Ronnie

Finishing games quickly isn’t anything to brag about, humbly or not. It’s just how H-O-T personally likes to play games. Back on topic, If the content is good and the gameplay loop keeps you engaged for a long time then I think that’s fine. JRPGs I personally find incredibly repetitive and not worth the enormous time investment. Especially ones with random turn based battles every thirty seconds. Can’t believe I managed to stick with Octopath as long as I did, the somewhat puzzle based battle mechanic probably kept me invested more than I usually would be. And as for western games, the prospect of playing the new Assassin’s Creed and having to sink 100+ hours into it is really putting me off, and that’s the game that reviewed brilliantly. I’ll probably skip it, too much else to play and I wish devs would stop thinking bigger is better.

Yeah that switches my tv on as well which is nice. So fast to sit down and be in a game

Price slashed to £50

Games definitely need to scale back, the quality would improve as a byproduct of that as well. Trouble is the “urgh it’s ONLY 20 hours long, fuck that” crowd would never let it happen. Especially with the entitled chunk of the community sadly getting more and more power each year, demanding and telling developers what to do. Sad times.

I just think if you said to the thousand (or whatever) developers who worked on the game “I’m not going to buy the game you spent years working hard on, just so it means one less sale for your boss” most would tell you to just buy and enjoy the game. That’s just my suspicion though, maybe I’m wrong. I’ll read it but a couple of things Eurogamer has done recently has rubbed me up the wrong way. Stuff like hiring women just because they’re women. I always say, hire on merit. Hire the best person for the job, regardless of their gender, race, sexuality etc. Eurogamer seem to lean a tad too far left for me. As for the game, its my first Rockstar game and I can’t see the openworld they made being bettered any time soon. Just masterful, genius design. But from what I hear their games can be a bit marmite so fair enough if you’re not too fussed.

Fully respect your decision but isn’t your boycotting of the game making everybody lose? You miss out on an amazing game, Rockstar loses a sale and the devs hard work don’t get to be appreciated by someone. I imagine they’d rather you played it than avoided it based on some comments by a handful of employees. Full disclosure I haven’t read the eurogamer investigation but I will do. I’m just a little wary of things being blown out of proportion which happens pretty much every other day in the industry/community. Not saying overworked employees isn’t a problem, of course it is, but it’s also something that happens pretty much everywhere, in any industry, when there’s a deadline that needs hitting.

In the Microsoft column, Game Pass is a pretty huge deal and ridiculous value for money. They may be lacking on the exclusive games front at the moment but they're making tons of good decisions outside of that. Can't wait to get started on Forza Horizon, it looks like one of the prettiest games I've ever seen. Nintendo definitely had a quiet year, apart from Tennis, Octopath Traveller, Pokemon and Smash, but after the incredible year last year and what's shaping up to be an even more packed 2019, they're allowed a quiet one imo. Switch is the fastest selling console of the generation, which is pretty crazy to go from the Wii U to that. I paid £13 a year for their online service so I'm not fussed but they need to improve it next year and get more legacy titles in there. Their loyalty scheme (gold points) leads the way. Sony knocked it out of the park with God of War and Detroit. Conversely I think Spider Man is one of the most overhyped games of the generation, but otherwise the first two started the year off fantastically. Their PS Classic was a disappointing, joyless, cash grab. The news of them skipping E3 next year came as no surprise, they've been cruising the last couple of shows, showing the same games over and over and they're at the end of the gen anyway. The Telltale closure is sad, the anti-Bethesda crusade is typical and tedious regardless of whether they f-ed up or not (they did). The past few years of games have been so good, quality wise that it really makes it hard to bother with anything under an 8 or 9/10. There's just so much amazing stuff to even consider some of the not so amazing these days, especially in the AAA space. Breath of the Wild last year, God of War and Red Dead this year, Celeste, Dead Cells, Hollow Knight etc, all outstanding titles. 2019 is shaping up to be pretty special too, Nintendo have a ton of stuff, I can't wait for Anthem and Sony still have a couple of first party games to go. It's an amazing time to be a gamer. My top 5 favourites of the year: 1. Hollow Knight 2. God of War 3. Red Dead Redemption 2 4. Celeste 5. Detroit Become Human

Star Fox wasn't the problem with Star Link!

Ron Gilbert shares sales info Full report

There probably felt like a lot to wrap up at the end of Empire and that turned out ok, and a ton happened in Revenge of the Sith, much as I try and forget that horrible, horrible film. I'm actually very confident in IX, I think JJ will do a good job and that's from someone who (for the most part) loved Last Jedi. The only part I'm nervous about is how they'll deal with Carrie Fisher. I'm thrilled she'll be in it, I'm just worried it won't work particularly well. A really tough job they have.

I'd be amazed if we don't see a sequel revealed at E3. Actually I'm a little surprised it hasn't leaked yet, because Ubisoft

In just 3 days Smash sold 5 million copies (for perspective, Spider-Man sold 3.3 million in 3 days, that's how insane the above number is)

Or just wait another couple of days and it'll probably be down to like £8 the way things are going

To offer another point of view, whilst I haven't played Starlink myself, it's at 74% on Metacritic with an 80% user review score so it seems some people like it. Personally found Overcooked got boring after about 20 minutes and haven't touched it since.

“Lord knows what’s waiting for us out there. Be bold. Be brave. Be courageous.” Something tells me the writing in season 2 won’t be much of an improvement on last year. Also I was really hoping they’d ditch Tyler. He’s awful and Michelle Yeoh plays someone evil as is she’s wearing a straightjacket. Make that two straightjackets.

Crazy. http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/12/nintendo_switch_becomes_the_fastest-selling_console_of_this_generation_in_the_us

I hope they finally, finally ship this game so they can start working on something else, something that'll actually sell and be worth all this effort (financially). I would say Tearaway 2 but that's equally unlikely to sell if the first is any indication.

Just finished World of Light. 100%. I swear an Assassin’s Creed game would be easier to platinum. Jesus that was a slog. Way, way, way too long. It was getting ridiculous how much they were just tacking on. That said, an enjoyable mode in theory and the final sequences were epic as fuck. Now, I never, EVER, want to see another Spirit battle. Ever.

I guess if you’re not a pinball fan there’s not much else to enjoy as that’s what the gameplay centres around

One thing that REALLY feels dated is the lives system, and I can see why Nintendo got rid of it recently. If you beat a boss with 1 life left it’s pointless to try a new stage. You might as well die and then get them all back.

I think TMNT was waaaay less repetitive. And at least tried to tell a story! It’s such a missed opportunity. They make these amazing looking character reveal trailers, gigantic mic artwork featuring every character battling, billboards come to life and that epic WOL of Light intro... and they show everything to us before the game even releases with barely anything new to watch in the game itself. I realise YouTube and leakers are a thing but come on. Would it have killed them to have proper animated boss cutscenes? Or made the progression a tad more linear to give the fans what they really want, this amazingly diverse set of Nintendo characters interacting? It follows a trend we’ve seen in the last few years with Nintendo where they reveal pretty much EVERYTHING in a game before it’s even out. Really annoying and I’m really gutted to hear the ending isn’t up to much. Makes me wonder why I bother with spirit battle 1239.

Bounce Man’s was annoying yeah. The speed gear is definitely OP, and you become similarly so when you can buy loads of upgrades. I think the longer levels are a response to gamers demanding so many hours in their games. I thought the platforming was fun but nowhere near the precision stuff of the 8 bit games. Decent foundation to build on though. The boss battles were cool I thought. More dynamic than the old stuff.

Great.