Game News Ubisoft E3 2016 Conference: South Park 2 looks surprisingly good, coming December 6th

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

Why is the audience at these game conferences so incredibly annoying since a couple of years? Or has it been like this right from the beginning and I just don't remember?
It's always like two thirds of the audience are paid to completely freak out every two seconds, and it's so easy to see through.

 

[Fry]

Why is the audience at these game conferences so incredibly annoying since a couple of years? Or has it been like this right from the beginning and I just don't remember?
It's always like two thirds of the audience are paid to completely freak out every two seconds, and it's so easy to see through.

The publishers ship in "influencers" (a.k.a. streamers) and company employees to fill out the crowds. E3 is increasingly irrelevant, and I don't think many actual journalists bother going to the press conferences in person anymore. Why bother when they can just watch the streams from home?

 

[Grubba]

Twelve different classes, nice. Hopefully they're all unique in some away, aside from looks.

One obvious character omission from the vid: Mint-Berry Crunch.

I wonder if PC Principal will be this game's Al Gore

 

[LJ40]

A sequel to a game where I threw bloody tampons at Khloe Kardashian's giant aborted Nazi zombie fetus?

Yes, I'll be getting this.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Why is the audience at these game conferences so incredibly annoying since a couple of years? Or has it been like this right from the beginning and I just don't remember?
It's always like two thirds of the audience are paid to completely freak out every two seconds, and it's so easy to see through.

The publishers ship in "influencers" (a.k.a. streamers) and company employees to fill out the crowds. E3 is increasingly irrelevant, and I don't think many actual journalists bother going to the press conferences in person anymore. Why bother when they can just watch the streams from home?

Yeah this is a good point. E3 was important back in the day when the only way to get internet was through a 56k modem, and the only way to hear about new games was by reading the magazines that went there. Now every publisher has a YouTube channel, and the big guys (Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo/Ubisoft/EA/Square Enix/Bethesda) have their own conferences multiple times a year... E3 is largely irrelevant and has been for a while.

 

[cherry blossom]

Working with a proprietary in-house engine that has been in development since 2009 might not inherently be worse than using the Infinity Engine.

They still have to make all the RPG tools stuff from scratch. Onyx was a finished engine with all the tools for making RPGs, still took over three years for them to make Stick of Truth.

I thought they were stuck in a publishing limbo when THQ went out of business and Ubisoft bought the rights and then started demanding revisions, and that otherwise development of the game (prototyping, vertical slices, tools) initially went through rather smoothly?

 

[cherry blossom]

Wow, this is looking miles better than everything Obsidian has produced since FNV COMBINED and also better than Tyranny.

What a sad state of affairs for Obsidian. This is fucking Ubisoft, after all. So glad Chris got himself out of that talent-drain of a black hole.

That Tim Cain + Boyarsky game is truly our only hope.

 

[DeepOcean]

Wot? A South Park game with turn based combat and turn orders while Obsidian add cooldowns and level scaling on Tyranny... oh boy, how the world goes around.

 

[Fry]

What are you babbling about? Stick of Truth had essentially the same system.

 

[HoboForEternity]

this one expand stick of truth's system though, with grids and environmental stuff added in the mix

 

[thesheeep]

But in SoT nothing mattered as it was so easy :/
Remember that "Facebook" system?...

 

[Kz3r0]

What are you babbling about? Stick of Truth had essentially the same system.

Only Because South Park creators ar consoletards that only knew JRPGS and forced Obsidian to use a turn based system.

 

[Fry]

So you were sitting in on the SoT design meetings? Fascinating. Tell us more.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

So you were sitting in on the SoT design meetings? Fascinating. Tell us more.

 

[Forest Dweller]

Wow, this is looking miles better than everything Obsidian has produced since FNV COMBINED and also better than Tyranny.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

 

[cherry blossom]

That sounds funny coming from you, no offense.

Either way, I stand by it. More so, I now realise that it has in fact been an understatement. KOTOR2, MotB and FNV aside (all three built on borrowed, shoddy frameworks, by the way), entire catalogue of Obsidian combined is not near anywhere entertaining or fun as this looks to be (one could be wrong).

I like most of Obsidian's games. Even Alpha Protocol, to some degree if for no other reason than the intriguing narrative branching and the characters (not to be confused with the narrative itself, various story bits, player lines or general presentation of the game; all of these suck big time. They suck YUGE! I'm not even going to go into what a popamole console corridor shooter it is). I even liked the one game that drew Codex's almost unified ire: Dungeon Siege 3. In all of their games, I find things to enjoy enough to keep playing. The problem is that you have to dig up an awful amount of shit to get to the fun parts. Most of their games certainly don't have fun combat, don't have fun stealth, don't have fun social interactions or otherwise interesting game systems. They don't have fun. They are more like intellectual curiosities. As far as game systems go, MotB, FNV and SOZ are their most courageous releases and I liked SOZ but at the end of the day, you have got to drag yourself through a lot of dirt.

Now, I give one look at this new South Park game video and I can tell it will be fun all around. It has non-Japfag traditional turn based combat complete with grid positioning and shit, what seems to be a better character system and classic South Park entertainment in your face and it all looks ready to go this instant. No digging through shit.

So you have got to admit that when even the fucking Ubisoft manages to pull a game like this, it is obvious Obsidian have their heads way up their asses to produce a game that is just simply a joy to play however you take it. Doesn't need to have awesome buttons but coherent and smart vision as a whole within its limits. Obsidian games pretend to have grand limits that they fall way behind and lead you on forever, drawing circles of disappointment.

 

[Fry]

Stick of Truth was fun. Fractured But Whole is just Ubisoft San Francisco iterating on a system already established by Obsidian.

I won't argue that most Obsidian games have problems, but give some credit where it's due. They turned the ideas of a couple of TV writers with zero game dev experience into a fun game and a good framework.

 

[Roguey]

No one tell denizsi that there are jrpgs with grid positioning.

 

[cherry blossom]

Not really versed in the ways of JRPGs at all. I'm sure there are some real gems in there but most look like utter shit to me.