Supern0va

@Oram77 What seems off is their last game stands at 3.5/10 user score on Metacritic, and this title seems just as overly-ambitious for a team of 4 people.

I've just finished E33 and I thought it was...ok?

In fairness, I went straight on to it from finishing GoW Ragnarok so I'd gotten used to an unreasonably high level of quality for comparison. Visually, E33 was just ok - yes the environments were dreamy and beautiful, but they lacked any real foreground detail, and after a while, running through them all felt a bit samey. The graphics technically were just ok, even on performance mode it felt like the game was struggling to render, and lip-synching was noticeably poor. Gameplay never really evolved or added anything new throughout the entire game.

While the over-arching story felt fresh, I didn't feel hugely for the characters, other than Maelle, and their storytelling wasn't particularly developed throughout, other than the few 'big reveal' moments. Comparing it to GoW 2, for example, where the story and character development emerged from and during the gameplay, I didn't have the inclination to think "ok, I'd like to press X to learn more about this character" round the campfire in E33. I also found the picto/lumina system to be detractory - are 193 pictos really necessary?! I spent a silly amount of time flicking though menus and equipping/switching the damn things, and resetting skill points than felt necessary.

On the plus side, soundtrack was perfection, and I like that each character had their own unique attack mechanism although I found some of them a bit confusing. And yes, I could have done with an map marker system on the main continent map, and a quest log of some kind - not Ubisoft level of handholding, but a Morrowind style journal or something would have been useful as I often found some areas that were locked off, with no idea how or when or why they would open up.

I can certainly feel the love the developer had for the title, but feel the hype train went a bit overboard with this one.

Xbox boss: "The idea of locking games one store or one device is antiquated for most people..."

Nintendo: "Hold My Beer."

"Understandably, the video is being heavily criticised online..." So we've embedded it below to increase the views it gets.

Jiggle physics? Check. Count me in.

The gameplay of the Tencent copy shown in the trailer is similar-ish to Horizon, but the promo art and UI are an absolute shameless blatant rip-off which understandably got Sony's hackles up.

I hope "more activities to take part in and side quests" doesn't translate to "more collectables to collect and more pointless s*** to check off"

Never heard of it, but am downloading the demo now! General consensus seems to be though that the game runs out of time/budget by part 3.

I'm towards the tail end of the main game, and I'm sorry to say I wont be returning, as I've found the main game thus far to be hugely underwhelming.

The environments haven't inspired a sense of awe and wonder as, say, Uncharted 4. They could have had some epic vistas and underground areas, but everything seems so small and enclosed. I'm no brain box, but the puzzles seemed incredibly easy. The enemy AI is nonexistent with a visual range of 6ft and the memory of a housefly. No inspiring or creative use of movement, climbing, using the whip. No set pieces other than Shanghai and the battleship. The 'stones' being a macguffin to have you wondering around the various locations with no real plot or character development. The Emperors tomb was a far better game in my opinion!

Is..Is that...Hezbollah Snake?

Is there any reason why they started with MG 3? I played MGS on the original PlayStation, can I just jump straight in to this one?

@CaptainBiscuitJeans Me too. I know I'm missing out on a great game, like all the recent RE games that will be forever on my wishlist because dammit I'm too old and tired for this sweaty palm terrifying ***** these days.

Locking a cosmetic behind a DLC is standard now, and dare I say acceptable. Locking a character class behind DLC is indeed rather scummy.

@PushButtons I don't know who that is, but if I did, I would upvote your comment.

I mean the trailer looks great, so I'd imagine the core of the game is pretty much there. I'm fairly confident the date will stick.

That's 9 months of crunch, i.e. all employees working 18 hour days to meet launch.

@Czar_Khastik Blast it, have my angry upvote!

Or maybe make a new, proper DA game that people actually want.

@Oram77 Yes, the amount of time she was talking to 'herself' on how to solve the puzzles put her borderline psychotic. YES DEVS I KNOW IF I PUSH THE CRATE OVER THERE I CAN GET TO THE PLATFORM just give me a sec, sheesh.

@Questionable_Duck The problem is that it doesn't seem to develop the combat or keep it interesting, along with the puzzles, when the bar has been set by the first game.

I enjoy 'walking simulators' and games that offer an experience over gameplay like Edith Finch - but in the 45 mins it took me to complete that game there was a variety of gameplay and detail.

Also the £50 asking price seems a bit high for the 6hr play time.

That said I will definitely be picking this up at some point as I loved the first game.

EXILEDGE sounds like a name some board director came up with, and no one had the guts to tell them it's terrible.

@Artois2 This may be somewhat of a revelation, but a game's length doesn't necessarily have a bearing on it's quality.

It's also the same price as a Wetherspoons burger and a pint, which for me lasts around 20 minutes, and I also give that a 7/10. So comparatively, this game offers excellent value for money!

I've just finished HFW and Burning Shores, and thought it was really good. Aloy is a great protagonist, and I hope they don't do an Ubi-Soft 'bigger = better' approach for the sequel, and focus on the story and gameplay and maybe improve on the melee combat in the next game.

Commiserations to all 4 players that are still playing this online.

@LiamCroft there's a smelling mistake - "Stellar Balde has now surpassed three million sales".

Unsurprising, given what we've seen so far from footage released.

@ChrisDeku Disgusting. If it's any of the girls on the left or middle, tell me names so I can ensure I never Google such things.

I don't get all the hate he gets. Ok the original comment wasn't particularly diplomatic but it didn't come across as intentionally offensive. He seems genuinely animated and passionate about his work, also seems more philanthropic and charitable than most tech CEO's.

I've never seen such polarised comments for this game. It's literally like half the population saying it's an absolute turd, and the rest saying it's fantastic.

The first game really left an impression on me, so I'll definitely be picking this up and making up my own mind!

@GeeForce For factory-pressed Blu-ray discs, production time is not significantly affected by the amount of data; the process is mostly the same regardless of content size.

It comes down to time and release dates. It's easier to bang an installer onto a disc and get that produced and shipped early, rather then compile a working version of the game near the end of the dev cycle.

Attention to detail and graphical fidelity no doubt 10/10 as expected. I just hope the story, characters, and gameplay are as outstanding.

The last GTA I really enjoyed was GTA:SA. Grove Street Gang, The Truth, Wu Zi Mu, Catalina et al, along with the missions through the ghetto, countryside, city and the strip all still stick in my head more than any of the more recent outings. Except maybe that psycho Trevor.

Its starting to feel a bit stale. The new movement mechanic looks interesting though so hopefully they'll add a few other gameplay systems to make me think 'wow this is cool' rather than same old, same old.

"Enemy scaling has been toned down."

Very good. Hopefully that means if you go off-piste from the main quest and level up for a bit, you aren't facing hordes of storm atronachs instead of imps.

@NicolausCamp I agree! FF7 is one of my favourite games ever, but I really enjoy the remake. I didn't enjoy the hybrid-style combat system, and the side missions felt like superfluous padding for the sake of it, and I struggled to push through to the finish line. When I heard pt.2 leant into it even more I removed it from my wishlist. I'm glad that most people enjoyed it though and it's been a success!

@nocdaes I think it depends on the game. Blockbuster games like TLoU, GTA, Spider-man-2 that cost $300m or whatever to develop and market, I think £79 is fair enough. Mario Kart World though? £74.99??

No change for me; I'll continue to wait 6-12 months after release and buy the fully patched version for 60-80% off.

PS5 Astro Bot - Free
Oculus Quest First Steps - Free
Steam Deck Aperture Desk Job - Free
Switch 2 Welcome Tour - £???

With the social media backlash and no announced price, I wonder if they might just be testing the waters. I expect a "'our last post was made in error - the Welcome Tour will be free to download" follow up soon.

The 'multiple ways to reach your destination' style reminds me of Boiling Point: Road to Hell.

What really impressed me with the PS1at the time, is the how the 'no disc' start-up sound seamlessly transitioned into the full sequence when a game disc is detected. I still find it pretty amazing how the whole sequence is just 3 samples played and mixed at different speeds.

The Yorkshire Tea controller had more consideration for it's source material than this. What a missed opportunity.

@__Seraph I don't think Druckmann intentionally made decisions they knew people would hate. In TLoU2 making of documentary, he states that his intention was initially to make Abby seem a monster, with the intention players gradually understand her decisions and feel sympathy. Unfortunately, a lot of players thought she started off as a c**t, and still ended up as a c**t until the bitter end.

I don't agree with the psycho edgelords about the game, and I'm not against watching a characters journey as they spiral into a pit of despair, (Requiem for a Dream is one of my favourite films) but I do think TLoU2 misfired with the storytelling, and detrimentally introduced a bit of shock value for shock value's sake.

I'm optimistic for Intergalactic, but hope the story doesn't try to inject controversy just for the sake of it.

@MasterChiefWiggum In BL3 there's buttons for 'mark as junk' and 'sell all junk', as well as the option to auto-sell common/rare/epic loot. And I can't remember having to spend more than 3 minutes having to walk or drive to a destination from a fast-travel point.

I'm more hoping they have an interesting cast and decent antagonists, rather than the annoying social-networking twins that were the low-light of BL3. And also maybe have some kind of new 'wow' feature to mix things up a bit, as there hasn't really been anything different or creative since BL2.

Will it be playable on Michaelsoft Binbows?

The Kung Fu mod for the first game was awesome.

@NEStalgia Darlin' it's better, down where it's wetter, take it from me!

I played the first one and thought it was just ok. Community reception seems divisive on the second one too, and it seems a fairly niche psychological survival horror whodunnit adventure with extremely high production values.

Combined with a digital-only initial release, the news isn't really that surprising. It's also still very expensive on digital and physical, too much for me to take a punt on it.

It amazes me how people really will prepare to die on the physical media hill. "If PS6 doesn't have a drive I'm not getting it!" Well bye then, I guess!
To Sony, every used game sale is a potential lost (new) sale. They don't care you can buy for £50 and sell it for £30 at CeX.
Owning the disc is not 'owning' the game. Yes, you can play v1.0 from the disc, but how many games are without patches these days.
PC gaming space is doing fine without it physical media.
For clarity, I buy and sell used games, and will continue to do so until I can't anymore. But the reality is physical media on a current gen console will not be around forever.

I will only let my child play games I've bought like Astro Bot, Lego Star Wars, Hogwarts Legacy etc. I will only let them watch stuff unattended on iPlayer. I will explain my reasons to them why I don't want them to watch certain things so they they understand it's not just because I'm being an *****.

Developers and publishers don't care, Roblox is making them too much money. Parents who let their kids free-reign on this rubbish also don't care either as it keeps them quiet.

I vaguely remember quite enjoying AOD at the time. It has a Metacritic score of 52/100, which means it's more than half-way to perfection!

Bloodlines was fantastic. A truly different playthrough each time depending on what vampire clan you chose. Great characters, story, gameplay and atmosphere, and continued support from the modding community.

I'm sure The Chinese Room will nail the vibe, but I don't know how well they'd fair with an RPG. The existing extended trailer isn't looking too great.