killthenet

DF seem to think it won't be too much of a price increase (around £100 more than the base PS5) so I guess I was wrong on that score. The PSSR definitely seems like the only interesting addition but probably won't be enough to get me to upgrade - I only play a handful of games on my PS5 each year as it is so I don't think it would make sense for me to buy the Pro.

I think it might be even more expensive than that

What's the here consensus on the remake? I just played through these this week, having played through the DS original once back at launch and the Wii sequel once in 2016, and despite being a bit rough in places I thought it was a really good job by Arcsys. The design of Ashley and most of the other main characters look great, there are some lovely looking visuals at times across both games, but the environments sometimes leave a lot to be desired. In the open spaces of the second game especially the textures of the buildings and landscapes can be quite flat and blurry - they wouldn't look out of place in a budget PS2 game. The voice acting can also be a bit hit and miss, characters like Ashley are great but some of the others feel a bit phoned in. Overall though it's a big upgrade over the originals, hope that it manages to sell reasonably well as it would be great to get another entry down the line - there's definitely scope to catch up with Ashley 10 years later (or they could just give the Hotel Dusk games the same treatment)

It was more of a "Oh, cool" sort of Direct than anything earth shattering. Glad to see more Rare stuff coming to the online service, especially Blast Corps as I've always intended to play that. Might check out Monster Hunter Stories, but I think I'll definitely get Penny's Big Breakaway sooner rather than later. I'm a bit confused on Endless Ocean though, is it online only? The trailer leaned heavily on the multiplayer aspect, made me worry it was more of a live service style game than the single player exploration the series is known for. Oh and the rogue like procedural generation is disappointing too.

To be honest there isn't much difference to me between Nov '24 and early '25 so I don't think I would be too bothered. If it is true though then Nintendo will have to announce some games pretty soon, their release calendar is looking pretty light for the rest of the year

That means it's going to be a banger - flaming Chibi Robo to make his triumphant return

That was painful to watch, it was mostly just business gibberish - I don't know why they couldn't just come out and say 'only four games are being ported to other platforms' last Sunday when the rumours really started to gather pace, there was nothing in this chat that couldn't have been said in a single tweet. Waiting so long to say something made it seem like it was much more of a big deal that it was.

Jeff Grubb did tweet yesterday that he has heard they could have postponed it slightly because of the Xbox announcement - kind of like when they held off on a direct when the Queen died. I'm not convinced they would let another publisher dictate their schedule but Grubb is obviously a reputable reporter so there could be some truth to it

It's been a while since I've watched it but I don't remember there being any jump scares. It's more of a slow burn, generally unsettling atmosphere

It's possible that they could have delayed it slightly, previous directs have aired at late at 11pm our time, but it seems unlikely.

Please hire Gerrard, that would be hilarious - one of the worst managers Villa ever had

Digital only, disappointing. Looks good though, but it isn't very likely I'll play this at launch - I don't even own an Xbox yet. Hopefully by the time I get around to buying one they'll announce a physical version. The way things seem to be going for Microsoft though I wouldn't be surprised if this comes to other platforms eventually, maybe PS5 in 18 months or so

Yeah, I actually played that a few months ago - I assumed that the first game would be much simpler but in terms of movement and abilities it is actually pretty close, amazing what developers were able to do with such strict limitations. I think the GB has to have one of the widest gamuts when it comes to complexity, the very early games were so simple but as soon as the developers understood the limitations there were games that gave the NES a run of its money

I played through Gargoyle's Quest over the last couple of nights and was really pleasantly surprised by it - it was much more sophisticated than I was expecting. One thing to note though is how absurd the sprite flicker is when there are more than a couple of enemies on screen, probably the worst I've even seen. It would obviously not have been as noticeable on the original GB screen with all the ghosting but it's hard to ignore when running it on an emulator.

I did have a look but it isn't even available as a code in a box

Yeah, I think that's what I'll have to do. Don't know why they ever got rid of the gifting feature they had on the Wii

I want to get my brother an eshop game for his birthday - is there anywhere that sells actual game codes?

In terms of announcements I think that was probably the best year they've had, there were plenty of big games revealed as well as some fantastic looking smaller titles (Thrasher and Lost Records being the standouts for me) but in terms of the actual awards the show was probably the worst it has been so far. The way they just did several lightning rounds of awards where the winners didn't even get to accept them on camera was appalling enough but to rush winners of the major awards through their acceptance speeches was just ridiculous. Neil Newbon's speech was fantastic, one of the best moments of the night, but it was curtailed so quickly and then they spent the next 10 mins showing a couple of WORLD PREMIERE announcements - the disconnect was so stark it was almost laughable. I get that most people are watching for the announcements but Geoff really needs to look at how he balances the show in future - he doesn't give the nominees and winners the respect that they deserve. It's supposed to be a celebration of all the great games released in the last 12 months, giving the talented creators their due, but it just felt more than ever like a 3 hour marketing block with awards reluctantly tacked on - things certainly need to change.

That new DONTNOD game Lost Records looks so good - right up my street

I mean, there are definitely other Xbox games I want to play (Hellblade 2 being high on that list) but yeah, a Kojima horror game will probably be enough to make me finally take the plunge on a Series X

I've completely dropped off from watching their output, I still watch the occasional preview but haven't touched any of their podcasts for a while - I think the last thing of theirs that I genuinely enjoyed was Huber & Gabby's video about their trip to London which was ages ago. It makes sense for them to pare things a bit so it isn't surprising to hear that they're going part time but hanging onto the studio seems like a bad idea - it must eat up most of their income at the moment, I can only imagine that's going to get worse now that they've lost another member and will surely be creating less content, meaning more Patrons will likely be cancelling their memberships. I watched a few of their older videos the other week, some of the clip compilations somegamenews posted on Youtube, and it underlined just how much they lost when Kyle, Ben and Jones left - the first couple of years were a real golden age and things started to go downhill as soon as they got the studio, they never really kicked on and took advantage of the new facilities. When they did lose members there was also no real effort to change how things worked, they just kept doing the same things they were doing before just with less energy and enthusiasm.

I've always wanted to play Jet Force Gemini so will definitely check it out, just hope it means more of Rare's output is on the way too

Yeah, seems like Outer Wilds is nailed on to show up - curious to see how it runs given what a struggle it's obviously been for them to port. I won't hold my breath for Silksong but it would obviously be nice to get a date. Mostly I'm just hoping that we get solid release dates for some games that have been revealed in previous showcases

@darksnowman It's still a bit of a grind but the best level I found for purple coins was The Sugar star Trial in W3 - you can get about 20 coins per run so I managed to complete all the standees in a couple of hours

Got the last wonder seeds and purple coins last night, thanks to a very helpful and patient online player - the way they've implemented the online is really cool. Only gripe really is the grinding for purple coins to complete the collection of standees, is there any quicker way to do it than running through one level over and over?