Videogame News

[ratsoalbion]

It's a teeth-dryer.

[Truk_Kurt]

https://twitter.com/mick_gordon/status/ ... EdiyM5tJHg

What a messy situation. Feel sorry for Gordon (if everything he says is true). I know there was talk about problems between him and the iD leadership around Eternals launch but I thought they had settled their problems away from the public. At least Gordon has still got work as he is working on the upcoming Atomic Heart.

[Magical_Isopod]

FYI folks, Pokemon Gen 9 leaks are coming out like an atom bomb, and the full ROM has leaked online. If you want to avoid spoilers, might wanna stay off Twitter for a bit.

That being said, a lot of the new Pokemon are great - some are awful, too - and there's some fun new mechanical changes that should shake up the meta. Apparently the story is actually good too - though I'm intensely skeptical of that claim. The game also has DLC already planned, and I'm really hoping they didn't chop off the post-game and sell it as DLC like they did with Gen 8.

[Rhaegyr]

https://twitter.com/mick_gordon/status/ ... EdiyM5tJHg

What a messy situation. Feel sorry for Gordon (if everything he says is true). I know there was talk about problems between him and the iD leadership around Eternals launch but I thought they had settled their problems away from the public. At least Gordon has still got work as he is working on the upcoming Atomic Heart.

Yeah this is hard to read - I shouldn't jump to conclusions but after reading Gordon's account (and all the evidence he provides) it's hard not to believe his account. Sounds like he's been through a horrific experience.

[Truk_Kurt]

So what were everyone's highlights from the Video Game Awards? For me it was Judas from Ken Levine's new studio, even if it does look very much like Bioshock. Then there is Earthblade, the next game from the Celeste team, looks like a metroidvania this time around.

[Rhaegyr]

I'm looking foward to Hades 2 but the first seemed so perfectly formed I'm not sure where they can go with it - total faith in Supergiant Games though.

I found Fallen Order a little lacking but there's the bones of a great game in there so I really hope the sequel can fine tune things.

Great to have Elden Ring DLC pretty much confirmed too.

[Alex79]

First sequel Supergiant have done, looks good though. Death Stranding 2 might be the game that warrants a PS5 purchase for me, although I'll probably wait for a slim version now.

[Magical_Isopod]

So what were everyone's highlights from the Video Game Awards? For me it was Judas from Ken Levine's new studio, even if it does look very much like Bioshock. Then there is Earthblade, the next game from the Celeste team, looks like a metroidvania this time around.

I thought the show was pretty mid overall. The Transformers thing could be interesting, I've always wanted a game where you're just a normal person surviving a massive disaster. Banishers could be cool, because Vampyr was a similar game from Dontnod and I had a really good time with that one.

But on the whole, I dunno man. A lot of the stuff premiered felt really derivative, especially of FromSoft stuff. Not really my jam.

[DeadpoolNegative]

Transformers Reactivate looked pretty awesome... then I read it's an online multiplayer shooter for 1-4 players. Ummmmmm. The concept of a Transformer revived by humans to defend them from something that's NOT the Deceptions sounds cool from a story perspective.

Armored Core 6 trailer looked amazing, although I must admit I've never been able to really get into those games, or at least make enough progress in them. Maybe this time From will make it accessible enough.

All the other trailers looked all right. I keep expecting SOME look at GTA6...

--Dan

[Seph]

Hades 2 being their first direct sequel makes sense as it's their most acclaimed and, I think sales-wise, their most successful to date. Plus, there's a lot to play with in terms of stories and myths, so I'm sure the story and character work will be excellent as usual.

From the trailer, it looks very similar to the first and that's fine. I'm tired of this idea that games need to reinvent things to justify their existence; especially ones that are already finely tuned.

[Magical_Isopod]

Transformers Reactivate looked pretty awesome... then I read it's an online multiplayer shooter for 1-4 players. Ummmmmm. The concept of a Transformer revived by humans to defend them from something that's NOT the Deceptions sounds cool from a story perspective.

Armored Core 6 trailer looked amazing, although I must admit I've never been able to really get into those games, or at least make enough progress in them. Maybe this time From will make it accessible enough.

All the other trailers looked all right. I keep expecting SOME look at GTA6...

--Dan

Noooooooooo. Online? And here I was excited...

[DeadpoolNegative]

Noooooooooo. Online? And here I was excited...

From the YouTube page: "Fight back against the Legion in TRANSFORMERS: REACTIVATE, the new 1-4 player online action game from Splash Damage"

Granted, It's from the team that gave us Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Brink, and the Multiplayer from Arkham Origins, what did we expect. But STILL!

--Dan

[Angry_Kurt]

They also did the fantastic Gears Tactics which was their most recent game.

[Truk_Kurt]

It's being reported that Sony have cut the sales forecast and production of the PSVR2 by half a million after weak pre orders. That's not too surprising to me. I think the price is too high and the launch line up seems pretty weak with it being mostly made up of games already available on Quest 2 or even PSVR1.

[Magical_Isopod]

- No backwards compatibility.
- VR is a gimmick to begin with.
- Far too expensive for all but the monied enthusiast.
- Won't be compatible with tons of games launching in future for other platforms because of its own kneecapped install base.

Mark my words, PSVR2 is going to be a Sega 32X moment for Sony. They wanted to carve out their own little fiefdom in the VR space, but when you are targeting a niche of a niche, you don't wind up with many sales...

[Alex79]

They should have thrown their development money at a new handheld. That would be far more exciting to me than a shinier version of PSVR. A handheld that could natively run PS3 games that we already own from the store would have been amazing, coupled with their streaming service on PS+ and some exclusives to launch with it. Sony, are you reading this? Make it so!

[Magical_Isopod]

Truthfully, Sony and Nintendo both seem woefully out of touch this generation... Xbox seems more like they're actually giving a shit about what gamers want, but they aren't putting out the bangers I would expect for a major console platform. It's just a weird gen all around.

The Switch is an underpowered potato with a company that aggressively gatekeeps high software prices, and has a flagship franchise (Pokemon) consistently releasing buggy, unfinished games. Plus hypersaturation of bargain basement mobile game dreck flooding the eShop. The portability is cool tho.

The PS5 is a powerful machine with great BC options, but has extremely expensive peripherals and the exclusives are both very sparse and very much occupying a narrow range of interest - one that does not include mine.

Xbox has great BC, Game Pass is awesome, peripherals are reasonably priced, emulation and other homebrew are easy, and Microsoft seems to be content giving gamers free reign to use the machine how they want... But exclusives are lacking, and many of their first-party studios have been radio silent for YEARS, while franchises like Halo and new IPs like Bleeding Edge occupy a space of extreme mediocrity.

[Will Marley]

While Microsoft has been aggressively 'gamer friendly' tempting people into cheap subscriptions, they're now laying people off left, right and centre and they have almost no games to show for their many investments over the last five years. And despite their best efforts, they still appear to be comfortably in 'third place'. The Series S is a great concept and amazingly affordable for the tech but as the generation progresses, it feels increasingly hindered. Likewise, despite pre-gen predictions, it's rare that a XSX version is superior to the PS5 version. The reverse is more often true.

As for Nintendo, they're frustratingly conservative in every respect, but they've also fucking battered the competition.

PS5 has done roughly what I expected. Coasted on the usual exclusives. I'm not as interested as I was last gen but the likes of Returnal, Demon's Souls, TLOU1 and GT7 are pretty spectacular and it's the only place I can play all the M2 ShotTriggers PS4 releases, so it's still comfortably my most used console.

[ratsoalbion]

Sony claims that Bloomberg piece is inaccurate:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/sony-we-h ... on-numbers

[See Mi Yah]

So Hogwarts Legacy looks quite good. Anyone here interested in picking it up? I haven't read the books or watched the movies so I'm not the target market. Or so I thought until I caught a glimpse of the combat and exploration. Looks fun. Although I'll probably hold off for a bit and get it on sale.