Voltan

Man, this game is such a weird case even within the genre.
Very popular in the competitive circuits - no doubt thanks to the promise of massive prize pools.
Completely failed to resonate with the more casual players though - likely in part because they saw it as this highly competitive game.
Ronaldo and Salvatore are officially the 2 least popular characters too.

That being said, Andy looks cool.

@nessisonett Cid was definitely a highlight for this one, doubt anyone would disagree

Man, I loved XVI (even though I had some complaints) but I know many didn't.

I couldn't watch live because I'm at a festival. After it aired I saw a bunch of tweets about it being "another disappointing SoP", "2/10", "terrible" etc.
Then I watched it and was like "man, do gamers even like games anymore? all of these look great".
And yeah, I get that people want more news from Sony studios but does it really matter that much who makes the game?

That being said, the PS Studios/ArcSys Marvel game is one of the most hype and most important announcements of the decade to me.

Interested in ACT

@47Levi Maybe it's because I don't care about lore being coherent in fighting games all that much
Character looks good though.
It's funny how they showed the trailer last minute because it was "spoilers for the anime" and they waited until the finale, but all it actually contains is one bit that was revealed several episodes ago.
If anything, maybe it was because people would be disappointed that the transformation from the super was not in it

I thought the anime wasn't bad and I know the players are very excited for Unika 🤷‍♂️

I got some free store credit with this while not really going out of my way for more than a few minutes so I'm sad to see this go

Lemme guess - the PS+ discount won't be available if you're currently subscribed

@nomither6 Funnily enough, the competitive players seem to think it's very good right now and possibly the best game in that regard since MK9 - but that's a small fraction of MK's audience

This isn't unusual for an NRS game. It's about as much as MK11 got.
Sure, it's way less than other games in the genre but I believe they themselves said their competition is not Tekken and Street Fighter, it's Call of Duty. MK's always had a different target audience than most fighting games.
Just saying this is hardly unexpected at this point.

not watching 20 minutes of Randy Pitchford

@Fighting_Game_Loser I agree - it says more about the genre than the game itself - it's just very niche apart from 3-4 franchises (Guilty Gear being the latest to get somewhat bigger but still nowhere near SF, MK and Tekken).
They're clearly trying to brute force their way into that group by throwing money at it and so far it's not really working, but it doesn't mean the game's not good.
And yes, I do think Ronaldo's inclusion might've had the opposite effect to what they intended, if any.

Oh *****, I guess I better play some VR games soon

@johncalmc I agree with this. I thought starting the season with revealing who Abby's group is and what their intentions are was detrimental to the flow of the narrative.
Now, I obviously knew this anyway but I think the game handled this great, with Abby being visibly surprised when she realized she was saved by Joel, and then the same happening at the lodge, and the player not yet knowing what it was about.
I also don't see how Dina being there in person instead of Tommy benefits the story but maybe I have to wait and see.
I'm not usually too hard against adaptations deviating from the source material but I'm sceptical about these changes.

That said, I'm still enjoying the show a lot.

Will play after I'm done with Shadows... which should be a while, lol

That was quick on the HDR issue. It only really occurred in some specific time of day / weather scenarios but it was pretty annoying when it did

@djlard For one, it would remove a DLC character that didn't have a version before this patch - there are many universal changes which would mean she'd have to be reworked to fit in with the old version.
But also while there's a large (and understandably so) opposition to the new patch among the high level and competitive players, there's also a lot of players on all levels that may not care as much about balance but taking away the new options that were just given to them wouldn't be the right move.
Updating evolving games is tricky and sometimes it's a miss (and it's not just competitive games - Helldivers 2 went through this as well) but entirely reverting a patch is usually not the way unless it literally breaks the game for everyone.

I think what happened with Tekken is... there's always a lot of talk about "player expression" in fighting games, often in the context that modern games lack it compared to older ones.
I think the Tekken team wanted to "increase player expression" by giving characters new ways to link strings, extend combos, generally more options in multiple situations - which sounds good and fun in theory, until you realise this only applies to one player at a time, while the other one's options become even more limited
for an even longer time.
It also severely overshadowed the improvements to defence, which the community asked for and which do exist in this patch - they just don't matter if the offence became even more stronger.

I'm very interested in this but I'm nowhere near the end of AC Shadows yet

A lot of people will want to play these games for the first time after watching season 2 of the TV show and this is a good way to get them.
I'm obviously not buying since I already own both but I don't see a problem here.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare to be fair there's a lot of games that are smaller on PS5 than they are on PS4 despite having higher quality assets etc... it's just that a lot of them also got bigger in general

That's a long list and some of these are very welcome
I'm 30h in and I've been having a lot of fun so far.

@Jrs1 Both others and his own, I believe. Either way, this was the first time I heard about him.
Obviously it turns out he's signed to a label owned by the same people who own SNK.

Oh, btw - I'm not worried about the game's future. Even if this is bad (I did not get a chance to play yet so I don't have a strong opinion), there will be more patches for several years to come.

I don't mind Tekken 8 being more offence-oriented than 7. In fact, I quite enjoy that part.
This still seems a bit over the top though...

Character variety in fighting games works best when characters have clearly defined strengths but also clear weaknesses - and it's currently a little hard to see any of the latter...

I noticed the game becoming visibly choppy in the hideout when playing in balanced mode on PS5 Pro too, so it's not just "performance profile". Good to know it's getting fixed though.

Ngl, the denial some people are in is a bit amusing. Why do you even care...

@Zeke68 Pretty sure it simply only auto-updates the games that you launched in the last X days - not sure the value of X though

How about they bring back the "continue where you left" activity? Where did that go?

@Hyena_socks nah, high level players are very consistent at breaking throws so this would basically mean removing them from the game (at high level)

@Wiceheid the difference is that chipp damage is recoverable in Tekken. You can get that health back by going on offence. This is not the case in most other games so it's not actually worse IMO.
It's still weird though.

@PuppetMaster Have you seen Kill Knight? I haven't played it yet but it looks like what you're looking for

@ChrisDeku I really like how efficiently AW2 is made.
The Game doesn't have that many locations or characters and it makes you revisit some of them a bunch but it does it in such way that it feels like a big game even though it's not really all that massive.

As for Housemarque - loved Returnal, will gladly play Returnal But Bigger

@Jeff2sayshi Quite important IMO, as it sets up the whole premise for Mars, but it's only a 5 hour game. Mars is a bit longer.

@eM1x029 that's the thing - I did start it and I liked it but I'm not sure I can find the time to finish it in time

Saw a former employee tweet (in reaction to this news) that she received threats and generally troubling messages over the choice to make rooftops a certain color in Mirage, because it wasn't fully historically accurate (it was present in Baghdad but a little later than the game events).
People are terrible.

Hmm I wanted to finish Animal Well and play ZAU but idk if I can make it in time.
I should probably just buy AW, it's pretty great.

Deliver Us Mars was fun (play Deliver Us The Moon first though) and Kena is great but I bought that on release.

I have never heard of this game before today... not that I'd be interested in playing it but... yeah

@LikelySatan I think Control is very good even while your options are limited.
But also yeah, once you can toss things around, it's a blast - and that's one of the first things you get.

I'll be getting this but it might not be at launch (depending on how much time I take with AC Shadows and some other stuff)
Did they confirm a physical release for this (or lack thereof)?

This looks amazing and makes me wish I actually enjoyed DS

Signed up. I don't see why not.

The hand tracking feature looks very promising!

I have a lot of respect for Harada for how involved he is with the Tekken community and I don't envy him at the same time.

@PrincessPeach11 that's not what they said though, is it?
They did start with "I don't like it", which is fine - but then they suggested a redesign is somehow unfair treatment of the entire fanbase.

A month early is pretty wild.
Funny part is, at the same time I see people on Twitter asking if the game will be delayed again, as well as asking Ubi if the they'll be announcing the game going gold soon (which it clearly has long ago).

Bring back resume activity.

I pre-ordered. I'm pretty confident I'll like it (as I liked all of the AC games so far) and free DLC is a good enough incentive.

@Anti-Matter it will improve Xbox games sales and that's what matters currently. Hardware is now something they do on the side.

If not for the recent spending spree, most of these games would still be on PlayStation, just without the MS label.
It's an interesting time, with MS almost going the Sega route, but so far this seems like a good thing for both parties.

I saw some people worried that this would lead to Sony releasing fewer games because 'they don't have to anymore" but I don't think this makes much sense for their business.
Also, a lot if these comments stem from people expecting more games from Sony but it's worth noting that the numbers are not that different from the PS4 in its first 4 years (excluding the various remasters)

@CielloArc I really don't think Outlaws and Shadows being a "PR nightmare" had anything to do with what the games did. Ubisoft is easy to hate on for some of their past decisions but it's mostly about the rise of this new kind of "influencer" who profits off people wanting to be mad at something - which really sucks.
I mean, if I remember correctly, the thing about Outlaws the internet hated ahead of release was that the main character had a strong chin. Ridiculous.

This is pretty sad even if it feels like they really brought it on themselves.
I think Outlaws could've sold more if it got delayed and released in the state it is now. It's neither the best SW game or the best Ubi game but it's solid fun.
The Lost Crown was great and it's sad to see they no longer want to do smaller projects like it.
I'm still excited for Shadows, personally. There has not been a bad AC game IMO.

@OmegaStriver
> Assassins Creed would be rebooted to not include the future segments
I'd like the opposite, please. These segments have been marginalized after AC2 and I want them back.