Kienda

@DualWielding what game is your profile picture from?

I remember the day my brother came home with a brand new 32X and plugged it into our Sega MegaDrive (Genesis) and our minds were blown by the graphics of Virtua Racing.

This game will get a sale from me just because it reminds me of my childhood. Excellent stuff.

@naruball yeah, I think he’s right.

It seems many fan writers turn into activists for a cause rather than just sharing their ideas and letting others have their own.

Most professional writers understand that people will interpret their work differently and there isn’t really a right or wrong to how an individual takes it. In fact, they often add far more meaning to parts of the story than the writers thought of. And many writers will admit that.

People need to understand that we all have our own imaginations and are allowed to have our own interpretations of the relationships within the game.

The whole point of storytelling is to invite people into the story and feel like they are a part of it.

I add my own imagination and interpretation into lots of books, films and games I enjoy. There is no right or wrong, we are all allowed to feel our own emotions about things.

Car looks cool, but this is just remote play. You could theoretically do this with any screen/device inside any car.

I’d be more impressed if it had an actual PS5 inside the car.

I’m still enjoying Final Fantasy 15 this weekend in between being a Dad taxi for the wife and kids.

@Ray_Ray_Regasis yeah, I know it’s not going away but I’m going to rage against it for as long as I live. Haha

We just had to keep feeding the little monster, didn’t we?

It started with mobile games. Companies learned that people would pay small fees to feed their addiction. “Free” games that would make their hooked junkies pay for more tries.

Then we had F2P games where people paid for content. Then loot boxes for cosmetics. Then buying cosmetics themselves. The human need for the latest item to flex on random strangers online.

Developers played us like crack heads hooked on a drug. And now when we are finally waking up it’s too late. The little monster is now a behemoth.

£200 for all this stuff is £200 too much. I’d argue £2 should be enough to unlock a FF7 battle pass that permanently allows people to unlock these items at their leisure. But the companies would never be so kind.

For that price you might as well buy the limited edition of FF7:Rebirth and have a real life One Winged Angel Sephiroth figurine, much better than some death box made of pixels.

Losing that many staff will surely have a negative impact. Devs seeing this will be thinking that future enhancements to the software will be impacted and customer support etc. It makes Unity even less appealing.

The only winners are the shareholders who literally couldn’t care for this industry or company and are only in it for money.

@UltimateOtaku91 read my above comment.

The Xbox price slash happened in December. It was Sony that slashed prices in November.

But Sony had stock issues.

Of course PlayStation is selling better even with stock shortages (which should now be resolved).

@get2sammyb yes and no.

PlayStation was massively discounted in November.

Sony reduced the price to £380 for a disc model. This coincided with Black Friday, but the main reason was to get rid of old stock of the “fat” model in preparation for the new slim consoles.

This actually resulted in stock issues for PS5 in November. So it might have impacted sales that month.

Xbox on the other hand was massively discounted in December. They timed their major sale close to Christmas (likely to avoid the competition with Sony).

Microsoft planned it for when the PS5 prices were back to their peak and wouldn’t be discounted because it was a new product. This made their console more appealing for parents seeing the price difference when buying Christmas presents.

It will be interesting to see what happened combining both Nov/Dec to see if this had an effect.

Final Fantasy 15

I’m 30 hours in and taking it slow. Doing all side quests and hunts so only on chapter 5 right now. Actually really enjoying it.

@InsaneWade I really hope they will release them over on Xbox.

It’s clear the main audience for these games is on PlayStation (with Switch being second) but I think the more places it’s available the better.

@UltimateOtaku91 the Final Fantasy franchise is one of the main reasons I chose PlayStation over Xbox.

Having said that, I wouldn’t mock Xbox players for their misfortune. This game should be available to all (imho).

Those materia power ups look like a great little feature.

I expected skins, I didn’t expect them to add new game mechanics for it.

I know someone with severe epilepsy. She doesn’t even look at TVs let alone play games.

People in that camp know their limits and adapt themselves rather than expecting the world to pander to them.

The likely only thing this mode will do is give a few people a headache or dizziness and they will simply change the filter because the people that can die from this won’t be stupid enough to do that. Those who benefit from the mode will appreciate the feature and use it.

It’s not a forced feature of the game. It isn’t on by default. So let’s stop trying to tear everyone down with online outrage and just act rationally for a minute.

@GeeEssEff @The_Pixel_King @EvenStephen7

Thanks for the messages, I was going to just write something simple like, “I predicted I’d own a PS5 and now I do.” But I ended up typing a lot more. Obviously had stuff to get off my chest.

Thanks for the encouragement. Despite the struggles, last year was still good for us as a family. These things always draw us closer together and help us see what’s important in life. But I’m quite confident 2024 will be better.

Happy New Year everyone and thanks to the PushSquare staff for another year of top notch content.

Last year I predicted (hoped) I would be able to afford a PS5 in 2023.

We had some family health issues that needed financing, so instead of upgrading having both an Xbox Series X and a PS5 (which was the plan) I ended up selling all of my old consoles and games, including my Series X. Raised a few thousand from old figurines, consoles, games etc to afford the equipment for my son.

Despite all this, remarkably, I managed to get a PS5 in the Black Friday sales after my wife gave me the approval.

I now only have a shiny new PS5 (which is honestly the best gaming experience and all I need in a console) but best of all, a healthy son. I feel I won this year.

@Lorcan Tyria is a nice place to be.

2023 is the year I got my Skyscale. Still a bit behind on the story content though as I’m working through it all in sequence.

I’ll add my voice to the “What? Why is FF16 not on the list?” crowd.

Not only should it be IN the top ten, it should be high up in it.

Final Fantasy 15 in between wrapping presents, seeing family and going to church.

I don’t know why I put FF15 off for so long. I’m 10 hours in and having a blast.

Chun Li still has it then.

I remember watching the Street Fighter anime movie as a 10-year-old and the Chun Li shower scene and subsequent fight with Vega was, well, let’s say it piqued my interest.

My top 3:

1- Final Fantasy 16
2 - Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
3 - Quake 2

It’s been a fantastic year though overall.

I’ve not finished the first DLC Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok yet.

All these Valhalla Ragnarok games make me think the Vikings need to create some more mythology.

The SEGA reveal won the show for me. A big surprise and a massive treat. I love the originals so will buy these also.

Monster Hunter Wilds was second. So glad they’re making a game in the style of Worlds again.

Third were the DLC on FF16 and GoW. These were a welcome but kind of expected surprise. GoW being free though is amazing.

@sorteddan I think that’s DLC for “Murder Cleanup Simulator”.

They might surprise us.

Guerrilla were able to switch away from their FPS Killzone games and make Horizon Zero Dawn. So let’s not count these guys out until we see the final product.

I’m still gonna keep my expectations low though…

Leakers be damned.

Another symptom of our broken society. Ruining the hype for others, taking away the joy of the developers, all for internet clout. And the people who enjoy leaks are just people with no patience or self control.

Respect the developers. Wait for the official reveals. Let everyone enjoy the moment together.

“Eagle eyes” noticed the change?

More like “one eyed monsters” noticed the change.

That’s shockingly high.

Personally, I am notorious for not finishing games. But this is one I might Platinum.

Stupid people.

I could blame the developers, sure. But just like politics, we get who we vote for. With games, we have micro transactions and unfinished/broken games because we keep buying them.

We have to force change because publishers won’t when we just throw money at them.

£17 for a single cosmetic is madness.

I just spent £12 to buy Final Fantasy 15 Royal Edition (full game plus DLCs and cosmetics).

Think of all the work that went into that game, people pouring out their hearts into it from designers, writers, artists, musicians and so many more. They created an art piece that tells a story, plays with your emotions and gives hundreds of hours of content and I bought it for less than a single cosmetic.

This is why I have also said mobile games were cancer to gaming. They gave birth to micro transactions which have now infected gaming as a whole.

@MrGawain yeah, I agree with you.

I’m not into CoD or EA FC, or the mountains of FPS and Horror games, I prefer the JRPGs, adventure games, platformers etc.

The saving grace is I have such a large backlog of good games from last gen that I’m never bored. But clearly more needs to be done this gen.

I know Nintendo keeps delivering and Xbox have said they want to diversify. But I’m not sure what Sony will do.

They had a bundle with EA Sports FC which helped them.

Now there are £399 deals with CoD MW3 all over the place. I can only see their sales growing at this point.

Sony know what they are doing.

@Rioichi GTA is an open world sandbox which includes mechanics for a lot of things. It’s not a game designed specifically around mass murdering civilians.

There is a difference.

@LightningLeader I don’t think glorifying any murder/mass murder is right.

Killing is different to murder.

Well done to Xbox and Nintendo.

(Haters gonna hate, but glorifying mass murder never helped anyone).

@Hyena_socks NaNoWriMo!!!!

Good luck writing your novel!

I don’t mind if Netflix get into gaming.

BUT

If they acquire any developers and lock their games behind their streaming service, even though I’m on that streaming service, I won’t play their games anymore. I just cannot handle streaming in games.

So let’s hope they don’t go down the exclusivity route.

So… Tekken is killing the planet?

These people should rage against the real culprits, the massive polluters in the world. The UK could go to net-zero tomorrow and it would have zero impact on global omissions.

The end result will be that UK citizens are taxed more and lose freedom because of policies these loons force through parliament and yet nothing will be solved globally.

Go protest in China or somewhere that can actually impact global emissions.

Gotham Knights is coming to Game Pass and PS Plus in the same month.

Is that going to be a normal thing now?

I’m not sure why I think this, but that main article image might be the best main article image Push Square has ever used…

I love Japan.

Well this sucks. Rocket League is my go to chill game when I only have 30mins or less so I hope this doesn’t affect the quality.

Also, this probably kills the future of Unreal Tournament.

Shame on Epic’s crappy leadership.

@Tharsman @Mintie @Lavalera thanks for taking the time to reply.

I think I will wait until next year before I start my FF14 journey. But you’ve definitely convinced me to give it a go.

FF14 is a game I have always wanted to play but never found the time.

I love MMOs. I played World of Warcraft from launch to Mists of Pandaria and I still play Guild Wars 2 and Elder Scrolls Online.

With ESO and GW2, I can leave for a while then jump back in with their expansions and feel like I’m not left behind. WoW was great but it was such a time investment, I was raiding and just couldn’t keep up after having kids so I quit it cold turkey. I feel FF14 could be the same, not because of the gear grind but the story grind.

Like I said, I’ve always wanted to play this, just haven’t felt I can invest the time.

Anyone got experience on whether I could just enjoy it gradually over time or is it that massive as the comments above suggest?

I’m definitely going to dip back into this. It’s a solid game with a decent gameplay loop. I played a good 10+ hours on it, but it didn’t have enough to keep me coming back so maybe this will fix that.

@B_Lindz in all honesty, Xbox Game Pass is the only thing that saved this game from extinction. If you play it, all your teammates will be Xbox players almost all the time (I’m also playing this on Xbox).

It should have been a free to play game.

Well, of course.

Yeah, it sucks for PlayStation/Nintendo gamers but it’s the reason Xbox bought Bethesda.