Mythologue

I've noticed a common trend in the games industry in general, which is that few seem intent on building something really unique.

A shooter doesn't have to have GTA style cover or weapon wheels. You don't need to have people yammering in your ear nonsense that you probably can't even process in the moment.

And a 3PS action-adventure doesn't have to play like GTA to begin with.

Derivation isn't creative. Try something else.

I returned to Minecraft for no particular reason. We all know about the game, so I'll just say that the PS5 version is weirdly clinical.

As far as I could tell, there wasn't an option to customise world options when launching. It sort of just boots you into it. No tutorial to speak of either, and I think they've done away with leaderboards.

I don't know why the game feels so stripped back.

Pretty dry for me. Maybe Little Nightmares 3 and Outer Worlds 2? Silent Hill F got my attention but I'm not sold on it yet.

Meh.

I just watched some brief gameplay. It looks worse than Watch_Dogs from a decade ago and the dialogue is weird, stilted, forced, reminds me of those subpar NFS games of late.

Hadn't really been following it and definitely won't even be considering it now.

I can't believe it. The developers of Bubsy 3D. Where did it all go wrong?

Underwhelming across the board, unfortunately. SOP, SGF and this reflect the sad reality that gaming just isn't as creative or exciting as it used to be.

I saw a fairly lengthy list of games, but when perusing them, I don't think I'm really sold on any. It seems like a whole lot of filler. RE9 is an interesting one, though. Can't say I'll play it, but I will keep an eye on it.

The one thing that seems to be consistently missing is racing games. I want some Burnout/Blur/Flatout/Spit/Second revival. What happened to that sort of thing?

Anyway, Silent Hill F looks intriguing. I think that's all I was really sold on, and even then, it was a little meh.

CDPR have released one really great game. Thronebreaker was good but rife with crashes. Cyberpunk was pretty decent with mediocre features.

I'm looking forward to this but the company is far from earning my trust.

UE5 is absolutely rife with technical issues. Baked in, if I'm not mistaken. I'll reserve judgement for the time being. CDPR and UE5 sounds like a recipe for disaster at this time.

Not that I'll be skipping this game, of course, once the reviews come in.

Now, if only they modded some substance into the game...

DS is so awash with celebrity cameos that they're now just inventing celebrities.

I find loyalty programs silly in general. Especially if you use multiple platforms.

The Steam points store is still the best implementation of this in my view (even if points are just for little icons and trinkets.)

Dark Souls 2: SOTFS on Steam. Tried some Skyrim modding but it's much more technical and finicky than I remember.

Returning to FFXVI soon. Good game. A bit too easy really. 25 hours in with no deaths.

The world building is great but the story itself is pretty weak.

I'd like to give it a try. I'm not expecting much but I'm used to the typical Bethesda crawl. If it's better than OK, I think I'll get quite into it.

CP77 had some of the best writing out of any game I've played, with some of the most lukewarm "Deus Ex but uninspired" gameplay I've experienced.

I hope they spend much more time on this. Even patched and ostensibly complete, the original game still feels like only half of what it was intended to be.

Give it a decade, if necessary.

I promise, Mr. Magic Trick, that I'll find every conceivable way to not spend that much money.

I've beaten it twice on Death March difficulty, including the Blood and Wine DLC. But it's one of those games which I don't think has aged all that well, and will more likely than not resonate with people who played it immediately following its release. Not so much those who played it a decade later.

I can't say that the Doom revival ever really clicked with me. I know I'm in the minority, but I found 2016 very sterile and dated for all the wrong reasons. Fun game in some ways (especially those little level design challenges) but mostly just meh.

If this is weaker even than that, it's probably a hard pass from me.

The problem I have with live service games is that they almost always seem to set devs up to fail. There'll always be probably no more than three domineering 'services' in a single ecosystem, because how can people have time enough to play ostensibly infinite games and share their hours between, say, half a dozen?

So it's worrying to me from a developer standpoint, because it seems like nine out of ten of these nascent IPs end up flagging. The surviving one ends up becoming some cynical, microtransaction-swamped vehicle for profiteering.

A couple things to consider;

First, there will be profiteering. This is a given.

Second, import taxes will naturally affect costs. Everyone already knows this. It's how taxes work.

The price hike is (probably) a combination of the two above. Arguments can be had over which is the more pressing. I'd argue import taxes, since they're universal and very difficult to unravel (I don't think just immediately dropping them will have any instant effect.)

Biometrics. Famously reliable.

It's just a coincidence that this has happened for the hundredth time under almost precisely the same conditions.

Fallout 3 and Skyrim seem the more likely options. Morrowind is a little too niche, and Bethesda never GAF about New Vegas.

Despite the endless re-re-re-releases of Skyrim, I am curious to see what a ground-up rendition would look like.

@Jstevo I completed all of the optional missions save for one (the Garry the Prophet mission), and all but one of the gigs (the last one for Padre.)

If I'm not mistaken, the reason Sony keep tripping over themselves when it comes to PS3 emulation is because of the architecture of the PS3 itself.

I still think Sony should do more with emulation efforts.

70 hours is a bit much, even for games that I love. That's around the time I found my enjoyment waning for Elden Ring, probably around the Haligtree area.

Similarly, I put in around 65 hours for Cyberpunk, which is a game I quite enjoyed, but struggled with the last 10 hours or so.

I'll need to see some actual gameplay. I'm more interested in what the structure of the game is than anything.

If console prices spike to these new, exorbitant levels, I'll probably just stop buying consoles. I think my PC is already future-proofed enough, and there's a much broader pool of games to play (not to mention the other benefits.)

@DonkeyFantasy That's not a common phrase as far as I can tell. It's only a structure I've noticed recently, specifically in AI summaries.

"In particular, fans are quite taken with the slightly more grounded tone, slick traversal, and new loot possibilities."

I don't mean to sound accusatory, but can someone confirm that this isn't AI written? I'm sure I've seen wording like this in AI summaries before ("in particular," followed by three items).

Claws of Awaji looks interesting. Is that the expansion that came with the deluxe edition?

FH4 is better in my view. I wish they'd released them as a collection, a trilogy or something of the sort. I can't really remember 5 much, even though I played it to its natural conclusion on Gamepass.

So...it's a firm and confident maybe from me.

I imagine it's more to do with demand. How many units of Mario Kart are going to be shifted? How confident are Nintendo that it's going to be a not insignificant figure?

I hate £60 tags, £50 to boot, but it seems to be simple in principle.

The formidable world size of Shadows was one of its weaker points. I find myself preferring smaller to larger these days.

I'll be waiting on this I think. It's a weird look, updated graphics with antiquated world and level design. I imagine the jury is still out on whether this is really a good game or just a polished mess.

I hope at least the 'dungeons' have been improved. The caves and ruins of the original were pretty tedious and uninspired.

@ChrisDeku I guess the Witcher 3 just has more variety. GoT is a grounded game and has the restriction of maintaining relative realism. Witcher 3 is a fantasy world, so has multiple times more enemy designs and a broader array of situations to handle.

This is a better approach than pure open world IMO. Oftentimes, open worlds have way too much filler. Smaller environments allow for more focus.

DA:I and The Witcher 3 are both prime examples of this design philosophy.

I finished it not long ago. I'd like to try for the plat at some point in the future. I know I'll be returning when the inevitable DLC releases (one of my biggest gripes with the late plot points was how obviously DLC-bait they were.)

@LifeGirl But people do treat each other with respect. It just depends on where you look.

@ATaco Tariffs are basically just import taxes paid by the importer. This raises prices for imported goods, which is passed to the consumer to cover the additional costs.

I'm starting to feel like Sony are deliberately making themselves as unappealing as possible.

AC Shadows, which I just finished at around 55 hours (some side activities but mostly bee-lining to story content). Great game, something I'm planning on returning to, intending to clear out the map which I think I only explored about 40% of. Naoe is also one of my favourite assassins now, possibly second after Ezio.

I'm moving on to Cyberpunk since I've never cleared it. Definitely rough around the edges but feels a lot more polished than when last I played it.

With enough time, plenty more Rocksmith.

It's funny, I was thinking about this not long ago. Danger Zone was a good low budget revisit of Burnout's crash game mode, but Dangerous Driving was deeply mediocre and riddled with flaws. A typical 5/10 game that I still played to its conclusion (and the follow up never seeing the light of day).

Wreckreation is an interesting concept but I'll reserve judgement until its release, given their recent products.

Shadows. I am enjoying this game a lot but I also recognise that it's ahead by a country mile partly because of there being very little competition.

Split Fiction, a game I'm yet to play, seems to be a well deserved second place.

@KundaliniRising333 For the sake of clarity and in the interest of fairness, Steam user reviews currently have the game at an 81% (8.1/10). So the 8/10 ratings were almost dead on. In fact, understating the quality of the game.

Of course, pending opinions and personal taste, which will always differ.

It would be interesting to see a new take on the modern portions. I didn't love them in previous games, but it seems that this game in particular only very rarely delves into them. Which I think works, especially for a concluding section at the end.

It's a surprisingly strong game, and this is coming from a long-time Ubisoft hater. The world is well-realised, especially the cities and towns, and the combat is very satisfying and reactive. Even the story, this time around, has some degree of intrigue comparative to previous entries.

It might not be a return to form as such, but it's certainly an improvement from the direction the franchise was heading in.

I'm sure gamers used to play games. Weird how that changed.