Issue 14

Pokemon Sword and Shield Becomes Fastest Selling Switch Game Ever

This one goes out to all the people that hated on Sword and Shield. I know that none of the Load Save readers are these kind of people, because you're all respectable and smart, so we can take this as a victory over toxic gamers! If you missed out on what happened, Pokemon fans were upset that the newest entries, Sword and Shield, would not include every Pokemon ever and that character models and animations were being reused. They fought under the guise that the Pokemon game developers, Game Freak, were lazy and made a mistake by putting out a new Pokemon game every year. Apparently, these complaints had no negative effect on sales. Honestly, it might have boosted the awareness of these new titles. Game Freak might owe some success to those who were trying to bring them down! Let me know if you've picked up Pokemon: Sword or Shield and how you're enjoying it!

Image credit: Pokemon Twitter

2K's Social Media Accounts Have Been Hacked, Posted Some Bad Stuff

I don't know how huge companies like 2K don't have strong enough security to keep their social media accounts from being hacked. I mean, 2K is one of the biggest video game development companies in the industry, but they're still getting hacked. This either means that their security is lacking or hackers are no joke. From the hacker's perspective, what's the benefit of hacking these accounts? Just to tweet some stupid stuff like this? It just doesn't make sense to me!

Image credit: 2K Games Twitter

The Future Is Now

For so many years, we've been talking about a future where you can play games anywhere, the never ending hope of a new Half-Life game, and maybe you cared about Shenmue 3? Well, I'm happy to tell you that the future is here now. This week, we really get into all the news around the newly announced Half-Life: Alyx, thoughts of Google Stadia and Project xCloud, and a review of Shenmue 3. Remember to check out the Load Save Facebook Page and give it a like to stay updated with breaking gaming news!

As always, thanks for stopping by. Enjoy the read!

Development

Valve Announces The Next Half-Life Game

The announcement of Half-Life: Alyx is by far the biggest news of this week. When I was searching for an article to link, I couldn't decide on one. I was afraid that this would turn into a link-dump, but luckily, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, created a roundup for those of us who aren't checking every source of media for news on Half-Life. Thank you, RPS, this is beautiful. Full disclosure, I haven't beaten a single Half-Life game, but I understand the hype around it and the meme of Half-Life 3. So to answer your immediate question: no, this is not Half-Life 3. This is an interlude between HL1 and 2. Before you begin to weep, this is still a full-blown HL adventure, according to an animator's report. So while this won't elaborate on the story after HL3 (which I don't know much about), it will still be a HL story that fans should love.

Here's my take: the trailer looks better than any other VR game trailer I've ever seen. Another disclaimer for you: I've never experienced VR. I have watched videos, and you can tell it's VR. Even revered VR experiences like Blood & Truth looks like a glorified tech demo. If HL: Alyx can make the actual gameplay as smooth as the trailer looks, it will be a huge leap in VR gaming. What do you think? Will this be the next step in VR gaming or will it be a marketing ploy to get some talk about SteamVR? Let me know by responding to this email!

P.S. if you want to skip past all the editorial stuff, you can check out the official Half-Life: Alyx page here

Image credit: Valve Software Twitter

Reviews

A Review of xCloud's Test Model

With the failure of Stadia fresh on our mind, it's important to look at the performance of its biggest competitor: the xCloud. For those of you who don't know, xCloud is Xbox's version of streaming games to your phone. All you need is your trusty phone and a bluetooth controller (even a DualShock 4 would work!) This service is still in testing, but the experience here seems to be promising! While xCloud has noticeable problems, the key is that it's still in the testing phase. Xbox isn't selling it as a finished product, like Stadia is doing. This broad testing will allow Xbox to (hopefully) iron out the kinks before the official launch of xCloud. Match this with the promise of Game Pass coming to xCloud, and you get a brand new competitive angle. Next-gen could very much look like PlayStation focusing on the best at-home gaming experience while Xbox focuses on a quality games as a service and streaming service. I'm excited to see what happens next year!

Image credit: Xbox.com

Shenmue 3 Review

Here's one that everybody forgot about: Shenmue 3. It came out this week, and barely anyone talked about it. This game holds the record of being the highest crowdfunded game on Kickstarter, with an astonishing $7,179,510. It seems that the game is lackluster, which seems to be the case in the past few years with crowdfunded sequels to well-known IPs. But, what did people expect? The original Shenmue games were a product of their time. They got recognition because they were impressive in the late 90s and early 2000s. I think we are often blinded by nostalgia and forget that just because someone made a good game 20 years ago doesn't mean that they know how to make a game today.

If anyone bought this game, or is a big fan of the Shenmue series, please reach out to me with your thoughts! I want to hear more about what the fanbase thinks about this situation.

Image credit: Epic Games Store

Google’s Stadia Review: It's What We Expected

This is a great in-depth review of Google's video game streaming service Stadia. It focuses on the question that I had after the initial announcement of Stadia at GDC, who is this really for? I was hype for it throughout the presentation, but after, I realized this is just a repeat of Google Fiber. Fiber is something that I think is so cool, but I'm doubtful that I'll ever experience in my home. Why? Because I don't plan on living in a big city where Fiber is available, and I definitely don't want to pay that much for breakneck internet speeds. When you compare this to Stadia, you get the same response from a lot of consumers. It's a cool idea, but we don't have the ability to enjoy it because we don't have the internet speed to support this. Would you rather pay a higher monthly price for a high speed internet and a Stadia subscription or would you shell out a couple hundred bucks now to buy a console and enjoy games that way? I feel like a lot of people would rather just buy a console. So, that leaves us with one question: what can Google do to make the average consumer interested in Stadia?

It's also performing worse than Google anticipated, reportedly. Will Google let this project slowly die off or will they invest in it to make it better?

Aside from this review, there's been a lot of other experiences with Stadia. Some people who are playing with a high speed internet are still struggling with seconds of input lag, so it seems like a mixed bag. You can check out this article to read a roundup of reviews.

Image credit: Google

Deals!

Black Friday

Let's try something new. Instead linking multiple deals, I'll put them all in this one area! Let's dive in.

If you have a Switch, you've probably run into the problem of a lack of space. If you haven't, you will. So do yourself a favor and go ahead and pick up this huge micro SD card to give yourself some more space!

Looking to catch up on some of 2019's biggest games like Borderlands 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC? Look no further than Green Man Gaming.

If you're a fan of Doorbuster deals, GameStop is having some fun ones lasting from Nov. 28 to Dec. 1! You can check them out here

You can start buying right now from PlayStation's Black Friday deals. Grab Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Resident Evil: 2 Remake for a solid discount

I hope everyone has a successful and safe Black Friday!

Long Read

The Story of One of The Biggest Cancelled PS3 Games

Here's a long read to get you closer one day to the Holidays. I'm always interested to see the story behind big PS3 games, seeing as how bad the launch of the console was. I also love to hear stories about the PS3's infamous cell processor, which is the main reason that PlayStation fans don't have backwards compatibility today.

Before You Go

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like...

Thanks for checking out Load Save this week! By next week, we'll be right on the verge of December. 2019 is almost out and a whole new decade is almost here! For me, I'm looking forward to a break in the next few weeks so I can get back to Death Stranding! After that, I'll have Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order to keep me busy. You never know what'll be in the news next week, but I'm sure it'll be good!

See you next time!