FantasyMeister

It's early days but it's very rinse and repeat:
Start mission
Kill one monster
End mission
I've only got Patrols and Pursuits unlocked though.

Seems to have plenty of options for builds what with Armor variations, Weapon Types (you can slot both with 'Cells' of various types to boost attributes) and 'Lanterns' which give characters extra abilities, as well as being able to slot craftable grenades, potions and gadgets.

The option of solo (gets easier later on) or up to 4 player squads is there, particularly impressive as it's all cross-play with PC/PS/XBox.

Hoping they can clear up their launch teething troubles as the servers seem to be taking a beating at peak times.

Overall, excellent for free but very minimal content (for now) compared to, say, Skyforge.

@AdamNovice I initially thought of E.T. in 1982 but that was just one big screw up rather than a whole cascade of screw ups. Pretty sure Fallout 76 is setting a higher bar in this regard.

I don't use Touchpad or Light bar functions if I can avoid it. Would prefer they patented the PS2 controller again for PS5, (even PS4!).
I'd opt for a wired version so I didn't have to worry about batteries.

I am totally ready. Loved the beta. Got the space reserved on my HDD for the auto-download which should start some time on the 12th.

£15.99 on the PSN Store.

My jury is out on 'Rockstar's Best Game' because I finished GTA V and I'm only 30 or so hours into RDR2.

My one gripe is that some ways of explaining mechanics in RDR2 aren't perfect. Trying to tell me what to do whilst I'm getting shot at isn't the greatest teaching method. And easily missable if text is displayed bottom middle and then sometimes top left.

And we're all probably skipping whole sections of gameplay. Everyone know about their camp chores? Too easy to miss.

I had a quick look at Divinity Original Sin 2 and Lost Sphear but both are still cheaper from bricks and mortar stores.

I've already got Persona 5 - £21.99 is a great bargain price for the digital version, highly recommend it.

@HefHughner SIEE is included in this deal (Europe) as well as SIEA (America). The full list of countries included can be found here:

https://support.humblebundle.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004109187

You have to go to the first location (Cairn Lake) when hunting down Flaco Hernandez for the 'Noblest of Men, and a Woman' Stranger Quest which can be picked up pretty much straight away on your first visit to the town of Valentine.

I'm ready to start breaking things. Just enough time to bag a few deer and a quest or three in RDR2 first then I'll attempt to log in to the Fallout 76 beta on PS4.

When I heard they were saving gameplay from the Beta and letting testers continue where they left off in the launch version that convinced me to cancel my physical pre-order (didn't have beta access) and just go ahead and pre-order on the PSN store today instead.

11 games for $15 including Darksiders ? Done. Downloading them to my PS4 RIGHT NOW (after the Falloout 76 Beta finishes downloading).

Installing now, just a sliver of a smidgeon of a tiniest bit of install bar to go.

Cya in 2020

I counted 45 perfect scores on Metacritic this morning. In comparison, Assassin's Creed Odyssey (which I consider to be the best game I've ever played ever, ever, really, EVER) got... 3.

Just waiting to bushwhack my postie and then I'll see what all the fuss is about. Feels like Christmas round here.

Don't patches generally overwrite existing installation files rather than adding to them?

Yes, excited to get started, though I'm dependant on Argos and Royal Mail so if I'm lucky I'm looking at this time tomorrow.

The first XBox beta was a 4 hour window, I watched one streamer play for 2.5 hours and there are a whole host of other streams now archived on Twitch.

I've pre-ordered for PS4 now. If you're on the fence like I was streams like these are invaluable.

One of about a zillion people responsible for bringing us the Assassin's Creed franchise. Can work where she wants as far as I'm concerned, wishing her all the best whatever she turns her hands to next.

FantasyMaster was taken back in 2000 when I signed up to my first ever gaming forum (Special Reserve, which was running GameADay promotions back ye the early days of the web).

So wanting to reflect my love of all things Final Fantasy I plumped for FantasyMeister instead. 18 years later, still going strong as my PSN and XBox ID, Twitter Handle, Forum name on various sites etc.

@QualityGeezer For £50? Bargain. Worth it even if the PS5 comes out November 2019, but then we'll all be trying to guess if the PS5 Pro is coming out 18 months later etc

@QualityGeezer I use a Pro with a 49" 4K HDR TV. Would never go back. Displays like this can be had for £349 on a budget (e.g. LG or Toshiba). If money is REALLY tight I'd advise upgrading your display first and getting the Pro later. If you've already got a 4K HDR TV then the Pro will make great use of it.

If I love it as much as the first one I can add a zero to that 65.
Some of those varmints can be pesky dagnabbit.

Forsaken Legendary Collection (Destiny 2, Curse of Osiris, Warmind, Forsaken) was on sale at The Game Collection last month, £29.95.

3 times in 65 hours. 1 time it resolved itself after waiting and the other 2 times I had to restart. 'Feels' like a memory overflow if that sort of thing can happen on a PS4 Pro. Might just be an Animus Bleeding effect, the game does warn about that in the tips section. I'll ask my eagle.

I only get out of bed for Legendaries. Oh wait, new ship designs?
Sets alarm clock

@LaNooch1978 No, but that's one of the boxes it ticks, I'm learning new stuff with every footstep. And I've watched 300, so I 'get' that bit

Odyssey is the best game I've ever played. (I was born in '66, started with Atari Pong, been gaming ever since). So to see it ranked as the best Assassin's Creed game is pleasing, but it doesn't mean my opinion is universal.

It just ticks all of my boxes for me, can't really explain it any other way without writing a thesis on it.

This is why I forked out for the Gold Edition of Odyssey. It wasn't the 3 extra days of gameplay! (Honest). (OK, maybe it was a little bit).

Open the map, check the bottom right corner, L2 will alternate between all photo icons, friend photo icons, or no photo icons which keeps the map tidy.

Just remember that some photos are great hints, like the one I saw of a player shooting sharks with bow and arrows from their boat.

Shop around: £67.20 for the Gold Edition delivered to me yesterday by The Game Collection.

Includes Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
Includes Season Pass.
Includes Assassin's Creed III: Remastered.
Includes Assassin's Creed: Liberation Remastered.

It's not that bad a deal, might have to wait around 5-6 months for those items to drop in price individually to match it?

56 reviews in and it's Metacritic 85, which would rank it in the top 87-125 games of all time on the PS4.

Which is why I did my own research and pre-ordered a while back

I have Assassin's Creed: Odyssey coming tomorrow and RDR2 at the end of the month, most excited for the latter. Disgaea 1 will have to wait until it gets in the £9.99 range.

A very basic layman's guide to cross play issues

List of typical things that make cross play difficult to implement:

Control schemes - mouse/keyboard advantage has to be ironed out
Network protocols - all platforms need to use the same
Game balance - a widely used glitch on one platform might already be fixed on others
Hardware limitations - that mountain you see on the PS4 Pro might not be there on the Switch version, if hardware acts as local server then lobby sizes can be affected, etc.
Updates/New Content - developers need to be totally in-synch, especially where multiple studios work on different platforms at the same time
Business - co-operation between rivals is necessary
'Friends' - found a new friend? Each platform has easy ways of adding them to your friends list instantly. But not in cross-play unless it's designed in from the ground up.

Best example in the genre of well-implemented cross play:

Final Fantasy XIV (Microsoft Windows, PS4, PS3, Mac OS X all play together, it's both cross play and cross generation and talks are still ongoing re: XBoxOne and Switch versions)

Reason Cross Play is so important:

Gamers get to play together. That was once a big dream of SEGA.
Servers are instantly more populated. Forget server lag, think about longevity - an online FIFA title might stay up for 4 years instead of 2.

So flip that switch, see what happens. Feel free to add a zillion more issues that I haven't thought of off the top of my head. I'm no developer so my gut tells me there are a lot more

Easier just to buy a PS One at 25% of the cost and then pick up any games you wish. Includes adaptor.

Well hello there, BATTLESHIP. (£6.49).

@get2sammyb I did a bit of digging around about adverbs, prepositions, past tenses and verbs and ... stuff. Still no idea if past or passed is correct in this instance. If I'm honest I'd find a good explanation more educational and possibly more interesting than anything Bungie has released since 2014. (Burn).

I adopted this early on the XBox 360, got so into it I ended up helping compile walkthroughs because the achievements were notoriously tough and lots of gamers needed help. Took me 33 days to get the full 1000/1000 score.

Whilst I'm an avid JRPG fan, and I love Final Fantasy VII, Suikoden and Skies of Arcadia, I rated The Last Remnant higher than those titles. Metacritic 66? This is a game that takes the death of Aeris in Final Fantasy VII and says: sorry about that, this is how we should have done it.

I'm actually more excited to see this hit the UK than any other title now. And I've already got Red Dead Redemption pre-ordered Now please excuse me whilst I fire off a few Tweets to Square Enix to improve the chances of it happening

On the UK PSN Store it's £14.99 until the 13th September.
I watched a couple of players streaming it.
Bought.

This is a great original IP - sincerely hope they keep it alive somehow.

I'm going for 94 Metacritic because I've already paid for my preorder and don't want to look stupid if it ends up in the mid-seventies. (But I will love it anyway because I paid for it and blame reviewers for their bad tastes).

I am playing "Add a new external 4TB HDD to my PS4 and see how much digital content I can cram into it."

I'm doing it alphabetically and I'm up to the letter 'D' with 2.7TB remaining.

Interestingly the PSN store dropped the price on the Digital Deluxe Version of Detroit: Become Human down to £29.99 for this week only (includes Heavy Rain and a few digital extras), offer ends 5th September.

I'm tempted, but would have to do a lot of shuffling to squeeze in its hefty 75GB download size.

My purchasing decision basically looks a bit like the diagrams above

I've got a 70+ game backlog and just got dragged into starting FFXIV again from scratch. Spider-man creeps up in 2 weeks' time. Red Dead Redemption 2 rustles its way into my collection the following month. I've got enough to keep me going even if Cyberpunk 2077 releases in its titular year.

Sony being quiet and uncommunicative? Blessing.

The Last of Us Remastered says 'Hi!'. Even the menu screen is jaw-dropping, possibly the best example of a remaster too.

Shadow of the Colossus - £12.99
Madden NFL 18 - £8.99

@roe This is the only game my Pro runs loud on
@adf86 Unfortunately my Pro continues to sound like a hairdryer even after 15-30 minutes, only way to fix it is to exit the game to dashboard and then enter rest mode for a bit

I've sent a support ticket to HelloGames, hopefully they'll look into it.

Downloaded and installed, but running the game makes the fan on my PS4 Pro go into overdrive. So much so that I don't really want to risk starting the game up again. Anyone else getting this?

Defiance 2050 on PS4 Pro. Delighted that it's back!

I'd rank that E3 presser alongside 'Giant Enemy Crab'. Actually more excited about the PS4 games that Microsoft showed, probably because they showed a lot more of them.

Blown away by the BGE2 and Cyberpunk 2077 trailers, probably my highlights of this year, alongside being able to work towards a Fallout Shelter Platinum for free, right now, on my console.

Hellblade is currently Deal of the Week on the EU PSN Store (£15.49)
Great timing

Tried it out on PS4 Pro in the UK a few hours ago. Playable, but it seems server issues(?) made it unenjoyable. Menus unresponsive, textures failing to load, hard to tell if the gameplay was working as intended or affected by lag. Might look at it again a few weeks after its official launch. Probably won't.

First thing I did was delete all Notifications from the main screen (yay, so easy now).
Second thing I noticed was the 7 Day Free Trial of PS Now (nice)!