I think Pachter realized a long time ago being right in his predictions was not a prerequisite of his employment as a 'video game industry analyst'. (I'll go to my grave disputing this is in fact an actual job).
So WotL had other issues besides the performance. They messed with the drops and changed some of the items around (can't steal Genji Gear from Elmdore - changed it to be locked behind the PSP's lackluster ad hoc multiplayer mode). They've brought it back to its original form with this and I'm cool with that.
This the same Famitsu that gave Nintendogs a 40/40? Yeah, this reviewer is tabloid trash as far as I'm concerned. I think PushSquare has published an article or two on their questionable reviews, particularly towards Japanese games.
That said, I hope Silent Hill f is as good as they say and I like what I've seen gameplay-wise. I'm gonna be waiting on some trusted reviewers though. I'm sorry but in this climate I hardly trust any publications, let alone Famitsu of all things.
Also 13-14 hours for a survival horror game is on the long side as far as genre contemporaries like RE and Silent Hill go.
Makes sense in a way, since that was when the global gaming population increased super quickly (don't quote me on this haha), after stagnating in the latter years of the PS4 and into the PS5 era. Massive, but not growing at the rate it used to I mean. So these games would be the sales powerhouses.
I like a lot here don't hitch my wagon to these types of games but I do see the appeal to the mainstream.
Love the PS5 for what it is, and I've accepted what it isn't going to be at this late hour in the console's life cycle. It's not a bad system.
That said, Sony have failed in selling me on why I would possibly consider a PS6 at launch. The extended PS4 / PS5 cross-gen period cost them my day one purchase and some of my confidence in their product. I'll be breaking my day one adoption streak unless they release something immediately phenomenal with the next console.
I still haven't seen that release that makes me say, yes, THIS is a PS5 game. The ones which came closest were the PS5 only launch window titles, which kinda ties into my point PS4 cross-gen held things back, and badly, this gen.
I gotta disagree. MGS2 from a nuts and bolts perspective was nonsensical. The prophetic message about AI and the themes of 'meme, gene, and scene' were awesome. Raiden's story arc (the entire narrative thrust of the game) was so bad and ridiculous they retconned it by MGS4.
I'm referring to (spoiler, but not really a spoiler because it was retconned) the whole Big Shell incident being an elaborate ruse constructed by the Patriots to turn Raiden into the next Solid Snake, by basically fabricating the whole central conflict of the game. The S3 program or whatever it was called. That was so dumb even me as a teenager couldn't handle it, and I'm all there for Kojima's weirdness normally.
Then you have a samurai sword fight with the former President of the US on the roof and well, yeah. I think they retconned the US President part of Solidus' backstory too, someone correct me if I'm wrong on that. And somehow Raiden is an ex child soldier who fought under that same ex President... in Africa? I mean, what? Maybe I missed something in my couple playthroughs haha. And oh yeah Ocelot is possessed by Liquid's arm (retconned).
The themes (AI, identity) were cool. The actual narrative, the story being told, was... straight bonkers to the point even later MGS games, being as crazy as they are, said nah to all that. MGS4 spent a decent portion of its narrative trying to un-screw all the insanity from MGS2's plot and turn it into something cohesive. Had to turn to a macguffin (nanomachines) to undo the damage created by bisexual immortal vampires and possessed arms.
I like MGS2 overall though as a whole. But let's call a spade a spade on that plot.
Yeah, I can't say I'm on the Kojima conspiracy train as far as all that goes though it is interesting. But he is the guy that did a whole fake marketing campaign for Metal Gear Solid V, so who knows. Maybe the guy intentionally sabotaged the game to get out of doing MGS finally. I've seen the Kojima interview where he says the game was meant to evoke a feeling of something missing, but I didn't take it to mean he intentionally cut out a whole act of the game, on purpose. I know things are wacky in Kojima land, but I just can't believe that wacky.
I like most of his games, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't describe any, including MGSV, as outright bad. Death Stranding is on my play list if I can ever find the time. I just think his course with MGS ran out.
And I am just intensely curious, what thematic overlap is there between PT and MGS? This is a whole other level of analytical deep dive I have never encountered. All interesting though. I guess that's a testament to his work.
What's your first favorite? MGSV is low on the list for me personally. I've never heard that the game was meant to make you feel it was incomplete - that's an interesting theory and very meta if true. Kojima certainly succeeded in making me go "That's it?" at the end haha.
I'll acknowledge what MGSV did right story wise. The interplay between language and culture angle to the story had some real meat on its bones, I just don't think Kojima actually succeeded in the story he was trying to tell. It all fell apart into loose threads by the end, although eliminating your own soldiers at Mother Base was impactful.
I think he had a really, really good idea and failed at implementing it with MGSV with the vocal cord parasites dealio. I just see the potential greatness in this game, which makes how it all turned out more disappointing.
Kojima is a game director who wants to direct movies but won't admit it. He's just an insanely huge western film buff and inserted that into his games to amazing effect at first, before anyone else thought of doing that. Then in a twist of fate, this increasingly resulted in worse and worse games over time as the medium evolved past him.
People call Kojima an auteur. I agree, but for films not games. Glad he won't be involved with any MGS stuff going forward. Plus, I think he has contributions left to make in other IP. Just... stay away from Metal Gear Solid.
I mean let's be real and take off the nostalgia glasses. Look at MGS2's story. Not the gameplay, just the story. It is an absolute mess if you actually take a second look at it, half of which had been reconned by later games due to how asinine some of it was. The series was already showing cracks by then, let alone by the time the fifth main entry came onto the scene.
Kojima is the George Lucas of gaming imo. MGS5 was his cue to leave and I think it's best for him and everyone else that happened.
Basically summarized my thoughts of this game perfectly. I know there's a lot of issues with the Venom Snake reveal - but I thought it was poignant actually. YOU, the player are Big Boss. I get what Kojima was trying to do there and I think he nailed it. It's real send off to you, the fan and player.
Now, that said - Sutherland sucked in the role, I don't care if there's a narrative rationale for the voice change. He still sucked and wasn't even dimly comparable to David Hayter in my opinion. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the lines were literally recorded over a phone call. To go from legendary voicework to subpar just to get a "big name," well, that's why I don't trust Kojima with these characters anymore.
Second, the vocal cord parasites plot thread was trying to tell a cool story around the interrelationship between language and culture. It was a cool idea with a lot to mine from. But the game badly failed doing that. It was so zany by the end, kind of read like a freshman college paper from a literature major. Not to mention the meat of the story was fairly hidden in optional audio tapes.
Third, as you mentioned, it was straight up unfinished. Which enough has been said about that. We'll never know how much of that was Konami's greed versus Kojima running over budget and deadline. I'm guessing both.
Anyways, I'm extremely mixed on the game. Not terrible, not great. I am very glad Kojima has nothing to do with this series going forward. This from a guy who considers MGS1 his favorite game of all time and put over 150 hours into V.
Someone in the comments called this a PS3 game and that's the general vibe I'm getting from the review. A PS3 game design and direction-wise - not meant as an insult necessarily.
Granted, I do really miss the AA era of the PS3 glory days. You don't see as many anymore. Thing is, if you are gonna release a AA game, price it accordingly. I bet you'd have some takers on this game at a $40-50 price point.
Hope to see more games from this China Hero initiative.
Not controversial imo, Kojima really didn't do well with the story and it's clear the magic had run out. Glad he got canned, it made him move on to other things - he was trying leave the series behind since MGS2.
His choice of going with Sutherland over David Hayter pretty much confirmed he wasnt a good steward of the series anymore.
Unfinished, really lame story about vocal cord parasites. Keifer Sutherland phoned in what little voice work there was for Venom Snake (sounds like he just woke up the whole game, voice doesn't fit the character at all). Villain was the weakest in the series outside the portable entries. Game is on record as missing an entire act that was cut out involving young Liquid stealing a metal gear. 75% of the actual story is hidden on cassette tapes. Bosses were not great compared to earlier entries, very copy and paste.
BUT it had the best gameplay in the series by a mile. Lands around a 7-7.5 for me.
Story wise, Big Boss's story ended on a wet fart though. Overall, I play these for the story so I was not super enthused about the cuts and direction.
Physical for me, every time. Passed up on some good games this gen that didn't come complete on disc / cart. It's actually been helpful in a way because my backlog is massive so it becomes the deciding factor, all else being equal.
So no Doom, no Forza, etc. But gave me time to play other stuff I missed out on. Basically, the publishers are making the decision for me... and I'm cool with that. Microsoft has firmly decided it doesn't want my money, it seems.
The wait for physical editions for Psychonauts 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Alan Wake 2, and Black Myth Wukong hurt a little though, I won't lie.
Agree with this. It sounds weird but this service almost makes games disposable and "cheap", if that makes sense.
I mean all I could afford when I was a kid was Aladdin on Sega Genesis because it was on $5 clearance. That was my one game for months. You bet I was pouring through every level to get the most out of that game, playing and replaying it. Really mastering it.
Now it's just like, eh, throw that new game in the pile with the rest. I miss that magic and fun of really discovering everything in a game. There's just no incentive to do that anymore.
And people growing up today might think "Oh that's terrible, you played and replayed that same game for months". Truth is, I've never had as much fun with video games since that era, and I've played any AAA title I had time for in the years since. Just does not hit the same, even great games. I've been chasing that high for decades haha.
I went down to Essential recently. It's not that Premium is awful. But I just have zero interest. Absolutely zero interest in a digital rental games service.
But you are right, it would be a different story if I was at a different point in my life (a kid with tons of expendable free time and limited funds - we've all been there). Where was Premium when I was growing up?!
I collect physical across all legacy PS consoles and handhelds. Up to somewhere around 1800 physical games now. Anything worth having, I have. And zero time to play ...
Yup, I am definitely not the target market for this service. I acknowledge that. 😆
Yeah you summarized better than I could. A relatively small increase in sales past the "break even" threshold (i.e., actual profit) of, say, 100k units could potentially double your real profits.
And I think it's worth mentioning (maybe people know this and sorry if I'm stating the obvious), most companies including Fortune 500 companies operate on "razor thin" profit margins of 5-10% of total revenue. So the smallest increase in sales revenue past your fixed costs can result in a monumentally huge increase in real profit, assuming each individual sale surpasses the variable cost of each unit produced (which in this case they absolutely would as it costs a small percentage of the sale price to press and ship a disc in bulk).
Don't want to get too "micro economics" on everyone but it makes no sense to not release physical UNLESS the start up cost to manufacture physical units (fixed costs) are too high. I highly doubt that's the case here as a lot of that infrastructure is already in place.
I've been subscribed to Premium since the service launched thanks to stacking some deals. I will be downgrading to Essential next month - I've already updated the subscription settings to auto renew to the lower tier.
I'll revisit in a year and see if they decided to put any effort into Premium. I'm not holding out hope.
Premium tier membership is absolutely gonna nosedive this year I bet, as all the subscription deals from yesteryear slowly expire and a $159.99 USD charge looms ahead for many. I would LOVE to see Sony's internal metrics on this. I feel it is going to be biblical.
Yeah my subscription is ending next month. I'm downgrading to essential. $159.99 in the US based on what they've been providing just ain't gonna do it for me.
I've played a game from the 'game library' maybe twice, ever. Big fan of retro games but the PS1 / PSP lineup is pretty abysmal still. The standout feature of Premium surprisingly has been the new Portal update which allows streaming games directly but it just isn't enough.
If there's a PS1 game I really can't pass up (we'll see), I'll just buy it since that's an option now for non-Premium members. Really very little appeal for the extra money.
Yeah but 20% is a huge amount of potential lost sales. 20% could be the difference between a big success and a flop. I mean it ain't negligible. Why deprive themselves of the extra sales in an environment where games are so expensive to develop already?
Figure they would be trying to maximize every bit of revenue possible, not cutting out 15-20 percent of the market during tough economic conditions.
I mean let's say it's only 10% of people who pass. That's still an absolutely titanic amount of lost revenue. Makes no sense.
I'm not gonna pretend this is the reason, but the reason it was a hard pass for me personally is the whole game key debacle.
Yes, digital is all powerful, but if it's even just 15% of people holding out for physical, that can be the difference between profitability and a commercial failure.
I mean look at Alan Wake II. That was a hard no for a physical edition. Then they did an even harder U-turn on that policy and like magic achieved their break even point some months later.
It really confuses me why publishers can't spare a couple cents per unit to press all the data to a disc.
Done this job for eight years, just got a detective spot last month. The bit about requesting spike strips in a car chase is pretty on point. However, I can confirm promotions are not necessarily given based on experience or how many cases you have closed in real life. If only, haha.
I guess it wouldn't have been too much fun if they simulated 4 hours of report writing after every DUI arrest. But seems surprisingly realistic and technical for a game of this type.
Disagree, the bus ride to the store was part of the awesome memories. And who in their right mind is bashing the 90s? I mean, yeah, furbies were creepy I admit. But the rest was awesome.
It's more about the principle of it all. It's pretty shady. I think the whole "they'll shut down the servers someday" is a little overblown myself. It hasn't really happened on a mass scale, at least not yet. And who even knows if they will be alive tomorrow?
So it's about not supporting unscrupulous business practices for me personally. And as far as not getting to play this or that triple-A game, it's all good. I'm like everyone else here, I have a 500+ game backlog, choice isn't an issue right now.
That said, I get it sounds weird to anyone under the age of 25 because they've been all digital since day one. They have no frame of reference, no concept of ownership. To them it's a complete non-issue. And I get that to a degree.
But hey, it's not my fault they had the bad fortune to be born after the year 2000 (never got to experience the 90s, that's a crime) and don't know any better, and I'm not changing my view on the account of Gen Z kids who grew up playing live service games on their phones.
Yeah I check doesitplay to see if the game is playable off the disc, offline, before making any physical purchase. I skip anything that requires a download to actually play. Which is a pretty small percentage on PS5, around 4% I think. And that 4% includes games that are online only, like Concord.
I don't know who started this rumor that all physical games are just game keys now, but I see it repeated every time.
Yeah I really hope Microsoft doesn't infect Sony first party releases with this practice. I'd like to think, possibly somewhat naively, that we have higher expectations over here. I guess you become a little less consumer conscious when your platform of choice is a glorified streaming app anyways.
Just leave that silliness over there, on your side of the fence Microsoft. We got standards.
A hard, no buy from me until it goes under $20 in a digital sale. Won't bother with a game key disc. Same for Forza and Indiana Jones. They'd have been at least a $200 richer by now if they would bother to release games properly.
We subsidize your GamePass B.S. by buying these at full price, maybe put the most minimum amount of effort into it.
I'm talking a bit out of my butt because I don't play on PC and this is beyond my technical knowledge of the game's behind the scenes number crunching and math, but from what I was watching, PC players have already been digging under the hood and found new, lower caps to health and other stats for enemies of a given level.
Maybe this comes more into play after level 26 when you really had to plan around how tanky enemies became while your player strength stagnated.
I'll grant you even if they did tweak the level scaling of enemies, there are still some noteworthy issues with the leveling and item systems that I hope are patched further.
I really wish they just had zones like pretty much every other game does, where enemies are a certain level range in a given area. Would solve all this and you don't have bandits running around in God tier armor, giving you the fight of your life.
What difficulty are you playing on? I've heard the consensus is the difficulty spike from Adept to Expert is massive and a little broken.
I've been sailing through, currently level 19 with a Redguard warrior and nothing at all like what you are describing. Enemies are getting spongier for sure but 4-5 hits does it almost every time. Don't even have the best equipment available for my level, just a very casual playthrough - no min/maxing. Not that there is much min/maxing to do with the changes they've made.
I can see a player getting themselves in trouble around where I'm at if they dump all their level gain stats into non-combat attributes at the beginning. From what I've seen, the enemy scaling is toned down massively but they've done nothing with item scaling, which itself was also problematic. So you still see poor bandits wearing Daedric armor around level 20.
I'll have to wait to get to level 26 to see how re-tuned it all is. I have it on Adept difficulty.
They tweaked the level scaling pretty significantly in the remaster. It's still there, but they've added health and other stat caps to enemies. People that have spent time with the game so far have noted the brick wall you hit around level 26 in the original release is thankfully no longer present here.
There's actually a lot of similar sneaky changes they made players are still discovering, pretty much all for the better. For example, a dungeon that was glitched to be forever locked (no key for the door existed in the game) has been opened up, things like that.
The cool thing about this release is Virtuous did a lot more tinkering under the hood than people first thought.
Comments 910
Re: Silent Hill 1 Remake Now a Big Focus at Bloober Team, Could Make Cronos 2
Silent Hill 1 is my personal favorite of the series (I know, weird), so I'm psyched for this.
Re: Sony Is a 'Terrible Company' That's 'Blowing It in the Games Business', Says Michael Pachter
I think Pachter realized a long time ago being right in his predictions was not a prerequisite of his employment as a 'video game industry analyst'. (I'll go to my grave disputing this is in fact an actual job).
Re: Sony Is a 'Terrible Company' That's 'Blowing It in the Games Business', Says Michael Pachter
That lint licking dingle sniffer...
I shake my fist at you Michael ✊. Have at you, charlatan!
Re: Mega Publisher EA Agrees to $55 Billion Buyout by Saudi Arabia, Silver Lake, Affinity Partners
The culmination of a cartoonishly evil company's awful legacy.
Re: Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles (PS5) - Still the Benchmark for Turn-Based Tactics
My absolute favorite FF game and I've played just about all of them. This game is genuinely iconic.
Re: Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles (PS5) - Still the Benchmark for Turn-Based Tactics
@PuppetMaster
So WotL had other issues besides the performance. They messed with the drops and changed some of the items around (can't steal Genji Gear from Elmdore - changed it to be locked behind the PSP's lackluster ad hoc multiplayer mode). They've brought it back to its original form with this and I'm cool with that.
Re: Metal Gear Solid Delta's Delayed Fox Hunt Multiplayer Mode Arrives Next Month
@Oram77
MGO in MGS4 was a lot of fun and very, very broken.
Re: The First Silent Hill F Review Score Is Now Live
This the same Famitsu that gave Nintendogs a 40/40? Yeah, this reviewer is tabloid trash as far as I'm concerned. I think PushSquare has published an article or two on their questionable reviews, particularly towards Japanese games.
That said, I hope Silent Hill f is as good as they say and I like what I've seen gameplay-wise. I'm gonna be waiting on some trusted reviewers though. I'm sorry but in this climate I hardly trust any publications, let alone Famitsu of all things.
Also 13-14 hours for a survival horror game is on the long side as far as genre contemporaries like RE and Silent Hill go.
Re: Final Fantasy 7 Remake Adds 'Cheats' on Switch 2, Xbox, But No Mention of PS5
Adding the "I Want to Play Daddy / Video Game Reviewer' difficulty mode for the Xbox players.
Re: 60+ PS5, PS4 Games to Buy in PS Store's Autumn Adventures Sale
Been playing The Midnight Walk. Man, the atmosphere, I'm really loving it and it is my favorite PSVR2 game so far.
Re: Poll: Did You Buy a PS1 at Launch?
It would be the GOAT, if not for a little thing called the PS2.
Re: USA's Top 20 PlayStation Games of All Time May Surprise You
@kuu_nousee
Makes sense in a way, since that was when the global gaming population increased super quickly (don't quote me on this haha), after stagnating in the latter years of the PS4 and into the PS5 era. Massive, but not growing at the rate it used to I mean. So these games would be the sales powerhouses.
I like a lot here don't hitch my wagon to these types of games but I do see the appeal to the mainstream.
Re: USA's Top 20 PlayStation Games of All Time May Surprise You
That list is a Dude Bro Shooter paradise.
Re: Rumour: PS6 Will Have a Detachable Disc Drive, Much Simpler Design
Love the PS5 for what it is, and I've accepted what it isn't going to be at this late hour in the console's life cycle. It's not a bad system.
That said, Sony have failed in selling me on why I would possibly consider a PS6 at launch. The extended PS4 / PS5 cross-gen period cost them my day one purchase and some of my confidence in their product. I'll be breaking my day one adoption streak unless they release something immediately phenomenal with the next console.
I still haven't seen that release that makes me say, yes, THIS is a PS5 game. The ones which came closest were the PS5 only launch window titles, which kinda ties into my point PS4 cross-gen held things back, and badly, this gen.
Re: Metal Gear Solid Delta Sneaks Past the One Million Sales Milestone in First 24 Hours
MGS1 Remake, here I come baby! Let's have Hayter actually re-record his lines this time. Kojima who?
Re: Poll: What Are Your Thoughts on Metal Gear Solid 5, 10 Years Later?
@PuppetMaster
I gotta disagree. MGS2 from a nuts and bolts perspective was nonsensical. The prophetic message about AI and the themes of 'meme, gene, and scene' were awesome. Raiden's story arc (the entire narrative thrust of the game) was so bad and ridiculous they retconned it by MGS4.
I'm referring to (spoiler, but not really a spoiler because it was retconned) the whole Big Shell incident being an elaborate ruse constructed by the Patriots to turn Raiden into the next Solid Snake, by basically fabricating the whole central conflict of the game. The S3 program or whatever it was called. That was so dumb even me as a teenager couldn't handle it, and I'm all there for Kojima's weirdness normally.
Then you have a samurai sword fight with the former President of the US on the roof and well, yeah. I think they retconned the US President part of Solidus' backstory too, someone correct me if I'm wrong on that. And somehow Raiden is an ex child soldier who fought under that same ex President... in Africa? I mean, what? Maybe I missed something in my couple playthroughs haha. And oh yeah Ocelot is possessed by Liquid's arm (retconned).
The themes (AI, identity) were cool. The actual narrative, the story being told, was... straight bonkers to the point even later MGS games, being as crazy as they are, said nah to all that. MGS4 spent a decent portion of its narrative trying to un-screw all the insanity from MGS2's plot and turn it into something cohesive. Had to turn to a macguffin (nanomachines) to undo the damage created by bisexual immortal vampires and possessed arms.
I like MGS2 overall though as a whole. But let's call a spade a spade on that plot.
Re: Poll: What Are Your Thoughts on Metal Gear Solid 5, 10 Years Later?
@somnambulance
Yeah, I can't say I'm on the Kojima conspiracy train as far as all that goes though it is interesting. But he is the guy that did a whole fake marketing campaign for Metal Gear Solid V, so who knows. Maybe the guy intentionally sabotaged the game to get out of doing MGS finally. I've seen the Kojima interview where he says the game was meant to evoke a feeling of something missing, but I didn't take it to mean he intentionally cut out a whole act of the game, on purpose. I know things are wacky in Kojima land, but I just can't believe that wacky.
I like most of his games, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't describe any, including MGSV, as outright bad. Death Stranding is on my play list if I can ever find the time. I just think his course with MGS ran out.
And I am just intensely curious, what thematic overlap is there between PT and MGS? This is a whole other level of analytical deep dive I have never encountered. All interesting though. I guess that's a testament to his work.
Re: Cronos: The New Dawn (PS5) - Captivating, Twisted, and Wickedly Entertaining
Bloober does it again. What a great studio. Nobody does horror like Polish people.
Re: Poll: What Are Your Thoughts on Metal Gear Solid 5, 10 Years Later?
@somnambulance
What's your first favorite? MGSV is low on the list for me personally. I've never heard that the game was meant to make you feel it was incomplete - that's an interesting theory and very meta if true. Kojima certainly succeeded in making me go "That's it?" at the end haha.
I'll acknowledge what MGSV did right story wise. The interplay between language and culture angle to the story had some real meat on its bones, I just don't think Kojima actually succeeded in the story he was trying to tell. It all fell apart into loose threads by the end, although eliminating your own soldiers at Mother Base was impactful.
I think he had a really, really good idea and failed at implementing it with MGSV with the vocal cord parasites dealio. I just see the potential greatness in this game, which makes how it all turned out more disappointing.
Phantom Pain indeed, haha.
Re: Poll: What Are Your Thoughts on Metal Gear Solid 5, 10 Years Later?
Kojima is a game director who wants to direct movies but won't admit it. He's just an insanely huge western film buff and inserted that into his games to amazing effect at first, before anyone else thought of doing that. Then in a twist of fate, this increasingly resulted in worse and worse games over time as the medium evolved past him.
People call Kojima an auteur. I agree, but for films not games. Glad he won't be involved with any MGS stuff going forward. Plus, I think he has contributions left to make in other IP. Just... stay away from Metal Gear Solid.
I mean let's be real and take off the nostalgia glasses. Look at MGS2's story. Not the gameplay, just the story. It is an absolute mess if you actually take a second look at it, half of which had been reconned by later games due to how asinine some of it was. The series was already showing cracks by then, let alone by the time the fifth main entry came onto the scene.
Kojima is the George Lucas of gaming imo. MGS5 was his cue to leave and I think it's best for him and everyone else that happened.
Re: Poll: What Are Your Thoughts on Metal Gear Solid 5, 10 Years Later?
@TheDudeKenobi
Basically summarized my thoughts of this game perfectly. I know there's a lot of issues with the Venom Snake reveal - but I thought it was poignant actually. YOU, the player are Big Boss. I get what Kojima was trying to do there and I think he nailed it. It's real send off to you, the fan and player.
Now, that said - Sutherland sucked in the role, I don't care if there's a narrative rationale for the voice change. He still sucked and wasn't even dimly comparable to David Hayter in my opinion. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the lines were literally recorded over a phone call. To go from legendary voicework to subpar just to get a "big name," well, that's why I don't trust Kojima with these characters anymore.
Second, the vocal cord parasites plot thread was trying to tell a cool story around the interrelationship between language and culture. It was a cool idea with a lot to mine from. But the game badly failed doing that. It was so zany by the end, kind of read like a freshman college paper from a literature major. Not to mention the meat of the story was fairly hidden in optional audio tapes.
Third, as you mentioned, it was straight up unfinished. Which enough has been said about that. We'll never know how much of that was Konami's greed versus Kojima running over budget and deadline. I'm guessing both.
Anyways, I'm extremely mixed on the game. Not terrible, not great. I am very glad Kojima has nothing to do with this series going forward. This from a guy who considers MGS1 his favorite game of all time and put over 150 hours into V.
Re: Lost Soul Aside (PS5) - Long Awaited Action Is Both Awesome and Painfully Awkward
Someone in the comments called this a PS3 game and that's the general vibe I'm getting from the review. A PS3 game design and direction-wise - not meant as an insult necessarily.
Granted, I do really miss the AA era of the PS3 glory days. You don't see as many anymore. Thing is, if you are gonna release a AA game, price it accordingly. I bet you'd have some takers on this game at a $40-50 price point.
Hope to see more games from this China Hero initiative.
Re: Poll: What Are Your Thoughts on Metal Gear Solid 5, 10 Years Later?
@LifeGirl
Not controversial imo, Kojima really didn't do well with the story and it's clear the magic had run out. Glad he got canned, it made him move on to other things - he was trying leave the series behind since MGS2.
His choice of going with Sutherland over David Hayter pretty much confirmed he wasnt a good steward of the series anymore.
Re: Poll: What Are Your Thoughts on Metal Gear Solid 5, 10 Years Later?
Unfinished, really lame story about vocal cord parasites. Keifer Sutherland phoned in what little voice work there was for Venom Snake (sounds like he just woke up the whole game, voice doesn't fit the character at all). Villain was the weakest in the series outside the portable entries. Game is on record as missing an entire act that was cut out involving young Liquid stealing a metal gear. 75% of the actual story is hidden on cassette tapes. Bosses were not great compared to earlier entries, very copy and paste.
BUT it had the best gameplay in the series by a mile. Lands around a 7-7.5 for me.
Story wise, Big Boss's story ended on a wet fart though. Overall, I play these for the story so I was not super enthused about the cuts and direction.
Re: Despite Concerns, Physical Copies of Gears of War PS5 Appear to Have the Campaign on the Disc
Preordered a copy based of this news. Thanks Microsoft, took you a minute.
Re: Konami 'Forgiven' for Dropping Metal Gear Solid Voice Lead in Fifth Game
Kojima did Hayter real dirty on this. Wasn't sad to hear him get canned from Konami.
Re: PS5 Is the Only Console with a Proper Physical Copy of Cronos: The New Dawn
Physical for me, every time. Passed up on some good games this gen that didn't come complete on disc / cart. It's actually been helpful in a way because my backlog is massive so it becomes the deciding factor, all else being equal.
So no Doom, no Forza, etc. But gave me time to play other stuff I missed out on. Basically, the publishers are making the decision for me... and I'm cool with that. Microsoft has firmly decided it doesn't want my money, it seems.
The wait for physical editions for Psychonauts 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Alan Wake 2, and Black Myth Wukong hurt a little though, I won't lie.
Re: Poll: 15 Years of PS Plus - What Do You Think of Sony's Subscription Service?
@themightyant
Agree with this. It sounds weird but this service almost makes games disposable and "cheap", if that makes sense.
I mean all I could afford when I was a kid was Aladdin on Sega Genesis because it was on $5 clearance. That was my one game for months. You bet I was pouring through every level to get the most out of that game, playing and replaying it. Really mastering it.
Now it's just like, eh, throw that new game in the pile with the rest. I miss that magic and fun of really discovering everything in a game. There's just no incentive to do that anymore.
And people growing up today might think "Oh that's terrible, you played and replayed that same game for months". Truth is, I've never had as much fun with video games since that era, and I've played any AAA title I had time for in the years since. Just does not hit the same, even great games. I've been chasing that high for decades haha.
Re: Poll: 15 Years of PS Plus - What Do You Think of Sony's Subscription Service?
I went down to Essential recently. It's not that Premium is awful. But I just have zero interest. Absolutely zero interest in a digital rental games service.
But you are right, it would be a different story if I was at a different point in my life (a kid with tons of expendable free time and limited funds - we've all been there). Where was Premium when I was growing up?!
I collect physical across all legacy PS consoles and handhelds. Up to somewhere around 1800 physical games now. Anything worth having, I have. And zero time to play ...
Yup, I am definitely not the target market for this service. I acknowledge that. 😆
Re: Rumour: Gears of War PS5's Blu-ray Will Include the Full Game on the Disc
Okay then, if I true I'll pick it up.
Unlike any of the past games they've ported to PS5
Re: Everyone's Talking About Body Horror Game ILL for PS5, Apparently
Read the site for years. Love it. But I've long suspected there aren't really any horror fans among the PushSquare staff. And that's a shame.
This game looks disgusting, and I approve. For real body horror though, play Scorn.
Re: Real Fans Will Find a Way to Buy $80 Games, Says Borderlands Boss
Cocaine is a hell of a drug. Randy been playing with the white girl disco dust again.
Quick, search him for flash drives.
Re: Fans Discuss the Reason Behind DOOM: The Dark Ages' Lukewarm Opening
@Rich33
Yeah you summarized better than I could. A relatively small increase in sales past the "break even" threshold (i.e., actual profit) of, say, 100k units could potentially double your real profits.
And I think it's worth mentioning (maybe people know this and sorry if I'm stating the obvious), most companies including Fortune 500 companies operate on "razor thin" profit margins of 5-10% of total revenue. So the smallest increase in sales revenue past your fixed costs can result in a monumentally huge increase in real profit, assuming each individual sale surpasses the variable cost of each unit produced (which in this case they absolutely would as it costs a small percentage of the sale price to press and ship a disc in bulk).
Don't want to get too "micro economics" on everyone but it makes no sense to not release physical UNLESS the start up cost to manufacture physical units (fixed costs) are too high. I highly doubt that's the case here as a lot of that infrastructure is already in place.
Re: PS Plus Premium Members Stunned at Dramatic Decline in Quality
I've been subscribed to Premium since the service launched thanks to stacking some deals. I will be downgrading to Essential next month - I've already updated the subscription settings to auto renew to the lower tier.
I'll revisit in a year and see if they decided to put any effort into Premium. I'm not holding out hope.
Premium tier membership is absolutely gonna nosedive this year I bet, as all the subscription deals from yesteryear slowly expire and a $159.99 USD charge looms ahead for many. I would LOVE to see Sony's internal metrics on this. I feel it is going to be biblical.
Re: Just 4% of PS5, PS4 Fans Think PS Plus Premium Represents Good Value for Money
Yeah my subscription is ending next month. I'm downgrading to essential. $159.99 in the US based on what they've been providing just ain't gonna do it for me.
I've played a game from the 'game library' maybe twice, ever. Big fan of retro games but the PS1 / PSP lineup is pretty abysmal still. The standout feature of Premium surprisingly has been the new Portal update which allows streaming games directly but it just isn't enough.
If there's a PS1 game I really can't pass up (we'll see), I'll just buy it since that's an option now for non-Premium members. Really very little appeal for the extra money.
Re: Inquiry Already Underway Over Lacklustre DOOM: The Dark Ages Opening
@trev666
Yeah but 20% is a huge amount of potential lost sales. 20% could be the difference between a big success and a flop. I mean it ain't negligible. Why deprive themselves of the extra sales in an environment where games are so expensive to develop already?
Figure they would be trying to maximize every bit of revenue possible, not cutting out 15-20 percent of the market during tough economic conditions.
I mean let's say it's only 10% of people who pass. That's still an absolutely titanic amount of lost revenue. Makes no sense.
Re: Inquiry Already Underway Over Lacklustre DOOM: The Dark Ages Opening
I'm not gonna pretend this is the reason, but the reason it was a hard pass for me personally is the whole game key debacle.
Yes, digital is all powerful, but if it's even just 15% of people holding out for physical, that can be the difference between profitability and a commercial failure.
I mean look at Alan Wake II. That was a hard no for a physical edition. Then they did an even harder U-turn on that policy and like magic achieved their break even point some months later.
It really confuses me why publishers can't spare a couple cents per unit to press all the data to a disc.
Re: Fairgames, One of Sony's Last Live-Service PS5 Games, Loses Studio Founder Amid Internal Worries
The Sony live service Hindenburg-level disaster continues.
Re: Mortal Kombat Fans Are Fuming MK1's Support Appears to Be Over
Oh, let me count the ways:
-
As a huge MK fan, this is the first entry I would consider to be solidly in the 'not good' category in a long, long time.
Re: The Precinct (PS5) - GTA-Style Sandbox Is a Dynamic, Addictive Cop Movie Homage
Done this job for eight years, just got a detective spot last month. The bit about requesting spike strips in a car chase is pretty on point. However, I can confirm promotions are not necessarily given based on experience or how many cases you have closed in real life. If only, haha.
I guess it wouldn't have been too much fun if they simulated 4 hours of report writing after every DUI arrest. But seems surprisingly realistic and technical for a game of this type.
I absolutely will not be playing this 😆
Re: The Midnight Walk (PSVR2) - Dark, Melancholic, and Hauntingly Beautiful
Loved Lost in Random. Have been looking forward to this.
Re: PS5 Fans Furious As Microsoft Ships DOOM: The Dark Ages with Just 85MB on the Disc
@Cornpop76
Disagree, the bus ride to the store was part of the awesome memories. And who in their right mind is bashing the 90s? I mean, yeah, furbies were creepy I admit. But the rest was awesome.
Re: PS5 Fans Furious As Microsoft Ships DOOM: The Dark Ages with Just 85MB on the Disc
@Cornpop76
It's more about the principle of it all. It's pretty shady. I think the whole "they'll shut down the servers someday" is a little overblown myself. It hasn't really happened on a mass scale, at least not yet. And who even knows if they will be alive tomorrow?
So it's about not supporting unscrupulous business practices for me personally. And as far as not getting to play this or that triple-A game, it's all good. I'm like everyone else here, I have a 500+ game backlog, choice isn't an issue right now.
That said, I get it sounds weird to anyone under the age of 25 because they've been all digital since day one. They have no frame of reference, no concept of ownership. To them it's a complete non-issue. And I get that to a degree.
But hey, it's not my fault they had the bad fortune to be born after the year 2000 (never got to experience the 90s, that's a crime) and don't know any better, and I'm not changing my view on the account of Gen Z kids who grew up playing live service games on their phones.
Re: PS5 Fans Furious As Microsoft Ships DOOM: The Dark Ages with Just 85MB on the Disc
@antlion
Yeah I check doesitplay to see if the game is playable off the disc, offline, before making any physical purchase. I skip anything that requires a download to actually play. Which is a pretty small percentage on PS5, around 4% I think. And that 4% includes games that are online only, like Concord.
I don't know who started this rumor that all physical games are just game keys now, but I see it repeated every time.
Re: PS5 Fans Furious As Microsoft Ships DOOM: The Dark Ages with Just 85MB on the Disc
@Cypher_Unknown
Yeah I really hope Microsoft doesn't infect Sony first party releases with this practice. I'd like to think, possibly somewhat naively, that we have higher expectations over here. I guess you become a little less consumer conscious when your platform of choice is a glorified streaming app anyways.
Just leave that silliness over there, on your side of the fence Microsoft. We got standards.
Re: PS5 Fans Furious As Microsoft Ships DOOM: The Dark Ages with Just 85MB on the Disc
A hard, no buy from me until it goes under $20 in a digital sale. Won't bother with a game key disc. Same for Forza and Indiana Jones. They'd have been at least a $200 richer by now if they would bother to release games properly.
We subsidize your GamePass B.S. by buying these at full price, maybe put the most minimum amount of effort into it.
Well done, Microsoft.
Re: Plenty of People Are Playing Expedition 33 on PS5, Despite Having to Actually Buy It
@Ichiban
Your mother is a wise, wise woman.
Re: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (PS5) - The Largely Fantastic Revival of a Landmark RPG
I'm talking a bit out of my butt because I don't play on PC and this is beyond my technical knowledge of the game's behind the scenes number crunching and math, but from what I was watching, PC players have already been digging under the hood and found new, lower caps to health and other stats for enemies of a given level.
Maybe this comes more into play after level 26 when you really had to plan around how tanky enemies became while your player strength stagnated.
I'll grant you even if they did tweak the level scaling of enemies, there are still some noteworthy issues with the leveling and item systems that I hope are patched further.
I really wish they just had zones like pretty much every other game does, where enemies are a certain level range in a given area. Would solve all this and you don't have bandits running around in God tier armor, giving you the fight of your life.
Re: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (PS5) - The Largely Fantastic Revival of a Landmark RPG
@KundaliniRising333
What difficulty are you playing on? I've heard the consensus is the difficulty spike from Adept to Expert is massive and a little broken.
I've been sailing through, currently level 19 with a Redguard warrior and nothing at all like what you are describing. Enemies are getting spongier for sure but 4-5 hits does it almost every time. Don't even have the best equipment available for my level, just a very casual playthrough - no min/maxing. Not that there is much min/maxing to do with the changes they've made.
I can see a player getting themselves in trouble around where I'm at if they dump all their level gain stats into non-combat attributes at the beginning. From what I've seen, the enemy scaling is toned down massively but they've done nothing with item scaling, which itself was also problematic. So you still see poor bandits wearing Daedric armor around level 20.
I'll have to wait to get to level 26 to see how re-tuned it all is. I have it on Adept difficulty.
Re: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (PS5) - The Largely Fantastic Revival of a Landmark RPG
@KundaliniRising333
They tweaked the level scaling pretty significantly in the remaster. It's still there, but they've added health and other stat caps to enemies. People that have spent time with the game so far have noted the brick wall you hit around level 26 in the original release is thankfully no longer present here.
There's actually a lot of similar sneaky changes they made players are still discovering, pretty much all for the better. For example, a dungeon that was glitched to be forever locked (no key for the door existed in the game) has been opened up, things like that.
The cool thing about this release is Virtuous did a lot more tinkering under the hood than people first thought.