DANGERMAN

I'm going to say yes, but I also think it's been much of a muchness, it's certainly not been terrible though Doom The Dark Ages, Raidou Devil Summoner (not it's actually name, but even with what I'm typing here it's still shorter than what it's actually called), and Clair Obscur are all games I really enjoyed or am enjoying. South of Midnight outstays its welcome a little, but that's a fun game. I fell off Pirate Yakuza, but I can't complain that that's come out. On the smaller end of things, Bauhaus Bonk, Guns of Fury and Dead Trash are all indie games I got on Steam that I really enjoyed. Spilled! too although it's a bit slight, Level Devil is one of my games of the year, ZPF seems really good, and while I didn't love either Freddy Farmer and Look Outside are both interesting enough I'm glad I played them. There's probably a couple of things I'm forgetting too Not a ton of the big names have been for me, but then it doesn't feel like we've had a ton of big names outside of add ons for Monster Hunter, Elden Ring and Lies of P

Mouthwashing - PC Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth - PS5 Silent Hill 2 - PC Cats Around Us - Giant Cat - PC Freddy Farmer - PC Level Devil - PC Spilled! - PC South of Midnight - PC TMNT Hyperstone Heist - MD/PS5 Clair Obscur - PC Zombie Revenge - Dreamcast Balatro - PS5 Doom the Dark Ages - PC Dead Trash - PC The Exit 8 - PC

same really, we went from a hand me down console, to an Amstrad, to modern (at the time) consoles in a pretty quick space of time, because by the time we were getting games the NES and Mastersystem were out. I don't think we felt the crash over here really, and I doubt Japan did at all In terms of now, I kind of think the biggest cause of a crash would be is if Fortnight suddenly completely fell out of favour. As things stand, Ubi, EA, Activision etc could stop making their AAA games and half of gamers wouldn't even notice so long as Minecraft and Fortnight were still online As for me personally, I don't play a ton of AAA games, I've always tended to lean towards the less mainstream stuff (not that I never play them or don't really like some of them). We're in a funny position too where Capcom are consistently putting out really good stuff again, although maybe they're running out of steam again a bit, it's been a lot of the same stuff. Konami might be back? Sega are putting out good stuff, and the indie and indie-"ish" space have never been stronger. It's a funny industry atm, feels like the obvious lesson is to stop spending multiple hundreds of millions making a game, but apparently not. I do kind of hope the next set of consoles are the hybrid handhelds that have been rumoured. Keeping around the same power level for another few years might help to stabilise things. Pushing higher and higher, when the cost of that from a hardware, consumer, and development point of view rises exponentially is suicide, and that's how you will end up where it becomes the norm for each big publisher to put out a couple of games a year, if that, because that's all they can afford to make

I played both High On Life and the Ascent on Game Pass years ago. They can't have been removed all that long ago?

I think this was always going to happen, I suspect if you go back and find the buyout thread they'd be a few of us saying it. They bought a ton of stuff, but they don't want most of it, they want the big stuff and they want the marketshare that brings. I'm honestly amazed Microsoft even attempted to bring back Perfect Dark (which I know isn't from the Activision buyout), because it wasn't ever a big name for them Obsidian are lucky Grounded quietly did so well, otherwise they'd be gone now too Microsoft are turning in to Activision, holding on to a lot but they're only going to put out COD, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Forza. The likes of Gears and Halo will need to do well next time otherwise they'll fade away too, only getting teased to get gamers on side

nope, Big Picture (basically 'Console' mode for Steam Nag) can be controlled just using a controller. It's basically the Steam Deck interface now, it's good

I liken it to lens flair in games. For a while everything had lens flair. The fucking light in your fridge would have lens flair. Then people realised that maybe you didn't need lens flair off every single light source, and we got normal, sensible usage out of it that's where we're heading to with AI. There's uses for it, not every thing needs it. Unfortunately, the people at the top of businesses don't know how to do anything, which means they don't know what it's needed for

we've got a girl starting at work who, in her interview, asked us what our thought were on using AI. She didn't really expand on why she was asking, but we use a bit to expand images (where we need to resize stuff and need a bit more wall or whatever). We don't use it to write the copy though, as that's why the role exists, so that we're not just getting AI slop. It's made me a bit worried about her, with the context of students using AI for all their work and not doing any of it themselves. Handy to know how to use it I guess, but it does mean they can't actually do the task themselves. We interviewed her over a month ago and I still think about that question. Over the next few weeks I've got to teach her Photoshop, copywriting, our systems, and our products, potentially even design although that's the thing I'm hoping she's good at. I was told not to show her too much because she's meant to be my junior, and I'm wondering if that will even be a problem as it might be more of an issue that I find out she's just been uploading AI generated stuff

I don't think it's sustainable, like @Maf said, I'm not sure the demands for games to have £300 million budgets is coming from gamers, if anything we all seem to complain that the likes of Last of Us 2, Horizon and Spiderman 2 were too long, as well made as they are. We've got a generation now raised on Fortnite and Minecraft (and Roblox), I don't imagine they care too much, and even in the space that Call of Duty operate in, I think those people would trade the insane detail to make sure it has all the modes they want I think we're already getting to the point where the insanely expensive games are rare. Ubi don't put out Assassin's Creed every year now, Sony don't put out those games as often as they were, and Microsoft never do outside of Activision. Not that the massive budget games are the only reason for job loses I think publishers and developers are going to have to get better at reading the room. Minds Eye might be a relatively interesting game, but the state it released in has lead to job losses. Stuff like Foresaken, again, it might be alright, but you can't launch to that sort of negativity. There was some stealth game last year called Unknown 9, it looked fairly interesting in the run up to release, got a cheap launch price, but then turned out to be a bit broken and seemingly basic and dull. Golem another, that Ubi Star Wars game. You just can't afford to release bad, broken, AI filled, whatever, games anymore, people have too many other options and will get to see the issues, if you even get eyes on it at all so, how do you fix it? I don't know that you can. You have to reduce costs going in, and ideally leave your company with enough in the bank to cover the start of development of the next thing, beyond that I don't see a way to fix it after the fact

Got to admit, when I had this recommended to me it raised an eyebrow, it just doesn't look like it's going to be any good. It is, however, great. It's got the same 2d sprites that face you no matter how you move around them that the likes of Doom and Duke Nukem had, but it doesn't play at the pace they did, and nor does it throw enemies at you like you might expect. The plot is that there's been an outbreak, a city has gone in to lockdown, with government death squads slaughtering anyone they see inside the zone. You play as someone who is in the zone, and have to fight your way through the infected, the soldiers, then eventually find out what the real plot is. It's played very tongue in cheek, with Max Payne style digitised comic strip cutscenes It's pretty short, about 2 hours, and it's fairly easy, although I would recommend saving from time to time because you can take a lot of damage quickly and I wouldn't fancy starting the levels from scratch. It's really cheap too, just over £2 in the sale

we're nice people!

I'd argue Sega Soccer Slam was the better, albeit significantly more racist one of these games

@radiofloyd I liked what I heard of that Bonnie Prince Billie album, but leaning in to that sound is a problem once the novelty wears off

I wouldn't say really good, but they are pretty good fun. There always seems to be something off about them that stops me playing for a length of time with them, I couldn't tell you what it is though

halfway through the year and I've bought 18 albums released in 2025 so far, so I thought I'd do an indulgent massive post . A couple of them like Mogwai and Pup I'll probably end up mentioning at the end of the year, Mogwai's is pretty decent, not their best, Pup I really like. Home Is Where sounds like a Home Is Where album, and the Michael Cera Palin album is good, but I've not had a huge amount of time with it yet but I like them, one for the emo/punk thread A few I've bought haven't really paid off. I bought The Sinews after hearing a track on Bandcamp called The Door Into Tomorrow, which is a cool bluesy grunge post-rock thing. Unfortunately the rest of the album sounds like it was recorded on an old tape player and was just the first 12 songs they wrote, regardless of if they were any good. That one track is a fucking tune though https://thesinews.bandcamp.com/track/the-door-into-tomorrow Bad Request Machines I want to like more than I do I think, there's an element of butt-rock to them //cdn.theforum365.com/emoticons/icon_lol.gif I think if you like Monster Magnet you might like them, they're fun, they're from Brazil, and they sort of sound like they're from the nu-metal era without being nu-metal, a little overwrought. The album is pay what you want on Bandcamp, it's fun, a bit of a guilty pleasure, I'm listening to it as I type and they are fun opening track as a sample: https://badrequestband.bandcamp.com/track/feel-this-desire Some of the other stuff I liked without loving, This Does Not Exist are decent, in a Maserati heavy post-rock kind of a way. Oversize I saw supporting Rival Schools, their album is good but the CD has a weird thing where the tracks end in the wrong place, anyway, decent modern emo band. They Don't Sleep Anymore (Save Nothing) is pretty good, more of a post-hardcore album, I like this a lot, and Say Nothing is probably the stand out song Suzzallo - The Quiet Year is a fuzzy grunge album, all about the death of the singer's young son. It's pretty good, sonically it's not too maudlin, it's good, but you can tell the singer doesn't usually write this kind of stuff, but it's good, not especially heavy but there's plenty of melodies. Lyrically it ranges from really sweet memories about time with his son to lines like "give me a time machine, I'd do everything different, and maybe you'd still be here with me" Silver Tears is an Italian/German synth goth duo, and they're kind of fucking great. It could do with a bit more meat in the background, but there's some proper bops on it. Not my favourite album of the year, but worth a listen definitely Take that Silver Tears album but at a sleazy scuzzy layer to it and you get Plough. This was a real surprise, it's one guy and it's one of the albums from this year I put on most often. Great opening track, I'd love to watch him live if he were to ever put a band together and come over. This is cheap on Bandcamp too https://plough.bandcamp.com/album/plough Softcult - See You In Heaven. Another fuzzy grunge album, this maybe loses its way toward the end when it gets a bit more shoegaze, otherwise I think it's up with my albums of the year, it's great March On, Comrade - The Gift You Can't Contain. I got their previous album back in 2021 and really liked it, they seem like decent people too, supporting foodbanks with their sales and stuff. Again, really cheap on Bandcamp, only $5. I'm not entirely sure how to describe their sound on this album other than using overwrought again //cdn.theforum365.com/emoticons/icon_lol.gif I guess emo in that sense of having a wide sound rather than being pop-rock or an off-shoot of hardcore. Probably not for everyone, good band name though You, Infinite I've not had chance to listen to loads of, but I wanted to mention them because it's a couple of the lads from This Will Destroy You, and kind of channels their earlier stuff, so it's more of a PSA for anyone who liked them https://youinfinite.bandcamp.com/album/you-infinite Swans - Birthing I fucking love Swans, they are very much not for everyone, and Birthing falls in to the same sound as their last few albums. Not their most difficult album, probably not their best, but it's good if you like proggy riffy fever dreams This one is a good news one. Alan Sparhawk, formally of Low, put out a new album called With Trampled By Turtles (the band that's supporting him with it, fittingly). For those that don't know, Low were a brilliant slowcore folk band, husband and wife (Alan and Mimi), with a bass player. Mimi passed away a few years ago, and Alan put out an album last year that kind of followed a direction Low were going down with manipulated vocals and sounds, to an extreme, because he couldn't bear to sound like Low. It wasn't amazing as an album but he clearly needed to do it. With Trampled By Turtles gives him a full band as backing, a meatier sound than Low, and shows what a good songwriter he is. Brilliant album, and I'm legitimately pleased he's found himself again, especially as his voice has got so much stronger over the decades. I'd love him to work with them again

I played Tower of Cats because it was free and I wanted something less intense than Doom. Now it's exclusively recommending me hidden cat games

So far what I've bought. It only cost about £15 for them all. Granted none of them are big names

I just switched her out. She seems like she could be really good, but she didn't work in the set up I had with the other characters

Banishers seemed to get zero attention. I dont think I saw any of the channels I follow stream it

I didn't mention that because you have access to the forum funds and people might get suspicious

we are such different people also Fury Road is an all-timer, one of the best films of the century

burn is handy for when enemies start shielding I also used it to turn Maelle in to her Virtuous stance using a skill, then do a ton of damage with pierce the turn after

ah ok, so it's because it's causing ghosting that's the issue, not that it's affecting gameplay

is there a comparison between the Switch 2 handheld compared to playing on a standard TV using whatever console. Basically, in-game, can the Switch 2 handheld claw back a bit of time by the controls and screen all being directly connected. It might be a completely meaningless amount, I'm just curious

Brand new Mega Drive game! ZPF, I backed it on Kickstarter and nicely they've sent the physical Mega Drive versions out before they've finished the Steam version, so this isn't just a nice thing for the shelf, it's actual got played for a while today. Based on my first impressions, and I don't understand a lot of it except dodging and shooting (it's a shmup), it feels a little different than the Steam demo. My memory is that was a lot harder, maybe just because I was using the Xbox pad whereas the Mega Drive pad I'm using has a proper d-pad Oh, also a Pinky demon because I'm all about Doom at the minute