toxicitizen

Yeah and if Playstation Now is any indication, it's just not ready to become THE way to play. The experience is just too shit and it comes down to things that can't really be solved on the software side. I'd be fine using it as BC substitute to play older games but it's a garbage way to play the latest games. Now that they're coming to PC, I'm really glad I ended up not playing Horizon on PSNow and I kinda regret playing Bloodborne and God of War. God of War and Uncharted 4 both definitely suffered from the shitty image quality and compression. Like, I could tell they were both gorgeous games but I kinda had to squint and try to imagine how pretty they looked.

Yeah, it doesn't take a genius to see that they mean for Gamepass and their cloud gaming app to eventually converge. Stadia has shown that the industry isn't quite there yet, though lol. And honestly, Microsoft basically becoming a third-party publisher wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Especially with the insane studio acquisition spree they've been on.

Oh that's a good point, hadn't thought about that. The same logic also applies to Steam. The Xbox app is still trash, so even with Gamepass on PC it's guaranteed plenty of people would rather just buy the games directly from Steam. Their recent releases certainly seem to have sold fine. And I'm pretty sure Gamepass is coming to Steam sooner rather than later, anyway. They already laid the groundwork for a subscription service with EA Play. I think it's just a matter of time.

I really don't find the time of creation of the IP to be a convincing argument, to be honest. Besides, if you go down that road, Doom, Wolfenstein, Fallout and Elder Scrolls all started out as PC exclusives. I agree when it comes to a specific, concrete game. But I don't feel like it's a strong argument when it comes to a whole IP and hypothetical future games. Like, what if it had been Microsoft and not Bethesda that bought the Fallout IP all those years ago? It would've been exclusive all this time and I don't really see how it would make any meaningful difference here. An IP isn't inherently exclusive or multiplatform, it's all about who owns it. Case in point, Horizon and (if certain rumors are to be believed) soon Bloodborne and God of War. And just to be clear, I'm not defending exclusivity here. Everything should be multiplatform as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, I can definitely empathize with this point of view. If you're mainly a Playstation guy then this unequivocally sucks. And I doubt it's just about Gamepass to be honest. 7.5 billions is a LOT of money just to boost the line-up of a service that's probably not super profitable yet. They could've easily just done a deal like they have with EA. I fully expect at least some of these IPs to become Xbox exclusives and "smaller" ones like Doom, Wolfestein, Evil Within and Dishonored seem like the most likely candidates here. If the tweet I posted about Sony trying to secure Starfield exclusivity is true, then I could definitely see this being also one of the (likely many) reasons motivating this acquisition. Not having the latest Bethesda flagship title is a pretty major blow to any platform. Then again, like I said, Elder Scrolls is kinda like Minecraft where it's so huge that it might make more financial sense to keep it multiplatform. Profits from a multiplatform release probably outweigh whatever fanboy brownie points they'd get from keeping it exclusive. Unless their aim is specifically to hurt Sony, I guess lol. Which, at this point, I honestly wouldn't blame them for. Sony has been on some special bullshit this gen. They can get fucked as far as I'm concerned.

Honestly, I find it hard to get upset at this. Paying to remove a specific game from another platform is an absolutely shitty move. But if they're straight up buying the entire studio I mean... what are you gonna do? They're no longer paid-for exclusives that would've been multiplatform, they're first-party now. Also, Microsoft has been doing a lot of the right moves lately. Doesn't mean they won't start being shit again in the future but as things are right now, them buying Bethesda seems far preferable to me (as a PC player) than Sony buying them. Also lmao get fucked Sony.

Sweet mother of God... What an insane twist. I honestly would've thought a company like Bethesda was simply too big for this kind of move. Gonna be hilarious if this means all those IPs are now Xbox exclusives. Sony's been pretty shit with timed exclusivity and confusing deliberately confusing messaging surrounding it so fuck them lol. I imagine something like Elder Scrolls might simply be too popular not to keep releasing multiplatform. Despite what fanboys on the internet will no doubt endlessly scream at each other over, these moves are calculated and all about the bottom line.

Honestly, I'm surprised it's taken them this long. From the trailer, it looks like a massive upgrade, especially with the camera freedom it brings for special attacks animations. And given the art style of the series, they can probably keep using the same models until like... Disgaea 12. No matter how high res you make them, sprites will inevitably end up looking like shit sooner or later. And 4K is about to become the standard on consoles... I think that's the reason they skipped over Disgaea 3 with the PC releases. For some baffling reason, they hadn't felt the need to do HD sprites at the time, so it looked like shit on day one lol. It just wouldn't fly today, I think. Same reason why they straight up remade Disgaea 1 to rerelease it on consoles.

Woah, Disgaea 6 going for fully 3D character models. End of an era.

I meant visually. The setting does seem to be the most interesting thing about it, yeah.

Seems Sony pulled the trailer lol. Oh well, could still come at a later time I guess. Something about the game looks really off to me so I'm not too broken up about it if it's not coming at all.

YO WHAT THE HELL Unclear if that's a fuck up on Sony's part or not.

Looks kind of underwhelming for a mainline FF, imho. I'm surprised it doesn't seem to be cross-gen because at first I thought it was a new expansion for FFXIV based on how the characters looked. Then again, if not pushing the tech side of it means they focused on actually making a good game with a good story this time then that's perfectly fine by me.

Control but also Alan Wake and, fuck it, Quantum Break too, I guess, even though that was a month ago. So yeah, my anticipation for Control sent me into a bit of a Remedy binge. Man, I love this studio. I replayed Quantum Break about a month ago and honestly don't have much new to say about it. It's a ton of fun, I'm still salty it didn't get a sequel and it's the real Max Payne 3, don't @ me. Those TV show episodes are still the worst thing about the game, though. I mean, look. Every time I replay Alan Wake I make it a point to stop and watch every single one of the Night Spring episodes in their entirety. They're great! And I also loved the hell out of all those Dr. Darling videos in Control. So it's not like I don't get or like what they're going for here, but fuck if I know why they thought it was a good idea to break up the gameplay with boring, 20 minutes long episodes about characters that ultimately barely affect the game. I'm assuming it has something to do with the TV boner Microsoft had at the start of the generation but it just doesn't work. Anyway, I burned through Quantum Break in like 2 days so I ended up deciding to replay Alan Wake as well. I waited until the last minute though, so I didn't manage to finish it in time for Control's launch and only got around to playing the last episode today, because I finished Control last night and wanted to at least finish replaying the base game before doing the AWE questline. Alan Wake is one of my favorite games ever and I almost wish I hadn't replayed it because it had been long enough that I had forgotten a lot about it and it didn't quite live up to my memories of it. I still thoroughly enjoyed it once I got into it but it was kind of a shock at first. Time has not been kind to this game and its flaws were way more obvious to me now. The good is still so good, though. I just love the atmosphere of this game. I stopped not just to watch every episode of Night Springs but also to read every manuscript page I found. Also, that rock concert set piece is still the coolest fucking thing ever (or at least it was, I'll get back to this in a bit). It's not mechanically interesting or impressive in any way, you're just fighting off waves of enemies. But everything about it just makes me go "FUCK YEAH!" every damn time. It especially helps that Old Gods of Asgard fucking slaps in a wonderfully cheesy way. I was actually looking forward to it the entire game lol. Not gonna bother replaying the DLC episodes. I probably would if I was still waiting for Control but they don't really add anything to the game and aren't that great. So that brings us to Control. It was a long year waiting for this to get out of Epic Jail but boy was it ever worth it. It has everything I love about Remedy's games only it's about twice as long as they usually are, has a borderline metroidvania structure with an open map full of hidden areas to find and it's basically an SCP Foundation game. I mean, what's not to love? I also love that Poets of the Fall got an entire room dedicated to their usual cameo song this time lol. Much like Alan Wake, I fully immersed myself into this one. I read every document, watched every video, and listened to every audio log. And even after 20+ hours I want more. There's just something about Remedy's games, going all the way back to Max Payne, that feels like they were made specifically for me. I feel like Sam Lake just gets me, man. I went in with pretty high expectations and the game still somehow managed to surpass them. Also, finally going through the Ashtray Maze was an incredible set piece that topped even the rock show from Alan Wake. The weird and impossible level design alone would have made it a blast to go through, but they didn't stop there. The fuckers knew what they were doing! When I entered the maze, put on the walkman, and was treated to a new song by Old Gods of Asgard, I knew I was about to experience something special. Now on to the DLC. I think I'm gonna have to take it slow and savor it (which I've been doing with the main game) because I'm not ready for this ride to end. Especially since, this being a Remedy game, I don't expect to ever get a sequel...

I think it was just Ubisoft that couldn't be bothered to resolve them. I've only been vaguely aware of this but it sounds like Scott Pilgrim's creator had to get personally involved to get things moving.

Goddamn, that is some tacky garbage. Also, RIP @The Cowboy JRPGing Poet's bank account.

What MetalCaveman said. I remember always turning it off at this one corridor with windows on both sides. IIRC a helicopter starts shooting at you, the windows all explode into pieces and the game always slowed down to a crawl lol.

Good to know! Also, I can't remember, was Catalyst a reboot? I'm wondering if it's worth replaying the original first since it's so short. I can probably run it with PhysX on without killing the framerate now, too.

EA finally added achievements to most of the games they recently put on Steam so I grabbed this while it was on sale. Gonna play it once I'm done with Control. Lack of achievements wasn't going to stop me from getting it eventually but it made their big return to Steam seem like such a lazy half-measure that I felt no rush to grab them anytime soon. Like, all of these games already had achievements implemented, it was just a matter of adding calls to the Steam API. Even Jedi Fallen Order only just got them along with the rest, which is ridiculous since it was on Steam at launch. I might actually give Dragon Age another shot now. I bounced off of Dragon Age II pretty hard once I realized it was all going to be set in that one fucking city, but Inquisition seemed like it could be alright. I'd bite for like 10 bucks or so.

I did it, I held off for the entire year. I can finally play this, guys Also I waited until the last fucking minute to start my Alan Wake replay so I'm not actually done with it yet lol. Gonna try to play one episode while the game downloads and then likely gonna have to play the last one after I finish Control and before I start its DLC. Probably won't bother doing the Alan Wake DLC.

Yeah, between just Destiny 2 and Warframe, I have sunk hundreds of hours into the genre. So it's not like I have anything against it, really. It's just not what I wanted from this series at all. I've also come to realize that the genre may just not be for me. I enjoyed my time with both games but I find the prospect of going back to either kind of daunting. When you get to the grind and start thinking about doing dailies and weeklies or whatever and going for end-game gear it just starts to feel like work to me. And when I inevitably stop playing, I dread coming back because it just feels like I have to commit so much time to it if it's gonna be worth it. So yeah, very much not looking to get into any more of these GaaS-type loot games. thanks! I just wanna punch goons as Batman or whoever else and occasionally take a break from punching and look for shiny green question mark trophies.

Wow, as someone that was super into the Arkham games, neither of these interest me at all. At least, based on those trailers. Such a bummer that they're both co-op focused, too.

I caved and drunkenly bought Fall Guys last night. No regrets, it's so much fun. Not sure how long it'll manage to keep my attention but so far I'm enjoying the hell out of it. Now I just need to convince my friends to buy it...

Wow, that is cool but I hope the internal mechanism isn't built cheap because I can just picture someone not realizing what's happening and just trying to force them lol.

Yeah, I'd love to hear Ethan's expert take on this. It seems like an obvious bad faith tactic that should get thrown out but I have no idea if that's actually how it works legally. Tim Sweeney comes off as a delusional asshole but surely Epic has competent legal counsel advising them here. As much as I'd love to imagine Tim Sweeney making this insane legal maneuver that is guaranteed to fail, there's just no way that's the case lol.