Shigurui

Brilliant little game. It's basically a Zappaesque fever dream. Light on actual gameplay but it tells a great story with some excellent writing and performances. Definitely one of my favourites from last year.

@nookie_egg - Yeah, the rewards system is amazing. I tend to cash in points against featured games, usually £25 towards a £55 game which then gets me a further 6000 points for making the purchase. As I said, I cashed in almost £200 last year and have just over 100,000 points currently sat on my account. It's absolutely ridiculous added value to a GP subscription.

@mucc - My point about the £37 pass was that it got you all launch DLC including the future expansions, if it totals £100+ separately then that is what it is.

As for the games I listed, they aren't live service regardless of value, you said that's mostly all 3rd party GP offers, I showed it isn't, feel free to list the huge amount of service games on GP though.

@mucc - FH5 launched with a £37 add-on pass, like almost every other game out there. If it follows the quality of the FH3/4 add-ons then it's superb value. Halo MP is 100% free and it's mtx are on par with any F2P shooter, Apex, Warzone etc.

As for 3rd party game pass being live service multiplayer crap, I guess you missed Resi 7, Control, Nier Automata, Plague Tale, Mass Effect Legendary, Octopath Traveler, Aragami 2, Code Vein, Yakuza Collection/Like a Dragon, MLB, Scarlet Nexus, Outer Wilds, Hades and many more single player games.

You don't have to like the service but don't make it out to be something it clearly isn't.

@NEStalgia - Just from using the rewards app and doing the daily, weekly and monthly tasks. Playing featured GP games, earning achievements. Then there's the Bing searches, doing quizzes, polls etc. That takes around 5 minutes a day. It all adds up.

Honestly don't know what to expect but I know I won't be buying into it past the equivalent of current PS+ as I'm happy enough with the service as is.

That said I do have game pass and I doubt Sony can compete with it anyway. Once you're into GP you can get it free forever through their rewards system. I pay for it and basically use rewards as free store money. In the last year alone I've cashed in almost £200 and right now my copy of Elden Ring will be free due to reward points sitting in my account. No matter what Sony offer they won't be giving away free money.

@Tsushima - The really weird thing about JSRF not making the BC list for XBO and Series consoles is that it's playable on 360 via BC. Strange it never carried forward.

Weird but a minor annoyance at most. A major annoyance is that the game is still region locked on PlayStation. My EU account has hundreds of hours played and loads of 5* characters and weaponry but if I want to play with my US friends I have to create a US PSN ID and start from scratch. Asinine.

@get2sammyb - What direction are they heading in exactly, giving games that have DLC? I didn't see this type of article about Mortal Kombat X or Conan Exiles when they came to Plus yet they're 'free' games with a boatload of DLC.

Mostly never but I make exceptions for certain games like the Ezio AC trilogy. I really liked reading the factual stuff about the architecture and historical characters. Also read every item description in the Dark Souls games.

It should be making the leap to PS4 considering that all the DC content would run perfectly fine on it. But hey, we're just the chumps that supported the original game.

Definitely give Super Time Force Ultra a try if you missed it when it was a PS+ game way back when. It's surprisingly good.

Happy enough, love a good Musou so even though P5S is a sequel I'll have no idea about story wise, I'll happily take it for the gameplay.

@Alduin - You clearly don't know what shovelware is if you think Radiant Silvergun falls into that category.

https://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/radiant-silvergun

https://www.mobygames.com/game/radiant-silvergun/mobyrank

Shovelware, lol.

AC Odyssey and Guardians of the Galaxy. Have a good New Year all!

@MyThoughts31 - I'd love to see Jade Empire get the remake treatment but I doubt EA would outsource it when some version(s) of BioWare still exist and they could do it in-house.

@ShogunRok - As a Genshin and Warframe player I don't understand why you feel they're impenetrable. Neither game throws you in at the deep end. They teach you as you naturally progress in the same way that any other game does.

I understand that the sheer amount of content and systems can feel daunting but you can't just play any of it off the bat until you can through progression, by that time you'll know what you're doing.

Genshin is especially new player friendly and Warframe is nowhere near as obtuse as it once was thanks to massively improved tutorials.

@sonicmeerkat - I haven't played it myself but SkillUp's review only hit last week and the AI in his footage is hilariously bad. If it's improved since launch I dread to think what it was like originally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjneXxn2FZA

Nier, ME Trilogy, Quake.

@Wezi - You're welcome mate. I think it's a great game, enjoy!

Heads up to that one person looking at Godfall PS5 for £17, download the PS+ version and upgrade it to the Digital Deluxe Edition for £12 which gets you the PS4 and PS5 versions including the DLC.

Managed to replace my Series S with a Series X so I'll be digging out my 360 disc copy of Driver San Francisco. Been itching to play it for months. Have a good Christmas all!

@themightyant - Thanks! Once I popped the master trophy I instantly deleted the game lol, I still need to mop up a few trophies for the plat but I'd just had enough of the game and all its BS at that point. Hopefully the devs can fairly balance their next game.

@themightyant - Totally agree. I did beat master (Ninja Gaiden veteran lol), but it was brutal. It's just cheap. Turning the difficulty up to obnoxious without fairly scaling damage values is beyond poor design.

Absolutely loved Hades but my Indie GOTY is Narita Boy. Kena gets an honourable mention but the devs need to learn to balance pass. That game is zero fun on master.

@Fiendish-Beaver - Trophy stats are based on the overall player count and trophies earned, not game ownership. You only become part of the stat % pool when you actually play the game.

@Fiendish-Beaver - No mate, you're not included. The tracked stats are based on members of the HowLongToBeat website that played and gave up on the listed games.

The Ascent wouldn't be so high up that list if it had difficulty options at launch. I finished it before they got patched in and it was brutally hard at times. Brilliant game regardless of the spikes.

Catching up on some relaxing backlog stuff with The Unfinished Swan and Firewatch today and I'll be hitting up Fez and Flower on Vita tomorrow. Have a good weekend all!

@SoulChimera - Yeah the XBLA version has 400GS. I read it runs like arse and still only 30fps. I'll grab it in a sale at some point as it is hilarious, shame about that platinum though.

@SoulChimera - No platinum? Thought it would have with the Xbox version having 1000GS. Weird they didn't add one.

@BeerIsAwesome - My point is that Nixxes aren't some unknown studio plucked from obscurity by Sony. They're extremely well known. Boot up most titles from Eidos or Crystal Dynamics over the last 20 years and the Nixxes name is right there alongside theirs.

Next up, Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul..

I may or may not be solely responsible for 17.5% of that increase...

Also, props to those brave TLoU2 Abby fiends. That's a r34 rabbit hole I ain't going down!

@BeerIsAwesome - Nixxes have never flown under the radar, they were synonymous with Crystal Dynamics since the Dreamcast days.

Lost all interest at Ubisoft Toronto, SC: Blacklist was terrible.

Godfall, I upgraded from the PS+ Challenger Edition to the full game and I'm really liking it. I've no idea why this gets so much hate, the combat is spot on and the art style is amazing. Sure it's repetative but it's a loot game so it's to be expected. Best Plus game we've got in ages!

Over on Xbox I picked up Guardians of the Galaxy for £23 so I'll be putting a few hours into that, heard nothing but good things about it so looking forward to jumping in. Have a good weekend all!

@lolwhatno - Bungie develop and publish D2. They get the money alright. Just not my money, ever again!

@Bentleyma- Considering I bought the £12 upgrade and have been playing the campaign since yesterday, I'm pretty certain that I'm not mistaken.

Absolutely love my Scuf Impact for PS4, I'll definitely get one of these when I eventually move to PS5.

@Ralizah - I have arthritis in my hands so the price is irrelevant if I can game in relative comfort. Being able to switch from button to paddle inputs on the fly and not having to pull triggers more than a millimetre or so makes a world of difference.

@Bentleyma- Yes mate, the £12 upgrade nets you the campaign and some character skins. It got added to the store today.

@Bentleyma- You can upgrade the plus game to the digital deluxe version for £12 and play the campaign. The upgrade gets you the PS4 and 5 versions.

GoT Iki Island DLC, some FH5 and just bought P5 Royal so I'll probably make a start on that tomorrow. Have a good weekend all!

@RicebinBernacky - It doesn't set any precedent. Sony have randomly pulled this stunt before, like when they gave us part one only of an episodic game or PSP games when Vita games were part of plus. It's something they have form with and do every so often, I wouldn't read too much into it.

@fR_eeBritney - Thanks, it was absolute stubbornness that got me through, I only need the collectibles for the plat but I deleted the game about one second after that master trophy popped. It probably won't happen but the devs really need to do a balance pass on the game. You can tell they just turned stuff up to 11 and called it a day.

@RaZieLDaNtE - If you think DMD and Master Ninja modes are nuts then avoid the Kena plat. Those games have ultra tight controls and require a high skill level but are mostly well balanced on their highest difficulties, Kena controls like syrup in combat and simply isn't balanced at all past normal.

@fR_eeBritney - I beat Kena on master but rather than say it's hard I just found it to be downright cheap. The offscreen attacks, boss damage output and insta attacks/lack of telegraphing were obnoxious. I've beat all the usual suspects like Ninja Gaiden, DMC etc on their hardest difficulties and none are even close to being as cheap as Kena. I don't blame anyone for walking away from that BS.

One Finger Death Punch 2 on PS4 and playing some of the newly added back compat stuff on Xbox, most likely Max Payne 3 and Aces of the Galaxy. Have a good weekend all!

Their last game Absolver was no walk in the park. I expect this will have a similar difficulty.

Love seeing projects like this, hopefully Sony don't get heavy handed about it seeing as PSN still supports PS3. Insignia is a similar thing for the OG Xbox that I use quite often and so far MS haven't intervened though I expect that's because they abandoned it years ago.

Quality little game, the overall package is really good but the majority of the combat is extremely basic and repetitive.

@SystemAddict - Gotta love accidental typos! Deathhoop sounds like a wild night with Dennis Rodman.