Fully relying on AI to design concepts from the ground up is the most egregious way to use it personally. The ai is just going to take aspects from everywhere it was taught and use it however it desires. It's just not the same as real artists talking about specific influences for their art. It's directly taking aspects and mixing them up in the hopes of being unique enough
Not interested in gta6 myself unless they really fix their gameplay. Rdr2 got away with the slower pace because it fit narratively and thematically. Not so much gta
People who don't like Yakuza just shouldn't play it then. There are so so many games out there being released it seems silly to be trying to stop these Devs from creating games in a franchise that it's fans desperately love coming back to every time
@SleepyNick I think they just hope 'any publicity is good publicity' works out. The first game sold well enough and was considered a good if not great souls like attempt. Considering other games in the genre like lies of p, black myth wukong and stellar outselling them by a noticeable margin they probably think they need something extra to bump early sales figures
@Matroska I'm not disagreeing that men in many other franchise's have been dressed similarly. More pertinent would be how are the men in this game dressed? Are there revealing male clothing? Is there as much fully armoured gear for both genders as there is revealing etc.
Recent studies show that gaming is now almost completely split between male and female and that over 90% of young adults and teenagers of both genders are interested in gaming and see information about it through multiform media.
If they are evenly represented so should the representation of the bodies of both genders. It would be wrong to be ok with massive, peak physical condition men in games with nearly topless armour without feeling the same for female characters (though they represent less peak physical characteristics often and more peak aesthetics, they just overlap in male characters)
Personally I just wear what matches the build I'm going for... That being said I do prefer my end game builds to be with armour that looks like it represents what it provides. I always seem to have less issue with mage characters with lower armour tiers wearing armour that at least looks elemental in design. Give my tanks some ARMOUR and my rogues something that would let them meld into shadow
There is a lot more nuance to it than most surveys are capable of providing. I wouldn't say exclusives do not matter. That would just be factually untrue.
I do think exclusives have never mattered less than they do right now. There was a time when most older gamers were young that the only thing to talk about when it came to games was the ones you could play on your console.
Kids shared experiences with Pokémon and it stuck through a low of life to keep us all invested even as the series exists with a lower quality standard than most.
Comparatively now I have children in my life who will tell you all about a game. On a console they don't own. Because they watched people talking about it and feel compelled to be involved. Children who decide their console on what is the 'correct' choice based on the internet and their algorithms.
This was never a possibility even 2 generations ago. Sony have such a lead that it in itself is a cultural pressure on anyone trying to decide where to go with gaming. As do Nintendo in their own tangential sphere of gaming. As does pc for it's own. 3 tangential spheres just separated enough to exist separately despite the overlaps.
Looking purely at Microsoft Vs Sony as the two main home console choices. Microsoft lost the generation that the online world took off in. Any decision they make, good or bad, will forever be fighting an uphill battle that didn't exist in similar generations prior.
They continuously tried to beat people to the next 'thing'. All digital, home entertainment system (streaming services), AR, cloud gaming, game streaming etc. but always do so before audiences are even remotely ready for such things to be mainstream. Get backlashed, then often see it become the more common years down the line. As I expect to be the case for 'mainstream' gamers with cloud gaming/game streaming soon
@tangyzesty yeah people vastly underestimate that this and the rise of online groups being the reason Xbox lost the generation that was more important than any other last gen.
Yeah it was starting with the 360/PS3 gen but online libraries and ecosystems truly took off on the outset of the next gen. Microsoft could make dozens of fantastic first party games but for most people that would only ever elevate them to the position of 'second console' and there just isn't as much money in that as you aren't getting the 3rd party sales.
I'm an old gamer who spans every gaming medium. I don't care where I own a game regardless of performance (within my own reason of tolerance). I'll buy it where I find it cheapest or most convenient or I'll buy it wherever I'll be most likely to play with a friend group
@TheArt I'd hardly say E33 was over glazed. Some all time great games just are one and done games. It's certainly no weaker than bg3 imo. I love bg3 but if it had been released with as many bugs and exploits as it had by any of the mainstream western Devs it would've been marked down much more heavily, especially for the act 3 performance (though the majority of players never actually reached act 3 funnily enough).
Personally I'd also lump rdr2, it takes 2 and astro bot (the weakest goty in a long time imo) as one and done games for most players. People put far too much stock in game length as true metrics of 'value' that's why we get so much bloat in gaming and people who like to play as many great games as possible actually loved requiem , pragmata and even E33 as an RPG for not overstaying their welcome
@somnambulance I disagree about the strength of E33 as a game. I just think it's very much a one and done (or two) kind of game for most people because the story beats just hit best that way. Most games I have ever replayed have been for gameplay, co-op, random generation or build crafting. E33 is just pretty linear story wise. RE has more play throughs you can jump into over multiple sessions instead of just absorbing all at once like we did with E33. I also really love that E33 doesn't do all the typical RPG bloat side quests which made it a much more palatable experience and kept the story beats from getting too far apart.
Let's not forget that 2025 had silksong, kcd2, Hades 2 and death stranding 2. Not a super weak year by any stretch
As much as this is my go to site for news it's probably one of the sites I have to take every review with a pinch of salt for. With a few exceptions almost every Sony first party review here is higher than the metacritic average and the rest sit below average. Everything from crimson desert, to the sublime resident evil requiem and pragmata getting 7 or 8s whereas near every Sony title gets a 9 or 10
@MrPeanutbutterz the number of arguments I've had with people who don't seem to fully grasp the scale of Xbox messing up the start of the Xbox one/ps 4 era. The era that truly solidified the idea of a long term library, fried groups, entire eco system. No matter what Xbox does right as it stands for most people with a playstation they will only ever have a chance to be a second console.
No level of 'true' 1st party games (if they somehow decided to ignore pc) is realistically flipping it. Not at the output modern developers are capable of. And certainly not with the level of toxicity present in today's internet culture
@Carnage I love Jeanne d'arc as a game but really wish they didn't leave the man who did horrendous things to children historically as a protagonist. Hasn't helped it age well
Doesn't seem quite the right shape and layout for the Tokyo area of Japan. As far as coastline and lake placements go anyway. Seems like it must be more inspired by with specific locations matching up instead
Starfield wasn't for me largely because i prefer more fantasy sci fi than their more grounded take on it. I can tolerate a LOT of jank in games by virtue of just having been gaming for a LONG time. I typically love Bethesda games as I find them generally comfortable and fairly free in the way you play it.
It's most certainly not a 'trash' game. Generally I don't think bugs or jank make a game trash unless they are game breaking and happen commonly enough to be so. I'll take a janky game with heart over a polished bland game every day
I give it the exact same 7/10 I give ghost of tsushima. And this is the 7/10 that's more a mid tier game than an ok game.
Both had good enough stories buried in them with mediocre traveling and combat. Though 1 has a boring intro and the other it's basically the best part of the game. 1 guess which is which.
If you like deeper sci fi fiction I really did enjoy the way starfield does Ng+ so there is that.
I hope the new updates fix my main issues with it and being it to an 8+/10.
I think people proclaiming this game as trash are being ridiculously hyperbolic because of personal preferences instead of raw game criticisms. It's got issues but fundamentally it is not a bad or trash game
Great game at a refreshing length. A solid 8/10 for me. Most of the low tier metacritic scores on user side just read as near rage bait imo so the 6.8 on there is not indicative of the game at all compared to the 77 critic review
@Herculean not to mention that those he kept have reported working conditions banned in many western countries. Some made to do 12 hour shifts 7 days a week and beds were put into the offices to be booked by employees.
And then look at the history of outages across just 2025 and 2026, we've had 2 this year already
@Max_the_German I agree there should be a physical working copy, however I think they would prefer it to be post final dlc gold edition rather than set too much of a precedent that you won't get disc version on Xbox but will on playstation if you wait. A good edition on disc later on both consoles makes more sense there. Especially in their pockets if people bought digital then buy physical (not that that's a good way for them to look at it ofc)
@Fiendish-Beaver gears tactics was one of my favourite games of it's type. Really nailed taking the best aspects of xcom and weaving it into gears. I wish it got more expansions and dlcs that change the game like xcom 2
@Fiendish-Beaver with all the content releases it's easily one of the most underrated games to play with friends. An absolutely fantastic set of pve game modes
@Titntin true but the implementations are opposite. Xbox targets you with discounts on genres you have spent on previously. It's 'almost' rewarding. Sony is, from all examples I've seen, giving discounts to lower spenders hoping to make them spend and letting the people willing to spend more (their most supportive base) just continue to do so unrewarded.
Both are bad, but the way they are implemented has different degrees of bad
Period accurate hair with a reasonable reason for a woman adopting a mans haircut means that it doesn't detract at all for me personally. But I literally hadn't even heard of the game before today. Having literally been at a medieval exhibition, and a separate samurai exhibition in the same weekend I came home and was looking for medieval/samurai games to play. Settled on reattempting to get into ghost of tsushima, bounced off it again after another 12 bored hours. Might have tried this if I'd known. But guess I'll wait and see if any patches make it feel better to play
Social media would make you think this game was so much worse than it actually was lol.
Xbox is 3rd on my console list (I have all 3) but I played it. Recognised it was good but wasn't what I wanted from a game at the time and comfortably went to find something I wanted to play at the time (think it was like tactics ogre or something).
The comments section on this site was pretty bad for it. Even now while it sits on 83 on metacritic (yes the user scores are lower but cmon it was getting largely review bombed as the big Bethesda game to be console exclusive) people will still call it bad and praise games I personally found to be worse like stellar blade or rise of the ronin
I simply do not understand how people can call an 8/10 game mid. 7/10 is where if any game hits I at least look into if the pros and cons match my preferences.
Many many games that were 8/10 have been so positively received here. Stellar blade? Black myth wukong?
@UltimateOtaku91 on a Sony site? Plenty of people are here to defend Sony and plenty are here looking for reasons to dump on them. Same with any and every group out there. A 78 is solid.
It's always a solid score to start with before people start matching whether or not the game suits their preference.
I think the people coming here to dump on the game for a good but not top tier score are just silly. Especially when it's only critics scores so far
@nomither6 well to put it simply compare xboxs meagr player base to steams player base. So % wise how much of each player base was even willing to give highguard a try at f2p. And yet steam concurrent players is regularly used as a sign of overall popularity
1. It's a game in a franchise I love and tend to collect physicals for - Pokémon, Yakuza spring to mind
2. A game impressed me enough that I want to own a physical copy (usually limited edition at that) and support the devs twice over.
Most of the time I buy digital. I have several hard drives (hdd for older titles to save money) of old games so I'll never need to worry about redownloading I less something destroys my hard drives. just as possible to happen to physical discs and on the past I've paid an arm and a leg to re purchase a personal favourite because I wore the physical version out.
Delistings etc rarely come, rarer still without prior warning to download it and back it up. And in the worst of worst case scenarios I will pirate the game guilt free knowing I supported the game originally.
Finally I like digital for day one playing. Worst feeling is booking time off work for a new release and then having the physical copy delayed while the internet and my friends are playing away
@Scottyy even before game pass was announced, especially in its original, backwards compatibility focused start the Xbox one sold less than half the PS4 numbers.
Relying on strong first party games when ofc playstation also had strong first party games coupled with the entrenched communities for FIFA and cod that had developed on playstation, the latter boosted by exclusive promotion wasn't going to push the majority of players back to Xbox.
Pulling away from the kinect and TV focused stuff to push out an originally 'consumer first' version of game pass while buying studios to increase first party output was literally about as much as was feasible in the timespan they used.
The top AAA games of the time were taking half a decade to develop. Doing a full 180 midway through the Xbox one era while already behind was literally impossible. I don't think it was handled perfectly at all but I firmly believe simply emulating the pre online culture mindset would have gotten them nowhere
@DennisReynolds fire red/leaf green low-key become near top of my anticipated soon releases... Again. Now I just need to sit down and find a team I haven't already beaten the game with in the past
@Scottyy personally I don't think the old styles and simply releasing good 1st party games would've been enough to change anything for Xbox downward trajectory. They simply lost the most important generation.
The generation where people began getting entrenched in a growing digital library and digital friend groups. The Xbox intention of winning the next phase of gaming in the future of 'cloud based gaming' coupled with becoming a digital platform across all places to play was their only hope and the tech wast there yet before ai rose to be the next focus point
Majority of gamers don't buy many games a year and stick to live service social gaming. And will continue to do so on the platform the rest of their friends are on
Yakuza 3 was the one that almost gatekept me out of the franchise with it's combat and pacing issues. Kiwame 3 fixes most of these. It might not be perfect, and it certainly doesn't carry the nostalgia of the original but it is still leagues above most games released nowadays and anything less than an 8 is just people looking for reasons to be butt hurt
My opinion to this day is that Xbox was doomed before Phil took over. And even through all his not always good decisions he was playing what little hand he had.
The generation he turned up in it was already too late. They missed the dawn of online social and digital gaming. Once people had a library and their friends were on an online ecosystem it becomes much harder to drag them away.
And Sony had momentum. No matter how Phil tried to roll back the kinect, TV centric stuff they would bleed numbers the whole way. Numbers that got firmer and firmer as digital libraries and communities grew. Those left playing on Xbox are largely there because they themselves have this community and library. Nintendo meanwhile have some of this but more importantly stay adjacent to it. Always the 'secondary console'
Phil has done what he could to save a dying brand. Even if now it is in publisher form for someone else to destroy.
@ButterySmooth30FPS I agree of course. I don't buy games based on reviews. I have had decades to learn my wide and yet somehow narrow preferences in games and I know to look for them in videos. For many normal gamers reviews matter. Be it online articles or influencers. The fact that reviews are less reliable than the old days still seems apparent to me and something I can lament
@graymamba if you had actually managed to grasp the entire point of my original post you would see that I was specifying the 7/10 region for a reason.
People do NOT look at 9-10/10 and decide a game is simply worth less value of it's a cheap game at that range. When you do so you open the doors for worse and worse infringment.
Eventually you end up with comments like 'astro bot can't be goty, it's only a platformer'.
When a game is solidly above 9.0 it is a good game worth buying. That is the entire consensus and point. Games like slay the spire and hollow knight are in no way worse games than Spiderman 2 simply because of production value and graphical fidelity. (Exactly same metacritic scores)
That train of thought is entirely why publishers bloat games and justify that bloat as a reason to inflate price.
Case in point all the mid ubisoft games. You aren't buying quality. You are buying bloat, production value and a brand name. Cost == end quality even if it makes the starting lines different
Meanwhile the 7/10 range is so muddied that whether a game is objectively good or bad in that value is impossible to say. It becomes entirely subjective in that area which was my entire point and my point of comparing games of different publishers, genres and budgets.
Finally I don't think you understand just how hard it is to actually give what you say any value when you end almost every reply to someone with condescension, if it wasn't the entire tone of the reply as you did to other people here. It's like watching a interviewing grifter telling someone that they would agree with him if only they were on their level.
@graymamba why shouldn't review scores be objective? What should a fresh consumer go deep diving knowledge wise for before trying to read review scores?
Is there a set of rules that say a 7/10 is good if x,y,z conditions are fulfilled but bad if it has a,b,c? I think pentiment and yotei are both great games deserving of the score that they received and see little issue with comparing them in review score alone. Of course gamers can be expected to at least know what genre they are looking for which of course separates them but what else should they know going in?
Should they know to add a 1.5 to a game by X company because it always gets review bombed even if good. Or minus 1 to any rpg from japan just in case traditionalist reviewers still think of the old days?
A review isn't telling stories about why a game needs this score. It should simply be a review on how the game plays and what genre it is. Full stop. There shouldn't be any background reading into a 'whole story'
@ButterySmooth30FPS comparing sons of Sparta to lets say south of midnight by Microsoft which have similar review ratings and the online talk about both is very starkly different. A lot of people who claim no camps will see the same scores and tout that as being okay for one and bad for the other. In both directions. Even the likes of avowed at 7.5-8 is treated worse than sons of Sparta in many circles despite (in my opinion) being a better all round game
7/10 is the most annoying score imo. Third the 7/10 games should be lower and third should be higher. This is in the 3rd category that actually is a 7/10.
Solidly average which in itself feels disappointing as a solid Sony IP and exclusive. I've played far better recent 7/10 games that are msft exclusives. Though I am a primarily ps gamer now. Other 2 systems just being for exclusives.
Getting back to 7/10, people here defending a 7/10 as good are the same people that will laugh at a 7/10 if it's from a company they don't back. Just based on what I see on this site
@Max_the_German it was the highest placed single player title in one list and a single place behind the goty single player game in the other list. Not exactly sure what point you think you are managing to make
@get2sammyb personally I feel that outside of critic reviews that any game simply published under a negative social media spin tends to simply review at least 5-10% lower than critics scores if not more.
Compound in that the people most likely to exist in comment sections and review sites are those most involved in those media talks and you will just see than consensus online versus both reviewer and average gamer opinions is just plain different.
Microsoft is hit very hard by these motions. I firmly believe both of the last 2 obsidian rpg releases have much lower public review scores on metacritic and public consensus than if they had simply released under their own power. As much as I too largely dislike the cod machine I don't truly believe the latest title is a 1.9 kind of game
This is also extremely evident in the review scores of several Nintendo releases recently such as legends z-a and mario kart world where online backlash translated to significantly lower review scores and sentiment but definitely don't reflect the mindset of their targeted audiences and their reflected sales figures.
I would say Sony have their own fake share of this happening when controversy does arise as has happened with some last of us releases or forbidden west. But it's very common on Sony releases to even have public review scores exceed that of the critic reviews scores.
@themightyant the flight mechanics and the vertical level design truly were genuinely very good mechanically in a vacuum.
As a big (old) destiny fan I was very prepared for a live service western mmo styling. And I believe the gameplay was serviceable enough. I don't really think the game was far from being a worthwhile game if it just had better direction in the short and long term as well as a better release and a less loaded set of studio names backing it.
Reminds me of halo infinite that itself has very very good traversal, gunplay and overall feel but was letdown by a lack of direction and content on release for multiplayer as well as very negatively viewed publishing and dev teams
Comments 182
Re: Lies of P Dev Is Making Headlines, But Not for Reasons Anyone Wants to Hear
Fully relying on AI to design concepts from the ground up is the most egregious way to use it personally. The ai is just going to take aspects from everywhere it was taught and use it however it desires. It's just not the same as real artists talking about specific influences for their art. It's directly taking aspects and mixing them up in the hopes of being unique enough
Re: PlayStation Urges PS4 Players to Upgrade to PS5 for GTA 6
Not interested in gta6 myself unless they really fix their gameplay. Rdr2 got away with the slower pace because it fit narratively and thematically. Not so much gta
Re: Stranger Than Heaven Is a Yakuza Series Origin Story, Out on PS5 This Winter
People who don't like Yakuza just shouldn't play it then. There are so so many games out there being released it seems silly to be trying to stop these Devs from creating games in a franchise that it's fans desperately love coming back to every time
Re: Lords of the Fallen 2's Idea of Female Armour Is Downright Embarrassing
@SleepyNick I think they just hope 'any publicity is good publicity' works out. The first game sold well enough and was considered a good if not great souls like attempt. Considering other games in the genre like lies of p, black myth wukong and stellar outselling them by a noticeable margin they probably think they need something extra to bump early sales figures
Re: Lords of the Fallen 2's Idea of Female Armour Is Downright Embarrassing
@Matroska I'm not disagreeing that men in many other franchise's have been dressed similarly. More pertinent would be how are the men in this game dressed? Are there revealing male clothing? Is there as much fully armoured gear for both genders as there is revealing etc.
Recent studies show that gaming is now almost completely split between male and female and that over 90% of young adults and teenagers of both genders are interested in gaming and see information about it through multiform media.
If they are evenly represented so should the representation of the bodies of both genders. It would be wrong to be ok with massive, peak physical condition men in games with nearly topless armour without feeling the same for female characters (though they represent less peak physical characteristics often and more peak aesthetics, they just overlap in male characters)
Re: Lords of the Fallen 2's Idea of Female Armour Is Downright Embarrassing
Personally I just wear what matches the build I'm going for... That being said I do prefer my end game builds to be with armour that looks like it represents what it provides. I always seem to have less issue with mage characters with lower armour tiers wearing armour that at least looks elemental in design. Give my tanks some ARMOUR and my rogues something that would let them meld into shadow
Re: Gamers Still Pick Consoles for Exclusives, New Data Finds
There is a lot more nuance to it than most surveys are capable of providing. I wouldn't say exclusives do not matter. That would just be factually untrue.
I do think exclusives have never mattered less than they do right now. There was a time when most older gamers were young that the only thing to talk about when it came to games was the ones you could play on your console.
Kids shared experiences with Pokémon and it stuck through a low of life to keep us all invested even as the series exists with a lower quality standard than most.
Comparatively now I have children in my life who will tell you all about a game. On a console they don't own. Because they watched people talking about it and feel compelled to be involved. Children who decide their console on what is the 'correct' choice based on the internet and their algorithms.
This was never a possibility even 2 generations ago. Sony have such a lead that it in itself is a cultural pressure on anyone trying to decide where to go with gaming. As do Nintendo in their own tangential sphere of gaming. As does pc for it's own. 3 tangential spheres just separated enough to exist separately despite the overlaps.
Looking purely at Microsoft Vs Sony as the two main home console choices. Microsoft lost the generation that the online world took off in. Any decision they make, good or bad, will forever be fighting an uphill battle that didn't exist in similar generations prior.
They continuously tried to beat people to the next 'thing'. All digital, home entertainment system (streaming services), AR, cloud gaming, game streaming etc. but always do so before audiences are even remotely ready for such things to be mainstream. Get backlashed, then often see it become the more common years down the line. As I expect to be the case for 'mainstream' gamers with cloud gaming/game streaming soon
Re: Gamers Still Pick Consoles for Exclusives, New Data Finds
@tangyzesty yeah people vastly underestimate that this and the rise of online groups being the reason Xbox lost the generation that was more important than any other last gen.
Yeah it was starting with the 360/PS3 gen but online libraries and ecosystems truly took off on the outset of the next gen. Microsoft could make dozens of fantastic first party games but for most people that would only ever elevate them to the position of 'second console' and there just isn't as much money in that as you aren't getting the 3rd party sales.
I'm an old gamer who spans every gaming medium. I don't care where I own a game regardless of performance (within my own reason of tolerance). I'll buy it where I find it cheapest or most convenient or I'll buy it wherever I'll be most likely to play with a friend group
Re: Expedition 33 Gets Free PS5 Content Update as It Turns One Year Old and Surpasses 8 Million Sales
@TheArt I'd hardly say E33 was over glazed. Some all time great games just are one and done games. It's certainly no weaker than bg3 imo. I love bg3 but if it had been released with as many bugs and exploits as it had by any of the mainstream western Devs it would've been marked down much more heavily, especially for the act 3 performance (though the majority of players never actually reached act 3 funnily enough).
Personally I'd also lump rdr2, it takes 2 and astro bot (the weakest goty in a long time imo) as one and done games for most players. People put far too much stock in game length as true metrics of 'value' that's why we get so much bloat in gaming and people who like to play as many great games as possible actually loved requiem , pragmata and even E33 as an RPG for not overstaying their welcome
Re: PS5 RPG Expedition 33 Is One Year Old Today, and There's a Free Content Update to Celebrate
@somnambulance I disagree about the strength of E33 as a game. I just think it's very much a one and done (or two) kind of game for most people because the story beats just hit best that way. Most games I have ever replayed have been for gameplay, co-op, random generation or build crafting. E33 is just pretty linear story wise. RE has more play throughs you can jump into over multiple sessions instead of just absorbing all at once like we did with E33. I also really love that E33 doesn't do all the typical RPG bloat side quests which made it a much more palatable experience and kept the story beats from getting too far apart.
Let's not forget that 2025 had silksong, kcd2, Hades 2 and death stranding 2. Not a super weak year by any stretch
Re: Saros (PS5) - Housemarque at the Peak of Its Powers with Its Best Game Yet
As much as this is my go to site for news it's probably one of the sites I have to take every review with a pinch of salt for. With a few exceptions almost every Sony first party review here is higher than the metacritic average and the rest sit below average. Everything from crimson desert, to the sublime resident evil requiem and pragmata getting 7 or 8s whereas near every Sony title gets a 9 or 10
Re: Mar 2026 USA Sales: Pokémon-Powered Switch 2 Finally Beats 5-Year-Old PS5
I don't have or like cod but all I ever hear online is that it's dead???
Re: PS Plus Value Called into Question as Xbox Slashes Game Pass Price
@MrPeanutbutterz the number of arguments I've had with people who don't seem to fully grasp the scale of Xbox messing up the start of the Xbox one/ps 4 era. The era that truly solidified the idea of a long term library, fried groups, entire eco system. No matter what Xbox does right as it stands for most people with a playstation they will only ever have a chance to be a second console.
No level of 'true' 1st party games (if they somehow decided to ignore pc) is realistically flipping it. Not at the output modern developers are capable of. And certainly not with the level of toxicity present in today's internet culture
Re: 'I Saw How It Was Getting Damaged': Ex-Bethesda Exec Goes to Town on Xbox's Mistreatment
@Carnage I love Jeanne d'arc as a game but really wish they didn't leave the man who did horrendous things to children historically as a protagonist. Hasn't helped it age well
Re: Forza Horizon 6 Japan Map Revealed, Iconic Locations Teased
Doesn't seem quite the right shape and layout for the Tokyo area of Japan. As far as coastline and lake placements go anyway. Seems like it must be more inspired by with specific locations matching up instead
Re: 'The List Is Crazy': Starfield Support and Updates Will Continue Following PS5 Debut
Starfield wasn't for me largely because i prefer more fantasy sci fi than their more grounded take on it. I can tolerate a LOT of jank in games by virtue of just having been gaming for a LONG time. I typically love Bethesda games as I find them generally comfortable and fairly free in the way you play it.
It's most certainly not a 'trash' game. Generally I don't think bugs or jank make a game trash unless they are game breaking and happen commonly enough to be so. I'll take a janky game with heart over a polished bland game every day
Re: Here's Why Starfield Will Be Best on PS5 When It Finally Releases Next Week
I give it the exact same 7/10 I give ghost of tsushima. And this is the 7/10 that's more a mid tier game than an ok game.
Both had good enough stories buried in them with mediocre traveling and combat. Though 1 has a boring intro and the other it's basically the best part of the game. 1 guess which is which.
If you like deeper sci fi fiction I really did enjoy the way starfield does Ng+ so there is that.
I hope the new updates fix my main issues with it and being it to an 8+/10.
I think people proclaiming this game as trash are being ridiculously hyperbolic because of personal preferences instead of raw game criticisms. It's got issues but fundamentally it is not a bad or trash game
Re: South of Midnight (PS5) - The Most Beautiful Simple Game
Great game at a refreshing length. A solid 8/10 for me. Most of the low tier metacritic scores on user side just read as near rage bait imo so the 6.8 on there is not indicative of the game at all compared to the 77 critic review
Re: As PSVR2 Dies a Slow Death, One of Its Best Devs Confirms Mass Layoffs
I've played several great vr games. But releases just didn't keep up
Re: Iconic Devs Say the Industry Feels 'Crashier' Now Than the Actual Video Game Crash of the 80s
@Herculean not to mention that those he kept have reported working conditions banned in many western countries. Some made to do 12 hour shifts 7 days a week and beds were put into the offices to be booked by employees.
And then look at the history of outages across just 2025 and 2026, we've had 2 this year already
Re: Starfield PS5 Won't Play Off Physical Disc without a Download
@Max_the_German I agree there should be a physical working copy, however I think they would prefer it to be post final dlc gold edition rather than set too much of a precedent that you won't get disc version on Xbox but will on playstation if you wait. A good edition on disc later on both consoles makes more sense there. Especially in their pockets if people bought digital then buy physical (not that that's a good way for them to look at it ofc)
Re: See More New PS5 Games from Xbox in Bumper June Showcase
@Fiendish-Beaver gears tactics was one of my favourite games of it's type. Really nailed taking the best aspects of xcom and weaving it into gears. I wish it got more expansions and dlcs that change the game like xcom 2
Re: See More New PS5 Games from Xbox in Bumper June Showcase
@Fiendish-Beaver with all the content releases it's easily one of the most underrated games to play with friends. An absolutely fantastic set of pve game modes
Re: Here's What a Jak & Daxter PS5 Remake Could've Looked Like
17 years since the last entry means it wouldnt trigger my remaster/remake issues...
Re: PS5's Dynamic Pricing Debacle Appears to Extend to the US Now
@Titntin true but the implementations are opposite. Xbox targets you with discounts on genres you have spent on previously. It's 'almost' rewarding. Sony is, from all examples I've seen, giving discounts to lower spenders hoping to make them spend and letting the people willing to spend more (their most supportive base) just continue to do so unrewarded.
Both are bad, but the way they are implemented has different degrees of bad
Re: PS5 Players Seemingly Skip Marathon as Sales Estimates Look Very Weak
@RBMango Paul Tassi has released a Forbes article saying these numbers similarly match what his sources in bungies have told him
Re: Mini Review: 1348 Ex Voto (PS5) - An Intriguing But Disappointing PS5 Console Exclusive
Period accurate hair with a reasonable reason for a woman adopting a mans haircut means that it doesn't detract at all for me personally. But I literally hadn't even heard of the game before today. Having literally been at a medieval exhibition, and a separate samurai exhibition in the same weekend I came home and was looking for medieval/samurai games to play. Settled on reattempting to get into ghost of tsushima, bounced off it again after another 12 bored hours. Might have tried this if I'd known. But guess I'll wait and see if any patches make it feel better to play
Re: Xbox's Starfield Rockets to the Top of the PS5's Pre-Order Charts
Social media would make you think this game was so much worse than it actually was lol.
Xbox is 3rd on my console list (I have all 3) but I played it. Recognised it was good but wasn't what I wanted from a game at the time and comfortably went to find something I wanted to play at the time (think it was like tactics ogre or something).
The comments section on this site was pretty bad for it. Even now while it sits on 83 on metacritic (yes the user scores are lower but cmon it was getting largely review bombed as the big Bethesda game to be console exclusive) people will still call it bad and praise games I personally found to be worse like stellar blade or rise of the ronin
Re: Crimson Desert's Mixed Reviews See Dev's Share Price Drop Almost 30%
I simply do not understand how people can call an 8/10 game mid. 7/10 is where if any game hits I at least look into if the pros and cons match my preferences.
Many many games that were 8/10 have been so positively received here. Stellar blade? Black myth wukong?
Re: Crimson Desert's Mixed Reviews See Dev's Share Price Drop Almost 30%
@UltimateOtaku91 on a Sony site? Plenty of people are here to defend Sony and plenty are here looking for reasons to dump on them. Same with any and every group out there. A 78 is solid.
It's always a solid score to start with before people start matching whether or not the game suits their preference.
I think the people coming here to dump on the game for a good but not top tier score are just silly. Especially when it's only critics scores so far
Re: Flop FPS Highguard's Stats Show Steam Concurrents Are Just One Piece of the Puzzle
@nomither6 well to put it simply compare xboxs meagr player base to steams player base. So % wise how much of each player base was even willing to give highguard a try at f2p. And yet steam concurrent players is regularly used as a sign of overall popularity
Re: Flop FPS Highguard's Stats Show Steam Concurrents Are Just One Piece of the Puzzle
The fact that Xbox had higher stats than pc says a looooooot more
Re: Physical Game Sales Hit All-Time Low in the US
For me I buy physical in 1 of 2 situations.
1. It's a game in a franchise I love and tend to collect physicals for - Pokémon, Yakuza spring to mind
2. A game impressed me enough that I want to own a physical copy (usually limited edition at that) and support the devs twice over.
Most of the time I buy digital. I have several hard drives (hdd for older titles to save money) of old games so I'll never need to worry about redownloading I less something destroys my hard drives. just as possible to happen to physical discs and on the past I've paid an arm and a leg to re purchase a personal favourite because I wore the physical version out.
Delistings etc rarely come, rarer still without prior warning to download it and back it up. And in the worst of worst case scenarios I will pirate the game guilt free knowing I supported the game originally.
Finally I like digital for day one playing. Worst feeling is booking time off work for a new release and then having the physical copy delayed while the internet and my friends are playing away
Re: Original Xbox Creator Shares Brutal Opinion of New Leadership, Believes This Is the End of Xbox
@Scottyy even before game pass was announced, especially in its original, backwards compatibility focused start the Xbox one sold less than half the PS4 numbers.
Relying on strong first party games when ofc playstation also had strong first party games coupled with the entrenched communities for FIFA and cod that had developed on playstation, the latter boosted by exclusive promotion wasn't going to push the majority of players back to Xbox.
Pulling away from the kinect and TV focused stuff to push out an originally 'consumer first' version of game pass while buying studios to increase first party output was literally about as much as was feasible in the timespan they used.
The top AAA games of the time were taking half a decade to develop. Doing a full 180 midway through the Xbox one era while already behind was literally impossible. I don't think it was handled perfectly at all but I firmly believe simply emulating the pre online culture mindset would have gotten them nowhere
Re: Wait! Some Fans Will Be Playing Horizon's Divisive PS5, PC Multiplayer Game This Weekend
@DennisReynolds fire red/leaf green low-key become near top of my anticipated soon releases... Again. Now I just need to sit down and find a team I haven't already beaten the game with in the past
Re: Original Xbox Creator Shares Brutal Opinion of New Leadership, Believes This Is the End of Xbox
@Scottyy personally I don't think the old styles and simply releasing good 1st party games would've been enough to change anything for Xbox downward trajectory. They simply lost the most important generation.
The generation where people began getting entrenched in a growing digital library and digital friend groups. The Xbox intention of winning the next phase of gaming in the future of 'cloud based gaming' coupled with becoming a digital platform across all places to play was their only hope and the tech wast there yet before ai rose to be the next focus point
Majority of gamers don't buy many games a year and stick to live service social gaming. And will continue to do so on the platform the rest of their friends are on
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties?
Yakuza 3 was the one that almost gatekept me out of the franchise with it's combat and pacing issues. Kiwame 3 fixes most of these. It might not be perfect, and it certainly doesn't carry the nostalgia of the original but it is still leagues above most games released nowadays and anything less than an 8 is just people looking for reasons to be butt hurt
Re: Phil Spencer Stepping Down, Sarah Bond Leaving Microsoft in Huge Xbox Shake-Up
My opinion to this day is that Xbox was doomed before Phil took over. And even through all his not always good decisions he was playing what little hand he had.
The generation he turned up in it was already too late. They missed the dawn of online social and digital gaming. Once people had a library and their friends were on an online ecosystem it becomes much harder to drag them away.
And Sony had momentum. No matter how Phil tried to roll back the kinect, TV centric stuff they would bleed numbers the whole way. Numbers that got firmer and firmer as digital libraries and communities grew. Those left playing on Xbox are largely there because they themselves have this community and library. Nintendo meanwhile have some of this but more importantly stay adjacent to it. Always the 'secondary console'
Phil has done what he could to save a dying brand. Even if now it is in publisher form for someone else to destroy.
Re: Sony Makes Shocking Decision to Shut Down Bluepoint Games
This is a studio that has legitimately pretty much put no foot wrong... Right? I'm pretty sure that's right. And they aren't even safe?
Re: God of War: Sons of Sparta (PS5) - Series' Boldest Bet Is Also Its Slowest Burn
@ButterySmooth30FPS I agree of course. I don't buy games based on reviews. I have had decades to learn my wide and yet somehow narrow preferences in games and I know to look for them in videos. For many normal gamers reviews matter. Be it online articles or influencers. The fact that reviews are less reliable than the old days still seems apparent to me and something I can lament
Re: God of War: Sons of Sparta (PS5) - Series' Boldest Bet Is Also Its Slowest Burn
@graymamba if you had actually managed to grasp the entire point of my original post you would see that I was specifying the 7/10 region for a reason.
People do NOT look at 9-10/10 and decide a game is simply worth less value of it's a cheap game at that range. When you do so you open the doors for worse and worse infringment.
Eventually you end up with comments like 'astro bot can't be goty, it's only a platformer'.
When a game is solidly above 9.0 it is a good game worth buying. That is the entire consensus and point. Games like slay the spire and hollow knight are in no way worse games than Spiderman 2 simply because of production value and graphical fidelity. (Exactly same metacritic scores)
That train of thought is entirely why publishers bloat games and justify that bloat as a reason to inflate price.
Case in point all the mid ubisoft games. You aren't buying quality. You are buying bloat, production value and a brand name. Cost == end quality even if it makes the starting lines different
Meanwhile the 7/10 range is so muddied that whether a game is objectively good or bad in that value is impossible to say. It becomes entirely subjective in that area which was my entire point and my point of comparing games of different publishers, genres and budgets.
Finally I don't think you understand just how hard it is to actually give what you say any value when you end almost every reply to someone with condescension, if it wasn't the entire tone of the reply as you did to other people here. It's like watching a interviewing grifter telling someone that they would agree with him if only they were on their level.
Re: God of War: Sons of Sparta (PS5) - Series' Boldest Bet Is Also Its Slowest Burn
@graymamba why shouldn't review scores be objective? What should a fresh consumer go deep diving knowledge wise for before trying to read review scores?
Is there a set of rules that say a 7/10 is good if x,y,z conditions are fulfilled but bad if it has a,b,c? I think pentiment and yotei are both great games deserving of the score that they received and see little issue with comparing them in review score alone. Of course gamers can be expected to at least know what genre they are looking for which of course separates them but what else should they know going in?
Should they know to add a 1.5 to a game by X company because it always gets review bombed even if good. Or minus 1 to any rpg from japan just in case traditionalist reviewers still think of the old days?
A review isn't telling stories about why a game needs this score. It should simply be a review on how the game plays and what genre it is. Full stop. There shouldn't be any background reading into a 'whole story'
Re: God of War: Sons of Sparta (PS5) - Series' Boldest Bet Is Also Its Slowest Burn
@ButterySmooth30FPS comparing sons of Sparta to lets say south of midnight by Microsoft which have similar review ratings and the online talk about both is very starkly different. A lot of people who claim no camps will see the same scores and tout that as being okay for one and bad for the other. In both directions. Even the likes of avowed at 7.5-8 is treated worse than sons of Sparta in many circles despite (in my opinion) being a better all round game
Re: God of War: Sons of Sparta (PS5) - Series' Boldest Bet Is Also Its Slowest Burn
7/10 is the most annoying score imo. Third the 7/10 games should be lower and third should be higher. This is in the 3rd category that actually is a 7/10.
Solidly average which in itself feels disappointing as a solid Sony IP and exclusive. I've played far better recent 7/10 games that are msft exclusives. Though I am a primarily ps gamer now. Other 2 systems just being for exclusives.
Getting back to 7/10, people here defending a 7/10 as good are the same people that will laugh at a 7/10 if it's from a company they don't back. Just based on what I see on this site
Re: Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter Gameplay Comparison Is Absolutely Crazy
After finishing chapter 1 completely I probably won't buy this 2nd one. I just found almost every aspect of chapter 1 underwhelming 🤷♂️
Re: 'Respect the Original, But Don't Rely on It': Yakuza Kiwami 3 Director on Remaking a 'Rough' Game
Has one of my favourite Yakuza plots but yeah gameplay is rough
Re: Most Downloaded PS5 Games of 2025 Revealed, as Xbox's Forza Horizon 5 Tops Ghost of Yotei
@Max_the_German it was the highest placed single player title in one list and a single place behind the goty single player game in the other list. Not exactly sure what point you think you are managing to make
Re: Hellblade Dev Plotting a More Gameplay Focused Successor, Presumably for PS5
@get2sammyb personally I feel that outside of critic reviews that any game simply published under a negative social media spin tends to simply review at least 5-10% lower than critics scores if not more.
Compound in that the people most likely to exist in comment sections and review sites are those most involved in those media talks and you will just see than consensus online versus both reviewer and average gamer opinions is just plain different.
Microsoft is hit very hard by these motions. I firmly believe both of the last 2 obsidian rpg releases have much lower public review scores on metacritic and public consensus than if they had simply released under their own power. As much as I too largely dislike the cod machine I don't truly believe the latest title is a 1.9 kind of game
This is also extremely evident in the review scores of several Nintendo releases recently such as legends z-a and mario kart world where online backlash translated to significantly lower review scores and sentiment but definitely don't reflect the mindset of their targeted audiences and their reflected sales figures.
I would say Sony have their own fake share of this happening when controversy does arise as has happened with some last of us releases or forbidden west. But it's very common on Sony releases to even have public review scores exceed that of the critic reviews scores.
Re: Talking Point: Did ANTHEM Deserve the Hate?
@themightyant the flight mechanics and the vertical level design truly were genuinely very good mechanically in a vacuum.
As a big (old) destiny fan I was very prepared for a live service western mmo styling. And I believe the gameplay was serviceable enough. I don't really think the game was far from being a worthwhile game if it just had better direction in the short and long term as well as a better release and a less loaded set of studio names backing it.
Reminds me of halo infinite that itself has very very good traversal, gunplay and overall feel but was letdown by a lack of direction and content on release for multiplayer as well as very negatively viewed publishing and dev teams
Re: Talking Point: Did ANTHEM Deserve the Hate?
@PuppetMaster I absolutely adore jade empire. One of the most underrated gems in gaming