somnambulance

A solid 8/10. The story is still been-there done-that to me, even though I’ve had a little bit more time in the game. I’m far from finished though. The exploration and style is fantastic and it actually utilizes the controller in an interesting way, which is something I’ve wanted from a game for years. It’s absolute comfort food. If the story and quests were more unique, I think it’d be an easy 9/10, but it just doesn’t seem like that’ll be the case. My opinion could change. It’ll take me a while before I beat it at the moment. There’s a lot of games out there right now and I just haven’t had a lot of gaming time to get too deep. It’ll probably make my top 10 list at the end of the year, but it could be anywhere in that list, at the moment.

@wildcat_kickz This is absolutely the struggle I was going through while playing CoD back in 2019-2020-ish. My friends had roped me back into trying to be a competitive FPS player for the sake of being more social after I had largely dropped playing multiplayer games for a couple years. I WAS a strong player circa 2013-2014, but I’d stopped playing CoD, Halo, etc for a while. Sure, I was proficient enough in Overwatch, but that’s a very different style of game.

When I had returned, the skill gap between my friends and I was so vast that I never really had a chance to catch up, thanks to SBMM. My k/d ratio was awful, but my wins were very high. It forced me to have a very different playstyle than I used to have, which made me a support player rather than someone that had the ability to compete one on one with another player… as I was definitely in full-on sweat lobbies. I know I didn’t enjoy playing CoD every time we played it and that’s because I wasn’t playing with my skill ceiling, but with another person’s. To use a Dragon Ball analogy, I was Resurrection F era Gohan playing with Super Saiyan Blue Goku and Vegeta against Golden Freeza, Broly, and Jiren lol.

I’m curious about it, but I’ve got reservations about giving EA my money.

@get2sammyb Any chance you guys might be able to review this one? Or really any one of the Hookshot sites. Just looking for a voice I trust on this one. Existing reviews are all over the place.

That’s a bummer, but honestly, the developer right now seems like they may have just had a flash in the pan with HLD. Hopefully the next two games are really solid. It’s nice that they’re launching one after the other, so they can hopefully recover the loss.

I’m still hoping the game grows on me more. See what I did there?

@themightyant For me, it’s not about completing every game I own anymore, but playing them enough to where I’ve gotten my fill from them. I complete a lot of what I purchase, but I also will drop a game if I feel it’s not for me. I’m not a completionist, so I tend to play through the story and go to the next game. Most of the backlog for me are games I’ll likely never complete for me or the games that just didn’t click.

A good example for me is Pacific Drive. I got maybe 15 hours or so into the game total, and I’ve tried to get into it maybe 2 or 3 times so far and it never seems to click. I still pick it up once in a while just to mess with, but I’ve got no intention of actually beating it anymore. I wouldn’t consider that game backlog for me anymore, as I know where I’m at with it.

In my younger days, I used to have a backlog problem and my OCD was agitated by it. I took “a break” from gaming about 10 years ago due to it and other reasons, but only lasted about half a year from the break and arguably made my backlog crazier, though in a healthier way, I suppose. I paced myself more.

In 2017, I had my first child and my wife told me I had to go do something in another room while she fed our son because, man, the kid had fomo since day 1 lol. In 2018, I broke both of my feet on separate occasions and also had to have foot surgery a couple times not related to those injuries. Those two years gave me a bit of time to catch up for sure. Then 2020 was something of a blessing for me because I was able to organize what still existed of my backlog and allowed me to complete what I actually wanted to complete and discard the rest. I think I had more opportunity than most to tackle the backlog. The only year since where challenge happened was 2023 for me, but 2024 was sort of slow, so I caught back up.

This year, so far, the only games that I’ve bought that may backlog are Silent Hill F and Split Fiction, and I’ll say that that is largely because my wife hadn’t enjoyed playing either of them. I’ve actually finished everything else so far! I’m working on games right now that all released in the last maybe 3 weeks. But Mina the Hollower got delayed and November’s pretty empty, so I may actually have time to play everything yet… outside Split Fiction… I don’t think that one’s happening.

Just gave you my life story, but hopefully that rationalizes it!

I mean, the AAA games are almost always likely to be the winners in such things, so I hardly think it’s surprising. Konami basically released the only established IPs in the last two months as well. I’d imagine Silksong has more traction with Nintendo players than Playstation. Honestly, another true success story here though is that Trails scored as highly as it did. That’s quite a surprise.

Personally, I’ve started Silent Hill F and thus far, I’m not sure how I feel about the game yet. Pushsquare’s review is lining up with my own perspective thus far, but I’ve still got more to go. Good on Konami to finally be back either which way though, and I’ll happily take a new Castlevania whenever they’re ready.

@Titntin @themightyant Only one on that list I don’t have is Mortal Shell and I’m not interested. Jeez, my catalog is dense. It’s sort of crazy. I caught up in 2020 on the “games I missed” type of thing and sales were plentiful and deep in those times. I’ve literally only bought games at release the last five years! I think Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection is going to be the first game I let sit on my wishlist for a sale since Cave Story+. I was waiting on that one to hit $10 since I’ve already played it, but I do t know if that’ll ever happen. Only reason I’m letting MK sit on the wishlist too is because my kids basically told me that they won’t play MK with me and they told me fighting is stupid. I mean, I guess I’m raising them right in that way, but I was like… fine, we don’t need that one then… for now… maybe?

@Titntin @themightyant I was about to say the same thing. Some of us need to start a group for people who miss a time when sales were actually exciting! Lol.

My kids can finally get their Astro Bot merch!

I mean, the game’s 8 years old now… the gunplay’s still fantastic, but, I mean, come on… it’s old. It doesn’t help the game is darn near inaccessible to newcomers from a plot or competitive standpoint.

Got to wonder how different PlayStation would be with Molyneux’s input. Got to wonder if he’d still be striking gold like Kojima still is or like hopefully Ken Levine does with Judas. Say what you will, but the auteurs and idiosyncratic minds in gaming make for a far more creative and interesting industry.

@FatalBubbles @Jammer I’m glad you have Little Nightmares 3. I’m struggling to recover from Mina the Hollower getting delayed. 😭

Seriously though, I’m going to be bouncing between Yotei and Pokemon for most of the rest of the year and having a good time, even if I’m going to be doing the same thing I’ve done before. I could see my vote for Game of the Month next month being the new Katamari game potentially right now. 😅

I mean, right now, 2026 is a pretty quiet year for releases for me, so I’m hoping we get a public beta following this. I’m truly rusty at FPS, but I’m sort of jonesing for what Bungie used to be able to do with Halo, given current events. I dunno. I want a good multiplayer experience that feels new and I like the style they picked for this one in the first trailer. I’m delusional, I guess.

For me, after playing the demo, it’s a GotY contender for 2025 or 2026, whichever year it launches in. I’m happy to wait for a game that plays so well in the early portion of it, especially when October’s overstuffed to begin with. Hopefully we get a new release date soon.

@FatalBubbles I just don’t get why Shadows and Yotei have such a similar story. It’s like Sony ignored that Ubisoft had the game in development or something. It’s weird. I don’t mind the callbacks to GoT, but it’s just plain weird Shadows and Yotei basically have the same family revenge against a gang of villains plot, especially when both companies had to know they were developing similar games. And you’re right! Rise of the Ronin had a similar plot in some ways too! Given that one was published by Sony, that seems like an even bigger blind spot. There’s more to samurais than revenge plots. Just weird strategy to reuse such a similar narrative so much so soon.

I really liked Tsushima’s conflict between winning at all costs vs winning with honor, so I’m hoping Yotei develops more nuance as it goes.

I dunno yet. I’m only like 5 hours in, and everything seems well made, but I’m getting constant Déjà vu moments to Assassin’s Creed Shadows. I know Yotei’s better, but the plot is so similar… and also, so far, it’s not so much better that it’s a striking difference. Tsushima’s plot felt larger and more philosophical to me, but it’s still early enough where that feeling may change.

The game has a lot of the AAA open world game tropes so far, and that’s fine. Combat’s a step up in diversity, but I would say I preferred the sword stances in Tsushima as a mechanic. The haptics are fantastic though. I love the haptics, the art, and the sound design.

Tsushima was a slow burn for me, and I could see Yotei do the same thing. I’m sure if Shadows hadn’t come out in the last six months or if it had a different plot, Yotei may be in my GotY shortlist, but right now I’ll wait and see where it lands.

Definitely Silksong. Game’s a 10/10 modern classic.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare I basically agree with everything you said. Right now, I’d put Tsushima above Yotei, but it could change. Yotei’s biggest problem for me is literally that “Wow, it feels like I just played this game” type of feeling. Yesterday, I had played a little bit of it and the whole time I was thinking of how it reminded me of missions in other games. I was enjoying it, but that’s probably not what Sucker Punch wanted the experience to feel like. From the style of the game alone, you can sort of tell the Yotei team thought they were making a GotY style game, and even commented on how the team was glad GTA6 was delayed. What I don’t think they realized though is that Shadows is so similar in story beats so far that it sort of steals away the novelty Yotei should have. The fact that when people started saying that the plot sounds a lot like Shadows leading up to the game’s release that they made a point to say that that’s just the starting point of the story when it sort of is the whole story… that sort of says a lot to me that Sucker Punch either didn’t know much about Shadows or didn’t think much of it. I do like the game a lot, it feels good to play, but I’m a “story player” rather than a completionist, so it’s highly possible that I might feel this more as I tend to stay on mission and only get distracted into side content if the game has the openness to pull me to it. As of right now, I’d say that the side content has felt more like something that I had to seek out to try than something that organically pulled me in… which is sort of why I liken the Ghost games to Ubisoft games. As of right now, I’d say it’s pretty clear that games such as TotK and RDR2 are still the pinnacles of the open world genre.

Not honestly my interested in Sony or Microsoft next generation right now. I think I’ll wait for the next Astro Bot, Remedy, or Kojima game to purchase whatever hardware I need next generation. It just feels like PS6 will be overpriced and I’m not sure the first party games will deliver. Sony had my absolute confidence after the PS4 era, but not so much this generation. The PS5 has felt a lot like the Xbox One did.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare Right now, I’d say that Yotei is very similar in gameplay to Tsushima. Combat’s more diverse. I’d say the quest structure felt bigger stakes in Tsushima, but it’s looser. The wind guiding you thing feels more authentic in Yotei, where as in Tsushima it was just a fancy way for you to follow a quest marker. Personally, after maybe 4, 5 hours of game time, I’d say I’d prefer Tsushima to Shadows or Yotei.

The biggest problem I had with Shadows is that it was bloated in content and length for me, so it started to feel samey, even with two protagonists. I’ll agree that Tsushima’s larger plotline was a bit forgettable. The Huns were just an army of “bad guys.” The familial storyline though, that was unique to me. Weirdly I felt like Tsushima was designed to have a romantic subplot, where it felt odd when it didn’t happen. So far, Yotei tells the story better than Shadows but the similarity to Shadows in plot points sort of diminishes the game. Yotei basically addresses the cons I had with Shadows, but it lacks the punch it should have since Shadows got there six months earlier.

With Tsushima, it’s one of very few games I’ve played through twice in my adult life. The first time, I felt sort of underwhelmed and rushed through it because it was a rental (the last one I ever had from Family Video!), but I restarted it when the Director’s Cut came out and the gameplay shined a bit better that time.

PlayStation fans, Xbox fans, no longer must we argue. We can all agree that Xbox fed the industry, several governments, and its entire purchasing public lies and now we can all see it. What they are doing isn’t right. The pundits on both sides were politically motivated and predicted monopolization, and forgot about us all, the simple consumers that just want to enjoy our games.

The console war isn’t over, no… Now, we, the gamers, have a new console war to battle for just console ecosystems together and divided amongst our various platforms. Let us continue the good fight and boycott this abhorrent price increase in the name pocketbook justice. The corpos may be able to bend a court of law, but they cannot bend us to spend our money on services where cost is not justified by value or ethics!

Too much?

@EfYI Assassin’s Creed hasn’t been comparable to first party Sony games in quite a while, but they do still have similar gameplay loops. Sony basically took the Ubisoft formula and did it better for the open world games. I will say this: Assassin’s Creed Shadows is really interesting when you play it side-by-side with Ghost of Yotei. They have very similar seeds of their plot, in that they are both set in a past version of Japan with a revenge storyline where the goal is to basically knockout a gang that murdered your family. Thus far, I’d say Yotei’s the better game, but it’s not by as much of a margin as you’d think. It’s truly bizarre the amount of Déjà vu I’m getting in Yotei from Shadows. Can’t say I’ve ever played two games that remind me so much of each other in such a short period of time, even with their differences.

Ghost of Yotei, Silent Hill F, Lego Voyagers, and Hades 2. I suspect I’ll play all four of them in some capacity.

So far, I’ve yet to start Silent Hill F, so it’s hard to comment on it, but Lego Voyagers seems like it’s pretty underrated. My son and I have had fun with it to start. Meanwhile, I’m still making opinions of Hades 2 and Ghost. To start, they both feel like sequels that don’t quite hit like the first games in their series, but that could just be because it’s early in both of them for me. I am sort of surprised by how similar AC Shadows’s seed plot is to Yotei too. Even though Atsu’s a very different character and the way the stories are told are different, it’s sort of interesting that the revenge narrative was put down in two massive games this year like that.

@Jammer @EfYI Ghost and Horizon are both pretty similar in gameplay to Assassin’s Creed. I mean, I’ve played every AC game, so I’m not going to go around blindly hating the series as so many people do nowadays, nor am I saying that Horizon or Ghost are bad games because they’re similar. Sure, AC doesn’t have giant dinosaur robots, but it does have a historical setting filled with technobabble, which is basically what Horizon does, though the historical setting in Horizon is a fictionalized future.

For the longest time, people said Ghost was the AC game they always wanted, but the parkour and climbing mechanics are honestly more similar in Horizon. Horizon and Ghost games are both typically more polished than AC games and more streamlined. Performances are typically better and style is typically better. So, yes, if they were AC games, they’d be some of the better games in the series. Ghost of Tsushima would definitely be the best of the bunch.

At the end of the day though, Sony makes open world, checklist completion style games, so they aren’t THAT removed from Ubisoft, especially this generation where we’ve basically gotten sequel after sequel rather than new IP. Sony’s first party games tend to be a sort of gap between Ubisoft and Rockstar, in a way.

And, yes, I agree. If Aloy was a man, I don’t expect people would be as warm to Horizon either. It really goes to show when the biggest discussion prior to HFW coming out was based on changes to Aloy’s appearance and character model.

@RoomWithaMoose Couldn’t agree with you more about HFW, even if I enjoyed the game quite a bit. It’s an Assassin’s Creed game in all but name and characters, basically, even down to its themes. It’s the biggest budget, most aggressively 8/10 game ever made.

Just Ghost of PS5 for me, and Katamari, Pokemon, and Mina the Hollower on Switch 2. For me, October is definitely the most stacked month of the year. Nothing in November because… well… the October line-up is fantastic!

I sorta want Mortal Kombat too, but I’m trying to resist my gaming greed. 🤑

I look forward to playing it a bit closer to Halloween. I’ve got two friends that have completed it and gave it a 6 and a 9. Quite a spread on that one…

I’ll say this: I just want more stories like Uncharted or some of the more unusual stuff like Gravity Rush. I’m totally cool with the Sad Dad narrative tropes. In fact, I’d say HFW was one of the only games that didn’t explore familial trauma so much and it had one of the least compelling (to me) narratives this generation from them (though that one was largely good for me until the “it’s a twist in a twist” final act).

The “problem” right now for me with Sony instead is that the games are feeling iterative, where everything feels like a sequel to what Sony did right last generation rather than genuinely new things, and even there, we’re missing the oddball experiments and new IP that Sony used to produce, outside of course Astro Bot. There was perhaps more first party diversity. Bound might not’ve been a console seller, for instance, but it was worthwhile in its uniqueness and contrast. Although you could argue that perhaps people may finally be waking up to the fact that the first party games basically are open world games similar to what Ubisoft does, just usually better quality, and no one really wants to say that. I mean, Horizon and Ghost series both feel very Ubisoft in structure. Also, the constant push for remastering TLOU in place of new first party content hasn’t helped.

I really do strongly think that an Uncharted style game that’s a bit of a brighter adventure would shake off the critics though.

Outside the iterative thing, I think the Marvel focus has been a personal issue for me, but I can acknowledge that’s subjective. Even if Wolverine or Tokon Souls GotY 2026, I’ve zero interest in either of them. I get that they’ll sell and make a lot of money and people happy, but it’s just not what I want. I’m not a fan of the GAAS push either. I think, for me, I’ve felt more and more distant from Sony by the year more because I miss their offbeat stuff than anything else.

I’d probably get it if there’s multiplayer just because I miss playing games with my friends (and nowadays we hardly sync on any multiplayer game) and the Halo era was our glory days, even if that was Halo 1-4.

I wish I could’ve enjoyed the Finals a bit more than I did. My group never really tethered to it and I’m far too rusty to solo in FPS unless I actually take the time to clear off the rust… which, why would I do that if I’m playing solo? Lol.

This looks like a neat mode though

I will be playing it. I want to boot it up by the time the day is done, but I’ve been saying the same thing about Silent Hill F since that came out. Silksong took longer than expected, but I’ve completed it and I’m just playing the odd run or two daily on Hades 2 now, so I’m starting one of them tonight!

@ShogunRok I know not many people like Resurrection F, but it’s so ripe for Freeza soldiers, not to mention the Tournament of Power. Let’s see Jaco and Tarble!

Oh, and I suppose there’s no OG Dragon Ball representation, so that could feasibly be a full DLC slab. Would love to see where the Devilman’s Devilmite beam joke could actually play out.

I just want Moro and the manga only characters, honestly

Like EA yesterday, it sounds like I’m done with Ubisoft too now

@Jey887 No kidding, I had subbed to PS+ and Gamepass for years, just having the service to have it, but I tightened my belt this year. After I did, I realized Dave the Diver was the only game I completed on PS+ for a year! Sort of crazy! I used Gamepass more often, but still not enough to justify paying for it blindly! It’s nice to save money and spend it on actual games instead.

I cancelled my PS+ subscription a couple months ago and haven’t missed it at all. I just renewed Gamepass this September after being off of it since May. Looks like I’ll be cancelling my subscription again once that renewal is out. Just buy games! It’s cheaper!

All this means is that I’ll never buy another EA game. It’s been a while anyway, but definitely not even keeping an EA property installed on any of my consoles in the future.

As of right now, Pragmata is basically the only guaranteed purchase in 2026 for my PS5. I love the look of this one and love that it’s an actually unique, new concept of a game.

It’s really interesting to look at my current wishlist and see it’s almost a Capcom wishlist right now.

Feels like there’s a Chinese knock-off game getting announced on the regular these days. I’d like to see more Chinese titles that aren’t derivative of dormant IPs.

The past couple years have been obnoxious with how much the gaming community is embracing knock off culture

@nessisonett I agree with you. It doesn’t help when Chinese companies like Tencent are purchasing IPs just like Xbox and the Saudi Crown Prince are doing and therefore controlling the past of the industry more and more each day.

“In an absence of a way of life, just repeat this again and again…”

@nessisonett They’d be eslop games if they came from another country. China actually invests in their imitations.

More Silksong and that will remain my game until it is completed. I may try Hades 2 out because I’m deeply curious about it or watch my son play Henry Halfhead too. I did pick up Lego Voyagers as well, so that’s possible. With Silksong and Hades being such massive indie hits that basically dropped from nowhere, is it weird that I’m like jeez Mina the Hollower, I knew your release date first, so let’s complete the trinity a little sooner please?

I’ll be picking up Ghost of Yotei and Mario Galaxy 2 next week, so I’m basically at a point where my gaming is planned and stacked for maybe the next 4, 5 months. Should I get Silent Hill F too?

I couldn’t be further from Sony as a brand currently. It seems like the last 2, 3 years, they’ve been actively trying to make me less interested in spending my money on them, and having a rewards program that requires spending actual money for rewards you “earn,” that’s a cherry.

@DennisReynolds I can agree that I largely preferred the story of the first game to the second game, but, man, the last 8 or so hours were the best 8 hours in a Kojima game so far (outside PT, which you can pick or choose if that counts). I’d argue the gameplay improved and the pacing was far better as well. You can get around it all with a truck or trike on the easier difficulties, but you can also play the game however you want and make it more challenging if you want. I sometimes did, just because I like the traversal. I honestly think both games are 10s, but I’m a massive Kojima mark.

I totally get that DS2 doesn’t have a ghost of a chance (see what I did there?) with GotY this year though in the mainstream. I’m rooting for Silksong to win the Keighley gong.

He deserves a GotY award for Death Stranding 2

Can’t wait for OD, whether it captures a real ghost or not.

Totally forgot about this one being a thing. Not sure if I’ll have space in my schedule for it this year (because September and October were thick), but I have a soft spot for Hyper Light Drifter, so maybe I’ll make room.

@KayUK Same, no interest in Marvel. I feel like Sony is slowly turning into PS2/PS3 era Activision with all these superhero and live service shooter games. It’s just not for me, but I feel compelled to comment on it because I miss old Sony so much now.

@w1p3out I totally agree. This generation, I can’t say Sony’s even been able to launch one essential game a year in their first party line-up. Hopefully Ghost of Yotei is worthwhile. Got a fear it’ll feel iterative, but I want it to be a hit.

@UltimateOtaku91 Yeah, it’s sort of weird. It sort of feels like maybe Sony’s burned bridges or there’s just not that much on the third party horizon? I suppose we’ll get more info on third parties at the Xbox showcase perhaps? I don’t know if everyone’s going back into their hole due to the event horizon of GTA6 or what. At least there’s Capcom…