Carnage

Meta is far and away the biggest publisher/funder of VR (they’ve literally lost tens of billions) and it’s clear it’s not going to break out anytime soon so the shoe was bound to drop eventually. I hope the laid off land on their feet.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/meta-platforms-lost-73-billion-165823364.html

Not sure what you mean by balance but Helldivers 2 caters to the power fantasy crowd more than it did in its first several months (there are a lot of ridiculously powerful weapons like backpack nukes, recoilless rifles and rifles that fire rounds that explode in shrapnel).

However enemies have also gotten bigger and more numerous. The toughest enemy is hands down the Hive Lord, a train sized burrowing worm covered in heavy armor that is very deadly and hard to kill. It can be killed but it survives stuff that annihilates everything else in the game.

None of the current missions is all that tough for solid teams who stay mostly on mission but periodically there are time limited crazy hard ones that pop up like invasion repulsion (illuminate ships land randomly all over that map and start churning out enemies and teams lost if 12 ships landed at once and won if they took out 50) and platinum extraction (landing in the middle of a giant enemy base and trying to transport a bunch of platinum bars to a container for extraction while the bots threw everything at you).

I am generally not a stealth player (quite the opposite) but I have snuck into a few bases to detonate a backpack nuke so I’m open to a stealth warbond.

Silenced sniper and assault rifles are well and good but the firearm that jumps out at me is the re-educator (a pistol that fires chemical darts that induce a brief bout of delirium, the same way poison gas does). The explosives also look fun, especially the remotely detonated C4 charges.

Impressive numbers on their own made even more impressive by the fact non-Kart arcade racers have had a tough time of it in recent years.

I haven’t played it recently, but I played Detroit several times when it came out and enjoyed it immensely. If the team eventually manages to get something new in a similar vein out of the door I’ll give it a look.

This weekend I played a lot of Roboquest VR (which is a Flat2VR port of the cellshaded roguelike fps). I’ve been playing it since launch but decided I needed to focus on it in order to get better.

You use everything from shotguns, pistols, hand grenades and miniguns to bows with explosive arrows, boomerangs, swords and guns that shoot fire, ice, electricity and bees..

Low level weapons just perform their basic function but high level ones (you find increasingly powerful weapons as you progress but you can also upgrade weak ones) have multiple bonus effects such as doing extra damage to flyers, bouncing bullets, generating shields and suchlike. Enemies are tough and there is at least as much enemy variety as gun variety so fights tend to be intense. Good stuff.

My December purchase was Dispatch which thrilled me as an old Telltale fan (tips hat to The Walking Dead) and as a superhero fan.

The PvP aspect takes it off the board for me but I’ve heard nothing but good about Arc Raiders and am glad it is continuing to succeed.

Fine by me. I’m just going to repost a prior comment of mine.

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Unsurprising list but I don’t really get why people are angry or disappointed about it. When looking at the commercial state of the industry I think it’s useful to look at what succeeds (by the standards of the developers) rather than merely what sells best.
For example games like Dragon’s Crown, Returnal, Street Fighter 6, Disco Elysium, Helldivers 2, Balatro, Baldur’s Gate 3, Pacific Drive, Returnal and Stellar Blade all met or exceeded the expectations of their developers. Their success encourages (and enables) the developers to keep doing what they are doing and encourage other developers with similar visions to try their luck.

Xbox adopting the PC model of selling hardware for a profit doesn’t mean much to the PlayStation. There are lots and lots of things competing for people’s attention nowadays (the Nex Playground is an interesting competitor).

The big challenge IMHO is current gen hardware prices have going in the wrong direction for a lot of reasons (many outside the control of the industry). The PS1 started at $300 but eventually dropped to $100. The PS5 started at $500 and is now $550. Yes it’s a small increase compared to the massive one the Xbox has seen but the sorts of more casual and/or budget minded gamers who jump into consoles mid gen clearly aren’t being drawn in in the numbers they could be.

Cronos was great. If Bloober’s next game hits the PS5 they will probably get my money.

Finished my first playthrough of Dispatch yesterday (I started playing it early Christmas morning). From the perspective of a longtime fan this is easily Telltale/Ad Hoc’s best game.

Anyway, dispatching superheroes is a pretty deep because there are multiple missions requiring different skill sets which often can benefit from more than one hero being involved, though that might mean you have the wrong people or even no one on hand to deal with subsequent events.

I have only played through the one time at the time of this post but I know (because the game told me at the end of each episode) how big choices I made in my character’s personal life shaped things and it’s also nice how you can upgrade heroes (they have ability points as well as short upgrade trees) and they get more comfortable with each other over time if they are dispatched together (some of them start off pretty comfortable).

The writing is strong, the characters are vibrant, the art direction is gorgeous and the music fits the game very well. I eager to play the next season of Dispatch (I am fine with waiting so long as the episodes are released in close proximity).

Just finished Dispatch for the first time. Telltale is back (as Ad Hoc). I did fairly poorly on the minigames and dispatching but I avoided strategy guides and now that I understand everything better through bitter experience I aim to rise above the bottom 1% of dispatchers 😅! Also I can think
of several different choices/potential alternate paths I’d like to explore.

Exclusivity means a lot to gamers making lists on the internet but in and of itself means nothing to the overwhelming majority of gamers.

If someone enjoys a game (whether it is an exclusive like Astrobot or a multiplatform game like Dispatch) they buy it and maybe recommend it to friends, if they don’t they ignore it.

I have enjoyed a lot of exclusives over the decades and I expect I will continue to do so but I don’t hold being multiplatform against a game.

Luminees Arise is a spiritual sequel to Tetris Effect with even more gorgeous and trippy audiovisuals. The way some of the puzzle pieces and stages morph as things progress (my highlight is the vegetable stage) is really crazy.

Shrugs I don’t worry much about rankings or awards (it’s a very rare year when I’ve played every game in contention and I don’t like all genres equally) I’m just glad that like most other Enhance games Luminees seems to have found an audience.

As I noted before Larian should have seen this coming since all of the excitement about the game is based on their promises (the trailer was very cool but contained no gameplay).

While there is a vocal group of online skeptics of AI use in game creation I doubt the average gamer cares. Clair Expedition 33 and Arc Raiders have/are experiencing some turbulence over their use of AI but clearly lots of gamers are squarely focused on the games rather than their creation. Another interesting point of comparison is the latest CoD, whose relatively cool reception is partly a result of AI being used in ways gamers felt lessened the stuff they care about.

I respect people who are skeptical of or even opposed to AI vs human made art but it’s cheap in a competitive industry struggling to both catch the attention of people in a world saturated with entertainment options and keep costs down. I believe kind of like CG FX vs practical stunts in movies the games industry is going to wind up encompassing them both depending on not just audience reaction but what individual creators are enthusiastic about.

Shrugs Based on my experience with Divinity 2 and BG3 I am very enthused about Larian’s next game and that feeling won’t change unless the gameplay they show of the next Divinity is sloppy.

Well deserved. Polyphony Digital has always been a quirky team who often finds themselves on the right side of things.

I remember an old preview of the original GT which questioned the economics of Gran Turismo (which included 200 or so cars when the genre average was a small fraction of that) and its focus on driving (a separate but related thing from racing) all sorts of cars including sedans and minivans ordinary people use in their everyday lives rather than just racing with supercars built to win competitions snd look real cool doing it.

Last but not least as a PSVR2/Pro owner I appreciate Polyphony’s continued willingness to support new tech which offers enthusiasts a deeper way to engage with their games (their use of the haptics of the dual sense is also exemplary). I never saw it first hand but years ago I watched videos of GT5’s multi monitor mode and thought ‘Yamauchi must not hear ‘no’ a lot’ 😋.

Gran Turismo 7 is great fun and the oldest game in my regular rotation and I don’t see that changing until GT8 sometime in the distant future.

I was a huge fan of Peanuts when I was a kid (read the comics in the newspaper and enjoyed the holiday specials) but I have skipped all the modern (post-Schulz) stuff. Don’t have any feelings about Sony buying it but it’s nice Peanuts is still popular.

Seems like this game has been hovering around for at least a year. If the campaign is good it will get my money.

The hardware numbers make sense. Consoles going up in price rather than down (the PS1 launched at $300 but eventually fell to $100) is clearly keeping a big chunk of people out of the market.

If I were a hardware maker intent on releasing new hardware I’d wait for overall inflation/ram prices/tariffs to fall (not sure when that’s going to happen, probably no time soon).

https://bsky.app/profile/matpiscatella.bsky.social/post/3ma6vnwvjmk2h

The average price paid for a new unit of video game hardware in the US during November 2019 was $235. In November 2025 it was $439.

3.9 million units of video game hardware sold in the US in November 2019. In November 2025 it was 1.6 million.

I think the reaction to the AI talk (Larian says they are using AI but it’s not that helpful and no AI generated stuff will be in the final game) is excessive but Larian knows it is an enviable position where CG trailers and words can excite a big chunk of gamers so their surprise and irritation over the strong negative reaction to their latest batch of words is bizarre.

I personally don’t get excited by CG nor do I focus on stuff real far out (‘We are working on something too early to show, but get hyped now!’) but based on my experience with the original Divinity 2 and BG3 I’m sure whenever Larian’s next game comes out it will be phenomenal if they maintain their old standards.

Shrugs Windows of exclusivity are still a thing for a variety of reasons (one of which is moneyhatting another of which is the benefit of developers being able to focus since platform optimization is time consuming). I’m fine with the practice so long as developers are upfront about their plans.

To go on a somewhat related rant, Disgaea 7 is an example of the sort of exclusivity that bothers me. I splashed out the money for the ‘Complete’ PS5 version of Disgaea 7 at launch but NiS subsequently sold some dlc exclusively to Nintendo of America for an undisclosed period of time. That will give me and other PS5 or PC gamers pause the next time NiS comes around asking us to pay for not just the base game, but future content.

To a T is a very weird, sweet game about a disabled boy who wanders around doing and learning stuff with the aid of his dog, his loving mother and a growing circle of friends. The gameplay consists of a handful of simple minigames/challenges the boy faces as he navigates through life but despite visual similarities it’s a very different design than that of his breakout hit Katamari Damancy.

I really enjoyed To a T and loved its world but I’m not shocked it didn’t do well commercially. More games are released per day than the average gamer buys in a year, the rare successes tend to have long tails (which is good for them and their fans, bad for other games) and there are more clicks to be had hating or hyping stuff everybody knows than trying to sell people on unknowns. Such is the industry.

I hope Mr. Takahasi continues to work in the industry (it seems he is looking for a publisher) and create original content but I get he has a family to support and no matter the choice he makes I wish him well.

I don’t watch the show for the awards but giving the best strategy game award to a FFT remaster over The Alters or Two Point Museum (I didn’t play the other nominees) indicates to me there weren’t many strategy game fans among the voters.

Spent the weekend playing Roboquest VR (hectic and tough but fun first person roguelike), Sektori (hectic and tough 2D roguelike in the vein of Geometry Wars), Two Point Museum (whose zoo expansion has some cool twists including animal rescue) and of course Helldivers 2 (been practicing with the backpack nuclear bomb and friendly casualties have been minimal and enemy casualties have been massive).

I also watched that Johnny Cage animated movie Cage Match. It was even more of a comedy than I was expecting but it’s fast moving, dumb fun. The visuals are great, very reminiscent of Miami Vice.

This reminded me a bit of the parts of Ghost Yotei where while on horseback you can gallop among hordes of wild horses. I need to see more but I’m very interested.

I dozed off a few times towards the end but I watched most of the pre-show and the show. Neither of my predictions (a Media Molecule reveal and a Helldivers 2 new phase announcement) happened but I enjoyed the show. Ontos, Phantom Blade Zero and Saros were my highlights.

Looks amazing.

The action looks intense (very Returnalesque) and Housemarque hasn’t disappointed me yet so I’ll be there on day 1.

‘Larian’s biggest game’ is all the info I need but some gameplay would have been nice.

The combat looks great. I didn’t need Chris to return but I’m fine with it.

The city scene looks wild. I’ll give the demo a try when it hits PSN.

Looks fun. I never played any of the Lego games but I enjoyed a couple of the Lego movies including the Batman one.

I loved SOMA and this looks really amazing.

Didn’t expect a new protagonist but it looks phenomenal.

4Loop’s gameplay looks fun though as a big Helldivers fan I’m not in the market for another online co-op game.

@HonestHick You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Sony fully funded both Helldivers from their inception. Helldivers 1 started on PS4 and Vita and was later ported to PC.

I own all the old KZ stuff already but it’s nice it’s coming around again.

The guns are solid (though like all guest stuff they can’t be upgraded/modified like normal guns) but the best thing about the pack is the armor, whose multi element resistance (acclimated, which provides 50% resistance to gas, fire and electricity) was once unusual but which has now been almost equaled by the Dust Devils warbond (only 40% elemental resistance but also a 20% throwing range bonus). The only advantage Dust Devils armor has (IMHO) is it offers a heavy variant.

It’s also worth noting the Helghast armor looks very cool, especially the glowing red eyes of the helmets.

WB’s game division management has been awful of late but Netflix’s is even worse. Netflix recognizing that they lack the skills/temperament/incentive to manage a profitable game division strikes me as reasonable. It’s a damn tough business. Along those lines the ‘Netflix for gaming’ model hasn’t demonstrated that it is commercially viable yet. Games aren’t like tv shows or movies where many fans demand a constant stream of stuff, a few games a year satisfy the vast majority of gamers just fine. .

@PuppetMaster Don’t know about the quality (haven’t played any of the big Chinese made games) but the Chinese pop culture market is huge and like a lot of markets, values stuff which speaks to it. To not invest in China is to leave a lot of money on the table.

It’s incredible that Ne Za 2 is the biggest animated movie ever and made almost all its money in China. On the flipside lots of markets are cool with stuff shaped by cultures and myths they don’t know much about (Black Myth Wukong made most of its money in China but did well among Soulslike fans everywhere).

I think breaking FF7 into three big, separate parts (seen as the safest of safe bets) was a mistake. The first two are fine games but the fact Squenix is pouring more resources into FF7 remakes than they are into modern FFs (thus far just FF16 though I guess we might get 17 before the generation ends in a few years).

I’ll also note Squenix’s competition has gotten stronger (nods towards Clair Obscure and the modern Personas) and fans are more willing to look elsewhere. I thought the Shadow Hearts series (especially the second) was a great series on par with Square’s work but it never built up much of a fanbase.

Looks promising. It will be wild if the VR update of Flight Simulator 2024 hits before Aces of Thunder. I’m still on the fence.

86 games played, 1750 hours played, 2,355 gaming sessions.

Helldivers 2 - 764 hours
Two Point Museum - 181 hours
Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero - 169 hours
Ghost of Yotei - 94 hours
The Last Spell - 80 hours

Nice. The Alters is an excellent character based strategy game with lots of hard choices and branching paths I didn’t fully explore but I did play it several times (I saw one good(ish) ending in which most survived, but many bad ones).

My dance card is kinda full at the moment but I will jump back into it soon to check out the new content.

There is a rumor a new wave of Helldivers 2 content will be unveiled at the Game Awards this year (last show saw the start of the squid invasion of SuperEarth).

I am hoping Media Molecule’s next game gets unveiled. Littlebigplanet 1&2, Tearaway and Dreams are all great fun though Dreams didn’t catch on the way the LBPs did.

I love Returnal (and Housemarque’s prior arcade style games) so I’ll preorder this.

Thus far I’ve been playing Sektori (a twin stick shooter I suck at but the few minutes it takes to kill me are glorious), Luminees Arise (wonderfully trippy), GT7 (haven’t messed much with the new content because I am working on winning 1st on an older track), Helldivers 2 (which got a new warbond with an insane new shotgun as well as the long requested mini gun but also got new lava worlds which introduced new mission types including an incredibly brutal new extraction mission), Roboquest VR (gorgeous cell shaded roguelike fps with some crazy weapons and a ton of enemy variety), Demon School (which has a pixelart style and is kind of a fusion of Persona and a squad based tactics game and has become my game of choice when playing on Portal) and a bit of V Racer Hoverbike (I am having trouble with this one time challenge, missing the mark by .007 seconds at one point).

I would like to check out Path of Exile 2 (which just got a major update) and start on Ghost Town (VR puzzle/adventure game) but time will tell. I normally don’t get in this much gaming time but there are upsides to having a cold 😁.

Huge news. Netflix has been winding down its game division so I doubt WB’s long struggling game will do any better under its new leadership. I can’t imagine how the other divisions will fare.

It’s been months since I played Dreams but there are a lot of talented creators there and the engine is both easy to use and incredibly flexible.

As I noted in a long post I once made on Dreams I think what hurt it was the lack of any form of multiplayer at launch (offline co-op hit months after launch) and the fact the campaign was pretty simple (more a demo of the things the engine was capable of than a proper game).

I’m reading the Power Pack is only $30. I would have probably bit the bullet even at $50 since I have put in hundreds of hours into GT7 partly due to all the free updates including PSVR2 and Pro support.

Sektori is brutal fun, a bullet hell with deck builder elements (for ship upgrades) and a pulsing techno soundtrack. It’s wild how the battlefield is constantly morphing and enemies are spawning in the arena in weird patterns (it telegraphs shifts so you have at least a bit of time to get out of the way of incoming walls and enemies).