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I’m back from GamesBeat Summit 2023, and I somehow managed to catch the PlayStation event a few moments after my plane landed over the crappy airport wifi. They thought they could fool me by broadcasting it while I was still in post-event fatigue, but I persevered! Now I’m not sure what it was about because seriously what was that show? Most of the PlayStation’s first-party studios missed it, and very little of what they showed caught my interest. And what is this handheld and why does it look like a bad photoshop job?
Of the games shown, the only one I felt at all was the Spider-Man 2 extended gameplay trailer. I like the idea of Peter trying to deal with Venom, the black suit and Kraven at the same time – in one game that’s definitely better off than, say, in a movie – and Miles plays the beleaguered straight man whose boyfriend starts acting strange. However, I was wondering why they hyped Tony Todd as Venom’s voice just for him to say three words in the teaser trailer and sit out the gameplay trailer entirely.
Speaking of voiceless characters, I immediately assumed that weird jungle trailer was Metal Gear Solid when I saw the dead frog. Hopefully David Hayter will return as the voice of Snake after Kiefer Sutherland’s sleepy performance. The funniest part of the event, of course, came after that, when Xbox very passive-aggressively released an image in the showcase of all the games that will also be coming to its platform. I live for entrepreneurial pettiness. Plus, it’s encouraging because we know Xbox fans will be waiting for more new releases over the next few months as well.
Personally, I’d like to say that I’ll be using the weekend to catch up on a few games and try out The Lord of the Rings: Gollum now that it’s finally out. I was quite skeptical of Gollum over two years ago when I saw a preview build. In particular, I thought the game was going through an identity crisis and said it looked like a smaller version of Styx: Master of Shadows. I don’t claim to be prophetic and I was very willing to prove myself wrong regarding the game. But judging from what I’ve already seen, that was kind of the beefed up version of Gollum. That was Gollum with form At. I’ll give the game a fair shot, but what I’ve seen so far hasn’t been very encouraging.
What to play this week?
What’s new:
- The Lord of the Rings: Gollum
- Planet of Lana
- Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun
- After U.S
- Convergence: A League of Legends Story
- Star Trek: Resurrection
- Sunshine Shuffle
- railway empire 2
- About snakes
- Thriving business: Casino
New to Subscription Services:
- Cassette Beasts (Xbox Game Pass)
- Massive Chalice (Xbox Game Pass)
- Super Mario Advance (Nintendo Switch Online)
- Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 (Nintendo Switch Online)
- Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 (Nintendo Switch Online)
- Beasts of Maravilla Island (Prime Gaming)
- Calico (Prime Gaming)
- DKO: Divine Knockout (Prime Gaming)
- Double Kick Heroes (Prime Gaming)
- Shattered: Tale of the Forgotten King (Prime Gaming)
- Tiny Robots Recharged (Prime Gaming)
- Tandem: A Tale of Shadows (Prime Gaming)
- Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (Prime Gaming)
- Death Loop (GeForce Now)
- Grounded (GeForce Now)
- Lawn Mower Simulator (GeForce Now)
- Pentiment (GeForce Now)
- The Ascension (GeForce Now)
- Patch Quest (GeForce Now)
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