Psychonauts 2 will feature an invincibility toggle to enable "all ages, all possible needs" to enjoy the game - Game journalist mode ahoy!

[Clint Torez]

So the PS5 version of the game will only have the cutscenes and all of the gameplay removed?

 

[SiccDicc]

I don't know why people care. I think it's good to include a "movie" mode to watch games that have a story you want to experience, or this type of invincibility mode just to get through bullshit.

Because if you can put the most minimal amount of effort and be rewarded for it - I'm talking about the developers by the way - they will make games more like this. This has actually happened with the way they completely dumb down a game for the most common denominator. Eventually games won't even really be played at all, they'll be really easy QTE David Cage tier crap. Kind of like that DVD of one of them Final Destinations where you get to decide how the scene goes. Maybe not in ten years, maybe not in twenty, but I'm positive it will happen. And they'll do this because it's cheaper than actually spending money on various designers to design just the right difficulty for a level or calibrate the damage and defense of various NPCs, they'll streamline the entire process of playing because it's cheaper. They won't even need to waste money on QA teams, because what does it matter? Just put on invincibility. It's not like they'll be actually interacting with the game all that much anyways to really warrant a thorough testing of the product.

You can call me a pessimist if you like, but it's more knowing that lazy always triumphs. Always. Doesn't matter the industry, if you can cut corners and costs they take it. Plus the suits are probably listening to marketing who are too busy fellating the likes of Dean Takahashi who infamously - and quite proudly - admitted that the reason Mass Effect 2 was streamlined was because he was too stupid to understand you can level up your character in Mass Effect 1... an RPG. Suits don't listen to the audience, they listen to whoever is closest to them and that's the marketing department who are fuckbuddies with game journos.

 

[Dom Cruise]

It's funny how we've rubber banded on this, games went from usually being challenging, to super easy over the course of the 7th gen, then, inspired by Dark Souls, games like Alien Isolation or The Evil Within ramped up the difficulty.

But now we're back to games being made easy, easier than ever before, for political reasons instead of just "we want the widest possible audience"

 

[NoonmanR]

Oh good, so you don't even need to buy the "game" at all then, you can just watch it on youtube if needed.

 

[Marissa Moira]

It's funny how we've rubber banded on this, games went from usually being challenging, to super easy over the course of the 7th gen, then, inspired by Dark Souls, games like Alien Isolation or The Evil Within ramped up the difficulty.

But now we're back to games being made easy, easier than ever before, for political reasons instead of just "we want the widest possible audience"

Dude, you're judging everything by a single article written about a single game. Elden Ring comes out in January. Nier Replicant just came out and that's not an easy game either.

Because if you can put the most minimal amount of effort and be rewarded for it - I'm talking about the developers by the way - they will make games more like this. This has actually happened with the way they completely dumb down a game for the most common denominator. Eventually games won't even really be played at all, they'll be really easy QTE David Cage tier crap. Kind of like that DVD of one of them Final Destinations where you get to decide how the scene goes. Maybe not in ten years, maybe not in twenty, but I'm positive it will happen. And they'll do this because it's cheaper than actually spending money on various designers to design just the right difficulty for a level or calibrate the damage and defense of various NPCs, they'll streamline the entire process of playing because it's cheaper. They won't even need to waste money on QA teams, because what does it matter? Just put on invincibility. It's not like they'll be actually interacting with the game all that much anyways to really warrant a thorough testing of the product.

You can call me a pessimist if you like, but it's more knowing that lazy always triumphs. Always. Doesn't matter the industry, if you can cut corners and costs they take it. Plus the suits are probably listening to marketing who are too busy fellating the likes of Dean Takahashi who infamously - and quite proudly - admitted that the reason Mass Effect 2 was streamlined was because he was too stupid to understand you can level up your character in Mass Effect 1... an RPG. Suits don't listen to the audience, they listen to whoever is closest to them and that's the marketing department who are fuckbuddies with game journos.

There's still many FMV games published today which are "select an outcome", nobody buys them.

 

[SiccDicc]

There's still many FMV games published today which are "select an outcome", nobody buys them.

They might if all the big wigs decide that's all they're gonna produce. A lot of these publishers don't really even see each other as enemies; it's all theatre. Pretty sure a fair number of their CEOs have been on the ESRB together. They'll often coordinate together to strike at smaller companies, I mean... the ESRB has actually played a lot of favoritism to the bigger publishers for this reason and have been pretty harsh on smaller publishers. Where a smaller publisher wouldn't get away with something, but if a big publisher decided to put that same thing in their game it's A-OKAY and gets a lower rating than it would if it was a smaller publisher behind the game.

There's a fuckton of politics in this shit and if they want to make a specific kind of game they'll all start making that kind of game. They're already trying to work together to convince people that $70 is the future of gaming.

 

[The Last Stand]

Because if you can put the most minimal amount of effort and be rewarded for it - I'm talking about the developers by the way - they will make games more like this. This has actually happened with the way they completely dumb down a game for the most common denominator. Eventually games won't even really be played at all, they'll be really easy QTE David Cage tier crap.

Double Fine Productions was always a causal aimed developer. I DO hope they don't mistake complexity for difficulty.

 

[SiccDicc]

Double Fine Productions was always a causal aimed developer. I DO hope they don't mistake complexity for difficulty.

Honestly, knowing Mr. Shitface... this whole invincibility is probably because he can't level design for shit. Whether or not they made it simple or overly complicated I don't know, I do know that their last two games haven't exactly been anything to brag about. Given his ego, I don't think he went simple, but I do think he has no faith in his audience to beat his game otherwise.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

As long as we're shitting on Double Fine, this is as good a place as any to talk about how I'm still mad about Spacebase DF-9. Basically it was a base construction game back in '14. Currently, the genre is doing great but at the time base construction games were few and far between. It released early access, and it was maybe above average buggy. Most people were sitting waiting for them to patch the bugs, never heard much bad about it aside from bugs. Anyway, Double Fine got tired of waiting to recoup their investment and pulled the plug citing low sales. They released some code and a unofficial patch happened but it didn't change much because the game was stillborn. You can buy it on Steam even now.

 

[Dollar Store Sentai]

As long as we're shitting on Double Fine, this is as good a place as any to talk about how I'm still mad about Spacebase DF-9. Basically it was a base construction game back in '14. Currently, the genre is doing great but at the time base construction games were few and far between. It released early access, and it was maybe above average buggy. Most people were sitting waiting for them to patch the bugs, never heard much bad about it aside from bugs. Anyway, Double Fine got tired of waiting to recoup their investment and pulled the plug citing low sales. They released some code and a unofficial patch happened but it didn't change much because the game was stillborn. You can buy it on Steam even now.

Between this and Tim going full retard during GG just made me stop caring about DF completely.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Different people find different things rewarding. Sometimes it's fun to turn on things like god mode or no clip in a game like Doom or Fallout and just mess around, or if you fancy replaying a particular mission or level without having to go through everything else to get there.

Especially the latter. No point playing through the parts you don't like just because there's parts you do. Imagine eating tomato on a sandwich just because it came with it despite hating tomatoes. Doesn't make much sense.

 

[The Last Stand]

I have Game Pass. I plan on playing Psychonauts 2. I will go through the game on Normal difficulty. Then look through an achievement guide and replay it on the invincibility mode to mop up any remaining achievements if necessary. Thanks, Double Fine.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

It's funny how we've rubber banded on this, games went from usually being challenging, to super easy over the course of the 7th gen, then, inspired by Dark Souls, games like Alien Isolation or The Evil Within ramped up the difficulty.

But now we're back to games being made easy, easier than ever before, for political reasons instead of just "we want the widest possible audience"

The worst parts of the 7th gen were during a recession. We're in a recession right now, which means getting too crazy could result in a dev having become defunct. The 7th gen was a bloodbath because of this.

 

[The Last Stand]

Can you imagine if Cuphead had a similar mode from the get-go? The challenge would be nonexistent. It would discourage trial and error. Just breeze through, no problem.

 

[Chrono Legion]

It's already an open secret that video game journalists cannot play a game to save their lives, let alone have any respect for gaming to begin with. This is why people often prefer to watch youtubers review games instead.

 

[DoNotReadTheFinePrint]

Why play a game if you don't want to play a game? I'm not against having easy modes but at a certain point it's just easier to watch a walkthrough, let's play or a movie.

 

[Bread Fetishist]

I think I'd actually be less annoyed if they just made this a cheat code or easter egg instead of making it about "muh accessibility", which, at this point, just feels incredibly patronising to actual disabled people, who are merely being used as shields by journos and people who are complete garbage at games.

 

[JamusActimus]

Dude, you're judging everything by a single article written about a single game. Elden Ring comes out in January. Nier Replicant just came out and that's not an easy game either.


There's still many FMV games published today which are "select an outcome", nobody buys them.

I bought them telling lies and her story were nice

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Can you imagine if Cuphead had a similar mode from the get-go? The challenge would be nonexistent. It would discourage trial and error. Just breeze through, no problem.

Trial-and-error is trash game design though. The best challenge is one you'll likely fail but are given the tools to overcome on your first try. If you're just falling down pits in a Sonic game because you can't possibly react to them at the speeds you're expected to go at, and then you just have to remember it's there next time, and that's bad.

Easier said than done though, of course.

 

[Chrono Legion]

Trial-and-error is trash game design though. The best challenge is one you'll likely fail but are given the tools to overcome on your first try. If you're just falling down pits in a Sonic game because you can't possibly react to them at the speeds you're expected to go at, and then you just have to remember it's there next time, and that's bad.

Easier said than done though, of course.

You probably won't like the original two Oddworld titles, then. Those were incredibly harsh on that, especially the first one because you don't get the quiksave (sic) feature.