themightyant

Not sure about your questions here, frankly I can't remember what I put, but of the TGA winners I predicted 23/29 awards correctly.

I like the idea of this, but the two art styles seem diametrically opposed, they really don't gel at all, as if different teams worked on each with little conferring. Hopefully it works.

Hard to pick just 5 to be honest. I've got my eyes on at least 25 on that list. If even half of them deliver it will be another strong year.

While I am not the biggest fan of Rockstar's gameplay there is no doubting a new R* game, and even more so a new GTA game, is a seismic event in gaming. Personally I am always fascinated to see what it possible with a comparatively unlimited budget. But it would be nice to see some actual gameplay innovation.

I haven't got around to To a T yet but I want to play it, several people who's opinion's I respect had it on their GOTY lists.

@lazarus11 😘

@lazarus11 I’m all for subjective opinions, and if you think KCD2 is a better game, or a better RPG, and deserved the award… good for you. As I said, like what you like.

But to try and suggest Expedition 33 isn’t an RPG is some gaslighting nonsense. It’s such a bad take it’s hilariously funny.

I have a brain, and after 40 years playing games I know what an RPG is dude… and even if I didn’t the Game’s own description is “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a turn-based RPG experience”. Every review I read calls it a role playing game even the RPG Fan website, who you would think knows what an RPG is, gave it 99/100 saying “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the single most impressive debut RPG I’ve ever played.”

But no… random guy on the internet says it’s “not an RPG” with absolutely no reasoning. Must be right then. LMFAO!!! 🤣🤣🤣

Continuing with the Remedy Verse. Having played Alan Wake: Remastered and it's DLC, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Quantum Break and Control recently I am now moving onto the Control DLC and then Alan Wake 2 for the first time.

Skate Story and Clair Obscur DLC are backup plans if I feel like a breather.

She has the husky sultry voice for it. Just heard her as Augusta in Wuthering Waves where she does a good job. But this is a different role, hopefully she's great.

@LimitedPower Yes. Sonic Frontiers is a completely flawed game but I ended up really liking it overall. Enjoy,

@RawnDawn HLTB puts 11-11 at 5 hours for a standard playthrough, 11.5 for a completionist.

Why not? If the game has a low enough technical scope to run on it. Expect to see that for many more years to come. Not every game has to push boundaries.

• Expedition 33
• Silksong
• Blue Prince

The Top 3 are easy for me, after that it gets harder.

Was that who it was! I didn't even recognise her.

@lazarus11 Clair Obscur is still an RPG and to many still the best RPG this year, which is why it won.

@TheArt Denser doesn't necessarily mean better, KCD2 is great if you like that, but to many it's too hardcore, too impenetrable hence not as good as Expedition 33 to those voting.

I respect you both may disagree, nothing wrong with that, it's subjective opinions at the end of the day. Enjoy what you like.

It's like comparing Forza Horizon and Gran Turismo as best racing game, there are no wrong answers, it's what you enjoy.

One of the highlights of the show.

Re-playing Control right now so this feels very close. A LOT feels very different, but i'm here for it and trust Remedy

It did look kinda cool, if you like that sort of thing... but I don't so it fell completely flat as a one final thing.

@lazarus11 Depends what you define as an RPG. (Again back to semantics) But I think most would consider it an RPG.

Yet to some "role playing" as a plumber that jumps on people's heads could be considered role playing even if Mario is a platformer, every game is an RPG in that regard. But assuming you have to make decisions to shape the narrative then yet Exp 33 does have that... at least at the end! It also has skill trees, weapon and armour upgrades, turn based menu driven combat. All tropes of RPGs. Not sure you will get many agreeing it isn't. But I'd agree it is RPG-lite compared to something like KCD2 which is about as dense as you'll get.

@Reyzore They wouldn't supply that information. I think it's exceptionally hard to make hard and fast rules here because I can easily see loop holes and edge cases where games may miss out, or be included if you start putting arbitrary lines in the sand like that. It isn't easy.

Whereas it's very easy to say "I don't like something" without having a workable solution.

I'd also push back on your "because these are games that need visibility to survive, many of them" point. I'm not sure that is true here. I'd posit that any indie game that is getting nominated, or is close to getting nominated, for a TGA award will almost certainly have reached some sort of major success, these aren't the games/studios that REALLY need the visibility to survive, it's the ones that haven't seen that success at all. The awards come AFTER the success, they aren't the cause of it. Though obviously being nominated it will help further that success.

Either way. We both agree the criteria should be clarified, but I don't think it will change. Sadly.

OOH! I thought I had plans this weekend. Might have to change them!

@Reyzore My point is that the definitions need to be better. Like many gaming terms "Indie", "AA" or "AAA" don't have a formal definition.

Sandfall is an Independent studio as they are wholly owned by themselves, the fact they also have funding from elsewhere doesn't change the fact they are independent.

But are they what we would term "indie"? Probably not in my eyes, which is why I said we need better guidance on what is and isn't included here. We've already had Dave the Diver vs Baldurs Gate 3 debacle, and this should have been clarified previously. I agree i'd like to see this focused on even smaller games, or have another award.

But lets also be clear that all the "indie" nominees (except perhaps Hades 2 which I believe was wholly self-funded, a rarity) had funding from larger companies, whether it's Ball X Pit, Blue Prince, Silksong all taking Game Pass / PS+ money and/or government funding, Dispatch with private VC and then Critical Role, Despelote through Microsoft's Developer Acceleration program.

Let me ask you this. How would you define what is and isn't an indie?

Continues to look very strong. Fingers firmly crossed.

Personally I think Expedition 33 deserved most of those awards, best game I played this year hands down.

@mazzel @Hi569 @Gaia093 Kepler is not a big publisher, they were set up specifically to support independent studios (like Sandfall) in publishing their games.

But I agree there should be clearer guidance on what is classified as "indie". I would also love to see an award for lower budget indies, or perhaps those self publishing. But where do you draw the line? If you publish via ID@Xbox or get a Game Pass / PS+ bag has Microsoft or Sony just made you not indie? No. But it's a minefield of edge cases. At the end of the day awards are just a bit of fun to celebrate games.

Ah, it's the day after the event where almost everyone is either happy or unhappy with the results. Can't please everyone as thankfully we all different things. Ultimately all these awards are pretty meaningless, plenty of great games went home with nothing, hell plenty of great games didn't even get a nomination.

Same advice as every awards, like what YOU like and don't worry too much about what others think or what gets a trophy. If you loved a game that didn't get a mention shout about it. Share your passion and maybe you will get someone else to play it.

The two art styles are really jarring, they don't go together AT ALL. It feels like two entirely different games, as if they had one design team build one part of the game and another the other with very little collaboration. Still the idea is cool and I hope it works out.

Nopety nope nope. It does look cool, but knowing what I know now about how time consuming these games are, and how they are cynically designed to keep you playing every day, I can't in good conscience start another one.

I'm now down to just Genshin and WuWa, and that's already too much, but have freed up time to play so many better games on my backlog over the last few months. My PlayStation wrap-up was far too focused around these games and that needs a better balance.

@get2sammyb You're not meant to play them all. Worse these games take up so much time that the opportunity cost of putting 400 hours into one of these each year versus maybe 10 other games is a poor deal. We all know this in our hearts, right? But do it anyway.

@PuppetMaster yes! I was wondering if the delay isn’t because they really need more time, but it’s because March is stacked! Though another months polish will always be good.

Good. It started pretty well with a LOT of promising trailers but lulled in the middle and then didn’t nail the finish. Also too much CGI not enough gameplay. Lastly too many awards were rushed through.

But there were still a lot of good looking games overall.

Seems a jarring choice as I can’t unsee him as Lenny Kravitz, but hopefully it works better in game.

Taste is subjective, but these look pretty tacky to me.

Good news, but this is almost a year after launch.

@ButterySmooth30FPS @captainsandman r/patientgamers

@somnambulance @naruball It's a charming story ably assisted by the Chopin's beautiful score. I'd snap up a remaster.

@Czar_Khastik Sure... because getting nominated for 12 awards from a global jury of hundreds of outlets and thousands of reviewers is just down to HYPE.

I can understand anyone liking another game more, taste is subjective, but trying to dismiss everybody else's tastes is just close minded.

I have no problem with the adverts costing that much, if studios didn't think it was worth it they wouldn't pay it. But I suspect it's also a sliding scale whereby smaller teams don't pay as much, and as the article alludes to some might be free.

As for tickets. This is hard to solve, you can't invite the whole studios, but perhaps if a game is nominated more than once then you can give another 2 tickets per nomination, which in E33's case would probably cover almost the whole studio!

I'm bitterly disappointed that his next project is a Sokoban (box pushing) puzzle game.

If it's similar length to previous years i'll be struggling to stay awake till around 3:30am when it finishes. But i'll try.

Sad to hear. Thank you Jim, and have a qwarktastic afterlife.

@Balaam_ This is BAIT. (comes in, throws hand grenade, leaves) LOL

Doesn't really look like my cup of Tea, but it is fresh.

Also Eternal Sonata never understood why thats never been remastered, or why other games didn't use classical music like this, it was inspired.

It's not surprising, but it is disappointing from a gamers perspective. Especially as when the inevitable cost cutting comes and jobs or studios are on the line then those parts of the business they "didn't attribute any value" to are likely to suffer more. I worry for Rocksteady.

Nice! All 3 fall into that category for me of "interested but not enough to buy" that is great for services like this.

Cats and dogs.

Looks like a strong year already, and that's before all the indie games that will probably be my GOTYs like the last few years.

• 35 PS5 Games
• 8 PS4 games
• 21 PS+ games
• 1,842 Hours (though I think this is wrong)
• 4 Platinum's, 8 levels to 465
• Most played... Gacha games + Silksong.

Note to self: Really need to play less hours in gacha games

I HOPE it's for something else as someone that isn't particularly into top down CRPGs. But I suppose a new Divinity could be something else.

Japan... who are known for staff sleeping under desks and a culture of overwork thinks Chinese staff can outwork them? Something ain't mathing.

She has great taste. Shame about Pixelopus, but it sounded like their next project wasn't coming together after 4 years.

@Quintumply Thanks, it does seem like the Pro makes it worse based on reports i've seen.

But it's also often subjective. There are games DF have branded "unplayable" that I have played happily start to finish. Did I notice the performance wasn't perfect? Sure, but it didn't really affect my enjoyment significantly.

Hence it's helpful to also get the view of someone who isn't so obsessive about these things.

@Quintumply Thanks for the review. How did you find the performance?

Hopefully that means we get a new immersive sim next gen! 🤞