dwarf

Ideally I'd have something in-between normal and hard - I like the freedom and responsibility of aiming manually on hard mode, but I don't like the one or two-hit deaths. Difficulty is an interesting issue in gaming in general. When your time for playing games is slim sometimes it would be nice to balance the settings to preserve the feeling of being challenged without the hassle of constant death. Yet I understand that being able to massage the difficulty away would take away from certain games like Dark Souls. [Mark Brown covered the subject pretty well]

Just started this on hard mode and died twice at the boss before being booted to the screen. Is it worth persevering with this level of difficult or do the unskippable transitions/cutscenes and punitive checkpoints persist in a similar fashion?

I'm buying this bitch. How much of it is procedurally generated?

Funnily enough, Nier and Persona are at the top of my list. Might try God of War when it drops in price. I would've been interested in The Witcher but man doesn't have time to play that. Plus it's old and I feel no hype for it. Dark Souls 3 was proof of serious franchise stagnation for me. Really hoping Bloodborne 2 (if that is indeed what the creepy trailer was teasing) pulls something out of the hat. Not so keen for the rest of those, especially Horizon given that Zelda has completely obliterated competition in that area. Mostly holding out for The Last of Us and Red Dead (I've never owned a Rockstar game before. Need to correct that).

Would anyone mind posting a picture of their PS4 game collection (with a list of any decent downloads)? Any hidden gems/bargains? I'm picking up another PS4 soon having sold my last one a year ago so I'm looking for suggestions. Also, what are people looking forward to? I'm interested in: The Last of Us: Part 2 Death Stranding Ghost of Tsushima Red Dead 2 Dreams (I'm a bit on the fence about it to be frank) Battlefield V We Happy Few A lot of mindless violence, looking at it.

https://twitter.com/Manpuncher/status/999727532650979328

https://twitter.com/DaveMilbo/status/999426392239390721 I thought women (pilots) and black soldiers did fight in WW2 though - Britain received support from its colonies. As for the game, I like the sound of pretty much all the changes, specifically the segmental health regen (hopefully this means death is punished more and there are longer delays between respawns), extra incentives to work as a squad, and interactions like reviving allies and collecting ammo and health now requiring animations. Should make the game more tactical and discourage headless vigilante playstyles. Tweaks to movement are also very welcome.

Sad to see a developer with bags of talent waste time on a sequel nobody asked for.

What?! So there's no campaign to speak of, they're changing multiplayer beyond recognition, and they're shamelessly tacking on a battle royale mode? I'm in.

The campaign isn't as engaging as it could be but I found that as you progress, the relaxing, hypnotic quality of the events gradually becomes more intense and addictive. Did they amalgamate the HD, Fury, and 2048 campaigns into one campaign? Would've made more sense to do that because there probably weren't enough circuits to justify the amount of events in each individual campaign, so you might get find the HD stuff gets stale before you move onto Fury. I'd persevere with the game though - it definitely crept up in my estimations when I was initially underwhelmed.

Marketing this is going to be a nightmare, and I think the whole create/play/share ethos might take a backseat if it doesn't perform well. What was that kart game that flopped a while back?

I'd love to play an action/adventure game with this art style. Or a different type of RPG for that matter. Unfortunately the combat system does nothing for me

Pretty sure I fought this guy in Bloodborne

The game has tanked and no more needs to be said.

Nintendo made the fuck-up by not clarifying this from the beginning. Had they shipped all pre-subscription Switches with a 'free online trial until this date' message (or some other definite solution), then there would be no confusion. As it is, their open-ended language has led to the confusion in this thread (and I agree that such language was probably intentional - politicians do this stuff all the time). For reasons of clarity, I think they should make all games, past and future, require a subscription for online features, but they should generously compensate pre-subscription Switch customers with extra games or other freebies. That's the least they could do.

I hope Nintendo doesn't put pressure on Namco to add multiplayer to Prime 4. Retro had to add tacky waggle features to Corruption in order to advertise the Wii hardware, and I'm concerned Nintendo wish to use Prime 4 as an advert for paid online on the Switch.

Single-stick is limiting because it gives you a crap turning circle, makes it difficult to target enemies who are just behind you or up in your grill, and it prevents you from aiming independently of your direction of travel - negating player expression. It sucks dick, in short. Dual-stick controls are a genre standard for good reason. Also everything you said regarding DOOM - those things were meticulously designed for the purpose of rewarding aggression, so there's nothing accidental about the size of the enemies, the utility of the shotgun, or the melee system that grants you health bonuses. The enemies in Prime 4 could be designed in a similar way for a similar system that suits the Switch controls, and it would have the added benefit of being designed from the ground up (rather than ported as an afterthought, as in the case of DOOM). Why should Samus not have a shotgun beam or a melee attack? Aiming at distant enemies with dual-sticks poses a fun extra challenge and is more satisfying than the alternative, namely the lock-on 'win' button that takes the task of aiming out of your hands and restricts your options to either spamming fire or charging shots. They could add varying degrees of auto-aim for reasons of difficulty (and accessibility for disabled gamers) to compensate for the less adequate control inputs on Switch. Players of all abilities would then be catered for, and single-stick luddites would have a reasonable middle ground option i.e. heavy auto aim or a lock-on feature.

I recently tried Doom on a friend's Switch using the comfort grip and thought it was great on the TV and just about playable in handheld mode. I'd only want to play Prime 4 on the TV. Have to say I'm surprised by the amount of single-stick supporters here. It's so archaic and limiting. I agree with @Nolan that Prime is slower, and benefits from downtime to add to the sense of exploration (rather than just being a sequence of arenas that need clearing, a la Quake/DOOM), but surely by the fourth game it's time for the series to take some risks? The last thing I want is a cover-based system, but if the game is restricted by a single-stick set-up and cover doesn't feature at all, then you'll just be circling and strafing away from enemies again, impeded by a camera that prevents skillful movement/positioning possibilities. With dual sticks you immediately raise the skill-ceiling. All I'm saying is that DOOM has done the most interesting things with FPS movement, and Metroid has loads of potential in its existing mechanics to innovate in that area too. Whether you retain the slow, methodical style or a fast-pace evasive/aggressive style, I'm open to hearing ideas. As things stand, I hope Namco goes for something ballsy and fast-paced, and runs with some of the emergent, open-ended design choices Nintendo made with Odyssey and BotW. A visually updated Prime game would be disappointing to me. Other suggestions: - Get rid of the traditional four-beam hand-cannon and add some sort of Half Life gravity-gun upgrade (which would allow you to manipulate physics, elemental features in the environment, build temporary cover, slide doors up and down to trap enemies etc - that way it's a weapon and a puzzle-solving tool). Possibly add a hacking tool to use against space-pirate technology. - Make the planet(s) a logically consistent environment. The trilogy compartmentalises the planets into discrete rooms with blast doors, which robs you of any sense that you were the first person to explore the area. That's fine for colonised areas/settlements, but it would be possible to have connecting areas of the world comprise of natural features like trees and rock - make them movable/destructible to reveal new paths. Obviously that makes it harder to mask load times, but you'd still be left with the core Metroidvania design ethos. - Seasonal/weather changes to areas to make backtracking more interesting. - Wildlife that isn't hostile to the player. /// Of course, it's easy for a person with no background in game design to demand all this.

Metroid Prime is one of my favourite games but it would've been improved with proper dual stick controls and less reliance on lock-on. I'm hoping they take a leaf from the recent Doom and integrate Samus' movement abilities into the combat more, so you can seamlessly transition in and out to keep battles flowing. Couldn't really do that with the morph ball/screw attack in the trilogy. Oops, pretty much said this in the thread already.

Blame the Wii netcode Mark. Always blame the netcode.

I remember being the envy of the town after I bought a Freeloader to play the game early. Guess who got all da pussy that year?! Not me, but I was lauded as a dangerous attacking player when maining Lucas.

I remember the Crash trilogy developers saying they rerecorded sound effects because the sound quality in the originals wasn't good enough for the remakes. Probably the same thing here. If you update the visuals and the music, you're going to have to redo the sound effects too to avoid a jarring experience.

Thanks Sheikah. I'm definitely not going to tell him about the first mimic because it's like a rite of passage. Sure it's unfair, but it's also hilarious and one of my fondest memories of the game, so to spoil it would be to deny him that. For me the Souls games require a fine balance between first-hand learning experience and community-based research, and if you're acting as a mentor like I am in this situation then you can help to make those judgement calls. The mentor role is a weird privilege of the Souls games that probably used to be a fixture of rock-hard, pre-internet era gaming. Gives the series a second life.

@Sheikah A friend of mine is starting this soon. Seeing as you're a veteran, what are the main tips you'd give to new players? I've let him know some of the basics but when it comes to specific item locations/order of progression etc I'm useless.