Community Chronicle: 17/08/14

It’s been a long week of games for me, at the craziness that is Gamescom. However, while the hordes have descended once more upon Cologne, I’m kicking back ahead of a flight home this evening, with German dubs of The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother in the background. Yep, I’ve found the German equivalent to E4.

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Easily the biggest and most controversial news story to come out of Gamescom was the exclusivity deal announced for Rise of the Tomb Raider on Xbox consoles. As you can imagine, it’s a deal that has had a lot of column inches since Tuesday.

JustTaylorNow thought, “Bad move by Square-Enix. Ignoring your other install base is never good for you, and when it doesn’t sell as planned they will then cut developers.” Meanwhile, jimmy-google said, “I’d still be suprised if it’s anything more than timed. Microsoft has a history of declaring timed exclusives as actual exclusives.”

And so it actually turned out to be, as Microsoft’s Phil Spencer admitted that there is an end point to the deal. While a lot of people breathed a sigh of relief, others like Beeje13 said that the “damage has been done” for them.

However, Kennykazey’s memory goes back further than most, to an eerily similar deal struck back in the late 90s:

Anybody remember when Sony bought Tomb Raider exclusivity so its sequels wouldn’t show up on Sega and Nintendo consoles? No? OK…

Coming out of Sony’s press conference was the reveal of the upcoming software update 2.0. One of the more curious additions is that of Share Play, which will allow you to stream your gameplay to another gamer and have them either join in with your game or take over completely. It’s a kind of digitised approximation of couch co-op or passing your controller over to your friend. However, each session will be limited to 60 minutes before you need to restart it.
Lyts1985 said, “I guess this to stop one person buying a game and creating a session where their friend can play it in its entirety if they so wish. From a business POV it makes sense, but it’ll get mightily frustrating if you’re genuinely playing a “pass-the-pad” type game together.”
Yet, Starman wondered, “Would they really lose any sales if it didn’t have the time limit? Surely nobody would expect a friend to share and let them play a game completely while they sit there watching?”

Rounding out this week came the revalation that Assassin’s Creed: Unity might feature microtransactions of some sort, so that you can unlock certain gear within the game. Beeje13 chipped in once more, saying, “This is standard practice now and as long as it doesn’t interfere with me playing it and its not for essential items/stuff you can’t unlock normally, I am content.”

Similarly, MrYd opined, “Well, there’s no multiplayer mode in it, so I can’t see any problem. If people want to spend money cheating, it’s not going to affect anyone else. Quite happy to see them relieving some idiots of some money.”Harsh to call people idiots, but I can see where these guys are coming from, as long as it doesn’t affect the flow of the game without microtransactions.

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Just a handful of achievements this week, with people still knee deep in the TLOU multiplayer, amongst plenty of other games. B_Cambo did manage to join Crazy_Del in the TLOU: Remastered platinum club this week, though.

R1MJAW then went and finished off both Jazz: Trump’s Journey and Quell Memento, while pdannysan13 finished and thoroughly enjoyed the Banner Saga on PC.

It wasn’t such a good week for Eldave0 though, as he finished off the easy Doki-Doki Universe, but found it rather boring. The real trouble came when playing Octodad and his PS4 crashed and corrupted the hard drive. Now he’s got to painstakingly re-download everything he had before. A royal pain in the backside.


A inferior race has been busily tapping your latest trophies into his tables, and you can head over to page 2 to view the latest 2014 leaderboards.

If people want to keep sending photos in, I will be happy to post them, but gaming places isn’t a regular feature. If you fancy it, just use the submission form below, get in touch with him on Twitter at @teflon, or just send an email to him using [email protected].

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5 Comments

  1. Tomb Raider shenanigans aside, Gamescom had plenty to be cheery about. Loads to look forward to whichever platform you have but The Tomorrow Children was one of my highlights.
    I’m quite intrigued by this game, did you get a chance to speak to Dylan Cuthbert about it, Stefan?

    • Yup, there was a great behind closed doors session that I was privy to. I got a couple of questions in during the Q&A at the end.

      I expect I’ll get my preview written up for it in the next few days. It was one of the most intriguing things that I saw.

      • Also, did you get any info on No Man’s Sky ? They have been pretty silent after E3. Any future teasers or video releases,gameplay videos ?

      • Sadly not, no. I know it was being shown, but I could only be in so many places at once!

        To be fair, I wouldn’t really expect too much out of them that’s new. The game’s still a way away, next year, and it’s better to keep a handle on things for a bigger and more concerted push closer to launch.

      • Lovely stuff, looking forward to your report! :)

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