Shepherd_Tallon

@clvr tbf to Sammy, I'm sure he'd welcome constructive criticism of the game and discussion re the points in the article, but criticism online is rarely constructive and some of the loudest people would rather pile on when they smell blood instead of having any kind of discussion.
That's the point he was making.

I'm still happy with what I'm hearing.
I have no problems hitting a wall or a difficulty spike if there's another route I can take.
Then come back 20 hours later and dance on the enemy that stumped me.

Expect me to find a combo that I like and happily spam it for 100s of hours.

It's a sign of the times, @get2sammyb.
I'm a big fan of new console hardware and tend to be a Day 1 buyer, but everything is expensive atm and if I can delay making a new hardware purchase for another year I'll be happy.

It also feels like we're about to see the best years of the PS5, so I'm in no rush to move on.

It does everything right by me.

I thought I'd be too burned out after the later stages of Nioh II to go back to the series, but I'm glad I tried that demo.
Loving every second of the game so far.

@Steeleye25
Agreed on these points. I can't praise the combat enough, and I feel like I've barely scaped the surface of it.

I didn't realise it was locked behind the campaign. I've been playing Nioh III a lot and haven't started this properly yet.

Personally I bought the game to play by myself so this doesn't bother me, and it definitely feels like a nod to games of yesteryear, but it does seem like an unnecessary design choice in 2026 I guess.

I'm sure they'll patch it.

I wonder why Sony didn't try harder to keep him on the team. 🤔

Helldivers II and Nioh III for me.
So glad I didn't stick to my notion of skipping Nioh. Best entry so far.

Still holding out hope for Alundra on premium. That and Vagrant Story are the last two games I need them to add.

Excellent news. I Absolumly loved this game... 😏

@Voltan This is the only way to start the movie for me. Have a squad of big name actors wiped out in the first 15 minutes.

I'd chuckle if he just turns out to be the officer on the ship who stands next to the map spouting random propaganda lines.

Helldivers II and Nioh III for me.
So much for not playing anything until Resident Evil gets here 🤷

I completely missed this when skimming the headlines earlier!
Very nice. I loved Relink. Some seriously fun boss fights in that game. Great for coop too.
Nice nice nice.

The art style is a nice change to mix things up. I couldn't believe it wasn't a cutscene when the gameplay started.

I'd prefer character classes rather than pre-designed heroes. Unless they get customisable gear, which I'd be happy enough with.
I love the Horizon world though so either way I'll definitely give it a go.

Letting us play the campaign solo is very appreciated.

@Stepan Yes! I was saying something similar to a friend not that long ago - The TV lights up the whole room.

@Czar_Khastik I bought myself a Sony Oled recently too.
You're aware going in that it's going to look better, and you've heard all about VRR etc, but when you actually load up a game on it and see it for yourself? Wow.
It's my favourite thing in my house atm (not counting the dogs and the cat of course...)

I had every intention of skipping this. I figured I was still burned out after Nioh and Nioh 2.

I started the demo at the weekend. It's very rare these days that when I wake up in the morning I immediately think of the game I just turned off 7 hours before, force myself to wake right up and bounce out of bed to get back into it.
And that was just the demo.

I spent the vast majority of the time playing as the ninja class. The combat feels far more fun than the last two games.
Samurai mode is still great too, but jumping around all nimbly bimbly as a ninja will never not be fun.

@Questionable_Duck That wouldn't surprise me unfortunately. I've heard nothing about it at all since the reveal, and it had a kind of MindsEye vibe about it.

@AdamNovice I was about to say, "There's a third party game on the way called MUDANG: Two Hearts where one of the main characters is a K-Pop..." Then I saw what you were doing. 😌

Helldivers and Mario Kart this weekend.
Not starting anything new really until Resident Evil comes.

(I say that with one eye on Nioh III, which I swore I wouldn't touch...)

Fantastic news.
Tried it on Steam Deck but it didn't run very well at the time, so I said I'd wait for a PS5 release.
What I played of it though was really fun. Going to spend a lot of hours in this game.

If you're on Steam or GoG get yourselves Divinity: Dragon Commander.
It's a fairly light RTS game with some very nice RPG elements. Fun for a long weekend if you can get it on sale.

@McSavage All of this and more made me hate the guy. Steve is the worst character in the history of the franchise for me. I loved the game, but hated every second he was on screen.

Edit: It's not that his dialogue has aged badly. It wasn't even good at the time.

One of my favourite Resi games. Would love to see it remade.
Maybe just make Steve less... Steve.

@omadeli Yes! I need either re-releases of the first two Outbreak games or a new Outbreak game entirely.

@Oram77 I haven't gotten the plat for Rebirth yet specifically because I can't bring myself to do the last few VR fights. Just thinking about it now even is giving me stress tension in my neck.
Such a nightmare.

I abandoned it a few months after launch, but I'm planning on going back after Crimson Desert. We'll see...

I'll do another run through both games before the third one comes out. I'll definitely give these options a try then.

I've already got the plat for Remake, but out of curiosity do the settings impact trophy progression? (I'm sure that's been asked before.)

I played the crap out of it and had a pretty op character by the end. I enjoyed it for what it was, but yeah it was very flawed. It seemed to lack any real creative direction other than fly and shoot.

The fact that a large chunk of the dev team didn't know what they were even making until they saw the first reveal trailer sums it up for me.

Nothing for this weekend.
Doing a bit of a detox before Resi comes out next month.
I might look at some gameplay for Avowed later though. I'm still trying to decide if I want that.

There might be a D&D session on the cards for later too.

I remember shoveling sheep "slop" one summer when I was younger. I could have called it "roses and lillies" but it still would have been sheep shhhhhlop.

Mario Kart on Switch 2, Flight Sim on PS5.
Happy New Year, all! ✌️

Mario Kart World mostly. (Lost to my brother on Christmas Day, disaster).
And after watching the new Stranger Things episodes I'm seriously considering Microsoft Flight Simulator on PS5 for the Hawkins map.

Happy Christmas, all!

A little bit of Helldivers, a little bit of Nightreign maybe if my crew are free, probably some Yotei, but mostly I'll be taking it handy now until Mario Kart World on Christmas Day.

Have a good one, folks! ✌️

The same month as Crimson Desert, and then Saros is out in April. I'm interested but I think I'll be a late arrival.

I've been drifting back to Helldivers over the past few days.
I really need to get back to the extra content in Nightreign though. I've hardly touched that.

And Yotei NG+ too.

@UltimateOtaku91 Same.
If it was Friday going into Saturday sure. But you get to an age where it's just not worth staying up until 12:30 Thursday night / Friday morning with work the next day.

Cosmic Invasion, the Tokon closed Beta, and Ghost of Yotei.

@pyrrhic_victory You fiend! 😭
(Minds blown if it turns out to be Deep Down though)

Yotei NG+ for me.
Having a great time with it again the second time around.

@themightyant Can't argue with much here 🤔
I go back and forth over which is better between VI and VII, but that's it.

@Oram77 Oh they absolutely were.
They talk about it themselves in one of the documentaries about how the teams were begging the engineers to reign it in, but they were of the opinion that the console would be so good that people would buy it anyway.
I would say absolutely deluded with a touch of arrogance for sure.

I think it might be discussed in the "From Bedrooms to Billions" documentary. I can't fully remember though.

But that was a hard learned lesson. I'll be stunned if they make that mistake again. Rising costs of production might force their hand, I can understand that I guess. But the "everyone will want it" line is likely to get people slapped at Sony now.

@Oram77 Agreed on this. I didn't get a PS3 until 2011 because of the price.
It was a crazy launch price for the time. They completely overengineered it. There are people who were at Sony back then who would tell you the same thing.

@Oram77 Given their talk of making next gen more affordable, and the complaints from a few third party publishers about the price of consoles blocking people from buying their games, I'd be surprised if it costs too much more than PS5 did at launch.
I wouldn't be looking to PS5 Pro for an indication of the price either. That's a niche, premium tier product. Not a launch tier intended for the masses price.

They seem to be relying more and more on AI and software solutions for visual performance now too, which I'm imagining will help keep hardware prices lower.
Maybe.

Indie devs who have to plan the timing of their releases carefully to avoid these blockbusters won't thank them for it.

Nothing for me this weekend. I'm on the annual family Christmas brewery/distillery tour today.
I'll be blackout hammered by the time the Ireland V South Africa game starts, and tomorrow I'll be in a teary hungover hoop when I wake up dying and remember SA handed us our own tón.

But Monday I'll be starting Yotei NG+.

I have a little bit of reserved hype for it.

I think if there's a version that comes in at around €600.00 I'd consider getting it with the controller. I only really play old or indie games on PC, so really this could last me 10 - 15 years.
It would be a nice supplementary system to have alongside my PS and Nintendo.

I have the PSVR2 PC adaptor already, so no need to get the new headset.

Yeah it could be nice.

It's a shame if true, but tbh I wasn't making much use of it.

Does anyone know if we let our subs expire during the discount window, and then resub, would we get the discount?
Technically we'd be "upgrading" from having no sub.
No?

Battlefield 6 and Ball X Pit.
I still need to get the plat in FFVII Rebirth at some point too.

It's very nice and I'm hoping it does well, but I don't feel that it's going to muscle in on PlayStation and Nintendo, nor do I think it's trying to.

For myself, if I wasn't already entrenched in the Nintendo and PlayStation ecosystems I'd absolutely get one of these, but as things stand I don't need it. I have a Steam Deck that is criminally underused too, so definitely no need for me to get this.

I am hoping that the VR headset they're releasing alongside this will raise the bar for whatever Sony are planning for PSVR3 though. (Assuming there is a PSVR3 of course.)

@Korgon True! 😂
One of my friends was saying the same thing earlier!