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My play style doesn't mesh with those tactics anyway. I put almost no stock in status effect or buff moves, I'm all about the attacks.
My philosophy is thus: Why waste a turn buffing/debuffing when you can hurt the other guy instead?"
That's dedication...or insanity.
Hope he showered afterwards!"
But I think people are a long ways off from pushing the "M" rating beyond excessive blood and gore."
If anything, I'd blame games like Tekken and DOA for this trend, because they feature uninspired final bosses most of the time, and they were two of the breakout games of the mid-1990s fighting game craze."
Point taken, but let's face it: how are we ever really going to know what companies make from games now? The NPD is being stupid now for not releasing sales numbers and VGChartz numbers are untrustworthy.
Not just that, the companies themselves seem hesitant to release any detailed information on sales numbers."
I still find what they did with Dragon Age 2 suspicious. I think pre-order DLC is obnoxious and it creates a divide of haves and have-nots. Announcing DLC before a game is finished is, to me, the lowest of the low; it means you had a nickel-and-dime scheme in mind the entire time and were developing content alongside the game.
I think developers feel rushed nowadays, and because of that mindset they start working on DLC as soon as the work on the game itself begins. They might feel as though they never have enough time to get decent DLC out post-release.
But the $60 price tag on games is pure profit. The actual game, case, and manual cost almost nothing to make. People naively believe that devs can't make up the cost of the development on sales of the game new alone.
I think pre-order/day-one DLC is also a (flawed) measure being taken to ensure more new sales, but ironically it causes a lot of people to get upset and wait for the inevitable edition with all the DLC in it for the same price as the original release. Since they can't do DRM for consoles, it's basically the console gaming business' answer to that.
I just get upset when people say we gamers who are opposed to a lot of types of DLC are being whiny, spoiled, childish brats. So I'm not supposed to expect a full game from the get-go? I'm supposed to put up with developers cutting corners for a quick cash grab? I confess that I did buy the MvC3 DLC characters, and the sad fact is that Capcom is essentially forcing us to buy them if we have that game. People have argued that you don't have to buy them and that it's a complete game otherwise, but there is no such thing as a complete fighting game with missing characters. It's like a car without the tires and drive train."
I truly believe DLC is going to get worse and worse as video gaming continues into the new generation. Companies have gotten so greedy and full of themselves that, as I hear, they now have budgets specifically dedicated to "DLC creation" -- before the game even begins the development cycle!
That right there says that companies no longer have the best interests of the consumer at heart -- they're greedy and willing to do anything for a quick cash grab. Recently, the Mortal Kombat developers confirmed that they were working on DLC already and planning to release it some time after launch. Fighting games, of all things, should NOT have DLC characters...or if they absolutely must, then they should be free. MvC3 is a fun game and all, but I think Capcom is really, really pushing the limits of what's tolerabe in that department. EA's pre-order/release day DLC BS is horrid, too.
I won't be surprised if DLC causes another market crash much like the infamous crash of '83.
But DLC can still be done right. Look at what the Lords of Shadow devs are unleashing soon, and this DLC was obviously made well after the initial sales period."
It's an interesting idea, though I think there should be at least some kind of stipulation on when it can be performed.
I'm not sure if the author or anyone else remembers Killer Instinct 2. In retrospect, it's not a great game, but it had three interesting ideas.
1. You could only use a finisher when an opponent's life bar was in the red, and there was no "dizzy" state like in the first game.
2. The character's second finisher could only be done mid-combo. Some of them (like Fulgore's) were a bitch to pull off, but implemented properly and with less frustrating controls, it could work beautifully.
3. In the same game, if you did or didn't kill certain characters, it affected the ending. I'd love to see something like that where if, say, Reptile would kill his master, Shang Tsung, and in his ending he and what was left of his race would be free from their older master's tyranny, or if you didn't kill Shang, he would backstab Reptile and kill him, but Reptile would, like, kill Shang at the same time. Something like that.
Just my two cents!"
I mean, gamers don't want to be beat over the head with the answer (it makes us feel stupid or as though designers are being condescending), but we also don't want to have to guess where the hell to go next on our intrepid adventure (this often frustrates players, and in the days before online walkthroughs, you were SOL. Even if you bought the strategy guide, these were the days before Brady and Prima got their acts together and published high-quality products; old guides were horribly and unprofessionally made).
So in the end, finding a happy medium seems difficult for some game creators."
I think it'd be most pertinent to bring up how EA especially has been abusing the notion of DLC and customer loyalty...as well as Capcom, who, more than any Japanese third party these days, has really started to adapt the EA model and somehow made it even worse."
To that end, I welcome the function for the portable SSFIV. It really is a godsend, especially since it's silly to waste one of those six precious face buttons on the LP+MP+HP hotkey that lets you pull off Ultras on the console version without finger strain.
Capcom was smart to include this, no doubt."