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Limited Inventory in SIGNALIS is Paradoxical Yet Intentional

Editorials
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SIGNALIS only allows for six inventory spaces and many players do not like the concept at all. So much so the developers have responded noting that they’re working on iterating on some kind of change that doesn’t remove the spirit of the gameplay but alleviates some of the player concerns. For me, I find the entire debate fascinating. The issue stems from the way that the game presents the inventory as sort of a puzzle challenge, akin to games likes Resident Evil. It forces the player into a set playstyle, something modern gamers aren’t very appreciative of, where you will always optimize your run by not bringing ammo and only carrying one weapon. That gives you five inventory slots for all other items. Yet, players who play the game on Easy or Normal will likely want to play aggressively and in doing so will want different weapon options, lots of…

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SIGNALIS – The Story & Ending Explained

Guides
signalis

SIGNALIS is sort of an enigma of a game. It’s a great recapture of the feeling of the “5th generation” era of gaming and is actually a lot of fun. While its considered a survival-horror game, its more akin to an action-stealth game like Metal Gear Solid and less like Resident Evil per se. However, it has a very interesting, wild and convoluted story that needs a bit of explanation. Another thing to note is a three person team worked on this game. I touch a bit on this in my article about meetings at video game studios, but a lot of the game is clearly intentional from a development standpoint. Which is why SIGNALIS feels so buttoned up. SIGNALIS Is an Analog Horror Simulator That’s it, that’s as simple as it is. Everything in the game is built around a dream like experience of that 5th generation era of…

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The Meeting-Driven World of Video Game Development

Editorials
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For those of you who have ever worked a job that had any kind of meeting this may actually resonate differently than those who haven’t. When video games are developed there are, surprisingly, a lot of meetings that occur. When we’re talking meetings we’re talking a lot of meetings. So many meetings that it’s actually kind of fascinating to think about. None of the below is really applicable to single developer games that don’t utilize outside contractors. Single developers naturally work entirely alone on their own game and purchase / generate all the assets and resources themselves. Single developers who contract out work still have meetings, interestingly enough. Meetings and Video Games So there’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen. You have the product team, that’s the developer and the game designer along with their associated analysts and support staff. You have a technical team that’s got a considerable…

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NISA Online Store Guide, How To & FAQ

Guides
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Nippon Ichi Software, Inc. of Japan is one of my favorite companies out there. Their North American division is known as NIS America, Inc. or NISA. Their online store is the primary source of NIS games and it’s located here. There’s actually a lot to the store you should know and we’re going to dive into it. NIS America, Inc. Games – What style are they? So what do they sale? They’re best known for the Disgaea franchise. They’re also known for some weirder titles, isometric RPGs and visual novel style games. They also publish games for other developers as well. Some of the more recently known releases would include Crystar, MONARK, Blue Reflection: Second Light, etc. They’ve published games for Atlus and Spike Chunsoft. Fans of their most popular series will know the site well as it’s the absolute best place to secure a copy of a NIS game.…

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The Truth Behind the Video Card Crisis

Editorials
RTX Card City

There’s a lot going on right now in the world of video cards, but one of the hard truths that we have to face as gamers is that the actual super truth is that we’re hitting a point where the fidelity of games isn’t utilizing the entire graphics card power and thus, we’re looking at suffering in the video card market for a myriad of reasons and how people game is entirely one of them. People are quick to say “supply shortages” and “silicon shortages” as the reason for video card stock shortages and to a degree, it’s the simple answer, but what if I told you GTX 680s being viable today is probably a lot more involved in why there isn’t a rush to solve a what is now over a year long shortage in video cards. The Bargain Bin’s the Reason The biggest reason behind the ongoing video…

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How to Find Games for the Cheapest – A Deal Site / Aggregator Tier List & Cash Back Rewards Guide

Guides
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We wanted to put together an all in one resource on how to go out and find your next game purchase at the lowest price, for PC & console. The below guide covers the best deal site aggregators which let you search across multiple vendors and we also cover the best cash back rewards programs that you can leverage without any kind of credit card signup or formal card cash back program. You’d be surprised, sometimes you can get 8% back on a $300 purchase, which is $24 extra dollars back for doing nothing. The reason why is that it’s just easy to buy the game directly off of Steam or your console’s storefront. You search for the title and pay whatever they’re asking for. The problem is that with just a little bit of effort, you can find the game likely way cheaper. Then, on top of that, with…

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Iron Harvest is a Beautiful RTS

Reviews
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Iron Harvest is a dieselpunk RTS based in an alternate 1930s where you get to ride around in giant diesel powered mechs which is pretty cool concept. This is more than welcome considering Rise of Nations was the last memorable steampunk RTS. The graphics, as you can see below are absolutely beautiful: It has a lot working for it. Good textures, very nice graphics and good gameplay built in. It’s actually something fun and unique for 2020. I’m not going to spoil the gameplay or nitpick the game mechanics, which I could do but that’s not really what my point is. The game is good enough that if this is your thing and you were to pick it up, you’d get your money out of it. If the aesthetic and the RTS genre is your thing you should snag it and enjoy the fact it’s something different. If you want…

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Let’s Talk GameStop’s Impending Doom

Editorials
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GameStop is the last vestige of brick and mortar electronic gaming stores. It is a business of acquisitions, claiming most other large competitors and merging them into the fold and is on every YouTube and blog’s “Top 10 Companies Soon to Pull a Blockbuster” for the last six months to a year or so. Are they right? Is GameStop about to go under? I honestly am not some kind of market wizard, I can’t say if their current plans will save them or not, but we can talk about what’s gotten them to this point, in context of video game sales (not the whole who bought who what when and where, lots of that is already out there). So this chart pretty much tells a very, very interesting story. The company went public in 2002 at around $10 USD a share. In 2002, we were still in the world of…

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Virtual Reality in 2020 Report

Editorials
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Modern day VR started back in 2013 with the Oculus Dev Kit 1 (Oculus DK1), which was then updated and re-released in 2014 to backers as the DK2. In 2014 the retail Oculus was released and the Vive and the “Windows Mixed Reality” headsets soon followed. Originally, headsets were plagued by slow refresh screens or a myriad of issues that caused motion sickness in games and skeptical developers who didn’t want to develop for a platform that required $399 or more for a user to play, plus have a beefy PC gaming rig on top of that. So where are we in 2020? Well, in sort of an interesting and weird spot. VR is more alive than ever before, with VR experiences in real life being the “new arcades” and consumer VR headsets reaching mass adoption, but it’s not exactly a success down the line. Consumer VR Headsets (Oculus &…

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