The Hot Topic Returns

[Maryokutai]

Guess you all talked about it here, oh well.

 

One thing about Melina Juergens I find impressive is that not only has she no background at all as an actor but she's also doing it in a language different than her native tongue. She's fluent in English obviously but that's still an additional hurdle to climb when doing stuff like that. So IMO quite well deserved, even for a second time.

 

At a glance I'm mostly okay with the winners I think, it's some of the nominations that were questionable, but we've been over that.

[Nag]

 

Quote

Nag says... "Ho ho ho it's Christmas time and you have the power for one Xmas wish... but it'll only come true if it's gaming related, what's your yuletime wish?"

 

[DANGERMAN]

Elon Musk beaten to death with the original Xbox controller

[Maf]

That I had more than 1 week off to play games 

[Maryokutai]

Instead of their workforce getting laid off, CEOs become responsible for unviable decisions they greenlit.

[OCH]

Legacy of Kain: Dark Prophecy and Dead Sun are released as novels.

[Sly Reflex]

Hold all the people accountable for the abuse seen in huge companies.

 

Also Left 4 Dead 3, please. Mostly the former wish though.

[shinymcshine]

They make unified agreement to release all retro console games, cross platform, for free !

[HandsomeDead]

I want a fly on the wall documentary about how this came to be

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Well, I wish I could have a parallel dimension time machine thing to see how FFXIII Versus would have turned out. That version of that game always seemed super interesting. 

 

After all if xmas wishes are based on magic then it should be ok to wish for impossible things. 

[Sly Reflex]

1 hour ago, HandsomeDead said:

I want a fly on the wall documentary about how this came to be

 

 

It looked terrible then, but now, good god. What an atrocity.

[Nag]

1 hour ago, one-armed dwarf said:

After all if xmas wishes are based on magic then it should be ok to wish for impossible things. 

 

All wishes are valid...👍

[Metroid66]

Sleeping Dogs 2.

 

I know there was a recent question about sequels, but I couldn't think of one then, but it's a valid wish here too.

[Nag]

 

Quote

Nag says... "Obvious question this week with it being the last of 2024, what's your best and worst of the year?... doesn't necessarily have to be games themselves, it could be an announcement, something you've bought or just something you've managed to achieve. As long as it's gaming related it's allowed.

 

[shinymcshine]

Best - the 100+ hours spent playing Pathfinder WotR

 

Middle - a large proportion of time playing Persona 3 Reloaded was fun, but some of the social elements felt like they dragged

 

Worst - way too many of the 100+ hours playing Baldurs Gate 3

[Maf]

Asking me to remember stuff @Nag? On a Sunday?! Have to see what others write and if anything jogs my memory 

[one-armed dwarf]

Well, rather than just relist my favorite 2024 games and the ones I thought were shit, I'll say I really was pleased with myself for beating Doom Eternal on Nightmare mode and really coming around on that game.

 

I'd be even more pleased if I was successful at beating Ultra Nightmare, but permadeath Doom on its hardest difficulty, would you believe it, it's pretty hard. Maybe I can make that a 2025 goal before Dark Ages releases though

 

There's nothing I really want to lay into in the worst category, as nowadays I just try to quickly drop games I find a bit shit. The worst part is maybe I don't do it faster and get a refund but it's not like Sony are good at offering that anyway.

 

Maybe I'll just put Sony in the worst category, just cause of that lol. Actually, they might deserve it for how they treated that whole Concord thing tbh.

[Nag]

5 minutes ago, Maf said:

Asking me to remember stuff @Nag? On a Sunday?! Have to see what others write and if anything jogs my memory 

 

Look at your last post in the completed games thread... that'll help.👍

[DANGERMAN]

the worst thing (gaming related) has been that my new job has completely fucked my free time so I barely get to play anything now, certainly not while getting back in to youtube stuff. I think I can probably work out a slightly better way in some regards, but I don't know how. My commute at my last job was an hour each way, same amount of days in the office

 

Genuinely, I've toyed with doing meal prep, but then it's the same meals for 4 nights or whatever, and I lose a chunk of time on a Sunday. I can't reliably play anything on the commute because I might not get a seat (I was getting Steam Deck games played on the way in, maybe Switch, when I first started the job but less so now because the work's laptop is so stupidly heavy having a Deck in there too was messing me up a bit). If I didn't have issues with dairy and gluten then I could have more quick stuff in the fridge, but as it is I tend to have to cook for a bit. So if I have 3 hours free, an hour of that is cooking and eating. Then I'm knackered from work....  I don't know, something is going to have to change with it this year one way or another, even if it's just that I work out how to manage my time better

 

 

gaming highlight, probably working out how to capture lightgun games while actually using the gun. That was quite a clever solution and meant I actually played a few of them for a while. Linked to the above, I'd like to have a certain amount of time a week to playing my collection in some form

[Maryokutai]

I also try not to get (too much) into specific games because I have those listed in the GOTY topic.

 

The Best:

– Spent proportionally a lot more time on single player stuff this year than previous years, which makes it easier to stick to certain schedules and is also less stressful.

– Metroid Prime 4 appeared and looks glorious.

– Legacy of Kain is (sort of) back and in the news.

– Alien: Isolation, somehow, gets a sequel and I might live long enough to see it.

– Playdate was a genuine surprise, really enjoy using it, even it's just a couple of minutes every day.

– Stalker 2 coming out and being a (glitchy and buggy) success.

 

The in-between:

– Beyond Good & Evil pops up again with new content linking to a sequel that will probably never see the light of day.

– Banishers was a really solid title but would have been twice as good if it had been half as long.

– Skull & Bones came out. I don't care for it, but for better or worse it's an important footnote for the industry.

 

The Bad:

– Thousands of people being laid off, and dozens of studios getting closed, among those personal favourites like Thunderful (development staff) and Piranha Bytes.

– Akira Toriyama and the Suikoden designer (can't recall the name at the moment) passing away.

– Microsoft having absolutely no idea what they're doing anymore and pretty much leaving the field to Sony.

– Sony being almost as clueless and punishing Concord developers for shitty executive decisions.