4fold

Nothing for me this month.

Glad I waited. Hope there’s new trophies

@TrollOfWar
I imagine ai will take care of that soon, thankfully.

Anyone who has premium and doesn’t live alone should have a portal.

I’m thinking that people who don’t see what the fuss is about just honestly think the image on the left is from the remake. It’s the natural assumption.

Yakuza is my favourite gaming series of all time, and I’m sad to see what is being done in terms of “adjusting” the story and, well, these graphical changes are awful

Loved Fable, and this looks like a true successor. Instantly near the top of my most anticipated list.

I just meant with the games I play. For context, these are the last 10 in order:

Darkest Dungeon 2
Octopath Traveler
Core Keeper
Halls of Torment
Dyschronia
Hades
The 7th Guest
Monster Trains 2
Unicorn Overlord

Will play darkest dungeon 2 a bit later. Have the others I’m interested in, but one a month is still good value.

Somewhat annoyed that I have to wait for all the new updates before playing it, but I know from experience I will not go back to a finished game months later for this type of content.

It was rough, especially after coming from the previous games in new engines, and certainly had issues that impacted things like the minigames. Was incredibly fun still, even getting the plat which was impacted by some of these issues, but a remake was needed. And, yes, the blocking was annoying early game so no issue with them changing that. However, they should never, ever, change the story and remove the old one. I’m not impressed with that aspect of some of the newest remakes.

Didn’t bother with the pro. Looking at the games I play it would have made no difference generally.

She doesn’t have the look at all unfortunately. Glad they’ve gone back to the old style though.
Hard to beat Jolie as a physical presence, but they could have at least tried.

Given I have Resi village vr and infinite wealth already (phenomenal games) I’m glad to see Darkest Dungeon 2. I love roguelites, so will definitely give it a go.

By the way. Premium is great if you have a portal. For the extra £1 odd a month more than extra, it’s pretty much a no brainer regardless of what you think about the premium games (I honestly don’t think I’ve played one, although I would have with Type4 if it had trophies)

I’ve already got the phenomenal VR game Resident Evil Village (even if no trophies - boo!) and also have infinite wealth. Two great games.

I’ll have to get a better look at the rest…

…yeah, they’re not for me.

Everyone knows there has always been more money to be made in AR than VR, because it can be used for everything outside of entertainment, this doesn’t mean they are abandoning VR; this represents a small part of their VR capabilities. They aren’t going to just throw away their VR advantage.

Still, it is sad we will get fewer of the best games every made, but money talks, especially for a company like this.

Fair enough, if it’s released a year later I consider it a port of an older game and it should be less.
I’ll probably get it when it drops to £20, which is my limit for most digital games given we have our resale value removed.

Core keeper would make it more than worthwhile if I didn’t have it already. The rest I wouldn’t be interested in, but Core Keeper is great.

Octopath traveler. Got the 4 hidden jobs, just need to mop up the final chapters and then prepare for Galdera.

So, halo level floaty shooting, Stella blade level eye candy, and Yakuza level ridiculousness? Sounds great! I joke (partially) but do appreciate the review. Especially mentioning the glitch at the beginning, all too often reviews ignore such things in pre released games (or just released), after the dev promises an early patch to fix them. Either the dev failed to do so here, or this reviewer has higher standards for games that dare to show arse cheeks.

I’ll likely pick this up on sale when patched a bit. Sounds like an amusing weekend.

@GirlVersusGame
Then you might also want to try graveyard keeper by the way. A little closer to stardew valley than this but still more gameplay less story.

@GirlVersusGame
Less story, more gameplay.

@deadfred77
It’s actually not. Although if anything it gets easier as it goes on and you level up and get better drops. A fantastic game, stick with it.

I can see the use for the disabled, but if I had it as a kid it would have robbed me of some of my favourite gaming achievements and memories.

Not sure how they could possibly make their games easier if that’s what they mean. Although I guess they could play themselves during combat.
There are always trophy challenges they can add to increase difficulty for those who care.

What they do need to do is make their games more varied perhaps, with different play styles (even if that is only for secondary mingames or tasks). Yakuza spoiled me in this regard.

@PuppetMaster
As a Brit with close to zero interest in American politics, I will say I know a few people from Venezuela, and they and their family and friends are actually universally happy about what’s happened if that helps.

Ignoring intent from said orange man, you can look at this one as a coincidental win for the people I think.

Just to put an optimistic spin on the start of your year!

I’m very happy with myself really. I am solid in only buying digital games when they hit the £20 and less price; I have managed to avoid all live service time sinks; I’m getting better at playing games after buying them and not buying or playing much else until I’m finished with them (well, I’ve generally got no more than 2 active games I rotate between). I drop games once I lose interest rather than trying to force myself to get “value for money” by completing games/getting the plat when it’s no longer fun.

All in all I want to continue this way for next year.

Then it’s a shame I completed the game years ago and have forgotten everything about it I guess. Don’t really want to start from the end or the beginning. Just make 4 please.

Octopath Traveler for me. Really like the structure, stories are nice, combat is good. Wish I didn’t have to keep switching up characters in towns though, gets tiresome that.

Damn, just bought Core Keeper last month! Don’t sleep on it people, it’s such a fun game. Definitely game of the month. The other two wouldn’t interest me.

Still need the digital price to drop by about £10, or have the chance get it physically. But I’m sure I’ll get it at some point.

@Dimey
I’ve also been playing since the 80s, C64 being my first gaming experience, had all the consoles, but don’t feel like getting the next at launch. You are right graphics have largely plateaued (at least until AI takes over so we aren’t reliant on man-hours)…however, what saved me was VR. It’s a game changer, and getting more powerful hardware genuinely makes a huge difference again. So, yeah, if Sony announce PSVR3, I’ll get PS6, if not I may well get the Steam machine instead.

It may not only be RAM prices which dictate, but MS plans too. The last time MS got the jump on Sony was the 360 era. They came out a year early and took a lot of Sonys user base (other reasons too off course, such as price). Took Sony some time to wrestle them back. Would they risk that again, or just take the hit to profit margins? I don’t have the numbers to guess.

Absolutely, exclusives means the chance to get the most for your money on the platform you purchased. Has always been that way, and logic dictates it always will. Apart from online multiplayer games perhaps, which I don’t care about at all.

I don’t do multiplayer due to being old enough to have outgamed all of the mates I grew up with, as well as become annoyed with the younger generation who often inhabit multiplayer games like this. Plus having a full time job and wife, and thus the inability to easily schedule time with others.

If I was a kid again I’d likely enjoy the game though.

Only got 4/15, and one was a complete guess lol.

Oblivion should be nowhere near this list. Not only was it a technical mess, but they left the most egregious mistakes of the original untouched. Just about as bad as they could possibly have managed.

@Claimer378
Yes, it really is pure magic. The type not felt for me since Mario 64

Interesting. Not the biggest fan of the middle finger to trophies thing ( I remember Don’t Starve did it, which just removed a potentially fun feature) but the game sounds interesting enough to give it a go anyway. Let’s go see how much it is on PSN.

Edit: Looks like it’s only £8 or so, so I’ll get it when the current price increase period has finished.

Octopath traveler and core keeper still. Great games.

I know it means going to an external source, but I’d appreciate it if you had a separate section for (or only included) games which are put to their lowest price ever. Sales which keep putting games down to the same old price are not sales, just normal prices with periods of being massively conned when they temporarily go up again…

@LifeGirl
Exactly my thoughts. Soul to me seems like an illusion in ourselves, and a placeholder for the deterministic actions we can’t understand in others. People are no less iterative in their use of external stimuli than AI, you just can’t look into their brains in the same way we can an AIs coding.

No real surprise for Sony, continued sales this far after launch are more due to the price being lowered and people of lesser means finally being able to jump on board. If the price is only just dropping to launch price then that’s a large part of the market still locked out. A lack of blockbuster games is a small issue, likely resolved by GTA6 soon, but I have to think most who can afford this price have already bought one with the games already available.

I am surprised by the Switch 2 though, I’d think that was second console material for those many millions still able to afford that, but perhaps second consoles don’t have to be upgraded as fast, and many are sticking to Switch 1.

@sikthvash
I agree, no need for POINTLESS trophies. Some nice new trophy challenges would certainly be nice though. No bragging required.

I remember soul blade being vastly superior in its quest mode to the sequel, but never tried the games beyond that disappointment. Will give this a go if they add trophy challenges to supplement the content.

For me, it’s more about whether you have the support and power of a big publisher behind you. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that no big publisher has a hand in supporting you to any degree, as if a publisher gives you a tiny tiny budget, 3 members of staff, and no marketing at all, for a passion project, this isn’t fundamentally different to a small team getting a small amount of seed money and being truly independent of a publisher.

For a consumer, the game that is possible under these conditions is what makes something “an indie game” as far as I’m concerned.

A shorter dev period and more streamlined game is what I would like anyway. Hated that BG3 was so expansive that I felt like I had to follow a guide so I didn’t miss 90% of the game (sure, it’s designed to be played multiple times, but I wasn’t blessed with multiple lives sadly). In the end I just dropped it, despite being quite hyped for it and having it be one of the very few games I’ve got at near full price digitally.

Enjoyed the game while I could stomach how broken it was, then the constant crashes meant I had to stop playing. Hopefully they’ll fix their game some day.

We all salute you Sir.

Just have her go back to being unapologetically entitled and sexy. That’s Lara. Or make a different game with a character you like better.