Note: This contains a lot of my own opinions. I'm not trying to convince anyone to think the same.
I've never wanted a year in gaming to end so badly as this year.
2015 has not been a good year to many kinds of gamers. Some only had minor setbacks in the form of delays, while others saw their beloved franchises crumble. And in between all of it are people like me, who possibly caught the worst of it.
At the beginning of the year, everything looked great. Life is Strange released its first episode, Metal Gear Solid V and Silent Hills were in development by Kojima Productions, Nintendo released the New 3DS (in Western regions) as well as Majora's Mask 3D. Of course, there were the minor annoyances, with games like Limbo and Slender being released on yet more systems, but we've had those every year, so nobody paid those any mind.
Konami
We didn't have to wait long for the first major setback though. In March, it was revealed that due to internal struggles, Konami had suddenly decided to restructure the entire company. Kojima Productions was robbed of its name, Hideo Kojima's name was torn off all the Metal Gear games while the man himself was turned into a contract worker, the development team was forced to rush MGSV while also experiencing layoffs, and Silent Hills was unceremoniously cancelled after the release of a fantastic demo in 2014.
A lot of people just wondered: why? Why did Konami do this? After a while it was reported that their restructuring was so they can focus on the mobile market, and (off the record) on their gambling machine business. Apart from that, the large amounts of money spent on creating Metal Gear titles by Kojima had made the higher-ups angry. And thus, in one fell swoop, Konami committed corporate suicide, and effectively became the most hated game company of 2015, even beating out the likes of EA and Ubisoft.
The release of MGSV could have been handled better, as well. The game would force a server check-in whenever the game was started up, but with servers not functioning 95% of the time in the first two weeks after release, people would often be sat at a loading screen for several minutes, waiting impatiently to play their game. Some PC gamers couldn't even start up the game on the launch date because it wouldn't run at all (their CPUs didn't support SSE4.1, which the game needed at the time).
Through a series of patches and server updates, things did eventually get better. But fixing these didn't fix the bigger problem: the obviously cut content. A few story elements in MGSV are never explored further or properly finished, leaving large plot holes in between MGSV and the games that follow it chronologically.
Now it's also been confirmed that the small studio in Los Angeles, created specifically to work on Metal Gear Online, has been shut down before the PC version of MGO has even released, and with console gamers saying MGO is unbalanced and (surprise) the servers are unstable. While there are gamers who will possibly be inconvenienced by a buggy mess that won't work, there are now people looking for a job right before Christmas.
And as if all that news wasn't enough, after the cancellation of Silent Hills, Konami made sure to tell us Silent Hill wasn't dead and a new installment was being worked on... in the form of a pachinko slot machine!
Nintendo
I feel 2015 was just a really unlucky year for Nintendo. They had a strong beginning, a good line-up of games...
During E3, people were largely disappointed by the Nintendo Direct. And that while there was some great news in there, like the reveal of Star Fox Zero and Hyrule Warriors Legends, as well as more details on Super Mario Maker and the long-awaited SMTxFE.
There were many things to be disappointed about. Honestly, I thought it was an all right Direct for the most part, with the same amounts of excitement and disappointment I felt with nearly every one of their Directs. Something did hit me hard though.
Metroid. For years, fans of the franchise have been waiting for a proper follow-up, after Other M bombed so hard. The title Metroid was dropped, getting people's giddiness up high, only to reveal...!
A spin-off co-op title with Samus Aran nowhere to be seen. Great.
But the main thing that happened with Nintendo this year, was Iwata's passing. For many it was unexpected. I personally didn't believe the news at first, thinking it was another ?Bill Cosby died? joke that was being spread around the internet. Sadly though, it was no joke. One of the most charismatic and inspirational people in the video game world was suddenly gone. The saddest thing about it was that he, even as he lay dying, apologized to the people that complained about the E3 Direct.
Iwata has given form to a lot of the games I play and enjoy today. The development teams at Nintendo appreciated his input and his hard work. And while many people berate Nintendo for its current home console, you can't deny that the Wii revolutionized gaming as Iwata foresaw. Knowing he was heavily involved with Pokemon GO when he was still alive, I have a lot of faith in that game.
Minor things
The rest of the year was fairly uneventful, to be fair. There were delays of some major games, like The Legend of Zelda U, Star Fox Zero, Persona 5... I personally don't mind those. I'd rather they delay and deliver the best product they can, than deliver a broken mess, but I know it's pretty disappointing for the people hyped for those games.
Life is Strange had a crap ending. In the style of Mass Effect 3, your choices eventually didn't matter and it all boiled down to just two possible endings; save the town like you originally intended or become a lesbian. Good work, Dontnod, you really delivered on expectations there.
There were some great things this year as well. EA decided to stop being awful, promising free content updates and DLC in several of their games, and even setting up a new studio with Jade Raymond at the helm. Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon returned to the roots of the series, leaving behind the disappointing entry that was Gates to Infinity. And Undertale released, becoming Indie Game of the Year in a matter of hours.
But now...
Fallout 4
The leak of this game happened. Fallout 4 has been laid bare, and just as I expected, it's a piece of ****. It was incredibly suspicious how Bethesda announced it at E3 with a late 2015 release date and only showed some parts of the game, then released literally nothing new for months. It's only now in the few weeks before release that they're busy advertising it like they should have been.
The graphics are lacking. Even on the highest possible graphics settings on PC, buildings appear as boxes with windows painted on to give the illusion of depth. Looking at any such building from the side just shows it's two-dimensional. Models look like plastic. Dogmeat, in all his unoriginal glory, looks like he stepped out a PS2 game. The seamless world that we were promised isn't there, as you still open doors that lead into loading screens so the world behind the door can be loaded. Bodily animations are wooden, facial animations are often buggy, contorting characters' faces in ways they shouldn't.
The writing is just as atrocious as it was in Fallout 3, even...
The story dismisses the established plot of the series. The voice acting is terrible and flat, which is to be expected from a company that just hires 10 people to do all the voices of their 200+ characters. The leveling system ignores everything that made the Fallout series unique.
This game is in a state where a company should be ashamed if it were to be released. But the Bethesda drones pipe up, yelling ?MODS WILL FIX IT?, because apparently the consumer is now responsible for the quality of a product. The exact same happened with Skyrim, and the same shills are already popping their heads out of the ground to try and justify Fallout 4.
And the quality of the game isn't even from publisher pressure. It's happened many, many times that a publisher would pressure a developer to ?finish? a game, leading to the product being buggy and/or obviously unfinished. Hell, that's what happened to MGSV just this year.
Bethesda is the developer and the publisher of Fallout 4. They are happy with the way this is being released. They're happy with it looking awful, they're happy with their writing being uninspired, they're happy with using the same songs from FO3, they're happy with everything in FO4 currently, even though to anyone that can think straight it's obviously lacking.
On to 2016
There's nothing that can make this year any better for me at this point. Three of my favorite franchises of all time (Metal Gear, Silent Hill, Fallout) were killed by companies that couldn't give less of a damn. I've seen a man that was an inspiration to many apologize while on his death bed. I've seen people defend an obviously lacking product.
2016 can't come too soon. 2016 is the year of Hyrule Warriors Legends, a new(ish?) Zelda on the Wii U, Star Fox Zero, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Pokemon GO and other Nintendo mobile games, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, SMTxFE, Persona 5, Rise of the Tomb Raider...
I just really hope that 2016 isn't the year of more bull****.
I've never wanted a year in gaming to end so badly as this year.
2015 has not been a good year to many kinds of gamers. Some only had minor setbacks in the form of delays, while others saw their beloved franchises crumble. And in between all of it are people like me, who possibly caught the worst of it.
At the beginning of the year, everything looked great. Life is Strange released its first episode, Metal Gear Solid V and Silent Hills were in development by Kojima Productions, Nintendo released the New 3DS (in Western regions) as well as Majora's Mask 3D. Of course, there were the minor annoyances, with games like Limbo and Slender being released on yet more systems, but we've had those every year, so nobody paid those any mind.
Konami
We didn't have to wait long for the first major setback though. In March, it was revealed that due to internal struggles, Konami had suddenly decided to restructure the entire company. Kojima Productions was robbed of its name, Hideo Kojima's name was torn off all the Metal Gear games while the man himself was turned into a contract worker, the development team was forced to rush MGSV while also experiencing layoffs, and Silent Hills was unceremoniously cancelled after the release of a fantastic demo in 2014.
A lot of people just wondered: why? Why did Konami do this? After a while it was reported that their restructuring was so they can focus on the mobile market, and (off the record) on their gambling machine business. Apart from that, the large amounts of money spent on creating Metal Gear titles by Kojima had made the higher-ups angry. And thus, in one fell swoop, Konami committed corporate suicide, and effectively became the most hated game company of 2015, even beating out the likes of EA and Ubisoft.
The release of MGSV could have been handled better, as well. The game would force a server check-in whenever the game was started up, but with servers not functioning 95% of the time in the first two weeks after release, people would often be sat at a loading screen for several minutes, waiting impatiently to play their game. Some PC gamers couldn't even start up the game on the launch date because it wouldn't run at all (their CPUs didn't support SSE4.1, which the game needed at the time).
Through a series of patches and server updates, things did eventually get better. But fixing these didn't fix the bigger problem: the obviously cut content. A few story elements in MGSV are never explored further or properly finished, leaving large plot holes in between MGSV and the games that follow it chronologically.
Now it's also been confirmed that the small studio in Los Angeles, created specifically to work on Metal Gear Online, has been shut down before the PC version of MGO has even released, and with console gamers saying MGO is unbalanced and (surprise) the servers are unstable. While there are gamers who will possibly be inconvenienced by a buggy mess that won't work, there are now people looking for a job right before Christmas.
And as if all that news wasn't enough, after the cancellation of Silent Hills, Konami made sure to tell us Silent Hill wasn't dead and a new installment was being worked on... in the form of a pachinko slot machine!
Nintendo
I feel 2015 was just a really unlucky year for Nintendo. They had a strong beginning, a good line-up of games...
During E3, people were largely disappointed by the Nintendo Direct. And that while there was some great news in there, like the reveal of Star Fox Zero and Hyrule Warriors Legends, as well as more details on Super Mario Maker and the long-awaited SMTxFE.
There were many things to be disappointed about. Honestly, I thought it was an all right Direct for the most part, with the same amounts of excitement and disappointment I felt with nearly every one of their Directs. Something did hit me hard though.
Metroid. For years, fans of the franchise have been waiting for a proper follow-up, after Other M bombed so hard. The title Metroid was dropped, getting people's giddiness up high, only to reveal...!
A spin-off co-op title with Samus Aran nowhere to be seen. Great.
But the main thing that happened with Nintendo this year, was Iwata's passing. For many it was unexpected. I personally didn't believe the news at first, thinking it was another ?Bill Cosby died? joke that was being spread around the internet. Sadly though, it was no joke. One of the most charismatic and inspirational people in the video game world was suddenly gone. The saddest thing about it was that he, even as he lay dying, apologized to the people that complained about the E3 Direct.
Iwata has given form to a lot of the games I play and enjoy today. The development teams at Nintendo appreciated his input and his hard work. And while many people berate Nintendo for its current home console, you can't deny that the Wii revolutionized gaming as Iwata foresaw. Knowing he was heavily involved with Pokemon GO when he was still alive, I have a lot of faith in that game.
Minor things
The rest of the year was fairly uneventful, to be fair. There were delays of some major games, like The Legend of Zelda U, Star Fox Zero, Persona 5... I personally don't mind those. I'd rather they delay and deliver the best product they can, than deliver a broken mess, but I know it's pretty disappointing for the people hyped for those games.
Life is Strange had a crap ending. In the style of Mass Effect 3, your choices eventually didn't matter and it all boiled down to just two possible endings; save the town like you originally intended or become a lesbian. Good work, Dontnod, you really delivered on expectations there.
There were some great things this year as well. EA decided to stop being awful, promising free content updates and DLC in several of their games, and even setting up a new studio with Jade Raymond at the helm. Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon returned to the roots of the series, leaving behind the disappointing entry that was Gates to Infinity. And Undertale released, becoming Indie Game of the Year in a matter of hours.
But now...
Fallout 4
The leak of this game happened. Fallout 4 has been laid bare, and just as I expected, it's a piece of ****. It was incredibly suspicious how Bethesda announced it at E3 with a late 2015 release date and only showed some parts of the game, then released literally nothing new for months. It's only now in the few weeks before release that they're busy advertising it like they should have been.
The graphics are lacking. Even on the highest possible graphics settings on PC, buildings appear as boxes with windows painted on to give the illusion of depth. Looking at any such building from the side just shows it's two-dimensional. Models look like plastic. Dogmeat, in all his unoriginal glory, looks like he stepped out a PS2 game. The seamless world that we were promised isn't there, as you still open doors that lead into loading screens so the world behind the door can be loaded. Bodily animations are wooden, facial animations are often buggy, contorting characters' faces in ways they shouldn't.
The writing is just as atrocious as it was in Fallout 3, even...
to the point of the plot being the exact same as FO3's.
This game is in a state where a company should be ashamed if it were to be released. But the Bethesda drones pipe up, yelling ?MODS WILL FIX IT?, because apparently the consumer is now responsible for the quality of a product. The exact same happened with Skyrim, and the same shills are already popping their heads out of the ground to try and justify Fallout 4.
And the quality of the game isn't even from publisher pressure. It's happened many, many times that a publisher would pressure a developer to ?finish? a game, leading to the product being buggy and/or obviously unfinished. Hell, that's what happened to MGSV just this year.
Bethesda is the developer and the publisher of Fallout 4. They are happy with the way this is being released. They're happy with it looking awful, they're happy with their writing being uninspired, they're happy with using the same songs from FO3, they're happy with everything in FO4 currently, even though to anyone that can think straight it's obviously lacking.
On to 2016
There's nothing that can make this year any better for me at this point. Three of my favorite franchises of all time (Metal Gear, Silent Hill, Fallout) were killed by companies that couldn't give less of a damn. I've seen a man that was an inspiration to many apologize while on his death bed. I've seen people defend an obviously lacking product.
2016 can't come too soon. 2016 is the year of Hyrule Warriors Legends, a new(ish?) Zelda on the Wii U, Star Fox Zero, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Pokemon GO and other Nintendo mobile games, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, SMTxFE, Persona 5, Rise of the Tomb Raider...
I just really hope that 2016 isn't the year of more bull****.
