crispy4000

Day Zero edition! Pay more to play a week early.

It could be ballpark and still be fine. especially if DLC sales go up, owing to the people who don’t normally buy CoD. We’re also counting things before they hatch a bit. It’s very possible Microsoft sticks some giant asterisk on this before release. It wouldn’t be unexpected even for how Activision did business with the franchise, with map packs and the like.

So we'll know by this time next year if the gamble paid off. (or we get a big GP price hike) Anyone rooting for the subscription model for the medium should hope this move is a resounding success.

Time Spent: 20 minutes Rating: ** I didn't know what to expect booting this up. Some kind of punchout-like game mixed with stat upgrade mini-games? I was very off the mark. It's a time and stat management game mixed with an autobattler. Graphics look good, but the gameplay isn't my sort of thing at all. It flies too close to survival meters to be all that engaging for me. It could be okay for you if you really dig tycoon stuff, but to me, it's boredom in a pretty package with stats and line charts.

I actually don’t see it this way today. There’s still some scummy patterns such as selling XP boosts and cosmetics at launch, but generally, the games feel complete, and the season pass sold for them feels a lot closer to the historical 'expansion pack' than I would have ever thought we’d return to.

You’re right, it’s too short of a time frame to mitigate volatility.

That’s fair and not totally unreasonable. Making at least 15% on the average of your investments doesn’t sound too greedy for industries like games or film, where flops are such a risk. It’s the value comparison to higher-than-typical returns in stock indexes that is giving me the double take. I thought the issue was more the cost of borrowing money than looking at stock returns with 50/50 goggles. The S&P was down -6.5% in the 5 year period ending in 2009. Was any company not losing as much money then actually succeeding? Or would the goal then just shift to beating savings account rates or inflation? It’s a stupid barometer, even greed aside.

Time Spent: 30 minutes Rating: ** Puzzle platformer found only on itch.io I picked up in one of those charity bundles. Look pretty great in screenshots, but so much of the tileset is reused it's actually a bit disorienting to play. You can use a magic want to virtually control blocks with different movement patterns. Dotted lines mark tiles that blocks can move through. It's a neat mechanic, but the game still feels like a series of push block puzzle rooms with often convoluted soltions. More pet peeves: your character moves super slow, the music sucks, and the view window updates at an irregular framerate (42fps).

Umm, historically that’s way higher of an average than the market typically returns, and there’s plenty of risk there too year by year. If 14.5% is the ideal number to beat when green lighting, maybe they’re not actually a video game company, but an investment firm getting insider tips from congress.

Time Spent: 40 minutes Rating: ***½ Excellent DSiWare port that still leaves a strong first impression today. It does this cool foreground/background transition thing I don't think I've seen before in a Metroidvania. Better yet, it can go several layers deep. I'm a fan, especially considering it breaks the 'left or right' tedium so often felt in sidescrollers. The pixel art animation here is Metal Slug level, just superb. Combat is a bit simplistic, I'm not always the best judge of when her hair strikes, especially when jumping. And the 4:3 aspect ratio makes it feel a slightly too cramped, which is more a fault of the level design here IMO. There's also not a lot of consistency to the outer edges of screens, as to whether they'll scroll you to a new place, or block you with an invisible wall. But overall, it's quite a fun little game from what I've played so far. The animal transformations are the cherry on top.

Do you need an always on connection? Or is the check in once per day or something? Going to be travelling next month, I might want to load up the ipad with some stuff.

Time Spent: 30 minutes? Rating: *½ I literally feel asleep playing it. The neatest trick it pulls is that it totally lacks VO for the first 15 minutes, then suddenly everything starts being read to you fully voiced. Problem is the game won't stop speaking at you. Its a visual novel masquerading as an adventure game, but even then its just overly verbose. You make dialogue choices, and can expect a big long answer no matter how trivial the topic of conversation is. It dangles adventure game mechanics in front of you, just for you to be stuck in conversation loops for way too long. Supposedly that doesn't get any better. The blank real estate on the screen feels like a bit of a cop out as well. Try Virtaverse instead. Night and day difference.

Time Spent: 15 minutes Rating: ** Bubble popping and splitting game akin to Super Pang or Buster Bros, with the gimmick of gravity shifting to the sides of the screen. It believably emulates the style of a gameboy game, and even has these fun interactive borders on the side. So presentation is solid, but gameplay-wise, its bland and one-note, and basically just an endless arcade game. The movement is far too slip-slidy for something precision based. If you want something better, check out another indie game called The Bug Butcher instead. Still an acquired taste, but that's about the best you'll get for a game of this sort. It's multiplayer too.

Time Spent: 45 minutes Rating: *** Point & Click adventure in a cyperpunk setting, where everyone essentially jacks into the matrix with their VR headsets to view reality differently. Visuals, cutscenes and animations are stunning, especially considering its all done without bloom or other modern rendering techniques. If any of this sounds appealing the game is probably worth a shot (especially if you snagged it for free on GoG). But it also hearkens back to some very esoteric puzzle logic, and maybe there's just a bit too much 'tude to the writing so far. I'm reading that gets worse as the game goes on, but still, the style points carry it, and for an adventure game that isn't such a bad thing.

The pack-in was fun, I wonder how they'll expand on it. I'm always down for a 3D platformer with a good studio behind it.

Too much time and effort for me currently as a parent. I get an hour or so to play games each night now that aren’t E-rated. I’d rather blast through more of these than spend that time editing. Trying to get through the 16-bit list before Not-E3 begins.

Since I just name dropped it, might as well follow through with it next. Time Spent: 30 minutes Rating: *** Another hard one to judge from the onset. As a turn based game, I really dig the mechanics here. You have a list of moves that you can only use again if you've rested for a turn, unless otherwise specified. It's a neat system that makes each member of your party feel very unique. Enemies have resistences you can exploit, no need to scan them with anything to know. Items are pooled and shared, and recharge at the end of battle (like your health). In-battle graphics remind me of Shinning Force, which is an awesome throwback. I just don't know how much I enjoy the rest of the window dressing. I've got no history with Sailor Moon, and don't think it makes a good case for it plotwise from the onset. There's also vocals by a suspect singer that pops into the soundtrack now and again.

I can see all the things that could make it good. I was wavering between rating it a bit higher, but the judder is what pulled it down for me. This is a first impressions thread after all. Even for RPGMaker stuff, I don't remember To The Moon or Lisa having these issues. If you enjoyed it, I recommend checking out Jack Move at some point. Undertale aside, its probably the strongest of the indie JRPG-likes I've tried so far in this thread. You could snag that plus Coromon & Moonlighter (or This Way Madless Lies?) for $5 right now. Build your own RPG Bundle - BundleFest Edition | Fanatical WWW.FANATICAL.COM

At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft came out and said all legacy multiplatform franchises will remain as such, where new ones will be case by case. Its the simplest way to be consistent with their messaging.

Time Spent: 30 minutes Rating: **½ Nice little Earthbound-like RPG. Your main character can morph into different forms, which you level independently like a Job system. The graphics are simplistic but quirky, maybe not quite to Earthbound's pedigree but close enough. It's a nice little throwback that has its own style. It's the rougher edges of the package that drag it down. Performance is oddly an issue, I couldn't keep a stable 60 on my lower-end PC so there's judder everywhere. I've heard similar things on a Steam Deck. Movement is mapped to the analog stick, and at least one button doesn't have a controller mapping. Also, terrible name. Don't spoil your central conceit in your title. Even if it's the most stock indie twist that we've all come to expect.

Time Spent: 30 minutes Rating: **½ Played a bit of this years ago, thought it would be interesting to return to after playing some of the others here. While there's a lot to love about the visuals and soundtrack, the game is incredibly cryptic with text clues that would feel unfair even for an escape room. So much so that I can't imagine having much fun with it without a guide. There's a few G&G-isms that also don't help matters: jumps where you can't change momentum, and walking off ledges leading you straight vertically down. You can get used to it, but that combined with the difficulty of the puzzles make it an acquired taste for sure. I wonder if the sequel is any fairer.

Time Spent: 20 minutes Rating: ***½ I had to go back to the first game briefly just to confirm that my impressions of Bleed 2 were correct. Everything is dramatically improved: the visuals, the air dash controls, the bosses, etc. Perhaps the most significant change is your increased bullet size. It no longer feels like you're needing to thread a needle quite as much to hit things. On top of that, you can swing a sword to deflect most projectiles, done by 'smashing' the analog stick. More twin stick shooters could learn from this. I still have my gripes about the game being designed around a slo-mo meter, and it's apparently very short (7 levels long). Maybe that's not totally fair to take off for, but still, I blew past 3 levels in 20 minutes.

This reminds me that I should wrap up Oragami King at some point. Not because it’s anywhere near as good, but I should finish what I start. Still waiting on that Switch 2 announcement though, and what upgrades it could bring.

Time Spent: 30 minutes Rating: *** Strategy RPG riffing off the power rangers. You can select a few different characters with unique attribuutes and customize their colors, but can't go back once your team is set. Characters can team up against enemies, which seems to deal more damage than using each character individually. There's some kind of jumping off character mechanic similar to Mario & Rabbids, but it seems highly contextual to use, which gave me some trouble in a mission that wanted me to do it 3 times in a match. Overall, it seems like a decent game, but the presentation of its tactical elements leaves something to be desired IMO.

I think this is the game that gets console gamers to say 30fps isn’t that bad again. Until more powerful console hardware comes around and we do the same song and dance.