GTA Online is Awesome/Fucked, An Actual Good State of Play and Not-E3 Predictions

Sorry, I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been working a lot over the last several weeks. So much in fact that I literally got a text message as I was writing this to come into work tomorrow. As much as I love money, I also love free time, so now that I've got some, let's get to my random thoughts for the week.

Grand Theft Auto Online Is Incredible and A Fucking Disaster

Despite my better judgment, I got back into GTA Online about two weeks ago. Mainly for two reasons: to see how the new ‘enhanced’ version ran on PC, and I wanted something mindless and grindy to play, which it fit the bill perfectly. The new enhanced version has some good upgrades: raytracing is nice, load times are significantly improved, and adding animals back in the open world is a nice touch. For a free upgrade for existing owners, it’s not bad. The game loop itself is still enjoyable. One of my favourite things about GTA Online compared to its contemporaries is that you’re always working towards something different: a new business, a sick car, a weapon upgrade, unlike most games where it's either useless cosmetics or gear score. Here is where all the nice things I say about it end.

The connection and server problems I have been experiencing over the last two weeks are frankly completely unacceptable in this day and age. If you load into a near-full lobby, you may as well just immediately start a new private lobby. Even if you ignore the griefers, bad sports and the hackers that the new anti-cheat missed, you face a far greater bummer: connection issues. If you are in a full lobby, doing anything that requires a load screen takes forever, if it finishes at all. Forget about loading into a business or completing a freeroam mission; however long it takes to start a new lobby and try again will be significantly faster than doing anything in a full lobby. No joke, some of these loading times take up to 5 minutes. You could literally close the game and restart it into an empty lobby faster than doing anything in a full one.

What baffles me the most is that GTA Online is massively successful, raking in millions of dollars every month and played by god knows how many people, but despite that is still an absolute disaster on a technical level. This isn’t launch day or at the start of a major content update. This is on a Thursday afternoon and it’s borked. Hopefully with Grand Theft Auto VI, Rockstar gets their shit together for whatever version of GTA Online comes with it.

A Good State of Play? In This Economy?

I haven’t really been a massive fan of Sony over the years. I had a PlayStation 1 growing up as a kid, but I stuck with Xbox for the most part. Eventually, I would buy a PS3 and PS4 because I love games, but never really had any love for much of Sony’s output, so usually when they put on a State of Play, I tend to find them boring at best and a waste of time at worst. This recent State of Play completely bucked the trend. Unlike most times where there might be one or two games I am interested in, this was more like 6 or 7 games I am dying to play. Here’s what I think looks cool:

Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement is so far my game of the week. Symphony of the Night is one of my favourite games ever, and the first Bloodstained was an excellent pseudo-sequel that Scarlet Engagement appears to be improving on. The game looks fantastic and has just the right amount of cheese and goofiness to make it one of my most anticipated games.

007: First Light was the game I most wanted to see coming into the week, and while I have cooled off on it ever so slightly, it still looks incredible. IO Interactive and the James Bond IP are still, to this day, the most perfect pairing of developer and IP I have ever seen. No studio on the planet is more suited to make a James Bond game than them. While the game appears to be leaning more into Uncharted than Hitman with its explosive gunfights and car chases, it is still an idea worth developing and playing. I just wish it were coming out sooner.

Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection is another example of a great pairing of developer and IP. Not only does Mortal Kombat have a massive legacy within the gaming medium for three decades, but it’s one of the few games that has a ton of behind-the-scenes resources to delve into. Yeah, it is great that I can play the Gameboy version of Mortal Kombat in a legally sound way but what I’m really looking forward to is diving into development documents and watching the b-roll of all the actors doing the poses.

Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow will be extremely hard to beat in the ‘what the fuck they’re actually making that’ award for this season. I never thought in a million years we would ever see a new Thief game after THI4F flopping and Eidos being sold off. But a new Thief game exclusive to VR is something that to me would never ever ever happen. But here we are. I hope we get to this on PC because, as good as it looked, I am not buying a PlayStation VR2 for it.

Predictions for Microsoft, Summer Game Fest and Nintendo (?)

Here I’m just going dot down a few predictions:

That rumoured Persona 4 Remake will almost certainly appear at the Xbox Showcase. I love Persona 4, but that game had some problems both in the gameplay design, as well as… let’s say how they handle certain aspects of certain characters. I’ll be very interested in how they address these issues and the new cast.

It’s time, EA. It is time to release Skate. into an open beta or whatever. The people demand it. I demand it. That new Tony Hawk game has returned skateboarding games to the public's interest. Do it.

I think we’re about due for a new Halo… something. I don’t think it will be Halo 7, but you need to say something about what was once your most important franchise.

Hideo Kojima’s OD is also about due to be shown since Death Stranding 2 is basically done. Silent Hills was shaping up to be incredible, so I’ll be interested to see what Kojima Productions can do in the horror space without Konami’s shackles.

Speaking of Kojima, I think we'll get Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol 2 announced this week. It is almost guaranteed to include MGS4, which will be fascinating to see how they alter that game. You gotta remember that game has a working iPod in it.

Where is Resident Evil 9, Capcom? Come on, we all know you’re making. Just come out and say it.

I don’t think Nintendo will announce a new Mario game before Donkey Kong Bananza is released, but I would certainly buy a Switch 2 if Nintendo did that.