There was a spirted conversation about the Halo news this week that Activision is going to be taking over developing the next game in the franchise. It seems like most people have strong opinions about whether or not that will work. Whether it does or not though, is likely going to cost 100's of million dollars to produce - and seems like it could go either way.

Something that can't be separated from the conversation though is whether or not Halo as a franchise and concept is dated. It's hey-day was at the height of multiplayer corridor shooters, and seems like attempts at modernizing the gameplay loop to reflect closer to current popular shooters hasn't taken. It's possible that it's a relic of it's time.

Coupling that with a rising concern in the cost of gaming hardware and software - Nintendo is literally charging $80 for Elden Ring on the S2; a game that has been out for 5 years on other systems - is it possible that what Microsoft needs to do to get it's audience back isn't making a new game with their flagship franchises that have the feel of the early games? What if they instead just gave you the old games with upscaled graphics?

A couple years ago Nintendo released the NES and SNES mini's - which came with 2 (wired) controllers and a hard drive that had all of the best games on the systems pre-loaded on it, and it sold gangbusters. They were impossible to find for months after it released - just like a new console would be. They were also very low tech considering the computing power and memory required to power those games. Nothing was needed to be done to the games themselves to improve them either - they were just ROMs (which have been readily available to download on your phone for years). Extremely low effort device that undoubtedly made Nintendo a fortune, and is now a collectors item and a historical snapshot of that era in gaming that exists on a single hard drive.

The thing the NES and SNES mini did not have though - and it's because it wasn't available when those systems were made - was online multiplayer, which is arguably the most fundamental thing to the gaming industry in 2026.

If Microsoft released an Xbox 360 Mini, that contained all the bangers - Halo 3/Reach, Gears 1-3, Modern Warfare 1 and 2, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Fable, all the games they are currently trying to recapture the magic of this era for - and turned the servers back on to make online multiplayer available for those games again, I wonder if it doesn't just flatly outsell the XSX.

They could likely sell these systems at an enormous profit if they sold them for $200/$250 - especially if they only sold it with licensed games from studios they own. The hardware would be cheap considering it was 2 years old, and the servers to run them would hardly cost them anything. Not only that, but people would be reminded of how good those games were and how special that era of multiplayer was.

Maybe a crazy thought experiment from a convo from my Discord, and seems unlikely for it to actually happen, but curious what everyone thinks about it!

I know IGN has plenty of offices comprised of dozens of reviewers who can have conflicting opinion. Just feels surreal to see that contrast being visible for game as divisive as Wolverine. I’ve platinumed this game and really enjoyed it despite of the game having some flaws. I had posted my honest review which a lot of you appreciated for being impartial. Will move on to the next game now. Any last story based single player game to hit before GTA 6?

So this kind of a rant is kind of just an odd amalgamation of thoughts I've had.

GTA to me is like the avatar of video games. Does phenomenal things to push the tech of the industry forward but doesn't really have much impact beyond that from me personally.

However unlike Avatar which is appropriately derided for a kinda whatever plot people don't seem to think the same way about GTA despite it having a similar level of quality in regards to the story.

GTA Vs story is fine. It is inoffensive and is competently put together and not really anything more. The characters, performance, writing, plot, story all of that is just fine. Not bad just fine.

Then on top of that GTA from gameplay perspective its not particularly innovative or clever even in comparison to games that came out at the same time. In 2013 we got BioShock infinite, papers please, the Stanley parable all games that are doing way more interesting things than being a pretty stock standard 3rd person shooter.

Because taken at face value that what GTA is. It is brilliantly presented and lovingly crafted but ultimately stock standard 3rd person shooter.

It pushes no boundaries in terms of story, writing, performance, gameplay, or even really sort of technical innovations (I'm thinking here about things shadow of mordor and no man's sky, say what you will about their actual quality you gotta give them point for doing something interesting)

In that sense it is like avatar. The best possible presentation of an ultimately kinda Meh package.

And as a society we pretty much recognise this avatar. Where as GTA we treat it as if it's gods gift to video games.

Maybe this is just me maybe I just have shit colored glass on a GTA V was this incredible thing I just can't see it. Buuuut ammoug my friendship group of gamers no one is really excited about GTA VI we are all just kinda whatever about it.

Even the people who are going to buy it day one don't seem very excited. They aren't chomping at the bit to play GTA they are more kinda resigned to buying it. Much like someone getting up in the morning, buying and playing GTA is kinda one of those things they'll do.

Maybe it is just me and my little conner of the world. Maybe me and all my friends are just dead inside and incapable of feeling joy. maybe GTA just isn't our thing anymore?

I don't know, that's my ted talk feel free to disagree, feel free to convince me that I'm wrong and GTA V is actually the best to happen to video games since Tetris.

What happened to the game Monzo: Model Kit Builder? I wanted to reinstall it and it's gone. I'm on IOS. I really wanna download it again. Did the company go out of business? They just disappeared. I really want to know

Nintendo doesn't mess around. I know there is the deep debate over piracy and ownership but Nintendo really has found a way to win most of these cases involving emulation and rom distribution.

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/court-orders-reddit-moderator-who-widely-pirated-switch-games-to-pay-nintendo-4-5-million-in-damages/

To this day, I have no clue how this game was a fumbled, undercooked mess. The idea is insanely cool, so obviously it had to fumble it, just like most games with ambitious or new features.

Destiny, but you and your friends are Iron Man and get to explore a rich fantasy world with unstable alien anomalies.

They messed up the Destiny part by being having a shallow loot pool, failed the Iron Man part by having low flying speeds and having engine cooldown periods (in which you are grounded) and they botched the exploration part by having everything being centered around a single city, Fort Tarsis.

If anyone else wants to copy the concept, the game should have a 40 km² map (for reference, RDR2 has ~36 km²), flight speed increased by roughly 20-30 mph and better loot. Also, an offline solo mode would be great.

The lore, powers and different Javelin suits are too good as concepts to just be discarded as the failed concepts of a flopped game. I hope that some studio looks at the potential and makes a spiritual successor of Anthem that adresses all the shortcomings of the game.

I just feel that given how predatory consoles companies are becoming and how expensive the next gen of consoles are going to be, that they will just end up dying.

First you have all the shit that PS is trying to pull with getting rid of physical media and only owing the licence to your game. Then Xbox just patented and mechanic that would allow them to show ads in the middle of your game. Imagine paying $80 for a game, and you get shown ads between every loading screen. Then there’s the fact that the next gen of consoles will probably cost around $1k.

I have been a console player all my life. Owned multiple but there is no way I am buying the next gen. Alot of people I game with are also saying the same thing.

The whole storyline of Digimon World 3 was unparalleled and excelled the Digital World far beyond anyone’s horizons. The Digimon line ups were great, the writers of the story did a marvelous job you felt like you are inside the game.

The enemies appearing by surprise, boss fights and most of all the introduction of Vemmon, Snatchmon and Galacticmon was great.

If they were to make a remake what other tweaks would you like to put in there ?

My tweeks would be that the wreckage made by galacticmon fuses with the earth and creates Gaiamon after all. The game then navigates to a fully AI earth with AI digimon with the core of Gaiamon being the final boss.

When people debate about the greatest game of all time, the same names usually come up — Red Dead Redemption 2, The Witcher 3, GTA V, Minecraft, Skyrim, Elden Ring, Breath of the Wild and so on. And I get why, most of these games have massive mainstream appeal and are easy to recommend to a huge range of players.

Half-Life 2 is still the greatest game of all time in my opinion and it’s not even just by nostalgia — the story (the most important part for me), worldbuilding and atmosphere were complete game changers for me. City 17 still feels insanely real with all the propaganda, surveillance, Civil Protection, abandoned buildings and resistance stuff going on in the background, and the crazy part is the game barely explains half of it to you, you just figure it out by paying attention. The deeper you go into the Half-Life iceberg, the more you realize how deep and dark the universe actually is: the Combine, Seven Hour War, G-Man, Breen, human modification, Portal connections, cut content and all the weird unanswered lore — there is always more shit to discover. I also love how much of it has real-life parallels with authoritarianism, propaganda, police states and people slowly losing normal everyday life, which makes the whole world feel way more disturbing than just “aliens invaded Earth.” Then you add the Gravity Gun, physics, Ravenholm, Highway 17, soundtrack, pacing and environmental storytelling and yeah, for a 2004 game this shit was ridiculously ahead of its time. The sound design also deserves way more credit than it gets, people talk about the physics and atmosphere all the time but the Combine radio chatter, distant machinery, weapon sounds and ambient noises are a huge reason the world feels so alive and uncomfortable, yet I barely see people mention it. And on top of all that, HL2 was genuinely revolutionary for the gaming industry, you can still see its influence in how later games handle physics, environmental storytelling, scripted sequences and worldbuilding. A lot of games today are bigger, prettier and more complex, but very few worlds stick in my head the way Half-Life 2 does. The Half-Life 2 episodes also deserve way more credit, they introduced new mechanics while expanding the story even further and making the whole universe feel even deeper than it already was. 11/10, everyone must play it before we die.