J4MES OX4D

Some very impressive review scores so far. A potential dark horse for GOTY

Konami have released this which looks decent especially on UE5

Ah reminds me of this To be fair, another Black Ops game from Treyarch would be an insult. Give us summat new ffs🤣

The terrain issues is something they need to address urgently Cities: Skylines 2's weird terrain quirks mean you'll need to start landscaping immediately | PC Gamer WWW.PCGAMER.COM Smooth out those bumps. Any assets placed should automatically flatten the terrain but right now, the objects warp around the terrain and it looks terrible. People don't want to be faffing around flattening every pixel just to place an object.

Another nightmare port which is insane as this is an essentially 10 year old product with established games of 20 years across multiple systems and generations. PC version is bad and the consoles aren't faring much better. Players blast Metal Gear Solid Master Collection for missing options, vanished Steam pages, and muddy textures: 'absolutely poor and not worth its asking price' | PC Gamer WWW.PCGAMER.COM The older Metal Gears' Steam debut is getting a rocky reception. My PS5 copy should be arriving in the post tomorrow and I'm toying with whether to send it straight back. This has been another shocking year for unfinished and broken games. Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and Valve should ban developers from being able to patch their games for the first 60 days and then maybe they may release them to some reasonable standard.

Looks very promising! This probably wont get a fraction of the coverage Starfield got despite looking streets ahead in every department.

I'm probably gonna give MW3 a miss this year. I thought the beta was decent enough but not worth shelling out £60 for especially on what is a rushed continuation with content that has probably been withheld and intended for MW2 had it not fell off so spectacularly. I think Sledgehammer have made some crucial tweaks that the stubborn and quite frankly ignorant Infinity Ward should've addressed a year ago on what was extremely needless changes in the first place. This week they have been absolutely crucified on Twitter from some of the biggest names in content creation, major news outlets like CharlieIntel and Modern Warzone plus even their own affiliated partners. It is absolutely insane that it's got to this stage and emotions have really boiled over when they decided to patch the event player count based on fake feedback after ignoring the community for almost a year. It should've never come to this and MW2 really suffered for it. SHG seem to be getting off to a positive start especially after they've been under the cosh to get this done in less than 8 months but even with all the classic maps, I think they'd get a bit old after 20 ours or so, and as per usual, everyone is in the dark on season one content and its release. Such s shame Activision couldn't create a Modern Warfare Trilogy framework where the games could be merged into one massive package but then again, they do not plan ahead whatsoever for things like this - just cash in on the quick and then clamber for more content to flog. The movement and gunplay seems fluid - not quite MW2019 but way better than MW2. It's nice to see the classic maps reimagined but the ones in the beta looked a bit washed out and low in texture quality. I'd also be a bit apprehensive about the prospect of players bringing in paid bundle content against MW3's vanilla guns as I said previous and also seeing wacky camos right from the off. SBMM seemed tuned up and this is something Activision will not budge on or even talk about when confronted so it's set in stone and it looks hell this year. So I hope everyone has a good time but I'll probably have a breather and return with Black Ops 12 or whatever number we're on with that now🤣

The Evil Within FREE on Epic https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/the-evil-within

Well this is disappointing - developers acknowledged it ran like shit but they'll release it anyway. Performance looks atrocious IGN review also picked out a major issue whereby terrain was largely uneven so any placed assets look warped which destroys immersion.

PC Gamer has just done a brief article about a recent live service concept where an original game is being overwritten and essentially erased from existence and replaced with a sequel that is largely inferior in terms of overall quality or its content offering. One of the first instances of this was Warzone Verdansk along with Caldera and has since happened with Overwatch 2 and then CS2 replacing the massively popular and longstanding CSGO. Warzone Verdansk was absolutely huge for a good 3 years and was replaced by Vanguard's Caldera taking people's expensive bundle purchases with it. Overwatch was one of the biggest IP's of the decade and probably the only game where lootboxes were done right. It built some incredible lore and remained popular for a good few years after release. Blizzard neglected the hell out of the brand amidst controversies within the studio and with many big names departing for many reasons, the game was then picked up by remaining employees and it's unwanted sequel arrived taking away the identity of the first game and further delivering a barrage of microtansactions. They also failed to deliver the campaign which was the sole justification for the sequel and now to earn one skin, you may have to play for 170 hours or stump up $39.99 rather than earning it through challenges or a lootbox. Shiny CS2 has completely replaced CSGO and whilst it looks and plays the part, it's missing many maps, modes and features plus the new ranking system is completely illogical. It was very unusual for Valve to not at least leave a legacy watered-down version of CSGO available especially as it was a title of 11 years and now it has erased without a trace seemingly. CS 1.6, Source and Condition Zero remain playable as a standalone game to this day but it seems Valve couldn't separate their skins from the sequrel so they took the knee-jerk reaction to instead wipe a game from existence than explore alternatives. I hope this trend will not continue. Preservation is already a problem especially with bad remasters and those that are attached to launchers but to have games disappear for good and have a shite title in its placed forced upon users is another reminder that live service gaming is only good for the present. Original article The new worst gaming trend: killing our favorite games to replace them with sequels | PC Gamer WWW.PCGAMER.COM The biggest games of the last decade are being wiped off the internet for no good reason.

I went last night and thought we played really well and dominated large parts of the match. Italy really look a shadow of their former selves and could miss out on a third tournament in 5 years. I remember us having a national meltdown after missing out on Euro 2008🤣 Bellingham is probably the best player in the world right now.

I think you can carry over paid bundle guns and skins but MW3 will have it's own selection of base weapons. I'm not sure if MW2 progressed base weapons carry but certainly paid-for content is. If base weapons are available with progression attached along with the bundles on top then that could have a dire affect on the basic MW3 weapon pool is my concern and as per usual, the developers are very vague about this.

This will definitely be the sweatiest COD to date and SBMM is already heavily tuned up in the beta it seems. It'll be even worse on release because the whales will be armed to teeth with their P2W bundle weapons which even nerfed, are still better than the base weapons. I think users can carry over their skins too, so day one you'll have people dressed up like Barbie and Godzilla running around with their weapon of choice from any one of the 15+ £25 bundles previously bought. I think this could be a bad experienced even for seasoned returning players that haven't played for a while. Another interesting thing is Activision have merged MW3 with MW2 and Warzone on Steam to form a centralised Call of Duty AppID. They've basically done this to swerve any player count scrutiny for the multiplayer portion meaning they have effectively closed and DMCA'd every API at the expense of MW3 appearing as DLC ironically. Too bad they didn't strategically centralise the entire new era Modern Warfare 2019, MW2 and MW3 into a collective package so users could cross-play maps across games but instead have made a knee-jerk decision to do it just to cover up any potential dips in popularity.

This sums it up really Lord of the Rings: Gollum apology was reportedly written by ChatGPT - Dexerto WWW.DEXERTO.COM Former Daedalic staff members have alleged that the company's apology about Lord of the Rings: Gollum was written by ChatGPT.

A good result in the end for all parties and the CMA as acknowledged did a ground-breaking job in driving several key concessions to protect other global developers, technological concepts and the industry as a whole which Microsoft duly amended to get the deal through. The UK may be slow in some areas but it really is thorough to a tee especially when it comes to legality. It's a testament to the CMA for all their work and it is utterly ridiculous that major entities like the collective EU would immediately sign off such a dangerous move without any scrutiny of consideration. The FTC tried but America seems to only have the Judge Judy method and no other form of negotiable resolution methods available🤣 I just hope Microsoft can actually make an impact because their acquisition of Bethesda has been nothing shy of a major disappointment. I have a feeling that nothing will change through especially if the keep Kotick in the seat.

I tried the demo and the ADS shooting just feels weird to the point it is absolutely dissatisfying. Also had a bad crash and uninstalled. Looks amazing and they nailed so much but it's one of those games that just doesn't quite work unless they radically overhauled the source material.

I've heard this one is incredibly grindy and has woeful AI. If you only have access to an Xbox or Game Pass on Windows then it's probably worth considering if you're looking for a racing game, otherwise GT7 does it better across the board. I've played many Forza games and to be honest, they are fun to drive around in but the racing is terrible.

I got to play it briefly and I'm not really sure about this. On the one hand it feels more fluid like MW 2019 and it's nice to be revisiting old maps. On the other, it's just MW2 2022 with a couple of key tweaks and a recycled DLC pack of maps for £60. The interface and everything else is largely the same. It actually doesn't feel all that refined either and the maps look visually washed out. I can't blame the developers though as this is a cross between a rushed product dressed up desperately as a full game and a jumbled mess of withheld content that's probably existed for two years and would've been in MW2 if it had more staying power. A lot will depend on the campaign for me but I fear this will get stale after a few weeks and Activision still can't outlay a proper content map after all these years. They could've and should've integrated all the Modern Warfare to form a trilogy and this should've been the plan from day one but each game is just a mess of inconsistent changes and design. This could've been done so much better but it's just a fragmented mess of games and content with so many needless design changes. I do think it will do well but I'm not sure if it'll have the staying power once the novelty wears off.

I managed to play Starfield again upon borrowing an Xbox for a couple of weeks recently and the more I played, the more I actually think this is shockingly bad game from Bethesda. I did try and give it a chance this time in the comfort away from a refund prospect but if anything, it just exposed even more woes I didn't like. Firstly, I think they got the entire design wrong - they should've had 5 varied planets the size of New Vegas and focused on them with galaxy wars, internal factions and interplanetary travel. This would've provided a much more focused experience especially for a Bethesda RPG. Starfield was ultimately built off the back of No Mans Sky's hype and ambitions and it's clear Bethesda didn't capacity or philosophy to pull this off anywhere close especially with an outdated engine, developer skill and a lack of algorithmic depth. The story is absolute shite and it is so unbelievably safe and uninspired. NPC's and factions merely exist to provide exposition and narrative continuation but other than that, the NPC's stand still in the same places morning, noon and night. In Obsidian's New Vegas, NPC's had routines and if you had to speak to one, you actually had to locate them - they could be shopping, socialising, working, asleep, in a battle or just wandering the land. In Starfield you see the same characters sitting in the same chairs or standing around doing nothing 24/7. NPC interactions not having facial animations is utterly pathetic especially if you're coming from Baldur's Gate 3 which has over 170 hours of cutscenes and houses every possible dialogue outcome and character emotion imaginable. Starfield took a year longer to produce and it's just lazy and outdated in such crucial aspects like this. Even the character models look dreadful. The dialogue itself carries as much depth as Fallout 4 and is about as dull as the story. This design style is beyond unacceptable now especially for a game in development for 7 years like RDR2. Exploration is a joke - each planet having a few points of interest and the process in between is littered with immersion breaking loading screens and cutscenes. Every 'unexplored' planet has clearly been explored and houses evidence of life and even life itself so what is the point in going to all these places if they are all the same and you do the same stuff? Loot, shoot, rinse and repeat. They would've been far better off across the board sticking to 3-5 planets in one galaxy for a more crafted 'world'. In the end I had to stop playing. The game was beyond boring and turning into a chore. I love Bethesda but they got this spectacularly wrong right off the bat and it clearly impacted their design. I think this is their worst title to date and I fear for any future games until they radically change their approach and update their internal architecture.

Unity CEO John Riccitiello to Step Down in Wake of Installment Fee Controversy - IGN WWW.IGN.COM In the wake of a massive controversy regarding previously announced (and then walked-back) install fees, Unity's John Riccitiello is stepping down as president, CEO, chairman, and member of the board of the...

Counter Strike 2

I’ve seen the latest gameplay footage and I must take back what I said previous - this game actually looks pretty decent and clearly some serious work has gone into it since it’s early reveals. Combat still looks a bit basic and clunky but the visuals, attention to detail and particle effects are seriously impressive as is the presentation. This honestly could be a surprise hit of the year if it plays as good as it looks. Even gives me F.E.A.R vibes a demo is also available which I can’t believe I didn’t realise. I’m gonna download that tomorrow on Steam

I'm only getting Metal Gear Solid Master Collection and maybe MW3 this year. Haven't really checked out what's coming in 2024 as of yet I'm sure there will be a few surprises here and there especially from the non-AAA variety.

I remember getting a claymore only nuke back in the day thanks to that set up🤣