crispy4000

It could vary by game. But generally speaking, not going for realism, with a visual style that appears family friendly. Smash Bros and Fortnite are the sort of T-rated games I'd include in that.

Digital Foundry isn't up yet, but NX Gamer is doing his thing for IGN again:

To my point earlier, most of the biggest F2P family games started as indies. Fortnite and Multiversus are the notable exceptions.

Hogwarts Legacy Pre-Order Data Suggests Huge Debut for Game GAMERANT.COM Based on pre-sales data of Hogwarts Legacy on all platforms, the game is already expected to be one of the biggest games of 2023.

Maybe it's leading to a tighter gap, but going by Europe, I wouldn't say that's accurate. Microsoft is putting up a much better fight in the UK, it's closer there than it is here. PS5 still ended up ahead of Series consoles there YTD in 2022. As for the rest of Europe, the only country we know for sure that Microsoft outsold Sony last year is Norway. Sony's price hikes clearly had an impact, with PS5 sales slowing significantly YoY. Traditionally the US is Microsoft's stronghold. This could be the generation we see that change, even if Microsoft doesn't necessarily pull ahead in Europe.

How was it? Always was interested in these games.

An observation: 9 out of the top 20 of the year are family oriented non-sports games. Think about how many big publishers don’t bother to seriously compete in that space. To Nintendo goes the spoils? There’s more apathy towards family-friendly investments from big 3rd parties than ever. They rarely make games targeting younger audiences, probably assuming that indies, mobile and Fortnite have it covered. There should be more opportunities there. Lego games will keep selling bucketloads. Just look at how high it got on Microsoft’s chart. Makes me think Harry Potter could be big.

Xbox Series consoles and PS5 sales leak. PS5 US NPD HW:Jun-22: 277KJul-22: 301KAug-22: 341KSep-22: 494KOct-22: 456KNov-22: 1328KLTD as of Nov-22: 10592KXBX US NPD HW:Jun-22: 260KJul-22: 247KAug-22: 251KSep-22: 288KOct-22: 261KNov-22: 730KLTD as of Nov-22: 8736K Doesn’t feel like MS is behind by much in the US. But it appears Sony is widening the gap.

Apple II: Spellevator Macintosh: The Playroom DOS: Commander Keen at a friends house, I think? We had Apple computers growing up, I didn’t own a PC proper until college. Played lots of Blizzard, Bungie and shareware games as a result. I know a lot about old Macintosh games, even some of the B&W only ones. But Apple II’s were a school thing.

If I were them, I'd give id a crack at it. They've helped with projects outside of their own IP before, and are already under Microsoft's wing.

Maybe one of these not-Valve handhelds is already there? I don't know, haven't looked into it.

I'd be there for it if it hit Series S standards at its lower resolution. It's close, but not quite there. I already don't trust devs to optimize well for Series S... Basically, I'd need it to be good enough to last a few years, until this-gen GPU pricing really cools off.

The gist of it is that you're not going to get a solid 30fps experience on next-gen titles generally, even if you dial settings way back. Mileage can vary game by game. Oliver suggests the need for newer hardware if that (or a 40fps target) is the goal.

Haven Park on GOG.com WWW.GOG.COM "I'm getting older, my dear, and I'm not able to take care of the park any longer...

Picked up Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition for $5 with my free Steam credit, just so I could say I own all of them. Who knows if I'll get around to any of them.

It doesn’t strike me as dire, but par for the course from what I expect today from a western 3rd party mega-publisher. They’re expanding their most played out brands into a bunch of different buckets. This could very well be what works for them Personally, I hope Avatar is alright. That’s about it.

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/epistory-typing-chronicles-445794 Epistory is free. It's decent enough to be worth playing. Clever ideas, fun to play, but not quite an indie great.

Buy Rayman Raving Rabbids for PC | Ubisoft Official Store STORE.UBI.COM Buy Rayman Raving Rabbids for PC at the Official Ubisoft Shop and get 20% off with Club Units. Umm what? They made this for PC?

Surprising only in how much he recycled. It's a magical moment when the game starts to deviate more substantially.

Overall, it's a really beautiful looking/sounding RPG with an interesting (if slow) battle system. It positions itself as a Chrono Cross spiritual successor, sometimes to a fault. The first dozen hours retread several of that game's story beats in an unflattering way. Get past it and the pacing picks up - it becomes wildly imaginative. There's a bonkers twist halfway through (avoid spoilers!), and the ending is so odd and fun that you'll never see another like it. I'd still recommend playing it before Origins, which hits the ground running by comparison. You get more out of it knowing the first game.

To each his own. I think it really needed an auto build feature to streamline things, and to show you a basic good composition. And to take out your rotting cards. Monolith is often guilty of overstuffing their systems, making the player jump through hoops without much respect for their time. BK Origins is probably the leanest, slickest RPG of theirs I’ve played in that matter. Torna is second (apart from the late game questing). They’re better games for it IMO.

It's been a while since I played it, but I seem to remember discarding being pretty lenient. The deck autobuild option also worked pretty well to build something that felt balanced regardless.

There was plenty of RNG in the first game too. It comes with the territory being card based. It's just that the worst of it got dragged out in the defense phase, which I'm glad Origins dropped. Battles felt far too long by the end. A lot of Origin's quality of life improvements make BK1 hard to go back to, IMO. I really hated having your healing items rot, for example.