Balaam_

Balaam_

Give me discs or give me death

Comments 494

Re: Black Myth: Wukong Will Soon Run Better on PS5, But You'll Need to Prepare for the Patch

Balaam_

Let’s hope for the sake of those interested in this game that they don’t butcher the GI like on the Xbox version, as well as fixing the arbitrary and nonoptimal framerate cap in the one mode. Ditching the framegen they implemented to get to 60fps and doing it natively would also be a huge win as far as lag is concerned. Lots of strange choices made with this one, now that I think about it.

Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Ghost of Yotei?

Balaam_

Solid 9. No game is truly perfect, but for a game of its type this is about as close as you get. From a trophy hunting perspective I’m not looking forward to that garbage Legends multiplayer slop they’re going to shoehorn in to what was ostensibly presented as a single player epic, but the game is so good I’ll make the rare exception and slog through that tedious trash like I did with Tsushima.

Re: People Don't Buy Anywhere Near As Many Games As You Think

Balaam_

Depends on what’s coming out. No other way to frame things, really. There are blocks of time where my wallet was crying, having bought 5-6 games in a two month span. In times of gaming drought, I recall going more than 6 months without anything coming out that looked remotely good enough to buy. But on average, I went with the ‘about once every 3 months’ option.

Re: 'I Pushed for It': Final Fantasy 7 Remake Director on Why the New Progression 'Cheats' Are Important

Balaam_

I like how many of the same people who push for an exclusive-less, pure multiplatform approach to game releases under the pretense that games should be available to everyone regardless of platform are also some of the loudest who lash out against the accessibility options, thereby denying an equal experience for handicapped/differently abled gamers (or anyone who just plain stinks at games in general).

Apparently people deserve equal rights to be able to buy games, but not when it comes to the experience of actually playing them.

Re: Red Dead Redemption 2 Still Coming to PS5, It's Claimed

Balaam_

With any luck they’ll axe the multiplayer for this remaster. The base game is phenomenal (in other news, water is wet) but that mp is just a tedious slog through waist high rubbish and nothing but an obstacle to full Platinum+100% trophy completion. Get rid of that tacked on mess and let the glorious single player campaign shine.

Re: Oblivion Remastered's Anticipated Physical PS5 Release Will Require the Internet

Balaam_

Have my $5 minimum deposit for preorder in at a few places. If Microsoft/Bethesda butchers their opportunity here by issuing little more than a blank disc with a few mb’s on it, it’s no problem to cancel my orders. After that it’s just a matter of waiting for the steepest discount on the digital version I can find so as to give them as little money as possible.

Re: PlayStation's New 'Rewards' Program Goes Down Like a Lead Balloon

Balaam_

Not ideal, but at least they aren’t potentially screwing with the actual trophy system or adding some other stat that will be permanently attached to one’s account. Nothing worse than ‘you have a finite amount of time to unlock this tchotchke, and if you miss the window of opportunity you’re screwed for all eternity’.

Re: PS5's Incredibly Promising Phantom Blade Zero Sounds Absolutely Brutal on Its Hardest Difficulty

Balaam_

@Northern_munkey Darn straight. I’d much prefer to allot the time it would take to ‘git gud’ and eventually prevail on Hellwalker mode to other games in my backlog, ones with respectable, well thought out trophy lists that value people’s time. This is, of course, providing there’s even a trophy for that mode in Phantom Blade—I don’t think any list has leaked yet, so we don’t know for sure either way. The game looks so good though, so even if they botch the list I may still pick it up down the road in the bargain bin and play it on my alt.

Re: Even More Xbox Price Increases Make PS5 Look Like a Good Deal

Balaam_

If you’re going to go the console route, at least you have choices. You can get the family friendly hybrid with best-in-class first party exclusive support. You can get the de facto 3rd party machine that’s considerably more capable, has some incredible exclusives of its own and full 3rd party support in addition to most of its direct competitor’s games. Or you could get…the less powerful, more expensive console that has next to no true exclusives, dwindling third party support and whose very continued existence is murky.

Re: Rumour: Assassin's Creed 4 Remake Makes Big Changes, Drops Modern Day Story and Adds RPG Elements

Balaam_

If true, fantastic news. As something of a history buff, ever since the original game my sentiment has been ‘I wish that cheesy animus stuff wasn’t part of the game. Seems like an attempt to shoehorn some lame overarching plot to connect everything and ensure the door remains open for prospective sequels’. I say retcon the entire animus stuff and keep them individual adventure stories that explore characters and events from different historical eras, nothing more.

Re: Final Fantasy 7 Remake Adds 'Cheats' on Switch 2, Xbox, But No Mention of PS5

Balaam_

If they don’t interfere with trophies, they’d be the perfect solution to circumvent awful trophy design. No trophy hunter wants to be forced to repeatedly beat the same game over and over on tedious, ever increasing difficulties. That’s a colossal waste of time that could be more enjoyably spent elsewhere. Had this been an option at launch (and if they don’t interfere with trophy progression), I would unquestionably have used them for that grueling, laborious chore that is the Hard mode (and also those horrendously awful Chadley challenges). Doing them legit provided zero satisfaction or sense of pride; it was all a tedious chore that kept me from getting to other games as soon as I would have liked.

Re: Final Fantasy 9 Remake Still MIA, But the Anniversary Celebrations Continue

Balaam_

I’m really only waiting for one specific FF9 related bit of news: whether or not that stupidly brutal ‘jump rope one thousand times ‘ trophy is part of the remake. Without remote play and a pc macro cheater, it essentially makes the current ps1 remastered version’s platinum unobtainable, which is a glaring oversight on the part of the devs. If they pull the same nonsense here, it’s an immediate Pass for me.

Re: 'More People Will Experience Our World': Final Fantasy 7 Remake Trilogy Sheds PS5 Exclusivity

Balaam_

Any word on whether that ‘cheat’ mode will be added to PlayStation versions by way of a patch? And whether or not it will affect trophies? I have a handicapped friend who goes for platinums when possible, and he was severely disappointed at the hard mode related FF7R trophy requirements that effectively locked him out of 100%. He’s hoping this will circumvent that poorly thought out, anti-disabled-gamer trophy design. And for those wondering, Yes I’ve had the plat for years and No he wouldn’t just let me unlock it for him. He wants to do it himself.

Re: What PS5 Games Have the Best Graphics?

Balaam_

Regardless of whether the original’s artistic vision was compromised or not, Demon’s Souls Remake is still stunning to this day. The fidelity is out of this world, and performance is surprisingly solid.

Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Hollow Knight: Silksong?

Balaam_

Tough decision. The game itself is a fantastic little platformer, but there’s more to the overall experience than just that. The trophy list is a tedious nightmare of a chore for trophy hunter completionists, which really drags down the fun factor. You could design the perfect luxury sports car, but if you decide to make the steering wheel out of razor blades it’ll ruin an otherwise magnificent driving experience. I’d give the game itself an 8 or a 9, the trophy list a 1 or a 2, which means the whole thing averages out somewhere in between.

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

Balaam_

I could comment on what I hope the internals will be, or that they hopefully commit to physical media for at least the entirety of the upcoming generation, but instead I’ll throw this out there: I’m praying it won’t look as hideous on the outside as the PS5 models do. I’m hoping whoever designed the ps5’s plastic shell was out the door a long time ago, and that they somehow get the person who designed the PS2 or PS4 launch models back to do the PS6.

Re: 'The Tension Is Hurting a Lot of People': Ex-Bethesda Boss Speaks Out on Subs Like Xbox Game Pass

Balaam_

It’s been said above by others, I’ll reiterate succinctly: Corporations don’t want us to own anything. A one time purchase is inherently worse than siphoning repeatable revenue out of consumers. If they had their way, we’d be leasing hardware, software, the OS, all games, individual assets within those games, the music, etc etc etc. all for a monthly fee. Great for them, bad for us. They will push the subscription model as far as they’re allowed to, as much as they can possibly get away with, and it will only get worse.

Re: Push Square Reader Survey 2025

Balaam_

Some trophy hunter/achievement hunter poll questions would be appreciated.

Current state of trophies/achievements on console, whether or not we base purchases off trophy lists, what constitutes an exceptional/exceptionally poor trophy-achievement list, what features we’d like to see added to the system backend (ability to delete games with incomplete trophy lists and not merely games at exactly 0% trophy completion, ability to alphabetize our lists on console, separate sku’s for single player/multiplayer trophies within a given game, etc)

Re: Poll: Are You Playing Hollow Knight: Silksong?

Balaam_

Nope. Seems like a solid platformer, but one look that the tedious grueling grind of a trophy list and I know my time is better spent elsewhere. I could platinum several other games of similar quality in the time it would take to 100% either this or the original.

Re: Poll: Are You Playing Metal Gear Solid Delta?

Balaam_

Nope. For me, the performance issues alone make it unplayable, at least for now. Anecdotally, I have a handicapped friend who was super excited for this remake, and had his hopes crushed when he saw the trophy list. He plays using that Sony accessibility controller (forget what it’s called), but also goes for the platinums when possible. He took one look at this game’s list and said ‘How do they expect someone like me to get the plat?’ It seems the devs weren’t considering differently abled gamers when they settled on the trophy criteria.