Mostly waiting for Lies Of P to land in a day or two. I have spent more time with Starfield, but as I mentioned in a previous comment, I think I’m reaching the end of my time with that one.

I don’t think it’s ‘bad’, but I do think it’s a severely compromised game that underwhelms more than it should for a game of it’s budget and the team behind it. There’s moments where you can see so much potential but it is always somewhat hidden by this mid 2000s design that I thought we’d moved past.

I absolutely love your description of the game being ‘big empty rooms’. I think I’ve come to the same conclusion in the last 24 hours. The space stuff and the on-planet stuff feels disjointed and unconnected. The way you traverse the universe is incredibly underwhelming (so many menu’s) and the actual game design just feels so 2008.

I run both !currentlyplaying@feddit.uk and !photomode@feddit.uk

Currently Playing is a place to discuss what you’re currently playing and Photo-Mode is a place to share in game screenshots and photographs you’ve taken whilst playing.

Sorry if the links are messed up. I’ve got no idea the right way to link at this point. The whole system seems a bit of a mess.

Wasn’t a tax thing: Looks like the Singaporean government has it’s fingers in this pie.

Can’t remember the source (possibly Jeff Gerstman at Giantbomb) but I’m absolutely certain they said this was a tax write-off or something.

Your buddy buys you a new disk…

This is less of a confirmation and more of a ‘yeah, at some point there will exist a RDR3’.

Trine 5. Loving it so far.

Am I alone in not remembering literally any enemy in Mass Effect 3?

I’m not a massive Bethesda fan, but I’ve absolutely got the preload done on my series X. Gamepass is perfect for that sort of thing.

The game has co-op???

Trying not to commit to anything too strenious with Lies of P and Starfield on the horizon, but I have found the time to start two games over the last few days. Those games are:

XCOM: Chimera Squad

It’s an XCOM game. I’ll probably play a it until I inevitably make a mess of the base management stuff and find my city in ruins, you know, like every other XCOM game that’s come out over the last decade.

The Life And Sufferings of Sir Brante

I started this today and I’m kind of blown away by it in all honesty. It’s a story heavy RPG where you play the role a child born into a semi-noble family. During the game you’ll do an awful lot of reading and then make decisions and judgements based on the character your playing. I’m maybe 2 hours in so far and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever played.

I’d be very surprised if that Metroid Prime game doesn’t feature in their launch plans.

Abzu has a few moments like that, especially towards the end where you’re swimming through more and more densely packed environments.

I feel like they’ve been saying something to the effect that 'the games are coming ’ for a good while now, and either they don’t turn up or land in such a way that people immediately forget about them.

Nintendo should hire that dude who played the lead in that Passengers movie alongside Jennifer Lawrence.

It kind of doesn’t. Me and my brothers will play some Rocket League on a Monday night (assuming our kids are in bed) but aside from that my gaming is exclusively single-player.

Never been a big online gamer, but since having kids that’s basically become a non-starter.

Only takes one though. As soon as someone looking at buying a console sees there’s a chance they’ll miss out, they’ll potentially make the decision to go with the Sony machine instead.

Microsoft already has an exclusive issue, this isn’t doing anything but compounding that issue.

Right but you’re probably a little more clued up to this sort of stuff than the average consumer who’s seen the marketing and thought ‘oh lovely, I don’t need a disk drive’ in this thing.

Both my brothers own the S. It’s an incredible little machine, but imo they screwed the proverbial pooch when they pushed this as a 1080p alternative to the more powerful Series X.

I think the problem they’ve given themselves is that they pushed it as a cheaper alternative to the X whilst also maintaining that it’ll be able to play the same games.

How do they go about messaging that can’t be the case going forward without pissing off those that spent the money on the S in the first place.

I feel like if they were going to release a slim version of the 5 then they’d almost certainly ditch the wings.

Agreed it’s deeply cynical on their part…but the sad thing is that people will happily hand over their money for it.

I’ll throw out the final twenty minutes of Abzu. It’s not one specific moment, more a combination of things that come together to make a truly incredible sequence that sees you doing things inside the game that you hadn’t previously done, alongside some truly incredible visuals and music, it’s really incredibly moving.

I’m probably not the target demo for Nintendo, but I won’t lie…the Switch feels very long in the tooth at this point.

Great concept, great delivery, but it’s showing its age and it’s time for an upgrade at the very least.

The Forgotten City definitely got it’s due last year. It was on an awful lot of people’s GOTY lists. Which was warranted, because it’s really really solid.

Agreed. It gets to the point where if anything, it’s inhibitive to growth because people just zip right on past it before ultimately unsubscribing.

I think one of their biggest concerns is that the majority of the work will be done by the AI and then a significantly smaller team of random writers will be hired on a very short term contract to merely check the work over and dot the t’s and cross the I’s.

Started and completed ‘Viewfinder’ over the last few days. It’s a little puzzle game where you have to play around with a camera and toy with angles to solve puzzles. Little Portal, little Witness, and a lot of fun.

Iirc I had a similar issue with base game Control. I wanted to experience the story but the combat really rubbed me the wrong way at first and I ended up knocking it down pretty early.

SuperhotVR. BeatSabre.

I own everything, but I’ll be honest my preferred way to play right now is on my Steamdeck. Being able to play PS4 quality games on the sofa whilst the kids/partner has the TV is a game changer for me.

I play an awful lot of games on easy mode now anyway, unless I’m going in specifically to learn the game (Fromsoft games for example). If I’m playing a random open world game or a FPS I’m gonna knock that difficulty down to make life a little easier.

Time. I’d rather not do this, but I get like maybe five hours a week to play. The days where I can sit down on weekends and just…game are long gone, and likely won’t return until the kids are much older.

I’ve got two small children. I haven’t slept for more than four hours in a row in about five years.

Help.

Giantbomb did a frankly incredible series around Kerbal Space Program a few years ago. It starts off incredibly goofy and by the end it’s still incredibly goofy, but also deadly serious.

My favourite bit of music from that is (iirc) titled '14.3 Billion Years. I’ve listened to it hundreds of times and it still gets me every single time.

I’ll throw out Bad North. It’s a little strategy game that features scenarios that last 4-5 minutes at most.

Kinda found that the game falls away somewhat around the final third. Don’t want to spoil anything for you, but I’ll say that I found the games moment to moment a bit lacking. Real shame as the first hour or so is genuinely pretty good.

I got through all of Breath of the Wild without cooking anything. I knew the feature was there, but I don’t remember ever being taught how to use it and ultimately decided I’d just armour my way around it.

I’ll always recommend What Remains of Edith Finch into these sorts of conversations. Absolute one of my favourite shorter experiences.

I’ve actually just started this myself and I I was actually a little worried there was too much going on at first. That however proved to be unfounded and I’ve been having a really good time with it.

I won’t lie, I’m not in love with the sushi/management side of it, but I love the diving and fishing. The games got a really nice style to it too; some of the cutscenes are fantastic.