@Kairu congratulations on the big 3000 and congrats to @Ralizah on the Senua plat too. I’m still to play Hellblade but your post did put it back on my radar tbh. Might wait until it’s sequel releases on Gamepass and play it then to soften the blow as it were.
@Ralizah Congratulations, particularly since the platinum ended up being a worthwhile one. Had the entire game been a drag then you might not have wanted its ultimate prize, so I'm pleased to hear it picked up in the second half, and ended up being memorable for a lot of right reasons (and hopefully a few more, given that you're still processing its ending).
Since you spread your hobby across multiple platforms, I'm wondering what your platinum total is?
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger Hellblade will be my 23rd, and second for the year overall (gonna try to plat at least one more game this year, though). I'm guessing I'd be well upwards of 100 if I centered all of my gaming time on Playstation consoles. Probably many hundreds if I'd owned a PS3 as well.
I LOVED the first two Playstation consoles. There's probably a universe out there where Sony didn't make the PS3 prohibitively expensive at launch, driving my young self to settle on a 360, and I'm still a dedicated pony in 2022.
@colonelkilgore Be sure to play it with headphones. Half the reason to play it is the amazing sound design.
Still seems weird to me that there'll be a sequel. This feels like a very singular, one-off sort of experience.
@Ralizah as I haven’t played it I have no idea how necessary a sequel would be but… it might be more to do with the fact that Microsoft sees the ip as its best chance at a God of War ‘competitor’… so would want to keep it going. A lot of Xbox players seem to hold it up as that anyway.
that's a lot of trophies you got there. Well done @Kairu
Congrats on getting the plat for Hellblade @Ralizah
I had similar feelings back when I played it. I didn't love some of the elements but the overall experience was worthwhile. I remember one of the first times the voices whispered at me I wad so freaked out I fell off a path and died which is pretty much what it had whispered at me I would do!
As for myself, popped a couple of really trophies this morning and noticed I had reached trophy level 500. Which I guess is something...maybe? Well it's better than still being on 499. The icon next to the number looks a bit cooler.
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
@sorteddan nice buddy, I recently hit 400 and noticed the icon change then too. If anything it is an achievement as it takes a lot longer and a lot more play to move from a 400 icon to a 500 icon than just popping yet another plat 🤔
@sorteddan The voices are cool, but I could tell they were still 'in the game,' so to speak. But the binaural weather noises... a few times I'd hear thunder in the game and literally look out my window since it sounded so real. Extremely strong audio design all around.
I just wish there were fewer 'match the symbol to random objects in the environment' sequences. They slow gameplay down to a crawl, and aren't really interesting at all as puzzles, since they merely involve moving to the right spot and then looking around until you see the right thing.
@colonelkilgore I guess I could see that, looking at footage of Hellblade II. But it almost feels like it'll be one of those sequels that makes the original worse in retrospect. We'll see. Genuinely curious what the hook for this one will be.
Anyway, I feel like they should focus on doing justice to their own franchises before worrying about competing with Sony. The Xbox base, desperate for a win, jumped the gun to praise Halo Infinite when that first came out, but the fan reaction to it has been nothing but unceasing disappointment since 2021
@Ralizah totally agree but just to give you an example of what the Xbox fans ‘vibe’ is, check the top reply to the first comment on this web page that I was just on:
This kinda comment is not an isolated viewpoint within the fan base, so it is a little more understandable why MS would target certain exclusives from the competitor… even though it will probably end up a thankless task.
@colonelkilgore In fairness, that article title IS pretty inflammatory, lol.
The most hardcore fanboys will obviously defend their 'side' in the console war, no matter what, but I've seen a lot of pretty honest criticism of the company's output on sites like Pure Xbox. I think most of the fanbase is unblinkered about the questionable state of Microsoft's first-party lineup circa 2022. They really have struggled to get decent games out for more than a decade now.
There definitely seems to be a lot of managerial incompetence in Team Xbox, even when it comes to external development partners. Like, Platinum's Scalebound famously imploded early in development, and some of that might be Platinum's fault, sure, but if they're so unreliable, why do they consistently release excellent games when partnering with Nintendo?
@Ralizah the article was from forbes in fairness… so you wouldn’t have them down as Console warriors in terms of media institutions. And while the title… and indeed the article itself may well inflame people of a certain disposition, I wouldn’t say the content was false.
@colonelkilgore Articles from Forbes contributors aren't generally highly regarded for their high standard of editorial quality, lol, and the body of the text reads worse than something I'd see on a Playstation fan forum. The writer can't even praise the Forza series without taking a meaningless dig at them being racing games, as if every worthwhile game needs to be a cinematic, third-person action-adventure game with crafting and upgrade systems.
Of course, the basic premise of the article is self-evidently true, as admitted by the writer himself. Even that Xbox fanboy you found in the wild isn't hyping up already released games for a reason.
@Ralizah I wasn’t holding it up as a quality standard, only that there is absolutely no reason for forbes to cap… poor quality writing or not. All I would say is that it was quite a shock to see the general media not running defence for Microsoft for a change.
Even that Xbox fanboy you found in the wild isn't hyping up already released games for a reason.
… and I think this is the main problem. Xbox players have been ‘playing’ unreleased games in far off years for far too long. It has allowed MS to get away with producing very little for even longer.
@colonelkilgore I mean, I've seen people praising Microsoft for stuff they absolutely should be praised for, like the great value proposition that Game Pass represents, or their efforts in terms of making improvements to backwards-compatible games, or the lack of money-grubbing behavior that Sony has been getting up to, etc.
Nobody defends the first-party game lineup, though. There's nothing to defend. I don't think they've even released anything in 2022. Fanboys will desperately cling to long lists of announced projects that never seem to materialize, but people less stuck in console war culture will acknowledge they have very little of interest to offer to date.
The Series X / S are great consoles for certain types of people, though. If you primarily want inexpensive access to a variety of games and/or primarily play Western AAA multiplats, I'd say they're more worth buying than a PS5.
I'm pretty bored with Western-developed blockbusters in general, which is why the Switch continues to be my go-to device.
Sony is pretty much the go-to option for top-tier cinematic blockbusters, and also isn't lacking in Japanese support like Microsoft, so they definitely seem to be the best one-stop-shop in terms of console purchases if you want access to as many games as possible.
My main issue with PS5 at this point is that all of their best games also seem to be going to PS4 and PC. I'm sure the PS5 runs them brilliantly, but in terms of must-have exclusives, it's also a little lacking.
@Ralizah yup, never said anything to the contrary in regards to the value proposition… I’ve always used the metaphor of HBO vs basic cable. Basic cable may be far cheaper… but I’d personally rather be watching The Sopranos and The Wire et al. Doesn’t mean that there isn’t a market for things like CSI and Real Housewives of… of course. It’s always been a personal preference and always will be… well until Microsoft buy up the whole damn industry that is 😉
@colonelkilgore Basic cable is home to the majority of the best shows of all time (including Breaking Bad, the best of the anti-hero drama series to date). Guess I'm buying an Xbox!
@Ralizah I’m a little late, but congrats on that Hellblade platinum and I’m glad it did end up having some contentment for you in the end. It’s definitely one of those imperfect games that has enough going for it to be worth experiencing. And a relatively achievable platinum is a nice bonus. 😄
I saw elsewhere that you’ve started Dark Souls Remastered so I’m curious how playing these two back-to-back will land. I have DS Remastered on my short list to play next, after finishing some of my current games. My master plan it to do it and DS3 prior to Elden Ring.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution Thanks! Yeah, it turned out to be a pretty good experience by the end. Oddly, one that would have been better as a shorter and overall more cinematic experience, I think.
I'll probably play Dark Souls slowly. Almost entirely in airplane mode, too, since it drives me nuts that putting the system into sleep mode boots me out to the title menu when I'm online.
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