Supern0va

I played the first one and thought it was just ok. Community reception seems divisive on the second one too, and it seems a fairly niche psychological survival horror whodunnit adventure with extremely high production values.

Combined with a digital-only initial release, the news isn't really that surprising. It's also still very expensive on digital and physical, too much for me to take a punt on it.

It amazes me how people really will prepare to die on the physical media hill. "If PS6 doesn't have a drive I'm not getting it!" Well bye then, I guess!
To Sony, every used game sale is a potential lost (new) sale. They don't care you can buy for £50 and sell it for £30 at CeX.
Owning the disc is not 'owning' the game. Yes, you can play v1.0 from the disc, but how many games are without patches these days.
PC gaming space is doing fine without it physical media.
For clarity, I buy and sell used games, and will continue to do so until I can't anymore. But the reality is physical media on a current gen console will not be around forever.

I will only let my child play games I've bought like Astro Bot, Lego Star Wars, Hogwarts Legacy etc. I will only let them watch stuff unattended on iPlayer. I will explain my reasons to them why I don't want them to watch certain things so they they understand it's not just because I'm being an *****.

Developers and publishers don't care, Roblox is making them too much money. Parents who let their kids free-reign on this rubbish also don't care either as it keeps them quiet.

I vaguely remember quite enjoying AOD at the time. It has a Metacritic score of 52/100, which means it's more than half-way to perfection!

Bloodlines was fantastic. A truly different playthrough each time depending on what vampire clan you chose. Great characters, story, gameplay and atmosphere, and continued support from the modding community.

I'm sure The Chinese Room will nail the vibe, but I don't know how well they'd fair with an RPG. The existing extended trailer isn't looking too great.

I wasn't interested until I saw the paperclip. Count me in!

The price is expensive, but people who have £700 to spend on the latest tech will buy it, and that's who this device is aimed at - people who want it because they want the best.

"live service effectively just means ongoing development".

So every single game is live service, up until it receives its last patch? Righto. My favourite live service game is Deus Ex, released in 2000, until it stopped being live service in 2001.

checks calendar

Nope, it's not April 1st.

🤔

@Frmknst Ubisoft can never really nail the finish. They get the ambience, worldbuilding and general 'feel' spot-on, but the actual gameplay, characters and story never hit the mark.

It's always disappointing to have a fantastic world to exist in, and then you get pulled out of it due to everything in it being mediocre.

Successful online games like Genshin and Fortnite are making BILLIONS! The thing with Concord is it just looks so indistinguishable, and from what I've heard, everything about it is (was?!) just mediocre.

SPOILER ALERT
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.
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Sephiroth kills him at the end of disc 1.

Sounds like the usual from Ubisoft - fantastically realised world building without the character depth or gameplay to really hit it home.

I sank over a hundred hours into Borderlands 2, single player only. I enjoyed the gunplay and thought the characters were pretty funny with their quips, particularly Handsome Jack. I'm now conflicted whether or not to get Borderlands 3 as the complete edition is 75% off, but I've heard the writing and cast isn't so good.

I prefer to push as few buttons as necessary, rather than pause-switch and micromanage every character and ability. As long as the rest of the team can look after themselves and act appropriately, and the combat with the main character is fun and engaging, I'm all for it!

What is annoying is that you have to add EVERY VERSION of a game to your wishlist in case one of them is on offer, and the others aren't.

I wanted Avatar FoP, but had to add the standard, gold, deluxe and ultimate editions to get notified that one of them was on sale.

Reminds me of Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, which is a good thing!

@LtSarge Not everyone has the bandwidth and speed to play on demand. Amazon Luna can gobble up 10GB/hour. While the quality of the bandwidth may improve, so will the graphics and quality of the games so they'll always be some kind of correlation.

It is inevitable. The cost of production and international shipping is extremely high. The second hand/Resale market - which gains Sony NOTHING - is eliminated.

Sony have lots to gain and very little to lose going physical only.

I'm a few hours in and enjoying it. The only thing lacking for me is the side quests - lots of generic one-off NPCs giving you menial tasks which is typical Ubisoft. They'd have been better off having fewer quest givers and longer story arcs.

Combat is almost there but not-quite, but is more than serviceable. But it's a nice change of pace than the usual 'everything in your face all at once' Farcry style, and think the game stands well on its own two feet.

"...resources required for the import, export, transportation, distribution, and sales of physical discs"

Yet they can manage resources required for the import, export, transportation, distribution, and sales of physical disc cases containing a card with a unique serial number.

It wouldn't surprise me if this was the plan all along: maximise profit from digital sales (that can't be sold/refunded/traded), then have second wave with physical sales.

@MUG3NHC Out of context, they are quite beautiful lyrics!

@MikeOrator Indeed; to cleave such articles from the site would be bad. Frankly, this type of important news content needs to be milked for all its worth.

@Bentleyma Yes dire review, yet good summary and score. At this point I think they should just ditch scores entirely.

@MrBook I completely understand and agree with you that this is an issue for people that can't connect for whatever reason.

The preservation thing I get - the idea that a game you've bought 10 years ago might not work because some kind of 3rd party server connection is switched off is unacceptable. This hasn't happened yet though - The Crew was always an online-only game and marketed as such, and I don't think 10 years is an unacceptable time to pull the plug.

But I don't really get the people that get annoyed purely out of principle, especially with owners of a current gen console that are online with it anyway.

It depends on the reason - If it's a one-time thing I'm not bothered, most games have a day 1 patch and the PS5 itself connects to the internet as soon as it's switched on.

However, if the internet is needed regularly for offline play, or for some kind of mandatory 3rd party service which prevents you from playing even if the game is patched and up to date then that's an issue.

@get2sammyb I really don't get why studios agree to these acquisitions. Financial security is the most common reason for independent developers sell their companies, but historically it hasn't shown to be the case. The big studio just gobbles up the IP and that's the end of it. Do the studios feel like they can't continue to operate successfully without being absorbed?

I hope the studio makes it through, as I loved the first game and don't have an Xbox, but I worry for the studios behind these big-budget titles that aren't aimed completely at the mainstream audience.

It seems if you're not either a 2-man indie dev getting a good return on a small investment, or a AAA studio getting a massive return on a massive investment, then you're on the publishers chopping block!

@nessisonett A big aspect of the game was transferring the feeling of discomfort through psychosis that the protagonist is going through to the player, so I guess they did a good job! Did you enjoy the film you used for your avatar? That sure has some sounds that make you uncomfortable.

@LordAinsley I found that by having districts and stories in Valhalla 'compartmentalised' it kept it from being too overwhelming as a whole. The 'exploration' mode or whatever it's called, that turns off the map icons, markers etc. also made it feel less of a typical Ubi collectathon/checklist.

I also really enjoyed the Viking lore. I think it makes a difference with how fatigued you get depending on how much the setting appeals to you. I thought the Graeco-Roman thing had been overdone in previous games, which is why I didn't play Odyssey.

I thought the story was good and finished the game with 200hrs invested, with a good mix of exploration, puzzles, story and combat that I didn't find repetitive.

FF7 is my favourite game of all time. I kind of enjoyed remake, but didn't particularly enjoy all the side quests.

As a middle-aged gamer with kids, I don't have the time to play as much these days. I was disappointed to hear that the level of fluff has increased for the sequel, so unfortunately it was removed from my wish list.

I guess Sony have lots of free space in their warehouse for the PS5 Pro's to be stacked up next to the PS VR 2's!

@jt887 I think you can backup PS5 saves onto a removable storage device. But agree I've always found it a bit stingy cloud saves/backups are a paid-for feature, I'm sure they could throw in 5/10 GB of storage per user.

Shame about all the fluff. I was reluctantly pushing through the last chapter's side quests on Remake as they were frankly crap. Shame there's so much more of it here.

I don't have much free time for games and I'd much prefer a 30hr game than a 100hr game for the sake of it.

@ShogunRok I'm currently 20 hours into my first playthrough. Should I be worried about the update breaking my current progress? There seems to be a history of major updates causing issues.