Category: Software

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The best games of the last few years… are mostly old games

It’s quite obvious that the gaming industry nowadays mostly sucks. There hasn’t been one AAA production recently that’s worth remembering.

The last AAA game that I really, really loved was AC ODYSSEY (and that because of the Odyssey part in the name; I couldn’t care less for the totally unnecessary AC parts in the game). But the game was so big, I cannot go back to it and replay it. I spent over 200 hours in that world.

Other than AC ODYSSEY (2018), only UNCHARTED 4 (2016) and GEARS 5 (2019) stuck in my memory. That’s how pathetic the AAA gaming industry has become.

As for 2023… The best release this year so far was the QUAKE II remaster. There you have it. A 25 year old game is the best new release of 2023 in my book. They did everything right with this one: It runs like a dream, it plays awesome on all devices where I have it, it has great atmosphere, no fucking woke message, and it’s just fun to play.

Other great new games this year were the indie games DREDGE and SIGNALIS. At least they were so good that I have not forgotten their names – most titles this year were not so fortunate, I must say.

THE CALLISTO PROTOCOL was a gigantic piece of garbage – awesome graphics, but a super shitty, non-fun game.

DEAD ISLAND 2 and DYING LIGHT 2 were also greatly disappointing. I actually rather replayed the original DEAD ISLAND and DEAD ISLAND: RIPTIDE and the first DYING LIGHT this year than spending any more time with their sequels. And let’s not even talk about the annoying characters in DEAD ISLAND 2 that completely kill the game.

I’m afraid The ALAN WAKE remaster and the DEAD SPACE remake didn’t get me hooked either. While the new DEAD SPACE might look better than the original game, the new character models and the modified script just feel wrong. The ALAN WAKE remaster also suffers from the changed character models and the atmosphere in the original game felt much better – and darker; which is what that game is supposed to feel like.

The reality somehow is that I am replaying old Xbox 360 and Xbox One games on my two Xbox Series consoles instead of playing new titles – the new stuff just doesn’t do anything for me anymore. A few weeks ago, I replayed the entire GEARS OF WAR franchise… Only to start with GEARS OF WAR: ULTIMATE EDITION again after I had finished GEARS 5. Playing Marcus Fenix never gets old and the first entry in the GEARS saga is still plain and simple awesome: It oozes atmosphere and just works.

Nowadays game developers seem to believe that instead of creating interesting worlds, stories, characters and gameplay mechanics, modern games are just a vehicle to deliver a woke message and squeeze money out of their players (through microtransactions and in-game stores) – not to mention that it’s now normal that AAA titles are released as technically broken trash.

Older titles like GEARS OF WAR, however, just provide the escape games are supposed to give the player. That difference is why new games are only annoying and suck and why old games are still fun even after all those years. It’s a great thing that Xbox treats backwards compatibility as a first class citizen.

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First thoughts on the Apple Vision Pro

From a pure technical perspective, the freshly introduced Apple Vision Pro might be a very interesting and impressive piece of technology. It could be the first product that does Augmented Reality (AR) “right” – even though this product, naturally, only plays well with the rest of the Apple ecosystem and does not even bother to integrate with other industrial or office platforms.

Apple only showed a fistful of usecases, and those usecases only interest their usual target audience: The “creatives” that most of the time work alone somewhere. And content consumers, of course, who need a new way to consume their AppleTV and Disney+ subscription – somewhere.

Unlike when Microsoft introduced HoloLens, Apple did not show how this product could be used in an actual factory or during an actual surgery. Or in the cockpit of an airplane. Or, gasp, on a battlefield. The thing is: Back in the day, Microsoft showed what the HoloLens can do for real people in the real world at real workplaces in real situations where the product can actually help and be actually useful.

In Apple’s world, the Vision Pro is a compact, mobile home theatre that can also do the occasional video call in which you can also look at a presentation. Or play a game – even with a Sony PS5 controller.

But only adults with a (home office, remote) job can play games. They did not show children or adolescents using the device. Simply because the gadget at 3500 USD (without taxes) is way too expensive – and too fragile – for that audience, so they know that those kids won’t ever get one.

Of course, the device is also not outdoor compatible at all. With an expected max battery life of two hours, where the battery is even connected via a cable, you won’t be using the thing somewhere outdoors. First of all, you couldn’t use it long enough, secondly you would look like an idiot and thirdly, you would be way to afraid to break the expensive thing.

Just as they’ve shown, this thing was designed for being used in your home, on your couch or bed, maybe at a desk. It was designed for “affluent” First World customers that no longer leave their home and who already have everything else. The Vision Pro will make it even simpler to isolate oneself from the world. Maybe that really is a product we scared and rich members of Western civilizations need more than ever.

But in the Western hemisphere, there’s a gigantic majority of people who will never ever use a product like the Apple Vision Pro. For example all the homeless people that currently inhabit the streets of San Francisco, not far from Apple’s HQ who cannot even afford to rent a place in that city anymore, even though some of them still go to work every day. For them, as outlined in the novel READY PLAYER ONE, a device like this could be an escape from their hopeless reality, it could be “a place to go”. But not at that price tag, and not with an industrial design that only allows for using the thing within the safety of your bedroom.

It will be interesting to see how the rest of the industry will respond to the concept of this gadget. Without a doubt, the hard- and software of the Vision Pro are ahead of other AR headsets on the market and there certainly are many use cases for it beyond the realms of entertainment, 3D photography and video conferencing. The next incarnation of the product will probably also address the ridiculous battery “solution” that Apple came up with for the initial product version. Heck, maybe version 2 will even be useable outdoors. But as we know Apple, it still won’t be affordable for average people who live in the real world and only make an average or low income working real jobs. You know, those folks who sell you your coffee at Starbucks or who flip your burger at McDondald’s. Or who take away your trash or who make your bed in your hotel room or the janitor who fixes the broken lightbulb for you. The wage slaves who work at the sweat shop that produces these expensive gadgets that they could never afford to buy with the salary they make in that shitty place.

But this all just fits with the way the product was even introduced and presented: Rich white people who have completely lost touch with the reality of the world were singing the praises of a new toy whose main purpose seems to be to allow wealthy people to consume (preferably woke) Disney+ content. Very obviously, no thought was wasted on how such a product could also improve the lives of the worker bees, the disabled, the handicapped and the not so fortunate.

The Vision Pro lacks actual vision.