crispy4000

For the Series S?

Pre-alpha I was expecting grey box environments and such. Other than the storyboards it looks pretty far along.

There's a myriad of other factors to consider: - How much less would it sell on PS5 if a PC port released simultaneously? - What would the profit comparison be, fully factoring in the differential in PS5/PC game pricing and Steam royalties? - How many fewer Sony consoles would be sold if 1st party single-player games launched simultaneously across platforms? - Is it possible that the merits/failings of a staggered release could be game or series dependent? - Would preparing a PC port simultaneously impact the speed of Insomniac's output? Cause delays? - Were the upgrades over console too out of reach for much of the PC audience at the time, as opposed to Horizon, God of War, Days Gone, etc? etc. I don’t think soft Spider-Man sales on PC would be the kicker for them changing their minds in of itself. Horizon 2, TLOU2, a Ghosts port, etc, would need to dramatically underperform.

That one is fascinating inside baseball.

Releasing Uncharted 4+LL and not a port of Bluepoint's og trilogy was a mistake. Most of those games still look good enough and plenty of PC gamers have weakish hardware.

I played my Switch more this year than any other since 2017. All the good new releases also got me to go back and try some of the older Switch games I owned but shelved. I really need to get back to Pikmin 4. Was awesome seeing Giant Bomb give it #5, even over Mario Wonder at #7. That's how good of a year Nintendo has had, that their secondary releases could be argued to hang.

Its a cross-media IP, with Insomniac's games not coming to Xbox/Nintendo platforms. That's probably the bigger reason. It pushes Sony's consoles, in spite of whatever subscription differential exists.

Just from a surface read of things, buying a VR headset now sounds a bit dicey in your situation. You've already got a backlog you've committed to. I'm also planing to start seriously house saving in January, but as the one taking more of the lead on finances, I feel like I should scrounge together anything I can this month. It could be easy / inevitable to fall behind later. BTW, props on attempting this. I can barely commit to trying out ~200 games these days, lol.

It's hard to know when it came from either. But other than the threat of them neutering Playstation ports, the concerns sound pretty legitimate.

Depressing is the wrong word. I'm not some Marvel junkie either, but this sort of schedule is still an anomaly in the AAA space. Imagine if Rocksteady Studios developed a mascot platformer as a fun side project while spending 9 years on Suicide Squad.

By request for @Derek, one of the worst looking at first glance. Time Spent: ~20 min Rating: *½ Rogue-like zombie survival RTS game. If you're confused about it looking at that screenshot, so am I playing at 4k. Listen, I love Syndicate, so controlling a squad to scavenge and get the heck out sounds alright. But it's such an eyesore that I can't deal with it. The UI is atrocious, there's an awful macroblocked fog of war, and auto-attacking mechanics are done much better elsewhere and don't work well with how they split your squad. Giving it that extra ½ point just because there might be something more to like here with time invested. And it runs smooth, after the loading screens, lol. No idea how this got "very positive" reviews on Steam.

I’ve got a shorter list of ones I’ve tried already. It takes a lot to be so actively bad or mundane it’s unbearable in a first sitting (like Elliot Quest). There’s a lot more that feel underwhelming to me, disappointingly so. I’ll have a hot take or two. But to give you something, Mother Russia Bleeds is the complete opposite of my jam. It’s not a great beat’em up to begin with, and edgy violence just seems dumb to me in pixel art form. Mentioning it now because I’m booting up most of the ones I’ve tried before so I can remember how they play. But honestly I’m unlikely to return to that one.

Time Spent: ~30 min Rating: *** Another Metroidvania-lite, this time inspired heavily by Zelda II. Your moveset feels most inspired by Smash Bros Link actually. If that sounds appealing it's probably worth checking out. It seems like it could go either way to me, quality-wise. The dashing feels a little suspect. Fantastic animation, but I still hate pixel art games that zoom in too far for dramatic effect, it's never appealing.

-50% Lost Ruins on GOG.com WWW.GOG.COM Lost Ruins is a 2D side-scrolling survival action game, where you play as a young girl

Time Spent: ~45 min Rating: ***½ /4 I've been wanting to try out this one for a while now, this thread was a good an excuse. It's a Metroidvania with a light puzzle vibe akin to Mario vs DK. The controls feel very Metroid Zero Mission/Fusion but simplified, in a good way. There's some evil faith organization against mechanics that leans into the title, which is cool, but comes across a bit too much as religion word salad at the start. Unfortunately, the music isn't great so far. The entire game is made by one guy, and not everyone is Toby Fox.

Time Spent: ~30 min Rating: ***½ /4 Visually looks like Trials of Mana tried to be a Metroidvania. I went with the mage class, which reminds me of the projectile character in Greak. I could see some eventual frustration with the dash/parry button not being as responsive as I’d like, but there is a meter-limited shield option that blocks most attacks. Serious potential here, even though some of the Steam reviews imply it’s too long, hard, glitchy, etc. But my quick take is very positive. Word of warning, the console versions apparently haven’t been patched from a very buggy, imbalanced, bad performance launch build.

Time Spent: ~5 hours Rating: ***½ /4 A more hyperactive, multiplayer take on Prince of Persia classic. The duck roll is an awesome mechanic, and it's fun going for broke throwing your weapon. Great fun, but depends on if the people you play it with can look past the odd aesthetic.

Time Spent: ~12 hours Rating: ***½ /4 Completed The movement and level design in Celeste deserves all the praise the game gets. I find it a tad overrated even still. The pacing can be rough depending on how eager you are about collectables, and it was a bad artistic choice to zoom in on their minimalist sprites. Otherwise, stellar game. I enjoy that it strikes a balance between something level-based and open ended.

Time Spent: ~30 min Rating: **½ /4 Picked this one up in one of the itch.io collections. Puzzle platformer where collecting coins can make interactive elements appear and disappear, and you don’t take damage when hit. It's supposedly very short, I think I made it halfway through in the 30 minutes I played. Love the visuals and animations here, but the sound effects, hit detection and controls feel slightly off. The central gimmick is interesting enough to recommend checking out if you've got one of those itch bundles.

Time Spent: 8 hours Rating: **** /4 Needs no introduction. I only beat the main quest, stopped after learning Plague Knight was basically the same campaign with a new control scheme. (I know the other campaigns do more) There's an over reliance on bottomless pits. Otherwise, Shovel Knight is as good if not better than any NES Megaman.

Time Spent: ~5 hours Rating: **** /4 You are an unstoppable force of nature, running left to right and all around wrecking all the shit to finish an RPG subplot in 30 seconds. Yes. It's great. The visuals suck, you won't care.

Time Spent: 15 minutes Rating: **½ /4 Very basic throwback platformer, sort of a beat em up Kid Niki. I dislike it when games like this go for a super small sprite on screen. Your swing also seems to come out too slowly and gracefully for my tastes, as if your sword is a whip. It's fun on some level though, they wisely put checkpoints in frequently.

Time Spent: 15 minutes Rating: ***½ /4 Out of nowhere. First thing you're greeted with a is a menu asking if you want to play roguelike or 'Twist' which is handcrafted. I went for Twist. There's another SMW style map, and each level has some gimmick like exploding enemies or persistent powerups. I think this is the game I wanted Flynn to be. Visuals are just as good. Yes, your motion also stops in air when attacking, but that's apparently better when you're angling and shooting a pinball eagle of doom.

@dualhunter I either feel similarly about those, or know there's a good chance I will.

' Time Spent: 20 hours Rating: ***½ /4 Completed After all these years, still one of the best roguelikes and feels great to play. It's a bit too much of a time sink, but the persistent upgrades do a lot to help you through it. I'll get to the sequel eventually.