Burnish1619

Deserved. The entire dialogue surrounding Chinese gamers buying it always seemed weird, like as if they didn't count or something? Maybe those Chinese gamers only like to play games that look fun? They didn't all sprout out of the ground at once JUST to play Wukong.

Plus the PS5 sold really well in China, so a lot of Chinese gamers are probably playing on that not PC so Steam numbers aren't a direct indication of a sudden Chinese wave of players either.

@Deemo37 Well it couldn't have been that bad, it sold 25 million copies in a month. I compared it to Hogwarts Legacy because it was the best selling game of the year. If it wasn't nearly as popular I doubt Nintendo would have bothered filing their insidious patent just to spite them because they've had the monopoly on that sort of game for decades and wanted a slice of Palworld's profits. Notice how they didn't file said patent when the likes of Nexomon or TemTem were infringing upon the claims of that patent.
I take your point that it's hard to place it in any one category though. Possibly a nomination for best indie or game direction because of the approach they took to that genre of game that clearly appealed to millions.
Either way, I thought the comparison to Hogwarts Legacy was interesting and justified.

Seems like Palworld has been given the Hogwarts Legacy treatment and has been crowned "Most Controversial Game" this year or "Too Controversial for The Game Awards".

I also think Rebirth might do a Spiderman 2 from last year and get nominated for a bunch of awards but not win any.

Spark the Electric Jester 3

Veilguard being nominated is a joke

Nioh 2
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
Little Nightmares 2

Are the accessibility options good enough to enable one-handed play? Just curious.

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and Little Nightmares 2.

Not sure what to play after these two but there's plenty in the backlog.

@LowDefAl BotW and Elden Ring outsold both Horizon games and there wasn't anything stopping Guerrilla from bringing Horizon FW forward. I'm not heavily invested in the matter though, I just think its funny as a meme.

Horizon stans are adorable

Horizon devs take note

The only live service Horizon I would play is Forza

At this rate they'll push it back to August 6th or 9th the way they're going iykyk

Got over 60 hours in Hades with 20+ successful runs and I'm still hooked. Trying to unlock everything now. Probably the best game I've played this year.

I can't believe this is a real game. Absolute genius idea

Let's separate the fans from the consoomers

I don't think most people think the big takeaway from the Concord fiasco is "live service = bad" and I don't think arbitrarily trying to define what the term means is productive or necessary.
Concord failed spectacularly because it was late to the hero shooter party, didn't offer anything new, was less fun than the alternatives and wasn't free to play. Nevermind that Sony decided to create a roster from scratch instead of doing what Marvel Rivals did and use existing, well known characters that people would naturally be intrigued to play. There's a bunch of other reasons as well.
Being able to update and patch games on the fly sounds great until the dev abuses that ability and releases an unfinished mess with the intention of finishing it later because it's clueless, impatient investors needed their ROI yesterday. Hence, very few games nowadays are feature complete.

One of my favourite devs. If he's able to produce a better product in a new environment then God speed. Now that DMC might have had it's last entry, a new character-action game IP from Itsuno would be amazing

Good review @LiamCroft

Metal Gear Solid... for the first time

@ChrisDeku As a result of modern game journalism

It's almost like real gamers like immersion and escapism and dislike propaganda. Crazy!

I'm having to stop myself playing DMC5 and Balatro to get through my backlog, starting with Like a Dragon: Ishin.
Also been playing Teardown which is something a bit different

1. Hades
2. Balatro
3. Vampire Survivors
4. Enter the Gungeon
5. Dicey Dungeons (Very hard)

Haven't played Returnal or Dead Cells yet and my personal favourite isn't even on PS5 and that's Into the Breach! Cult of the Lamb is pretty good but it's a rogue-lite so not included.

I think right now the genre is over-saturated but the best rogue-likes always seem to be ones that are the most addictive

I'll always remember how blown away I was by the first game. Thematically outstanding. A personal favourite of mine.

@TheAmbienWalrus Big fan of the profile pic. IYKYK haha

Tunic
It's like classic Zelda meets Dark Souls, so as you would expect - fantastic level design!
Didn't think it would be this good!

I haven't been able to put down Chained Echoes for about two weeks. It's stellar

sigh goddammit

oh my Christ they actually did the corporate pizza party meme
could Microsoft be any more out of touch

Just finished Evil West so moving onto Neon White. Been playing some Peglin on mobile too, would recommend

Well deserved, fantastic game

Foolishness, Dante. Foolishness...

Probably cos the Singapore government told them to or else

Ubisoft are gonna need a quick cash grab to offset the lawsuit settlement they'll have to pay Singaporean government for using their agreement for the Skull & Bones project as a vacation hotspot

also
[source kotaku.com]
no one is surprised

lmao Pornhub just got sued for sex trafficking but yeah let's feature them on our site
Jesus Christ Push Square what are you playing at?

Patenting in the gaming industry seems pretty pointless and depressing. It just adds fuel to the console exclusivity fire.
Patenting can be very useful and they can exist as a stepping stone in innovation if done right or implemented in a mutually beneficial way for the industry and the holder, but when games take so long to make nowadays I get the feeling this won't benefit consumers over the 20 year cycle and more ideas and creativity in the space will be infringed and stifled rather than inspired and implemented. Especially when the natural course of the industry will steer toward implementing AI in different areas and you can be sure the biggest corporations aren't gonna let an opportunity for further control over their competitors slip through their grasp. If the biggest players have run out of ideas they'll simply throw money at the problem - which is precisely what Xbox is trying to do when the potential acquisition of Sega, Nintendo, etc leaked.
More corporate control in the industry will not benefit the consumers.

I played Sable a few months ago, to put it bluntly - style over substance.
Quite easily the most boring game I've played this year. More so than Trek to Yomi, another game that's more style over substance.

Might try Lego 2K Drive at some point but I'm not expecting much.

"What the hell is this!?"

Played it this year and was pleasantly surprised. About as adorable and charming as a game gets!

Fantastic game considering it was only made by two guys. Well worth a buy for the core challenging gameplay and great soundtrack. One of the best games I played last year

Genuinely can't recall a worse month for the service.
Announced at the same time as subscriber stagnation reports and price increases across all membership tiers.
Amazing.

Playing Disco Elysium reminded me how good CRPGs can be and it seems like BG3's even greater freedom and replayability make it an absolute must-play. Could see it getting GOTY

Yuji knackered lmao

Blasphemous was the biggest surprise of any game I played a couple years ago. So metal, so gritty, so good. The sequel will be a must-play

Somewhat intrigued, but would have liked a summer release date

The amount of times the phrase "taps/touches you on the shoulder" comes up in dialogue is bizarre

I think the side content in 0 is some of the most fun, varied and hysterical in the more recent entries and sets it apart from the other games i've played, never mind the soundtrack! The Majima side content in Kiwami is great too.
0 - 10, Kiwami - 9, Kiwami 2 - 8, LaD - 8

There's some great indie games on sale currently.
I'm getting Nobody Saves The World, The Messenger, Inscryption and Norco. £40 for four games