Kane99

Phasmophobia is a fairly popular online game where you can hunt ghosts, but in reality you're the one who's being hunted. I can't comment about the games AI, but from what I have seen it changes based on the type of ghost attacking you. I imagine the devs use some form of AI to randomize the ghost. But I would like to see it go even further, where AI can become the ghosts in the game, to scare you at random occasions, and maybe the AI would speak to you as if it was a ghost, saying names, key words, clues, etc. I know AI is a hot subject and it's kind of a mixed bag. Some are for it and want to see AI used in more games, while others are against it as it could result in people losing their jobs to AI. I am in the middle. It's already got bad vibes from AI art and how it uses real art to come up with those creations. But I mainly want AI that adds to the game. AI that isn't an integral part of the game or a main focus. I think AI used in ghost games to replicate what ghosts do, I think would be cool. It makes sense to use AI in that sense instead of using it to create something that could end up taking someone's job, like AI art in my view, does. I'm willing to bet that more devs will be using AI to help with their graphics. I like AI when it's used in character interaction, but if there is a risk of real actors losing jobs to it, than I am not for it. I think using AI to aid in your game is fine, as long as it's not creating the whole thing. Sorry for the ramble there. But what do you think? Would you like to see a ghost themed game that uses AI to add to the spook factor? To randomize the events every time you play? That's what I see AI being good for.

Some bad news to share, as 10 Ubisoft games will have their servers shut down on January 25th, the list of games are listed below: Assassin's Creed 2 - Xbox 360 Assassin's Creed Brotherhood - MAC Assassin's Creed Liberation HD - PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Assassin's Creed Revelations - PC Ghost Recon Future Soldier - PC Heroes of Might and Magic 6 - PC NCIS - PC R.U.S.E - PC Splinter Cell: Conviction - Xbox 360 Trials Evolution - PC Makes sense for the PS3 and 360 servers, but sucks to see it happen for PC too. Of course, most of these games probably don't matter to most fans, especially the AC games, as I remember some of their online modes being boring and forgotten about soon after. But I imagine there might be a dedicated fanbase that may still play some of these games online. I just hope that gamers can set up their own custom servers for these games if they want to. I'm sure some people out there can figure out how to bring some of these games back online. People have done it with EA games in the past. We knew the servers would be shut down eventually, but I'm sure if people really want to continue playing these games online, they will find solutions to bring them back online via private servers or other methods like modding. Read the full article here - https://gamerant.com/ubisoft-games-servers-shut-down-january-2024-list/

For those who don't know, the Razzies are an award show for movies and maybe tv shows as well. It's not your typical award show, as it's essentially awards for the worst reviewed movies of the year, along with awards for the worst actors, worst story, etc. Some of the nominees even go to the show and accept their awards, like Halle Berry did for Catwoman. Is there a version of the Razzies out there, but for video games? I would love to see an award show bash the likes of The Day Before, Gollum, That King Kong game, The recent Walking Dead game, and a slew of other stinkers from 2023. What would you give worst game of 2023 to? Worst voice acting? Worst graphics? Worst gameplay? Would you be down for an award show that is for the bad games?

Story - https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/25232921/blue-scuti-tetris-nes-completed/ I didn't know this, but I guess Tetris is nearly impossible to beat. Computers up to this point, were the only things able to finish Tetris. Technically, Tetris doesn't have an official ending, it's said you can keep playing the game until you lose, but if you continue to play, you could end up hitting a blue screen of death, and that's actually what you want to do. Some people have reached the high score, but no one has reached the blue screen of death like this kid did. It's crazy that it took this long for someone to beat it.

Take this with a grain of salt, as this is from a possible leak and likely just rumors at this time. But if true, it's being said that the Nintendo Switch 2 could be unveiled soon, along with a little treat, as there is rumors of a Bayonetta Trilogy dropping as an exclusive. Though I hear it could play on the regular switch, but you won't be able to take advantage of any of the updated graphics and visuals the Switch 2 can handle. I'm even hearing we might see a reveal by March. Check out ReviewTechUSA's reporting on the story below, and more details at this article - https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/shopping/nintendo-switch-2-could-be-unveiled-by-march-and-get-a-must-play-exclusive/ar-AA1mmuB4 Oh, and here's the twitter post in regards to it: https://twitter.com/NWeedle/status/1740514814886294002?s=20

I am not too big on the zombie survival games these days, it feels like we're seeing a bit too many of them these days, but this looks to change it up a tad bit. In this one, you can take control of the zombies and make them into zombots, so they can do your dirty work if needed. It kind of looks like that Project Zomboid, as it's an open world sandbox survival horror game with zombies. But I don't think in that game you could control the zombies or use them for your advantage. The game also has building mechanics where you can create buildings and all that fun stuff to protect from the zombies and other enemies. It looks kind of fun, but I am not expecting much from it.

Story - https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/ncsofts-project-skyline-rumoured-to-be-horizon-mmo-in-the-works-for-pc-and-unreal-engine-5 This is pretty cool news if you're a fan of the Horizon games. I guess Ncsoft, the publishers of Guild Wars, is hard at work producing an MMORPG in the world of Horizon. The project is codenamed Project Skyline and is said to run on Unreal Engine 5, and will be for PC & mobile, while a PS5 release has yet to be confirmed. Though I would expect this to make it on the PS5 as well. Because it is said to be a Horizon game, so would make sense if it released on the PS5. Could you see yourself playing an MMORPG in the Horizon: Zero Dawn world?

Thank goodness, I would hate to see CD Projekt Red purchased up by someone like Microsoft. Because who knows what could become of the studio if they got their grubby hands on them. But, it's good to know they aren't interested in being acquired or taken over. They want to maintain their independence. Plus I think with GOG, and their catalog of games, they're perfectly fine and don't need to be sold off. Do you think that could change down the road? Or will CD Projekt Red hold strong and never sell? Source - https://www.gamespot.com/articles/cd-projekt-red-is-not-interested-in-being-acquired/1100-6520072/

Found this article on gamerant here - https://gamerant.com/battlefield-bad-company-remakes-yes-no/ It discusses if EA should start to remake some of their classic battlefield games, like the Battlefield: Bad Company games. The current franchise isn't doing so hot for Dice and EA right now, so maybe going back a bit would be good? What do you think? I haven't liked Battlefield in a while, and I remember playing one of the Bad Company games and really enjoying it. I can see fans coming back to the franchise if they tried doing what worked in the past.

Have you ever played a game where you skipped all cutscenes and don't bother to follow the story? Has there ever been a game where you only wanted to play because of its gameplay? For me I would probably have to say the Just Cause games. Each game I couldn't get into the story, so I'd often just skip the cutscenes for the majority of the game. Have you ever done this for a game because you just didn't find the story compelling enough? There have been other games where I likely skipped a few cutscenes, but most games I tend to let the game play out as it should.

Kojima is hard at work for 2024. He's got a new Death Stranding in the works, and is obviously working on OD, the new Xbox exclusive title that was revealed at the game awards last month. He also intends to work on the Death Stranding movie he has been talking about, wonder how that's going to turn out. But yeah, 2024 is going to be interesting. I wonder if we can expect anymore news on DS and OD in the coming months. https://twitter.com/HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN/status/1741588777410375912?s=20

Has anyone here purchased any of those faceplates for their PS5? Doesn't Sony make their own custom faceplates? I know dbrand got in some hot water for making their own custom faceplates, so they had to change their designs to not match that of the PS5s. Do you have any interest in buying a custom faceplate or even a Sony made one? I guess if the prices are right, I would consider it, but I'd have to get my hands on a PS5 first. :D Who here has changed their faceplate? Would you get a sony branded one, or go off brand and try something like drbrand or another brand even?

With E3 dead and likely never coming back, do you think we will have an event that comes along and takes over for it? Like a new show for all gaming fans to go to and enjoy. I think the closest thing we have to that now is events like Comicon. I don't think anyone can get into a CES show or something. E3 was all gamers really had where we could go to a gaming themed show for gamers. Not just developers, publishers, reporters and industry insiders. I think later on though, E3 didn't allow the public in, but that was later on in its life wasn't it? I forget. Anyway, do you think we'll ever see shows or events like E3 for fans and gamers ever again? Is there anything out there currently like E3 where anyone can go to the show if they can afford it?

Ever since I heard of the meta quest 3 and the ability to use it as an AR device, I've wondered if using it all day would be possible. I like the idea of using it while I work, so I can watch videos or have another screen even. I could see myself doing the dishes, making food and other such stuff while wearing a VR headset that has AR capabilities. I imagine my neck would feel it after a while though, but I think I could do a day wearing one. What about you?

Well it being Jan 2024, the first iteration of Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie are now in the public domain. That means we're going to see a ton of movies, games and other media using said versions of those characters. And it's starting with a horror game called Infestation 88. It's a 1-4 player horror survival co-op game. It seems to share some elements from five nights at Freddie's with the CCTV stuff. The trailer doesn't show much though. But this is the first of likely many games to use characters from the Steamboat Willie short in their games and other media. Trailer: More on the game here: https://www.ign.com/articles/mickey-mouse-inspired-horror-game-infestation-88-announced

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1dJdBFPjNo Thought this was kind of cool, yet a bit morbid. Sega hosted a real style funeral/wake for Yakuza and Like a Dragon characters who have died in the franchises history. Would you attend an event like this if it had to do with one of your favorite games? You can even leave a flower for your favorite characters. This event is running from Dec 30th to Jan 15th in Ikebukuro, Tokyo and Nagoya from January 20 to February 4 and Sapporo from February 16 to 25. I doubt they would do something like this in the states. This article about it was posted back in early Dec - https://www.ign.com/articles/sega-is-basically-hosting-a-real-funeral-for-all-the-dead-yakuza-and-like-a-dragon-characters

Article here - https://gamerant.com/baldurs-gate-3-xbox-scene-recording-year-long-ban/?utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=Social-Distribution&utm_source=Facebook Be careful guys, if you plan to record gameclips on Xbox of Baldur's Gate 3, you could receive a ban for a year. One unlucky user is attempting to repeal his ban, after some clips he of Baldur's gate 3 got him banned for a years time. But, the reason he was banned was due to clips featuring nudity. Which makes perfect sense, as I'm sure the rules on Xbox state that clips cannot show any adult content. It's definitely in their terms or rules somewhere. This user got three infractions for videos showing nudity. No chance this guy wins his appeal though. Xbox is known to not back down from bans. Doubt this guy would get special treatment.

2024 is nearly upon us. What are your video game resolutions for the year? Do you plan to play more games this year? Slow down on gaming? Maybe jump into your back catalog of games? Maybe you're going to re-visit a classic. Maybe you'll start to collect more games for certain consoles. For me, I think I might start to do more emulation, revisit some classics on the PS2, Xbox, Gamecube. I've been seeing some awesome things with emulation and upgrading retro games as of late, so I think I might go that direction when emulating games again. What are your gaming resolutions for the new year?

I haven't been purchasing much in terms of retro games these days, but I am always on the lookout. Recently I have been joining Facebook groups for retro games and collectibles. So far prices are a bit high for me, so I haven't bothered to buy anything through Facebook yet. Also, I am a bit paranoid about buying on Facebook, they aren't 100% the safest when it comes to buying and selling items. I don't really have any retro gaming stores in my area, and the ones I do have are don't have much in store or it's a local gamestop, and I aint buying anything from Gamestop these days. So my only alternative is to look online. Anyway, do you guys tend to go to local game stores for retro games these days? Or do you mostly focus your attention to online shops and classified sites for your retro game needs? Are you ever paranoid when buying from a seller on Facebook?

Lets say you have an old PS1 sitting in your closet and you have a couple PS1 memory cards. Lets say those cards haven't been used in well over 10 years. Are those old save files by any chance still on them? I have one PS1 memory card left along with a couple PS2 memory cards, and I'm willing to bet I haven't touched any saves in the last 10-15 years maybe. I was debating going through my consoles and seeing if any of my memory cards still have saves. I wonder if the dates they were last accessed is visible too. If you have old consoles that take memory cards, if you can, would you check to see if they still have active save files? I'm curious to see if a memory card from 10+ years ago still has active saves. I will check one of these days, I'm just too lazy to pull out my consoles to check lol. Last time I checked though, most saves were still hanging around.

Has anyone here played WrestleQuest? It's an RPG based around pro wrestling. I saw a trailer on it a while back and wasn't sure about it. I'm not usually one to play RPGs like this, but with it being in the wrestling world, I am kind of interested in checking it out. And the 8bit style graphics is a big selling point for me. I'm sure if you're an RPG fan, this would be right up your alley. Plus, they feature some real life pro wrestlers in the mix, like The British Bulldog, Jake the Snake Roberts, Jeff Jarrett, and more. It's out now on pretty much every console too.

Well that's not good. I guess one of the new colorblind filters in Tekken 8 is causing vertigo and migraines for some disabled gamers. I'm sure this will be fixed soon. The tweet below shows a video snippet of what it can look like, but the same user shares more images of the various colorblind filters, so this is just one of many options. https://twitter.com/itwhiffed/status/1739898999199744220?s=20 The main concern seems to be with this striped black & white filter the video in the tweet above showcases, but the article below does mention there are some other filters in the mix that can cause issues with similar conditions. It's great that they are making games more accessible for disabled gamers, but I think the best thing would be to work with said disabled gamers to get the right filters created, so this sort of thing doesn't happen again. Read more about this story here - https://www.ign.com/articles/tekken-8-colorblind-filter-is-causing-vertigo-and-migraines-for-disabled-players?

You know the fake consoles, the ones you get from Chinese websites, that are made to look like modern consoles? Have you ever been gifted one of those fake consoles? I thankfully never have, but I imagine a lot of parents or grandparents mistakenly buy these fake consoles still. Now days all I see are those knockoff handhelds that have the 1000 in one carts. These are some example of what I mean: I hope none of you received these atrocities as gifts. But if you did, what was your reaction to receiving them? I'll admit the handhelds always seem like the better options, but even those are usually poorly made and tend to have bad screens. I know there are people who actually collect these consoles. Which makes me wonder if they will ever be worth money if one day they become really rare. But I doubt that with how much of this stuff is on the market.

As you know the recent Call of Duty games have started to release character skins of popular celebs and characters from other media and games. You could see the likes of Skeletor, Ash from the Evil Dead movies, Lara Croft, 21 Savage, Nicki Minaj, Snoop Dogg, Homelander (From the Boys show), Shredder and more. I'm sure you get my point. The once Call of Duty franchise that took war history seriously, but now you got these character skins in multiplayer that make it more of a Fornite clone than Call of Duty for me. I get that the main story has no connection with the multiplayer, but COD was never about character skins, hell you don't even see them until you do a melee attack on someone. I get why they are doing it, it's making them tons of money because people are into playing as these characters. And I know some will say it doesn't matter, as it can still be fun. It's just weird to me that a Call of Duty game has these options. It's just another way for them to make cash, and doesn't innovate on that game in any way. With Fortnite it sort of makes sense, because you actually see the character in action. Otherwise you're only seeing other people play as those characters. As a fan, I wish their focus was on improving the gameplay, the maps and so on. The character skins aren't important to me, I'd rather them working to make the game a better experience, and maybe even put more work into the single player campaign instead on another version of Nicki Minaj or Skeletore lol.

Xbox has been getting some heat recently for promoting an image that looks oddly AI generated. You can view it via the tweet below. https://twitter.com/WarwickOnX/status/1740293431166197961?s=20 This article discusses more on the matter - https://www.purexbox.com/news/2023/12/xbox-sparks-fury-over-using-ai-generated-art-to-promote-indie-games If you have seen AI before, you will notice this looks oddly AI generated. There are some subtle signs, like arms in odd positions, the dudes face in the middle, one kid looks to have two different colored scarfs, etc. And another sign is that it looks almost exactly like what Bing AI's image generator can do. I have messed around with it, and the images look as AI as you can get. My guess is the person running their socials probably didn't want to make a custom graphic, or didn't have one on hand, so used their AI image generator and got this. I know AI is a hot topic, and people are very split on it. But when you're a billion dollar company, it feels odd to use AI images for your promotion needs, you shouldn't have to. And I don't think AI should be allowed to be used for those means. Especially considering AI uses samples of others art and works, so that what you're producing with AI isn't even your own. I've already seen others using AI to promote stuff, so it's going to continue to happen. And when it gets too sophisticated, we won't be able to tell the difference, or some wont. And that creates other problems. Anyway, it looks like ID by Xbox deleted that tweet after the backlash, but who knows what else they could be using AI for in terms of promotion.