All of y'all's year reviews made me want to do the same, so I wrote down a few sentences of everything I played last year. I was surprised it was so much as my partner moved in with me and I expected to have a lot less time, but that actually didn't happen and Corona did its thing. I'm a bit late to the review party, but I needed time to write down my thoughts and didn't want to do it in one session.
Standard platform is PC, everything else is labelled.
Done:
Darkest Dungeon – halfway through (most tier 2 bosses). it was a nice and interesting start to a game I thought I liked, but 40 hours in I realized I was in fact not having fun. It was repetitive and the payout was very low for me as rewards felt small and especially upgrades to the village took a lot of time. I did play the game with too much emphasis on keeping every character alive, in a game that wants you burn them, so maybe that’s one me. But maybe it’s just not my type of game. Visuals, presentation and the IDEA of the combat system were nice, though. 5/10
Kingdom Hearts 3 (PS4) – finished story. Kingdom Hearts has become a burning pile of tires, but I hold it dear since the first game and I want to know what is happening. The visuals are amazing and the combat system is engaging, at least, yet a bit much at times, with way too many special interactions going on at all times. But KH3 is basically if the story has an alignment which is just true chaotic. The main story is…there, for most of the game, but nothing happens with it. Each world has its own story and both them and the overarching plot are almost completely irrelevant to each other. What a pity. Also, so many minigame and once-and-gone game mechanics, what the hell. I had fun, but it could have been so much better. And they skipped over most FF elements. 6/10
The Wolf Among Us – 100%. Played it with my partner who had already finished it years before. It’s one of the prime Telltale games and the first that I wasn’t familiar with the source material with. It has a very interesting lore and visuals for sure. Other than that, very much a standard Telltale game and you either like it or you don’t. I did enjoy it a lot with its interesting plot and characters. 8/10
Starlink: Battle for Atlas (Switch, digital version) – finished story. I like me some occasional space game. Starlink was an oddball in many ways for me. I probably wouldn’t have looked at it as I thought it’s just a toy merch game, but Starfox and the existence of a toyless version drew me to this. I know I could have played nicer looking version, but the tie-in with Starfox was actually not that shallow and came with a small unique storyline, so that’s the most Starfox I will get until Nintendo releases (and doesn’t fuck up) another full game. Due to its toy origins, the game has a few unique quirks, like the weapon, ship and pilot switching on-the-go to match enemy vulnerabilities and combat styles. The mix of planetary and solar exploration and gradual faction growth with even a few RTS elements sprinkled in worked for me. It was a lot of fun! 7/10
Injustice 2 – finished story, some achievement hunting, trying out all characters a bit and dabbled in the multiverse mode. I’m not a huge Beat’Em’Up player, but some concepts are too interesting to pass up. Given how few Heroe League (Avengers and Justice League) games come out well, I had to take my chances here. The story is…forced, but it works for this kind of game. The interactions between the heroes are pretty entertaining to watch. I can’t really judge if the combat system was good or not or balanced or not, but it worked for me, although some fights were pretty frustrating. 7/10
Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales – 100%. Gwent really got to me in the Witcher 3. It was kinda sad to see that this is an entirely different card game (although closer to the online Gwent), but it was still a great one. Telling the really interesting story of Queen Meve, the game not only expands the lore of the really intriguing Witcherverse, it also tells it through this mix of roaming through a map and army fights presented by card battles. The visuals weren’t all too exciting, although the art style worked for me. The score was awesome, though, maybe even better than the one from W3. I can absolutely recommend this game to any person interested in card games and in the Witcher. 9/10
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden – finished story and most content. I have so many tactical RPGs on my backlog, all with very interesting settings, but animal mutants in a postapocalyptic Sweden? That’s one of the freshest ideas in a while. The top hat wearing duck really sold it to me. Unlike many other games of its genre like XCOM, the areas are connected with each other like in more classic RPGs. Stealth kills played a huge part in this game as open combat makes the game a lot harder. It’s not a very long game, which I appreciated. However, the initial premise of its animal mutants really fell short as there were actually not that many in the game. I also would have liked to have more of the characters in my team, but the stealth advantages made some characters a lot stronger than others, so there was little choice in which people to take. Itemization and progress were alright, the combat is pretty much as in XCOM etc. 7/10
Cities in Motion – played some scenarios. Preparing for Cities: Skylines, I figured I should play this first. It’s an alright public transport planning simulation that made me excited for planning stuff throughout several cities. However, I have some serious issues with it. For once, this game punished you hard for planning public transport like in real life and creating ridiculously tiny lines (like 2 stations per metro line) was the only way to any meaningful amount of money. Also, the German scenario pack has 12 scenarios, but only 4 cities (other packs are similar). It’s interesting to revisit cities in different eras, but to rebuild everything every time is annoying. And the tasks you get are borderline asinine, like building a line with three stations in far ends of the map, which I circumvented with temporary lines that I immediately deleted after completing it. In its core it had great potential, but felt lazily executed. 5,5/10
BATTLETECH – finished story, some flashpoints and fooled around with mech components for a bit afterwards. Been a while since I dived into MechWarrior games, maybe a good 17 years. Battletech is…GOOD. Maybe my favorite game I have played that year. The campaign is great, has a good plot, but also gives you an open galaxy to explore at your own leisure. The hunt for new mech chassis in the midgame was the most fun I think. Building mechs, balancing your finances, keeping your people alive and trained, random events on board of your ship and upgrading your ship all felt meaningful and well interconnected. It’s also a turn-based tactical RPG, but it works with its own rules (like weapon groups and destroyable sections) and does so very well. 9,5/10
Batman – The Telltale Series – 100%. A solid game for both Batman and Telltale fans. The story was original enough and I always enjoy a plot that isn’t focused on the way overused Joker – who has his part, but a very interesting one. Not really much more to say here. 8/10
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch) – finished story and most of the map. Finally, I tackled this behemoth of this generation. I haven’t played a Zelda since Majora’s Mask and the reason for that was a lack of drive to finish either of the N64 installments. Now, 20 years and a friend with a copy available later, I felt urged to play it as I wanted to give back the copy. Didn’t expect much despite the hype, but I have to say this game is (almost) as good as people say. It’s one of the few games that really lets you do whatever you want in the order you want (after a brief tutorial). My partner is playing it right now and it’s interesting to see how different our approaches to the order of quests and also specific challenges are. It rewards creative problem solving due to its physics engine. It is not perfect, especially the weapon system is weird and non-permanency in weapons feels just odd. NPCs are not very well written. The world is rather empty and while that has a plot reason, it feels like there should be more at times. But despite that, the game is a lot of fun and deserves its reputation. 9/10
Monster Hunter World + Iceborne (PS4) – defeated everything up to Furious Rajang, about 350 hours played with a fixed group of 3 and sometimes two other RL friends. Probably the game played most intensely this year. I bought a PS4 Pro in February and soon after – also thanks to Corona – I started playing this with two other friends, almost daily for several months. I had played Tri a decade ago and liked the general idea, but hated a lot of outdated conventions (both from Nintendo and the game itself) back then. World does most things I hated so much better. The monsters are engaging and (mostly) fun, the weapons are diverse and have their niches, the progression system is addictive, I love the Palicos & the private suite customizations and there is so much to see and find in the few maps they have. Great game if you like the combat and if you don’t focus too much on story because that one is paper-thin. 9/10
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (PS4) – finished story. I liked U2 and U3 a lot, so this was a must-play after getting the PS4. It’s probably the most graphically impressive game I have played so far. The combat felt a little forced at times, but I guess that’s the genre. Although sneaking felt more possible and rewarding than in previous titles (as far as I remember). The story is a typical “one last gig” thing, but I liked the inclusion of Drake’s youth and especially how they concluded the Drake saga (maybe?). It’s a very solid game and definitely a must-play for PS4 owners. 8,5/10
EVERSPACE – finished story, post-story and most side missions. I don’t like losing progress, but like Rogue-likes with in-between progression systems, so despite my first hesitation, I picked up this game as I was craving a new space game. Though having a VR, I never got to play it in that mode, but still, I had a lot of fun with it. Some runs were intense and discovering new elements always put an excited wtf face on my head. The in-universe explanation for it being Rogue-like worked for me and getting funds to improve your ships between runs was addictive enough to try again and again. Same with weapons, they were different enough to try out different ones. Just don’t expect too much content out of this, it’s not a big game. 7/10
GRID (2019) – finished base game and some of the season pass content. I was a big fan of the first Grid and played all games in between. But like them, this one did not manage to be as engaging as the first one. While I enjoyed playing through the different leagues and liked the variety of cars and inclusion of a team mate, I did get bored to go through every cup as some of them had a severe lack of cars within them. There was no upgrading of cars, money was meaningless for 99% of the game and a overall career feeling of the ‘story’ mode was absent. At least I didn’t have to basically only race against Ravenwest anymore and other teams were still relevant. I feel like Codemasters could do a lot more with the foundation they have created here, but fail to connect the races in a meaningful way. 6/10
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness (PS4) – finished story and most side quests. This was one of my most wanted PS4 titles before Horizon: Zero Dawn came out. I loved Star Ocean 1, 2 and 4 so much. 4 in particular was just great enough to fill the small void that FFXIII had left back then. I heard about the mediocre reviews of IaF. And it was…actually mediocre. What I forgot or never knew was that I got released as a PS3 game in Japan first. And it really, really shows. The game was UGLY. Not ugly ugly, but playing it directly after Uncharted 4 was quite a shock. Not that it matters too much. However, the second problem I have with this game is directly aim at its soul. The other games had you jumping between planets and several distinct locations. And IaF started very promising, hinting at similar qualities. But then, it just…went into its climax and ended. Sure, some parts are in actual space. But you have seen about 80% of the locations within the first quarter of the game, which is ridiculous. It’s such a pity as the game’s story and combat are actually very enjoyable and I loved just grinding, which is quite unusual for me. But the narrow scope of the game wastes a lot of potential and that’s a real disappointment to me as a fan of the series. It could have easily done so much better. 6,5/10
Risen – finished. Oh boy, this game was sitting in my backlog for a LONG time – probably since its release I wanted to try it out. Unfortunately, this is a case of being TOO patient. The game is horribly outdated nowadays, the combat is not much fun and punishes you hard even on easy difficulty. The quest flow, general plot, start and choice of character skills are good, but I do think everything else – graphics, item flow, combat, sound, art design - was pretty bad. This was two years before Skyrim, but it feels like it’s been 10, honestly. I am still curious about Risen 2, 3 and Elex, however. But I might skip the first two after this. 3/10
Team Sonic Racing (Switch) – finished story. Yes, story. It’s as good dumb as you would expect from a Sonic racing game. Weirdly enough, I performed a lot better in handheld mode. The minigames are frustratingly hard as drifting is way overdone. The actual racing is nice, but no match to Mario Kart 8, although I do appreciate the idea of teams with ultimate boosts and item sharing. 6,5/10
Yakuza 0 – finished story and most major side activities. God, this game completely surprised me. I was absolutely 0 interested in crime settings, but Humble gave me this gem of a game. My partner suggested to try it out together, but lost interest in it, so we stopped for 2 months. I then picked it up again by myself and got increasingly invested in the story, the combat system and the bajillion of side things to do. THERE IS SO MUCH TO DO! And most of it is fun, doesn’t overstay its welcome too much and helps develop the main characters a little bit. The Real Estate and Hostess Club minigames are basically entire games-within-a-game, the pocket racer would also work by itself and the Karaoke songs were absolutely adorable and are a must-see in all of gaming. While I thought that the game got bloated a bit due to the two characters both having their own full-blown story, but sharing a single game, the interconnection made it kind of necessary to not separate them. But the game felt a bit long thanks to that (and all of the minigames that felt kinda mandatory at times). Anyway, I am now completely hooked on the series and look forward to the next entry – although I really need some time off lest I encounter the good old Assassin’s Creed-like fatigue. But given I couldn’t give two shits about Yakuza – even though I fucking majored in Japan Studies – this is an amazing feat. 9/10
Additional note: Getting into Yakuza memes alone is worth playing this, but the more I read and watch about this game and the series, the more and more I appreciate this franchise.
Endless Legend with a few DLCs – finished two full games (~38 hours). I was in the mood for a 4X game and this one was poking in my side for a bit. Endless Space was quite enjoyable and the overarching plot kinda works? I enjoyed expanding, researching and the quest system as well, but it felt just like Civ5 in general, with a few exceptions of course. It was weird that the ‘ages’ weren’t really differentiated visually and that you kept using the same units throughout the whole game – also there are not many of them, but there is an intriguing RPG-like customization system baked into it instead, which was cool enough. The winter and sea fortress system was also refreshing (but probably brought in from DLCs). Factions had some differences that went beyond what Civ would do, but the really deviating ones (like lava or fungus people that need different ways of city building) were hidden behind DLCs I do not have. Two games were enough for me, but I may come back in the future. 7/10
Need for Speed: Payback (PS4) – finished story. Being a PSN+ freebie, I got a bit excited over the silly F&F story that I felt like seeing with my own eyes. And the game delivered on that - but not much more. My last true NfS was Hot Pursuit (2010) (and my NfS favorites: Shift 1+2), so it had been a while. But I realize that I do not need that speed anymore. While the game was ultimately enjoyable, especially cruising around, finding stuff and customizing the cars, I especially disliked the offroad races with their weird rubber band perfect traction AI which was really frustrating. The driving in general revolved too much around drifting everything, but I guess that’s full arcade racers for you. And the automatic car reset was a bit too eager at times. 5,5/10
Rise of the Tomb Raider (PS4) – finished story and Croft manor side story. Also a PSN+ freebie. I have played the first game and was quite entertained by it. As I played Uncharted not too long ago, I was able to compare those two games a bit and while Uncharted looks undoubtedly better (and I prefer non-supernatural stuff in this kind of game), I think that Tomb Raider is the better game overall. This might be due to the usage of a skill and weapon customization system, which made exploring places and looking for XP, resources and parts fun. I also think that limiting the game’s world to one location (outside the prologue) helped immersion a lot. The game has quite a bit of a different feeling than the first TR, but mostly due to Lara being kickass from the start instead of allegedly being a frail grad student that 20 hours later massacres armies of armed and trained mercenaries. I liked it quite a lot of the backstory with her dad and caretaker were quite interesting as well. 8/10
Not done / on and off:
League of Legends – almost exclusively ARAM, sometimes bot games for trying out stuff. Not much to say to this, it’s a notorious, but ultimately good MOBA. The new items overhaul was a bit of a big change, but now I am getting the hang of it, I think. Some of the new champions of this year are fun to play, like Samira, Lilia and Seraphine. One of my friends quit the game for good, I think, so only one other is left, and it’s the go-to game if it’s just the two of us. Sometimes I play by myself, but I try to play more single player games then.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch) – some 70 hours to built my house, the island is my partner’s. This is my first Animal Crossing and after hesitating at the beginning, I did enjoy it quite a lot. It’s very relaxing, you can work towards small goals, but without any stress. Interactions with other villagers will become repetitive, but at the beginning it feels very sweet. It’s also nice that Nintendo supports the game with free updates every month. 8/10
Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution! (Switch) – played through story mode until midway ARC-V. I have my YGO phases every now and then where I watch a show and play a corresponding game at the same time. The Switch game is pretty nice as it lets me play through all TV shows’ stories, lets me play with most characters’ decks, has reverse duels for every story battle, but I also can always use my own decks which is sometimes very necessary as some matches are VERY one-sided. There are also challenge battles against very good decks which are as difficult as I imagine actual competitive dueling. Two things I don’t like about this particular YGO game: No free battle vs. CPU and only 30 custom deck save slots. The Tag Force games were still ahead in that regard. Still, it’s a solid entry that can provide hundreds of hours of entertainment for YGO enthusiasts and is a great travel companion. 8/10
Undertale – I just can’t get into it, sorry. This is my second attempt and I got a lot further than last time (about one third in). But something just doesn’t click with me. Maybe the humor feels forced, maybe the retro graphics do, or maybe I get too hype-talked by people. I don’t know.
Super Seducer – almost done with the first one. We mostly play it together or with other people, to have a good time. I got this from Dunkey, but I have to say the first one isn’t even that funny. A lot of the explanation in how to approach women are cringy at best and predatory at worst. I guess it does teach how to behave better for some very inexperienced guys, but in general it shouldn’t be used as a guideline in how to get girls to talk to you.
Katamari Damacy REROLL – almost done. It’s a fun game for a silly afternoon. The controls are garbage, but it doesn’t matter too much. The humour is great and rolling up increasingly bigger things is weirdly satisfying.
Borderlands 2 – Playing with friends every now and then. It’s still fun and I haven’t explored all characters yet (although leave me alone with Krieg), so there’s still more to get out of it.
Jackbox 1-7 – I was a huge fan of the early YDKJ games 20 years ago, so I’m happy they are still around and have adapted new technologies to further their game concepts. The Jackbox games have become staples in many parties and were a major driver during corona to get people together online around the globe to play a few rounds of whatever minigame we wanted to enjoy. Some games are not good, of course, but the ever-growing library of minigames always manages to add refreshing new titles to the list. My favorites are Quiplash, T-K.O. and Champ’d. 10/10
Risk of Rain 2 – unlocked all characters, had a couple of runs with friends and by myself. I have to say I might not like the game too much. The characters are interesting and the upgrade system is addictive, but losing progress without much being gained from a run (except lunar coins and unlocked characters/skills) feels like making no progress at all, in a way. It’s fun to play with friends and you can somewhat relax and chat while jumping and shooting around. 6/10
Beat Saber – half of campaign mode, but mostly custom songs. I LOVE Beat Saber. It’s the reason I got a VR system this year (a used 2017 Vive, but I don’t need more for that) and I had a lot of fun (and exercise!) with it. It’s sad when your wanted songs have not been mapped or mapped really bad, but the existing database is really big and a lot of fun to go through. There are a lot of gameplay additions (like one-handed, 90° and 360° modes), but the standard mode is still the best (or most-supported). The latter half of the campaign is dumb as hell, tho - hitting a specific amount of combos within a very small threshold in both min and max is such a dumb thing. Mods make the game a whole lot better and some stuff should really be in the base game. 9/10
Audica – played through campaign mode and some custom songs. Not as good as Beat Saber, but it’s still very enjoyable. It’s hits the same spot, but with a twist. Mod support is not a big here, but still there. 8/10
Cities: Skylines + most DLCs – still working on my first city after 40 hours. Depicted as the penultimate city builder, I had to get into this at some point. I have to admit, it’s pretty good. As good as imagined? Maybe, maybe not. The base formula is not that complicated, but the DLCs add a whole lot of flavor to it. I can definitely recommend it, but I still have a lot of time ahead with it.
Postponed:
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Switch) – I started and had a lot of fun with it, but stopped after roughly 5-10 hours as my partner was taking over the Switch with BotW (she played Witcher 3 before, so I was able to player with the Switch in the meantime) and switching cartridges all the time is a pain in the ass. Will continue soon and am very excited to do so.
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Summary: 2020 was probably the most intense gaming year for me so far, mostly thanks to Corona. My top three are probably BATTLETECH, BotW and Yakuza 0, with some honorable mentions to Beat Saber, MH:W and Jackbox. My gaming year 2021 is going to look similarily awesome and I already planned to play so many very high-profile games: Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Paper Mario: The Origame King, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Starpoint Gemini Warlords (almost finished this one already), Darksiders 2, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Gran Turismo Sport, Persona 5 Royal, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Borderlands 3, GTA V.

Looking for players wgo will play on PS4 bloodborne, Dark Souls 1,2,3 GTA 5, Call of duty black ops 3, 4 cold war, infinite warfare, Fallout 76, For Honor, rainbow six siege, the division 1, 2, borderlands 3, red dead redemption 2, dead or alive 5 extreme, Anthem, Dead by daylight, modern warfare 2019, star wars battle front 1, 2, tokyo ghoul re: call to exist, blazblue cross tag battle, I do play apex legends, among us, ps3 demon souls, Code vein, soul calibur 5, and 6, ghost recon woodlands, break point, The hunt showdown, sword art online gun gale fatal bullet, and hollow realization, ... I think that is it message me the game you play because I could of just forgot I had the game. I have a switch pokemon shield and that all with multiplayer. I possibility could have miss one just message in case.
But currently I looking for some people to join the hunt on bloodborne
I don't care if you new or old
Psn elitearmortroop
If also you don't patient and except me to play immediately I can not because I may need to re download a game I have back on to my ps4 console so I ask for patience if you ask to play.

Currently looking for people to play bloodborne and dark souls I don't care if you new or old want some people to play in dungeons and face bosses or do gem hunting even level more
If you don't have these games we can play other games like hunt showdown or ones you may since I am looking for people to play apex or call of duty cold war and such.
(PS4 bloodborne, Dark Souls 1,2,3 GTA 5, Call of duty black ops 3, 4 cold war, infinite warfare, Fallout 76, For Honor, rainbow six siege, the division 1, 2, borderlands 3, red dead redemption 2, dead or alive 5 extreme, Anthem, Dead by daylight, modern warfare 2019, star wars battle front 1, 2, tokyo ghoul re: call to exist, blazblue cross tag battle, I do play apex legends, among us, ps3 demon souls, Code vein, soul calibur 5, and 6, ghost recon woodlands, break point, sword art online gun gale fatal bullet, and hollow realization, ... I think that is it message me the game you play because I could of just forgot I had the game. I have a switch pokemon shield and that all with multiplayer. I possibility could have miss one just message in case.) I am looking to find players regardlessly. I don't care if you new. This is mainly on PS4 but if crossplay is possible then we can play still so didn't worry if you play another console or PC

Hello all – and welcome to a (slightly overdue) review of my year in gaming!
As always, I first want to thank the sub. I maintained motivation to continue to work through a significant chunk of my backlog throughout the year, and even found the chance to play a few newer releases as well. I did make a list of 12 specific games I wanted to play back in January last year, but abandoned as it just felt a bit restrictive, which is totally at odds with the fun that gaming is supposed to be about! I then just focused on playing what I felt like, making sure to consider all the games I owned already before spending on something new.
A combination of increased motivation and more spare time due to - well, you know what - I managed to maintain steady progress throughout the year and beat 37 games in total, just shy of the 40 I beat last year. This did, however, include a fair few longer titles which I've typically been averse to in previous years where I tended to stick more to 10-15 hour campaigns. In broad terms, there were three general highlights to my year:

1. Discovering my love of a challenge - specifically in beating all the Dark Souls games, Bloodborne and Sekiro, but also in finding I often have more fun when I bump regular games up to harder difficulties - which I did in The Last of Us (1+2), Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Ghost of Tsushima
2. Discovering the 'immersive sim' genre - Deus Ex: Human Revolution was an incredible find for me this year, having previously pretty much ignored the series, and it sparked an interest in immersive sims which led to me discovering several new games to try
3. Catching up on my 'missed generation', i.e. the PS3/360 era. Back then I only had a Wii, and many quality titles completely passed me by, so it was great to catch up on some of them. Highlights include the above mentioned Dark Souls and Deus Ex:HR, as well as the Bioshock series, Sleeping Dogs, Dishonored, Arkham City and Dead Space

I thought I may as well copy in my brief thoughts on all the games I played this year. Mostly these are just copied from when I originally posted them in my monthly updates, but in some cases I’ve altered the review if I felt that my opinion had changed significantly since I’d played the game. In some cases I've just posted an abbreviated version... if for some reason you do give a shit about what I think you can dig through my post history on the sub! Here are my mini-reviews for everything I beat in 2020:
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (PS4) – absolutely incredible experience. Played it through 5 times pretty much back to back and it gets an extra special place in my heart for opening my eyes to the wonders of FromSoftware and challenging games in general – ★★★★★
Bloodborne (PS4) – played this straight after Sekiro and loved the combat, world design and atmosphere. Bosses were a bit hit and miss but overall a great experience - ★★★★
Yakuza 0 (PC) - this was terrific... I probably started back in October last year, and very slowly made my way through until eventually reaching the end after ~60 hours of play. At one point I went about 15 hours without progressing the story because I was so engrossed with some of the mini-games. The gameplay is pretty basic, although the combat was very satisfying. The story itself could get a little confusing at times, but for the most part it was quite character driven which kept me invested even when I wasn't totally sure about all of the political intricacies going on in the background - ★★★★
Dark Souls Remastered (PC) – finally hopped on the Dark Souls train nearly a decade late, but still it’s probably one of the greatest gaming experiences I’ve ever had. So many vivid memories of my journey through such an intricately designed, haunting world. Stumbling across the great hollow – and subsequently ash lake - in my desperation to find a bonfire (apparently I missed one at the bottom of blighttown) might be one of my most incredible gaming memories ever. The game lived up to the ‘tough but fair’ reputation I’d heard of and I never felt like giving up. Only hiccup was the archers in Anor Londo which made me so angry I kicked a hole in the wall, resulting in some awkward email exchanges with the landlord, but all’s well that end’s well - we got the hole patched up, didn't get kicked out, and I beat the game a few days later – ★★★★★
A Plague Tale: Innocence (PS4) - This was an okay game, especially considering it came from a small studio. The gameplay switches between some straightforward stealth, and puzzles that involve manipulating massive swarms of rats with light sources. Both were fine, but I thought there was some missed potential with the puzzles. The game in general is quite easy, and in the middle it was almost boring, but towards the end it became a bit more challenging and actually really fun
In any case, it's actually quite a narrative focused game, which perhaps explains the lack of complexity in the gameplay, and it does at least deliver on that front with a creative, well written story that ensured I kept playing, even when the game itself was quite slow - ★★
Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled (PS4) - got this to play with my friends whilst we're all on lockdown, and managed to get 100% in the story mode. The story mode is alright, but mainly just a way to learn some of the tracks and unlock a few customisable options. It's a fun game - I think it's ridiculously high skill ceiling, meaning that even after 50 or so hours of play you're still getting obliterated online, which with limited features and support is probably not worth the effort, but it was a fun diversion at the time - ★★★
Dark Souls II (PC) – a strange, but ultimately very enjoyable experience. I went into this knowing nothing other that it’s considered the ‘black sheep’ of the franchise, but it wasn’t until after I beat it I really got why that is. My sense for the first half of the game was how overwhelming it was – so many different directions to go and so much to keep track of – and the volume of enemies in certain areas produced some huge difficulty spikes throughout. I felt this lost the ‘tough but fair’ mantra on a few occasions, with some rooms or areas taking several hours for me to progress through. The bosses as well were definitely a case of quantity over quality.
Still, I did really enjoy most of the time with the game, and I was well and truly hooked for the 60 hours it took to beat it - ★★★★
Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4) – This was the first Final Fantasy game I ever finished, and one of the few RPGs I’ve played that I actually enjoyed all the way through. I had played the beginning of the original, so I was familiar with the events of this game without necessarily having any kind of nostalgia or expectations. Visually I thought they did a great job of bringing those PS1 era pre rendered backgrounds into the HD era. The highlight for me though was the combat. It was super satisfying, with a perfect balance of broader strategy/preparation and making decisions on the fly in the heat of battle.
A few chapters in the middle portion of the game the game felt really slow and stretched out - I did like that they’d clearly gone above and beyond in developing the world, but adding in long empty corridors, tedious puzzles and “platforming” really did not help the experience. Overall though, great game and hopefully the next instalment can live up to the potential shown here - ★★★
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (PC) – picked this up on a whim since it’d been a while since I’d had my Metroidvania fix. The first half of the game is great, a steady stream of new abilities and great enemy variety pulled me through. I slowly grew tired of it though, as all the small issues I’d noticed at the beginning became more and more irritating. Still though, I did get a few fun hours out of this, and some of the songs were stuck in my head for a while, so it wasn’t all bad – ★★
Horizon Zero Dawn (PS4) – I held off on this game for a while as I’d kind of dismissed it as yet another open world action RPG in a new coat of paint. For the most part, that’s what it is, but I’m still really glad I played it. The combat is really fun and gets better as you unlock new weapons, and uncovering the mysteries of the “post-post-apocalyptic” world was really compelling. Visually it's one of the most impressive games I think I've ever seen.
I thought the crafting, levelling system and skill tree were a bit tacked on, but that’s something of a nitpick, and somewhat undermined by the fact that I did find every collectible to get the platinum anyway. I really liked the game overall, from the exciting combat, to the stunning visuals, to the intriguing lore, and I’m interested to see where they take the story in the sequel - ★★★
Final Fantasy XV (PS4) – had a pretty fun time with this game. It felt like a proper road trip which was helped by the characters feeling genuinely likeable, and some impressive visuals. The game itself is pretty weird though. Nothing you do really matters, since if you just buy 99 potions you basically can’t die, so experimenting with all the different weapons and strategies never felt worth it. It also removes any motivation to do side quests, but they weren’t especially interesting anyway.
Still, it was a good ride and aside from a late game chapter which I can only describe as an indefensible piece of trash, an enjoyable if disjointed experience - ★★
Control (PS4) – I was initially attracted to this game by a few Metroid comparisons I’d seen, and in that regard it fell short, but it’s still a good game in its own right. The combat was super satisfying and the setting and the story did not hold back on the weirdness. I had a few serious framerate drops when there were a lot of enemies on screen, which ultimately did detract from my enjoyment a bit, but your mileage may vary (for reference I played on a 3.5-year old PS4 slim).
The most fun I had was actually after I beat the main story. The side quests had some really good boss fights in there and helped add context to the world, and I ended up getting the platinum trophy - ★★★
Batman: Arkham City (PS4) – I don’t really know why it’s taken me so long to play this, but I have now and it was absolutely superb, one of the best I’ve played this year. I played Arkham Asylum last year and loved it, but I had worries that the switch to open world would sacrifice some of what made that game so good in favour of just having more content, but I needn’t have been concerned.
The main story was one of the most compelling I’ve experienced in a game recently, and the combat, stealth rooms and Zelda-dungeon-like item based puzzles all alternate wonderfully to ensure I was basically never bored. Even the side missions were interesting and introduced their own unique gameplay twists. The riddler trophies were as addicting as always to pick up and ensured there was always something fun to do when travelling between mission locations - ★★★★
Batman: Arkham Knight (PS4) – a great game and a satisfying way to round out a superb series. It carries over everything that makes the previous games great – simple but satisfying combat, exciting stealth encounters and plenty of Zelda-like environmental puzzles – but the new additions in this game improve all of that. The combat is more fluid with a whole bunch of new abilities and animations, the stealth sections are made infinitely more dynamic by the multi-fear takedown, and the puzzles are as good as ever. The riddler trophies in particular are much improved – pretty much all of them require some level of thought to get compared to previous games where they were often extremely basic to figure out.
Plotwise, it was engaging throughout, although I never found it reached the heights of Arkham City. The Joker’s inclusion as a memory(?) felt a bit forced - like they regretted killing him off in the last game - but that’s understandable since he is such a great character - ★★★★
The Last of Us Remastered (PS4) [REPLAY] – Decided to replay this in preparation for Part II. Previously I had played it on the Normal difficulty and found it way too easy, so I stuck it on hard and found it much more enjoyable. I’d actually forgotten how much shit happens in this game, the pacing is so good it never feels like a drag. The scenarios are tense throughout, although never truly mindblowing
On the surface it’s a relatively simple story, but the development of the relationship between Joel and Ellie is the driving force and is compelling right up to the end. It’s close to perfect, although I’m still not a huge fan of the winter section from a story perspective. In terms of gameplay, it’s probably the most fun area – controlling Ellie with her reduced abilities really ramps up the tension, the section where you crawl through a blizzard is great, and I found the boss fight at the end fun. However, it feels a bit jarring to have an outright villain given the morally ambiguity of the actions from the rest of the characters
Still, it’s a classic – a bit limited on the gameplay front but more than made up for with a simple story with emotional depth - ★★★
Wreckfest (PS4) – been playing this with a friend online. The single player is actually really good, but primarily functions as a method of unlocking the vehicles you need to compete online. It’s probably the most fun I’ve ever had in an online racing game. Being aggressive and booting other players off the track is a genuinely viable strategy, and there’s a glorious satisfaction in nailing someone into the wall on the final corner.
It also solves an issue with many racing games whereby, if you fuckup early on you have to just slog it out until the next race for a chance to win. This is still true to an extent, but now you have the perfectly legitimate option of just going backwards round the track trying to destroy the leaders, which can be just as fun as fighting for victory - ★★★
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (PS4) – I know it’s the same engine as Uncharted 4, but a lot of the time it felt a little off. Aiming didn’t feel as snappy, and the platforming wasn’t quite as reliable as I’d hoped. It’s still a worthy addition to the series - Nadine and Chloe are both likeable in their on way, and there’s a few great set pieces in there. The plot is generic Uncharted fare, but you do get to ride an elephant - ★★
The Last of Us Part II (PS4) – check my post history if you want my longer thoughts on this game but the short version is that I thought it was great. Ellie is so much more dynamic than Joel was in TLOU1, with several new tricks up her sleeve. She can go prone, lay trap mines and actually dodge melee attacks, all of which added a real sense of improvisation to the tougher encounters in the game.
Whilst the scenarios that required these new moves were exciting, they were also quite sparse, particularly in the first half of the game. There was a lot of walking around and light puzzling, and a bunch of less exciting mini-encounters before you get to the really good stuff. Not that this stuff was bad, but the ratio of super open exciting stealth-combat arena to slow-paced walking and talking meant that the game felt like it wasn’t playing to its strength a lot of the time.
There’s a lot to go into with the story, but the ultimately I enjoyed it and found it engaging through to the end – it wasn’t a mindblowing masterpiece and I thought they tried a bit too hard to “subvert expectations” at times, but it was a good ride - ★★★
Until Dawn (PS4) – I was surprised by how much fun this was. The story was a pretty good twist on the standard cabin in the woods type drama, the quality of the voice acting helped me to feel invested in the characters, and whilst the gameplay was simple, the QTEs were fun and added a lot of tension to the experience. Also, all the choices felt meaningful and, unlike certain similar games (looking at you Detroit: Become Human), it was genuinely fun to see the consequences of your actions. Unfortunately it looks like the developers’ more recent efforts have fallen flat but this was definitely a worthwhile experience - ★★★
Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Director’s Cut (PC) – This game was a revelation for me. Within the first few hours I was completely hooked, a feeling that lasted for the full 30 or so hours it took to beat the game. The game is just amazing. The mission structure, level design, upgrade system and weapon/item variety all come together to create an experience greater than its already substantial parts. Even the dialog wheels were fun!
I could go on… the world, the visuals, the music was great and it was one of the few games where I actually bothered to read all the little notes you find. The narrative was pretty good as well, although sometimes a bit difficult to follow and with some dodgy voice acting along the way. All in all I was absolutely delighted with this game, I’d honestly rate it amongst the best games I’ve ever played
Similarly to Sekiro, it will always be a special game for me for opening my eyes to a new ‘genre’ – in this case the immersive sim, which I have subsequently begun to dig into – ★★★★★
Sleeping Dogs (PS4) – Another surprisingly great game. The game very closely follows the GTA structure, and while it doesn’t do anything major to differentiate itself from Rockstar’s bigger budget hits, it does do a lot of little things that made it, in some ways at least, better than the GTA series. The melee combat is actually fun, the narrative is really engaging and, because of its shorter length, seems to have a lot more focus.
Most appreciated was that all the tedium of GTA games has just been entirely removed here. If a mission requires you to drive somewhere you’ll actually start the mission in a car. Collectibles actually appear on the map (once you do certain side activites). Setting a waypoint for your next mission just requires clicking the analog stick. The game always gives you the weapons you need for each mission. So many nice little touches like this mean that the whole experience felt so much more seamless compared to GTA, which I’ve always thought had a tendency to sacrifice a smooth gameplay experience in the name of ‘realism’.
It's certainly not as big and bombastic as the best GTA games, and there’s a lot less to do on the side, but the content it does have is, in my opinion, better than the equivalent in any GTA game - ★★★
Bioshock (PS4) – I did try this a few years back but dropped it fairly early on. In the intervening time I spoiled myself on the story and the big twist as I’d kind of written off the idea that I’d actually play it myself, but having the trilogy for free on PS Plus recently I thought I‘d give it another go. Turns out that one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time is, in fact, really good.
Knowing the big plot twist obviously took away from one dramatic moment but there was a lot more to the story that I wasn’t aware of previously, and uncovering all the mysteries of Rapture was compelling right to the end. It’s possibly one of the best and most creative settings I’ve ever seen in a game. I played the Remastered version, and visually it was stunning. I was really immersed in the world, and the various different areas were each impressive their own right.
On the gameplay side, it’s a lot of fun once you get past the first few hours. At the start, you have very few abilities and there were some weird design choices that made the game incredibly frustrating until you’ve got some good upgrades, but once you’re past that it really is an incredible game - ★★★★
Bioshock 2 (PS4) – Thought I would jump straight into this after beating the first. The first half of this game is a bit frustrating – to my horror they kept the health system exactly the same as the first which made the opening couple of hours a little rough, but the game is mercifully a bit more forthcoming with cash and health packs this time. Also, nothing really happens from a story perspective for a good 5-6 hours.
It does eventually pick up though, both in terms of story and gameplay. The story itself actually turns out to be just as good as the first, taking some pretty weird turns I didn’t expect and wrapping up in a very satisfying way. The gameplay builds well on the foundations of the first game, with newer weapons, improved plasmids, and a much better hacking minigame. All in all a very fun time
I also went on to beat the Minerva’s Den DLC the next day too which was fantastic - ★★★
Bioshock Infinite (PS4) – went into this one without too much being spoiled for me… all I really knew was that the setting had changed to a city in the sky and the gameplay was much closer to a traditional shooter. Similar to when I played all the MGS games last year I had an idea that there was some crazy shit going on in this game but it still managed to surprise me – although I did figure out the final twist a good few hours before the end
I won’t go into the story too much more but I really enjoyed it. It touched on a lot of interesting themes and wrapped them up in the kind of weird mystery sci-fi I tend to love in other forms of media but rarely see done well in games. Columbia was a beautiful place to explore and the bright colours were wonderful, especially coming out of 2 games + a DLC of dark, dingy underwater corridors.
The gameplay itself was okay, obviously being more of a straight shooter there wasn’t as much scope for creativity, but there was a good range of abilities to keep things interesting. It was much, much easier than the other two games as well - Ordinarily this might have disappointed me but it was actually nice to be able to kick back and just enjoy the ride - ★★★
Dishonored (PC) – I played this on the back of having enjoyed Deus Ex: Human Revolution so much, as it seemed to have a similar approach in terms of freedom in how you approach things.
It was definitely a worthwhile experience – the variety of the levels was great and succeeding was always satisfying no matter how you pulled it off. The House of Pleasure and Last Party missions were both particularly memorable.
I did think the abilities you could unlock felt a bit limited, and the way the game was broken up into separate missions meant it lacked the addictiveness you might get in an open-world or metroidvania structure, but it was good fun and I’m definitely going to check out the second at some point - ★★★
Disco Elysium (PC) – I bought this on a whim, having pretty much no experience whatsoever in this type of game, or indeed most kinds of RPG, but ended up really enjoying it. The slow-paced nature of the game took some getting used to, and after the first 8 hours I actually stopped playing for a good couple of months until I eventually picked it back up again, but when I did resume it really sucked me in.
The world and the characters were all pretty interesting, and at times it was genuinely hilarious but I mostly enjoyed how the levelling system worked with your attributes all being different parts of your psyche, and they’d talk to you and give you advice throughout the game. The game itself was quite satisfying to work through as well, it felt a bit like the classic point-and-click but without the frustratingly obscure puzzle solutions – instead you can just explore elsewhere and return when you’ve upgraded an ability or found a key item.
I did feel like towards the end of the game you were just going through the motions, and opportunities to express yourself through the dialogue became less frequent, but this wasn’t a major drawback and it was somewhat offset by the fact you were then dealing with the consequences of the choices you’d made earlier.
All in all an interesting game, one I’m glad I took a chance on, but I doubt I’ll be digging any deeper into the ‘CRPG’ genre - ★★★
What Remains of Edith Finch (PC) – an interesting way to spend my bank holiday afternoon. A 2 hour ‘walking simulator’, another genre that I’ve not really explored, but it was a really nice game. I didn’t blow my mind or anything, but I was really impressed with how much variety – both visually, thematically, and in terms of gameplay – they managed to cram in to the experience whilst still feeling totally organic.
As with Disco Elysium, I don’t really feel compelled to check out any similar games, but still felt it was a worthwhile experience and one I’m glad I had - ★★★
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 (PS4) - this is probably my game of the year. I still rank the original THPS2 as one of my all time favourites, and when this was announced I was almost overwhelmed with excitement - particularly as it previously seemed like the series was pretty much dead. The game itself is incredible - effectively bringing a refined, streamlined version of the gameplay from the later games to beautifully reconstructed levels from the first two. All the gaps and goals were still there, and it can't be understated how massive it was for them to get most of the old soundtrack on there as well. The introduction of a ton of new challenges, high scores and, of course, online play means I'll likely be playing this for a long long time, especially if they do what the people want and bring in THPS3 levels as DLC – ★★★★★
Metro 2033 Redux (PC) - A pretty fun game, although without too much depth in gameplay terms. The atmosphere here was genuinely oppressive, and I really liked the slow paced nature of the levels, especially when contrasted with the dopamine overload of other modern shooters. Have heard positive things about the sequels so will hopefully have a chance to give them a go in the coming year - ★★★
Ghost of Tsushima (PS4) - Essentially another one of these open world checklist type games, but the combat, story and side activities were all slightly better than you usually see. The 'following the wind' was interesting at first, but functionally not much different from following a way point so the novelty wore off after a few hours. I kind of wish the game had been a bit more linear and focused as the main story is actually quite good, but I kind of ruined the pacing for myself due to my completionist tendencies. Not really a complaint against the game itself I suppose, and I did overall enjoy my time, even if I did bog myself down running around chasing foxes for hours - ★★★
Dark Souls III (PC) - A superb end to an incredible series. The gameplay was at its most refined, the enemy variety was the best it's been and some of the bosses were absolutely incredible - a welcome change from the quantity over quality approach DS2 had. The difficulty I think was tougher but fairer than the previous games - Essentially the bosses were harder and there fewer bullshit traps and ambushes in between, which I quite liked
I felt like progression could be a bit linear at times, for the first 25-30 hours there was only really one direction I had to go, whereas in the older titles I usually had two or three different routes to prod at. It opened up a bit towards the end as I discovered a few secret areas and tried the DLC, and ultimately I loved my time with this game. It's also another to tick off from the wider Soulsborne series which I've played all of this year (except Demon's Souls, waiting to get a PS5!). Difficult to say how I'd rank them, the first Dark Souls is probably my favourite, it felt most like a genuine adventure, but they're all absolutely incredible games – ★★★★
Yakuza Kiwami (PC) - A bit of a weird one. It looks and plays just like Yakuza 0, which I loved, but I occasionally notice the very '2005' DNA of the game coming through, with the odd tedious fetch sequence, and some pretty underwhelming side stories. I started out trying to do quite a lot of stuff on the side, but quickly realised most of it was just a rehash of what was in Yakuza 0, which I didn't really fancy doing again. I was also wary of getting bogged down in the world like I did for Ghost of Tsushima, especially given that the main story here was actually very, very good.
A slow start and a weird midgame chapter aside, the story here was a really tight, focused experience and I was always genuinely excited to see what happened next. The last couple of chapters were absolutely gripping and I'm definitely going to check out Yakuza Kiwami 2 some time to see where it goes next - ★★★
Dead Space (PC) – honestly found this a bit of a slog. It was a nice twist on the survival horror, and the atmosphere and story were good, but the levels and missions got pretty repetitive and the moment to moment gameplay was a bit dull. Running out of ammo was frequent which – I get it, it’s a survival horror - for whatever reason it just irritated me in this game. The story was good though, and the payoff at the end made me glad I stuck with it, but any possible interest I had in the sequels was extinguished long before that point - ★★
GRIS (PC) – absolutely stunning, if brief, experience. Visually this game is one of the most beautiful I’ve played, and there was actually a bit of depth in some of the puzzles, which kept me engaged throughout its runtime. I’ve heard people say that the story made them cry, but honestly I found it too abstract to even guess what was happening, let alone have it elicit a strong emotional response. Still though, a nice way to spend 4 hours - ★★★
Final Fantasy VII (Switch) – decided to go back an experience the original as I couldn’t wait for the remake sequels to see what was gonna happen (plus I realised that they were gonna shake things up in terms of the story anyway). I really loved this game, a really good mix of high concept fantasy sci-fi and more emotional personal stories. The gameplay modifiers (turning off random encounters/speeding up the game) were really helpful in getting me through what I think is the first non-Pokemon JRPG I’ve ever beaten - ★★★
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PS4) – this was a pleasant surprise… the level design and exploration were really enjoyable, and the combat was fun and strategic, if a bit unwieldly at times. I’m not a massive Star Wars fan outside of the films themselves, so didn’t have any particular hopes or expectations with regards to the story, but found this to be a worthy addition to the Star Wars canon that I know- ★★★
Super Mario Galaxy (Switch) [REPLAY] – I rate this as my favourite game of all time and replaying it on Switch has done nothing to change that. It’s not quite as massive as I remember it being over a decade ago, but this time round I appreciated more the sheer variety and creativity in the levels, backed by one of the greatest soundtracks in video game history. It was also amazing to play it in full HD for the first time and, despite a few minor issues with the pointer controls, I think this is now the definitive version of the game – ★★★★★
And that's it. As for what's next, I'll make a post soon outlining my challenge for 2021 - haven't decided on what it will be but I'm hoping to keep my gaming varied so potentially something around beating games from different genres. In the meantime I'll also make a 'bonus' post of all the other games I played this year but didn't beat - either because I dropped them, put them on hold or just they're not the type of game that can be 'beaten'.
In gaming terms, I've got a couple currrently on the go, both of which I'm really enjoying and will share my thoughts here once I'm done:

• Paper Mario: Origami King (Switch)
• Prey (PC)

And that's it, thanks for reading, and happy gaming!

I'm being sarcastic. It's obviously because they want people to buy fucking shark cards.
I played GTA Online a lot when it first came out on the PS3. To this day it is some of the best gaming experiences of my life. On its release, I moved to the steam version on PC, porting my character over and continuing to play online with other friends. This was great as I didn't loose any of the progress I had made on the characters I had. This was also helpful because the people I was playing with were new to the game and found they couldn't really do much without high ranks and lots of money, which as we know is an absolute slog to increase.
Recently a friend got GTAV for PS4 and wanted to play online, but again felt very limited by the starting point and how grindy the game can be. I bought a copy for my PS4, excited to play as I hadn't owned a good enough PC in a while... My online characters are gone. I contacted rockstar support about the issue and they basically said they removed the ability to transfer characters between systems... Not accounts, between platforms... On a game that they want to continually update to different platforms.
Not to sound entitled, but I put a lot of time and support into this game, some money too... And all I've been told is have fun starting it all again. Then they said I could buy shark cards to quickly get back to the point I was, lucky me! What a scummy practice. I feel we've all known it for a while but it's sad to see Rockstar be as scummy as EA and other big developers.

Curious if you get permanently banned on ps3 online from the PS network so that means you can't access it with your IP.
Doesn't that also mean if I go online on ps4 my account would get banned too? I'm new with all this just curious
Id never cheat in public lobbys or do anything stupid like that. Just money drops on gta to help people out and level boosting for people if they ask. I know it's against the rules, but it's just nice for people idk
But I seriously game on ps4. Just wanna mess around on ps3 but if I get console banned on ps3 play network, does that also ban you on ps4 network as well?

Most people are mad because they can’t afford a 3090 to play on ultra 60fps 4k.
PS4 console players are mad because their game runs at 15 FPS and graphics look similar to GTA:SA PS2 edition.
Once most people get a PS5 and the optimised edition comes out, along with free DLCs and multiplayer mode, most people won’t even care about PS4 performance or bugs in the game. They will just say it’s funny and move on.
Same thing happened with GTA V and the PS3. Now GTA Online is very popular in the PS4 and no one cares about the PS3.

Since I was 12 years old I wanted to build my own gaming pc. I will never forget the first time I told my dad I wanted a PC and surely I won't forget my dad telling me it was not going to happen because it was a lot of money spend on "just gaming". Since then it became only a dream of mine to one day own a gaming pc.
Back then I was playing on PS3, and all I wanted to play was BF3 and BF4 on PC, those graphics were mind-blowing for me at that time. Later on came the PS4, I bought it in 2015 and I was one of the first guys from my group of friends to get it. As a pioneer in PS4, I played by myself for almost 2 years, until 2017 when my homies got it. Beautiful 3 years playing Fortnite, warzone, CoD, fifa and another bunch of games.
In early 2020 I started working as a freelancer and not more than 3 months ago I earned enough for buying my first gaming pc, the one I always dreamed of. It is for both gaming and working, since my work requires a powerful pc. After a lot of research and shipping times delayed I finally got myself my own pc a month ago. Fast forward to today, I own a beautiful Ryzen 7, 5600xt, 16Gb RAM, 2tb M.2, etc.
Normally, someone would think I am the happiest kid in the planet, I finally own one of the things I always wanted. But the reality is... that I am not extremely happy at all.
Having a PC that can run almost every game at max and high FPS is great, but fun goes away when you realize you don't enjoy games as much as you did when you were a kid, and also you don't enjoy playing by yourself. I find myself in the same spot back then when I got a PS4, I am the first guy in the group of friends that got a gaming pc, so I don't play online games with friends.
I made myself with a copy of GTA 5, WATCH dogs 2, far cry 3, ark and some more, nothing crazy, just to start with something and end some story modes I left unfinished back in PlayStation consoles. I even bought a Battlefield bundle and played BF3, BF4, BF1 and V in ultra and 120hz, it was still mind blowing and I played for... No more than 30 minutes each. I realized I am not able to enjoy playing for more than 1 hour. I am 20 yo and responsibilities are ringing the bell at the back of my head everytime I launch a game. Is this normal? Also, I quickly fall into the thinking that playing alone is extremely boring, although I am a very lonely person in almost every single aspect of life, I am a pretty independent, unlikely to ask for help boy who likes to run things by himself. But weirdly enough, that does not happen with games.
Having a moment of reflexion I feel like I betrayed and disappointed the 12 year old me that wanted a gaming pc so much. I am even thinking about selling it and going for a lower budget pc that is enough for working. And maybe waiting until some day my friends get a PC, just to see if the joy comes back, but I surely doubt that will ever happen. Maybe some games recommendations would come in handy, but again comes the inner thoughts of "you should be doing more important things", and I honestly don't feel like playing anything these days.
I started thinking that maybe gaming isn't for me anymore and I hop in the boat a few years late, but I can't blame anyone about it, so maybe it's just bad luck? Does this ever happened to one of you? Did you get over it?
Either way, here I am now, brand new PC, nothing exciting about it, feeling... just like before.
Edit 1: Whoa! I just woke and have dozens of comments! i never expected this much feedback, thank you so much to everyone who took time to comment, i will be replying back to you along the day! thank you so much!

Hello everyone, happy new year!
With recent release of Cayo Perico but not much else I wanted to touch base with the community holding out for GTA Online in Liberty City or Vice City, and debrief from the Cayo Perico DLC.
Even though Cayo Perico came out unexpectedly (to us), it is a small but welcome addition to the GTA Online world.
I believe that we still have reason to cling onto hope that that Liberty City will sooner rather than later, and Cayo Perico is a stepping stone to that demonstrating the map expansions are possible.
While I no longer think that we will see a remastered city come this generation of console, but we still have GTA V "Expanded and Enhanced" coming in 2021 which may have much more than just GTA V itself.

Reasons why I think that GTA V "Expanded and Enhanced" is more than just GTA V with updated graphics

1. GTA V XB1 & PS4 versions already work fine in XBSX/XBSS/PS5. It looks and runs great, similar to a PC level of detail/performance. Why would a significant update be needed if it will be much the same if they didn't have big plans on top of that?
2. Cayo Perico proves that Rockstar's idea of "Expanded" can mean land expansion
3. Cayo Perico sounds like it was more a like a side project during COVID-19 WFH than something in the works for a long time. It is not unreasonable to think that Rockstar, with all their global studios now merged together, haven't been working on something big since the bulk of RDR2 was finished.

Source: https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/gta-online-cayo-perico-heist

1. Why are they being so vague about the details, even to go as far as using a PS3 trailer for it... are they doing this because they are hiding something? Even being so far to be anticlimactic to take off the pressure from fans, and surprise us later.

What Cyberpunk 2077 has taught the overall gaming community lately is what happens when you overpromise and underdeliver. However Rockstar already learnt this lesson back in 2015 when they promised Heists in GTA Online, which kept being reworked and delayed until near the end of the PS3/360 generation and copped a lot of criticism for it.
Basically every social media comment was "Where are the Heists", fans were frustrated. From that time onwards they never released details until about 2 weeks out from launch for a DLC. RDR2 was a bit longer, but only because they had other partners to consider. For this they originally gave it 1 year from announcement to release date, but it was delayed to 2 years, with PC one more year after that (which also wasn't even announced until one month before that).
Here is a quote about what went wrong with Heists:

We aren’t ready to give an official release date yet, but we are confident they will be ready early in 2015. As you may have read on IGN, Heists were a much bigger challenge to create than we had originally anticipated. Early versions were simply not good enough and had to be scrapped more than once as we honed in on how we thought they should work. We’re happy to say that the pack we are now finalizing is something we are excited by and eager to release as soon as it is ready. We, as a company, have always been about trying to make something that is good rather than hitting a date. We apologize when this gets frustrating but firmly believe that rushing out second-rate content does not do anyone any favors. Hopefully you agree that yesterday’s new Trailer is a sign that Heists are shaping up nicely, but we still need some time to fine tune them. Because we need a little time to get Heists right, we are going to give you a small Christmas gift to keep you entertained until we are done with them.

Sources:
https://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/52366/asked-answered-gtav-first-person-experience-online
https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/12/16/grand-theft-auto-5-online-heists-finally-revealed

Reasons why I think something related to Liberty City is most likely to be the next major GTA Online expansion to come

1. GTA IV & EFLC is highly regarded as a masterpiece, it's fanbase is still strong - many still prefer it to GTA V for a variety reasons, so it is a good candidate for a remaster. They can always make the GTA IV car physics, ragdoll, etc. come back again, perhaps as a user configurable option. Having the map there is the gateway to bringing these highly valued games back to a new generation.

Their games always start with the map, source: https://www.mcvuk.com/development-news/inside-rockstar-north-part-1-the-vision/

1. The availability of GTA IV is terrible. It is only a Backwards Compatibility title on Xbox One (non Enhanced), runs like rubbish on PC - performance wise (and multiplayer is now removed), and the PS4 & PS5 doesn't have it at all. Most other GTAs are available for purchase, at least on Mobile.
   
2. GTA V is now 7 years old and the GTA fanbase is now bigger than ever thanks to GTA V & Online. A lot of new fans haven't had the opportunity to experience GTA IV because of the above availability issue. The new fans are desperate for a new (to them) GTA game, especially since it doesn't look like GTA6 is coming any time soon. Or maybe I'm wrong and 6 is coming soon as well?
   
3. GTA Online is progressively getting new content referencing to Liberty City or content ported from Liberty City (i.e The Tugboat, QUB3D), so they are not above re-using GTA IV assets or dropping hints.
   
4. It is clear that they have been taking the "lazy" route as far as making new content for GTA Online DLCs by re-using existing assets. Don't get me wrong there is still a lot of work involved, but still it is less work than starting from scratch.
   

But it would make sense that they will continue their more recent M.O. to re-use existing assets rather than start from scratch to save time, effort and cost.

• Porting the Liberty City map to GTA V engine can't be that difficult, given that even PC Modders have already been able to do it unofficially (FiveM/OpenIV), so just imagine what Rockstar can do when doing it properly.
• There were only about 10 multiplayer modes in GTA IV Multiplayer, it wouldn't be hard to bring those back to GTA Online game modes to recreate that missing experience.

1. With high profile departures of the writers such as Leslie Benzies, Dan Houser & Lazlow there is no doubt going to be a brain drain. I'm sure they were working on stuff before their departures, and I'm sure that RockstaTake-Two with all their billions of dollars will be able to find other top talent to bring GTA into a new era, but this will take time, and they can get things out in the meantime. The story of GTA IV, Map & other assets are already made, so this gives them a head start to put out games while they rediscover their Mojo to make GTA6 using new talent.
2. GTA Online is a Big Money Maker, it will make the GTA IV & ELFC remaster worth it because the remastered map will be used for both GTA IV & Online: LC (maybe slight map differences according to time period).
3. Why did they put so much effort into issuing cease and desists to OpenIV team for OpenIV's LCinV project (even though it used original game files, no piracy) if they weren't planning on doing something in this space themselves.
4. Cayo Perico aside (which is still quite small), Los Santos as the primary setting of GTA Online is still a bit stale after 7 years. They can't use 2013 Los Santos forever, surely. Not to mention that a new GTA release is already well overdue.

GTA IV Music Licensing speculation/hints

A little while back, a lot of music track licenses expired and they were pulled from the PC version, most notably Vladivostok FM was most affected with most songs removed.
They put in some new tracks to replace it, which wasn't quite as good but it seemed like that was as good as it's going to get.
But then they went ahead and relicensed the original tracks anyway so all the music is now restored again (about 16 months after being originally cut).
Why go though all that expense of relicensing all that music if they aren't planning to capitalise on it in a big way?

Cayo Perico speculation/hints

Not much here directly, but I have played with it a little bit.
The way that it's programmed is interesting. As far as I can tell, travel to the island is sharing a session with Free Mode rather than being a different game mode, which you can tell by seeing the player list stay the same as whoever is in the Freemode session you were in. There is no loading of a different game mode, it is just a cut scene. On PC you can even chat to people who are still in Los Santos.
When you look at the map, you are located South-East of LS (just past USS Luxington), and if you move the mouse you can get locations of LS show up, it's just the map itself which is hidden.
There is a glitch you can do to "free roam" the whole Island, or just go to the Beach Party standalone, it is clear that you are in Free Mode of an existing Los Santos based lobby.
When I was glitched, I was able to take a Dinghy back to LS, LS was visible. about halfway there, the whole Cayo Perico just de-spawned similar to how the USS Luxington does, and also the weathenight cycle changed instantly too.
When I was glitched but still on the Island, a whole bunch of functions were disabled like spawning cars, calling contacts, etc.
What this shows me is that perhaps they are experimenting with how integration with Future GTA Maps will look like.
Instead of loading a whole different game, or loading a different game mode, it could be one big Free Mode made up of all locations, the locations can not be directly accessed without triggering a cut scene, and the properties of how a Free Mode works can change depending on what location on the broader map you are in.
One challenge I anticipate is that they wouldn't want GTA$ earned in LS to be transferred to a totally new GTA Online area. It is well known that a lot of it glitched and they'd want us to start getting rich again. They have also been experimented with holding separate currencies such as Arena Points or Casino Chips. I could imagine that they come up with a storyline where all your GTA$ Cash gets deposited into Maze Bank but then can't be withdrawn to cash or moved to another bank, and in LC you are forced to use a competing bank like the Bank of Liberty. Basically LS = only get Maze Bank, LC = only get Bank of Liberty.
Cars/Planes etc. Can be not widely transferable (i.e. You MKII or Babushka holding a car has engine failure mid flight and crashes, or maybe you need to go to the Airport marker on food), and maybe some planes (i.e. Luxor) can enter on a visiting basis via. Cutscene of that vehicle but can't be saved at the destination into a personal hangar.

Final words

I hope this gives some good for thought.
Keep speculating! At least until we get some solid info
Here's to 2021.

After 7 years in existence, i'd like to express my opinion in a place where people might share theirs. I'll start by saying that Gta V was and still easily is my most highly anticipated game ever. And i mean EVER. I've never hyped up another game as much as this one. For the near 30 days that i waited for my copy to arrive from amazon i nearly skipped homework and just sat on my balcony, waiting for the game. I've paid money for 2 copies of it, for the ps3 and ps4. I've lost money on the amazon copy, which i sold for a reduced price to a friend of mine, because it took too long to arrive and i figured it wouldn't, so i cancelled my order and went to get another one, without preorders, but i was too late, so in the end, i was charged. I've spent countless hours on this game, both on single player and online.
In the same way that i hyped it up, i couldn't help but feel massively disappointed. The game is NOTHING like i was expecting. At all. My expectations were through the roof, yes, looking back, perhaps not realistic either, but not only do i think it didn't live up to the hype, i also think it doesn't live up to gta standards. It's dumbed down in multiple aspects, the story is weak and short, the map is giant, but empty really, there are very few activities and most, if not all of them, did not interest me enough to do multiple times. The choice to have three protagonists, in order to make a more compelling story, ends up hurting the development of all three, resulting in the lack of a clear protagonist in the end. It feels like a game made to attract a wider audience, even if the series is one of the most, again, if not the most beloved still running. Like the people who blindly praise it have no prior experience with the series. And don't get me started on the whole online thing. I'm not going to claim that online brings down the game, since gta was always about the single player campaign and not about multiplayer, but online really hurt the image i had of Rockstar. I can't believe that they are allowed to milk a game this hard in a day and age when EA gets branded as the devil for even suggesting the existence of cosmetic dlc. It took the world like 7 years and a new console release to call them out on their greedy behaviour. I can't even believe their first dlc was 100% free. I just can't believe it. The reason i'm not naming anything too specific is because i would then have to write a 100 page essay. I feel sad that i grew to honestly hate a game that i was so looking forward to, but i can't help it. The wasted potential staggers me. I don't think it's as bad as i have been making it out to be for the past few years, it does have a few redeeming qualities, but all in all, like i said, it was a huge disappointment for me. From discussions i've had with some people, i've come to understand that RDR2 (which i haven't played) is really the "Gta 5" we never got. That's the amount of detail i was expecting from this game. A game that would innovate and usher in a new era for gaming. A San Andreas 2 of sorts. Perhaps that was foolish of me, but that's what i thought before release.
I'm really interested in hearing people's opinions on this and on the game itself. Sorry for the long post.

Hiiiii everyone! <3 So I recently started playing GTA V online again this time on my ps4. I used to be lvl 80 on ps3 but started over now that I got a ps4. I think i'm on level 27 now but i'm really not sure. Anyway i'm looking for people to play with, do heists and missions and other stuff in game maybe voice chat at the same time though the console or maybe discord :) Im 19, I play at random hours so your timezone shouldn't affect wether we can play together or not that much. If you wanna play with me then you can send me a message here but privately please not in the comments since I won't give any personal info like discord names etc in the comment section. Oh and btw I speak English and Finnish so please be somewhat fluent if you want to voice chat too <3 -Angel

Okay, so everyone loves the Switch, right? Even the virgin girls have just bought them just to insert the joy cons into their puss! I gotta admit it, for wha it is, the console had suceed very well, surpassing the likes of the NES and probably the Wii, and most of the consumers are actually hardcore gamers from the X360/PS3 era, and girls, tons of girls(keep in mind of what I had said)Well, excuseeeee meeeee my princes/princesses, but for me, the Switch has failed in tons of ways that everyone fail to see.
First of all, it’s horrible menu, the only thing that Nintendo did for their menu, it’s literally add a stock default one, create some placeholder icons made out of just outlines, ripoff the Android settings menu, and that’s it, no music, no Miiverse, no true notifications of any sort, basically nothing that a modern console out from the late 2000s-present should have! Just compare it to the PS4 where it even has themes from indie games such as Undertale or FNAF, or the Xbox One menu, which has everything necessary for a modern console, and the Switch will look like a piece of easy shit that even the Special Ed’s could make.
Second of all it’s library, honestly though, Nintendo’s first party library is pure ass, pure sweet diarrhea filled ass their library is(including their third party ones), I honestly don’t like BOTW; they massacred Link into a exhibionist nudist who sometimes wear blue clothes but doesn’t wear his iconic hat for some reason, and the level design it’s empty, very, very empty ass wasteland, that looks more like a prototype for Fortnite’s next map for whatever shit they have in store next season, although it’s filled with padding by making Link get stopped dead on his tracks with sudden text boxes that the only thing they did to make them besides coding them, is to use Microsoft Word’s default fonts and call it a day!
And the rest of the library doesn’t get any better, first of all, they had gotten rid of the lives system from Mario’s Oddysey(I don’t care if they are outdated or not, lives should had been kept in that game), the game’s level design is confusing as fuck, and it barely has a soundtrack at all!; then Splatoon 2 which is just an enhanced sequel from a Splatoon 1 for the Wii U, and I have one question about Splatoon. Why is the Splatoon franchise so fuckeng feminist, I’m not a misogynist here but, it doesn’t seem strange that Nintendo prioritized females(especially UNDERAGED females) in what’s supposed to be a shooting game? Do girls even have a reason to be a priority on this game, besides, you know, BEING AIMED at perverted teenage boys who think that a drawing are more attractive than pure sweet and soft skin, and masturbate to that every day, until they regretted it? Do not even get me started from the fact that Inklings die when they touch water! Despite being fuckeng squids! Oscar in Shark Tale can sum it up well, with the phrase “WHO the hell someone trips underwater!”, exactly my fishy sexy boi! And the game is made by Japanese’s, so it gets even more obvious that this is nothing but fan service for the bois, or men! No wonder Smash Bros got many pedophiles or manipulative Lisbeans!
And ports, the is filled of ports, nothing but rereleases of any sort, whether are ports, last gen X360/PS3 ports, rereleases, or enhanced sequels to Wii U games, for the love of god, they didn’t even made a new Mario Kart besides introducing the pedo induncing shit that are the Inklings or the Spooktober induncing sack bones that is Dry Bones(I love Dry Bones though)! And even then, there’s a severe lack of important games that are not in the Switch, but are in the PS4 and Xbox One.
Here, let me type a list of games that are not in the Switch:
-Rayman Origins -Grand Theft Auto V -Spider Man PS4 -Star Wars Battlefront -Any Call of Duty game of any sorts -Same thing I mentioned above but with GTA. -Any PVZ game, although they included Octomageddon(indie game made by PVZ’s OG creator) -Any Touhou game of any sorts as well. -A Need For Speed game -God of War -Kingdom Hearts ports or remasters, and not the minigame collection with an even more convoluted story. -A Fall Guys And Among Us port. -Mass Effect, not even a port the Switch has. -Gears of War. -More Sega games.
And the list goes on. And, if you guys think that I am in the wrong for mentioning exclusives as well, when you guys beg over and over for a Persona 5 port(Those graphics, Disney Live Action like sounding music and characters that look more like Tik Tokers than actual anime characters, eww, I don’t like them) and a Banjo Kazooie port. Then what’s up with that?
And the newcomers list in Smash Bros Ultimate is quite pathetic! Not a lot of characters that gamers would like besides the hardcore Nintendo fans, first of all Joker; not sure of why he even got a spot on here, Hero from Dragon Quest(not a bad deal at all, in fact I accept it), Banjo Kazooie?; But he’s a forgotten character from an era and genre that gamers don’t even care anymore besides indie devs! Ridley? Why they even put him in here, for real, he’s just here for the memes just because he’s big, as big as Bowser he is, seriously JUST BECAUSE HE’s BIG? Despite him being a DRAGON?! That’s it? And most of all? Incineroar instead of a plant type based Pokémon fighter, without even having a new PKMN stage neither? Piranha Plant, Sans Mii costume, Cuphead Mii costume, Byleth, Terry, Isabelle, Inkling probably, Steve, and King K Rool are just there as meme fodders(and requests from men who were born from the 90s who refuses to know that the 90s are old).
Don’t even get me started on the humongous lack of modes that Smash has! A huge one. That’s I gotta say!
-No Trophies(because they were hard to make, that’s pure laziness as fuck, and Sakurai has a huge team, so no) -Barely any new stages that’s not a copy and paste of a previous stage, just with a different model for it(looking at you New Donk City which is pretty much, Kalos 3DS stage but with New York, and the BOTW stage which is a modified Luigi’s Mansion stage)! - Only three Mii Assault based modes, that’s it. -All Stars mode is not in the game(and the Non Mii based one doesn’t count) -No Custom Characters or modifiable stats of any sorts! -You can’t even paint over photos and draw awesome Fluttershy or Pokémon based stuff on the console anymore! -No Miiverse stage of any sort? And instead a copy and paste of Battlefield but scaled smaller? what. -You can’t even bet for players of any sorts on online matches! -No coins matches as well. Sorry Wario.... -No customizable messages for online play with friends(Pokémon Sun and Moon did something like that as well).
And the list goes on as expected. And on another note. What’s up with most franchises being represented for the first time in Smash being indie based ones? Tell me a franchise which got represented for the first time in Smash that’s neither a DLC based franchise like Persona or BK, or an obscure NES franchise that got forgotten in the past?
And you know that the library for the Switch is quite pathetic! When the Switch’s best seller! Looks something more like coming straight from the App Store or the 3DS! Yes Animal Crossing, I’m talking to you. Honestly though the graphics on the Switch are horrible. The only thing that Nintendo ever did to make the graphics look “HD” is to make models like if they came from the Wii era, and applied shaders, multiple shaders and lighting that eye blinding and fucks up the colors of the characters as well. Tell me if the lighting from Mario Oddysey, SSBU BOTW 1(at least they bothered to fix that in the sequel), Animal Crossing, or Xenoblade Chronicles don’t look way too bright or too hot? If not, then I’m not sure what to describe the eyes of Nintendo fans.
Also remember how I said that most of the consumers of the console, were hardcore gamers who were from the X360/PS3 era or virgin girls who don’t like violent games at all? Yeah, if they weren’t for those the Switch would probably sold as much as the GameCube had. And one thing that I had noticed though, is; Notice how most of Nintendo’s fans have an interest on memes, more so memes, memes of any kind as long as there’s a Nintendo involvement with these, yeah, most of Nintendo fans I had known(both online and irl) are only interested in the console for the memes, memes is what rose the console’s popularity. Even Etika was a meme himself before he turned into a psychotic ass irl adult version of Gerald from Hey Arnold, (and had fallen in the river from LEGO City) who thought that showing hentai in public,screaming the N word, or screamed like a girl just because they featured a dragon and a cocodrile in Smash, and doing terrorism to a local town(and threatening himself) makes him gain fans(he did, and even what an ungrateful lad for thinking that having fame and riches is a bad thing, probably he was severely autistic). Like I’m serious! The Switch is like Donald Trump, both were pathetic wastes of oxygen, who’s only reason for being popular is because of memes, nothing but memes, and that’s it, it’s just meme fodder! Let me say something for you, my brothers! If the Switch didn’t replied itself on memes, and memes, the console would probably sold like 14 Million units only, I’m being serious if you also count the amount of 90s fanboys and lisbeans girls that are there as well! Tell me! Didn’t you ever saw the PS4 or Xbox One fans posting memes, and memes as their primary focus instead of focusing on the gameplay or the lore of the their games? Tell me!
Also, the thing that I hate most of the Switch, it’s online play.... I hate..... its online play...... they destroyed one of the reasons of why I was a huge Nintendo fan in the 3DS/Wii U era. WHY?! Why they made it so you pay $20 dollars, just for playing matches?! Wasn’t the huge point of Nintendo’s console to feature a massive online network with a huge reliance on it, with even its own social network?! FOR FREE?! Like wtf Nintendo?! Is like saying that McDonalds would get had ridden of their hamburgers and only sold fries, just fries for $20(with soda as well), without anything replacing hamburgers of any sort besides Hot Dogs!
And their online play isn’t even that good! The only thing you can do online is play matches, Mario Maker 2 matches, matches for the Wii U port that is MK8DX, Animal Crossing houses being handed to you, and Splatoon/Smash one’s! That’s it! No online chat of any sorts integrated on the console, no achievements, no Miiverse of any kind, no way to search stuff on the internet without using Android OS on the console, no way to share memes on the Switch(despite being a console that relied on them for sales), not much online games to play that aren’t mediocre third party ports of games like CTR NF, you can’t post messages or check out what someone is playing besides a txt file. NOTHING!!!!!!! It’s jus the bare minimum! Compare it to the DSes online play which had Voice Chat, a third party achievement system for both Club Penguin DSes games, you could make emblems in Mario Kart, had Miis(at least in the 3DS), had Flipnote Hatena(foucken Japanese pedophiles ruined the 3DS of having chances for a Flipnote Hatena’s successor, true story), let you had the chance for sharing microgames you made in WarioWare D.I.Y, had a browser which is very obsolete nowadays, and let you share records you could make in Mario & Sonic Olympics games/Sonic Colors, not forgetting Pokémon Diamond/Pearl as well(which I don’t like much, neither HG/SS And gen 5).
It’s just that bad! And, the tip of the iceberg of the situation is, that they canceled Smash Bros Ultimate on EVO for this year because of the horrible online play that Smash Ultimate has, and Sonic players harassing the internet as well(which by the way were just kids, enjoying their hedgehog while it rots itself with time)! Like HOLY MagiKarp! Haven’t you seen the problem here?
And for the love of god! Stop saying that the reason of why the Switch sold is because it’s portable! Like duh, haven’t you heard of the OG Game Boy which actually premiered handheld gaming for the first time along with the Sega Game Gear(which I prefer more except for Pokémon, Tetris and Kirby), and don’t forget the PSP! That handheld sold like pancakes for having console like graphics that were comparable with the PS3/X360 and had major games that were spinoffs but still were great! And both the PSP/PSVita could connect to the tv anyways by using a PS3 controller for interacting with the games!
And lastly, and the least of my worries(somewhat), is that the Joy Con drift is artificial, since pulling the analog stick to the opposite direction of where you hold from had a braking system that deaccelerates the analog inputs, brakes it to 0 values of speed, and then accelerates the analog stick’s inputs in a progressive ass slow way, and the D Pad gets affected as well with values that don’t reach the maximum of its D Pad being pressed values(an analog like inputting system that lets you hold the D Pad slightly to navigate slower with it, on a D Pad..... what the frick?), just compare it to the PS2’s inputting system which makes the inputs reach out to the console, get transferred to the RAM, and then get transferred to the disc of the game you were playing, which is that simple? Compare it to the Switch’s inputs which are processed in the VRAM system and messes with the console’s setting as well?
As you can see, that’s my opinion of why, Nintendo’s not the winner of this era for me! At least their third party controllers, while they had to make sacrifices such as getting rid of rumble is just a cruel, scummy ass bag thing for the console to prevent it from making the controllers more expensive than ever thanks to Nintendo themselves! At least they are good and has neat ass design(there’s even a Scorbunny, Squirtle and Crash Bandicoot Controller as well, I would like to own!)!
I wonder what’s the next meme that Nintendo fans are gonna rely from for sales?

GRAND THEFT AUTO 6
So, the new ps5 and Xbox one consoles are out, I of course got 2 of each and controllers, headsets all the shit you need… but most of all a huuuuuuge stack of games for each. Demon`` souls, spiderman miles morales, some shitty game called godfall, NBA2K1, the new watchdogs, dirt5, borderlands 3 and some xbox games like halo etc…
But fuck all of those games!
I know what you are really here for, the real winner, a game I believe, I and only I have… GTA6.
I was looking through the huge stack of games my bought for me while smoking on some good shit, listening to WAP by cardiB, I almost shit my pants when I saw a somewhat familiar but yet strange sight, a game by rocks tar called grand theft auto… six.
The box looked just like the familiar box of the normal gta5 game I am sure you already played on ps3 or ps4, and I knew there was going to be a ps5 version and I am sure in the future there will be ps6 ps7 and ps8 versions to, they really like selling the same old games to us over and over.
But I was not sure if it would be out yet, and that was strange, even stranger the box said six and not 5, but I told myself it was only a printing error probably, so I put the game into my ps5.
And holy fucking shit!
The graphics was waaaaay, above anything on ps4 or ps5 or even my master race high end pc.
Holy crap! It really looked like real life.
So I started the game we where back in Liberty City a parody of New York City from previous gta games, but now it fucking looked like new York.
You play as the kid from Rockstars Bully game ,but now he is grown up
The streets where bustling with life like new York irl, braindead influencers filming themselves, teens twerking for tiktok, people trying to sell you shit, beggars, drug dealers, angry guys smoking in groups mean mugging you.
My mom busted into my room.
-Moooooom! You cant be doing no shit like that, remember when you did that and I was watching Mia Khalifa in hijab on Pornhub? Boy that was awkward.
-Don’t be inside here smoking and touching yourself all day, you need to go outside and play! Where is your friend John? And what show are you watching?
-Its not a show, its my new game, and I am calling John later, we are going outside to do a smash video for youtube.
-Smash video what is that? Well this game looks cool, better than all of those bloody games you play, like that cawwadoody,Hey, show me the game.
So I showed my mom the game she was impressed but I could do no killings, buying drugs and hoes are crazy shit, just driving trying to abide the law… but man it was TEMPTING to drive some annoying teen bitches over, or maybe a priest… buuut my mom pays for all my shit and I don’t wanna be a loser and get a job like John, busting my ass all day with no time to play.
So, the worst thing I did was driving in the wrong lane.
My mom got mad and said I will not get a license driving like that.
John came over, I let my mom play and showed him the game real quick, we grabbed my extra ps5 for the video.
-I am letting John borrow my second ps5. I told my mom but of course I was lying, I am not a fucking communist.
We were outside, I threw the ps5 into the ground and John filmed, haha that is going to get some views , hoes will be mad they ps5 is still sold out EVERYWHERE, they cannot even get one to play with but I got one to play it and one extra to destroy just to piss people of and tomorrow we will do the same shit with my extra Xbox.
We uploaded the video to you tube, I scrolled through the news real quick, politics (boooooring!) sports (meh) murder, rape, drugs, another school shooting, some asshole driving in the wrong lane, kim Kardashian`s nudes leaked again, to bad for her but a goodtime for me when I get home.
Anyway, going to smoke and sleep.
Tomorrow trying to play the game FOR REALS, and smashing the XBOX,
Seeing how many views my video got, fun times… cya losers.
​
DAY 2
So, we smashed the XBOX, John asked if I would give it to him because I had 2 and he had none, he even offered to pay it off.
I told him nothing in life is free and smashed it right in front of him.
If we both have an XBOX each, I don’t see the fun in that, the fun is me having two and he none.
Seems like my video from yesterday is blowing up, I got 10$ in add revenue, John is an asshole as usual and keeps talking about how dat XBOX cost like 500$, and I keep telling him my mom paid for it so it cost 0$.
Well anyway we got back home and I could finally show him the game, he was impressed but also perplexed he did not really understand how I could have this game from the future it was like something I was not supposed to have.
Turns out you can fly and get to both Vice City and San Andreas, cities from previous GTA games. So we flew down to Vice City and went on a killing spree, there is split-screen co-op so I let John play ass Max Payne from the games with the same names, really awesome how Rockstar lets you play as him in this game.
We picked up hookers and had our fun, killed them afterwards so we could get our cash back of course.
Shoot people in the face, stabbed them, hit em with baseball bats and dildos. Yes, GTA lets you use dildos as weapons.
We even BURNED people, the usual Molotov cocktails were thrown and flamethrowers were used, it was a bit disturbing the graphics looked so real, their skins melting running around screaming in pain, you could almost smell their rotten flesh.
It got to be too much for John, so we decided to end for the night. Tomorrow we where going to San Andreas.
I listened to the news before going to sleep some psycho went on a rampage in Miami burning hookers and more. Meh whatever such for them but I don’t live there I live here in New York City.
DAY 3
I skipped class so I could get home early, John was still stuck in school.
This time I took a flight to San Andres, tried to get a five star rating with the police, one star gets you one police car after you, two gets you two… at five stars they are setting in all they got after you, it was easy to do so when you got a tank, I rolled over cars crushing them with under the tanks track, I shot down police helicopters from the sky… and then my mom entered the room, she was upset and showed me video footage if some madman in L.A driving a tank shooting police… FUCK!
-It looks just like your game. Mom told me the obvious.
-Shit, well I will stop playing. I told her.
Wow, I went out to smoke, something was WEIRD with that game, I looked online, and no one should have a copy of GTA6 at this point in time.
But it was just a game, was it not?
Fuck, if those things I did in the game somehow was real, I really had fucked up and I felt ashamed. I sat outside for horrors.
I was thinking what if the cops somehow knew? I had to go up again and destroy the game, to make sure John nor anyone played it ever again.
I noticed how people were walking around mindless like zombies… and I mean even more then normally when they look into their smartphone screens.
One of them brushed against my should, I looked into its red eyes and saw its open mouth and arms reaching out for me, holy fuck she really WAS a zombie.
I hauled ass into my apartment complex, into my apartment and went straight for my room.
I into my room and saw John playing the game with a huge smile on his face.
-There is an Undead Nightmare expansion! Zombies, bigfoots, vampires, the end of the world.

Since I was 12 years old I wanted to build my own gaming pc. I will never forget the first time I told my dad I wanted a PC and surely I won't forget my dad telling me it was not going to happen because it was a lot of money spend on "just gaming". Since then it became only a dream of mine to one day own a gaming pc.
Back then I was playing on PS3, and all I wanted to play was BF3 and BF4 on PC, those graphics were mind-blowing for me at that time. Later on came the PS4, I bought it in 2015 and I was one of the first guys from my group of friends to get it. As a pioneer in PS4, I played by myself for almost 2 years, until 2017 when my homies got it. Beautiful 3 years playing Fortnite, warzone, CoD, fifa and another bunch of games.
In early 2020 I started working as a freelancer and not more than 3 months ago I earned enough for buying my first gaming pc, the one I always dreamed of. It is for both gaming and working, since my work requires a powerful pc. After a lot of research and shipping times delayed I finally got myself my own pc a month ago. Fast forward to today, I own a beautiful Ryzen 7, 5600xt, 16Gb RAM, 2tb M.2, etc.
Normally, someone would think I am the happiest kid in the planet, I finally own one of the things I always wanted. But the reality is... that I am not extremely happy at all.
Having a PC that can run almost every game at max and high FPS is great, but fun goes away when you realize you don't enjoy games as much as you did when you were a kid, and also you don't enjoy playing by yourself. I find myself in the same spot back then when I got a PS4, I am the first guy in the group of friends that got a gaming pc, so I don't play online games with friends.
I made myself with a copy of GTA 5, WATCH dogs 2, far cry 3, ark and some more, nothing crazy, just to start with something and end some story modes I left unfinished back in PlayStation consoles. I even bought a Battlefield bundle and played BF3, BF4, BF1 and V in ultra and 120hz, it was still mind blowing and I played for... No more than 30 minutes each. I realized I am not able to enjoy playing for more than 1 hour. I am 20 yo and responsibilities are ringing the bell at the back of my head everytime I launch a game. Is this normal? Also, I quickly fall into the thinking that playing alone is extremely boring, although I am a very lonely person in almost every single aspect of life, I am a pretty independent, unlikely to ask for help boy who likes to run things by himself. But weirdly enough, that does not happen with games.
Having a moment of reflexion I feel like I betrayed and disappointed the 12 year old me that wanted a gaming pc so much. I am even thinking about selling it and going for a lower budget pc that is enough for working. And maybe waiting until some day my friends get a PC, just to see if the joy comes back, but I surely doubt that will ever happen. Maybe some games recommendations would come in handy, but again comes the inner thoughts of "you should be doing more important things", and I honestly don't feel like playing anything these days.
I started thinking that maybe gaming isn't for me anymore and I hop in the boat a few years late, but I can't blame anyone about it, so maybe it's just bad luck? Does this ever happened to one of you? Did you get over it?
Either way, here I am now, brand new PC, nothing exciting about it, feeling... just like before.

In these weeks i'm searching about this topic, because i use a PS3 controller in pc since 6 years, (and 10 in his normal use, in a PS3 Console), so the battery is getting old and when I pressed two buttons in the same time, another button is pressed. For example I press D-Pad right and X button and the Triangle button is pressed because yes. So this is funny to see in games like GTA V, trying again the mission in online because that. Fortunately I have another PS3 controller more new that the came with the console 10 years ago. But I thinking in changed it and let it sleep eternally.
So my choices are the Xbox Series Controller, specially the Blue color because I looks sexy, the PS5 Dualsense Controller and the Switch Pro Controller.
Why this controllers? Well:
The Xbox Series Controller because: • is Windows Friendly, that means i don't bother for the drivers don't work, or i don't have vibration because the drivers, or my controller freaks out while i charging, etc. Is for Windows 10 • I heard the shape improves since the Xbox One Controller, the grip and feel is good with the new texture, and back to 2009 when i feel the Xbox 360 controller, I wanted a Xbox controller because is more comfortable than the PlayStation controller. • For me looks so beautiful, comparing it with the others i've mentioned in here • Is not problem for me, but looking the right buttons in the games according the controller, see Y in the game and controller. Not Triangle only in the controller. • The d-pad looks great i think for tetris and old games/plataformers i want to play.
The PS5 Dualsense because: • Too much content creators says this controller is so comfortable and so grippy • The adaptive triggers buys me, looks so attractive and it is implemented so great in shooters (i don't play shooters with controller but only for this technology wants me to play it that way), but I don't know if sony or a third-party driver enable this for PC and the developers want to implement this on the newer and existing PC Games, And I'm doubting because i see on several pages the PS4 Controller the touchpad and the speaker is not fully enhanced or supported in PC drivers, so that's the thing • The black color looks so beautiful for me, i want it only in that color i don't like in white. Or something in blue, so i must to wait for that editions. •The same for the rumble applies to the adaptive triggers, only hopes sony or a person and the developers adapt this to PC
The Switch Pro Controller: • I have a Switch, so i use it in that and PC. Because the Joycons are not the best • The buttons of the control looks so clicky and confortable and the Joystick is not getting drift like the joycons. • My friends says the battery longs too much with life, more than the new generation of consoles i think • The dpad its not great but is ok • The rumble i heard is great.
So this is my opinions about the controllers, i want a confortable control and i play adventure games, racing games, and sometimes tetris marathon. If i choose another controller and i want to use it on switch, can i buy the 8bitdo adapter, so i can't get stucked for the pro controller to my decision. What do you think? Which controller I listed here is the best for PC? Thanks for see this post!

^{the result of two weeks worth of research}
Pros, for ecosystem:

• Xbox Game Pass
• Backwards Compatibility
• Xbox All-Access
• Play It Anywhere
• XCloud (which could put 4k on XSS)
• Console optimization for XB1, XB1S, XB1X, XSS, XSX
• Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

Cons, for ecosystem:

• WAY less sales, thus players
• I guess PS Now?
• Lackluster Gold freebies compared to PS Plus
• No Japanese market
• No revamped UI
• PlayStation actually has VR

...Making the Series X the leader in ecosystem, creating a hardware selection where anyone can enter into the Xbox family. Extreme value. Add VR.
Pros, for games:

• A (rumored) record-breaking budget for Halo Infinite
• 15 first-party studios
• A (rumored) future Polish studio absorption
• Big Phil wanting to acquire a Japanese game studio
• CDPR and Xbox have been making out for several E3s
• Grounded, the first "next-gen" title, is receiving great reviews
• Obsidian, developers of The Outer Worlds and Fallout New Vegas are making a new AAA RPG
• The Initiative has the head writer of Red Dead Redemption 2, and they are making something big (Reddit post)
• First-party online game abundance
• Bugsnax is a Playstation exclusive

Cons, for games:

• God of War 2 exists
• Spiderman 2 exists
• Horizon: Forbidden West exists ^{notice the amount of successful sequels?}
• The Last of Us 2 breaks sale records, despite being Sony's most controversial game in 2020
• What the fuck was Microsoft thinking during the May 20/20 event??????
• Ghost of Tsushima will probably get excellent reviews
• GTA 5 Remastered: Remastered will be a timed exclusive on PS5
• People who can git gud will be playing on PS5

...Making the PS5 the clear favorite when it comes to established franchises. Yet, Xbox has been smacking down the bills when it comes to first-party studios. Wait for July 20/20 event for further conclusions.
Pros, for hardware:

• Simple design is most likely cheaper
• LE WIND TUNNEL KEEPS PARTS COOL, much more efficient design
• PS5 is WAY bigger (Reddit post), PS5 has a bigger footprint (Reddit post)
• Aforementioned wind tunnel makes variable clock irrelevant, Xbox Director of Program Management details why Xbox didn't use variable clock
• Xbox is more powerful on paper, sources vary by how much
• Controller is proven, can use both batteries and wireless charging
• Original XB1 controller can be used on XSX
• NO KINECT
• (Probably longer battery life than the PS5 controller, detailed below)
• PS5 could be too futuristic for its own good, take Xbox 360 vs well-aged PS3

Cons, for hardware

• Bulky, unappealing shape
• Not many design liberties (seriously, put on a shroud!)
• Sony has decades of experience within the audio industry, currently has better audio than Dolby Atmos ^{worth noting that Xbox has not yet given much detail about their dedicated audio in the XSX, sources say it could be competitive}
• Better SSD on PS5
• Controller is more advanced, with immersive trigger tension, better rumble, touchpad (lol), built in microphone, and pretty lights

...Making the XSX a more powerful (and possibly cheaper) console if Sony's part shortages are anything to go by. However, Xbox slept on advancing peripherals.

THE MOST NOTABLE FOOTNOTE.

Project Lockhart, or the Xbox Series S, might just flip this whole console market to its knees. It is reported to target 1080p 60fps with no disk drive, for prices as low as $200. With over 50% of Americans not owning a 4k TV during our current economic situation where over 21% are unemployed, making sure families who don't want to spend upwards of $1500 on a 4k 120Hz is an easy sell. This could be the masterstroke of genius (or luck) for Microsoft that will eat away at Sony's market share.
Edit: Brad Sams, a Microsoft journalist, has detailed that the current version of the XSS looks like a traditional Xbox console.
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Look, I'm a simple PC guy who likes to do research, to hopefully become a political or tech journalist. To say the least, I probably forgot a few things for this list. I'd love to hear what I should add, reconfigure, or remove.