[Malankazooie]

Stand out to me was the HR Giger hellscape, co-op dinosaur hunter and the horror, jump scare game (looks like possession might be incorporated in some impacftul way).

Never played any of the Yakuza games, they worth a look?

And damn, although I don't play Madden and haven't for some time, some of that history footage hit the nostalgia feelz. Brought back found memories of innumerable hours playing with my high school besties, drinking shitty beer, smoking ditch weed and talking trash.

[Mentalist]

After seeing the trailer a few more times, I'm intrigued about Chorus.

Mostly that comes from the Steam page description, though which promises incorporating super-natural abilities into what looks like a Descent-esque 6-axis space shooter.

Which is an interesting idea on paper, but much like Disintegration's (oh yeah, that game got a new trailer and a June 16th release date, btw) "fly this hover-bike and give your robo-squadmates tactical orders, oh yeah and if you need to, pull out a rifle and just shoot stuff Halo/Destiny-style" concept, I feel that's something that just won't translate well in a trailer-especially when you're also focusing on a dramatic sci-fi tripe story.

Hopefully they release a demo to let people get their head around the gameplay concept. The story visuals look cool, so I'm willing to be convinced this is interesting.

"Call of the Sea" is giving me a "The Witness by way of BioShock" vibe. With some lovecraftian bits tossed in for flavour (like the fishman PoV). Looks cool. Also, GamePass.

"Medium" (another GamePass title) is going for the whole "switch between two parallel worlds to solve the mysteries" thing. Note that it's not gonna work on Xbox One- only next-gen series X, probably due to the extra processing power and SSD to allow seamless shifts between the two "worlds"

If that's a thing you can do at will, instead of just pre-scripted sequences, we're looking at another Soul Reaver. Except a psychological thriller. And in Poland. With Silent Hill-style music. If that's not an interesting combo, I don't know what is.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 08 May 2020 - 05:16 AM

[Aptorian]

This Thursday Sony are doing a roughly 18 minute presentation of Ghost of Tsushima. Should be gameplay galore.

https://blog.us.play...st-of-tsushima/

[Malankazooie]

Ah yeah! Me likey, me watchey.

[Malankazooie]

Saw a link that says PS5 will be coming in October. Didn't read anymore. Click bait headline hype? Or is there validity to this?

[Aptorian]

Validity? Sure. Unless they get delayed the consoles will likely be released in October or November, preferably somewhere around Black Friday. It's not much of a prediction.

[Malankazooie]

New Unreal Engine tech demo on PS5. A lot of company centric marketing wording to make it sound like the tech is unique to the engine. I suspect in truth, most PC hobbyists who have built a gaming rig are familiar with all of this "wow factor" demonstration/explanation. Still cool to see though in a PS5 framework.

https://www.unrealen...unreal-engine-5

[Aptorian]

Is this what Geoff Keighley was teasing yesterday?

[Malankazooie]

I believe so.

Epic Shows Off Unreal Engine 5 Running On PS5 For The First Time

[Mentalist]

Malankazooie, on 13 May 2020 - 04:09 PM, said:

New Unreal Engine tech demo on PS5. A lot of company centric marketing wording to make it sound like the tech is unique to the engine. I suspect in truth, most PC hobbyists who have built a gaming rig are familiar with all of this "wow factor" demonstration/explanation. Still cool to see though in a PS5 framework.

https://www.unrealen...unreal-engine-5

It's a pretty bit of tech and the takeaway is, it should allow much smaller teams to produce cutting-edge AAA graphics much quicker. They're also apparently waiving the UE royalty fees for profits
(or revenue? not sure) up to the first million. Which is great, because more high-production value indie/AA games is awesome news in my book.

It remains to be seen just how revolutionary the SSD tech itself (which is what's being hyped up to high heaven right now) will be.

Once we have the PC min reqs for the first wave of "next-gen exclusives"- Godfall on PS5, and Medium on XSX, respectively--then we can talk about how much of a paradigm shift this is gonna be.

If the games end up playable on a SATA SSD with max speeds of half a gig/s, as long as you beef up the RAM to compensate... then it won't be a gigantic leap. If everyone doubles down and insists on NVMEs.... then we might see some qualitative leaps even PC side

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 13 May 2020 - 07:46 PM

[Mentalist]

Obdigore, on 07 May 2020 - 06:07 PM, said:

Ascent is being described as a 'twin stick shooter' on teh subforum. I did see the diablo loot style, thats the 'looter shooter' comment. Do you have any kind of continuous gameplay link or anything about the controls?

Here's a 12 min gameplay clip

It appears to control like a twin-stick shooter in that you aim the chracter where you want your projectiles to go; but it's isometric, not top-down. And the loot + skills progression is more Diablo-like.
Interesting mix, for sure, and I really like the setting. Hopefully there'll be a Steam demo, so I can get a feel for how it controls on M+K.

In other news:


The new game from the creator of Master Chief is coming June 16th.

Looks neat, but I've no interest in multi=player, so similar to Outriders- Pick it up on a sale to check out the story.

Oh, and if anyone's into old-school skating games: Activision's remastering the first 2 Tony Hawk's pro Skating games. Out in September.

Mafia trilo remaster (with Mafia 1 being a remake, apparently) has been teased by 2k. Full announcement on Tuesday.

And for all the Paradox fans: Crusader Kings 3 is out Sept 1st. pre-orders now available.

[Malankazooie]

Been quiet this week so far. Seen some drip drip drip about Sony and something coming in early June. It feels like a rubber band being stretched. When June arrives, I think we'll expirence that *TWANG!* and we'll be off to the summer races. I sure hope so. I get worried when there are lulls like this, especially during these times.

[Aptorian]

I remember last year being relatively slow up to E3. Actually E3 2019 wasn't that packed either.

I think we should expect a relatively packed Sony event around June 4th, something like Microsoft's 3rd party event, and then various small events and reveals scattered out over the summer. I think there's a ton of uncertainty now because of the virus so companies will be more careful about when and what they reveal.

I'm waiting for something big to drop. There's got to be something new and big we haven't seen before taking advantage of all the new horse power.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 19 May 2020 - 07:36 PM

[Mentalist]

Aptorian, on 19 May 2020 - 07:33 PM, said:

I remember last year being relatively slow up to E3. Actually E3 2019 wasn't that packed either.

I think we should expect a relatively packed Sony event around June 4th, something like Microsoft's 3rd party event, and then various small events and reveals scattered out over the summer. I think there's a ton of uncertainty now because of the virus so companies will be more careful about when and what they reveal.

I'm waiting for something big to drop. There's got to be something new and big we haven't seen before taking advantage of all the new horse power.

Devolver said we're getting some Serious Sam 4 news this week. Edit: tomorrow, apparently.

The next big thing I expect for "next gen" is BioShock Next. No info to back this up, 100% my hunch.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 20 May 2020 - 01:19 AM

[Aptorian]

I feel like Bioshock without Ken Levine is a very dubious prospect. It's like Metal Gear without Kojima. Can it be done? Yes. But is it likely to live up to the first and third game in terms of writing and vision?

Edit: Speaking of Levine, what ever happened to his small team and the narrative legos?

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 19 May 2020 - 09:31 PM

[Mentalist]

Aptorian, on 19 May 2020 - 09:29 PM, said:

I feel like Bioshock without Ken Levine is a very dubious prospect. It's like Metal Gear without Kojima. Can it be done? Yes. But is it likely to live up to the first and third game in terms of writing and vision?

Edit: Speaking of Levine, what ever happened to his small team and the narrative legos?

No idea.

I'm expecting BioShock Next to be in a different setting, but keep the retro-future vibe, and some plasmid equivalent. maybe an Elizabeth stand-in. But probably not.

[Aptorian]

There's always a man, a woman and a lighthouse.

[Aptorian]

Serious Sam 4 has been announced for August 2020

https://youtu.be/Grwth4zX77A

I want to be excited but this teaser plus the gameplay beta footage just looks so cheap. It doesn't even look AA mid tier production. It looks like an amateur Steam early access game.

Just looking at the ground textures makes me angry.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 20 May 2020 - 07:23 PM

[Mentalist]

Aptorian, on 20 May 2020 - 07:23 PM, said:

Serious Sam 4 has been announced for August 2020

https://youtu.be/Grwth4zX77A

I want to be excited but this teaser plus the gameplay beta footage just looks so cheap. It doesn't even look AA mid tier production. It looks like an amateur Steam early access game.

Just looking at the ground textures makes me angry.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you've got time to stare at the ground in a Serious Sam game, something's already gone terribly wrong.

[Aptorian]

For some reason around the end of the PS3/360 era I started to pay a lot of attention to ground and floor textures. It was always a n indication of how much thought and resources were put in the game.

I remember being impressed with Dragon Age: Inquisition because it had these beautiful, well lighted rocky ground textures in and around the caves.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 21 May 2020 - 02:53 PM