StrickenBiged

Good idea launching it on PS+. Good luck to the game and I hope those who are interested have fun.

I really hope that MS lets Blizzard off the leash again.

Is the promise of stuff-to-come supposed to encourage me to buy day-1?
Personally, I'd like to know why I should buy it at release, rather than 6 months down the line (and likely much cheaper on sale), but then what do I know about marketing?

Fantastic. I've got no accessibility issues myself but having things like reminders to return to particular locations sounds great, as I often forget where I found a roadblock in metroidvania games. It may save me having to use a guide.

I watched all the previews and I just think it looks boring. More mindless bang bang and utter chaos on screen in fights, with characters that I personally find very unappealing. (Or, rather, I should say that I find the way these characters are portrayed in the cutscenes released so far is very unappealing.) Shoot the glowing purple weak point... how inspired.
I'm sure the game will be alright and find its audience that appreciate it for what it is, rather than dislike it for what it isn't, but it definitely isn't one for me.

Considering the different constituents of these polls, I think the nominees look very fair.
Hopefully BG3 gets the nod for whichever category reflects the systems design that's going on under the hood to implement all the DnD rules. I'm reminded of the anecdote from an interview with Sven where he said that at one point in development no-one had thought to test whether gaseous form allowed a character to pass through a hole that was only big enough for tiny creatures (e.g. a druid wild-shaped into a cat, or a cat summon, or a small creature that has been shrunk by a spell). It should be possible, but no one had specifically coded "gaseous form can pass through all holes". So they loaded up a relevant area, cast gaseous form on a character, and sure enough, they were able to pass through. It's all these little and creative interactions between the rules that make BG3 so special, in my view. The community continues to find new ones all the time, even months on from release.

Depressing. But expected.

The only thing I play on my phone is Sudoku and Wordle. Gotta maintain my streaks. And they don't ask me for money.

Nah, I don't think they need to go hard on the PS5 Pro at all. The PS4 Pro didn't do that well, by all accounts, and was only adopted by the super-fans. I'll get one for sure, because I like playing at faster frame rates and if I can do so without having to make compromises to resolution or ray tracing, more's the better. Most users play on quality mode and don't care about frame rates (don't ask me why, I can't explain it). The base-PS5 is still a fantastic machine for them. Sony knows its most hardcore audience will pick up a Pro model without any advertising as they'll find out about it through sites like this one.

He's absolutely correct. I've stopped buying every game I'm interested in at release and filling up my backlog with games that, while probably good and I'd enjoy a lot, were probably not going to be as much fun as the real standouts. I spend a lot less overall now, play better games, etc, and that's money that is no longer going into the industry. For instance I haven't needed or wanted to buy or play anything else since BG3 came out last year as I am still getting my fill with that (300 hours in so far...). If BG3 hadn't come out I'd probably have picked up S-M2, Alan Wake 2, Talos Principle 2, Lies of P, and Sea of Stars. I'll get to them, one at a time, when I'm done with BG3, and probably at a decent discount off of Amazon when I am ready to play them.

But how will this game be advertised? If it shows what it is, it's indistinguishable from the fake ads, so presumably you've got to go with a big-flashy ad that makes it look like a AAA blockbuster?

Fantastic - it might come out by the time I finally finish BG3.

@ATaco There's a documentary series on Netflix UK based on stalkers which has interviews with them (from prison) and their victims, if you want to try and understand that mindset more. I think I spotted it in the "recently added" tab last night. I can't speak to how good it is yet, but the Mrs and I added it to our list to watch later.

Please, no spin offs. The story of TLoU benefits greatly from being so tight and focussed. If we must have a TLoU expanded universe, give us entirely new characters and, hell, even new settings. So much zombie stuff is based in the USA, which is cool and all, but I'd love to see how other cultures would deal with such a catastrophe (e.g. countries with a history of collectivism/communism could get really dystopian, cultures where tribe and family matters a whole lot more might fragment in different ways, etc).

The mouse outsmarts the cat again!

@Gremio108 but the puddles in S-M2 don't apply "Wet" so it's swings and roundabouts.

Clearly an attempt at passing off, which will be for the developers to fight it out. Until the original makes a claim against the other and seeks to have it removed from PSN, it's not really Sony's concern.
But that being said, I had never heard of this game and am presently enjoying a web-browser version. Oddly compelling for such a simple concept.

@Czar_Khastik Oh god... I always assumed that was either coffee, tea, or hot chocolate in their heads...

@Tomato_Goose Thanks for confirming, I'll bump it a few spaces up my imaginary wishlist.

Other than BG3, this list reads like my hit-list of games that I need to check out from 2023. I've just been so enamoured by BG3 that I haven't played anything else since it launched.
Does anyone know if Jedi: Survivor in a decent state yet? I recall that it wasn't well optimised at launch and have been waiting for the 60FPS mode to be up to snuff before I picked it up.

If it means I no longer have to sacrifice the added benefits of "graphics mode" to play at 60FPS, then I'm all over it.

@CharlieChooChoo Maybe we'd get adverts for government assistance programs, food stamps, etc.

@CharlieChooChoo So that they can know what brands should be advertising here. If the readership median income is higher than the general population's for your region, they'll get more high-end/luxury brands advertising. Or vis versa.

Remedy, Epic, I'll buy it on a physical release. Just so you know.

@Mintie Halfling's don't roll nat-1's.

Well, they can roll a nat 1 twice, I suppose, but the odds there are 1/400, so you'd have to be really unlucky.

Looks like this new mode will be worth the £10 for me, and is the only part of the package that I'm excited about.

Looks like just more GTA to me, apparently with a focus on spoofing TikTok. I'll wait for previews/reviews before I get excited. I'm hoping to see R* expand on the way missions work; I'm tired of seeing the mission failed screen for daring to put one toe out of bounds.

How weird that the marketing fluff on PS Direct says "Fans of The Last of Us HBO series can continue Joel and Ellie's story five years later". Like, their copy writers do realise that it was a game before it was a HBO series, right? TLOU: Part 1 doesn't even get a mention.

A good way to recruit Minthara! Great, because I can never bring myself to side with her in Act 1, even when playing as Durge.

As someone who has never played Destiny or Destiny 2, I think the Destiny 2 model has revealed itself to be fundamentally flawed. I occasionally hear about the fun that community is having over there, and think "hey, maybe I should give it a go". But then I remember that most of the historic content is now gone from the game, so it would be like jumping into a TV show at Season 5 or something, and my interest is immediately killed. I imagine I'm not alone. So there's this huge barrier to entry for new players, who don't want to join a game and have no idea what's going on. I also imagine that the community erodes over time, as it does for every game, as new releases and new interests take priority. (Plus 2023 has been absolutely full of really good, longer games which would take players away from Destiny for long stretches...) So you've got a model that increasingly makes it harder for new players to onboard, while losing old players.
Perhaps the model should be more like FF14, which everytime I read about it it's going on about how the community is growing and very loyal.

Glad they fixed that Wares issue. I accidentally sold a tonne of stuff that I wanted to keep to a vendor because it had all mysteriously become "Wares" and I hadn't noticed it.

I'm in. Great game and I'd be keen to check out the commentary.

I can see Sony maybe agreeing to allow Game Pass onto PS as a subscription that is restricted to XBox exclusive games. Anything wider than that would compete with PS+ tiers.

This is very cool. I very much hope FS return to Sekiro, it's my favourite of their games.

Larian has apparently quenched the thirst with a hotfix reverting these changes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO__JxNH4rI

And there's my reminder to jump into the Directors Cut at some point and experience GoT again on PS5. Is there an upgrade path available for those of us that have the PS4 version on disc?

Destiny contracting this year is no surprise at all. 2020 and 21 were boom years as everyone was stuck inside looking for something to do. And 2023 has seen a glut of great games be released - look at how many releases scored 90+ on Metacritic this year alone, it's twice as many as normal - so it's not surprising that people are spending their time and money on new releases rather than on something like Destiny. I predict that we will see something like 45-50% of game purchases in 2023 were on new releases (well above average).
Sounds to me like Bungie's forecasts were at fault, and they failed to properly account for market trends and conditions (covid is effectively over) and competition.
In any case though, even if they had got the 2023 forecast right, they'd probably still have had to fire the people to maintain the bottom line, they'd just have realised it sooner.

All the lay-offs are unsurprising. 2020-21 and the global lockdowns caused an abnormal growth in the games industry as people sought out some escapism. Go back 2 years and you will see article after article about how devs were finding it hard to retain and attract people. Lots of individual developers would have been hired or retained through the use of salaries and other incentives. Now that the world has reverted to a new-normal, the industry is contracting again.

Ragnarok also released on a Wednesday, so had an additional 48 hours to secure its place in the charts.

I got S-M2, and have installed it, but haven't played yet. Like others, I'm still playing BG3. I want to get my first play through completed before I dip into S-M2. Larian's masterpiece deserves savouring, and I'm doing just that.

Definitely on my radar now. Thanks for catching this one @get2sammyb

Yeah, right, after all the Bethesda games went exclusive (aside from those which were already PS timed exclusives), forgive me for not believing a word that Phil says when it isn't backed up by a legally enforceable contract.

I'd splurge on a Pro model. Ideally it would be powerful enough that it could run current "Fidelity Modes" at a steady 60FPS. But I'm happy enough with Performance Modes as they are at the moment.

The UK's territorial emissions have not been so low as they are now since the days of the horse and cart (per capita, our emissions are the same as they were in 1860 or so). If JSO was rational, they would take a global view and point out that the UK's total carbon footprint is higher than it could be because (a) the fossil fuels we do still use are for the most part produced abroad, and then shipped here; and (b) our goods are for the most part produced in parts of the world where emissions are worse, and then shipped here. They would go on to point out that there would be less carbon emissions globally if the UK turned back the globalisation tide and on-shored (a) more of its fossil fuel extraction (for as long as we still need them while the energy sector is electrified) and (b) production of the goods that it consumes. They'd point out that yes, this will be more expensive than buying everything cheap from China and what have you, but we would be putting less into the atmosphere.

JSO are not just annoying, they are annoying and wrong, which is a pretty bad combination.

Remember when this sort of cross-game content was given away for free?

Wishlisted. The trailer makes it look very interesting.

A great music track too - is that original music? Shazam doesn't recognise it.

My problems with BG3 are good problems to have. First, Act 1 is so interesting by itself that I haven't moved on, I'm still seeing how all the permutations play out. And 2, related to this, I keep making new characters because I want to try all the classes and races, etc, and see how they differ.
Loving the monk at the moment, next I want to try a bard, I think.

@SillyBoyJudas In many jurisdictions they would need to unionise and hold legal ballots first before being able to go on strike. If un-unionised staff are talking about going, or purporting to go, on strike, they may find their roles are first on the chopping block when downsizing comes around. I'd be careful if I were them.

The industry is contracting. It's no surprise - lots of people started or increased their gaming between 2020-2022 for obvious reasons, and developers were being offered huge salary bumps as competition for talent went mad for a while. Now things are settling down again as the world has gone back to normal, and managers at devs are noticing that they are paying way too much on staff.
Telltale also has a unique problem in that all its games are licenced properties. I wonder if they'd ever be able to make something completely original that wouldn't come with licensing fees that eat into their profits.

Maybe it's just me having moved to PS after the 360/PS3 generation, but I've always found asymmetric sticks more comfortable. I've gotten better with symmetric sticks, but I still find my characters listing slightly to the right when I'm trying to go straight ahead on PS.
I had the first "Pro" PS4 controller Nacon put out and really enjoyed it. It was a major help playing Overwatch, mapping jump to the extra triggers allowed me to jump and wall ride as Lucio while still aiming, and being able to dial in the thumb-stick's acceleration allowed me to have precise aiming control with smaller movements, while being able to turn around almost instantaneously if someone had managed to get behind me.

@Perturbator How about a comedy instead? Mythic Quest is a decent watch, and Danny Pudi's character is basically the slightly villainous 'Monetisation Designer' on the team.