somnambulance

The uproar has gotten me to go back to the game finally… aaaaaaand… seriously I still don’t get it. Maybe you need a dedicated squad of friends on this one or something, but otherwise the positivity around the game is odd to me, in that it’s so similar to most other live service shooters.

I’m honestly seriously considering biting the bullet and getting the FF16 DLC. I’ve been in a slump since I beat Rebirth and Balatro the same day about a month and a half ago. Feels like everything I’ve played since hasn’t hit the spot. I know I loved 16, so it might be nice to have some comfort food. Hopefully Indika launches on PS5 next week as I’ve been looking forward to that one quite a bit. I’ve still got Banishers hanging around in the backlog, but I just… don’t play it. I sort of feel like I’m going crazy here as I feel like Dragon’s Dogma 2, Helldivers 2, and Stellar Blade have all been… just fine… while the rest of the community is tossing praise. It’s just one of those weird years where I must just be at odds with the industry. I dunno. Prince of Persia, Tekken, Balatro, Rebirth was such a strong streak that maybe I’m still hungover from all that greatness so fast though.

Worst case scenario for me is, if I can’t get out of this funk with games currently available, at least Braid is back out in two weeks and I know that’ll snap me out of it if I need it to!

Day 1 for me. Always love January games, especially from my favorite developers! Happy birthday to me!

I’ll at least try it when it launches. It’s not like much else is coming out this month, you know?

I’m definitely considering getting it. I’m sort of waiting to see what gets released in the second half of the year with these summer showcases to plan my gaming schedule for the rest of the year. I loved 16 and would certainly enjoy returning to the world of it if the second half of the year is as slow to me as the front half.

Final Fantasy 16 is definitely in my top 5 games of this generation so far. I believe I’d only place Rebirth and Alan Wake 2 above it, in fact.

Trying to learn something here, as this game has received an immense amount of praise, but what is it in particular that makes this game so compelling to people? I bought it at launch, barely was able to do three matches due to server issues, and had an ok time with it, but haven’t gone back since then. I keep seeing it as a potential GotY game. Anyone care to share with me what makes this game such a hit beyond the novelty of it selling as a AA multiplayer title that resembles Starship Troppers? Am I missing something because my friend group didn’t click with it due to the server issues? I’m genuinely curious. I’ve suggested to my group to go back to this one and try it out, but we’ve all drifted into single player land lately.

Didn’t like it on Xbox, so not playing it on PS5. Happy there’s an audience for the game though, as I’d like to see other honest attempts at something similar to it.

Solid batch, honestly. I already own what I’d actually play from it, but still happy for a good batch

Glad to see two games at the top that are definitely more niche than would be typically in these lists. Both of them are overrated games to me (both are 7.5ish/10 for me… Rebirth, Prince of Persia, Tekken, and Balatro have been the only games that have truly hit for me this year so far), but I’m really glad to see people trying out new things and expanding IPs that many said would fail. It gives me hope in the future of our industry. The signs are all there that the industry will have success if it listens to the gamers. Also happy to see Skull and Bones and Suicide Squad vacant from the list. Hope the industry heads realize what we do want and starts to learn and avoid the practices we despise.

Hopefully that means a Sony showcase is impending, so we can finally get some news from PS.

Bring Ori over. It’s the best Xbox franchise since Halo was at its peak. I don’t personally care about Gears and I didn’t buy any of the PS editions of Xbox games since I already own an Xbox. I would buy Halo if it were on PS5 though.

@Ludacritz it’s in the leaked documents from the Activision merger that Bethesda has a remaster of Fallout 3 planned, but how far has it been developed? I’m hoping Xbox gave them the juice to get things done at a quicker pace.

This is a shame. I honestly love Square for doing all their multimillion dollar goofball projects. I’ve bought more Square games the last five years than I’ve probably purchased from EA and Activision combined in my lifetime. I hope we keep getting Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the like

It’s for the best this didn’t happen for the game. Fortunately the commenters on the industry are typically generous with their vitriol when it comes to product placement. When it was rumored Halo Infinite would launch with Monster and Oreos themed skins, the pitchforks and torches were aimed, and I suspect Stellar Blade, regardless of quality otherwise, would’ve had a similar reaction.

Ugh. Why is there no release date? I just want to give Don’t Nod my money already!

Finished it yesterday with the wife and we both loved it. I remember back when Fallout 4 came out, she used to get mad about me playing that, wanting to use the TV for us to watch Supernatural, but now she was the one asking to watch the show.

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a show as much as this one since like Undone or Infinity Train… can’t remember which one i watched last between the two of them.

Sort of strange to produce a comic for this so far after it’s release, but hey it’s something, isn’t it?

@Matroska Lol. I think it’s still the same. I had the same thoughts about the game the first time I tried it.

@Pranwell Once you clear that initial tutorial, it’s so pure, so perfect in that gameplay loop, potentially feeling like a 10/10, but then it gives you tasks, and the tasks pad things out, even though the game is quite generous in gameplay already. I’d rather be doing the character interaction missions like getting specific ingredients to impress an influencer than the seek and find stuff. The game seems to understand that less is more from an aesthetic standpoint, so I just wish they’d have understood that in the mission structure. The game doesn’t really need much on the mission side of things. If the fishing and restaurant sims weren’t so compelling, I’d have dropped it, but man… I cannot overstate how fun it is to harpoon fish and serve them. It’s got some bewitching magic sprinkled on it.

@Pranwell Yeah, I’m only 20 hours in, but still on chapter 2. I’m platinum level in Cooksta and darn it, I want to work on the restaurant! The “search for this object” routine in the story sort of drags, I feel like, but I sort of think I might’ve been enjoying the fish and shop routine a little bit too much, as I just got to chapter 2. I sort of want to just do the regular gameplay loop of fishing and sushi, but I’m at a point where I feel like I can’t progress the gameplay loop without doing the fetch quests. I definitely feel overleveled when I’m fishing at the moment. It’s a fantastic game, love the story when I play it, but just those fetch quests… doesn’t matter what format a fetch quest is… whether it’s Skyrim, Ubisoft, or Dave the Diver, they just feel sort of tedious.

I’m honestly not sure. I love Dave the Diver as a casual experience, but I feel like I’ve sort of hit a wall in it at the moment. I’m contemplating getting Stellar Blade or jumping on Fallout 4 again. Banishers remains a ghost haunting me from the backlog as well. The 45 minutes I put into it two weeks ago seemed solid.

I’m still mulling it over, to be honest. I dunno. I might just wait for it to be on sale. I’ll get it at some point, but that might depend on what the rest of the release schedule looks like. I’m playing other things at the moment and am going to be picking up Indika early next month, so I’m not sure if I’d have time to really play it in-between the other games. But… I also might just buy it because I have still yet to spend my own money (rewards points and birthday gift cards don’t count, and anything else was a preorder I made last year) on a game this year. In April! It’s insane…

As a fan of the Ori series, I’ll be getting this to support the devs, even if Diablo+Souls is nowhere near my personal preference in gaming. I’m a bit nervous it won’t land with me, but what’s life without taking risks?

@OldGamer999 I get what you’re saying. Rebirth and Balatro are practically perfect, in my opinion, and Prince of Persia and Tekken were fantastic, but everything I’ve booted since Rebirth has been really… ok at best… for me. Dragon’s Dogma and Infinite Wealth didn’t click though I can see why others like them, I already knew Persona 3 wasn’t my cup of tea, and Pacific Drive and the other indies I’ve gotten just haven’t hit the spot. I’d like to try Helldivers, but all my friends had already jumped off of it by the time I finished Rebirth (which I did quite quickly too, mind you). Now, that said, I think we’ve had a solid couple months, and Dave the Diver has been fun to replay on PS so far, but the struggle for me is not knowing what is releasing. If games don’t hit, meh, on to the next one. This year’s problem isn’t the quality of the games, but the lack of news on what is coming. We don’t know anything for sure releasing this year after Hellblade for the most part and that’s the concern. I set up a calendar yearly and have the issue of overbudgeting my time months in advance, but this year… yeah, I have no idea what I’ll play next. I’ve not preordered a game yet this year, which is quite out of character for me, as I preordered Rebirth and Tekken months in advance. Great year so far, but poor year for transparency from the industry. I’d rather at least know some minor releases.

I dunno, I’m sorta hooked on Dave the Diver, but do wish there was a new Fallout to accompany the TV show. I always felt Fallout 4 was a bit of a letdown compared to 3 and New Vegas, but I mean the release schedule is super light this year, so I might go back

@LordAinsley Exactly. I mean, for me, I was still a Souls skeptic at that point and I’m not really a superheroes guy, so, for the PS5 launch, I felt obligated to get Valhalla, The Pathless, and try No Man’s Sky finally. I hated No Man’s Sky and The Pathless was fun but also a breeze, so I really had to savor Valhalla longer than I normally would have. Lol. But I liked it for the most part.

@LordAinsley I totally felt that way about Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla. I like Valhalla the most of the three of them and is the only one I actually finished, but that’s largely because it was one of the few PS5 launch titles, I suspect. The problem with AC titles is honestly that they’re too long and the narratives are messy because there’s too much padding. I would say Valhalla would be an extremely solid 35-45 hour game, but it’s double that length and, because of that length, I feel like the gameplay turns into a chore. It’s fun in a shorter duration. I preferred Mirage to the three bloated titles though, and even that one had bloat and repetitive design, but I enjoyed the stealth gameplay a bit more. I’ve been playing the AC series since it started and I’ve tried them all, but definitely not finished them all. Mileage varies for me heavily on the series. I’m one of those “AC2 and AC4 are the highlights of the series” types of fan.

AC Red though has a chance to standout a lot more this year for the simple fact that there’s so few action adventure games slated for this year. If it is indeed a holiday release as is rumored and it doesn’t have much else surprise competition (since we literally have a blank slate for a large chunk of the year, who knows?), there’s a chance that, even if it’s AC bloat, Red could feel bigger than it would have in a different year.

Honestly, looking forward to both of these games more than I typically would be. If an AC game launched this year, it would stand out more than it typically would be, given the current release schedule as well.

Part of that is probably due to the show, but also a lack of Fallout-like experiences. People want games like this. Why isn’t the industry making them? I feel like even a much smaller scale Fallout style title would have a greater chance of success in the current era.

Day 1 for me. Loved Frontiers. It was my favorite Sonic game to play by a decent margin (yes, over the original games and Mania). The game is just such absolute fun. While there were games I liked more in 2022, Frontiers is one of the games I think back on from that year that I may have underrated, even if I rated it relatively highly. Every time I go back to it, I have a great time. The gameplay is just so good.

This looks great, but I always struggle with the time sink of Persona games. Perhaps if the rest of the year stays this quiet though, I may convince myself to finally complete an Atlus title…

Well, I’m hooked on Dave the Diver, so glad I don’t need to juggle (we’ll see if Stellar Blade or Sand Land convince me juggle). Reading this review makes me feel like I’d be frustrated with this one. Other reviews from other outlets are coming out pretty average as well. At least, as a passion project, it’ll find some fanbase with it being on PS+.

@themightyant lol. I remember that kind of thing. I remember friends of mine downloading bots in RuneScape and getting their accounts banned and having to start over because cheating was punishable to the point of death for a character. Lol. Different times we live in now.

More old man warbling: back in my day, if you ripped your hand open playing the shy guy flies section of Mario Party, that was a sign of real dedication.

Back in my day, we considered this cheating.

They’re abandoning the term Embracer Group because of the connotation of the name as a failed business. Businesses do this all the time. I was working a store one time as we were building it out and one of the contractors went under for bad debt while we were pressing them to do better work. What did they do? They rebranded their name and were back in the industry with a new name in hopes of attracting new customers. It’s shady, but Embracer is honestly shady. All those IPs and all we’ve heard from them is that they’ve cancelled games, basically.

@breakneck Thanks, my friend!

Dave the Diver’s keeping me pretty happy and my son likes to watch it a lot. It’s been a nice little break from playing anything with the intent to beat it. Honestly, I think I’m just feeling gaming ornery because of a lack of release dates. As of right now, Indika’s practically the only game I know I’m buying this year that has a release date, and if something doesn’t click, I just like a roadmap. I’m a preorderer and I haven’t spent any money on gaming this year outside Arcade Archives Circus Charlie! Lol. That’s my lowest four month spend in gaming since I’ve had an income… which I’m just now realizing is more than half of my life now. 😅

Ever since completing Rebirth and Balatro, I’ve been in a weird place with gaming. Things just haven’t clicked. I sank a good lot of time in Dragon’s Dogma, but similar to my three attempts at playing through Baldur’s Gate 3, I felt like I was going through the motions and forcing myself to play rather than having fun with it, so I’m dropping it for a while. Maybe I’ll come back someday.

My wife and one of my children is sick now too, so there’s that. We were supposed to have an event today, but it looks unlikely we’ll attend now due to the illness. Given the circumstances, I’ll likely sink into something low stakes like Dave the Diver for a little bit. If my wife wants to, perhaps some Banishers together. Otherwise, it honestly sort of feels like a waiting time before something else comes out that clicks with me. Will it be Stellar Blade? Indika? …am I seriously waiting for Erdtree or beyond? It sort of feels like it right now. I don’t even have excitement for Erdtree at the moment, given how long it’s been since I played Elden Ring. The rust is real. Lol.

I might finally try Helldivers 2, though I’d be doing so solo as my friend group all purchased it, but no one else seemed interested in it. My social gaming group is considering trying Fallout 76 now, so maybe I’ll try that, even though last time I played it, I gave it a 3/10 review. I’ve still yet to start the Fallout show though. I feel like I’m behind on the entertainment stuff at the moment. I’d like to watch Fallout, that new Walking Dead series, and Sand Land asap, which I typically am not a tv show person, but here we are. Just feels like I’m in a funk. I do enjoy Dave the Diver though.

Hmmm… never played the first one, but this looks very interesting. I’m not sure if this one will be for me or not, but I’m curious at least. Given the current release schedule, I may be more exploratory in my gaming purchases this year than I typically am.

I honestly feel like this is underrated at an 8/10. I got hooked on it on Switch last year for a bit, but since I sort of know what I’m doing this time, I was having much more fun playing this last night than I did before. Fantastic title.

Sort of feels like very few games are releasing this year, at the moment

No big deal for me. Bring on the new games. Definitely some good games in that list, but honestly, with Final Fantasy, just buy them.

That’s a shame. Some of the other reviews are just as biting as this one too. Glad the preorders weren’t open on this one because I would have jumped. Feel like I’ve bought more flops than hits this year (my top 10 list for the year right now is a 7.6/10 average and I’ve bought about 15 games or so this year). Hopefully Indika lives up to my personal hype for being the year’s weird indie hit.

Get TLOU part 2 outta here. It’s a great game, but it released in 2020. It’s a barely noticeable remaster at that. Without it, I’d bet we’d have Tekken in there, which is a much better top 10 for 2024 game. The past five years have gotten really weird with old games being GotY nominees on some platforms. I remember Persona 5 being a contender with some mags when it came to Switch and Xbox. Great games are great and deserve praise, but they deserve GotY discussions the year they release initially unless it’s a ground-up remake.

Rebirth belongs in #1. Glad to see the community vote for the best game. Glad to see Balatro and Prince of Persia in the list as well. Loved all three of them immensely and made 2024 start off like a continuation of the incredible 2023 lineup.

Extra looks fantastic to me! Animal Well, Dave the Diver, Tales of Kanzera. This is what I expected out of Gamepass when first party titles were slow, but this hasn’t really come to pass. Out of those three, I’m sure one of them will grab me, even if I’ve already played Dave the Diver a bit

I’d like to start playing Banishers, but I don’t know. It depends on the wife with that one. Same with the Fallout TV show. Definitely playing the Umbraclaw demo though!

I’m feeling a little burnt out of Dragon’s Dogma 2 because… now this might sound silly… the menus have such tiny text that I sort of strain to read things in the game. I’d put in quite a few hours now and now that I’m focusing on quests instead of exploration, the game is sort of wearing on me a bit. The story is sort of boring. I still might play it though because, well, it’s fun to fight the monsters.

They’re based in California, so at least they should qualify for unemployment benefits and State aid. To be honest, getting laid off is worse in the States. Most companies don’t give you things like severance packages or the like out here, so being offered the chance to return to work if you can’t find something else is better than outright having no job.

I think a large part of that is because Rebirth was a sequel and many people had preordered it before the demo even came out (myself included). Meanwhile, no one knew what Stellar Blade was, really, so people were curious. If anything too, because it’s a new IP, it got positive word of mouth for its gameplay, so I think that likely helped it as well.

Yessss… this looks great!

@DennisReynolds Same, similar to Mega Man, Galaga, and Balatro, I want to have this one literally every platform I could play it, just in case I want to do a quick game of it.

Nice! These Day 1s are definitely getting me more interested in Plus as a service. I’m contemplating subbing for Gamepass again this month if Harold Halibut reviews well, but so far, for the year, it looks like Plus is beating Gamepass for me. It might not have the huge first party games coming Day 1, but honestly Gamepass has been so sparse and patchy with the quality of them that I’m appreciating these smaller titles more. I may keep my sub after all!