ThomasHL

Massive deal, Dragon Dogma is one of the few true blue RPGs out there. One that's seriously committed to it's world and making you feel like an actual walking, sleeping part of the world. An RPG that demands character growth.

Here's an example: in Dragons Dogma you can make the player character tall, short, thin, fat, muscular unmuscular - but it has real game consequences. Light characters get knocked around much more easily but aren't going to run out of stamina clambering up the kneck of a giant

Indie games (and Capcom) holding up this showcase. Neva, Teardown and this, all on my wishlist

I will never get over that they actually include the name Creative Busines Unit 3 in the marketing now.

It's cool to see someone incorporating Wuxia tropes into gameplay

@Exerion76 the guy's missing his heart, it's going to have Soulslike crap.

I'm wondering if the 66 days to live is a plot point or if this is also going to have a timer and/or roguelike elements.

@WanderingBullet Someone on this project listened to the Persona 5 soundtrack a lot

I don't want The Last Of Us 3, never mind Days Gone 2. We've had plenty of PS zombie games, and too many Sony studio sequels. Give us the new stuff

I thought it would likely end up sucking, and I only play games that I enjoy at the moment, not based on future expectations, so I'm not disappointed.

But it's still a big miss by Blizzard. If they've spent years working on something and still not got it to a fun state, why announce it?

Tales of the PS5s demise in Japan were very exaggerated:

Worldwide, PS5 sales are currently sitting at ~32% of the PS4s lifetime sales.

In Japan PS5 sales are ~36% of the PS4s lifetime sales.

@nessisonett 1 Mario Kart sold for ever 6 Switch's in Japan, that's crazily high given that some people must own multiple Switch's.

"It's not Dark Souls, it just looks like it"
I could see market research highlighting that as a concern people actual have. It's a series which has traditionally been light on reflexes and timing.

I was expecting this. Dragon Age is probably still the game I'm most excited for

There's a massive amount of potential here. We're at the very beginning of what can be done. With time we'll be able to give NPCs distinct voices, and deepen their memories and responsiveness to real situations.

Researchers have already created a game where NPCs have social lives, they talk to each other, gossip, spread rumours, hold parties, take actions and remember grudges.

It's important to remember 1) there's always going to be distinction between written content and generated content, something we're already familiar with in games. Most games these days are a mix of handcrafted and generated levels, and this just deepens that toolset

And 2) there's already a distinction between carefully crafted human written dialogue and filler human written dialogue. When you have to write 1,000 NPC barks you don't sit and carefully craft each sentence. It's pleasing background noise, not a deep thoughtful experience.

The fundamental reason for the dissatisfaction is because there have barely been any games that show off the power of the PS5 yet, and if people start targeting a Pro, it feels like PS5 owners will have never experienced playing a game truly designed for their platform.

However if a Pro means we get more PS5 targeted games, I'll make my peace with it.

I've had a lot of fun with this game. The characters who grabbed me most turned out to be the ones I knew the least about - Nico, Magik

It's caught my attention now, I shall follow its release with interest

@Art_Vandelay the big worry I have about Microsoft is a bunch of the studios they bought will get shuttered when they change their minds.

This has happened before. They're good owners whilst they're interested, but corporate winds shift and when they do you get things like Ensemble Studios being shut down, despite making great games.

Yes, the business argument for Gamepass was it would dramatically expand the playerbase. That just hasn't happened.

If anything the people who buy subscription services are even more enthusiast than the existing game audience as a whole. I could never imagine a grandparent who perhaps had a Wii but nothing else subscribing to gamepass.

I've found myself buying games that I could have subscribed for. Pay £10 on a sale for a game I'm definitely going to play and will always own feels better than subscribing for a few months and being under time pressure to complete it.

@NomNom in my opinion this is the kind of thing that shouldn't get patents. It's not some crazy technical leap, it's a product specific engineering solution.

@throwmeaname Genshin has effectively a single player campaign that continually gets updated with new DLC / expansions. You're not expected to (and almost certainly won't) collect all the characters, but collecting lots of characters is a big draw. You can also grind particular mission types to get levels etc. If you think about a game like Skyrim, lots of people play it beyond the main campaign.

Its very similar in structure to a non-sandbox MMO, just without the other players.

I never thought the rumour was true, but I understand why it existed. Vaan is so superfluous to the story it feels like he was crammed in last minute.

@Max_the_German it's just Square Enix. Other Japanese range from the hyper stylishness of Atlas, to the cohesive grim of FromSoftware

I'm definitely waiting for the review. We've seen so little that I'm worried it's going to turn out to be quite unambitious

I'm going to need to wait for the reviews. Nothing has looked bad but I haven't seen a 'reason to play it' yet.

This is an incredibly petty nitpick but I haven't liked the look of the UI in a Final Fantasy game for well over a decade now.

The last time Final Fantasy games had a really standout cohesive art style was FFX and FFXII. Ever since then they've had quite a plastic-y production line aspect that other AAA games don't.

Currently isn't gripping me, but it's hearing it during the game that really makes something click or not

@JohntheRaptor I don't think it's that as much as the writing in FW just isn't as good as ZD generally. Every character is weaker compared to the first game, especially the villains.

Probably the best written character was Zoe, and Aloy's slightly territorial reaction to Zoe moving on Varl.

EDIT: Actually I'm being a little harsh. Hekarro, Kotallo and handful of the side characters were decent too. But it was a game with some interesting intentions and very middle of the road execution.

The Utaru capital was the best city in Forbidden West. It was the way it had the working fields around it and felt like a functioning part of the environment.

I'm waiting for the series to step it up yet another level now.

@nomither6 that's part of the problem. Discoverability doesn't mean 'put everything on the front page', it's about getting the great indie games highlighted. Otherwise people switch off and dismiss the great alongside the mediocre.

I don't exactly regret buying a PS5, but the experience has been very mediocre when it comes to games.

I really should consider switching to PC next time round. The mods alone are massive.

@FenIsMightier E3 are in much closer contact with the publishers than either of us. If the publishers wanted a trade show, they'd tell E3 they wanted a trade show and it would have happened.

I just think it's very spurious to suggest that the publishers really want to do something they've shown no indication of prioritising. Every publisher who has pulled out of E3 has retained the media event aspect of the event. They have not retained the trade show aspect. So I'm not convinced that the bit they valued is the bit that they haven't retained.

@FenIsMightier the proof is in the pudding. If that really was what E3 was about, the publishers will show up on the trade floor. But if they don't, then it will be clear that that wasn't what they valued about E3, and that's it's just another one of many theories that's been generated by the outside community over the years.

@Monstermash40 I used my DualSense on a Samsung yesterday and it worked for me

I've been enjoying what I've played so far. Will definitely buy the full game at some point

I'll put my internet pride points on March 2024

@somnambulance Nintendo sunk down because Pokemen Violet / Scarlet was a technical disaster and Switch Sports was a big miss.

Nintendo only had one truly outstanding game this year (Xenoblade Chronicles), everything else (Bayonetta 3, Splatoon) had asterisks' mostly because the technical quality and online set up was poor.

@B-I-G-DEVIL your system would have a massive bias towards games that had more reviews. If a publisher put out one big hit and ten shovelware titles, their overall score would look identical to one big hit.

I can see the merits of that system, but I certainly can't see why that's the 'proper' way to do it. If I had to pick between the two, I'd pick Metacritics method over yours.

Square Enix getting absolutely slapped about this year, ranking alongside the shovelware publishers

The new WWE game looks great. They've turned things round from the total mess it was before. It's amazing what even a years break can do

The extra time they spend on it is just throwing money away. Accept the sunk cost and move on

DONTNOD don't always make great games, but they always make interesting ones. The concept of Vampyr, and the beginning where you're walking around the hospital uncovering everyone's secrets is great. They're one of the true AA studios out there.

Things that are bad flop.

The original Saints Row games were already some of the best out there for acceptance. You could be whatever Boss you wanted, big, small, fat, thin, male body female voice, w/e, and the game would go along with your personal chaos.

The new Saints Row didn't recognise that and tried to chase a young audience they didn't understand, with bad characters and removing the anarchic soul of the series. 'Trendy' isn't a substitute for good writing and good game design.

I'm definitely on the side of 'just make it a toggle'

@Jey887 Fire Emblem: Three Houses came out in 2019 and was a big hit, 3-4 years later we get a wave of SRPGs. The timeline fits

I don't think they've actually shown anything that impressive, but for some reason I really want this to be great.

In the old days, this wouldn't be crazy for a good competitive game. Get a couple of months out of it and move on. Publishers need to publish games around those expectations, because there can only be one or two games that people keep playing forever.

What a trailer!
"I'm an Olympian, by which I mean to say I became a TV chef, which is all to explain that I'm part of a Hong Kong SWAT team"

DONTNOD are always worth paying attention to. They're always willing to try something

I'll pick it up and play it at some point this year

Live services games are even more winner takes all than ordinary games.

But the thing about most of the recent shut downs is that they were niche games that couldn't generate the publicity, bad games, or targeting the crowded mobile market.

Sony won't have that problem. They have a built in target market, a huge amount of talent at making games, and the ability to generate massive marketing pushes.

I'm sure there's going to be some flops, I'm sure there's going to be some bad games, and I would rather they didn't focus on live service games, but one or two successes won't be a bad thing. Playstation should serve a lot of users, and Sony should dip their toes in a lot of pools.

I'm not optimistic for a God of War show. So much of the game leans into the violence and adrenaline of the action to create it's feel. It would already be difficult to get the balance of that right for a TV show, and my suspicion is they're not even going to try.
The Last of Us, as a story, was a good story wherever it was told (even if the game will always tell it best). You remove the game from God of War, and I'm not convinced the story will hold up in the same way.