I think the Last Of Us Part II is one of the greatest examples of narratively driven gameplay in the history of video games. It's not perfect; but it's damn near close. I know a lot of people hated the treatment of Joel, but narratively it worked perfectly for me. He was a morally grey person who was heavily implied to have done absolutely abysmal things in his past after the loss of his daughter. He was not a hero who was invincible, but a morally compromised man who made dark choices to survive and eventually slipped up. Karma got him, as was bound to happen to anyone living in that world. The story of him finding his humanity, again, in a surrogate daughter was over, and the game presented us with how Elly would respond to the repercussions of his decisions when he was faced with an impossible choice. It is these impossible choices, when each is morally grey, that breed further conflict, because someone is going to get hurt and want payback. It's tragic and inevitable for humans until we realize that further violence out of revenge alone only begets more violence. From Abby's perspective, Joel had what was coming to him. All understandable motives. And the split narrative, while perhaps done before, felt groundbreaking to me in this media form.
Fans who couldn't look past their bromance with someone as questionable as Joel really missed out on an exceptionally tailored interactive experience. We had grown to love Joel in the first game, but the second needed to break our heart so that we could really feel Elly's pain and be able to explore the repercussions that come with no-win scenarios and the cycle of vengeance that can be born of them. Some might say that's a tired theme to explore, but it has never been so well done in a video game I've ever played with such tight gameplay and acting. All of the transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny aimed at this game was absolutely shameful, and shouldn't reflect whatsoever on its quality. People who couldn't look past their own bigotry and couldn't accept that Joel absolutely got what was coming to him don't deserve this game anyway.
Trophies are a way to entice you to play the game longer than designed without adding extra content. It’s a virtually free way for developers and PlayStation to keep you on the platform so you don’t sell your game, so you don’t try as many games on other platforms, and so they’re able to sell more DLC. They’re a marketing tactic. Trophies are meaningless, and often the tasks are arbitrary and random. They capitalize on a gamer’s desire to find secrets. Secrets used to mean granting powerful armor, a shortcut, a new ending, something humorous, etc. Something with value. Trophies hardly ever offer any value, at least for me. I guess some enjoy personal fulfillment in collecting them and that’s enough for them. I just don’t understand it. Play your way though, and play on!
Get a PS5 physical edition and buy used! I just picked up Ratchet And Clank, Returnal, Demon Souls, Deathloop, and a couple others from GameStop with their Buy Two Get One free sale. With the prices averaged out I ended up paying about $25 per game. Easily made up the difference in the extra expense of the physical edition and I have plenty of games to last me until the next batch of releases goes on sale. Wait six months and get in the rhythm of buying used. You'll pay drastically lower prices and you can resell them, making your savings even greater.
Honestly, I would have bought a PS5 even if there were no new games ever and we were just stuck with old PS4 games. The biggest reason I bought a PS5 was for the load times, so that 2.5 minutes waiting for Red Dead Redemption 2 to load was more than cut in half. It makes a huge difference in immersion and quality of life. That said, I also just bought 9 used games from Gamestop's buy 2 get 1 free sale, most of them for PS5, including Ratchet And Clank A Rift Apart, Demons' Souls, Returnal, Deathloop, Sackboy, Miles Morales, and Yakuza Like A Dragon. I also picked up PS4 copies of Dark Souls III and Resident Evil 2. Those 9 games averaged out to $19 dollars a piece. A year out from the console's release, it's now doable to play these games at a very reasonable price. Black Friday is coming up, too. All of these games will easily hold me over until the next batch of next generation games are released and start to go on sale used. If you're patient and buy used there's very little to complain about. I may pay $70 for Forbidden West, but I'm fine waiting on most everything else. I love playing at 60 fps, too. After playing the silky smooth PS5 version of Control, I played Bloodborne, and its frame rate was so annoying. Going back to goes locked at 30 fps sucks when you get used to 60 fps that's now standard for the new generation. There's plenty to love about the PS5, and I'm very happy to move on from last generation, even as I wait for the used PS5 games to arrive in the mail. The future is bright!
As a gamer who quit playing video games in his late teens and returned to gaming in his mid 30s, I tried out Skyrim for the first time for a couple hours a couple days ago and found the combat to be absolutely atrocious. It felt like a slog compared to the likes of Horizon Zero Dawn, which was my reintroduction to gaming, and the newer generation of open wold RPGs. I just couldn't get into it.
They showed a lot of great stuff. A couple surprises even. It was good. But I just wasn't blown away by anything. Nothing got me super amped. God Of War looks fantastic, but kind of more of the same. But that's to be somewhat expected I have a PS5, and have been enjoying it, but I was kind of hoping to be like, wow, that looks so next generation and amazing. This isn't really a complaint because the games look good. I just kind of agree with the article that I was hoping for something that felt extra special.
@Gaia093 They plucked Kratos from his Greek mythology roots and plunked him down into Norse mythology, and they made it work despite these mythologies not really being all that connected. It's not the Norse mythology itself that was creative. It was the shift to revitalize the property that was bold. The change made sense within the story and developed a character that was feeling stale after killing the major players of the Greek pantheon and just being a rage monster all the time and nothing much else. Aging him up and growing his character to reflect on his follies and using his son as a character to further explore that development was a bold choice, given that it was a significant deviation from prior characterization.
The app menu is formatted exactly like it's out of a Metal Gear Solid game. From the font to the line thickness of the boxes where the content will later be available. Clear as day.
@Subsided I said it was an oversimplification for a reason. In the case of black people in the west, slavery is absolutely the reason why they represent 10 percent of the population. In regards to other elements of diversity, there are a vast number of political, geographic, economic, and historic reasons why certain populations have different levels of diversity. They can’t all be summarized here. But, yes, other reasons include racism in parts of the world that have contributed to homogenous societies, and it’s fair to ask them to do better. But slavery and colonization is absolutely a huge reason why we have the diversity we do.
Why are there so many Hispanics here? Because white Spanish conquistadors invaded the Americas and raped and bred with the native population. They’ve always been here since.
What I said before in regards to Bollywood wasn’t to say that they should be exclusionary. Trust me, I’m aware Bollywood has its own history of racism and doesn’t get a pass. But to expect Bollywood movies to have even a remotely similar diversity makeup compared to the west is just unrealistic. India is actually one of the most diverse countries in the world. They’re just not diverse in the way we see diversity in the US. And they have representation issues relating to their own diversity.
In regards to trans representation, trans people have been marginalized and oppressed since forever. You have to understand and acknowledge that we’re in a time and place when taking a stand in support of a marginalized group can lead to overrepresentation simply because people want to further normalize and integrate them into our communities. It is a larger movement in society. You might find it objectionable but many find it refreshing and in a way making up for years of marginalization. Public opinion is a pendulum after all. And it can swing widely. But let’s be honest, is trans representation really that high? Somehow I have a feeling that the media is overreporting on trans roles more so than trans people are actually over representing themselves in film and television roles. I can’t say for sure. Do you have the percentages of trans representation in media or are you just overreacting to seeing trans people in places where they were previously not given space before.
“couple this with a global double standard where white countries are the only places in the world with any diversity”
There are some many angles of ignorance built into this statement. The United States has so much diversity largely because they stole people of color from their home countries, enslaved them, and then were forced to set them free to inhabit the land they had come to know. Much the same can be said for Western Europe. While that is an oversimplification, given the role of immigration, slavery is the bedrock of western diversity.
“and it makes perfect since why white people, the real minority, may not like being cut out of the slim niche they made for themselves.”
They cut out that niche by murdering and enslaving people of color and by forcibly prohibiting people of color from occupying important positions in society, notably media. Rephrasing genocide as “cutting out a slim niche” is pretty cringeworthy.
“so you're saying that Bollywood should be exclusionary and only appeal to their own race while only casting their own race”
India is like .1 percent white. There’s even fewer black people. Expecting Bollywood to have greater diversification in the same way we see in the west is silly. Media should represent the diversity of the region being depicted.
@truerbluer What resolution were you watching it on? I had YouTube in 4K and I definitely noticed particle effects blowing at times and trees slightly rustling. In such a dense environment having foliage blowing around drastically could be too chaotic and distracting. I'm not sure every environment needs to have wind blowing all the time, every time. The preview indicates a literal storm is coming, so she very well might be battling through other environments with more wind and movements in the trees. This very well might be the calm before the storm.
@Kirbyboy92 Improved graphics, combat, and gameplay mechanics are generally what you can expect out of any sequel, which is exactly what this game is offering. Every game borrows from other games unless it's a revolutionary game that invents something never seen before. This game doesn't need to be revolutionary to be successful and fun. I think most realistic fans are expecting it to be an evolution of the first game, and it looks to be that.
@BRUTALSAM What are you talking about getting the law involved? Lol. The law will not get to this. That's just silly. Square Enix and Sony came to this agreement mutually. No one is being forced. Square Enix can negotiate when and where they make their game available based on their own business decisions. Talk about being an entitled gamer. Jeez Louise.
My problem with most open world games is that you just run from point A to point B on some kind of fetch quest following some tracks in the mud, fight a couple bad guys, watch a cute scene, and then rinse and repeat. It's not so much the size that's inherently bothersome, but the repetitive banality of the formula. What's missing for me is quality platforming that requires skill within the open world environment, aside from target practice. Instead we get rock climbing that only requires pushing the joystick and jumping across gaps. But there's little risk involved and too much reward when finding a special item at the top of a mountain peak that was already marked on your map. The reward hardly feels earned. You don't have to listen to some obscure character in town and remember what they said to get a secret in the game later down the line. The game just marks it on the map. The sense of accomplishment for remembering clues like in old Final Fantasy games just isn't present in today's games. You're just going through the motions and checking boxes on an errands list. There's also very little platforming while in combat or platforming that simultaneously requires dodging elements in the environment. If they could merge elements of what make classics like Mario Brothers great into open world games they would be so much more engaging. Heck, games don't even have to be open world or 3D all the time. They can go side scrolling or top-down at times to vary the game play, like Neir Automata. I think restricting the game players perspective at times can lead to more laser-like focus on fun gameplay while simultaneously maintaining gameplay mechanics that are consistent across perspectives. And the world can always open up, again, with seamless transitions as the camera zooms back into a 3D perspective. Locking a player into progressing the story can also be a good thing for story pacing purposes. Final Fantasy 15 got a lot of flack for putting the player on rails at the end, but I think putting the player on rails at times can be a good thing so as to preserve the narrative drive. Story progression in current open world games are just so damn segmented that everything feels watered down. Ghost Of Tsushima is especially bad at this because the awesome side quests with the central characters get broken into so many chunks. Segmented main quests and segmented large side quests end up being hardly more important feeling then finding a villagers frying pan because they lack the narrative drive of say The Last Of Us. I think that larger on rails portions would be beneficial, at least in some games. And then open the world back up from time to time to let players explore. Open world environments should be drip fed so as to preserve the sense of wonder when you have access to the openness. Instead the openers becomes dull when you're halfway through a game, and can often be a chore. Restricting access to the open world can make open world special, again. Think Final Fantasy 7 and how it started with Midgar before opening up. Also more legit puzzles would be appreciated, as well, and less cosmetic loot that has me running off in the complete opposite direction of the main story for a different colored hat. New cosmetic loot is fun from time to time, but when it's marked as a question mark on the map, and I have no idea whether it's actually stat boosting loot or not, it's just such a let down when it just changes the color of my characters clothing for the hundredth time.
Beat it on Apple Arcade during the free trial when it first launched about a year and a half ago. It was fine for a phone game, quite good and expansive even compared to other offerings at the time with fun enough gameplay. And it certainly has a light, refreshing vibe compared to more serious modern games. I do remember one giant fortress that you have to use a grapple hook to reach the upper levels and secret areas in a puzzle-like fashion. That was probably the standout part of the game for me. Also the water area was pretty cool with underwater segments to explore. But it ended up feeling hollow in the end, especially the overview world exploration, and for a console game it’s kind of meh. The cities were pretty big and were fun to explore at first because you often thought something cool could be found. But rarely was that the case. Some potential missed there. For completionists there are bloodstones to collect, like 100 of them, and I anticipated getting a cool reward for them. But I don’t remember it being all too exciting. The task isn’t easy but not ridiculously hard either, and I would say I experienced a certain amount of satisfaction for finding them all. The story kind of ends abruptly and there seems to be a subtle amount of lore that doesn’t have much depth. Even still I strangely enough find myself checking in on a third installment. So I must have enjoyed it enough, for what that’s worth.
@danlk1ng I generally think that it's sketchy in any industry when you run a sale and then turn around and immediately give it for free through a subscription service that many of the same purchasers already have. It comes across as intentional double dipping to extract as much money as possible, and it feels like a disrespect to their fans and loyal customers.
@Dislecksier Good luck. I already did that, and I even escalated the call to higher management. They were very nice but unmoving in their policy. If you get a different result please let me know.
@Col_McCafferty Did they tell you a bunch of times that you'd have to pay for an upgrade to get the next gen version? This is a different situation. I think most people would be bummed in your situation but accept it. This feels uniquely predatory.
I am another unfortunate soul who bought Control Ultimate Edition during the last sale. I'm four days outside the return window. I wouldn't have a problem with this if it was a normal situation. But it had been well-reported that an upgrade fee was going to be necessary, and it seemed reasonable to assume that PS+ wouldn't even sniff this. The timing seems very intentional to bleed as much money as they can. What irritates me even more is that the sale window overlapped with the return window. Meaning if you had bought the game during the first half of the sale, like I did, you wouldn't be able to return it. If you bought it during the second half of the sale you could. For those people like myself who were only purchasing this for the upgrade and hadn't even downloaded the game, the inability to be able to return it feels arbitrary, despite the clear return policy, and it feels like a major burn.
Comments 374
Re: The Last of Us 2 Has Sold an Impressive 10 Million Copies on PS4
Removed
Re: The Last of Us 2 Has Sold an Impressive 10 Million Copies on PS4
I think the Last Of Us Part II is one of the greatest examples of narratively driven gameplay in the history of video games. It's not perfect; but it's damn near close. I know a lot of people hated the treatment of Joel, but narratively it worked perfectly for me. He was a morally grey person who was heavily implied to have done absolutely abysmal things in his past after the loss of his daughter. He was not a hero who was invincible, but a morally compromised man who made dark choices to survive and eventually slipped up. Karma got him, as was bound to happen to anyone living in that world. The story of him finding his humanity, again, in a surrogate daughter was over, and the game presented us with how Elly would respond to the repercussions of his decisions when he was faced with an impossible choice. It is these impossible choices, when each is morally grey, that breed further conflict, because someone is going to get hurt and want payback. It's tragic and inevitable for humans until we realize that further violence out of revenge alone only begets more violence. From Abby's perspective, Joel had what was coming to him. All understandable motives. And the split narrative, while perhaps done before, felt groundbreaking to me in this media form.
Fans who couldn't look past their bromance with someone as questionable as Joel really missed out on an exceptionally tailored interactive experience. We had grown to love Joel in the first game, but the second needed to break our heart so that we could really feel Elly's pain and be able to explore the repercussions that come with no-win scenarios and the cycle of vengeance that can be born of them. Some might say that's a tired theme to explore, but it has never been so well done in a video game I've ever played with such tight gameplay and acting. All of the transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny aimed at this game was absolutely shameful, and shouldn't reflect whatsoever on its quality. People who couldn't look past their own bigotry and couldn't accept that Joel absolutely got what was coming to him don't deserve this game anyway.
Re: Final Fantasy 16 Missing from Square Enix 2022 Lineup Article
I’ve always thought it was highly unlikely that they would release two FF games in the same year.
Re: Hands On: God of War PC Is a Great Way to Play a PS4 Classic
@pimpjuice Yeah, just wait 4 years to play the best games.
Re: Rumour: PS Plus January 2022 PS5, PS4 Games Leaked Early
@Max_the_German Yeah, well, I’d rather get infinity 100/100 games than three 8/10 games. And my dad is stronger than yours.
Re: Soapbox: I Think I'm Over Trophies
Trophies are a way to entice you to play the game longer than designed without adding extra content. It’s a virtually free way for developers and PlayStation to keep you on the platform so you don’t sell your game, so you don’t try as many games on other platforms, and so they’re able to sell more DLC. They’re a marketing tactic. Trophies are meaningless, and often the tasks are arbitrary and random. They capitalize on a gamer’s desire to find secrets. Secrets used to mean granting powerful armor, a shortcut, a new ending, something humorous, etc. Something with value. Trophies hardly ever offer any value, at least for me. I guess some enjoy personal fulfillment in collecting them and that’s enough for them. I just don’t understand it. Play your way though, and play on!
Re: Talking Point: Is Sony Being Stingy with PS5's First-Party Pricing?
Get a PS5 physical edition and buy used! I just picked up Ratchet And Clank, Returnal, Demon Souls, Deathloop, and a couple others from GameStop with their Buy Two Get One free sale. With the prices averaged out I ended up paying about $25 per game. Easily made up the difference in the extra expense of the physical edition and I have plenty of games to last me until the next batch of releases goes on sale. Wait six months and get in the rhythm of buying used. You'll pay drastically lower prices and you can resell them, making your savings even greater.
Re: Feature: PS5 Report Card - How Is It After One Year?
Honestly, I would have bought a PS5 even if there were no new games ever and we were just stuck with old PS4 games. The biggest reason I bought a PS5 was for the load times, so that 2.5 minutes waiting for Red Dead Redemption 2 to load was more than cut in half. It makes a huge difference in immersion and quality of life. That said, I also just bought 9 used games from Gamestop's buy 2 get 1 free sale, most of them for PS5, including Ratchet And Clank A Rift Apart, Demons' Souls, Returnal, Deathloop, Sackboy, Miles Morales, and Yakuza Like A Dragon. I also picked up PS4 copies of Dark Souls III and Resident Evil 2. Those 9 games averaged out to $19 dollars a piece. A year out from the console's release, it's now doable to play these games at a very reasonable price. Black Friday is coming up, too. All of these games will easily hold me over until the next batch of next generation games are released and start to go on sale used. If you're patient and buy used there's very little to complain about. I may pay $70 for Forbidden West, but I'm fine waiting on most everything else. I love playing at 60 fps, too. After playing the silky smooth PS5 version of Control, I played Bloodborne, and its frame rate was so annoying. Going back to goes locked at 30 fps sucks when you get used to 60 fps that's now standard for the new generation. There's plenty to love about the PS5, and I'm very happy to move on from last generation, even as I wait for the used PS5 games to arrive in the mail. The future is bright!
Re: Poll: 10 Years Later, What Are Your Thoughts on Skyrim?
As a gamer who quit playing video games in his late teens and returned to gaming in his mid 30s, I tried out Skyrim for the first time for a couple hours a couple days ago and found the combat to be absolutely atrocious. It felt like a slog compared to the likes of Horizon Zero Dawn, which was my reintroduction to gaming, and the newer generation of open wold RPGs. I just couldn't get into it.
Re: Reaction: PlayStation Showcase 2021 Was Good, But Not Good Enough
They showed a lot of great stuff. A couple surprises even. It was good. But I just wasn't blown away by anything. Nothing got me super amped. God Of War looks fantastic, but kind of more of the same. But that's to be somewhat expected I have a PS5, and have been enjoying it, but I was kind of hoping to be like, wow, that looks so next generation and amazing. This isn't really a complaint because the games look good. I just kind of agree with the article that I was hoping for something that felt extra special.
Re: PlayStation Studios Boss: I Encourage Our Teams to Be Fiercely Daring
@Gaia093 They plucked Kratos from his Greek mythology roots and plunked him down into Norse mythology, and they made it work despite these mythologies not really being all that connected. It's not the Norse mythology itself that was creative. It was the shift to revitalize the property that was bold. The change made sense within the story and developed a character that was feeling stale after killing the major players of the Greek pantheon and just being a rage monster all the time and nothing much else. Aging him up and growing his character to reflect on his follies and using his son as a character to further explore that development was a bold choice, given that it was a significant deviation from prior characterization.
Re: Abandoned App Patch Drops, Trailer Is the Same as Twitter Tease
The app menu is formatted exactly like it's out of a Metal Gear Solid game. From the font to the line thickness of the boxes where the content will later be available. Clear as day.
Re: Abandoned PS5's Dev Insists It's Legit, Explains Trailer Delay
Re: Lance Reddick, Ella Balinska Star in Netflix's Resident Evil
@Subsided I said it was an oversimplification for a reason. In the case of black people in the west, slavery is absolutely the reason why they represent 10 percent of the population. In regards to other elements of diversity, there are a vast number of political, geographic, economic, and historic reasons why certain populations have different levels of diversity. They can’t all be summarized here. But, yes, other reasons include racism in parts of the world that have contributed to homogenous societies, and it’s fair to ask them to do better. But slavery and colonization is absolutely a huge reason why we have the diversity we do.
Why are there so many Hispanics here? Because white Spanish conquistadors invaded the Americas and raped and bred with the native population. They’ve always been here since.
What I said before in regards to Bollywood wasn’t to say that they should be exclusionary. Trust me, I’m aware Bollywood has its own history of racism and doesn’t get a pass. But to expect Bollywood movies to have even a remotely similar diversity makeup compared to the west is just unrealistic. India is actually one of the most diverse countries in the world. They’re just not diverse in the way we see diversity in the US. And they have representation issues relating to their own diversity.
In regards to trans representation, trans people have been marginalized and oppressed since forever. You have to understand and acknowledge that we’re in a time and place when taking a stand in support of a marginalized group can lead to overrepresentation simply because people want to further normalize and integrate them into our communities. It is a larger movement in society. You might find it objectionable but many find it refreshing and in a way making up for years of marginalization. Public opinion is a pendulum after all. And it can swing widely. But let’s be honest, is trans representation really that high? Somehow I have a feeling that the media is overreporting on trans roles more so than trans people are actually over representing themselves in film and television roles. I can’t say for sure. Do you have the percentages of trans representation in media or are you just overreacting to seeing trans people in places where they were previously not given space before.
Re: Lance Reddick, Ella Balinska Star in Netflix's Resident Evil
@Subsided
“couple this with a global double standard where white countries are the only places in the world with any diversity”
There are some many angles of ignorance built into this statement. The United States has so much diversity largely because they stole people of color from their home countries, enslaved them, and then were forced to set them free to inhabit the land they had come to know. Much the same can be said for Western Europe. While that is an oversimplification, given the role of immigration, slavery is the bedrock of western diversity.
“and it makes perfect since why white people, the real minority, may not like being cut out of the slim niche they made for themselves.”
They cut out that niche by murdering and enslaving people of color and by forcibly prohibiting people of color from occupying important positions in society, notably media. Rephrasing genocide as “cutting out a slim niche” is pretty cringeworthy.
“so you're saying that Bollywood should be exclusionary and only appeal to their own race while only casting their own race”
India is like .1 percent white. There’s even fewer black people. Expecting Bollywood to have greater diversification in the same way we see in the west is silly. Media should represent the diversity of the region being depicted.
Re: Horizon Forbidden West Mesmerises in 14 Minute Gameplay Sequence
@truerbluer What resolution were you watching it on? I had YouTube in 4K and I definitely noticed particle effects blowing at times and trees slightly rustling. In such a dense environment having foliage blowing around drastically could be too chaotic and distracting. I'm not sure every environment needs to have wind blowing all the time, every time. The preview indicates a literal storm is coming, so she very well might be battling through other environments with more wind and movements in the trees. This very well might be the calm before the storm.
Re: Horizon Forbidden West Mesmerises in 14 Minute Gameplay Sequence
@Kirbyboy92 Improved graphics, combat, and gameplay mechanics are generally what you can expect out of any sequel, which is exactly what this game is offering. Every game borrows from other games unless it's a revolutionary game that invents something never seen before. This game doesn't need to be revolutionary to be successful and fun. I think most realistic fans are expecting it to be an evolution of the first game, and it looks to be that.
Re: Sony Extends Final Fantasy VII Exclusivity, Intergrade Won't Appear Anywhere Else for Six Months
@BRUTALSAM What are you talking about getting the law involved? Lol. The law will not get to this. That's just silly. Square Enix and Sony came to this agreement mutually. No one is being forced. Square Enix can negotiate when and where they make their game available based on their own business decisions. Talk about being an entitled gamer. Jeez Louise.
Re: Soapbox: How Yakuza Proves Bigger Open Worlds Aren't Always Better
My problem with most open world games is that you just run from point A to point B on some kind of fetch quest following some tracks in the mud, fight a couple bad guys, watch a cute scene, and then rinse and repeat. It's not so much the size that's inherently bothersome, but the repetitive banality of the formula. What's missing for me is quality platforming that requires skill within the open world environment, aside from target practice. Instead we get rock climbing that only requires pushing the joystick and jumping across gaps. But there's little risk involved and too much reward when finding a special item at the top of a mountain peak that was already marked on your map. The reward hardly feels earned. You don't have to listen to some obscure character in town and remember what they said to get a secret in the game later down the line. The game just marks it on the map. The sense of accomplishment for remembering clues like in old Final Fantasy games just isn't present in today's games. You're just going through the motions and checking boxes on an errands list. There's also very little platforming while in combat or platforming that simultaneously requires dodging elements in the environment. If they could merge elements of what make classics like Mario Brothers great into open world games they would be so much more engaging. Heck, games don't even have to be open world or 3D all the time. They can go side scrolling or top-down at times to vary the game play, like Neir Automata. I think restricting the game players perspective at times can lead to more laser-like focus on fun gameplay while simultaneously maintaining gameplay mechanics that are consistent across perspectives. And the world can always open up, again, with seamless transitions as the camera zooms back into a 3D perspective. Locking a player into progressing the story can also be a good thing for story pacing purposes. Final Fantasy 15 got a lot of flack for putting the player on rails at the end, but I think putting the player on rails at times can be a good thing so as to preserve the narrative drive. Story progression in current open world games are just so damn segmented that everything feels watered down. Ghost Of Tsushima is especially bad at this because the awesome side quests with the central characters get broken into so many chunks. Segmented main quests and segmented large side quests end up being hardly more important feeling then finding a villagers frying pan because they lack the narrative drive of say The Last Of Us. I think that larger on rails portions would be beneficial, at least in some games. And then open the world back up from time to time to let players explore. Open world environments should be drip fed so as to preserve the sense of wonder when you have access to the openness. Instead the openers becomes dull when you're halfway through a game, and can often be a chore. Restricting access to the open world can make open world special, again. Think Final Fantasy 7 and how it started with Midgar before opening up. Also more legit puzzles would be appreciated, as well, and less cosmetic loot that has me running off in the complete opposite direction of the main story for a different colored hat. New cosmetic loot is fun from time to time, but when it's marked as a question mark on the map, and I have no idea whether it's actually stat boosting loot or not, it's just such a let down when it just changes the color of my characters clothing for the hundredth time.
Re: Whimsical Zelda-Like Adventure Oceanhorn 2 Forges a Path to PS5
Beat it on Apple Arcade during the free trial when it first launched about a year and a half ago. It was fine for a phone game, quite good and expansive even compared to other offerings at the time with fun enough gameplay. And it certainly has a light, refreshing vibe compared to more serious modern games. I do remember one giant fortress that you have to use a grapple hook to reach the upper levels and secret areas in a puzzle-like fashion. That was probably the standout part of the game for me. Also the water area was pretty cool with underwater segments to explore. But it ended up feeling hollow in the end, especially the overview world exploration, and for a console game it’s kind of meh. The cities were pretty big and were fun to explore at first because you often thought something cool could be found. But rarely was that the case. Some potential missed there. For completionists there are bloodstones to collect, like 100 of them, and I anticipated getting a cool reward for them. But I don’t remember it being all too exciting. The task isn’t easy but not ridiculously hard either, and I would say I experienced a certain amount of satisfaction for finding them all. The story kind of ends abruptly and there seems to be a subtle amount of lore that doesn’t have much depth. Even still I strangely enough find myself checking in on a third installment. So I must have enjoyed it enough, for what that’s worth.
Re: Control Fans Bemused by Free PS Plus Version for PS5, PS4
@danlk1ng I generally think that it's sketchy in any industry when you run a sale and then turn around and immediately give it for free through a subscription service that many of the same purchasers already have. It comes across as intentional double dipping to extract as much money as possible, and it feels like a disrespect to their fans and loyal customers.
Re: Control Fans Bemused by Free PS Plus Version for PS5, PS4
@Dislecksier Good luck. I already did that, and I even escalated the call to higher management. They were very nice but unmoving in their policy. If you get a different result please let me know.
Re: Control Fans Bemused by Free PS Plus Version for PS5, PS4
@Col_McCafferty Did they tell you a bunch of times that you'd have to pay for an upgrade to get the next gen version? This is a different situation. I think most people would be bummed in your situation but accept it. This feels uniquely predatory.
Re: Control Fans Bemused by Free PS Plus Version for PS5, PS4
I am another unfortunate soul who bought Control Ultimate Edition during the last sale. I'm four days outside the return window. I wouldn't have a problem with this if it was a normal situation. But it had been well-reported that an upgrade fee was going to be necessary, and it seemed reasonable to assume that PS+ wouldn't even sniff this. The timing seems very intentional to bleed as much money as they can. What irritates me even more is that the sale window overlapped with the return window. Meaning if you had bought the game during the first half of the sale, like I did, you wouldn't be able to return it. If you bought it during the second half of the sale you could. For those people like myself who were only purchasing this for the upgrade and hadn't even downloaded the game, the inability to be able to return it feels arbitrary, despite the clear return policy, and it feels like a major burn.