Balaam_

Balaam_

Give me discs or give me death

Comments 1,093

Re: PS5 Dominates Xbox for Single Player Games, New Data Suggests

Balaam_

@Sunraku There’s some truth to your statement but I don’t think that’s 100% accurate.

Sony’s own first party games aren’t the only reason (or arguably even the primary reason) most people who buy the machine do so. Historically, PlayStation was always the de facto ‘3rd party machine’. People bought them due to massive 3rd party support, and these games were of all manner of genres and game types.

This holds true even today. Perception is one thing, but financially speaking most of Sony revenue comes from 3rd party stuff (much of it multiplayer).

What you said regarding Microsoft’s gamepass strategy holds more weight, as now we’re talking about how a game of any type is consumed. Arguably much more important in the grand scheme of things than whether or not Xbox first party has a particular style of game or not.

Re: Sony Will Permanently Delete 550+ Movies You Already Paid For

Balaam_

@Balosi @DennisReynolds Didn’t Microsoft shut down and permanently delist all Games For Windows Live content to the point where users cannot even redownload their already purchased/owned games?

I’ve never bought anything from that storefront so I cannot confirm, but I’ve heard statements to that effect from several sources.

Re: 'Above $1,000 Is the Floor': Analysts Predict PS6 Price, and It's Not Good

Balaam_

I’d pay in excess of $1K for a PS6 with built in disc drive with full native backward compatibility of every PlayStation game disc ever made. Preferably a system with a good design ethos, not the ungodly plastic monstrosity we got with PS5’s ‘art school dropout’ aesthetic. Otherwise, $1K is a big ask for something that would theoretically only be incrementally better than PS5.

Re: GTA 6 Physical Edition Doesn't Come with Discs, It's a Code in the Box

Balaam_

Peak lazy, anti-consumer behavior.

A small indie studio that would be lucky to turn 50K in revenue not shipping their game on disc, that’s understandable. TakeTwo/R* are going to make more than several third world countries’ combined GDP in about 10mins after GTA6 releases, so not minting a disc—or two, if that’s what it takes—is inexcusable, piss poor business practice.

Re: GTA 6 Confirmed to Be an $80 Game

Balaam_

The game isn’t my cup of tea (thanks largely to the multiplayer not being segregated from the main game’s trophy list, thereby forcing trophy hunters to play that too for the Platinum+100%) but for the amount and quality of content that’ll be here, $80 seems fair. Those interested will be playing this for years to come so viewed though that lens the price is reasonable. It’s more concerning whether other publishers will try to charge the same for games which aren’t anywhere near the quality of R*’s title.

Re: The Witcher 4 Can't Be Another Cyberpunk 2077, and CD Projekt Red Knows It

Balaam_

To this day there are obvious issues with CP2077. I’m not talking about some niche set of circumstances or the odd, impossible-to-reproduce bugs and glitches, I mean blatantly obvious problems.

Here’s a bit of low hanging fruit they clearly didn’t bother testing: Inverting the Y-axis in the options menu works fine—when you’re on foot. Too bad it doesn’t invert the camera controls for when you’re driving. My only hope is to outrun my pursuers, as trying to aim a gun while driving means I’m looking up into the sky like Stevie Wonder.

How did they overlook something so simple? Their playtest criteria must fit on a post-it note. Customer support was completely useless.

Re: Going Platinum: This PS5 Game Gave Me Something Better Than a Platinum Trophy

Balaam_

Have they addressed the total lack of any ability to invert the Y-axis in the options menu?

I recall starting this one up on my alt account, not being able to find the option to do so, immediately searching the internet and finding a bunch of posts complaining about the same thing. Couldn’t play it so I closed the game and promptly deleted it. It is mind boggling that any developer in the last 30 years would either be so oblivious or so lazy or so technically inept as to not automatically include something as basic as Y-axis inversion in a first person game.

Re: Sony Aims to Drive PS Plus Profits by 'Improving Service Proposition'

Balaam_

Im having a difficult time thinking of how they could make PS+ more attractive without either making it cheaper (which they clearly don’t want to do) or adding way more/better/day one games (which they probably want to do but it isn’t financially viable).

If it’s not either of those things I don’t see how they can further incentivize a subscription offering. There are lots of little ways to improve the PlayStation experience—Themes? Alphabetizing our trophy lists like how we could on PS3? Better social media integration for those that like that crap?—but none of that stuff is going to make people say ‘I need to upgrade to Premium’.

Re: Sony Finally Speaks on PC Cancellations, Wants to Enhance Value of PS5

Balaam_

It’s corpo BS word salad speak, but at least it’s competently thought out and not hard to parse. In a nutshell it’s what anyone with half a brain already understood: You want your live service online multiplayer oriented titles in as many places as possible because they thrive or die based on playercount, while you keep your bread&butter single player GotY caliber tentpoles exclusive to provide an incentive for buying into the platform.

Re: Preview: Like a Greatest Hits Game, Remedy Peaks in Control Resonant

Balaam_

Easily one of my most anticipated games in the near future. I’m not sold on the melee combat yet, but Remedy has a certain pedigree and I’m willing to have a little faith it’ll be a polished, fluid system that will feel good to control. Let’s just avoid an Alan Wake 2 physical copy debacle and put it on disc at launch, ok Remedy? Shouldn’t be an issue without that awful ‘EpicGames exclusivity’ interference.

Re: Halo: Campaign Evolved Goes All-In on PS5 Pro Support as Xbox Bets Big on Rival Console

Balaam_

PS5 Pro has this awesome but underutilized feature that I really wish the team behind the Halo remake had taken advantage of. It’s actually not a feature unique to PS5 Pro; base PS5 has it, even Series X has it. It’s called a disc drive. If a studio knows what they’re doing they can actually fit an entire game onto a disc, and no mandated internet connection or forced downloads can come between you and your game.

Re: Three Xbox Studios at Risk of Closure, in Talks to Become Independent

Balaam_

Ludicrous to contemplate, but they’re actually considering new possible mergers and acquisitions. People better pray it’s tech/infrastructure related and not more studios to stand in line for the chopping block— “Going forward, we’ll evolve and rebuild our stack and look at capabilities across all of XBOX and potential M&A to help us win in hardware, PC, mobile, and streaming.”

And here’s some salt for those wounds—“We are the fortunate stewards of industry-defining franchises that have enormous potential and player demand, but we have not adequately funded them to compete and win.”

Both quotes from the most recent “100 Days” memo

Re: Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth Sales Seemingly Spike After Revelation Reveal

Balaam_

@Reyzore SquareEnix has gone down the tubes over the past 10 years or so. Between questionable business priorities (NFT’s anyone?), mishandling of IP, crap anniversary ‘celebrations’ for beloved games and being late to the ‘multiplatform push’ party only after everyone’s realizing the value of exclusivity, I’m not surprised they’re dropping the ball with what you mentioned as well. Their executives need to go ASAP

Re: Halo PS5 Poised to Sell Extremely Well, Topping PS Store Charts Around the World

Balaam_

Personally, I’m none too bothered whether we get only this one Halo game or eventually the entire series; I’d rather have one solid title than none at all. There’s always the option of a pc or xbox to play the others if it turns out you like the game that much.

No, I cancelled my preorder for a more tangible, pertinent issue: The “Physical Edition” is a worthless game key disc. Spending money on this would be feeding Microsoft’s anti-consumer control fetish and only further entrenches them in that errant course. I’ll be picking up a copy for pennies from a place like GameStop years from now, if I don’t come across a ‘free’ copy on pc that is.

Re: Opinion: PS Plus Users, You Should Play Final Fantasy 16 (But Only If You Play It Like This)

Balaam_

This game exemplifies how the Square of today is most certainly not Golden Age Square of the 90’s.

There’s much to like about FF16, but a lot of it is either squandered potential or not fully realized.

•The visual aesthetic is excellent, but the graphics themselves are so blurry it looks like someone smeared Vaseline on the screen. A Pro patch was low hanging fruit that simply rotted on the branch.

•The world, mythos and various worldbuilding details exude a sense of wonder and mystery, yet the side quests are atrocious braindead affairs and don’t let the living world breathe.

•Story and main characters are well written and feel like real people with their own unique tendencies and characteristics, but the side characters and quest givers are cookie cutter cardboard cutouts devoid of any personality.

•Battle system is decent, but nothing exceptional. It falls into the trap of being coded in such a way that you really only need one or two basic moves/combos and you’ll end up spamming these ad nauseum for the whole playthrough. I played 16 immediately before Stellar Blade and oh god the combat in SB is orders of magnitude better.

•Great soundtrack. Phenomenal. Really nothing to criticize here, or with the voice acting (Ralph Ineson is just constantly awesome).

•Even the pacing is generally good, although again the fetch quests—ahem—side quests really tend to bog everything down.

FF16 wants to be great but ends up being just plain good. It’s definitely worth playing once, but that second playthrough for the platinum became incredibly tedious incredibly quickly due to the game’s faults. At least it’s better than FF13, and infinitely so. That game is pure slop and an embarrassment to the series.

Re: Even with PS5 Ports, Many of Xbox's Games Have Been Underperfoming

Balaam_

Half the time I’m simply not interested in what Xbox is offering, the other half I am but refuse to buy because of Microsoft’s anti-consumer ‘game key disc’ tendencies. I would happily have paid full price at launch for Indiana Jones, Oblivion Remastered and Halo but they’re all worthless download codes. I buy to own, I do not pay to rent.