somnambulance

It’s too early to say. The internet is vicious and tends to try to kill games pretty frequently. It certainly happened to Forspoken, which is a better game than the internet said it was (if you played it and disagree, that’s one thing, but if you just want to call it cringe, that’s another thing), but also no one’s played it yet, so it may have legs following that. Also, the internet’s been trying to kill Ubisoft for ages and it hasn’t happened yet. I’m not trying to support the game, as I think it looks rough to me, but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.

I can’t wait to watch this and I’m looking forward to seeing what this game is like.

Edit: well, after seeing the trailer, I’m now a little bit on the fence about this one. I was hoping this would be a horror game rather than something that resembles Bamco action titles.

Unfortunately, I’m digital, but I’d totally buy that poster separately from my son if Sony wants to make that kind of stuff happen. Hope there’s some merch for this one. The game comes out a week before his birthday! He’s over the moon

It’s sort of great that there is an allotment for some games that couldn’t afford to do that spend either just because Geoff wants to advertise the game. I’m sure Kojima probably gets in for free too.

Geoff’s events, in the post-E3 era, are the most watched gaming events now, so the spend absolutely makes sense. It’s honestly more affordable than I would have thought, given the scope of the event and the costs associated with the industry these days. I know people will jump to bagging on this, but that’s not a ludicrous marketing spend for companies of this size to advertise their product in a largely positive space for what they’ll present.

@Toot1st Respectfully disagree. For me, Rebirth, Balatro, Prince of Persia, Tekken, and Animal Well have been the only 8/10+ tier games released this year for me. I can understand where people may disagree with that, but that’s me, and I’ve tried a fair number of games that were critically praised. Just a lot of games that haven’t been hits to my palette. This is the first year in a long time that I’ve struggled finding something that clicks for more than a month. Since finishing Rebirth, I’ve practically been waiting for Erdtree. Last year I felt like this in gaming was 2012. 2024 is a better year than 2012, for the record—by a long shot—but I still feel like this year’s been barren compared to the last 10 years, at least for my personal tastes. I’m just used to enjoying more games more often and the radio silence for announcements hasn’t helped.

God, do I hope Kojima appears.

And man do I hope we get some decent announcements for new releases the second half of the year. 2024 has been rough for new releases… unless you want remasters and remakes, of course.

I will only get this if it’s a free upgrade. If it’s not, that’s absolutely unacceptable and frustrating. Honestly enjoyed Yooka Laylee a lot, but this game absolutely does not need a “next generation update.” The industry is turning into a joke with all these remasters and remakes.

That’d be disappointment for me if true. Was really hoping for Bioshock and can’t stand Borderlands. Whatever though.

I’m over here hoping for Plucky Squire and Silksong getting release dates (and hopefully Lost Records too). I’d love for Astro Bot to have a victory lap. Honestly though… my expectations are pretty low. 2024 has sort of been a flop of a year (outside maybe four releases), so I’m just hoping I’ll be able to have a commendable top 10 by the end of the year. As a dream, I dream of two Kojima games.

Honestly, Slitterhead being tossed out there the day after Geoff insinuated us to lower expectations raises my interest significantly.

Given my recent experience with other FPS betas, I expect to download this and delete it within an hour after two matches. It’s what I did for XDefiant.

@dr-gorgo Lol. I’ve done a little bit of legal stuff in my field, but I’m an operations manager.

Already ready to preorder

I’m sure PS5 is compatible with 8k. It’s just that the games aren’t.

I just want Lost Records, Plucky Squire, and Silksong release dates. I’d like more, but I’m just not expecting much. I’d love to get Kojima updates, but even there, I’m not holding my breath.

I’m pretty excited for it. I just want some release dates, so I can plan out the rest of the year in gaming. I want to feel excited about the release slate rather than thinking about trying to find new hobbies.

My biggest hurdle with the dlc is that I skipped Mohg previously when I beat the game and now I’m too weak to beat Commander Niall. I am facepalming so hard at this because I know I could’ve beaten him two years ago.

I miss Uncharted more and more as time passes.

It’s not good enough to get me to resub, I’ll say that… but playing Erdtree with other people will probably force that sub outta me anyway.

@get2sammyb You almost had me interested in the game. It was sooooo close… but then that whole “free to play gatcha game” line happened.

@Specky Indika is an interesting little curio. It’s a short game and relatively easy too. It handles some complicated themes for a game though. Having come out right next to Hellblade 2, and being a similar type of game, in my opinion, it sort of trampled on that game for being a more unique experience. Indika is also intentionally divisive at certain points. It knows when it’s being obtuse and annoying. I currently have it in my top 10 for the year, at any rate. It’s a game you’ll like or you won’t.

If The Oregon Trail was roughly half that price, I’d be down, but that pricing is ludicrous.

Realistically, I preordered Erdtree ages ago and will resub to Gamepass for a month if Still Wakes the Deep warrants the sub.

Maybe I’ll finally actually play Banishers this week. I’m caught up on the backlog, so technically that’s all that’s left for me on my to-play list til Erdtree (unless I decide to get Still Wakes the Deep or we get some Summer Game Fest surprises).

I’ve been fluffing about in Elden Ring mostly, regaining my skill, but the stuff I skipped is stuff I’m not able to beat. Lol. I was Elden Lord long ago, but now… Man, I can’t beat Commander Niall… Was I that dependent on others to help me through the game? Yesterday I was having a great time clearing Farum Azula though. Really fun area to practice in.

I might watch my son play Hauntii for a while. He quite likes that one.

@IamJT Hopefully a decent amount of people get the references and purchase the game. I know my son is going to lose his mind when he sees the trailer and my wife, as a non-gamer, will know Parappa but won’t know who Kratos is. PlayStation in particular is sort of an empty place for quality kids games (or all ages games) at the moment, so I do think there’s a market here and I’m hoping it’s a massive hit. I mean, frankly, there’s a lot of genre gaps that currently exist that Astro Bot fills and it’s the type of game that gets non-gamers interested. Given the release slate this year too, it’s got a shot at being discussed during award season as well if it’s better than the previous game was.

Hopefully Summer Game Fest is a bigger event. I like to buy at least one game a month and honestly… I just haven’t bought much this year. I bought zero games in April and Indika in May, which is a smaller scale purchase. June is looking to go without a purchase and July…

I can say that State of Play, at the very least, told me I’ll buy one more game for sure this year in Astro Bot. It’s a must buy. I’d preorder it now. Silent Hill 2 is still a maybe for me, but it’s starting to look likely I might jump on AC Shadows at launch since it feels like I’ll need something bloated while I wait for Death Stranding 2 and GTA6.

Do we really need a poll on this? It’s clearly Astro Bot!

Honestly, I don’t know what Sony’s thinking if they don’t consider Astro Bot to be a big release.

Outside that, Silent Hill 2 is realistically the only other game that may sucker me into a purchase from that SoP. Herman’s got his hands full righting the wrongs of the Jimbo era.

And yeah, yeah, Monster Hunter Wilds… I’ve never got into Monster Hunter, despite loving Capcom. If there’s a demo, I’ll try it, though the series hasn’t ever clicked with me. I would’ve preferred the Resident Evil rumors.

Astro Bot’s the only for sure game I know I’m buying in the second half of the year currently.

To be honest, there’s that joke and stereotype that PlayStation users have a bias towards cinematic third party story games, isn’t there? It’s there for a reason and it’s arguably the thing that’s been missing from this generation of games. Give us an Uncharted or GoT and we’ll be quiet for at least a year. Whatever happens, at least I’ve got my Death Stranding 2 to look forward to.

I don’t think price is a problem. It wasn’t that long ago that Overwatch 1 was a $60 game at launch and it wasn’t exactly feature rich in those days, but still a 10/10 multiplayer shooter. As long as the game justifies itself and its cost, it’ll be fine like Helldivers was. I thought (and honestly still feel) that Helldivers felt free-to-play, but they fooled me there, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Concord does the same. That said though, I’m not the target audience for this one, unlikely I’ll buy, as I feel Helldivers is overrated and I’m not going to waste my money again. I’ll try the beta at least though. That’s a positive.

@NEStalgia I dunno if the big service games are really building a console base either, honestly. I think they’re creating more spend by consumers, of course, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say that the service games are bringing people in, as they literally could be playing on any platform they want. There’s still something to the special sauce of single player console exclusives that gets people invested into the ecosystem. Without them though, I think you’re right, but I also think a lot of people will drop out of those ecosystems if that takes place, which will leave “off in its own world” Nintendo in the best place in the industry when the bubble pops. I think the video game industry is pretty darn reflective of the economy as a whole. Everyone is trying to have their hands in every business to gather more assets without realizing that they are being less successful in more fields the bigger they grow, and as a result, the consumers are sort of screwed by multilateral planning of assets rather than the production of superior goods.

Well, looking forward to preordering this one in a week.

@NEStalgia oh, yes, I agree that this is what is happening in the industry, only the Fortnites and CoDs can’t exactly get away with that because they’re so mainstream, but this is part of the goal with live service. I’m sure Sony is aware that, if they push that too hard though, they will start to lose interest in their platform, which is what keeps the single player games alive. I can definitely see a crash happening again, given these circumstances. But at least Nintendo will keep being Nintendo, so at least there’s that.

I dunno. When I look at my own spend, I know I spent a decent amount on games in 2023. I don’t really buy DLC anymore and I haven’t purchased any microtransactions either. This year, I’ve cancelled both Gamepass and PS+, and my spending has been down year-over-year in totality. I’ve only purchased 15 games year to date, which is rather low for me. From this data, however, I gather that the industry is going to continue down its live service trend. It seems the casuals spend far more money on skins than dedicated gamers spend on games.

@glennthefrog RE5 reminds me sort of of a Michael Bay movie. It’s big time action and it’s pretty fun, but it lacks the feel of the rest of the series.

I tried it for about a half hour and then I remembered that I don’t have any nostalgia for the golden days of CoD.

@Areus I know it is! Lol

Paper Mario is practically the only “new” big release in a month. Is anyone shocked to see it top the charts? It might even stay there for a bit. Would’ve been interesting if Xbox still did physical sales to see where Hellblade would’ve compared with Paper Mario

@Americansamurai1 I agree. RE1 could be really cinematic and tense rather than action packed, which is a good thing for the series. I feel like RE0 sets up an RE1 remake to be next, which is good for Capcom because most people are probably thinking about RE5 right now, and, if they don’t want to go there and want to forget about 5 and 6 like much of the fanbase does, they’ve redirected expectations to keep the level of quality higher.

This is great news, if it’s accurate, and hopefully RE1 is after these two and RE5 is retconned.

Well, I guess I won’t be sad to leave PS+ behind a little later next month then… If you’re not on PSVR2, there’s not much to get excited about for me (outside PS2 games, but I’ll be ok without them).

Hope it’s better than the last batch of Silent Hill stuff to be released. That demo and show were awful….

Well, now we know something that’ll be announced at the Sony Showcase/Xbox Showcase/Nintendo Direct/Summer Games Fest, and it’s a good one

Can’t wait for Summer Games Fest, so I can find out if I buy anything in the second half of the year! Lol. Seriously, there’s basically 3 games releasing after June right now and two of them are Ubisoft.

The truth about Stars is… it’s better than not getting anything, but seriously it’d take forever to get Stellar Blade on points. You’ve got to spend a lot of money to get that many points.

@Juanalf To each’s own, but I find the cutscenes in Suicide Squad to be distasteful, honestly. Skull and Bones at least has visuals going for it and an ok gameplay loop. It’s just a barren title that should have had more to its game design. I’ve played them both (fortunately without having to spend any money) and I prefer Skull and Bones. At the end of the day, I’m rooting for a 4/10 over a 3/10, but that’s personal preference.

@Nyne11Tyme the thing with live service games, even successful ones, is that they are sustained only as long as there’s an active and interested fanbase and that’s usually from a continuously generating content machine. Not sure how close Helldivers is to securing celebrity skins, but otherwise, I believe the hype machine has sort of run its course for the game for the time being. The whole PSN thing really impacted the trajectory for the title. Regardless of that though, it’ll likely be the first live service game ever nominated for GotY and is also very likely a very profitable game already. People tend to stick with one live service title long term and bounce to other experiences short term. The success of Helldivers 2 shows that people are ready for a new live service game, but perhaps Arrowhead wasn’t quite ready to sustain a Fortnite level ecosystem. That’s ok though. It could still have a second wave. I’m always surprised at how long Apex has floated against Fortnite, CoD, and Destiny.

Jeez, I’m rooting for Skull and Bones to climb up one place. It’s not a great game, but it certainly deserves to be above Suicide Squad.

Indika and slowly getting back into Elden Ring to reacquaint myself with it for Erdtree. Outside that, just Banishers sits in the backlog now. I can finish this backlog before Erdtree!

Perhaps Rebirth isn’t such a lock for GotY after all… This would be the most exciting announcement Sony could drop, especially because it’s a PS5 title.

The largest library doesn’t mean the best library. With anime, I largely just purchase what I want at this point. It’s a genre of entertainment as crowded with junk as the Nintendo eshop. Man, this quality over quality mindset of industry is really obnoxious these days.

I dunno, I’ll play a good strategy game if I’ve got one. Triangle Strategy and Three Houses were fantastic, two of my favorite srpgs. FE Engage was rough going for me though since I thought the story was corny, even if combat was fun. The big problem with strategy games beyond the SRPG bubble is that they’re not as good as they were in the past. The industry has stagnated the quality of these titles in pursuit of monetization and now it’s effectively killing off the genre.