Ground Zeroes sold me on The Phantom Pain.
This is a barely legible meditation of how chasing Hollywood audience and Hollywood dollars (but without having the advantage of Hollywood accounting) is absolutely killing AAA games. At this rate, there won’t be any left mid-next generation. Remember, you read it here first.
As gamers, boss battles are practically in our blood. They go back at least as far as 1975. They’ve long been the go-to climax for a game adventure, the final goal for players of all ages. Sometimes they are epic set pieces. Sometimes…not.
Recent years have seen several titles get criticized for weak boss battles, even become notorious for them. Has gaming outgrown bosses? Has the march of progress left boss battles as vestigial as so many instruction booklets? Dix and Steerpike clash in the bottommost dungeon to find out.
In the first of our new permanent feature we’re calling Tap vs. Tap, Mat C and Lewis B have decided that their finest conversational moments are during the day when they’re idling away at their keyboards. Recording them sounded like a good idea. This could be very random, but sometimes the best things are. Our first topic? VILLAINS! Pow!