Reaper Ezekial

So not only will you pay $80 for the title and like it - lest you prove you’re not a “serious gamer” - but you’d better also have the most expensive and powerful hardware to even think of playing it. Kind of glad that Borderlands never grabbed me. The constant hardware upgrades are what pulled me out of PC gaming forever ago, and the constant push to drop a small fortune to upgrade to the newest next-gen system is slowly pushing me out of console gaming now. Guess it’s a good thing I’ve got classic systems and a hefty backlog.

Putting the soapbox away now - carry on.

So, I’m confused. Is this sequel also going to be a VR game as well? Because a million players or not, that’s still a pretty niche market.

As for Rockdteady, all I can say is that they’d better stick the landing. Arkham Knight was ambitious and a lot of the set pieces were cool, but it had a fair number of issues. And let’s not beat around the bush - their post-Arkham Knight offerings were less than stellar.

Could it also maybe be that next gen consoles shouldn’t rely on remasters, remakes and rereleases of games people have been able to play pretty easily for years? Looking at you, Switch 2. And you, PS5. You both know what you did.

I do like the idea of an 8-member party, as that’s what made the ending battle of OT2 so epic. But I agree with the sentiments - a customizable silent protagonist seems heavily out of place in this world. Although if they keep up the level of writing for the recruitable characters’ stories, then it should still be a treat. God help me, a game that actually makes me eventually consider a Switch 2.

But…even the 1982 film didn’t “get Conan right.” Arnold’s Conan is iconic, sure, but the only thing he has in common with Robert E. Howard’s character is muscles and a nebulous god named Crom. Howard’s Conan is eloquent, has been everything - a slave, a pirate, a soldier, a general, a king - and is a rich, nuanced character.

I’m kind of thinking that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you’re in a field where you’re convinced AI can and will replace you…maybe you should be worried. Remember that most companies care about profit - not people. Employees are the single biggest drain on a company, so anything to limit their numbers = “good business sense.” (Hence the trash notion of companies “running lean” and therefore tripling the workload on employees.) I’m not saying it’s right or that I agree with it, but I’ve seen it for over a decade in my profession and it’s not going to change anytime soon. And if I didn’t do work that involves actual physical labor, I’m sure my company would replace me with a ChatGTP clone without a second thought.

Also, piracy is one thing, but what about games where no one cares about them and the developers went out of business 30 years ago? I’ll use Faxanadu - an NES title barely remembered. As far as I know, an emulator is the only way to play this. Nintendo would sooner brick my account than have me play it “illegally” unless I spent the money on an old NES, cables to make it talk to a modern TV, and a physical cartridge. Bold strategy, Nintendo.

Sorry, but once you purchase the console - it’s your console. If you want to wipe it, install a different OS, run it as an emulation deck…you paid for it, so you should be able to go as you like so long as you’re not abusing Nintendo’s online infrastructure or anything. The fact that they can brick a console for anything they nebulously deem “inappropriate” is pretty lousy. I was already on the fence about the Switch 2 (mostly because I don’t like Mario Kart and all the other launch titles are either remakes of games I already own or ports of games I don’t care about), but this sours me on it. That and the $80 price on games.

Good for them, I guess, but since this award has virtually nothing to do with design philosophy or actual gameplay it seems like a stretch to call it a win. It’s like being awarded “Shiniest Rims” at a demolition derby.

So if people honestly felt that Veilguard wasn’t that good of a game, it’s because they’re terrible people? Sometimes a game just isn’t for everyone, and these days it doesn’t really matter what critics think of something. (No horse in this race - never played a Dragon Age title, probsblg never will.)

I think players should be used to the Definitive Edition bundles by now. Isn’t that usually what the term Digital Deluxe Edition means? Plus Atlus has been pulling that schtick for years, and now Falcom is getting in on it with their remasters of the Tales series. Them’s just the breaks anymore.

AAA gaming. Yay.

HD2D FFVI or FFV all the way. Add some stellar voice acting. Octopath pulled it off gloriously, and I think both of those classics could benefit from the treatment.

Plus maybe it would prevent all of the parallel worlds Kingdom Hearts lite crap that boy’s down the FFVII remake.

The folder option on Switch is still clunky and not very user friendly. I don’t know why they didn’t use the 3DS design, or just straight up rip off the PS4 folder system.

But that goes both ways - Sony, if you’re reading this (and of course you are, why wouldn’t you?) Please implement a Wish List function for the PS store so I don’t have to keep lists of things to look for whenever there’s a sale.

(And if there’s already a way to do that, someone let me know - please and thank you.)