Gamer's Outpost Press (archived)

by Chris Reed via Cheatsheet

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a masterpiece on many levels. Whether you’re sneaking through enemy camps using slicker stealth moves than anything found in Assassin’s Creed, or solving meticulously designed puzzles in sprawling tombs, chances are you’re having a blast. It’s one of the best-looking games ever made, and it plays like a dream. So it’s a shame no one’s playing it.

A follow up to the 2013 series reboot Tomb Raider, this game follows Lara Croft on her path to become a modern-day Indiana Jones. To kick things off, she learns of an ancient city that, despite her father’s obsession, he was never able to find. The city’s mystical promise is that it holds the power of immortality.

So off you go, on a quest to find this city, fighting against a group of thugs who are after the very same thing. While you can simply dash from set-piece to set-piece, there’s a ton to do in the game for those who prefer to see and collect everything. You can root out collectibles and find hidden tombs. You can fill out an upgrade tree that increases your power and skills in all sorts of satisfying ways. You can even craft items and unlock new outfits.

Even more than its predecessor, this game proceeds with a sense of confidence that’s rare, but well earned. There are very few missteps here, with a fully satisfying core campaign, and tons of reasons to go back and sweep up anything you may have missed the first time through.

So why haven’t people been talking about Rise of the Tomb Raider like they have some other games this season? Shouldn’t pretty much every Xbox One owner be rushing out to buy it, since they get it a full year before the PlayStation 4 crowd?

Yes, they should.

But from the looks of things (Microsoft and Square Enix have been mum on the issue) the game isn’t selling very well. According to VGChartz, it sold just 230,000 units the week it released. And if this NeoGAF thread is correct, fewer than 60,000 of those copies were sold in the U.K. Compare that to Fallout 4, which came out the same day on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, and sold nearly 5 million units that week.

There’s the rub, isn’t it? The biggest reason people overlooked Rise of the Tomb Raider is because it launched the same day as Fallout 4, a game that released to such thunderous fanfare that it drowned out nearly all other chatter that whole week. By the time gamers came back up for air, it was too late for Rise of the Tomb Raider. Everyone was already neck-deep in the Boston Wasteland.

Not to mention all of the other major titles to release in recent weeks, including Star Wars: Battlefront, Halo 5: Guardians, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. In that kind of environment it’s hard for any game, no matter how good it is, to grab gamer mindshare.

It also doesn’t help that Rise of the Tomb Raider is currently exclusive to a console that, by all accounts, has sold less than half of the units of its main competitor. After all, you can’t buy this game if you don’t have the only system it runs on. Plus, dedicated Xbox gamers may still be busy playing Halo 5, the other big Xbox One exclusive that launched just a few weeks prior to Tomb Raider.

Whatever the reason, I hope people come around on the game and give it a chance. No matter what other games are available now, Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the best games of the year. Play Halo 5. Play Fallout 4. But play Rise of the Tomb Raider, too. You won’t be disappointed.

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Nintendo wants to take a leaf out of Apple and Google’s book for its next gaming platform, the Nintendo NX

by Richard Goodwin via Know Your Mobile

Nintendo has had a rather turbulent couple of years. The company’s approach to gaming and production cannot be faulted but changes to the gaming and technology space at large have resulted in Nintendo consistently losing ground to its peers and, in some respects, mobile gaming, which has increased in prominence exponentially in the last several years.

So what’s Nintendo to do? Simple: create a brand new gaming console that wipes the floor with everything else. It can’t be the Nintendo Wii again, that thing had some success with family gaming, but compared to the Xbox One and PS4 it was pretty much a flop. No, Nintendo needs to return to its heydey, back when the NES and SNES and GameBoy handhelds wiped the floor with the competition.

A new report from DigiTimes claims the Nintendo NX will launch in early-2016 with production of the console starting inside Q1. Nintendo said it wanted to create around 20 million units but more recently that number has said to have been reduced to somewhere between 10-20 million.

“That revision seems to be because of a supply line of components rather than Nintendo’s caution over sales,” reports Den of Geek. “Indeed, if Nintendo manages to sell 10-12 million NXs in its first year, that’s a good result – at least by the standards of the faltering Wii U. The latter system’s lifetime sales are between 10 and 11 million, and it’s now three years old.”

Still: exact details about the console are pretty thin on the ground.

According to multiple reports Nintendo’s upcoming NX console will run on Google’s Android platform and the reason, according to said reports is simple: Nintendo wants to attract developers to its platform once again.

“Speaking to one of Japan’s biggest newspapers, Nikkei, the Nintendo leaker has it that the new device is going to house an operating system loaded with Android,” reports Tech Radar. “With Nintendo historically always using both its own hardware and its own in-house developed operating systems that all sounds like complete nonsense. The justification for it being considered though is that it will allow third-party developers a quicker – and easier – route into creating content for the Nintendo NX.”

Nintendo has lost legions of developers from its Wii U platform and, if the company is to grow, it must try something new, something that will attract these developers and more like them back to the fold. Content is KING in 2015/16 and Nintendo knows this which is probably why it is considering such a drastic switcharoo.

“Given how Android is normally employed, if what this insider says is correct it’s likely the NX’s OS will simply be based on Android (similar to the Ouya), not a direct implementation of the same software normally found on phones and tablets,” reports Kotaku, a specialist gaming title. “The Nikkei article explains that the apparent reason for this move is the Wii U is not compatible with other game machines. So it’s hard for developers to make back money on a title’s development costs when they have to create it specifically for one console. They can’t easily do a multi-platform release like they could on Xbox One, PS4, and PC.”

This Android Connection seems to be something of a mistranslation, however — a statement taken out of context. You see, Nintendo has officially stated that it wants a platform similar to Android and iOS in that multiple types of hardware can run on one platform. Doing so would make life a lot easier for Nintendo’s now-disenfranchised developers. Being open-source, Nintendo could, of course, adopt Android for this purpose and fork it as many companies have done in the past. We’ll just have to wait and see about this though…

Not much else has been said about the Android connection since, however, although there has been a lot of talk about the NX since. And most of it is very telling about the direction in which Nintendo wants to take its business. According to a very detailed report on Gaming Bolt, the NX platform will not be a console per se; rather it will be the platform on which all future Nintendo games run on, regardless of hardware. Sort of like Windows 10, then.

“Nintendo has begun issuing developers with software kits for the Nintendo NX, revealing some intriguing details about what the console might entail. According to the WSJ’s sources, the NX will include a mobile unit that could either be used in conjunction with the console or taken on the road for separate use,” reports Expert Reviews. “This would suggest that the NX will also replace the New 3DS and New 3DS XL, which Nintendo launched back in February, creating a handheld console hybrid that can be used at home or on the move. It would almost be like the Wii U’s GamePad controller could function as its own separate console, although presumably the NX’s “mobile unit” would be much smaller and more compact to make it remotely portable.”

As of December 11, reports have emerged that Nintendo has patented a design for a controller featuring a large touch display. As reported by Sky News, Nintendo’s patent details an “elliptical” shaped controller with a similarly shaped display. It also appears the analogue stick controls stick out through the display panel itself, which is confirmed to be a touchscreen, and the setup features a built-in speaker, two shoulder bumpers and two triggers as usual. The design document also makes reference to glasses-free 3D technology.

Nintendo NX: It’s ALL About The Platform

“The NX platform,” notes the report, “therefore, refers to both, a handheld and a console. However, it does not refer to a hybrid. Former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has conclusively come out and debunked that idea multiple times. The NX is not going to be a convertible system (i.e. a handheld that docks into the TV and becomes a console). However, it is going to be one brand that covers systems in different form factors- i.e., Nintendo will have an NX handheld and an NX console. Think iPhone and iPad, and you have the idea.”

This is something Mr. Iwata himself confirmed multiple times:

“Home consoles and handheld devices will no longer be completely different, and they will become like brothers in a family of systems. Still, I am not sure if the form factor (the size and configuration of the hardware) will be integrated. In contrast, the number of form factors might increase. Currently, we can only provide two form factors because if we had three or four different architectures, we would face serious shortages of software on every platform.”

“To cite a specific case, Apple is able to release smart devices with various form factors one after another because there is one way of programming adopted by all platforms. Apple has a common platform called iOS. Another example is Android. Though there are various models, Android does not face software shortages because there is one common way of programming on the Android platform that works with various models. The point is, Nintendo platforms should be like those two examples.”

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by L.W. Barker aka ‘Sarge’

There are two types of gamers… those who embrace digital content, and those who tightly hold on to physical copies.

I for one is the latter who is quite aware that physical games for Xbox One, and PS4 are blu rays and cannot directly play content from the disc. And that these games are automatically installed on the console’s hard drive prior to playing. But, there is nothing like that feeling of actually holding that game in hand. Just being able to see and touch the game gives it value in my collection.

The fact is our Industry is going through changes that have transformed the  old “retail” formula into something new that promises to push it from its “tried and true” physical past to a “money making” digital future…like the Music Industry did a few years ago.

However, this does not bode well with some gamers. “Digital” to them means that games are not really owned.  And without that physical copy in hand, the thought of publishers and developers suddenly deciding to take back digital content is always on their minds. These gamers will collect physical copies of their games until they run out of storage space…and then they’ll make room for more.

Other gamers have embraced digital content. From music to movies and now games, they were born into a world that only knows digital content, and physical copies are obsolete. Armed with the knowledge that their hard drives will eventually get full, these gamers are “Masters of the Cloud” so to speak.

Thus, our changing Industry has made some gamers uncomfortable with the thought of not having that physical game in hand. And yet digital is where the Industry is going. Developers are leading the way with many bypassing publishers and retailers and presenting their games directly to gamers, who for the most part, have embraced it.

Now as our Industry moves toward an all digital future, there might not be a place for gamers like me. A fact made all too clear the other day when a young gamer asked me with astonishment in his voice, “You still have games on discs!?”

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The audacity of charging full price for half a game

by L.W. Barker aka ‘Sarge’

Star Wars: Battlefront is a major disappointment. Yes, the game has fantastic graphics, and its sound is on par with some of the best in the first person shooter (FPS) genre, but even with those features, the game is half baked at best and is not worth its $60 asking price.

Why Electronic Arts and DICE decided on releasing Battlefront without a single player campaign is known only to them, but I can summise that their decision was based on the achievements of past games, such as EA’s own ‘Titanfall’ which was developed by Respawn Entertainment, and ‘Evolve’ by Turtle Rock Studios and 2K Games.

Titanfall was release on March 10, 2014, and like Battlefront it was highly anticipated by a vast majority of gamers. Much of this anticipation was a result of clever marketing and promotion techniques that convinced our Industry that Titanfall was “THE Call of Duty killer”. The reality though it is wasn’t, for when it was released, gamers quickly realized that unlike Call of Duty, Titanfall was missing a true single player campaign which is basically the heart and soul of a FPS. Thus, its popularity quicky dropped which resulted in the game currently being played by only a handful of hopeful gamers who are “hanging in there” for Titanfall’s promised 2017 second coming.

On February 10, 2015, Evolve was released to much critical acclaim from the industry which led to it being nominated for six different Game Critics Awards. And unlike Battlefront and Titanfall, it was widely known that the game was to be a multiplayer only fare prior to it being released. However, developer, Turtle Rock Studios received heat from gamers who felt that the developer was deliberately withholding Downloadable Content (DLC) from Evolve to be sold separately as a market strategy to make more money from the game. This controversy caused Evolve to received mixed reviews from critics which brought it an overall Metacritic score of 78% on all platforms.

So now, Star Wars: Battlefront is yet another game released with high gamer expectation that was quickly dashed when it was realized that the game did not have a single player campaign, little replay value, and not worth its $60 price tag. At best, without a single player campaign, Battlefront and all other games like it, to include Ubisoft’s recently released ‘Tom Clancy’s Rainbox Six: Siege’ should cost half their asking price with DLC making up the other half. No multiplayer only game should be full price with DLC costing upwards of $20 for each additional piece of content.

Thus, this Industry’s publishers and developers need to realize that the success of a game is based on appeasing ALL gamers and not just the ones who enjoy multiplayer. I enjoy my single player campaigns, and would have bought Battlefront if it contained one. But this game without single player is half baked and NOT worth its $60 asking price.

Finally, we as gamers have the power to change our Industry’s audacious perception that we are “suckers” who are easily taken advantage of with continual DLC. And the best way to do that is to keep our hard earned money away from games made for “suckers” and use it on ones designed for who we are…gamers.

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