Sad but true. Ya know believe it or not Blizzard was once synonymous with quality.
Sad thing is I can hardly blame them. Diablo Immortal was widely lambasted and still made approximately all the money in the god damn world.
Suffice to say I’d probably stop wasting time crafting labor intensive three course dinners if I learned my guests were actually just as happy to slurp up whatever I pull out’ve my garbage disposal.
Or it’s simply that some peoples expectations are way too high and they need to temper them. Diablo Immortal is a prime example that the average person doesn’t care, as long as the game is fun/engaging than they’ll spend money on it
Overwatch was an attempt to salvage project Titan, which I believe was intended to make a superhero MMO. But I agree, it needs a story mode. I will check out OW2’s PvE stuff and see how it is.
Pretty psyched about Street Fighter 6. This Luke kid looks kinda fun to play and I’m loving seeing the original eight world warriors advanced in their lives. And SO psyched to have a create a fighter and story mode. It’s very rare for me to play games these days where you can’t customize a character. Tired of having to play characters that look nothing like me 99% of the time.
Music is banging. New Guile theme doesn’t go with everything, but it sure makes me want to go.
The shame was the story it seemed to be telling from the cinematics sounded really interesting to me.
So the robot apocalypse went down and we solved it with super heroes but now we’re in a tense peace with the robots? That sounds pretty fresh, and in that genuinely excellent Bastion cinematic you could see how peace was possible. That was emotionally effecting in that Iron Giant “I dont want to be a gun” sort of way, all done without a line of dialogue or even anything resembling a human face. Looked like a really interesting story. Shame it wasn’t included with the game.
As for fighting games I’ve been out of the loop with them. I was always more of a MK guy but the last one I played was trying to sell me on some weird MMORPG esque feature where I had to pick a faction and equip items. I’ve never been a huge fan of playing fighting games online as in general as it’s maybe the only genre where a one second lag can completely screw with the flow. And overall I’m not picking up Mortal Kombar for the same reasons I’m logging into WoW.
Speaking of fighting game music though I was so sad at the bizarre way they released Killer Instinct. It was free but you had to buy every character. Wow yeah let’s turn the time honored thrill of unlocking all the characters in a fighting game into microtransactions. So that kneecapped it which is a shame as KI has maybe the wildest roster of fighters which is half the appeal with these things. Mick Gordon who’s best known for the Doom reboot these days created a really interesting soundtrack as varied as the fighters. Everything from this like gym pump up song;
To what I can only identify as I guess J-Horror Metal;
Game really never got the shot it deserved due to just a blindingly stupid business decision.
I agree. It just seems like they came up with a detailed universe for the MMO, then couldn’t make the MMO work – the level of story revealed in the trailers pings like someone throwing it in so it wouldn’t go to complete waste.
MK11 was pretty well-received aside from how incredibly monetized it was for skins and stuff – something like five figures to buy everything direct with no discounts and a ridiculous hour count to unlock. The only other criticism I have is that it’s just too bloody – I know, I know, Mortal Kombat, but at this point the extreme gore feels like a gimmick the series has outlived and would be worth being able to turn off. (The story mode doesn’t even use fatalities.) MK11 had a completely enjoyable story in its own right, with a cast I really enjoyed.
I’m living that track by Gordon and Sparx. Latter is pretty good too – not the sort of thing I’d listen to on purpose but would really add a lot to the right moments.
Love the MK11 trailer still. Won’t link it on second thought because… blood, but take a look.
It being a scrapped MMO idea actually makes a lot more sense. Probably for the best though. Seeing how WoW handles tough topics I’m kind of horrified at the prospect of them creating stories involving actual IRL cultures. Hell even with just the hero shooter they had that insane scoring system that amongst other mystifying decisions qualified hamsters as caucasian. So allow me to ammend that probably to a definitely.
As for Mick Gordon he’s genuinely just a really talented musician. He gets all the praise for Doom and that’s great but I do think KI was him just showing off at some points. Even the songs that aren’t say traditionally pleasant to listen to capture are fascinating because they capture the characters so well. There’s what I can only define as feral techno for a velicoraptor, and the aristocratic werewolf gets what sounds like a violin slipping into psychosis.
Also just so everybody knows this is the time of year bears start to bulk up for hibernation. So joyously there is something called Fat Bear Week, where you yourself can vote on who you feel is the biggest boi.
Last post on gaming and music for a while, probably:
Just ran through the Lizzo album that dropped on Beat Saber. Expert difficulty. Tough, but fun. Always love new album drops, this form of exercise can get a little repetitive without the variety. I wish someone had told me before now that Lizzo did funk and soul because those are my jam and I’ve had a real hard time getting new stuff in that vein. Just did a DNA test and I am 100% having fun.
(How do you do, fellow kids)
I almost feel like this is how you can tell you are getting old. You remember when Blizzard was a name synonymous with quality.
A few years ago, I was talking to a younger co worker, and I said something like “Blizzard makes quality games.” He gave me a look like : “I am trying to be polite but wtf… Blizzard sucks.”
I was thinking: “oh… its like that with Blizzard…”
Seriously. It’s so weird they used to be the company that would scrap whole projects after years of development because they just didn’t feel it was up to snuff.
It was the company where at least I didn’t care if they delayed or just dumped a project. Because whatever was coming up next was all but guaranteed to be a banger.
But then again I remember when they were only surpassed by Vaulve. And now those guys don’t do crap but host Steam.
If there’s any advice in life I can give is this: be humble. I like to do karaoke and consider myself a pretty good singer. I went out tonight to join a karaoke competition hosted by a KJ that I’ve known for awhile, and everyone who has sang is topnotch. I’ve been sitting here for the past couple of hours awkwardly drinking rum and cokes while I wait for my turn. I’m going to bomb.
I suppose it’s like how when you play fighting games with your friends and you beat them all you consider yourself great, then you get into a FGC competition and you get stomped. Which has happened to me. I’m a Mortal Kombat fan and have played in tournaments. I don’t get far. But I’m definitely formidable otherwise.
This is why with stand up going first is the weirdest situation. Because bombing is almost better than killing it. As if you fail hey nobody cares. But if you just nail it you’ve just completely screwed up everybody else’s already shakey confidence.
The biggest mistake I ever made was by quirk of arrival time coming on before another comic I both really enjoyed and had a bit of a crush on. She has a much dryer and darker sense of humor than me so not only do I completely set the wrong vibe but then make the mistake of watching her set. And I’m cackling in the back at the bar while most of the crowd is stone faced. And I think she saw that as me trying to like cause pity laughs and no I found her stuff really funny.
We did patch it up but she just hated me for a stint there.
I sang Bruno Mars and my voice cracked. Then I couldn’t get my voice back until the next phase of the song. At the end I had to walk of shame back to my seat. Everyone did perfectly but me. Damn it.
I practiced before I went out but waiting so long made my vocal cords go cold. The background audio wasn’t the official version, it was a crappy karaoke rendition which threw my pitch off. It made me go higher pitch than I should have and ruined me. Sometimes when I do karaoke the KJ’s setup is either amazing or it’s bootleg crap. My dissapointment is immeasurable and my night is ruined.
Hey, that sucks.
In your honor, I’m gonna badly but enthusiastically sing Bruno Mars over here. Because I am downright terrible at this, but I still love the boy’s music. Imagine the sound of cats being murdered but on autotune, and know that you far surpass that.
I know I said I wanted nothing to do with you before, but… as I sit here typing this with a nasty cough, I hope you feel better.
Good things happen and bad things happen. If anything, it gives the people who don’t like me here something to celebrate. It’s just a moment in time. Message to Christie Golden: there is more that matters than just this moment.
No, I would never. Some might.
You might not but I’m sure other people would.
If you do crowd work you’re going to bomb. And you’re going to bomb hard. But as someone who really struggles with self esteem and communication skills issues it was a blessing.
Because you will eventually nail it and there’s no greater high on this earth.
Ironically though talking about my trauma in exaggerated fashion is completely A Okay with me. But you’d have to drag me on at gunpoint to make me sing in front of anyone. And even then there’s equal chance Id just let them pull the trigger.
Apparently, the illness I have is Covid-19. My brother got it from school.