I loved Tsushima and I’m loving Yotei. I started playing on hard and with default graphics settings and have had a great time wandering around the gorgeous world and kicking butt (so far with just a sword). So many badass moments happening during fight scenes.
During a night ride through a forest it suddenly occurred to me that I had never messed with the graphics settings. I turned on ray tracing (I have a Pro) and was immediately even more impressed by the moonlight. I am tempted to play in black and white but I really like the way the colors pop so I’ll save that for a later playthrough.
I can see why XBox or Gamepass fans aren’t happy about it but I don’t think the fate of Gamepass or even Xbox is that big a deal for anyone else. Sony and Nintendo have made lots of mistakes but consistently stayed squarely focused on games and dedicated hardware because it is huge business for them.
MS has thrown around a lot of money by industry standards but for MS the game division was always a side project of little consequence (to their overall earnings and thus their big bosses and shareholders, though I am sure there are lots of passionate people in its game division) and MS wasn’t going to tolerate loss forever.
I’m not saying Gamepass or even Xbox is doomed because it does have a lot of talent and makes a lot of fun games but clearly it no longer has the blank check it used to.
I don’t buy all that many EA games anymore so I don’t feel strongly about this but I don’t see this ending well for developers or gamers.
I could contain my disappointment in a very small jar in if just EA crumbled but this might presage a broader intervention by the American government. It’s worth keeping in mind yesterday the president announced he was going to levy a 100% tax on foreign made movies.
"Our movie making business has been stolen from the United States of America, by other Countries, just like stealing candy from a baby," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social. However, it was not immediately clear what legal authority Trump would use to impose a 100% tariff on foreign-made films.
No doubt launch sales have a lot to do with the quality of the SH2 remake but the success is well deserved based on the nine hours I’ve spent playing F.
I played and mostly enjoyed all three of the games but Parasite Eve was has been dead for a long time and it’s sequels went through a lot of contortions in the face of steadily shrinking sales (the only series constant was Eve, the plot and the gameplay varied wildly from game to game).
I neither blame Squenix for saying ‘Let’s stop here’ nor I do blame the new developer for seeking to capitalize around the vocal nostalgia the internet seems to invariably develop for dead IP.
I play a little of a couple games (GT7, Helldivers 2 and Frostpunk 2) and a lot of Silent Hill F. As a Silent Hill veteran fresh off of completing Cronos: The New Dawn I initially set both combat and puzzles to hard but that proved optimistic. Eight hours in I am still tackling the puzzles on hard but I had to knock down the difficulty of the combat after a boss kicked my teeth in many, many times in a row 😋. Good stuff though. Starts off pretty in line with past Silent Hills but eventually gets even more bizarre.
I was a casual fan of H1 but I’ve been a huge fan of H2 since launch (have 1200 hours in and play it pretty much daily) and supporting the game rather than cranking out a new game with new assets and new physics which might or might not capture the appeal of H2 makes sense to me.
They just need to keep up the stream on content (new enemies and a new warbond every several weeks, a big event with new biomes and mission types every several months) and of course try to minimize bugs. The Into the Unjust event, two warbonds in rapid succession and the Xbox version all hitting within the timeframe of a few weeks meant that the minor instability that normally afflicts H2 after a new addition became major instability. The developers simply need to pace themselves better (and work on getting the game out of the state it’s currently in) if they want to keep H2 going for the long haul.
Since the game is only a year away, a CGI trailer is strange but the later release for the PS5 strikes me as a reasonable move though it might suck for people who primarily play FH online competitively..
In the broadest strokes more platforms equals more technical headaches. Not that such problems can’t be solved with time but it’s perfectly reasonable for developers to choose to focus and given who signs their checks not including Xbox on their highest priority list isn’t in the cards.
IMHO no free stuff for avid players makes the program pointless for gamers.
I don’t see the point for Sony either. Why not just sell what appears to be full priced merchandise to whoever wants it rather than tying it to a trophy?
I’ve pretty deep into Cronos: The New Dawn. Aside from the absorption mechanic it doesn’t break much new ground but it beats the heck out of the old ground and the absorption mechanic ensures fights are always intense. I’m not sure what impact the choices have but the plot is clever and I’m curious to see where it goes,
Also played some good rounds of Helldivers though the crash rate on level 10 matches is really high right now (3 of the 13 rounds I played crashed). Still had a lot of fun blowing up bots with randoms.
I started Frostpunk 2. I got past the tutorial chapter but I’m still early in. Haven’t had to make any of the monstrous choices I associate with Frostpunk but some of the elderly did offer to die to ensure that kids have enough to eat (hasn’t come to that yet but like I said it’s early).
My brother was a longtime fan of MSFS and the then new 2024 was the first game he bought when he decided to become a PC gamer but he ran into so many crazy tech bugs like lag and suchlike that after a while he gave up on it.
I remember how gorgeous the blimps looked in one of the prerelease trailers though. If they sorted out all its problems I could see it finding an audience on the PS5 though pure flight sims aren’t my thing.
The trailer is great and the concept as outlined sounds very promising. I’m keeping an eye on this (would love the demo to hit PSN but a lot of games with Steam demos don’t).
I don’t put much weight on corporate statements of intent but Sony has offered a steady supply of high quality games with strong single player modes and most have found commercial success so there’s no reason to assume the pattern won’t continue for the foreseeable future.
Synth Riders just went on sale for $15 (the normal price is 25) so I picked it up as well as the played through the tutorial, the Kendrick Lamar track and four random songs. As one might expect the Kendrick Lamar stage boasted much more elaborate visuals than the vanilla stages I saw but the tracking is flawless and the game clearly communicates where you need to move (which is of course the tricky part). So far so good.
I jumped from the Saturn to the PS1 about a year (maybe a little more than that) after the PS1’s release. The early Saturn had some gems (nods to Panzer Dragoon and VF) but generally support was very weak (a big fall off from the Genesis) and I eventually decided to make a mid-gen leap.
Thanks to games like Carnage Heart, Gran Turismo, Vandal Hearts, Disgaea, Chrono Cross, Silent Hill, Xenogears, Soul Blade, Vagrant Story, Tecmo’s Deception, Wipeout, Parappa the Rappa and Final Fantasy Tactics I felt like I had transitioned from the desert (developer support for the Saturn was weak) to a lush jungle.
Since then I’ve been there day 1 for every PS system except the PS5 (which I wasn’t willing to pay scalping prices for).
Unsurprising list but I don’t really get why people are angry or disappointed about it. When looking at the commercial state of the industry I think it’s useful to look at what succeeds (by the standards of the developers) rather than merely what sells best.
For example games like Dragon’s Crown, Returnal, Street Fighter 6, Disco Elysium, Helldivers 2, Balatro, Baldur’s Gate 3, Pacific Drive, Returnal and Stellar Blade all met or exceeded the expectations of their developers. Their success encourages (and enables) the developers to keep doing what they are doing and encourage other developers with similar visions to try their luck. Shrugs That’s just my personal view of what sales data is really important.
@SuntannedDuck2 I see where you are coming from but I don’t have a problem with the fact the average gamer (or consumer of other forms of commercial art such as movies and books) doesn’t do a lot of research and just settles on what looks fun and familiar or maybe what their friends and social media favorites are enjoying rather than doing research to find less conventional/more obscure stuff they might enjoy. People should play what they enjoy and if they don’t have to look far or hard to find said enjoyment, good for them. That doesn’t make them stupid or lesser, it just means they have other life priorities.
I’ve been gaming since the Magnavox Odyssey but I don’t get why some people get so stuck on franchises. I don’t have anything against sequels, remakes or even revisions (I bought 4 versions of SF2 on the SNES and Genesis back in the day) BUT I am fine with creators saying ‘I’ve done everything I want to do with this, now I want to move onto something else’.
I played a lot of Helldivers 2. The chaos and brutality of Superhelldive missions is currently way up there. Between burrowing bile spewers (bloated mostly squishy bugs who hide underground and just pop their tiny armored heads up out of the ground like sprinklers to spit a long stream of corrosive bile at the nearest diver), chargers (heavily armored, truck sized), dragon roaches (whose penchant for hovering and laying down a field of fire makes them incredibly deadly foes) and of course hive lords (giant acid spewing worms who are effectively the bosses of whatever level they are on and take several minutes of applied heavy munitions by multiple divers to kill).
Still, divers (even randoms like me) have risen to the challenge. Generally half the team focuses on killing and distracting enemies and half who focus on hitting the mission objectives. Often one or two divers has a mech with dual auto cannons. Good times.
I also started on Cronus: The New Damn. It’s creepy, intense and the fact enemies grow stronger by eating their fallen really forces you to strategize. You not only have to figure out how to most efficiently kill enemies (bullets and other resources are very scare) but where you are killing enemies in relation to each other. Killing four out of five enemies does you no good if the fifth enemy has gone Captain Planet by absorbing the different powers and the health of those you killed. I’m still early in (I have six hours on the clock though some fights killed me many times) but so far so good. Anyone looking for a creepy but intense horror action game along the lines of Dead Space and RE4 should take a look at this.
I also spent a bit of time playing The Wandering Village (a really wonderful indie strategy game) and GT7.
Helldivers 2 is a well deserved success and Halo warbond aside, Xbox fans are jumping on at a good time. The invasion of the bug homeworld has kicked the brutality and difficulty up to the next level.
Cave fighting is nasty because it’s generally dark, tight and stuffed with smaller but still dangerous bugs and there are only a few widely spaced holes where you can call down for equipment or reinforcements. However wandering around in open desert is arguably even more dangerous because of Hive Lords (ginormous acid spewing worns which I haven’t seen die in several matches though I understand it’s possible) and giant dragonish insects.
I agree that all things being equal, higher prices translate into fewer sales but given that Monster Hunter came out huge on PS5 and PC before it’s momentum died and community fell apart I suspect MH’s biggest problem is the game itself.
Still, the fact that consoles have reversed the long successful pattern of declining in price over time has no doubt kept a lot of people from jumping onboard.
I played a lot of Helldivers 2, Shinobi, GT7 and The Wandering Village. My run in The Wandering Village has lasted 80something in-game days but the dinosaur that my village is built on is infected and starving and my villagers are on the verge of rebellion so I fear the end is in sight.
As a regular Helldiver who plays at least a couple matches a day I can attest Helldivers 2 saw a massive uptick in players with the release of the Xbox version and the Halo themed warbond (the rifle and the shotgun are good stuff). The more divers the merrier. Liberty for all.
Each of the three stages in the single player mode is more gorgeous and trippy than the last. A worthy follow up to Tetris Effect. Shame the demo isn’t VR but it still made me preorder the digital deluxe edition.
Elite developer who leave their old companies (often after encountering creative pushback and/or a commercial disappointment) for new ones which promise them a blank check and complete creative freedom has been a pretty common phenomena in recent years.
I’m hoping for an awesome game (Itsuno is top tier) but keeping my expectations in check..
I agree 2026 feels too early for the PlayStation 6 but 2027 or 2028 might not. Hardware designers need to plan and refine HW and it’s supporting software at least several months ahead of time so that they can get kits into developers’ hands and give them the opportunity to learn and design for it.
The bile dragon looks like a nightmare. The burrowing bugs and mostly underground missions look cool too though. The resupply constraint is really going to encourage team loadout coordination.
As a guy who favors poison loadouts (on bug and squid missions) the weapon that intrigues me most is the poison spear. Poison is a tool a lot of divers sleep on but like a lot of H2 weapons it’s extremely powerful when used judiciously.
Helldivers 2 ODSTs dlc hits today. It (and the Xbox player influx) hadn’t hit when I last played H2 an hour ago (lead a squad of randoms on three missions against the squid) but the player count (70k+) was already double what it normally is on a weekday morning. It’s going to be crazy when everything hits later today.
I’m sure there will be chaos (high explosives are always dicey no matter how experienced a team is) but most of the new players will do fine. H2 is easy to pick up and a lot of YouTubers have posted a lot of videos offering advice about etiquette, strategy and early load outs, I have the day off but I have social commitments and errands to run so I can’t defend democracy all day 😢 but I’m sure today will be a sweet day for liberty.
I am also looking forward to Shinobi. I was so impressed by the demo I stopped playing after about half an hour and decided to wait for the full game. I don’t know how faithful it is to the old games (I played through the first three Shinobis when they were new on the SMS and Genesis) but it had some callbacks and suchlike I recognized. The audio visuals are just pure goodness. Sega has really been killing it recently.
I am also interested in the MGS remake (loved the original) but I only have so much time in the day and this years gaming release schedule is pretty packed so I will hold off for a bit.
I wasn’t expecting this remake of one of my favorite games (and my favorite MGS) to turn out so well. Not a day one for me but certainly something I’ll get down the line.
Looks like the only recently back on track SH series is staying on track despite this being the work of a different developer (NeoBards). I’ll be there day 1 for this and Bloober’s Cronos.
The English VA struck me as fine though I’m not the toughest critics of such things. I might play it in Japanese eventually just out of curiousity.
Looks cool. Nothing really crazy weaponwise (I was hoping for the needler) but I recognized some of the guns from my Halo days. The fact the armor passive boosts stealth and detection radius is great since scouting is a key part of Helldiving.
The fact it costs $15 in game credits as opposed to the normal $10 can probably be chalked up to it being a crossover since HD2’s Killzone content wasn’t part of a warbond but the collective price was higher than the price of a normal warbond. Still a reasonable price and I have already earned the credits so I’ll be happy to spend them on new ways to defend democracy.
This weekend I played Helldivers 2 (using a mix of fire and poison against the bugs, the target of the current major order), The Wandering Village (a lovely but sometimes brutal city builder set on the back of a dinosaur), Gran Turismo 7 (driving and getting the feel of different cars in VR never gets old for me), Death Stranding 2 (messing around exploring and doing side stuff) and even a bit of Phoenix Point (trying to start a second successful playthrough though it’s been so long I’m relearning some stuff).
@Scottyy I generally play with a full squads of randoms (teams in open games usually swell to four) nowadays but I’ve played a lot of great two person matches in H2. How well teams of any size work depends a lot on the difficulty level, skill/experience of the players and load outs.
You can freely dive into any planet and against any foe that borders territory held by SuperEarth so you never have to pay for access to maps and enemies.
The mission variety is good but of course all missions involve lots of fighting (and often a lot of running). All three alien races are very different things and two of the three groups have meaningful variants (the Jet Brigade, Incinerator Corp, the Spore Burst and Predator Strain) so there is a lot of variety in terms of the fighting and many weapons and vehicles (which right now are just jeeps and two types of powered battle armor) are viable against many types of foes.
Interesting. I had thought Arrowhead was the big push behind Helldivers 2 coming to Xbox. As an avid Helldiver (over a thousand hours in) who mostly plays with randoms I welcome all regardless of platform. I really hope that the Gears chainsaw gun makes its way to H2.
I wish him luck in his future endeavors. I’m going to keep an eye on his future work and that of MM. Shakes head Dreams is a great thing and was a huge, noble swing who I (like many avid MM fans) expected to do a lot better than it did BUT in hindsight I can see some of the flaws that doomed it commercially.
Dreams was a brilliant creative tool which MM and a small creative community that cut its teeth using LBP’s level creation tools did lots of fun things with (I put over 500 hours into playing and revising various community creations though my own efforts were unmemorable).
Some of the really hardcore, ambitious creators I talked with (I wasn’t much of a creator myself but I reviewed a lot of levels and the community was small enough creators often took the time to thank me for my feedback even when it wasn’t positive) expressed frustration they could neither charge for stuff they created within Dreams or export (and sell) said stuff.
I blame the failure primarily on its weak campaign (more of a demo of the variety of the toolset than anything else) and lack of any form of multiplayer out of the gate (offline multiplayer eventually came to Dreams after months and months but online MP never did). By way of contrast the LBPs shipped with on and offline MP and had robust campaigns. My daughters and their friends latched onto the LBPs the way they later latched onto Minecraft and Roblox,
Also the lack of monetization in Dreams was generous (once you bought the game for $40 you got access to everything and MM and individual staffers released a lot of content postlaunch) but almost certainly hurt profitability. By way of contrast the LBPs offered a mix of free and paid DLC (they tended to give out the substantial level creation stuff for free and sell cosmetics though they did hand out some costumes for free).
I wrote more than I planned to but said less than I want to. I’ll just close this out by saying I still have faith in those who remain at MM (some of them came up from the creative communities of Dreams and LBP) even if they aren’t founders and that while it isn’t being actively supported Dreams servers are still up (one can browse indreams.me to view the games, music videos and art the community has/is generating) and it can be picked up cheap nowadays.
After The Alters, This War of Mine and of course the original Frostpunk l’ll be there for the console release (which has taken a while) on Day 1. 11 Bit excels at management games where sometimes the morally abhorrent choice is the ‘best’ choice for the community (and vice versa).
This is the second round of layoffs in two years for Supermassive. IIRC they had a Blade Runner game cancelled last year and I’m not sure how well The Casting of Frank Stone did commercially. I hope they come out of this okay.
The studio confirmed it would shed staff via a statement posted to social media platform X, in which it blamed "significant challenges" facing the games industry to which it was not "immune".
A Bloomberg report states around 150 people were told their jobs were at risk this morning, with around 90 staff eventually expected to leave the business following a consultation period. Supermassive is believed to currently employ around 350 staff in total.
I bounced off Warframe when it first launched and have ignored it since then. It’s wild to read it has thrived and now is so popular it has a massive community and a yearly IRL festival. Probably still not for me, but everything doesn’t need to fit that criteria and I tip my hat to the developers and wish them continued success.
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Re: Poll: Are You Playing Ghost of Yotei?
I loved Tsushima and I’m loving Yotei. I started playing on hard and with default graphics settings and have had a great time wandering around the gorgeous world and kicking butt (so far with just a sword). So many badass moments happening during fight scenes.
During a night ride through a forest it suddenly occurred to me that I had never messed with the graphics settings. I turned on ray tracing (I have a Pro) and was immediately even more impressed by the moonlight. I am tempted to play in black and white but I really like the way the colors pop so I’ll save that for a later playthrough.
Re: PS Plus Looks Better Than Ever After New Xbox Game Pass Price Rises
I can see why XBox or Gamepass fans aren’t happy about it but I don’t think the fate of Gamepass or even Xbox is that big a deal for anyone else. Sony and Nintendo have made lots of mistakes but consistently stayed squarely focused on games and dedicated hardware because it is huge business for them.
MS has thrown around a lot of money by industry standards but for MS the game division was always a side project of little consequence (to their overall earnings and thus their big bosses and shareholders, though I am sure there are lots of passionate people in its game division) and MS wasn’t going to tolerate loss forever.
I’m not saying Gamepass or even Xbox is doomed because it does have a lot of talent and makes a lot of fun games but clearly it no longer has the blank check it used to.
Re: Silent Hill 1 Remake Now a Big Focus at Bloober Team, Could Make Cronos 2
Cronos is a great game and I’m glad it found success. The absorption mechanic ensures every fight is tense until it is over.
Re: Silent Hill F Selling Faster Than Silent Hill 2, Already at 1 Million Units
Just finished my first playthrough of SH F. Trippy, brutal stuff. I hope some of the other possible endings are somewhat happier.
Re: Mega Publisher EA Agrees to $55 Billion Buyout by Saudi Arabia, Silver Lake, Affinity Partners
I don’t buy all that many EA games anymore so I don’t feel strongly about this but I don’t see this ending well for developers or gamers.
I could contain my disappointment in a very small jar in if just EA crumbled but this might presage a broader intervention by the American government. It’s worth keeping in mind yesterday the president announced he was going to levy a 100% tax on foreign made movies.
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/us-impose-100-tariff-movies-made-outside-country-2025-09-29/
"Our movie making business has been stolen from the United States of America, by other Countries, just like stealing candy from a baby," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social.
However, it was not immediately clear what legal authority Trump would use to impose a 100% tariff on foreign-made films.
Re: Silent Hill F Selling Faster Than Silent Hill 2, Already at 1 Million Units
No doubt launch sales have a lot to do with the quality of the SH2 remake but the success is well deserved based on the nine hours I’ve spent playing F.
Re: Square Enix Ain't Going to Revisit Parasite Eve on PS5, But This Chinese Dev Sure as Hell Is
I played and mostly enjoyed all three of the games but Parasite Eve was has been dead for a long time and it’s sequels went through a lot of contortions in the face of steadily shrinking sales (the only series constant was Eve, the plot and the gameplay varied wildly from game to game).
I neither blame Squenix for saying ‘Let’s stop here’ nor I do blame the new developer for seeking to capitalize around the vocal nostalgia the internet seems to invariably develop for dead IP.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 600
I play a little of a couple games (GT7, Helldivers 2 and Frostpunk 2) and a lot of Silent Hill F. As a Silent Hill veteran fresh off of completing Cronos: The New Dawn I initially set both combat and puzzles to hard but that proved optimistic. Eight hours in I am still tackling the puzzles on hard but I had to knock down the difficulty of the combat after a boss kicked my teeth in many, many times in a row 😋. Good stuff though. Starts off pretty in line with past Silent Hills but eventually gets even more bizarre.
Re: Don't Expect a Helldivers 3: Arrowhead Hopes Helldivers 2 Is a 'Forever Game'
I was a casual fan of H1 but I’ve been a huge fan of H2 since launch (have 1200 hours in and play it pretty much daily) and supporting the game rather than cranking out a new game with new assets and new physics which might or might not capture the appeal of H2 makes sense to me.
They just need to keep up the stream on content (new enemies and a new warbond every several weeks, a big event with new biomes and mission types every several months) and of course try to minimize bugs. The Into the Unjust event, two warbonds in rapid succession and the Xbox version all hitting within the timeframe of a few weeks meant that the minor instability that normally afflicts H2 after a new addition became major instability. The developers simply need to pace themselves better (and work on getting the game out of the state it’s currently in) if they want to keep H2 going for the long haul.
Re: Forza Horizon 6 Announced, But Not on PS5 at Launch
Since the game is only a year away, a CGI trailer is strange but the later release for the PS5 strikes me as a reasonable move though it might suck for people who primarily play FH online competitively..
In the broadest strokes more platforms equals more technical headaches. Not that such problems can’t be solved with time but it’s perfectly reasonable for developers to choose to focus and given who signs their checks not including Xbox on their highest priority list isn’t in the cards.
Re: State of Play September 2025 Predictions: Marvel's Wolverine, Resident Evil Requiem, God of War, and More
I hope to see Media Molecule’s next game. None of the rumors seem to indicate that but one can hope.
Re: Gran Turismo 7's Latest Update Adds Yet More Cars and Events on PS5, PS4
I’m a casual but consistent GT fan (play single player a couple times a week) and I love the range of vehicles in the trailer.
Re: New PlayStation Rewards Program to Offer Exclusive Merch, Starts Today
IMHO no free stuff for avid players makes the program pointless for gamers.
I don’t see the point for Sony either. Why not just sell what appears to be full priced merchandise to whoever wants it rather than tying it to a trophy?
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 599
I’ve pretty deep into Cronos: The New Dawn. Aside from the absorption mechanic it doesn’t break much new ground but it beats the heck out of the old ground and the absorption mechanic ensures fights are always intense. I’m not sure what impact the choices have but the plot is clever and I’m curious to see where it goes,
Also played some good rounds of Helldivers though the crash rate on level 10 matches is really high right now (3 of the 13 rounds I played crashed). Still had a lot of fun blowing up bots with randoms.
I started Frostpunk 2. I got past the tutorial chapter but I’m still early in. Haven’t had to make any of the monstrous choices I associate with Frostpunk but some of the elderly did offer to die to ensure that kids have enough to eat (hasn’t come to that yet but like I said it’s early).
Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Tipped to Takeoff on PS5 This November
My brother was a longtime fan of MSFS and the then new 2024 was the first game he bought when he decided to become a PC gamer but he ran into so many crazy tech bugs like lag and suchlike that after a while he gave up on it.
I remember how gorgeous the blimps looked in one of the prerelease trailers though. If they sorted out all its problems I could see it finding an audience on the PS5 though pure flight sims aren’t my thing.
Re: Preview: Dispatch's Superpower Is Its One-Two Punch of Management and Narrative Choice
The trailer is great and the concept as outlined sounds very promising. I’m keeping an eye on this (would love the demo to hit PSN but a lot of games with Steam demos don’t).
Re: 'Quit Game and Restart': PS5 Pro Has the Worst Version of Borderlands 4
Every version of Borderlands 4 can make a case for being the worst version.
https://www.purexbox.com/news/2025/09/borderlands-4-performance-degrades-on-xbox-the-longer-you-play-dev-suggests-workaround
Re: These 26+ New PS5, PS4, and PS Plus Games Are Coming Out This Week (15th-21st September)
It feels like I’ve been waiting forever for Frostpunk 2 to hit consoles. Day 1 for me.
Re: Sony to 'Advance Position as Creative Leader in Single Player Experiences'
I don’t put much weight on corporate statements of intent but Sony has offered a steady supply of high quality games with strong single player modes and most have found commercial success so there’s no reason to assume the pattern won’t continue for the foreseeable future.
Re: PSVR2 Rhythm Treasure Synth Riders Drops New Experience, Featuring Kendrick Lamar
Synth Riders just went on sale for $15 (the normal price is 25) so I picked it up as well as the played through the tutorial, the Kendrick Lamar track and four random songs. As one might expect the Kendrick Lamar stage boasted much more elaborate visuals than the vanilla stages I saw but the tracking is flawless and the game clearly communicates where you need to move (which is of course the tricky part). So far so good.
Re: Poll: Did You Buy a PS1 at Launch?
I jumped from the Saturn to the PS1 about a year (maybe a little more than that) after the PS1’s release. The early Saturn had some gems (nods to Panzer Dragoon and VF) but generally support was very weak (a big fall off from the Genesis) and I eventually decided to make a mid-gen leap.
Thanks to games like Carnage Heart, Gran Turismo, Vandal Hearts, Disgaea, Chrono Cross, Silent Hill, Xenogears, Soul Blade, Vagrant Story, Tecmo’s Deception, Wipeout, Parappa the Rappa and Final Fantasy Tactics I felt like I had transitioned from the desert (developer support for the Saturn was weak) to a lush jungle.
Since then I’ve been there day 1 for every PS system except the PS5 (which I wasn’t willing to pay scalping prices for).
Re: 8 PS Plus Extra, Premium Games for September 2025 Announced
I’m glad about the addition of Persona 5 Tactica and Crow Country.
Re: USA's Top 20 PlayStation Games of All Time May Surprise You
Unsurprising list but I don’t really get why people are angry or disappointed about it. When looking at the commercial state of the industry I think it’s useful to look at what succeeds (by the standards of the developers) rather than merely what sells best.
For example games like Dragon’s Crown, Returnal, Street Fighter 6, Disco Elysium, Helldivers 2, Balatro, Baldur’s Gate 3, Pacific Drive, Returnal and Stellar Blade all met or exceeded the expectations of their developers. Their success encourages (and enables) the developers to keep doing what they are doing and encourage other developers with similar visions to try their luck. Shrugs That’s just my personal view of what sales data is really important.
Re: Sucker Punch Thinks Only 10% of Studio Would Be Hyped to Make Sly Cooper
@SuntannedDuck2 I see where you are coming from but I don’t have a problem with the fact the average gamer (or consumer of other forms of commercial art such as movies and books) doesn’t do a lot of research and just settles on what looks fun and familiar or maybe what their friends and social media favorites are enjoying rather than doing research to find less conventional/more obscure stuff they might enjoy. People should play what they enjoy and if they don’t have to look far or hard to find said enjoyment, good for them. That doesn’t make them stupid or lesser, it just means they have other life priorities.
Re: Sucker Punch Thinks Only 10% of Studio Would Be Hyped to Make Sly Cooper
I’ve been gaming since the Magnavox Odyssey but I don’t get why some people get so stuck on franchises. I don’t have anything against sequels, remakes or even revisions (I bought 4 versions of SF2 on the SNES and Genesis back in the day) BUT I am fine with creators saying ‘I’ve done everything I want to do with this, now I want to move onto something else’.
Re: PSVR2 Rhythm Treasure Synth Riders Drops New Experience, Featuring Kendrick Lamar
Cool. I’ll pick this up the next time the base game goes on sale.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 597
I played a lot of Helldivers 2. The chaos and brutality of Superhelldive missions is currently way up there. Between burrowing bile spewers (bloated mostly squishy bugs who hide underground and just pop their tiny armored heads up out of the ground like sprinklers to spit a long stream of corrosive bile at the nearest diver), chargers (heavily armored, truck sized), dragon roaches (whose penchant for hovering and laying down a field of fire makes them incredibly deadly foes) and of course hive lords (giant acid spewing worms who are effectively the bosses of whatever level they are on and take several minutes of applied heavy munitions by multiple divers to kill).
Still, divers (even randoms like me) have risen to the challenge. Generally half the team focuses on killing and distracting enemies and half who focus on hitting the mission objectives. Often one or two divers has a mech with dual auto cannons. Good times.
I also started on Cronus: The New Damn. It’s creepy, intense and the fact enemies grow stronger by eating their fallen really forces you to strategize. You not only have to figure out how to most efficiently kill enemies (bullets and other resources are very scare) but where you are killing enemies in relation to each other. Killing four out of five enemies does you no good if the fifth enemy has gone Captain Planet by absorbing the different powers and the health of those you killed. I’m still early in (I have six hours on the clock though some fights killed me many times) but so far so good. Anyone looking for a creepy but intense horror action game along the lines of Dead Space and RE4 should take a look at this.
I also spent a bit of time playing The Wandering Village (a really wonderful indie strategy game) and GT7.
Re: Sony's Helldivers 2 on Xbox Gamble Is Absolutely Paying Off
Helldivers 2 is a well deserved success and Halo warbond aside, Xbox fans are jumping on at a good time. The invasion of the bug homeworld has kicked the brutality and difficulty up to the next level.
Cave fighting is nasty because it’s generally dark, tight and stuffed with smaller but still dangerous bugs and there are only a few widely spaced holes where you can call down for equipment or reinforcements. However wandering around in open desert is arguably even more dangerous because of Hive Lords (ginormous acid spewing worns which I haven’t seen die in several matches though I understand it’s possible) and giant dragonish insects.
Re: PS5's High Price Becoming a Serious Headache for Publishers
I agree that all things being equal, higher prices translate into fewer sales but given that Monster Hunter came out huge on PS5 and PC before it’s momentum died and community fell apart I suspect MH’s biggest problem is the game itself.
Still, the fact that consoles have reversed the long successful pattern of declining in price over time has no doubt kept a lot of people from jumping onboard.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 596
I played a lot of Helldivers 2, Shinobi, GT7 and The Wandering Village. My run in The Wandering Village has lasted 80something in-game days but the dinosaur that my village is built on is infected and starving and my villagers are on the verge of rebellion so I fear the end is in sight.
Re: Helldivers 2 Xbox Sales Estimates Predict a Helluva Start for Sony's Live Service
As a regular Helldiver who plays at least a couple matches a day I can attest Helldivers 2 saw a massive uptick in players with the release of the Xbox version and the Halo themed warbond (the rifle and the shotgun are good stuff). The more divers the merrier. Liberty for all.
Re: Preview: Lumines Arise on PS5 Is the Eye-Popping Glow-Up the Series Deserves
Each of the three stages in the single player mode is more gorgeous and trippy than the last. A worthy follow up to Tetris Effect. Shame the demo isn’t VR but it still made me preorder the digital deluxe edition.
Re: Devil May Cry, Dragon's Dogma, and Rival Schools Combine in Capcom Legend's New AAA Game
Elite developer who leave their old companies (often after encountering creative pushback and/or a commercial disappointment) for new ones which promise them a blank check and complete creative freedom has been a pretty common phenomena in recent years.
I’m hoping for an awesome game (Itsuno is top tier) but keeping my expectations in check..
Re: 'There's No Real Need for a PS6': Industry Veteran Weighs in on Next-Gen Debate
I agree 2026 feels too early for the PlayStation 6 but 2027 or 2028 might not. Hardware designers need to plan and refine HW and it’s supporting software at least several months ahead of time so that they can get kits into developers’ hands and give them the opportunity to learn and design for it.
Re: As Sony Game Launches on Xbox, Helldivers 2 Heads Behind Enemy Lines
The bile dragon looks like a nightmare. The burrowing bugs and mostly underground missions look cool too though. The resupply constraint is really going to encourage team loadout coordination.
As a guy who favors poison loadouts (on bug and squid missions) the weapon that intrigues me most is the poison spear. Poison is a tool a lot of divers sleep on but like a lot of H2 weapons it’s extremely powerful when used judiciously.
Re: These 14+ New PS5, PS4 Games Are Coming Out This Week (25th-31st August)
Helldivers 2 ODSTs dlc hits today. It (and the Xbox player influx) hadn’t hit when I last played H2 an hour ago (lead a squad of randoms on three missions against the squid) but the player count (70k+) was already double what it normally is on a weekday morning. It’s going to be crazy when everything hits later today.
I’m sure there will be chaos (high explosives are always dicey no matter how experienced a team is) but most of the new players will do fine. H2 is easy to pick up and a lot of YouTubers have posted a lot of videos offering advice about etiquette, strategy and early load outs, I have the day off but I have social commitments and errands to run so I can’t defend democracy all day 😢 but I’m sure today will be a sweet day for liberty.
I am also looking forward to Shinobi. I was so impressed by the demo I stopped playing after about half an hour and decided to wait for the full game. I don’t know how faithful it is to the old games (I played through the first three Shinobis when they were new on the SMS and Genesis) but it had some callbacks and suchlike I recognized. The audio visuals are just pure goodness. Sega has really been killing it recently.
I am also interested in the MGS remake (loved the original) but I only have so much time in the day and this years gaming release schedule is pretty packed so I will hold off for a bit.
Re: Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater (PS5) - The Best Version of an Undisputed Classic
I wasn’t expecting this remake of one of my favorite games (and my favorite MGS) to turn out so well. Not a day one for me but certainly something I’ll get down the line.
Re: Action JRPG Lost Hellden Could Be One to Watch on PS5 as New Gameplay Is Revealed
The names involved impressed me more than the game but I’ll keep an eye on this.
Re: Ghostrunner Dev Changes History for PS5 Souls-Like Valor Mortis
I love the trailer. I’ll keep an eye on this.
Re: Silent Hill F's Harrowing Story Trailer Attempts to Find the Beauty in Terror
Looks like the only recently back on track SH series is staying on track despite this being the work of a different developer (NeoBards). I’ll be there day 1 for this and Bloober’s Cronos.
The English VA struck me as fine though I’m not the toughest critics of such things. I might play it in Japanese eventually just out of curiousity.
Re: Halo: ODST Content Officially on PS5 in Next Week's Helldivers 2 Update
@Americansamurai1 It’s a warbond so it won’t be time limited.
Re: Halo: ODST Content Officially on PS5 in Next Week's Helldivers 2 Update
Looks cool. Nothing really crazy weaponwise (I was hoping for the needler) but I recognized some of the guns from my Halo days. The fact the armor passive boosts stealth and detection radius is great since scouting is a key part of Helldiving.
The fact it costs $15 in game credits as opposed to the normal $10 can probably be chalked up to it being a crossover since HD2’s Killzone content wasn’t part of a warbond but the collective price was higher than the price of a normal warbond. Still a reasonable price and I have already earned the credits so I’ll be happy to spend them on new ways to defend democracy.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 594
This weekend I played Helldivers 2 (using a mix of fire and poison against the bugs, the target of the current major order), The Wandering Village (a lovely but sometimes brutal city builder set on the back of a dinosaur), Gran Turismo 7 (driving and getting the feel of different cars in VR never gets old for me), Death Stranding 2 (messing around exploring and doing side stuff) and even a bit of Phoenix Point (trying to start a second successful playthrough though it’s been so long I’m relearning some stuff).
Re: Halo 3: ODST Content Teased for Helldivers 2, Even on PS5
@Scottyy I generally play with a full squads of randoms (teams in open games usually swell to four) nowadays but I’ve played a lot of great two person matches in H2. How well teams of any size work depends a lot on the difficulty level, skill/experience of the players and load outs.
You can freely dive into any planet and against any foe that borders territory held by SuperEarth so you never have to pay for access to maps and enemies.
The mission variety is good but of course all missions involve lots of fighting (and often a lot of running). All three alien races are very different things and two of the three groups have meaningful variants (the Jet Brigade, Incinerator Corp, the Spore Burst and Predator Strain) so there is a lot of variety in terms of the fighting and many weapons and vehicles (which right now are just jeeps and two types of powered battle armor) are viable against many types of foes.
Re: Halo 3: ODST Content Teased for Helldivers 2, Even on PS5
I couldn’t pick ODST out of a line-up but as an avid Helldiver I’m curious to see what comes of this collaboration.
Re: PlayStation the Driving Force Behind Xbox's Helldivers 2 Port
Interesting. I had thought Arrowhead was the big push behind Helldivers 2 coming to Xbox. As an avid Helldiver (over a thousand hours in) who mostly plays with randoms I welcome all regardless of platform. I really hope that the Gears chainsaw gun makes its way to H2.
Re: Media Molecule's Last Remaining Co-Founder Resigns After Nearly 20 Years
I wish him luck in his future endeavors. I’m going to keep an eye on his future work and that of MM. Shakes head Dreams is a great thing and was a huge, noble swing who I (like many avid MM fans) expected to do a lot better than it did BUT in hindsight I can see some of the flaws that doomed it commercially.
Dreams was a brilliant creative tool which MM and a small creative community that cut its teeth using LBP’s level creation tools did lots of fun things with (I put over 500 hours into playing and revising various community creations though my own efforts were unmemorable).
Some of the really hardcore, ambitious creators I talked with (I wasn’t much of a creator myself but I reviewed a lot of levels and the community was small enough creators often took the time to thank me for my feedback even when it wasn’t positive) expressed frustration they could neither charge for stuff they created within Dreams or export (and sell) said stuff.
I blame the failure primarily on its weak campaign (more of a demo of the variety of the toolset than anything else) and lack of any form of multiplayer out of the gate (offline multiplayer eventually came to Dreams after months and months but online MP never did). By way of contrast the LBPs shipped with on and offline MP and had robust campaigns. My daughters and their friends latched onto the LBPs the way they later latched onto Minecraft and Roblox,
Also the lack of monetization in Dreams was generous (once you bought the game for $40 you got access to everything and MM and individual staffers released a lot of content postlaunch) but almost certainly hurt profitability. By way of contrast the LBPs offered a mix of free and paid DLC (they tended to give out the substantial level creation stuff for free and sell cosmetics though they did hand out some costumes for free).
I wrote more than I planned to but said less than I want to. I’ll just close this out by saying I still have faith in those who remain at MM (some of them came up from the creative communities of Dreams and LBP) even if they aren’t founders and that while it isn’t being actively supported Dreams servers are still up (one can browse indreams.me to view the games, music videos and art the community has/is generating) and it can be picked up cheap nowadays.
https://indreams.me/
Re: Highly Rated City Builder Frostpunk 2 Gets PS5 Port This September
After The Alters, This War of Mine and of course the original Frostpunk l’ll be there for the console release (which has taken a while) on Day 1. 11 Bit excels at management games where sometimes the morally abhorrent choice is the ‘best’ choice for the community (and vice versa).
Re: Directive 8020 Delayed to 2026 as Supermassive Games Prepares for Layoffs
This is the second round of layoffs in two years for Supermassive. IIRC they had a Blade Runner game cancelled last year and I’m not sure how well The Casting of Frank Stone did commercially. I hope they come out of this okay.
https://www.eurogamer.net/until-dawn-dark-pictures-developer-supermassive-to-lay-off-around-90-staff
The studio confirmed it would shed staff via a statement posted to social media platform X, in which it blamed "significant challenges" facing the games industry to which it was not "immune".
A Bloomberg report states around 150 people were told their jobs were at risk this morning, with around 90 staff eventually expected to leave the business following a consultation period. Supermassive is believed to currently employ around 350 staff in total.
Re: This PS5, PS4 Shooter Does Live-Service Right, Next Big Warframe DLC Out This Year
I bounced off Warframe when it first launched and have ignored it since then. It’s wild to read it has thrived and now is so popular it has a massive community and a yearly IRL festival. Probably still not for me, but everything doesn’t need to fit that criteria and I tip my hat to the developers and wish them continued success.