GeeEssEff

I have no plans and the wife is away so for the first time in a long time a completely free weekend to devote to games. I am on act 3 in BG3 with about a billion side quests to look into and I will also be playing Alan Wake 2 but only during daylight hours and when I’m feeling brave.

@somnambulance Same for me. I have tried so many of the Yakuza games and never got past the first few hours. I loved Like a Dragon though and cannot wait for Infinite Wealth. Giving this one a go on Gamepass but from what I have played so far it’s not massively drawing me in.

My personal favourite is BG3 by a country mile. Im not usually massively invested in these awards but I really hope it wins GOTY simply because of the obvious passion and attention Larian has put into it.

I am about an hour away from the Spidey platinum and then I will give more time to Alan Wake 2.

I have no time to Talos Principle 2 at the moment but the first is one of my favourite puzzle games ever. So glad the second one seems to be living up to expectations

@somnambulance swift recovery mate!

I’ve only managed around three hours so too early for a score but I am really enjoying it even if it’s scaring the hell out of me

@Markatron84 Yes I was never a massive fan of GT7 AI last year but playing Forza has given me a fresh appreciation of it. At the very least the GT7 AI doesn’t ram into you, take suspiciously weird racing lines and just plain give up once you have passed them.

If GT7 just added a competitive time trial system like Forza has in Rivals it would be the near perfect racing sim.

Very meh month. Hopefully Sony end the year with a bang.

Happy 500 everyone!

I will probably finish Spider-Man 2 story this weekend then aim for the platinum. I don’t want to rush it but also really keen to star Alan Wake 2 after the rave reviews. Other than that some Forza and BG3.

Came here to see if it’s just my PlayStation it’s not playing ball with but I see there’s problems for others. Gonna download and try on Xbox

@Th3solution I didn’t care for voice commands until I got AirPods for iPhone and now I use them all the time! Setting timers while cooking, changing music while walking the dog, getting texts read to me and responding to them without taking my phone out my pocket. The PlayStation ones I had to turn off though because whenever I said the word “PlayStation” while in a party it started listening to me and interrupted games….very annoying.

Happy with better music controls on this update though!

I’ve had a few minor graphical bugs and one major one where I had to defeat a bunch of enemies, beat them but it didn’t register so I had to reload the checkpoint.

This is a shame. While I couldn’t fully get into the first game I could appreciate its quality and what it was trying to do. Even though I probably wouldn’t have picked this up I had high hopes for it.

Love a bit of Devolver. Will give this a go during a quieter period.

I played an hour before work and loved it, going out tonight but then a completely free weekend. The wife is picking up Mario wonder so we are going to have a romantic few days of completely ignoring each other on the couch in favour of our new obsessions (although I am looking forward to playing a bit of co op Mario with her)

@Kidfried Pull the trigger my friend! The world is amazing and beautiful to explore and there is a lot of choice in how you build out your character. You could be a stealthy hacker, some crazy melee brute, a ninja, a heavy weapons specialist. Honestly it’s in such a good place right now. Still the odd bug but compared with three years ago it’s like playing a different game.

I’ve been completely obsessed with cyberpunk since the 2.0 update. It’s the only game to successfully tear me away from BG3 (although I did pick up Spider-Man 2 today).

So glad they are continuing to support and improve it. It’s such a U-Turn from the hot mess that we were presented with in 2020 which always had a bones of a brilliant game underneath.

@Sakai I think it has been a bit of a system seller but this was before release rather than after. Reception to the game has been mixed and I think that has led to a slow down in console sales but for sure if you go on Reddit or the comment section on most gaming outlets there were tons of people who bought a series console before September with Starfield/Bethesda in mind.

I am speaking as one of those people who got my XSX in 2021 shortly after they made it obvious all future Bethesda titles will be exclusive. I don’t want to buy a high end PC or laptop and I have tried streaming games to phone/tablet and the quality is awful…I am, and probably always will be, a console gamer. Funnily enough I have had way more fun on my Xbox with the third party gamepass releases as Bethesdas Xbox journey so far has not been massively impressive.

@Rjak Also apparently not old enough to remember it was Microsoft who started this practice with COD in the 360 glory days @OldGamer999 let me jog your memory https://www.eurogamer.net/after-five-years-of-xbox-exclusivity-call-of-duty-switches-to-playstation

Can’t wait to play this. I loved both the other games and it’s been a while since I played either so not too worried about the familiarity. Bring on the 20th!

I really enjoyed my first play through. My 2nd season 1 playthrough felt more of a slog though. I will no doubt get the inkling for some more Diablo in the future so I am looking forward to seeing the state it is in when that time comes.

I keep forgetting this falls in 2023! Looking forward to reviews although I have earmarked Spiderman as the last game I will be purchasing this year. In over 30 years of gaming I don’t think I have ever seen a year packed with as much quality as this one. The wallet needs a break!

I actually prefer the asymmetrical layout which is one of the reasons I bought an expensive Nacon pro controller last gen for my PS4. The R2 trigger stopped working within a week of me getting it so I very quickly regressed back to my attitude learned in childhood of not trusting third party peripherals.

@nessisonett I worked in tech recruitment for years and contractors know this is part and parcel of the game. @naruball is absolutely right, a lot of them earn a truly obscene amount of money, sometimes as much as 3x what their perm counterparts earn and with that comes the risk that you could be let go with very little notice. One of the reasons for the governments IR35 legislation in UK was because private companies were treating contractors like perm staff who paid a fraction of the tax while earning extortionate amounts of money….essentially contractors were being treated too well because they were desired for their skills and perm staffing is laborious and comes with its own set of trials (paying benefits, being stuck with an employee who is amazing during probation period and crap afterwards etc)

Obviously ND is an American company so things might be different over there but if it’s anything like here they have probably been earning in excess of $400 a day (over $100,000 p.a) to do the exact same job as their $45,000 salaried counterparts. When ND start getting rid of perm staff I will be among the first to condemn but contractors know exactly what they are getting themselves into when they decide to go down that employment route.

@MasterPlayerOne Every gaming system on earth is “unnecessary”….it’s a hobby that falls in the luxury category. Some fanboys like to turn it into their whole way of life though and make it their entire personality…do you know anyone like that? Anyone so obsessed with a company they need to praise everything that company does and piss on everyone else’s chips because it makes them feel good?

@Maddie47 how do I bypass? Just plug backbone in and open remote play app? Gotta admit I’ve not tried I just caved and paid

@Maddie47 I have a backbone and it’s very good for certain games but is missing the touchpad function which basically renders it pointless for certain games and also the fact that you have to pay a £40 a year subscription to use it isn’t particularly paletable. It does beat the portal for use with Xbox and other mobile games though.

@DennisReynolds Please at least acknowledge comment #2

@Gaia093 This felt like the most unsubtle dig of all time. Brilliant

I started a new game and it’s still a bit buggy but definitely feels more like the game sold to us in the run up to release.

Been to engrossed with Baldurs Gate and going on holiday in a couple of days so didn’t feel it’s worth starting it. Will give it a gamepass go when I’m back though

Good grief MS why not just use your significant assets to make games rather than buy them?!?

@Intr1n5ic I’m so glad to hear someone else is as weirdly obsessed with this game as me. Some of my dreams have involved me having to pass dice roll checks.

Mine is utterly shameful

COD Black ops 3: 400 hours
Fifa 20: 318 hours
COD Black Ops 4: 295 hours

Guess my favourite cod series

@Godot25 Let’s be honest this is the first killer month for gamepass since February. Extra has had some amazing periods and some crap ones just like gamepass, it’s just the way the cookie crumbles. Short of releasing something like GOW ragnorok to the service Sony we’re never going to compete this month so it just feels very disingenuous popping up and comparing them just as MS release their only decent 1st party game in nearly 2 years as if they are knocking out banger after banger.

I do agree they probably should have had a better month after announcing the price hike but there’s still some gems on there. Gamepass is forever lauded for its variety and you don’t get much more varied than a 4x strategy, theme park builder, graphic novel, several JRPGs, FPS and a few adventure games. If it was any other month and this list was announced as upcoming gamepass titles gamepass subscribers would be over the moon.

@BAMozzy yeh I wasn’t disagreeing with your opinion, you’re very well entitled to it (although not sure how you can have an informed opinion on something you haven’t played). I was disagreeing with your suggestion that making the game turn based is some sort of cop out “in this day and age” and suggesting there is even a comparison to be made between Baldurs Gate 3 and the 90s Pokemon games. Believe me there is nothing easy about the development of these games nor the playing of them. You clearly just see the term “turn based” and assume that they haven’t evolved in the last 20 years.

Opinion about a genre is one thing. Suggesting the developers of a game you have never played took the easy route is another. Play it, don’t play it, it doesn’t matter but if you don’t play these type of games I don’t know how you can know exactly how much skill is involved or how hard they are to develop. I have no interest in Historical RTS and have never played them. I can say that I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like Rome Total War but I wouldn’t dream of suggesting those games are any simpler or more complex then anything else until I’ve tried it.

@BAMozzy What a weird take. It’s not that they couldn’t/didn’t want to build a game with real time combat it’s because it’s based on the real life rules of D&D which is a turn based game. Making it real time combat would be like building a game based on Monopoly and then everyone just takes their turn whenever they want. Also to assume anything about the Baldurs Gate combat lacks complexity really shows a gross misunderstanding of what this game is all about.

Turn based combat is interesting because it forces you to think and make strategic decisions but it’s so much more than that in this game because of the interactions between the characters and environment. It’s honestly hard to describe why it’s so special but it really is the closest anyone has got to a true RPG. Fair enough if these type of games aren’t for you but if you assume anything turn based is automatically boring and is a design choice due to a lack of talent from the dev team you are missing out on plenty of gems. Not everything has to fit the mould of “continuously press R2 to punch/swing sword/fire gun” to be a good game.

@VaultGuy415 cheers for the hyena ears tip. I have picked up so much stuff which I assumed was useless junk but it definitely feels like a game where everything has a place….I need to stop mass selling and actually read about stuff.

I got early access and have been hooked. I am completely in love with this game (genuinely the wife is a bit worried) but it’s not going to be for everyone. Larian definitely could, and arguably should have done a bit more in the way of tutorials and explanations early on for people new to the genre or D&D. I can see why quite a few people are bouncing off it because it’s a difficult game and a few bad dice rolls can totally ruin you both in and out of combat.

I’ve cancelled my premium subscription which runs out in March. I will move to essential after that but may upgrade to Extra next time there’s a sale.

@General_Disarray yeh got to admit I might have been a bit more hesitant on the early access if I’d known the timings when I bought it. I assumed it was going to be midnight. Still I will have a fabulous Saturday evening and Sunday day. Hope you have fun mate!

@General_Disarray What time do you get to play in sunny Canada? Early access doesn’t start till 5pm tomorrow in the UK 😭

This is very disappointing. If they are going get closer to gamepass prices they are going to have to deliver a more competitive product. Give us more day ones or at least guarantee first party games will go on Extra within a year of release. They need to do something to justify this hike because “we want more money” isn’t going to cut it.

Always sad news when a talented studio needs to close its doors. Obviously this isn’t down to just one game but It’s a shame about the timing of Shadow Gambit. If it released during a less busy period when we don’t have some of the biggest games of the year (maybe decade) around the corner it would probably have sold way better. I was so close to buying it but then figured i still need to finish FF16 and will be playing nothing but Baldurs Gate and Starfield when they come out.

Fingers crossed they can sort the frame rate. This was the main issue with the original for me. It was borderline unplayable so I didn’t get very far before giving up and trading it in.

I’m still playing although it’s becoming my “I have 30 mins before I have to do something else” game. I just wish seasonal characters levelled up a bit faster. I can’t see myself slogging through the same side missions, dungeons and strongholds again just to get to level 50 in season 2. It was fun the first time, it’s starting to feel like a chore the second time and unless they do something dramatically different for season 2 there will not be a third time.

I wasn’t blown away by the demo so can’t see it tearing me away from Baldurs Gate or Starfield in September. Might give it a go further down the line if it reviews well though.

@Palleon Yeh I saw the cross saves and thought it’s a cool feature. I don’t have a decent gaming pc though (and probs won’t ever get one) so it’s unlikely to be something I will use personally unless I ever play it on Xbox as well.

I could not be more excited for this. Especially as some of my pc mates are already playing and raving about it. That does bring up one of the dampeners for me though…the fact there’s no cross play with PC. Hopefully it’s something that gets added further down the line but I do appreciate it’s a big enough and difficult enough game to develop without adding stuff like that. cough split screen cough