burning_as_souls

@Nyne11Tyme Sounds like you actually do have a good grasp on it.
It is a stealth/light platforming game.
Seems like it's similar to A Plagues Tale in the basic gameplay loop.
I don't think they've shown combat yet, either.

Not sure why so many seem to not think Gollum has a good story to tell.
It's the man who lost everything to temptation, not unlike when a junkie loses everything in life just for that high.
If they can tap into that fight against the Ring's addiction and what it costs him, showing the gradual loss to his morality over that attachment, there's certainly more than enough story to tell.
Stealth games, truly centered on just stealth without the option to slaughter everyone instead, are few and far between these days and I miss them.
I'm about 80% sure I'll buy this. (Need to hear a bit more how it came out on the tech side as far as framerate and glitches.)
I know I'm in the tiniest minority when I have zero interest in Diablo 4 but am optimistically looking forward to this.

I see her point, to a point.
If you're talking about a movie role not specific to race, hire anyone with the best talent for the role.
But in games, why shouldn't they hire to match at least a little? (like she's not full on Chinese, she's Chinese Canadian.)
What possible reason could there be, say, to hire a white guy to do a black guy? What, there are no black actors out there to choose from looking for or wanting the part?
I didn't know, because I don't follow Resident Evil too close, Wong was never voiced by anyone Asian.
That is pretty odd, even more given it's a Japanese company.
But in this day and age with so many actors and so globally connected, why not connect the two?
Just like I have a hard time wrapping my head around an Asian actor voicing Elena Fisher in Uncharted.
It could be done, but why?
It did make me laugh that the one's who are racist (not here, I'm assuming it was mostly from Twitter) tried to say the performance was bad when not a peep about Leon.
I guess Leon has his charms in a campy way, but that guy's a terrible actor!
Nothing wrong with liking a bad actor, especially in a cheesy setting. But he is bad.
Silence on him and picking on this woman....it certainly doesn't look good or like a completely honest race blind take on the quality of the performance.
I don't think anyone exactly deserve awards in acting in Resident Evil, even with the better than before quality of the new one.
Still needs improvement across the board.

@CielloArc Saw the same for a split second! 😆

@K1LLEGAL 😄

@NoCode23 You emphasized the ugliness twice.
That's always confused me, caring about the look of a console.
Am I the weirdo for not gazing at my console and just looking at the tv screen playing actual games?
If I'm not playing games, I don't remember ever sitting and glancing over at any console and thinking about it's beauty or ugliness.

@UltimateOtaku91 Not really.
Microsoft already had better specs, yet the massive bulk of console gamers bought Sony.
Microsoft's problems aren't the quality of the console. It's their quality of first parties, which I know they're working on, along with still hurt from their red ring fiasco back on 360.
Red rings were so bad for me, I went through 6 360's red ringing. I made a vow to never own another Xbox. I keep my vows.
I know I'm not the only one who ditched MS for that reason.

Far as a PS5 Plus...eh, I'm old. Got more throw away money. I might be interested.

That story. SMH
More like God of Therapy. Most god awful therapy talk in a game yet. Can't believe people praised it.
If memory serves, been a few months, I only recall like two fights with anyone/anything barely bigger than Kratos.
I guess I was spoiled by GoW3 especially, but I miss the massive bosses and creatures.
Still, despite some major mistakes in making bad guys more basic, in my eyes, the game still has fantastic graphics, the gameplay there is smooth and fun for what it is and when I turned off the dialogue and played my Spotify music instead on a second playthough, I was able to enjoy it much more.
The story and characters leave me feeling like a bunch of sheltered college kids with daddy issues wrote it.
Still, credit to the studio for going above and beyond with the update.
Solid gameplay underneath that horrible not-God-of-War soap opera story.
You know what it feels like? I picture a bunch of betas sat around and had a discussion on Kratos toxic masculinity and ways to make Kratos more woke friendly.
Nothing wrong with feelings, but it's a delicate balance between adding depth in a story and simply coming off condescending and whiny. (Heck, some might think that I'm the one being condescending and whining! 😄)
I'll still likely try out plus anyway. Dialogue staying off.

I loved this game and I'm buying that dlc. Though I disagree the game was welcoming to newcomers.
Sure, anyone could play the game, but that plot was completely for the fans who've seen the whole series and did extremely little for it to make sense for anyone else.
As a maniac who's watched the entire show, this was great. My wife, having not watched the show but saw a lot of the game over my shoulder, was totally lost to the plot or characters having any impact.
Nothing wrong with that, as a fan this game was a gift, just seems like something newcomers should know.
As long as you don't care about that, gameplay is great fun, I don't recall any glitches and it never crashed on my PS5.
A rare thing among new games these days.

@BeerIsAwesome You're not alone though.
It's fun to me too and I'll be playing through all the expansions.
While complaints on all the tech problems and graphics were valid, I'm an old gamer. I lived through PSone games.I can survive any graphic hurdles.
I had the benefit of having a gamer wife, so I had a co-op partner to laugh at the glitches with, but underneath it all it was still fun.
I thought the crew, your gang cast, all had great chemistry and were individually distinct, personalities and all.
I do think many people remember the old Saints Rows with rose colored glasses.
Saints Row 1 was terrible, a boring GTA ripoff.
Saints Row 2 was the best for it's humor, but it was a tech mess and weak graphics for even it's time. It had more glitches than nearly anything that came out back then.
Saints Row 3 was good, but too short. You could blast through the entire game in like 6 hours. Though as far as the series low bar goes, it ran and looked the best in the series.
4 was a joke. A bug ridden mess where they just threw whatever the heck in the game and the sailing in the air erased the need for cars..
So the game's were never technical marvels.
The company already announced awhile back that because of sales, they were shelving the series to die.

@Uncharted2007 So you're under the impression mental health issues stem from or are more from the time of technology?
Uh.....no.
By all means, go enjoy that fresh air. Less traffic on the broadband only helps the connection.

@Victor_Meldrew Have you evolved to psychic thoughts? You're beyond texts?
So cutting edge hipster.

I picture it as Sony was sitting around listening to multiplayer chats and going, "Good God! We need to get these people help!" 😄

@SolaceCreed Well said.

@somnambulance You're not alone.
It was by no means terrible, but I thought the whole thing was pretty basic and the writing was terrible.
I don't remember the dialogue bothering me at all in the first Horizon, but the second went super cheesy in a bad way.
But it's the Killzone guys. You never know with each release when it'll be incredible and when it'll be solid, but generic.

@BAMozzy I feel the same with controllers.
Far as the games, I had a lot of fun with Tokyo, but turned off Deathloop after about four hours because it felt like one long gimmick not worth enduring.
Although Deathloop has lots of story and Tokyo is all atmosphere and gameplay, barely a story.
I usually like Deathloop's type of game, it wasn't that I didn't like the game style itself.
It just felt tedious and stale with what they did with it.
Tokyo had nothing original in it's gameplay, but did it really well.
Not sure where I was going with this or if it helps. 😄

@ItsBritneyB_tch Same! I usually like to stay with Japanese acting in my Japanese games, but thjs game was too fast paced to be able to read the subtitles, so I had to switch it to English.
Which made me sad. I didn't think the English acting was nearly as good, but it's also not terrible, so I made due.

@Jaz007 I played it about a year after release. They did add new game plus.
So you're all set!

@Beerheadgamer82 That's fair.
Because while the loop is solid fun, this is not strong in either story or character itself (enemies are cool, the two n
main one's are....fine, but generic.
Any backlog games that suck you into a universe or tale more would be higher up a list.
Shame too, there's a strong foundation here. Sequel might be great.

@Nepp67 Shouldn't be too hard to put rogue-like, since 95% of the game was stuff you did roaming the city with random attacks.
Not much to change up..
Story was sparse and just enough to give reason to doing what you were doing.
In this case, it didn't matter. I thought the gameplay loop was a lot of fun.
Controls and level layout were Dying Light with the Elder Scrolls sorcery bits and you platform about collecting things and battling all kinds of spirits.
It controlled so well, I never got bored. There's nothing new, but it did all that it did do very polished.
I liked it. Hope you do too!

It's likely Last Of Us 3, but there's a chance it could be Jak And Daxter.
He talked about how the team was split between making J&D and Last Of Us 2 a few years back and now he said it was the game they're most excited about.....it's not impossible we see Daxter again.

Sold! I like to balance my blood and guts with wholesome stuff. I think I'll get this and Postal 4 and play each every day till done.
I like kid's games. I happened to have been one my entire childhood.

@Randinator123 Your loss. It's fun, no cheap bosses and runs great.
You go have fun forgetting it.

I know I'm in the minority, but as someone who doesn't care about 60 frames and can play just fine at 30, I finished Forsaken in resolution mode and don't recall any stutter and very little pop in.
Little enough pop in that I didn't notice it. That was all before this patch, but it felt like it was a steady 30 no matter how crazy it got on my PS5. I had no problems, never crashed all the way to the end.
And I still don't understand the complaints to the in game talking when you're exploring, since you can turn it off.
It's like no one understands the concept of the options menu.
To each their own, while the main story was edited badly, I thought the gameplay and level layout were great, best I've played in a long time.
And the woman you play as was great too, far above the average video game actors.
Personally, I think much of the coming down on her is for reasons I'd be labled woke for, not the quality of her delivery.
Anyway, my point, I suppose, is a counterpoint to those acting as if it were a broken or unfinished game when it performs better than 90% of the releases.
It's only glaring fault was the stories pace and edit, but they were no worse than a typical Ubisoft's main story.
Great game and I hope the woman voice acts in many more games in the future, because she's pretty good at it.
Looking forward to the expansion.

Here's hoping they make their first game with graphics better than a PS3 game.
Gameplay's solid, but those graphics have been rough every single time.

@ShogunRok Now THAT is a true Swords Art Online fan answer!
Nice.

It is a great game on PS4.
Still rubs me the wrong way that the base game wasn't a free upgrade for ps4 owners, but that's fine.
I'll just play other stuff.

Destiny is like the Lost tv series in season four where the writers realized they painted themselves into a corner because if you just dangle the end coming over and over and over it becomes stale because the audience knows it's not ending.
Destiny is in a bind to that extent. I love the gameplay, but as far as tying it together, every expansion is the same, threatening the ultimate threat of all threats.
I'm not saying I have any answers out of that bind, but they are trapped in a loop for any attempt at plot.
They should just go the No Man's Sky way, story-wise, and put some bare bones things you could collect to fill in some light stuff, but for the most part just keep adding planets/levels for people to explore for exploring's sake.
I'm positive the majority of Destiny players aren't there for the plot. They just want to kill some aliens in a variety of locations.
No need to over complicate that.

@AverageGamer Well, that and the 2 Aragami's were only okay.
The lack of money hurt their games, with only like three or four enemies repeated the whole game and copy and pasted graphics every level.
They excelled at level design for stealth, but had nothing on every other level, be it that character designs, even a slight story, graphics beyond a PS2 level.
And Aragami 2 had some of the worst save points I've seen in years, where you could easily lose an hour of progress.
Not really surprised they didn't make it.

@Rob_230 Nah.
It's not technically advanced. The tech is actually very average.
It'll be fine on PS4. Just be like any open world on PS4 versus PS5 with a bumpier framerate in action scenes and more pop in, muddier textures, but nothing more than any other open world game.
Legacy isn't doing anything tech advancing. What's made it special for the fans is the little details in the world winking at the movies and books along with the dialogue and references.
Basically, what's made it special is the love and respect given to the franchise, not the graphics detail or scope, which are typical open world. Not bad, but not anything pushing any new ground.
So typical is it's layout that it's strange it's taking them so long to lower the resolution and put the thing out for PS4 owners. It was clearly made for the PS4 and then polished up.
If I were a betting man, what with PS5 shortages done, I won't be surprised if they push it and push it till they just cancel a last gen version. They're obviously seeing the bulk of their profits off PS5 than PS4 would do in 2023.
They'll wait long enough to cancel so any pushback will be minimal. That's my completely from the gut not-based-off-any-rumors-or-information prediction.
Time will tell!

@banacheck Free PR worked fluidly. 😁

I admit I expected a trainwreck after the mess of Just Cause 4 on a technical level. Runs fine overall though on my PS5. Not really my thing, but I didn't get it for me. Got it for the wife, both her and her sister are huge Potter fans.
Huge as in dressing up as characters to go to conventions while I look at them like they're mental, as I return to watching my anime. 😄
But they both love Hogwart's Legacy to death (and they are both gamers, not casual.) For fans it's like the ultimate. And these two are in their 40's! They're as excited for this as I am for Spidey 2.

@PegasusActual93 What we need is for Tom Hanks to punch Mark Wahlberg during the show.
That'd up the drama one more notch.

That's it? As big as all the talk I would have thought it was more.
It's no failure, but for some of that perspective you're looking at Grey's Anatomy averaged 15.7 million viewers a week just last season in tracking only America.

@SilverShamrock It's an age thing.
I'm even older than you, been gaming since Atari 2600 launched! (I'm 49)
Older we are, more money we tend to have usually and can afford to buy what we want.
But for the kids, even college age on a tight budget, they can't just buy anything whenever they want, so I don't really fault them on hoping for decent choices, since the games aren't free.
They are a part of what you pay for with the subscription. If no one critiqued Sony's choices in monthly games, then Sony could get away with putting up train simulators.
Only from pushback for better quality could we ever get Code Vein.
For some, it breaks the bank just affording a console, broadband, tv.....stuff's expensive and everyone are different economic levels.
So it's a good thing to acknowledge to Sony if games are good or bad to keep them trying.

There's always that one smart alec who voted to say they don't actually own PS+. 😄

Above average month. Battlefield is junk, but the other 2 are good Plus choices.

@Ambassador_Kong Other than the Neil slap, I feel ya! They cut everything a show should have built on.
It feels like the tv people were afraid people were too stupid for subtlety or nuance and needed to spell everything out for them.

@PSfan4Life22 Blunt, fair and honest.
I totally agree. I continue to be perplexed by this show being held up as greatness.
Every episode squeaks by as just good enough, barely, to keep watching.
Yet every episode I see them strip out scenes and dialogue that were character building and instead the show rushed through all series.
And they must have expected the show to bomb, since the budget is ridiculously low.
I gyess it's more a blessing than a curse they can't afford to have much infected, since when they do show up they look so cheap.
To each their own, but the games are done so much better in the little details and conversations.
Which I still can't believe a videogame surpasses a tv show in acting and dialogue.
This show is consistent though. Consistently basic.
Each episode I hang onto hope it gets better.

@skyshot Elden Rings is a success. But 12 million sales is not up there as one of the best selling games ever.
I'd have to quit gaming if all games were like that, Elden Ring's too hard for me. Style is great, difficulty's beyond me, like it is for many.

I have a feeling developers might be looking at trophy percentages.
I always do side stuff and you'll regularly see games with about a 65% or so completing a game's main story and an average of about 8% or so of people completing side missions and even less than that for collectables.
They likely are tired of adding things so many don't bother with.

Or maybe I'm completely wrong!

Was playing the demo, which is just the opening levels.
Strolling along, having fun, since it wasn't like Nioh (a series I'm not good enough to play. Style is like Nioh, but with a forgiving, normal difficulty) and then they threw this one boss guy I could not beat. Over and over, didn't get anywhere, all progress halted.
Graphics are top notch, controlled well, all good up till then.....and they lost a sale with me.
But oh well, I guess they don't care about my money or there wouldn't have been a 1000x spike difficulty in that one guy from the entire game up till then.

@Northern_munkey Ooo, Scarlet! If you like Japanese style games, it's slick.
Everything was good.Likable characters, great gameplay/controls. Top quality stuff.
I loved it.

@theheadofabroom Dad Of Boy. 😄

81 hours deep into One Piece Odyssey. For someone like me, who's watched the whole series, this game's the ultimate.
I can't imagine how anyone would figure out what was happening if they didn't know One Piece's whole series going in.
It's written for the devoted fans, they leave newcomers in the total dark at figuring out the world and characters.
Not that I'm complaining! Just makes me laugh.
It's rare to see developers who do such an extreme tone of "Go watch the show if you want to know. We're telling you nothing. You either know or you don't." 😄
They didn't give a single f*** about selling to the mainstream.

@JB_Whiting I don't see a video game selling enough to fund a war. Not even the biggest game.
Wars are a bit expensive.

@GymratAmarillo Unless they start selling Xbox for $20, nothing will be an Xbox system seller. It's already sold to who it'll sell to this gen.
Playstation's got it buried as far as leads go.
Why would this game have ever been an Xbox system seller anyway? It's not exclusive to them.

@__jamiie I assume it'll influence the kind of people unaware of Ozzy strangling his wife or when he went out into his backyard and shot over a dozen dogs they owned because he was tired of their barking.
A real nice guy.

Ozzy melees a female NPC
"No, no, no. That's not right. This is how it looks."
Punches Sharon a few times

@Spotter Are you sure there isn't something wrong with your speakers?
I had to turn the music down for being too loud over the rest of the game.

It's weird. I put in over 400 hours to Valhalla, yet it was always a case of play a little, leave for another game, come back and play a littke, come back.
When I played all past AC's I played them to completion before putting them down. I was into the loop.
Something about Valhalla left me...empty. Probably the Valhalla and supernatural stories. I guess. Those were always a bit dumb to me.
Even the combat though....something is missing in the feel I can't put my finger on.
Yet I did keep coming back.
YetI have no memories of even one great moment.
There's some weird disconnect between me and this game, despite my love of all the past games in the series, flaws and all.
Still, no one can complain about the amount of free content they provided!
Here's to AC bouncing back at my own involvement next go around!

@Totheteeth I've played all the Yakuza, twice, some 3 times. (different versions of PS2/PS3/PS4) 😄
You could say I like them. Played Judgement one and two and Like A Dragon, as well. Even that PS3 game I can't remember the title, Bionic something.
From that viewpoint, it is safe to say if you didn't like Judgement, you won't like Yakuza.
There are minor different gameplay things, but the overall feel and structure are the same.
While it is an aquired taste, the movements are antiquated, the layout and city are still very PS3 at best, it's always the personalities, humor and stories that come together above nearly all other games.
Although it is as Japanese a feel as it gets, which means that particular humor isn't for everyone.
And Judgement was so great, it's definitely not your thing.
While I wonder if maybe, if you already own Judgement, you shouldn't try pushing on longer than 30 minutes to see if it doesn't click with you, at least if it were me, but it's likely a safe bet you should steer clear unless it's a freebie with Plus.
In fact....I think Plus had one of them for free the monthlies this last year or so.
If you had Plus, you can try any of the Yakuzas out of order, you don't have to go 0,1,2,3, etc. and you won't be lost.
They're all self contained, for the most part other than a line or two reference.
Sorry they weren't for you, but it was nice to see someone ask about them in such a polite way, such as "not for me", rather than the "these suck" type of vibe.
But my longwinded answer wraps up to, if you didn't like one, you won't like any.
Also, I'll add that I get on my phone so sporadic, I never tend to see the notifications and return to threads to answer, just so it's not thought I'm ignoring someone, and I'll add a you're welcome. Hope I helped! 😁

Wasn't expecting a demo!
I'm on this like a yakuza on a hostess.

Please be good. Please be good. Please be good. 🙏