It’s been months since I played Dreams but there are a lot of talented creators there and the engine is both easy to use and incredibly flexible.
As I noted in a long post I once made on Dreams I think what hurt it was the lack of any form of multiplayer at launch (offline co-op hit months after launch) and the fact the campaign was pretty simple (more a demo of the things the engine was capable of than a proper game).
I’m reading the Power Pack is only $30. I would have probably bit the bullet even at $50 since I have put in hundreds of hours into GT7 partly due to all the free updates including PSVR2 and Pro support.
Sektori is brutal fun, a bullet hell with deck builder elements (for ship upgrades) and a pulsing techno soundtrack. It’s wild how the battlefield is constantly morphing and enemies are spawning in the arena in weird patterns (it telegraphs shifts so you have at least a bit of time to get out of the way of incoming walls and enemies).
Hirogami was never on my radar so I am fine with the acquisition of the company. Churning out content tied to a small handful of franchises is safe and safety is no small thing given the amount of churn in the industry.
No complaints here. I’m perfectly happy with my PS5 Pro (and my Portal and my PSVR2). The hardware is nice and the library is wide and deep.
I’m currently playing Roboquest VR (lots of weird guns and for my money the best VR fps since Synapse), Sektori (a gorgeous twin stick shooter from an ex-Housemarque developer very in line with their 2D games and of course Geometry Wars), Helldivers 2 (whose intense co-op action reminds me of arcade classics like Smash TV) and Luminees Arise (I admittedly suck at it but I love the audiovisuals).
Well deserved. I’ve only played through it once on hard so far but it’s a great game. Well paced, atmospheric and the absorption mechanic makes every fight intense until the last enemy is dead.
I’m not a Fortnite fan and I’m not wild about the artstyle but I enjoyed most of Kill Bill so I’ll watch the new chapter if/when it hits streaming services.
While it’s not for me I respect how long Fortnite has been popular and how like Minecraft and Roblox it has become a platform many gamers (and some developers) spend all their time in.
The mini gun has medium penetration (light penetration was a possibility since a lot of fully automatic weapons fall into that category) and like other guns with backpacks one ammo pickup will only partially refill it.
Based on chatter among randoms this morning between dives I expect it to be phenemonenally popular (among people who play Helldivers anyway 😋) once it hits.
Also the chainsaw sword sounds like it will be hands down the best melee weapon (aka the tallest midget). It starts off medium penetration but kind of like the dual sickle damage increases over time so it can eventually cut through even heavy armor.
I’m glad the content drought is over. In my experience (I am gaming on a Pro though I crossplay with all sorts of randoms) the crashing was resolved weeks ago so I have been using the new content pause to play with some of the weirder weapons.
The mini gun and the assault rifle with grenade launcher under barrel look very useful but I think like the arc drone the fire drone will result in a lot of friendly fire deaths.
The chainsaw sword looks fun. I’m not a big melee guy but it’ll be nice to see people running around with the chainsaw rather than the one true flag.
I was a Bethesda fan for a long time (since the first Elder Scrolls on PC) and they have always shipped games buggy.
Early on people (including me) assumed that their limited resources and the large scope and freedom of their games precluded proper polishing but as the years passed and Bethesda got richer and more successful and other developers started offering polished worlds with lots of freedom, it became clear Bethesda just don’t care to do the hard, tedious work of finding and killing bugs.
People who didn’t want to become modders/mod users or alpha testers paying for the privilege moved on, those who remain (quite a few) are content with Bethesda’s way of doing things.
It’s bizarre that AI is hoovering up that many resources. I doubt a sudden hard crash of the AI market would be good for the economy (billions of dollars would dissolve) but a return to sanity would be nice.
I don’t think one stumble dooms this franchise but it does demonstrate that too big to fail is not a thing in the commercial art industry. Games, movies, tv shows, books annd suchlike are luxuries and if fans either stop having fun or decide something else is more fun, sales fall off a cliff. In this case I believe the ‘something else’s’ were Arc Raiders and Battlefield 6.
Also while I am sure neither the campaign nor the ads are focal points of the CoD community there was an intense backlash to humorous celeb skins in the prior CoD so giving the new CoD humorous celeb filled ads and a really trippy campaign didn’t help.
I’m happy for Ghost of Yotei, Silent Hill F and Helldivers 2. All three are games I’ve had a lot of fun with.
I’m not a competitive multiplayer guy anymore, but Battlefield’s more grounded world/outfits seen to be what many estranged CoD fans are looking for. This might be the start of an intense Overwatch vs Marvel Rivals type rivalry.
Valve stated the new system will be an open platform so them making a profit on every system sold (same as they did with prior excursions into the hardware space) makes perfect sense.
I suspect that like the Steam Deck it will find an audience sufficiently large to make the exercise worthwhile.
I enjoy my PSVR2 (played Lumines Arise, V Racer Hoverbike and GT7 this morning) but clearly PSVR2 in particular and VR in general has not caught on with the mainstream.
While Sony owned developers not named Polyphony Digital have little appetite for PSVR2 it is a nice piece of hardware (OLED is a beautiful thing) and it has a lot of fun games in its library (RE4, Synapse, Rez Infinite, No Man’s Sky, Humanity, Tetris Effect, Before Your Eyes, Moss Books 1 and 2 and Pistol Whip spring to mind) and some promising ones on the way (nods towards Roboquest VR, Thief and MS Flight Simulator).
If VR ever catches fire it won’t be this generation (the tech will need to get cheaper and smaller) but as with everything stuff can be fun before (or after) it’s genre or what have you is popular.
I don’t trust the government much but happily its intervention doesn’t seem to be necessary since the market is speaking and CoD sales are trending well below those of its predecessor
CoD is huge and has been for a long time but nothing is indestructible. Slop (not just AI slop but slop in general) has damaged the sales of a lot of once huge franchises. I don’t think the average gamer cares much about AI (nods towards Arc Raiders) but design decisions that negatively impact their experiences drive gamers away.
I feel bad for Tango Gameworks. They released a game most of the people who played it (including Phil Spencer) but they were out of step with MS’s reorientation so they got the chop. Tango were then bought by another big publisher who has subsequently announced a vision which seems to be incompatible with them.
Well deserved. There are a wealth of great games out there catering to a wide range of gamers and many people just want a hassle free way to play them, so while I get other spheres of gaming such as mobile are growing faster there are a lot of console gamers out there. Sony has remained dedicated to the console vision so it’s unsurprising it reaped the benefits. Developers flock to the system (by all accounts the cheapest/easiest to develop for) and gamers flock to the system (not the cheapest console but it has the widest developer support and the price/performance balance is reasonable).
As a fan of Returnal, Horizon Forbidden West, Helldivers 2, GT7, Astrobot, God of War Ragnarok, Spiderman 2, Ghost of Yotei and Death Stranding 2 I’d argue Sony haa offered a better lineup of games than some on the internet give it credit for. Games generally take longer to make this gen but they usually have longer tails in the form of paid and free post launch content.
I love the Disgaea series and enjoy action games but this trailer didn’t do much for me. The main character looks like he is from a different world than everything else (which might be part of a running gag) and the action looks kinda ‘meh’.
I am surprised Art Dink is still around. Never cared for Tail of the Sun or Aquanaut’s Holiday but I absolutely loved Carnage Heart (a game where one built and programmed mechs).
Broadly speaking their PS1 games were spiritually similar to modern indie games (low budget and often experimental). While there are ginormous indie successes it’s worth keeping in mind most such games fail because when you do something outlandish maybe you find out there isn’t enough of an audience to make your game profitable no matter how well it executes its concept.
I remember reviewers rubbishing the original Carmage Heart for not offering direct control of mechs like Armored Core did and clearly most gamers agreed with that position.
I don’t think Artdink found much of an audience outside of Japan so I don’t blame them for skipping a system whose marketshare in Japan is marginal at best. I doubt I’ll play any more of their games but I wish them.
I just spent two hours playing Luminees on PSVR2 (I took the day off but it didn’t unlock until 9 in the morning). Astounding audio visuals.
As I did with Tetris Effect once I fail (falling block puzzlers are not my strong suit) I just restart from the beginning just so I can see all the weird stuff again and try to do better on prior levels. Some really bizarre stuff goes on with the audio visuals. There are a lot of stages and while each has a theme, they often go through massive changes mid stage. I keep forgetting to look at the upcoming blocks due to all the stuff going on but as a fan of Luminees and Tetris Effect I am enjoying this immensely.
For me this was a pretty VR heavy weekend. I put a couple hours into Of Lies and Rain, an action heavy adventure set in a world destroyed by an evil AI. While it won’t win any prizes for originality so far it’s very fun.
Reloading guns is nerve racking business in the middle of a fight. Each gun loads differently but for an empty pistol you have to eject the spent clip, grab a clip from your backpack, slap it into your gun and rack the slide. To save a bit of time you can pop the empty clip with one in the chamber and spare the second it takes to rack the slide. You can also just grasp a clip and hold it in your free hand until you need to reload it and eject partially full clips (and pick them off the ground later after the fight). I’ve died trying to reload a few times. That being said death doesn’t set you back real far (the start of a room).
Also I started VRacer Hoverbike. It’s Wipeout with hoverbikes and exactly the sort of over the top arcade racer I’ve been waiting for. I think it feels quite a bit different though I confess I only used stick and trigger/button controls in Wipeout (IIRC there was some sort of motion control option). In VRacer I use a mix of stick and motion controls (I steer with the stick and brake and accelerate with the triggers but I lean to get my biker to lean).
In a nice touch you can choose if and how much your camera is tied to your racer (who moves around constantly and is often leaning to one side) as opposed to just being positioned behind the vehicle and remaining stable. My time dramatically improved when I went balls to the wall and fully tied the camera to character. There are a lot of tracks (I think 15) and race types and of course all the tracks have reverse modes.
There are extensive visual customization options which I dipped my toe into despite not having any drawing skill. You can paint anything you want, write text and slap it on the vehicle or just do what I did and just set the colors of bike parts.
Given that the studio formerly known as 343 decided to toss the old Halo engine aside for UE5, laid off a bunch of people and rebranded itself it would be shocking if they continued support for Infinite.
Master Chief is iconic even among non-gamers but as Lara Croft can tell you, a high level of character recognition doesn’t necessarily translate into game sales or continued engagement (a key metric in live service games).
Shrugs A lot of developers/publishers and fans want franchises to live forever but eventually a majority of one of those two groups (each key to success) gets their fill and moves on. That doesn’t lessen the significance of past games.
I enjoyed FF16 and the two released parts of the remake but they didn’t become phenomena the way turn based rpgs like BG3, Persona 5 and Clair Obscur did.
I am fine with Squenix going multiplatform but I suspect something else needs to be done if Squenix wants to make their rpgs more appealing to more people.
I fell out of love with the GTA series after 5 (whose campaign disappointed me and whose multiplayer never interested me) but I can’t imagine this delay means anything more than ‘Rockstar is taking its sweet time’.
GTA5 despite my indifference is a mainstay on sales charts and I’m sure a lot of shark bucks are continually being bought.
Whether or not GTA6 has the insanely long tail of 5 is up in the air but a ginormous launch whenever it hits is a certainty.
I don’t pay much attention to announcements of years away games since they often change, slip or even die in the interim.
That being said while I respect Hennig as a writer, writing and leading a project are separate skill sets and Hennig hasn’t managed to get anything out the door under multiple publishers.
I played some Pursuit Force via streaming yesterday. It chugged for a couple seconds in one of the stages but it otherwise felt just like playing it on my PSP back in the day.
No benefit to me (I drive to work) but new, free functionality is nice. I use my Portal on a daily basis to play strategy games on the lving room couch (my Pro is in the den) in the afternoon.
Shrugs I can’t be the only one that remembers how weird some of the old PlayStation ads were. Seems to either work or (more likely) do no harm. I could say much the same about outlandish game ads in general.
I preordered the deluxe edition right after playing the demo (the audio visuals being even trippier than Tetris Effecf was what sold me) but the presence of Astro Bot is nice.
It’s too bad the demo doesn’t support VR but given Enhance’s long track record with VR I have zero concerns in that regard.
Fighting a late game boss in Ghost of Yotei. I’ve come really, really close to winning but just came up a bit short.
Played two rounds with different full squads of randoms in Helldivers 2 in which we took down a Hivelord (a giant acid spewing worm the size of a train, covered in armor heavier than that of a tank which is essentially the boss of wherever it is). There is a suborder for killing 50K of them and it looks like the community is going to achieve it with time to spare thanks in no small part to patriot exosuits being the bonus strategem. The major order for taking one of bug planets is still up on the air though because resistance is crazy high. I’ve seen a swarm of bugs force even squads of well armed Helldivers backwards because ammo is limited and reloading sometimes necessary. On a related note a big part of cave exploring is knowing when to retreat and rearm and/or find an alternate pathway.
I started Propagation Paradise Hotel. It’s clearly an indie game in terms of its visuals but it’s well designed and the controls feel great (it’s a motion controlled VR game which is very committed to its bit). I’m still early in but thus far it reminds me more of RE1 (suspenseful yet cheesy, some action but lots of exploration and light puzzle solving) more than either of the survival horror games I’ve played recently (Silent Hill F and Cronos).
Halloween isn’t a big deal for me anymore but I enjoy horror year round (mostly books but also a few games and movies). Recently I played Silent Hill F and Cronos: The New Dawn. To celebrate the holiday I’m going to pull a horror game out of my backlog (Propagation Paradise Hotel) and start it.
Impressive. This particular game isn’t for me but I’m glad it has found success. Not surprising given all the positive stuff I heard from people who participated in the betas and servers slams and suchlike.
Sony and Nintendo have both made lots of mistakes over the years but both stayed squarely focused on dedicated hardware and their ecosystems in part because gaming is a core and profitable business for both of them.
The Xbox division was a speculative investment for MS and never important for the central division/shareholders. That was beneficial for the Xbox division for a while but that wasn’t going to last forever. MS is willing to extravagantly invest in hot trends but it did not become the biggest, richest company in the world for several years (I think Nvidia passed them recently) by letting divisions bleed infinite money indefinitely.
I have been hearing nothing but good about Arc Raiders for months so while PvP (I know there is an E in there too) isn’t my thing anymore I think it will launch strong.
This weird trend of the people on the internet going for likes and ‘cool’ cred by embracing long dead franchises they probably never touched in the first place never ceases to amuse.
I bought and played all the Killzones bar Mercenaries (which I didn’t see anything in) at launch and the only two I thought were great were 2 (which was partially overshadowed by Sony’s infamous fake gameplay trailer) and Liberation (which almost nobody played).
Helghast designs are great (I often use KZ armor in Helldivers 2) but the franchise doesn’t need to come back. If the most interesting thing that can be said about a franchise is it once was intended to kill another franchise there is clearly nothing to be said.
I am continuing to love Ghost of Yotei. I’ve got over seventy hours in but I trying to tackle everything I can find so half the Yotei Six are still alive though a lot of other, lesser evils have been addressed. The Onryo effect (which terrifies enemies for a few seconds and maybe calls the wolf to you) is a thing of beauty in heated close combat though I am also fine with surreptitiously cutting throats or killing enemies from afar with a bow or a rifle.
Today is Liberty Day in Helldivers. One can visit Earth and watch fireworks from orbit, but you can only read about the parades and public dissident executions. The traditional free gear seems to be tied to a damn near impossible major order though I don’t think for a second we will leave Liberty Day empty handed.
The current major order sets a sadistic one day, 40 million kill target for the constitution (an antique bolt action rifle with a bayonet). Most are ignoring it and using modern weapons but some of us are picking up the gauntlet so it’s not outside the realm of possibility we will defy Arrowhead’s expectations and win the major order.
I played the original Halo many times in local and online co-op but never attended a LAN party and I strongly doubt more than a single digit percentage of Halo 1 owners ever did. It’s true Halo like almost every other ongoing fps eventually came to be utterly dominated by online competitive MP (Halo 4 and Infinite couldn’t even be bothered to include split screen co-op) but Halo 1’s big draw was its excellent co-op enabled campaign.
That being said I suspect another reason for the omission is MS has some sort of online only Halo they are planning, but that’s fine by me since I liked Halo when it was focused on campaigns rather than competitive multiplayer. Very few games successfully do both because online communities are very passionate things that devour everything you put before them and ask why it isn’t better, why there isn’t more and why it isn’t coming faster 😋.
Looks good to me. I played Halo’s campaign in co-op (online and couch) many, many times. Great stuff. Not sure I’ll pick it up the remaster at launch but I’ll pick it up eventually.
I’m not surprised by the low quality of the PS Pro port given the PS5 port itself was a late in the game decision.
As I said recently in the context of the announcement that the PS5 port of the upcoming Forza Horizon would be be late, I think it’s reasonable for developers to initially focus on optimizing for a platform or two rather than port everywhere all at once. Polish/playtesting is very time consuming.
The big patch has finally hit. Not sure how well it fixes the issues PC gamers are having but it buffs a lot of light penetration guns (think rifles and SMGs) and melee weapons and brought back the slightly nerfed but still very nasty burrowing enemies.
I’ve long believed gamers in real life don’t care about exclusivity. A game people view as unappealing won’t become more appealing just because it’s exclusive. 99.9999% of multiplatform games don’t come anywhere near the success of Minecraft, CoD or Roblox.
I’m not opposed to exclusive games by any means. From a tech perspective they often benefit from focus on a platform (or two). As I pointed out in a Forza ‘late PS5 port’ thread spinning a lot of plates can be tough for developers so it’s perfectly reasonable for developers to prioritize rather than port everywhere at the same time.
Along those lines show me a multi format game and I’ll often be able to to show you a subset of its fans (often PC gamers because that landscape is so incredibly varied) lamenting that their system of choice drew the short straw. Still, barring extreme problems most gamers don’t worry too much about tech issues and just play the games they want to play on the system they own.
Not surprised H2 is a hit on Xbox. I have almost 1300 hours in and H2 is just great, chaotic, arcadey fun that is easy to play with randoms (the communication wheel allows one to quickly say the important stuff though of course text and voice are options too).
Playing on PS5 Pro the only problem I run into is the odd crash (3 crashes in 20something rounds in the past week). It was a lot worse a month ago but improved without a patch so I assume there was a server issue that got sorted out. Still PC gamers are having a lot of issues so I hope the patch releases sooner rather than later. The more divers the merrier.
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Re: Someone Made Banjo-Kazooie in Dreams on PS5, PS4, and You've Got to See It
It’s been months since I played Dreams but there are a lot of talented creators there and the engine is both easy to use and incredibly flexible.
As I noted in a long post I once made on Dreams I think what hurt it was the lack of any form of multiplayer at launch (offline co-op hit months after launch) and the fact the campaign was pretty simple (more a demo of the things the engine was capable of than a proper game).
Re: Gran Turismo 7's Biggest Update Yet Available to Pre-Load on PS5, PS4 Now
I’m reading the Power Pack is only $30. I would have probably bit the bullet even at $50 since I have put in hundreds of hours into GT7 partly due to all the free updates including PSVR2 and Pro support.
Re: Why Aren't We All Playing Sektori, an Awesome Arcade Shooter from Ex-Housemarque Devs?
Sektori is brutal fun, a bullet hell with deck builder elements (for ship upgrades) and a pulsing techno soundtrack. It’s wild how the battlefield is constantly morphing and enemies are spawning in the arena in weird patterns (it telegraphs shifts so you have at least a bit of time to get out of the way of incoming walls and enemies).
Re: Over 10.5 Million Concurrent Players Show Up for Avengers: Endgame-Esque Fortnite Event
Not a Fortnite guy but that event was a fun watch.
Re: Ghost of Yotei Gets 'Incredible' PS5 Pro Frame Rate Boost Thanks to New Patch
Cool. Looked gorgeous on my Pro at launch but I look forward to my next playthrough being even prettier.
Re: Nintendo Buys Singapore Studio Behind Papercraft PS5 Console Exclusive Hirogami
Hirogami was never on my radar so I am fine with the acquisition of the company. Churning out content tied to a small handful of franchises is safe and safety is no small thing given the amount of churn in the industry.
Re: Poll: Five Years of PS5 - How Would You Rate Sony's Console?
No complaints here. I’m perfectly happy with my PS5 Pro (and my Portal and my PSVR2). The hardware is nice and the library is wide and deep.
I’m currently playing Roboquest VR (lots of weird guns and for my money the best VR fps since Synapse), Sektori (a gorgeous twin stick shooter from an ex-Housemarque developer very in line with their 2D games and of course Geometry Wars), Helldivers 2 (whose intense co-op action reminds me of arcade classics like Smash TV) and Luminees Arise (I admittedly suck at it but I love the audiovisuals).
Re: Cult Hit PS5 Horror Game Cronos: The New Dawn Cracks Half a Million Sales
Well deserved. I’ve only played through it once on hard so far but it’s a great game. Well paced, atmospheric and the absorption mechanic makes every fight intense until the last enemy is dead.
Re: Visionary Director Quentin Tarantino Realises a 20-Year Dream within Fortnite on PS5, PS4
I’m not a Fortnite fan and I’m not wild about the artstyle but I enjoyed most of Kill Bill so I’ll watch the new chapter if/when it hits streaming services.
While it’s not for me I respect how long Fortnite has been popular and how like Minecraft and Roblox it has become a platform many gamers (and some developers) spend all their time in.
Re: New Weapons, Stratagems Take Helldivers 2 to the Jungle in Latest Premium Warbond
The mini gun has medium penetration (light penetration was a possibility since a lot of fully automatic weapons fall into that category) and like other guns with backpacks one ammo pickup will only partially refill it.
Based on chatter among randoms this morning between dives I expect it to be phenemonenally popular (among people who play Helldivers anyway 😋) once it hits.
Also the chainsaw sword sounds like it will be hands down the best melee weapon (aka the tallest midget). It starts off medium penetration but kind of like the dual sickle damage increases over time so it can eventually cut through even heavy armor.
Re: New Weapons, Stratagems Take Helldivers 2 to the Jungle in Latest Premium Warbond
I’m glad the content drought is over. In my experience (I am gaming on a Pro though I crossplay with all sorts of randoms) the crashing was resolved weeks ago so I have been using the new content pause to play with some of the weirder weapons.
The mini gun and the assault rifle with grenade launcher under barrel look very useful but I think like the arc drone the fire drone will result in a lot of friendly fire deaths.
The chainsaw sword looks fun. I’m not a big melee guy but it’ll be nice to see people running around with the chainsaw rather than the one true flag.
Re: Are Shadow Drops the Future? Bethesda's Betting on Them After Oblivion Remastered Success
I was a Bethesda fan for a long time (since the first Elder Scrolls on PC) and they have always shipped games buggy.
Early on people (including me) assumed that their limited resources and the large scope and freedom of their games precluded proper polishing but as the years passed and Bethesda got richer and more successful and other developers started offering polished worlds with lots of freedom, it became clear Bethesda just don’t care to do the hard, tedious work of finding and killing bugs.
People who didn’t want to become modders/mod users or alpha testers paying for the privilege moved on, those who remain (quite a few) are content with Bethesda’s way of doing things.
Re: Quick Thinking from Sony Should Shield PS5 from RAM Shortages for Now
It’s bizarre that AI is hoovering up that many resources. I doubt a sudden hard crash of the AI market would be good for the economy (billions of dollars would dissolve) but a return to sanity would be nice.
Re: 'Terrible' Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 European Sales Are a Devastating 63% Below Battlefield 6
I don’t think one stumble dooms this franchise but it does demonstrate that too big to fail is not a thing in the commercial art industry. Games, movies, tv shows, books annd suchlike are luxuries and if fans either stop having fun or decide something else is more fun, sales fall off a cliff. In this case I believe the ‘something else’s’ were Arc Raiders and Battlefield 6.
Also while I am sure neither the campaign nor the ads are focal points of the CoD community there was an intense backlash to humorous celeb skins in the prior CoD so giving the new CoD humorous celeb filled ads and a really trippy campaign didn’t help.
Re: PS5 Exclusive Ghost of Yotei Is One of the USA's Best-Selling Games of 2025
I’m happy for Ghost of Yotei, Silent Hill F and Helldivers 2. All three are games I’ve had a lot of fun with.
I’m not a competitive multiplayer guy anymore, but Battlefield’s more grounded world/outfits seen to be what many estranged CoD fans are looking for. This might be the start of an intense Overwatch vs Marvel Rivals type rivalry.
Re: Valve's Steam Machine May Not Be As Affordable As a PS5
Valve stated the new system will be an open platform so them making a profit on every system sold (same as they did with prior excursions into the hardware space) makes perfect sense.
I suspect that like the Steam Deck it will find an audience sufficiently large to make the exercise worthwhile.
Re: PS5 Welcome Hub Update Adds New Stat Tracking, Backgrounds
I don’t spend much time in my system’s dashboard but additional game data is nice.
Re: Sony's PS Plus Premium Offer for PSVR2 Games Seems to Die Next Month
@RunGMhx My mistake. I said I See You but the game I was thinking of was Before Your Eyes. I remember the game better than I remembered the title.
Re: Sony's PS Plus Premium Offer for PSVR2 Games Seems to Die Next Month
I enjoy my PSVR2 (played Lumines Arise, V Racer Hoverbike and GT7 this morning) but clearly PSVR2 in particular and VR in general has not caught on with the mainstream.
While Sony owned developers not named Polyphony Digital have little appetite for PSVR2 it is a nice piece of hardware (OLED is a beautiful thing) and it has a lot of fun games in its library (RE4, Synapse, Rez Infinite, No Man’s Sky, Humanity, Tetris Effect, Before Your Eyes, Moss Books 1 and 2 and Pistol Whip spring to mind) and some promising ones on the way (nods towards Roboquest VR, Thief and MS Flight Simulator).
If VR ever catches fire it won’t be this generation (the tech will need to get cheaper and smaller) but as with everything stuff can be fun before (or after) it’s genre or what have you is popular.
Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 UK Sales Plummet 61% Compared to Black Ops 6
Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders are two very recent massive multiplayer hits who probably target a lot of the same people CoD does.
Things are not going to be any easier for CoD next year if GTA6 (now a multiplayer driven franchise) isn’t delayed again and hits in November.
Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's Controversial AI Use Is Even Attracting Attention of US Politicians
I don’t trust the government much but happily its intervention doesn’t seem to be necessary since the market is speaking and CoD sales are trending well below those of its predecessor
CoD is huge and has been for a long time but nothing is indestructible. Slop (not just AI slop but slop in general) has damaged the sales of a lot of once huge franchises. I don’t think the average gamer cares much about AI (nods towards Arc Raiders) but design decisions that negatively impact their experiences drive gamers away.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/christopher-dring-call-of-duty-black-ops-7-had-a-smaller-uk-retail-physical-launch-than-battlefield-6-61-down-when-compared-to-black-ops-6.1356259/
Re: Hi-Fi Rush Now Officially in the Hands of 'AI-First' Publisher Krafton
I feel bad for Tango Gameworks. They released a game most of the people who played it (including Phil Spencer) but they were out of step with MS’s reorientation so they got the chop. Tango were then bought by another big publisher who has subsequently announced a vision which seems to be incompatible with them.
Re: PS5 Is the Second Fastest Selling PlayStation Ever in the US, Despite Price Hikes and Production Issues
Well deserved. There are a wealth of great games out there catering to a wide range of gamers and many people just want a hassle free way to play them, so while I get other spheres of gaming such as mobile are growing faster there are a lot of console gamers out there. Sony has remained dedicated to the console vision so it’s unsurprising it reaped the benefits. Developers flock to the system (by all accounts the cheapest/easiest to develop for) and gamers flock to the system (not the cheapest console but it has the widest developer support and the price/performance balance is reasonable).
As a fan of Returnal, Horizon Forbidden West, Helldivers 2, GT7, Astrobot, God of War Ragnarok, Spiderman 2, Ghost of Yotei and Death Stranding 2 I’d argue Sony haa offered a better lineup of games than some on the internet give it credit for. Games generally take longer to make this gen but they usually have longer tails in the form of paid and free post launch content.
Re: Disgaea Dev Returns with Action RPG Kyouran Makaism, and It's Set in the Same Universe
I love the Disgaea series and enjoy action games but this trailer didn’t do much for me. The main character looks like he is from a different world than everything else (which might be part of a running gag) and the action looks kinda ‘meh’.
Re: PS1 Classics Aquanaut's Holiday, Tail of the Sun Will Be Revived, But Not on PS5
I am surprised Art Dink is still around. Never cared for Tail of the Sun or Aquanaut’s Holiday but I absolutely loved Carnage Heart (a game where one built and programmed mechs).
Broadly speaking their PS1 games were spiritually similar to modern indie games (low budget and often experimental). While there are ginormous indie successes it’s worth keeping in mind most such games fail because when you do something outlandish maybe you find out there isn’t enough of an audience to make your game profitable no matter how well it executes its concept.
I remember reviewers rubbishing the original Carmage Heart for not offering direct control of mechs like Armored Core did and clearly most gamers agreed with that position.
I don’t think Artdink found much of an audience outside of Japan so I don’t blame them for skipping a system whose marketshare in Japan is marginal at best. I doubt I’ll play any more of their games but I wish them.
Re: Lumines Arise (PS5) - The Most Beautiful and Most Complete Lumines Game Ever
I just spent two hours playing Luminees on PSVR2 (I took the day off but it didn’t unlock until 9 in the morning). Astounding audio visuals.
As I did with Tetris Effect once I fail (falling block puzzlers are not my strong suit) I just restart from the beginning just so I can see all the weird stuff again and try to do better on prior levels. Some really bizarre stuff goes on with the audio visuals. There are a lot of stages and while each has a theme, they often go through massive changes mid stage. I keep forgetting to look at the upcoming blocks due to all the stuff going on but as a fan of Luminees and Tetris Effect I am enjoying this immensely.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 606
For me this was a pretty VR heavy weekend. I put a couple hours into Of Lies and Rain, an action heavy adventure set in a world destroyed by an evil AI. While it won’t win any prizes for originality so far it’s very fun.
Reloading guns is nerve racking business in the middle of a fight. Each gun loads differently but for an empty pistol you have to eject the spent clip, grab a clip from your backpack, slap it into your gun and rack the slide. To save a bit of time you can pop the empty clip with one in the chamber and spare the second it takes to rack the slide. You can also just grasp a clip and hold it in your free hand until you need to reload it and eject partially full clips (and pick them off the ground later after the fight). I’ve died trying to reload a few times. That being said death doesn’t set you back real far (the start of a room).
Also I started VRacer Hoverbike. It’s Wipeout with hoverbikes and exactly the sort of over the top arcade racer I’ve been waiting for. I think it feels quite a bit different though I confess I only used stick and trigger/button controls in Wipeout (IIRC there was some sort of motion control option). In VRacer I use a mix of stick and motion controls (I steer with the stick and brake and accelerate with the triggers but I lean to get my biker to lean).
In a nice touch you can choose if and how much your camera is tied to your racer (who moves around constantly and is often leaning to one side) as opposed to just being positioned behind the vehicle and remaining stable. My time dramatically improved when I went balls to the wall and fully tied the camera to character. There are a lot of tracks (I think 15) and race types and of course all the tracks have reverse modes.
There are extensive visual customization options which I dipped my toe into despite not having any drawing skill. You can paint anything you want, write text and slap it on the vehicle or just do what I did and just set the colors of bike parts.
Re: Halo Infinite Is in Fact Finite, Dev Focusing on Campaign Evolved for PS5
Given that the studio formerly known as 343 decided to toss the old Halo engine aside for UE5, laid off a bunch of people and rebranded itself it would be shocking if they continued support for Infinite.
Master Chief is iconic even among non-gamers but as Lara Croft can tell you, a high level of character recognition doesn’t necessarily translate into game sales or continued engagement (a key metric in live service games).
Shrugs A lot of developers/publishers and fans want franchises to live forever but eventually a majority of one of those two groups (each key to success) gets their fill and moves on. That doesn’t lessen the significance of past games.
Re: Don't Expect Any PS5 Exclusives from Square Enix in the Future
I enjoyed FF16 and the two released parts of the remake but they didn’t become phenomena the way turn based rpgs like BG3, Persona 5 and Clair Obscur did.
I am fine with Squenix going multiplatform but I suspect something else needs to be done if Squenix wants to make their rpgs more appealing to more people.
Re: GTA 6 Delayed Again, Pushed Back to November 2026
I fell out of love with the GTA series after 5 (whose campaign disappointed me and whose multiplayer never interested me) but I can’t imagine this delay means anything more than ‘Rockstar is taking its sweet time’.
GTA5 despite my indifference is a mainstay on sales charts and I’m sure a lot of shark bucks are continually being bought.
Whether or not GTA6 has the insanely long tail of 5 is up in the air but a ginormous launch whenever it hits is a certainty.
Re: Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra Piles on PS5 Delay Misery
I don’t pay much attention to announcements of years away games since they often change, slip or even die in the interim.
That being said while I respect Hennig as a writer, writing and leading a project are separate skill sets and Hennig hasn’t managed to get anything out the door under multiple publishers.
Re: These Are All 2,800+ PS5 Games You Can Stream Directly to PS Portal Now
I played some Pursuit Force via streaming yesterday. It chugged for a couple seconds in one of the stages but it otherwise felt just like playing it on my PSP back in the day.
Re: Ghost of Yotei Can't Beat Battlefield 6 as EA's Shooter Dominates PS5 in October
I love Ghost of Yotei but I am glad other games enjoyed strong debuts as well.
Re: PS Portal Gets So Much Better Today in Huge UI, Cloud Streaming Update
No benefit to me (I drive to work) but new, free functionality is nice. I use my Portal on a daily basis to play strategy games on the lving room couch (my Pro is in the den) in the afternoon.
Re: 'It Happens on PS5': New PlayStation Adverts Mark Five Years of PS5
Shrugs I can’t be the only one that remembers how weird some of the old PlayStation ads were. Seems to either work or (more likely) do no harm. I could say much the same about outlandish game ads in general.
https://youtu.be/YWmbUMStlGI
https://youtu.be/xRwgdZxYL-E
https://youtu.be/gqkNPcUMffU
Re: Exclusive: Your First Look at Astro Bot in Lumines Arise, and How the Crossover Happened
I preordered the deluxe edition right after playing the demo (the audio visuals being even trippier than Tetris Effecf was what sold me) but the presence of Astro Bot is nice.
It’s too bad the demo doesn’t support VR but given Enhance’s long track record with VR I have zero concerns in that regard.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 605
@Westernwolf4 Thanks. I finally got past that boss.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 605
Fighting a late game boss in Ghost of Yotei. I’ve come really, really close to winning but just came up a bit short.
Played two rounds with different full squads of randoms in Helldivers 2 in which we took down a Hivelord (a giant acid spewing worm the size of a train, covered in armor heavier than that of a tank which is essentially the boss of wherever it is). There is a suborder for killing 50K of them and it looks like the community is going to achieve it with time to spare thanks in no small part to patriot exosuits being the bonus strategem. The major order for taking one of bug planets is still up on the air though because resistance is crazy high. I’ve seen a swarm of bugs force even squads of well armed Helldivers backwards because ammo is limited and reloading sometimes necessary. On a related note a big part of cave exploring is knowing when to retreat and rearm and/or find an alternate pathway.
I started Propagation Paradise Hotel. It’s clearly an indie game in terms of its visuals but it’s well designed and the controls feel great (it’s a motion controlled VR game which is very committed to its bit). I’m still early in but thus far it reminds me more of RE1 (suspenseful yet cheesy, some action but lots of exploration and light puzzle solving) more than either of the survival horror games I’ve played recently (Silent Hill F and Cronos).
Re: Poll: Do You Play Horror Games Around Halloween?
Halloween isn’t a big deal for me anymore but I enjoy horror year round (mostly books but also a few games and movies). Recently I played Silent Hill F and Cronos: The New Dawn. To celebrate the holiday I’m going to pull a horror game out of my backlog (Propagation Paradise Hotel) and start it.
Re: PS5 Extraction Shooter Arc Raiders Is Looking Like a Hit as Servers Immediately Struggle
Impressive. This particular game isn’t for me but I’m glad it has found success. Not surprising given all the positive stuff I heard from people who participated in the betas and servers slams and suchlike.
Re: 'We Want to Be Everywhere, on Every Platform': Microsoft CEO Once Again Commits to PS5
Sony and Nintendo have both made lots of mistakes over the years but both stayed squarely focused on dedicated hardware and their ecosystems in part because gaming is a core and profitable business for both of them.
The Xbox division was a speculative investment for MS and never important for the central division/shareholders. That was beneficial for the Xbox division for a while but that wasn’t going to last forever. MS is willing to extravagantly invest in hot trends but it did not become the biggest, richest company in the world for several years (I think Nvidia passed them recently) by letting divisions bleed infinite money indefinitely.
Re: Arc Raiders Wants You to Play into the PS6 Generation and Beyond
I have been hearing nothing but good about Arc Raiders for months so while PvP (I know there is an E in there too) isn’t my thing anymore I think it will launch strong.
Re: Random: Fans Can't Believe Halo Is Coming to PS5 Before Killzone
This weird trend of the people on the internet going for likes and ‘cool’ cred by embracing long dead franchises they probably never touched in the first place never ceases to amuse.
I bought and played all the Killzones bar Mercenaries (which I didn’t see anything in) at launch and the only two I thought were great were 2 (which was partially overshadowed by Sony’s infamous fake gameplay trailer) and Liberation (which almost nobody played).
Helghast designs are great (I often use KZ armor in Helldivers 2) but the franchise doesn’t need to come back. If the most interesting thing that can be said about a franchise is it once was intended to kill another franchise there is clearly nothing to be said.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 604
I am continuing to love Ghost of Yotei. I’ve got over seventy hours in but I trying to tackle everything I can find so half the Yotei Six are still alive though a lot of other, lesser evils have been addressed. The Onryo effect (which terrifies enemies for a few seconds and maybe calls the wolf to you) is a thing of beauty in heated close combat though I am also fine with surreptitiously cutting throats or killing enemies from afar with a bow or a rifle.
Today is Liberty Day in Helldivers. One can visit Earth and watch fireworks from orbit, but you can only read about the parades and public dissident executions. The traditional free gear seems to be tied to a damn near impossible major order though I don’t think for a second we will leave Liberty Day empty handed.
The current major order sets a sadistic one day, 40 million kill target for the constitution (an antique bolt action rifle with a bayonet). Most are ignoring it and using modern weapons but some of us are picking up the gauntlet so it’s not outside the realm of possibility we will defy Arrowhead’s expectations and win the major order.
Re: Halo PS5 Is Great, But Why Doesn't It Have Competitive Multiplayer?
I played the original Halo many times in local and online co-op but never attended a LAN party and I strongly doubt more than a single digit percentage of Halo 1 owners ever did.
It’s true Halo like almost every other ongoing fps eventually came to be utterly dominated by online competitive MP (Halo 4 and Infinite couldn’t even be bothered to include split screen co-op) but Halo 1’s big draw was its excellent co-op enabled campaign.
That being said I suspect another reason for the omission is MS has some sort of online only Halo they are planning, but that’s fine by me since I liked Halo when it was focused on campaigns rather than competitive multiplayer. Very few games successfully do both because online communities are very passionate things that devour everything you put before them and ask why it isn’t better, why there isn’t more and why it isn’t coming faster 😋.
Re: Halo Confirmed for PS5, Remake of First Game Out in 2026
Looks good to me. I played Halo’s campaign in co-op (online and couch) many, many times. Great stuff. Not sure I’ll pick it up the remaster at launch but I’ll pick it up eventually.
Re: PS5 Pro Is Definitely Not the Best Place to Play The Outer Worlds 2 at Launch
I’m not surprised by the low quality of the PS Pro port given the PS5 port itself was a late in the game decision.
As I said recently in the context of the announcement that the PS5 port of the upcoming Forza Horizon would be be late, I think it’s reasonable for developers to initially focus on optimizing for a platform or two rather than port everywhere all at once. Polish/playtesting is very time consuming.
Re: Sony Game Helldivers 2 Is Proving a Monstrous Success on Xbox
The big patch has finally hit. Not sure how well it fixes the issues PC gamers are having but it buffs a lot of light penetration guns (think rifles and SMGs) and melee weapons and brought back the slightly nerfed but still very nasty burrowing enemies.
Re: Xbox Boss Believes Sony's Strategy of Console Exclusives Is 'Antiquated'
I’ve long believed gamers in real life don’t care about exclusivity. A game people view as unappealing won’t become more appealing just because it’s exclusive. 99.9999% of multiplatform games don’t come anywhere near the success of Minecraft, CoD or Roblox.
I’m not opposed to exclusive games by any means. From a tech perspective they often benefit from focus on a platform (or two). As I pointed out in a Forza ‘late PS5 port’ thread spinning a lot of plates can be tough for developers so it’s perfectly reasonable for developers to prioritize rather than port everywhere at the same time.
Along those lines show me a multi format game and I’ll often be able to to show you a subset of its fans (often PC gamers because that landscape is so incredibly varied) lamenting that their system of choice drew the short straw. Still, barring extreme problems most gamers don’t worry too much about tech issues and just play the games they want to play on the system they own.
Re: Sony Game Helldivers 2 Is Proving a Monstrous Success on Xbox
Not surprised H2 is a hit on Xbox. I have almost 1300 hours in and H2 is just great, chaotic, arcadey fun that is easy to play with randoms (the communication wheel allows one to quickly say the important stuff though of course text and voice are options too).
Playing on PS5 Pro the only problem I run into is the odd crash (3 crashes in 20something rounds in the past week). It was a lot worse a month ago but improved without a patch so I assume there was a server issue that got sorted out. Still PC gamers are having a lot of issues so I hope the patch releases sooner rather than later. The more divers the merrier.