Luseth

So whilst waiting for Hogwarts to come out I have sort of put my big games on the backburner as I don't want to get too deep into them only to stop halfway through as I know I will never return. What I have done is find this little gem on the PS subscription and I am currently playing chapter 2. So for anyone that does not know, Dragon Quest is a brilliant JRPG series (with it's last game being their best by far) and they have created a few spin offs recently. This one is essentially minecraft but with a bit of story and direction to it. The game is incredibly colourful and chirpy (despite the story being a little dark and drab) and the idea is that monsters took over years and years ago and now humanity is struggling to survive as they have all forgotten how to build, the ability was taken from them. Humans being social creatures that need to work together they are dwindling and there aren't many left. As you go through you learn recipes and plans, build little towns and bring people together all whilst working through a bigger story where I imagine down the road we will take on the final boss and kick his ass 😄 So for anyone after a small, quite relaxing game to play that has the elements of minecraft I would definately recommend this 🙂 There is also a second game which is multiplayer that I will look at playing at some point 😄

Have you tried changing the appearance back? I think I read somewhere that you can switch between the 2?

Yup, I am not really surprised and not sure why there has been such an uproar on the internet. They were put in place to entice people to next gen while content was still being produced. It has definately fulfilled its purpose by now, anyone choosing to get a ps5 going forwards will not be doing so for these games.

set yourself aside an evening a week as retro game night 🙂 one of the best thing I started doing and even get the little un to have a go sometime ^_^

Personal experiences - cex is fine if you go in store, buying online can be very hit and miss with quality Ebay can be good if you know exactly what you are after but priced a little high Charity shops are much more difficult to find a bargain these days, a lot of them have cottoned onto the value and put them on ebay these days My best experiences have been smaller independant stores and retro game fayres. There are 2 or 3 local to me and they have recently been revamped so they tend to be my first port of call.

I just completed this quiz. My Score 33/100 My Time 221 seconds  

Having spent a good few hours on it today I found that I enjoyed it more than the reviews would suggest I should have. I have also just realised it is a bigger review than I had intended so apologies and dont worry if you dont fancy reading it all 🙂 To respond to James’ last post first, watching a demo is never going to be the same experience as playing the demo or full game experience. I have never understood how anyone can really appreciate a game by watching someone else’s playthrough :S I will agree there are a few flew expletives but when you play through the actual story you begin to see why as it stems from the characters background growing up. It’s not as clear cut as being edgy for the sake of it but trying to create a character. My thoughts on the game so far (will break down into categories) - Characters - The main protagonist is not going to be memorable. She does a job but she is never going to be a Cloud or a Sora. She just fills a role. 5/10 for the lead character, there are some side characters though that I think are better. Gameplay - For me this is seemingly more of a let down than I thought it would be. The world traversal is great, the combat seems a little clunky though. You can see the souls like game influence on this with some of the bosses which is quite cool and some of the monsters are pretty creative. 6.5/10 Plot - When I said there are souls like elements this does apply to some of the lore as well, there are a lot of items to pick up that then give you a bit of info to read on the world. I have never been keen on that sort of thing as I like to just get on and play the game. The storyline I think I can already fathom where its going, I hope there are some twists, there are some elements that have been done before but I do think the storyline has potential so a 7/10 there with the potential for it to finish higher. Reading a couple of reviews earlier today the storyline does not get rated highly but considering the review keys came out so late I don’t know how anyone would have completed the game to really say for certain. Sound - I picked up a new headset the other day and I am glad I did because the audio is pretty great 🙂 They seem to hit the right notes and it feels a bit Final Fantasy esque for it. So would give it 8/10 Visuals - This for me was always my main focus for this game, I wanted to see what the ps5 could be capable graphically. On this I think it delivers, the game looks fantastic, the beasts look great and one thing I had noticed is the draw distance seems to be huge (and may be one of the reasons there is so much demand on the machine with the pc version. I would give it a 9/10 (I feel like there is a bit more in the ps5 yet to come. The world - This again seems to have reviewed badly by a lot of reviewers. But this strikes me as a reviewer not paying attention to the game and story as they race through the opening few hours (which is a bit slow mind). The world is lifeless in that there are not towns or cities or people walking about but when you pay attention to the story there is a reason for it. The world itself has a main central hub (populated city) and the world itself is then full of enemies of various varieties. It has a feeling of emptiness but as I say, I feel like its intended rather than they did not complete the game for example. Overall my first impressions are more positive than negative and the game certainly does not deserve the flak it has been receiving (especially from people who have not played it or never intend to, though that seems to be commonplace today which I don’t quite understand. For me its a solid enough game, does it justify the high price tag? Not quite from first experiences. It’s a solid game and I would give it a 7.5/10 thus far. As I say though I am only a handful of hours in (I feel like I am at the point where a lot of reviewers felt they knew enough about the game without really paying attention to what was happening within the game. I.e it has taken me 4 hours but took them 2). Will I enjoy it enough to play through? I suspect so.

Just out of curiosity James have you played the game? Or if not where did you get the idea that the dialogue is as bad as you are suggesting? I.e. were we able to see the script pre-release? The fact the keys were not issued to pc gamers is telling of the performance issues that are going to be there, though I do know a couple of people who are playing on pc and said so far they have not really had many major issues. I have this game to play actually so once I have got started with it will put in some views but the signs do suggest that the game is decent but somewhat incomplete may be a better way to put it. I.e. similar to no mans sky and fallout 76 when they first launched? The couple of people I know playing it said that the actual gameplay, traversing of the map and combat etc is actually quite good fun but didn't give much away about the story knowing that I will be playing it. I tend to ignore reviews these day's because they can be such a mixed bag and I can tend to enjoy games that they do not or find that games that reviewers tend to love, I just do not get on with. Couple of recent examples include elden ring (reviewed well and I did not enjoy), days gone (reviewed badly and I enjoyed), dying light (did not review well but was one of my most enjoyable games the past ten years. The NFT decision was a terrible move by square and I think I read something recently that they are still backing their decision? I may be wrong though. Final Fantasy saved them once but as much as I love that series it has mostly gone down the toilet in recent years (the exception being FF14 but it's not one I play). I think a lot of their problems come from poor management. Just as a note, a lot of their "crappy fringe brands" as you point out James are some of the best games they have created in years and tends to be where you find the best that Square has to offer, it is the big games that tend to do much worse and that's because they are trying to make Western style games with a Japanese touch to them, people don't want that from Square (we already have good Western games that then make these look bad). A lot of their greatest games in recent years are the smaller budget one's, I would love any of these to get the same sort of budget that FF or Forspoken has, they could easily be mind blowing games. Dragon Quest (Their last game rated incredibly high and was old school FF) The builders games were great fun too Nier (This has quite the cult following now) Kingdom Hearts certainly isn't going anywhere anytime soon (I thiunk this does get a big budget anyway?) Star Ocean - Yes the game before was bad but this latest one was heading back in the right direction Octopath Traveller is getting it's second game and is building into something and I suspect Triangle Strategy will go the same way Bravely Default is looking more and more likely to get it's next game too. The plus as well is that they do keep trying to bring new IP's to the market, whilst a lot of the Western studios we will just be playing call of duty, ffa (EA Sports FC), dark souls 27 in 20-30 years time. Even Sony's games are much of the same these days and often based on IP's they have had in the brand for quite some time and with Microsoft, have they released anything new since the og xbox? Don't get me wrong Square have made some bad decisions but they have made some good one's too.

Fair enough it states some people at the developers but 60 people out of 450, that does not paint a clear picture in that are they all people working on the game itself? Are they writers that are no longer required or the cleaners to the offices? Also 60 out of 10,000 people is a very small fraction. It is not quite an obliteration as you stated and its also not the ‘hundreds’ you said in your first post. I feel like you are giving Microsoft a hard time there for something most of the big companies in the tech sector are currently doing. I agree Halo did not do well but you only have to consider that halo has been released now. What are the odds that all 450 employees are currently required whilst the next game is decided on? The other factor to this, Halo is not a series that appeals to younger audiences anymore. The majority of games that grew up with Halo now have families and such so wouldn't be able to give it the time and the younger generations prefer your fortnites, warzones etc. It is a much tougher and more competitive market than it was back on the og xbox and 360 xbox and that is out of the managements control. Where I would say they have fallen down is not trying to innovate and continuing to stick with the og halo formula. As with everything in an economy on the downturn people lose jobs, efficiencies are made (rightly or wrongly) and that is going to be the case across every industry. The job losses are not solely down to poor management and I would also argue these days the halo studio is no longer their flagship. Most of their recent displays have been based aroung Bethesda or based around Starfield, it doesnt really feel like Halo is their flagship game anymore (I would argue they don’t have one)

I feel like you guys have misread whats going on, everything suggests this has very little to do with xbox. A lot of those job losses are due to rapid expansion during the pandemic, a few of the tech companies did the same and they all benefitted from the pandemic. Now things have returned to normal and costs going up there is less of a need for a lot of those employed at the time. Imagine how many new windows laptops were bought so workers could work from home, servers upgraded or companies moving everything to the cloud during the pandemic. In fact the xbox is the only major console to have increased its sales on the year before last year i.e 2022 sales higher than 2021 and in October just gone Phil Spencer did state that game pass was profitable (he did not say by how much though).

Are you sure multiplayer is the aspect that is driving the game? I don't believe they have ever divulged the amount of money that comes from sales of the multiplayer verse the sales of warzone for example. In fact I would not be surprised if warzone generates them just as much money if not more these day's with the microtransactions. The introduction of the football players as characters for example, I imagine they have sold a tonne more than the regular multiplayer players. In fact I read a statement at one point that Warzone was generating 5 million dollars a day at one point, so it may not necassarily make quite as much money as the multiplayer (it can't be far off) you also have to recognize there is a lot more profit to be made with one map that you tweak every now and again compared with a multiplayer game where fans are expecting new maps regularly and such. As far as a business perspective goes it makes sense that Activision is becoming less bothered about Call of Duty, it's what EA have been trying to do with battlefield but they had never gotten the live service part right first before beginning to dismantle the main multiplayer game (or let it rot).

K/D is EVERYTHING!!! W/L is just for people who can't shoot straight so they feel better about themselves 😜

For me it's Horizon forbidden west by default I feel. For me I tend to make my decision based on (in order of importance) - Story telling, visuals, music and gameplay. So for me there is an importance on immersion. There have not been many new games this year that have really scratched the itch so to speak. Most of the games I have played this year have been from years gone by with the exceptions of Horizon, COD, Fifa and midnight suns I think? COD & fifa get avoided purely because they are just new iterations of the previous game and though I enjoy them, they are not groundbreaking or new. I enjoyed Crisis Core recently but it's a remaster (new visuals) and I would tend to avoid picking them as they are nothing new. So Horizon Forbidden West is my choice, the storyline continued on from the first game, big open world to explore. The game itself looked fantastic and the combat is good fun.

I have been on 🙂 Up to level 14 I think now, been pottering about with a couple of friends and it play's fairly well, loading time's aren't too great if you fast travel and such but I'm not sure if it installed on my internal storage or external. It's typical fallout but I am enjoying something that isn't quite so fast paced and hectic and running round just trying to shoot other people. Kinda pleasant!

I realise that I never actually posted any of my own favourites from the years so here are a couple - Number 1 - The mega drive arcade stick, the first time I played a games console with an arcade stick and I picked another one up recently as I have no idea what happened to my original. It was great fun to play with and also led to many gaming sessions with my dad when I was little (I bet he won't remember though!) Number 2 - Xploder cheat cartridge for gameboy Being a big pokemon fan in my younger years, if you did not have friends or family that played pokemon then owning one or the other game there was no way to catch them all with GameFreak splitting them over 2 games. The cheat cartridge then really came into it's own, you could put this in with the game and load in any pokemon you wanted (including the legendaries). This meant that you could finally catch them all albeit with a bit of help on the side.

I was looking forward to this as I love the apocalyptic style of games, however I do feel the zombie thing has been done to death now. Surely they could get a bit more creative with end of world / life scenario's. I won't be picking this up right away and can see it being one of those games that drops in price pretty quick so maybe will give it a go when it's a little cheaper. Besides with FO76 on PS I have been getting back into that which is providing my post apocalypse fix for the time being.

I would be up for playing this again, played a fair amount on the xbox and really enjoyed it 🙂

So first day back at work and I have next to nothing to do, I am playing around with my 3d modelling software, building a few more templates and the such but I am likely to have a lot of free time for the foreseeable whilst the higher ups try to win new work. The senior designer has asked about dropping down to 2 days, that will be an indicator then as to what they anticipate the next few months will bring. This thread isn't to discuss my workload though in that regard. What I am after are for some suggestions on some free software / apps that I can spend some time learning and playing with during my free time. I am not the sort to rest on my laurels and whilst I will be reading materials based around my job and the such it would also be good to learn or develop a new skill or 2. (I am likely going to have a look at Macca's thread after this one to see the suggestions around video editing). My ipad's in the process of upgrading but things I can play with on there would likely be my preferred but I can use my work desktop as well for anything more demanding. So yeah, does anyone have any suggestions?

It is a physical release and i have 2 chapters to go. I am aiming for the plat trophy so doing every little bit i can I was a little disappointed that the clip where Sephiroth is standing in flames hasnt had much done to it. But overall they have done a good job with it 🙂

Have any of you delved into it much? I had a brief experience with the psvr when it first came out and I think I went in too hard and put myself off it, ultimately sold it and have not been back since. However I got a deal on a refurbed Oculus Quest 2 the other day and my first impressions have been quite positive, a big improvement over PSVR, the controls are brilliant and it has additional features which are useful such as being able to double tap and see what's actually going on around you when needed etc. I do need to work on my VR tolerance now so I am going to spend 10-20 minutes everyday if I can just having short experiences while I get comfortable but there are a number of games I want to try on it as well as wanting to try and model some architecture / building services in it as well (so try and explore the productivity side of things). So yeah, has anyone else tried any of the headsets, what are your good / bad experiences?

That's a drop in the ocean for them, they won't even batt an eyelid at paying that i'm sure.

So they have re-released yet another Final Fantasy game and I picked it up as I tend to do, I did not give origins any time really but imagine I will try it again at some point. This one however was originally a PSP title, they have done a fairly decent job though of giving it a new life with the visuals being uprezzed and in some instances redone and the combat has been improved. It play's quite well, I suspect the only downside might be that it is a short game compared to a typical Final Fantasy release but it provides some of the villains back story to the FFVII games which is good to delve into. Has anyone else picked this up?