GirlVersusGame

@Th3solution Sekiro I tapped out on but one day I'll return. Dark Souls 3 is absolutely brilliant and Elden Ring is a masterpiece. You have some bright days ahead of you. I'm not sure about Lords of The Fallen, I played the older one (under the same name) and thought the one coming to Plus+ is a sequel, then saw a trailer for Lords of The Fallen two. So it turns out I didn't play the PS5 version, just the PS4 version on a PS5. The sequel will be out by the time I leave Bohemia.

@Th3solution What three are left now?

@Pat_trick No nerve touched I'm just blunt in my understanding of English and it often comes across that way even if there is a smile behind it. I just don't like the idea of someone feeling that they are less than. I do appreciate you clearing it up though. I've unfortunately seen that kind of thinking a few too many times among male gamers and they didn't know how to break that loop of stagnation. It didn't help that some of them were pushed into that bubble because the media or games they did play were labelled weird and so on. That's how people become isolated. Escapism applies to all genders, I just noticed that they were more inclined to believe they didn't have enough to offer, which like I said I don't believe, everyone has something.

@Pat_trick Let me help dispel something for you. Not all women want a man for their money. I knew someone once, also a gamer who was convinced that every female on the planet would only touch him if he was wealthy. He was obsessed with wanting those means, it made me uncomfortable in ways I can't describe. I think he was pulling the notion from twitter, he looked at it every day before work and started to come out with really wild statements about women. I've never been on twitter so I don't know where exactly he was seeing it but it gradually changed something in him.

He was a very good looking guy, too young for me but he had so much genuine potential and wasted it thinking he wasn't enough. He thought he needed certain clothes, a certain car, a certain salary. He thought that without those things he'd find no one. That to me was worse than taking advantage of someone for that same wealth, and I say that as someone who's been there and had that happen to them. All I wanted was for him to log off and find someone and he never did. Another guy was similar but I managed to get him out there, onto dating Apps etc and he did meet someone. Life is too short to waste it on what if, and genuine people are a real rarity. If you already have that going for you then that's a start.

@Olmaz I was trying to grasp a word then you said it 'hypocrisy', that's the word I was trying to think of. It is or can be a controversial view but it's very real. I don't like hiding the fact that some people regardless of gender are only with the other person because of their wealth. I had that with friends too and now I have none, I'd been under the impression that they were there for something else, they weren't and I hadn't developed the ability to understand that. It's easier with a relationship, I don't enter a relationship blind, I don't believe in monogamy and always have a clear understanding going in. It's been like that with both men and women, I'm a realist especially in this. To be otherwise is to set myself up for a fall.

Men absolutely can be taken advantage of in that same situation, some do fall into 'she or he is with me because they love me', there's no fail-safe for them, they are too invested. Some then go off the deep end and it gets volatile. I think trying to expose that behavior is a lot less dangerous than pretending it doesn't exist. Almost every man I know offline is paying for their relationship, my case is a rare exception, it's reversed but that's complicated too and will always affect my life. I had to learn certain things by example, and there was a safety net there. Men don't talk about their feelings, if someone does them wrong they either internalize it or go on the war-path. Some women too, they seek revenge, which is also volatile.

Escort agencies in London are making hand over fist right now and a lot of those men are being finessed by absolute professionals. We have skyrocketing levels of sexism in my offline/society and a lot of that is because of my nationality, Russian women are generally seen as sexual objects and both often know the score. That's the thinking and it's always been there, more-so now with the erosion of what people call equality, and so both enter with their eyes wide open. England is different, I know of many men who did lose it when they realized they were being played, something clicked. They really did think it was love when it was clear to everyone else that it wasn't. That to me is a dangerous situation, it can lead to real harm. Like I said it's something that most people won't experience, women have to keep their eyes wide open too it can happen to anyone. I see no negative stereotypes there, only different personalities at play and a perceived victim-hood projected by people who haven't been there.

I personally don't like seeing gender weaponized, especially in gaming. I left here after people were labelled perverts and weirdos for liking certain aspects about Stellar Blade. A product they paid for, I see sex no different. If you pay for it then you do you, and you do them so to speak. It's immature and unrealistic for adults to claim that what happens between consenting adults is immoral and if a man does pay for it and doesn't realize then yes he may certainly have been taken advantage of. People also need to understand that certain behavior applies heavily to certain societies, the higher up the ladder you go the more grey certain behavior becomes. It's called gold digging for a reason. We're not normal people, far from it and I'd never claim to be. I'm not saying that I see people as pieces of meat, I do have empathy but I also understand the game, as do most (but not all) players. And I don't have to play that video-game to understand that one either.

Maybe this is lost in translation for me but they were banned from social media for enforcing gender stereotypes? People took a video-game that seriously or is that what social media is like? It's freedom of speech but specific to what you say? 'Want to know if a man loves you? See how much he spends'

That is genuinely how some women see a relationship and how my ex-girlfriend saw me. I knew the situation and was fine with it. Some men too, women keep men around for the same reason, toyboys are very real and we have certain requirements for them too. How many boyfriend experience cafes are there even in Japan? or did they conveniently forget that. Sex sells and people will always buy it, both genders. To think otherwise is unrealistic. It sounds like BBC had nothing better to do that day. They allow absolute slop on the PSN Store, and yet they might remove that game? If anything it addresses something that not a lot of people do get to experience, whether that's a good thing? or a bad thing? That's up to the people involved in said arrangement. They need to focus more on removing actual politics from gaming, not this.

If this is true? 'It's something he's taking very seriously, with authorities in both the US and the UK investigating the situation' then they are bordering on a serious criminal offense by wasting time and dragging the authorities into it.

Directors have been disqualified for less, fines are one thing, misconduct can lead to jail time. It's not the community that they need to be sharing evidence with, it's the Crown Prosecution Service or the Serious Fraud Office and whether they realize it or not by dragging the authorities into it they could soon be dealing with both. It's already fraud by false representation (if untrue) which can be raised to a charge of conspiracy to defraud (there is also a product involved/consumers and investors) Hopefully he isn't serious about having involved the authorities, for his own sake.

Also this 'We’re also using that to share some of the evidence of the sabotage with the community'. You don't share evidence on an ongoing investigation with the public it goes against protecting the integrity of an investigation. Their legal team (if even involved) would strongly advise against that. It's premature disclosure. The legal ramifications of this are fascinating but he really needs to admit that the game was a miss and move on. An actual lawyer needs to sit-down with Mark and explain some things, there's no reset button for what he could be walking himself into.

Best case scenario is that he is a little delusional and could be suffering from corporate delusion, it happens when a CEO or Director overestimates their product/watches it fall flat on it's face and then undergoes a kind of psychological detachment. It's more common than people think. The guy and his madness is more interesting to me than the game ever was. I can't wait to see the evidence.

It's not for me but they call it box-art for a reason. I can't fault someone for wanting that on their shelf or on display, I like the style.

Disco Elysium was one of the most important games I've ever played, I don't say that lightly. I knew going in that I'd be entirely out of my comfort zone but curiosity got the better of me and I'm so thankful that I did try it. I think much like the Metro and Stalker games it takes someone outside but still a neighbour to accomplish what the developers did. That whole post-Soviet Estonian perspective was really special, and I think some of that was possibly lost outside of Eastern Europe. I couldn't get enough of the game, I contacted the Developers asking about merch and ended up with a 700 page book about the politics of the game and it's world. It was a long turgid read but so was the game at times. I'd recommend the book only it was about one hundred and fifty pounds so I doubt anyone will want it.

I look at this new game like I do Palworld. When I bought Palworld I had no dog in that race, I'd seen one Pokemon and now thanks to joesf I can name another five. It never felt like I was ripping off Nintendo, or enabling some kind of underhanded situation. This time it does, I'd like to play the game but I'm definitely going to wait for the reviews. I don't mind buying an Indie if it under-performs. I see so many of those studios as experimental and that's something I like to fund. What happened with ZA/UM isn't. If the reviews are glowing then I'll go for it, if not then I'll pass, wait some time and play Disco Elysium again.

I didn't hate my time with the game, but it's hard to say positive things about it too and that's for a number of reasons. Bethesda were my first introduction to RPGs and RPGs were my first introduction to open-worlds, which is a big reason why I continue to game. I really like interesting and rewarding world design, if a Developer goes to the effort of building an interesting world then I'll most likely try it. My only expectation going in was a fun and varied world to explore, they talked about so many planets, and my thinking was that those planets would have something worth doing there, they didn't (for me at least)

Yes there's a story there, and all of those characters but I personally play games like that for the world design/exploration and at the time it felt too linear and vacant for my liking. It had the familiar jank of a Bethesda game (which I'm fine with) but lacked in the kind of charm that goes with it. I think sterile would be the correct English term. That's how those procedurally generated landscapes felt to me, maybe that's part of their intended design? That's where I'd use the world dull, I believe it fits.

That's not to say they can't improve on the game. That was Xbox, I tried it on PC too and enjoyed it more with Mods but the Modding community shouldn't be responsible for breathing more life into your game. It should be there from the start. I don't think they should have advertised the game the way they did, had they been upfront about there being so much emptiness I'd probably have held off and waited a couple of months. Instead I played it day one expecting what they promised (as I'm sure others did) and was disappointed. I'll eventually test it on PS5 but I'm in no rush, and if others are? The world is kind of topsy-turvy right now and if getting lost in space takes some Folks away from that for a while then more power to them. Maybe they'll find in it what I didn't.

Seven is definitely fair, I played through it twice on Xbox and never thought I'd see it come to PS5 but here we are. I can certainly see myself picking it up again. It was really quite unique, hopefully more people give it a try.

@DennisReynolds I was hoping a third one was in the works? I'm currently playing the first one and I think the second one will be next. It's already one of the most unique games I've played, they really know how to build a world along with everything in it. The series must be a lot more niche than I thought. Unless you mean they are making a third one and slowly removing the human element/the real creativity behind the game.

@Boomers-r-us That's okay I could be nefarious too and you'd never know, three hundred is a lot though. Thirteen years fits too, I've never counted how long I've been gaming for. I think six years, not that long. The Resident Evil and Final Fantasy is old threads really sunk in how long people have been doing it for, I think I like going backwards in console generations more than forward so that helps with quality at least. Other than Indies I tend to avoid most new games, I need to start making some careful exceptions. What do you think was one of the hardest platinums you've gotten?

@Boomers-r-us Lucky guess, I don't think I went for one hundred percent. I still can, as with most Indies on Plus+ I tend to buy the game itself to support the Developers. I was probably a couple of trophies away from completion, it's an easy game to return to if I need to. Hopefully more people try it before it's gone. How long does it take to get over three hundred platinums?

Dave the Diver was so much better than I ever expected. The characters were so likable, the colours and setting were so relaxing and the game-play loop was the right amount of grind without it becoming a pain or even a chore.

@Boomers-r-us Is it one of the three hundred platinums you mentioned?

I thank my lucky stars that I don't mind gaps between my platinums, it has to be fun not just rewarding. If not both I tap out and move onto the next game. I haven't looked at the trophies for Kingdom Come Deliverance, it's one of those the journey is worth more to me than the destination kind of games.

@Globo Is that 'I still believe from Lost Boys?'

I'll probably give it a week or two and then wipe my save and start anew. I only put about three hours into it day one, they already fixed the map issue and that's what broke my initial save. I did like what I saw but Kingdom Come Deliverance is quickly becoming of the best games I've ever played and I waited eight years to play that. Another couple of weeks won't be the end of the world. The bugs didn't sour the game for me, I've played games that were a lot more broken. I'm glad they are paying attention to the base model too, anyone who puts money down for a game deserves the best possible experience.

@Onearmbandit Another trick you could use it to keep redoing the pickpocket training quest with Peschek until he stops offering the option. I put on a movie (The Gate 1987, thirteen year old Stephen Dorff with some demons) and kept doing it, maybe twenty times until he put the foot down. It also trains stealth.

@Onearmbandit I'm going at it three hours per night, give or take missing a few. Most of that Groschen came from going town to town/village to village then letting myself into peoples homes while they slept. It's easy to gently choke them out as they sleep and easy to practice pickpocketing on sleeping people too. The same for drunks, I wait for them to booze it up then empty their pockets. Guards are also a great source of coin, I strip them of everything then encumber walk to the miller and sell it all.

I found a secret side door in Rattay that leads to a hill. I've been Skyrim walking down the hillside with all of the loot, the mill is right at the bottom. The danger is falling. The first time I fell and broke both legs then bled out. The mill is right below, doing it that way dodges the town guards who are always suspicious of me being loaded down with loot.

That's the hill I died on.

@Onearmbandit It can be worse if you spent years learning fencing then play the game and realize that almost everything you learned doesn't apply to combat in the game. Distance management and lunges go right out the window when a man is coming at you with a mace. I've taken to smacking them with a spiked warhammer until I get better with a longsword. I've also been leveling up strength to wield one by punching cows when no ones looking. With a bow it's easy, there are a lot of wanderers on the road and they tend to not suspect anything. Even if they run away they do it in a straight line unlike Jack Black in The Jackal. I can range them a lot easier when they aren't ducking and weaving. I'm paying for my transgressions.

Over one thousand gold, that was three hours worth of activities. If I don't make my peace with God people run away screaming once I enter a town or village and that's bad for stealth. The hardest part about the game was lockpicking and pickpocketing, I've definitely improved.

@Marquez Some tips that might help would be to make sure you have at least one gunner with high impact rounds, a sniper (recon class) with a suppressor is great too, it means less likelihood of being spotted and then having the whole hive come down on you. Pouches are really useful for collecting more items/loot. XP comes more from objectives than actual enemies, it's tempting to camp the Apc for a lot of easy kills but the XP isn't there.

Sergeant is great for boosting command points which are then used to deal more damage, mines are really strong too unless they nerfed them. There's a perk that gives you extra ammo when you rest and rest is needed to keep your squad from freaking out. Sentry guns (like the ones introduced in the Director's cut) are great for choke-points and for dealing with waves. Definitely don't take ammo if you don't need it, they don't extract with it meaning it goes to waste, unlike the medkits. The Apc can drive over turrets if you place them in it's path, I learned that the hard way.

I used a trick with motion trackers where I'd place them near the Apc and as the hive were getting closer to my squad I'd overload the tracker causing the hive to go for that instead and then the Apc automatically took them all out. I think my initial squad was two gunners, one recon and one sergeant. I made sure one gunner covered the front and another the back, Xenos like to creep up on marines.

@Marquez Aliens: Dark Descent gets fun fast, it's the most movie accurate Aliens game I've ever seen. From the sound effects to the interiors and the marine's gear and weaponry. The learning curve isn't that big either and you unlock new drop-points as you progress making returning to the area/facility worth while for anything you might have missed the first time around.

I made sure to name my squad right (Hudson and a couple of the others were dead at that point)

Continuing my journey through 1400s Bohemia in Kingdom Come Deliverance. I'm enjoying my time looting, boozing with wenches, cavorting with bath maidens, putting swords in shiny men, arrows in bandits, offering a helping hand here and there exploring the vast open landscape. Happy gaming weekend Folks.

@SteveJaye My country was mentioned too and the truth is the truth. I might not like certain opinions but people need to be free to make them regardless. You haven't seen the alternative and I have, free speech is very important and it can be taken away overnight. There is a very big difference between a personal opinion and a personal attack. I was alienated for years because of the latter and I still want to hear peoples opinions. They matter.

So yes it 'can' alienate people, the alternative in my experience is worse. You can be anti-anything, refusing to talk about it fixes nothing. And telling others they can't discuss it? I'm on this site because that is my reality, I don't want that for anyone else. The world needs freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Both bring much needed awareness. If I want to read about a game I read a review, if I want to read about hardware I read an article like this. To not expect comments relating to the genuine cause is just not realistic.

@HRdepartment I heard that in the voice of Jack Nicholson.

@anoyonmus If you look for 'The SILENT HILL f (2025) novelization by Kuro Shiro is now fully translated to English' as a reddit thread you should find some links. It's probably one week old at best, it might have links to some of the older translations too. Putting the word 'reddit' beside that above heading should work.

@AdamNovice I have a couple of copies of it for different consoles like PS1, PS2 and of course the Mega Drive movie release. It's one of the only franchises I really want to see made into a modern game. There are so many story-lines they can pull from and I've listened to the radio dramas/audiobooks (there are a lot) so many times while playing other games. It's so easy to see it as a game when it's with the BBC sound library. The scope of one Mega City would be a massive achievement, with block wars etc. Basically a kind of Fallout but Dredd, that build your own robot DLC? build your own ABC Warrior, Far Harbor? DeathWorld with the Dark Judges, Nuka World? Cursed Earth.

Megabonk could do with a PS5 port too, I liked it on the Steamdeck, I'd hope they can pull off the controls on console. Like a lot of PC games I always make the switch when/if they come to PS5. It looks like I'll be making the switch with Mewgenics too.

@get2sammyb It's a really recent translation, I focus heavily on game novelizations/books, it created a stir when it finally showed up. People were asking for a translation since last October, it's out there now on epub/pdf and looks very slick.

The novel has been recently translated too, it takes a while for those official Silent Hill novels to be translated. The physical Japanese ones are easy enough to source but Konami never push them to the West and it's a shame too because they are really well written. This recent translation was made public domain. It's very easy to find. It was maybe a week ago at best that it showed up online.

Looks like an interesting twist on the usual cosy theme. There's something really aesthetically pleasing about the soft focus on the edges too, I imagine it makes it easier to focus on all of the crops/tending over long stretches of time. The lighting, colours and textures are top-notch too. Hopefully it finds it's audience.

I don't recall seeing Zeus in Football Factory, and that's where my knowledge on the subject starts and ends.

@SeanOhOgain It reminds me of Celebrity Deathmatch on PS2, their articulation looks clay-like? almost like stop-motion on a digital background, it's weird either way.

Great choice, I still wish people had gotten to experience Dragon's Dogma 2.

@Jaz007 No it's a sign of taste.

@Othatguy That was my first and only classic Jrpg and it really was something else. I remember saying to myself that I'd do that one next bit before bed that surely it wouldn't take too long. Three hours to a save-point. It was a really interesting game and the combat system was the right kind of game-loop but I thought I'd never see the end. Colourful like you said too. It was a little tricky when the game forced me to switch out team members for specific things but I ended up liking those other characters too. After that was Unicorn Overlord and that turned out to be one of my favorite games that year.

I went out, PSN goes down, I come back PSN returns, I doubt I'd have noticed. There's no internet in 1400s Bohemia. Just a lot of boiled beets and ale.

Run was a bit annoying (yes I've played GTA) combat was fine, I dropped the game for other reasons (a crash devoured 2hrs of progress) I started Kingdom Come Deliverance instead. Sure enough combat also involved the trigger buttons, I didn't struggle with the controls on either games but when it said to press something like L1 + L2 + something else and then do something with light? I thought 'are you serious it's 2AM, Ravix probably has a dragon by now and I just want to get through the door'. Talking to the first NPC took far longer than it should because I was naturally pressing X and the game required L1 + X to interact.

The introduction to whatever I was doing with light? That was over-complicated when it didn't need to be. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs to go platinum I am Bread.

Colour me convinced, one for the collection.

@Yousef- The warm glow of that screen on Zelda is wholesome in ways that I don't have words for.

I decided to start my journey into Bohemia last night and it was well worth the eight year wait. The dialogue was brilliant, humorous and thoughtful. The world design (what I've seen in three hours) was so well built, and the ambience soaked right through the screen. I was nervous about the combat going in, less than an hour later I'd knocked a woodcutter out (after dancing with him for five minutes) then knocked a German out. Two hours after that I'd knocked a guard out and kitted myself out in new armor, a bow, and everything else he had on him. He then woke up in his underpants and stared speciously as I walked off in his armor. Moments like that create real memories and are a big part of why I keep coming back to gaming. I'm really looking forward to seeing and doing more, that's it, short and sweet. Happy gaming weekend Folks.

Also I met some horses. The game needs photo-mode. I made my own, it's by no means perfect, it's for memories.

@Perturbator Seriously one of my favorite games of all time and one that I still play on PS3. I wish they'd remaster it or even add it to Premium. The same for Dantes Inferno, it still plays brilliantly on PS3 but would look great on PS5.

@Tjuz Thank you kindly, I'll try sooner than later. And pass on golf because, golf.

@Divergent95 I don't mind really. I wasn't onboard for the hype. I just wanted to play something current so I could be on the same page as some others on here. Each time I see a new Triple-A game on here I know it looks great but I also know I won't play it. I'm about a decade behind on most franchises and always tap out when they are too narrative driven. Things still get lost in translation. Or it goes so fast that I don't even know what's happening.

Crimson Desert was going to be the exception. I expected little to no story, slow dated MMO style dialogue and it delivered. The same for the no hand holding and janky combat. I wanted all of those things along with that extra offline social side. I can wait weeks or months for them to fix it, but saying that the game isn't that bad. It's by no means a broken mess and I'd hope people don't get caught up in the doom of gloom of it all. Most of the complaints are the exact same issues worded differently. I saw some of those original Cyberpunk bugs, I probably watched an hour compilation of them. Crimson Desert isn't there, it just needs a couple of tweaks, the ability to re-map the controls and the vaseline scrubbed off of the lens, then it's good to go.

I waited five years to play Cyberpunk and thought the most recent version was great, perhaps one of the best games I've ever played. I'm starting Kingdom Come Deliverance tonight. I waited eight years to play that game and now it's all patched up, DLC'd to the rafters and enchanched for PS5. Patience always pays off.

@Tjuz is Lost Records the game you mentioned last month or the month before? I didn't write it down.

@Divergent95 I absolutely agree with this. I saw all of those CyberPunk launch videos/images/memes. What I experienced wasn't that, not even close. My main problem is losing save-data, it's playable. From what I've seen of the base model it seems to be all visual. I saw that exact same muddy/textureless imagery when Snowrunner launched a very early patch and broke the games visual optimization. It looked like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, then three weeks later one patch fixed it perfectly. I believe they were trying to patch in flashing beacons on vehicles and something went wrong.

This was the image someone sent me last night, we called it a Picasso and that's the base model, we were testing our different versions over Discord.

It looks great on Pro but the third crash wiped my save-data. I narrowed my crashes down to the map, memory leak? I'm not up on the technical side of gaming, I seem to remember something similar with Death Stranding 2 where a memory leak overheated consoles? Technically I had four crashes. The first occurred right after the unlock file installed, it caused me to rebuild the data-base.

Other problems on Pro I noticed were flickers of light, strange weather problems/almost like a day/night cycle but sped up. Getting stuck in the ground/map. Either way I deleted the game. I'd feel let-down if I'd been hyped for the game or if I spent what I'd call hard earned money on the game, I know most people do and that's who I feel bad for.

I'm happy to jump back into my janky simulators. I'm aware that some Folks depended on that game to keep them busy for a while. I'm not about to hate on any game or any developer, and I'll probably just keep an eye on this site for updates/patch news and so on. I only lost two hours of save-data which isn't the end of the world, I just find it hard to play any game while that anxiety of it happening again is waiting in the wings. It ruins the experience. When I get back to London I'll test it on the base model too, I want to see both versions for myself.

I'll always call it the PSN, I've never used twitter but still call it twitter. I will make sure to hold onto some PSN/card boxes for the novelty. I need to keep something with the brand name.

Nuked or not I still believe. I need to see what a janky shameless copy of Palworld plays like.

@ErrantRob It took me a while to get him when I joined this site and Czar comes from my language. Then it did click and it was a Keyser Soze moment. After that I appreciated the hustle and still do.

My body is still ready for that unlock later tonight. I need to find out for myself.

@AhmadSumadi Don't be, I've seen none yet. I'll either watch all three then watch four or wait for four and watch all four together. I thought they cancelled the first one after the promo images were nightmare fuel, then didn't think of it again until I saw articles like this one.

@DennisReynolds 'open world fans who want zero handholding and tons of exploration are going to adore this' Thanks Dennis, for doing the leg-work I mean. I'm reading none of those reviews but you made some great points, very informative.