Topic: Your Latest PlayStation 5 Purchase

So, with the new sale today, I finally pulled the trigger on Spider-man 2 and God of War Ragnarok. Neither can really be called impulse buys, as I had more or less decided to get them the next time their price dropped, so here we are. Been hankering for "Spider-man 2" in particular for a while now, so I may actually start it quite soon (the original plan was to play Stray and other "short-ish" games until the Ghost of Yotei pre-order dropped, but I haven't gotten around to starting it yet).

@FuriousMachine I do think you’ll be pleased with Stray when you get to it. It’s a really nice diversion from the normal, and yet still familiar to the types of games that you’ve been playing. Although Stray would be a wonderful game to fill space between larger ones due to its short run-time, Spider-Man 2 is not particularly long either. If you want to do everything then it can take maybe 30 hours, but can be finished in a lot less time than that. It felt shorter than the first game, although it’s probably about the same length. I think the fact that they trimmed some of the fat off the open world made it feel a little tighter. It’s still not as compact and streamlined as Miles Morales, but I think the gameplay and side/open world activities were a little less tiresome. Gameplay keeps evolving, even toward the second half, so that also keeps it feeling fresh throughout. Still, to be clear, it’s the same basic game as the first two, and so it depends how much you enjoyed those. It doesn’t suddenly become a turn-based strategy RPG or anything. The kinetic action gameplay is very familiar, but no less enjoyable.

As far as GoW Ragnarok, it’s in my pile of shame too so I really can’t say, but I think I heard it’s even longer than the first game, so might need to be held until you’ve got a good amount of time to devote. But an efficient gamer can surely finish all three of these games in the next two and a half months. Although, I’m not an efficient gamer by any measure, so I’m not a good judge of that. 😅

General question for anyone with an opinion—
How do we feel about Alan Wake 2 for $24? It’s another from my watchlist that is on the deepest sale price it’s ever been. I’ve yet to play the first one though 😂. But AW2’s GOTY nominations and accolades have me wondering if the price is now down to the point I should add it for later. I had fully intended to play AW1 last month but my schedule got screwed up.

@Th3solution I think you'd like Alan Wake 2, and I say this as someone who hasn't yet played it myself haha. You'd also like Alan Wake, and honestly I'd say play that first (they remade it) as it is a really unique game and I can recommend it from a place of having actually played that one. It was one of my favourite games of that generation despite not owning the box of X it was released on originally myself. It has the single most pretentious ending of any ending ever, and I loved it so much for being exactly the way it was. You'll get what I mean when you play it.

And as you like games like the last of us, and also that narrative teenager game series (life is strange?) I don't know the actual genre of that, and Control (right?) I think the tone and presentation of absolutely anything made by Remedy will be appreciated by you. I'm pretty sure you have similar tv/movie tastes to that which influence their various games too.

@FuriousMachine Stray is awesome. Play Stray. It is kind of like a chilled out 10 hour Oscar winning animation 😺

@Ravix Yes, I loved Control. One of my favorite games I’ve played this generation. And yes, the “narrative teenager games” 😂 too. (When you say it like that it makes me ashamed… 😅)

Ok, I’ll probably pick it up for the $24. That’s still a smidge more than I usually pay for an older game on sale, but it’s probably not going lower for a while.

@Th3solution is the first one (remake) still on PS Plus, or was it a monthly game, too? (I'm pretty sure it was) so you can think of it as a buy one get one free 😁

@Th3solution I loved both "Spider-man" and "Miles Morales" and spaced them out so that I wouldn't get burned out on them. "Spider-man" got me close to burnout after the DLC was done, so I waited quite a while to play MM. MM had the perfect length for me, especially as I like to "do everything" and that often leads to burnout on longer games.
I'm anything but an efficient gamer (I spent six months on "Witcher 3" and I played that exclusively in that period), so I don't even expect to be done with "Spider-man 2" by the time "Yotei" comes out, but hopefully I'll be close. "Yotei" can simmer for a couple of days while I finish it up

@Ravix I will absolutely play "Stray", it has only been postponed, not dropped. And I believe "narrative teenager game" is now my favourite genre-descriptor 😂

@Ravix Yes, I have the first Alan Wake Remastered by virtue of it being included as a PS+ Essential offering a few months ago. My understanding is that it’s not very long, so I reckon it’s easy to fit in on he side, even while I’m playing BG3 and whatnot. But I already have a smaller side game, one of the “teenage narrative games”, 😂 Lost Records. So when that’s complete then maybe AW will be in the mix for next up.

@FuriousMachine The time frame before Yotei would definitely more easily be filled by SM2. You and I probably play games at a similar pace (I think I was on Dark Souls 2 for six months) and looking at my SM2 trophies for reference, approximately 6 weeks passed between my first trophy and the platinum. For comparison, 2 weeks passed between my first and last trophy for Stray. I lacked two trophies for the platinum, one of which is actually a trophy “I am Speed” for completing the game in under 2 hours. Not being a fan of speedruns, I didn’t even try that. But hopefully that gives you some context of the ‘real world’ time commitments.

(One of the things I love about the trophy system is this cool time stamped record keeping that makes it possible to look at these metrics)

Edit: Oh, and as an aside, Stray is actually one of the games listed as an option for one of the few campaigns left for the PS Stars program. Since they are sunsetting the program, you might start the game before these campaigns all expire (I think I read maybe July 23rd…?) if that’s important to you to get some last minute free credits. I just noticed that so thought I’d mention it.

@Th3solution hehehe, agreed, the trophy log was indeed my source for checking how long I spent on "The Witcher 3" I just checked "Spider-Man" and seems it took me from early March to early October 2019 to finish it, however it looks like I took the majority of June and July off and the main mission and side missions done by late August, spending the rest of the time with the DLC and mopping up for the Platinum. So SM2 takes me as long, "Yotei" may be waiting more than a couple of days, but hey, that's OK too

I read the trophy roadmap for "Stray" (I always check these before starting a new game to see if I want to go for the Plat or not) and it seems that "speedrun" is a bit of a misnomer in this case. Indicators were that you didn't rally have to stress it to beat the game in under two hours; apparently, skipping exploration and just taking the straightest path through the game should leave you with about 30 minutes of slack, so it doesn't sound too bad. I hate speedruns, too, and any plat that requires it (or difficulty based trophies or several playthroughs) I typically won't bother with. I will definitely attempt this one when I get to it, though.

PS Stars is one of the many things not available here in Norway, much to my annoyance. At least now it won't be available anywhere, so we're all in the same boat. So... yay?

@FuriousMachine @Th3solution

Honestly, I'd say playing Stray in anything less than 10 hours is playing it wrong. It is a game where you need to RP being a cat to take it all in, and sometimes the cat likes to lie down listening to music, it will sometimes like to scratch a carpet, or spend time looking at the beautiful environment that it would no doubt spray pi$$ on if it could 😂

I know sometimes people just play games for the gameplay, but I beleive we play games for the story, the experience, the emotion and all of its sum parts, and it is too good a game to play as 'just a game' imo. Hence some people saying it was short and rubbish 🤷‍♂️ but I can understand why they thought that if they did just move through it unattached to the world or its inhabitants

Oh yes, and Alan Wake would probably be a good side game, maybe best saved for Halloween time, maybe as a side game to Yotei if you jump on that at launch.

@Ravix To clarify: any attempt to play it under 2 hours would be a second playthrough after I've thoroughly explored it the first time around.

@Th3solution @Herculean I played Nobody Wants to Die earlier this year and felt a little indifferent towards it.

The setting, style, and whole world the game is set in is amazing and the overall story is quite cool. However, the two main game mechanics are kind of dull.

The main one feels very heavily based on the "brain dance" mechanic from Cyberpunk 2077 where you find a piece of evidence and then fast forward/rewind through time to find another clue, search that, rinse and repeat. It feels a bit of a slog and you end up losing focus on what is actually being revealed.

Similarly, the other is using an evidence board to piece things together. It involves linking bits of evidence and it's often clear what you need to link but when it isn't it just ends up being a war of attrition as you try linking every single bit of evidence until something clicks.

But for 6-8 hours it doesn't particularly outstay its welcome.

@FuriousMachine phew 😁 it is genuinely one of those games I wish I could play again with no prior knowledge to, so I hope it brings you a similar a level of enjoyment that I experienced. It very much satisfied the old emotional side of the brain.

I believe Annapurna is still making a film adaption of some sort, too 🤞

@Thrillho Oof. You sure know how to kill my excitement for a game.

I concur with @Thrillho's assessment of Nobody Wants to Die. Amazing setting, cool story, boring game mechanics. It felt like a chore driving the story forward at times and if the game hadn't been as short as it is, I probably would have cut it short. I had high hopes for it, but was ultimately disappointed.

@Herculean @Thrillho Yeesh. Same here. Brain dances were probably my least favourite part of Cyberpunk, so Nobody Wants to Die has fallen down the list.

Hope you still get some enjoyment out of it @Th3solution. 😂

@JohnnyShoulder It's just really hard, I feel, to turn investigation like that into a fun experience. In Cyberpunk it really felt like just scrolling through the layers until you found something that 'lit up'. Really enjoyed Cyberpunk, and I didn't hate the brain dances - they felt thematic - but as the core gameplay concept it sounds somewhat boring.

Observational investigation puzzles can be really good, though. Most know of Curse of the Obra Dinn, which is amazing and made you feel like an actual detective solving it. And recently I played Case of the Golden Idol, which is at least as good as that game. So, I can easily recommend that to all the Sherlocks on here.

@JohnnyShoulder Maybe I should have gone with Nobody Saves the World after all! 😆

@FuriousMachine @Thrillho That’s unfortunate as it sounds like a missed opportunity. I’m $10 invested at this point so I’ll have to hope for the best. 😛 Although you probably were in at the $25 entry fee so that stings a little worse. The gaming gods will probably cause the game to drop onto PS+ next month though, just to rub it in. 😂

I can’t remember specifically from the little bit of Cyberpunk that I played (maybe 5-10 hours…?) but the game didn’t click for me and so ‘brain dances’ may have been part of my issue, although I think there were other aspects that were bigger problems for me. I actually have considered revisiting Cyberpunk and giving it a second chance since the game dropped onto PS++ recently. I’ve long since sold back my copy of the game, but now that I have access again, maybe I’ll try it again.

But considering games of a similar ilk (narrative mystery puzzle with a futuristic spin), I did really like Detroit Become Human and I vaguely recall a similar mechanic with virtual crime scene re-creation. It’s been a long time since I played that but I distinctly remember that DBH was in the running for my GOTY that year even in that stacked year (2018?). So maybe I’ll do okay with the NWtD version of the detective investigation mini game stuff. Do either of you remember DBH and can compare that to NWtD? I know it’s not going to have the full branching narrative that Quantic Dream games have, but I’ve been searching for a game to recapture the greatness of Detroit and nothing has really ever matched it, from a futuristic narrative perspective.

There’s been other games that have tried similar investigation mini-games like the Batman Arkham games would have the ‘crime scene piece together’ type of mechanic I recall and did seem ok at the time. Narrative puzzle games like Tacoma have had the ‘fast forward-rewind searching for clues’ type of thing as well. Remember Me comes to mind (no pun intended 😅) where there’s the memory download and rewind/fast-forward to recreate and find clues or manipulate an outcome and I thought that was a really under appreciated gameplay experience.

I doubt I’ll get to NWtD anytime soon, but I’ll definitely drop some thoughts when I do.

@Herculean Obra Dinn was a game on my radar but I hadn’t heard of Case of the Golden Idol before. I’m less into the hardcore detective games and more about the storytelling aspects with a splash of puzzling investigation on the side, so I’m not sure if it would be too intense for me from that aspect. Looks interesting though, having just watched the trailer. The gaming space is severely lacking in games set in colonial America and using the South American Aztec/Mayan/Incan cultures and references and it’s a backdrop rife with opportunities, imo.