Carnage

I’m over twenty hours in and having a great time. Combat is really dynamic (me playing on hard has given me the opportunity to fight some of the tougher battles a couple times) and just wandering around on foot or horseback is really fun.

I’m hoping for additional content but as the article says a Switch port is more likely.

I really loved Populous, Dungeon Keeper and Syndicate and at the time I would have been thrilled if he joined PlayStation studios.

But in hindsight Sony lucked out. I didn’t care much for Fable in part because it wasn’t the game he promised it would be and Molyneux’s tendency to overpromise and underdeliver has only gotten worse since then. He wasted a lot of MS’s money then once they got rid of him started swindling people on Kickstarter and via NFTs.

MS radically increased spending as its console marketshare dwindled post X360. Yes MS can afford to lose a lot more than the Xbox has lost but MS did not get to be one of the biggest, richest companies in the world by letting divisions eat losses indefinitely without having a path to profitability. Eventually upper management/shareholders were going to step in. That time seems to have come.

An honest, thorough review. Nothing it says is out of line with what I’ve seen of the game (and a PSVR2 owning fan of the early Pixeljunks I’ve seen everything posted on the internet about it).

I’m still interested in Dreams of Another but I of course haven’t played it. For the curious below is the most gameplay footage I’ve seen and it is a trailer rather than just video of somebody playing.

https://youtu.be/gE5Wfc99voE

@MrStark I think if Vita as a portable rather than a console (though it presaged the hybrid Switch in many ways) but yes, it certainly was a commercial dud.

I agree MS had a lot of good effects on the industry (for my money, the top two are Xbox Live’s single digital ID and storefront and MS encouraging a lot of Western developers and/or indies to enter the console space) and I’ll go a step further and repeat what I said in another recent thread, that they make some really fun games.

However I’ll disagree about competition this generation. In my opinion competition is more intense than ever because game development is cheaper than ever and there are a lot of other ways people have to play games (the cellphone is the all in one device everybody has in their pocket).

The resultant flood of games is great for gamers but has been very tough for developers and publishers (more games are released in a week than the average gamer buys in a year and most get no coverage and people don’t buy what they are unaware of). Furthermore games people enjoy tend to take big chunks of their time and be given months or even years of postlaunch support from developers (and on the PC side modders), which is great for gamers and the lucky game(s) not so great for those seeking attention. The two things the gaming internet loves most are celebrating popular successes (often a tautology) and dancing on the bones of high profile failures but many solid to great games die without anyone noticing. Cough Rant over 😋.

@MrStark Thanks for the clarification.

I don’t think every entrant being competitive is the key to a thriving console industry (clear losers in what was at the time a healthy industry include Intellivision, Jaguar, Wii U, Saturn, GameCube, Dreamcast, SMS and 3DO).

Losers doesn’t inspire in the same way winners do but they do teach lessons even if those who developed the commercially unsuccessful system decide not to continue developing hardware.

@MrStark So you don’t see the Switches, streaming services, mobile or PC as competitors for the PlayStation in the gaming space? Why not?

So far I’ve been playing a lot of Ghost of Yotei (on hard which means my character has died more times than I care to remember particularly in the duels) and a little bit of Frostpunk 2, GT7, Helldivers 2 and the VF5 open beta.

I’m sure the leadership/shareholders were okay with losing money in the short term when they believed it would win them dominance but once it became clear all the tens of billions burned hadn’t even stopped the sharp post X360 market share erosion they ended the gambit.

Sports games have been hugely popular since videogames began. In the 2600 days there were the likes of Pong, Realsports Volleyball, California Games, Ice Hockey and Boxing. A bit later in the NES/SMS era there Mike Tyson’s Punchout, Bases Loaded, Double Dribble, Ten Yard Fight, Track and Field. John Montana Football and Blades of Steel.

If one has no use for sports games that is fine but it’s silly to pretend that there hasn’t always been a ginormous appetite for them. It’s increased over time as games have developed the ability to put full teams and distinct players onscreen but it has always been there.

Last but not least as I pointed out in another recent top sales thread what should be important to people who choose to focus on sales is commercial success/profitability not success relative to everything else out there.

If you honestly enjoy a genre you should be happy when a developer in said genre announces the game has met or exceeded expectations and they will continue work in the genre, not be upset that some other game in some other genre outsold it.

I loved Tsushima and I’m loving Yotei. I started playing on hard and with default graphics settings and have had a great time wandering around the gorgeous world and kicking butt (so far with just a sword). So many badass moments happening during fight scenes.

During a night ride through a forest it suddenly occurred to me that I had never messed with the graphics settings. I turned on ray tracing (I have a Pro) and was immediately even more impressed by the moonlight. I am tempted to play in black and white but I really like the way the colors pop so I’ll save that for a later playthrough.

I can see why XBox or Gamepass fans aren’t happy about it but I don’t think the fate of Gamepass or even Xbox is that big a deal for anyone else. Sony and Nintendo have made lots of mistakes but consistently stayed squarely focused on games and dedicated hardware because it is huge business for them.

MS has thrown around a lot of money by industry standards but for MS the game division was always a side project of little consequence (to their overall earnings and thus their big bosses and shareholders, though I am sure there are lots of passionate people in its game division) and MS wasn’t going to tolerate loss forever.

I’m not saying Gamepass or even Xbox is doomed because it does have a lot of talent and makes a lot of fun games but clearly it no longer has the blank check it used to.

Cronos is a great game and I’m glad it found success. The absorption mechanic ensures every fight is tense until it is over.

Just finished my first playthrough of SH F. Trippy, brutal stuff. I hope some of the other possible endings are somewhat happier.

I don’t buy all that many EA games anymore so I don’t feel strongly about this but I don’t see this ending well for developers or gamers.

I could contain my disappointment in a very small jar in if just EA crumbled but this might presage a broader intervention by the American government. It’s worth keeping in mind yesterday the president announced he was going to levy a 100% tax on foreign made movies.

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/us-impose-100-tariff-movies-made-outside-country-2025-09-29/

"Our movie making business has been stolen from the United States of America, by other Countries, just like stealing candy from a baby," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social.
However, it was not immediately clear what legal authority Trump would use to impose a 100% tariff on foreign-made films.

No doubt launch sales have a lot to do with the quality of the SH2 remake but the success is well deserved based on the nine hours I’ve spent playing F.

I played and mostly enjoyed all three of the games but Parasite Eve was has been dead for a long time and it’s sequels went through a lot of contortions in the face of steadily shrinking sales (the only series constant was Eve, the plot and the gameplay varied wildly from game to game).

I neither blame Squenix for saying ‘Let’s stop here’ nor I do blame the new developer for seeking to capitalize around the vocal nostalgia the internet seems to invariably develop for dead IP.

I play a little of a couple games (GT7, Helldivers 2 and Frostpunk 2) and a lot of Silent Hill F. As a Silent Hill veteran fresh off of completing Cronos: The New Dawn I initially set both combat and puzzles to hard but that proved optimistic. Eight hours in I am still tackling the puzzles on hard but I had to knock down the difficulty of the combat after a boss kicked my teeth in many, many times in a row 😋. Good stuff though. Starts off pretty in line with past Silent Hills but eventually gets even more bizarre.

I was a casual fan of H1 but I’ve been a huge fan of H2 since launch (have 1200 hours in and play it pretty much daily) and supporting the game rather than cranking out a new game with new assets and new physics which might or might not capture the appeal of H2 makes sense to me.

They just need to keep up the stream on content (new enemies and a new warbond every several weeks, a big event with new biomes and mission types every several months) and of course try to minimize bugs. The Into the Unjust event, two warbonds in rapid succession and the Xbox version all hitting within the timeframe of a few weeks meant that the minor instability that normally afflicts H2 after a new addition became major instability. The developers simply need to pace themselves better (and work on getting the game out of the state it’s currently in) if they want to keep H2 going for the long haul.

Since the game is only a year away, a CGI trailer is strange but the later release for the PS5 strikes me as a reasonable move though it might suck for people who primarily play FH online competitively..

In the broadest strokes more platforms equals more technical headaches. Not that such problems can’t be solved with time but it’s perfectly reasonable for developers to choose to focus and given who signs their checks not including Xbox on their highest priority list isn’t in the cards.

I hope to see Media Molecule’s next game. None of the rumors seem to indicate that but one can hope.

I’m a casual but consistent GT fan (play single player a couple times a week) and I love the range of vehicles in the trailer.

IMHO no free stuff for avid players makes the program pointless for gamers.

I don’t see the point for Sony either. Why not just sell what appears to be full priced merchandise to whoever wants it rather than tying it to a trophy?

I’ve pretty deep into Cronos: The New Dawn. Aside from the absorption mechanic it doesn’t break much new ground but it beats the heck out of the old ground and the absorption mechanic ensures fights are always intense. I’m not sure what impact the choices have but the plot is clever and I’m curious to see where it goes,

Also played some good rounds of Helldivers though the crash rate on level 10 matches is really high right now (3 of the 13 rounds I played crashed). Still had a lot of fun blowing up bots with randoms.

I started Frostpunk 2. I got past the tutorial chapter but I’m still early in. Haven’t had to make any of the monstrous choices I associate with Frostpunk but some of the elderly did offer to die to ensure that kids have enough to eat (hasn’t come to that yet but like I said it’s early).

My brother was a longtime fan of MSFS and the then new 2024 was the first game he bought when he decided to become a PC gamer but he ran into so many crazy tech bugs like lag and suchlike that after a while he gave up on it.

I remember how gorgeous the blimps looked in one of the prerelease trailers though. If they sorted out all its problems I could see it finding an audience on the PS5 though pure flight sims aren’t my thing.

The trailer is great and the concept as outlined sounds very promising. I’m keeping an eye on this (would love the demo to hit PSN but a lot of games with Steam demos don’t).

Every version of Borderlands 4 can make a case for being the worst version.

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2025/09/borderlands-4-performance-degrades-on-xbox-the-longer-you-play-dev-suggests-workaround

It feels like I’ve been waiting forever for Frostpunk 2 to hit consoles. Day 1 for me.

I don’t put much weight on corporate statements of intent but Sony has offered a steady supply of high quality games with strong single player modes and most have found commercial success so there’s no reason to assume the pattern won’t continue for the foreseeable future.

Synth Riders just went on sale for $15 (the normal price is 25) so I picked it up as well as the played through the tutorial, the Kendrick Lamar track and four random songs. As one might expect the Kendrick Lamar stage boasted much more elaborate visuals than the vanilla stages I saw but the tracking is flawless and the game clearly communicates where you need to move (which is of course the tricky part). So far so good.

I jumped from the Saturn to the PS1 about a year (maybe a little more than that) after the PS1’s release. The early Saturn had some gems (nods to Panzer Dragoon and VF) but generally support was very weak (a big fall off from the Genesis) and I eventually decided to make a mid-gen leap.

Thanks to games like Carnage Heart, Gran Turismo, Vandal Hearts, Disgaea, Chrono Cross, Silent Hill, Xenogears, Soul Blade, Vagrant Story, Tecmo’s Deception, Wipeout, Parappa the Rappa and Final Fantasy Tactics I felt like I had transitioned from the desert (developer support for the Saturn was weak) to a lush jungle.

Since then I’ve been there day 1 for every PS system except the PS5 (which I wasn’t willing to pay scalping prices for).

I’m glad about the addition of Persona 5 Tactica and Crow Country.

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. Shrugs That’s just my personal view of what sales data is really important.

@SuntannedDuck2 I see where you are coming from but I don’t have a problem with the fact the average gamer (or consumer of other forms of commercial art such as movies and books) doesn’t do a lot of research and just settles on what looks fun and familiar or maybe what their friends and social media favorites are enjoying rather than doing research to find less conventional/more obscure stuff they might enjoy. People should play what they enjoy and if they don’t have to look far or hard to find said enjoyment, good for them. That doesn’t make them stupid or lesser, it just means they have other life priorities.

I’ve been gaming since the Magnavox Odyssey but I don’t get why some people get so stuck on franchises. I don’t have anything against sequels, remakes or even revisions (I bought 4 versions of SF2 on the SNES and Genesis back in the day) BUT I am fine with creators saying ‘I’ve done everything I want to do with this, now I want to move onto something else’.

Cool. I’ll pick this up the next time the base game goes on sale.

I played a lot of Helldivers 2. The chaos and brutality of Superhelldive missions is currently way up there. Between burrowing bile spewers (bloated mostly squishy bugs who hide underground and just pop their tiny armored heads up out of the ground like sprinklers to spit a long stream of corrosive bile at the nearest diver), chargers (heavily armored, truck sized), dragon roaches (whose penchant for hovering and laying down a field of fire makes them incredibly deadly foes) and of course hive lords (giant acid spewing worms who are effectively the bosses of whatever level they are on and take several minutes of applied heavy munitions by multiple divers to kill).

Still, divers (even randoms like me) have risen to the challenge. Generally half the team focuses on killing and distracting enemies and half who focus on hitting the mission objectives. Often one or two divers has a mech with dual auto cannons. Good times.

I also started on Cronus: The New Damn. It’s creepy, intense and the fact enemies grow stronger by eating their fallen really forces you to strategize. You not only have to figure out how to most efficiently kill enemies (bullets and other resources are very scare) but where you are killing enemies in relation to each other. Killing four out of five enemies does you no good if the fifth enemy has gone Captain Planet by absorbing the different powers and the health of those you killed. I’m still early in (I have six hours on the clock though some fights killed me many times) but so far so good. Anyone looking for a creepy but intense horror action game along the lines of Dead Space and RE4 should take a look at this.

I also spent a bit of time playing The Wandering Village (a really wonderful indie strategy game) and GT7.

Helldivers 2 is a well deserved success and Halo warbond aside, Xbox fans are jumping on at a good time. The invasion of the bug homeworld has kicked the brutality and difficulty up to the next level.

Cave fighting is nasty because it’s generally dark, tight and stuffed with smaller but still dangerous bugs and there are only a few widely spaced holes where you can call down for equipment or reinforcements. However wandering around in open desert is arguably even more dangerous because of Hive Lords (ginormous acid spewing worns which I haven’t seen die in several matches though I understand it’s possible) and giant dragonish insects.

I agree that all things being equal, higher prices translate into fewer sales but given that Monster Hunter came out huge on PS5 and PC before it’s momentum died and community fell apart I suspect MH’s biggest problem is the game itself.

Still, the fact that consoles have reversed the long successful pattern of declining in price over time has no doubt kept a lot of people from jumping onboard.

I played a lot of Helldivers 2, Shinobi, GT7 and The Wandering Village. My run in The Wandering Village has lasted 80something in-game days but the dinosaur that my village is built on is infected and starving and my villagers are on the verge of rebellion so I fear the end is in sight.

As a regular Helldiver who plays at least a couple matches a day I can attest Helldivers 2 saw a massive uptick in players with the release of the Xbox version and the Halo themed warbond (the rifle and the shotgun are good stuff). The more divers the merrier. Liberty for all.

Each of the three stages in the single player mode is more gorgeous and trippy than the last. A worthy follow up to Tetris Effect. Shame the demo isn’t VR but it still made me preorder the digital deluxe edition.

Elite developer who leave their old companies (often after encountering creative pushback and/or a commercial disappointment) for new ones which promise them a blank check and complete creative freedom has been a pretty common phenomena in recent years.

I’m hoping for an awesome game (Itsuno is top tier) but keeping my expectations in check..

I agree 2026 feels too early for the PlayStation 6 but 2027 or 2028 might not. Hardware designers need to plan and refine HW and it’s supporting software at least several months ahead of time so that they can get kits into developers’ hands and give them the opportunity to learn and design for it.

The bile dragon looks like a nightmare. The burrowing bugs and mostly underground missions look cool too though. The resupply constraint is really going to encourage team loadout coordination.

As a guy who favors poison loadouts (on bug and squid missions) the weapon that intrigues me most is the poison spear. Poison is a tool a lot of divers sleep on but like a lot of H2 weapons it’s extremely powerful when used judiciously.

Helldivers 2 ODSTs dlc hits today. It (and the Xbox player influx) hadn’t hit when I last played H2 an hour ago (lead a squad of randoms on three missions against the squid) but the player count (70k+) was already double what it normally is on a weekday morning. It’s going to be crazy when everything hits later today.

I’m sure there will be chaos (high explosives are always dicey no matter how experienced a team is) but most of the new players will do fine. H2 is easy to pick up and a lot of YouTubers have posted a lot of videos offering advice about etiquette, strategy and early load outs, I have the day off but I have social commitments and errands to run so I can’t defend democracy all day 😢 but I’m sure today will be a sweet day for liberty.

I am also looking forward to Shinobi. I was so impressed by the demo I stopped playing after about half an hour and decided to wait for the full game. I don’t know how faithful it is to the old games (I played through the first three Shinobis when they were new on the SMS and Genesis) but it had some callbacks and suchlike I recognized. The audio visuals are just pure goodness. Sega has really been killing it recently.

I am also interested in the MGS remake (loved the original) but I only have so much time in the day and this years gaming release schedule is pretty packed so I will hold off for a bit.

I wasn’t expecting this remake of one of my favorite games (and my favorite MGS) to turn out so well. Not a day one for me but certainly something I’ll get down the line.

The names involved impressed me more than the game but I’ll keep an eye on this.

I love the trailer. I’ll keep an eye on this.