shgamer

I've been ploughing through the main storyline of The Witcher 3 on my Steam Deck the last 4 days now. It was pretty good as long as you were in Velen (pretty horror orientated actually - I liked that), but now it's getting a bit long in the tooth (I need to go to the third area now by boat to finish it off - I think).

Then I have to go through Fallout New Vegas and finish off Bionic Commando (plus some other bits here and there) on Steam Deck before I can concentrate on replaying some "real" horror games (Resident Evil games, The Evil Within (1) etc.).

Over on the Switch I still have to finish II and III (plus all the DLCs) in the Tomb Raider remastered collection and then eventually continue working my way through various fighting games (Street Fighter games, various SNK Neo Geo fighting games and the original Guilty Gear game - which I happen to like quite a lot).

My PS4 I'm thankfully done with (and I'm not getting a PS5). I have Last Blade 2 to attend on my Vita and a handful of games on my 3DSs I still want to play.

Other than that I have a few Gameboy/Gameboy Advance games I need to put some time into. Good thing that there is not much new stuff coming out I'm interested in (Resident Evil 9 obviously - but that's rumored to be open world - which I don't know what to think of yet).

But yeah I'm definitely getting there, the Switch has been a great way of really digging deep into gaming history. What they're going to offer on the Switch 2 I don't know (seems all the important games has already been released on Switch, PS4 etc.).

Death Trick: Double Blind is the only I've played and is a detective/mystery visual novel with the twist that it has quite of challenge to it, not like games in the genre usually have.

There's actually a really good challenge if want to see the ending (which I personally haven't yet as I probably wasn't smart enough - but I'll get back to it).

If you like games like Jake Hunter Detective Story games(the second Nintendo DS one is the best)/visual novels , I would definitely recommend Death Trick: Double Blind as it's really good and not that expensive.

I've been playing Dead Island Riptide om my Steam Deck the last week and been enjoying it quite a lot and will continue playing it some more leading up to the release of Dead Island 2 on Steam the 22th this month.

I also finally caved in yesterday and bought The Witcher III (base game) for 7½ € for my Steam Deck and it also seems quite good from the hour I've played so far (yeah it's on Switch too I know - but it cost more than the double and has worse graphics..)

Personally I'm looking forward to Resident Evil !X

I've been playing the new Alone in the Dark game on my Steam Deck the last 4 days, and it runs pretty well most of the time (rarely dips under 30 fps on high settings), but does have some audio clipping issues and frame rate hiccups occasionally.

It's a pretty good old school type survival horror game with a lot of puzzles and exploration, and good acting/writing with some slight bit clunky combat and some modern QOL enhancement added (you can turn that of though if you want a more classic/"frustrating" experience).

All in all one of the better survival horror games I've played.

I hope it's something horror related. Maybe he could team up with Embracer? The newly released Alone in the Dark game is actually really good imo.

Glad Embracer got to keep Aspyr, as their Tomb Raider remaster collection was great. Now I just hope they will do a Duke Nukem 3D remaster as well.

I'm taking a bit of a breather from gaming after my Switch Lite has seen a major revival the last month or so (Tomb Raider I-III Remastered, old Street Fighter games, Guilty Gear games, Castlevania etc.).

I think I might give the original Castlevania another go a bit later today though (never got even close to finishing it - it's quite difficult imo).

I've been "working" on my various Konami (etc.) collections on my Switch Lite the last few days.. And there's been some relatively good times to be found.

On the Castlevania Anniversary Collection I actually prefer Castlevania Adventure (GB) over the rest (the scrolling is a bit flickering I admit - but imo it's a good game with nice music).

Going to the Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection I actually "cracked" the code on how to get through level 3 in Scramble quite easily more than 40 years after playing it for the first time and have now made it to level 5 out of 6.

Also on the Arcade Classics collection I've played quite a bit of Twin Bee and it's been quite good (just not a fan of power-ups in shmups - and that's why Nemesis and Life Force are not really for me either).

The Castlevania arcade game on said collection ("Haunted Castle" it's called) is actually not too bad when you spent some time with it (and you can always choose to "continue" if you die). It's all a bit methodically, slowly learning enemy placements/patterns (but quite difficult I admit).

Right now I'm re-downloading Contra: Rouge Corps as I never really got around to giving it a decent chance before (not having that high hopes really - and I'm not really that big on Contra games anyway - the Contra Anniversary Collection didn't really do it for me - I actually like the Gameboy game the most).

So that's what's occupying me on an extremely foggy saturday here in Denmark.

May I recommend Dreamland Solitaire instead .
It's really good and I'm sure there's no gambling for money incentive in it.

@TheBoilerman Yeah, I saw that over at Eurogamer. Kinda hope Embracer keeps Duke Nukem after they did so well with the Tomb Raider remasters.

Kinda hope Embracer keeps Aspyr and they do a remaster of Duke Nukem 3D (Embracer own Gearbox that own the DN franchise) in the vein of the Tomb Raider remasters (but with weapon and items wheels too, done as well as they were in the Quake remaster).

Got it pre-ordered with a nice 10% discount also.
Pleasantly surprised it doesn't cost more 16 € before the discount.

I'm not against digital at all:

1. There are quite a lot of "sweet deals" when the digital version is 75/80 % off for games that cost 4-5-6 times (or more) for the physical version (physical copies simply doesn't go as low as they used to do in my experience)

2. I only buy full price digital versions of games that I REALLY, REALLY want and that I know will be worth my money, when it comes to the time I spent playing them

3. These days when I do buy physically it's usually because I'm in doubt they're really something for me - and if they're fairly new (and big) titles and therefore holds their price well for a long time digitally (example: Monster Hunter Rise - I bought it 60 % off physically more than year after release, but didn't like and ended up selling it a few day laters loosing less than 10 € on it)

4. It's practical having access to your libraries without having to change cartridges/discs

5. I would of course require access to all my digital for the rest of my life - I paid for them and therefore I should be able to still play them in 10-20-30 years (on the original hardware or via backwards compability)

I voted for Dreamland Solitaire. The game's just brilliant for what it is (could easily be mistaken for being shovelware but it isn't).

Got a bit burned on the Powerslave/Exhumed remaster. It was good but I haven't really got around to playing it that much.

Dark Forces I own (the PSOne port - and I'm trying to sell it) but never really liked it that much (and it's quite expensive also - not as expensive as the Turok 3 remaster I know - but that's ridiculously priced imo).

I wouldn't be surprised if they revealed it next month. The games they announced at the Partner Direct were all fairly niche (with the Monster Hunter Stories remaster being the biggest title by far).

It's just another rumor in a long line of rumors not coming to fruition and the only thing we can be sure of is that if Switch's hardware and software really starts to stall and loose height, Nintendo will surely pull the trigger and cause a big bang (and with lots of confetti added ).

With how sparse the line up really looks (Tomb Raiders remastered and Mario vs Donkey Kong being by far the biggest new releases this month) and then late next month the Peaches game, I'd say a march reveal could become a reality.

@toadfishman You're welcome. I've put 10 hours into it now and it's still fun (though it's getting tougher to proceed now).

Death Trick: Double Blind and Ace Combat 7 for me (probably - depends on the price tag).

If you like Solitaire games, I would like to recommend Dreamland Solitaire.

It's Solitaire taken several steps beyond the usual stuff.
And though it's not totally unique it just does what it does so very well, with very appealing graphics and music (all medieval themed - think of it as Solitaire meets Skyrim).

A very addictive and fun game that's well worth the 6 € it costs imo.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer was imo one of the best exclusives for the OG Xbox, combat was really good.

It's not really an Xbox published game though (it was published by EA - but it will probably never happen because it is a licensed game - and the license probably expired decades ago).

Other than that nothing. I burned out on Halo at the second game, Gears of War I never liked and Starfield hasn't had the best reception.

Nothing for me personally. I rated it Poor (4) although I do think it did provide some "fan service" games like the Monster Hunter and the Shin Migami games.

I'm starting more and more to think we'll actually get the Switch this fall after all (and not early 2025 as is the latest rumor).

Tekken 7 and Street Fighter 6 should be doable as they're both playable on PS4 (but I don't know how realistic it is).

Sea and Thieves and Hi-Fi Rush from Xbox is more realistic (but not something I'm personally interested in).

A Tekken 7 port would be nice (not 1st party I know).

@zool 1 is fantastic, but personally I think 2 is more fun.
3 have had that bad save system in the PSOne version that always dragged it down for me personally, but I'm looking forward to playing it again being able to save wherever i want.

@Poodlestargenerica Ok, I didn't know that. I only played it once but liked it a lot (I plan to play it again this year after I'm done with remaster collection).

I gave the Tomb Raider I - III Remastered collection 9/10 because it's d*** good (but not completely perfect).

Of the rest I've played the PSP versions of Legend and Anniversary on my Vita, and I like both of them but I think Legend is just a bit better than Anniversary.

Tomb Raider I - III Remastered.

What could possibly be revealed?
Tekken 7? (now that Ace Combat 7 was announced)
Some of the rumored Xbox ports?

8 out of 10 sounds about right if you're a newcomer.

I remember starting out with III myself and the game started with Lara sliding down a slope trying to avoid pits and simply staying alive iirc. That sure was baptism by fire!

The games has quite a bit of a learning curve for newcomers, so 8 out of 10 is about right imo.

Also you do find a lot of flares in the games iirc to aid you in finding your way through the dark areas.

Looks like really solid 60 fps ports to me.. but, oh no, (11:51) (limited numbers? of) save crystals in III? I sure hope not! I thought these were PC ports with the PC exclusive DLC included and all (and I think you could save anywhere in the PC version of III). But I guess I will have to wait and see...

I've been playing Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers and Street Fighter III: Third Strike the last few days and I will wrap those up (for now at least) today.

And then the Tomb Raider collection can't come fast enough (already have it pre-downloaded on my Switch Lite for it's release wednesday).

An 8 inch screen sounds kinda crazy to me. The Steam Deck's 7 inch one is quite big already imo.

@Haruki_NLI Yes, I know, it's corporate speak; very vague and open for interpretations. And "going into 2024" what does that mean? I was "going into 2024" New Years eve 12 o'clock personally. (ok, I actually jumped into the new year as it's sort of a tradition to do so where I live)

What else would be their main business (going into 2024 )?
Movies? Theme parks?

Lost Planet 4 with single player campaign like in 1 and 3, please

@gcunit The bubble that I talked about was the fact that the author of this article stated that the Switch is selling between 50 and 100 thousand units a week in Japan, which is not true if you look at the last 3 weeks.

One of the commenters talked about 70 to 95 thousand a week - again not true if you look at the sales numbers of the last 3 weeks. I was merely trying to correct things (but who knows maybe it will back to over 50 - or 70 - thousand this thursday when the latest Famitsu sales numbers arrive - we'll see).

@gcunit All I've said is that the last 3 weeks the Switches combined have sold less than 50 thousand units a week in Japan.
And 33.34 million sold in Japan just my makes argument of the Switch having probably reached it's limit sales wise in Japan even more valid.

@Fiskern You're probably right about that, now that I remember. But it's still not between the 50 and 100 thousands a week the article states (at least not the last 3 weeks).

I like Samus Returns which is the only of the Nintendo remakes I've played. I'm a Mercury Steam fanboy I admit (I love Castlevania LOS Mirror of Fate and LOS 2 too).

@gcunit I've never said the Switch can't surpass the DS' sales. I think there's good chance it will (not by much though imo - the saturation is real).

@gcunit You do have to consider that Japan has a population of just over 125 million people (which btw is considerably less than in the DS and GB days - plus the population is getting older and older) which means that more than 1 out of 4 people on average has bought a Switch in Japan.

Of course there's probably several millions people that have double dipped and bought a Lite or an OLED model as well later on (but still it's a very high number by any account).

So they could be reaching the limit on how many Switches it's humanly possible to sell to the Japanese public very soon by any normal logic.

Hate to burst anyone's bubble, but the last 3 weeks the Switches combined actually sold less than 50 thousand a week according to Famitsu's weekly hardware charts from the period.

Not interested in a physical version. I have the digital version pre-ordered with 10% discount (plus Gold Coins worth another 5% for a future eShop purchase).

I admit I'm a bit skeptic on how well the Switch version will run with not much footage been shown up till now. But I hope it will be okay.

I think I will continue my play through of Tomb Raider The Last Revelation this evening after having taken a break from gaming for a couple of days.

@Samalik He directed the first The Evil Within game himself. The second one was directed by John Johanas, who also directed Hifi Rush.

Whether he treated the rest of the team as scholars I don't know, but he did (to my surprise) say that he wasn't totally fond of how The Evil Within turned out. He felt it was to old school (that was what I actually loved about the game..).

But I do remember him playing air guitar with the Johanas guy standing beside him (not looking to happy) when Microsoft launched Hifi Rush. A month later Shinji had quit the company..

I'm sure it's a good game if you're into this thing (flashy, fashionable and with cool presentation). But Shinji Mikami "left the building" (Tango Gameworks', that is) after having played air guitar at the "launch party". It probably wasn't really his thing in the end.

@GrailUK I think very soon personally. Even by Nintendo's standards it's getting a really tight squeeze and they could risk it being stuck up there if you get my drift (well I hope you don't actually.)

Sorry - just starting to get very bored

My favorites are Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers and King of Fighters '99 and 2002 ('97 and '98 where good too but I like the former 2 more personally).

Always interesting to see these quarterly earning reports from the major video games companies. Seems like Konami is doing very well despite having been pretty low profile when it comes major AAA releases for almost a decade. But with 11% growth in revenue AND then 53% in profit they must have made a killing on the MGS collection and the Momotaro game. Both have probably not cost much to produce (the MGS games probably being run through emulation and the latter being pretty simple graphically).

What's even more interesting the next couple of weeks will be Nintendo's earning report and what a possible Direct will consist of (and then as a Resident Evil fan of course the update to Capcom's Platinum (million) seller list).