ThomasHL

The fact it still beats out the old name by a mile tells you a lot about the old name

I tried to get into The Finals, but to me it lacked some of the sheer complexity of other live service games. In Overwatch there's always a new character to learn, a new way of holding off an ability until another ability has been used.

The gap between where you are and the top is full of obvious steps, and some of them are just chunks of knowledge, not 'reflexes' or 'aim'.

The finals felt too short, too ephemeral. One round plays a lot like another round, any one moment is a lot like another moment.

I can see cards not having the same visceral appeal, but it played well.

Mechanically the games biggest problem IMO was the wider game loop was built around all these finite resources - do you do a mission to get currency, get ability points or get upgrade materials? Yet there was no limit to the number of missions you can do, so it was all faff.

I think they built an iteration of the game that had more of a hardcore Xcom feel, but late in the day tore that bit out.

It's not caused any harm to me as a PS owner, but I have started to think I might get a steam deck or similar instead of the PS6.

This is exactly why, during the Bethesda merger, I said I was afraid of MS shutting studios down.

Because MS isn't primarily a gaming company, they have constant shifts in the direction and targets of their executive. When the wind blows a different way, studios get closed.

It's been that way right from the start. Ensemble studios made great PC games, but the executive direction shifted to console and they were shuttered

It takes a long time to make a great studio. Games are too difficult for it all to come together the first time. BG3 was a result of a decade of foundations laid by Larian.

My worry is execs don't understand this, and the money and patience it will take.

This is a poisoned chalice for any developer. They need some kind of small / different genre game to reset expectations before someone else tries a full Baldurs Gate RPG.

Fallout 3 reckons that a hundred years after Fallout 1 people still haven't even picked up all the pre-war Nuka Cola bottles lying around the floor.

This was never a series for people who took timelines seriously.

So the Bene Gesserit don't exist in their version of the universe?

I heavily dislike the type of murder mystery structure Pentiment uses, similar to LA Noire, where you spend most of the game 'solving' crimes knowing that the real perpetrator has got away.

The real perpetrator was guessable by the start of act two but the games makes you play on for hours before letting you do anything about it.

The stuff Japan did to Korea is horrific. It's understandable they'd be sensitive to something like this.

And a section of Korean gamers have the twitchiest trigger fingers in the world at any controversy. There have been much much much less real issues than this which have got people fired and games censored

Looking through the list, there's nothing I would actually buy ahead of games already on my wishlist.

Microsoft started strong, but they've only gone backwards with time.

The production pipeline of Square Enix has been dodgy for a decade now, and badly needs fixing.

Even in their good games, there's a strong sense of asset outsourcing where games don't have a consistent art style and objects don't fit the tone/environment.

We need Valve to take the next step with Steam decks now. They don't need to replace Xbox, but we need lounge friendly PCs to keep Sony honest

I have never seen this game before, I haven't played Pokémon in a decade, but these are just Pokémon. Not Pokémon inspired, straight off Pokémon.

I can name specific names and I'm far away from a Pokémon super fan

The whole way Overwatch 1 was shut down to force the switch to Overwatch 2 was a self-inflicted handicap from the start. When you start on such a negative note, fans aren't going to give you the benefit of the doubt.

No-one really knows how this will play out, and speculation could be wildly out of step.

What we know is it will be a weaker version of the support passive. The support passive doesn't really effect combat - it only kicks in after not being shot for a few seconds. It's also not very fast. Supports don't rely on their passive for healing - they use their abilities and the other support to heal them up.

But this could theoretically effect lone wolf DPS' and potentially encourage DPS' to duck out of combat for a few seconds to get some regen. Will it be powerful enough to bother doing that? Depends on the numbers

@RicebinBernacky it's the games that people play more that win. People aren't going to not vote just because they've only played half the games on the list. So they vote the game they've played as game of the year.

There's only one indie game on the list even though there were probably 5+ indie games this year that deserved it more than any of the games in 6 to 10

It's a good setting for a MMO, but when it comes to Horizon, the believability of the ecosystem is much more important to me than single player / multiplayer.

I want the robots to move around more naturally, and interact with each more naturally. Add more Monster Hunter.

Do that, and I'll love the game, MMO or no

It's one of the greats, but not the greatest simply because a lot of the best AAAs were sequels and don't feel like they'll forever alter how games are made.

If this kicks off a lot of new trends in future years then its true greatest contention.

@Korgon I find BG3 very intimidating - I enjoy it whenever I get going, but starting a session is hard. It's almost too interactive - I'm afraid I'm going to mess up and get an outcome I don't like for playing non-perfectly.

If I had to guess whether a random character was in Star Rail or Genshin, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference

If you're going to level scale in an RPG, just don't have levelling at all. Do ability trees and cut out the stat scaling for everyone.

Level scaling is junk gaming. It's just a way to abuse people's desire to see numbers go up without doing anything meaningful.

I'm playing Honkai Star Rail. I'm still unsure if I like it - the combat is excellent, but everything else is a bit bland.

I really thought Starfield would turn things around for them. I've never seen a Bethesda game leave the public discourse so quickly

Honkai hasn't really been clicking with me yet. Is there a point in the story I should stick it out to?

If they really didn't see a Starfield boost, they're in big trouble. Microsoft looking for a way out of that CoD multiplatform requirement now.

I'm going to speculate slightly below the PS4, perhaps 110 million.

Reasons 1) Xbox acquisitions are going to kick in in a big way, slowing current growth. It's hard to underestimate how big Elder Scrolls games are to people. If Starfield is close to as big, it's the kind of game that will attract people who only buy consoles for one or two games

2) The Switch 2 will come out in a few years, and put more pressure on PS5 sales, especially if it can achieve PS4 level graphics on a handheld.

3) The PS5 is only a small step up over the PS4. I don't regret getting one, but it's been a less satisfying purchase than the PS4 was

4) With the steam deck, PC games are slowly becoming more accessible to a wide audience

All of that only adds up to a small dip, but I still think it will be a dip. A lot depends on Bethesda actually getting things right and Microsoft sticking to a strategy - two things which are always a risk

@somnambulance you convinced me, I'm voting Noctis

@LifeGirl for COD and multiplayer games sure. But Microsoft said internally they were looking to "crush Sony" with their buying power 3 years ago, and I absolutely do not believe they've changed their minds.

Uncharted wasn't particularly original in taking inspiration from films either, including that scene. Saying that, the luggage rack shot is very similar!

It was the director, Christopher McQuarrie who wanted to do a train crash. Just guessing from his age, I don't think he played Uncharted.

There's no "game industry" agenda to kill physical games here. Tesco are a big profit-obssessed supermarket. If they stopped stocking physical games it was because not enough people were buying them.

Big recommendation for Kingdom Come Deliverance at that price, one of the greatest sleeper hit RPGS of the last generation. One for Witcher fans and Fallout Vegas fans - quality storytelling with a big focus on immersion in the world.

Not having to store discs is a big deal at this point in my life. I'm at the stage where the clutter and storage space are bigger concerns than paying a little bit extra for the game.

@Markatron84 I read that as how few physical sales you need to get on the charts after the handful of AAA releases. Remember when Gollum made the charts despite selling nothing?

I'm guessing only Final Fantasy and Zelda sold anything meaningful this week.

Arena fighters and grinder RPGs roll out

25 million is shockingly low

I didn't know it existed

10% of all PS5 owners in Japan isn't bad, especially as this is physical only I think. With digital sales included that's easily more than 1 in 5 Japanese PS5 owners.

I knew it would turn out like this, not because of anything about AEW in particular, but because people underestimate how difficult and expensive it is to make a game from scratch these days. The WWE games have a much bigger budget and get to iterate on work they've built up over a decade.

Chances are, a sequel would do much better (although it would still probably lack polish)

"There's so many competition regulators that have to give us the go ahead before we're willing to tell people it will be exclusive"

Definitely developed by some people who actually climb. Look at them shake out their hands! And they even have a handwavy version of cams.

I'd love to play a climbing game that put serious emphasis on foot and hand placement though. This still looks like you'll jump from node to node

Let's hope you actually have a reason to run away this time, unlike the original games, where running away was fun, but the objectively better strategy was just to hold block and spam the counter button for a few minutes.

I've got a friend who is very wary about playing games with large numbers in the title, because he feels like he should start from 1.

I doubt Microsoft payed much for the embargo if anything, it's probably just in exchange for a spot in their showcase and maybe some contribution towards marketing.

For Atlus it's a win. They get the initial hype, then they get a couple of days of 'is this coming to playstation' articles, then they get to announce it for Playstation. I've paid more attention to the game because of the embargo.

From the Microsoft side of things, they don't want to be promoting PlayStation the same day they're promoting their own games. They want the headlines to be xlook what's on Xbox" not "look what game we're all getting". It makes sense to push back the the PS announcements a couple of days after their showcase.

@Th3solution the question will be not just how many sign up, but how long they stay. If people sign up, play it for a couple of months and then leave again, they'll have just been selling Skyrim for a $40 discount at launch.

I thought the controversy was going to be that some people who really didn't like the tone shift from ME1 to ME2 view that event as the best example of Mass Effect losing its way - the main character dying for about a minute of game time and getting resurrected with very little consequence.

But nope, whatever this was, it was way dumber.

@gigiard ah that makes sense, thanks!

The visual flow of those Kameos is weird. I hope at least they're pretty rare

Was not expecting the Never Have I Ever guy