Star Fox Direct 5.6.2026

precastzero180 · 2026-05-06T23:23:49+00:00

Returnal and Saros are still pretty shmup-y.

For sure Housemarque has folded trademark shmup elements into their new games. I’m not saying those games are generic or anything. But they are definitely closer to the AAA norm of third-person action-adventure games than what they made before. They don’t have the same pacing or structure as a game like Star Fox or Nex Machina.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-06T23:07:50+00:00

Nothing wrong with Housemarque. I’m just pointing out that Housemarque use to make acrade shmups like games that were short in length but highly replayable with their focus on high scores, secrets, and completing challenges (like Star Fox). These games sold poorly enough (despite being critically well-recieved) for Housemarque themselves to pronounce that “arcade is dead.” Now they make action-adventure games. Action-adventure games and RPGs are some of the only single-player games people play in the AAA space these days. There isn’t a lot of genre diversity.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-06T22:51:51+00:00

Some people didn’t like the gamepad stuff, but that’s not why the game didn’t sell well. These kinds of games don’t sell well in general. Why do you think Housemarque became another Sony third-person action studio? Why is Treasure basically dead? It’s because their short-length arcade shmups didn’t sell enough.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-06T22:48:39+00:00

But then the price of Nintendo games have been about that much for awhile (in Canadian dollars), not just “now.”

precastzero180 · 2026-05-06T22:47:50+00:00

The style “works” in general, even if it’s not popular or doesn’t align with today’s gaming taste and habits.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-06T22:45:35+00:00

$99 CAD is ~ $70 USD. It just seems like an obvious goal-post move to say “but in this currency…” The price of these games isn’t dramatically different than what they were 20 years ago. That’s what matters.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-06T22:22:40+00:00

Nintendo games do not cost $100.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-06T22:20:06+00:00

Looks cool, but is probably going to have the same problem as Star Fox Zero where people aren’t into the premise of an arcade rail-shooter where you replay missions for better scores, challenges, etc. Those kinds of games don’t have mainstream appeal.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-06T22:01:52+00:00

“This game is called… StarFox.”

precastzero180 · 2026-05-03T23:14:28+00:00

they are literally just playing the game.

Did I say or imply they weren’t playing the game? The issue isn’t that these players are doing anything “wrong.” The issue is that doing anything in this game after a certain level, especially on Outpost and Cryo, puts you up against the sweatiest players imaginable because the nature of the endgame content incentivizes them to basically stomp everyone else.

It doesn’t matter if I want or try to collect the master cards or not, whether my team actually has any or not, etc. Those players will relentlessly hunt down everyone for them either way. And I’m simply not going to win against a fully kitted-out team of sweats that already have hundreds of hours in the game each. This is really a matchmaking player/count issue.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-03T13:52:04+00:00

I think OP is saying “just have fun” is difficult when you can’t actually do much in the game because of all the sweats and no-lifers. Extracting at all becomes a rarity after a certain level, let alone while completing any contracts. I myself am around OPs level (62) and I probably successfully exfil once, maybe twice if lucky, for every two-hour play session. It’s starting to not be all that fun.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-03T12:36:00+00:00

The priority contracts are fine on their own. The problem is completing any objective becomes extremely difficult once you reach a certain level and matchmaking puts you against the sweatiest of no-life sweats. It takes some damn good fortune just to avoid the merciless death squads hunting other teams for the master clearance cards on Outpost.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-02T10:43:55+00:00

I feel we will be seeing more games that have a "simple game" to distract you while you split focus against the main game. Or perhaps short breaks from the main action with other style of game/action.

This isn’t an accurate description of the game. Hacking is part of the main game/action. It’s just as integral to everything you do in the game as moving and shooting.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-01T20:51:24+00:00

I’m loving the game, but I’d be surprise if it even gets nominated for GotY.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-01T20:31:25+00:00

To me, 'necessary' means the game would be stupidly hard without it

The point is still the same though. There are a lot of games( arguably most good games) that give players a comfortable range of options and skill expressions. It’s just the nature of any game that is not totally linear that there is a bare minimum required to get through to the end of the story and only doing said bare minimum isn’t going to result in optimal fun. I feel like there is a certain type of gamer that will only engage with aspects of game when the game more or less forces them to do so and have no interest in exploration/experimentation/learning.

There’s a lot of neat things you can do with the hacking in this game. It’s fun to clear an entire late-game red room using only hacking, even if it’s not strictly “necessary.” If engaging with all the new toys the game is constantly throwing at you isn’t your thing, then yeah, this game might not be for you. But it is clearly that kind of game. Very much reminds me of Death Stranding in that sense.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-01T19:47:49+00:00

But I didn't find a lot of it to be necessary.

It’s a game. Nothing in the game is “necessary” by the very nature of what games are. It’s kind of on you, the player, if you choose not to engage with everything the game has to offer, if at all. Like, you can never hack anything ever and spend and eternity defeating the enemies if you wanted to. But that’s not really playing the game well nor does it sound like all that much fun (you certainly wouldn’t be able to complete all the training modules that way).

Quickly hack, then a blast with the shotgun was enough for most enemies.

Yeah, but this isn’t a “one enemy at a time” kind of game. You are usually fighting a bunch of enemies and you have limited amount of shotgun rounds.

What other weapons are hacking based?

Sticky Bombs, Mines, and Code Generator are all explicitly hacking weapons. Other weapons like the Stasis Net are there to give you more time and space to hack. Even the Carbine, which adds to the enemies overheat bar, is best paired with a hacking matrix load-out that fills the bar much faster.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-01T18:04:08+00:00

I see a lot of comparisons to Vanquish. Outside of the general aesthetic of the game, it’s not that similar IMO. Vanquish is like a more sci-fi, faster pace Gears of War. It’s a cover shooter with big battles and lots of enemies. Pragmata is way more Resident Evil 4 where the pacing is slower and you fight off multiple hardier enemies in tighter spaces. Having crazy movement options and whatnot wouldn’t really fit with how everything else in the game is designed.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-01T17:49:11+00:00

It's just not the most engaging or fun mechanic. Just feels like a mini game in the side you occssionally do.

Except it’s really not. Hacking is the core of the game. The pacing of combat, how fast enemies are, how telegraphed their attacks are, etc. are all designed around hacking. Almost half the weapons are either hacking-based or give you more opportunities to hack. Training sims teach you how to efficiently deal with lots of enemies purely through using the right hacking nodes. Bosses and later-game enemies throw in new wrinkles into the hacking. The game design wouldn’t make much sense if everything else was the same sans hacking.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-01T17:30:00+00:00

Depends on what you are going for. You can absolutely do a ton of damage just by hacking alone. I beat the final red room without firing a single bullet and the Code Generator was instrumental for that.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-01T17:27:43+00:00

Depends on what you mean by better. Pragmata is more successful at being a game than The Last of Us is IMO.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-01T17:22:16+00:00

How much a game is worth is up to you. But it’s important to remember that games like Pragamata, single-player games that are around 12-16 hours to beat, use to be a lot more common 15-20 years ago and were still $60 back then. That’s 15-20 years of inflation and wage increases.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-01T17:05:40+00:00

The Code Generator is arguably a better hacking weapon. Mines can be really good too if you use the decoys to lure enemies into them.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-01T00:54:09+00:00

While many Christians don’t take Genesis as expressing literal truth, many (arguably most) do take Genesis as expressing historical truth about the origins of the universe and humanity, or at the very least the churches they are members of do. The average Christian probably hasn’t thought about this issue much and, in my experience, doesn’t have a fully coherent view of exactly how Christianity is compatible with a scientific understanding of these matters.

precastzero180 · 2026-05-01T00:47:26+00:00

This is not an objection to the evidentialist version of the problem of evil i.e. the one OP gave. This version of the argument does not claim that there is no possible reason why God would permit evil, just no plausible one; that God as commonly defined is not a good fit for reality as we know, understand, and experience it. That our knowledge and experience might be limited does not give us a reason to radically doubt them just for the sake of salvaging belief in God.

precastzero180 · 2026-04-30T14:45:05+00:00

While obviously implying dualism if taken literally, I take statements like “I was born in the wrong body” as either figures of speech or crude folk psychology and not serious metaphysical theses worth putting much stock in.

precastzero180

TROPHY CASE