Th3solution

It’s good to get that clarification. Now can he define A vs. AA vs. AAA?
And also, what constitutes a “Souls-like”? 😜

In reading the comments and also thinking on the subject myself, I think there’s a vagueness of what constitutes a AA game vs a AAA and vs an A game or indie game.

I know it all boils down to budget, developer team size and scale, and production time. But I don’t know if there’s a consensus cut-off point. I think I saw somewhere that a game will graduate into AAA territory around the $50 million production cost point…? It was several years ago but I think Witcher 3 was originally made on a budget around that neighborhood, which blows my mind.

Unfortunately, a lot of game budgets are just not made public, so there’s guesstimates and inferring that has to occur.

So depending on the definition, some of my favorite games like Control, the A Plague Tale games, Hellblade, Returnal, are likely considered AA even though they look AAA on the screen.

However it’s defined, I really think the mid-tier gaming budget space (call it AA if you’d like) is critically important. It’s really where creativity and innovation meets fidelity and polish. Games like Disco Elysium, Nier Automata, Inscryption, and the games from medium sized teams like Remedy, Housemarque, Team Ico/GenDesign, etc are really essential for keeping gaming fresh and progressive.

I was actually thinking G.I. Joe as the first to come to mind. But maybe because I’ve listened to Colin too long.

Resume bringing back activity

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare It is perplexing that Returnal (and other first party games) have not been discounted, even years after release. I’m not sure, but there’s likely a few things contributing to their logic — 1) the inclusion of these onto PS+ game libraries, 2) the slow death of physical games sales and the move toward digital gaming with its resultant monopoly of the PS Store, 3) a conscious decision to follow the Nintendo strategy of maintenance of game pricing, 4) the shift toward PC ports after a year or two of console exclusivity and the need to keep pricing consistent across platforms, and 5) the general lack of understanding Sony has of the affinities of its core PS player base.

One of the things Sony used to do that I lament is gone now is the “Greatest Hits” collection that would re-release games at a lower cost a year or two after they launched. Usually they would be $20-30 for the Greatest Hits version and I think it would give games a second wind after their sales had dropped off. They had a Greatest Hits collection from PS1 all the way through PS4, but for some reason they have abandoned the practice this gen. Criteria to be a GH wasn’t all that strict, I think it had to sell 500K copies and be at least 10 months since release. Returnal sold that in the first two months and I think is around 1 million copies sold, and the game is about to be 4 years old. It would certainly have fit the mold for a GH discount long ago. The same would apply to most of the games released in the first two years of PS5’s existence (Rift Apart, Demon’s Souls, etc) which all still sell for $70 right now.

Also, as you say, practice has usually been to put games on sale when trying to pump up interest and Sony have been inconsistent with that this generation. I suspect maybe Returnal will go on sale as we get closer to the release date of Saros. That would make sense (but as we established, Sony hasn’t always made the sensible move)

Alas, in your situation an alternative if you have a disc drive you might be able to find a second hand disc out there of Returnal for around $30.

As far as your Returnal experience though, I do think you aren’t alone in how you fell off on the opening sections of the game. Many struggled to make progress and got frustrated. I think I spent 12 hours repeatedly going through the first biome until I finally got past the first boss, after which things started clicking a lot better. Like the Souls games, there are some essential little tips and strategies the game doesn’t necessarily tell you which help make it more approachable, but require one to dive online to research those. Also, they patched the game to supposedly nerf the difficulty and actually added a save option which you could use once during your run. It also added co-op which also apparently makes the game much easier, if that’s in your bag.

Although, it’s perfectly okay if the game just doesn’t click. There are certainly many fan favorites that I can’t quite grasp. 😄

@Czar_Khastik Which, of course, Concord was merely standing upon the shoulders of the great pioneer, Dreams.

Quality over quantity. 😜

But seriously, of all those Xbox games, I only have interest in Hellblade II and Indiana Jones. Maybe Gears of War.
Compared to Ghost of Yotei, Death Stranding 2, I think it’s not really a comparison. Throw in Lost Soul Aside, Where Winds Meet, and some of the other third party console exclusives and I really don’t have time for Xbox games outside of those two (Indy and Hellblade 2, which apparently isn’t even very good but I loved the first one so much I feel like I have to play the sequel)

This did catch my eye, and not just because of the protagonist. I liked the setting and the overall feel of the game. Very FFXVI with the summons of the Knights. Although I didn’t play it I can see the Forspoken comparisons. I’ll have to see though, because I liked the Stellar Blade promos and then when I played the demo I didn’t like how it felt to play.

It is ironic to see Days Gone get the PS5 treatment, given its reputation of an unwanted step-child in the Sony family, whereas Bloodborne is the critical darling golden child and fan favorite.

I am very intrigued by this. The gameplay looks quite flashy and definitely reminding me of FFXVI. I really like the setting.

It’s also giving me Forspoken vibes unfortunately, and we all know how that turned out. So I’m tempering expectations. But otherwise this probably was the game of the show for me.

I think I’m getting closer to seeing the end of Resident Evil 4 Remake. I’ve been savoring this game, enjoying every minute. It’s been a remarkable contrast from my experience with the original version, which I didn’t care for much and couldn’t even finish because I found it rather frustrating to play. The Remake has been wholeheartedly a better time for me. I rarely if ever engage in DLC and I’m pondering getting Separate Ways because I don’t want it to end.

Then for Portal time it will be making my way though Gris, and then trying to get back into FF7 Crisis Core, provided the PSN holds together this weekend. 😄

@WafflingHearts Yes! Those also helped.

I’m set for another year on Premium which I upgraded to on a sale. I will most likely continue at the Premium tier but I’m not sure. The main attraction, in addition to the large Extra catalogue, is the streaming to my Portal.

The regular annual renewal price is rather steep, so I’ll have to consider when the renewal comes around. I still get my money’s worth though, since I’ll usually play minimum of six PS+ titles per year, and usually more. At an average of $20 per game, it doesn’t take long before you hit a break even point. Even for me, who is a less productive gamer than most enthusiasts, with my last year only having played about 15 games total.

The service has also exposed me to games I’d usually have never played before. Playing Gris right now and played The Gardens Between last month, for example — Lovely indie games which really help me from getting too stuck in the bitter AAA gaming rut. 😄 (Not to worry though, I’m playing Resident Evil 4 and Final Fantasy as well)

@tgt Good tips. I would also add that — remapping the dash from the circle to a shoulder button really helped. The game is so kinetic and dodging is key to success and that millisecond that you have your thumb off of the right analog stick can make the difference between life and death. Being able to hit R1 to dash while also rotating the camera and moving with then two sticks simultaneously was very helpful.

But yes, those other tips you mention were key. The games most valuable resource is indeed the health, and increasing your health supply is vital to survival, so strategizing around that was important.

Overall, Returnal was a sublime experience. But like you and many others, I spent many hours (I think my count was 12 hrs) in just repeatedly banging my head trying to get past the first boss. I was at the edge of my sanity at one point and wanted to quit, but once I got past that boss it really got much ‘easier’, in the sense I understood the game better and the small perks added to that. The next major obstacle was getting past the third biome; that last tower climb to the boss was absolutely brutal. But then you get a soft check point and it was such bliss to feel the tangible progress.

Returnal was just so fantastic. I loved it! 😄

I’ve never played Days Gone, and have my PS+ copy ready to go, was planning to get to it this year.
Count me as one who was ready to plop down $10, but isn’t going to $50. Especially based on what I saw in the trailer yesterday. It didn’t look as impressive as the Horizon Remake. Unless the reviews come out with some surprise enhancements that blow our minds, I’ll just stick with the patched PS4 version, which I hear is quite nice already at 60 fps.

As luck would have it, this was on my list to try and get to this year. Honestly I can’t tell that it looks all that much better than the PS4 version, unlike Horizon Zero Dawn. But I think $10 is a low enough price to just go for the best version for my initial playthrough.

Honestly, if it’s that far along it feels like this is a quick turnaround to season 2, especially considering delays from the fires. Usually these big budget TV shows take a few years.

@PuppetMaster Ditto. To reduce Death Stranding to a “hiking sim” is being reductive. It’s less of a hiking sim than COD is a “gun shooting sim”, or FIFA is a “running and kicking sim”, or Stellar Blade a “sword slashing sim”, etc. It’s like people forget Death Stranding has gun and third person shooting, crafting, vehicles and driving, an online multiplayer aspect, deep strategy and puzzle solving, and so forth.

I’m not saying people have to like it (or any game for that matter — we all have our preferences), it’s perfectly fine not to, but it’s honestly has one of the most varied and unique sets of gameplay in recent times.

I’ll say it again, but although I don’t need personal compensation or professional therapy, I was annoyed at the outage. I mean, yeah, I went on with life and worked outside, got some chores done, and watched a little TV during the outage, and now I’m back in the weekly grind. My weekend gaming sessions are usually therapeutic for me to get through the stress of life, alas it will have to wait. Looking forward to next weekend, hoping that this time I’ll have the opportunity to make some of the progress through the backlog that I planned for last weekend. A missed weekend isn’t the end of the world, I agree but I’ll admit that I was pretty disappointed.

I’m the kind of person who never throws a tantrum when I’m at a place of business and received poor service. But I usually appreciate it when the business owner acknowledges when they, for example, get my order wrong, or take too long, or give me a defective product, or just generally do a bad job. It’s basic customer service.

Sony has offered the 5 d compensation, which is fine, and I guess is their version of comp’ing a meal that was bad, but in today’s world with the hacking, the data breaches, the stealing of personal information, and the general expectations of disclosure, you would think they would get out in front of this from a PR perspective. The fact they haven’t makes me think there is still some investigating going on.

Sony generally provides great service and they have a built a lot of good will with me, so I’m not losing sleep over this, but to say I’m not a little annoyed would be disingenuous. Life goes on and I’ll proceed with all the non-gaming things that everyone keeps saying I should be doing. 🙄 I appreciate the advice.

Really loved The Order 1886. Galahad was a great protagonist and I really enjoyed the steampunk alternate Knights of the Round setting.

I know it may not be as obvious what a good piece of marketing this is to those outside the U.S., but to have the PS brand placement in front of the largest TV audience of the year is a nice perk. It may not mean much to our friends in the UK and Europe, but a lot of eyes were on the Super Bowl, many of which were only watching to see Lamar.

As a related aside for our British audience, shout-out to David Beckham’s commercial. I can’t remember what the product was (some kind of beer I think?) but he and his ‘lost American twin’ Matt Damon were hilarious. 😄

I’m a big fan of the game. I have it downloaded on my PS5 and expect to leave it on there perpetually to jump in and have a few runs from time to time.

I love it when I see people have massive success and yet they don’t let it go to their heads. If I suddenly became a multi-millionaire, I would hope that I wouldn’t change that much. Maybe I’d buy Push Square and rule with an iron fist over the comment sections, but otherwise I’d be the same humble simple man. 😜

Wow, there’s an awful lot of pendulum swinging backlash criticizing anyone who voiced annoyance at the outage. “Go outside and touch some grass”, etc. I mean, yeah, I get it — it’s 24 hours of lost time gaming, not the end of the world, nobody died, no one was physically injured… but I think it’s reasonable to feel a bit annoyed. It’s like when you go out to get in your car and you have a flat tire — your day is basically ruined and you’re allowed to be a bit grumpy for a couple days. Or a closer comparison, when your internet goes down for a couple hours. It’s pretty maddening and inconvenient. Also, it’s not worth getting an ulcer over either.

For me, I’ll put my schedule up against anyone’s as far as time spent in tons of other non-gaming activities. Been “touching grass” all week. I game a fraction of most of the enthusiasts here. Was I annoyed that my Saturday plans got crippled? Yes. Do I feel bummed that I had a nice 3-4 hours set aside to make some progress on my backlog and I couldn’t? Yes. I don’t think it’s groundless to be a little disgruntled.
At the same time, I wouldn’t blow a gasket or lose sleep over it either.

Didn’t they also give away some extra free games the last time we had an extended outage like this?

The added 5 days is fine, but I don’t need more Monday through Friday game time. I want my Saturday back! 😜

Well… I thought I was in the clear and working but while cloud streaming a game I got kicked off and it’s now telling me no streaming is available. But I can log in on my PS5 and my trophy list works… kinda. I can see it on that new little hub thing, but if I go to pull up my trophy list from my account icon then it goes into a perpetual loading screen. So weird.
I had really wanted to cloud stream to my Portal today, but oh well. Why couldn’t this have happened when I was at work all week? My Saturday is my main game time!

I’ve been playing a digital game on my PS5 this morning and the storefront has been loading for me but not my trophy list, until now, after I exited my game, the trophies are back up and the two trophies I earned have synced. Yay! Someone must have finally paid Sony’s electric bill and got the power going again.

Wow… I just came here to for the comment blow up. 😅
Maybe we can set a Push Square comment record!

After a period of limited free time, I hope to finally get back to Leon and Las Plagas. I left off at chapter 10 last week, and so I’m anxious to see how this unfolds.

Then I need to return to FF7 Crisis Core which I have enjoyed but have spent less time with because of RE4.

And finally, I’m planning to mix in some Gris which is the forum Game Club game this month. Looks like a wonderful diversion when I want a break.

Of course if PSN doesn’t come back on then all bets are off.

@Ravix Ooh yeah, that could be good. Returning as a new instructor (Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher maybe? 😅) undercover to investigate something nefarious at the school.

@JuiceboxMeister Yes, that’s another great idea to visit other schools. It would be a huge undertaking to create those spaces from scratch and much more risky. There’s also the issue of getting the endorsement from Rowling if they were to build a new wizard school from the ground up and I suspect it would be a nightmare to navigate the quagmire of getting the creator’s approval and input.

@Ravix That’s a good thought — as detailed and rich of a HP world that Avalanche created, they did leave some meat on the bone, so to speak, with shallow RPG mechanics. The side content can absolutely be improved as so much of it was filler (after the first dozen Merlin trials they get to be a chore) and the side quests and NPC companions can be improved as well.

I think making it a game with a new custom protagonist in a new era, perhaps just a few years later, with some teachers and instructors carrying over but totally new student body to get maybe better storylines going and then, as you say, adding in the more intricate RPG choices for a varied story outcome would be the icing on the cake. It taking place in a school with an IP that depends upon attracting a younger audience means you couldn’t get too crazy with the evil choices and dark options but it could be done.

As an HP fan, I really enjoyed Hogwarts Legacy. I don’t think the game needs added content, but I think a sequel might work. It’s hard to say, since the first game was so expansive and detailed, it leaves less room for further exploration of that universe.

It’s good to see the developers realize the limitation: “Questions linger about whether the success of the first game can even be replicated, let alone surpassed — or if the pent-up demand has already been satiated”
It’s rare to see a company have restraint and not want to immediately squeeze an IP dry and expect ever increasing returns.

Nevertheless, there’s room for a little creativity I believe, and having a spin-off HP game that perhaps has different settings (Having quests at the Ministry of Magic, competing in a Tri-Wizard tournament, etc.)

I’ll be very curious to see what this game really turns out to be. By all descriptions it sounds like the exact blueprint of the first game, but with Kojima, I seriously doubt it will just be a retread of DS1. Obviously his focus is on narrative eccentricities but I think he’ll make gameplay mechanical adjustments and evolve the IP somehow.

I’d really enjoy a continuation of the package delivery game design with the open world, stealth and no-kill strategies of enemies, and the shared online world building. Presumably with new structures to build, new transportation options and vehicles, and new maps with different environmental hazards. Honestly, I’m not all the fussed about having new or more combat encounters, but we’ll probably see new weapons (although how many more possibilities are there to weaponize your own biological waste 😂) and enemies. Shooters are a dime a dozen out there, that’s not what’s going to make this game special. It’s the unique strategizing of loading up your back or vehicles with packages, traversing gorgeous vistas, and puzzling out the risk vs. benefit of taking a short cut or over-stacking your backpack whilst avoiding combat encounters — and doing all that whilst watching an outlandish narrative unfold.

@Intr1n5ic Thanks for posting that. I have been using psprices but lately their website seems less user-friendly, less reliable, and just generally less useful. I knew there was another site like it but couldn’t remember what it was. Dekudeals is the one. It seems to have better filtering features and I like how it has comparison prices to retail outlets like Walmart and GameStop physical prices also, which psprices previously did but appears not to now.

Welp… my first trophy earned in my Persona 5 playthrough was in late 2017 and the trophy for completing the game was early 2021… so I’d say it takes me a few months. 😂

I guess this is like buying new jeans that are worn out and have holes in them — buying a bag that looks like one that is literally free at any grocery store. 😂

There’s not an option regarding KCD for “I bought the first game but haven’t started it yet and plan to play it soon”
The sequel looks great and I assume I’ll want to get to it eventually also.

I’m more likely to try these games than the Halo games. Still, I don’t know for sure if I ever will.

I’m just annoyed that it will mess with my ability to use the abbreviation of “GoW” without causing confusion between this franchise and the one with Kratos. 😅

When I envision a group of friends playing Monster Hunter together, these people don’t look like the people in my mind. 😅

This is where we find that the stats about gamers and their need for 60 fps is hyperbole. Just like Tears of the Kingdom and the other critical and commercial darlings out there, we’ll see that 30 fps is still good enough to sell millions and win tons of critical awards.

I suppose there will be a select few who refuse to play it at 30 fps, but its always an eyeroll for me when the performance elitists say they’ll never touch or support a game under 60, and then they always make an exception.

Man, I keep wanting to go back to this. Haven’t played since launch. It’s funny because after it’s lackluster reception at release, I went to sell the game on the second hand market and it was going for pennies, so I kept it, and now it’s worth a lot more. Similar to Cyberpunk 2077 where you could have bought a used copy a week after launch for next to nothing and then the value of the game has gone up subsequently.

I hate to break it to him, but I don’t think Starfield is going to sell very well on PlayStation. The ship has sailed there, I believe.

Bought two games physically just yesterday. I don’t have time to play them yet but I had to grab them when I found them at a good price because, yeah, it’s getting harder to find physical copies of a lot of games.

Some combination of the following:
Resident Evil 4 Remake - on the big screen, dialed in and fully immersed
Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core Reunion - streaming on the Portal in bed for some quick play sessions
Balatro - on the Portal while watching NFL playoffs and NBA games

Depending if I finish one of the first two, I might start my next big project, perhaps Baldur’s Gate 3, Witcher 3, Forbidden West, or starting the Mafia series. Have to see how the wind blows. I’m not counting out jumping straight to FF7 Rebirth even though I usually don’t like to play similar games or series sequels back-to-back. But I’m just so curious about Rebirth.

I might be more interested if I didn’t have a half dozen AC games already in the backlog, and if Ghost of Yotei wasn’t coming out soon also. As it stands, even if this gets high marks, I’m apt to prioritize Yotei instead. In the unlikely event that Yotei reviews horribly, I’ll get my AC historical fiction fix by playing Odyssey or Valhalla since I already have those.

It looks okay. I’ve been away from the AC franchise for a while and have several to choose from when I’m ready to go back to it. This one will go into the pile and can wait for later.

So… it’s an interesting metric — “most downloaded” as opposed to “best selling”. So it implies that these games weren’t necessarily purchased in 2024. So people could be just re-downloading their GTA 5 or It Takes Two games from prior years. I’m guessing some people delete the old NBA or Madden game and then redownload it when the next season starts or when they have friends over, as opposed to leaving it on their console.

A better metric is the PC concurrent players numbers, because just because a game is downloaded doesn’t mean that it’s being played. I can definitely attest to that. I had No Man’s Sky on my hard drive for years and never launched it. 😂

Also… Phasmophobia isn’t something I remember charting at all. It’s a surprising one to be on this. Again, I think maybe it’s also more downloaded repeatedly because it’s a co-op game and gets redownloaded more than once for friend play sessions and deleted in between.

@Dr_Rock Yes, I would like a real overhaul of the trophy organization and display. Search function would be a good start. I’d like to go further and ask for a way to customize the display of trophies. Even something as rudimentary as what PlayStation Stars does with their little cabinet display. If we could choose some of our platinums to display in a default cabinet that would be fun.

But I’d like to be able to organize them by genre, or franchise, or by percentage complete or just to be able to search would be nice.

Many of us who’ve been in the PS community since the launch of trophies have hundreds of games in the trophy list and thousands of trophies. It seems a missed opportunity to be able to celebrate our trinkets better and also easily reference them. Especially with so many remakes where we may have the same game played in 2010 and again in 2024, with two trophy lists. Could we display them together? Could we have all the Final Fantasy games together (or at least all the FF7’s 😅), or all the Mass Effects or all the Uncharteds, or Metal Gears, etc.

I do like the ability to just scroll through in a chronological history of my gaming, but sometimes I want to see or display something specific.

We’ve given Sony a lot of heat lately for the complete mismanagement of PlayStation Studios and the live service debacle, so I think it only fair to give them props for the foresight to invest in the 3rd party promotional support that has brought some really popular single player games this generation. This is looking like it will join Stellar Blade, Black Myth, Rise of the Ronin, Final Fantasy Rebirth, Final Fantasy XVI, Silent Hill 2, and Helldivers 2, (and forthcoming Death Stranding 2), as really quality output from 2nd and 3rd party studios for console exclusive PS5 games.

Perhaps Sony knew all along that they didn’t need a lot of single player games from their first party so that’s why they felt comfortable experimenting with their own studios stepping away from making traditional SP games. 🤷🏻‍♂️

I’ve become accustomed to using the sub service catalogue as a backup, and still purchasing games that are high priority. Of the 16-18 games I play per year, 8-10 of them end up being PS+ games. So the service is still worth the investment, yet I also buy games.