Th3solution

It’s always strange to see the pendulum swing after time passes. The TV show was universally praised when it released, and it was an absolute phenomenon. Now there’s a growing narrative out there that it stunk. The human psyche is so weird.

On the subject of season 2 and how it and its plot will be received, I think some of the impact may be lost because of the time that has transpired between seasons. Are casual viewers really all that connected to the characters like the gamers are? I wonder.

We’re coming upon the 5 year anniversary for PS5 later this year, but it really doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. The pandemic really messed with time perception in general, but beyond that it really protracted the roll out of the generation. It actually feels like it’s just hitting its stride now. I’d prefer to get 3-4 more years out of ol’ console.

I have to admit, I excitedly clicked on this article when I quickly read the title, foolishly thinking this was information about the third installment of the Horizon series, as in Aloy & Co. 😂
Oh well, I’m sure the Trails fans are excited.

Not much for me here. I hear good things about Robocop, but eh, not really something I’m champing at the bit to play.
The other two are even of less interest to me.
But I’m not complaining. I’m still flush with games to play, both owned and through PS+.

@themightyant I understand. The record rate of withdrawal of Concord definitely epitomizes ‘not being a hit.’ 😄

@themightyant Although I do agree that the first party output is oft underestimated by the fandom, and I thank you for putting together the list, but Forbidden West is listed twice. And MLB is listed five times. 😜

(I’m mostly joking, by the way. I know all five are different games… kind of.)

Oh, and Concord… I mean, basically vaporware, right? It released, technically speaking, but barely. 😂

Still, there’s some good games on there.

@breakneck I agree, the generation has been great in spite of Sony first party fumbling a lot of their projects. The second and third party output has really saved the day. The best move Sony’s made seems to have been investing in emerging markets.

I’m another who is disappointed that my PS+ copy doesn’t make me eligible for the discounted upgrade. I never got around to playing it and I reckon I’ll just play the original PS4 version which has a PS5 patch that reportedly makes the game quite a looker anyway and plays smoothly at 60 fps. Perhaps the reviews of the Remaster will convince me to part with $50 but I doubt it.

Quite refreshing to see hires instead of layoffs.

Seeing the number of projects in development is also impressive.

I liked the idea of somehow taking Kratos to a third mythological setting like Egyptian or Japanese mythology rather than returning to a game set in Greek culture.

Fortunately we are past the over-saturation of the Greek setting that we were in for a while. I reckon it won’t be as tired as it was getting several years ago, but give us some new ancient gods for him to take on. Black Myth Wu Kong beat them to the punch on Chinese myth, but surely there’s other legends to explore

I’ll be wandering and sneaking around in a Ubisoft open world.

… Taking on stormtroopers and riding a speeder bike, that is. The other Ubisoft game.

Pfff…. Microsoft is working on a new controller with a handheld nuclear fusion reactor in it. The battery lasts a really long time. Unfortunately everyone in the beta testing died of radiation sickness before getting to Act 2 in Baldur’s Gate 3. They’re still working out the kinks.

Man, so many underachieving games that have resulted in layoffs, closures, or the threat of them.

I don’t know what the answer is for all these failures. It’s a dog-eat-dog industry right now, and it feels like all producers are operating on razor thin margins. It’s more competitive than ever before, and only becoming more so with emerging markets pumping out quality products on top of the traditional studios.

Although gamers/consumers do benefit from having so many options, I wonder if the long term effects of multiple failed projects and layoffs do end up hurting our options in the long run. I can’t speak to Double Exposure’s social impact since I’ve not yet played it, but I’ve played the rest of the series and one of the things I found refreshing about the games has been the non-traditional social settings and character studies. We have plenty of ‘stab-stab, pew-pew, jump-jump’ games out there, and I want to have games that explore human emotion, social trials, and systemic conflict. The indie space should keep some of this alive, but we are going to continue to see fewer and fewer big budget games that take on alternative themes and gameplay options.

At the end of the day, he’s right about developers needing to make the kind of games they want to make. Usually it will work out if they follow their creative passion.

But segregation of Japanese studios from the rest of the world isn’t necessarily the best approach, in my opinion. I know he’s not advocating for that in these comments though. But sometimes the fandom does seem to push for a weird delineation of Japanese games staying purely ‘Japanese’, as if the West is tainting the sanctity of their creative products.

I think gaming is best with a fusion of cultural influences present, rather than silos of self-contained sociocultural products. That said, if a developer has a vision that is heavily culturally isolationist then they should feel empowered to pursue that, knowing that the reach of the product is likely to be limited. But that’s ok. Art isn’t always about commercial success. It’s ok to make something that only a select few will enjoy. There’s plenty of room in the industry for all types of games.

Hard not to see a smidgen of possible Death Stranding inspiration in there. Obviously this is a very different game, but the ‘hiking sim’ mechanics seem reminiscent.

As opposed to multiplayer games which can be rubbish and still thrive. 😉

We could put it to a Push Square poll to settle it. We had a ‘Best Final Fantasy Protagonist’ poll and Cloud won that easily back in 2023 but Clive had a good showing for second place. I suspect if we did a ‘Best Supporting Character’ that Tifa could take the crown.

In fact, I would venture to say she would probably do well in an ‘Ultimate PlayStation Character Tournament’ like we did back in 2018 (the old Push Square regulars will all remember). Looking back, Tifa was not included in that original field of 128 characters in the tournament, even though there were characters like Knack, Delsin Rowe, Faith, Sub-Zero, and Johnny Gat.

I know that tournament was back in the good ol’ days when internet discourse was much less toxic, but another tournament like that might be fun. We should get it done before Master Chief and Marcus Fenix are officially considered “PlayStation Characters” because that will really stir things up 😅.

I hope to get deeply into Star Wars Outlaws. I’ve liked what I played so far but I’m only a couple hours along. Excited to see more though!

Finally — Knack 3!

I wrote a large comment on the other article, so I won’t repeat my fondness for the Portal…, but as it relates to this subject of retro cloud streaming, it’s certainly some nice additions for those into revisiting older titles. I’m not too interested in retro gaming, personally.

What I’m hoping for is a better way to view the cloud gaming library. Presently there’s no way to filter the titles, they’re not in alphabetical order, and it’s just a weird smorgasbord of games that is now quite large to dig through to find what you want. It’s still a beta so I suspect filtering and searching features will come eventually.

The other request I’d have is including our digital purchases into the Portal cloud library and not staying limited to PS+ games. If and when this happens, it will change my game purchasing habits and shift me even further from physical game purchases.

Eh, it’s ok. I actually like the monochrome raised glossy icons on the black part but they appear to be just random and haphazard things (like the hat and the dialogue bubble). I would have preferred fewer icons limited to just specific TLoU references.

I’m a big fan of the Portal, and have been vocal from the beginning about its usefulness, now even better with cloud streaming.

When I bought mine I did consider the Steam Deck, even at its 3X price tag. But as @themightyant alludes to, that would also require that I spend hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars more to build a Steam game library to actually play, while I already have an enormous PS5 back catalogue already. I know the remote play app Chiaki on it works well, I’ve heard, but requires a little tinkering. And I guess it’s even more convoluted to get the cloud streaming working on it. I’m just not tech savvy and therefore not interested in the whole PC thing at this point. The ease of the Portal is much more console like in that you turn it on and just play games without any meddling. And the form factor of a DualSense in my hands is awesome. As much as I loved my Vita, it just never feels all that comfortable to hold and play these standard handhelds.

One issue I’ve yet to tackle is the portability of the Portal to pack up and take on a trip is less than ideal. The comfortable controller form doesn’t make for ease of packing in a bag or suitcase. But for me, that’s only 1% of my usage and around the house it’s fantastic.

I will say, that even as smooth as it works, I still prefer certain games on the TV. There’s a lot of games that don’t quite feel right on a portable device. (And there’s actually some that I prefer on the Portal over my big OLED TV!)

I do wonder how many of the retro games actually get played. I suspect the market for them is quite small, and so kudos to the team for providing them when the demand is comparatively low.

@GamingFan4Lyf Yeah, I was imagining an alternate hypothetical universe in which Indiana Jones was a PlayStation studios game and there’s no doubt that we would have seen it hyped and advertised extensively. It would be the pop-up on the PS Store front page for weeks promoting pre-orders before release and also thrown in front of our faces at every opportunity for many weeks afterward. On my storefront on the PlayStation app the highlighted game is still FF7 Rebirth even though that released over a year ago! (I’m not sure it this is curated based on my purchase history of browsing history though.)

It does feel like the Microsoft game releases are just being dropped without much strategic thought. The four games listed here are different genres at least, but if they really drop four games in a month without any marketing or promotion that seems to be a missed opportunity to let each game be spotlighted. Although I don’t know how these things work and so maybe Sony has control over how much promotion these games get and so that affects things. I’m sure Sony wants them to be successful so they can lap up the free 30% commission on each game’s sales. But I also think it’s poor PR to have Indiana Jones or Forza to supplant the attention that they are trying to draw to Rebirth, Death Stranding 2, Lost Soul Aside, Astrobot, or even the console exclusives F2P stuff like ZZZ and Honkai.

Of course, the lack of hype build and teases for these games might feel scrawny to me because it’s in contrast to Sony’s own exclusives which seem to have multi-year build ups and rumors for ages before they finally hit the store. Each release gets two or three trailers and has to be highlighted at some kind of event before it actually gets released. We’ve been drip-fed information about these Sony projects for years and so to have 4 games from a publisher drop in a month without much fanfare feels strange.

Not much for me here, but the PoP game is a good get. It’s been universally praised, and even liked by players who aren’t really into metroidvanias. Still, I have many other games that will draw my attention, but it’s a good one to have sitting there just in case.

I didn’t know this was a thing, video games being converted into novels. Looking online it appears that it’s not as uncommon as I would have thought. I knew there was plenty of the opposite, novels becoming games, but it’s interesting that it goes both ways.

I enjoyed reading this interview. I missed (or skipped) this article the first time it was published since I didn’t play the game at launch, but coming late to the party I appreciate being able to go back and share in some of the discussion four years later.

It’s a good idea to bring back some of these articles for those of us that didn’t play a particular game at release.

It’s been over 4 years since Hitman 3 was released, so this is a surprise update. Also considering VR2 isn’t exactly setting the world on fire right now. I’m glad to see content being released for those who have a VR2 though; the best VR experiences seem to be add-in modes to existing games.

By the way, I wonder how that James Bond game is doing. If it’s been in development for around four years then we might have some solid progress by now.

If games would just calm down with their overuse of Dark, Death, Dead, Die in their titles.

Busy time, indeed. And not just for Microsoft Studio games, there’s a lot of good looking releases coming out this year. As much as I want to play Indiana Jones, I don’t know if it will be day 1 for me with all the other options this year.

I really enjoyed FF13. It came at a time when online discourse was much less prevalent, so compared to today the amount of criticism, or rather the ubiquitous access to criticism, didn’t taint my experience. It also released at a time when there were a lot fewer games coming out and so I was more prone to stick with a game longer because I didn’t have a hundred games in my backlog like I do now. And FF13 is a game that benefits from pushing through the opening 20 hours.

So if the game came out in current circumstances, I’m not sure I would have played it and enjoyed it like I did. To an extent that’s what happened to me with FF15 — I never got around to playing it because the collective opinion online was fairly negative and I had a growing backlog by then and so it just never made it to the top of the list to play.

After what happened with Star Wars Outlaws, I would avoid early access like the plague.

This looks fantastic to me. I’m tempted to pre-order it since it saves a few dollars. I’ll probably wait though because I don’t have time to play it yet.

There’s some intriguing elements to this game and it has piqued my interest. However, although parts of the game look lovely, some of the animations are stilted and rough. The idea of “no HUD, no compass, no map, no menus” sounds good on paper, but will it work in execution, that’s the question. Also, I notice that they expressly wished to avoid open world checklists and menus, and yet the protagonist has a handheld PDA that he pulls up which appears to function just like a menu would. And in this section he finds a handheld map which has a rather obvious pathway marked with red ink in the clear and artificial video game type of way, so is it really all that different? We’ll have to see. Might be smoke and mirrors in the end. Cautiously optimistic.

I’m a solo player almost exclusively. However, I did play It Takes Two with a friend on a whim and it’s excellent. It’s not my usual jam and I was skeptical of it being worthy of GOTY status but I absolutely was sold on it and definitely want to see if I can find a friend to play Split Fiction also.

I feel sorry for Naughty Dog / Druckmann. There’s so many mixed messages they are getting from the fandom. Each camp of those who want more Last of Us and those that don’t are quite vocal. People want a new IP from them so they announce Intergalactic, and then people scream for more Last of Us… people don’t want a multiplayer Factions and then they do. The studio is probably dizzy with all the flip-flopping.

In the end, the right answer should be for them to make the games they want to make, and just the games they feel passionate about, creatively speaking. Then it will likely be a good game that sells well.

If I’m not mistaken, recent follow up interviews about the shutting down of TLoU Factions 2 was less about it not being a good game or a projected commercial success, rather the studio realized that to do it right would commit them to pouring massive resources into it and would sacrifice their ability to focus on their passion for their single player projects. I can only assume this Horizon MMO will demand the same reallocation of creative and development energies…

I don’t doubt we’ll get a single player Horizon 3, but I can’t help but think that this game will hamper Horizon 3’s development (or any other potential single player projects). Unless Guerrilla Games is somehow better equipped to juggle it than Naughty Dog, who have admitted now that trying to do both live service and new SP games well was not possible.

Either way, I don’t know that I’m interested in the MMO style but I like the IP. I’m trying to keep an open mind.

@CamPatUK Yeah, streaming to the PS5 console is way ahead of the Portal cloud streaming. I think the majority of PS5 games can be cloud streamed to PS5, but a very select few can cloud stream to Portal. Here’s hoping they add more! I would love to have the flexibility to not have to depend on connecting to the PS5.

I’ve not tried connecting the Portal via remote play to PS5 and then streaming through the PS5 whilst playing via remote play on the Portal. The ‘double stream’ would seem to magnify the lag and irregularities of connection, so I’m not sure if that works. I’ve personally never tried.

@CamPatUK Sorry, I should have clarified — I left out the key word “cloud” stream. You can always still stream any game to the Portal through a PS5 connection (remote play), including BG3, as long as it’s downloaded to your PS5 console, but no direct Portal cloud streaming of games you own (such as BG3) unless they are on PS+ Premium… yet.

I’m not very tech savvy, so I don’t know the in’s and out’s of this stuff, but I assume the larger a game is, the more complex it is to cloud stream. I suspect that’s why this initial group of games they are adding for direct Portal cloud streaming are mostly smaller indie titles. If game size is an obstacle, games like BG3 and Rebirth are probably going to be added much later. Perhaps not until after the program is out of beta.

I’ve been too busy touching grass to notice, since that was the prevailing advice. Too bad the grass is all still dead. Except for that guy down the street who has fake grass which is green all year round. Helps with the allergies too.

@StrickenBiged Oh, good to know. Any food based title immediately gets unfairly lumped in with those other games. My bad.
The only reason it came to my attention was because at first glance I thought it said “Balatro” and I got excited for a minute since I own that. 😅

This is great news! Unfortunately there’s nothing on that list of 371 games that I own or have plans to play, but this is a start. Most of the list is games I’ve never heard of and many of them look like they’re those small filler games on PSN (The Jumping Pizza, Brotato, etc). Still, some AAA and big releases like the new Yakuza and Silent Hill 2 give me hope that we’ll be able to stream games like Baldur’s Gate 3 or FF7 Rebirth before too long. I’ll admit that if/when it gets to the point that all digital purchases are available on the device, that will be enough for me to shift over to buying digital instead of physical on select games.

Edit: After looking over the list again, there’s some strange inclusions, like the Jackbox Party games…? I guess those can be played online with others maybe? I’ve always considered those to be couch multiplayer experiences with friends in person.

Also some of the games listed were already on the Premium service and were streamable that way, so the 371 number is a little inflated.

These are some really great deals. Many of them have been PS+ games and so I’ve either played them or have them in my library already.

If you want to be a good archeologist, you gotta get out of the library!

@ecurb7 “…don't let some meaningless average dictate your opinions for you” Of course. There’s absolutely going to be personal preferences with anything. There’s probably a few people who loved Lord of the Rings: Gollum and Skull Island: Rise of Kong. In fact, I think it goes both ways. As in, don’t let a 6 /10 review score dissuade you if the game appeals to you. And also, if you really don’t have interest to play a highly rated 10/10 low budget indie darling, you shouldn’t feel guilted into playing it.

The mixed reception (although I would say it’s still leans positive rather than negative, Metacritic notwithstanding) of DA:V shouldn’t be enough to push someone away from trying it if it’s a game that interests them. There’s been similar online backlash, bordering on bullying, against other large AAA games where for some reason people have a weird crusade against the game (of course The Last of Us 2 comes to mind but certainly others). So I would propose just like people shouldn’t think a high metacritic score is the end-all of gospel truth on a game’s quality, one also shouldn’t let a vocal minority’s campaign to sully a game deter them. Either approach concedes independent thought and “dictates your opinions for you”.

In the case of DA:V, other than the Push Square review, the first impressions I heard were from a couple mates of mine who played it at launch and were very complimentary. To be fair, one of them dampened in his praise toward the mid-game, but the other who made it to completion was quite adulatory as apparently the game has a strong third act.

But I agree with you that there’s often a preconception of fans (on these polls anyway, which I predict will be heavily positive this month) that the measure of the PS+ offerings is proportional to the cost of the games on offer. And so I do agree with you that a $70 game that you’ll never play is worth less than a $20 game that you’ll play and enjoy. Sometimes people fail to recognize that. I just think for a lot of people this month that’s not necessarily the case and DA:V is not only an expensive AAA new game, but it’s also one they had their eye on.

@ecurb7 I might be easily shocked, certainly, but I don’t remember a commercially released AAA game coming onto the Essential service this quickly, critical failures or not. Callisto Protocol, Saints Row, Immortals of Aveum, Suicide Squad… it’s taken at least a year for high profile big budget games that flop commercially or critically to drop onto the service. Even the much maligned Forspoken only recently came to Extra. Older “commercial failures” like Banishers, SW Outlaws, Avatar, or Alan Wake 2 would have surprised me less.

And by “roundly criticized all over the internet” you mean a Metacritic of 82 and Open Critic of 80, then I admire the high standard. Personally, I do actually play “rubbish” games sometimes that aren’t 9’s and 10’s. 😂 There are only so many Baldur’s Gates and Elden Rings out there.

I’m shocked about DA Veilguard. What an awesome surprise. It’s a game I thought I’d pick up maybe when it dropped down into the $20 range next year. I might not play it until next year, but I’ll definitely claim it this month! Very nice!

One of the few Xbox properties that I am curious about. ‘Sword and Magic fantasy RPGs’ are among my favorite types of games, especially when they are third-person. However there is plenty of competition for my game time, particularly when most of these games are quite lengthy. I can’t get to them all so I’m not sure if this will do something to push it near the top when there’s games like Witcher 3, DA Veilguard, Dragon’s Dogma 2, both KCD games (although they are more realistic sim and less fantasy, from what I understand) that I still need to get to. I guess maybe this series fills a niche where the storytelling and character development is more open and customizable but the gameplay is more action based…? It looks good but just wondering if it can marry the deep storytelling and character development with top-notch action gameplay. It seems like games usually can only do one of those two aspects really well.

It Takes Two never ceases to amaze. What a great success story. They have had it on every subscription service and gave it away on PS+ Essential and it still sells