KidRisky

I fled Netflix three or four price hikes ago. HBO Max offered a good selection, and the ad-supported tier cost me only $6/month after a credit card rebate. The ads are usually 30 seconds about every half hour. Everything was fine.

I don’t care so much about the WB games, although I really enjoyed Hogwarts Legacy. But I need to go make sure I turned off auto renewal on my Max subscription .

If you’ve done this kind of sale roundup before, I’ve missed it. It’s a great help, because try as I might to check all the sales the smaller games get lost in the mix.

I don’t have any reason to buy one of their games in the first few years after release. Let them figure out whatever added content they will package into it, let the dust settle, wait another year, then buy at a deep discount because it’s such an old game now.

I have tentatively planned to play Metaphor over Christmas of 2029.

@EfYI That’s why I downgraded to Essential in June. I kept piling on unplayed games either bought on sale or received through Essential, and playing Extra games before they left. If I ever get my backlog down to a manageable size, I might go back to Extra for a year. In the meantime, it’s liberating to play the games I want to play for a change.

I’ve left the higher tiers for Essential, but would have liked getting Still Wakes the Deep and Thank Goodness You’re Here, as they’re both in my wishlist. Just trying to get my backlog to a manageable level (<25 games? Is that even possible?) before buying much of anything, barring a great deal.

I will keep my eye out for this. Could be a fun time.

I’ve enjoyed both previous games, but preferred the first because of Date. Fun, unique puzzle elements that aren’t too taxing, good replay value (requirement to see different endings for the platinum).

This was the best announcement of the show, I thought. I had been hoping for something from RGG, but this will do.

@Balaam_ Sorry you’re getting responses that seem oddly aggressive. I’m not sure where the hostility is coming from. If I read you right, you only want to play games that you would enjoy playing to 100%. So you do that, and then additional trophies are added at a later date that don’t just expand the game, but change the very nature of the gameplay. Is that right?

I don’t care about getting 100%, but if you think of that metric the same way many people do about platinum trophies (just as arbitrary an achievement) I can certainly imagine an uproar over having a platinum trophy revoked because dlc was added—especially if the dlc introduced and required a new style of play.

It’s surprising that the resources needed to finish 50% of the DLC would have prevented RDR2 from being made.

I’ll probably try to platinum the PS4 version of Stray. If that one trophy doesn’t kill me first. Other than that, nothing I want here.

I haven’t played the game, and I understand there’s been a lot of fair criticisms, but if every game publisher were as transparent with their sales data as Capcom, wouldn’t we see this kind of drop off all the time?

It seems like, whatever your intentions, you’re explaining to your readers why it’s rare to get accurate data about sales.

I boycott everything that I have no interest in. And that goes double for this.

Can’t Cat-ch Me was so frustrating. I must have tried 100 times, rage-deleted it, then got it pretty quickly when I saw it was leaving Extra.

It’s a very good game with good visuals, a nice story, and you’re a cat. It’s not a walking simulator, I’d call it a puzzle-platformer,

The only thing PlayStation could do to persuade me to buy a PS6 at launch would be to announce they’ll be following this generation’s strategy of ramping up the price over its lifetime.

I appreciate seeing the actual figures.

If there’s a star rating system, then it makes sense to post reviews justifying the rating you give. I don’t see the downside, unless it’s just too difficult to see opinions you disagree with. The solution to that problem is to ignore the reviews, and then your experience won’t change one bit.

MS knows people won’t pay this. They’ll gladly take the money from the few who do, but the middle tier is where they’ll end up. If first-party games show up within a year, that’s better than PS Plus Extra (where’s Knack 2, PlayStation?) but at a much higher price.

I’m down to PS Plus Essential now, and for the same reason I wouldn’t be on the middle tier of GP: I don’t want to play every game available, and by the time they get to the service they’ve already gone on sale. With my backlog I can wait until a price is too good to pass up.

For all the crap you get for rating games 7/10, at least your 9s mean something.

How gracious of PlayStation to allow us to purchase overpriced merchandise! Did Viva la Dirt League come up with this idea?

@windxtravelerx I missed this when it came out. Thanks for mentioning the demo— going to take a look at it.

@Muscleblackcop I think you have me confused with someone else.

This is the first month this year that all 3 games appeal to me.

I was excited until you said the VR version isn’t included.

I requested one refund: Yooka-Laylee & the Impossible Lair. I bought it on the app, but when I told it to download to my PS5 it told me it was incompatible. I started with customer service on the app, then had to switch to a phone call. Then I was told it would be have to be resolved by a supervisor and was given a ticket number.

After a week I called back, angry that something so straightforward was such a problem, only to be told that the refund had been processed the same day I spoke to someone. They don’t bother sending an email when the issue is resolved.

All told, it took a little over an hour—and a week of aggravation—to get back the $5. The new system seems like it will shave off maybe 5 minutes at the beginning. The non-aggravating part, in other words.

No torture porn for me, thanks.

“ Just to be clear, this is not an MMO, and is not to be confused with Black Desert, as it so often is.”

Thank you! I’d been skipping news about the game that’s been littering my PS Store sale page for years. I didn’t know why everyone was so excited about a new update, and didn’t care to know.

Sony knows exactly what games I like to play yet the store only recommends genres I have no interest in. “Recommended For You” might just as well read, “Profitable For Us.”

@wilky2988 Not having the ratings in the app is ridiculous.

To rate games on the console you need to own it (or have it through PS Plus) and it may need to be currently installed. If you click on the three dots below the game’s tile, you’ll see a few options including follow and rate the game. I got into the habit of unfollowing and rating games after I finish them, before deleting them.

@homelesscretin The camera placed so close to Senua really makes you feel vulnerable to off-screen enemies. You need to really rely on the voices, and with headphones on and the whispered warnings right in your ears the immersion is perfect.

And the game’s a visual feast on the base PS4. I can’t wait to play the new version

The combat in Little Nightmares 2 was my least favorite part of the game. It was so frustrating to me. I hope it’s improved in this game, or really minimized. Stealth + puzzles + atmosphere + stellar art design + intriguing story - combat = must-play.

The only game I’ll be trying is Lies of P. I played Bloodborne for a couple of hours years ago and since then I’ve avoided all souls-like games. (Unless SW Jedi Fallen Order counts, but that wasn’t too hard.) I also avoid any games that promote themselves as brutally hard, hardcore, or punishing. I know my limitations.

I’ll try it on easy, though.

I really enjoyed the first two, but tried a couple of times to play 3, and just didn’t like it. I’ll wait for reviews, and maybe a deep sale.

My interest was piqued by the trailer, and I’ll be keeping my eye on it. Nice to see an interview here; hearing directly from the developers gives insights that no trailer can convey.

@rusty82 See, Sony? The program works perfectly!

@LifeGirl When I upgraded to PS Premium for a year, I was interested in the game trials. I got so aggravated at a game that popped a trophy early, before I’d decided whether or not I wanted to play it, that I never played a trial again.

No one is taking this game away from anyone who bought it, they are not going to offer it for sale any more. There’s a difference.

@Nakatomi_Uk That one is acting weird. Try clicking the dots and view product then click the dots again and select version, and one of the versions can be added. I think that’s what I had to do.

I only watch YouTube on PS5. It allows me to play at 1.25x speed, which the app on my TV doesn’t allow. I rarely use it for other streaming services, because the PS5 input is optimized for gaming, not the settings I prefer for movies.

It must be because I have a Sony Bravia TV, but my TV’s remote works just fine with all of my PS5 apps. (Also browsing the PS5 store, or whatever. Anything that doesn’t require the shoulder buttons works fine.)

I really wanted to play this on PSVR, because I’d enjoyed the developers other games and it seemed right up my alley. But I believe it required Move controllers, and mine never worked properly. My hands would be zooming off in all different directions, no matter what room lighting I’d use. Buying games that required them was just throwing money away.

Would definitely buy this on PSVR2.

I just moved down to Essential from Premium and it’s been liberating. I no longer feel the pressure to play all the games that are leaving the service every month, instead of the games I’d actually want to play.

As someone who has only played Fall Guys online, I could easily do without PS Plus at all, but I still have a hefty amount of unplayed monthly games. I’ll assess their value plus whatever they add in the next year when it comes time to renew, but I don’t think I’d ever upgrade again.

If you want to know how I’d improve the service, I’d want fewer online multiplayer monthly games in essential, especially annualized microtransaction-filled sports titles. Fewer mid-level AAA games, and more lesser-known indie games.

Until the paragraph starting, “For those who aren’t familiar…” I understood nothing. I think I understand enough now, but it seems more like a style of game suited to a mobile device.

Artists study anatomy. Nothing to melt down over.

I’d been reading the game’s name as Digimon/Story Time/Stranger, but now I realize it’s Digimon Story/Time Stranger.

This changes everything.

Nice to hear there’s a free upgrade for the original game. I think I bought that at $30 when it came out, so the next game is 67% more? From the reviews, I can’t see it being worth that much. I’ll play the original again and wait for a deep sale.

So funny to see The Last Guardian pop up, because I thought about going for the platinum this week, using a walkthrough for the collectibles. I spent about a half hour trying to get that animal to move near the fifth barrel I needed and deleted the game.

I really loved that game but wow, it’s frustrating.

@MrPeanutbutterz Abject is used as a negative intensifier, but it doesn’t mean failure, “abject failure” means extreme failure.

I enjoyed Digimon Survive well enough. I’m new to turn-based combat having first tried it in Sea of Stars. Turns out I enjoyed it, so I played Jeanne D’Arc and liked it even more. I’ll be looking out for this, but probably not until after I try Clair Obscur.

When I bought a PSVR2 on sale a year ago, I was swayed by VR games coming to PS Plus Premium, and the hope that Firmament would be ported over.

I dropped to Essential two weeks ago, but this news makes my day. Cyan’s been having financial problems recently, so I may make this a rare “Day One” buy.

@__Seraph I don’t see the word “territories” in the article. Has it been edited? It says “hundreds of countries” in the subhead, and “hundreds of locations” in the article. The first is impossible, the second is vague.

It seems like double counting to include a country and each of its territories separately.

@SeaDaVie That helps. I don’t use Steam so I’m not familiar with their systems. I just knew that PSN had to be available in more than 20 countries.

Can a researcher use his or her Steam account from their home country while they’re stationed in Antarctica? If so, is this a problem?