A new week
and new news. It's a case of the good, the bad and the ugly but not
in that order.
We'll
start with the bad.
NBA 2K21
was released recently, and as one might expect from a modern sports
game, it comes with all the lootboxes one could want. However, 2K
Games managed to really give the nasty taste of the lootbox a new
twist. The lootboxes, or in this case card packs, contain random
players with varying stats. One of the most sought after player in
this case was James Harden and the player base, eager to gain an
advantage over the competition forked over a lot of money as soon as
they could for a chance to get Harden. The twist? For the first 23
minutes after release, Harden wasn't even in the packs! False
advertising? Outright fraud? You decide.
This story
broke on Reddit, and the story spread quickly, but since 2K hasn't
(to my knowledge) commented I can't be 100% sure it happened. However
I really wouldn't be surprised. Either way it's another sobering
reason to avoid lootboxes and pay-2-win.
Time for
the ugly.
The highly
anticipated Playstation 5 is just around the corner, with a release
date of November 12th. A much lauded feature is backwards
compatibility for all but a small handful of games, which means you
can play older PS4 titles on the new system and even port over your
saves. The issue of backwards compatibility is one that has been
hotly debated in the console world going back a long time and players
are pleased about the PS5's ability to do so.
For those
not in the know, back in 2014, Konami released P.T. or Playable
Teaser to hype up their upcoming Silent Hills game by veteran game
director Hideo Kojima and movie director Guillermo del Toro. Sadly,
the game was canceled after Konami and Kojima had a bitter falling
out, and Konami decided to focus mainly on Pachinko machines.
The P.T.
however remained available for a time, and it was incredibly popular.
Polygon recently ported P.T. to their review copy of the PS5 and
found that it worked perfectly. Then apparently Konami got wind of
this and removed it from the list of games that can be ported to the
PS5. Sony has confirmed that this decision came from Konami and not
from them.
Whether
this is due to some petty desire for vengeance against Kojima, or
general pettiness in general no one knows, but since new copies of
P.T. can't be downloaded, it seems weird to bother limiting access to
the fairly small group of players who still has it. Now there is a
rumor of a rumor that a new Silent Hill game is in the works, which
could explain the decision, but with Konami's recent track record, I
doubt it. Whatever the reason may be, it's an ugly thing to do.
Now for
the good. Hopefully.
Bioware
has finally announced the long awaited remaster of their incredible
sci-fi masterpiece, the Mass Effect trilogy. The remaster will
include the entire trilogy, all DLC and extra promotional items, all
available in modern resolutions. Good news, if they do it right.
After all, not all remasters are created equal. Earlier this year,
Blizzard released their catastrophic remaster of Warcraft 3 Reforged,
which quickly became known as Warcraft 3 Refunded.
I have
high hopes for this, I love the original Mass Effect games, and if
Bioware sits down and does the work it can become a best seller. If
they rely on “Bioware magic” like with Anthem, it will be
garbage, and dead before arrival.
They also
announced that a new Mass Effect game is in the works, but seeing as
what they did with Mass Effect Andromeda, this is very much a
question mark, might be good, might be worth skipping. Time will
tell. Either way, they still have to finish and ship Dragon Age 4, so
this game is far away.
That's
that and all that. Join me again next time, have a great week and
stay safe!
