Nuclear Monster

  • Speaking of exploitative event and battle passes, here’s Steven T. Wright quoting Psyonix’s Scott Rudi about their Rocket League Rocket Pass in Variety:

    From Rudi’s perspective, the Rocket Pass is just another way for Psyonix to shower items onto the dyed-in-the-wool rocket-freaks who’ve already put thousands of hours into mastering the subtleties of their hit game. “We didn’t even really think about it from a financial perspective,” he says. “We have enough new players each month to sustain the game, frankly. It’s more about having a short-term experience that engages with players all across the spectrum. I’m a big believer in the one-more-turn compulsion – this idea that, well, I’m only one game away from getting my next tier, so let’s go again.”

    Perhaps the time to stop implementing part of a video game is when you realize you’re exploiting people’s vulnerabilities. Rocket League is fun, it shouldn’t need this.

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    If you didn’t feel like the random crate drops with various cosmetic skins that could usually only be unlocked with purchasable keys were already exploitative enough, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was just updated on Windows with the Sanhok map and this free-to-play style event pass.

    The game also has missions and login bonuses, but some of those are only available if you buy the event pass, which you shouldn’t. I’d been trying Sanhok before it was released, and it’s good, small, fun. For those times when you can’t devote 40 minutes to getting to the top ten before being owned by the silenced shotgun sniper xXxLuBu69xXx.

    They’ve also added a towed banner advertisement to the back of the plane that drops you off in paradise, lovely:

    Banner tow

    Of course there’s also an ad on the top of your parachute. PUBG Corp should at least go the Team Fortress 2 route and drop the cost to free if they’re going to switch to a free-to-play business model. Paying $30 and then getting this crap is a really bad look.

  • Nintendo’s skipped out on any kind of fancy stage show for a minute, so they’re back with this pre-recorded Nintendo Direct. It’s a hair under 43 minutes long, which is a wonderful thing.

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  • We’re onto Sony’s E3 2018 event, it’s the PlayStation Showcase. Somewhere in a parallel universe there’s a bunch of executives watching a video stream of a writer in Honolulu and writing down what he’s talking about.

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  • Tetris Effect is an upcoming game from the developers behind Lumines, Rez, and other spectacular games that uniquely combine music and game mechanics. Tetris Effect looks to bring a similar treatment with Lumines-style stages that each have their own music and backgrounds and modes we’re familiar with from past Tetris games as well as new ones.

    The trailer above talks a bit about the real effect that playing Tetris has on people who might see the blocks in the real world after playing the game. I’ve felt the same way after playing it, and other games. When my son was born, nobody was sleeping well, and we played The Witness. Of course we started to see similar puzzles out in the real world, but it wasn’t ever the same as with Tetris and its Tetriminos .

    The same developers are still working on Lumines Remastered, which was delayed from May to June 26th.

    It isn’t clear yet if Tetris Effect is a timed exclusive to the PlayStation 4, or a permanent one, but that is the only announced platform so far. It’ll also have PlayStation VR support at launch. We’re also missing a price, that’ll have to wait until Enhance gives us more details.