Horizon Zero Dawn HD

GWJ Conference Call Episode 729

Hades (PC), Embracelet (Switch), Horizon Zero Dawn PC (PC), Democratic Socialism Simulator (PC), Superhot VR (PC), Spiritual Successors, Your Emails, and More!

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Amanda, Rich, and Glendon talk about Spiritual Successors in gaming.

To contact us, email [email protected]! Send us your thoughts on the show, pressing issues you want to talk about, or whatever else is on your mind.

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Comments

SuperHOT Mind Control Delete is well worth playing. It’s high on my games of the year list. I haven’t had the chance to play SuperHOT in VR. I imagine I’d love it.

I agree on Horizon ZD being throwbacky (bandit camps anyone?) but I never got bored of fighting robot dinosaurs and Aloy has humanity to spare. She’s one of my favourite ever video game protagonists.

I keep thinking that a new Splinter Cell game could easily be a spiritual successor to the Metal Gear series but noooooooo Sam Fisher has to go off on his Grand tour of ever other Ubisoft game. Herumph.

Okay, so I’m barely ten minutes in, but I have to comment to defend Pyre. Granted, I’m a biased Supergiant fangirl, but Pyre got dissed and I will not stand for it. Just like the other games, Pyre has that unmistakable Supergiant stamp on it, that feel. It’s a different genre, and a particular one, mixing visual novel and that odd three player mystical basketball game, but the characters, the music, the voicing, the art, the storytelling with the intricate politics, it’s all so very Supergiant and extremely well crafted. I think people didn’t like it because it was doing something incredibly different and special. Something that takes people out of their comfort zones, something that deviates so much for your standard AAA game.
But it was Supergiant, make no mistake. And it was just as good, if not better than other Supergiant games (definitely better than Bastion in my book).
And you can see the seeds of Hades in Pyre, with the in-depth conversations and relationships you build with the other characters!

You can’t just say Pyre is “less refined”. Especially if you haven’t played it!

00:01:02 Hades
00:16:18 Embracelet
00:20:45 Horizon Zero Dawn
00:27:39 Democratic Socialism Simulator
00:30:03 Superhot VR
00:33:06 Among Us
00:35:01 Spiritual Successors
00:57:29 Your Emails

I'm 100% with Eleima. As good as Hades is, Pyre is still my favorite Supergiant game. I think a lot of people just do not enjoy that sport-type game as much as they would combat and that's got it did not get the love it deserved. Still, I cannot name another game that got me so involved in what was happening to the characters, and I cannot think of another game where I struggled more to make decisions like I did when I had to choose who would be the next player to leave my team.

And since we are talking about spiritual successors, some of us will be playing Wreckfest on IGWJ Day, a spiritual successor to the great Destruction Derby so come join us if you enjoy some racing action!

GTA is one of my guilty pleasures. GTAIV was a 360 launch title, or very close to launch anyway. It took the “living city” theme to the next level, in that you could imagine that when you turn off your console Liberty City continues to buzz and hum without you. There are many criticisms that you could leverage on this game, all justified. It did some great things though. The song track, humor, celebrity cameos, depth of lore, little winks and nods to past GTAs, and the big one for me, a rich social commentary which exposed the darker side of modern civilization for how ugly it can be.

GTAV was notable as being one of the last big games on the 360. While it tried to continue the witty social commentary, for me that part of the game just fell flat. But it was arguably the best looking game that the 360 ever got. I had no idea that 360 was capable of that until GTAV.

Pink Stripes wrote:

I'm 100% with Eleima. As good as Hades is, Pyre is still my favorite Supergiant game. I think a lot of people just do not enjoy that sport-type game as much as they would combat and that's got it did not get the love it deserved. Still, I cannot name another game that got me so involved in what was happening to the characters, and I cannot think of another game where I struggled more to make decisions like I did when I had to choose who would be the next player to leave my team.

And since we are talking about spiritual successors, some of us will be playing Wreckfest on IGWJ Day, a spiritual successor to the great Destruction Derby so come join us if you enjoy some racing action!

For me, the issue with Pyre was it was Blitzball 2.0. So while I agree that the style and everything else is pure SG, I just don't like that style of game.

And that's totally fine! You can't always please everyone, and you can't love every game out there, because we're all different people with different tastes and games are also very different from one to the next. What I disagree with is the premise that Pyre is unrefined or not a Supergiant game, because it has most of the markings of one: the colorful and stylized art, the narrator, the music... wait, sorry, I've been over this before, and now I'm gushing again. Ah well, I REGRET NOTHING. I'll say it here and now, Pyre just might be my favorite Supergiant game. I'm not 100% sure because I adored Transistor too. Ack, you can't make me chooooose!

lunchbox12682 wrote:

For me, the issue with Pyre was it was Blitzball 2.0. So while I agree that the style and everything else is pure SG, I just don't like that style of game.

Yeah, that's exactly what my second sentence said and I heard the same from a lot of people. I think that if you look at Bastion, there's nothing special about the combat, it's just a run of the mill hack and slash. But most gamers are fine with a run of the mill hack and slash so they focused on everything else surrounding it and enjoyed an excellent game. Pyre did not get that benefit because a lot of people were put off by the mechanics of the sport. But the sport is really important for the game because the characters acting as a team is an essential part of the story. I suppose they could have gone with a run of the mill turn based tactics game to achieve that, but I'm glad they tried something different.