Ronnie

It's been a while since I played Fenyx Rising, what's the physics and chemistry engine in that game like compared to BOTW, the aspect of the game that never seems to get any credit on this board? I remember they tried to do the BOTW thing of having you discover things, but all that meant was spending five minutes on a high place and tagging a million icons on the map. A lot of those activities were fun but it'll be a sad day if Zelda games are ever full of Ubisoft bloat, checklists and busywork. Don't remember the story of Fenyx Rising at all, but the memory cutscenes in Zelda stick out far more, for me anyway. And manipulating the divine beasts entire structure to get around them was incredibly clever, again it doesn't get much credit here coz they're not traditional dungeons. The map in Zelda is far better, and one of the best designed openworlds around. Nothing stood out in memory in Fenyx, I played that game for 50 hours and couldn't draw you a picture of the landscape, but Zelda was full of memorable locations.

You know it'll be a lean year when you see COD and FIFA brought up as major PS5 software releases this year. I'm also not convinced they're going to support PSVR2 much, given their track record with the last PSVR, Vita etc but we'll see. I'm actually tempted to get one, but they're not doing a great job selling it thus far. Just a shame that the PS5 should be hitting its stride now, in its third year. Assuming Spider-Man 2 doesn't get delayed, that's PS Studios's only AAA tentpole release in 2023. I hope a Showcase is coming soon to announce more games because at the moment it's tough to get excited for the future of a console that (imo) has been really ho-hum so far, exclusive wise.

Haha, good one. Astro was great though, for a freebie. I hope they're working on a new proper game in that series. Speaking of, isn't it about time for Playstation to announce some first party games? We have their usual third person openworld fare in Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine coming. And I think that's it? Surely they won't go all year with just Spidey?

Did you open the big door in the snowy mountain? The solution to that blew my mind.

I could swear someone was saying that "no one buys both versions of a Pokemon game" just a few weeks ago, and now we have someone literally contemplating buying a 99.9% identical game to the one they already have!

How do you in one post claim that BOTW is an outlier that "did things different to the rest of the series", and then in another criticise me saying the series was a certain way, before BOTW? Of course every game plays differently, but structurally from a game design pov, the vast majority have a template. I'm not complaining, I've been playing and loving Zelda since the NES, but there was so much online discourse about that traditional formula getting stale after Skyward Sword's release it was obvious a shake-up was on the cards.

Personally after 16 or so Zelda games doing things a certain way, I was happy to experience something a bit different for (so far) one solitary iteration. Those old games aren't going anywhere and I can replay them anytime. Variety is good imo. But yeah, people handle change differently. It's why I think they're missing a trick not releasing a more typical 2D Zelda game since 2017, but after the incredible success and overall critical acclaim of BOTW, the whole Zelda team's probably been at work on Tears of the Kingdom.

Mostly looking forward to media/game releases at the moment, though might be going back to LA at the end of the year too. Mando season 3, the Super Mario Movie, Jedi: Survivor all in March, Star Wars Celebration in April and a little game called Zelda Tears of the Kingdom in May. Then throw in a few other Star Wars Disney+ shows + Starfield, Silksong (surely?), Darkest Dungeon 2 and Hogwarts Legacy... should be a fun year.

Buyers regret a little tbh, there are a ton of bugs and the whole thing is lacking a lot of polish, even from the opening cutscene. Also not sure what they were thinking filling the game with constant fetch quests, takes hours to get to an actual round of golf. So yeah, a very different experience from the original, and definitely not in a good way sadly.

I'm not a fan of mid-gen hardware updates (that boost actual performance at least) so I'm not fussed about there not being a Pro, it seems pretty late in the game for that now anyway. Yeah, I think they realised that having the best launch year of any console ever, software-wise, pays dividends.

Released in February, hit the 1 million sold mark in October? They've commented many times that manufacturing issues have caused Switch sales to dip and sales targets to be cut. I suspect the OLED model was supposed to be a Pro but they decided to pivot late in the game.

Chip shortage. The last couple of years were not the right time to release a new or updated console.

Loving it so far. Brilliant charm just like the original. Only played a little bit though.

Some brilliant looking games over the last five days. Well done to Nintendo for continuing to promote indies, and more importantly promote them well. Downloading Sports Story now. (Melatonin next)

It's as good a barometer of general consensus as you'll find. Forget the 100 point scale, all of those games, bar none, are widely considered great. That was my point.

How nice to live in a world where nine exclusives in the space of the last 12 months all earning 81+ on Metacritic equates to Nintendo needing to deliver better games. 2022: Bayonetta 3: 86 Pokemon Arceus: 83 Triangle Strategy: 83 Kirby and the Forgotten Land: 85 Xenoblade Chronicles 3: 89 Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope: 86 Splatoon 3: 83 Fire Emblem Three Hopes: 81 Live A Live: 81

I guess they’ll close this out with Sports Story on Friday?

How about not putting an even worse battery in a product that costs over £200? If it's impossible to include a physically larger battery (which I doubt), then there's a flaw in their design somewhere. The Switch controller and the thing that inspired the Edge, the Xbox Elite, both last 40 hours. Feels like the Dualsense struggles with 4.

Yeah another great set of games. I'd be keen to play all of them tbh. The Punchuin looks good fun, and Shin'en have proven their pedigree.

The regular Dualsense has a pathetic battery life so to read that the Edge has an even worse one... at £210?? lol.

Just when we get rid of one obnoxious, petulant child in Trump, another comes into the spotlight.

Looks incredible

And Metroid, though that was a year or so ago now. I imagine Zelda will get some too

Yeah agreed. This game is particularly bad at that, but it's a problem with a lot of openworld games these days I think, where I'll struggle to make a mental image of what the map looks like. Horizon Forbidden West is another example. It's something I think Nintendo are good at though, they did a Game Dev Conference talk on Breath of the Wild and it was really interesting how they level-designed the openworld to be memorable and so you always had reference points where you where so wouldn't get too lost. As for Mario + Rabbids, I could take or leave the wandering around being so open, but yeah like you say the battles are the actual enjoyable part of the game.

I'm going to assume this disk drive will be compatible with the current Digital only PS5... right...? With Sony you never know.