crispy4000

When I think of the best gaming years, I don’t just think of variety. I think of games that set new high bars for their genre, and that people will be referencing years down the line as the clear pinnacle of something at least at that moment of time. Games like BoTW, StarCraft, MGS, Hollow Knight, Hades, OoT, Street Fighter 2, Team Fortress 2, FF6, SSBM, etc. I don’t know how this year will fully shake out in that regard. Definitely ToTK and SF6, perhaps Diablo 4? We’ll see how much more we get, the first half was stacked. I also think it’s worth noting that the Switch is having a banger year. ToTK, Future Redeemed, Metroid Prime Remastered, FE Engage, Return to Dreamland Deluxe, Bayonetta Origins, Advanced Wars Rebootcamp, soon to be Pikmin 4. The stars rarely align so well for them in the first half. Who knows what they have planned thereafter. They’ve been completely absent from ‘E3.’ Which might mean that like Sony, they could be mostly tapped. But just imagine if they drop Prime 4 or something.

Coming to PS5 and PS4 as well. Story trailer from last year:

Best new thing from the showcase extended was that Go Mecha Ball game. Damn does that look fun.

I was actually surprised to see inExile making an AAA game. There's room for stuff like Pentement and Hi-Fi Rush from 1st party studios. But Microsoft probably believes they need to build their AAA footprint all the same. Sony still has smaller projects too. People forget they showed Helldivers 2, divert resources into VR games, etc. I'd bet some of their multiplayer forward stuff won't be strictly AAA either, but who knows for sure with how little they pulled back the curtain.

Catching up from beating this right before ToTK's launch. It's hard to say anything much about it without getting too spoilery. But its a fantastic send off to the entire arc of XB1, 2 and 3. My only disappointment is that the environments aren't quite as memorable or sprawling as other entires in the series. But to its credit, unlike Torna, it doesn't reuse the same locations from the base game. It's also snappier than XB3 proper in combat, and there's a lot of QoL improvements in general that make it feel like a breezy game. The characters are instantly relatable. Most importantly, the closing hour or so is chalked full of twists and epic moments that don't feel budget at all. It also adds a small tidbit that rounds out XB3's ending a bit. Don't play it before you play the first 3. But if you manage to make it through all that, there's this gem waiting for you. 9/10 2023 Games Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order - 8/10 Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity - 7.5/10 Xenoblade 3: Future Redeemed - 9/10

I took a pause with ToTK for Keigh3ley. Wanting to go back to it, but I also know Steam Next Fest is coming and I kinda want to try the FFXVI demo as well...

Bosman leans in pretty hard on this on his "hot takes." Says they should at least look Yakuza game good.

Well now they're talking about 4-6 year development cycles, so maybe that's still a tall ask. Xbox Game Studios chief says people need to realise games now take 4-6 years to make | VGC WWW.VIDEOGAMESCHRONICLE.COM Xbox Game Studios chief Matt Booty has said that modern games have development cycles of over half a decade in some cases, in an attempt to put to rest the fan expectation of new games every “two or three years.” It is great to see them announce almost nothing multiplayer focused this year.

I don't see the narrative shifting that way any more than it is now. If anything, all the crazy contraptions people will keep building should make a case for its resiliency.

GoTY is definitely going to Zelda unless Starfield or FF16 pulls a crazy upset. No game this year will match it in player expression and freedom. I could see some outlets running with SF6 or one of those two regardless, but it won’t be the norm.

Deep Down was well established vaporware by this point in the gen. I think it’ll come out eventually. This is the closest to an actual game it’s looked.

A few other notables slated the rest of this year not mentioned yet. Pikmin 4 Sea of Stars Sonic Superstars Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Lords of the Fallen Remnant II Alone in the Dark Forza Motorsport Atlas Fallen Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name Ghostrunner II And a plethora of games with softer 2023 release dates. Silksong. Hyper Light Breaker. Mina the Hollower. Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn. The Talos Principle 2. Pacific Drive. Stalker 2. The Plucky Squire. And so on.

That air dash (air walk?) looks so inspired by Metroid Dread's. Not that I'm complaining. Setting up warp points also looks nifty.

I've yet to see the movies, but I think a vibrant FPS like this that doesn't look too garish could get me to try it regardless. Also, more flying combat the better. Same goes for Star Wars from them.

Avatar looked great. They've gotten fairly close to Forbidden West. I just love seeing more games looking so vibrant.

A Massive step forward for Ubisoft. I’m sure they have a small army working there, and back up resources. But it’s really cool to see two big games from one studio in the same show.

Ship combat

Much of that is why Fallout never interested me. I don't care about being in a drab world where everything is drab. The planets being so different here should go a long way to address that problem. Same with the cities, which look fantastic. But if most of the shooting is clearing out copy-paste base camps, ships and space stations, no thanks.

Open world games live and die by the fun of their systems and the interest of their environments. Rage 2 is the poster child for why that's an issue. Not knowing the where this game will end up, because of the scope of its ambition, is actually a pretty neat thing to see IMO.

From what I got out of it, the planets themselves seem like set environments they used procedural environmental tools to help create. Which is all fine and cool. However, the "handcrafted" open world events and quests they litter on top will be procedurally placed for each player. So you can't use a guide for planet X, Y, Z. Granted cities sound like set entities. I'm skeptical of that type of open world design in general. But I could see myself still being intrigued by this game regardless, for what else its doing. I had no desire to play their Fallout games, but this was a great pitch overall. What bothers me the most is that the majority of the shooting we saw took place in enemy base camps and same-y looking corridors. I can't stomach hours and hours of that if that's a significant part of the loop. The 'Nasa-punk' vibe works for your ship and the cities, but isn't doing it for me there.

Unexpectedly, some of the 2d pixel art games spoke to me the most. Bloomtown looks like if Stardew Valley became a 2d turn based RPG with Atlus vibes. Mariachi Legends has some style to it, I really want to see more. Ember Knights gives me Secret of Mana vibes, seems quite polished. Altered Alma has some neat animations and art, looks like Katana Zero in some ways. 30xx has a handcrafted stage mode that might get me to try it after writing off the first game. Beyond that, Island of Insights could interest me if its good single player.

Thanks, I think I'll skip the show itself and watch these.

@Spork3245 itshappening.gif Part 2