I buy a lot of my telescope equipment from Celestron so I got their kit. It was like $2 more than the knockoff brands but I like my eyeballs so went with a company I trust with relatively inexpensive optics.
No. As others have said, there’s just a lack of information about what’s coming out. Basically starting last year, companies got fed up with announcing release dates that they can’t meet, which has a tangible marketing expense on their side, among other problems. So now we basically only hear about games’ release dates when they’re imminent. This year, we’ve gotten:
Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore
Balatro
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Penny’s Big Breakaway
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Tekken 8
The Thaumaturge
Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes
…and while it’s divisive, I quite liked Alone in the Dark.
We’ve got the likes of Palworld and Enshrouded in early access, with No Rest for the Wicked to join them shortly.
There are a couple of games from smaller developers and publishers I’ve got my eye on with likely or confirmed 2024 release dates. They may have a wide spread in quality when reviews hit, but some of them could be winners, especially since they’re in genres currently underrepresented by the wider market:
Aero GPX
Agent 64: Spies Never Die
Big Boy Boxing
Broken Roads
Conscript
Commandos: Origins
Core Decay
Fallen Aces
Kingmakers
Phantom Fury
The Plucky Squire
Streets of Rogue 2
Tempest Rising
Titan Quest II
V Rising (1.0 release)
Warside
Then some other noteworthy games that are likely going to be very good and have a real shot at releasing this year:
Avowed
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
Dragon Age: Dreadwolf
Gears 6
Hollow Knight: Silksong
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Judas
Mina the Hollower
The Rise of the Golden Idol
What this year doesn’t have, at least so far, is a clear front runner like Baldur’s Gate 3 or God of War, but there’s more than half of the year left.
To address this differently, you’re making a rod for your own back by not putting the baby down once she’s asleep.
When my son was a baby I used to get home from work feed him and do the same as you but then it was a nightmare when I wanted to put him to bed, starfish arms and legs and hours of crying!
We did things differently with my daughter and never had this problem.
The art is phenomenal, but the writing is cringeworthy. I loved it as a teenager but I have a hard time taking it seriously now. I wish I never replayed it so I could have kept my nostalgia.
The combat mechanics are fun and feel amazing when played as intended, but they’re massively unbalanced. IIRC with two exceptions (enemies that require a parry to enter a vulnerable state) every single fight can be won flawlessly by spamming Dust Storm even on the highest difficulty.
It’s a remarkable game, all the more so since it was only one dev. I 100%'ed it, and it sits in a place of honor in my collection, but it’s not one I’ll ever return to.
From memory I do remember things getting ludicrously easy if you levelled Fidget right up. And I don’t recall the writing at all. Likely just nonsense to move the plot along while opening up new areas.
But as a one man effort, it’s incredible. Especially the art style, which normally falls into the pixel art or just plain ugly when it comes to the 1-2 man indie games.
Agreed. The art looks straight out of an anime, and Dust’s combat animations are really smooth and satisfying. I think the cutscenes looked really good, too, but it’s been long enough that I don’t remember.
I had a quick look on YouTube and they’re not bad at all. It’s hardly Baldur’s Gate 3, but it doesn’t look out of place next to most of the AA Ubisoft 2D games that had dozens of people working on them.
The PSP was a fantastic system for racing games, despite the lack of an analog throttle. If you want to get into this genre, this console is a great starting point:
Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast: Perhaps the best version of Outrun to date and an ideal game for people not that used to the genre. Easy to learn, hard to master. It’s gorgeous to look at, the arcade-style gameplay loop is perfect for a portable system and so much fun that you don’t really mind if you lose.
FlatOut: Head On: A very different take on the arcade racing genre. This one blends challenging stock car racing with over the top minigames that involve drivers being used as virtual bowling balls. It all makes sense, just try it out, if you don’t mind the generally high difficulty. Head On is a near 1:1 port of Flatout 2/Ultimate Carnage, just slightly simplified visually to run on the system.
Colin McRae Rally 2005 Plus: As the name implies, this is an ever so slightly reworked port of the PC and console game. It’s near 1:1, with only some modest visual downgrades. This is where Codemasters’ rally games peaked prior to Dirt Rally - and unlike Dirt Rally, which is a bonafide racing horror game, this title is accessible to players of all skill levels, with only players who are really into simulations being miffed about the lack of per-tire simulation. Career progression from modest FWD cars to spicy Group B monsters is absolutely exemplary and tracks are a delight, both visually and in terms of design.
WipeOut Pure: This might just be the best game in the series. Perfect controls, perfect track design, perfect career mode. The only flaw is that on original hardware, the frame rate isn’t always stable. I would highly recommend Pure as an entry into the series.
MotorStorm: Arctic Edge: One of those “concession games” for older systems as the new generation was already out, releasing for PS2 and PSP - but it’s actually more fun than the mainline games, at least in my opinion. It makes perfect use of the hardware, the vastly different vehicle classes and their strengths and weaknesses are tons of fun, just like in the mainline series, and the track design is wonderfully vertical. It also looks magnificent, which seems to be a trend among PSP racing games, now that I think of it. The developers were so confident in the tech of this title that they included a photo mode, which I don’t think all that many PSP games have.
Gran Turismo: Everyone expected this to be a mobile port of Gran Turismo 4, but it’s not. While it retains the presentation, large roster of licensed cars, real-world and fictional tracks and highly refined simcade driving physics, there is no conventional campaign. Instead, you create your own racing events and can only buy from a small selection of cars each virtual day. It’s an interesting concept. Do try it out just for the wow-factor of having a game this photorealistic on the PSP and perhaps stay for the fun you can create yourself. If you lack the creativity, people have created random event generators: sites.google.com/site/gtpspcampaigngenerator/ Gran Turismo is also to this day - and someone correct me if I’m wrong - the only mobile racing game that features a full 1:1 recreation of the iconic Nürburging, which alone makes it worth playing.
Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition: Classic Midnight Club on the go, but this time with customization. What’s not to love? Controls are so accurate, every other arcade racer will feel sluggish by comparison, it looks great (again), the cities are huge, there’s tons to do, it has just the right difficulty, challenging without being unfair and it perfectly encompasses this bygone era of early to mid 2000s street racing, even better than any Need for Speed of the time, in my opinion. Like all of the Midnight Club games, this one is also great for just randomly driving around without any goals in mind.
Test Drive Unlimited: Speaking of randomly driving around, this game represents perhaps the very peak of this idea. Shrinking down the entire island of Oahu at 1:1 scale with its real-world street layout (and some creative liberty in regards to buildings), this one is truly a miracle of optimization. The result may not be the prettiest racing game on the system, but the bouncy, responsive driving physics - which so closely mimic that of Gran Turismo 2 that I’m convinced they straight-up copied them - more than make up for any visual shortcomings. This also means that this cut down version of the 360/PS3/PC game (visuals, some vehicles and customization) is more fun to play than the big version, which has comparatively flat driving physics that straddle the line between arcade and simulation nowhere near as well. If you like the idea of living the idea of living the life on a Hawaiian island, buying homes and cars to fill their garages with, racing down long coastal straights and maneuvering through twisty mountain roads, then this might be right up your alley.
Seconding. It's rather easy since the levels have to be so small for the PSP, but goddamn it it's a fun game.
Throwing in Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (has an English patch), Rengoku 2 (sort of action looter dungeon crawler where youre a robot and the loot replaces your arms and head and shit with weapons).
SOCOM tactical strike is one I rather enjoy, the Armored Core games as well.
Big metal gear fan here, prepare for what might be a bit much:
There are a couple of good startig points depending on what you as a gamer want, and I’ll try to explain them without spoiling things because figuring out MGS is part of the fun (I’m quite proud that I have an encyclopedic level knowledge of this stupid series)
Metal Gear 1 (MSX) - Either grab an emulator or a copy of MGS3 remake and you can play the very first game in the series. It’d get reconned massively but playing it still gives you the info you need to understand basically all the background story. But, tbh, it’s not a very fun game and if you don’t want to play it having someone like me explain the story to you would work just as well
Metal Gear Solid (PSX) - The first 3D game in the series (solid) and where a lot of us started. Probably the most common starting point and I would likely recommend it as the best. Won’t say too much cuz it’s better to go in blind.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - The earliest game in the timeline, so starting here with Naked Snake (big boss) would let you see the series unfold chronologically, but you’ll also have plot points from later games spoiled and explained before you get to them, ruining the effect somewhat I’d say.
MGS1 is likely the best bet. MG1 is good if you can handle what it is, worth giving it a shot at least. MGS3 is good, too, if you’re more concerned than the one 5about understanding the series without needing to replay the games after beating them all so you can see how shit connected.
As for which games you need to play, some aren’t canon, so just avoid: MG1&2 on the NES, Twin Snakes remake on GC, the GBA game, and Acid! The details of Portable Ops aren’t canon, but the general story is, that one is up to you if you wanna play it, I think peace walker is so much better that it’s a skip, personally.
Always down to answer questions or discuss MGS if you need it, shits amazing
You’re not missing much. I would honestly just stick with the order in which they were released, starting with Metal Gear Solid 1 on the ps1. It holds up well.
I personally disliked mgs2 a lot, but found 3 to be fantastic. 4 I also disliked for story which just draaaags, and 5 has the most fluid gameplay, which I did find fun, but the story was pretty meh on that one, and it ends pretty jarringly since they fired the creator mid production.
If you want just the highlights, play 1, 3, and 5.
The two PSP games are chronologically after mgs3, so I’d recommend playing that first to get the most out of them.
Mgs5 is basically a direct sequel to peacewalker on the PSP.
I feel like this game is Squeenix’s love letter to the OG FF7. They took the original open world section, which wasn’t the most exciting either (I remember spending a lot of time grinding mobs) and reimagined it. Is clearing every tower and side quest the most exciting gameplay? Probably not, but as a longtime fan I enjoy the little things like seeing the Fort Condor mini game reimagined and learning about the lore of the world. As others have said you CAN skip a lot of the side quests and it does get more linear in parts (Chapter 3 and backend of Chapter 4 comes to mind).
I agree, if you took out the side quests and mini games you’d get another FF16 which was an absolute slog by the end of it because of how monotonous it was with lack of variety
FF16 only ever became a slog due to its side content and the difficulty of such once you were levelled last a certain point. Story content was always great, even for the side stuff. But the gameplay for the side stuff got very tedious after the third half. I also ended up doing everything too. So I know how boring it can be. Still loved the game as a whole though. Mostly due to the story and characters.
You don’t have to do any of the open world “bloat” if it’s not your thing. I prefer linear games but I don’t mind it here cause it’s allowing a lot of “quiet moments” which I think this game does way better than the original.
Is there enough gear/experience to just skip the open world stuff? It wasn’t clear to me when playing if I would hit a wall and needed to grind on the open world to progress.
Yes, I know a lot of people who barely touched the open world content and have just been blitzing the story.
I guess my take is that this is all a big step up from the older standard of grinding enemies outside of town for hours just to level up your materia, so I don’t mind the large volume of side objectives to do. Variety is always nice.
That’s an interesting take I hadn’t realised. It’s a different kind of grind, but I think I prefer this kind over just mindlessly fighting over and over.
I feel like if you have the difficulty on easy or normal you could skip most side stuff if not all cause the dynamic difficulty is made more specifically for those that want to do everything and not have it become too easy by the time you’ve done so much side content. But also dynamic might even lower the difficulty too if you’re finding it hard maybe? Don’t know about that though.
Honestly felt this way about BioShock Infinite - the gameplay was alright, but it was the story that made it good, but you only get to explore it for the first time once. I have zero plans to ever pick that one up again
Agreed. It was great game because the story, but I can barely remember anything about the gameplay aside from the interactions with Elizabeth. Sadly, my final moments were destroyed by a visual bug - right at the climax of the story near the end of the game Elizabeth’s hair inexplicably stopped rendering… She was as bald as Sinead O’Connor. It kinda killed the vibe.
Bioshock 1 had replayability for me, but the next 2 games were a bother. It’s especially annoying in Bioshock 2 when you’re expected to gather ADAM with the little girls for full completion, when the benefit of doing so doesn’t justify the time it takes.
I replayed it a few years ago with a meele only playthrough. I had to use the pistol a few times but all in all it was more fun than the original play through.
There is a plasmid that lets you dash into an enemies face, which I combined with perks give your sky hook shock damage and an execute.
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