cuttlefishjones

I joined the trial on PC and utterly hated every moment of it. The combat is a janky cover based system that suffers from basic issues like not being able to throw a grenade from cover. The enemy AI just wants to get behind you all the time making the cover part usless.

Everything was too clean and shiny, absolutely no atmosphere, and nothing like the show or the books portray. The dialogue was awful. It was all My Little Pony when it needed to be more Doom Eternal.

Unless they make so major changes I'm giving this a hard miss and, hopefully, Exodus will be the game that scratches the 'Mass Effect' itch I have.

Exclusives are fine and an important aspect of a healthy ecosystem.

What isn't fine is when a platform holder, when it becomes apparent that they are clueless in how to manage that themselves, just buys up publishers and takes games that are historically multiplatform and makes them exclusives. That is just anti-gamer plain and simple.

I think the Devs shoould make the game they want to make, follow whatever process they have for this and then gamers vote with their wallets as per normal.

Does it do DEI or does it not do DEI doesn't matter if the game is good.

Obviously if this were real life and not just some fanatsy then the armour on display would be practically useless, but this is not Kingdom Come or some other historically accuratte sim. It's a pure fantasy game and so this is fine.

@Lavishturtle - The big difference of course is that non of the Sony games were, historically, multi-platform to start with. M$ just bought what it could to try and starve the competition, realised they are hopelessly incompentent at managing anything they can't buy a solution for. And now they're flip flopping again because as with everything M$; if they haven't got the monoply they just can't compete.

Reminds me a lot of Vanquish - with extra bells and whistles.

Might be making CDProjekt a little nervous about the Witcher 4. If everyone has had their fill of an endless open world experience, crazy sandbox thing, then they may be put off jumping into another one.

The fact that this game is the best open world game out there, and Perl Abyss support has been extraordinary, makes me wonder how much appetite there will be.

Once I've actually got Halo installed on my Pro then the end of the console wars will be a real thing for me.

Halo is Xbox - it's the reason I bought (and still have) my OG xbox and the 360 (which I also still have). It was Halo that almost made me swap over to xbox completely, it was the arrival of RFoM on PS3 that kept me in the light

I played it on PC - with and without mods, this was way better than the base game, and I completed the main loop six or seven times.

But, unlike Fallout, Oblivion, Skyrim, where I would explore and find adventure, this had nothing in comparison. The words were dead and boring and so very, very small. Little sections that were carved out to give you illusion of size. So much so that I just raced through every mission just so I could get it over with.

It's a Bethesda jank fest all the way through that just seemed empty and flat compared to its siblings. It was a real disappointment to me.

Soon the PC gaming market is going to cease at this rate, no RAM available, no CPUs available. It's only going to get worse as manufacturing moves away from domestic production into purely commercial production.

It's going to be a brave new world where the idea of building yourself a PC is just a memory and what left on the shelf will be so expensive it wont be worth even looking.

And that will impact consoles, in fact to will impact everything and not in a good way.

Well this was inevitable. Phil H and Sarah Bond haf already commited the time and resources and cash to this. It would probably cost more to terminate the contracts now than to release the console PC thing. I guess if it flops then that will be the end completely for xbox. And if they are releasing it as an high end machine to compete against Sony, Steam, and all the other PC manufacturers then I don't see how it would succeed.

If Sony didn't know what to do with the studio and Bluepoint were pitching projects that were falling flat then they should have just been assigned the job of spinning up remakes of past classics.

Could have set them on Killzone, Resistance, etc

This got overlooked as nothing about it stood out. It has well manicured graphics and that was about that.

The world is dead, no fish in the water, no birds in the air, the NPCs are all stuffed puppets standing in exactly the same place all the time. The writing and acting made it sound like they turned up for the cheque and that was it.

Had it come out in the early 2000's it might have made an impact. But as it stands it's an antique game, in mechanics and world building, with a nice gloss of paint on it.

I have played, and completed it, on PC and it's a game I will never go back to. There are much better games out there to spend your money on.

PvP - instant turn off for me. There's a certain laziness to creating a game and not having the imagination to populate it with wonders and monsters, but just let other people do it for you, that grates with me.

Having completed it (several times) on PC I can honestly say it's not worth the wait.

Unless V2.0 is a complete overhaul that re-writes the story, updates the physics, brings the graphics pipeline out of the early 2000's, updates all the textures etc, and updates all the planets to make them worth visiting, then it's not going to be worth the money they ask for it.

Bobby K sold Microsoft a poison pill.

If this has any impact on their AI ambitions then Nadella will probably rain fire and brimstone down on Xbox.

I just bought the Inzone Buds and they are so much better than the Pulse Explore buds I had originally. I've experienced no audio drop outs (a constant annoyance with the Explore buds), the noise cancelling is very good, and they are comfortable to wear and have an excellent battery life.

If these are the same quality as the buds then I might be tempted to replace my Steelseries Arctis 9 headset.

Sad day to see Anthem go. It was a tragic misstep for Bioware, one that was forced on them, resulting in development hell for the game. The same as Veilguard but the end product was far superior.

I had many hours of fun playing Anthem on my PS4 and, to be honest, it was a little rough around the edges but you could see the gleam of what potential it held. And nothing beats the feeling of zipping around in your Javelin, flying through waterfalls to cool down, or just skimming water like a stone. They nailed that part for sure.

Bye bye Anthem. Know that you were loved.
"Strong Alone. Stronger together"

Will the updates actually make this a good game?

One that doesn't feel like it was developed in early 2000's, left on a shelf for 25 years before being dusted off, given some fancy graphics, and launched as new? No? Then I'll just live with the buyers remorse I have for the PC version. This game is not even mid.

Now we know first hand how the human race reacted when they encountered their first steam engine. Maybe we can all chuck our shoes in there to see if it chokes the machine?

The how is more important than the why as always.

Bought it on Steam. It's a waste of time, I get nothing but constant crashes and what I have seen in between those is not much better than the original.

Just nicer graphics with absolutely every single one of UE5s worst issues dialled to the max. Stutter, shader issues, crashes, you name it.

After the u-bend blockage that was Avowed I was hoping that Obsidian would have improved a bit. But no, they're still stuck in the '00s for game design

Refund requested.

The only problem with running a poll on a gaming centred forum is that the Tik Tok people won't be here. They're too busy developing psychological issues from the constant stream of cognitive dissonance they subject themselves to on a daily basis.

I think the results here may be a little biased!

I still have my OG Xbox wired up so that I can play Halo in its original form. Definately will be picking this up on my Pro.

They should bring back Home . I'm all up for the Ready Player One unified world for all games now. Why not have a single avatar that you use in every game, instead of creating new ones each time.

I wonder when MS will start loading their games with adverts for GP; trying to tempt players from other platforms to sell their soul to them?

They should give you the same options you got with the ME remake; an option to pick either the enhanced or original mode.

@Propaperpusher - Yeah but MS and Xbox are on the way out now so that should be fixed soon....

Wonder what performance hit the power save mode has?

The T-Rex demo and the Manta Ray. Those were the days

After that steaming dump they took, called Avowed, I think I will wait until the none main stream press reviews come in before I risk this one. I loved the original Outerworlds, it was a blast to play and very amusing.

I wonder how many people they'll have to fire to make the numbers look good next quarter?

I stuck a Nannino PS5 Pro Cooling Fan on mine and that really does seem to help. It's a bit noisy though, but I did a mutlti hour session on the first decendant and DS2 the other day and didn't have any problems. Could have baked a potato with the heat coming from the fans though!!

He's gone into like a classical sculpture, with a tinge of renaissance artist, mixed with a lesson in basic anatomy and a basic overview of the heterogeneity of the human form.

Not bad for a game dev from Korea . Though it's a shame that exhibiting an iota of education gets dumped on by the contextually challenged amongst us.

In dog we trust.

@Max_the_German - apart from they could up the ray tracing to way beyond what it currently supports all the while having a higher resolution and PSSR support. That would have a very obvious, positive, impact on the visual quality without too much impact on performance.

I do use it on a fairly regular basis, but on my PC - the choice and quality of game is just better on that platform.

Though I did like HZD:CotM and Arizona Sunshine they can't compete with products like Half Life Alyx.

Looks like there may be a danger of tencent gaining ownership of Shiftup. They already own ~30%. Sony should get in there first.

If MS succeed with Games Pass then it will be the death of the games industry. You'll end up with some cheap ass AI slop with every release on your expensive subscription because that's all the few studio left will be able to afford.

I think the only way for the industry to co-exist with devaluation services like GP is, as the guy says, for games to only appear on there a year or two after they have launched.

@Ooccoo_Jr - It's 12% of the 1000+ people who responded which is 120+ people. Still 120+ more sales than the launch price point deserves.

Xbox aren't bothered.

They, and their parent company, were never about games anyway. It's all about forcing the market into using their ecosystem so that they have control and all the money flows their way.

It going to be tough on the outer worlds, which would have been a day one purchase for me, but this is just too expensive to justify.

Looks good, but then Avowed looked good as well but when it arrived it was definitely weak sauce. Hopefully because they were focusing on this. But it's still not worth £70, maybe something like Calir Obscur is worth that but not this.

None of the gameplays is new either, it's all been done to death in other games before, from Ratchet and Clank weapons to Warframe Octavia death by music.

But I guess it's in M$'s interest in, putting people off buying it, if that drives Gamepass subscriptions.

They say this is just a tech demo, to show what they are building the world with. But even so, this running at 60fps with RT, though how much RT was going on in the world? Maybe shadows?, on a base PS5 is pretty impressive. Draw distance, seamless LOD, it's like voodoo

What I really hope is that they craft a world that feels as alive and present as the Witcher 3 does. Even if it means dialing the eye candy back a notch or two. An open world that is just static, like a few recent games, is just pointless, it has to live and breath around you to make the magic happen.

It played very much like Hellblade - graphics were incredible at that time, especially on the PS4. But it was over reliant on QTEs for the most part, broken up by cover based shooting sections.

The story was good though, emotive, the voice acting and writing made it compelling from that viewpoint. And some of the set pieces were really good. Still remember the first encounter with the werewolf to this day.

Overall it was a good starting point for a trilogy, further games could have expanded the gameplay signiifcantly; were they given the time to develop them. As I recall this took too long to get market anyway as the devs were a little over ambitious.

Also the enviroment into which it launched was a little acidic at the time, the PS4 was absolutely destroying the Xbox, after their brief period at the top with the 360, and mainstream reviewers always seemed to be harsher on PS4 games than their Xbox counterparts.

@MrPeanutbutterz - I think you answered your own question there, the clues in the 'tit'illation...

But other than that, and the super unrealistic clothing choices for high octane combat situations, the game itself is fantastic, great combat, good exploration, fantastic boss battles.

If you ignore the obvious points, concentrate on the cleavage of enemies in twain, Behave in a firm but(t) fair way with NPCs, and explore every crack, and crevice, you can on the map I'm sure you'd have a great time!

I always thought there was more to the policy of MS buying up game studios, other than to try and starve the competition, and now; with all the talk about game prices rising to $80+ I can see another angle they will be using to monopolise the gaming market.

By owning the most studios and by forcing game prices upwards they can force a migration of people to GamePass - and starve the competition that way. After all it's in their best interest to price gamers out of the free market into their walled garden so they can raise subscription fees as they see fit and ensure no-one ever owns more than a license again. Once people are in they are trapped, no GP - no games. Tough luck.

In this way it is a real shame that the FTC lost this case, MS must be sighing with relief. After all they really need the numbers to make GP an actual workable proposition in the long run. Once they have the lions share they can start dictating prices to developers and publishers and make sure they cut any competition out.

The core gameplay loop was always its weakest point, the combat was not very inspired and there was no real depth to the way you could combine signs with combat that didn't just become formulaic.

But where it always exceled, and still does for me, is in the depth; and craft, displayed by its world building. The emotion and complexity of even the simplest of quests, rising to the grand spectacle of the larger story quest (the bloody baron was inspired). And on top of that the sense of solidness; of being in the world, how alive it felt. Whether standing in the bustling streets of Oxenfurt or Novigrad or just sat on Roach atop a grassy hill watching the sunset; there have been so very few games that have ever matched that sense of being.

I think it is one of the modern gaming masterpieces that shoud be held as a gold standard to world design and it should be celebrated as such.

I already have a PS5 Pro (and my OG PS5 which I am selling) and a Portal. So I am satisfied with my setup

Playing this again after all the years have passed makes me look at games like Avowed and wonder how did we regress so much with games and their designs.

It also make me think that reviews should do more comparisons between new games and those that came before them but I guess that won't happen as it'll just make new games look bad all the time...

Pre-ordered even though I own the PS4 version on disc. Played a bit today and there are some noticable differences in visuals and overall framerate etc. But beyond that its identical to the original, though the new horde mode looks like fun. Having seen what a re-mastered game looks like with Oblivion (I bought that on PC) it does feel like they cheaped out here.

Really wish they'd put the effort into a sequel rather than this. It was the most refreshing take on the zombie genre I'd played for quite a while. Maybe their next game should be a zombie cross over with Ghost of Yotei - The Thousand Petal'd Corpse or something...

Whispers in moonlight,
Petals drift on silent graves,
Swords clash, undead fight

Imagine how big games would be without the Kraken compression block in the console!

But this growth in the size of games is the reason I put an extra 4TB WD Black in my PS5 Pro when I upgraded.

I'm having a load of fun with this, a weird cross between a quatermass movie and a john wyndham novel (maybe a touch of nicholas fisk in there too) - just digging the 'triffids'. Also love the amount of easter eggs they've hidden away in it (always check behind the waterfalls!). It was a bit bewildering and slow to get going, with a peculiar use of regional accents in the mix adding to the confusion, but once you find your stride it really is quite entertaining. And nice to see a British studio deliver a polished product in a British setting, makes a nice change!