Dogbreath

This game is absolutely and utterly catastrophic for me on my Samsung QD OLED and PS5 Pro. What a crappy bungling mess.

I have to put the paper white and brightness down the minimum and it still looks washed out.

If I set brightness to the 1200 that it should be for my TV, it is a thousand times worse, with half the screen full of blown highlights. I was running around the Novigrad docks area and it was just a blown out white mess.

This is the only game I have with this issue when using HDR. Looks worse than the original release version did on my VA monitor back in the day.

The problem with developers this generation, is that you give them a tool like this, and they simply use it to release games with even worse levels of optimisation.

Such that the quality of the final product is identical to what it would have been, had the tool not existed.

We see this all the time, with certain developers releasing blurry, stuttering juddery messes that are loaded with upscalers and frame gen, yet look worse than the smooth high resolution games of competent devs back in 2020, who used no such/minimal tools and simply optimised.

Regression.

It’s a dull, crap and uninspiring character from what I’ve seen.

Those sorts of social media amounts represent a tiny minority though, and don’t represent my position, but boy oh boy….

Aren’t they just a convenient deflector for those who produce mediocre products.

Noting attempts to use such minority accounts to try and shut down those who rightly criticised Wolverine pre-release.

These people have a symbiotic relationship with those trolls.

I don’t understand why so many people are enthusiastically going to bat for a character about which they know practically nothing, aside from a very brief appearance.

Not sure how exactly that fan base for a little girl formed and why. Kinda creepy…

Besides, we don’t need Temu Tomb Raider when we have two of the real thing on their way.

I’d rather it be an older Drake as the main playable character, potentially playing a Sully role to a side kick younger guy, so we go full circle. Preferably a character with a bit of cheeky chappy charisma for some decent banter.

Given the choice, I’d actually like a sequel to Lost Legacy as I like the dynamic between those two. That was a great game, although in my view it went down hill after another character turned up and the game structure changed. Make another and stick to the leads. No cameos.

I mean any blithering chump who has attended week 1 of an A Level economics course, would rightly ask why they aren't selling the console at the equilibrium market price, and then dropping the price as demand wanes over time, to maintain that equilibrium.

Scalpers are simply market correctors. They can only exist when the economically illiterate clowns selling the product, are selling it for less than the price at which the entire stock could be sold.

The equilibrium price is somewhere between the current retail price and what the scalpers can sell their smaller supply for.

Thank god those people will now get to play the game on launch day.

It was at serious risk of selling out and there being no more downloads available.

I heard scalpers were buying up all the downloads to sell on ebay for twice the price post-launch.

So yeah it was definitely a good idea to commit the money now, months before the reviews and game comes out, and based on a few snippets of footage.

It's not like the reviews would have come out in ample time before the launch unlock, such that one could watch the reviews, pre-order, pre-load and still be ready for launch.

I mean what kind of idiot would wait for the reviews and then pre-order like that. Just hand over the credit card 5 months prior like the smart people do.

Could be anything.

Is VRR working correctly on the person's TV for example?

TV's are a major issue because let's be honest, they are total bungling crap out of the factory, with lots of variables over which game developers have no control.

You often have to manually switch HDMI ports in settings to unlock the full bandwidth and features.

Game mode doesn't automatically activate on a lot of TV's, such that ironically by using the regular TV mode, the TV is inserting missing frames at the expense of latency. That could often explain the "it runs fine on mine" brigade.

Other people might be experiencing thermal throttling, as it's shocking watching Youtube videos just where some people locate their consoles in closed cabinets, and the filthy environments causing massive dust clogging.

Some people are using monitors that only have HDMI 2.0 ports.

How many reviewers, so-called representatives of the people, supposedly fingers on the pulses of the audience (they aren’t exactly writing the reviews for esports professionals to read, are they?) actually identified that this tuning would be a problem in their reviews?

Not talking about the IGN types who can’t get past tutorials, but more reputable outlets and YouTubers? I guess they’re not as relevant and useful to the audience and the majority of consumers as they think they are?

Glad I held off buying, as I don’t have enough spare time to waste on annoying encounters, given my limited gaming time available, especially with so many other good titles hogging that time.

I’m interested, but will see what this is like after all the necessary patches.

Alex Hernandez would have said the exact same thing about MindsEye.

That is what they are paid to do.

They aren’t exactly going to come out and say “well, it’s a bit crap if I’m honest “.

That concept art is not remotely interesting.

Naughty Dog were excellent at creating realistic looking worlds, based in the present or an apocalyptic near future.

This type of very generic sci-fi material is not really playing to their strengths or what I would want from one of their games.

For the 1 billionth time:

Do NOT pre order games. They will not sell out. Review embargo’s end in time for you to still pick up pre order bonuses, whilst making an informed purchase.

If a review embargo is post launch, that’s a no buy red flag.

Wait for the reviews, otherwise you end up a laughing stock like the Wolverine fans.

Kojima is an example of how out of touch journalists and forum gamers are with the real gaming market and majority of gamers.

The amount of fuss, coverage and discussion is grossly disproportionate to his game sales.

So it wasn’t an “accessibility feature” (an insult to those with accessibility requirements) and Skill Up was being straight.

Future proofing. Just as I advise gamers to buy digital games, to ensure their games are easily accessible on future consoles and applicable for next gen free/discounted price patches.

Your GTA licence will be seeing use for the next 10 to 15 years. With PC not available yet, the smart money buys a PS5 digital copy.

You don’t want to “strand” your game on a dying ecosystem (Xbox) or format (disc).

What remains to be scene however on the Microsoft side, that might make an Xbox digital copy worth a punt, is if that will essentially become a “free” PC copy once GTA comes to the Xbox PC store.

I’m lucky to have a PC so was able to play in 60fps originally, but the lack of a patch or remaster baffles me.

Yes, as some posters have said, they aren’t exceptional games, but it’s a testament to how under utilised the IP is, that all this time later we don’t have anything better.

Granted I occasionally dip into the MMO but that’s not most people’s cuppa.

Tough one.

Everyone will talk about them selling out to MS.

Yes they should have stayed independent and self funding their own original games with a modest budget.

But it's worth putting yourself in their position all those years ago. The Microsoft deal removed all the stress and anxiety of where the funding would come from, made everyone's jobs feel safe, and gave them budgets they couldn't dream of with the original Hellblade.

At the time MS looked like a safe bet and golden ticket. They couldn't have predicted how it panned out. 20/20 hindsight and all that.

I'm halfway through this game (I got side tracked on other games) but having played Dawnwalker, I will never go back to it.

I hope a third title in the series has a direction block and attack system, as it perfectly suites a Samurai game. Yotei and Tsushima were IMO rendered obsolete and dated over night.

I was with the series until Halo 5.

I held my nose and tolerated 5 despite being weak in my eyes, and then Infinite was just too much. That open world garbage with samey biome was just not Halo.

The truth is, they are out of ideas and creating games because the suits have decreed that it has to be Microsoft's Sonic or Mario, and not because there is any great idea or passion for it.

It's time Halo was laid to rest.

That's coming from a Boomer who bought the original as a mid-20's guy. The young kids today, the 15 year olds, don't give a flying F about the franchise. It's irrelevant.

I don’t think we like friction. Especially DD’s version.

Going down the same path and killing the same goblins a thousand times.

That’s unhealthy and indicative of some form of psychological disorder.

One thing that is true is that 90% of what comes out of gamer’s mouths resembles what shoots out the back of a cow.

Look at what they DO, not what they SAY. Look at how many use the improved fast travel in Dark Arisen, or use it in every other game that has it.

99.99999% of them.

If you are a price sensitive consumer, you’d wait for a far bigger discount in a sale.

The biggest factor in a game purchase is the typical 30 hours of time you need to invest.

If you are so keen on the product that you’d spend 30 hours of your limited free time on it, then to me it seems odd that you would split hairs over $10…

If $10 is the difference to you, then you can’t be that keen. Put the money in your savings and buy the game in a sale or not at all.

My personal experience and complaint - but up front I want to make it clear that I absolutely love the game.

Ok, so my take is that there isn't an issue with the difficulty.

The default mode was perfect, and if there is any complaint, Story was too easy.

The problem was with the game itself, and specifically when you fight multiple enemies.

1, the targeting system is pure garbage. It keeps switching on you mid-fight, often for no reason. You block a guy, are about to strike a counter that will kill him and the game targets someone else entirely different miles away who just blocks you. This makes it hard to "thin the herd" and you are often overwhelmed.

2, the other problem, often caused by the first issue leading to your character automatically and uncommanded moving into an undesirable position on the battlefield, is that you can get stuck in the middle of a mob/scenery. The camera and Coen then turn into Jimmy from South Park and you no longer have any control.

I didn't die once in a situation where I felt I could have played better. Literally every time I died to a group of enemies, it was 100% down to the auto-targeting, camera and character getting stuck.

However, if you lower the difficulty to Story mode when you get frustrated, it was so brain dead easy (and that's coming from a late middle-age boomer who can't play for poo) that the game just played itself. It was pointless playing on that mode as you weren't really playing the game. I had to go back to the default and persevere.

It's utterly mind boggling that anyone felt Story mode had to be made easier, and I'm a complete idiot who can't play to save his life.

What should have happened (in addition to fixing the targeting/camera) is a new difficulty mode inserted between Story mode and the default normal mode. Call it Easy.

Not the smartest behaviour in my view.

At this point in time, the smart money buys digital games, in order to future proof yourself and ensure they can easily be installed on future systems.

Not just PS6, but what follows on from that too.

Seems to me a bit shortsighted to strand all your current games on an obsolete and dying format.

A bit like buying the latest movies on VHS back in 2001.

Nothing wrong with a 7/10 at the right price.

I’m really into the era and setting and would like to avoid combat. SH2 got very repetitive in that regard.

SH2 also over stayed its welcome for me with too much filler (that cube section could have been removed entirely), so a more concise 10 hour experience is great for this late middle aged man with too many responsibilities.

I’m engrossed in Dawnwalker so will pick this up once I’m done. I don’t feel the need to wait for a sale, but if it’s reduced by then even better.

Crimson Desert - fanboys lied and claimed it ran flawlessly, only to have the rug pulled when the developer admitted to performance issues and released a patch fixing them.

Now we have the same with Wolverine. All the shameful lies directed at reviewers. Disgusting smears, calling them "bad actors" etc. All the lies about how they had deliberately turned this stuff on because they wanted to smear the game/Sony, without providing any realistic motive for why they'd want to and risk losing their access to preview and review material in future.

Now the rug pull when the developer openly admits you can't turn it off.

The truth always comes out. I don't understand why people lie.

Peak 2026. Apologising for speaking the truth.

Laufey is like Wolverine.

It looks very polished and impressive from a technical perspective.

Everything else makes me yawn. It's the same old lowest common denominator AAA tripe and I'm bored of it.

Where as Dawnwalker looks rough and janky, but the writing is absolutely outstanding and the directional based combat (often falsely compared to KCD's combat) feels like a step forward for the genre.

It makes Witcher 3 feel obsolete. Where as Wolverine and Laufey stink of mid-2010's AAA as if the world has been frozen in place for a decade.

Sales will be tepid.

Control was too weird for the mass market.

A sequel will sell even less.

AW2 was also too weird for the mass market, such that sales were tepid and very few people finished it. All that nonsense with your head space and evidence board etc.

Appreciate Remedy doing something original with their games and I’ve always been a fan of the studio, but they would do better with a simple and straightforward concept like Max Payne.

As I've said before: SO WHAT.

SO WHAT if a lamp post or table and chair were created by AI?

What's the difference between that, and a human artist Googling images of Tokyo/New York and creating a facsimile of local designs? Other than it taking twice as long and costing more.

SO WHAT if a character model was created by AI?

Would AI create a Wolverine with shaved armpits?! Will it be worse than Concorde? How do you like all the uglified modern characters that humans create?

SO WHAT if some random minor NPC dialogue was written by AI?

Do we prefer all minor NPC's repeating the same 5 human created lines? Half the population took an arrow to the knee right?

SO WHAT if a main cast member dialogue was written by AI?

Ever played Dragon Age Veilguard? Ever heard any Marvel or Disney dialogue lately? Ever seen the Intergalactic tailer?

SO WHAT if it puts people out of jobs?

Every single product you buy is produced at a fraction of the cost of what it would have been 60 years ago, because automation has reduced the amount of human input.

How much would a modern spec car cost if produced using the equivalent labour man hours to 1950?

Do you complain about Conductors no longer being on buses?

How many of you kids have heard the term "self service station" in reference to a petrol station?

Do you care when you pull up at the petrol station and a guy doesn't come out and fill the car up for you?

Do you boycott the self-service checkouts at Asda and queue up behind the 80 year olds at the old fashioned checkout where the person hand scans it for you?

If done properly there is nothing wrong with AI. As usual people point out funny fails and bad examples. If the director gets his finger out of his backside and does his job, and ensures his team are using the tool properly to produce quality output (just as you'd monitor a human artist), there won't be a problem.

@ilyn yeah I have some old Arctis 7x on my PC.

Battery life is excellent and they are more comfortable than my Pulse Elite.

It’s hard to compare the sound. They have a different profile but that can be personal preference.

The uncomfortable Sony pad design can impact sound quality by not forming a good seal, especially when wearing glasses.

I prefer a fabric type pad over the rubbery faux leather type material.

Very confusing. I’m assuming the Edge is an upgrade on my Elites, but will await reviews.

I can obviously sell the old to fund the new, so I’m only considering the delta between those sums against the level of upgrade offered.

I've no issue with 40fps modes and often use them. But I rarely consider RT to be worth sacrificing anything for. If it's purely only sacrificing 20 frames and nothing else (big resolution/detail hit) to enable RT, then it's ok I guess.

Still, I could get the game free if I renew my GFN sub for 12 months as part of their latest offer and get a no compromise experience instead.

I'm still deeply concerned about the melee nature of this game. That just ain't Remedy.

I do feel there are parallels between this, and Insomniac opting for a character with very limited abilities (versus their previous Spiderman) in the new Wolverine game.

I like Control 1 and Quantum Break where you have that mix of shooting combined with "magic powers" for want of a better word!

The reviews didn't alter my intention, which was to NOT buy it.

I felt Spiderman was slightly over-rated and was glad I bought it in a sale rather than full price, despite the glowing reviews, so I don't tend to make purchase decisions based on review scores.

I'd actually based my decision to avoid it on the preview footage that had been released prior to the review embargo being lifted, and the footage in the reviews themselves.

The fact that out of all the various superheroes, Wolverine is a long way down the list of characters I find inspiring, and because I didn't think the nature of the character would make as interesting a game as Spiderman or Batman etc, did NOT lead to a confirmation bias effect.

I genuinely approached the footage with an open mind, and it just looked meh.

I think other X-Men would make for a more entertaining game, due to their abilities but they went with the "popular" choice.

Oh and I'm totally engrossed in Dawnwalker...

Always curious in situations like this, whether it’s wolverine, Crimson Desert etc, when a developer acknowledges issues exist and set out to rectify them.

What is the response of those who flat out denied that it was a problem, and were critical of reviewers like Skillup who pointed out?

What do they have to say about this?

@species it’s more in your face than the GTA leaks were, and that was only snippets of the game. I’ve not seen a single piece of leaked material for GTA.

Yet all the big gaming sites had full walkthroughs blasted into your face, top story on their homepage by the time I woke up on launch day for this game and practically every other game.

Funny how everyone was soiling their underwear and bedsheets about the GTA “spoilers”, yet will happily white knight for the media publishing complete walk-throughs at 6 am on launch day.

I’m not saying don’t do it, I’m just saying stop being raging hypocrites.

@TheDarts interesting that you consider “having a life” as being incompatible with being enthusiastic about video games.

Whereas I consider “having a life” to mean having time constraints like a job and other responsibilities, that means it can take a week or more to finish a game.

Essentially, you are suggesting that your fellow gamers and forum users are no-life losers for being interested in video games.

Whereas I am simply saying that not all of them are able to finish a game by 8 am on launch day, by which time all the major websites have plastered the web in spoilers, despite having self righteously been running articles about hackers spoiling games a week earlier.

It is possible, to simultaneously care about games being spoiled, whilst not having time to beat the game before the most prolific spoilers on the Internet (the Games media) ruin the game for you.

Note that when we talk about leaks and spoilers e.g. in the case of GTA etc, it’s worth remembering that websites and YouTube channels are posting full guides for games before I’ve even got to work on launch day, let alone got home from work, done all my jobs, cooked tea, sat down and even booted up the game.

This is why I say I couldn’t care less about hackers supposedly ruining games like TLoU 2 or GTA, because what hope in hell does anyone with a life or a job have of ever booting up a game, or completing a game, before the full details are splashed over the entire Internet by the industry themselves.

@TensuraFan7 back in the 80's when I was a kid, before the internet, before phones and tablets, and when ZX Spectrum games could only be played for 20 mins before you were bored, we did Airfix models if it was raining and we couldn't go out.

If video games disappeared over night, I'd probably spend my winter evenings modelling!

Diablo is a silly question, of course it will.

StarCraft is unlikely.

The real story of interest was the joy pad support for World of Warcraft, and the implications of that for consoles.

I do not believe that is an accessibility motivated feature for PC gamers.

@JLSlone if you actually read my post, the context is explained very clearly.

You need to get further than the first sentence before replying….

The TLDR is that the “accessibility” features are nothing of the sort.

There is a difference between “accessibility”, and tailoring something for someone with a mental age of 5, who shouldn’t be playing an 18 game anyway.

It’s actually insulting to people with accessibility needs.

@JLSlone absolutely nothing.

That was the ENTIRE POINT of my post...

Regarding "accessibility" features....

Firstly this is an 18 rated game in the UK. It is not aimed at 5 year olds.

Most of the stuff I saw in the Skill Up video are not "accessibility" features. That is insulting to people who require accessibility features. The features went beyond accessibility and into the realms of people with a mental age too low to be sold the game in the first place.

Secondly, such features should be off by default. Or at the very least, they should be off by default on Normal mode.

The player should not be required to have psychic powers to know that you can turn that stuff off, or speculatively have to waste time searching the options hoping they can turn it off.

By all means on first boot, ask the player "do you require accessibility options". If the answer is "no" just move them directly to the intended way of playing the game regardless of skill level.

If the answer is "yes", run them through a set of options, with screenshots showing what each option does, and the choice to turn it on or off.

Not rocket science. If the game didn't do that, it deserves to be hammered.

I still maintain that Days Gone was my favourite exclusive of the PS4 generation, and got done dirty by the reviews.

Meanwhile, games like Spider-Man and God of War do not impress me at all.

@Nightcrawler71 yeah Wolverine was as mediocre as expected so I got Dawnwalker instead.

I was a bit disappointed at the start as I couldn’t compete all the prologue quests before it ran out of time and forcibly cancelled them.

Hoping that doesn’t happen elsewhere in the game because I’ve made up my mind to do what I want and ignore the time.

Not regretting my choice of game. Characters and writing have been good. I’ve seen enough Wolverine footage to know it ain’t for me.

I think the developers knew Wolverine wouldn’t be well received outside of the usual allied, industry adjacent outlets, given their narratives and tactics over the past weeks.

I'm another Skill Up (and ACG) viewer as my two most trusted. I like Angry Joe too.

Skill Up is often called Shill Up for over-rating games. I've rarely seen him not recommend a game where it wasn't justified.

I've only disagreed with him where he has recommended games I didn't like.

He usually brings receipts and shows what is wrong, where publisher restrictions allow it of course. Angry Joe is also good at that. He backs it up by showing you.

Skill Up is notorious for detail.

I don’t know the numbers, but my take on Death Stranding 1& 2 was that they were niche titles. Profitable maybe, but not massive numbers.

Sony are surely looking for mass appeal titles that do crazy numbers.

What matters to them is pulling as many people to their ecosystem as possible.

Small profits from niche games don’t tip the needle and whilst the money is nice, it’s small beer to Sony.

As I always say, only a tiny percentage of people unlock games at midnight and play them non stop such that they compete them before all the gaming sites have published guides and wikis and word is all over forums and YouTube videos.

For 95% of gamers, spoilers are out there before they get home from work on launch day. You either develop behaviours to avoid seeing them, or you don’t.

Whether spoilers are released a month before launch, or on launch day as per normal, really makes no difference to me and most gamers.

I will get both but probably play Ocarina first.

GTA VI will be best on PS6. I will briefly check it out on my Pro, then likely park it and resume on PS6.

Same thing I did with GTA IV and V, which ran like garbage on its launch generation.

@Llamageddon in fairness taking a balanced view on this one, I think they should add an achievement for finishing the game without using those cheesy x-ray vision and scan scanner features etc in Games.

Independent of the difficulty setting used.

Obviously, they should be off by default and toggled on in a menu. This can be done as part of the tutorial where the player is given the option. This is not exactly genius game design, any developer should be able to figure that out and implement it.

I suppose the counter argument is that every Tom Richard and Harry who brag about how they don’t need these features, are all over the Internet browsing wikis looking at the answers.

Your Elden Ring and breath of the wild fans are classic examples of those who claim they don’t like handholding, but then spend 90% of their game time on Google and forums.

It looks great to me, definitely one I will be buying at launch.

My only complaint was when she was shooting a big cat, and it was very bullet spongy. That seemed to be in line with the original game but doesn’t work these days.

I’d rather the animals did more damage but also died in a few hits.

Still waiting for a Digital Foundry video for Dawnwalker before buying.

After the massive lies posted on this and other sites about Crimson Desert at launch, I can’t trust community feedback unfortunately.

Am really interested though, but at this stage, I don’t know if I have to wait for patches or buy it on PC instead.

I'm sorry, but WHAT?!?!

I'm seeing this game absolutely everywhere at the moment.

Seems to be total saturation on my feeds.

I'd assumed it was out later this month.

Imagine my shock when I take the bait, read this article and discover it's not even out until APRIL 27?!?!

This is just getting ridiculous now.

If it was out at the end of the Sept then fair enough. If it was out in Nov then I'd yawn and think it was taking the pee a bit.

December 31st would be laughable, but ok, at least it's coming "this year".

But April 27?! C'mon! Games industry is a joke. Previews of previews of previews of previews 7 months before you can buy the thing. Just vapourware.

Where do I insert my credit number to pre-order the Netflix preview of the preview trailer?

Christ, now that I've clicked on this, I'm going to get even more spam in my feeds!

Strange that I've seen more promo material for this phantom game, than something like Silent Hill that is just around the corner and that I might actually swap money for the game this month and be playing it.