Comments 839

Re: Poll: How Long Does It Take You to Beat a Big RPG?

StrickenBiged

Over 300 hours into the character I have got furthest with in BG3. I'm in Act 3, but only the lower city. Just cleaning up everything there before I move on, in case I push the story forward by progressing the main quest and lock things off.

And then I got a bit tired of it and have yet to return. I have something like 900 hours in total in that game. I keep making new characters to see how things go differently and I really should just see that one character through to the end before I do anything else.

Re: Dragon Age: The Veilguard Failed Because It Wasn't Live Service, EA CEO Seems to Suggest

StrickenBiged

I had several completed playthroughs of DA:O and DA2 on my 360.

Dragon Age used to have a dark, gritty, fantasy setting, with compelling characters. That's what I liked about it. From what I can see online, they've been moving away from what I enjoyed by trying to make it more saccharine and mainstream.

IMO, that's why DA lost its 'core' audience - it failed to understand who those people were and went after a different audience. Fine, if they're there.

What Wilson doesn't seem to understand about the 'connected world' crowd is that they have found their games already. You have to do something truly amazing to drag people away from Fortnite and the like these days, where they have probably sunk thousands of hours, hundreds of dollars, and made friends with whom they interact regularly. Go after those people if you want, but they'll only ever be temporary visitors to your game (if they come across at all).

Re: Abby's Muscles Less Relevant to HBO's The Last of Us Adaption

StrickenBiged

@Cornpop76 Agree with you to an extent. Abby being muscly didn't break my immersion, personally, but like I say I had to come up with some plausible head-canon to explain it. It seems plausible to me that she would take anabolic steroids if she found some to prepare herself to achieve her goal. The only unexplained thing is where she got them, but finding something overlooked in a medical facility isn't totally out of the question in a world where people have apparently left the odd bullets and weapons lying around even years after the apocalypse.

I'd be getting into spoilers, and off topic, and probably start a whole thing if I mention what did break my immersion, so I'll leave things there.

Re: Abby's Muscles Less Relevant to HBO's The Last of Us Adaption

StrickenBiged

@LifeGirl I always assumed that Abby (in the game) got her physique from a combination of working out and abusing some supply of anabolic steroids. Her physique is that of an enhanced female. (Having lifted very heavy weights myself for two decades as a non-enhanced powerlifter, and meeting non-enhanced female powerlifters, I can tell the difference between who is and is not abusing steroids.) I took it as implied that Abby did this to herself after she decided she would be taking vengeance, which seemed believable in the context of her story.

If Naughty Dog has said anywhere that Abby is not enhanced then I'd say they should have consulted with a sports physician or something if they were going for realism.

Re: Reminder: Redeem These 3 PS Plus Games Before They're Gone

StrickenBiged

I was quite excited for Hot Pursuit until I booted it up and realised I was actually thinking of NfS: Most Wanted as being the game from two generations ago that I really gelled with and wanted to play again. As I already had Stanley Parable, January was a bit of a bust for me. (But if you didn't already have Stanley Parable, then you should play it and it was a decent month.)

Re: Ex-Sony Boss Says Xbox Can Find Multiplatform Software Success, Just Like SEGA

StrickenBiged

@Kenobi42
I think there still will be competition for Sony, but not in the narrow category of consoles. I think that the fact that Sony has started measuring and reporting their MAUs and player engagement metrics in their financial statements shows that they're already thinking beyond the console device itself. It's why they've created a device like the Portal - a way to keep you on the platform when the TV is being used by someone else in your household (and, latterly, to allow you to play your games while not even at home).

Microsoft's incentive will be to maximise the amount of time people spend within it's ecosystem, spending money via XBL. They're choosing to run with a loss-leader like Gamepass to try and get you in the door, and making every device into an XBox via cloud streaming. And sure, if you want to buy their games on your PlayStation, that's cool too, MS gets your money that way.

Sony will want to attract and keep people on PSN. Sony will do so via having a top-of-the-line dedicated device that sits under your TV, and by having tentpole, best-in-class game experiences that can't be played first anywhere else.

Both those options have their merits, downsides and risks. But one thing they have in common is that you need to be creating great games that get people into your ecosystem.

It's a very interesting time for the industry but I don't think its fair to say that Sony won't be feeling the pressure and will stop thinking about the competition.

Re: Spider-Man 2's Looking Like Another PC Own Goal from Sony

StrickenBiged

@get2sammyb On the second question on the survey, there's no difference between "They should be exclusive to PS5 for at least a year" and "They should be exclusive to PS5 for longer than a year". Both options would be satisfied with a hypothetical release on PC 366 days after a PS5 release.

Re: Rumour: Xbox's Fable, Killer Instinct, More to Join Forza Horizon 5 on PS5

StrickenBiged

Is there much point to these articles anymore? My expectation is that everything will make its way over sooner or later. The pattern seems to be that new games will receive a day-and-date (or only a few months delay, depending on developer capacity) release on PlayStation, while older stuff will be staggered not to hurt their own sales by flooding PlayStation with too much at once and competing with themselves.

Re: Halo PS5 Rumours Intensify in Aftermath of Forza Horizon 5 Reveal

StrickenBiged

Smart moves by MS. They'd sell multiple millions of copies almost immediately, I reckon. With ABK, MS is already the biggest third party publisher on PlayStation. Why would MS leave money on the table?
I hope MS' commitment to maintain a hardware division lasts. Sure, I doubt PlayStation would ever publish there, but by continuing to be in the space it would at least give PlayStation some reason to try.
One thought I've had is whether MS could make the XBox platform itself open, so that other companies could make an XBox, in the same way that they can make a PC running windows. Imagine a range of XBoxes being offered by Dell, HP, Microsoft itself, Samsung, etc, at different specs and price points. Microsoft has an edge with its cloud tech and compatibility of its games across its devices on the back-end, so its possible that it would be able to find a way that building games for multiple SKUs of XBoxes isn't too burdensome on developers.

Re: Former Rockstar Animator Doubtful GTA 6 Will Run at 60fps on PS5

StrickenBiged

@nomither6 Don't worry about that; sometimes I feel like I'm the only person not hyped for GTA6. I enjoyed GTAV and Red Dead 2 a lot (though the latter was too long and everything after the trip away from the main setting felt like a slog). I'm sure I'll get it at some point down the line, but I'm still waiting to hear what kind of experience it's going to deliver that iterates on Rockstar's formula. Same old Rockstar is fine by me, just nothing to get particularly excited about.

Re: Space Marine 2 Publisher Attempts to Placate Fans Hungry for Content

StrickenBiged

I’ve been playing a couple hours of SM2 almost daily since mid-November and I’m nowhere near unlocking and upgrading all the weapons, unlocking all the cosmetics, etc. I think the issue is the most engaged and hardcore fans are the ones that join the official discord server and sub the the Reddit, and they talk to one another and think that they are the whole community of players.

Re: No Man's Sky Gets Another Huge, Game-Changing Update with Worlds Part II

StrickenBiged

Hello Games' strategy seems to be paying off. NMS is certainly the most significant asset in their portfolio. The company generated £28m in revenue (£22m profit!) in the year ending October 2023, according to their corporate filings. This was down from almost £40m in the YE Oct 22.
It'd have been nicer if Murray had made clearer what was ambition and what was going to ship with NMS at launch, or launch in early access, but at least the message this success sends is "fix it, and fix it for free".

Re: Studio Closure, Layoffs at Ubisoft in 'Targeted Restructuring'

StrickenBiged

I can see the logic behind how Ubisoft got into this position of having so many staff. It essentially decided it was going to minimise the extent to which it outsourced work, so hired people internationally to try and keep almost all stages of the game-production pipeline in-house. The risk in that approach is that you need to be a very well oiled machine so that deadlines are met and one stage of the pipeline can begin just as another is winding down and moving on to the next project. Interruptions leads to waste due to staff not having things to do. It requires a hell of a lot of co-ordination and planning.
With that in mind, the comparison with PS Studios may not be the most apt. Yes, it is less than a quarter of Ubisoft's headcount, but PS Studios will outsource work where they need to.

Re: Games Workshop, Nexon's Cancelled Game an Age of Sigmar RPG

StrickenBiged

@djlard I'd have thought that Underworlds would be a great setting for a roguelike given the lore that the various warbands are continuously fighting and being resurrected when they fall.

Has a squad-based roguelike been done before? Could be interesting, finding upgrades and having to choose which member of the warband should get the item or perk.

Re: Horizon's MMO Appears to Have Been Cancelled

StrickenBiged

PlayStation is making more money than ever - just look at Sony's financial reports. Sure, they leveraged somewhat to acquire Bungie and that hasn't panned out like they'd hoped, and they're cancelling a lot of stuff right now, but to think that Sony/PlayStation are in trouble or doing badly is just naïve.
I see this as PlayStation learning from its success with Helldivers 2 (do something original) and failure with Concord (do something original!) and making necessary readjustments.
At the end of the day, whatever the most vocal, terminally online fanboys like us say will pale in comparison to the almighty dollar, and on that front PlayStation are doing just fine.

Re: Days Gone Dev Says It Still Plans to Create 'Cool Sh*t' for PS5 After Live Service Cancellation

StrickenBiged

Being selfish, I'd like Bluepoint to work on a glow-up of something I missed from the PS3 generation (when I had a 360), like a Resistance remastered collection, or Infamous 1&2, or something. They did great work on Uncharted Collection.

Bend I don't know well enough, other than from Days Gone (which I enjoyed most in the late-game - there should have been more hordes overall and the pacing needed addressing). I think Sony does need a studio doing more experimental, lower-budget, AA-type things to try and develop new IP and concepts. I dunno if that role would suit Bend.

Re: Games Workshop Reportedly Cancels Mysterious Fantasy Warhammer RPG

StrickenBiged

I get the impression that GW is starting to realise the extra value that being selective can add to the Warhammer IPs. From what I read and see online, recent releases have tended towards a higher quality than was the case, say, a decade ago. I think they're starting to realise that crappy games leveraging a particular setting may satisfy parts of their community who are already Warhammer fans, but that good games have a potentially wider reach and would actually grow the community by introducing new fans to the IP.

Re: Suicide Squad Dev Rocksteady Suffers More Layoffs as PS5 Game Hits PS Plus

StrickenBiged

I just want to know what the hell Rocksteady and WB did with the almost year-long delay they did after the initial reveal was roundly panned on social media. I haven't played the game but I can't see any differences between the gameplay reveal and the streams/reviews/commentary I've seen since release.
I suspect that the time was mainly used to try and 'reset' the marketing cycle by WB, rather than try to take into account any of the feedback that had come from players. (I appreciate it would have been a momentous ask in many respects, but it's not like WB/Rocksteady weren't warned that the game had the appeal of a bucket of tepid sick to the market broadly.)

Re: Xbox Is Eager to Build the Best Games You Can Enjoy Everywhere

StrickenBiged

If everything is an XBox, and given how Microsoft's other divisions are all about their software being available on any hardware, how long until Microsoft doesn't manufacture the only XBox console? I can see a future where they let HP, Dell, whoever, manufacture a box that sits under your telly but runs the XBox OS and plays XBox games, and maybe Microsoft makes their own too like they do with some laptops.

Re: Stop-Motion Action Figure Fighting Game Knock Off Looks Awesome, Coming to PS5

StrickenBiged

Dev: What should we do to avoid a trademark claim from whoever it is that makes Conan the Barbarian...?
2nd Dev: ... Kronan?
Lawyer: Good enough, ship it.

It's a crying shame that these guys couldn't get licences from official toys and IP. This looks cool and all, but I'd be more excited if I actually could pit actual TMNT against G.I. Joe or Skeletor or Conan, etc. I think 10 year old me would have a religious experience if that were the case.

Re: 3 Bonus PS Plus Premium PS2 Games Available to Download Now

StrickenBiged

Sweet, the Sly games are £8 each for non-Premium members. Definitely gonna pick those up to vote with my wallet.

@AFCC The PSN store is telling me that I already own Jak & Daxter 1. I already had it on PS4. So maybe it's that version or, if it is a PS2 emulated version, it's bundled for people that own the PS4 version already.