Dogbreath

I really don't think you can blame Microsoft. It's true they've acquired studios who then released mediocre and dire titles.

I really don't think Phil Spencer had waded in to their offices and started dictating though. If anything developers hadn't been giving him the true picture. Red Fall being a classic example.

We then had Starfield and Hellblade being OK but not meeting expectations. Again I don't see that as Microsofts fault. The former was likely a long way into development prior to acquisition and Ninja Theory retained their creative freedom.

Really don't think MS meddled with COD and are responsible for the nonsense in this game.

As a PC gamer I'm not a fan of multiple launchers, but in truth it's not a massive hardship spending 5 minutes installing.

I think Sony should create their own and keep all the revenue. Of course that's only for their first party titles, as no PC gamer in their right mind would buy third party titles from it.

I see it working like the Rockstar launcher which last time I used it (was quite a while ago) just had Rockstar games.

@Rich33 there is no black and white sure fire answer of course. I choose on a game by game basis. Depends on performance and cost.

I bought Borderlands 4 on my Pro and Hell is Us on PC for example. Some games I Stream, some I play locally.

If you sit down with a pen and paper and try to add it all up, you will just end up in an analysis paralysis situation.

There is a reason the PC gamers on here own both systems...

Game keys are absolutely cheaper on PC that is beyond question. The actual question is whether you would buy enough of them, to make owning a PC worthwhile, especially when you include any necessary upgrade costs, noting that even those upgrades won’t ensure every game is worth buying over the console version.

Essentially, it’s a giant mess and you will never get a clear answer. I suppose when it comes to PC gaming, if you have to calculate the price, you can’t afford it.

The other old adage I use, is go big or go home. I’ve never believed in budget or mid range PC gaming. Games are always tailored for the absolute top spec exotic hardware. That’s what all the developers are using, that’s what all the game reviewers are using, and that’s what all your favourite YouTubers are using. You need to be using the same kit.

Interesting. Colin is friends with Druckmann so you'd have to think he has some pretty good contacts and a lot of his scoops have been accurate.

If it isn't content complete, I'd wonder what they were doing for the past 5 years.

They certainly didn't have everyone working on the aborted online game.

Depends what it is used for. E.g. in the future you can imagine someone developing a game like AC Syndicate set in Victorian times.

AI could generate masses of period authentic assets. Be it lamp posts, carriages, chairs, beds, shop facades, goods and produce within the shops etc.

What does it matter to me if the door on the butchers shop was produced by AI?

It can dramatically reduce development costs and development time.

That's important as we frequently see games designed whilst a genre is popular, but releasing 5 years later when everyone has moved on, and we know that development costs for AAA's are getting unaffordable as the risk of hefty losses is too great.

Anything to reduce the cost/risk and increase the ROI is good for gamers. Same with shorter development times. We are more likely to get games, instead of studio closure announcements.

Welcome to the nonsense that PC owners had to deal with when crypto miners were buying up all the GPU's.

Although I suspect the memory shortage will also affect PC gamers most.

Developers of course seem oblivious or just don't care, and hopefully many of them will go out of business as a result.

When decent GPU's were unobtainable, developers continued to produce games that wouldn't run on the hardware available, and instead required those unobtainable cards.

Expect developers to be releasing games with ever increasing (and unnecessary due to their bungling optimisation) RAM requirements. Almost as if it's deliberate.

Anyhow I've already been through this once following the Kobe earthquake. It will pass.

AI firms can only buy up loads of memory if they have the money to do so. The problem is that they aren't actually making any money, they are incinerating millions by the minute. Speculative investors only have so much money to put on the line. Eventually the funding runs out.

@IOI don't be too concerned.

Bingo halls didn't cease to exist because all the old people died...

Young gamers are constantly ageing and becoming old gamers. They will grow up and grow out of wasting money on Fortnite skins.

Eventually they will seek deeper and more rewarding narrative experiences.

We didn't have skins and currencies in my day but I was heavily into competitive games and played counterstrike all night every night. I don’t touch titles like that anymore. Happens to everyone.

@PuppetMaster the A and B argument don't make sense because you failed to read my post.

You've just quoted Horizons sales numbers as if it supports your position, yet I mentioned it sells well in my first post! Scroll up and look.

"Avatar of Games".

YES - it has sold large numbers. That's exactly what I said.

The issue with Horizon and Avatar is that they do big numbers, but the fandoms are small and subdued.

The common example being the mainstream cultural impact of Terminator or Star Wars (you can say "I'll be back", or "I'm your father" and everyone will know), where as most people can't remember the character names from Avatar, let alone what they said.

Yet it's getting a third and fourth film apparently due to numbers.

Horizon is the same. It's the bacon butty of games. Millions of bacon butties are sold in the UK every week, yet no one can remember eating them....

They taste great. Can't beat a bacon butty. But no one is passionate about them.

@PuppetMaster the behaviour of a minority of Expedition fans in some dark corner of the Internet, isn’t a particularly strong defence and selling point in support of Horizon.

You could equally argue that the fact we hear very little from Horizon fans, is because A, they are very small in number and B, they are not particularly passionate about the franchise.

As I say in relation to the "Avatar of Games" tag, I've put plenty of time and money into the franchise, but somehow I don’t sit here feeling particularly passionate about it.

It wouldn’t be my desktop wallpaper on my PC if you get what I mean.

Nothing "weird" about criticising it. It deserves it and the developers could actually benefit from listening.

I've completed the first game + DLC, and the second game albeit not its expansion. I've also completed Call of the Mountain.

It's been described many times as "the Avatar of games". Sells very well sure, but it doesn't seem to have generated a passionate fanbase and following. Yes there are fans, but no where close to other IP's, including many that sell less. It's a game I frequently forget exists.

Look at Expedition 33. Compare the instant passion that generated, versus Horizon.

I put that down to the protagonist in particular being a total charisma-vacuum. Very few of the other characters are interesting either, just one or two. The writing is very weak and lets down the tech and combat.

Fantastic tech demo, decent game play, but unlike other games, I don't find myself thinking about it, the stories and characters when I'm driving to work, out for walk, taking a shower or on the sun lounger etc.

I tried it via Xbox Gamepass.

It was buggy as hell even after the release patches. Yet somehow it was surprisingly good fun. Definitely worth a play.

One issue I had though, especially with limited ammo, was that smaller enemies running around at your feet were extremely annoying to shoot.

I really needed a stronger auto-aim system when using the controller. Seemed too mouse-tailored. Or maybe I suck, but I generally have no issue with first person shooters on pad.

@Nepp67 that's what I mean about restrictive systems with fast travel etc.

You end up running down the same roads, being ambushed in the same places, and by the same enemies.

I believe you are perceiving the issue as being with the enemies etc, when if you boil it down to the core issue, it's actually what I said about the systems (as that's what forced you into those situations).

Obviously with console you have to factor in £100+ per year subscription for cloud saves and online play. As well as £20 more per game.

But even then, I still think console is better value. As a PC gamer I’ve always called out the lie that you can build a PC with the same performance for the same price.

My full size PC is justified because I spend 90% of my time in the house sat at it and use it for a multitude of tasks.

If it were located under my TV then no way. I’d instead use a £130 mini PC with GeForce Now for the full £2500 console crushing experience.

Budget PC’s are bad.

I'd rather they focused on a third game and removed some of the restrictive gameplay systems around travel etc that lead to excessive back tracking.

I quite like the pawn system and believe the series has a future as that differentiates it from other RPG's and carves it's own niche.

I have Gamepass and haven't even launched the game despite it being "free". I don't even need to install it as I can stream, but still it's too much effort to warrant clicking the "play" button.

Main reason is that I've seen campaign footage/reviews and it's garbage.

It's just another example (along with the Japan console) of Sony starting to exploit their new monopoly position and rip us off as much as they can.

There is nothing wrong with gamers bulk buying discounted subs for a few years ahead.

It's money in the bank and earning interest for Sony, for services they don't even have to provide yet.

Paying for years up front is also beneficial as you now have those orders in the bag and paid for, whereas for example those gamers might not be playing at all in 2 years time (missus got pregnant, lost job etc).

Bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Better to take the money now, rather than hoping they still want the product in 18 months.

Fair enough if that is the game they want to play. Money goes into my ISA and as to whether I renew at all in a couple of years, or go back full-time to PC.....well who knows. That's a gamble Sony have taken....

Agree with others. They've had all these years of static regulations where it's just a roster/livery change required.

That was when you do the £40 expansion and get it launched as close to the start of the season as possible.

The year you have a complete upheaval is the year you release the ground-up new game! They should have been working on that for the past 2 years.

Granted getting all the new car models/sounds/performance sorted would be a late-season release, but I'm happy with that.

@sanderson72 it doesn’t cost a penny less to produce than a UK or US console.

In the UK and US, Sony have a monopoly and exploit that by selling at a high price with a big profit margin.

In Japan they face stiff competition from Nintendo so have to sell at a more competitive price.

But they don’t want you and everyone else in the US or UK importing consoles that are sold at a cheaper price in Japan.

So they are locking it out using language etc so they can keep exploiting and ripping off consumers here.

Sony do the same with game keys. You can buy PC and Xbox game keys from other countries where they are sold cheaper.

Whereas Sony don’t allow it as they want to charge you more than they charge others.

Probably not worth watching given the current state of Microsoft and their partners.

I will forget about it and get on with my life, and just read whatever summary push square publish down the road.

Been through this with Nintendo and Blizzard. Didn't end well.

This is how it goes:

1, Whatever you are told about the pricing model initially is a lie.

2, People won't pay AAA money for mobile titles.

3, The type of people interested in these franchises won't tolerate the alternative revenue systems.

4, The people who do engage with such systems, are and will be playing other games more suited to mobile.

5, Initial revenue at launch will be very positive and recoup the development costs.

6, Rapidly large numbers of players start dropping out as they refuse to engage with the revenue systems.

7, Most of the income comes from a small percentage of whales.

8, F2P players go as far as they can and then disengage due to P2W and whales having all the cool stuff that they can't realistically earn in a hundred years.

9, Those who want to play these franchises "mobile" can buy a Backbone or Portal and experience the full fat AAA titles that aren't compromised by compatibility with less powerful mobile hardware, and the associated revenue systems.

Depends what those people were doing I guess. If they are overheads then it won't affect the game.

Although from everything I've heard in the rumours and leaks, the game doesn't sound remotely promising anyway.

As a TR fan, I would not be sad if it was cancelled.

The 2013 to 2018 trilogy started off well, but gradually went down hill in terms of the character(s) and story telling.

That being said, the two Crystal Dynamics entries were in my view vastly superior to the Eidos Montreal developed finale.

I have some issues with the spec (mentioned by others above - over-priced and under-powered), so I don't think this one is going to be threatening PlayStation yet.

However, in the longer term, I do believe the open PC format will win out.

PlayStation will be the first fall, with Nintendo trudging on perhaps a decade longer.

But don't expected the balance to tip until the middle of the next decade.

Allow me to explain in simple terms.

Sony sell in multiple markets where they face different competitive conditions.

In Japan where consumer tastes are different to the West, consoles like the Switch provide more direct stiff competition.

In the West, consoles like Switch sell well but it's not a direct competitor to PlayStation, and Sony have a virtual monopoly in the AAA home console market. Xbox was the competition in the West but they are dead.

Region locking allows Sony to compete aggressively on price in Japan, whilst still being able to exploit their monopoly and charge a premium price and have a larger profit margin in the West.

Simple as that. Anything else anyone says is plain wrong I'm afraid.

@ZeroSum I've owned and ridden just about every bike going, and was a motocross racer in my youth.

I find those games extremely hard. Real bikes are far easier. My knuckles bleed from punching the controller.

I like to play with all the aids off though so I'm controlling everything. Otherwise....why play it at all IMO.

Ride and MotoGP are very inaccessible and it ruins the appeal to most of the potential audience. The trick is to make it easy to play but hard to master, such that new/less experienced players can play the game and feel good about it, and hardcore players can find hidden depths.

What doesn't work is when the game is so tricky, that the new/less experienced player only has the option of a baby mode where it practically rides itself. That's not satisfying.

Although I've even seen Youtubers get their girlfriend to play it on the easiest mode possible and it was still unplayable with them crashing constantly.

The Dark Souls of racing games, only with the default mode being a 0 damage run, whilst naked and only holding a blade of grass.

The end of Season 1 was met with pure relief from me, as they didn't do a Witcher, RoP or TLoU to it as I'd feared prior to broadcast. Bravo.

Heck not just relief, it was actually enjoyable with all the main characters/actors being superb.

Really looking forward to this, but in the current climate with Amazon and the rest of the industry desperate to lose as much money and destroy as many IP's as possible, you can never be sure that the writers haven't messed it up.

As soon as I see the word “mobile” it’s a hard pass.

Even though I have a PC.

Sorry, not with a barge pole.

The price hasn't been hiked. The value of the currency went down due to printing trillions.

It's a perception issue as to the person holding the devaluing paper notes, it looks like the price is going up.

If you get in your car and put it in reverse, it looks like the car parked next to you is moving forward....

@Rich33 mate they've literally just done something heinously anti-consumer and flying in the face of globalisation, by purposefully and unnecessarily region locking a product, for the specific purpose of forcing consumers in the UK to pay an excessive price.

That's as sinister as it gets.

@Rich33 Sony have done it "because they can".

They have a monopoly in the UK and the Switch isn't as direct a competitor.

In terms of monopoly/competition law, how they got the monopoly is irrelevant.

If they have a monopoly and rip off UK consumers, they can't as part of their defence use "lol Xbox sucked, not our problem" as mitigation.

That's not how it works. They've also shot themselves in the foot as they previously made a case (in their submissions for the UK authority investigation into the Activision deal) for why a single party having a monopoly would be bad for consumers!

@Rich33 nail on the head.

It's locked to Japanese to prevent other markets from benefiting from lower pricing.

Like many large corporations, Sony are all in favour of globalisation when it allows them to exploit cheap labour and cheap dirty energy by manufacturing in China, but less in favour of globalisation when we wish to do the same by sourcing our consoles or games from other markets with cheaper prices.

After all the investigations into Microsoft over the Activision blizzard deal, perhaps someone should take a look at Sony’s disproportionate market power, that they are using to overprice in Western markets and rip off consumers. In particular, their anti-competitive practices in relation to how games are sold.

This is why I am more than happy to purchase legal (not stolen) grey import PC/Xbox game keys via key sites that acquire them from other markets e.g. eastern Europe or Asia. It is notable that Sony games cannot be acquired in that manner as they keep a tight control so that they can charge exploitative prices in certain markets.

If I have to compete on pay for my job, against someone from Poland who has far lower living costs, then I should be able to buy products from Poland at lower prices to level the playing field.

Globalisation is either good for everyone or bad for everyone. It shouldn’t just be large corporations who reap the benefits whilst the everyman incurs the costs.

@nessisonett Yeah agree, I'm like "looks cool, sounds cool, ummm what exactly is it you do?".

I maintained since day 1 that Jin was a charisma vacuum. As dull as dishwater and not someone I empathised with.

I didn't care much for that whole thing about being torn between fighting honourably or not. As a player I didn't give a damn and have no moral compass or code of honour.

Much prefer Atsu and the revenge plot, which is as old as time itself but always something I can vibe with.

Really good game. Deserves the hype and praise it got.

But I recall Angry Joe in his review stating that basically the Bethesda "thing" had reached the end of the line and whilst he was giving it a pass that one final time, this was the last time the jank would be tolerated.

Alas Bethesda didn't listen.

I defend 76 now that it's been patched up, and I defend Starfield as a decent if not exceptional game, but I am seriously annoyed by all these Skyrim and Fallout 4 rehashes and editions that don't fix bugs that have been there 10 or 15 years.

I don't find it cute when my anniversary edition Skyrim character is blacksmithing and holds the hot end of the metal and hammers the cold end.... It was funny for a couple of months in 2011. It wasn't funny in 2021.

Whilst I believe the PS6 will launch later than many suspect, I believe this remark about life cycle is a bit of misinformation or people reading into quotes what they want to see.

I believe that the phrase life cycle refers also to the years of the cross gen period, and not the life of the console as the primary flagship product.

People understandably would like to believe that they don’t need to shell out on new hardware for another five years, but unfortunately that is wishful thinking.

The boycott didn't happen because the boycott was cancelled as I understand it.

Obviously there will always be a handful of vocal minority extremists who want to continue even though the issues they were concerned about were addressed.

The rogue employee was fired, so that element was resolved.

Reviews and early let's plays alleviated concerns that the protagonist would be an obnoxious "girl boss" Mary Sue stereotype.

Therefore the majority who had concerns were satisfied.

End of story. No need for inflammatory discussions as the matter is closed.

PS4 Pro version on PS5 looks rough compared to XOX version on XSX.

It's not just the frame rate that's needs improving for PS owners.

5 minutes! The humanity!

My ZX Speccy games took long than that to load every time I wanted to play!

I think "Premium only" is a fair shout from Sony.

GF Now is £200 a year just for streaming, or £240 a year if you want to pay monthly rather than lump some up front. There is no catalogue of games with that like you get with Premium.

The tech isn't free. They are having to run all these games on pricey hardware in their server centres.

When streaming was first implemented, I was actually impressed in that it felt better than streaming from my console (yes my console is wired).

Only issue with the Portal, regardless of whether streaming from PS5 or Cloud, was that darker games were a problem. It was hard to see in darker scenes, either due to the screen or excessive compression crushing blacks. Although I never saw the compression artefacts you'd expect to see in that scenario which is why I wasn't sure if it was the screen to blame instead.

Consumer is King.

You all have the power but choose not to exercise it.

You all know that your online game can be switched off at any time, or even patched in a way that fundamentally changes the product and how it plays, from what you originally purchased.

Desirable features can be removed and undesirable features can be added.

The solution is to not buy games where such a risk is present, and only buy those games that don’t rely on the publisher and developer maintaining the server systems and software support required for the game to keep running. Or, only purchase such games from publishers and developers with a solid track record of keeping older products live for a significant period of time.

For example, the developers of Guild Wars 1 have kept the game running despite the release of Guild Wars 2.

That is obviously different to most single player games that don’t rely on the server to function and only require that it remain downloadable for installation (which most developers and publishers do, as it allows them to keep selling the game even if that’s at a low cost and a small trickle of revenue).

If you behave like responsible consumers, the market will respond. Publishers and developers want to make money. Games that don’t sell, do not make money…

Alas what can I say. How many of you hammered in those pre orders for Concord.

Reap what you sow and all that...

As I pointed out in a post the other day, a large percentage of PlayStation owners are young people who do nothing other than play Fortnite/Minecraft, plus adults who perhaps bought the console for one game some years ago, and now only use it as a Home streaming system.

I pointed out that if you only consider users who are active and regular game purchasers, the install base of the Portal is significantly higher percentage than the install base being reported here.

It’s therefore not surprising that Portal owners are far more engaged than the average PlayStation owner. The Portal is therefore a significant product and has been a roaring success for Sony, amongst the customers who actually slam cash down on the countertop and pay the bills at Sony HQ.

@MrPeanutbutterz I think you both make pretty valid points there.

Would be interesting to know the crossover rates.

A lot of people here are completely dedicated to the PS ecosystem and own nothing else.

That in my opinion tends to be a psychological trait that is exclusive to PlayStation owners. It's a uniquely PlayStation mindset in my experience.

Outside of children who can't buy/play GTA anyway, most adult owners of Switches, as well as PC and Xbox owners, have a far more diverse gaming life and tend to own multiple systems. Many would certainly be prepared to buy a PS5 for GTA, if they don't already own one.

You may be right that anyone releasing games on those systems might well have to be aware that GTA could indirectly affect consumer spending within those ecosystems too.

However, from the perspective of a lot of PS owners who stovepipe themselves within PSN, I can understand why they'd think that there would be no impact on those systems that aren't receiving GTA at launch.

So it really depends on how the numbers fall.

I play Halo for the campaign/story and the open nature of Infinite didn’t deliver.

There is a myth that the original was open world, just because it wasn’t in narrow corridors like some games of the era.

The campaign needs a narrow, heavily directed linear design. Like Titanfall 2 which for me is the best campaign in an fps of all time.

Infinite was dull and unfocused.

After Veilguard's "return to form" bombed so hard that it left a Voidout crater, you have to wonder what direction MA was headed in prior to Veilguards release. I assume MA was being developed using the exact same philosophy.

Presumably following the Veilguard wake up call, they are desperately de-Veilguarding MA.

Having done a 180 on Veilguards GaaS elements, they no doubt performed a 180 on those elements in MA too, but in this case they do have more time in which to more thoroughly unpick it.

Suspect it will be a similar issue with the tone and writing.

It's going to be quite a substantial piece of work to cleanse all those elements, even to the point that they will need to re-do significant parts of the game from scratch.

I'd suggest that a lack of news and big delays, would be good news for the product we receive at the end of it.

I maintain that because Nintendo priced the Switch 2 properly such that if you really wanted it, you could find one in stock, people wrongly believe it didn't sell well.

As for physical media, the actual game carts have by far the slowest load times. Plenty of comparisons where in many scenarios they get hammered by the internal storage and memory cards. Often 50% longer to load than internal storage for example.

Simply can't have it all - capacity, speed and an acceptable cost for a game.

I don't support key cards either. The days of carrying around bits of plastic everywhere, and having to swap them over when you fancy a different game, are over.

I can still play my Steam games I purchased over 20 years ago, so I'm not too worried about Nintendo shutting down servers!!!

This is why people should focus on what exists on the shelves now, or is set for release within a few weeks.

Not get obsessed with vapourware.

Have to blame developers, publishers and the media too. Why are we so often seeing trailers, ads or even preorders for stuff that is six months to three years away.

As a PC gamer, I understand why so many people want everything to be on Steam.

I also understand why that is a bad idea and risks PC suffering the same rip-off pricing as consoles due to the lack of competition.

I actually think a PlayStation launcher and storefront does stand a chance of success.

Especially so if only games installed via that launcher or purchased via that store, have the cross purchase feature which delivers added value.

I’d also suggest that the PlayStation launcher should be the only way in which trophies can be earned on PC.

I'd have no objections, and I’d actually appreciate having the flexibility to flick between PlayStation and PC. The greatest benefit will be for example using the PlayStation at the start of each generation and being able to switch to PC later in the generation as the console tech becomes obsolete.

As a WoW player I feel that ESO is a far better fit for console play.

I'm not sure there is a massive market for WoW on console, who don't/haven't already played it on PC.

It's a game that requires significant time commitments at the expense of being able to play other games. If one is that interested in dedicating themselves to the game, acquiring a cheap mini PC or laptop is a relatively small barrier, and one they would’ve hopped a long time ago.

It’s a bit like what I said about Halo on PlayStation. Like you really want to tell me you are £80 desperate to buy this game, and yet couldn’t be bothered to grab an Xbox for £20 at a car boot sale and play it years ago??? I’m sure 99% of those buying Halo on PS5 will have already played it in one form or other in the past and just want to see the fancy graphics. That will not be applicable to World of Warcraft, as I’m sure the console version would look identical as per elder scrolls online.

So you want to pay £50 for World of Warcraft and then a £10 a month subscription, plus dedicating 30 hours a week to playing it. You are that desperate to play it yet you couldn’t be bothered to buy a cheap PC?

That makes about as much sense as the Chewbacca defence. Such people either do not exist or they are a very very very small vocal minority and not enough to sustain the product..

I remember the outrage when it was announced, and everyone saying it would flop.

I was one of the few voices on gaming forums arguing that it would be a success, and pointing out that 99% of Nintendo Switch handheld usage, takes place within the same Home and Wi-Fi network that the dock is located in.

If I am going to play handheld, I’d rather have the full home console experience in my hand, rather than a crippled experience trying to get games running using onboard processing, just for the sake of the 0% of the time that I’m gaming at the skate park like the fake actors in the Switch Lite commercials.

Doesn’t happen in real life, just like all the empty roads in the car commercials. Doesn't mean that both types of products cannot coexist though, it’s just that the vast majority of the handheld market do not require onboard processing..

Pretty obvious that in 2025 we shouldn’t be shipping pieces of plastic across the globe unnecessarily.

The fact that we have reasons for preferring the plastic is not an excuse to keep doing it.

That’s the entire point with climate change initiatives. Often the harmful activity we are engaged in, is something that we like and is lower cost than the alternative.

Being green isn’t easy or cheap, no one said it was - if politicians told you otherwise then I’m afraid they are liars (what’s new).

Sacrifices have to be made, whether that is paying a bit more for a digital game copy, driving a smaller car, taking fewer car journeys or not flying abroad on holiday.

Can’t criticise the Trump‘s of this world when you won’t even make the most basic and frivolous of sacrifices.

Half the PC players are bots and have aim assist...

That's the reason I quit multiplayer on PC and sought shelter on console back in the day.

@StitchJones 100%.

RDR2 has many great qualities, but take the gameplay in isolation and it is utter horse manure.

The second-by-second third person gameplay is atrocious. As you say, it controls like a forklift on a sand dune!

Imagine if MindsEye had identical gameplay. Reviews that score by category would give gameplay 4/10.

Stick the Rockstar and RDR badge on it, and add some pretty graphics (on XSX and PC at least) and suddenly it's game of the century.