HowHammerYou

I agree. I've said this before, but with both consoles running the same chipset now, there is no longer a legitimate reason for exclusives to exist. What's even worse is when companies paywall the next part of a remake/remaster behind the purchase of a new console, like what S-E just did with part 2 of the FFVII remake. It's not even a sequel, it's part 2 of the remake I already purchased on PS4.

The wal-mart nearest me has been getting Series X consoles pretty regularly since late August. I've seen 4 or 5 so far, and it's the first time they've ever had them in stock. Still no PS5s, though.

During 8th Gen, devs focused way too much on using the consoles' power to render increasingly massive worldspaces at the expense of every other aspect of their games. As a result of this, the few games that bucked the trend (such as Until Dawn) tend to look far more visually advanced than open-world games which released 5 years later. The open-world concept, which had been fun in 7th gen when worldspace sizes were far more manageable, grew to become one of the greatest blights video games have ever seen. Thankfully, I've begun to notice a trend very recently where big devs seem to be moving away from the open-world concept or at least reducing the sizes of their worldspaces. This makes me very happy.

I'm glad console exclusives are dying. I have no problem with them when console makers differentiate their hardware from each other (the way it used to be in the old days), but when both major consoles are running the same chipset, exclusives are just an attempt to coerce prospective buyers into buying one machine over another without adding any real value to the machine. Imagine having to buy multiple blu-ray players because Sony, LG, and RCA were selling "exclusive" blu-ray movies that were programmed to only work on their brand's machines. That's the absurd point the video game industry is at now.

I really enjoyed Mafia Remastered and Saints' Row 3. One of my more off-the-wall reccommendations would be AC4: Black Flag, which is more of an open-world piracy simulator than an AC game.

1: The Witcher 3. The cut scenes for the main quest line seem to drag on and on. Then there's the Novigrad arc, which is 90% walking from cut scene to cut scene for what seems like 10-15 hours of the game. 2: Red Dead Redemption 2. All those annoying mini-cut-scenes and long, drawn-out animations whenever you try to do anything. 3: Dark Souls 2. Technically not cut scenes, but when an NPC has an item to give you, you always have to exhaust their entire dialogue queue in order to get it. This usually means talking to each NPC you meet 10+ times, which gets old really fast.

I'm still hoping for Nintendo to announce the Switch 2 or whatever their next console is. Not necessarily a release date, but just a "Hey, here's what we're working on, here's what you can expect it to look like." trailer would be great.

I got curious and watched the most recent trailer after posting. Seems they backtracked and will allow the player to play as a dark wizard. Earlier in development, they specifically stated they would not have that in the game. Now I'm interested again.

Favorite: Adult Link. One of the best character designs ever made. Least Favorite: Kratos. Dude is butt ugly and only speaks the cursed language of Capslock. I liked him back when I was a teenager, but as an adult I can't stand him.

I was interested until I learned the game doesn't let you be a dark wizard or even cast dark magic (which was what I wanted to do). The online element worries me as well, as I was hoping for a single-player experience. That said, I haven't really read any articles on it in a year or two, so I'll give it another look after the finished product is out.

Wii U: Wind Waker HD, Twilight Princess HD, Xenoblade Chronicles X. (I'd love to play them, but I'm not buying a console for 3 games. Still hoping for Switch ports.) PS5: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. (Would it have killed SE to make a scaled-down port for PS4 -the same console part 1 is on- instead of paywalling the next installment behind a $500 console?)

Supermassive Games (makers of Until Dawn and the Dark Pictures series) is the only developer I've ever seen get QTEs right. Maybe it's because the QTEs are your main way of interacting with the game, instead of a parasitic game mechanic shoehorned in as a way to cause cheap deaths like they are in most games. I love their games, which is saying a lot since QTEs are one of my most hated game mechanics.

I'd like to see the following: A Zelda game made by From Software. (Hylians' Souls?) A Lord of the Rings game made by From Software. A Metal Gear game made by Ubisoft's Ghost Recon team. Another Fallout game by Obsidian.

I don't. Usually what I do is wait a few weeks for feedback and gameplay videos to filter out so I can see if it's something I'd even want to buy. Then if I still want to buy it, I wait until it hits $30 or less. The only games I don't wait for a price drop on are first-party Nintendo games, since Nintendo rarely if ever drops their prices.

The future story has always been a stain on the series, and I'm glad they've distanced themselves from it. It was pointless in AC1, and in AC3 it jumped the shark so hard with the solar flare apocalypse that I still groan whenever I get forced back into it. I really think they should just end the AC series and transition their current vein of historical fantasy games into a new IP, that would give them a lot more freedom to create accurate historical fiction/historical fantasy games without having to tie everything into an overarching narrative.

The Kingdom Hearts universe would be an absolute nightmare to live in for anyone who isn't capable of wielding a keyblade. Your homeworld can at any second get overrun by monsters of darkness that are immune to non-magical weapons and can devour the heart of your world in a matter of hours, sending it into the realm of darkness. And even if you have space travel, you still can't flee to another world unless you have a keyblade or some sort of inborn magical ability to bypass all of the barriers.

I choose 2-handed swords whenever they're an option, and I prefer heavy plate armor.

I'd just like to see a completely white PS5 (where even the actual body of the console is white instead of just the panels), or a PS5 completely made in the Cosmic Red color. The latter would actually get me halfway tempted to buy one, especially if it was a slim model. I love red game consoles.

If it includes all of the DLC released for the game on-disc, or is a complete remake of a game I liked from 2 or more generations ago, I'm generally ok with it.

South Park: the Stick of Truth. I really need to replay that soon.

Metal Gear Solid 3. It badly needs a remaster/remake, the controls have not aged well at all.

It goes for around $120 right now, but if you shop around, you can find it for $90. If you want better performance, there's an improved model with a better processor called the RG351.

Mine's probably the PS4. It may not have had as many must-have 10/10 games made for it as older consoles (The era of must-have games kinda ended with gen 7), but the sheer volume of great games made for it is beyond any other console I've had. Plus, it ended up getting ports of a lot of my favorite games from past generations.

I have an Anbernic RG350. It can emulate anything up to PS1 at full speed. It's got a 3.5" screen, so it's bigger than most classic handhelds, but still small enough to fit in my pocket easily.

If you factor in inflation, games are actually cheaper now than they were in the early 2000s when the price changed to $60. Back around 2018 I did the math with an inflation calculator, and $60 from 2018 would have only been worth about $45 in 2005. I imagine today's money is worth quite a bit less. Granted there are ridiculously predatory monetization schemes in today's games and they do suck, but the root cause of them is that devs just aren't making as much money off of each copy sold as they did 15-20 years ago. Personally I'd have no problem paying $80 or even $100 for a brand-new game, that is if today's video game industry wasn't a massive shovelware factory with no creativity churning out unfinished products. As it is, I won't pay more than $30 for a game unless it's on the Switch (since Nintendo rarely lowers their prices).