Kane99

Miniland Adventure is a popular game that came out last April for PC via Steam, but now it looks like it's finally releasing for the Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and the Nintendo Switch. It's got good reviews on Steam so far. The game dropped on consoles yesterday. Who here has played it? It reminds me a lot of games like Stardew Valley and Terraria. Especially with the top down view and gameplay. But in this game, it looks like you have more control where you can build just about anything, do what you want, etc.

It isn't much, but it sounds like the game's name will be Physint and it will see Kojima back to his roots making another action espionage game. He hasn't worked in the genre since Konami fired him back after MGSV. From the way they talk in this video, it sounds like it's going to be a hybrid movie/game. Then again Kojima is known for making more cinematic style video games, often with a ton of cutscenes. I wonder what he has in store for us.

Does anyone here own the TV with an NES console built in? I guess there was a tv made by Sharp in late 1989 that included a built in NES console. You can see an images of the TV/Console hybrid below. I know some YouTubers covered it in the past. But were there other consoles that were built into TVs? I think the PS2 had a HDTV combo that came out at some point, but that's the only other one I am aware of. Do you own any of these types of tvs? I wish I did, because they are hard to find these days and they are likely to be expensive. You can learn more about this tv/console hybrid here - https://nes.fandom.com/wiki/Television_With_Built-In_NES

They said you can play Doom on just about everything, and maybe that's true. As an MIT biotech researcher figured out a way to use gut bacteria or E.coli to make a screen that can play Doom. The problem though, lies in how slow it takes. The bacteria doesn't actually run the game, but creates a screen for the game to play on. You may not have much luck with the game though, as the frame rate takes forever, resulting in the bacteria 70 minutes to illuminate one frame, but takes an additional eight hours to return to its original state. So around 9 hours per frame. It's also only a 32x48 1-bit display, so a tiny little thing. But it's still pretty cool that someone was able to use science in this way. You can read more on this news here - https://www.engadget.com/heres-a-video-of-doom-running-on-gut-bacteria-proving-you-really-can-play-the-game-on-anything-184629896.html and you can see a video of the Doom in action on gut bacteria. Though in order to complete the full game on gut bacteria, could end up taking you 600 years, so good luck. :D

I'm kind of surprised that EA isn't coming after this team with the title of their game. To those wondering, no, this is not a sequel to the Burnout franchise from Criterion Games & EA, but its own thing from Midnight Works. I honestly don't know how they got away with using the Burnout name. My guess is EA and Criterion may not own the name anymore, or don't have it trademarked anymore. Or it might be that Burnout might be a word or phrase you can't copyright or trademark. Anyway, this new racing game will be dropping February 2nd, on PS4 & PS5. It looks like another run of the mill racing game to me, but looks like drifting will be a big thing in it. Check out the trailer below:

EA hasn't produced a boxing game in quite a while. It seems their focus is on the UFC now days and have sort of skipped out on making boxing games. Now you got outside studios attempting to make boxing games, like that Undisputed game from Steel City Interactive that's currently in early access on Steam. But this isn't about this game or other boxing games. This is about the future of EA boxing games or the Fight Night series. The last EA boxing game was Fight Night Champion, which released in 2011. I think it's about time EA does a new Fight Night game. I get their focus may be on UFC, but I'm sure they have a slew of studios they can put it on. Will we ever see a new Fight Night/boxing game from EA?

Source - https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/30/24055807/spec-ops-the-line-delisting-licensing-2k This is sad news, as the popular third person military shooter is being removed from pretty much every platform. I originally thought it was just Steam, but it was also removed from Xbox and GOG recently. The reason it was delisted, was due to licensing issues. And it's being said that it likely won't be back on storefronts anytime soon, or likely never. Thank goodness I still have the physical game on the 360.

With the recent news of more stores getting rid of physical media, it reminded me of what Limited Run Games does. Do you think with the way digital is taking over, that we'll see a rise in physical releases from Limited Run Games? I think we're going to start to see more special editions that include a physical game, maybe LRG will do that, or maybe some studios will do it themselves as an added bonus or fans. But I really think digital is here to stay and physical media is going to become an extra bonus for some games. I would like to see more teams like Limited Run Games releasing physical games down the road.

I've only briefly heard about Poppy Playtime in the past, but never gave it much thought. I heard there is a new chapter released today, that being chapter 3. I checked it out, and I definitely get Five Nights at Freddie's vibes from it, mainly just for its setting. But instead of animatronics, the enemies look to be toys or stuffed animals. Has anyone here played this game yet? Either the first two chapters? The first chapter dropped in 2021, second in mid 2022 or so. And the most recent one just released today. Is it any good? Here's the trailer for the newest chapter.

Here we have a narrative-driven survival adventure game from the team at TML-Studios, the studio behind mostly Bus Simulator style games. So this is something completely different to what they normally do. They even make some train sim games from what I can see. Anyway, this one looks actually interesting, kind of reminds me of State of Decay, but in first person. It just dropped 5 days ago for the PS5, but has been out since last March on PC. Has anyone here already played it on PC? Is it worth checking out?

Well, if you were worried about the quality of the new Suicide Squad Game, then you may be even more worried after this bit of news. I guess Rocksteady had to outright pull the game from early access due to some gamers encountering a bug that results in full story completion right out of the gate. It doesn't help that this is already becoming another live service game, and fans weren't too pleased about that. And now bugs like this make me wonder if the game is full of other bugs. Do you think they are releasing the game too soon? https://x.com/suicidesquadRS/status/1751938662093263232?s=20 It keeps getting better and better. It's also mentioned that the game will have Denuvo DRM, as it was quietly added in before the early access release it seems. https://www.destructoid.com/suicide-squad-kill-the-justice-league-adds-denuvo-just-before-launch/

PlayStations' State of Play returns tomorrow, January 31st, for a 40+ minute stream that will showcase games like Stellar Blade, Rise of the Ronin, and new releases for the PS VR2. It will start at 2pm PT / 5pm ET / 10pm GMT. You can watch the stream via YouTube below, but you can also tune in on Twitch, and TikTok. What games are you hoping to see revealed? What games do you want to see more of?

Source - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-29/embracer-group-cancels-deus-ex-video-game Some sad news to report, as I guess there was a Deus Ex game in the works for the past two years, but it has since been cancelled and a bunch of workers have been laid off. You'd think with the Embracer Group being such a big company, they would be able to save these employees jobs. I wonder if we're going to see more cancellations by them along with more layoffs. It seems like the gaming industry is laying off a lot of employees as of late. I know Microsoft did it somewhat recently. Do you think we'll ever see another Deus Ex game? At least anytime soon? Or can we expect to wait longer? And what will become of other studios and companies owned by Embracer? Do you think this could result in other games and studios dealing with layoffs?

There has been so many extraction shooters as of late. Games like The Division 1 & 2, Escape From Tarkov, Hunt: Showdown, Marauders, and more have been the main frontrunners in the genre. But it sounds like we're in for more extraction shooters. Hell, we got The Day Before recently, which became just another extraction shooter. I have not played many extraction shooters, but from the ones I did play, I felt they got a bit too repetitive after a bit. So what's to say these new extraction shooters will be able to hold people for long? Do you think we need a break from extraction shooters? Beautiful Light is an upcoming extraction shooter, and we still have the likes of Arc Raiders, Delta Force, a new Division game, and Once Human. Can you do with more? Or are you eventually going to tire out on the genre eventually?

Who here has played Wreckfest? It's a destruction derby style racing game. It's a lot of fun, but can be challenging. I've played my share of the game and I just want more. There's been no talks from what I can see about a sequel to Wreckfest, but I'd love to get another game in the series, maybe with some more crazy courses, and maybe a mix of GTA level track design, even allowing gamers to make their own destructive maps. If they do another kickstarter to make a sequel, I would consider paying a few bucks to see it happen.

Discord has their own games when you go into a voice chat with others. They call them activities, but there are a select few games you can play. The activities feature lets you watch YouTube together, but you can also play some games. They are starting to add games like Gartic Phone, Krunker, Poker Night, Putt Party and more. I like that it allows you to play the games through Discord itself, meaning you don't need to host a game through another service. Who here frequently plays games on Discord with their friends and maybe their community? A lot of the games I see are great party games. Would be cool if they include Jack Box in there somehow.

Hell yeah, a new Dragon Ball Z fighting game is dropping soon, that one being Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero. It's part of the Budokai Tenkaichi series. I haven't played these games in years. Who here is getting this? It's coming out for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. There is no mention of a release date though. Trailer below.

Source - https://mp1st.com/news/cancelled-call-of-duty-game-nx1-gameplay-footage-black-ops-4-war-mode-surface There was recently some video's that leaked showing off some gameplay from an untitled Call of Duty sequel that was supposed to release in 2010. It's simply codenamed NX1, and looks similar to Modern Warfare 2 & 3. But, it was cancelled and we got Call of Duty Ghosts instead. You can see the footage below for that. The article states that Neversoft were the ones developing it. I wonder how it would have been if they got to finish it. Maybe it would have been better than Ghosts. https://twitter.com/mangafigurines/status/1751147004267475205?s=20 https://twitter.com/catgurlfriend/status/1751490269005140068?s=20 Another leak also showed a cut mode from Black Ops 4 called "War". You can view it in action below. https://twitter.com/mysticaIfrog/status/1751629142880067889?s=20 I would have liked to see what NX1 had become. Ghosts gets a lot of flack for being one of the worst in the series, and I still enjoyed it somewhat. But yeah, would you have played NX1? What about the War mode for Blops 4?

This is not good news for physical games, at least when it comes to Xbox consoles, as the recent layoffs at Microsoft may have resulted in some layoffs for Xbox's physical games departments. Which could mean that Xbox is phasing out physical games and focusing on digital. I mean, we've already seen multiple digital consoles, so it wouldn't be hard for them to make this change. Supposedly Microsoft has outright closed departments that are involved with making physical releases. There is also news of an all digital Series X console coming, so that could be another reason. I think we all know digital is the future we're headed in, no matter how much we are against it, I don't think we're going to be able to stop it from happening. Do you think this will result in my companies dropping their physical media departments? You can read more on this news here - https://www.purexbox.com/news/2024/01/xboxs-physical-games-departments-reportedly-affected-by-microsoft-layoffs

Both games to my knowledge were created by Harmonix I believe. But Guitar Hero I think had a different developer later as I think Rock Band was what Harmonix created after they moved on from Guitar Hero. Please do correct me if I'm wrong on that, as I may have confused, but I'm pretty sure I am right on that. Anyway, I wanted to ask, out of these two, which one do you prefer? I grew up with Guitar Hero, and unfortunately never played Rock Band in all its full glory. I only played via guitar on Rock Band, never had the drum kit or mic. So it's hard for me to decide on one over the other myself, as I only really played Guitar Hero and some Rock Band on the side. I know Guitar Hero made a comeback later on and I think they too tried to do drums, vocals and all that fun stuff too, but I don't 100% remember. The last Guitar Hero game I played was on the 360, same with Rock Band. I have yet to play any of the rebooted games. So, what is your favorite of these two music rhythm games?

This is cool. I knew VR was going to start to utilize real space for games more often, and Demeter looks to be exactly that. Demeter is a mixed reality puzzle platformer that uses your real space as the levels. It reacts to your space, so you can play around your whole house if you want. VR and Mixed Reality is going to be fun in the near future. I wish I had a VR headset. :( Check out the video below to see the game in action. The last video is a trailer for the game.

Has anyone watched any of the content around people producing quickly made games via AI chat tools like Chat GPT. I know there is some concerns with AI and how good it has been getting as of late, but this is something I am okay with, as it still seems to require some knowledge of coding on the users part in order to make an actually playable game. The video below is by candlesan, and he uses ChatGPT to recreate flappy bird. It's not an easy thing to do, as it requires knowledge of coding and how games work. The AI needs to be guided at what to do, otherwise what it creates will be completely random and likely not play like what you'd expect. Has anyone here tried to ask a chat bot to code a quick game? I tried a prompt on Co-Pilot the other day (Bing/Microsofts AI chatbot) to make a quick game, and it came up with some code, but I didn't test it out as I'm too paranoid running code created by AI lol.

This is pretty cool. There's a new point and click adventure game that dropped recently for the Xbox One, Series X|S, the Nintendo Switch but also the NES. The game was published by 8 Bit Legit and looks to be developed by CollectorVision/Acclaim. There's also a version for something called The Phoenix Video Game system, which according to this site - https://collectorvision.com/phoenix/index.html is a console, but it also sounds like you can mod an existing ColecoVision or an Atari 2600 with a mod chip, but they make it sound like it's a console you can buy. From what I can see though, it's not available for sale. Unless I am missing something. Anyway, you can find more on the game and company that published it here - https://8bitlegit.com/games/dead-tomb/ The NES version is $59.99, but it's limited to 300 orders, and it says there is still 179 in stock. I doubt I'd buy this myself, but it is tempting to have a new game for the NES.

I watched a video from Alanah Pearce recently about fake gamers, and during the video she brought up how she thinks video games are intentionally being made bad so that YouTubers would be more interested in reacting to them. Games like The Walking Dead: Destinies, Skull Island: Rise of Kong (both made by Game Mill), and Gollum are a few she mentioned, and this year there was a ton of content on YouTube specifically about those games. She talked about how it kind of took away from a lot of the good games that released in the same year. A lot of those games didn't get nearly the same amount of coverage as the bad games. And she feels she is part of the problem there, as she too has covered bad games in the past, likely forgetting some of the better games out there that go overlooked. I agree with her about some video games being made intentionally bad. The Kong game for example only had a year of development time, and the publisher still released the game. A lot of YouTubers do nothing but cover bad games these days. What are your thoughts? Do you think we'll see a rise in awful games to get more coverage on YouTube? I posted her video below, tried to start it near where she discusses the bad games.

Lets skip out on the Call of Duties and the big releases that are still coming out. I want to talk about the forgotten Activision games, the ones that haven't had a new game in a long time. The Prototype series comes to mind for me almost right away. I remember enjoying both games, and now that Xbox likely owns the franchise, I would love to see a new game in the series or a reboot even. I don't know if Activision still held some of the rights for certain Marvel games, if they do, I'd love to see some more Marvel game remakes on Xbox, but I'm doubting that will happen. They will probably just put those games on Game Pass and call it a day. Blur is another I think should make a comeback. Activision purchased the studio behind Blur back in 2010, so I think a new game could be possible. I remember it being a decent enough racer, but it kind of went under the radar. Oh and I wouldn't mind a new Tony Hawk game, the recent remastered THPS 1&2 was pretty decent. I can see them finally producing a good Tony Hawk sequel. We all know how THPS 5 turned out. And last but not least, make more Spyro and Crash Bandicoot games please.