RBMango

This speaks to me visually sooooo much.

I've said for ages that PlayStation needs its own fighting game. This is not what I was expecting, and I'm all for it.

This was the best one in years. Loved it. LOTS of Japanese rep. And the Marvel fighting game from Arc was a HUGE surprise.

This sounds like a breath of fresh air from Sony's usual catalogue of stuff.

Get ready for God of War 2018 remaster!

Considering I've now sunk 60 hours into Fantasy Life i, that's the obvious choice for me.

Good riddance

This is less jarring to me than Sam directly asking for no reason if anyone has seen the TV show Ride with Norman Reedus.

Footage of Geoff Keighley peeing on a mushroom to fight BTs confirmed

Jesus, the writing for Ellie is horrendous in this episode. It's been really bad at times before in this season, but her petulance and stupidity are taken to another level. Yes, you are meant to question Ellie's actions in the game, but she was never as unsympathetic and irritating as the show's version of her is. It also doesn't help that her berserk mode in the show feels more like an on-off switch rather than a more gradual descent into brutality like Ellie in the game, and Ramsay is completely incapable of being angry without it coming across as comical. Even her screaming while bashing Nora's leg in sounded less like her angrily torturing someone and more like a child demanding more cookies.

I bought it yesterday despite having never played the original and not knowing what it was just because I want to support Level-5. The Animal Crossing and Zelda influences are obvious, but it also reminds me a lot of Dragon Quest Builders in a way.

@get2sammyb When it comes to live services, I strongly believe Hulst lacks the vision, good instincts, foresight, and creativity to make this endeavor successful. As long as he is in charge, this live service initiative will fail.

Keep him around to nurture the bread and butter single-player stuff, but they desperately need someone new who won't greenlit things like Fairgames, Concord, and a God of War live service.

It's a 5 for me. Lackluster levels (especially those stupid dragon levels), dull story, repetitive and simplified parry system that gets old really quickly, and criminally bland music. The rest of it is solid, but it's my least favorite out of this new Doom trilogy by a gigantic margin.

DOOM 2016 reigns supreme

If they have nothing of note to show off, then they shouldn't do a presentation. Simple as that.

I understand that this game has its fans, but I can't for the life of me figure out why. It's an astoundingly bad game, in my opinion. You're paying an insulting $50 to spend five hours walking, solving patronizingly easy puzzles, and slogging through a combat system that is significantly dumbed down compared to the first game.

The first game was leagues ahead of this sequel in every facet except raw graphical detail, and even then, I'd call its hyper focus on raw detail a bad thing, considering how much it obviously compromises what Senua's Saga can do.

@DonJorginho I agree that his claim of Black Myth Wukong receiving some secret paid exclusivity from PlayStation was utterly ludicrous, but I still respect the guy's work and never claimed he had a perfect track record. One bad claim shouldn't taint a person's entire body of work, especially when it's something harmless in the grand scheme of things, like the Black Myth Wukong thing.

Also, Tassi IS well-connected with Bungie and covers their work more fairly and with less sensationalism than the average game journo and content creator. That is undeniable.

No idea what people's beef is with Paul Tassi. He has proven to be well-connected with people at Bungie, and his reporting is way less sensational and more balanced compared to the vast majority of games journos. Also, considering the insane amount of money that's been spent on Marathon and how delusional Sony and Bungie leadership are about their live service ambitions, this Circana tidbit wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

@Kienda I find it ironic that PlayStation wants to add more "artistic legitimacy" to The Last of Us by raising it above the realm of video games and into the world of "premier" television, yet the show is far less subtle, well-written, and visually striking than the games. Like you said, The Last of Us should have stayed in the realm of video games, and it was a hell of a lot better there.

Man, this show has an almost compulsive need to say the quiet parts out loud. I don't need Joel crying and pouring his heart out to Ellie to understand that he deeply loves her. The game beautifully accomplished this during that porch scene with a few words and a choked-up "yep..." from Joel. Naughty Dog are terrific at saying so much with so little, yet this show consistently flies in the opposite direction of that storytelling philosophy.

Joe Cross had a legit thousand yard stare by the end of that livestream.

In the spirit of not sounding like a broken record, here are some live services I would be okay with PlayStation making:

>a cartoonish kart racer featuring classic PlayStation mascots
>a life/social sim
>a PlayStation Home successor
>a new Twisted Metal game
>a super gory PvP FPS that has fast-paced action and verticality like Titanfall

Despite my public statement that "PlayStation has no business in live services," there are ways to get even someone like me onboard. Helldivers II is great, for instance. The problem is that Hermen Hulst and his ilk have zero knack for embracing unique and weird ideas, and they are way too up their own asses with PlayStation being this slick and shiny brand.

This is a rare time I'm happy to hear something from a Sony corpo suit. Being more financially efficient and responsible with their single-player games is something I've advocated for years.

Hoo boy that's a bad sign...

@atthegates Still won't work for me, sadly. I get to 1% downloaded, and then it errors out. Thanks for the tip, anyway!

I'd love to, but I can't download it on PC Game Pass without getting an error code.

@Oram77 I can't unsee this now hahaha

It's a real shame PlayStation doesn't own a studio that specializes in remastering and remaking older games. Yep. Damn shame.

Fine, I will accept your table scraps, Square.

@DonJorginho That's so cool! I love this team even more now.

Besides a new KH4 trailer, this was the best KH news I could have woken up to this morning. Good riddance!

@UltimateOtaku91 That's actually a really good and apt label for them haha

@Kraven Completely agree. I remember Ellie trying to get into the hospital as a long stretch in the game, especially if you want to avoid direct combat as much as possible. In the show, it seems like she just magically pops into the laundry room that Nora just so happens to be in, and she only attracts the attention of one guard and a dog to get there.

"What does the hallway look like?"
"Empty and haunted."
"Oh, just like us!"

The "tense" atmosphere this episodes was going for got demolished for me when this kind of crap writing was barfed out. Also, just a thought: maybe don't talk out loud while walking through an eerie hallway that may or may not have humans and/or infected in it. Hand signals exist for a reason.

@Buckeye4Life2015 Too many issues for me to go full-on 10. A 9 is also an extraordinarily high score for anything in my eyes.

Easy 9/10 for me. Minor issues aside, it's easily one of the best games I've ever played. I still can't wrap my head around this being a new studio's debut game.

I have two questions:

What the hell is that studio name, and what the HELL is a "frog-type" game?

@DonJorginho GET OFF MY LAWN

@PlatinumMikey No, he's a character in the game. I won't spoil anything if you haven't played it yet.

Francois would not be happy reading this.

Absolutely wild

@NeonTiger If we're talking atmosphere, framerate performance, shot composition, attention to detail, nuances in facial and character animation, art direction, and even fidelity at times, I think Expedition 33 blows the vast majority of "AAA" games this generation out of the water. A few sequences of very subtle facial and eye movements rival the best I've seen from massively budgeted games from Sony and Rockstar. The comparisons to AAA games are justified when I see the creative prowess on display in Expedition 33. Flowers blowing in the wind realistically and other finer details don't make a game "AAA", personally.

@NeonTiger "Some objects like flowers in the flower store have one wind reaction animation, instead of individual ones, so it looks like a flag reacting to the wind, instead of how it should be, with separate animation cycles."

This kind of demand for and obsession with very specific and realistic details is why budgets balloon out of control. Sandfall had enough sense and economical restraint to know stuff like this did not matter for the kind of game they were making. How does the game's flow and atmosphere in any way improve if the flowers in one area blow in more than one direction?

This magnificent game deserves every iota of success and praise it's been getting.

@get2sammyb Nooooooo don't jinx it lol

So, how long are we giving it until PlayStation makes the same announcement? Expect an $800 PS5 Pro in less than a year, folks.

@thechetearly Agreed. I would love an in-game lore compendium. Maybe they can create a library within one of the in-game locations to have it be more immersive.

I'd gladly pay for an expansion. Extraordinary dev team and game!

End of August is much better for me with the Switch 2 at the beginning of June.

I won't be bothering with this concert then. A PlayStation classic like Shadow of the Colossus not being there is inexcusable. One of the most iconic soundtracks of all time being brushed aside in favor of the frankly generic by comparison Horizon soundtrack is a cardinal sin.

This was easily one of my favorite episodes of the series, so far, due to the strong performances and excellent pacing. I'm legit looking forward to next week's episode.