Comments 1,094

Re: Talking Point: Are You Getting Sick of Sony's Supposedly 'Samey' Approach to Story Telling?

Ainu20

You could make an argument that the majority of PlayStation Studios games are too serious, but having such a ridiculously hyperbolic and reductive article header can never lead to any sort of productive discussion. It's clickbait nonsense.

At the end of the day, each game needs to be judged on its own merit and in that sense, I find very little reason to complain about the quality of Sony's first party output. That's the main thing. And of course, they famously release so infrequently these days that there should be plenty of time to cleanse your palette with dozens of more lighthearted games in between!

Re: Sony Is a 'Terrible Company' That's 'Blowing It in the Games Business', Says Michael Pachter

Ainu20

@B_Lindz

As a publisher? Boy-howdy, this generation has been rough. Maybe one to two original games a year... maybe? It's been slow at best, dead at worst.

Since you said "as a publisher", well, here's some of the games they've published in the last 24 months: Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Astro Bot, Helldivers 2, Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade, Death Stranding 2 and in a couple of days, Ghost of Yotei. Terrible publisher.

Re: Square Enix Ain't Going to Revisit Parasite Eve on PS5, But This Chinese Dev Sure as Hell Is

Ainu20

@Kingy More or less, yeah. It needs to be clear that it's its own thing, even if it wears its inspirations on its sleeve. This is more of a personal thing, I have no insight into the legality of it all. I personally feel no game should be presented as a spiritual successor if none of the original creators are involved.

Having said that, in the context of this one, I actually have to correct myself since I completely ignored that Parasite Eve the video game was not an original work in itself, being based on a book of the same name. Then again, the main character of the game, Aya Brea, whom the main character of this new game is based on, is an original creation by SquareSoft.

Re: Mega Publisher EA Agrees to $55 Billion Buyout by Saudi Arabia, Silver Lake, Affinity Partners

Ainu20

The nicest thing I could've said about the EA of the last 10-15 years is that I didn't really care about them, as opposed to actively detest them. However, this investment is about as grotesque and repulsive as any I could've ever imagined. I know people might argue there's questionable money in many companies, but we all have to decide for ourselves where we draw the line. Let's just say this acquisition is so far beyond mine that even the memory of a line has faded.

Re: Square Enix Ain't Going to Revisit Parasite Eve on PS5, But This Chinese Dev Sure as Hell Is

Ainu20

@Kingy Since you were quoting me alongside others, I feel I should answer, but I can only answer for myself, not for the others.

Anyway, in my post, I referred to the name of the game (I mean, it has Parasite in the title), the style and the look of the main character. It's sometimes a fine line between hommage (which is something I fully support) and plagiarism. In this case, the combination of those factors takes it to the wrong side of that line in my opinion, in a way that Expedition 33 and Silksong obviously don't do. Someone could see this game and its title and genuinely believe it's the next game in the Parasite Eve IP. That's a problem.

Compare this to Axiom Verge, for example, which is probably the closest to Metroid you could find. At first glance you'd be like, that looks like Metroid, but it has a completely different title and different character and from there becomes its own game, though clearly a tribute to its inspiration. If that was titled something ending in "roid" and had a main character looking like Samus' suit, I'd feel the same as in this case.

Re: Ghost of Yotei (PS5) - The Greatest Sucker Punch Game Ever

Ainu20

Sitting at 89 on Opencritic at the moment, all looking very promising! With this releasing next week, Saros in around 6 months and Wolverine about a year away, things are cautiously starting to pick up again for PlayStation Studios I feel. Let's hope we're set for a strong couple of years.

Re: PS5 Is the Most Successful Console in PlayStation History, States Sony

Ainu20

The article mentions it's about profit, but what is this based on exactly? Using Google Translate the chart says "Sales", which is also mentioned in the English text at the bottom. Sales is a vague term but to me that would indicate revenue rather than profit. The figure in USD also shows $136B for the PS5 generation, which would be crazy profit for a subsidiary whose parent company has a market cap of around $180B.

Re: 'Sony Seeks an Impermissible Monopoly on Genre Conventions': Tencent Fires Back Over Horizon Rip-Off

Ainu20

@LifeGirl Several people have already pointed this out, but I'll add my voice to them as well. The clones you speak of were always mechanically similar, but that's not the case here at all. Light of Motiram is basically a different genre. The problem is that much of its art and assets are far too close to Horizon's for comfort, it's pretty blatant.

Whether it is blatant enough to hold up in court is not for any of us to decide, and I'm no expert, but it's certainly blatant enough for Sony to take legal action against them. Any other company would've done the same in this case. So no, I definitely disagree Tencent has a point here.

Re: Yakuza Kiwami 3 Seemingly Leaked on Dev Website

Ainu20

I love Yakuza 3 and will definitely replay it if they give it the Kiwami treatment. The core of the game remains great but there's so much that can be improved here. The presentation is the obvious one, but its combat system is very sluggish and some of the side activities, like the hostess game, are awful. So yeah, let's hope it's real and we get a glorious dragon engine version of Rikiya.

Re: 'It Was a Little Callous': Hell Is Us Dev Bemoans Impact of Hollow Knight: Silksong

Ainu20

I've said this on another site but Team Cherry just did what they felt was best for their game and are absolutely in their right to do so. It sucks for others caught in the blast radius but calling them callous because of it is a bit of a joke. They played it perfectly, creating hype with their Gamescom presence and then capitalizing on that with a release so soon after. Had they announced all of that sooner, it would still have been big, but not nearly as astronomical as this.

They went for a release strategy that will leave its mark in the history of video games. Are we really arguing that this tiny, three man studio were somehow wrong to do that? That they should have provided a courtesy to other studios and lessen the impact of their own game? In my opinion, that's just completely ridiculous.

Re: Rumours of Imminent PS5 Showcase Gain More Credibility

Ainu20

@Gooseman42 It's not really a matter of optimization. Capcom have built RE9 with RTGI in mind for even its lowest spec target platforms, and then it just doesn't make any sense to go through the resource intensive process of baking lights and having to include all of that in the game files.

The endgame of RT is to provide better, more dynamic and reactive lighting in games while at the same time drastically reducing development effort. If we're going to keep expecting studios to provide a fallback option, we're eliminating the second half of that equation.

Re: Sony to 'Advance Position as Creative Leader in Single Player Experiences'

Ainu20

@nomither6 That's more or less the same thing as @Th3solution is saying, is it not? Astro Bot is one of the most critically acclaimed and decorated games in recent PlayStation history, was lauded as one of the most relentlessly creative games they've ever made and celebrated all over the internet by PlayStation gamers with a message of "see Sony, this is what we want, not all this live-service stuff". And at a reasonable price point as well.

Yet even that game barely sold. Less than a third of Horizon: Forbidden West, less than a quarter of Spider-Man 2, less than 1/6th of Ragnarök, all games that have been lambasted on here for being by-the-numbers sequels. Yet the message PlayStation gamers are sending to Sony is very clear: more of the same, please! If even Astro Bot can't change this, then what chance do the Concrete Genies and Gravity Rushes of this world have?

Re: Rumour: PS6 Will Have a Detachable Disc Drive, Much Simpler Design

Ainu20

It was always going to have a detachable driver after they introduced it during this generation. I personally think it's the ideal way to go about it. It means even those who buy a digital edition have the chance to change their mind later on and go physical, something you didn't get at the start of the current generation. As long as they offer a version with the drive included from the start, it's perfectly fine.

Re: Even More Ex-Xbox Executives Speak Out About 'Tension' of Game Pass

Ainu20

@Ricky-Spanish I could go on about latency and compression artifacts, but let's just assume all technical hurdles will eventually get resolved. It's about control, or rather the lack of it. You no longer have even the slightest sliver of control over your gaming environment. If your internet connection is gone, your entire library becomes unplayable. If something about the streaming service changes, you are completely powerless against it. Physical ownership is of course gone.

Now, games becoming unplayable without internet connection or when the servers go down is becoming an increasingly big problem already, which is a whole discussion on its own. But crucially, with local hardware, you at least have the option to own your games and keep them locally. If they don't require a connection and you've got them installed, or better yet you own them physically, you are safe. You don't need to pay another cent to keep these games playable, and you don't need to fear that they might become unavailable at some point.

Signing up for an all subscription and/or streaming future means giving up all those things.

Re: Even More Ex-Xbox Executives Speak Out About 'Tension' of Game Pass

Ainu20

@Ricky-Spanish Your description of gaming being nothing more than an app and a subscription to stream your games is exactly the sort of dystopian hellscape I'm dreading. I can't for the life of me understand how anyone who is passionate about gaming could want something like that.

Fortunately, I'm optimistic that there will always be an audience for local hardware and purchasing games. And as long as there's an audience, there will be those looking to serve that audience.

Edit: huh wait, the comment I was referring to seems to have disappeared. Am I going insane?

Re: Hollow Knight: Silksong Release Crashes Storefronts Like Steam, Finally Live on PS5, PS4 Over Two Hours Late

Ainu20

@KundaliniRising333 Or perhaps other people just have different opinions? I personally think it's the greatest game I've ever played, poured about 300 hours into it. I've gone on to play about 35 other 2D metroidvanias since then (really, I kept a list with ratings and all, lol), and nothing has come close to Hollow Knight for me.

So stop trying to push your opinion on others as if you can see through the hype while others can't. There is a genuine love for the first game out there, it didn't just happen for no reason.

Re: Hollow Knight: Silksong Release Crashes Storefronts Like Steam, Not Even Live on PS Store

Ainu20

Honestly this is a bit of a farce from Sony. I know the other storefronts are having their issues, but at least the option to buy the game was there on its official release time. We're 2 hours after release and it's nowhere to be seen on the PS Store.

It doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things, but why is it so hard for them to get the basics right, and communicate transparently when they don't?

Re: Poll: Are You Sold on 007 First Light?

Ainu20

A lot will depend on the technical state it arrives in. There's still some time to go, but what was shown here definitely has me worrying that it could be another one that releases in a broken state with promises of fixes later on. Let's hope that isn't the case.