Olmaz

I absolutely loved Dragon Quest XI. So I'm down for another round of Dragon Quest, even if the gameplay is different. What I've seen up to now is quite promising!

@DennisReynolds Reading your comment with the voice and facial expressions of your avatar makes it sound sooooo sarcastic, manipulative even!!!

@LifeGirl 100% agree. Of the 3 very long animes I have watched (Dragon ball, Naruto and Fairy Tail - I've passed Bleach and One Piece), Fairy Tail is the only one that managed to stay consistant until the end, mainly due to some huge revelations they kept until the end, but more importantly because the sense of camaraderie was still present.
Dragon Ball switches to "get a more powerful transformation = get the win" after Namek, and no one except Goku (and sometimes Vegeta or Gohan) really did anything...
Naruto went too filler-y after a while, with interesting designs, but a paper thin plot stretched over hundreds of episodes. It ended for me with Shikamaru vs Hidan, an incredible fight full of feels and smarts.

@Wraggadam Good point!

Great, it's time Patapon comes back, these were very enjoyable games!

A little nitpick : if your logo needs a rewrite in a readable font just under it, then your logo is not good.

Octopath Traveler II

I'm completely hooked! The visuals, the characters, the battle mechanics, this game just manage to find the exact balance between complexity and simplicity that I yearn for in JRPGs!

I struggle to see anything interesting in what was shown. Even NFS is trying to shake things up with weird effects and day/night gameplay modifications.

But in general, I'd love a good discussion about open world vs race tracks for racing games. I personally feel open world makes the racing less personal, more bland, less deliberate and induces a lack of set pieces.

While I fully acknowledge that a lot of people enjoy open world racing games, I simply can't see why...

Can they remake Need for Speed III : Hot Pursuit first?
I really don't like open-world for racing games, I prefer handmade race tracks that bring deliberate challenges and set-pieces, and the first Hot Pursuit was a very good example of this (even if I'm sure I would be disappointed if I were to go back to it today... nostalgia ha!)

@Sekijo Don't you think there is a difference between a game inspired by a cartoon that is meant to mock and criticize society's problems and people's behaviors on one side, and on the other side a serious RPG game that is promoting a romance choice including some form of behavior considered illegal/immoral?

At which point did you think while watching/playing South Park that the devs/producers were promoting the idea that bestiality was good, or even ok?

Here in this game we have the clear promotion of such behavior. And it is included in the marketing of the game just to create controversy while appealing to what they think their main audience want... which is a frightening thought if they are right.

Now, don't get me wrong : I am against censorship of content meant for adults (and even there, how strong will the "For adults" part of this game be enforced?), so if the devs want to depict bestiality in a positive way, they can. I'm just disappointed and disgusted at the positive reactions to it.

@NEStalgia I played Divinity 2 on console and it's glorious, I never felt the lack of mouse hindered my enjoyment so I'd say go for it. At least, grab it on sale you can get it dirt cheap nowadays.

@NEStalgia Frankly, something doesn't have to be Marvel/Star Wars level of mainstream to be mainstream. When you say Dungeons & Dragons, a lot, and I mean a lot, of people will at least have an idea of what I'm talking about. And it's growing. Don't forget that the nerds of the 80s-90s (me included) are in our 40s-50s now, and we manage the brands' awareness.

As for Baldur's Gate 3, it is going to be one the major video game release of 2023, at least if you exclude all the multiplayer focused games. Not calling it mainstream is a stretch. It's not Spider-Man 2 level of awareness, but still.

@Matroska 2 points :

1-Violence and sex are not the same topics, and don't necessitate the same approaches, as laws and morality have shown in every society. Others in this thread have given examples for this (some even have seen their comment deleted just for this... weird). Different ethical dilemmas, different rules.

2-What's your point exactly? Is it : we did a bad job about violence, so let's do the same bad job about bestiality? Or is it that violence is ok, therefore bestiality is ok too?

@Dimitris670 So the "200 year old vampire that looks like a 10 year old girl" in a hentai is not a child, is that it?

@NEStalgia 208 million $ for the Honor Among Thieves movie https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl1879410177/
Hasbro buying just D&D Beyond for almost 150 million $. https://www.xfire.com/hasbro-wotc-dnd-beyond-dungeons-and-dragons-fandom-150-million/
Articles in mainstream media : https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/13/dungeons-dragons-had-its-biggest-year-despite-the-coronavirus.html
Wizards of the Coast passing 1 billion $ revenue : https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/wizards-of-the-coast-billion-dollars-revenue/
A 7 hour developper panel about an upcoming CRPG with more than 650k views on Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW846h6FyU4

Sorry to burst your bubble, but D&D is mainstream now. I know a lot of people want to pretend their nerdy hobbies (mine too!) are still niche, but they're really not.

@Kylekgh Would you hold the same views if the character in question was transforming into a 10 year old kid instead of a bear? I hope not.

Therefore, since you have your own limits, you should expect other people to also have limits of their own, and bestiality is quite a common ethical limit to sexual intercourse (and its depiction in art and entertainment) in most societies... don't you think?

How the world has changed :

Kotaku (and the comments) in 2015 remembering Sonic kissing a woman : https://kotaku.com/remember-when-sonic-kissed-a-woman-1731219760

Same Kotaku (and the comments) in 2023 applauding being able to have sex with a bear in a mainstream RPG : https://kotaku.com/baldurs-gate-3-halsin-romance-sex-scene-bear-karlach-1850615466

But saying bestiality is being banalized is conspiratorial and a slippery slope, right?

@ShadowofSparta "but in a funny and silly way"
So we're officially in the "bestially is a funny kink like any other" time period now? I though it was slippery slope fallacy to say we were going towards this?

@Cutmastavictory What's that "sockeur" thingy you're talking about? Is it French?

"football" - quotes needed in the title

Is that the Stanley Parable narrator?

If true it's fantastic :

• I always like these COD games on PS+ : I just play the campaign once and be done with it, and they are generally enjoyable
• I wanted to try Alan Wake for quite a while, so here we go
• Endling... I'm not sure I can go through the emotions of it right now, but it looks like a good little game

@themightyant I totally get what you mean with the feeling of a lack of progression after some time, and this is where the free updates and the DLCs came in.
Between making the game fully customizable, new biomes, new weapons, new unlockables, new modes and so on, you really get enough variety to motivate you into playing again.

Need repeating : this is one of the best games on the PS4. Fantastic gameplay, wonderful pixel art, engaging game loop, great music and absolutely incredible support from the team.

Very glad to see it with a native PS5 version, İ hope it will bring even more people to it.

I've tried the demo and it's obviously an humongous fantastic RPG. But damn the characters look boring!

I never felt even a little empathy or connection to these plastic faced characters, talking like they were out of a low budget fantasy movie. Add to that a very bland character design and I'm afraid I won't be invested in them enough to see the game to the end...

We'll see, I hope I'm wrong...

@KidRyan In a way, you're not wrong : there is absolutely nothing that looks like even remotely interesting in this battle pass.

But at the same time I don't think the "it's just cosmetics" is a good one. How the game, and your character, looks is very closely tied to your enjoyment of the game... and producers know that well : this is why they sell cosmetics!

The "it's just cosmetics" is pure corporate BS that has been repeated so many times people have started believing it.

@huyi To be fair, the game is exceptional and there is enough content in the base game to last for months (or a lifetime depending on your degree of involvement in fighting games).

But I agree : battle passes and other ***** mtx should be banned from paid games, and only exist in free-to-play games. I'd say, hopefully nobody will buy this battle pass... but we both know it's not gonna happen. : (

I played Cyberpunk on PS5 after all the updates (when the RayTracing one came out( and it was one of the most enjoyable experience I've played in 2022.
It's an incredible RPG, with Night City as a fantastic playground and a solid story.

I for one am waiting impatiently for the DLC, as CDPR has shown us in the past they know how to do expansions.

@Keyblade-Dan Maybe a simple algorithm search that didn't like the word "buttocks"? That would be funny as I went out of my way to not use a vulgar word! : )

@Nem Yep, I'm not convinced by the kameo feature. Let's see how it ends up being but for sure I'd like the option to turn it off.

@get2sammyb Really PushSquare, so now a non vulgar slight criticism of a in-game character model of a fictional character is getting removed as "inappropriate"?

Please don't become this, you are one of the very few sites where, seemingly, respectful open discussions about video games and adjacent topics can still happen, I'd hate for it to change...

@Keyblade-Dan May I ask what exactly you find good in Kitana's new look/model?

@Pat_trick To be fair, the game actually look stunning when you look at the backgrounds, the physics of the fights, the faces, the character models' details and so on.

But I agree with you with the bland design. This is really bare bone MK style... I was hoping to a return to the more fantastical/cheesy style of MK9. Maybe some alternate outfits (I mean, the kameo character's outfits were from the old games, so one can hope)?

@Matroska I don't know, their model seemed to have weird proportions (long torso and short legs), their clothes are from the MK11 kind instead of the more cheesy/sexy vibes of MK9 which I prefer.
But to each his own on that count, I'm glad some prefer it that way! : )

Looks very very good, and a good evolution from the MK11.
No sold on the Kitana/Mileena design though...

In my Top 5 PS4 games, and soon in my Top 5 PS5 games.

An absolute gem, and we can't celebrate the devs enough for the support in both paid (but very fair) expansion and free updates.

This is the kind of games that gives me hope about the future of gaming.

THis looks really fun, but really, how has it not been adapted to PSVR2 is baffling, it seems like a perfect game for it.

@KundaliniRising333 This argument does not hold, unless you've an extremely simplistic black and white view of the world.

Living in the real world necessitate some kind of hypocrisy on the part of every individual. We selectively choose what will be important or not to us. And sometimes, the same issue will be treated differently because of its context, or simply based on personal reason.

You're not "breaking it to me" that today's Western companies have horrendous strategies that make use of people in countries that don't respect Human Rights. I know that, but I make the conscious choice to prefer indirect involvement on my part with these countries to direct involvement. Is it hypocritical? Yes, a bit, like any moral stance that anyone will take on any issue, unless you're an absolutist living in a cave.

There's also the issue of "whataboutism" in your opinion that I oppose. Comparing Western countries with others like China or Saudi Arabia just because Western companies are trading with said countries is contentious. Who's to get the bigger blame : the one who kills or the the one who's working with the killer knowing he kills? There is enough blame to go around here, but let's not pretend the crimes are the same.

I guess everyone has their own way to get out of these moral conundrums that don't have any perfect right or wrong answers, you just need to be able to sleep at night with your conscience. I was simply pointing out that it's surprising to me the lack of criticism against countries like China and Saudi Arabia when we talk about video games, while we direct vehement criticism to any minor issue happening over here.

Besides the vaporware criticism I see in the comments, to which I agree wholeheartedly, we should also evoke the ethical issues with the ever growing involvement of countries like China and Saudi Arabia in the gaming industry.

It always seems weird to me to see people that generally react vehemently about moral and political issues having no problem with letting countries with labor camps and modern slavery (amongst other things) be involved in their preferred hobby.

I for myself am very wary of this kind of development and don't see how it can be anything good, in general and for the gaming landscape specifically.

@AdamNovice I know she's a producer, but she's always credited for the Assassin's Creed franchise in some way, for some reason.

But even as a producer, how can anyone think she's even close to be successful when she hasn't produced anything for 8 years (!) and when you look at all the games she's been part of since Assassin's Creed II, it's hard to find anything if not good at least original.

She reeks of corporatism and of these suits we all know that sell themselves very well but are, in fact, not good at their job.

Can this be finally the game that makes the media close the lid on Jade Raymond?

I have never understood the fascination with her. She's been surfing the "creator of the Assassin's Creed franchise" title (which is fairly debatable) for 15 years now, but when you look at her resume, I really don't see anything incredible... unless you count the Mighty Quest for Epic Loot in 2015 a hit big enough to carry her "fame" for 8 years...

One of the best games of the previous generation is still fantastic today. The team can't be lauded enough for its support to the game, both with free and paid content.
Now just one question about its PS5 version : 120Hz mode please?

Ahahaha Blanka! of course it's Blanka! LOL!

@Flaming_Kaiser I'm guessing you replied the wrong comment here! ; )

@Shrek_Realista Huh?! Why do you think the game is not for me? Did I voice any criticism towards this genre?

It's the moniker "boomer shooter" that is inaccurate and condescending. And it has only been in use since 2022, which would show it's the younger generations who have been using it. So as someone who has played first generation 3D FPS since my youth, I can tell anyone calling these games "boomer shooters" to get off my lawn and to get a life.

It's just a grumpy 40 something being grumpy, that's all, don't take it too seriously! : )

@PegasusActual93 What a clever comeback...

"boomer-shooter" is really bad slang, I certainly hope it won't stick.
It doesn't make sense of the use of "boomer", it feels derogatory and condescending and... well it's just lame. There's no need for it when you already have the "old-school shooter" or "Doom-clone/Doom-like" appellations.

Same issue on Humanity and Thymesia
Hopefully a patch is coming.

@Avalanchee I see what you mean. But "wanting to" and "having to" are very different things, or at least should be.
But I agree this is not the place for a lengthy debate about consumerism, so let's drop it... for now! : )