I hope so. I liked Hellblade 1 but while 2 looks gorgeous I wasn’t impressed with how the gameplay looked. Hellblade 1 struggled over there a lot.

I do think they still have variety in the sense that Horizon isn’t like TLOU2 which isn’t like God of War or Returnal. I do think because games take so long to develop it feels like the variety has shrunk. During the PS3 we would get an entire trilogy over the generation. Now we are lucky if we get one or maybe two…

I use Plus (when I got my PS5 for Demons Souls, Returnal and Miles Morales) and GP for games I’m interested in (this year Sea of Stars) or if I’m going through a month or two of no interesting releases or sales. Otherwise they just aren’t worth it.

And I love Devil May Cry as well. If we got more button mashers instead of soulslikes FFXVI would probably not get a spot. Also I do think that except for act 2, Acts 1 & 3 have a very strong narrative. Overall it's not been a very strong year for me. If I actually picked my favourite it would be Uncharted 4 which I…

Yeah I enjoyed it but I wasn’t a big fan of the story.

Somehow I think the open world new games give them even less personality despite being voiced. The old games had strong animations and facial reactions to give them personalities but the last two seem to not have that level of expressiveness (especially for Zelda who doesn’t exist for 98% of both games).

Just got my physical Japanese import of the game yesterday and played the tutorial. It is really impressive and I’m looking forward to playing the highly regarded Act 1.

I’m mixed on this because it is the job of the media to react and write about the news which the leaks are. But at the same time could they have reported on the leaks without revealing the contents of the leaks?

“Sony has yet to comment more broadly on any specific actions it’s taking to help employees whose personal information was released, or the progress of any investigation into identifying the people responsible for it.”

I just bought the game yesterday. I’ve heard a lot of stories about how the game struggles with act 3 and how it is generally the weakest part of the game. Is it that much of an issue in performance?

Also ignores the three years the game spent in Early Access to literally listen to feedback. Also ignores how broken Act 3 apparently was in the first two months of release for a pretty sizeable part of the audience.

my top 5 this year are HUMANITY, Dave the Diver, Spidey 2, FFXVI and Mario Wonder (didn’t play BG3 but just got it yesterday and beat the tutorial). Also a special shout out to the God Of War DLC which has overtaken AW2 as my 6th favorite game of the year.

Worst part about AW2 is it really isn’t as original as people claim it is. I watched the entire Twin Peaks over the last month for the first time and it is genuinely insane how much of the basic plot was taken for Alan Wake 2. Even the cool visuals were all done in Twin Peaks season 3.

The insomniac hackers literally released employee data. Which can be used by criminals. Hackers are dangerous 

Really hate the fact that we don't get pure stealth like this anymore. The closest I've played with that level of polish and enemy AI deduction is TLOU2. Most games are either isometric.

Kojima always wanted to work with A list TV and movie actors and the moment he got a chance he did. I don't think Sutherland was bad when he did speak but it was generally a weird change when he would go entire missions not uttering a word and then Act 2 suddenly drops 10-12 8-12 minute each tapes with Snake talking. 

probably the most successful businessman in video games. Constantly failed upwards, instead of making 10 games a year, made 10 studios work on 1 and SUCCEEDED in making it a good strategy. Acquired Blizzard and King in what turned out to be incredible decisions.

Cannot speak for BG3 since I just ordered the japanese physical version yesterday but this year has been a little disappointing.

I’m in the same place. I love Alan Wake 2 the movie. But Alan Wake 2 the game is an absolute slog. It feature some of the worst padding I’ve seen in a narrative game, every animation is purposefully slow for no reason, the shooting feels okay but random number of bullets for headshot kills are odd.

Bound to happen working On a million different projects (OD, DS2, documentary, DS movie, podcast, watching movies).