Th3solution

Lol, I guess this is like Henry David Thoreau living at Walden Pond for writing inspiration, or George RR Martin living in those old castles while he writes “A Song of Fire and Ice” books… great creatives do go to great lengths sometimes to find their muse.

@Ogbert I’d second that about the wish for a more customizable option, although for different reasons. I don’t engage in online play, so I would happily sacrifice that to save some money.

Still, I’m a happy Premium customer. The cost of the service is higher than I’d like though. It’s fair, but just barely. What puts it over the top for me is the cloud streaming to my Portal. I really enjoy that and when it comes out of beta I assume it will be even better. Here’s hoping they don’t jack the sub price again when they happens though.

If I could customize, I’d like to get just the monthly games, the Extra catalogue, the cloud saving, and the cloud streaming. I could live without the retro catalogue, the game trials, the online access, the “exclusive packs”, the Sony pictures access, and the member discounts. If I could pick and choose and save myself say, $50 a year or something like that, then it would be an ideal service. That, or roll into Premium some Crunchyroll access and it would make it worthwhile.

Sony, make it happen!

I could see myself playing any of these, but probably Jusant will be the only one I get around to. Still, that makes it a great month for me.

Wow, really solid month!

@Deljo Lol, that’s definitely one of the moments.
I think the themes are uncomfortable, but also lots of little moments are awkward or disturbing in their own way, in little microcosms of the greater message.

People’s complaints are valid, and there’s no accounting for taste and preference. Nevertheless for my money, the game is a masterpiece which has only grown in my mind over the years. The TV show only elevated my opinion of the game and its narrative impact.

But I realize it’s not for everyone (no game is). However, I love the open ended philosophical questions and exploration into the human psyche and tragic cultural trends. If you don’t want a game to make you feel uncomfortable, then definitely avoid it. It is the most visceral game experience I’ve had, and there’s many moments that made me feel really uneasy, but I feel like I came out of it with a lot to think about and probably came out a better person, to be honest.

A game isn’t likely to change the ills of humanity, but I definitely think that art has a way of pecking away at the fiber of thinking and can often make us see the world through different eyes. Eventually, those changes can make a difference.

The foraging of plants and supplies is definitely something that can go either way — from the mundane to the frustrating.

Collecting can be very game-y, with a simple press of the button (or even in some games where your character just needs to be in the general vicinity of the item and it swoops up into your inventory through magnetism automatically.). Or it can be more like a sim, such as with RDR2 where you have to watch each intricate movement of your character as they reach over and pick up their hat, or skin an animal, while you have time to go and make yourself some tea during the whole animation. Both approaches have their fans.

I would like to see this game do something both deep and complex enough to be satisfying, but not laborious where the 100th time you go through the process you just want to move on with it.

Maybe the first time you collect a certain variety of plant there’s a meaningful animation and education process about it, but each subsequent find of that item is a quick button press that simply adds it to the pack. Then when you experiment with eating, crafting, wearing, planting, or whatever it might be with said item, then it changes what you can do with it or how it helps you.

@Oram77 Yes, I think that’s true, and also there’s an expectation now that every game has to take 100 hours to complete. The game length has swelled way beyond what the norm was in the past.

But the graphical part you mention is where I wonder why the technology and the tools now available (such as those which involve AI) haven’t progressed to the point where achieving those detailed visuals and complex interactivity haven’t been an obstacle. I’m not knowledgeable about programming or development at all and I know there’s more to it. But I’ve heard that making high quality pixel art is also extremely difficult and demanding. So I don’t know.

@Oram77 Yeah, I didn’t intend to cast any blame or criticism, per se, rather more of a surprising (and disappointing) observation. It is what it is. Development takes ages now. Added to that the poor strategic planning that resulted in several cancelled projects and studio closures and… here we are.

I don’t hold it against Bluepoint or Media Molecule necessarily. It’s just crazy to think they might go the length of the entire generation without a release (Demon’s Souls Remake at launch notwithstanding). I’m sure BluePoint’s PS6 game will be fantastic. And I suspect Mm will squeeze out something on PS5, and it will probably be good too.

The development cycles for even studios that didn’t have years wasted on a canceled project are now around 5-6 years (Taking Ghost of Yotei as an example. Or Death Stranding 2) whereas it was previously about 2 years, especially for sequels. (Again using Sucker Punch as an example — Infamous 2009, Infamous 2 2011, Infamous: Festival of Blood 2011, Infamous Second Son 2014, Infamous First Light 2014.)

I’m not saying anything we don’t already know, development times have increased 2-4x compared to prior generations. It’s one reason why AI may not be such a bad thing as a tool to streamline some of the tasks of development, so long as it doesn’t replace the creative parts of the process. If it can improve efficiency and keep production on track (and keep a studio from being shut down as a result) then maybe that’s a good thing. But that’s a whole other discussion for debate.

I will say also, that despite the drastic ballooning of game development times, there has been an equally significant expansion in number of developers producing games, particularly from emerging markets. As a result there is no shortage of games to play and in fact, we have more games than ever before to choose from. So I don’t necessarily want to imply that it’s doom and gloom.

Wait… Oblivion Rrmaster is already on sale? Didn’t that just come out a couple weeks ago? 😅

Also, seeing the title Vanquish brings back some good memories. An under-appreciated gem there.

It seems crazy that studios nowadays will release only one, maybe two games on the whole console generation. Some will barely even get one — like Bluepoint (and a remaster at that, excellent though it may be). Most of them will get in one early cross-gen game or port from the prior gen, and then one late gen game. Will Media Molecule even get out one game this generation?! Dreams was PS4 only; never even had a PS5 patch.

Maybe Sony will postpone the PS6, but if they follow the 7 year generational trend we will get a new console in 2027, and I suspect a few of these studios are already working on a PS6 game.

Uh… I am kinda intrigued by Eiyuden Chronicles… maybe? Not much else for me.

I didn’t know the Nanny was the President of SAG-AFTRA.

I really enjoyed these two games, and consider them underrated in general. Will totally be on board for a third.

A lot of Balder’s Gate 3. And some Lost Records: Bloom & Rage on the side. Enjoying both in their own way, really.

@DrSimtheorist Yeah, I was saying over at another thread that ironically Tides was the game that piqued my interest the most. It was one of the games I voted for on the other poll, but only 0.7% voted for it. It’s a game that could be a lurking gem, or it could be garbage, but at least it looked like something with a touch of innovation.

The other unique game that stuck out was Baby Steps, but the humor seemed like it has the potential to be a little too eye-rolling. I think the Romeo game also would fit as novel, but it looked so extremely weird and I have Kojima for that. There’s only so many radical and eccentric games that can exist and still feel original, and this felt like a try-hard attempt at being outlandish. Perhaps I’m being overly critical of just one small trailer, and I admit to having overreaction first impressions to all these games (as we all are doing). A lot of times game will show well and then fizzle, or the opposite where they come up from the ashes and end up great.

But, as has been mentioned, I’ll give Sony credit — there was a lot of variety, plenty of generic games for fans of those genres and then a few experimental projects mixed in.

I guess I’m starting to lose touch with the community because I didn’t get too hyped for many of these, although there are definitely some games to keep an eye on. Weirdly, I was the most intrigued by Tides of Tomorrow. It might end up stinking but it seemed at least unique. A lot of the others felt like newer versions of games I’ve seen before. I’d say Baby Steps looked unique too, but since half of the trailer dealt with a portable latrine, I think I need to see more before I would commit to that. If the potty humor is best they can show of it, then I’m out. 😂

I’m only halfway joking, but I do wonder if the PS5 ports of these game implement DualSense features. 😅

Fitzgerald’s voice is really iconic for Chie. All due respect to Lowenthal, but I’ll miss Fitzgerald more. She’s so good and her job as Chie is so unique.

I understand the criticism people are expressing in general, but the ad itself doesn’t claim anything about these gaming experiences being exclusive, just too good to pass up. I’m not sure the connection. I guess people are just taking any opportunity to blast PlayStation for lack of exclusive content and for live service, even when the promotion really doesn’t have anything to do with those things.

It’s simply showing a montage celebrating some great games, “unmissable” experiences, on the console.

If I had any issue with the ad itself it would be that I’m perfectly willing to “miss” Marvel Rivals, Marathon, and AC Shadows right now. I also question why you would promote AC Shadows side-by-side with Ghost of Yotei. And Marvel Rivals beside Spider-Man 2 for that matter. The games come off indistinguishable from one another when shown in such quick sequence like that.

Really liked this game, for all its warts. Of course I picked it up a year or two later for like $10 (and then sold it back for $4) and my expectations were definitely set low. So I don’t know how I’d have felt if I paid $60 and played it at launch. But even taking cost and expectations out of the equation, there’s no doubt the concepts and world had a lot of potential.

I was wondering if I had just forgotten that whole sequence from the game so it’s good to know I’m not losing my mind.

I can see why they cut it from the game and I would respectfully suggest that it probably should have been cut from the show too. It didn’t really add anything and it ruined the pacing. It was a 10 minute diversion that was supposed to increase the tenseness of the climactic journey to the aquarium, I guess? It just seemed like filler the way it came out.

Disappointed. Was hoping that existing customers would get a discount too.

Nothing hugely compelling for me. But it’s a decent lineup nonetheless.

I agree with a lot of what the article says, with the exception that I think the storytelling has wandered too much at times and the narrative hasn’t been pushed forward fast enough to keep viewer engagement. After the drastic events early on, the journey of Ellie has had a lot of moments where it’s dragged, and we spend a whole season with too slow a drip-feed of storyline and the impact of the few moments that were key has been mixed (like the porch scene, Dina’s pregnancy reveal, Jesse’s death, etc).

Where I also disagree is that for lovers of the game the TV show has been an engaging ride to see how they adapt things, but the casual viewer is left with several hours of investment and yet very few answers and too many questions, all of which will now not be addressed for another 2 years until season 3.

I said it over on the other article, but I suspect many people just googled and spoiled the story after the way season two ended on that cliffhanger. (A cliffhanger that didn’t exist in the game). Which is fine, I guess, but some of the impact of the story has been lost due to this and other issues as mentioned.

As a fan of both games, I’ve enjoyed seeing the TV adaptation. However, I can see how non-gamers have grown bored and frustrated with the show. While I’m watching I’m enjoying the anticipation of seeing how things will be shown, but for those with no foreknowledge of events, they are thinking the show has dragged on and they are left with too many questions, not enough answers. I’m certain the way season 2 finished, many people just googled what happens next, knowing that it will be 2 years until they find out if Ellie dies, and if Tommy dies. With Joel and Jesse being killed rather abruptly, I think many worry that Tommy and Ellie could be dead in the final episode cliffhanger, leaving them with no characters to be interested in. At this point in the story Abby is just a random extra and they have no connection to her.
So I can see how some casual viewers are just discouraged with the story and apathetic at this point.

I for one am not though, although I do feel like the last few episodes have been slow to develop.

I’ll try to be optimistic about it and expect that whatever sequel version to this program will be even better. They’re right— most of the campaigns and tasks I didn’t bother doing, and sometimes I’d even be cheated from getting points for a purchase because I didn’t initiate the campaign. The program was better than nothing but could be a lot better.

@MFTWrecks Thanks for clarifying. I hadn’t considered Gail would prefer the mental vision of Eugene taking his own life as opposed to being shot. Like I said, I understood Joel’s logic up to that point, but when he changed the story about who pulled the trigger it felt self-serving there for a second, like he didn’t want to shoulder her ire or be labeled as the guy who killed Eugene. But I suppose suicide was the more heroic vision for Gail to imagine. Very ‘Japanese Seppuku’ in philosophy. The scene makes more sense with that in mind.

I do agree with the Aaron here, in that although the scene in question delivers a great emotional punch, but knowing that it was a scene revealed at the end of the game makes me wonder if it has played its hand too early to have conveyed what it did in the game.

I also had a small issue with the way Joel was portrayed in this episode as far the whole Eugene segment. It was fine up until he lied about the way he died. Even though Joel was not always a good man, it seemed a little out of character to try to deceive that way.

Nevertheless, I’m thoroughly enjoying the show, as I did the game. Apparently I’m one of the few who actually is getting enjoyment out of both. 😅

@johncalmc Yeah, I’m with you, and I think that’s was the Factions project was. I believe Druckmann said that it had a robust storyline and was on par with the single player world building at which Naughty Dog excels. Most players feel like it would have been a hit. In the end it was going to consume too many resources to make it work, or whatever it was they said.

But I definitely agree with you. Naughty Dog does need to stay in their sphere, but certainly another studio could take up the mantle of making their usual high quality single player output into a live service. Like maybe Bend or Housemarque.

I think this article does bring up important information. I hate it, but the reality is that a vast amount of gaming revenue is microtransactions. The enthusiast crowd here on Push Square is only a small portion.

As I’ve mentioned before, my issue is the way PlayStation approached their strategy of funneling its resources into chasing the service game market. They committed the greatest portion of their studios toward that effort, and now they are all being cancelled and shut down.

A better strategy would have been more targeted exploration of the GaaS arena, and not assigning nearly every studio a live service game to develop. Harness that vision better, like focused projects from maybe 3 or 4 studios should have been plenty, rather than 12 or whatever it was.

ugh… “financial discipline”… corporate speak at its finest. I think they mean “cut budgets and downsize”. Alas, I get it — Sony, like any company, isn’t a charity organization. But the poor “financial discipline” the last couple years seemed to be due to executive management’s erroneous roadmap and poor planning, including the multiple failed projects they had their first party working on.

I don’t subscribe to Premium for the retro library, rather for the cloud streaming. I don’t even take advantage of the movies or game trials either. For me the streaming makes it worth it, but the classics library does feel somewhat anemic. Also, I don’t know if it’s my imagination but the cloud streaming the last couple weeks has been less stable. Not sure if it’s my internet or some update that made things worse. Hopefully they get it sorted.

@Grumblevolcano Hmm, maybe. But see there’s the issue — doesn’t Jak & Daxter already have a PS4 version? I’m pretty sure I have the first game in my PS4 library because it came free with a pre-order of Uncharted 4 or something. The 2nd and 3rd game are also playable on PS4 and PS5… I’m not sure if it’s an emulation or what the quality is, but they’re definitely playable and for sale for $15 a piece.

Unless you want J&D to get the full remake treatment, and have the games get like a Resident Evil 4 remake, Silent Hill 2 Remake level of work done to the them. I just don’t see them selling if hardly anyone bought or played the existing PS4 ports.

God of War might be different, in that GoW3 Remastered on PS4 did sell fairly well (4 million? I think, which is a far cry less than GoW 2018 or Ragnarok, but still respectable) so a remaster of 1&2 for PS5 could get some interest and on the surface makes more sense than remastering Until Dawn, Days Gone, or Horizon Zero Dawn but I think we still overestimate how well the older games would sell.

I personally doubt that Sony coming in with an announcement of a Jak & Daxter Remake or God of War 1&2 Remake would satisfy the population of gamers that want to complain about there being too many remasters and remakes.

My main thing is I hope they maintain balance in their output. Sure, make a few remasters, remakes, and reboots and also some sequels but be sure to make some new IP. And please don’t overcommit 70% of your studios to live service. Maybe 30-50%? But not too much.

I can’t decide whether to be relieved or concerned. To say Sony’s live service projects are struggling would be an understatement.

Maybe Raymond leaving is unrelated to any problem with the game. Maybe the game is excellent. Maybe… 😒

I feel bad for Sony. PlayStation gamers certainly give them mixed signals. “Too many remaster and remakes! PS5 is the worst gen! We want more new IP!”… followed by “Where’s the GoW remasters! I hate the look and style of this Intergalactic game! I can’t buy anything else right now I have to buy and play this Oblivion Remaster even though it’s still technically broken…”

I get whiplash from some of the flip-flopping. 😂

@LogicStrikesAgain I have to agree with you about the number of quality titles this gen. They haven’t all come from Sony owned studios but we’ve seen some exceptional games and my backlog has never been bigger!

@themightyant Thanks for that summary. It really is eye-opening that so much revenue comes from MTX. Depressing, actually. With numbers like that you can see that even shutting down games like Concord and cancelling all these live service projects isn’t as much of a financial hit as one might expect. In the alternate reality where those studio resources were used for a traditional single player game, it would have to sell extremely well to move the needle from all the MTX money that a successful live service creates. The gamble does appear less foolish when you see those numbers.

Makes me tempted to buy a Pro. Or even a second PS5 to resell in a few months to make a profit. 😅

With a release window a year away, I’m not sure how anyone, even the developers, could realistically say there will or won’t be a delay. That’s so much time. It seems impossible to predict at this point. Heck, the way governments change their entire policies and tax structure from one day to the next and global economies drastically shift unpredictably, 12 months is too long to know if things will come up to cause delay, even with a tight micromanaged development schedule.

Personally, I don’t have much interest in GTA. I’m one of the few people to have never played 4 or 5 and so 6 has to do something extraordinary to pull my attention. Still, I wish they would get this thing out the door because I’m not looking forward to having to see countless articles about it for the next 12-18 months. As I’ve said before, there’s an ideal balance of ‘too much’ and ‘too little’ pre-release hype about a game. I don’t care for shadow drops because games can too easily fall under the radar, and I don’t like years of info drip fed and changed a millions times because it causes interest-fatigue eventually. Although for me there’s almost no interest in GTA6 from the start anyway, but another year and a half of ‘Will they, won’t they?’ isn’t going to help.

I’ve cleaned out my PS5 once in its four year lifespan. That was about two years ago and when I opened it up there was almost no dust there and nothing really to clean.

I guess I should do it again, but I have it stored perfectly on a shelf and it’s a hassle to take it down and open it up, so I’ve not done it. I always hate getting it seated back on that horizontal little stand perfectly again, so it’s just enough of a deterrent from taking it down. It’s not ever over-heated, even after sessions that at times have lasted 8-10 hours. When I reach back and feel the unit it is quite hot though if I’ve been playing a AAA game.

I wonder can you damage the system by running it hot? I suspect it should shut itself down before anything is damaged from heat, right?

I still haven’t played BL3, so I’ll be happy to play that instead. Also the Pre-Sequel, which I never got around to. So yeah, I have plenty of Borderlands in the backlog to keep me until the inevitable price drop

I played Skyrim on PS3 (my only Bethesda game to have spent much time with) and really loved it, but I had to be very careful with the way I played. I had read on the internet about the gradually increasing save files and the longer you play it, the more bloated the file is and largely because each little piece of flotsam and jetsam you can interact with the game tries to remember where you moved it or dropped it or whatever. So I always was sure to close every door, close every drawer after opening it, put every item back exactly where I found it if I didn’t want to keep it, and leave every space as close to the same as I found it. By playing fastidiously like that I was able to keep my save file size consistently small and I had few problems even after spending 80+ hours playing the game to completion.

Still, this isn’t really acceptable. I would give it a pass on PS3 (which I believe it was eventually patched and played much better later on PS3), because it was a hard system to work on, but at this point this is a remaster of an old game on new hardware and it’s just not something that should be let go as charming BGS jank. The purpose of a remaster/remake is to get the game up to current gen gaming standards, not recapture the original problems just in higher definition. 😆

I have to admit, the visuals do look great. But the trailer does nothing else to interest me. It’s a personal thing though, so nothing against the game. I just can’t seem to muster any interest in the urban crime genre of gaming.

@GirlVersusGame Yeah, personally I have more interest in Fable than in Halo. I know I’m in the small minority though.
The small amount of Halo 2 I played at a friends house several years ago didn’t really inspire me.

Cautiously optimistic about this game. I really loved the first one, but that was before the deluge of samurai styled games set in historic Japan saturated the market.
Also, we’ve already seen the pinnacle of the ‘revenge story’ so I hope the narrative expands on being just a simple ‘hunt down the people who killed my family’ tale. The quote from the developers did say: “But while Atsu’s story begins with vengeance, she’ll find there’s more to her journey than just revenge. As she explores Ezo, Atsu will meet unlikely allies and forge connections that help give her a new sense of purpose." So here’s hoping… 🤞🏼

One of the few MS properties I might be interested in. Still, I’m not convinced to move things from my backlog reduction schedule to make room for it yet. Perhaps reviews will convince me.

@AaronBayne I had issue with how the pregnancy reveal was handled though. I forget exactly how it occurred in the game but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t thrown in like this.

Otherwise, I’m enjoying the show. But not as much as the game, obviously. The main issue being the accelerated plot reveals, as has been noted, rather than how the game had mystery behind various character motivations.

@AhmadSumadi @Atreus97 Cheers for making me feel less of an outlier. I have only tried the game once, made it about 5-10 hours in (it’s been a while so I forget exactly) and ended up dropping it because I couldn’t click with the story and with Geralt. That, and the copious avalanche of question marks dotting the map overwhelmed me at the time. I’ve always meant to return and try it again. Perhaps now is a perfect time to do it. I really do feel like it was just the wrong time in my gaming life to take it on. I think I understand now more of who Geralt is supposed to be and how the game is designed to be played. Willing to give it another shot.

Still playing through Outlaws and FF7 CC Reunion. Both are really good; both have a little too much trivial side content. Thankfully, most of the superfluous stuff can be ignored and so I’m still having fun. Of the two I might complete FF7CC first, then will start Lost Records for my Portal game if I do.