Comments 307

Re: Ubisoft Shoves XP Boosting Microtransaction into Assassin's Creed Valhalla a Month After Launch

RPE83

@jmac1686
I care that a game's balance can be altered by a "pay to win/not grind" design a month after purchase, in the same way I care about review embargoes and unfinished games getting fixed a month or two later.

It's not the $10 that's the issue, it's encouraging the duplicitous mindset, and the further extensions of that, that I have my reservations about.

It's certainly worth reporting on.

Re: Cyberpunk 2077 Aiming to Be a 'Playable, Stable Game without Glitches and Crashes'

RPE83

I have the game sat on my PS4 Pro and it will stay there until patched fully, or I get a PS5.

CD Projekt Red have definitely gone on the naughty step for me with this, I will be getting the next thing from them at a deep discount or not at all.

They've joined Square Enix for offering a discount on Life is Strange 2 before all episodes were released.

Still, neither are close yet to the lifetime ban on giving Gearbox any money after Colonial Marines and Randy Pitchford.

Re: Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 Is Being Slaughtered By Metacritic Users

RPE83

@rachetmarvel
I think The Last Jedi is the best of the recent bunch, with Rise of Skywalker challenging Attack of The Clones for worst overall.

The Sequels, for me, suffer from the opposite problem to the prequels.

The prequels had a great idea and a story, but the execution of script, cinematography and direction was poor. The sequels have fine acting, cinematography and direction, but literally no plot, idea or story to tell.

Alan Moore I believe said "create art and let it find it's audience, don't write for the audience" because then you'll have a bad story, and you can't please everyone.

So I think art should divide people, and inspire strong reactions either way. Happy for people to dislike anything and express that to me as long as they give decent reasoning for doing so, not foamy mouthed hatred.

This is at least the reasoning for me loving The Last Jedi, but disliking Rise of Skywalker, it's just so middle of the road trying to get the "fans" back on board it tries so desperately to be everything and yet does nothing interesting at all.

I have been enjoying The Mandalorian, and Disney gave us the Clone Wars Final Series and Rebels, so I hope you got something out of those!

Re: Sony Processing Cyberpunk 2077 Refunds for PS5, PS4 Players

RPE83

@Jurgens-Red-Army
The size, and scope and scale of games has increased dramatically since then.

Ironically we seem to have gone back to the Spectrum days where US Gold would shovel out some absolute tripe based on a licence, it would be borderline broken and you'd have to get a poke in Your Sinclair to finish the game.

Re: Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 Is Being Slaughtered By Metacritic Users

RPE83

@rachetmarvel
If the 3 part arc was unplanned, I would have thought the more logical target for complaint would have been Kathleen Kennedy, not the director and an actress from middle film? I don't understand why the same people who hated The Last Jedi didn't hate the other two based on that logic?

Re: The Last of Us 2 Sweeps The Game Awards, Wins Game of the Year

RPE83

@Scoobijohn

Joel previously did despicable things, this is referenced at the Pittsburgh ambush "as having being on both sides" and in meeting Tommy at the hydro dam where Tommy says he has nightmares about what Joel led/instigated to survive.

He also ends the first game arguably as the villain, in the sense he is as afraid, self serving and deceitful as most other adult people in the world.

He's a fantastic multi faceted character.

I have TLOU2 on my backlog to play, but I have a fought idea of the narrative. I get why people are upset, I just have never understood the high level of vitriol, including death threats towards actresses and creative directors.

I loved Tsushima, but will probably be able to see why the critics liked TLOU2.

I'll be happy that both will probably get another installment.

Re: Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 Is Being Slaughtered By Metacritic Users

RPE83

@Uromastryx
I'm a software developer. It's not the QA team, or even the developers, I can believe on some level that a lot of them are probably more upset than the players.

I can pretty much guarantee you from experience it's a corporate/commercially led decision to release the game in this state.

Even if there wasn't glaring technical stuff, the problem with these 100 hour open world games is that QA is a thankless task. How much can one person play a game and try all kind of combinations that someone may try, on all difficulties/slider adjustments?

Re: Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 Is Being Slaughtered By Metacritic Users

RPE83

Cyberpunk 2077 had 1000+ 5 star reviews on PS4 before launch. Trust the general public, eh?

While they are a reasonable barometer, equally some things like TLOU2/The Last Jedi clearly show some kind of deranged campaign. This has the feel of being the latest thing to savage beyond objectivity to join in with the "Lols" or lose touch with reality over.

I struggle to take anybody seriously that would use "Cuckmann", "Woke" and "SJW" in any kind of pile on esque review.

Cyberpunk looks like a game that collapsed under the weight of developer ambition to exceed fan expectations.

I think it's the way the industry has been going with AAA to be honest, and this is another big scalp.

Even so, this is not a 1/10 game. It's clearly not a 10/10 game at the moment, so I'd rather trust a respected critic primarily (Push Square for games, Mark Kermode for films for me) as a guide, then make my own mind up.

Personally I can see this as a 3-7 at the moment, depending on how charitable you are to what's underneath the glaring technical issues and how much faith you have they are salvageable.

Maybe the 1/10 snowball stuff will keep the pressure on to resolve things, or at least ask "what happened?" at a press level like Sim City or Colonial Marines.

Sadly if you pre-order a game these days ( disclosure : I did with this) , don't get angry at the devs. Please just realise we're paying a premium to be beta testers and you either get lucky like Spider-Man or Tsushima, or you get burned like this so please just accept the gamble or stop.

Re: Sony Banning PS5 Owners for Exploiting PS Plus Collection

RPE83

@zupertramp

The scalping is "consoles sales, profit".

Game/account sharing is "loss of potential profit."

No surprise for what a giant corporation cares more about. We love games, but we all sometimes seem to forget all Sony does is service that love in exchange for their shareholders benefit.

Re: Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Gareth Bale Voice Objection to FIFA 21 Likenesses

RPE83

@kill_Nil
I imagine that's commercial use (team photo) for Liverpool which in turn helps to raise funds to pay Sadio Mane's wages. EA are a third party, where the profit goes to the third party in exchange for a nominal fee to FIFPro/Premier League/Liverpool.

I look forward to the replacement "Radio Man" for FIFA 2022.

Re: Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Gareth Bale Voice Objection to FIFA 21 Likenesses

RPE83

It's easy to have " no sympathy for millionaires", it's harder to strip away the money and see the fairness.

I do not know Gareth Bale and Zlatan's specific contractual agreements, they may be pretty complex, like Dybala.

Maybe Bale was under Real umbrella rights, but there's a loophole now he's on loan at Spurs his rights return to him?

May well be two millionaires scrapping for an extra dollar, but people should protect their rights if they are genuinely infringed, millionaires or not. Millionaires can set precedents with their financial clout, which may allow people like the family of Henrietta Lacks to be able to go to court.

Re: Watch Dogs Legion - The Dullest Ubisoft Open-Worlder Yet

RPE83

@Medic_Alert
Great point, I realised the same a few years back the same with films. It's not about arguing whether a specific critic is right or wrong, it's about finding critics whose sensibilities and taste are similar to yours and letting them guide you.
Kermode for films, Push Square for games for me.

Re: The Witcher 3 Announced for PS5, Free Upgrade for PS4 Owners

RPE83

The narrative that remedy and 505 are greedy scumbags that some are continuously pushing is frankly unfair.

I paid to play Control on the PS4, loved it and by far had my money's worth several times over. When I bought the game I was under no illusions that I had bought a license to play Control in perpetuity on every iteration of it going forward.

Their approach is "fair". Did anyone expect the FFVII remake free? The original port to PS3/PS4?

Offering games to buy NOW with an upgrade path is "enticing" or " very reasonable".

CD Projekt Red, as ever, are "VERY GENEROUS".

Glad to see them carry on that, and rightfully getting their kudos, but it's tiresome reading all the Remedy/505 bashing unless you've also been harassing companies for free blu rays because you bought the title on VHS back in 1993, or looking for free mp3s if you prove you bought a cassette in 1984. In that case, I kind of admire you.

Re: Ex-PlayStation Boss Wants to See 15 Hour AAA Titles Return

RPE83

@Paranoimia
Fair point, my basic target is "£1 = 1hr" is what i want to aim for as a return overall, which is still far superior to the cinema and sport.

Some thngs like Life Is Strange 2, I happily paid a premium and lost out rather badly on that ratio to support the developer, purely after I got the first game reduced and it became one of my favourites all time.

Re: Ex-PlayStation Boss Wants to See 15 Hour AAA Titles Return

RPE83

@Paranoimia
Apologies, I read your initial post as a complaint about the rising cost.

Your reply implies that you are ok with an increase of £10/$10/€10 because 150 hours of Assassins Creed is so much more value than 10 hours tops of Sonic 3?

I recall Street Fighter 2 and Sonic having some reason along those lines why they were more expensive relative to other cartridge games, (SF2 needing more memory) but I can't remember if SuperFx games like Starfox were more expensive on the SNES compared to other SNES games, I don't believe they were.

Re: Ex-PlayStation Boss Wants to See 15 Hour AAA Titles Return

RPE83

@Paranoimia
Yet they are still cheaper I believe than Sonic 3 and Streetfighter II on the Mega Drive from 25 years ago, which i am sure were £60 and £80 respectively.
Happy to stand corrected though.

Personally , I loved games like MGS which had a great shortish story, but could be replayed and completed "Better" to get different codenames.

Journey was also a good example on a simpler level

You could enjoy the few hours of story, but the additional game on top was the additional play throughs, or helping others as you were helped on your first play through.

The good thing with 100+ hour games that let you do everything, is that there is no need to play through again because you can do everything in one game. The bad thing is that they can become a grindy slog and you may not finish the story, or the narrative pacing is compromised. Fallout 4, your son is kidnapped but you can just run off and completely ignore that for 100 hours; makes no sense.

Re: Report: PS5's Price Could Be $50 Cheaper if You Go for the Digital Edition

RPE83

Happily go digital only, I pretty much always wait until the sale now anyway for games, and use vouchers from shopto to save another 15%.

Had to change my buying habits as companies changed their sales habits, the £79.99 day one premium super complete deluxe editions, I just see as a "I can't wait" tax now, in order to get people to pay the price games should cost with inflation.

Having just bought Days Gone for £15.99 digitally, playing it a year later has not diminished the story at all. Will do the same for TLOU 2 and FF VII remake.

It would be nice to swap games, but apart from that, I rarely, if ever "go back" on games anymore, so I dont need to keep a library.

Re: Sony Shuts Manchester Studio Before It Ships a Game

RPE83

@AdamNovice @Panic_Attache @Eldritch
Infact, if you were to take a cynical look, leaving the EU only seemed to go from being a trivial issue to the sole most important thing in the United Kingdom once the EU annouced it was going to investigate Tax Havens / Avoidance back in 2016.

As a pure coincidence, Aaron Banks and the owners of the Telegraph were among those named in the Panama Papers.

Re: Death Stranding Commentates on Social Media According to Kojima

RPE83

@m1349
I do find that actually the issue with heavily narrative based games that prioritise a "story" over the "mechanics", once the story loses you, it's hard to conitnue.

I agree totally Bloodbourne is a good example of where the narrative is there in the background and can be explored or interpreted to different levels to different conclusions.

Re: Death Stranding Commentates on Social Media According to Kojima

RPE83

@m1349
George Melies was an illusionist and made the film "A Trip To The Moon" almost as a filmed magic trick to make audiences gasp at the spectacle and wonder how he did it, but the people inspired by that asked questions of what the media can do and went in different ways.

Most music is where fans of a genre have listened to something, been inspired to take up an instrument and then said "but what if I took that, and did this?"

Your argument seems to indicate that video game medium should only exist for a sole or initial purpose, or ringfenced to the purpose that you enjoy.

If that was the case and that mentality was adopted by more people, there would possibly be no video games as computers would be giant house sized boxes at Nasa for calculating rocket science coded with punch cards , and TV's would be for television only.

Again, appreciate if you like mindless entertainment in your video games but it's not like the medium is over saturated with AAA high concept art pieces and you are struggling for games where violence is the core mechanic, FPS' , Destiny Clones, Sports Games or Open World Ubi Towers derivatives.

The film equivalent would be for arguing for example "mother!" or "The Shape Of Water" were not interesting and took valuable screentime away from Superhero films.

We like what we like, but with sales and PS+ game of the month, if can give us the chance to still try new things that might surprise us.

Hope you give Death Stranding at least an hour try when it is PS+ game of the month sometime in 2022

Re: Death Stranding Commentates on Social Media According to Kojima

RPE83

@m1349
I'd prefer to have a mix of things. If every game was just mindless thoughtless fun, it would be like if every meal was comforting fast food.

Maybe that's what you'd like and that's fine, but I'd rather there was a varied selection to chose from and I'm happy to try new things to form opinions or challenge preconceptions.

Good on people for Kojima attempting art that divides opinon but has something to say, even if they end up as noble failures artistically, commercially and as a comment on the world I might not necessarily agree with.

Re: Check Those Corners! Leaked Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Is Spotted in the Wild

RPE83

@Nintyfan @Deadlyblack

On communism/current China hot topic, I mean out of all the shady things games and gamers have stood by and deemed acceptable, or turned a blind eye over the years with an ever increasing array of mental gymnastics, I can find it incredibly easy to believe people would not only play this, but they would fork out a $180 premium to play it two days early.

I mean look at WWE 2K20 and Fallout 76, they've turned out fundamentally broken stuff and we just lap it up collectively, so no way people turn their nose up at a half decent hyped game for morals and integrity; just look at the world we live in.

Infact if anything, fair play to China and their companies, the NBA said something they didn't agree with and they collectively took a bigger stand towards what THEY believe in then we ever would, whether we in the West find it distastefull or not.

Re: When Does the Death Stranding Review Embargo Lift?

RPE83

In a world where things are becoming increasingly 6/7 out of 10 safe bets to please as many people as possible for revenue, I'd still rather play this and form an opinion of my own, even if it becomes a "noble failure" (like MGS V in my opinion). Even if its rubbish or not, art divides opinion.

As a comparison, I really liked Last Jedi, though most of the fans "crowd" did not.

Re: First ANTHEM Sales Info Suggests Retail Struggle in the UK

RPE83

@Nyne11Tyme
GaaS is not the actual problem but it's the implementation of poorly designed and conceived games because companies think on a simple level "GaaS = Fat Profit" and not much beyond that.

Same for films with "Universes", companies think that substandard films with shared cast and unfinished loose plot ends that set up endless sequels equals profit because Marvel do it, while missing all the ingredients that make Marvel movies successful, of which a "shared universe" is part of that.

GaaS when done right is the future of gaming, though I'm not by any means someone that plays them now . Imagine constant City That Never Sleeps DLC and plots in Manhattan for Spider-Man that has a level of care the main game had. With physical Releases like Destiny does to bring players up to date without the Internet.

Re: Legendary UK Magazine GamesMaster to End After 25 Years

RPE83

Your Sinclair
PC Zone
GamesMaster (original run)

Awesome memories of rushing to newsagent and excitedly getting the latest issue of all three at one point, but haven't cared about magazines in a long time since official playstation magazine had demos.

Sad times but online is killing print.