Topic: Your Latest PlayStation 5 Purchase

@Herculean Would be very interested in reading your conclusions on Indiana Jones sometime (said without pressure). I should have been there at launch, given how much I love the franchise, so it's definitely a matter of "when" for me, but a strong recommendation would move it up my schedule. In the meantime, I'm glad it made a good impression to begin with, and I hope you continue to enjoy!

@Werehog You'll have to be patient then! My days are still very much filled with family, friends and trying to find some time to work on the house.

Picked up Stalker 2 on this current sale. It's great so far. It feels like a living world, not just one that becomes alive when I'm around.

@graymamba Would love to hear your thoughts on Indika when you eventually get to it! It's been sitting installed in my library for a while since it caught my eye, but I haven't yet pulled the trigger despite its short length.

@Tjuz it normally takes me aaaaggggeeesss to get to new games that I’ve bought but this’ll probably be one I get to in the next 6 months or so due to it being so short and different to pretty much anything else. I’ll be sure to tag you, once I’ve played it 👍

I had some real physical money for xmas, so I used some of it to buy some PS store credit, which I then used to get Divinity Original Sin 2 and Disco Elysium before the sale ended. Not sure when I'll get round to them, as I'm currently playing Alan Wake 2 and once I've finished that I briefly played Eternal Strands which I would like to continue.

@JohnnyShoulder So Eternal Strands is pretty good? I’ve been curious about it but I get it confused with Unknown 9 and Echoes of the End. So I haven’t picked up any of those 3.

Disco Elysium is really good though. Very unique experience.

@JohnnyShoulder Disco Elysium is one of the best games ever made, if you haven't played it yet then you are in for a treat. It's absolutely brilliant, I've done maybe eight play-throughs. Just seeing the name makes me want to play it again, it's a work of art. The writing and dialogue are some of the best I've ever seen, especially now that they patched in actual narration.

@GirlVersusGame How are you feeling about Zero Parades? Are you excited or do you think it will be a soulless cashgrab from the remnants of a studio lacking almost all of their original creative talent?

@Th3solution Honestly? I find it hard to not see it as a cash-grab. I really enjoyed that first game, I'd hoped for a follow up and then I saw how bad the original team were treated. It looked like they had their baby stolen out from under them, the community saw it the same way. I'd never played a game like that before, I still find it hard to find the words. I wish there were more games like that but I think it was lightening in a bottle. It made me want to try new genres and then I did. I think it was the start of my push away from Triple A's and onto Indies, then I fell in love with gaming again.

It's disturbing that a company can do that, then release a product that looks almost identical to the original. It's a weird kind of entitlement that shouldn't exist, they could have made literally anything else. The response to originality would have been less harsh. I'll probably avoid it, just because of how those original developers were treated. The story and writing would have to be exceptional for me to even consider changing my mind. I think it's biggest problem will be that if it isn't a soulless cashgrab it will still be review bombed. I remember the comments when they released the PS5 trailer. What do you think? will you give it a shot?

@GirlVersusGame I don’t know. I really liked DE, but not quite as much as you, it seems. I’d put it up with the best games I played that year (2023 was the year I played it), and perhaps a top 15 game I’ve played on my PS5. Nevertheless, I’ve only played it once and it didn’t quite have any life altering impact on me or my gaming trajectory.

And perhaps because my enjoyment of the game was limited to “one of the best of the year” rather than “an all-time favorite”, I didn’t really follow the fiasco over at ZA/UM so closely. At least, not until the whole thing became a colossal mess that hit the front pages.

So when I saw the trailer for Zero Parades (great title, by the way) I was quite excited because it was so clearly a DE spiritual successor. But the more I’ve looked into the developer and come to know that the original creative team behind DE isn’t around anymore, I’ve lost some of the hype. I don’t follow the shenanigans of companies and artists as closely as most people do, and I often just go with a product based on its own merit, even if it’s creator is a knucklehead or the developer is doing something nefarious or controversial. Most companies are filled with greedy crooked people and have employers and leaders who have horrible morals or ethics. It’s nearly impossible to maintain completely righteous consumer behavior or else you’d never consume any form of entertainment. I absolutely respect anyone else’s right to boycott a game or company on the grounds of crunch, use of AI, employee harassment, political incorrectness, ill-worded tweets from 10 years ago, too much DEI, not enough DEI, or whatever other numerous reasons that people latch onto to decide to boycott. People have to make decisions they are comfortable with. We all have our hill to die on, and I have mine too (and it would likely be a hill other people would think is silly), but I usually don’t go looking for reasons to protest or snub something and so in the case of ZA/UM, I just don’t feel strongly and am not informed of the “he said, she said” of it all. If I was, I’d probably feel more opinionated about it. But if Zero Parades actually turns out good, then I’ll be very interested. I’m more concerned about the fact that the creative talent is not involved in this game, and not as much about the controversy of whatever happened there.

@Th3solution I've only played an hour or so whilst I was waiting for Alan Wake 2 to download on my dad's ps5, so hard to have an opinion on it yet. Not sure what you mean on the other games you mentioned, they don't have similar sounding names. I don't know enough about them to know if they have similar gameplay.

@GirlVersusGame I've heard nothing but good things for Disco Elysium. My only concern is that sometimes I struggle with games when there is a lot of dialogue. I can remember falling off Wasteland 3 as I got to the point that it felt it was 5 mins of combat followed at least double that for dialogue. So I think that might be something I play when the mood strikes me, and in smaller doses.

@JohnnyShoulder Sometimes I struggle with games when there is a lot of dialogue.

• You are preaching to the converted. I feel the same way, I prefer the art and exploration. I have a hard time feeling certain things, dialogue is one of them. But I loved the dialogue in Disco Elysium and that's mainly because it tailors itself to the player. It becomes part of you, I'm trying not to spoil anything. A lot of games offer a good/bad option and sometimes it does enhance the game, but Disco Elysium reinvents the wheel. It was a bit of a slog when they didn't have the audible dialogue, that was a lot of reading. It does have audio for now and it's great. There's a mechanic in the game that I really want to talk about but can't, it relates to dialogue and the story. When you see it you'll know. I'm back in merry ol' London so I do plan on doing some gaming soon, probably that Core Keeper game I read about. Disco Elysium is tempting too, I'm sure there were others but I forgot. Ravix was talking about something too, there are too many games. I don't know how you guys do it.

@GirlVersusGame Yeah, I think you’re on the right track. “DEI” or Diveristy, Equity, and Inclusion is just a blanket term for equal representation, whether it be in games, TV, movies, or at the workplace, in sports, whatever. It’s a movement that hopes to get the marginalized parts of society on equal grounds with the majority and/or more powerful aspects. So mainly we’re talking about gender, sexual orientation, race, socioeconomic, religion, age, etc. being represented. So you’ll see the term DEI thrown around anytime a progressive representation occurs in society or entertainment media. Many companies now have DEI policies to guide their hiring practices, for example. But in art, gaming, movies it’s often about having characters present that represent all walks of life. So not necessarily just having just gay characters and storylines present, but also Black, Asian, Muslim, obese, neurodivergent, trans, people with a physical disability, rural, elderly … basically name your group and it all really falls under “DEI”, although race, gender, and sexual orientation get the most attention. But the core principle of equal representation applies to all humans needing to have comparable rights and representation.

We’re talking gaming here of course, but a big example of opposing views on whether there’s too much or too little DEI emphasis is with the MCU and Disney, also including Star Wars. Disney has been very progressive to include diverse characters and storylines in their properties and there’s been a lot of pushback from the conservative community who has been a large portion of their fanbase. That’s just one example.

For more about DEI in gaming, you can research the company Sweet Baby Inc. which is a consulting company that game developers use to help them ensure they are keeping DEI in their games.

Anyway, not to get too far into it, but one camp feels that despite DEI initiatives in gaming, there’s still not equal representation, and another camp pushes back complaining that they feel the inclusion of diverse characters feels shoehorned into games and detracts or feels “preachy”. Most of us fall in the middle and appreciate the progress being made and realize we have a long way to go, but it may not adversely affect us on playing a particular game, per se.

Or in other words, just like you said:
“I respect people, not agendas. I don't need nor want someone pushing their ideals on me. My own are intense and extreme to a lot of people, but I don't project them onto others... They can have theirs, I can have mine, nothing they do affects my life, nothing I do affects theirs”
Which is what we call a ‘libertarian’ approach.

So not to get too political here, and the discussion started just to see how people might respond to a successor to Disco Elysium coming out from ZA/UM after the fallout and termination (resignation?) of the staff from the company after some bitter disputes and the “forceful takeover”, as it were. I think most people relate to and side with the workers and creators so will likely boycott a game from ZA/UM that purportedly mistreated the developers. We’ll see. People have boycotted games for less. But as I mentioned, the vast majority of people don’t follow or think about it and just play what they want to play based simply on the merits of the game itself.

@GirlVersusGame That is good to know that you still enjoyed Disco Elysium even when you have not gelled with dialogue heavy games previously. It was on PS Plus Extra, but I didn't get a chance to play it. I think I even downloaded it.

Yes there are far too many games, there was that crazy stat I read the other about how games that released on Steam last year. Some of us on here have lists and schedules, which sounds too much like work to me and prefer just to go with the flow a bit more. I used to buy a lot more games, but had to knock that on the head as it felt like I was getting overwhelmed having all these games I had yet to play. Now I mainly play games that are on PS Plus and not thinking so much about stuff like backlogs and what not.

I too really enjoy exploration in video games and is probably why Elden Ring is one of my favourite games this gen. It is certainly the game i sunk the most hours into and totally scratched an itch for me.

Oh you are back in the big smoke, is that just a short stay or something more permanent?

@JohnnyShoulder Is the big smoke another word for London? I don't think I've heard it before. I'm assuming it's because of all of the smoke that was generated during Victorian times. It turned buildings black, I was reading recently of the same thing happening to a white marble building. Now it's black.

I'm back until I wake up to 'get up we are going to X Y or Z', that's more business related, but that's sometimes an hour or two's notice. It's still 'living' in England, just very temporary trips elsewhere. I don't really notice them, it's not tourism. Just one indoor place to the next, if it's longer I bring games and things. I'm avoiding Russia for long stays, it's too volatile and insane now. After two weeks I felt the propaganda slowly warping my perspective of right and wrong, I told my Partner and we left for a couple of days. We went to the middle of no where, no TVs, just complete silence. I spent a whole day sitting there listening to nothing, it was wonderful, no helicopters or anything else flying over. No crazy rhetoric. I knew it was bad when I logged off here one night and tried to sleep. I thought I heard a TV on and went looking for it, there was no TV. It was everything I'd heard that day being replayed in my mind. After a month of that I'd probably snap and my right and wrong would flip entirely. It's not new either, you don't have patriotism or morals classes in England, I did. Now it's self fulfilling prophecy. Children are going to grow up really confused, and cut off from reality. I already see it happening. I don't like a game like Roblox, if you saw my other post you'll know why, I know what really happens there, but now it's banned and children need some kind of interaction with other children to gain normality. I think the children of Ukraine need something too, their lives back. If Russian children aren't given some kind of window to the world they'll grow up hating something they don't understand. It could be a dangerous cycle. One I think I'm already seeing.

If you name an App or site it's probably banned or heavily restricted. I don't know how anyone will explain to them that we invaded our neighbors. Unless they tell them the same things I was told. I didn't agree with being sent to England when I was, now as an adult I'm grateful for it. I learned right from wrong, the right way. I don't know how they will. We had over sixty million gamers, that's a community too. People got cut off and now they too have a reason to join that same cause. I don't mean to sound like a broken clock, the West have no idea what's really happening back home. It's dangerous.

Elden Ring was one of my favorites too. My play-through was three hundred hours because I walked everywhere. Then died a lot, got stronger and walked to newer areas. Which goes for every open-world game, everything goes by too fast when I take shortcuts for travel. If the game did have dialogue I remember none of it, that goes for every Souls game. I prefer to latch onto the world than the story. Disco Elysium was different, the story wasn't forced. It lets the player figure things out at their own pace and does something with dialogue that I'd never seen before. Now I wish more games did it.

Almost every game I played last year came from Plus+, there's too much choice now. All I have to do is look at what I did buy on PS4 to know that I needed to slow down. I struggle to think what the last PS5 game was that I bought and didn't play, and that's a good thing. I've tried to move away from consumerism, I don't think it really adds all that much to my life. It's more like my things start to own me, not the other way around. It's really weird not having some big title on the horizon that I want to play, or pre-order. There should be something. It feels like I haven't bought a game in months, Satisfactory was surely months ago. It was different for PS4, the people I played with were always buying new games so I did too. I didn't know what I was playing half the time. When I do play a game on Plus+ there's a kind of community feeling to it. I know others are probably experiencing that same game at the same time. That's another part of why I like it. Or I see someone here mention it, then try it too.

Picked up Silent Hill f physically. Got the Amazon edition that came with a unique box art and a poster which is kind of cool. Excited for the story. Not necessarily excited for the souls like melee combat.

@GirlVersusGame I think my time with Elden Ring was around the 400+ hour mark, with another 100+ hours for the expansion.

The only game that comes close to that level of exploration and freedom for me is Zelda Breath of the Wild. That is the only game I played extensively on Switch. It has almost been gathering dust since.