@datamonkey you are dead right that the festival/story/dialogue in Forza Horizon is pure cringe.
I guess it's a testament to how good the "game" part is, that it isn't ripped to shreds and mocked constantly for the other stuff.
Even with the game being so good, I do feel that it is granted too much of a pass on the other stuff and should be called out more in reviews.
Always thought it unfair that Grid took a lot of criticism for it's story, which I felt was fairly ok, whilst Forza which is far worse got off lightly.
I think the cartoony nature of this game should probably give it more of a pass than something like Forza that plays it straight!
Has a lot of "fake difficulty" that wastes your time and frustrates. E.g. most reviews will tell you how they wrote stuff down in a note book, when other games just add what you discover to a codex or place a map marker for easy reference.
I learned to write when I was 3 or 4 years old, so being able to write stuff on a piece of paper does not make me an L337 gamer. It just wastes my time.
It does have a bit of a Souls vibe albeit far easier.
At £20 it's worth a punt but you might bounce off pretty quickly. I reckon it would be a good game to just play whilst following a guide otherwise you will miss a lot of stuff, get stuck and give up.
To me it made sense to have their own launcher like the Xbox PC app.
A store and streaming hub. 100% of the revenue would go to Sony, as opposed to Steam taking a large cut.
Cross purchases and saves. This would entice PC gamers to buy PS5's as their living room device.
Full access to PSN friends and Trophies.
If they were going to dabble in PC, they should have done it that way.
Dipping their toes in the water with some Steam releases didn't deliver enough revenue and it didn't give PC gamers the full PlayStation eco system experience.
What I don't get, is that if there isn't really much of a narrative, why not let us have a full character creator so we have a personal connection to our character as we explore?
It's not Witcher and he is no Geralt, so why not?
Strange design choices, but I personally find all Eastern attempts at Western RPG's to be a bit rubbish and weird. Dragon's Dogma 1 & 2 were mid, but at least I could play as who I wanted to be.
For those asking about the Push Square review, ponder this:
They will almost certainly give it a lower score than the steaming pile of doggy-do that was Dragon Age Veilguard!
Make of that what you will!!!
As for the PS5 version, I was watching a video of that version on my big OLED TV courtesy of the built in Youtube app and I thought the visuals were great in performance mode. Far better than I expected.
Screen tearing on the other hand is zero tolerance. I'd need to see Digital Foundry tests to see if it drops below the VRR window.
Then again on base PS5, this far into the generation, you should really see 30fps as the default, and 60fps as something that requires a Pro or VRR screen.
If the 30 mode tears, then I'd class the game as "broken" and not buy it.
I’m mean at least people know what they are getting, unlike Crimson Desert where you all played roulette and lost, but it’s not going to sell out. So why do it?
Keep the money in your savings until launch day, so you earn interest and not them. Plus if it’s a bad port you can keep your money earning interest until it’s patched.
Poor developer couldn’t do anything about runaway gamer sentiments.
They released a good game, and yet it’s been tarnished by a cloud of negativity, as a result of hype monkeys going completely overboard.
It’s a double edged sword, the hype gave the game a large amount of free publicity and word-of-mouth prior to release, no doubt boosting share prices,but it’s ultimately a poisoned chalice when your game can never live up to such delusional expectations.
Hard to know what a developer or publisher can do in that situation.
You probablydon’t want to talk your game down in order to combat the hype monkeys running their mouths and creating unrealistic expectations. I am sure marketing experts would advise against that.
But then I don’t know how you are supposed to deal with or avoid the fallout after release.
Most people on this board have been dumping on Starfield.
Per my post history, I told them that Starfield, cyberpunk, and Crimson Desert would be decent 8 out of 10 games.
Yet, they have slated Starfield left right hand centre.
Meanwhile hyping up Crimson Desert to be a life changing experience, and "life will never be the same once this game has been released, and all other games are going to be made obsolete overnight".
That’s why the Meta score for Crimson Desert is such a shocker and disappointment for so many people, even though we tried to tell them it would be a good but not life changing game.
Some people don’t want to listen when they get excited for something and carried away, and when reality dawns, it creates a huge disappointment.
But yes, 82% is a good game! That applies to Starfield as well!
My concern is that AMD will be forced to produce their own version, and we will reach a point where every single game looks near-identical.
Similar to how Unreal Engine games have always all tended to have the same look to them, but far more extreme.
The only plus point is that given that it's currently running on 2 x 5090's, I don't see PS6 doing much of it even if AMD were to create a version in time.
Should have had a higher bitrate from the start. It released undercooked.
NVIDIA have been setting the standard for cloud streaming for years, such that their Ultimate tier is in a lot of cases better than playing natively on a PS5 Pro.
I wouldn't expect Sony to quite match that quality, but c'mon, launching 5 years behind the curve was not acceptable.
The Portal is a great device though. Desktop/home console graphics quality in a handheld, and with none of the weight, heat, battery and cost issues of a regular handheld.
The problem is that they've shot themselves in the foot with the leaks about an OLED model. Otherwise more people would be rushing out to get one.
As I’ve said before, this is not a bad game by any means.
It’s a bit like Crimson Desert in that a bunch of hype monkeys had been hyping this up to high heaven for years before it launched, and it wasn’t the 10 out of 10 life changing experience that they’d falsely built it up to be.
Same thing that happened with Cyberpunk.
It’s just a fairly good 8 out of 10 game. Just like Cyberpunk, and just like Crimson Desert will be.
I just hope they do add some good quality of life features, one of them being doing something about the garbage inventory system. Much like Fallout 4, half of my entire game time was spent trying to manage inventory.
A lot of hyperbole in this thread about how bad Starfield is.
The fact is, it is not bad.
It's an 8/10 on a good day. I'd actually put it on a par with Cyberpunk in its current "rectified" state, which is also an 8/10, very good but certainly no 10/10 GTA-quality classic.
Maximum respect to Remedy for maintaining support for their games. Can't wait for the AW2 patch.
Whereas in comparison, Silent Hill 2 was abandoned, with Pro owners lied to and misled about a patch that was never going to come.
I urge people to reward them by buying their games. We have to reward good behaviour if we want developers to treat us well.
Edit: having read a bit more carefully it seems the story is misleading when they aren’t actually producing native support like Capcom did with Requiem. That being said they do seem to keep their games well supported.
I expect this to be the case with modern games. Even if they were complete on the disk, I’d still want to download the various patches released over time in order to have the optimum experience.
I’ve long said that the argument for discs being about preserving software is over. It is why I have never understood the fuss about those game key cards on Switch.
Disks are merely licenses that can be transferred to other users in return for cash when you finish the game. That’s a perfectly valid reason for wanting to retain discs.
I think fans are physical media are expecting too much if they still hold out hope of games being able to run from the desk with no patches on day one. In 2026 you can just count your blessings that a disc with resale value is available at all.
As a Pro owner and someone who'd likely use the 40fps mode, the Digital Foundry video has quashed my fears about performance.
The game is still likely a no-buy for me though.
I just don't like Western looking RPG's that are developed in Japan/Korea etc. Something always seems "off", an uncanny valley type of effect. Plus they can't resist putting weird elements in it.
I find the more classic fantasy parts of the world to be quite appealing, but then you have all the weird FF style modern or retro-tech stuff like mechs and metallic structures etc.
Plus some of the gameplay that was revealed a week back and puzzles etc, are not my cuppa.
I also have large concerns about "grind" which developers from that region just can't resist. Oh and not playing as your own character.....yeah that works with Witcher 3 with such a charismatic character, but I don't think a Korean written RPG generic stereotype warrior is going to something I want to spend 100 hours with.
I'd remind all the people on this board, about how you all cried and refused to buy an Xbox to play their top class exclusives, many of which like Forza Horizon you are absolutely loving now.
Would you buy an XSX if Microsoft announced that Forza Horizon 6 was no longer coming to PS5?
Why would a PC owner buy a PS5 for an exclusive when they have a perfectly good machine already, which in the case of PC can potentially run it far better, and without having to pay for a subscription to access online features?
Answer: they probably wouldn't.
If you have £680 for a Pro, the smart money says sell your old GPU, put the money with your £680 and depending on what your old card was worth, you can upgrade to a 5070ti or 5080.
PC owners aren't rushing out to buy PS5's, so that's a dead loss of game sales for Sony, and that means a loss for YOU as that's money that would have been reinvested in game and hardware development.
But I tend to agree with Jim Sterling's take about the excessive combat. Far far far too many enemies ruined it for me. Over exposure ceases to be scary and just becomes annoying.
I'd also have trimmed a few sections that I felt added nothing other than filler.
I reckon it needed 5 hours trimming, making replaying for all the different endings a bit more viable.
It absolutely could and should have grown into so much more, yet they failed to capitalise on the initial success and it withered instead of growing to its full potential.
We got a rushed "sequel", a foray into esports because a loud mouthed minority were listened to when most people don't give a monkeys about esports, and a weird obsession with retconning all types of characteristics on the characters, which I found off putting.
Glad it's being turned around. May go back to it some day. The latest WoW expansion has some of the best content I've ever seen, so Blizz can do it if they try.
When purchasing a game, I look at the advertised price and ask myself "is that game worth that price to me?".
If the answer is "no", I don't buy it and Sony get the sum total of Jack S out of me.
What someone else thought it was worth, and what they paid is neither here nor there.
If I love a game and I find out I put £1 more in the developers pockets as compared to someone else, then I'm happy as each pound is a vote in favour of more goodness.
I think the problem is entirely one that affects those with no self control, and who are absolutely incapable of saying "no" and not buying a product.
The same type of people who pre-order I suspect. They just have to have that game and can't act as a responsible consumer should.
If your console is the best bang for buck, why would you care about your software being on other consoles?
Only reason you'd care is if you were offering a bad deal to consumers with your hardware, and wanted to stifle competition to force consumers to pay for your inferior offering.
Artistically outstanding in its recreation of the environments and I thought it played better and looked better than Syndicate especially if playing on PC.
On PC one could play both maxed out and the graphical downgrade in Syndicate was obvious, but sadly necessary to work well on the console hardware.
Ubisoft took a lot of abuse but they clearly designed Unity based on what we all thought the PS4/XO specs would likely be, and they turned out to be far more feeble than anyone predicted which screwed Ubi over unfortunately.
Have to respect their vision though and I cut them more slack than developers who in the past few years have released games with trash performance, despite knowing the spec of the target machines very early in the development.
What jobs are being laid off? Did they over-recruit staff during the pandemic, are a lot of the jobs more administrative/managerial rather than coal face?
Also high sales doesn't mean much as that's very simplistic.
As we discussed in a thread a few weeks back, imagine you were investing your life savings.
It's more than just about sales, it's about the return on investment versus the risk. If you are investing in the next BF game, you have to look at the odds of it being another live service flop (very high these days), versus what you stand to gain as a return on your investment if it isn't a flop (not that great).
At the end of the day you'd probably invest your money in something a lot safer and stable, as there are plenty of opportunities with similar returns but very little risk.
EA are trying to tip the scales more in their favour by reducing any unnecessary costs such that ROI is higher if the next game does succeed, to offset the risk and improve the equation.
Can't blame "late stage capitalism". As I say, feel free to go and invest your own savings in a game developer/publisher....
Actually for some of you, your pensions probably are invested in EA shares... What do you think the pension funds do with your contributions to turn it into something you can live off when you retire....?
Do you want them punting your pension on the next live service game, or into property?
I fail to see the relevance of who wrote the scenes and what chromosomes they had.
Those who care about such irrelevances are part of the problem. Such trivialities are typically the concerns of the very same Neo-Puritans who are doing the censorship whenever they get the chance.
All that matters is that the age rating of the game is appropriate to the content. I couldn’t give a flying stuff if a woman wrote the scenes, as that makes absolutely no difference to anything.
@UnlimitedSevens I feel your toothbrush analogy doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
Contrary to your argument, people don't buy the cheapest electric toothbrush.
The best selling brushes are not those crappy £15 no-brand sonic brushes from Amazon, rather they are the £40 Oral B/Sonicare brushes that offer far superior performance.
They also outsell the £150 Oral B and Sonicare brushes that offer diminishing returns over the £40 models and often only have gimmicks that aren't necessarily.
In a fully free and open console market, I don't accept your argument that the cheapest piece of junk will sell the most, and besides a free market with competition could lead to a plurality where you can pick your performance/price point (as you do with PS5 v PS5 Pro v PC) and choose your preferred graphics mode.
A firm with the best product (combination of price v performance) doesn't need exclusives to sell their product. Only those with mediocre products need to lock-in consumers and "force" them to buy it.
Or those who wish to exploit a monopoly position to gouge consumers....
It does disturb me when polls etc give us insights into the psyche of the average person. It's no wonder the world is in such a mess, most people are extremely disturbing and of unhealthy minds.
Being pleased because someone else can't buy a game, in a world where development is cripplingly expensive, and if sales don't meet expectations there might not be a sequel. So basically cheering the fact that you are less likely to get more of something you like.
Cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Also being pleased because that game you like can only be played on one piece of hardware, so when that piece of hardware gets seriously outdated, YOU are stuck playing an inferior version of what it could be, because you can't buy it on another platform. Breath of the Wild being locked on Switch 1 being a perfect example of how YOU get self-screwed by exclusivity.
Cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Also being locked into that particular ecosystem by exclusive games, the firm producing that hardware/network has you by the short and curlies, and can crank up pricing until you squeal, and then crank up the pricing even further.
People will pay what something is worth to them. If you look at a price and believe the product is worth that price to you, then is that a problem?
You feel you got your monies worth, otherwise you wouldn't have paid it.
This already happens on a far larger scale too.
Games are different prices in different regions (digital keys) because they know some consumers will pay more for them than others, and so they jolly well charge those consumers more.
That's why I buy PC games on grey (other region) key sites for a lower price.
Never had a desire to use a PS5 controller on my PC even though I have a spare PS5 pad.
Xbox controller 100% of the time, with the left stick in the correct place and a battery that lasts weeks.
The XSX trigger haptics work perfectly especially in racing games, without being intrusive and fatiguing like the PS5 triggers.
Only reason I'd use a PS5 pad is for Sony games where there was some function that was necessary e.g. touch pad gestures. That's out of the window now so...
It was always a good game, they just didn't realise that MS and Sony would release their new consoles with 5 year old laptop chips that were less powerful than a potato.
I mean if Sony want to drive PS5 sales via exclusive titles, they might want to release some decent ones given that bar one or two (not enough to warrant buying an obsolete console), this generation they have ranged from mostly non-existent to rubbish.
The future of releases in this generation isn’t much appealing either in the context of encouraging PS5 sales to those who’ve been buying Sony games on PC until now.
Hundreds of pounds just to play awful looking Intergalactic on a 6 year old piece of hardware? Nah you’re alright mate thanks. Pass!
Skill Up's preview has put me off as I wasn't a fan of the gameplay and issues he pointed out.
Overall I'm concerned that gamers have over hyped this title, and become far too emotionally invested.
As such, any warnings that his may just be a 7 out of 10 and not run particularly well, are met with hostility. A lot of people white knighting for a title they have never played, or seen running on a console.
Please be careful with your money folks. Just wait for a day or two after launch. Reviews will be out and DF will have tested it.
It ain't selling out or going anywhere. It will be £30 by the summer and have a lot of the issues patched out.
Unless something goes horrendously wrong, this is a definite purchase for me.
I hope this is a full remaster, not just an increase in resolution and frame rate. Whilst it still looks decent on my PC today, it doesn't withstand a closer look and is very dated compared to Shadows.
As soon as Xbox was as good as dead, Sony returned to their monopolistic fleecing attitude of the late PS2 era, that resulted in the excessively priced PS3.
You all better get saving every penny you have, because the PS6, it's games, and future PSN pricing are going to give you a kicking.
Sony behave the same way every time they think they can get away with it.
I never understood why you all applauded them at the PS4 announcement, given they were only behaving that way because they'd just been walloped by the 360.
Had Xbox not been around, Sony would have been the ones in bed with big publishers in terms of restricting used game sales and all that jazz.
I've not finished it yet, but I’m leaning more towards agreeing with Push Squares review score rather than the near perfect scores elsewhere.
I am not a massive fan of the dual protagonist model. To me it is a cheap and lazy solution for solving the issues of balancing between survival horror and action. I think RE7 did a fairly good job of that even if it did go downhill a bit later when you move from the house to another environment.
In this game, I find the constant switching to be a bit jarring and interrupts the story for me.
I also am not a fan of the portrayal of Grace, who comes across as a terrified schoolgirl instead of an FBI agent.
Still, unlike many games these days it is very well polished and still a great game, so it thoroughly deserves those sales figures.
@Nem there is a school of thought that in poor economic times, games do ok as people shun big ticket items like new cars and holidays, or even lower cost items like eating out, and spend on home entertainment instead.
Although I personally buy fewer games since I chose to go digital. With no resale value I limit myself to keepers, whereas in my disc days I would buy 7/10’s for the weekend and trade them in.
In the world of games developers, games media, and YouTubers, there is no other hardware outside of a £5000 RTX 5090 top of the range PC, as that is what they are given, with nice business expense tax rebates where they do have to pay.
Remember that when reading articles about games that appear very technically challenging. The people writing those articles or producing those videos don’t give a monkeys about the peasants, they are just excited for what THEY will get to play.
One would have to be very daft to pre-order this title. No one should be buying this until they have seen the digital foundry video for the console versions. If you can’t wait a couple of days for that to appear, don’t be crying on forums about how bad the game runs. Just saying.
@NavalHistorian yes I enjoyed Lost Legacy and Chloe/Nadine worked surprisingly well with great chemistry. Better than Nate and his Brother did IMO.
This choice would also tick the "modern audience" boxes that Neil is obsessed with, but without causing the eye rolling that would accompany them making a game about Nates daughter.
I actually thought that Lost Legacy was priming a spin off series of games, so I'm surprised it didn't happen.
Needs to be an appealing main character and narrative. There is a risk they will set out to appeal to "modern audiences" which may not end well.
If this project started a good five years or more ago, during the era when certain choices were trendy, decisions were potentially made that have not aged well.
@carlos82 yes it actually looked far superior to my PC which is similar in spec to yours, mainly because I’m playing on a pretty decent Samsung OLED TV, where as due to the amount of productivity work I do, I cannot use an OLED monitor with my PC despite them being affordable to me. As a result, my PC always looks flat in comparison.
Comments 582
Re: 'We Should Have Clearly Disclosed Our Use of AI': Crimson Desert Dev 'Sincerely Apologises' for Erroneously Including AI Art in PS5 Game
"unintentionally included in the final release"
A bit like the accidental use of stolen art in Marathon.
Lots of accidents happening lately.
Re: Screamer (PS5) - Finally, a Racing Game Doing Something Interesting
@datamonkey you are dead right that the festival/story/dialogue in Forza Horizon is pure cringe.
I guess it's a testament to how good the "game" part is, that it isn't ripped to shreds and mocked constantly for the other stuff.
Even with the game being so good, I do feel that it is granted too much of a pass on the other stuff and should be called out more in reviews.
Always thought it unfair that Grid took a lot of criticism for it's story, which I felt was fairly ok, whilst Forza which is far worse got off lightly.
I think the cartoony nature of this game should probably give it more of a pass than something like Forza that plays it straight!
Re: PS Plus Members Have Early Access to Select PS5, PS4 Games in PS Store's Spring Sale
@Daleaf Hell is Us is a bit marmite.
Has a lot of "fake difficulty" that wastes your time and frustrates. E.g. most reviews will tell you how they wrote stuff down in a note book, when other games just add what you discover to a codex or place a map marker for easy reference.
I learned to write when I was 3 or 4 years old, so being able to write stuff on a piece of paper does not make me an L337 gamer. It just wastes my time.
It does have a bit of a Souls vibe albeit far easier.
At £20 it's worth a punt but you might bounce off pretty quickly. I reckon it would be a good game to just play whilst following a guide otherwise you will miss a lot of stuff, get stuck and give up.
Re: 'Onwards to More Graphics Breakthroughs': PS6 Architect Mark Cerny Shares a Staged Exchange with AMD Bigwig
I remember when Pit Fighter came out in the early 90's.
We thought it looked "real" and we had reached peak graphics. There was no where to go from there, or so we thought....
Re: Bizarre PlayStation PC Launcher Rumours Rubbished as Reporter Doubles Down on No More PS5 Ports
To me it made sense to have their own launcher like the Xbox PC app.
A store and streaming hub. 100% of the revenue would go to Sony, as opposed to Steam taking a large cut.
Cross purchases and saves. This would entice PC gamers to buy PS5's as their living room device.
Full access to PSN friends and Trophies.
If they were going to dabble in PC, they should have done it that way.
Dipping their toes in the water with some Steam releases didn't deliver enough revenue and it didn't give PC gamers the full PlayStation eco system experience.
Re: 'We Will Work to Make Improvements Quickly': Crimson Desert Sells 2 Million Copies on Launch Day
@DennisReynolds Yup can you remember how many patches it took to get the bog running at a "decent framerate" (aka 30fps not 20fps)!
Must have taken them a year to fix that. It was like a slideshow at launch!
Re: Hands On: Crimson Desert Runs Well Enough on PS5 Pro, But What About That Intro?
What I don't get, is that if there isn't really much of a narrative, why not let us have a full character creator so we have a personal connection to our character as we explore?
It's not Witcher and he is no Geralt, so why not?
Strange design choices, but I personally find all Eastern attempts at Western RPG's to be a bit rubbish and weird. Dragon's Dogma 1 & 2 were mid, but at least I could play as who I wanted to be.
Re: Crimson Desert Looks 'Rough' on Base PS5, Here's 25 Minutes of Direct Capture Footage
For those asking about the Push Square review, ponder this:
They will almost certainly give it a lower score than the steaming pile of doggy-do that was Dragon Age Veilguard!
Make of that what you will!!!
As for the PS5 version, I was watching a video of that version on my big OLED TV courtesy of the built in Youtube app and I thought the visuals were great in performance mode. Far better than I expected.
Screen tearing on the other hand is zero tolerance. I'd need to see Digital Foundry tests to see if it drops below the VRR window.
Then again on base PS5, this far into the generation, you should really see 30fps as the default, and 60fps as something that requires a Pro or VRR screen.
If the 30 mode tears, then I'd class the game as "broken" and not buy it.
Re: Xbox's Starfield Rockets to the Top of the PS5's Pre-Order Charts
Why? Why do you all preorder?
I’m mean at least people know what they are getting, unlike Crimson Desert where you all played roulette and lost, but it’s not going to sell out. So why do it?
Keep the money in your savings until launch day, so you earn interest and not them. Plus if it’s a bad port you can keep your money earning interest until it’s patched.
Re: Crimson Desert's Mixed Reviews See Dev's Share Price Drop Almost 30%
Poor developer couldn’t do anything about runaway gamer sentiments.
They released a good game, and yet it’s been tarnished by a cloud of negativity, as a result of hype monkeys going completely overboard.
It’s a double edged sword, the hype gave the game a large amount of free publicity and word-of-mouth prior to release, no doubt boosting share prices,but it’s ultimately a poisoned chalice when your game can never live up to such delusional expectations.
Hard to know what a developer or publisher can do in that situation.
You probablydon’t want to talk your game down in order to combat the hype monkeys running their mouths and creating unrealistic expectations. I am sure marketing experts would advise against that.
But then I don’t know how you are supposed to deal with or avoid the fallout after release.
Re: Round Up: Crimson Desert Reviews Are a Major Disappointment
@SierraNumber5 "82% ….’major disappointment’ ?"
Starfield is sitting at 83%.
Most people on this board have been dumping on Starfield.
Per my post history, I told them that Starfield, cyberpunk, and Crimson Desert would be decent 8 out of 10 games.
Yet, they have slated Starfield left right hand centre.
Meanwhile hyping up Crimson Desert to be a life changing experience, and "life will never be the same once this game has been released, and all other games are going to be made obsolete overnight".
That’s why the Meta score for Crimson Desert is such a shocker and disappointment for so many people, even though we tried to tell them it would be a good but not life changing game.
Some people don’t want to listen when they get excited for something and carried away, and when reality dawns, it creates a huge disappointment.
But yes, 82% is a good game! That applies to Starfield as well!
Re: Round Up: Crimson Desert Reviews Are a Major Disappointment
Per my post history, I'd been calling this for a couple of months.
Too much hype. Too many people seeing what they wanted to see.
Re: Nvidia Says You're All 'Completely Wrong' About Its Controversial AI Upscaler DLSS 5
My concern is that AMD will be forced to produce their own version, and we will reach a point where every single game looks near-identical.
Similar to how Unreal Engine games have always all tended to have the same look to them, but far more extreme.
The only plus point is that given that it's currently running on 2 x 5090's, I don't see PS6 doing much of it even if AMD were to create a version in time.
Re: PS Portal Gets Even Better with New Firmware Update, Improved Visuals and Enhanced Cloud Streaming
Should have had a higher bitrate from the start. It released undercooked.
NVIDIA have been setting the standard for cloud streaming for years, such that their Ultimate tier is in a lot of cases better than playing natively on a PS5 Pro.
I wouldn't expect Sony to quite match that quality, but c'mon, launching 5 years behind the curve was not acceptable.
The Portal is a great device though. Desktop/home console graphics quality in a handheld, and with none of the weight, heat, battery and cost issues of a regular handheld.
The problem is that they've shot themselves in the foot with the leaks about an OLED model. Otherwise more people would be rushing out to get one.
Re: Starfield Finally Lands on PS5 in April with New DLC and Huge Updates
As I’ve said before, this is not a bad game by any means.
It’s a bit like Crimson Desert in that a bunch of hype monkeys had been hyping this up to high heaven for years before it launched, and it wasn’t the 10 out of 10 life changing experience that they’d falsely built it up to be.
Same thing that happened with Cyberpunk.
It’s just a fairly good 8 out of 10 game. Just like Cyberpunk, and just like Crimson Desert will be.
I just hope they do add some good quality of life features, one of them being doing something about the garbage inventory system. Much like Fallout 4, half of my entire game time was spent trying to manage inventory.
Re: Cyberpunk 2077 Finally Gets a PS5 Pro Patch Very Soon
Let's hope the framerate on Cyberpunk isn't lower on the PS5 Pro patch than on the PS5 version.
Re: Starfield's PS5 Release Seems Practically Inevitable at This Point
A lot of hyperbole in this thread about how bad Starfield is.
The fact is, it is not bad.
It's an 8/10 on a good day. I'd actually put it on a par with Cyberpunk in its current "rectified" state, which is also an 8/10, very good but certainly no 10/10 GTA-quality classic.
Re: Experience Two of PS5's Best Games with a 'New Level of Visual Fidelity' on PS5 Pro
Maximum respect to Remedy for maintaining support for their games. Can't wait for the AW2 patch.
Whereas in comparison, Silent Hill 2 was abandoned, with Pro owners lied to and misled about a patch that was never going to come.
I urge people to reward them by buying their games. We have to reward good behaviour if we want developers to treat us well.
Edit: having read a bit more carefully it seems the story is misleading when they aren’t actually producing native support like Capcom did with Requiem. That being said they do seem to keep their games well supported.
Re: Crimson Desert PS5 Concern as Physical Copies Won't Run without Download
I expect this to be the case with modern games. Even if they were complete on the disk, I’d still want to download the various patches released over time in order to have the optimum experience.
I’ve long said that the argument for discs being about preserving software is over. It is why I have never understood the fuss about those game key cards on Switch.
Disks are merely licenses that can be transferred to other users in return for cash when you finish the game. That’s a perfectly valid reason for wanting to retain discs.
I think fans are physical media are expecting too much if they still hold out hope of games being able to run from the desk with no patches on day one. In 2026 you can just count your blessings that a disc with resale value is available at all.
Re: First Crimson Desert PS5 Pro Analysis Calls It 'A Phenomenal Experience'
As a Pro owner and someone who'd likely use the 40fps mode, the Digital Foundry video has quashed my fears about performance.
The game is still likely a no-buy for me though.
I just don't like Western looking RPG's that are developed in Japan/Korea etc. Something always seems "off", an uncanny valley type of effect. Plus they can't resist putting weird elements in it.
I find the more classic fantasy parts of the world to be quite appealing, but then you have all the weird FF style modern or retro-tech stuff like mechs and metallic structures etc.
Plus some of the gameplay that was revealed a week back and puzzles etc, are not my cuppa.
I also have large concerns about "grind" which developers from that region just can't resist. Oh and not playing as your own character.....yeah that works with Witcher 3 with such a charismatic character, but I don't think a Korean written RPG generic stereotype warrior is going to something I want to spend 100 hours with.
Re: 'No One Is Buying This on PS5': PC Port Begging Already Unbearable as Sony Switches Strategy
I'd remind all the people on this board, about how you all cried and refused to buy an Xbox to play their top class exclusives, many of which like Forza Horizon you are absolutely loving now.
Would you buy an XSX if Microsoft announced that Forza Horizon 6 was no longer coming to PS5?
Why would a PC owner buy a PS5 for an exclusive when they have a perfectly good machine already, which in the case of PC can potentially run it far better, and without having to pay for a subscription to access online features?
Answer: they probably wouldn't.
If you have £680 for a Pro, the smart money says sell your old GPU, put the money with your £680 and depending on what your old card was worth, you can upgrade to a 5070ti or 5080.
PC owners aren't rushing out to buy PS5's, so that's a dead loss of game sales for Sony, and that means a loss for YOU as that's money that would have been reinvested in game and hardware development.
Re: The Excellent Silent Hill 2 Remake Has Attracted Five Million Players
Could have been a 10/10 for me.
But I tend to agree with Jim Sterling's take about the excessive combat. Far far far too many enemies ruined it for me. Over exposure ceases to be scary and just becomes annoying.
I'd also have trimmed a few sections that I felt added nothing other than filler.
I reckon it needed 5 hours trimming, making replaying for all the different endings a bit more viable.
Re: 'We'll Lay Off a Thousand People': Blizzard CFO's Outrageous Threat Was the Last Straw for Overwatch Director
Overwatch was badly managed.
It absolutely could and should have grown into so much more, yet they failed to capitalise on the initial success and it withered instead of growing to its full potential.
We got a rushed "sequel", a foray into esports because a loud mouthed minority were listened to when most people don't give a monkeys about esports, and a weird obsession with retconning all types of characteristics on the characters, which I found off putting.
Glad it's being turned around. May go back to it some day. The latest WoW expansion has some of the best content I've ever seen, so Blizz can do it if they try.
Re: Poll: Has PS5's Dynamic Pricing Debacle Changed Your Relationship with the PS Store at All?
When purchasing a game, I look at the advertised price and ask myself "is that game worth that price to me?".
If the answer is "no", I don't buy it and Sony get the sum total of Jack S out of me.
What someone else thought it was worth, and what they paid is neither here nor there.
If I love a game and I find out I put £1 more in the developers pockets as compared to someone else, then I'm happy as each pound is a vote in favour of more goodness.
I think the problem is entirely one that affects those with no self control, and who are absolutely incapable of saying "no" and not buying a product.
The same type of people who pre-order I suspect. They just have to have that game and can't act as a responsible consumer should.
Re: Hypothetically, Could Sony Stop Its PS5 Ports from Running on Xbox Helix?
If your console is the best bang for buck, why would you care about your software being on other consoles?
Only reason you'd care is if you were offering a bad deal to consumers with your hardware, and wanted to stifle competition to force consumers to pay for your inferior offering.
Re: Hands On: Assassin's Creed Unity's PS5 Update Has Made Us Rethink That 5/10 Review
Was always a good game.
Artistically outstanding in its recreation of the environments and I thought it played better and looked better than Syndicate especially if playing on PC.
On PC one could play both maxed out and the graphical downgrade in Syndicate was obvious, but sadly necessary to work well on the console hardware.
Ubisoft took a lot of abuse but they clearly designed Unity based on what we all thought the PS4/XO specs would likely be, and they turned out to be far more feeble than anyone predicted which screwed Ubi over unfortunately.
Have to respect their vision though and I cut them more slack than developers who in the past few years have released games with trash performance, despite knowing the spec of the target machines very early in the development.
Re: Fan Fave Resident Evil 2 Is Getting a Third Remake, Exclusively in Arcades
It would make a great PSVR2 game.
Never going to happen, though sadly.
Re: Crimson Desert's PS5, PS5 Pro Modes Revealed, PS5 Pro Offers Substantial Upgrades
60fps when looking up at the sky.....?
I wish we had more choices too.
E.g. the quality option on Pro, let me change RT to low and have 40 or 60fps with the native 4k resolution.
I don't rate RT at all so would gladly sacrifice it for more frames.
Re: Record Breaking Battlefield 6 Sales Not Enough to Prevent Layoffs
You have to look at the detail.
What jobs are being laid off? Did they over-recruit staff during the pandemic, are a lot of the jobs more administrative/managerial rather than coal face?
Also high sales doesn't mean much as that's very simplistic.
As we discussed in a thread a few weeks back, imagine you were investing your life savings.
It's more than just about sales, it's about the return on investment versus the risk. If you are investing in the next BF game, you have to look at the odds of it being another live service flop (very high these days), versus what you stand to gain as a return on your investment if it isn't a flop (not that great).
At the end of the day you'd probably invest your money in something a lot safer and stable, as there are plenty of opportunities with similar returns but very little risk.
EA are trying to tip the scales more in their favour by reducing any unnecessary costs such that ROI is higher if the next game does succeed, to offset the risk and improve the equation.
Can't blame "late stage capitalism". As I say, feel free to go and invest your own savings in a game developer/publisher....
Actually for some of you, your pensions probably are invested in EA shares... What do you think the pension funds do with your contributions to turn it into something you can live off when you retire....?
Do you want them punting your pension on the next live service game, or into property?
Re: 'This Should Be Illegal': PS5's Dynamic Pricing Roundly Criticised by Disgusted Sony Fans
As I said the other day, this has been happening across regions for decades.
They charge you a higher markup than they do consumers in other countries.
Hence the trade in grey import keys.
Heck, Sony even did it with the console itself in Japan, and had the cheek to lock out the console so that you couldn’t import it.
Globalisation benefits for me, but not for thee.
You have to compete with consumers in all countries in a race to the bottom on salary for a job, and boy do these firms love it.
What they do not love so much is a free market for products across countries, and now even across accounts in the same country.
A bit late to be complaining now, you should’ve all been complaining 20 years ago.
Re: 'I'm Pro Sex Minigames': Former God of War Dev Backs PS5 Trilogy Remake to Keep Controversial Minigames
@Kelrics90 agree RE the disturbing remarks even on the BBC about Leon.
You can just imagine the reception to the phrase "hot Aunty" if that was used. Weird, perverted etc.
And it is weird. How the heck is that phrase being used in the mainstream, given the nothing burgers that are off limits.
Re: 'I'm Pro Sex Minigames': Former God of War Dev Backs PS5 Trilogy Remake to Keep Controversial Minigames
I fail to see the relevance of who wrote the scenes and what chromosomes they had.
Those who care about such irrelevances are part of the problem. Such trivialities are typically the concerns of the very same Neo-Puritans who are doing the censorship whenever they get the chance.
All that matters is that the age rating of the game is appropriate to the content. I couldn’t give a flying stuff if a woman wrote the scenes, as that makes absolutely no difference to anything.
Re: 'Sony Finally Understands': Over 70% of PS5 Fans Agree with Decision to Scrap PC Ports
@UnlimitedSevens I feel your toothbrush analogy doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
Contrary to your argument, people don't buy the cheapest electric toothbrush.
The best selling brushes are not those crappy £15 no-brand sonic brushes from Amazon, rather they are the £40 Oral B/Sonicare brushes that offer far superior performance.
They also outsell the £150 Oral B and Sonicare brushes that offer diminishing returns over the £40 models and often only have gimmicks that aren't necessarily.
In a fully free and open console market, I don't accept your argument that the cheapest piece of junk will sell the most, and besides a free market with competition could lead to a plurality where you can pick your performance/price point (as you do with PS5 v PS5 Pro v PC) and choose your preferred graphics mode.
A firm with the best product (combination of price v performance) doesn't need exclusives to sell their product. Only those with mediocre products need to lock-in consumers and "force" them to buy it.
Or those who wish to exploit a monopoly position to gouge consumers....
Re: 'Sony Finally Understands': Over 70% of PS5 Fans Agree with Decision to Scrap PC Ports
It does disturb me when polls etc give us insights into the psyche of the average person. It's no wonder the world is in such a mess, most people are extremely disturbing and of unhealthy minds.
Being pleased because someone else can't buy a game, in a world where development is cripplingly expensive, and if sales don't meet expectations there might not be a sequel. So basically cheering the fact that you are less likely to get more of something you like.
Cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Also being pleased because that game you like can only be played on one piece of hardware, so when that piece of hardware gets seriously outdated, YOU are stuck playing an inferior version of what it could be, because you can't buy it on another platform. Breath of the Wild being locked on Switch 1 being a perfect example of how YOU get self-screwed by exclusivity.
Cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Also being locked into that particular ecosystem by exclusive games, the firm producing that hardware/network has you by the short and curlies, and can crank up pricing until you squeal, and then crank up the pricing even further.
Again, cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Re: Opinion: I Wonder if Xbox Helix Will Force Sony to Break Its PS6 Silence
There is nothing coming from Microsoft or Sony next year.
It's a nothing burger story.
Re: Some PS5 Users Really Are Paying More for Their Games on PS Store Than Others
People will pay what something is worth to them. If you look at a price and believe the product is worth that price to you, then is that a problem?
You feel you got your monies worth, otherwise you wouldn't have paid it.
This already happens on a far larger scale too.
Games are different prices in different regions (digital keys) because they know some consumers will pay more for them than others, and so they jolly well charge those consumers more.
That's why I buy PC games on grey (other region) key sites for a lower price.
Re: After Cancelling Most PC Ports, Sony Promotes New 'PC Ready' Controller
Never had a desire to use a PS5 controller on my PC even though I have a spare PS5 pad.
Xbox controller 100% of the time, with the left stick in the correct place and a battery that lasts weeks.
The XSX trigger haptics work perfectly especially in racing games, without being intrusive and fatiguing like the PS5 triggers.
Only reason I'd use a PS5 pad is for Sony games where there was some function that was necessary e.g. touch pad gestures. That's out of the window now so...
Re: Assassin's Creed Unity PS5 60FPS Patch Out Now
It was always a good game, they just didn't realise that MS and Sony would release their new consoles with 5 year old laptop chips that were less powerful than a potato.
Re: Opinion: Sony's PC Pullback Is the Right Move for PS5
I mean if Sony want to drive PS5 sales via exclusive titles, they might want to release some decent ones given that bar one or two (not enough to warrant buying an obsolete console), this generation they have ranged from mostly non-existent to rubbish.
The future of releases in this generation isn’t much appealing either in the context of encouraging PS5 sales to those who’ve been buying Sony games on PC until now.
Hundreds of pounds just to play awful looking Intergalactic on a 6 year old piece of hardware? Nah you’re alright mate thanks. Pass!
Re: Crimson Desert Confirms PSSR 2 on PS5 Pro, But Glowing Previews All Based on PC Version
Skill Up's preview has put me off as I wasn't a fan of the gameplay and issues he pointed out.
Overall I'm concerned that gamers have over hyped this title, and become far too emotionally invested.
As such, any warnings that his may just be a 7 out of 10 and not run particularly well, are met with hostility. A lot of people white knighting for a title they have never played, or seen running on a console.
Please be careful with your money folks. Just wait for a day or two after launch. Reviews will be out and DF will have tested it.
It ain't selling out or going anywhere. It will be £30 by the summer and have a lot of the issues patched out.
Re: Ubisoft Officially Reveals Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag Remake, Gives Hexe and PvP Game Updates
Unless something goes horrendously wrong, this is a definite purchase for me.
I hope this is a full remaster, not just an increase in resolution and frame rate. Whilst it still looks decent on my PC today, it doesn't withstand a closer look and is very dated compared to Shadows.
Re: Sony Returns to PlayStation Exclusivity and Stops Single Player PC Ports, New Report Says
The mask slipped, as I knew it would.
As soon as Xbox was as good as dead, Sony returned to their monopolistic fleecing attitude of the late PS2 era, that resulted in the excessively priced PS3.
You all better get saving every penny you have, because the PS6, it's games, and future PSN pricing are going to give you a kicking.
Sony behave the same way every time they think they can get away with it.
I never understood why you all applauded them at the PS4 announcement, given they were only behaving that way because they'd just been walloped by the 360.
Had Xbox not been around, Sony would have been the ones in bed with big publishers in terms of restricting used game sales and all that jazz.
Re: Resident Evil Requiem Surpasses an Astonishing 5 Million Sales in Its First Week
I've not finished it yet, but I’m leaning more towards agreeing with Push Squares review score rather than the near perfect scores elsewhere.
I am not a massive fan of the dual protagonist model. To me it is a cheap and lazy solution for solving the issues of balancing between survival horror and action. I think RE7 did a fairly good job of that even if it did go downhill a bit later when you move from the house to another environment.
In this game, I find the constant switching to be a bit jarring and interrupts the story for me.
I also am not a fan of the portrayal of Grace, who comes across as a terrified schoolgirl instead of an FBI agent.
Still, unlike many games these days it is very well polished and still a great game, so it thoroughly deserves those sales figures.
Re: Physical Game Sales Hit All-Time Low in the US
@Nem there is a school of thought that in poor economic times, games do ok as people shun big ticket items like new cars and holidays, or even lower cost items like eating out, and spend on home entertainment instead.
Although I personally buy fewer games since I chose to go digital. With no resale value I limit myself to keepers, whereas in my disc days I would buy 7/10’s for the weekend and trade them in.
Re: At Long Last, #DRIVE Rally Brings Its Arcadey Style to PS5 This Summer
Those voices are soooo annoying!
Re: Crimson Desert Tech Analysis Raises More Questions About PS5 Performance
In the world of games developers, games media, and YouTubers, there is no other hardware outside of a £5000 RTX 5090 top of the range PC, as that is what they are given, with nice business expense tax rebates where they do have to pay.
Remember that when reading articles about games that appear very technically challenging. The people writing those articles or producing those videos don’t give a monkeys about the peasants, they are just excited for what THEY will get to play.
One would have to be very daft to pre-order this title. No one should be buying this until they have seen the digital foundry video for the console versions. If you can’t wait a couple of days for that to appear, don’t be crying on forums about how bad the game runs. Just saying.
Re: Opinion: If Sony's Doubling Down on Its Most Popular Franchises, Where's Uncharted?
@NavalHistorian yes I enjoyed Lost Legacy and Chloe/Nadine worked surprisingly well with great chemistry. Better than Nate and his Brother did IMO.
This choice would also tick the "modern audience" boxes that Neil is obsessed with, but without causing the eye rolling that would accompany them making a game about Nates daughter.
I actually thought that Lost Legacy was priming a spin off series of games, so I'm surprised it didn't happen.
Re: Rumour: God of War Dev Working on 'A New Franchise Within the God of War Universe'
Needs to be an appealing main character and narrative. There is a risk they will set out to appeal to "modern audiences" which may not end well.
If this project started a good five years or more ago, during the era when certain choices were trendy, decisions were potentially made that have not aged well.
Re: 'It's the Real Deal': Tech Experts Praise PS5 Pro's Upgraded Upscaler
@carlos82 yes it actually looked far superior to my PC which is similar in spec to yours, mainly because I’m playing on a pretty decent Samsung OLED TV, where as due to the amount of productivity work I do, I cannot use an OLED monitor with my PC despite them being affordable to me. As a result, my PC always looks flat in comparison.
Re: 'It's the Real Deal': Tech Experts Praise PS5 Pro's Upgraded Upscaler
The side by side images of the character model remind me of the bull shots Sony posted for the PS2 and PS3.
On the right is what Sony pushed out via IGN etc, on the left is what it actually looked like!