MemSec

@Repo_Dog
I’m glad for you. Still, I can’t explain the discrepancy.

Honest review. Sad, but true...

@Medic_Alert
Sure, but again, multiplayer games have the potential to give you playtime in the hundreds of hours. But I’m sick of seeing the store in AC Odyssey pushed into my face with almost all cosmetics locked behind it. (I know about earnable currency but still).

@Medic_Alert
I agree that Sony should have lowered prices of seemingly smaller games like Returnal and Sackboy. But still I value their approach more than the likes of Ubisoft and Activision, because they atleast don’t sell microtransactions with full price games.

@Medic_Alert
I don’t try to be the mouthpiece of publishers, but I believe there is a discussion to be had about the value of games. While you can’t only measure the value of games through the time you spent with it, it is still the best metric imo. Witcher 3 for me would have been worth a 100€, while Gone Home would have been too expensive even for 5€

@TG16_IS_BAE
People can’t expect constant innovation and growth from games and don’t pay the price in the end. I think this is not sustainable, that’s why indie games with smaller scope but high quality should have a bigger attention. Unfortunately they seem to be trapped by game pass and future subscription models.

@TG16_IS_BAE
While game prices stayed the same for a long time, inflation “loss” was counterbalanced with market growth. Publishers still made more profit year-over-year because of more units sold. Publishers probably saw now the ceiling of market growth thats why they raised game prices to make shareholders happy. “Sustainable growth” my a**

@NEStalgia
On the flipside: thinking that because of technical issues a game is bad, is a very narrow minded approach...

@Floki
Sony and MS has a policy where you can’t only release a game on pro or one x. So cutting out a potential 150 M costumers would have been a huge financial blow. PC and next gen consoles don’t have a large enough userbase to recoup the investment of such an ambitious project. I’ hopeful they can make the base versions decent, but this ain’t it, so they should have delayed them.

@Ralizah
At least we now know why the ps4 pro video showcase was just 1080p 😤

@finalstan
They should have delayed the ps4 and xbox one versions and only focus on pc and next-gen. I assume a multitude of financial reasons were speaking against this, but it would have been the right move. A business is a fickle thing sometimes...

Started playing yesterday on ps5, after 5 hours I decided this game deserves more than to be played in such a low resolution, so I am also on hold until a patch drops, with at least the fidelity mode similar to series x. Had only minor issues, no bugs or crashes, but still I feel I’m missing out on something by playing it with sub par graphics. Sad...

@stinkyx
Hard agree. The biggest shame of Bioware is imo that they let ME:Andromeda go like a hot turd. Sure, the game had many technical problems as well as a bland story and characters, but the potential for something greater was there. If only they made DLC for the game, which could have corrected the course for the series.

I just don't know how to feel about this. Let's hope their solution to saving the franchise is not solely based on taking advantage of our nostalgia.

@Profondo
Yeah, had the same feeling. The art style seems also very different, almost cartoony with the frequent use of bright colors. Had some flashbacks from vanilla Diablo 3... am cautiously lowering expectations...

While I don’t wish to defend the game - which clearly needed more time, especially on consoles - here are some counter arguments to the situation:
It most probably needed to release now because of financial goals, shareholders, forecasts, etc. All game development is driven by financial goals, even (former) fan favorite ones...
Interestingly the most buggy games in history were open world rpg’s with multiple choice and approach gameplay (fallout, skyrim, witcher 3). Maybe there is no state for these kinds of games where it is acceptable to release them, you just have to call it sometime.

@Repo_Dog
A good friend of mine complained to me about it, but after your comment I tested it myself, and sure enough, from the beginning, if you move faster than a crawl the framerate seems to drip into the mid 20’s. It used to be a smooth 30, but now it’s difficult to play.

@LiamCroft
Another major improvement I noticed is the implementation of hdr. This was very poor until now, especially since beyond light a lot of colors were wrong and darks were crushed hard. But since yesterday the game is very vibrant and beautiful.

@Ridwaano
Heavy and frequent framerate drops which were not present on ps4 pro.

@Ridwaano
I’ve heard of similarly poor performance with Dishonored: Death of the Outsider.

@theMEGAniggle
Surely, but some reports suggested the drifting only appaers after couple of hours of use, and disappears after shutdown. That’s why I thought maybe a software fix is possible.

Let’s hope the dualsense firmware update fixes the analog drift issues that started to come up lately.

@djlard
Except some endgame content, most of destiny can be played solo. It is an entirely different question if you should play it...

@nessisonett
Well your comment was specifically referencing the Gamespot review, but no matter, my mistake...

I don’t seem to recall any review catalogueing all trans npc-s (my original question still stands, how would you identify them in the game’s context?), any review discussing this issue seemed to have a negative bias, so I reserve judgement until I play the game.

Regarding the pronouns and voice: what would have been a better solution? A seperate slider where you decide what gender other characters refer to you as, or just get away with this mixed choice altogether? You surely wouldn’t expect rerecording all affected dialogue a third-, gender neutral way would have been a feasible solution? Taking such offence with this issue seems to negate all the positives the game tries to do, that’s why I think expectations are irrational. Also I can’t recall any promise marketing made for trans representation in the game. Maybe media is at fault for reading more between the lines and wishful thinking.

All other things you mentioned have almost nothing to do with the product, they seem to me like squabbles between marketing and media.

@oldschool1987
After they misrepresented my comments in another thread as only criticizing the review for being “too political”, I’m inclined to believe you. I was only trying to have a respectful discussion in a topic which interests me, well what do I know...

@nessisonett
You misunderstood me, I meant no political statement in regards of trans issues, not generally. As you described that would be very meandering and not true to the genre.

What are those tired trans tropes besides the ad already publicised you mean? I haven’t seen or read anything, in the review there was only mention of a minor trans character, without further info.
How does the game skew towards the chasers you mentioned? I’m sure the game may be interpreted however someone likes, if someone wants to fulfill there fantasy I’m sure they’ll be able to. Why do you assume the same couldn’t be true to someone who searches for a positive trans experience in the game?

@nessisonett
I’ve been thinking about our conversation and the following may be an interesting counter-argument.
The review and you criticised the lack of meaningful trans representation. But can we really expect this from a fictional world where seemingly everyone has access to mods and alterations to their body, to change anything they desire with “perfect” outcome, even mix and match body parts? What then exactly would constitute somebody being trans in the context of this fictional world? How would you, or how could (or even should) you identify somebody as trans, or tell the player what each characters sex at birth was?
As far as I know “cyber-dementia” is an integral part of the story and lore, which may be analogue to the issue at hand. The game being only escapism and no political statement may not be the worst scenario for all involved.

I really don’t wish to inflame the conversation, just some food for thought, possibly discussion.

@Odium
I also tried to use the app to start the download but it wouldn’t let me. It turns out after I came home, my ps5 already downloaded the game, still the app does only list it under owned, not played... you probably need to start it for this which is not possible until the 10th.

@nessisonett
We’ll have to see the final product in the end. My problem was, that the review told me very little about the game itself, while checking off every pre-release controversy, just in case. While I don’t wish to lower the importance of such issues, I also don’t think these criticisms are informal and helpful for purchasing decisions.

Maybe I would have liked more info on gameplay, skills, graphics, the world structure, sound and music. My main point is the review is poor in this aspect imo.

The game surely could have used more polish. Let’s hope the bugs get ironed out.

@nessisonett
Regarding the terms from different cultures: it is typical (let’s say a main feature) for cyberpunk (novels, and pen and paper rpgs) to use different foreign words in slang, which may have lost or altered their main meaning. I think it is on purpose. The game has no obligation to educate, imo.

Regarding the trans issue: I think that cp2077 is one of the few games (maybe only AAA title) to even take on the subject and give players different options to express themselves. By automatically putting everything into a negative context, with just a slight possibility to find something offensive, does help no one imo. Surely there could be improvement, but this issue is still very new in the industry, expecting perfect representation which fulfills everyones expectations is unrealistic in my view.

@nessisonett
The Gamespot review lost all relevancy for me after it started to dissect the pre-release trans “contoversy” and how some words from foreign cultures were not correctly used, over multiple paragraphs. On one hand I don’t think dedicating 20% of your review to such issues is relevant and a good use for a costumer advice. On the other, these criticisms only show that the reviewer has a basic lack of knowledge in the genre.
The money grind criticism seems also moot after reading that the person only did little side-content and had to rush the review.

All in all I didn’t find the review informative. Hopefully the game will still be good.

I simply don’t understand how jrpg developers can get away with re-releasing their games with (mostly) minor additions and charging (mostly) full price again. With no upgrade path and save transfer this feels very anti-consumer and arrogant to me. Also this being a switch port shows me they put minimal effort into the ps4 version. The blow would be less painful if at least they would have updated the ps4 graphics.

@DualshockInfinit
A wholly different actor than Solid Snake would be problematic for story reasons...

Also: Lance Henriksen would make a great Revolver Ocelot!

Oscar Isaac may work as a young Solid Snake, I’m just skeptical that he can pull off the gruff voice. Although this was my same worry with Henry Cavill as Geralt and that turned out fine. Not that stoked about the writer. Fingers crossed.

@themightyant
This “paralysis” is similar to when I scroll trough my backlog to decide what to play next. Usually I end up playing something familiar or nothing at all. Few games capture me from the start (like the last of us 2) most need multiple tries and retries before I commit myself to finish them. It used to be so much easier 20-25 years ago, when I could dedicate weeks-months to a single title and 110% everything... ah, good times 😎

@Th3solution
We’re in agreement. Some remarks:
While this site has to survive by generating clicks, which is dependent on recent news, longer term engagement in the comments section is also an important part of a games website. Very few sites have such a healthy and loyal community like PushSquare - which is the main reason it became my main gaming site. This should be more catered to in my opinion and not taken for granted. This piece also suggest to me such a direction is aimed at.

Regarding Sony marketing: I mostly agree, lately they seem like amateurs. (Not just Sony, MS had also major missteps, e.g. I still can’t understand how anyone thought showing off Halo Infinite was a good idea, were they blind, or did they think people are stupid enough that they would get away with it. ) My main gripe is with the lacklustre online service and store design. They try to push for all-digital but seemingly don’t want to invest in a robust ecosystem.

The release schedule is in my opinion a little bit more complex. We don’t know every aspect and dataset which influences the release timing, such as development status, accounting and finance issues, legal stuff, market analytics and releases of the concurence. I can easily imagine that they have proven to themselves, that games like Dreams and Concrete Genie would have sold bad regardless of marketing expenses, so why bother?

Let’s hope these fears of seeming incompetence are not true, still, counter-selection due to corruption and forced diversity goals is a problem in many industries, why would Sony be different.

@Th3solution
I’m aware of this situation, but I also don’t think the article meant that there is too little discussion in the forums. You can always find a good thread on reddit, etc. But still it won’t get the same attention like on recent posts on this site, because you have to actively search or start one.

I was just saying, the people who run this site have the solution in their hands. If they would like to see more discussion of already released games on their main site, then publish more post-launch content for those games. I would be glad if they did.

@ShogunRok @Octane
Agreed. This is mostly the responsibility of the people who run this site. Make more coverage and posts for not so recent games and people will discuss them more. I think there would be much interest and value in something like this. I understand that there is limited bandwidth and new stuff gets most of the clicks, but this would be an essential step from being a hip news outlet to a dedicated games hub. Just my 2 cents...

@themightyant
While I’m also thorough in games that I like, fortunately trophies are not something that hook me. The only time I check all trophies is when my percentage through organic play is high enough that the platinum is achievable. In any other situation trophy lists just take away from my enjoyment, because they turn the game into a chore for me. Still I understand their appeal for some people.

Game Pass on the other hand is too overwhelming for me. Scrolling through the huge list of games I’d like to play from it paradoxically has the opposite effect, I’m “paralyzed” and it takes away any incentive to even start any of them. I also don’t think it’s a healthy direction for the industry and involved devs, so I refuse to subscribe to it on principle.

@PixelRunner
I find it increasingly difficult to balance my time with work, parenting, marriage and gaming as a hobby. But still I want to believe it is possible... The emotional and existential dread of the pandemic does not help either. It’s quite devouring...

@TheRedComet
You may be right. Let’s hope Sony finds a way to fix the problem. I’ll doubt we’ll be informed about the cause either way.

@mrmartinrohr
I know the feeling, but I won’t admit it to myself, there is always hope...

@PixelRunner
Mine will be 2 years old in a couple of weeks, so I feel you. Only gaming in the evening... When thinking about my backlog I always console and motivate myself by telling myself that I’ll have plenty of games to play during my pensioner years 😀

Unfortunately I’ll never not have a backlog... being the result of this hobby, some disposable income and (relatively) too little time to game... and the heavy impulse to buy any game which may seem to interest me.

My ps5 only once crashed for me, after I put it in rest mode running demon’s souls. I could only restart it after it rebuilt the database, taking around 15 minutes. It seems to me the problem is not specific to any game, but some bug in the system software.

Haven’t played it, but I remember the screenshots in magazines from the game were gorgeous back in the day!
Unfortunately this remaster has the usual ugly mobile aesthetic...

@carlos82
True. Also I would like to know when the upgrade will be released. I hope not more than 3 months. They truly fumbled their communication leading up to release, which may have hurt the accumulated goodwill they have from fans.

@carlos82
This is not accurate. The currently referenced statement of CDPR is of save transfer between the ps4 and the bc ps5 version (which is basically the same). It nowhere states anything about the native ps5 version.

The real question is: is there gonna be a save transfer feature between the bc and the native ps5 version?

@oldschool1987
There is not yet a separate deals section, but you can find these deals on the ps5 store front page under a featured banner since friday.