SplooshDmg

@Leonhart I'm sorry I made you remember. Forgive my reckless actions.

Whatever gets me Castlevania and Metal Gear. Not Metal Gear Survive, though. We don't want that Metal Gear.

Eh, if the years long Silent Hill rumors were true, I'm sure these are true too. Not a matter of if, just when.

Cool, now if they can use ChatGPT to give the enemies in Redfall a brain, that'll be a step in the proper direction.

@UltimateOtaku91 Obviously not. It's only one paragraph.

@FenIsMightier I definitely have this feeling that we're about to see 90's Microsoft again. Not saying that MS will win an appeal, but I think they at the very least have a strong ground to fight for one, since most people seem to think the cloud concerns are utter BS. But I really think this corp has basically just been laying low for the better part of two decades trying to stay out of the government's crosshairs, and I'm pretty sure they've finally found a reason to take the gloves off. I think this is extremely far from over.

I think subscriptions are around to stay, but I think PS+ is probably the longer term way of running one. I'm fairly patient usually, and I wasn't sure if I'd like Forbidden West or not. It landed in the sub, I tried it, I turned it off. No harm done, but I'm glad I got to kill the curiosity without having to outright buy it. I have zero problem buying games I really, really want. A sub can kinda fill the gaps in-between, but even then, my backlog of purchased games is still just too large and I'm not using PC Game Pass or PS+ currently, even tho I'm subbed to both.

@OrtadragoonX I'm with you full stop. Healthcare in the US makes little to no sense to me. I don't really understand what part of the insurance business model is compatible with human health. It's like trying to buy car insurance and telling them, "Oh yeah, just so you know. I'm going to file at least one claim per month, guaranteed. Not my fault, though!" Then wonder why your premium is $500 a month for next to no coverage and awful deductibles. It doesn't seem to take much thought to realize it makes virtually no sense or is practical for most, and the ACA really didn't do a whole lot to fix it.

@NEStalgia You dolt. Can't you read. That clearly says Rated M for mature. Contains swearing and sick action. That's all that matters if you wanna be a mega hit.

@Jaz007 I couldn't force myself to do any of the additional stuff in Ragnarok. I think did one side quest and decided, "Okay, this is filler. None of this is actually fun or matters." Then beat up Odin, uninstalled the game and never turned it back on again. I genuinely still prefer the OG God of War formula over the the 2018 shake up.

Oddly enough, I find most 100+ hour huge AAA RPGs to just be overwhelming bloated messes. Bigger definitely isn't always better. I'm currently working on Fire Emblem Engage and Atelier Ryza 3 and I can make an argument that these games have hit all the right marks in terms of length and depth of actual content. 100+ hours used to be some rare novelty reserved basically only for the hugest games... and Persona. Now it seems like everything has sixty hours of additional fetch quests.

The Order 1886 was far from a perfect game, but the universe they created had so much potential. Tis a shame.

@Tamlyn As much as I hate to say it, this thought crossed my mind. The Switch version of GI has vanished into the ether. It's AAA vaporware at this point. Lol

I'm installed on my Pixel 7 Pro and the iPad already, but the EGS version on PC doesn't seem to be up yet. Since Star Rail is turn based, I honestly suspect I'll play it on my phone more than anywhere else, tho. Genshin on touch controls is fine, but some of the tougher domains and stuff are just abysmal with touch. I imagine a turn based game with touch controls will be great.

So, Gravity Rush anime series, when?

OR it's time to bring Knack to the big screen!

Exdeath is pretty cool, though. I haven't played FFV since it came out on GBA all those years ago. This will probably be the first one of the Pixel Remasters I actually buy.

I don't care what anyone says. FFXII International Edition freaking rules.

@nomither6 Oh, God. ReShade is life changing. It's incredible. I actually have my PC on a 43" TV, so I use Steam Big Picture mode a lot. It's really cool. You can basically use Steam just a console. Link your controller up and navigate the Steam interface just like you would a console OS. You might try Big Picture Mode out and see how you like it (if you haven't already). You can set it to be windowed in the Steam settings. It doesn't really change anything, but I think it adds a really fun element to PC, and I think it's a genuinely better UI than regular ole Steam.

Any rate, happy gaming mate. I have grass that isn't going to mow itself!

@nomither6 Yeah, I mean, ReShade exists. It's hard to stress how much I love ReShade. My PC was expensive, but I truly love using it.

I've always gamed on PC. My dad was a total PC enthusiast, so we always had nice ones when I was growing up, so I gamed a lot on them and just got to know Windows well. I get that people struggle to use them, but I love tinkering with a computer. I really don't have a lot of issues with my machine, but if an issue arises I don't know how to fix, I just see that as an opportunity to learn something.

Free cloud saves on Steam too! I sincerely loathe that I have to pay Sony and Nintendo for cloud saves. Absolutely burns my arse to no end.

@FenIsMightier Oh, no. Don't get me wrong, I took no offense by what you said. I'm more just reaffirming your point that we're all different, and entertainment isn't really just this blanket thing we all consume the same way. For me, anime is the only way to motivate my otherwise lazy self to exercise. Which is why even in tough economic times I wouldn't view it as a discretional expense.

@nomither6 I know people get bent out of shape and think you need an ivy league education to operate a gaming PC, but I just can't resist my PC. Monster hardware aside, there's just something fun about operating a PC, to me.

@FenIsMightier For me, Crunchyroll is sacred because I have my exercise bike parked in front of a TV. If I didn't have Crunchyroll to amuse me, I'd never actually exercise. Which I do every day, so Crunchyroll manages to get used everyday and validates the $8 spent. Lol

The only subscription I truly care about is Crunchyroll. I mean $8 a month and I typically watch at least one episode of something a day. It's hard to argue with. Game Pass and PS+ just don't make as much sense to me.

Oof. Yeah, honestly... That's a stinger. I love having a map overlay in dungeon crawlers.

As long as I get that Persona 5 mobile game, I don't care what else happens.

@Rob_230 South Dakota is a solid Republican state. I'm not sure if a single Democrat actually lives there. Let's also not forget that the FTC chair, Lina Khan, was appointed by Joe Biden, a Democrat. Next to no discussion was had about the merger, she was going to block from the get go because of her bizarre legal theories that keep failing in court. The FTC is currently dysfunctional enough that both Republicans just left. But I seem to remember a lot of cheering for the FTC when they made the movement to sue to block ABK. Of course MS is summoning their Republican allies. The Democratic party is putting up bogus challenges, and Sony is the major competitor making the complaints.

Way I see it is like this. Sony has put up a strong effort to block ABK and it appears that they've lost. Sony has made a heck of lot of claims about Microsoft in the process. Given that the regulators all seem to be coming over to MS's side in regard to the merger, I feel pretty confident that a lot of Sony's accusations were always total BS. If you're gonna get up on the stage and start slinging mud, don't be too upset when some starts flying back at ya. It's business, and at this point it doesn't seem like friendly competition is an option anymore. I'm a consumer, I don't really care one way or the other. I'm honestly glad this shady industry has finally been blown wide open and the government is actually looking at it for a change. If anti-trust mechanisms are actually being used and enforced, the only companies with anything to worry about are the ones that simply want to avoid regulation. I think we can all agree that regulating multi-billion dollar corporations isn't a bad thing.

@NEStalgia Theres gotta be something there. Angry Birds still seems to make pretty good money, but I think the current consolidation frenzy has surely left a lot of companies more confident that they can ask pretty hefty prices for a sale. Bungie being maybe the best case example here. Sony paid 3.5bn for a company with one game, and that company might only make between $200-300k per year, but as we know there were other ambitions wrapped up in that. So SEGA might not be getting such a bad deal if it would actually help them build a stronger position in mobile heavy Asia just by handing Rovio the keys to the SEGA IPs. Whether we just love mobile games or not, it's hard to deny how important that market is now for any Japanese game company.

Angry Birds 2 is currently the 74th most popular game on the Play store. The game doesn't seem dead, but still, a billion for Rovio seems pretty steep, all things considered. Maybe SEGA has plans for Rovio to use SEGA IP to make new games, since Rovio really doesn't have anything except Angry Birds. Seems to maybe benefit both if it actually works out.

@Allfather Hey, someone's gotta do it. I can't help it that he's right.

@Allfather At least NES gets to live in your head rent free.

@KaijuKaiser No one is saying Final Fantasy can't change. My favorites in the franchise are 6, Tactics, and 12. Which are all wildly different. However, you're the one gatekeeping with the insinuation that fans of RPGs have to be thrilled about a historic RPG franchise essentially turning into a hack n slash RPG-lite. I don't like hack n slash games. I hate Devil May Cry. I hate Ninja Gaiden. I hate Bayonetta. Heck, I don't really like God of War (which is what this looks like more than anything else, to me). More over the top action does not make a better game imo. I'm entitled to that because I know what I like. Nothing about the production here looks anything short of great, but this direction just doesn't do it for me. If I saw a trailer for this, and it wasn't titled Final Fantasy, I would have zero interest in it whatsoever, because the only interesting thing about it to me right now is that it IS titled Final Fantasy.

@Ralizah Yeah, yeah. I know. Which is where my concern stems from. What part of I like cringe anime nonsense do they not understand? I don't care about their financial success in the western markets. I care about puff-puff.

@NEStalgia I think it's just confirmed that Final Fantasy only exists now to hurt me. I really hope they don't screw up Dragon Quest too. That would REALLY hurt me. Final Fantasy I can live without. I mean, I've basically been living without it for fifteen years already.

@themightyant Yeah, the whole bed mounted situation is great. I have a command center entertainment setup, but I just like to chill in bed for an hour or so before I go to sleep. So, I can hangout with the wife.... and still play games and watch anime. Because... Priorities.

Yeah, my experience with cloud is still messy. Stadia has by far been the best experience I've had with it, and the tech behind GeForce Now seems really good. But xCloud and PS are very... Lacking by comparison.

I think the PS Remote app for iOS is just better than the version on Android. That happens a lot, I think. Looking at you... Genshin...

@themightyant I def think a lot of people just irrationally loathe it, where if they experienced it proper they'd be like, "Oh, games. I like those!"

I largely just remote play at home. I have this elaborate wall mounted iPad in my bed. I just swing the iPad arm over, sync a controller up, and play Steam games in bed. I know Android has a lot of 3rd party PS Remote apps, but I can't tell that iOS is the same. If they're there, I'm stupid and can't find them, but I also haven't looked super hard because I mostly just stream the PC. The PS Remote app works fine, it's just not anywhere near as good as SteamLink. SteamLink absolutely rules. I've had okay results with cloud, my PS3 games on Premium are fine, xCloud is okay on my iPad. But remote on a local network is still miles better and that's what I largely use.

I mean, I can appreciate that. It doesn't bother me, though. I've online games my entire life, basically. Lagging out in a raid on WoW used to just be a Tuesday ritual. But I get why it bothers others. I'm not the 'immersion' type. If the game blips out, it'll come back. No biggie.

@themightyant The blips on SteamLink are pretty rare, but PS Remote is far less stable than SteamLink. But I sorta look at it the same way as online multiplayer. It's not particularly rare for multiplayer to experience lag, etc. In a sense, you just get used to it if and when it does happen. So I think in a way most of us are pretty adjusted to the fact that any game with an online element can experience issues, in this case it's just maybe a single player game.

I can stream 4K from the PC with little to no issue, I just don't because it's not necessary for my setup. I'm also not making an argument that it's a replacement for anything yet. It's simply a really cool feature that is offered now that people want to kill with fire simply because they either lack the network or know how to make it work correctly.

@Green-Bandit People can say what they will, but cloud and remote tech exist and work. I'm sitting in bed right now remote playing Genshin from the PS5, even tho iPad has a native Genshin application. Why? The remote play is vastly superior than what my gen 9 iPad is capable of. I've had decent luck with cloud play. My PS3 games streamed on Premium are more than acceptable, but not perfect. I think I have a Sony data center pretty close to where I live. Local remote play so far is still king.

I spent a good while talking to NES today about my crackpot theories that MS is just already focusing on PC, mobile and cloud while their console just sort of flounders. I really think the ABK merger just changed their entire strategy over night. But we're talking almost 70bn here, that's some mad cash. The second they were like, "Okay, we've now established Microsoft Gaming, and Phil is the CEO of that... and not Xbox." I was like, "OH, I SEE. So that's what we're doing now."

Look, if you told me ten years ago I'd one day he sitting in my bed with a controller in my hand streaming my PC and PS5 to an ipad at a flawless 1080p, I'd have never believed you. This stuff all has the potential to work great, with the proper hardware and network. It's gonna take time, but when this stuff works, it's pretty freaking awesome.

As someone that genuinely likes MS and Xbox products, they have a pretty serious problem at their feet right now. Momentum for Xbox consoles seems to be completely dead, or at the very best on holiday until they decide to actually do something again.

@NEStalgia My Pixel 7 Pro is my only 100% Wifi 6 certified product, but honestly, I don't think the streaming on it is any better than the iPad, but I also think Android apps often get the shaft, and the iOS versions are genuinely more polished a lot of the time. However, I think the general network environment and the fact that I'm never particularly far away from it are all factors helping my cause.

If I had to guess, I'd think I could get at least ten hours out of it just streaming.

I think it's just really different purposes. I'd love to have a gcloud for a proper handheld experience, but with the iPad, my wall mount folds into the wall right next to my pillow. So, I can just lay down and stream Crunchyroll without having to actually hold my tablet and can literally just fall asleep and the thing is stuck to the wall, with no fear of falling to it's death. I use the iPad for both gaming and watching anime, but it's truly the laziest thing I've ever come up with, and I love it.

@NEStalgia Beats me, honestly. I use that Xbox dongle for my controller on the PC, so I don't use BT on Windows. But BT really isn't giving me any fits with iOS. Genshin with a controller feels just as good as playing on PC or PS5.

There's a pretty huge range of accessories for iPad, largely because they're used for so many different things. There's some pretty cool mounts for them that just have a sort of clamp you lock onto a table. Like this one

https://www.amazon.com/Arkon-TAB086-12-Tablet-Galaxy-Retail/dp/B00BCSYZVY/ref=asc_df_B00BCSYZVY?tag=bingshoppinga-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=79989522876753&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583589114700393&th=1

So, you can just clamp the thing wherever you are playing. There's just tons of options.

iPad 9th gen only supports dual band wifi 5, but we have this fancy Nokia wifi beacon and it rules. The iPad itself usually pulls about 600mbps both down and up. However, I think this Nokia beacon we are using just hosts a particularly good network. It seems like everything just cooperates better now that we switched. Both PS remote and SteamLink apps function nearly flawlessly at 1080p. I hate to say it, but Apple got me on the iPad. It's their crown jewel of a device. I absolutely love mine, and it's not even the fancy one.

@NEStalgia If I'm remote playing at home, it's basically native. The input lag is so minimal you have to really be looking for latency to notice it. My daughter and I have been playing Sackboy co-op, and I don't have two PS5 controllers. So, I'm connecting remote play and linking up and Xbox controller for her to use, and we just sit and play together on the TV. She's had no issues with response timing or anything. But I'm on 1gbps with a Wifi 6 router. I went in a split my 5ghz frequencys channels into a seperate high and low connection, so I have my PS5 and PC hardwired to the router, and the only device on the high channels is the iPad, so I've basically cut out all channel interference when playing. The iPad is mounted to an arm on my bedside wall, so it fits a very particular purpose, but it's awesome. I told my wife I will never go back to non-1gbps, because the quality of remote play I'm used to now is not a feature I will ever give up.

XCloud on iPad basically sucks imo. I've tried to use it, and the input lag is dreadful.

@UltimateOtaku91 I'm pretty sure money and loyalty are synonyms in this industry. The 'real fans' are expected to just go play the game wherever it exists, if they can't be bothered to do that, then they were never 'real fans'. It just sucks when the shoe is on the other foot. Right?

@NEStalgia Never stop being a depressed old man, it's your best quality. But really, you're probably the only person who hates Hollywood as much as I do. But like, at what point do we as gamers finally just become the equivalent of that one uncle that spent the last of his days tickled as a clam just watching re-runs of Gunsmoke and MASH? Like, it has to happen at some point, right? That the industry has finally adapted itself for 'modern audiences' entirely and we just say to hell with it and keep playing our retro games over and over again? I've got a pretty strong itch to play Mother 3 again.

@NEStalgia Really, though. I think we're being a bit myopic here. It's not just FF that has become an unrecognizable mess, it's basically the entire AAA industry. Huge budget games have the benefit of being drafted by committees now, for our benefit! I try to not let my negativity just ooze out my pores, but today, I'm in the mood to let ooze out. I'm glad Elden Ring curb stomped Ragnarok last year. I have hope for this industry yet. I really miss when gaming was young and budding and bursting with originality. Nowadays we make sure to get excited for the 7th or 16th entry in the name we know. We can even watch the corresponding TV series with it, while we eat a big fat bowl of the promotional breakfast cereal! We're at a point where if you're down on you're luck and aren't successful, just try to clone whatever is successful and hope for the best. It just might work out and you might have a mediocre masterpiece capable of satisfying the masses!

@Ichiban This guy gets it.

This is probably my single most anticipated game. I really hope BanNam nails this one.

Oh, wow. That's... Gross.

I really long for the days when we had an overworld and just zoned into different areas. We had boats, and airships, and chocobos too! Those were the days.

@Areus Yup. Which I guess really, that's the only SO spinoff? Isn't is? I know it later got a remake for phones that I guess never left Japan either. It's supposed to be a direct sequel to SO2? I think? Heck, I barely know what it is, it's so lost to time at this point. Lol