Topic: What PS5 Games Are You Currently Playing?

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@Ravix i'm so very tempted to say 'you did good' and pat you on the head 😬 but, that is definitely not my role here, and hopefully you already got your reward. It does look cool, though. I've never been into Lego, but I can imagine it suits your desire to build and create things 😄 was it fun, or more just meditative, a task to be done?

• It's hard to explain how I even have Legos, I haven't been buying them. There's a Lady who when she visits brings Legos, clothes, cosmetics, candy etc. She has no children, it's not ethical for Adults to live this kind of life and have children. It's too involved and I give one hundred and ten percent to one Person. It's similar for her and other Women. She's supposed to be seen as tough/emotionless with a palm of steel etc, there's always a kind of scrutiny/perfection. They do it to themselves.

I'm her down-time/after-care. I think Women have a natural something inside to nurture, that's her way of making up for missing that part. I'll use what you said about a head pat, if she did that to a cat it would be seen as 'she's too soft' but with me 'that's fine, quite normal'. Both might go meow if you get my drift. What you called intense before, it goes both ways, pressure to fit the role/mold and it's 24/7 for both parties. They don't game, nor have hobbies, but they are human and need a distraction from that mindset.

She's always late for dinner, busy out shopping for gifts. Last evening I wasn't the only one who noticed she'd brought the same set twice and I hadn't even made an effort to build it. Which is like if someone does something nice for you and then you leave it aside, that's rude. I've built some cats and flowers, also from her. Technically she shouldn't be spoiling me, it's breaking protocol but she's stubborn and it's interesting to watch both go head to head. Either way I except the gifts, candy etc. You would too, most would. You have those rabbit ears so you are off to a good start, never say never.

I don't unbox my games though, if I buy something physical it stays sealed and I play a digital double. That mentality made it across to that set, I wanted to leave it sealed. It was meditative building it (after about the first hour) but opening the box was brutal. I stared at the box for maybe twenty minutes trying to figure out how to carefully open it without damaging the seal too much then he walked in with a big knife, opened it himself and gave me that ultimatum. I probably would have stared at it all night without that ignition.

I saw this today it was almost a thing and Lego never ran with it. 'They have taken their attention to detail to an impressive level, transforming a simple LEGO construction into a veritable object of admiration. The DualShock 2 is accurately reproduced, as are the memory cards. The disc drive is functional and removable, with a movable lens. The inside of the console reveals the electronic circuits, right down to the lithium battery that powers the internal clock'. That's real dedication.

And yeah, as a summary for what KCD is you can kind of read what I said to Kraven, but it is a bit of a mess, so... freshly for you...

• Thanks, I did read that but thought it must have been too late in the morning, I wasn't following. I think what happened with Kingdom Come is that we talked about the history and about the Hussites for hours one night and that reinforced my thinking of it being one big historical simulator. It says a lot about the game when it does have all of those elements (which I've only seen you mention) and still manages to retain that sense of high quality, at least when it comes to my curiosity. It feels like sandbox open-world games aren't that much of a focus anymore. Or they are being advertised differently and they are bypassing my radar completely. Crimson Desert almost did, then I saw the recent trailer, that game world and now I'll most likely play it at launch.

That shot above sold me on Crimson Desert. Every other trailer/article made me think it was an online game. It seemed to have too many features to be a single player game and I probably confused it with Black Desert Online but now I want to play it. Maybe it's similar to Kingdom Come. I hope Fable does it right, I've played it on Xbox and really enjoyed the world and character design.

I don't think I've played many Mafiya games, they are kind of stereotype heavy and I try to avoid stereotypes about certain subjects, lifestyles etc. I remember the last one had the old school racing and I couldn't do it. I was watching a guy on Youtube doing it over and over again and making it look easy, it wasn't. I deleted the game. The new one has x-ray vision, yikes and why? I didn't like when Hitman Absolution did that, almost everything that game did was wrong for the series and almost tanked the entire franchise. That's why World of Assassination went episodic, investors were losing confidence in the brand. I would be too, Absolution felt so generic and was definitely a product of it's time.

I did like The Godfather, that mechanic of throwing people through windows, I did that over and over again. Someone walked into the room asking what I was doing, they kept hearing constant smashing over and over again. It must have sounded that realistic and they expected to see glass I suppose. I never tried the last Saints Row either, it looked really bad. The first two were great, the soundtracks too. I should care a lot more about the Elder Scrolls 6, they just haven't given a lot to go on and Starfield was and still is rough. I want to trust Bethesda, that's hard when I've tried Starfield on and off over a year and it's not very polished or intuitive. It will land on PS5 eventually and people will (or won't) see for themselves. They should have cancelled the game and put all of their resources in Elder Scrolls, maybe by now we'd see some footage or hints of gameplay. Maybe in another decade.

About time you played Kingdom Come: Deliverance, isn't it? Thought so.

• Maybe I bought a copy already and it's sitting idly by somewhere, but Crimson Desert definitely has my eye, if everything it's advertising is really going to be there and functioning. I stopped pre-ordering games after Civilization 7, that was a bad day and there was a strong lesson there. Crimson Desert seems to have a lot going for it, I've seen games like that on PC and some of them landed flat on their backs. Except Enshrouded and Valheim. My next sandbox will probably be Spiderman, I did download it and I need to try a big name Sony title. He's also a super-hero I know nothing about other than how he gets those web shooting powers. The rest is a mystery.

My ideal Marvel game would be a city building/management game where you play as Wilson Fisk, it will never happen. I watched DareDevil for him, he's such a gentleman and he could probably snap Spiderman in half which is a bonus. I'm not going over to the other side per-say, team Fisk all the way but I probably will try the game today. That's also why I like Batman, he's doing the right thing (technically) but he's not fully on that one side either, he's no cop and knows how to get his hands dirty. I don't know many other superheroes, maybe Blade and Spawn and they too do their own thing which I respect. I don't know what Superman does? I haven't watched any of that material or Iron Man or the others. I was told Superman was 'too Western', he's from Space? so that logic doesn't (no pun intended) fly, maybe eventually I'll watch a movie. The Punisher obviously, I really like him but only have that PS2 game (which is really good) and The Crow would be fantastic if they turned it into a good game. I did play the InFamous games and Prototype. If Spiderman goes well I'll look a little closer at Uncharted, Last of Us etc. Control too and possibly Alan Wake. If not I'll burn through every walking simulator available in a couple of weeks and then be back to looking for new genres.

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@Ravix How are you finding Spider-Man?

What if they had a crossover and Batman had to face Fisk? What then, for you? 🤯 Or is that mean to suggest such a thing happening and you having to choose?

• They did have a cross-over. I went on a perfectly legal deep dive of Spiderman graphic novels last night and saw there was a cross-over for both but I was busy reading Spiderman-Noir at the time. Amazon probably dropped off the hard copy earlier today which means at the rate I get through my deliveries I'll probably see it next Summer. It was a really good read. Then Furious posted a trailer for a TV series on the same re-imaging. It looks like The Joker and Carnage (red toothy guy) are the main antagonists in that Batman / Spiderman crossover.

If Batman had to fight Wilson Fisk? There's a book called Knight-Fall where Bane breaks Batman's back off his knee. I would expect Fisk does that to Spiderman and Batman decides to call it a day and perhaps go into business with Fisk. No one wants that kind of massive spinal devastation and he's strong enough to do it so perhaps they form a conglomerate between Fisk and Wayne Enterprises. That would be my favored outcome and economically viable for both parties involved. Partnership, they could work together to maintain better Control of certain illicit markets which means less public collateral, less work for other superheroes and a better overall public image for the city. Rather than allowing so many random factions to waste time and resources fighting between themselves, with proper Control and direction the sky would be the limit.

Come to think of it he could partner with Harvey Dent too and Harvey would be seen as the Mayor who cleaned up the city, it would lower certain prices too meaning less petty crime. Fisk understood that certain business models help to keep the boat from rocking. Spiderman ruined that by doing his thing, I know he's a Superhero etc but he made the problem worse not better. I see Fisk as a force for order out of determinism not just order out of chaos. Batman is different, he's neither good nor bad, he's a force of entropy, he goes outside of the lines when it suits his own moral choice or fundamental beliefs. There's room there for compromise, Spiderman is too busy swinging through life to understand that every city needs a Wilson Fisk and that will never change.

My Spiderman is already doing things differently. I calculated that if he took the contents of that trunk, cut it (not counting distribution costs) he would come away with just shy of 4.8mil USD and that's before adding up those bank notes. He's in the right city for it at the right time with the right prices. That's why I said I wanted to play a Fisk city builder/management game.

The game itself is a lot better than expected. I'm some how almost 60% finished with the main story, which is odd considering I spent most of my time checking architecture and my old view to see if it was all that accurate, it really is. The brickwork, the cladding, it's eerily similar to what I would have seen every day. I've never seen that happen in a game before, it was like being back there. New Yorker's must love the game. The attention to detail in recreating the Upper East Side and Midtown especially is really impressive. I've found inconsistencies with Central Park (to be expected) Broadway and a couple of buildings but as a whole they've done a great job. The story is good too, I didn't know he was involved with helping the poor/homeless or that he knew his way around a laboratory. I thought he was a high school kid. I expected to see Toby McGuire's face, who is this man, was my reaction.

There are a lot of Ubi-elements too like bases (construction sites) and collectibles, also random events, I like that sort of side-content. It's not overly intrusive, some of them add to who he is as a person, I didn't expect environmentalism but here we are cleaning up the bay and taking air filtration samples.

I'm probably swinging too fast through the city for much of agoraphobia or similar to kick in, which is interesting because I was glued to walls, bushes and avoiding open spaces in Everybody's Gone to The Rapture and that had no NPCs but this game has city-wide blocks and boroughs full of them but it's not too bad. It might be having lived there too but I've lived in the English countryside too so it's anyone's guess. Perhaps because it's third person, they don't do studies on this kind of thing but obviously I'm curious. I'm impressed by their level of accessibility too, longer windows to dodge, better notifications of when to dodge, they were very considerate and not enough games do that. I'm sure it would hit harder in the feels department if I were a fan of the franchise, I thought it was his aunt that died and his uncle that survived. That's how out of touch with Spiderman I was, I watched that first movie because Sam Raimi directed it. None of the others and maybe three episodes of the cartoon.

Have you played it? or any of them? You'd probably like this one. There's a lot of content to busy yourself with and you can beat people up to your hearts content. It's just very strict in-terms of (you must be good) though that said you can swing sewer lids, parking meters and garbage cans at the public and no one seems to care.

And I haven't played the Old Country yet, X-ray vision, do you mean they have like a "hear the enemies and see them glowing through walls' mechanic? Or something? I don't remember seeing that.

• That sort of mechanic where you can see through walls to track movements etc. It's not at all realistic and ruins any sense of genuine immersion especially when the game is set in 1900s. I haven't met many Sicilians who have instinct vision, though at times I did wonder if she could. It's a gag that needs to be removed from current games especially if they are going to incorporate stealth. It works in a game like ARK: Survival Ascended or Batman, they can explain it away through technology and detective vision. Games don't have to be that linear, a little less hand holding goes a long way. There's no sense of achievement in outsmarting anything when you see through walls.

So, the other night I was doing a side quest that led me to a church, and, while there, my slightly unhinged Henry - who goes a little crazy when he's left alone in a room or the wild with no witnesses -saw an opportunity to feed his blood lust.

• That sounds like my experience with Red Dead 2, at least concerning the lack of witnesses. I justify actions like that as it's not crime per-say unless you are caught and even then there is the burden of proof. In your case Henry might just have had a moment, a passing bout of violence that he is probably working on in his own time. It would be hard to judge him for his actions. The same way it would be hard to judge my Spiderman from becoming an equal opportunist. He keeps saying he can't pay his rent, I see a way to fix that just like Henry most likely had his reasons. Especially if loot were involved.So yeah, that is my take on the sandbox this time, seeing how far I can push the game 😅
• That's one of the more fun approaches with a sandbox and it doesn't seem that many games offer those kinds of options anymore, there's a focus on playing it safe and not drawing outside of the lines or just getting it completely wrong and trying to use a white crayon to colour a zebra. I'm not cynical, I just haven't seen that much genuine freedom in a long time. Outside of remasters, everything is too serious. I don't play games to experience something that serious, unless it's a simulator which adventure games aren't. If anything your game is a kind of medieval simulator of sorts and it still offers more than a standard sandbox experience, it sounds like the developers understand how to balance story with fun, which is rare now or at least seems to be.

I hope Crimson Desert is another one of those exceptions. I feel a little of that Dragon's Dogma 2 energy, that 'this will be amazing I'll try to reschedule this and that so I can play it day one', I did and then finished the game that evening. Either I'm getting faster or games are getting smaller, it feels like playing Homefront for the first time and then after two hours thinking 'oh brilliant I've finished the prologue' and sitting dumbfounded as the end credits role. I see less of that when I move backwards and focus on PS4 games, there was more scrutiny to release a sizable package. I'm not seeing that as much with PS5, but I'd like to be proven wrong so I can shift focus to those better games.

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@Ravix Your ability to chew through games is far beyond my understanding and capabilities, though. It took me 2 or more months to "finish" Dragon's Dogma 2. And I can't imagine being able to, or wanting to play Spider-Man that fast.

• That is most definitely down to viewing games as nothing more (most times) than task completion. The constant need for achievement means not experiencing a game as intended. I move through at high speed, it's like a car I've never been behind the wheel on a normal road. Just racing tracks and Moscow roads are racing tracks of sorts too. Everything in life is fast moving, put some police lights on your car you'll see. That's fine for logistics and getting from A to B but games aren't supposed to be burned through so fast and I only have one setting which I've tried to adjust before but it doesn't work.

Available time factors into it too. If you were on someone's else's schedule you'd probably push that extra bit to make better use of that temporary leave so to speak. I'm sure I did once game for the sake of it, I just can't remember and I wish I could. Maybe littlebigplanet for the first few days, there had to be at least one more. Now it's all based on set goals, pacing and time constraints. Other than meditation I never stop, you know this thing the energizer bunny? it goes on and on? like so. It takes someone else to shut me off or tie me down, then I'm off but if not I'll go all day and all night. If no one says go to bed then I simply don't. There's no reason to sleep when you aren't tired.

For longest time I was being told I had three hours to game, then an hour later 'three hours have passed, you're done'. They hadn't, he was messing with my sense of time and I kept feeling like I'd accomplished nothing in those three hours, I hadn't been given three hours at all. Over time that really pushed me to speed through games. That doesn't happen anymore but that rush to stay productive and not tarry in those virtual worlds definitely remained. I don't stand still in games anymore, I'm sure I did before but don't remember that either.

Having to do it for a couple of trophies in Everybody's Gone to The Rapture was weird, ten minutes of standing in a phone box not moving felt like a lifetime. I usually only game between midnight and four in the AM and most of the time it's after a night out too. I could game during the day but that's a slippery slope. If I did that I'd catch up to every franchise in no time at all, but it wouldn't be responsible either and I'd fall behind on everything else. I'm sure there are people who game all and all night. When I gamed online there were people who didn't work and that's all they did. I used my network of multiple consoles to accomplish the same things, if anything my army of bots were even more efficient than I'd have been with those hours. But is that out-sourcing fun? I don't know.

I have no idea how anyone plays five or six games in a weekend, I see that all the time too. It's their time so more power to them, I couldn't. Especially if they aren't completing them? It would be like dividing your attention up into six different worlds, adapting to each, to the rules of the game, the controls, maybe even different consoles too. I haven't touched Xbox in maybe three months or four. But months to complete a game? I'd not be able to sleep, I'd be thinking 'I need to finish that game'.

Four in the AM is my usual shut-off time though, it syncs with most time-zones that I visit so my gaming isn't (usually) too interrupted. I only need my four hours sleep and I'm good for the next twenty hours, that might not sound like a lot but if you workout for two hours per-day you build up the rest of that energy that's needed to get on with the rest of the day. They say anything less than eight is unhealthy, not if you eat healthy, exercise and have adrenaline flowing through you like a Siberian pipeline. Which might be slow but it's continuous and efficient even when the topography changes.

My last 2 KCD saves, for example, were 180hrs each. So I won't be falling into that trap again 👀👀👀 not when I also need to play Death Stranding 2, Crimson Desert, 007 First Light, and maybe even Spider-Man 2 this year (as it is on ps plus)

• Watch as your first Crimson Desert save hit two hundred hours, two of those hours being the character creator. I wish I could feel something for First Light, it's one of my favorite studios and they brought their usual environmental artists onboard too, but (this will sound bad) young James Bond is not doing it for me, if they released a skin of Timothy Dalton as a pre-order bonus I'd hit pre-order right now. I don't really watch Bond for Bond, he's the exception. I tend to watch it for the Blofelds, Max Zorins, Gustav Graves and Le Chiffres of the world. I don't think I've ever rooted for a supposed good guy before. You do that? Maybe that's more of a Western thing. We've always been typecast as something else. I don't think there was one singular moment where I went from preferring Blofeld to Bond, I understood the former better. Just look how good he was to his cat, all those head pats. No one was there to say 'this is Bond, he's a good guy', it was quite the opposite and 'this is Bond he's a Western spy' so smertʹ shpionam etc. Bond was always portrayed to me as someone meddling in the affairs of others. I don't think that's ever lifted especially now when that atmosphere and Cold War energy of early Bond is true to form today.

The Bond I was steered towards was Max Otto von Stierlitz, no doubt you'll have not heard of him? He was a Soviet agent/character who prompted many to join the ranks of the old KGB. He would do things like infiltrate the German high command and was more busy getting the job done than fraternizing with the enemy. I saw the shows long before I was shown Bond. It was confusing seeing a professional one moment, and essentially a playboy the next. It caused a line to be drawn, I can appreciate a lot of things about the Bond franchise/universe. It's just very hard to see it like everyone else does, even when I try. Max Otto von Stierlitz/Colonel Maxim Isaev is legendary and patriotic, he's known to use strategy above all else. It's the culture too, we play chess, I did tonight. He was so symbolic for young KGB agents, I still hear ex-KGB talk about him in such glowing terms. They admire his patience, strategy and thinking. What you call cat and mouse, that was his way, a very rational thinker too. The character was created to improve the image of the KGB, it worked brilliantly, so many people signed up. I can't talk about present day State Security, but back then our James Bond created a cultural shift, one that's seen today when you know where to look. I can't comment on that but many people were inspired by the character.

That's probably why Eidos are one of my favorite studios, Agent 47 is far from a good guy, he wears many different hats, literally. I can get behind his thinking and he's professional too, even if he needs to use a rubber duck to get the job done. Hopefully the game will have such glowing reviews that I'll change my mind. Apparently I'm missing this part 'Supporting heroes fulfills a human need to see justice, fairness, and positive moral values triumph, reflecting the desire for a safer world'. To be fair Blofeld did everything he did in one movie just so he could retire with financial security while at the same time acquiring legitimate status for his Family line. All he was trying to do was demand a little amnesty and have his ancestry officially recognized then Bond showed up and ruined everything, even got his own wife killed, congrats there Mr Bond truly. And yes he may have tasked his female agents to use biological warfare agents that would destroy the agricultural economy of Britain but only if they didn't meet his quite reasonable demands. He wasn't asking for much, just to be left alone so he could retire comfortably in peace.

Maaaan, I really hope there is a good launch buzz for Crimson Desert, I want everyone to be playing it and it to be a real talking point game of the year. Even if it isn't perfect, and performs a bit poorly in some ways on consoles.

• I hope so too, I can't imagine playing something current and being on that same page instead of seeing a game that's maybe two decades old and realizing half of the planet has already played it. Performance doesn't bother me too much, I like imperfection when it's someone else's, it reminds me that a human made it and they can always patch performance. If the story or game-play doesn't meet peoples expectations we'll never hear the end of it. I might give it a week, depending on the reviews. If not then I don't think I have any other new games to look forward for the foreseeable future. State of Play was enjoyable, positive but I don't remember seeing anything and thinking I needed it. Maybe it's a byproduct of becoming less materialistic, there's the sense of personal growth, the focus on greater gratitude but that 'I can't wait for this' sort of switches off. Outside of preservation there's not much there, I'd like there to be but there's no point in forcing it either. Then it's just FOMO and spending because you can, not because you should.

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@Ravix Did you finish spider-man now? Or is the final 40% a bit larger than expected?

• No SpiderHappenings last night. We've been attending the Winter Olympics which means I've been catnapping during parties all week. You know this saying to miss sleeping in your own bed? that can be circumvented by sleeping on the floor at opportune times. Last night had to be a bed and it cost me a night of gaming. Skating is a big part of my life, I skate more than I game. We haven't had what you would call official representation but we've all been watching Petrosian and we don't need to fly a flag when we have language, which is loud, clear and mystery to the other attendees. To me she performed well, I understand those quadruple jumps and the discipline that goes into her raison d'etre. It's very singular and the closet you can get to gliding while staying strictly focused and grounded. I'll happily spend my life skating in circles. I don't attend the other events, only figure skating.

sooooo, I definitely don't analyse games and movies quite like you.

• I didn't notice that until a couple of months ago but you're right. I tend to internalize everything, not write it down or vocalize. It doesn't exist offline in an external manner. Quiet observation is best. I prefer to mingle and listen. I learn more that way and no one offline wants to hear about movies or games. So maybe that's why.

the basis for Bond included the life of Christopher Lee, didn't it? he spoke more languages than you, too. So you'll have to up your own spy game 😛

• I'm up to eight, Latin (if I ever complete it) will be nine. Lee is interesting. I was told that years ago by my first Partner, my Pinewood contact. Pinewood is Bond, and Bond is Pinewood. He didn't use the word spy, maybe Asset or Intelligence Officer. It came up because of Dracula, he showed me all of the Hammer Horrors and taught me about the industry. I preferred Hammer to Bond and Lee was a big part of that. I learned afterwards that he fought in the Winter War of 1939 with the Finnish against us. He may have been S.A.S. too and most folks probably think he was just an actor. Cary Grant was similar, either with the S.O.E. or O.S.S. and we had plenty of sleepers in the industry too. A kind of golden age of intelligence, so much panache is lost to the ease of a couple of clicks.

I'm mostly interested because I do like the Spy/agent genre in film, tv and games, and we don't often get to see much in the gaming sphere any more

• On PC we do but those are often janky and not always English speaker. There have been plenty of Eastern European games that focus on stealthy and espionage. Black Mamba mentioned playing Alekhine's Gun but he didn't know it was part of our Death to Spies series. It's not English speaking so it went unknown in the West. Unless dubbed. I'll play the newest addition when it releases.

I can't say I care much for Rockstar anymore. They focused too much on GTA Online for me to jump on the hype train, I'll wait and see but even then I feel like I'm not that games demographic anymore. I don't think the satire in the last one helped, it went over my head due to in-exposure and I'm sure GTA6 will be no different, especially if it's modern and follows current trends. I don't know what those are.

I'm not sure what to think of Spiderman, as a character I don't get him at all. As a game I can and do appreciate the sheer dedication to replicate the city. The combat has a very good natural flow, and after reading a couple of comicbooks I can say they captured the feel of one in living colour. I just feel a distance between that world. I like those endearing moments between Fisk's men such as 'did you know the Boss before he was the Boss? he was always the Boss', I can relate to that but not much else. One character I do like is Silver Sablynova I like her style, she's Eastern European too. I checked, she's a marksman, a martial artist and gymnast, she also has an interesting Family background. A kind of kindred spirit. She seems to have her own PMC too, it's hard not to respect that ambition. I also saw Miles Moralis for the first time, there was something about him.

A kind of human vulnerability, he was likable and his facial animations told their own story. Spiderman has no real face and I don't really like vigilantes. I prefer structure, Batman is able to balance the two, he speaks the universal language of the fist while Spiderman speaks to himself. He's a little too reckless or perhaps I was distanced from superheros for so long that I can't see what you do. One of my earliest memories of one would be Superman. It was on TV for Christmas, I asked could I watch it and no. The reasoning given stuck. I've questioned some other things since then so maybe one day I'll have a look for myself. I know he's an alien, has a dog, has a daughter (Supergirl) but that's it.

I've kind of had a break from KCD the last day or two, so there is a chance for another game to force its way into my gaming time instead. Maybe I should at least install Death Stranding 2 😅

• I don't know what happened with Death Stranding 2 and I remember launch day clearly. I turned it on that morning, then after two hours something clicked and 'do you really want to spend your life like this?' That's never happened with any game before. I 100%'d both versions of the original, I enjoyed the traversal, challenge and logistics but that day a switch was flipped. I put the disc back in the box and it's not left the shelf since. I can't explain that at all, offline they were asking why I stopped and I had no answer. I went outside instead. It was the only game I'd been looking forward to. It's almost like what they call responsibility? activated but responsibility for what. I wondered if it was the subject matter, it can be a bleak game, but those two hours weren't. I think I stopped gaming for the Summer after that. Do you know why you've put it off? Is it a mood thing or the delivery mechanic? The theme?