Unlucky13

This is a good article. I've had this thought quite a bit lately, when I pick up a new game and even though I understand things as a long-time gamer, I'm stuck by how little direction the game gives the player. I recently started playing Mass Effect 1 in the Legendary Edition, for the first time, and had I not played through ME2 and ME3 multiple times in the past, I would have been completely and totally lost.

As someone in their 40s, I've long been accustomed to games holding the players hand early on to a certain degree. For me, its standard, and familiar, and sometimes necessary. But I've noticed that younger gamers often seem to not want that, and want to just jump in blind. And I'm guessing that developers are caught somewhere in the middle.

Well, maybe I'll be able to get a PS5 before the PS6 comes out now. Hooray! At least this is good news for the future, to try and make what's happening now less likely down the line.

The US and the major countries in Europe need to be doing the same thing, ASAP.

@jrt87 I still regularly use my PS3, both to play games and as a secondary Blu-ray and DVD player. Whenever I'm able to buy a PS5 down the road, I intend to keep using the PS4 the same way. My kids have a variety of games that they like to play, and this will allow us to use them on both systems/levels of our house eventually.

In theory, I do absolutely want Marvel games. But not the kind that they've been making. If I could play an awesome, huge, open world party-based RPG filled with Marvel characters, that would be one of the most amazing games ever.

@Bagwag82 I paid $10 for Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, which was an excellent game that lasted about 15 hours. I felt that was fair, given how good it was. But otherwise, I'm just not going to be into something that I'll finish in less than a week.

@somethingwild I still don't trust digital copies. I finally bought a few games that way given the situation last year, but its not my preference. I strongly worry about the long-term consequences.

If I have a disc, then I should be able to still play the game five, ten, fifteen years down the line. With digital, should I erase it off of my system due to lack of space, there's no real guarantee that I'll be able to get it back.

@Bagwag82 No idea. I don't do horror stuff.

Generally speaking, I'm not going to bother with any game if the play time is below about 30 hours. That's really light tome, and if a game looks otherwise awesome, then I'll check it out on sale. The Outer Worlds was an example a few years ago. Very short, but enjoyable experience I paid $30 for.

Otherwise, I'm mostly into games I can put at least 70-100 hours into per playthrough.

I was extremely interested in the game originally, but then I read how incredibly short it is, and that mostly evaporated. As it is, I might pick up a physical copy down the road when it goes on sale below $20.

@Uromastryx Thank you for that. I do appreciate it. But even playing as the sword weilding character, just trying to whack the enemies, I was pretty confused as to what the overall setup and process were. I liked the graphics and the enviornments, so maybe I'll give the game a try later down the road when it drops to $20-30.

I don't like it, for many of the same reasons that have been listed by others. I lived without access to broadband for many years, and it sucked, but I could still play my offline games as much as I wanted.

I now have access to good, fast broadband, but it still goes down several times a year. And as others have said, surely they won't support the game forever. What happens when I want to pick up the game and continue my career five to ten years from now?

I'm absolutely going to buy the game whenever I'm able to buy a PS5. And I'm sure that I'll love it. But now, it has this huge stain on it for no good reason that I can think of.

I was interested, but I'm glad that I was able to play the demo. The battle system is just too much random chaos for my tastes. Just crazed button mashing, and I never really felt that I was in control of much.

For those of us who don't have one, and almost certainly won't be able to get one, 2022 is going to be the bleakest year in gaming in a LONG time. I'm not going to accept a lower quality PS4 version of something that's out on the PS5. So I'll just wait. It sucks, and it pisses me off, but there isn't any solution.

I want true, first hand contrite appologies for how the first year of the PS5 has gone. Some of it is their fault, some of it is not, but I want them to tell us that they're sorry, and that they have a plan to make things better over the next year.

Until more people actually own a PS5, or have the HOPE of owning a PS5, then knowing games are coming out sooner doesn't really matter much anyways.

Well, its very clear that I won't be renewing my PS+ membership. I don't think that I would if it was $10 honestly.

I doubt I'll find a PS5 by then anyways, so it could be 2023 and it wouldn't likely matter much.

I didn't vote in the poll because there is no right answer for me.

I plan to buy it, but not until I can get a PS5. I loved the game last year on the PS4, but it seems like a waste to get this expansion until I have the new console.

I'm glad to be able to play the demo to get a feel for it. The battle system is really hectic and I honestly didn't really figure out what I was doing after about 20 encounters. Not a fan of that aspect. The control over the character is solid - I was worried about that aspect based on a few videos I'd seen that made it look janky. The cut scenes with dialogue are odd partially animated comics - I'd never seen something like that before.

Overall, it looks and feels like an interesting AA title to me. I might pick it up later on when its on sale more than half off the original price because party based RPGs are so rare these days.

I certainly took a break from the series, playing the first two on the NES and then jumping back in with Echos of an Elusive Age, lol. But if they can make more like that one, but bigger and better/deeper, then I'm all in.

They do this garbage instead of making meaningful improvements to franchise/owner mode.

AC Valhalla. I just crossed the 100 hour mark, and it seems like I'm about 2/3 of the way through the main story. I think I'll probably finish the main game around the same time that the next expansion drops.

I'd love to be able to view my gaming history on the PS4 like they say you can on the PS5. Such a shame they've only given people with access to the new console that power.

I ONLY play sports games as single player, offline franchise/owner mode. While I hate how those features have been pushed to the back burner in favor of online microtransactions, I don't even know what would become of them were the games free to play. Would that aspect - the only one that I care about and one of my biggest hobbies in life - just completely disappear?

@Jaz007 Fair enough. Lets say that I enjoyed the AC series from the start until Black Flag, which I didn't like at all. Nor Unity. Syndicate was fine. I loved the story, both the ancient parts and the semi-modern aspects. The graphics and some of the gameplay mechanics were absolutely cutting edge, and it was all really fun.

I did not enjoy the forced stealth. Not my thing. I also tended to be a little loose with how I played, and would go archery and melee most of the time if I could.

And so, whatever you want to call Origins and Odyssey, with ties to the story - especially the ancient one, but with a world and gameplay style that I prefer, then that's what I want more of. Valhalla isn't as good. Its scaled down too much, and honestly plays closer to the older titles IMO.

I was really trying to hold out to play the game on the PS5, but since I might not be able to get one for another year at least, I decided to go ahead and play on the PS4.

I was really shocked at the limitations of the weapons compared to the last few games. Especially no one handed swords. The 2-H weapons are all really difficult and I gave up on them pretty quickly.

The lack of high end equipment with special features overall has been a bummer.

@Jaz007 I guess it depends on what you want AC to be. I was excited about the first game when I saw an E3 special about it on G4 a year before it came out. I preordered it, and got it the day that it was released, so I've been into the series literally since the start.

I love the world that they created, both the modern story and the precursor race. I've always thought that the graphics and gameplay felt great, and enjoyed the individual time period stories that they told along the way. But I've always kind of muddled through the forced stealth aspects of the games, and just done my own thing with battle as much as it would let me since the very first one. Swords and cleavers!

And so when they took the story and idea of AC and put it into an action RPG, which is much more my format, then yes, it was perfected in my opinion. To go deeper than that, I feel that Odyssey probably did a large open world better than anyone else has to this point. Its the peak of the genre, and I dream of seeing the whole industry build from what they did. Its not perfect, but I want a lot more like it.

@frankmcma But do they play the same way that an offline game does? Are they slower? What happens if you don't have a great internet connection?

I gave ES:Online a try, and didn't like it at all. So much of what I like about Skyrim is just totally different in that one, even though I barely interacted with other people. Its not the experience that I want.

@Jaz007 I'm a big fan of Origins, and a HUGE fan of Odyssey. Its AC perfected, IMO. I want more like that, gradually getting bigger and better, for the next 20 years.

@get2sammyb As far as I'm concerned, Ubisoft is AC, and AC is single player offline. I've played the games since the start, and this has me really worried.

Will they still make games that are offline single player, and I can plug 150 hours into the experience per playthrough? I have absolutely zero interest in an online game.

I absolutely loved the game. But $20 for an expansion is a pretty hefty sum. I'll want to get some more info about it before I buy. If we're talking something along the lines of Blood & Wine for TW3, then I'm in. But if its something tiny, I might hold off.

@Emperor_Rusty I bought it on sale for $9.99 a while back. Its a VERY short experience. My playthrough was 8 hours. But its well made.

Its been a long, long time since there's been a PS4 game that I have any interest in but don't already own.

@Olmaz It is absolutely a AA title. This isn't a top of the line, end of PS4 era RPG like AC Odyssey. Not close. Its a game made by a smaller, less experienced group with limited resources. If you go into it with that mindset, I think you'll be better off.

I wouldn't call it "early PS3". More along the lines of Dragon Age 2 or Mass Effect 2 with how the graphics and gameplay are. The kind of game that would be been pretty standard around 2011-2014 at the middle to end of the PS3's lifecycle.

But if you're like me, and are really, really, really into party based RPGs with a good story and a lot of content, then I would recommend that you give it a try. This genre is by far my favorite way to game, and there are less and less games like it these days. I can only hope that smaller studios like this one keep doing their best, sell a lot of copies and get more funding in the future.

I bought and really enjoyed the game when it was released a few years ago. Honestly, I'd been looking forward to it since it was announced at E3 in 2018. Its surprising that so many people seem unfamiliar with it. Its a really sold, AA attempt at making a Bioware style RPG. I paid $30 for it and felt that I got my money's worth.

I would really, really like to experience it again from the start on the PS5, but that's not going to happen any time soon given the circumstances. So now I have to make the descesion to wait until I can eventually get one, or to buy the expansion and play it again on the PS4, since I haven't had any new games to play for months as it is already.

The question for me is whether this is something brand new, or a continuation of what he was working on in between stints at Bioware? He had formed his own studio a few years back, and then we never really heard anything about it again. Is this the same crew, are they continuing projects that they were working on for most of the PS4 era? Or are they starting from the ground up?

Either way, fingers crossed. We desperately need more people working on quality, massive, offline RPGs.

@KidBoruto I enjoyed the games a lot on the SNES. But that was 25 years and six console generations ago. You would think that they would be able to make a better contemporary game by now. I would love to have a party based fantasy RPG that had up to date graphics and gameplay and wasn't set in a miserable, dark dystopia like so many of them seem to be these days.

Hopefully they can create a game that contains the heart and spirit of the older ones, but with contemporary high end graphics, gameplay, level design, dialogue, ect. Trials was enjoyable, but extremely basic and bare bones.

I really enjoyed the game when it came out. They try REALLY hard to make a Bioware game, and do a pretty good job. I seriously applaud their efforts and where their heart is. That said, it was still a bit of a AA experience, or sort of a good game at the end of the PS3's lifecycle instead of one near the end of the PS4's.

My choice will now be to buy the expansion and replay the game now, when I have absolutely zero other games I'm playing, or wait to play it on the PS5 at some unknown later date.

I've been playing Madden since the first version that was available on the SNES. All that I care about is single player franchise/owner mode.

So that being said, this seem to be a moderate step in the right direction after MANY years of inaction. If they make these kinds of upgrades for five years in a row, maybe we'll have something nice after a while. But its EA, so.....

@invictus4000 I guess we had very different expectations, perhaps. For me, playing what I knew as FF II and III (4 & 6 in Japan, I believe) on the SNES, and then 7 & 8 on the PS1, each game moved in a direction that was more complex, more "grown up" and more towards a mixture of traditional fantasy with technology. Similarly, other Square games like Secret of Mana and Chronotrigger were thrown into that mix too.

And then 9 comes along with Monkeyboy as the main character, a cast of characters out of a preschool TV show, and plot and dialogue to match, and it was not just something that I disliked, it was a slap to the face! It was like they let some other studio with an entirely different approach use the FF name and make a mockery of it.

And then X came along and righted the ship back in the correct dirction, X-2 was a lot of fun, and XII remains one of my very favorite video games of all time period. And then yeah, things have been wonky after that. But I still liked 13 and 15 more than I did 9.

I know that the game has a lot of fans, but as someone who started playing Final Fantasy with the very first one on the NES, 9 is the clearly the VERY worst one, IMO.

I would be absolutely interested in a show about almost any other game in the series. Even 13. But the characters in 9 just suck so badly. Its a childish joke.

I'm not nearly as interested as I was when it was first announced at E3 a few years ago. It seems like they've changed what the original look and plan was quite a bit. Still, I'll keep an eye on it. The videos I've seen make it look more like a AA game than a top end title, but I might check it out once the price drops.

I don't have a PS5, just a standard PS4, but I thought that the game was both beautiful and ran extremely smoothly. Not sure how anyone could complain about those aspects at all. Really looking forward to a sequel, and I'd love to be able to play it again on the PS5 at some point too.

I for one am grateful for the appology. Whether its heartfelt or not, who can say. I think that it probably is. I think that there were probably people at Bethesda who didn't want to be MS exclusive, and are sad that it went down the way that it has.

After spending TEN YEARS waiting to play the next ES game, and now being told that I won't be able to, it hurts. I really does. All I can do is hope that Sony figures out a way to develop some similar games of their own. I absolutely love the story driven ones we've been getting. They're fantastic. But I really, really want some sandbox style exploration and crafting, third person RPGs as well.

I consider them all to be PS5 exclusive, whether they are or not. I'm not going to play any of them until I can get my hands on the new console. Why settle for a lesser experience?

Until my family got a Switch six months ago, my kids were still using the PS3 every week. Its not played quite as much these days, and now that we have multiple streaming services, they don't use it as a Blu-Ray player nearly as often either. But its still kicking!

@Starkei Well, that's basically what I meant. If the average is 25 hours each, then 25 hour total seems like a small top end option.

I personally play games a lot slower than average, so my numbers generally are higher.

I wish that the poll had more options on the high end. I would presume that a lot of people spend more than 25 hours on each of the three parts. I'm thinking that when I eventually get the game, I'll end up with over 150.

The first game was one of my favorites of all time. The story, and the way that the player discovered it, was amazing. I knew that I would buy the next one before I finished it.

Of course now my problem, like so many others, is that I likely won't be able to buy a PS5 by the time that the game comes out, and so I'll have to wait months (hopefully not years) afterwards to play it.

In my house, 75% of the gamers are female, since I'm the only man and have a wife and two daughters, lol.

While my wife has always been a gamer, I do think that very few women in their 40s are. But it seems that many more women in the generation behind me (the younger Mellinials) are gamers, and in the younger crowd its completely normal for almost everyone to. Which is terrific.