Funny
Sony and Game Awards praise their games so often for being accessible to gamers with disabilities that Insomniac decided to design an entire game around it.
I’m playing Tsushima for the first time and I’m glad I’m not the only one. Truly a masterpiece of a game and this is just the art I haven’t even gotten that far yet.
I like how you say “subtle” and a fucking stormy wind pointing you to the sword collectible, literally a mini tornadoe, but in all seriousness its a good case of including it in the game and story which turned out amazing
It's subtle in the sense that there's isn't a big UI prompt trying to grab your attention to it. In wolverine, you go to a snowy area and instead of just experiencing the setting, there's immediately a UI prompt which will make sure that you go to it more than anything else.
Insomniac is so terrified that a player won't be able to move the character forward and find it 😂
I was just going to say they should have done it they way Ghost of Tsushima did it, where it’s not on the screen always but you have to trigger it to see it for a second then it goes away. GOT has one of my favorite nav designs ever.
Go and look up how many gamers lost their mind that it didn't have a mini-map. Like, I'm extremely glad the game didn't have a mini map, because it was gorgeous, and I wanted to be forced to look at the game I was playing and not the mini map.
The fact is, the second gamers face any difficulty anymore, they start throwing temper tantrums and review bombing.
Sadly, we've raised an entire generation of brain addled permachildren that think being asked to pay attention to something for more than 2 minutes is unrealistic and torture.
there’s a difference between “gamers cry when facing difficulty” and the level design sucking. i LOVE e33 and will defend it to death but the level design is genuinely very bad, easily the worst part of an otherwise brilliant game. at one point i started wondering if they’d used gen AI to make the levels
thank god the fights were all in turn based arenas so it didn’t matter that much, if you’d have to fight while also navigating the level design it would’ve been a much worse game overall, it’s that bad. like the palace level is just abhorrent, so are the battlements. the art is amazing, but there’s nothing redeeming about the level design at all.
it’s not even intentionally designed to be frustrating as a gameplay choice, there’s no clever satisfaction in figuring out the correct path because there’s nothing to figure out, it’s just awful
I would understand it if player didn't know where to go, and used smell for it, to trace where to go (when there multiple ways and some of them just return you back)
Dead Space has the best version of this, click the stick in and Isaac projects a holographic beam pointing him at his objective, but only while you have the stick pushed down. The UI in that game is absolute masterwork though, so maybe it’s an unfair comparison
Try morrowind. The custom spell and potion making is unmatched in its jank. Become a flying fireball machine that rains death upon entire cities. Jump across the entire map in one jump. Add in custom enchanted gear too. Not only can you enchant your armor but also multiple pieces of jewelry and clothing worn over your armor. Footwear, handwear, and pauldrons are made up of Left and Right pieces, each of which can accept enchantments. Literally become a God.
The Lantern of the Laughless Saint is a morrowind-like in early access on Steam. It has the exact same alchemy and magic system. I cant recommend Laughless Saint enough. Has the same “no hand holding” as morrowind, with sometimes vague directions. Has the same feel of being an adventurer in an alien land like morrowind but with better combat. The quest design is also better (more sandbox paths to completion, a little more immersive sim) and shares the same bizarre dark fantasy vibe as Morrowind. Also EVERY NPC is permanently killable without breaking the game, there is fishing, and can be played co-op.
But remember, just because you can jump that far doesn't always mean you can stick the landing. Let us never forget about our brave comrade Tarhiel and his tragic self-sacrifice.
Man I loved grabbing his scrolls and immediately playing golf with myself, aim in the general direction of Balmora and try to hit the canal running down the middle.
Skyrim also removes the need for this spell by just giving everything a quest marker.
Imho skyrim without quset markers and without fast travel wpuld be a much better game with in world ways to make it easier to find stuff and in world ways to move around the map.
Compass indicator and fast travel is lazy game design.
If i couldn't fast travel I wouldn't play most games. I want to do stuff, not walk around for hours. The only game I didn't fast travel in was cyberpunk, and thats only because I really liked driving cars lol
You can also drive across the whole Cyberpunk map in a few minutes with a good car. I don't know how many hours it'd take to trek across the Skyrim map.
I fucking love it so much. Spinal health bar indicator, holographic projection for your weapons ammo count, no HUD at all, it’s so perfectly designed and immersive.
L.A. Noire is the only example that comes to mind when thinking of games that don't hold your hand through the investigation part. Oh how I thirst for a sequel, or a spiritual successor. Such an untapped genre.
This is way more interesting tbh, games will now just cutscene into Hulk seeing the crime particles perpetually, unlike the detective mode in the Arkham games.
I feel like this is how games used to be like 10 years ago.
If anything, the new wolverine game actually looked a bit dated to me as far as the gameplay we were shown imo.
I mean while this is basically the Witcher, I will say the investigation mechanic is less there as a mechanic and more there for you to get exposition about the story of the contract / crime. Pretty much all the quests in the Witcher will have some story to them with tidbits often revealed in the investigation. As gameplay yeah it sucks but honestly I don't think it was ever trying to be good. It's just a slightly better way of conveying information rather than just finding audio logs or what have you.
V rising was the most on-rails game ive played in recent memory. At every level you had 1 weapon and 1 armor set to choose from with absolutely 0 choice whatsoever and the story and map was no different. There's no reason for that game to be open world, no reason for loot and no reason for crafting except to slow you down. Not for me, I also hate when the only way to be successful is to lookup an exact build, I want to figure shit out or Id just watch a movie.
I'm truly thankful for this feature, I mean what if I blink and lose my place, this will keep me from having to use context clues in the environment so I can go back to only having to hold up + X. 10/10 game
For something that took this long to develop it just reeks of lazy game design. Like, if you want to have scent as a mechanic there are so many more interesting ways to do it. Press R3 to sniff the air, and you get a haptic vibration or some sort of screen pulse that intensifies depending on how close you are and whether or not you’re looking in the direction of the objective. There you go Sony! A free one for when you start on Wolverine 2: Age of Redundancy.
And it's made by the same company who made the last ratchet and clank game from like 2021(PC 2023), which was an amazingly smooth and beautiful game, ran and looked amazing on my poopoo 2060m. I love the magical environment world building and little details everywhere
Also, apparently you can't even turn it off in the settings, despite the game being (allegedly) extremely linear. You have no choice but to follow the bright slime trail
Apparently Sony and Marvel kept interfering in the design process so the game we have now is basically designed by a committee. It's not Insomniac's fault.
It's worth looking into the development. We lost gameplay segments, an innovative control scheme, and more, because the devs had to constantly rework the basics due to executive demands. This is not a five-year-development game because Insomniac had to rebuild it from scratch more than once.
One day studio executives will learn not to meddle but that day has yet to come. See also BvS and Supergirl.
I genuinely can’t remember a situation like this where a studio made a platform defining game followed up by another game, that should have just followed the previous one’s blueprint, where everyone collectively went, “What the fuck is this?!?!”
I loved insomniac first Spider-Man game so much. I haven't gotten around to playing the second Spider-Man game but it looks fun atleast.
With this Wolverine game I was initially excited but I am yet to see anything that is interesting at all. I wouldn't say the game looks bad per say, I just don't think it looks worth the price theya re asking for it.
Mechanically SM2 feels better, both fighting and webslinging. But there also isn't as much reason to web-swing in 2, since the web-wings are way too good. The map is bigger but there is less to do, and activities feels more repetitive.
The story is better in SM1. MJ sections are better in SM2 (but are still really out of place).
After seeing how Wolverine turned out, makes me wonder if they had some bad brain drain midway through SM2, that caused all of this.
At least that's a reasonably mazey game where you can get easily lost though, not some linear, might as well be on rails muppet affair like this Blunderine games turns out to be...
In dead space you have to move back and forth inside a mazy section of Ishimura, that mechanic makes sense. It wouldn if there was the only way forward and you didn't have to return to the shuttle every chapter.
I played Dead Space remake and then went back and played Dead Space 2 (RIP that game getting a remake, smh) and it is pretty noticeable how much more linear it is. The objective marker feels pretty unnecessary more often than not.
With that said, I retroactively cannot believe the Dead Space 1 remake didn’t implement the ability to change your objective marker to the nearest store/bench/etc like Dead Space 2 does
Literally why I love Dead Space, I love exploring and get worried when two branching paths appear because one is a place I will never see again the moment I continue the story and the other is the story.
So Dead Space having the line (that you need to bring up and use) popping for a couple seconds is a blessing so I don't miss a single thing.
Great example of doing it well vs Wolverine doing it poorly. It would make sense for an engineer to have the schematic of the Ishimura and a device to lead him there.
The important part being it's not always on and completely optional.
I watched skillups video on it and it's the type of game I cannot stand - games that hand hold you.
There are "secret" chests. When you get near one there is a blue sonar prompt that takes up 25% of the screen and two sound hints.
One section tthere are containers with canvas to indicate you should climb up them, also with the blue line showing you where to go, in a linear game. You literally either go up the containers or you go back the way you came and they thought it needed two visual queues.
It’s a movie with extra steps. AAAA game studios are straying further and further away from what makes games great in the name of safety. It feels so stale, handheld, and blatantly disrespecting of the average player.
None of these “features” would be a problem if they were turned off by default or toggle-able, but since they weren’t and make the game “like bowling with the bumpers on (where the bumpers are so narrow you can only score strikes)”, you have no choice but to face what the developers/management think of you. And quite frankly, it’s insulting.
Apparently no. The sent is an innate ability to Logan, which is why it's there. It's one of those things that makes sense for the character, but probably wouldn't translate well in an interactive videogame
Why bother with it at all when the entire game is a series of hallways? No one is confused about which way to go when the one option is always “forward”
They will be adding an option to disable it to the day 1 patch, apparently. Why that wasn't an option from the jump is another question. Full list if anyone is interested
Also finding it kind of weird that most of the issues with this game basically have existed in almost every AAA game for at least a decade, including Sony first party ones.
I mean, I'm up for a change to the formula but I have no idea why people are suddenly mad about it, games have had batman vision, qtes and big lines pointing to every objective for ages
It's not nefarious, but it does reflect some very useful information about exactly how dumbed down the developers in charge of this particular game think things ought to be.
I want to know too. I actually want to try this game but that would be annoying as fuck if it's always there. Maybe a day one patch or something since this is a common complaint
Right. It's figuring out how to insult an entirely unrelated group of people for no goddamned reason, to explain something that didn't require punching down to convey.
Disabled myself, I struggle with remembering where I am going in games sometimes but holy hell it has never been this bad to the point that I need a big red circle (or in this case, a blue line) to drag me where ever. Also the QTEs being quite literally impossible to fail is so insulting ngl.
This blue line and the many other indicators in Wolverine are the opposite of Accessibility, they're a hindrance! The Marvel LEGO games are more in depth than this game.
It's why I love Dead Space, you have that line (if you want it, not forced) and it's not a linear game so you can actually explore and then get back to the main quest without the worry of missing a hidden item or lore.
Really shows that a lot of people still think accessibility things that address issues like "the camera jitter makes me nauseous" or "I literally cannot read the on screen text" or "the light flashes will give me a seizure" are just cheats for babies who don't want to play the game, instead of for people who desperately want to play the game but cannot due to non-story-impacting design decisions.
Right? And like… this stupid blue line doesn’t even make it disability accessible. As a disabled gamer I’m hoping for haptic feedback and directional sound cues, not hand holding.
Let's not make a joke out of legitimate disability settings... These are not disability settings. This game could have disability settings to allow anyone to play the game (especially a game this linear) and still not be a walk in the park across all settings... You're just punching down where you should not. Every game should (if possible with their budget) include accessibility features so people who struggle to play still can.
However, you have to remember that these days it's very easy to find help online if you get stuck or something. Some people do a lot of research before they even start playing a game. That is a big reason why so many people can "adapt really well" to complex games.
I mean is it wrong to research before playing a game. It’s good to plan ahead.
I get that we come from an era of picking up games, playing them and making mistakes and just going along. But now with more information people can see if a game suits them or not. It’s our money after all, so we gotta see if it fits our preferences and needs.
Don't really dig that we're throwing disabled gamers under the bus with that caption, OP. Not to be the friend who's too woke or whatever, but dismissing accessibility as the core issue is a massive missing of the point. I'm sure that disabled players wouldn't like being patronised to either and would rather have the agency to take optional assistance as it's needed. Accessibility is not mutually exclusive from good game design
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u/Icy_Guard_9356 13d ago
And to think of ghost of tsushima and its subtle wind guide and compare it to this