8thDoctor

the logo on the back looks very tasteful, black on black, but the design really just doesn't do much overall. It's like they put 3 orange stickers and called it a day.
If minimalism was the goal then some Orange highlights spread around, like on the face button icons, the d-pad arrows or under the joystick caps (like the Switch 2 has), could have been a tasteful way to do it.

I bet the horse armor costing as much as the stuff you'd actually want is so the Druid players can also spend $25 on the game, since Blizzard somehow couldn't settle on a set for them. Gotta get big money from all kinds of players somehow.

@heavyartillery56 that's just what GTA is, it's in the name. You might enjoy Sleeping Dogs if you haven't played it yet, you play as an undercover cop in that one.

the Adam Hughes cover is fantastic!
If they want to really sell a metric ton of these, they would include a code to redeem 1 of the costumes revealed in the issue, like the Hawaiian shirt Jeff skin.

No Ratchet & Clank, the one franchise aside from GoW that has stayed around consistently from PS2-PS5 (FFA even got a Vita version!), is criminal. Anyways, it sounds like they should have picked pieces that fit better with the limited orchestra on hand rather than backing up with recordings, there's certainly options for that through PS history.

Feels like it's going the Breath of the Wild route where you get pointers to where to start the story for the targets, but otherwise it just drops you in a central map area and lets you run free. The format isn't conductive to telling a good story, so as long as Atsu's personality is understanding of taking her time to kill them it will be fine, but if her character arc is about her wanting to rush through her list it might to fall apart.

really to curious to see how the UE5 conversion handles the idiosyncrasies of Gamebryo that gives games that special Bethesda touch.

It completes the trifecta well enough to get its share of the pie, Tarkov- gritty/modern, Hunt- magic/past, Marathon- sci-fi/future, with smaller titles like Dark & Darker doing the sword and sorcery angle.
Unless this is "baby's first Tarkov" I don't see it really blowing up to the type of success Sony is looking for in the live service market. It's a niche genre and for good reasons.

I wish they'd let us use our saved videos as animated backgrounds

this doesn't mean much about actual sales, double that number could have bought it and sent it straight to the backlog pile. The better comparison is to Part 1 numbers that show it's fairly close so it's done well to maintain engagement, unlike GoW and to a lesser extent Horizon.

@ChrisDeku there's also the EA Motive Iron Man game announced in 2022, that went dark afterwards.

All this debacle for the only big 1st party studio to release a PS5 exclusive, & they've managed 2. They made a mistake announcing it so early 100%, but as said before me it seems like a Disney-Marvel contract thing to announce games as soon as possible.

On the last point, Sony for at least some of the classics has honored your previous purchase from back in the PS3/PSP/Vita era & made the new PS4|5 version free, I got Killzone Liberation, Tekken 5 and Wild Arms for free, but not Medievil 1 or Twisted Metal 1. It would be nice to know what they're criteria is sure, but I'm not complaining as a bunch of those I had gotten free through PS+ or as Big Hack compensation in the first place.

It's too expensive, so I'll probably wait till you can get the console when there's a bundle at around base price, and hopefully in an alternate color. The greyish black looks so dull, here's hoping for a quick release of a red console Mario bundle.
If they make another OLED model it will be firmly at $500 or more, at that point it's genuinely too expensive to even consider.

Mario Kart 9 ain't worth $80, unless this is Nintendo's way to create price drops over time so it's eventually $65 and we all feel grateful about their benevolence. MK8 is 11 years old and still retails for full price, heck it's even more expensive than it was before if you count the Expansion Pack they still sell you separately.
IMO this is just going to encourage 2K to actually price GTA6 at like $100.

if this is real then an announcement must happen in one of the Switch 2 videos, we got the Direct tomorrow and a couple of Treehouses the following 2 days.

They could have used make-up to make them look older, that's like stage make-up 101, so I don't really agree. But Bella is a strong enough actor that I doubt it will matter much when we're actually watching the show.

a double pack makes so much sense it's baffling it's taken this long to get it made

low-key this could lead to much prettier games from KT since it uses their proprietary Katana Engine and is easily the best looking game on it. DoA7 certainly has potential to look impeccable.

@Porco Falcom released Trails Through Daybreak 2 in 2022 and Trails Beyond the Horizon in 2024 in Japan, then Trails in the Sky 1st will be released in 2025 worldwide (the script was already translated a decade ago). I don't think Falcom cares about the release cadence worldwide and NISA just wants to finally catch up.
After this messy year, each subsequent release should be 1 per year like with Japan.

@Deadp001seasons are generally tied to Character expansion packs and broad balance changes, since fighting games are live-service games it provides structure to the devs and consistency to fans, just like shooters that work in that structure.

by S4 they'll be seriously talking about nerfing blocks.

finally, the true combat potential of master Alchemists is unleashed.

too many are ignoring the real MVP that's going to destroy those 2 later in the year and that's the "Ys vs Trails in the Sky" fighting game. Weirdly enough all 3 games are being worked on by 3 different companies, so any crossover in release time wouldn't necessarily be Falcom's fault, but more GungHo, NISA and whoever's working on VS not communicating.

@Porco Falcom does mostly release just 1 game per year total, this year it's 2, the Trails Sky remake and an enhanced version of Ys X. NISA is the one releasing Trails games every 6 months and it's because while we tend to get Ys & Xanadu games fairly quickly (a year or 2 late), the West was far behind the Trails saga, skipping whole arcs and still only managing to do Cold Steal 2-3 years late.

Soul Sacrifice is a great choice in part because it's built from the ground up with handheld play in mind, just like Freedom Wars, so it should shine on Switch or Steam Deck more than a PS5 version would.

Atlus keeps shortening the names as sub-franchises age, this should be "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army"
Honestly this looks fun and like they put actual effort into it, so I'll likely check it down the line, still got to beat Soul Hackers 2.

The cosmic side of the roster is very unique! Nova and Phyla-Vell haven't gotten any movie, or recent-ish comics, love. Happy they didn't go with common picks like Star-Lord and Captain Marvel (Carol), niche roster choices are refreshing.

they're the only games I've played on my iPad, they're chill and very much made for the touchscreen format, so I'm very curious to see how it translates to a controller.

if they're focused on leasing out PSP-Vita games, Soul Sacrifice (Delta) seems like a clear next choice. Hell, maybe Bandai can help Sony remember they have a damn good Uncharted game stuck on the Vita.

Puppeteer next, please Bandai!

legit confused it doesn't have 3 on board too, not like it was released way after on another platform. I'll be very happy to play this portable on Switch to remember the PSP days.

Major credit to NISA and their translation team who've worked overtime to get to this point. They've hunkered down and done what we thought would never happen, catch up with the Japanese Trails releases.
Falcom threw them a bone doing the Trails in the Sky remake instead of a brand new game this year & I think the next Tokyo Xanadu game is next so they had more leeway to catch up, but they will have done it with time to spare and get a well deserved break.

For the next trailer I hope there's less product placements & more game footage.

Can't wait for them to get to characters like Tsukishima, Yamamoto (Bankai), Ywach, Ichibe who are so broken ability wise that it's an exercise in futility trying to balance them.

I think they're waiting on Death Stranding 2 to be out before focusing on marketing this game, so we're not really seeing it again until late-June to early-July, & putting all their weight behind it for an October-November release,

@Enuo we did get a Bleach Musuo game back on PS3, Bleach Soul Resurrección, it didn't sell. Made by Japan Studio and similarly captured the look and sound of the series exceptionally well, while being barebones in the combat and available games modes.

@RobN it's not actually shooting anything physical, like with Time Crisis it's just 2 guns aimed at a screen with sensors to detect where in the screen you're aiming at. Just that instead of running a kickass game inside that huge cabinet it's just a digital shooting gallery.

@Barryburton97 The Franchise is "World of Darkness" and every board-game/branch-franchise under it has a 2-name name, like "Vampire: The Masquerade", "Werewolf: The Apocalypse" & "Mage: The Ascension". So any project adapting them adds a 3rd name to distinguish itself.

it's a better date for a vampire game.
I wonder how bloated the team's gotten in the past couple of years since they've been working on 2 games at once, lost their creative head & lead composer (Jessica Curry's work really elevated their games), just generally it really sucks that the old guard went out with the dud Little Orpheus.

@PrettyPawsome at least Power Stone is returning in the new Fighting Game Collection.

Sony could easily gouge some franchise interest by releasing Killzone 1 for their emulated PS2 range, though they'd need to actually promote the release rather than throwing it on a "here's what's new in PS+ Premium this month" list. Then maybe go for a Killzone 2, 3 & Mercenary remaster project.

I don't see why 1 of the biggest companies on the planet can't afford a 2-disc box. As the article says, it wouldn't be the first company to go that route, Cyberpunk, FF7Rb, TLOU2 are all examples from this decade

God of War thankfully has really solid book adaptations for 1, 2 and 4, he doesn't need to play the games, though at least some of the team should to get a feel for the tone of the games. They could get through 1 & 2 fairly quickly if they follow the books, but the gap between them really warrants a season gap.

curious about what that new utility does, any help with getting more samples is welcome.

Wasted the opportunity to give the Blades of Chaos a Blades of Athena skin. Hope they reveal more skins from the previous games in the lead up, even if it's just palette swaps like this, such as Fear Kratos (3), Ghost of Sparta (GoS), & Olive Skin (A). Hell, put a wig on the model and give me a Deimos skin. this Kratos already has the beard.

It looks amazing!

The Cult can pull the Otherworld outside Silent Hill itself through rituals and connections, this was established ages ago in SH3. In fact SH4 and Homecoming both take place in places outside Silent Hill, close neighbors in both cases, & SH3 starts in an undisclosed city too before moving to SH proper, so this wouldn't be the first time the Otherworld infects another town. There's every chance the story explains how the Fog takes over the town & the Cult's role in all this.

Metal Sonic vs Batman is amazing and would make for a great poster or phone wallpaper.

it's a Counter Strike 2 style update, reworked visuals, a couple extra features, but still a continuation of the same game. Valve proved it's a working formula. The biggest pain point is still how utterly toxic and rotten the core player base is, we'll see if the changes made there can actually make the game beginner friendly.

Oblivion was one of the first games I had on PS3, my dad ended up returning the game when no one at home could find their way around the game after leaving the dungeon you spawn in. I'll be happy that Bethesda finally remembered Skyrim and Online aren't the only 2 games in the franchise.

@xDD90x it's because the game is basically face lift on top of the old bones, everything will work the way it did before for better or worse. It's the same thing Activision did with the Crash and Spyro trilogies, though hopefully nothing breaks in this endeavor.

the voice really doesn't fit Dante, Vergil sounds ok in that small tease. I really don't get what they're doing with Lady, like why bother doing her first meeting with Dante if you're not using Arkham & the DMC3 story?