johncalmc

Nope. Sony clearly doesn't need a summer showcase. We want one. But those are two different things.

@get2sammyb I don't know. I do think it's a victory for players - just not in the way Microsoft intended. Buying Activision undoubtedly shone a spotlight on Xbox within the company, and probably led to the decision to go third party. In a way they they went so hard that there was nowhere left to go, and the big boys in suits took over. PlayStation fans are doing great out of this and since PlayStation is the dominant brand, it's kind of a victory for players.

The "players" metric rather than sales has always been nonsense. If you're going to give the players number, give the number for how many people played it for more than an hour or two and bounced. Gamepass has made the players number totally meaningless.

I think here the interest in the game was just surprisingly low. If Gamepass was the reason for sales struggling then Oblivion, Expedition 33, Forza etc. wouldn't be cleaning up.

Someone flip the days since Bungie embarrassed themselves chart to 0 again.

I never cared about the digital collectibles, but the reward money they gave me bought me Phantom Liberty, and basically funded my Infinity Nikki obsession so I never had to spend real money. SHAME.

@get2sammyb I think they've been alright with four weeks, honestly. But then I'd never played another of these games before. Every month you get a little bit of story - tat, mainly. Then they add new dresses etc. Presumably a big update would come after six months or a year or whatever with these mini ones filling in the gap.

This one has been a catastrophe though. Multiplayer I'm not sure anyone was asking for with nothing to do and it barely works. An empty new area that's pointless. Story retcons to force new players into the multiplayer/real money shop as fast as possible. Chaotic.

I'd be fine with them slowing the cycle down if they're struggling, as it appears they are.

Wild how much they missed the mark on this. I wonder where it went wrong. If we're being cynical, I'd imagine that they wanted to introduce new players to multiplayer/spending real money as fast as possible which led to them retconning and trashing the story, and then also leaving the game riddled with bugs.

It's quite a mess but I do like getting all of the apology diamonds so that's good. If they keep messing this thing up I'll have that new dress in no time.

I started playing this game for some reason and I'm guessing I've missed most of the characters since there's a lot of empty spaces on the roster. But I have a team that I use on every single mission and they're winning so I guess that's good.

I'll probably keep playing it until I've got the platinum since I've done most of it anyway. Maybe I'll stick with it for the new update.

Truly hideous stuff.

Sweet I love that guy

Oh baby we're cookin'. Gimme that Kuja in glorious new graphics with his fully orchestrated theme tune.

Yeah okay. I'm in. Lad knows what he's doing.

The mods for this game are going to be borderline criminal.

It's one of the all time great video games. The only thing I don't like about it is the combat. I find it quite irritating in that regard, and I just bang it on easy and smash everyone up when I replay it these days. The main draw here for me is the world and the quests and the characters. Just being in the world is an absolute pleasure. It's a fantastic experience.

Where I liked most of the changes in season one except for the spores change which they obviously didn't like either since they've added it back in, the changes in season two have been dreadful.

This episode is the worst offender. I can't unplay the game so I'll never know what it's like to experience this show without the knowledge of how the ending scene plays out in the game, but if you know both, it's staggering how much they ruined it here. It's double staggering the actual writers of the Part II that had already written a better version of this then went on to sign off on this.

Sigh.

Sending this guy onto a stream to talk about it seems a bit ghoulish. But whatever. I just can't with Bungie. It's chaos over there. It's like there's never a nice Bungie story. Not that there should be - they keep doing it to themselves. But still. It's like c'mon ref just stop the match I don't want to see this guy get pummelled anymore.

For some reason I decided I was going to platinum all of the Kingdom Hearts games. I got up to that one where you play as the three people who aren't Sora before I got bored and gave up, vowing, of course, that I'd get back to it soon. I think that was like seven years ago. I wonder if I'll ever do it.

I know why they're chasing live service money. Live service games get more money from you by giving you less. It's a no brainer that they should be aiming for some of that sweet sweet money.

What I've never understood is the strategy. They're constantly aiming for impenetrable markets with undesirable products. Concord, of course, being the best example - an Overwatch-like nearly a decade after Overwatch launched and three or four years after everyone got totally sick of it.

Chasing trends rarely yields great results, particularly in an industry with elongated development times. By the time your game is finished the world has moved on.

I'm surprised they haven't tried to do more of what they're actually good at and then twisting that into a more live service thing. I look at games like Infinity Nikki and ZZZ and all that Gacha pish and a lot of those games are essentially never-ending single player campaigns that update once a month with new stuff.

I'm not necessarily saying they should go the gacha route but why haven't they tried a single player live service game? I don't know, a big open world RPG or something. Add new quests for better loot, new outfits, whatever. Every year or so add a new region with more robust stuff to do. A big ongoing story. Microtransactions for new hats or whatever.

Maybe it wouldn't work. But trying something different seems like a better strategy to me than just shrugging and saying, "What if we try another first person shooter?"

Honestly, I pay for Premium every month and the only game on either Extra or Premium that I've ever played since they launched was the PlayStation Classic Kurushi. What am I even doing with my money?

Maybe she left because the game is so good that there's nothing she could do to make it any better.

I still haven't got past the second hour of Doom Eternal so it'll be a while before I get to this, if ever.

I'm using mine to play Balatro.

I quite liked this game. As with most of their stuff, wandering around solving mysteries is great, but once we start trying to have fights and stuff it's a bit ropey. Still, good vibes though.

I don't know if I've got another gacha in me. I've almost got the platinum in Infinity Nikki and I'm up to date in Zenless Zone Zero and working on the platinum. Will I play another one? Probably. But if I do I'm almost certainly gonna have to abandon one. I won't be able to keep up with the dailies.

This does look lovely though.

If this has a new trophy list I will platinum it again. If it doesn't then I'll play it again... but I won't be happy. Well, I will. Just less happy.

I can't even nearly care about this. Half the games that release today run like a dog's dinner without downloading patches anyway. At this point surely most people still buying physical are only doing so either a) because they want the box on the shelf, or b) because they want the option to trade in later. Both still apply.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's stupid. Just put the damn game on the disc. But I'm not upset by it. Seems like much ado about not quite nothing but not much.

It's an absolute mess. Frame rate all over the shop. I've been blue screened half a dozen times at least. Map markers breaking constantly. Sometimes NPCs just stop dead and don't do anything.

I don't really care though. It being a total mess is part of the Bethesda charm.

I never actually got to the point of using it. I did a lot of the side content but then decided to just finish the game and then go back in and 100% it on New Game Plus since I'd already missed a few things anyway. So I suppose I'll never know what I missed out on.

I'm listening to the soundtrack right now in the office. Superb stuff.

No less than a 9. Maybe a 10. Finished it yesterday. Excited to do new game plus for the platinum. Loved the story, the characters, amazing music, wonderful combat. Excellent stuff.

This is a massive shrug of an announcement for me. But then I'm not the target audience so what does it matter? I just can't care about whatever this is. Hopefully they manage to get one of these multiplayer things to land and it works out nicely for everyone. Maybe this is it.

Dreadful studio name though. On that we are in total agreement.

Calling it now - 100% this game has you playing as both characters, they have a falling out, and then you have to choose which one you play as for the final stretch to take out the other.

That's nice. I would have preferred a trilogy but the sensible money is on separate releases so I won't judge them for it.

I might play it at some point, but Borderlands 3, that Tiny Tina thing, and the New Tales From The Borderlands game really soured me on the whole franchise honestly.

Finally. Now we can get release dates for all the others games coming out this year now they don't have to avoid GTA.

I'm not at all into these deep dive State of Plays. I usually don't watch them. I'm usually sold or not on a game pretty quickly and then I just don't watch trailers etc. since they spoil half of the game these days.

I'm definitely not at all into these deep dive State of Plays if they're about Borderlands. I just can't care any more.

This is exactly the sort of game that I buy and then never actually play.

I've had Balatro for ages. I'm playing it right now in fact. I'll almost certainly never play the other two.

I like arcade racers but I don't like open world racers so this is a bit of a maybe. I'll probably try it if it's cheap but it's not something I'd rush out to buy.

@Kidfunkadelic83 I've played two gacha games - this and Zenless Zone Zero and the difference between them is astonishing. ZZZ is very much a game where nearly all the cast is female, they're all very bouncy, some questionable attire choices for battle etc.

Infinity Nikki is actually really wholesome. It's like a Disney story or something in tone, and in terms of the clothing etc. it's not pervy at all. Even the clothes that are part of the "sexy" category are like old school jazz singer outfits rather than anything weird.

Mostly it's just about a wholesome, let's be nice people and make the world a better place story with lots of dress up and customisation. Very easy to play. Very charming and likeable.

Honestly, I love it when an update is a disaster. I'd rather have the apology and the compensation than a smooth launch day.

It is totally broken though. The DIY workshop barely worked for me yesterday. It seems better today. It's crashed a few times. The multiplayer stuff is bizarre and glitchy. The UI is cooked.

New outfits rule though and I like the new area.

Sue Storm nude skin and it's just nothing - $20

I'm really not into the whole biker thing or the story or the characters or anything, but I did like just going around and shooting the don't-call-them-zombies and stuff. It's a shame they bury all the best bits - i.e. the hordes - at the end of the game, but once you get there it is really good.

I'll probably play this one again for another platinum at some point. I don't know when.

Unless PaRappa comes on stage and does the "I need the toilet" rap I ain't going.

I don't know why anybody would care about this. It's obvious. PlayStation gamers buy games. Xbox gamers don't. Why wouldn't you market it for PlayStation?

I can see why the comparison is being made because five or ten hours into Clair Obscur all I could think was that this was what I wish Final Fantasy had been for the last two decades. I love Final Fantasy, but I'm really not into the action focus in the combat at all.

How are they reducing the platinum grind? I've got every trophy except the iridescent eureka one. I have six of those do only 94 to go. Hopefully they've drastically reduced how many you need or how hard it is to get them.

Not even watching the trailer. I'm already in.

Seems expensive for a lick of paint to a game that's rougher than a badger's bum to play. Still, I'll end up paying it. I guess that's why it's this expensive.

My girlfriend loves this game so if this thing gets shadow dropped I'm gonna end up undergoing open wallet surgery this afternoon. Cheers, Bethesda.