Microsoft rumored to be buying...... [2020-04, 2020-07, 2020-11]

Well, yeah. Half-Life 2 isn't the best game of all time. It isn't even the best game in the series. Before anyone thinks I'm trolling, Half-Life was a game with the exact same plot as Doom. Scientists mess with stuff and open a portal to somewhere else and aliens invade. Exact same plot. The revolutionary thing about Half-Life isn't it's story, it's the story telling. The way it is presented to the player is great, and it's a thing that other games try to emulate but still have trouble doing. Half-life 2 is a collection of action set pieces and physics tech demos connected by boring driving sections with story sections that feel forced. It retcons the villainy of the original games antagonists and ends with an overly pompous non-ending that lacks any sort of resolution. Honestly it's a lot like Doom 3 in my opinion. A technological masterpiece at the time, but time has exposed it's flaws if looked at without the coloring of nostalgia. I'm not surprised that younger people don't have as much respect for it.

Also, I haven't seen the full list of games, but am I missing something or is Minecraft not on the list? And what about Tetris?

 

Any Top 10 of all time is a bit of a farce. The younger a voter is, the less informed they are about things that existed before their childhood/teenage years.

I mean just think of how many people think that X game invented Y game mechanic. Almost all of them are absolutely wrong.

So, there's a large chunk of IGN voters that probably don't even know about games that existed 10, 15, 20 or more years ago. And it's a shame since, IMO, many of the best games ever created are 15, 20, or more years old.

Hell, I regularly go back and play games that are that old just because they are so damn good. The graphics in some of them may no longer hold up, but the gameplay in those games are unmatched by modern games.

It's even more of a farce when you try to determine which game is the "best" of all time. It gets a lot of clicks though.

Regards,
SB

 

I never played half life 2, I did play HL1 when it came out cause it was highly praised at the time, gave up after an hour of two IIRC, pretty boring. But yes maybe HL1 is better than HL2, I jusy know both HL1 & 2 are a couple of the most highly praised games of all time, yet rise of the tombraider is just an average game, but because both the HL games are old they lose out to the much more recent game in a popularity contest. Minecraft is perhaps the game I cant understand the praise for most (its a rippoff of another game), I did try it and was totally underwhelmed, like angrybirds, but hey whatever different strokes.
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2...all_time_tournament_is_getting_wild#enlarge-2
Oh minecraft was in it and done well, tetris also reasonable. Fortnite lost first round to a much older game so all in all a bit strange. But its just a popularity contest and dont give much credence to the results

edit: minecraft as its played aint a game anyways

 

Despite HL2's issues, See Colon pretty comprehensively ran through those, it's a much better game than HL. It should be on anyone's must play list, even if they give it a go and ultimately wonder what the fuss is about.

 

I know that, but you're not the regulator. People need to read the room, there is serious talk in the EU and Norther America of forcing large vertically-integrated tech companies with complementary businesses to break up because overall they exert too much control and influence. In the past it made sense to build vertically-aligned businesses but now it puts a target on your back.

But whether you agree a not. There are a relatively small number of significant online software retailers and losing Valve would mean everybody else would need to complete less. Valve is still the gold standard. Microsoft's own store, baked into their own OS, cannot complete with it commercially.

 

h1 was more impactful with bringing proper story telling/narration to games but h2 was just great, still remember 2004 when d3, far cry and h2 arrive and my ti4200 64mb started to struggle ;d

 

Half-Life was one of the first shooters to do something interesting with story, set piece action. It hit just as early 3D was good enough for Half-Life to feel actually 'cinematic'. I'll never forget that early opening, walking around Black Mesa then everything goes wrong. You call and elevator and it zooms past with people inside screaming then crashed below. I don't know why but this really blew me away.

I've said it so much that I feel like a broken record, but as somebody who played Half-Life 2 immediately after the original Far Cry, which had a massive, lush and dynamic open world, giving you so many tactical options to progress, HL2 felt ancient in gameplay terms. The physics only carried it so far and I was genuinely disappointed. If Valve hadn't been hacked and code/assets released then spent time changing the game, I would have had a very different first impression of HL2.

 

I can't shake the feeling that there's something going on between Square Enix and Microsoft. The recent announcement that Crystal Dynamix is helping with Perfect Dark was oddly delivered and timed. Late on a Thursday, that's weird, right? If you want to bury a story you release it late on a Friday. If you want to showcase a story, you do more than a tweet. Couple that with Avengers having lackluster sales and now hitting Gamepass, Outriders launching directly into GP, and People Can Fly saying they haven't got paid for it yet... I can't help but think that they are ripe to be acquired.

Square Enix's corporate structure is layed out in a way that their European division is actually a subsidiary. That's the Eidos studios, Crystal Dynamix studios, and Square Enix Montreal studio. And I think that would include the Tomb Raider IP, along with anything that came from the mergers and purchases of Core and Eidos back in the day. So maybe Gex as well. So perhaps they would just spin off and sell their western division and focus on making more traditional Square Enix type games.

Yeah, Farcy ruined Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 for me I think.

 

that time Far cry was most impressive visualy but still has great time with hl2 (btw I remember when I first play early doom3 beta/demo and thought we are now in times when real-time graphics is on level with cgi hahaha)

 

For all the talk, it's just been talk. Good thing regulators come & go.

I see the opposite happening. If Valve goes to Microsoft, then all the other software retailers will have to step up their A game. Good thing Microsoft is supporting all the stores in one location. Let them all compete together.

Tommy McClain

 

Huh? When had a monopolies regulator ever been disbanded?

Microsoft if one of the biggest companies in the world. They, with all their money and resources, cannot compete with Valve's Steam store commercially. So what possible chance could any other company do to complete with a Microsoft-owned Steam?

And why would a Microsoft-owned Steam even need to try to improve their client and store, knowing that there is no actual competition? Remind yourself of what happened when Internet Explorer dominated? Microsoft just did f*** all with it, until it just go so bad it was surpassed.

Browsers are easy to replace, everybody's massive software libraries in Steam are not so transferrable.

 

I am pretty sure that something is gonna happen with Square Enix before 2023. Too much weird flags. Whether it will fall apart, split or being purchased whole...

Where are all those acquisitions. Quarter will end the next month...

 

I agree that MS and Square Enix western studios are pretty cozy right now. Interesting possibilities....

PS: I looked at historical EU sales charts a year ago and the 3rd party that MS could acquire that would help them the most against Sony in the EU was SE [FF, DQ, Tomb Raider, etc...]

 

Where's the concern with Tencent and Embracer?

 

So, Microsoft store become the Microsoft Mall? I wonder what's their cut? 30% of 30%

 

It's 0%, as long as they use their own payment systems.

 

More of a client.

I always though Google would eventually do that on android, or maybe nintendo so they don't have to be bothered with online infrastructure, since they notoriously can't... I'm surprised MS bit the bullet.

 

As Brit mentioned it's 0% for anyone on the MS Store (Mall now?) if that app does not use the MS payment system. AFAIK, it goes like this.

• 0% - Apps that do not use the MS payment system
• 12% - Games that use the MS payment system
• 30% (?) - Apps that use the MS payment system. Here I'm unclear if non-game apps don't pay the same percentage as game apps.

Regards,
SB