed alongside the rest of Europe to the horrors of war like nobody's ever thought possible until that time. Cut enemy soldiers in half with a zweihandler. Adopt stealthier tactics and fight more carefully to deal with the lack of automatic weapons (you can carry, what, eight pistols? A single musket?). Explore 14th century Bavarian castles teeming with enemy guards.
Instead of zombie mode, the game could have an asymmetric multiplayer vampire mode. Team of wandering vampire slayers arrive at some God forsaken village near Frankfurt to hunt a powerful, hidden vampire and their undead minions with torches and crosses, against a backdrop of the plague.
I'd be honest with you guys, I'd have much rather loved to see this than Infinite Warfare. Legionnaires versus zombies, how awesome could that have been?
The Digital Trips were among the best parts of Watch Dogs 1, but I suppose that's more telling of just how bad the game itself was. If this one's better, maybe it won't need fancy minigames to distract you from it.
It being a PS4 makes this all the more disgusting. When someone commits murder over something completely insignificant - a little bit of food or a bottle of vodka or something - you can at least attempt to interpret this as a tragedy for all sides. Here's a man brought so low by life, to such desperation, that they'd be willing to kill for something as basic as food. When someone commits murder over something absurd - something they could never have, like a luxury vehicle or a ton of drugs - you can at least attempt to interpret this as a fit of madness. Here's a person so jaded he would commit murder knowing he could never have that thing otherwise.
A PS4 is right on the magic line between those two extremes where there's no justification even imaginable. It's not something tragically basic. She wouldn't have starved to death without that PS4. It's a toy. An expensive toy. Yet, not so expensive that it's inconceivable that she could ever have it. All it would've taken for her are maybe two weeks at a part-time job.
Here's a person so infantile and callous that they would rather kill than have to work for two weeks so they can buy an expensive toy.
What's truly saddening is the sheer amount of ammunition an act like this would give the type of people who're looking to be hateful of both women and African Americans. It sounds unfair, but when you represent an oppressed minority one of your duties is to do everything in your power to represent it well. When you conform to stereotype, you make it easier to apply stereotypes, and the cycle of hatred can continue.
That's what tends to happen when you make a game with so little gameplay to it that watching the YouTube video can give potential players the same or a better experience.
I'm all for games having deep storylines, and I'm all for them being emotional. I'm all for them being poignant and thought-provoking. But a game's a game, and one way or another, a game designer's got to understand that. That doesn't mean not doing it, but it does mean that if they make the choice not to they should expect not to earn money. People have released thought-provoking, wonderfully emotional games for free before, whether for the art or because they wanted to share some kind of vision. But they did it knowingly.
Ask yourselves if you'd have found this as tragic if the game had been about a more trivial subject. Remove the element of the grieving parents from the equation. Or is it that being grieving parents should make them entitled to special treatment from the gaming market? Should we buy games from developers who've suffered a personal tragedy, no matter how bad, for them to feel better about themselves? To make them money to recover? Is it acceptable for a game to be mediocre because there's a sob story behind it?
You could even claim, however cruelly, that there's an element of hypocrisy on the parent's side. They've made an incredibly artsy game - the kind which is obviously, all the moreso because of its theme, supposed to "send a message" and "share their story with the world". But in this case, it's not that people didn't get it. It's not that they didn't hear the story or share the parents' pain. It's just that they didn't pay for it. To a cynic, and I apologize for presenting one's view, this looks a lot like the parents disingenuously admitting that they've commercialized their son's death. Why else would they've cared so badly about whether or not people pay to hear about it? It's not like they couldn't do like other grieving parents and set up a charity.
The video game industry is far more than mature enough for it to be clear to people that it's possible to make a gripping, emotionally powerful game which is more than a barely interactive movie. I'd play the heck out of an interactive story about being a parent to a child with cancer, Japanese visual novel style. I'd play even more for it to be deeper simulation, that'd really put you into the shoes of such a character, managing the family's bills and the payments for your son's treatments as you go through life trying to maintain your marital relationship and struggle against depression. Something like Cart Life or Papers Please. Mind you, I'm specifically not referring to high-budget interactive movies like Quantic Dream games here. I understand that this is a couple without a lot of money. Neither Cart Life nor Papers Please nor visual novels cost a great deal to make. In fact, they may very well have costed less to make than That Dragon, Cancer. Back in late 2012, a group of anonyemous 4chan users made a free visual novel about teenagers with disabilities which made waves throughout the indie gamer community. People would've paid good money for that game even if it cost any because it wasn't just a game, it was a good game. It had a good story, and while it wasn't very interactive it was interactive just enough, and good enough at delivering a personal experience, that you simply couldn't get the full experience of it by watching a YouTube video.
Is it sad that this happened? Ultimately, yes. But is it in any way unexpected? Infuriating? Frustrating? Not to me. To the parents, perhaps, but while I'm loath to say that they "deserved it", since their intentions were probably good, the fact remains that it really couldn't have happened differently.
I know that probably isn't the issue, but reading two days in a row about features being removed from the western release of the same game makes me wonder if it wouldn't be just better to admit some games are (it seems) unfit for release in the west and leave it at that...
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