Dichotomy

I'm interested, from the description, in what "SAFEGUARDED BY A TRIPLE LAYER OF DLC PROTECTIVE CLEAR VENEER" means. Does it protect us from subpar DLC, because that might make this pad worth the cost...

The article sounded a bit like one of those 'advertorials' to me, sorry

Find it funny that the health system going back to a non-regenerative system that every fps game used years ago is a 'new' feature.

@ellsworth004 You need to get to a certain boss and it will unlock your percentage in your inventory and on your save file. Saying more than that would probably enter spoiler territory.

Don't know why, but these name change topics always remind me of what happened with Blizzard when they tied their games to a Bnet account. Everyone rushed in to get names like Raynor, Thrall and other big names from their games. Hilarity ensued when everyone realised there was an ID number generated for your account name so people could have the same name and 40 people all called Raynor were posting simultaneously on the forums about name changes.

Personally I didn't put much thought into my account name when I started it, but I wouldn't bother changing it, it isn't embarrassing and there is nothing to say a name I changed to wouldn't be treated equally ambivalently by me in a year or two.

I used to be a day one buyer on well received games, but as the industry has moved more and more towards releasing betas to be patched some time later, selling content that used to be included in games as DLC, adding in microtransaction and the numerous other anti-consumer changes they've made to gaming, I've changed my habits to usually wait out the launch and make my purchase based on the general hype a month after release.

People are already paying a premium to get games at launch, after a month or two most games drop to a half or less of their launch prices. For those who do like the buzz of getting their games at release though, I hope this type of move doesn't pay off for the companies doing it and people are smart enough to realise if they boycott moves like this they will quickly be dropped (unfortunately this is never the case).

I think most of the recent outcry was more due to Sony having the ability to hold your 3rd party game account hostage than anything, but that isn't part of the survey.

In general though I think the overall move is a good thing, it may never affect you, but I know of at least one person who plays Fortnite on their switch rather than their PS4 solely because it allows him to play with a friend that has an Xbox. It was never a deal breaker on which console to pick, but more flexibility is always nice.

It hopefully also shows that Sony are moving away from their more heavy handed approach to modern gaming and may shift more to allow things like 'real' mods for games in the future (rather than the lacklustre offerings that are out there now).

@Dange Summing up a review in a word is no different than with a number. You put forward 5 words which could just as easily be a rating of one to five stars. The problem remains that people focus on a single word or number rather than the review itself which, assuming it is well written, should inform you whether a game is for you or not. A rating will never explain a reviewer's subjective opinion, but the fact people focus solely on them without even referencing the review speaks volumes on why ratings are generally not a good or useful addition to a review.

While there is always going to be some bias in a review, based on the reviewer's personal preferences, I think the place this is going to be seen primarily is in a score. What I mean, for instance, is a reviewer may point to a lot of grinding in a game as a negative point, but any given reader may like this aspect of the game and draw a different conclusion as to how much they'd enjoy the game. The reviewer may ultimately dock a point or two off the score for this reason, while the reader may think that the grind adds a point to the score. Neither is wrong, but the score at the end of the review is never going to be accurate for any given reader.

Of course, if people were reasonable, read the full review and didn't focus on the score it wouldn't be such a big issue as a good review would contain enough context to understand the score and if it should be adjusted for you. Unfortunately people seem to focus on the number at the end of the review and just moan at it without actually finding the relative parts of the review that might be a point of contention between them and the reviewer.

Add to this that each site has different criteria in scoring games and it creates confusion when two reviews which equally praise a game give differing scores. Personally I'd prefer if we dropped the scores and instead let people decide on what is written about the game rather than scrolling to the end of the review to look at a number and basing their comments solely on that.

@jdv95 To be fair, the Witcher series was a set of novels before it was ever a game, so it should be more of a book being turned into a series.

Picked this up on PC ages ago to scratch a metroidvania itch, enjoyed it, but ultimately shelved it in favour of Dead Cells which was just more fun for me.

@LieutenantFatman Two months late isn't bad (it's actually pretty good for a kickstarter). Hope the game turns out to be really good and they deliver on everything pretty swiftly, I'll definitely have a look once it is released.

@LieutenantFatman How is the Resi 2 campaign going? I know it was due to deliver around now when it first launched, but it is rare a Kickstarter date is remotely accurate. I also always fear that anything developed under a popular IP will always be more style over substance. Having said that, I really enjoyed the board game adaptation of Bethesda's Doom, so it isn't all doom and gloom from me

Really enjoy a good board game, but wouldn't back this project for a couple of reasons. The primary one being that they haven't really put up a good showing on their Dark Souls campaign with multiple delays and some misleading information (this post is worth a read if you are considering backing: http://forums.steamforged.com/topic/42350-update-171/).

My second problem would be that the Dark Souls board game was not all that spectacular, basically consisting of some interesting boss fights, but a lot of dull grinding to get there. Given you'd be looking at £80-£120 for a base pledge, I'd rather not gamble on what amounts to a pre-order when I could get 3-4 games that are out now and I know are excellent.

They might have learnt a lot from their still not fully delivered Dark Souls campaign and their not yet finished/released Resident Evil 2 campaign, but, if you go in on this, don't go blindly in on the hype from the name alone would be my advice.

Mentioned this game the other week on a forum thread, have had the PC early access version for some time now and can honestly say the game is brilliant. The combat is very fluid and satisfying with an almost rhythmic tempo to it and it has that 'just one more go' quality to it, with you always making some progress towards an upgrade or beating a boss/level with each run you make. Anyone who is dismissing it as another pixel art indie game is going to miss out here (and is probably being a little hypocritical when they stick in to their console the next game in some AAA franchise).

Those prices are pretty terrible, lots of sites do plus and credit much cheaper, so I can only agree with @General_Spiller that this is nothing more than an advert for/from Amazon.

@Porco I did say the PS4 isn't capable of emulating the PS3, and that I was talking theoretically. So, continuing the theoretical, if Sony can get a digital copy of a PS3 game to work on the PS4, they would also be capable of getting a physical copy to work through the same emulation. To charge either party for the convenience of not running two consoles to play games that were paid for already seems underhanded in this theoretical situation to me.

Physical media has also very much been connected to the digital world for a long time, through things like online passes, bonus content, expansions/DLC, vital patches, content patches and so on. When it first started to become a thing on the PC it was also common to get both a physical copy and a code for the digital version in the box. Given games get installed on to your console from physical media and take up 20-60GB+, I would assume there is little difference between the digital and physical versions beyond a disc check.

@adf86 If you could download PS3 games to your PS4 to play only through a subscription service, then I would say that Sony would be charging you for BC and 'the internet' would be correct. It won't happen, since the PS4 isn't powerful enough to stably emulate the PS3, but, talking theoretically, if it did I can't think of a reason to defend Sony if they didn't let your previously bought PS3 games that are on the service work without paying extra.

As others have said, I don't think the ire here is mainly due to not allowing cross-play, but more in the fact your account is locked from being used on other platforms. Personally I don't play Fortnite or anything multiplayer on consoles any more, but it still leaves a sour taste to hear Sony continuing with tactics like this. It would be nice if we get a generation where the market leader actually thinks about retaining its user base in the long term, rather than focusing on short term gains.

I pretty much use the Vita for my PS1 needs (and, of course, there is PSTV or PS3 if you wanted to play on the big screen). No need for this imo as those options seem far better than what will probably be an emulator with a fixed 50 games on it.

I fully expected the seven given the site's new scoring policy

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2018/04/site_news_introducing_our_brand_new_review_scoring_system

In all seriousness though I think that the conclusion and Sammy's first comment sums it up for me, if you like Cage's previous games then this should be a buy, otherwise you might want to steer clear. In this regard the score is superfluous to the review and there only as a necessity (also known as read the review, don't just make your conclusions from glancing at a score). Personally, I'll probably pick it up down the road on a sale.

Good to see they fixed Blight Town, I had my doubts on that part. My favourite Souls game due to the way they managed to interconnect the world, it was always a happy surprise when you found an area had looped back around to familiar ground. I hope some new people get to enjoy this game due to this remaster.

Having said that, this is not for me. I've played the game through multiple times and there seems little reason to move to this version, given I have it already on both the PS3 and PC. If they'd given some of the later areas the proper remaster treatment and made them feel finished and maybe changed enemy placement a bit to make it feel a little new, then I probably would have been swayed. This seems too little of an update for anyone who has already played through the game and has access to it elsewhere.

@get2sammyb I think with most people replacing their phones every year or two there is a need to make sure backwards compatibility exists in that market. Without it a lot of people would hold off buying apps for 3-6 months every other year as they wait to upgrade their phones, which is a sizeable chunk of time. Combining this with the fact most of the mobile market works on the freemium gaming model, it makes little sense to not ensure compatibility between models.

I am also looking at the way Microsoft are handling backwards compatibility this generation, basically drip feeding content for the platform, but not allowing everything to be played. I'd make a guess they probably have to get the consent of 3rd parties to allow their games to be put through the process, especially since remasters seem to be such a lucrative business nowadays. The Switch also doesn't have any kind of backwards compatibility (which all Ninty's other recent consoles did) and is pushing out Wii U remasters at an alarming rate.

As I say, I hope they do take the high ground and make the PS5 backwards compatible with, at very least, the PS4. Consumer friendly initiatives like crossbuy for the Vita show that they may go this way, but I have enough doubt that I won't get my hopes up to have them dashed by (maybe) next year's E3 presentation.

@Orpheus79V While it is doable, I don't think Sony will put the resources into making it happen. An unofficial emulator on PC is a different prospect to an official one, you expect some games to run badly or not at all and no one has to worry about potential loopholes in security the emulation may cause.

As I said before, I think Sony would rather sell PSNow opposed to giving us something for free, after all they did sink a considerable sum of money into streaming technology that, so far, has not returned much back.

@get2sammyb While it's true Sony have offered backwards compatibility in the past, I think the market has changed considerably since then. The entire industry has moved towards a more profit driven structure (they're businesses and that's what they do, not singling out Sony here) and there seems little profitability in backwards compatibility.

I doubt many people would outright not buy a new console because it can't play their old games, but PSNow would become a more enticing prospect if it had a catalogue of PS4 games you'd otherwise have to have a two console setup to play. I hope they do make the next console backwards compatible, but until I see it written as an irrefutable fact I'll not be convinced it is going to happen.

@Bingoboyop I doubt it will be with PS3 for a couple of reasons. First one being the architecture between PS3 and PS4 (so presumably PS5 too since they moved to x86 architecture) is completely different so requires a chunk of work to stably emulate anything. The second being PSNow exists on streaming PS3 games, so to allow BC here would cost them revenue.

I'm not even convinced they will make PS4 games BC despite it being a simple matter (again, making the assumption of them using x86 architecture). They can make more money by using the games on the PS4 to sell their PSNow service and it also allows for yet another generation of remasters :/

Finally got to try PSVR not too long ago and enjoyed it. Having said that, I'm not sure I could recommend it to anyone as I think that it has nothing to rival a 'real' gaming experience. Much like the motion control craze that came before it, it needs something more than what (admittedly limited) stuff I've seen.

If they manage to bring large open world games and other good first person games to it while solving the motion sickness problems it could truly be something worthy of the hype, but until then I'm guessing most people will adopt a 'wait and see' approach. As we all unfortunately know though, that can often spell the end for otherwise promising tech.

The important question is will the Pro be native 4k or use checkerboard?

I like a good retro game, but the question will be can it live up to the likes of to the likes of Axiom Verge, Hollow Knight and Dead Cells? The Metroidvania scene is pretty strong and well represented at the moment.

Glad the game is being well received, but it saddens me to see that "Nah, the reviews are great but I was going to buy it anyway" currently sits at 53% of the vote in its category.

I'll beleive it's truly 60fps when I see Blight Town. Imo this is the best of the Souls games and shows a masterclass of designing a connected world, but From aren't known for their technical optimisation.

While it is a good idea, I must point out the small flaw that you can not score a 1 with this system. Also your reviews will be forced to adhere to a normal distribution around 7 rather than truly being randomised from 1 to 10. I'd suggest instead using a 10 sided die to avoid these issues.

Improved compared to when? I'd say the offerings were much better back in the pre PS4 era with the added bonus of it not being an unneeded online tax. Back then you used to get access to the IGC too when that term was used to refer to half a dozen big games you got just for being a member. They were meant to cycle each year, but despite Sony saying they would carry on offering that part of the service, they just stayed quiet after removing them and hoped no one would notice.

In short then I'd say the service is a shadow of its former self.

I put these updates more down to Hello Games wanting to salvage some reputation after the disastrous launch than anything else. At some point they will want to release a new game, but without some goodwill it would probably fail on day one.

Even with all these patches the game looks no better than the multitude of similar early access titles you can pick up for about £10 on PC, so, even if you ignore how the game was promoted leading up to launch, I can see why people would be upset at paying £45 for it.

I think the term RPG in the (computer) gaming world may as well not exist any more. Given that the argument for a game's inclusion in the genre eventually comes down to that if you play a role in a game it is a role-playing game and as that description applies to pretty much every game means you can reduce it down to just being a game without the RP bit.

The strange thing is that a lot of the games on this list would, at one point, have been considered action adventures (and there is even at least one strategy game that makes a strange appearance) so as to not dilute the term RPG. For whatever reason action adventure is no longer used and we are left with a term that does nothing to identify what type of game you may be buying.

Just to throw a bit of extra advice in for anyone starting out I'd say that the best thing you can do is accept you are going to die and also you are going to sometimes lose your unspent blood echoes. This is not a big deal, there are infinite blood echoes to be gained while playing and you will never lose anything else apart from this resource due to death.

If you are dying to a boss and don't like having to fight your way back to it then learn to run through hostile areas, pretty much every boss can be returned to within a couple of minutes. If you find they can't you've probably missed a lantern or something to open a shortcut up.

Summon allies if you need or want to, don't listen to the elitists who mock every player who summons help. There should be an abundance of potential allies with the game being on plus and co-op can be pretty fun too.

I notice in the article it says you need to encounter the cleric beast to be able to level up, while this is probably the easiest and most likely way for new players to unlock the leveling process, you actually only need to gain insight to access leveling. So either facing the other boss in the area will also unlock leveling (every boss gives you insight the first time you face it) or you can find an item that you can consume for insight before facing any bosses that will allow you to level up.

I think with microtransactions being such a topic of contention between gamers and a review being something that is supposed to inform people of reasons they may like or dislike a game that they should at least have had a couple of sentences talking about them. You can try to trivialise it by comparing them to the colour of the lightbar, but we all know that a lot people would actually find a bit of information on microtransactions as being useful . If a game had inverted axis for control, but the reviewer never had a problem with that aspect, I would hope it would still be mentioned.

As a very basic point it seems to me the information that any additional save slot beyond the first costs money is a relatively big deal to anyone who either has others who want to play the game in the house, or just likes creating multiple characters and starting from scratch. On a more paranoid (maybe) point I fear that drop rates in games are just a few variable tweaks away from making microtransactions that seemed unneeded at first into the only way to get a smooth gaming experience, a fear that is much easier to implement with the current move towards 'live services'.

With the way the industry is going I see moves like this as insidious ways companies can justify deeply integrating monetization in to their games. I already see people defending the bad/mediocre games loaned to them through the likes of Plus and Gold due to them being 'free' (even this very site repeatedly refers to each month's offerings as free), so it isn't a stretch to see the same thing happening with services like this as the games are 'free' and the have to make their money somewhere...

I'll stick with supporting developers/publishers who are making games without feeling the need to pollute them with microtransactions and leave schemes like this to fester with their target audience.

The second to last paragraph touches on one of the big reasons Destiny 2 never came anywhere near my buy list. Locking off content you already paid for seems so wrong and there is nothing stopping them implementing a system where they leave in the ability to play that content at the base game's level cap.

Hopefully with a fuller market than when Destiny released they will find that this tactic fragments their user base too much and causes players to lose interest in the game so they will rethink their strategy.

Two remasters and two more niche titles seems pretty bad for a month that is often used to release big games for your Christmas money. It seems like it was a long time ago 2017 was being touted as potentially the best year for games ever

The game was balanced around microtransactions, turning them off solves nothing. If nothing else it is entertaining to watch one of these schemes at last get the hate it deserves. Now let's see what the Belgians and Dutch find in their investigation into these monetisation practices...

@dryrain It's about balance, if a game becomes tedious because the unlocks take too long, but there is a monetary system to bypass this then something is wrong. You can basically see it as a free to play mobile game - yes you can play most of them for free, but you end up effectively only being able to compete or even play if you put money down.

From what I've heard the unlocks are massive boosts in this game, so I doubt it'll be much fun for the person not willing to buy lootboxes being pitted against people who've paid and are doing quadruple the damage with invulnerability shields - skill only goes so far.

I think the article brushes aside the other issues of the Vita too readily to focus on the one point. Expensive proprietary memory cards, mostly mediocre experiences from the supposed AAA games (even Uncharted and Gravity Rush were 'only' solid 7s and definitely not system sellers), divisive design, relatively high price point and (iir) uninspired launch line up are just some of the reasons we can view as to why the Vita didn't do well.

The fact Sony did what they are reliably known to do these days, that is mostly abandon the tech if it isn't doing great in the first 6 months, was a move that effectively killed most support for the Vita. If I remember correctly the 3DS struggled in its first year, but Nintendo actually stuck by the system and it went on to do well.

What confuses me more is why the Switch is doing so well, when it is effectively a Wii U with a bit more portability, but a slightly cut down feature set. I mainly ask this as everyone seemed to hate the Wii U, but they praise the Switch (for reference I own both a Vita and Wii U and like both systems, no Switch yet though).

@FullbringIchigo Disney at least did patch multiplayer support back into the original Battlefront 2 on PC

I stopped paying for Plus as soon as online multiplayer was tied to it. I can still play just for the price of the game on PC and really can't see how the charge is justified. It's a drop in the ocean to Sony, but they've lost my money from the plus subscription as well as from any games that are heavily tied to online multiplayer.

For whatever reason my mind shot to the announcement of The Division not having microtransactions as well as the fact they've also been patched into games like Destiny in the past. Call me negative, but all it requires is for some higher up at Capcom to decide otherwise and all this means nothing.

Anyone know if Axiom Verge on the Vita is any good? Thinking of getting it for a game on the go and I know it is well regarded on PS4 and PC.

Being a PC gamer also I'm used to digital sales, but despite having been buying them for over a decade now I still prefer physical. I will buy digital where it makes sense (deep discounts) or I'm basically forced to (aforementioned PC as well as Vita), but physical still has major advantages over digital.

First advantage is the resale market, while I'll usually hold onto my games for future prosperity, it is a safeguard against buying something I find I dislike. The second is, and call me paranoid here, the thought of having my account compromised and potentially banned would both lose me a huge investment and probably end gaming as a hobby for me. Third is digital is almost always more expensive despite having no physicality.

I do have to give digital a plus though for allowing indie devs to publish where they otherwise would not have the ability to. On the subject of charts though I don't really care if game X sells more than game Y

@dark_knightmare2 OK, just picked two reviews at random (one at the higher end of the review scale and the other at the lower end), one praises it for having more meaningful side quests in one sentence and then in the next sentence berates it for repetition in said side quests. The other points to it being a grind to advance the story due to gating off areas based on your progression and refers to it as artificial padding.

I had seen videos before reading those reviews and thought the game looked like it followed the normal open world design, but hoped I could get a better perspective here. The article tells me how beautiful and filled with detail the world is, but doesn't actually touch on what the player is expected to do in the game which, given the title, I thought it might have and was the reason I read it in the first place.

Some people love the grind that is synonymous with open world games, but these days I'm not that big on repetition and prefer to play through a hopefully well paced and crafted story. To be fair I'd written the game off as not for me before I read that title and that was why I bothered to ask, but I guess the word seen should be taken in the literal sense here.

The question is though is the world filled with fun things to do, or the same old capture 100 points on the map that becomes tiresome before you hit the tenth one?

Just watched it to see what the fuss is about, went for the context option as, even with playing the first game, I don't really know what is going on here or who anyone is. The violence doesn't bother me, but without context it just reminded me of the late 90s and early 2000s when some games were basically advertised through how violent they were and gave video games a bad name outside of the community.

Second question has to be the 'meh' option since you shouldn't really be swayed by a trailer that doesn't even show gameplay footage. As usual I'll wait for the reviews

Seems pretty much inevitable to see this rubbish infiltrate all the big games now. Decisions are made solely on how they will affect revenue and not for any love of the media and I think we just have to bide our time until the model collapses. In the meantime I'll just continue to refuse to support games adopting this model and instead put my money into the games that actually are made for the players...

@Gatatog My thoughts exactly, it'll likely be around £20 by Christmas.

Edit: Just noticed, with all the talk of single player being a struggling genre it is funny to note over half the games in the top 10 are primarily single player.