Issue 10 October 26th 2019

Modern Warfare Will Not Be Sold Through The PlayStation Store in Russia

It's strange to see PlayStation pull Modern Warfare from their digital storefront while PC and Xbox haven't made any moves. I understand that they are trying to avoid controversy with the Russian government because of some story elements, but Sony could be putting themselves in hot water by making this move. I'm sure that Russian fans are ticked with an announcement like this so close to launch. Digital preorders have been cancelled, leaving fans to preorder physical copies if there are any left. MW is such a highly anticipated game that I wouldn't be surprised if most copies had already been reserved on release day. If I was a COD fan in Russia eagerly awaiting the release of this game and I had to wait because PlayStation cancelled my digital preorder, I would be pissed! This might have been a reasonable decision if Sony had announced it a few weeks ago, but they did it the week the game launches. That's a bad decision, no matter which way you look at it. Do you think that Sony is smart to do this? Will there be a controversy in Russia after this game's release? Let me know!

Image credit: Call of Duty website

Dev Team Behind Untitled Goose Game Chose The Switch For A Very Specific Reason

The Switch is the perfect system for the Untitled Goose Game. Whenever I'm writing, talking, or even thinking about the Switch, I associate words like friendly and un-intimidating with it. This is why I love it so much. I never feel like I have to commit a long time to playing it or like I need to commit a lot of energy to get a good time out of it. Let's compare this to a day when I sit down to play PS4. I have to decide what I'm going to play, maybe I want to play online with friends because I never get to do that much. Should I stream it? That would be fun, but it would take commitment of a few hours. When I decide what I want to play, there's usually an update I have to sit through or ten-ish minutes of loading I have to wait for. Then, it's been a while since I've played this game. What was I doing? Jumping through all these hoops can be exhausting, especially when I don't have a lot of time to play. With the Switch, I hit the power button and jump right back in to whatever I was playing. . Untitled Goose Game is the perfect title for the Switch. There's a lot of other games like it that are meant for the Switch, including the NES and SNES classics that are also available to play. Whenever I have thirty minutes, I'll play through a little bit of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. I can't express how much I love the Switch. That's it. That's the post.

Image credit: Untitled Goose Game Twitter

Google Stadia Has Lost Its Hype

As we get closer and closer to Stadia's launch, less and less people are talking about it. Just a few months ago, the big conversation was if these streaming services like Stadia and xCloud were going to change the landscape of gaming. Now, everybody's talking about their excitement for the upcoming PlayStation exclusives and how excited they are for next-gen. To me, it looks like traditional consoles are here to stay. I'm interested to see how Stadia's launch will go and if it can make good on the promises its made. To me, the idea of a subscription service only providing limited access to a very limited library of games does not sound appealing to me. What're your thoughts on this? Are you Prp-Stadia or are you waiting for it to crash in flames?

Image credit: Stadia website

Just For Laughs

There's A Fallout Speedrun For Having Sex, And It's Run By TomatoAnus

Bob the Tomato would be ashamed. Here's the funny short article of the week. If you've never heard of Games Done Quick before, you should really check out their website and join me in getting hype for Awesome Games Done Quick 2020.

Image credit: Fallout Twitter Page

A Landmark Issue and A Big Weeks For News

Wow, this is the tenth issue of Load Save! Thank you to everyone who has been subscribed and who's looked through the newsletter. I love doing this and I can't wait until issue 20! Now, onto the news!

The past few weeks, we've been somewhat light on news. Luckily, this week makes up for it! I had to do a lot of cuts to keep this issue at the normal length, but you can check out the Load Save Facebook page to see the stories that didn't make the cut! I'll be posting other stories that didn't make the newsletter but were close, as well as other posts (maybe even a giveaway or two). This week marked the release of The Outer Worlds, Modern Warfare, and MediEvil Remake. You can check out the review roundups at the end of the newsletter. If that isn't your cup of tea, you can see a ridiculous decision Fallout 76 made, and a not-so-friendly speedrunner start a new Fallout speedrun category! It's a good week for news, so make sure to bookmark this edition to come back to throughout the week. Thank you for checking out Load Save!

As always, enjoy the read!

Development

Fallout 76 Launches Subscription Service To Everyone's Disappointment

Just when I thought that Fallout 76 was recovering from its abysmal start, they decide to jump head first back into their grave. If you haven't been keeping up with 76 news, they've been making tiny mistakes ever since their E3 promise to make the game good for fans. The first that I mentioned in this newsletter was thee mess-up with the in-game refrigerator. It sounds ridiculous, but they were selling an item that would help preserve food for a lot of real life money. $7 to be exact. Then, they announced the delay of their highly anticipated free expansion that will add much-needed NPCs to the empty 76 world. NOT EVEN A WEEK LATER, Bethesda decides to announce Fallout 1st, a $12.99/month or $100/year subscription service that adds features like private servers and a storage container that can hold as much as you want but delete everything you put in it due to a bug. I see the reason for charging for private servers, but the storage container SHOULD HAVE ALREADY BEEN IN THE GAME. The thing I hated the MOST about 76 was the constant need to plop down a camp and do inventory management almost every hour. This is probably the dumbest, most tone deaf decision I've seen made in the video game industry. I want to know who made the call to announce this. Everything is wrong here. The price is astronomical (you could get much better value through Game Pass or PS Now) and the perks of subscription are absolute garbage. I'm incredibly disappointed in Bethesda. The one silver lining to this story is that an irate fan got the domain falloutfirst.com before Bethesda could. I don't want to ruin your laugh, so you can check it out yourself here

As you can tell, I have a lot to say about Fallout 76. Earlier this year, I wrote about my experience with it and how I was disappointed. I said I would never go back, but a friend has asked me to jump back in and write an updated review with whatever slander I have to say about the game. Keep an eye on my Medium page to see when it goes live.

Image credit: falloutfirst.com

A Lot of Games Have Been Delayed

Once upon a time, every anticipated game in the world was slated to release in Spring of 2020. A few of those are Last of Us 2, Watch Dogs: Legion, and Rainbow Six: Quarantine. Each one of these games have been pushed back for a later 2020 release. TLOU2 is now going to release May 29, 2020 instead of February, and the others have not been given an exact release date. This article includes the letters of explanations from the game studios on why they're delaying games, but they're all due to financial forces in some way. A Spring release would have put these games in the 2019 fiscal year for these companies, which ideally would boost their fiscal year reports. However, Ubisoft has directly said that their fiscal year reports are going to be significantly lower because of the delays but that they're necessary to ensure good games are put out. TLOU2 is an interesting situation because the Feb release date was announced only one month ago. There's been a lot of speculation on why they changed so quickly, but a majority (including myself) think that Naughty Dog has been trying for a later release date for a while, and something happened at PlayStation that made them okay with changing the date. It makes sense to push this big title back because of the other HUGE titles coming out in Spring, like Cyberpunk 2077 and Final Fantasy VII Remake. What do you think? What caused the sudden change of heart for the TLOU2 release?

Image credit: Naughty Dog Twitter

Reviews

Medievil Remake Reviews Round-up

MediEvil is one of those classic PS1 games that you've heard of but never actually played. The reviews are across the board, ranging from a solid 8 to a not-so-stellar 2/5, but this game definitely has a niche market that will love it. This would be a great PS Plus game, make the subscription service a good competitor to Xbox Live! Let me know if you're playing this game and what you think about it!

Image credit: Playstation.com

The Outer Worlds Review Roundup

The Outer Worlds is another surprise this year, and I'm glad everyone is loving it! I can't wait to play it, AND Game Pass people already have it with their subscription. That's another point to Game Pass, and congrats to Obsidian for the great game! Let me know if you picked it up and what you think about it.

Image credit: The Outer Worlds Twitter

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare Reviews

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare looks great, and I'm happy that the fan base is enjoying the game. As to be expected, multiplayer is having issues with the high demand of players, but that will be fixed eventually. For me, the COD Mobile app will be enough shooty shooty bang bang for me for a while. Do you plan or picking up a copy of Modern Warfare? Let me know how you like it!

Image credit: Call of Duty Twitter

Community

New Research Shows That There Is No Evidence Of Gaming As A Disorder

Ever since the World Health Organization classified gaming disorder as a disease, I've disagreed with their decision. Up until now, I didn't know how to defend my position. Today, the Oxford Internet Institute has given me proof to support my position and the reasons why gaming disorder is not a disease. Simply put, organizations such as WHO did not take into account what was going on in young people's lives other than gaming. This study shows that gaming is often a refuge that young people run to when they're suffering in other ways (such as basic psychological needs not being met). This is a huge breakthrough and will hopefully dispel cases like the class-action lawsuit over Fortnite being "too addicting." However, it does seem that video gaming companies like PlayStation and Xbox should be willing to share their data in order to support the idea that gaming is not a disease. I would be interested to see an official response from one of these companies as to why they're withholding it. Perhaps it's considered an "industry secret" that could negatively affect business if it was made public. What's your thoughts? Do you think that these companies should comply with releasing information that could help this study?

Before You Go

The End of Spooky Season

Thanks for stopping by! October went by in a flash. The next time you'll see me, I'll be in full-blown Holiday mode and no one can stop me! Next week, we'll have our reviews for Luigi's Mansion 3, which is looking to be a great addition to the incredible Switch library. Other than that, you can expect to see the Load Save social presence to increase. By next week, the Instagram and Facebook page for LS should be in full-swing, so make sure to drop by those and give them a like/follow! You can find the Facebook page here and the Instagram page here.

See you in the next edition!