johncalmc

Good to hear. Attempting to court a Western audience for the Yakuza series would likely be suicidal, or even if it were somehow a success it would rob the series of one of its defining character traits and would likely alienate their longtime fans.

All I need is Kiryu punching people in the face somewhere in Japan and I'll keep buying these things.

I only want two things, neither of which they're going to give us.

1. Third person mode.
2. I want to be able to wear those kick ass pink leggings/boots combo thing that the Mox lady bouncer wears when you go to the club for the first time.

Also more haircuts while I'm here.

I just don't know how hard it is to not do this. Like, I get the temptation to AI something when it's something hard. You're a small studio and you can't hire voice talent or whatever. Don't like it but I understand why you might opt to cut a corner with your back against a wall. This is a stupid advent calendar and you're sitting on decades of game making. Surely you could just throw some concept art in and it would take like four minutes.

Oh it's Diablo. That's a shame.

Final Fantasy X isn't even the best Final Fantasy X game.

I like the sequels. It would just be nice to see more new games too.

The sequels generally have been great. For me, Ghost of Yotei and Horizon Forbidden West are much better than the original games. God of War is about the same. Spider-Man I didn't like as much because I thought the story/villain in the first one was great and in the second... not so much.

But yeah, when they actually release games they're bangers generally. I could just do with more.

This kinda sucks if you haven't played 0. The new scenes pretty much objectively make the game worse.

Listen, I don't want to be crass, but what the hell is going on with the lady on the left? If you look at her proportions, then surely her right boob is like twice the size of her left one. So was this art just hastily thrown together with the mandate that they simply must get both of her boobs into the picture regardless of basic physiology, or when the game comes out is this lady going to be wildly asymmetrical? These are the questions that we need answering.

I've got them all digitally I think. Definitely Kiwami and Kiwami 2. To be honest I was expecting to buy all three again so this is pretty good.

Look, the only thing I care about here is the PS5 versions having their own trophy lists. And of course, wondering whether - since 0 Director's Cut is technically a new game - whether the trophy list will be different to the original Yakuza 0.

Either way I'll be getting three new Yakuza platinums, but I do hope the Yakuza 0 one is more like a new Yakuza trophy list and less like the original. Having flashbacks to playing Mahjong for eight hours straight.

I know it's well worn ground at this point, but that dude getting on stage like the big cheese and badmouthing samey, tedious FPS games before announcing a battle royale that immediately imploded will never not be funny.

Depends how you judge it. If for some reason you judge it based on first party exclusives then it's a trainwreck. Personally, I judge it based on "what can I play on it" and in that regard it's a 10. So many great games. So many great PS4 games. Some PS1 and PS2 games. Ports, remasters. I could never own another console and not run out of things to play. It's delightful. Looks hideous, but I'll let that slide.

I'm not sure anybody thought this was going to be good.

Desperately need the stats on how many of those purchases were for filth mods.

I'm still playing Infinity Nikki. I like it a lot. Got the platinum and everything. Looking forward to this.

Oh good. I really liked Stellar Blade. It was one of those games that seemed to land right in the sweet spot of my interests - mainly loads of cosmetic options, a banging soundtrack, and hitting things with a sword real good.

Those kids need their parents to buy them a Yakuza game for Christmas.

Thanks to this I have discovered that I have played Infinity Nikki 431 times.

Horizon is probably my favourite PlayStation first party series, honestly. I think the story is great, I like Aloy and her mates, the world is fun, it plays fun. I'm into it.

I get why some people aren't. It's very much just a polished checky box Ubisoft game but with actual good gameplay. And if you're not into open world pish then okay.

It does attract an abnormal number of weirdos desperate to pull it to bits at any opportunity though. It's like I get it, you don't like it, Aloy has small hairs on her face so the game is woke or whatever, but just don't play it. Doesn't seem hard.

Anyway, those sales figures are why Horizon is pushed by PlayStation. It's much more fun to imagine some sort of Hermen Hulst led cabal pulling the strings behind the scenes to shove the series down our throats as the kids love to say, but the reality is, it sells so they're selling it.

I don't need much encouragement to redownload Dragon's Dogma 2 and play it again. A few new haircuts and fancy outfits would probably do it. Full expansion preferable.

That's annoying. I just played it.

$69 billion dollars :'D

Call of Duty finally feeling that Xbox magic.

Largely predictable lists. Also I think it's been pretty obvious since it came out that Expedition 33 is going to clean up. It hit in a way few games do. Even ones with higer metacritics or more sales. It's a game people talk about. You can imagine fanfictions and cosplay. It's got the sauce.

The problem with trying to do this in anything other than animation is that Nintendo has never made a realistic looking Zelda game and so seeing this now is super jarring. It doesn't look like any iteration of the franchise. It's weird.

Fallout and The Last of Us work - in part - because they look like the games just with real people. This looks like when you see a cosplayer doing a photoshoot in a field with plastic swords.

I played the first hour of it. It's alright. Really janky but in a kinda charming way.

All that money. One of the biggest games in the world. And they can't at least have someone cast their eye over non-art to make sure the idiot A.I. didn't accidentally give someone six fingers? Prime the EMP. Just end it.

Firmly in the don't care either way camp. I'm not going to play mobile games. These aren't going to change that. And while I was actually interested in the Horizon MMO previously, even if it comes to PS5 I'm way less interested now knowing it's a mobile game. I'm just not the audience for this.

Yesterday they announce a PlayStation franchise's new game isn't coming to PlayStation.

Today they announce it's riddled with AI.

Tomorrow... they announce it's in the Epstein files?

One episode a week. What is this? 1993?

Let me watch them all in a weekend in my pjs with loads of snacks as God intended.

I quite liked Lies of P.

Also nice to see a mention of Buried Stars here - a game I haven't finished yet but have been playing and I like it!

Yotei has a much better story and much better main character.

Genuinely hilarious that Sony finally has a live service slop game from an established IP that looks quasi-interesting and they're not putting it on their own console. 10/10 trolling. Bring on Fairgames.

If this is actually just a big RPG and you don't have to do multiplayer and the monetisation is restricted to season pass i.e. extra quests or baddies or whatever as well as cosmetics... I might actually play this. Sounds like it might scratch that FFXIV itch for me - just a big ever expanding RPG to keep coming back to. I also play that solo where possible.

Obviously, sounds like it needs a lot of work though.

I still haven't played the first one. I've downloaded it like eight times and never played it. Still, nice to know there's more to play if I ever actually get around to it.

This was a total waste of time. One of the worst ever. I liked the Japanese vibe and the host though.

84 million PS5s sat in scalper's basements

Sony buying Bungie was such an unforced error. I remember at the time saying it was a totally pointless acquisition and that the money would have been better spent elsewhere. But I didn't expect it to be as farcical as it turned out to be.

I think it's a mixed bag. Probably about as good as Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, just all three games are good in different ways. So I suppose depending on what you want from a Fallout game will kinda determine which one you like more.

Personally, I like having a voiced protagonist - I hate silent protagonists. I also liked the story more than either New Vegas or 3. But I hate all of the building stuff and the focus on power armor. The perks are massive step down from 3 and New Vegas too.

Still, I've played it three times and I like it well enough. I'll probably play it again. Don't know if it's underrated or not. Maybe? But it's not like it's a hidden gem or anything. It's just not the disaster some people would try to have you believe.

It's finally time to announce that Final Fantasy IX remake.

Square Enix is so wild. It's like they're shutting down the NFT department and opening a brand new AI Wing. Constantly chasing whatever the next boondoggle is. Hopefully tech bros start wamping on about making good games and then maybe we'll get a good Final Fantasy again.

Expedition 33 is probably going to clean up. It's just gonna. You can feel it. I'd vote for it.

Looks cool but I don't have it in me to deal with another gacha. One is enough. One is probably too many.

It's not really of any consequence to me. I've never been paying for multiplayer. I have PS Plus for games and cloud saves.

I just play whatever I want whenever I want. Don't really do themes. Not particularly into horror games anyway, and need to be in the mood for them.

I'll probably play it at some point but I thought the first one was okay and that's about it so I'm not exactly in a rush. Also I'm super not into the lol hey everyone it's jokes time vibes this series has.

Yeah, but it's not a new thing. Everything has always been in competition for your time. There's more options now, but it was always there. Ten years ago it was Netflix, before that your mobile, before that TV, before that - god forbid - going out with your friends for a kickabout.

This whole "we're in competition with TikTok" thing is just something for wildly unconvincing Xbox executives to say to take the edge off how appallingly their console is doing.

I'm excited for Persona 4 remake. But honestly, I cannot believe it's the year of our lord 2025 and we still don't have Persona 6. It's wild how long this is taking.

I can't play Stray because my cats attacked the TV when I tried before when it was on PS Plus Extra or whatever. I'm not doing the drivey game and I don't even know what the other one is. This is a nothing month.

This is like the keymaster and the gatekeeper coming together. No good can come of this.

It's an eternity since I played Halo so I probably will, but I was never massively into it anyway so it's not something I'm counting the days down for. Entirely expected that it's on PS5 but still a bit weird seeing it.