kyleforrester87

Nice write up, I am enjoying the game - if you like the franchise, get on it!

Aliens Dark Descent - really enjoying this one, finished the first mission, quite a tough experience and really quite stressful. Highly recommended!

Mega Drive Mini - playing some Master System roms, including Chase HQ

Zelda TOTK

@nessisonett Prices have gone up in USA, and still epic operate globally including subsidiaries.. I would think inevitably they are covering higher costs - rents, suppliers, utilities, wages across the board. Vbucks directly generate income for Epic which of course has purchasing power.

The question of course is are these increased prices legitimately needed to keep the business going through a difficult period or are they profiteering.. of course it looks like the latter. It’s a shame and does not help anyone in the long run but the only solution to the higher price is to not buy them.

@nessisonett But isn't it "the same amount of money"? Epic's business are linked to Vbucks so of course it's subject to the "real economy". I mean, I got a pay rise this year but am substantially less well off than 2 years ago due to spending power.

Of course Vbucks are subject to price increases, along with everything else, if Epic are looking to maintain current profits. In theory it could be a good thing for inflation if the result is people stop spending money on them. Doubt that will happen though so Epic should do the decent thing and keep the prices down instead of stoking the fires, since it's not like they are really hurting. And the funny thing is, are these prices really going to all drop back down again in a year once inflation is under control? Doubt it.

Also, as much as I love it, Lord of the Rings is 90% describing the shape of fields and trees. You can go chapters without dialogue 😂

Really excited for this one, day one for sure.
I finally accomplished a childhood ambition to finish Baldurs Gate 1 a couple of years ago 🥳 So cool that these isometric RPGs are all getting console releases these days.

@OrtadragoonX I guess I just wanted the literal examples of the 2 specific steps forward and 1 step backwards Sega made that resulted in them leaving the hardware market, as I don’t see it as being comparable to the state of this game 😂 But, I understand the sentiment.

In other news, I realised my TV wasn’t in game mode on the HDMI channel I had my MD mini hooked up to, hence the input lag I was getting. Just turned GM on and it’s much better!

@OrtadragoonX yeah I mean it obviously flopped for reasons or, well, it would have been a success. But you could apply the “two steps forward, one step backward” logic to anything that has ever failed, when it is generally always more complicated than that. N64 and GameCube were pretty cool consoles but I wonder if Nintendo would have been in a position to launch the Wii without the handheld side of the business doing as well as it was, which I guess is something Sega just didn’t have going for it.

@Suda52 what was the one step forward and two steps backward they took with Dreamcast?

I am not a massive Sonic fan, but I still really admired the games back in the day, collected some of the comics and played them whenever and wherever I could until I got a PlayStation. I played more than less of the total games across Master System and Mega Drive, but for some reason Chaos remains my favourite of them all. I like the levels, the soundtrack, and tbh how stupidly easy it is to play through. I have a lot of nostalgia for it as I got it for Christmas with the system when I was 6. I remember my brother got to the last boss on the first sitting, then we cleared it on our second attempt.

I was in the mood to play it very recently, and then by coincidence noticed it was due to be released as part of this pack. I was pretty gutted to hear it’s the game gear versions, and they don’t stack up.

I have tried to run a version on my jail broken Mega Drive Mini just last night, but the emulation doesn’t seem very good. I have a 1 second delay when pressing buttons. I’m going to try a few things to see if I can fix that, as I’d like to play a nice version. If anyone has any tips, let me know.

Shame they didn’t do this justice.

@KidRyan just saw this, but to confirm it is single player only. It’s an RTS, you control the full team yourself. It’s also bloody great!

Haha I also don’t know a single one of them. I like sports enough, just don’t really follow them to any real degree. I’m pretty terrible with celebrities generally, though.

I know Eric Cantona and David Seaman.

Lookin good

I’m a bit of a sucker for Transformers, I loved Devastation, Cybertron and yes even Dark Spark.

@NEStalgia it’s been obvious for months what the game fundamentally was, all we learnt today was that it ended up actually being good, yet you’re stuck on repeat! I get it.. you don’t think it’s a Final Fantasy game… because…. things 😴 (was that one of those comments you should have been getting paid to write, by the way?)

It looks good, I am looking forward to getting it later on this year. There have been a small handful of very vocal haters on here, they are pretty dug in and I expect the decent scores won't cause them to reconsider! However you slice it though, it's good to see FF on the up after 13 and 15.

@johncalmc I dunno, Tesco could probably learn a trick or two from Alton Towers.

How dare you bemoan ruthless capitalism and suggest I go do a Tesco shop in the same review!

We’ll be getting the same trailer over here but with an outrageous rap soundtrack, I expect. And people will go ?watdaprablammmm

@mariomaster96 I guess. The official trailers detailed so many takeovers (t-Rex etc) that I probably would have just seen that thumbnail and thought nothing of it, but I see what you mean. I don’t really mind things being spoiled, I suppose.

@mariomaster96 has that ever happened to you though? Just, I watch quite a bit of YouTube but don’t recall anything getting spoiled that way. Nothing with TOTK, for example, despite all the leaks. Even games that are out now (Diablo, whatever) I am not really seeing what I would call spoilers in my feed..? Guess it must happen as people talk about it a lot though.

If you don’t buy games at launch it’s kind of business as usual as far as spoilers go. Well, it’s much worse after it’s actually released, actually! I don’t plan on getting FF16 for a little while so it is what it is.

@get2sammyb I don't know about that. Why go to the effort of embargoing the other games, just to say actually that this one is exclusive. If you say that, without saying the others are exclusive too, everyone would know they are multiplatform and the embargo would have been (even more) pointless. They have time to declare it an exclusive (or not), in the meantime it doesn't hurt them any to have people guessing.

Oh nice, still on track to being awful then, if the last games are anything to go by. I'd make a great Tomb Raider game on my own in a week if they'd let me.

E3 was dope this year

@Elodin I'll be asking you for help I reckon, you are much more switched on than I am when it comes to the battle systems!

@CallMeDuraSouka nothing “extraordinary”, but it really depends entirely on how many I have.

@Elodin getting hyped for BG3 over here, too

Does look good, doesn’t it. Will be looking forward to reviews. How was the last game out in 2014, though…? Damn.

Edit: I see, it was 2016 when it came to Plus, which is when I played it. That’s a bit more realistic!

@KilloWertz I have no memory of you starting an argument about Nintendo!

@KilloWertz but once you factor in the patches, and in many cases this is almost essential, the argument is basically nullified to all but resale value, and since I’ve personally traded in about 5 games in the past decade I basically don’t favour one over the other anymore. The main reason for me to go physical is on the shelf I am less likely to forget a game exists and that I own it so may well pick it up again down the line. Sometimes I check my digital collection and I’m surprised at some of the games I own.

I get what you’re saying if you have particularly slow internet, though.

Anyway, the argument is pretty played out, if you love physical more power to you, but the transitional phase is well, well underway now.

I listen to a lot (ok, a fair amount) of hip hop but it really bums me out when they put it in trailers for games like this, I’d give it a dislike for that reason.

@rawzeku those lazy b@stards, trying to save money. I’m up with the starlings every morning, burning mine in the yard.

@TheArt I reckon you’d get £260 value out of it from Zelda alone honestly! I did buy a 3DS just for Bravely Default to be fair, although that was cheaper

@TheArt you should get a Switch and TOTK, for sure.

70+ hours into Zelda, only managed 1 shrine so far! Awesome game, for sure.

Ah, oui, oui!

That’s not very realistic is it.

@Shepherd_Tallon that’s been my approach for the past couple of years. I have missed out on some games I would really like to play as a result unfortunately but I have a shortlist so hopefully I’ll get to them. Can be hard to ignore the hype sometimes but it’s certainly better overall.

@bkeswick fair enough, I can see it being a different perspective in Japan at the time. I still think it was always a bit of a novelty though as attention had shifted to PS2 mostly by that point.

I also can’t imagine FF going turn based again, not without a massive budget cut. Of course, if enough people asked for it they would as this would translate to sales, but the demand isn’t there in my opinion.

I’d be up for it though!

Good, it's really good. Although, I didn't finish it! I have finished 2 of the stories. I will get back to it, as unlike the first game, I actually enjoyed playing it a lot.

@Matroska I think that's a very fair analysis. 8 is what it is, I don't think it's bad at all in hindsight, but the vibe is so different to 7, and it probably left a fair few people miffed when it launched.

@get2sammyb too busy messing around on photoshop I bet!

My console hasn’t said “up” once this year 🤔

Is it broken?

@bkeswick I’m not sure they were under a lot of pressure really. Actually, a lot of fans who started with 7 on PlayStation would not really have been asking for what they got with 9 at all.

Then, it didn’t sell as well as FF7 and 8, so you could argue they made the wrong choice going in the direction they did. Of course, releasing during the PS1/2 transitional period is highly relevant to that issue, and personally I feel people who started with 7 could have been put off a bit by 8 and could have been hesitant about 9. I can’t back that one up, it’s just the way I personally felt.

Fortunately, I did get 9 at launch, loved it and it’s one of my favourite games of all time!

@Mikey856 yep, then we had some pretty good years, through Vitas lifespan. Only 2 years later the PS4 sold like hotcakes, by which point the Vita should have been well established and in its prime. At the end of the day, Sony squandered the potential Vita had.

@Mikey856 2012 was not a recession... in fact, we all had Olympic Fever, baby.

Looking forward to getting this later on in the year, sounds like those playing are having a blast.