One of the most highly anticipated games of the generation released in August, and it quite inevitably failed to live up to the astronomical expectations that had been heaped upon it. I am, of course, talking about No Man’s Sky, which had been preceded by years of hype and excitement.
The month started uncertainly for Hello Games, as a copy of the game got into an avid gamer’s hands ahead of time, and they proceeded to leak No Man’s Sky’s trophies, while also claiming that they had finished the game and reached the centre of the galaxy. People were surprised by how quickly they managed it, but Hello tried to reassure fans with details of a pre-release patch that added extra story paths, and tweaked much of the game.
Unfortunately, while the game’s opening was excellent, it disappointed as a whole for many of those that bought it, and as Hello pushed out numerous bug fixing patches, some took matters into their own hands and requested refunds from Steam and PlayStation. It wasn’t a particularly happy launch for Hello Games, let’s just leave it at that.
Also in the reviews alongside No Man’s Sky were Headlander, Overcooked, the start of Batman: The Telltale Series, Abzû, Bound, F1 2016, Reigns, Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom, Hatsune Mike: Project Diva X, The Turing Test and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
It also wasn’t a good month for Fireforge Games, who closed their doors and filed for bankruptcy almost as soon as they released the Ghostbusters tie in game. UK HTC Vive prices went up in reaction to the value of the Pound dropped, GTA V somehow managed to top the UK charts once again, and EA forecast 9 million sales for Titanfall 2… which is now really quite awkward in retrospect.
Titanfall 2’s technical test went live in the middle of the month, coinciding with Gamescom week and hundreds of thousands of gamers flocking to Cologne, Germany. Amid the flood of news, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare continued to struggle for a positive reception by announcing the 80s action film inspired zombies mode, Metal Gear Survive saw similar hostility as this was announced as a zombie spin off to MGSV, but people were overjoyed to have Driveclub VR confirmed for PSVR.
The slimmed down PlayStation 4 leaked quite dramatically (and hilariously) as it went up for sale on the grey/black market in the north of England and was then verified as being real by a handful of outlets. While it was revealed that, despite keeping quiet about it, the Xbox One S did actually clock its processors a little higher, leading to slightly improved performance in some games. They remained similarly tight lipped about performance gains from wearing the freshly announced Xbox Onesie.
August closed with news that Eve: Online was to go free to play in November, GT Sport’s delay until 2017, and that Enter the Gungeon would get an update featuring a gun shaped like a bullet that shoots guns that shoot bullets.
In the real world, many lapped up the sporting feats at the Olympic Games in Rio, with Great Britain exceeding expectations once again and coming second overall. This was the first time a country had increased its medal tally immediately after hosting the games, though we were helped by the fallout from the doping scandal that rocked the sporting world in the run up to the games and how that affected Russia’s participation in the event.
Closer to home, Souther Rail workers went on strike for 5 days straight, the Bank of England cut interest rates to a new record low of 0.25%, and Londoners got to enjoy the Night Tube for the first time, as it launched on Central and Victoria lines on August 19th.
The two most notable celebrity deaths of August were those of Gene Wilder and Kenny Baker, who you might better know for his role as R2-D2 in the original Star Wars films.
Finally, it got a bit hot in the middle of August, but was it a heatwave? We return to the Met Office and Chief Operational Meteorologist Andy Page for the answers:
The Lone Steven
Ah yes, No Man’s Sky. Easily a contender for many Disappointment of the year awards and obviously released waaay to early. Should have been delayed by a few months judging by what Hello Games patched in recently. Kinda is a massive example of what is wrong with the current attitude of release now, patch later. A lot of potential and they messed it up. The manics. They messed it up. I know some feel that those who disliked it didn’t play it enough but if the first few hours are utter tosh, it is kinda hard for most folks to force themselves to continue. Amusingly, Jim Sterling who gave it 5/10 and was DDOSed along with being utterly crapped on was proven right. He never rushes reviews and is always honest when it comes down to reviewing stuff and the odd boglin related agenda.
NMS may have single handly destroyed Hello Games reputation thanks to poor marketing, the end product failing to deliver on it’s promises and potentially making them the new Peter Monlyneux. We don’t need a studio of that. One is bad enough.
Southern Rail. Where to fecking start? An example of why our trains are outdated. An example of why the Government doesn’t give a flying feck about the commoners and will reward incomptence. The strikes did have the public’s support to begin with but they shot themselves in the foot by striking a lot. If it is about having guards on trains, plenty of other operators manage ok without it and i’ve been on trains without any guards/ticket inspectors. Very hard to see what they are actually trying to achieve. I am so glad I don’t live in the area of England that is served by them. I loathe getting the buses due to constant lateness, overpacked. If I had to get a Southern Train, I would be megapissed off with a massive side of moaning and tutting would exceed all known safety levels of tutting.
Then the Government decided in all it’s infinite wisdom to bail Southern out. God forbid if people get to work on time or have to not worry about being late because Southern can’t run their service and are utterly crap. Nope. Let’s focus on our vanity project that is High Speed 2 and not pay attention to that one operator that is making the news. In fact, let’s bail them out!
Guess I will never go to Brighton in the future. I would have to rely on a 2 carriage Southern train. A freaking 2 carriage one. Would consider that as a day out once me little lack of employment is resolved but back to the topic, Southern is utter crap. In fact, Thomas the Tank engine would be a better service. And he’s fictional!
I mean, how the heck have they been allowed to essentially hold working people hostage by striking or providing such a crap service?
I forgot the olympics happened this year.
TLDR: Steven does wall of text, moans about Southern Rail despite it not being the operator near him. NMS is mentioned.
ron_mcphatty
I think you nailed it by mentioning poor marketing. It’s totally personal opinion but I still like to believe that Hello are largely innocent and that after being picked up by Sony the corporate marketing machine ran away with themselves and overpromised. They didn’t leave any room for understanding or explaination of the concept of a procedurally generated universe, masses of people won’t have gotten that the likelihood of finding an interesting planet most of the time is as good as zero. In the promotional appearances Shaun was playing the game and talking fondly and dreamily over what can be achieved, understandably he couldn’t talk about what most of us would see.
Take it or leave it, No Man’s Sky is the king, emperor and god of scope, no sandbox is as big, so it can totally be what you make of it :)
TSBonyman
Good points well made Ron.
The Lone Steven
SShockingly, it was Sony of all people that cocked it up. They have plenty of experience and were doing so well with getting indie developers into the spotlight. Either Hello Games constantly overestimated their progress and went with “It’ll be done. Let us tell people what we intend to have ready” and that backfired big time. Or Sony was too hands off and literally just covered the marketing with the assumption that Hello Games would deliver.
Either way, NMS is now the biggest example of how not to market a game and how hype can ruin it. The fact that a lot of features are a list on the offical reddit and i think, backed it all up with evidence didn’t help it.
Sean Murray did lie in some interviews. E.g. Claiming we would interact with other players or see them and then it turned out to be false etc..
It is also the biggest example of a sandbox being too big and lacking content to keep players engaged.
Also, I remembered the “Rebooted” Top Gear happened. What a lot of crap. Chris Evans ruined it and came across as a prat. The format sucked as it was barely any car news or reviews, just stuff they threw together without context and attempting to replicate trio. It sucked. Cheesy jokes, forced puns, pathetic jabs at Clarkson. I mean, Catering on the first episode? COME ON! That wasn’t smart or funny. What’s worse, I was one of the fools who actually wanted to give it a chance. It bloody fecked that up! Feck Chris Evans Gear! Feck it! Thank god they are going back to 3 presenters. Matt Leblanc grew into his role and I can see Leblanc Gear being it’s own decent product with more focus on cars, occassional trip/challenge and whilst it will be overshadowed by Clarkson,Hammond and May Gear, it could do well. That said, CHM Gear was running out of steam and well, kinda got flanderised by itself.
What was worse, was people defending Clarkson for assaulting a producer. No-one can punch their boss or colleague and expect to still have a job. Clarkson was on his last chance, i think and BBC had to act. Either ignore the assault and get a lot of crap for it or act as an employer, take the steps they felt that they had to and they did. It worked for the trio as well as they said they were running out of ideas and being released from Top Gear forced them to come up with new creative ways.
Feck Chris Evans though! What gave the BBC the bright idea to put him in charge of Top Gear? He was crap! In fact, I kinda want to punch something now.
JR.
The one where everyone overreacted because they let their imaginations get carried away.
gazzagb
I forgot about EVE Online. I must give it a go now that it’s F2P, so thanks for reminding me.