WHAT PLAY YOU!? Version 3.0

[Jesse]

6 hours ago, DavidB6937 said:

People clear their backlogs?!

When I ran into financial strife in 2020 I made a deal that I wouldn't buy a game until I had played everything in my Steam backlog. Now I buy about 20-30 games in each Steam Winter Sale, pre-order a few key releases that I'm super hyped for, and spend my year working through them to the next sale

[Jazzy G]

On 5/29/2026 at 9:48 PM, Merzbow said:

Ever play VA-11 Hall-A? It's a little similar but you're making alcoholic drinks in a Cyberpunk bar for people.

There's Tavern Talk as well, which leans further into the fantasy side. 

The first three Cook, Serve, Delicious games were massively reduced as a bundle. It feels a little hectic to me, but I also see it reaching a point where I'd memorise all the patterns then  just be able to switch off and zen my way through it. May be easier on my TV than on my Switch screen. 

[Jesse]

Beat Freedom Cry tonight which had some nice ideas around the story unlocking based on the amount of slaves you'd freed but unfortunately was more Black Flag after I was exhausted by Black Flag. Unfortunately what I have next is Rogue which I far is just Black Flag another time. I don't know if I've got it in me.

Raced through Spilled! from my wife's Steam library in an hour as a palate cleanser. It's a cute little game where you clean up oil spills and collect animals. Nothing to it beyond that though. Perfect wife game (she likes looking at the pixellated water).

For the first time this year I'm starting to regret building my entire year around completing the entire Assassin's Creed and Resident Evil series. I'm either going to force my way through Rogue, or I'm going to give the Resi 4 remake a go. The only other three games I have to play are LaD: Pirate Edition (which I imagine will be a long RPG), Tainted Grail (which looks like a long RPG), and DOOM: The Dark Ages. I'm saving that one for when I can't take it any more and need to play something really different. It's not time yet, but maybe post-Unity or Syndicate.

[Weezenal]

On 5/19/2026 at 10:06 AM, Weezenal said:

Nostalgia got me and I preordered Starfox.

Managed to set up a Japanese Nintendo account and think I’ve managed to pre-order it for £25. It’s all in Japanese on the estore so I’ll see at the end of the month. 

[TildeGuy~!]

Decent showing from state of play last night, just a shame everything seems to be coming out between Sept 17th-27th

[RedTwoster]

My goodness, what a Summer Game Fest. Final Fantasy VII Revelation looks tremendous, and I left the show wanting to at least try almost every game they showcased. Who gives a shit about GTA VI when all of this is on the horizon?!

(Plenty of people obviously, but I’m very excited for wishing I had time to play all of these things)

[Jesse]

Very pleased with FF7R getting a simultaneous PC release, the wait for the previous ones was torturous

[RedTwoster]

Xbox going back to exclusives so late in the generation seems like a really bad idea. Do it for Project Helix if you want to, but what does it actually achieve to do it now? No matter how good Gears and CR are, they won’t sell consoles.

The Gears one is particularly odd, in that it was due out within months - meaning that the PS5 version presumably already exists.  I feel sorry for the people who have worked hard on developing it.

[DavidB6937]

Yeah they'd be much better off developing a solid strategy going forward with their next console, as I really don't think switching things up too much with the current gen is going to sell them a massive amount of consoles. Especially when it's a company that's obviously all over the place - why would you invest in that?

[Cousin Jim Bob]

I think it's a good idea. All I was seeing everywhere for the past couple of years was why buy an Xbox now when all its games are on PS5. Going back to the big hitters being exclusive gives a reason to own one. For the future it is saying for the Helix, we are going back to exclusives, if you want to play the next Forza Horizon, Halo etc on console, you need one of these.

This seems the route the new bosses want to take and I am interested to see where it goes. I think if they could they would be rolling back on the likes of Halo Remastered and Fable being on PS5. They have the games now, the line up is solid. It's just their business strategy has been all over the shop since the 360 tbh.

Edited June 8 by Cousin Jim Bob

[westlondonmist]

Crazy Taxi World Tour coming out next year, chumbafuckingwumba. They've got The Offspring for the soundtrack, I'm not their biggest fan but I think their music works really well when playing Crazy Taxi. I wonder if they just combine the soundtracks of 1-3. Anyway, looking forward to it, played the original recently and it's still brilliant.

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, Cousin Jim Bob said:

 

I think it's a good idea. All I was seeing everywhere for the past couple of years was why buy an Xbox now when all its games are on PS5. Going back to the big hitters being exclusive gives a reason to own one.

 

Except they’ve not done that - Halo, Fable and Forza are all still multiplatform. They’ve chosen to make a Gears game exclusive alongside an unknown quantity. That’s a very half-baked approach and feels very much like trying to appease a vocal fanbase online; Asha Sharma seems pretty keen to govern based on Twitter feedback.

If they were serious about exclusives, they’d go all in - and they haven’t. And why would they, given that the majority of their sales come from non-Xbox platforms?

It’s a weird decision.

1 hour ago, westlondonmist said:

Crazy Taxi World Tour coming out next year, chumbafuckingwumba. They've got The Offspring for the soundtrack, I'm not their biggest fan but I think their music works really well when playing Crazy Taxi. I wonder if they just combine the soundtracks of 1-3. Anyway, looking forward to it, played the original recently and it's still brilliant.

Apparently Gen AI was used in the development (link to Pushsquare) - for background assets it seems; but I’m always wary of that being a justification to test the waters before slowly increasing its prevalence (in a general sense, not in a Crazy Taxi-specific sense)

Edited June 8 by RedTwoster

[BomberPat]

I always find it, if anything, even more annoying/depressing when I hear that AI was used for flavour text and background details. I've always thought that kind of thing must be the most fun part of designing a game, whether it's using it for world-building, or sneaking in little easter eggs and in-jokes - someone posted in another thread about an easter egg on the computer screen in the new Lego Batman, and sacrificing that kind of nonsense for AI generated guff is just a miserable way to go about things.

[Cousin Jim Bob]

1 hour ago, RedTwoster said:

Except they’ve not done that - Halo, Fable and Forza are all still multiplatform. They’ve chosen to make a Gears game exclusive alongside an unknown quantity. That’s a very half-baked approach and feels very much like trying to appease a vocal fanbase online; Asha Sharma seems pretty keen to govern based on Twitter feedback.

If they were serious about exclusives, they’d go all in - and they haven’t. And why would they, given that the majority of their sales come from non-Xbox platforms?

It’s a weird decision.

Apparently Gen AI was used in the development (link to Pushsquare) - for background assets it seems; but I’m always wary of that being a justification to test the waters before slowly increasing its prevalence (in a general sense, not in a Crazy Taxi-specific sense)

What is rumoured is that legal agreements were already in place for Halo Remastered, Fable and Forza Horizon 6 from the previous bosses, which they have to honour. Not for Gears Eday and Clockwork Revolution, which they have pulled.

I think if they are going back to exclusives, they would not be putting Fable especially on PS5 if they could, but it was already agreed on.

Edited June 8 by Cousin Jim Bob

[RedTwoster]

29 minutes ago, Cousin Jim Bob said:

What is rumoured is that legal agreements were already in place for Halo Remastered, Fable and Forza Horizon 6 from the previous bosses, which they have to honour. Not for Gears Eday and Clockwork Revolution, which they have pulled.

I think if they are going back to exclusives, they would not be putting Fable especially on PS5 if they could, but it was already agreed on.

What’s your source for that? I can’t see how that could possibly be true - legal agreements with who? It’s literally their own game, produced and published by Xbox. They surely aren’t under any obligation to publish it anywhere at all if they don’t want to. 

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

I always find it, if anything, even more annoying/depressing when I hear that AI was used for flavour text and background details. I've always thought that kind of thing must be the most fun part of designing a game, whether it's using it for world-building, or sneaking in little easter eggs and in-jokes - someone posted in another thread about an easter egg on the computer screen in the new Lego Batman, and sacrificing that kind of nonsense for AI generated guff is just a miserable way to go about things.

I suppose it depends on what it’s used for - in Crazy Taxi, I struggle to see what that might be; but in certain games, if you’re producing (for example) a forest packed densely with trees I can see why not creating each tree manually might be helpful. But yeah, in principle I do agree.