MasterChiefWiggum

Stray and EA WRC 24 are both games that I’ve wanted to play, and almost bought, so great month for me! The third one looks like crap, though.

Highly doubt that anyone is “happy” paying for online gaming. But I’ve been doing it since the 360 era, so I’m used to it. And the “free” games and cloud saves are nice value (though Microsoft offers the latter for free, as far as I know). I highly doubt Sony will make it free; too much money to be made and too much of a hassle. Also, Sony are showing their arrogance this gen and know they’ve got a lot of us by the short and curlies. They’ll just tout the “great value” of PS Plus and continue to charge for it (and increase prices of course). Having said that, the “free” games this year have been a noticeable step up in quality. But why not also give away some older PlayStation exclusives as well (like Returnal, Demon’s Souls, etc.)?

@Ken_Kaniff Yeah, I’d actually rather have that than 2 or 3 (with split screen Firefight, please!)

FINALLY! A game that uses the power of the PS5!

Great month for me. Looking forward to Stray and EA WRC.

If Microsoft hadn’t been so greedy and gone on a massive shopping spree, they wouldn’t be doing this. They’re doing it because they HAVE to do it. Still, it’s a good outcome for PlayStation gamers, so hooray!

Would way rather have SC2, but this (depending on the price) ain’t bad!

Looks great! Don’t care about lack of PvP as I don’t really play that anymore. Two niggles: they missed a trick by not making it FOUR player splitscreen (though I know people don’t actually get together to game as often as they did), and…the price. Not announced yet, but if they get greedy and charge full price for this, I’ll wait until it’s on sale. If they’re smart and price it at $40 ($50 max), I’m there day one.

My excitement is muted a bit by the fact that they’re not putting the Master Chief Collection on PS5. That’s all I really need. But hey, there’s more money to be made by releasing them separately, so that’s what Microsoft is gonna do.

If I still had my old job, which involved WFH and a lot of "hurry up and wait", I would totally buy a portal. Alas...right now I just don't have the need.

@Skippermonkey I feel like all of the first party stuff really knows how to use that SSD for lightning quick load times.

@Warldorf I really wanted to like it and on paper it checked so many boxes but…yeah. Fell far short. Glad I’m not alone!

Found this massively overrated TBH. Too many enemies swarming (while cool from a technical standpoint) make it impossible to time parries, and there’s just too much of a reliance on melee in general. Then again, loads of people loved it, but it wasn’t the “Gears-a-like” I was hoping for.

I don’t mind them modernizing the game with sprint and ADS at all. What I do mind is that the feel and the flow of the game and the controls overall will likely be altered, and there’s something really special about the way that first game plays.

@AndyKazama Same. They’ll look just fine on PS5 and the MCC would sell like hotcakes, but Microsoft are being greedy and will likely sell the games piecemeal to fleece gamers.

Not original thoughts, but 2027 is way too soon for next gen. This gen has barely started proper, the hardware advantages are likely to be less pronounced than previous gens (diminishing returns indeed), and devs are still struggling to make games in a timely fashion. Ah well…cross gen for next gen will be even longer than this gen (if the experts at Digital Foundry are correct), so I’ll likely stick with PS5 for at least five more years.

Nah. Military shooters (especially PVP) just make my eyes glaze over now. Too busy playing Borderlands 4 anyway!

Take your time, fellas. I don’t think many people (if any) are in a big rush to get to the next gen, considering how slow and underwhelming this one has been. I think we’re going to (finally) really start seeing the PS5 strut its stuff as it’s a mature platform now and hopefully there’ll be less hindrance from cross gen to PS4.

@get2sammyb I don’t get it either. As you say, nice for the hardcore players as they can relax and have a chill match. Meanwhile noobs and older players like myself will just get stomped and not want to bother anymore. I feel like Halo did skill based matchmaking really well, where matches were often intense but you weren’t just getting wrecked by no-lifers. Another reason to skip Call of Duty (again) this year.

Bungie have made some great games, but most of those devs are gone. I still think that the studio is very talented, but they need to stick a fork in D2 and start working on something else (that isn’t Marathon, which is not going to be a hit). Get them off the GAAS treadmill and get them making something like Halo, with a solo/coop campaign and a suite of multiplayer modes.

Borderlands 4 has been so much fun! The shooting feels better, the open world is full of things to do and collect, the loot is more interesting with the combination of different weapon parts, and the vault hunters are the best ones yet. My game of the month (and possibly year)!

Love this! Kudos, Sucker Punch!

I’d rather they just patch it to run at 60 fps and maybe bump the framerate a bit. But who am I kidding? Rockstar want you to pay.

@Fiendish-Beaver Agree with your first point, but I still think Microsoft will see it worthwhile to release one more console because they don’t want to be seen as totally abandoning their fans and letting the brand die, but, more importantly, as I mentioned, they’ll lose even more Game Pass subscribers if they don’t have a current gen console.

I think Microsoft is definitely going to release one more generation of consoles. They need to keep selling Game Pass, and keep people using it. A lot of people don’t want to switch to PC for gaming, and Microsoft would lose many of those people to Sony. And I agree that PS6 has to be a good machine because Sony are competing with social media and smartphones for entertainment dollars (which makes me gag, but that’s not important). Also think that, no matter what PS5 to PS6 cross gen will be longer than PS4 to PS5 due to less of a leap in power, increasing costs, and the fact that this generation has suffered from few compelling games that necessitate the upgrade to PS5 (though GTA 6 next year will likely cause a huge uptick in PS5 sales).

PS4 will still be around for a long time. Cross gen releases continue (though they are dwindling), many “forever” games are still on PS4 and run well, and, most importantly, current gen consoles are just too expensive for the relatively small graphical improvements they offer (in my opinion, the SSD is the REAL game changer this generation). I also agree with Digital Foundry that cross gen between PS5 and PS6 will likely be even longer. And I’m OK with that. PS6 is also not going to offer the kind of graphical leap we saw back with PS1 to PS2 to PS3.

“A good story well told” is all I’m asking for. Really, as long as the gameplay is good (and it’s great in Sony games), that’s what I’m here for. Revenge and grief are major drivers in many plots, so it’s not surprising to see them come up often in Sony games. Hell, we need more games this generation from Sony, period. THAT’s what people should be complaining about!

That’s true of pretty much any series: if they don’t sell, they stop making it. Not sure having the dev come out and say it will help, but hey, in this economy, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.

Terrible company; yes (in terms of consumer "friendliness"). Don't know what they're doing: they've made some massive blunders, certainly, but are still making great stuff. Blowing it in the games business: definitely not, in spite of the above. Somehow, they're hugely successful. Pachter generally doesn't know what he's talking about though. He's been crowing about the end of consoles since before the PS4.

@Slideaway1983 Oof. It sure ain't fixed for him! My friends and I have been lucky, in both solo and coop, with no showstopping bugs.

Well, they’ve been locking characters behind a paywall for years now, so this tracks.

The game is largely fixed on PS5, for what it’s worth. And it’s great fun!

Nah, I’m good. Sony are getting enough money from me with their subscription service.

Nice! No need for 3 if they can stabilize 2 and keep building on it. They’ve done a good job so far.

Looks great! Loved Tsushima, so will definitely be picking this one up.

@Brynjir Exactly. PS5 Pro is an incremental power increase, so don’t expect miracles.

Firstly, anyone following the development of the pro knew it wasn’t going to be anything close to the leap from PS4 to PS4 Pro. Secondly, it’s still hamstrung by the CPU which only got around a 10% bump. Thirdly, as I recall, it’s not selling as well as the PS4 Pro did, therefore the incentive for devs to support it likely isn’t as strong. Add all that up, and people are bound to be disappointed but they shouldn’t be all that surprised.

Couple more weeks = (hopefully) more polish.

Fairly short. Man, Sony have a LOT of catching up to do on the non Live Service front (aka: games I might actually play).

Borderlands 4 has its hooks deep in me. I’ve been a huge fan of this franchise since the beginning. The open world feels epic, and I actually love the “Ubisoftification” of the game, with loads of things to do as I’m driving around and discovering things, checking out new loot, and levelling up my clone witch Vex. I’m 53, and these games come out roughly every six years or so. And I’m unable to find work (my wife bought the game for me this time). Will this be my last Borderlands game? I hope not, but even if it is, I’ll be enjoy it for years to come. I was having so much fun last weekend that I actually was able to forget all of my troubles and lose myself in the game. This is the power of a good game. Like any great art, it transports us away from the world and all of its worries. Now: time to log back on!

I wish they’d do something with it just so people shut up about it.

“Death spiral: see: Xbox”. They’ve shot themselves in BOTH feet. Wait until GTA6 comes out and Microsoft learns that a rising tide won’t lift THEIR boats.

Loving it so far. The open world fits the franchise like a glove, and it’s easy to get distracted moving around the world by all the stuff on the map (which I love; always the sign of a good open world). The performance does start to drop after a few hours, but, as mentioned, quitting to the menu and restarting fixes it. Other than that, performance has been very good, though I’ve heard it’s actually worse on PS5 Pro for some reason (which is what the reviewer played on). There are a few bugs which will get ironed out and some dumb design decisions, but for every fumble there are two or three great additions or changes. Can’t wait to jump back in this weekend.

@Slideaway1983 I’m old too, and think the FOV is fine. I’d probably experiment with it if they manage to get the slider working without tanking performance but…I have my doubts.

@Splat …and the second is fix the memory leak and patch the bugs. I have my doubts that they’ll get the FOV slider working; I think performance will buckle.

Happens on base PS5 as well. Annoying, but I just quit to the menu and restart and it’s fine again for awhile. There are a few other annoying bugs (vending machines not appearing, marking the wrong items as trash, bounty targets not appearing), but overall the game is great fun. Still…they probably shouldn’t have moved the release date up.

Not a very exciting update for me. There are a lot of things I’d rather see them work on, from the dashboard to the MP3 player (yes, I know I’m in the minority regarding the latter, but that’s OK, I can dream)

@Johnnycide Oof. That’s a shame. I love Gears (though I admit for the campaign and Horde mode; never got on with PvP).

That’s a shame; it could probably be made with a smaller team. However, I wouldn’t want it made at the expense of the “Ghost of…” series.

SNIKT! Time to pop dem adamantium widow makers, bub!