somnambulance

Loved Will of the Wisps. It’s probably a better game than Blind Forest, but the first game just had a bigger impact. Regardless, I’d argue that, at one point, the Ori games were the best Xbox exclusives to grace the ecosystem last generation… til they weren’t exclusives anymore. Man, I wish there’d be a chance for a third game, but it seems extremely unlikely.

For some reason, I’m expecting it to land either at 81 or 83. I’d love to see it critically top Indy though.

I have a feeling it will be handed many indirect comparisons to KCD2 that don’t necessarily compare the gameplay or anything beyond the scope and size of it being and RPG.

Alan Wake 2 is potentially my favorite game of the generation so far, so I’m so glad to hear that it made profit! I’ll buy practically anything Remedy signs their name to. In this era of gaming, it’s rare to have trust in a developer so deeply, but Remedy has earned it.

So happy to hear this preview period was a positive experience. I’m bought into this title perhaps more than anything else in the Gamepass docket this year because it looks like such a unique game in setting and feel.

I’d like it to be based in the Super Friends universe with a Scooby Doo crossover at some point in the game. I mean, I’m just being realistic to my personal taste in the franchise.

I am struggling with not purchasing it. I’m really curious, but not sure I’ll like it. So many people are calling it a masterpiece though…

I’m literally waiting for Avowed’s reviews and the potential State of Play to decide if I’ll purchase it now or wait. I’ve got store credit ready to burn and I just need to know what and when things are coming out to know how I’m spending that credit. I mean, realistically too, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is in a similar spot. I can’t preorder that one without knowing if Ghost of Yotei is going to launch on top of it.

I suspect I’ll probably have a decision when I’ll slate it in the year next weekend.

I will… wait for Day 1 for Avowed unless we find out it’s 95+ on OpenCritic. Lol.

So nothing next week for me, which means that I’ll be hoping and praying for a Sony State of Play, so I can decide how much longer I can wait before succumbing to the urge to buy Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Basically a State of Play and Avowed’s reviews will make the decision for me on when I pull the trigger on that one since I’ll have a clean gaming slate again after this weekend, for sure.

I will be wrapping up the exquisite Momodora Moonlit Farewell. After that, only sweet heaven knows!

@FraserG I would imagine you probably already know the truth. 😉

At least I hope so! I like reading your team’s reviews!

@FraserG Y’know, with the review embargo being so out there, it’s such positive PR for Avowed in my opinion. I think we’re at a point where devs should hype up embargo’s rather than hide them if they want to hype their projects. Hope it’s out there because Obsidian is confident rather than because of leakers!

Yeah, I basically just want a solid campaign. I don’t need or want the multiplayer stuff. Save your money, Capcom. Invest that money in getting us Megaman Legends.

RE works so well because it’s a cinematic action game with tight gameplay. The only time multiplayer really hit for me with the series is RE5. If I didn’t play that one multiplayer and have someone to laugh through it with me, I’d have been far more disappointed in it than I was.

It’s ok to talk about Metal Gear Survive, you know?

@themightyant We are certainly getting more games at ID. I suspect we’ll get shadow drops. To A T, for instance, has been rated by ESRB. I expect that the ID showcase will be the brunt of February’s additions, so Xbox can focus on Avowed for most of the month and the indies can stack out the rest of the first half of the year.

@Decimateh might as well give it a go. It’s a unique game, and Two Crowns is a multiplayer title. I’ve owned it on Switch for ages and it’s an addictive title for me, certainly in my top 20 most played games in the lifetime of that console.

@Decimateh Kingdom Two Crowns is an essential indie title, if you’re looking for one. Absolutely fantastic indie strategy title.

I think that’s sort of a reactionary take to things, in my opinion. Say what you will, but 2024 wasn’t exactly brimming with games that the public was excited about purchasing. It was a down year last year for all platforms. I know many gamers that dropped into the single digits with the amount of games they purchased last year. And let’s be real… Xbox didn’t engage with providing strong games enough to have their fanbase invested this generation. If we want to see if this is truly the path forward, let’s see how things look when we’ve got Switch 2 out and likely exhuming physical game sales, as well as the cinematic first party Sony releases like Ghost and Intergalactic. It’s hard to argue that exclusivity is dead based on one game. More metrics are needed to quantify that claim and we’ll see whether this is true or not toward the end of this year. I’m guessing that analysts will be shocked when exclusives sell well this year.

@Kaloudz Obsidian was the same with marketing before Xbox, so I can’t blame Xbox on this one. This is an Obsidian thing, but they do so many other things so well that I’ll forgive them.

I wouldn’t say I’m excited, but I would say I’m interested and hopeful, and I’ll have cleared my backlog by the time it releases unless I pick up something else in the meantime. I’ll be curious which I play first on 2/18. This one or Lost Records. I’d say I’m more excited for Lost Records, personally.

@gollumb82 I agree. It must be noted too that Mr. Layden now works for Tencent, so should we really give his opinions credence, given him having the judgement to discern his employer as the best place to take his talents? I liked Shawn’s era with PlayStation, but I think he’s become something of a dubious talking head at this point… although I do really appreciate him championing Vib Ribbon.

@Kaloudz Their marketing team doesn’t sell their games to me. In fact, they make me concerned. But darn is their developer pedigree fantastic.

I’m looking forward to trying Avowed, even if I remain a skeptic toward it. It’s Obsidian, so I’m aware my gut take on its visuals may be wrong, as I was on the Outer Worlds before I played it. As of right now, that looks to be my first Gamepass game this year.

And if I’ve learned anything about Xbox games the last year, it’s that I’ll try them and assess them regardless of the reviews, as Stalker 2, for as poorly as it reviewed (and even if I wouldn’t have reviewed it much better), was one of the more memorable games of the last year. An ambitious but flawed 5/10 is far more interesting to me than a completely sturdy 7/10. I’m more likely to talk about something that does things, even if it doesn’t work. I have a feeling that Avowed likely won’t be a 7/10 game that plays it safe. Obsidian doesn’t seem to do that.

For my gaming this weekend, I’ve got myself a birthday party in a bit, so we’ll be having multiplayer games galore. Probably some Towerfall, Mario Party, Tetris, etc. And then tomorrow… we’ll see if there’s any presents… If not, I think I’ll waffle around with Tetris Effect and Marvel Rivals with friends as a farewell to my vacation time.

C for me. After a fantastic 3 months, there was nothing new for me this month. January was the first month in ages that I didn’t start a new game, but that’s ok.

I hazard to guess Halo/Gears/Starfield might be saved for the rumored State of Play, but why not Forza? I imagine this’ll be good for business at MS. It’s a shame this is happening, but at the same time, this wouldn’t have happened if Xbox was doing better as a console-first ecosystem. Honestly, I think Xbox was trying to get these games on other ecosystems sooner, but having Gamepass as an option on Switch and PS

The game is an example of everything currently wrong with the gaming industry.

Avowed and Lost Records will simultaneously share the distinction of being my first game of 2025.

Revisiting this… and man I hope 2025 is finally the year for Silksong. Gamepass is stacked this year either way.

@Millionski How’d you manage to do that? I wish I would’ve known how! There’s few games that I’ve been so meh about for the entire time I’ve played it as Starfield. I think I called it the definitive 6/10 experience at one point.

Made the mistake with Starfield. Never again. Hope the reviews come out earlier because of the early access though!

Really looking forward to this one. South of Midnight and Expedition 33 may both pique my curiosity more, but it’s so obvious Doom is going to be Doom that I can’t wait. We know it may be the first genuine GotY contender this year, unless we get some other release date surprises soon.

A B from me. South of Midnight looks fantastic for me, Expedition 33 looks absolutely unique, and Doom looks like a potential GotY contender. Ninja Gaiden just doesn’t really get me too excited.

Three Ninja Gaiden games launching this year is a bit much to me. There were rumors of Silent Hill F and… I guess I let my expectations get the best of me. …and I was holding out hope for Oblivion as well, but ah… everyone can’t love everything. I’m sure Ninja Gaiden will be loved by the fans it was made for!

Dragon Age just couldn’t blast past the internet hate machine. I’ve said it all over the place lately, but the marketing was rough on it.

Never. I’m there for the Day 1 exclusives. When there’s not enough Day 1 games that interest me, I drop my sub.

He might just be replaying them because he likes them. December and January have been barren release months as well, so let the guy have some comfort food.

I’d like to watch it, but I have to work, so I won’t be able to. As I have an office job, I’m planning on maybe sneaking a peak during my lunch break if I can.

I have a 4 TB storage plugged into my Series S, but only Xbone and earlier games work on it, so it’s nice but sort of useless for dealing with current gen problems. My Series S hard drive is basically full and it just has CoD on it. I’ve still yet to try multiplayer too, so I’m not utilizing it properly. I play almost every game on the cloud at this point on Xbox.

I can honestly say that downloads and storage space are the two biggest issues with the Series S now that the first party line-up is starting to move in the right direction, but thankfully xCloud mitigates those issues. xCloud literally is the saving grace of Xbox this generation and I’m surprised fewer people sing it praises.

Honestly, I’ll probably play Skyrim at some point. I can’t believe I touched it for five minutes when my son discovered it on my Xbox 360 and now I’m mildly hungry for it… again… eight playthroughs over the years aren’t enough, I guess? It’s sort of amazing how well it holds up, but it also sort of makes me feel a little weird about current games because it just feels better than most of what I played last year.

I should play some more Indy. I’d like to beat it before the Xbox showcase in case there’s a shadow drop.

Friends of mine want me to play Hunt and Marvel Rivals, but plans just haven’t coincided for that. I’m sure that’ll eventually happen, but will it be this weekend?

Oh, and then there’s the ever present Balatro which is the only certain thing in gaming lately. I’ve played it on my phone every day since it’s released on mobile to some extent... and that’s after owning it on PS and Switch. I think I’ve got an addiction.

@GuyinPA75 Oh, I disagree. I want the dog and pony show. But I want it with release dates!

@Kezelpaso Truthfully, I understand that no one wants to compete with GTA, but honestly, for me, i want more games than just GTA this year… and I want to budget my gaming for Switch 2!

Hopefully those devs give us release dates soon then! The schedule still seems completely vague for what will land this year.

It’s a shocker, but when you have games to play, you use the hardware. I used my Xbox more this last quarter than I have since the month Halo Infinite came out, no joke.

If GTA6 is overpriced, it may very well be worth it, but I’ll be honest: I don’t know that I’d buy it out of principle. If prices hike, I will certainly purchase fewer games. After how many games I bought last year that didn’t click with me, I’m already planning on cutting my game spend this year… and if I’m contemplating between GTA6 and the Switch 2, I know I’m taking Nintendo’s likely budget friendly console over Rockstar doing something unsavory.

In the macro, i could see GTA6 raising prices causing the industry to crash as well, as consumers don’t have enough faith in new games to warrant the spend. While I understand games need to be profitable, I do think this approach would be directly ignoring the complaints of many in the space that are calling for shorter, cheaper games as an alternative to $70 games, as the increased price point this generation may already be hurting games in a time where consumer funds are at a low.

I hope these rumors are just rumors, nothing more.

I don’t expect it, given that Avowed is coming so soon after the Direct, but who knows? It sort of depends what the mystery game is, I suppose. If that’s a big game that’s already on other platforms, I’d expect it, but if it’s something new, I doubt it.

Not a fan of many of these games, but Ori alone made me return to games when I was feeling disinterested in the medium (or disinterested in new games since I was definitely still playing retro games), so, for that game alone, cheers to you, 2015!

If Ecco is the surprise announcement for the fourth game at the Developer Direct, surprise would be an understatement.

I hope it’s Megaman, but I’d be shocked if it was!

I think we’ll have 7-8 first party games this year (if we count CoD) and that Xbox will pull a Nintendo and start to get things on a regular schedule from there on out where we usually hit 5-6 a year, the way it should be.

I’ll try it. I don’t like the color palette used on the game, but it’s Obsidian and Xbox has been on a roll lately, so I’m down for it. For the record, I did not like how the Outer Worlds looked either before launch. It reminded me of Borderlands, which I’m not a fan, to say the least, but I still preordered it because, “Obsidian.” I was glad I trusted them in spite of disliking how they advertised the game.

I honestly just play Balatro on my phone and Roller Coaster Tycoon Classic on my Switch at this point.

I’m fairly excited for all four games, honestly… well, the mystery of the fourth, at least. But of the ones we know, I’m planning on playing the three of them. They all look great to me! I think South by Midnight’s my favorite of the three right now.

I am praying we get something else in the Developer Direct. Xbox can announce this in a longer form showcase in a sizzle reel…