IntrepidWombat

Intergalactic looks like ND really wanted to make a Guardians of the Galaxy game but were denied the license, so they just changed a couple things.

Finally started Elden Ring. Not super impressed so far, but I'm willing to give it several hours.

Received a copy of Alan Wake II - debating on whether I should dive right in, play the part 1 DLC, or play through Control first.

Onimusha, Okami Sequel, and The Witcher IV. Not really vibing with anything else.

Witcher IV, Onimusha, and a new Okami all made the show worth it.

Capcom, though. Dudes. Where's the next Resident Evil?

All of the Metaphor awards were heartening. I'm glad Atlus is getting their recognition. I'm looking forward to playing it when my backlog calms down.

It's not Resident Evil, but MY GOODNESS. I'll take it!

I think it will be AstroBot, but I would like to see Metaphor.

@elvisfan1 A majority don't, you're right. At least not immediately. Most of my PS1 games are worth more than I paid for them, but you're talking about 25 year old games at that point. The ones that appreciate quickly now are hit or miss. Basically all of Falcom's Trails games do - if you want a physical copy, you need to buy one at launch or end up paying significantly more for it.

@elvisfan1 The disc is a physical manifestation of the license. I can prove that I own the game. I can loan it, gift it, or sell it. The most important part of physical games is competition. Digital only games are only sold on PSN. There's no external pressure to reduce prices. Without physical media, Sony has a monopoly. With physical media, Amazon, Sony, GameStop, and other resellers can compete against each other. The consumer wins. There's also the possibility that your digital games are delisted or that your license is revoked. They can do that if they want to; it's in the terms of service.

One more thing post-edit - many physical games appreciate in value. Digital games have zero value besides the value that the end user derives from playing and enjoying it.

That's why I'm heavily in favor of physical.

I'll probably watch a streamer who's also watching it just to see if there's a Resident Evil announcement. If we get that, then it will have been worth my time.

@Oram77 Tomorrow!

I still question whether the PS5 was worth purchasing. It turned 4 this year, and it took Silent Hill 2 and Stellar Blade to finally do away with my buyers remorse. 75% of my PS5 library also came out on the PS4 with even more PS4 games continuing to release. The Pro is fine for ultra enthusiasts, but for most people, it just doesn't make sense, especially when the PS4 continues to be good enough for so many.

Somehow, I've never heard of either. After taking a cursory glance, I'm kind of OK with that. Not my thing.

Busy busy weekend ahead. If I play at all, it will be finishing up Alan Wake and the fantastic Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.

That's a big IF. Wind and Truth came out yesterday, so my free time will likely be consumed with reading until that 1,300 page behemoth is finished.

I work from home, like to have background noise, and music only goes so far. I like using long form video game content as background while I'm working. If there's nothing available, I'll tune in to a Twitch streamer that I like (all 2 of them that I can put up with). So yes, I consume many more hours of video game videos, but it's a function of how I use it.

What's the logic behind making it temporary, I wonder? Engaging FOMO to get people on their platform and buying things now? Plans to sell the themes later? I don't know, it just seems odd.

Playing through Alan Wake Remastered for the first time. There are some elements I like - Remedy's brand of story telling is neat. The combat has a lot of jank, especially when there are more than 3 or so enemies. It's real easy to get stun-locked. Still makes for a fun time.

Alan Wake II is in the cards for sure, but the plan is to revisit Control on PC first. I put it down after losing my save file moving from one PC to another, but it's been long enough that it shouldn't be too annoying.

@yohn777 Yes, it is on you. If you want the information, go get it. It's not my responsibility to verify information for you. It's an internet forum. The stakes aren't that high. Get a grip, and get over yourself.

@yohn777 Asking for a "Source?" In the age of a search engine that has the totality of human knowledge indexed and searchable. Really? I already said that I have no idea what the actual production cost is. Feel free to search for it yourself.

It's more than fair to say that it had a 10 year development cycle because it did. The final product only took them 3.5 years to make, but it should doesn't change the fact that the fourth Dragon Age game was in development for the last decade, whether or not all of that material was actually used.

@DennisReynolds The game didn't "bomb" in a literal sense, but relative to its likely production cost. There is a large range of numbers floating around out there, and I can't begin to tell you what it actually is. You do have to consider that the title was started, scrapped, started again, scrapped again, and finally started a third time. It had a 10-year development cycle. The $200m mark I see pop up the most doesn't seem terribly far-fetched, and that doesn't include marketing which could add quite a bit more.

It's in the same sense that a home run isn't necessarily a failure unless you're down 3 at the bottom of the ninth. In that sense, you need a grand slam just to go up 1.

I'm looking forward to playing this - very happy to see the physical version coming soon.

As a side note, I found it funny that AstroBot won best audio, as that was the precise reason I couldn't even sit through the gameplay video. Cutesy robot sounds are weird, and Silent Hill 2's audio was a masterclass in audio world building. Just some random aging gamer's opinion.

Cranking through Stellar Blade NG+ at the moment. I have Elden Ring arriving today, but that was only because it was $20. My backlog is silly right now. I need to head up to my mother's, drop her grocery order, and build some furniture. After that, some shopping with my son. Gaming will be a bit this afternoon and maybe a bit tonight.

There's not enough Prozac and Jack Daniel's in the world that could get me to play this slog again. The core game play was fine, but hoo boy, it was a masterclass in what NOT to do in the pacing and character building department.

One of my nephews asks me if I've played this yet every time I see him. I will never, ever pay $70 (or even $40) for a digital game, and I'm sure not interested enough in it to buy the limited physical deluxe edition. I suspect I'll be waiting several years for this one, but eventually, I do plan to jump in and give it a go.

More picking at Persona 3 Reload NG+. I might actuality Platinum this game. I have two Platinums, period: Persona 5 Royal and Cars 2 for PS3, both purely by accident.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is on sale at GOG, and I've been craving a good Metroidvania, so I may slap down the $10 for that.

The Romancing Saga 2: Revenge of the Seven demo was so good. That one clicked with me instantly. I need to hit the hardware store today, and if I happen to drift by the game store and also happen to see this game sitting there, well shoot, why not?

@nessisonett Your very favorite thing about a group of people nobody brought up until you did in your comment - your very favorite thing about that group - is that they have a subjective opinion on an actress that you disagree with? That's downright fascinating. Tell me more.

@riceNpea That's one fem Shep that I could get behind. Controversy aside, she has the chops, build, and demeanor to be convincing in the role.

John Cena is getting up there, and it's pretty evident - as a VA for Wrex, he'd be a lot of fun. As Shepard, I'm not a fan. Maybe 15 years or so ago. Shoot, I could see Cena playing a decent Illusive Man.

Part of it is just getting way too cute with their flagship franchise. I thought FF7Remake was just okay and that Rebirth was an absolute dumpster fire of weird combat mechanics and over-reliance on mini games. FFXVI was a decent if long-winded action game, XV was an uninteresting open world slog... They just aren't hitting on them like they used to. It may behoove them to take the series back to a more proven formula. They can experiment with their other IPs, but get Final Fantasy back to being a quality RPG series and not whatever the last few releases have been.

The bloated productions in and of themselves aren't helping either. For example, FFXVI had a real Game of Thrones kind of vibe to it, but it released several years too late to really capitalize on that.

Well, I know what game I'm playing that week.

I tried the Ys X demo last night, but Falcom fatigue is real. Can't do it. I haven't even finished Us VIII or Trails into Reverie, much less even cracked the plastic on Daybreak. The Romancing Saga 2 demo however is excellent. Really straightforward, old school feel with a coat of Gen 6 paint. I'll try to finish that this weekend if there's time. If I like it, I'll buy it. I only had about 45 minutes or so to play last weekend, and this one is looking about the same. My wife really wants to put up Christmas decorations this evening, so we're going to do that.

Just how much is Sony paying you per PS5 Pro article?? Haha.

With the way this generation has gone, I'll probably be good with my launch PS5 until PS6 pro comes out (unless they ditch the disk drive altogether, then I'll just move to PC full time). I can count on one hand the PS5 games I have that couldn't have been played on PS4.

It would be interesting if PlayStation decided in the future to go more modular. Launch the system with a discrete GPU (with a proprietary form factor of course, because SONY) and sell upgrades in the future. I would imagine that selling an upgrade to your current console (especially if it was something that was extremely easy to swap by the user) would be more profitable than designing, manufacturing, and shipping a whole new machine.

@Logonogo Steelers Country, Let's Weld! Hoping Zach Frazier can make it back after the bye. The Commies are going to be a big test for this group.

I'll be picking at NG+ of Persona 3 Reload. I have a couple demos queued up (Yz X and Romancing Saga 2). I haven't done a run of RE2 remake in a while, so I may do that if I have time to finish one.

@FuriousMachine The disc read speed wouldn't be sufficient, but you could use an application to copy the disc image to your PC. Native hardware would do that anyway.

@JohntheRaptor One can hope. I wonder if Drew Karpyshyn is available...

@tangyzesty Pathetic how? That's a strong word for how low stakes all of this is. You can watch multiple lengthy presentations on a game and know whether or not it's for you. If it's part of an existing IP, you can see how it deviates from its previous entries. You can gain understanding of the gameplay loop and identify elements in the game that make it a non-starter. Skill Up had a presentation that was compelling and quite honest.

If it's commercially successful, then this team with this skill set and this direction will go on to work on other projects. Bioware has said that assets working on DA:V will shift to the next Mass Effect. It stands to reason that if I don't want the next Mass Effect to resemble this game that I have absolutely no desire to support in any way, then yes, I want it to do poorly from a financial standpoint so that the developer can identify what caused the game to fail and not implement those things in the game that I would like to play.

And if none if that happens - if the game is a commercial smash hit and Bioware goes on to copy/paste 90% of this title's code in to Mass Effect - so be it. I won't play that either, and life will go on.

I can't even begin to take the game seriously with what I've seen of the art style, level design, writing, and gameplay. I'll say it - I do want this game to fail commercially because I don't want it to become a blueprint for the next Mass Effect.

Of course the reception has been warm. EA limited codes only to reviewers they thought would give it high marks, same thing CDPR did with Cyberpunk. I'm interested to see what happens after it's in the hands of the wide audience.

I honestly thought the cover of DA:V was a parody at first. Take away the title and replace it with Fortnite, and you'd hardly be able to tell.

I have zero faith that they'll be able to make Mass Effect in a way that comes close to the original trilogy. I hope they can prove me wrong.

I used to repair PS2s back in 2003/2004 - this looks awesome.

Well, I always did kick myself for not grabbing the Dreamcast and N64 ports of RE2 when I had the chance. I'll grab that one at the very least.

@SoulReaper-72 Fingers crossed.

Just finished Silent Hill 2 remake last night. How the heck did I get "In Water?" Oh well.

Busy weekend - gaming a lot isn't on the menu sadly. Moving my mother today and getting her situated in her new place. Finally got the new LED strips to fix the living room TV, so I hope to get that done. Lost 7 business days on a project at work, so I may bust some tail on Sunday to try to catch up prior to Monday morning.

If I get a few minutes here or there, I'm thinking it'll be a game of Vampire Survivors.

Have a good weekend, everybody!

It's buried so deep in my backlog that the full version I plan on buying on sale hasn't come out yet. I enjoyed the demo though.

What a scam. $50 for 30 hours when I could spend $70 for 100 hours? $1.67 per hour versus $0.70 per hour? It's more than double the price!! Who do these jokers think they are? AA indeed!

Kidding. Obviously. I'm really looking forward to this game.

@CrashBandicoat Great points.

@Flaming_Kaiser Who gets to decide what's opinion and what's utter nonsense? I think Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is an unplayable disaster with unbelievably poor combat mechanics and an identity crisis. Is that nonsense because it's an unpopular opinion? Different people have different perspectives. If you have a different opinion, power to you. You don't get to be the arbiter of whether or not my opinion or anyone else's is valid though.

@MikeOrator I am enjoying the game, but your comment doesn't make sense to me. "Only the people that have the same opinions as I do are allowed to comment, because their opinions are wrong!" That's how echo chambers are made. Just because it's the popular opinion doesn't mean it's the only valid one.

@Vaako007 100%. This game has me worried sick about the next Mass Effect. They've gone the direction of so many other new teams with modern franchises and just burned it to the ground.

Lol wow. Nope. I'll just pop the disc in to my PS3 and play it that way when it's time to go back to it.

This gets a solid 8 from me.

Silent Hill is not new to me - been playing them since 1999, and this one is definitely in the same tier as the original 2 and 3.

Definitely a few missed opportunities here. Weapons could have been a little more diverse. Same with enemies. There is some camera jitter when moving it around and James' back is to a wall. I have several nitpicks around their firearm/ammo selections, but those are relatively minor details in the grand scheme of things. Bloober absolutely nailed the sound and art design. I really enjoyed the puzzles. The combat was just ok for me - a little repetitive with the lack of variance in weapons and enemies.

Overall, a solid game - definitely up there with the remake of RE2.

@McTwist Yeeeah, I know. It's a pipe dream. That's why I have my PC...