Olmaz

Damn how good was the PSP Go! I still rock one for all my emulators on the go. Pocketable, powerful, slick, all digital, just an incredible little device.

@NeonTiger "this is my favorite story put to any medium by a long shot"

Ok, so we've restricted "any medium" to games and movies (I guess I can safely add series too?).

I can't vouch for what you've seen, but you're really telling us without irony nor sarcasm that TLoU2's story was your favorite, even including every movie ever made?

Do you mean that it's your favorite even though it's not the best (for whatever reason, we all love bad/mid things sometimes, guilty pleasures and all that), or do you think it's the best story you've ever experienced?

@NeonTiger A bit hyperbolic there, aren't you? But tastes are what they are, so I won't argue about your liking of TLoU2 story, it's evident quite a lot of people liked it, even if I don't.

But agree with your take on adapting a game to another media. I think we haven't managed to step up to the point where we can accept that some games are just better at telling a story in a gripping and talented manner thanks to their interactive part. So people are still adapting games that shouldn't be adapted, thinking they'll get something better than the original because of a "nobler" art.

@NeonTiger That's a good take, imo. People adapting games to other media seems to forget that the best games are the one where the gameplay and the story mix together to make something better than its parts.

God of War III is a perfect example of this : 3 games of pure violence where you unleashed your inner rage following Kratos' revenge path, for it to end at a point where your blindness to your own action is revealed, as the violence, and the game, only ends if you stop hitting Zeus. A masterpiece of blending gameplay, story and message.

While I wouldn't praise TLoU2 as much for this, I agree the story was lacking but it was mitigated by your active investment in the world and the characters, whereas in the TV show, you have to suffer through the characters...

Oh another Last of Us article where stating the obvious will not be possible?
Everyone knows exactly why (and there are multiple reasons) less and less people are watching this show...

@Ravix Please, that's a weak argument : you have to buy buggy expensive games at launch or gaming is done. Really?
First, there always will be launch day buyers : the misinformed, the addicted, the loyalists, the average buyer, etc... So the risk of no one buying games at launch is null. And even if a large number of customers were to shy away from launch day purchase, you'd find out that suddenly, AAA games could in fact launch in a stable state for 60$€.
Then, and this was my point, I disagree with a knowledgeable gamer buying a game at launch when it's buggy, lacking content and exprensive, as they can wait a few months and enjoy a cheaper, fuller and less buggy game. If you so buy at launch nowadays, you've knowingly bought an incomplete buggy mess at full price, so you should stop complaining and start waiting for deep sales.

@gamer153 Really, you have no backlog, no weird hole in your selective game collection to fill with an older game?
May I ask what your tastes in game are to be that selective you have nothing else to play when a new Assassin's Creed comes out? (no sarcasm, I'm genuinely curious, I love to learn how people approach the hobby differently)

@gamer153 While I agree with you about the state of modern gaming (and I mostly disagree about how the past was), it's on you if you did buy this game at launch.
There is absolutely no reason to buy any game at launch nowadays, especially an AAA game and most specifically a single-player one, when you can get it at a big discount with all the content added and the bugs smoothed out in a few months.
I really don't get how people can still spend 70-80$/€ for a game when they know, without any kind of doubt, they will get a worse experience than if they wait just a bit. Aren't there enough games to play that you can't wait?

@dardel My understanding is that some producers (executive producers) just give some money and get their names attached to the movie, without any real creative or managerial input.
Maybe it's just that.

@L_Bosch Is there any difference in your mind between "being able to handle something" and "enjoying something"?

Aaaaand now ad hominem attacks. I'm not that surprised, but still, I was naively hoping for something better.

@L_Bosch Really? Why is this specific issue a "maturity" test for you?

@L_Bosch I don't "identify" with my taste of entertainment. What I like is not who I am, and I think a lot of people would gain from not having an unhealthy relationship to the franchise they seem to love.

Would you care explaining why you disagree with the statement that you can be tolerant in real life towards something but at the same time not particularly eager to see it in your entertainment?

My argument about Assassin's Creed Shadows in the comment section is so truncated by the moderation that you can't really understand what I was trying to say with what is left.

About the p**n thing, you don't need to watch that kind of content to want attractive people. The whole point of Hollywood is to provide attractive people in every kind of situations, because people like to watch attractive people. I never thought this was controversial. Finding an actor completely unattractive will make you not like the content. This also doesn't seem controversial.

If the comment section doesn't seem to be the right place to do so, I'd be more than happy to continue this discussion on a platform more suited to one-on-one back-and-forth, though.

@lazarus11 I generally agree with everything you said.

@L_Bosch so criticising a show because it has some content you don't like or because you don't how an actor looks is "review bombing" now?

@Cry_Zero The second one was not that good, but the first one was really fun. The use of force powers never felt as good until Control

@GirlVersusGame @PlatinumMikey Yeah that's a big nope for me too.

It reminds me of Roundguard which was really fun.

I guess they had to wait for Kentaro Miura to die to dare do this : a random Kratos lookalike barbarian wearing the real berserker armor and wielding the Dragon Slayer in a live service mobile game. They couldn't be more insulting than this... or can they?

Nothing about her age, but I still can't understand how people think Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal fit the roles on any kind of way.
The general feel and look of the series nailed the games almost perfectly, but the two main actors just took me out of the series in every scene.
Clearly in the minority there, I know, but I really can't see them as Joel and Ellie...

It's not about right or wrong. It would never be "right" to ask a father to sacrifice his child, whatever the situation. This is what being a father is.

@Cornpop76 "With the Right focused on the rights of the individual, and the Left considering individuals worthy sacrifices for the greater good."
Weird, as while this may have been the stance of Right and Left 50 years ago, today it seems completely inversed to me.

Ouch, I was curious about the game but this gameplay makes it "wait for a very big sale" or even better "wait for it being on PS+".
Really clunky characters and animations...

Seeing the number of articles here about how big a success this game is, it's clearer now why the comment sections about AC Shadows are some of the most moderated on this site.

@SuperSilverback The idea that OG Kratos is boring and one dimensional is so baffling to me.
He's a tragic character, destroyed by his greed and then his insatiable anger. He faces insurmontable odds, and is ready to risk it all and to sacrifice the world to get his revenge.
More importantly, the gameplay of the games are completely in phase with the character, asking the player to become this indomitable brute. The end of GOW3 is simply a masterpiece, when you as the player have to realise, as does Kratos, that everything you suffered through was your own doing and that you could stop anytime.

As for Daddy Kratos, he's a very predictable character who faces issues with a kid becoming a teenager. Nothing in the gameplay really helps us bind both character together, except for those long boatrides that replaces cutscenes. Yes, there is a redemption arc somewhere, but it's so stereotypical and, again, predictable that it doesn't really elevate the character.

I get why some would prefer the second character to the first, but I don't. And I'd have prefered if they hadn't used a character I loved to change it into something I really don't like.

THe biggest question is will we have Daddy Kratos or the real Kratos?
While the last 2 games had undeniable production values that brought some quality to them, I despise what they've done with the character.
Bring back the vengeful, the shell of a man destroyed by his greed and anger, Kratos, he was always more interesting than the grubby old man having issues managing fatherhood.

@themightyant Yeah, you're not listening. You're arguing with what you want to think I'm saying, not with what I actually say. So I'm done.
Cheers mate.

@themightyant You seem to be the one who fails to comprehend : Getting to choose whether or not to engage in a romantic relationship with a "non-binary" character doesn't make the interaction optional. The character is in the game, the quest is in it too. A lot of AC players are completionist and enjoy the games for their plethoras of sidequest, so telling them to go out of their way to avoid content they may not like and calling it "optional" is disingenuous. This is the kind of defense one gives when they finally get what they want but get backlash for it. This is the kind of defense that allowed microtransactions to fester for example.

@Hoodie718 The content is not "optional" since you don't have the option to play a game without it. The fact the game gives you a choice to go through with the relationship or not doesn't make the content less in your face. And side quests in a AC are everything but optional, they have alawys been the crux of the game for most fans.

My comment was : "people who are simply getting sick of seeing f***ed inclusion of such content in games and franchise that generally would not have them are as stupid". - I had to censor it so it's not taken down again, but it ended up even worse!
So yes, here it aply to LGBTQ content, but "inclusion of X content" can be used for other topics. When a game dev "includes"new content that wasn't in the franchise before, they know they may attract negative feedback. Your example is a good one : every time AC tried another historical setting, there has been positive and negative feedback. I don't see what could be controversial about the fact that new content will garner reactions from fans.

As for qualifying "negative"feedback as "obnoxious", I'm sure Ubisoft loves to hear tht their potential customers don't listen to negativefeedback, that makes their marketing job that much easier.

@themightyant It is forced because the franchise, until recently, never had these LGBTQ elements. So now, people who liked their AC games are forced to consume content that wasn't part of the games they liked if they want to keep playing the franchise.

It would be true for any kind of content, so it's true for LGBTQ content too. When they included pirates in AC4, they took a risk of a big feedback, but it paid off. When they included microtransactions, it garned negative feedback. So now (since Odyssey) they include more and more LGBTQ content, it's fair that fasn of the franchise express their opinion, positive or negative, on this new kind of content.

@Hoodie718 No. It's "forced inclusion" of elements that weren't part of the franchise before.

Think of it this way : the tower defense game of Assassin's Creed Revelations was forcefully included into a franchise that was never made for tower defense.

When you inject new content into your game franchise, you risk alienating your fanbase. Apparently, in Shadows' case, this has happened sufficiently to create a important negative feedback.

"KOTOR would certainly be a game that it’s talked about in the past, therefore must still be in development."

What a weird sentence! Another example of AI gone wrong or just bad writing?

@Pilot_Six4 It's weird you keep talking about what they "had" to do. They didn't have to do anything. They made some choices, which they were entitled to, and a lot of their potential customers disliked the choice they made. It's that simple. You may personally feel that the choice of Yasuke was a good one, apparently enough fans of the franchise think it's not.

@Pilot_Six4 Of course they can do whatever they want with AC, and we as customers can do whatever we want and buy/not buy the game. We can also voice our disappointment with their choices as vocally as we want.
As for "requirements", I didn't think there were any, unless you're talking about ESG requirements...?
About the game looking good, as I said elsewhere, Ubisoft games almost always look fantastic. Now will the story, characters and gameplay hold up... well the last AC games since Origins have shown, imo, a very wrong direction in all these matters.

@Dragon83 Yeah, I'm sure most Japanese people will completely agree with your assessment of Yasuke.
Please get informed about how Black people are perceived in Japan before uttering such things. You can start with an easy article with nice links : https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/d00591/

@Dragon83 And I don't remember anyone complaining about these Black characters.
Maybe what you see as "haters" are just people extremely disappointed that when one of their favorite gaming franchise finally goes to Japan (after years and years of fans yearning for this), they can't manage to do it justice without entering the "culture wars".
How hard was it to put 2 Japanese characters, one male samurai and one female kunoichi? The deliberate choice of Yasuke as a main character is not one of historical value, but of ideological bias. And in 2025, companies choosing to do this finally reap what they sow.

On a good sale, I'd be very tempted but the lack of OLED display is a big downer for me.

@Athrum I miss the times when the gaming industry was mostly cheeky and fun done by nerds.
I know, old man screaming at clouds here.

@Rich33 Can you imagine this : all disc games from now on won't be playable with only what is on the disc, and will need the day one patch to even start.
Why are we giving them ideas?

Spider-Man 2 felt fantastic to play, and looked gorgeous. But the story and character development were really not good at all and a big let down after SM1.
Hopefully they can remediate that in SM3, and also diversify the gameplay while keeping it as fun as it is now.

At some point, people handling the LOTR IP should realise that most fans don't care at all for the hobbits. They were a good gimmick for the books (characters being vulnerable but ultimately surprisingly resilient) but they are not franchise material.
Look at Baldur's Gate 3 stats for chosen races : Halflings are at the bottom.

I bet that everyone sleeping on Sonic Racing Crossworlds hasn't played Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and so doesn't know...

A return of the old Kratos would be great, but I agree with most comments that it would be hard to do anything interesting with the Greek pantheon after 6 games and the masterpiece GoW3 was.
Could we get something like a young Kratos sent by Ares to conquer Egypt? That could be nice...

@carlos82 This.
The main issue with video gaming being always connected is not the hardware (even if it is an issue), but the software. Most games today are unplayable buggy messes lacking a lot of content and features without a day zero or day one patch. So even if your console can play offline physical games, what you'll end up playing is not going to be any good...