Toadie

Not sure it's wise to release any game just before E3 as they inevitably end up getting lost in the sea of noise it creates. Having said that, i am interested in Vampyr, it looks like my kind of game, hope it turns out to be something special.

I'm so looking forward to playing Rime tomorrow

Chiaoutzu would have been my top pick but he's been relegated to support character so after that i'd go with Garlic Jr, you could even have the ability to swap between his two forms on the fly for something a bit different.

Seeing as how the story is Android-focused, it makes sense to have Doctor Gero playable with Android 19 as his support, would be very surprised if this doesn't happen.

Thinking about this more, i wonder if Disney have had words with EA ? they can't have been happy having their brand associated with such negativity, i wouldn't be surprised if they've intervened.

@Oddball007 Yeah sure, it's the people trying to stop publishers shafting us at every opportunity that are "ruining your community", the utter corporate greed of EA has nothing to do with it at all.......

I applaud everyone, gamers and gaming journo's alike who have highlighted just how damaging these practises really are to the industry, to fundamentally change games to make them less enjoyable and more frustrating purely to make you shell out more money on simply restoring the game's balance to what it should be, on game's you've paid full price for, is not the kind of industry i ever want to see our games industry become. I really hope all this bad PR has managed to nip the problem in the bud before it becomes more prevalent, fingers crossed.

This is one of my fave Sony franchises so i really hope this amounts to something, i adored the two PSP titles, i always thought it was a shame the Vita never got a Syphon Filter game.

Oh no, i haven't bought Hob yet but was/am still really looking forward to playing it, it looks fantastic, so sad to hear this news, hope all the devs manage to find new employment swiftly.

I'm so sick of this stupid move towards games as a service, single-player will always be king for me, thank god Sony, Nintendo, Bethesda, indies Ubisoft are still producing them, whilst all the others chase what they think is easy money, but just like mobile, i think the bubble will burst, there's only so many 'games as a service' that can be sustained at once.

I think it would be a good idea to drop PS3 support now, maybe do something similar to what MS do and have a new Ps2 game added once a month instead ? but don't think Sony add PS2 games to PS4 that frequently which is a shame.

With the androids being at the centre of the story, Dr Gero must surely be in it i'd have guessed, the roster seems a little conventional so far so i'd love to see a more left-field character be playable, say like Babidi or Mr Popo lol

It looks horrible lol

I think over the course of the start of last gen to now there definitely has been less single-player games released, partly because of the rise of multiplayer but also because the market for mid-tier games disappeared, leading to the extremes of small indie releases to AAA games with very little in between.

I do think it's something that will slowly change going forward, the publishers may chase sales the likes of Destiny achieved but as others have said, there's only so many games like that that can be played at once, for every success story there will be more that don't achieve it, just like we saw with mobile gaming.

I feel that as indies games are getting more and more sophisticated and seeing more financial success, a lot of them will start to make more ambitious games, replicating the mid-tier games we saw in the PS2/GameCube era, a lot will be single player i reckon, we're already seeing a few games like this, Yooka Laylee is a good example.

I like the odd multiplayer game but 99% of my gaming time is on single-player games so i would most likely give up the hobby if they were to die out.

Looks ok to me, i like the fact he's running not so fast, the 3D levels go so fast you barely have time to react to enemies that are coming up in the path, that frustrates the heck out of me, i reckon Forces is going to be pretty decent, not great but not awful either, which would be a victory for Sonic Team after so many sub par games lol

@get2sammyb Yeah i saw your reply just after i tagged you, i agree with you on that, bar the 3DS, Nintendo have a bad habit of dropping off support for their consoles in the later years of their life, which usually signals sales to drop off earlier than they should (the Wii is a great example of that) i wouldn't be surprised to see them do the same with Switch, even if it carries on doing really well, hopefully not though.

@get2sammyb Don't really understand your reply Sammy, he's only saying that the potential is there, none of us can see into the future after all, but no-one can deny that the Switch is off to a flying start, and even more importantly, third-party games have seen early success.

@JoeBlogs That is a possibility i guess but by the time it came out tech would have moved forward and there's a chance they would be able to cram more power into the tablet form-factor, the Switch isn't that far behind the X1 after all.

They would definitely lose some gamers to Microsoft, particularly western gamers but i don't think it would be a huge amount, i'd say they'd gain more in Japan than they'd lose in the west too.

The Switch is selling really well in the west as well as the east so it shows there is a definite appeal and desire for hybrid gaming, time will tell if Nintendo remain the only ones to attempt it, but as i say i personally think Sony will dabble in it at some point.

@JoeBlogs Terrible in what way ?

Hmm i'm not sure i quite believe him, i fully expect the PS5 to be a hybrid, it would result in relatively easy sales in Japan for starters and just seems like a good fit for the Playstation brand, let's not forget Sony dismissed the Wii's motion controls not long before they brought out the Move controllers, i really enjoyed Sony's dabbles with handheld games especially when they tried to make games that fitted being a handheld game, Daxter is a great example, it would be a shame if they never revisited the idea.

@Kidfried That's fair enough

I would love to hear your opinion on Dark Moon if you do manage to get around to playing it, i loved the first one too but my god the second one is just incredible, it looks utterly amazing in 3D too !

This just shows that GOTY awards should only be held in the first month or so of the following year, not only to allow games released at the very end of the year just as much of a chance to make their mark but it also helps to clearly define games that were actually released that year so you don't get things from the year before being added too lol

Personally i find the whole obsession/frenzy in the media to crown a GOTY to be quite tiresome and when you think what a stellar selection of games have been released this year for example, it always seems a shame that a lot of them will inevitably end up overshadowed, it's usually only the games with the biggest budgets that get considered, so indies and portable games in particular get unfairly ignored.

@Storytime7 Agreed, i loved the DS for introducing me to games like Ace Attorney and Hotel Dusk, the 3DS has become one of my all time fave consoles, i'm currently hooked on Kirby Triple Deluxe which i've only just recently gotten around to playing after it being in my backlog for years haha

@Kidfried Ahh fair enough man, i was worried about putting that reply as i hoped it wasn't taken the wrong way but i was just curious as to whether people really thought the 3DS had suffered from software droughts like the other recent Ninty consoles as i thought it had been pretty consistent.

I really wanted to love Pushmo but no matter how many times i go back to it it just doesn't 'click' with me, Luigi's Mansion 2 is my fave game on the system, absolutely adore that game

@Kidfried I'm surprised to see you say 3DS in that list as for me it has one of the best line-ups of games ever, definitely the best for a handheld console, but i guess there are genres it doesn't cover and the ones it does just happen to be ones i love, i've adored mine since launch and am still hooked on it even now the Switch is here, i'll be quite sad when Nintendo finally stop supporting it.

THE best news to come out of this year for me is that the japanese companies all seem to have bounced back and made their mark again after so many years of the west dominating software sales, it's great to see legacy series like Resi and FF return to prominence and even better to see newer, more experimental games like Nier Automata and Splatoon 2 achieve commercial success.

It is surprising that PS4 could even have growth this year but it's had a really great and diverse line-up of exclusives with more to come next year (i cannot wait for Spiderman personally!) so it's well deserved.

Also great that the Switch is doing well, again, with such a strong line-up it deserved to, i'm not so sure about the Xbox One X, i just can't see it doing amazingly well somehow, happy to be proven wrong though

Fantastic news, i love hearing things like this !!

@ThroughTheIris56 Exactly what i was going to say, i'd love a new Ape Escape game, i can't understand why Sony ditched the franchise, i always thought it sold well ?

With the power of the PS4 they could really make a big leap from the previous games in terms of not just interactivity in the world but also the A.I of the apes themselves, could be amazing !

Granted i've not played this one but whenever i've played any previous GTA game they've just been hugely average to me, i cannot understand why it's so popular, there's so many better games out there.

I just don't think there's much of an appetite for multiplayer-only shooters right now, Overwatch is pretty much fulfilling that role, it's the exception rather than the rule though i think as most people desire single player content, at least on consoles, i certainly wouldn't buy an FPS that's purely focused on multiplayer, Overwatch aside.

This looked great at E3, i haven't got the PSVR yet but i'm looking forward to getting it at some point.

@Mahe I wasn't just talking about the UK, i thought that was blindingly obvious, the UK has never been a strong market for Nintendo so there's not much to be gained by using it as a basis of how well or not they are doing.

Just today another story has come out, this time from the Oceanhorn devs, the Switch version has outsold all other versions, so yes, third party games ARE selling well on Switch so far, for how long its been on the market, however much you might hate to admit it.

There's also not much point referring to the NES or SNES, the industry is completely different from when they were out, and most third party Wii games that sold well were shovelware, Switch seems different as it's got a good quality line-up, with ports that are optimised well for the console.

I'm not even going to bother getting into the whole its a portable/its a console rubbish, it's a hybrid, end of.

@rjejr I never got round to buying the DS version but i still intend to at some point lol

I'd love a sequel but predicting Capcom is becoming as hard as predicting Nintendo nowadays haha

@Kidfried I think software sales on Switch have been decent, i was worried all third parties and indies would sell terribly with only first party games doing well but thankfully that doesn't seem to be happening, quite a few devs have come out to say they're pleased with their games' performances, the Neo Geo games, Ultra Street Fighter II, Blaster Master Zero, Disgaea 5, Bomberman and Wonderboy having all done well on Switch so far, i'm hopeful it'll continue, the draw of having games in portable as well as at home might finally get third party games selling well on a Nintendo home console.

I'm not really surprised to see Mario x Rabbids slip dramatically, strategy games have always been a hard sell, XCOM has always sold badly on consoles too unfortunately.

Glad to see Hellblade do well, i was worried it'd be lost in the sea of more well advertised retail releases but clearly its good reviews have helped it stand out of the crowd. I'v always loved Ninja Theory's games, Enslaved and DMC in particular.

@rjejr Not impossible to implement though as L.A Noire is getting touch-screen controls for when playing un-docked.

Like many i will hold off for a while in the hope of a Switch version with motion controls, it would be awesome if the DS prequel could get a huge remake using the same engine as Okami, and then who knows, maybe even a true sequel one day.

Really don't like clear controllers, i have just bought the standard Blue dualshock 4 that's been out for a while though

LOVE the chunky graphics ! definitely getting this on Vita.

i have always hated the symmetrical analogue sticks of the PS controllers, asymmetrical are so much better for me, so much more comfortable.

@Mahe I buy every console so yes, i own all of these, but why are you only focusing on exclusives ? Just because a game isn't exclusive doesn't mean it's not worth getting, ignoring the fact that Zelda and Mario Kart are better on Switch there's still plenty of games to get for it.

Just looking through your comments on here and Nintendo Life i can see just how much you dislike the Switch but your bias is strange seeing as the PS4 had next to no worthwhile exclusives for well over its first year, the complete opposite of the Switch's first year line-up so i don't really know why you hate it so much but praise the PS4.

Insane Switch and Splatoon numbers, but well deserved, the game is just pure fun to play.

@Mahe Yeah i agree that a lack of other titles to choose from would definitely have helped it, i wouldn't say its starved of games though, i bought mine on launch day and haven't run out of games to play on it, i've got ten retail titles and countless more download games, the e-shop has been surprisingly strong with some cracking games released so far.

With at least one big game released every month now until xmas at least the Switch could well end up having one of the strongest first year line-ups we've seen in a long, long time.

@Mahe I think it is considering the small install base of the Switch in the UK so far.

I'd say early signs point to the Switch having a good attach rate but first party games selling well is a given, i'm more interested to see how the bigger third party games do, i'd love to see them do well but it would be going against years of trends to the contrary.

It's quite impressive that Splatoon 2 had higher launch sales than the original considering the difference in install base, Nintendo games tend to have long legs so it will sell well throughout the console's lifetime.

I don't know why some people are saying the opinion is that Nintendo fans aren't too fussed about Splatoon, the original sold over five million copies and is widely considered as one of highlights of the last few years of Nintendo games, also proving to Nintendo that they need to create new IP and not just rest on their big hitters (something they seem to have taken on board if ARMS is anything to go by).

It's great to see Crash doing so amazingly well, i thought it would do ok but not be as big a success as it has been, awesome to see

I'm going to buy this on the Switch, like Sammy i really loved the Cars 2 ti-in, it was great, i also think the second Cars film was fantastic, don't know why the series gets so much abuse, this game is exclusive to Argos in the UK so could become a bit of a rarity one day.

@consolfreak1982 Haha you are pretty hot tbh

This looks awesome !

@Cassetticons I don't think Fortune Teller Baba does either, she was at King Yemma's office when Buu destroyed the Earth.

@consolfreak1982 Totally agree !

Also, cannot believe when i just checked your profile that you are 34, you look at least ten years younger ! haha

@Tasuki I think you've given more than a fair warning at this point, if people spent as much time and effort on how they live their own lives rather than interfering with other people's, the world would be a better place.

Anyway, getting back on topic, installed the theme and it is really nice, don't know whether to keep it on or go back to the AR Bots one, which i am particularly fond of

Beautiful theme, i will definitely give it a download, as a gaymer myself its great to see gaming moving with the times and embracing everyone, it's surely moving away from the image of gaming exclusively being for teenage hetero men, which can only be a good thing.

Great to see Crash doing well, will hopefully allow for brand new games in the series and, fingers crossed, for Spyro to get the remaster treatment too.

I don't think 5% for the Switch is too bad, there's still not many retail titles out there yet, and all signs point to the many e-shop releases doing very well so far, the system is also still very hard to find, i have a feeling its going to have a very high attach rate once the system really gets going, it has a cracking line-up for the rest of the year, a big first party game for every single month until at least December, my poor wallet lol