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Why do so many people think embedding buttons into the screen is a good idea? Yes, I too would like to cover 40% of what I need to see with my thumbs! Who cares about the entire point of 16:9 ratio anyway?

Marvel's Avengers I was very surprised by this. I was expecting something similar to other "live service" games with little focus on story and more focus on levels that can be repeated, so to find out that there's actually a lot of effort put into the single player elements was a surprise. The main story follows Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, which I think is an interesting choice (even if the publisher wasn't brave enough to make her a focus on the box). The Avengers have disbanded due to an event with their helicarrier that killed many people, but AIM is experimenting and killing Inhumans (mutants but with alien DNA, powers are triggered through a crystal), so the story is about finding The Avengers in order to stop AIM and save the Inhumans. The combat is quite satisfying, although Hulk in particular feels a bit weak (there's no great way around that, though, and I suppose you just take it as he was knocked out and captured rather than killed), as while you'll be mainly playing as Ms. Marvel, you play some missions as the other Avengers. The main single-player missions are great, while you do have to play a couple of the "online focused" levels. That said, they can be played with AI teammates just find - and rest mode, pausing, photo mode and offline all work fine with these levels. There are lots of costumes that are either locked behind payment (you can earn enough credits for 8 costumes), many through competing challenges and quests. Most of the difficult/paid ones are more unique and odd costumes, while the other ones are the "main" costumes, and personally I think the best ones. Tokyo Jungle A very unique and interesting game, you take control of various animals, trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo. You have to eat, find mates, produce offspring and complete challenges. You'll be doing lots of the same thing over and over as when you die, it's game over (one you produce offspring, you'll have siblings which serve as extra lives) and you have to start from the beginning of that animal. More animals are unlocked by finding a specific animal (when playing a herbivore) or killing a specific animal (when playing a predator) and story mode levels are unlocked by finding specific articles. However, the game is also very frustrating. Sometimes the paths you need to take literally have no food to eat, or you can bump into a far stronger animal in a place with nowhere to run or hide. All herbivores play the same, and all predators stay the same so each animal does not alter the gameplay. There is also only one map, which is quite small so you'll be wandering the same areas again and again, and the start of each time you play is pretty much identical. It's worth a try for it's unique ideas, but isn't a great game. Untitled Geese Game A very fun game, especially in co-op. It's quite short (although not as short as first appearances as there's plenty of new tasks after the credits), but quite charming. Working out how to complete each task is fun and having two Geese opens up more opportunities (there's no specific co-op stuff, though). Lovely art style and just really cute.

Ok

Labyrinth City looks like a Where's Wally book come to life, it's wonderful. Likely not for me, but I love that it exists. As for stuff I may get: Last Stop and Hindsight look interesting. Granted, it's more because there's plenty of goodwill with the developers, but to be fair, it's hard to tell how good a story-driven game will be; Beasts of Maravilla Island. Not that much into the "walking peacefully in nature" concept, but this one looked kinda Pokémon Snap lite? There's a demo on Steam, so I'll check it out; Road 96 looks mildly interesting, but I think it's the sort of game I'll need to hear discussions about before I'm fully sold; The Longing is one I had heard of before, but I didn't know quite how it looked. This is another one I'll look into after hearing discussions, but the concept itself already caught my attention; There is No Game looks super wild. Definitely on the wishlist; Cris Tales is one I was already sold on (there's a demo on GOG); House of the Dead Remake came out of nowhere! If it has lightgun mechanics with the joycons, I'll seriously consider getting it; Skul is one I have seen on Steam a lot, but the UI always turned me off. I'll consider it, but I feel weirdly "meh" about it; Oxenfree 2... I'd be more interested if I had played the first one... Which is actually on my backlog ; Aztech Forgotten Gods was definitely the star of the show for me. Not that it looks super impressive or anything, but the setting is absolutely bonkers! Sci-fi Aztecs?! Fuck yeah, sign me up! So yeah. A couple of nice surprises, but on the whole, they showed a lot of games that just didn't click with me. Par for the course for an indie presentation, I suppose!

Lizard brains in search of dopamine. (Name of my new album )

This is really cool: Our Improved PlayStation 5 Packaging

The term Action/Adventure used to be used to describe games that took the puzzle gameplay from point n' click Adventure games; and presented them within the context of an Action game. That was the whole thing that defined Zelda 1 after all, the whole point was to take the actions that you would see in a point n' click Adventure (like push, pull, walk, sword strike, climb etc) in real time, instead of using menu commands (as per this classic 1991 interview with Miyamoto & Tezuka). The term Action-Adventure came about because it was meant to be a real-time point n' click Adventure game. Of course then, the distinction between an "Action" game and an "Adventure" game then, must be that "Action" games take place in real-time and are focused on fast paced real-time gameplay; while "Adventure" games are menu driven, cerebral and puzzle focused. Zelda was both, hence the term "action-adventure". RPGs then, are Adventure games with mechanics that were borrowed from pen & paper RPGs (most notably Dungeons & Dragons). Western developers stuck heavily to the mold defined by Dn'D (right down to the Tolkein esc Fantasy aesthetics) and sought to make them primarily for the PC platform, while Japanese developers primarily focused on consoles and made their games with simplified interfaces & a stronger focus on storytelling & pre-defined characters (naturally also drawing heavy influence from Anime & Manga). As such, we now have the distinction of WRPG and JRPG. Meanwhile, "Visual Novels" are literally "Adventure" games with the puzzle solving gameplay stripped out of them. Confusingly, we even have Action RPGs now! (which have now become the norm), while almost every single modern AAA game (regardless of genre) has some sort of RPG elements bolted on top of them! The truth really here is that video game genre names have never been particularily descriptive of the type of gameplay seen in any particular game, even from the very beginning. They are instead, a product of historical circumstance; and are only really useful to people who have been able to stick around and watch the medium develop from its early days. They are a window into the history of video game creation and how games have drawn influence from each other and other places, more than anything else. I mean, we still don't have any term for a Roguelike other than... well... a Roguelike; because it's a game like Rogue! (A game from all the way back in 1980!). It's like what would've happened if we never moved on from Doom Clone for the FPS genre (a term itself that is often misappropriated to games like Metroid Prime; which can be described as both a Metroidvania and a First Person Adventure! The whole thing is a mess!). The point is that it's not worth getting hung up on exact genre labelling, because they have always been poor descriptors of gameplay. That is not really what they do, but rather they are a historical footprint that showcases where a game gets its influence from. That's the real value of a video game genre name (Co-incidentally, this is why calling Metroid a "Metroidvania" is really silly!)

Honestly, it's precisely because games are more than just the setting they take place in that makes them so difficult to categorise compared to movies. 1. Is there such a thing as a 3D Metroidvania? If so, which games qualify? Yes, it's called Metroid: Other M. Moving on. OK, seriously though, the point I want to make is that the fact that Metroid itself has managed to translate the gameplay it's known for into a 3D space perfectly fine 4 times already proves that 3D Metroidvanias exist. The key problem here is what makes a Metroidvania? I actually believe people have lost sight of the absolute fundamentals of what makes Metroidvanias what they are. For me, there are only 3 aspects of it. 1. The playable character will collect some kind of upgrade that expands their repertoire of abilities over the course of the game. 2. The player must use the previously mentioned upgrades to travel back to previously accessible areas and uncover new paths that lead to more upgrades. This must be done in order to eventually "win" the game and it must be a method of progress that is fundamental to the entire game. 3. The area which makes up the game must be interconnected in a way that allows the player to freely explore every area once they have access to all of the previously mentioned upgrades. The first point actually applies to a lot of games. One of those that jumps out in this case is the Zelda series. So I'm gonna use that as an example as to why this question is so hard. So Link will no doubt collect all sorts of items that lets him do more stuff. That fits point 1 perfectly. Point 2 is when things get complicated, there are plenty of times where Link can use items he collected to go back to an area he had been to before and collect more upgrades to make his life easier, but the majority of the time, these won't be necessary to actually complete the game. It'll make things easier, sure, but it's not required. But then that causes an issue... In fact it causes an issue way back in Zelda 1. You see, in order to finish that game there's a point where you must use the Raft to reach one of the 8 dungeons. This is necessary to finish the game. (Unless you utilise glitches, but that doesn't count) And as for point 3, don't need to explain that. So does that make Zelda 1 the same genre as Metroid or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night? To me, that just sounds silly. But then it hit me. The reason I fell into that problem was that because Zelda 1 uses point 2 a couple of times, I thought that means that it fits the Metroidvania genre. But the key difference between Zelda 1 and Metroid is what makes up the majority of their gameplay. Zelda is about exploring 8 separate labyrinths in order to collect 8 shiny triangles to go beat up a giant boar. Sometimes Link will have to use items he has found to backtrack and reach new labyrinths to progress. The goal of Metroid is to get to Tourian and blow up all the Metroids there and then explode a giant brain in a jar. The difference comes in how often you'll have to backtrack and use new items to reach previously inaccessible areas. You won't make 10 minutes of progress unless you utilise this tactic. So, simply put. It's far too hard to define a genre in a way that neatly sorts everything. It comes down to where you draw the line. For me, Metroidvanias have to not just fit the three points I made, but those points have to be the main fundamentals of the game. And that's why I think Metroid fits, but Zelda doesn't, despite some similarities. 2. Does "Action/Adventure" describe anything? How can we do better? No, it really doesn't. And that's terrible. I think that the only realistic way to sort this problem is to drop Action and Adventure as genres because games are too complex for those rather simplistic descriptors. You see this with some subgenres garnering fanmade names. The likes of Bayonetta and Devil May Cry have gotten the description of "Stylish Action". The problem with that is that it's a stupid description that tells the uninformed little about what the fundamentals of the game are. (Combat focused action game that rewards those who learn the intricate combos of the playable character and the attack patterns of various enemies). And there's the likes of "Souls-like", which even I'm not certain of what that means. Sure, if you've played Dark Souls, that will give you a decent idea of what to expect. But then people changed it to "Soulsborne" because one game was released by From Software and it didn't have Souls in the name. That example just comes across as hardcore fans wanting to exclude other games because they're seen as somehow inferior to their super hard series. (Don't deny it, that fanbase is notorious for skill-gating the Souls games) So the unfortunate truth is that, 9 times out of 10, you can't describe a genre in a meaningful way with a snappy title.

I would argue that Sony has used The Last of Us as a template for ALL their first party titles. They want every game they publish to have a cinematic flair with in depth storytelling. At least, thats from my experience of seeing their games. The Spider-Man games by Insomniac certainly seem like an extended playable movie.

So this is a topic I've been thinking about for a while now. When you think about it, film and/or literary genres are fairly straightforward: romance, action, horror, comedy, thriller... these are all succinct and direct ways to describe the general tone or point of a traditional work of fiction. Sometimes things get silly, like some people might claim that "Historical", "Medieval", or "Sci-Fi" are genres (they're settings, after all), but that's far as it goes. But videogames get complex about it. It isn't enough to describe general tone, videogame genres need to be able to describe a game's mechanics, level design philosophy, specific variations thereof, and that's all before we take tone or setting into account. Hybrids are very common as well, and there's always the general necessity to describe which genres are getting mixed, instead of forcefully fitting it into a single one: for example, I've noticed Back to the Future is either described as an "Adventure" or "Comedy" but rarely both, but with videogames, we have no issue in calling a game a "roguelike twin-stick shooter". As such, things can get complicated, and arbitrary lines can be drawn in the sand. Like, how come we all agreed that "Metroidvania" and "2D Platformer" are separate genres? What distinguishes an RPG from a regular Adventure game? Tetris and Portal share the same genre, and that's really weird when you think about it. And which genre is Pac-Man, anyway? Hence this thread. I'm hoping this can be the place where we discuss the specifics and minutia of these things. And here are a couple of questions to get us started: 1. Is there such a thing as a 3D Metroidvania? If so, which games qualify? This question is self-explanatory. Metroidvanias are normally synonymous with 2D games, but should it be so? 2. Does "Action/Adventure" describe anything? How can we do better? The quotes I selected are tangentially related to this issue. Mainly, a lot of games are plainly described as "Action/Adventure", and while I can see why, that does feel overly generic, and not really representative of anything specific about the game in question. I mean, all it says is that there is combat (action), and explorable environments (adventure), and that's nearly all videogames! Should we do more to subdivide these types of games? If so, how? ---------- So yeah, hopefully we'll get some interesting discussion going Any other topic about videogame genres should be welcome here, so feel free to bring them up if you ever think of one.

Been playing Astral Chain. Almost finished the story but the spike in difficulty between the entire game and the last boss is pretty high lol. But I've found it to be a pretty darn excellent game, one of my favourites in some time. The graphics and art style are amazing and really show what the Switch can do. It's also managed to do this with VERY little FPS drop. I love the variation in gameplay, you have the hub world, the investigation and/or stealth, and finally the combat. The combat is original and great fun. It took me a while to get used to the number of button combinations to remember, plus controlling a second character in real time, but I'm pretty much used to it now and I think I'll actually miss having the Legion during combat in similar games in the future. xD Also on the gameplay, there's a lot there. There's parts of the game that remind me of Zelda, Pokemon, Metal Gear Solid, Kingdom Hearts, general platforming, and more. I've really enjoyed the story. It gets complaints for being too simple and predictable or something, but tbh does every RPG story have to be a massive mysterious complicated thing where everyone's a clone of a shadow of a smurf ghost's dream and you have no idea what the heck's going on? I really enjoyed it for just being a good story and likable buncha characters. Although, saying that I don't fully understand what Jena's actual goal was or why she was so destructive, but whatever. xD The music is also really darn good, and I've been listening to some of the tunes on YT outside of the game. Another plus point. The game has a cat sidequest! 😺 As with all games, even my favourites, I have a few criticisms: - The Jena Anderson thing I already mentioned. Also, why does she look like a zombie? - Sometimes the maps seem to have pointless barriers or one-way systems that force you the long way around for no reason - The platforming, specifically chain jumping is a bit off. If Zelda did this, the symbol that indicates where you land would be 100% reliable. You either see the symbol because the game has determined you can land there, or you don't see the symbol - The game should make it very clear when you're about to trigger a "move on" section, and tell you if there's stuff left to do, including hidden side quests. It could tell you there is a hidden sidequest left without showing you where it is - Astral Chain 2 hasn't been announced yet nor has there been any news at all indicating it's ever going to happen But, overall excellent game and highly recommend!

Nevermind. Just had to survive the first phase of the optional fight and then it was a cake-walk. Needed a bit of luck but it didn't take long. What a game

Urgh, so apparently it's not just a matter of reaching a certain point. You have to level up quite a bit, too... Not sure if I wanna do that...then again, I only need one more trophy but that fight is impossible for me right now, even with that OP Persona. Getting to that point was boring enough...leveling up, yet again? Meh...I'll have to think about it.

The term was coined by Jeremy Parish (of Retronauts & Good Nintensions fame), so the answer to that is no.

Genres are just a handy way to categorise games, it gives you a vague idea of a game, but lots of games can utilise elements of multiple genres, and therefore can be part of many different genres. Star Wars film are sci-fi, fantasy, action and adventure - possibly more. Which selection of categories it belongs to depends on which parts of it resonate with you. I agree that the Metroidvania name is silly, but for a different reason: Castlevania didn't start focusing on the "Metroidvania" style until Symphony of the Night, when the franchise was already 10 years old, had at least 5 mainline games and lots of spin-offs. The next main game (the 64 one) used a completely different style. I think "Exploration" could work as the games are directly about exploring the game world given to you, with the focus on the world, and it could be mixed up with other things ("Exploration Platformer" would describe Metroid quite well).

"Switch Pro" Clearly says Game Boy. Yeah that seems about right I don't know who you'd fool with that name or shape, my hands are cramping up just looking at it! Reminds me a lot of that old fake NX leak... Ah, the memories.

I narrowed it down to the cassettes for the swooshing noise, so my red Sharp cassette player is working fine. I did replace the belt on my Alba and Sony cassette players, but the Alba is just plain trash (knew it would be TBF, as I just bought it for the novelty of built in Tetris) and the Sony needs new capacitors. I got fed up after that and just stuck with the Sharp. I'll probably send the Walkman off to be repaired at some point, as it's really nice, but I'm in no hurry. Kind of sticking to vinyl for now, as it's far more reliable.

I think there's a suit or power you can equip that has a 30% chance (or whatever) to multiply your combo meter. I used that on one of the construction hideouts and got to 100 pretty easily.

I've been picking away at the requirements for getting the platinum, and I'm wondering if i'll bother. Some of the trophies seem a bit grindey compared to the first (like i'm having to go through and do all the wall and ceiling takedowns, as I didn't even realise you could do this during my playthrough). Getting the 100 hits seems to be a challenge too. One time I got to 97 and ran out of bad guys! Also I seem to have run into the glitch where the trophy doesn't pop up when you get 50 remote mine takedowns. I think you can get around it by manually placing a mine and taking out three guys at once, but i haven't tried it yet.

Interesting question. I think its also notable how the definition of "genres" has evolved overtime. Sometimes that was due to negative stigma over certain genres, like after platformers fell out of public favour in the 2000s any platformer was simply marketed as an "action game". Even Sega did this with Sonic Heroes. If you go to the team select screen in that game and call Omochao to describe each team, he has this to say about Team Rose. Very specifically "action games". Similarly I only ever saw RPGs as RPGs and only ever call them by that genre name. But after the rise in popularity of games like The Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Mass Effect we began to see a split in genre classification, with the games mentioned being "Western RPGs" and the RPGs I was familiar with, the likes of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger etc now being referred to as "JRPGs". Similarly you see games like Super Paper Mario and Ratchet & Clank be genre hybrids. Super Paper Mario is half platformer, half RPG. Does that mean it counts as its own unique genre? Ratchet & Clank has a lot of segments with platforming but a lot of the games also have segments that feel specifically like a third person shooter. That's all I've got for now...

Ok, I'll bite. Which games are you talking about here? By "often" I'm taking that to mean at least half, and "new" must mean within the last few years? So which are these games with "barely distinguishable" gameplay? I can't think of two recent new IPs where the gameplay is even remotely similar. God of War is nearly all close melee combat, Horizon Zero Dawn is primarily bow fighting and using wire traps to topple big robot animals, Days Gone is mostly gun fighting hoardes of zombies. Ghost of Tsushima is swordplay, standoffs and stances, Dreams is a game builder, Astrobot is a platformer. Honestly, which games you talking about? I don't want to believe this is a hyperbolic statement, don't disappoint me now.

It's a loss leader, before slowly phasing out owning games and increasing costs. Phil Spencer's goal is removing consumer rights, his attempt is working better than the previous one.

Something else to consider is that even Sony’s new IPs do tend to follow a very similar design template as already used in their existing games. I know you’ve all seen the meme picture, but the reason why it’s funny is because it’s based on truth. All of Sony’s modern western games share very similar characteristics. You’re going to have a crafting system, you’re going to have a skill tree, you’re going to have light RPG mechanics & XP, it’s going to be a 3rd person shooter/action game that is focus tested to hell & back, it’s going to focus primarily on telling a paternalistic story ahead of anything else, hell it’ll probably even have a forest that looks just like the meme picture somewhere along the way! Even Sony’s new IPs are often barely distinguishable from each other in terms of gameplay (not setting; important distinction to make). Just like with Ubisoft and From Software (now there’s a good analogue to Sony WWS!), Sony struck gold with a winning formula; and by God are they gonna keep milking it. Just like From Software, Sony WWS used to produce all manners of experimental and unique games (not always winners, but certainly a lot of variety and different types of games); but now? Basically everything they make now follows this winning formula, just like with From Software; who now make Souls and nothing else. The days of Sony WWS making stuff like Puppeteer, The Last Guardian, Playstation All Stars Battle Royale, Fat Princess, Killzone, Tokyo Jungle, The Unfinished Swan, The Eye of Judgement etc are long gone. Sure, you’ll still get the odd exception to the rule like Rachet & Clank (itself on its 11th entry, with each game sporting near identical gameplay) or Gran Turismo 7/8/9 (however you want to count it); but if there is a new IP coming from Sony? Chances are very high that you’ll be seeing it follow that Winning Formula that they’ve been perfecting ever since Uncharted. It’s all just so incredibly risk averse. When all of their new IPs play so similarly, are they even new IPs anymore? Sony’s games are all the safest stuff you could really imagine them making. There’s no risk taking anymore. And nothing personifies that better than the shuttering of Japan Studio.

Can we not fire needless shots, please? Respect other people's preferences.