FuriousMachine

Atsu's vengeance has been on hold for a while now, so I'll go after The Oni in Ghost of Yotei and I will probably squeeze in an episode or two of Dispatch as well.
May even get started with trains in Shapez 2, but there are quite a few non-gaming activities that need to get sorted this weekend, so that may have to wait until later.

Bought it just before the weekend and have played the first two episodes. Fantastic interactive animated TV series! The writing and performances are simply sublime. There is no justice in this world if this doesn't get a proper non-interactive version on Netflix or the like, you know, for the normies
I really loved it and bought the deluxe upgrade simply for the comics, as this is definitely a world I want to delve deeper into.

@ShogunRok Thanks for clearing that up These kinds of releases can be quite confusing nowadays, and I think that is intentional. Glad to hear I won't need to offer this another thought (or penny), then

@ShogunRok I'm not sure if I understand exactly what the Anniversary Edition is... is it just the bundling of the game, the DLC and some Creators Club content, meaning that if one already owns the PS5 version of Fallout 4 + all the DLC, all we're really missing is the Creators Club content?
Or is this some sort of new remaster that upgrades the PS5 base game and DLC further?
(dear godzilla, I hate what gaming has become....)

That dude in the cover image is about to realise he should have pointed that gun elsewhere...

@Striker21 They are owned by EA and not struggling, though. Say potato

@Striker21

I just wrote an extensive commentary on the future of Game Pass and its potential to dominate the gaming industry.

And you did so in the comments section of an article about a fairly insignificant update on Mass Effect on a Playstation site, basing the relevance on the fallacy that the development of said game was struggling due to financial reasons, which is just... weird (if it's not just trolling).

So you'll have to excuse me if I ask you kindly to say potato.

@Jaxx420 Absolutely! While I fully support the right to organise and unionise, it is only prudent to enter into any such agreement with eyes wide open and also not automatically absolve any union of wrongdoing or shady dealings. While I believe it is far less common than with corporations looking for profits anywhere they can find them, unions and labour organisations are run by humans too, who can have motives that may or may not be plain to see.

In this case, however, it smells a bit like a technicality has been used in order to engage in a spot of union busting. No matter the outcome here, it is a good thing that this is getting the attention and noise it is getting (even if it means delays to GTA6), as it may make the next corporation wanting to "clean the ranks of troublesome union lovers" think twice to consider if it's worth the hassle.

Considering the story says they discussed "corporate secrets in a forum accessed by non-employees", the legal grounds for dismissal will probably be sound (if true), but as the story notes, it was a private forum with labour organisers being the only non-employees.
So, sounds like someone went to the forum to find anything that could be considered breach of contract in order to justify firing employees looking to unionise.
It all boils down to what was actually shared - if the employees shared critical information that was unrelated to any discussion of labour organisation, then R* were in the right, in my mind. I kind of suspect the confidential information shared were more along the lines of contract details, hiring practises, etc that would be of interest to a labour union while technically confidential.

@nessisonett and @ryan_nil both speak the truth. As more and more software developed solely by "vibe coders" is released into the wild, you will see a massive uptick in unreliable, broken and possibly even dangerous software out there (as security concerns fall by the wayside in these situations).
We live in interesting times.

I'm a software programmer (not games) and we're seeing the same push. I'm not too worried about losing my job, but I am worried that my job will change from being a coder to an AI babysitter forced to clean up poor code generated by an algorithm that has absolutely no cognitive functions and simply cannot be made to understand what is required.

As @Cikajovazmaj and others point out, this is most likely in response to regulations popping up around Europe. It is required here in Norway and the required listing of lowest price last 30 days is to quell the practice of hiking prices leading up to sales like Black Friday and then lowering them back down, proclaiming they are now "on sale".
You could see posters claiming "before price" being £100, now on sale for £80, when the product has been £100 the last five days before the sale and maybe £85 up until that point, which is in reality a £5 savings and not £20 as one is led to believe

Saints Row 2 was, for me, peak Saints Row. I enjoyed the third one, too, but there was just something that just gelled so well with the second one.
Not a franchise I feel a deep need to return to, but I'll definitely take a peek if a new entry should materialise

After agonising over the end of Mass Effect for a few days now, I've come to realise that looking forward to ME5 was more down to "hoping it's good" and less "all signs point to it ending up being good"... because no signs were actually pointing in that direction, considering corporate meddling, lack of direction and a sense of scrambling around trying to recapture old glory permeating their latest release(s).

So I think maybe best case scenario here would be the shuttering of BioWare (hoping all the people get good jobs away from evil corporations) and a sale of the IP. I realise that selling IP is something these companies almost never do, preferring to hold on to them "just in case", but EA takes on a debt of 20 billion dollars in this, so maybe selling IP they don't consider crucial is a way to mitigate that.

Also, Archetype and Owlcat may end up giving us ME fans our next great space adventures in other IPs. Either way, nothing to do but wait and see.

My first reaction was, like many others, "well, even easier boycott", particularly as I'm thinking that Codies are already dead and the WRC license has moved on and that was the extent of my EA engagement.

Then I remembered BioWare and the next Mass Effect.... NOOOOOOOOO!!
Alright, I had very little hope that it would turn out great, but the hope was there... now it's gone.

Archetype, it is up to you to serve us ME fans now... Any closer to completing "Exodus", or what?!

I think it looks pretty cool, but that voice work is awful... good grief... hoping they just pulled in some random tourists off the street to voice this trailer and plan on using talent for the game... "purp-ass"...oof....

I just realised that touring bands should reframe their merch stands: "Buy concert tickets, come to our concerts and enjoy the exclusive reward program where you can buy tour t-shirts and other merch!"
It's brilliant, if you (don't) think about it...

At least this one is available in Norway, so... yay? I get to buy stuff if I work hard and diligently completes their games and trophies, which is something I've always wanted... I mean, often I've said to myself after popping a platinum trophy, "self, I really wish I could give them some money for some previously unavailable merch now".

@GeeEssEff Absolutely! Now, I tried to get a hold of those FICSIT protein bars A.D.A. spoke of, but to no avail Fantastic game

I feel a word of warning is warranted: This is one of those games that is secretly a time machine - you start the game and in a blink of an eye, it's next morning. Very dangerous!
(It is currently taking up waaaaay too much of my free time)

Hmm... this is tempting, but I've grown very dependant on the ProMods add-ons to both games.
The only barrier for me playing it on PC these days is that, for some reason, my controller mappings disappear every now and then and it's a right pain to get things back the way I like them.
I will probably stick with the PC versions for now (own all DLC to both games as well, so that's an added incentive to not switch platforms)

@somnambulance Aha, yeah, I see now how my comment could be read that way. Apologies for that. I can assure you that I have absolutely no evidence against you of any kind
I also realised that it made me look like someone who knew who Avi Arad was and thought he was a good producer... makes me wonder what kind of person someone like that would be

@somnambulance Sounds like we actually agree, then. As I said, he is evidence against this being a quality film as most of what he's been involved in is useless dreck, IMO, and the handful of good movies he's had a hand in (Spidervers, for example) I believe are good in spite of his involvement

@somnambulance Evidence against: Avi Arad

Would love the DualSense (no faceplates for OG console ) but, alas, Playstation Direct is limited to only a few countries and mine is not one of them. Pisses me off when something is exclusive to Playstation Direct; feels like a giant middle finger to the people not deemed worthy to shop there.

"Sublimely stupid television" is probably the most fitting description for a TV show ever. Looking forward to season 2 and hopefully we Norwegians won't have to wait quite as long for it to arrive here as we had to for season 1

While there wasn't many titles that appealed to my tastes, I still thought this was a very good showing, covering lots of new games coming soon as opposed to x amount of years from now. Also showed the diversity of titles available for the platform. More like this, please

@Toot1st Absolutely agree with you there, E33 did it in a way that it didn't bother me at all, especially as you could easily heal without backtracking to a rest point (well, relatively speaking). I got a little into act II before I put it aside, and I can't really remember any time feeling I could not continue without going to a rest point (thank you triangle )
I remember playing "Lost Odyssey" on X360 and I absolutely loved that game, but the random encounters did grate after a while, no doubt about it.

@Toot1st Not really, no. I would prefer something akin to The Witcher 3, for example, which was pretty much perfectly balanced IMO. That being said, the rest = respawn doesn't have to be a game killer for me; it worked mostly fine in "Jedi: Fallen Order" and the aforementioned "Clair Obscur ...", but all too often these games force me to repeat too much of the game in order to make progress (20 minute trek with scattered encounters before being killed by a boss... repeat? No thanks) and that's where they fail for me.
Don't know if this is one of those, but the fact that the mechanic is in there removes any willingness to try for my part (I would probably not have pre-ordered CO:E33 either had I done my due diligence and discovered the mechanic was present there, though I do not regret getting it regardless)

Another Rest = Enemy respawn dealbreaker for me. I hate that game mechanic and I really hate that so many developers feel the need to implement it. An action adventure game without would be welcome (it almost made me abandon Clair Obscur, but I powered through... there were other issues that ultimately made me drop it, though).

@GeeForce Aha, that's probably my issue, then. I forgot to check yesterday. I played the PS4 version for a bit when I got it and didn't love it, but figured I might give the game another chance with the remaster. If I have to pay for it, I'll pass, though

So, I own the original, but when I open the remastered in the PS store (web), it wants money. Is there some small print (must own all DLC, etc) or something I'm missing?
EDIT: Never mind, found this on their site:

On PS5, your game should be automatically updated to the remastered version.

Guess I'll check when I get home from work

I was struggling a bit with this, as I have many issues with this game. They are all minor annoyances, but they crop up often enough during my playtime for me to wonder if this is truly a great game or not.
In the end, though, I believe that the things this game does well, it does so exceedingly well, that it almost completely obliterates the many minor faults on display. Almost.
9/10

This is the first time ever I've been able to answer "Yes" to an "are you playing" poll Played a couple of hours last night and should be able to put in an hour or two today

As a horror afficionado, I'm looking forward to this. Looks fun! No chance it will push "Sinners" off the top spot of favourite 2025 movie, but it doesn't have to. Seeing it tomorrow

Excellent, can't wait for tomorrow when my pre-order drops!

So, I was clearly not the target audience for this one Outside of Clair Obscur, there were only two games that piqued my interest, Hear Tell of a Haunting and Sintopia. And even with those I will need to know much more.

@Quintumply Yeah, I'm leaning towards error, but I'll check in at 8 just in case

@Quintumply Heads up: The Twitch site indicates 8pm CEST. Pre-show, maybe? Says 20-22 CEST in the schedule here https://www.twitch.tv/galaxiesshow/schedule

EDIT: It also says 3pm US Eastern, which converts to 9pm CEST, so I think maybe the time converter Twitch uses may be off?

@roe I miss their old Show of the Week, so much fun!

@Dr-M I was watching "Spermageddon", a Norwegian animated comedy for adults (in the vein of "Sausage Party"). Infantile humour, much of which didn't land, but there was enough that did for me to enjoy it.
I skipped "A Minecraft Movie" this weekend, as there were other things I rather spent my time on (I've taken up hobby-coding again).
I haven't completely ruled out going in the future, but there are quite a few new interesting releases here in April, so it's doubtful I'll find the time for it.

@graymamba That's on the top of my Cyberpunk wishlist as well, but there's not a snowball's chance in hell that that will happen, as I understand it

This is interesting. I had absolutely no interest in this movie, but then the trailer ran in front of another movie I saw recently, and I chuckled at a few things and found the Momoa/Black energy enticing. So I booked a ticket for this coming Saturday, thinking that maybe it can give me a few chuckles and some levity amidst the constant horrorshow that is real life these days.
The LA Times review seemed to echo this, but then I read the Hollywood Reporter excerpt and there is so much truth in that that I'm now considering cancelling my ticket.
Sure, there is nothing wrong with wanting some light fun and easy escape from the flaming hellscape that consumes every waking moment, but is it worth sacrificing imagination and creativity on the altar of corporate greed in order to do so?
Annoyingly, I'm unsure

As an example, with today's exchange rate, Assassin's Creed Shadows would cost me $87, 44 US, so I'm used to the $80 mark already. With a general $10 price hike across the board, I would probably be looking at close to $100 for a new game.
So, a continued hard pass from me. I suppose I will have to wait even longer for a sale to hit a price I'm comfortable with (as an example: I still haven't seen an attractive sale price for Spider-Man 2 or GOW:Ragnarok, two games I really want).
Luckily, I've got a backlog to see me through several years, so I can wait

I always say that people should travel more, expand their horizons, experience other cultures and see how other people live. I truly believe it leads to becoming a better and more tolerant person.
Though, clearly, some people definitely needs to stay home, and make no mistake, this is not a cultural thing where only western tourists fail to be respectful, it's a personality thing. There are plenty of respectful western tourists and disrespectful non-western tourists.

I second @SeanOhOgain
Saying it "kind of" ruined my plans is plain untrue, as it was never my plan to play anything but offline (and rarely is). Still, it was the one I picked

@Dagoth-Ur I just watched two episodes of "Severance" and one of "Mythic Quest" on the Apple TV+ app on PS5, so there is network connectivity, but probably only for things not requiring any kind of PSN auth or integration.

@Oram77 I'm with you on that (still love me some Yakuza, though)

Too bad. This is easily my favourite game of the genre and a movie with Donnie Yen would have been excellent. But, alas.

@ShogunRok "Not available in my country" should be a poll option. That's what I would have clicked, anyway