doctommaso

I did not find the main character appealing or interesting, although I loved the robot. The combat was a very poor man's souls-like, although you have to love wielding a lightsaber. The attempts at Tomb Raider-ish/Uncharted-like puzzles and navigation were uninspired. It all added up to a rather mediocre game.

Really good game but hard as heck if you aren’t an exquisitely thorough gamer. I ended up somewhere I shouldn’t have been and was really underpowered. I’m going to have to play with a walk-through, I think; and I almost never need to do that. Still, I think it’s an OK way to play a game you like, if you would otherwise move on without a guide. In any case, I think number eight for the year is about right.

Can we get actual TOMBS again, please?

I dropped Game Pass and still only have PS Plus Essential — for cloud saves. There are way too many games for me to be able to really dig into these services. My backlog is still pretty insane (dating back to NES if not Atari 2600) and just keeps growing.

Glad others seem pretty amped, though.

Hopefully Sony got rid of the annoying coil noise this time around.

Still way too long/bloated for my tastes.

Man this looks UBER dark/grisly. Probably a bit too much for me. Still, I will remain open-minded, as someone who enjoys Soulsbornekiring (I know, it's annoying, but I didn't invent it) games overall.

Really glad I didn't waste time watching this. Glad to see ER won GotY! The AC announcement was pretty cool, I guess.

Guess 2023 is the year I finally get into AC.

@rjejr Haha that's quite a mix-up! That guy calling you daft was funny; he has no clue.

Mimic tear was epic, but I never found it till my NG+ run. Helped me a bunch on my NG+ final boss fight, for sure!

As big of a Soulsborne fan as I am, I agree with you; the games would be better a bit easier, so difficulty options would be welcome. I'm not such an uber player that I don't have to spend a good bit of time leveling a bunch at least a couple times along the way, and it would feel like a waste of time were I not enjoying the gameplay so much.

@Mr_Gamecube Well said. GoW:R felt like DLC or expansion at first; the latter half impressed significantly compared to the 2018 game, but it still feels very much like the same game. Horizon 2 was the exact same. Still very good games, worth playing. GoW:R was done so well, in terms of writing, camera-work, a fair part of the acting, etc., so I can see why it could deserve GoTY. GoW:R legitimately moved me to tears — or close-- a few times, which is impressive. That said, I don't need any of that in a video game, and on a pure gaming basis, I absolutely would give it to ER in a heartbeat.

@rjejr This is a perfect description of how ER is a huge leap forward for the Souls series.

I'll just grab the trailer announcements later. I regretted the couple years I did watch most or all of it, such a huge time drain. The show needs to be 90 minutes.

@Dusk_Actual I should check out some more lore at some point

@rjejr It would be cool if we did fight at least one battle together! Neat Twitter feed; you preserved a lot of great moments.

@dschons I can't imagine that's legit, but I've been wrong before.

@Dusk_Actual @rjejr Actually loved that battle, once I got it down. Same with Hoarah Loux and Maliketh.

@rjejr Wonder if I must have seen you at some point online. I did 340 hours between a normal run, a lot of helping out with latter bosses in co-op, and an NG+/plat run. Malenia was brutal even highly leveled, and I only won cause I was finally able to summon an insanely good player to help me.

@CWill97 Hope and pray her treatment goes well! I agree on the combat signs, definitely a good move.

@Greifchen @Ravix What?!!!! MIND BLOWN. lol Thanks, that's huge!

Really wanted to play the DLCs on PS5, but I lost my PS4 save and don’t like it enough to replay like 75-100 hours.

@Michael2008ish Interesting. Perhaps I adapted quickly. Or maybe it depends on the class you pick? I know my good buddy thought the combat was super responsive, too. Maybe we haven't played enough more responsive games?

@Michael2008ish That’s wild; I feel like the combat is phenomenal in DeSo, just like everything else in the game (on both systems).

Edit: Well, except level 5-2…

Tried ME a few months ago and couldn’t get into it. Not interested in the others.

Dang, was hoping this would be good. Oh well, Sports Story is coming soon!

Btw, been having an epic time playing Retro Bowl; grabbed Retro Goal, as well. Awesome inexpensive pixelated sports games.

That ad was horrible.

@gipsojo Ah, okay; makes sense.

I’m going to admit I was wrong about this game earlier. I finally completed it, and the last half was far better than the first for me. It definitely had more of a wow factor and didn’t feel like just DLC or an expansion, like the first half felt. In particular, I was impressed by some of the boss battles in the latter half of the game, and the big plot twist pretty much blew my mind. I still have issues with some of the acting and the pacing of the game in the first half, which nearly made me put the game down. While I prefer Elden Ring, I definitely can see why this game deserves to be in the conversation for Gane of the Year.

I went a bit nuts with the Black Friday PS Store sales, so I’m not sure what’s left to buy.

For reviews, I think games should stand on their own merits, without money playing a factor; prices will change over time.

@naruball There is no comparable DLC/Expansion I am aware of. That doesn't change that the game still feels like a large well-done DLC/Expansion.

@dark_knightmare2 Oh my gosh, man — relax; this is an opinion about a game, not a personal attack.

Anyone objective can see that Elden Ring is a huge step forward for the Souls-type genre. I actually think your BotW comparison is a pretty good analogy for Elden Ring, because BotW did for Zelda what ER did for Dark Souls. Also, no one is saying BotW was not an influence on ER (but you can clearly see Souls influences on BotW, as well). This doesn't change the fundamental fact that GoWR is iterative in nearly all respects and feels exactly like a (huge, quality) DLC add-on to the 2018 game — again, I think anyone objective will admit that. I think many people wanted just that, but I expected more.

Having played Elden Ring rather recently, the faux-open level design of the GoW games becomes incredibly obvious and feels like dodging an obstacle course to get to my goal, rather than exploration. Similarly, I can't get invested or drawn into its world, partially because of acting that sounds like reading off of a script but more so constant annoying interruptions regarding puzzles or telling me what to do — a step backward from the 2018 GoW and again much more obvious after playing ER, which is massively open and extremely hands-off.

And I'm sorry, you will never win an argument with me about ER's quality. For one, I completely disagree about ER having a bad latter half, especially compared to some of the prior Souls titles. Regarding the bosses, if you look at the primary bosses (not all the small dungeon bosses, etc.), I think you are dead wrong. As for filler, I spent 340 hours in the game over a couple runs and due to helping others beat end-game bosses numerous times, and I never felt like I was bored — not for an instant. Comparatively, I was bored in GoWR after the first 3 or 4 hours (the first 1.5 hours are epic, however, to give credit where it is due). I've pushed through GoWR to justify the $70 spent and to give it a fair chance, out of respect for the fact that so many people feel it's such an amazing game.

I'm sorry you feel so personally hurt by someone criticizing GoWR, but you need to allow for different opinions and to be able to take an objective look at a game's positives and negatives.

I'll leave the discussion here and have no interest in reading further rather aggressive responses from you.

This game was great in 2018 (not amazing) and is merely good in this 2022 post Elden Ring world. It’s basically just a huge DLC/expansion for the 2018 game. I expected more.

@Sequel lol c’mon

It’s still early, but at this point I am not impressed with God of War Ragnarok. It feels like I’m playing the exact same game from 2018 (which, to be fair, I enjoyed quite a bit). After playing a game like Elden Ring, it’s painfully apparent that GoW revolves around forcing you through corridors into repetitive highly staged battles. The puzzles are the same, and the constant suggestions from your crew as to how to solve them come too quickly, are annoying, and cannot be turned off. The relationship between the main characters feels forced and awkward this time around. I don’t know, I just am not feeling it; I nearly quit on the game about 2.5 hours in. In my opinion, the game is nowhere near the caliber of Elden Ring, and while highly polished and shiny, it might not even be in my top five games of the year (ER, Triangle Strategy, Tunic, Atari 50, and Sports Story are surely going to rank above it for me).

@SoulChimera What a jerk comment.

I predicted this five years ago when my friend was insisting that Sony’s PS5 would be a hybrid like the Switch, in order to compete in the Japanese market. I knew Sony wouldn’t care about the much smaller Japanese market already dominated by phones and the Switch.

@LIMA There’s been a graphical showcase for PS5 since day one. It’s called Demon’s Souls.

@thefourfoldroot1 Some of us find physical copies annoying at this point.

@riceNpea Very well said, but it will never take off until someone comes up with an answer for the marked simulation sickness more than a few experience.

I often end up falling off of these souls-likes before finishing them, so I think I'll pass. I did finish Lords of the Fallen but didn't exactly love it. I also finished Jedi: Fallen Order but found it mediocre at best.

FromSoftware quality is just too superior, and the also-rans just can't keep up.

@racinggamefanatic They can't even release a good game. I wish they'd worry about that before buying even more devs.

@djlard Remaked? lol

@straw-hat-crew My not having Premium doesn't change the fact that you have an awful take. For what it's worth, if Premium had a boatload of retro games available, I probably would have it; so again, it matters.

And based on your attitude in both of your posts, I'm not at all surprised that you find it strange that I might have empathy for others.

@straw-hat-crew @colt3211. Awful take. It’s a reasonable expectation, given the huge amount of great Playstation back catalog titles. People largely bought into Premium because of the promise of classic games, and Sony is not living up to their end of the deal. So people naturally feel ripped off.

I personally didn’t subscribe to the service, because I prefer to purchase classic games when they are available on the store. Still, it’s baffling how there are not more classic titles available. It’s not like it’s difficult for Sony to make sure a couple of old games run on the emulators each month.

Should be “Sony-owned” in the title. Without it, the title is both grammatically incorrect and confusing.

Think you mean shaken, not shook, but the point remains. (Oh, just noticed I"m not the only one who noticed. lol)

Brutally hard unless you use the rewind feature (which I refuse to do). Love it, but it's extremely challenging to get all the characters this way. It's so unforgiving, I think it has to be knocked down to about a 6 or 7 out of 10.

To be frank, Horizon 1, while having quite unique story and gameplay, felt like a bit of a slog to get through. I haven't even had interest in Horizon 2, as a result. Maybe I'll pick it up when it's cheap, but with so many games coming out, plus having a substantial backlog, I'm not sure I want to put in the time. And that's coming from someone who put in over 300 hours on Elden Ring and 80 hours on Triangle Strategy, back-to-back.

Massive travesty if Elden Ring doesn't essentially sweep GotY.