Given that video games, even those based on or inspired by our world's history or concurrent events, remain interactive Fiction, I've honestly always found this whole "player likeness" somewhat overrated. Neat as an option when reasonably possible, but when it threatens to bloat the budget? I daresay it's more engaging to follow the journey of an original or avatar protagonist than to put yourself in extremely approximate and ultimately impactless shoes of some IRL sports star.
Enough gameplay to look forward to playing the game someday? Yes, I have.
Enough gameplay to buy a home console with no proper Remote Play (the jury is seemingly still out on PSQ) where even a mindblower like Xenoblade X never coerced me into doing that with Wii U? There's probably no such thing to see.
Trash as rumours are by definition, the thought of getting a remake on the heels of a straight port is admittedly not QUITE as farfetched since Trials of Mana came out.
But hey, this is an investment in the future. Several years down the road, surely you will want to have a couple other games installed besides the latest CoD.
E3 was simply dealt the same lockdown blow as cinemas when everyone had to default to YouTube for its core content and subsequently realized that, unless you're in the market for the con vibe and/or invited "influencers", this is pretty much the same thing minus all the hassle. But cinemas are recovering since not everyone can afford (and/or bother) to install comparable experience equipment at home; game trailers aren't long enough to highlight the practical difference between a monitor/phone screen and a theater one.
I don't think this will necessarily be the death of E3, seeing as other and much less industry-backed conventions survive to this day. But it may well take them longer to get back on their feet.
With all respect, all this emphasis on "grittier and more grounded" can sometimes come across like Yoshida-san being under some impression of XVI having invented gritty and grounded for the series. Mog, for one, is the source of much goofy cuteness in XIII-2 which doesn't make it any less grimdark in the wide range of other story/lore aspects (including but not limited to its ending). And the list goes on.
@Shadcai FFI (and FFII as far as moogles are concerned):
It's... nice. Props to all the work and talent that went into it, but I guess I'm really too old to appreciate what looks like extra VFX fluff on top of the series graphics long having reached their logical ceiling in Gen 7. Neat when available but hopefully not THE reason for eating hardware specs for breakfast (although IIRC the game promised to make use of the console's trademark loading speeds as well).
If anything, the best part of the video was the reminder of the Stagger mechanic coming back again with even more of the familiar Gran Pulse flavour this time around.
Is there even a legal obligation to do so? From Nintendo's deal with Yandex Market way back when to their AND Sony's occasional Humble Bundle events, I've been under an impression that this was mostly on a voluntary, negotiable and specifically advertised basis. And then, on PC side, we have third party key markets like G2G which recurrently get accused of selling ban-risking fake codes, which probably doesn't encourage console makers to open their doors too wide either.
"βInnovation is our passion, and that applies to not just what games you play, but how you play them,β said boss Jim Ryan about something that PSP started two generations ago. But hey, it's the thought that counts. This announcement is moving me the closest I've ever been to considering a prospective PS5 purchase, although I'd be lying if I claimed not to take the news with caution. Vita's native resolution can handle PS4 streams even on 3G (as long as you squeeze past the whimsical "internet quality" startup bouncer), but this one seems bound to target 720p and upwards, something that even 4G tends to struggle with (while 5G might be lucky to hit us second-worlders by 2030). And as Wii U is our witness, limiting portability to the immediate apartment area will only turn so many heads despite what QoL perks it does supply. That said, I feel compelled to note that this is the only discussion angle appropriate to bring up Nintendo's underrated home dualscreener; all the above comments claiming that Project Q outright "reinvents Wii U" in a single (if most popular) feature sound as literate about gaming history as Ryan just did. If anything, it was PS4 that briefly tried to jump on the bandwagon by giving Vita select "second screen" pairup functionality... or do this site'a visitors likewise remember Vita as much as Sony does?ππ
@MrGawain they already made Vita to play God of War on a bus (alongside other big experiences from Resistance and Gravity Rush to NFS MW12 and [a reportedly rough but ultimately playable] Borderlands 2), not to mention PSP's likes of GTA and GUN a generation prior or Nintendo's hybrid queen that filled many a commute with all kinds of God of War Ragnarok tier journeys a generation after. The tech is there, so hope springs eternal. Leading Aloy through the HZD wilderness on the go courtesy of Deck feels downright worth having forfeited my sizeable PS4 playthrough and more "transformative" than ten PSVRs could hope to be.π
Credit where due, the streams have proven decent at least on home WiFi, so on top of that much more games, the function can viably mitigate the first world storage struggles of Catalogue-induced gluttony (or even just PS Stars campaigns where you find 50 extra points nice but not nice enough to [clear up and] download 30+ Gb for them) - and for the twenty buck difference in yearly subs, too.
I'd naturally rather see them give some older diamonds Switch versions (from Bound and Gravity Rush 2 to Folklore and MotorStorm), but PC versions are also worth a shot to me now. One of the first things I did after picking up my Deck was splurge on a handful of Steam games (yes, besides the usual bunch of more Switch onesπ) including a discounted Days Gone and a full-priced Horizon Zero Dawn. Sure helps that, unlike several other publishers, Sony's games with the inexplicable exception of the first Spider-Man (Miles Morales still shows up) are still available on local Steam... or maybe it's really just their seeming tendency to forget that Belarus exists?π
Colour me confused. So the game has problems syncing back with 2K servers but this, instead of failing to upload the local save now and then, forcibly downloads the earlier backup to overwrite the local???π€ As someone mostly dealing with cloud storage on Switch (where it's more system-level for most games), I've been used to it outright demanding that you close the game before downloading the respective save file (and being quite vocal in its repercussion warnings overall), so this kind of situation being possible at all sounds... sounds unorthodox to say the least.
In the same vein, Switch also likes to jam its connections in sleep mode which, IIRC, may result in temporary 2K server cut for Bioshock or Borderlands (emphasis on "IIRC" because I rarely pay attention to that). But I wouldn't dream of it just overwriting the latest local save behind my back upon reconnecting. Or is it something like the game itself specifically being designed to prioritize cloud over local somehow? I think I'm too humanitarian for this [beep].π΅π
Most of the list evokes reassuring eShop deja vus, but Agents of Mayhem is certainly a bummer - like Spider-Man, it's been among my first and most recurrent PS4 playthroughs since going for the Catalogue. Oh well, time will tell if I pick it up on PSS itself to resume later or restart it on a different option I'm currently weighing all the pros and contras of (the latter mainly revolving around 36 months of 30 buck payments and the former obviously revolving around native portabili- WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS GAME IS ALSO LISTED AS "UNSUPPORTED"?!πΉ).
Homophobic bigotry is not unlikely to change, at least. But I wouldn't hold my breath for the mentality that attacks anyone's contribution to a fiction work on the asinine premise of having "ruined it". Fans gonna fan, alas. Best we can do is suppress the ones that nest inside us.π
@Uromastryx all fandoms are full of "Dbags" by nature - addictions and entitlements rarely breed lasting positivity. It's just that Online Disinhibition Effect is also a catalyst, and gamers were among the first fiction audiences to embrace the online environment (and its communicative segment) as it spread.
Maybe someday someone will make a documentary on Sony's licensing paperwork. It seems more action-packed than us on the outside would ever expect it to be.
Speaking seriously, I once read about some folks here in Belarus who set out and invested big sums into building cottages outside Minsk so they could "just drive to work and otherwise live closer to nature, like many people in the civilized west do". Private initiatives for the most part, they kinda overlooked the part where said "civilized west" would tend to the necessary infrastructure from gas and water to communications before building anything, so they ended up with big houses that looked nice but weren't exactly fun to live in.
This is what Stadia and cloud gaming for the most part is to me. A fancy option that, unlike many other gaming schticks, heavily and almost DEBILITATINGLY relies on third party infrastructure to the extent few other projects in the industry do. We might get there in 5-10-15 years, but in this day and age Stadia had all the success odds of a gas station opened circa 1800. Β―(γ)/Β―
Pretty cool stuff. I have Dishonored 2 on Steam (and briefly had a giveaway DotO on Epic before it got force-refundedπ), but as I mentioned elsewhere the other day, I rarely take my laptop downtown these days so PS4 has come to almost match its session times at home (where I can even stream the Catalogue stuff to said laptop of I can't afford enough time to bother hooking the console up), making both games relatively viable here. And I certainly wouldn't expect to run the PC version of Watch Dogs Legion! Much of the rest is available much more portably as it is, but if you don't have a Switch and/or a PSP/Vita, games like RF4, Sakuna, FoMM, Soundfall and Pursuit Force are great additions in their own right. Meanwhile, the Tomb Raider games and Conan Exiles can serve to "recover" another portion of my currently too-costly-to maintain Russian PS+ stash... at least as long as they're around.π
Guess I jinxed them after trying Concrete Genie and finding the studio to be "at least some of the folks to possibly carry on the torch of Japan Studio". Hopefully Media Molecule isn't next.π
I reap my own share of benefits of PS Premium these days, but I can still concur - at least as far as rotational subs go. A library to amass and generally access anytime you have an active sub (PS+ Essential, GWG, NSO) is one thing, but indeed, we only have so much time to cover a game backlog like a sub catalogue - and if it's unpleasant to part with eventually tagged-out licenses for an album you've looped for months, imagine the feeling of parting with a game you never got a chance to play because you were busy with several others in the same lineup. Or even beyond it - we recently got Horizon Forbidden West on Extra, but will it still be there to engage by the time I'm finished with Zero Dawn? And back to the catalogue, will I beat FFXV fast enough for its DLC eps to still be available? Some will chuckle that this may encourage actually tending to backlogs, but backlogs usually don't worry someone like myself with full awareness of being interested in way more games than his lifetime can possibly accommodate anyway. Just like with other Fiction media, part of the gaming hobby's functionality and appeal lies in the ability to meet a given mood, play what you feel like playing. Backlogs are only stressful when they become a second job of sorts, and FWP as it unarguably is, the FOMO factor of sub catalogue rotations can only fan the flames of it. Is it fun to be motivated for one game but play another just because it's leaving the lineup soon? Just buying the latter certainly feels like less headache. Which, of course, is why publishers offer and pull licenses in the first place - it basically works as a longer version of "free weekends" for them, meant to hook once indifferent or hesitant customers on a started playthrough. But that's a long run win for them; will it be one for the sub over a similar term? Or will many subscribers really come to ponder just spending the sub money on sale splurges to gradually tie the same games to their accounts more stably?
Grid Legends with its promised story mode is certainly the highlight of the lineup for me, all the moreso after missing out on NFS Heat last autumn. Descenders is on Switch but Chivalry 2 isn't and sounds interesting as well.
On the contrary here, XIII trilogy is among my top faves in the franchise and I've had a blast with XV as well, not to mention that science fantasy settings score with me more than the comparatively medieval[ish] ones (unless the latter can feel deliciously alien in other aspects like Gaia or Ivalice do). XIII's Paradigm Shift also remains the best Final Fantasy combat system in my book.
Does any of that sour me towards what I've seen of XVI by now? Not in the least. For all the things it's trying to do differently (and not all of them necessarily the franchise's firsts they're painted to be), I can see an unmistakable Final Fantasy experience behind it, the one which has always tried to do something differently and other things in a familiar way. Preferences don't mean I'm allergic to high fantasy and it feels only fair to revisit it again after Eos where people rode chocobos and drove Audis in the same day and age. Action combat is anything but new to the series and looks to be fun - like I said earlier, I only wished it to retain the party aspect (even if AI-controlled one - it's not like the aforementioned FF juggernauts alongside many a Tales or Xenoblade haven't shone like crazy diamonds therein), and this whimsical hope has been met as well. It will be a great ride when I finally get down to it in the future (distant as that future may be for other reasons), and yet my heart will still welcome more Final Technofantasies down the road. Which I don't doubt shall come, too - this series has room for oh so very much under its roof. Here's to what it can offer as of today.π»
@Ralizah am I the only one who didn't spot anything overly "western" in last night's trailer? Especially in the presence of notably more WRPG-influenced JRPGs like Dark Souls and Dragon's Dogma? Then again, not the first time fans and media get wacky with nomenclature. But on that subject, I don't see any "anime openings" here either. Or even an opening for now - a theme song is a theme song. FFXIII's never even played in the game intro.
The game's only current platform remaining outside my scope of reasonable usage as a home console without decent RP options, I don't have much of a stake in the matter (and there is plenty to keep me busy in the franchise for the visible future as it is - continuing XII, Type-0 and XV, finishing Revenant Wings, replaying XIII saga and Dissidia 012, properly starting Crystal Chronicles and restarting Crisis Core on Switch... you name it), but my only personal concern from the early announcements - that the game would end up a solo gig without any semblance of a party - has successfully dissipated at the sight of what evokes various FFXV, Tales and Code Vein vibes at different moments, with some Bayonetta or Warframe tier spectacle mixed in. Although I'm still scratching my head at thr insistent marketing of "first truly ARPG Final Fantasy", especially given the aforementioned XV vibes (and maybe even some from VIIR going over my head because I have yet to play it). In the end, something new, something familiar - which is how Final Fantasy has always grown. There are even apparent aerial combat sections that can vaguely remind you of Drakengard!
The base of operations has a lot of promising stuff as well, including even what seemed like a sort of Xenoblade-esque NPC network at a glance. Between all this, the teased lore (which looks like the most emphasis on eidolons the series has had since IX and X) and the story premise... No telling when I will ever get to play this game, but I certainly expect to enjoy it.
Gotta check if any of them are in Catalogue - the whole list looks like it's on Switch, so I'm afraid you won't catch me investing in respective PS4 ports for a digital collectible. The only exception in this context was that lite Konami baseball for a 50 point reward, but it cost a dollar and my wallet had spare change.π
Another month where most of the catalogue departures are on Switch (and some already in my respective library) regardless, leaving little to feel bummed about. But Spider-man was among the tangible playthroughs I started right after getting my US account subbed, so it sure is a pity to see it go. Might as well delete the game right away until better times, tossing it on the wishlist. And FlatOut 4 being in the roster somehow went over my head; perhaps I'll give it a roll while it's still around.
Fingers crossed that my primary Catalogue focus these days, FFXV, may "survive" the summer and ideally the winter holidays. I'm still weighing up my odds of renting a PS5 to claim the PS+ Collection titles (so I can at least "secure" them for whenever my US sub is active) but, in all irony, already having this game processed among the Extra titles may get in the way for all I know.π Then again, I'm knee-deep enough here that I would probably make it my wishlist priority [at the nearest sale] if I had to.π
@Sam_Atlus as someone unironically amicable towards both games, I can procure Balan Underworld on Switch but Mighty No.9 is sad to see leaving since its proverbially troubled release skipped everything portable in the end and the PS4 version, once a PS+ monthly giveaway, is no longer accessible to me (not without buying 3 months of Essential for the price of 1 year of Premium, at leastπ) - part of the Catalogue's appeal at the time of me deciding on a new sub tier was in at least nominally "returning" a bunch of such titles within my reach. But I knew this wasn't meant to last.
I had Kena wishlisted but hey. Might try Riders Republic and Evil Within, too. The classic Dooms, on the other hand, evoked a chuckle since I just grabbed them on Switch last week.
@Hydra_Spectre ah yes, the company whose console ads showed SNES and Mega Drive thrown out like garbage. Them and Sega both exiting hardware biz in the end can seem borderline karmic at times.
@Keyblade-Dan of course there would be at least one fanhead barking at the game.π But then again, just a couple posts above, another commenter managed to express their lack of interest in the sequels without sounding fanmouthed about it, so I guess the cosmic balance is maintained.π
@KaijuKaiser a JRPG series will be right at home with PlayStation once PlayStation has a portable system once again (and I don't mean streaming). After all the games Square Enix has made properly accessible on Switch over the recent years, hoping for their output to be ball'n'chained to living rooms either sounds counterintuitive or betrays the perspective of someone barely past the college years. Besides, I'm not sure I look forward to what Sony can "do with Japanese franchises" after what they did to Sony Japan Studio. Especially in comparison to all the cain they've been raising about a western FPS franchise.
@NEStalgia huh, I thought XIV was Crystal Tools from the start. Or is it Realm Reborn that went to Luminous afterwards?
There's nothing "reported" or "apparent" from what I've seen so far (outside the typical waste products pretending to be which I do understand remain part of Push Square and other fanblogs' bread and wine), but outside last May and this half year's lucky streak I can never afford to take for granted, Remote Play has always been the pinnacle of my "home" PlayStation experience, at least where control schemes so allowed. Vita, while purchased first and foremost for its own offerings, was the reason I ever came to invest in a PS4 at all whereas PS5 limiting RP to peripheral-crutched third parties single-handedly (or "-footedly"?) kicked me out of the market for it.
When it comes to new PlayStation portables (the likes of which, unless/until proven otherwise, I wouldn't expect until a few years into Gen 10, especially with Sony barely just ending its struggle to produce ONE current console), I've already fantasized that even a "PlayStation Legacy" using a Vita-esque format with more buttons and possibly just enough juice to handle decent PS2 emulation (with PS3-5 left for streaming) and gathering all the libraries (sans the delisted/delicensed stuff, but what will you do) under one roof would be bee's knees. A streaming handheld machine obviously sounds like less than that, but still viable enough to turn my head, hand under chin, towards PS5 again. Of course, I've voted to "at least check it out" here because the resolution options would matter as well - Vita's generally work (once you claw your way past the whimsical connection assessment screen which better have less of a final say on a hypothetical new device in general) but 4G can't even stream 720p under the slightest network strain (read: anywhere urban where it's available in the first place), and 5G largely remains a first world cryptid. But if this were to be solved... again, you'd definitely have my attention. For whenever such a handheld actually shows up where I live, of course.π
@Itachi2099 unless they're already playing the original. The promise of [at least decent] PS3 emulation on the go is arguably one of the biggest things SD can offer, even if it means turning it into an honest Win10 machine with everything that entails.
Don't shoot the messenger, but us having a hard time perceiving Gen 7 consoles as "retro" may well testify that the subsequent generations haven't added THAT much on top, at least when you compare it to the other example at hand. SNES was where 2D graphics truly blossomed; PS3 (especially its later years) was where CGI finally hit a similar stage. SNES and PS3 feel like different eras in the way that PS3 and PS5 ultimately don't quite.
@Stevemalkpus Steam Deck is a handheld micro PC, those come with a bit too much fine print to be the best anything. I'm in the market for it myself (someday when it won't cost me a kidney to import one, not that either of my kidneys might even fetch the needed price by now), but my experience with GPD Win has ensured that I will only use it for games I can't play on Switch and the console handhelds.
@CallMeDuraSouka it's not about gamers alone - excessive attachment to anything can breed this kind of mentality that proceeds to bring out some of the worst in people, be it fiction like games/books/shows/movies or events like sports. The word "fan" itself is traced in equal measure from "fanatic" and "fancy", aka obsessions and whims. When we stop to think about it, what good is expectable to come from blending the two? The examples usually ascribed to fanship to the point of sharing morphology (fanfiction, fanarts etc) are actually instances where the human manages to overpower the unhinged hunger within and, rather than try soiling others' moods/lives with their vocal craving for another dose of what once hooked them hard, convert this energy into creative "self-service" that can fulfil their cravings on the DIY basis and, in uncountable incidents, produce worthwhile results that a whole lot more people around can come to resonate with (sometimes including the original work's creators themselves). Not to mention how many folks eventually find this experience to be a stairway to their very own non-derivative creative endeavours and achievements in the future.
Alas, when centered on just getting new "doses" and left to steer the person's behaviour unchecked, fanship is an innately egocentric destructive force. As, indeed, are a good number of mentalities out there.
Comments 1,225
Re: EA Sports Accused of Exploiting College Football Stars Over Low Pay for New PS5 Game
Given that video games, even those based on or inspired by our world's history or concurrent events, remain interactive Fiction, I've honestly always found this whole "player likeness" somewhat overrated. Neat as an option when reasonably possible, but when it threatens to bloat the budget? I daresay it's more engaging to follow the journey of an original or avatar protagonist than to put yourself in extremely approximate and ultimately impactless shoes of some IRL sports star.
Re: In a Shock Twist, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Will Have Music on PS5
@Blackmagehobbit damn, with tech like that, we could even get a separate slider for the voices!
Re: Square Enix Doesn't Think You've Seen Enough Final Fantasy 16 PS5 Gameplay
Enough gameplay to look forward to playing the game someday? Yes, I have.
Enough gameplay to buy a home console with no proper Remote Play (the jury is seemingly still out on PSQ) where even a mindblower like Xenoblade X never coerced me into doing that with Wii U? There's probably no such thing to see.
Re: Persona 3 Remake Rumours Intensify Yet Again with Updated Web Domain
Trash as rumours are by definition, the thought of getting a remake on the heels of a straight port is admittedly not QUITE as farfetched since Trials of Mana came out.
Re: In a Shock Twist, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Will Have Music on PS5
@Blackmagehobbit the real question is, will PS5's hardware be enough to handle the volume settings?
Re: After a Year of Silence, the Final Fantasy 9 Remake Rumours Have Re-Emerged
E3 or no E3, June remains the time for Reliable Sources to crawl out of the woodwork.π
Re: WD Black's Officially Licensed PS5 SSDs Now Include a 4TB Option for an Eye-Watering $550
"Look whose external storage costs a fortune now" - Vita, probably.
But hey, this is an investment in the future. Several years down the road, surely you will want to have a couple other games installed besides the latest CoD.
Re: E3 Killed Itself, Says Summer Game Fest's Geoff Keighley
E3 was simply dealt the same lockdown blow as cinemas when everyone had to default to YouTube for its core content and subsequently realized that, unless you're in the market for the con vibe and/or invited "influencers", this is pretty much the same thing minus all the hassle. But cinemas are recovering since not everyone can afford (and/or bother) to install comparable experience equipment at home; game trailers aren't long enough to highlight the practical difference between a monitor/phone screen and a theater one.
I don't think this will necessarily be the death of E3, seeing as other and much less industry-backed conventions survive to this day. But it may well take them longer to get back on their feet.
Re: PS Plus Essential Games for June 2023 Available to Download Now
Not the most fun of times to have a US account in Europe.π
Re: Random: Final Fantasy 16's PS5 Performance Mode Made Moogles Look Like Hedgehogs
With all respect, all this emphasis on "grittier and more grounded" can sometimes come across like Yoshida-san being under some impression of XVI having invented gritty and grounded for the series. Mog, for one, is the source of much goofy cuteness in XIII-2 which doesn't make it any less grimdark in the wide range of other story/lore aspects (including but not limited to its ending). And the list goes on.
@Shadcai FFI (and FFII as far as moogles are concerned):
Re: Final Fantasy 16's Liquid Flame Boss Battle on PS5 Will Melt Your Eyes
It's... nice. Props to all the work and talent that went into it, but I guess I'm really too old to appreciate what looks like extra VFX fluff on top of the series graphics long having reached their logical ceiling in Gen 7. Neat when available but hopefully not THE reason for eating hardware specs for breakfast (although IIRC the game promised to make use of the console's trademark loading speeds as well).
If anything, the best part of the video was the reminder of the Stagger mechanic coming back again with even more of the familiar Gran Pulse flavour this time around.
Re: PS Plus Essential Games for June 2023 Announced
Two of these on Switch but JPE2 still isn't, so there's that.
Re: Sony Under Fire for Allegedly Abusing Its Dominance in the Industry
Is there even a legal obligation to do so? From Nintendo's deal with Yandex Market way back when to their AND Sony's occasional Humble Bundle events, I've been under an impression that this was mostly on a voluntary, negotiable and specifically advertised basis. And then, on PC side, we have third party key markets like G2G which recurrently get accused of selling ban-risking fake codes, which probably doesn't encourage console makers to open their doors too wide either.
Re: Speculation Claims Sony Opted Not to Include Some Major PS5 Games During PS Showcase
"Was my 'leak' so out of touch? No, it is the Showcase program that is wrong"
Re: Sony's Portable PS5 Streaming Handheld Launches Later This Year
@BlueBeemer "will the PS6 just be a Switch clone?"
Implying this wouldn't be an unironically frabjous day.π
Re: Sony's Portable PS5 Streaming Handheld Launches Later This Year
"βInnovation is our passion, and that applies to not just what games you play, but how you play them,β said boss Jim Ryan about something that PSP started two generations ago. But hey, it's the thought that counts. This announcement is moving me the closest I've ever been to considering a prospective PS5 purchase, although I'd be lying if I claimed not to take the news with caution. Vita's native resolution can handle PS4 streams even on 3G (as long as you squeeze past the whimsical "internet quality" startup bouncer), but this one seems bound to target 720p and upwards, something that even 4G tends to struggle with (while 5G might be lucky to hit us second-worlders by 2030). And as Wii U is our witness, limiting portability to the immediate apartment area will only turn so many heads despite what QoL perks it does supply. That said, I feel compelled to note that this is the only discussion angle appropriate to bring up Nintendo's underrated home dualscreener; all the above comments claiming that Project Q outright "reinvents Wii U" in a single (if most popular) feature sound as literate about gaming history as Ryan just did. If anything, it was PS4 that briefly tried to jump on the bandwagon by giving Vita select "second screen" pairup functionality... or do this site'a visitors likewise remember Vita as much as Sony does?ππ
Time will tell, possibly including future details about oddly absent options like PS Premium streaming (Vita didn't have it for obvious reasons but nowadays, even friggen Windows 10 does). But my curbed enthusiasm still comes hand in hand with due credit - this is still a Remote Play revival that all the phone/holder/DualSense chimeras of years past conspicuously weren't. As for "5G connections"... remind me, how far did Vita's native 3G go? Most MSPs outside the usual few geographic suspects wouldn't provide dedicated sim cards even if they were hip enough to know what a "Vita" was to begin with. And now, from Switch to Steam Deck, portable gaming mostly relies on mobile hotspots instead. Don't you guys have phones?Β© π The latter are bound to get native 5G long before any other consumer tech ever does.
@MrGawain they already made Vita to play God of War on a bus (alongside other big experiences from Resistance and Gravity Rush to NFS MW12 and [a reportedly rough but ultimately playable] Borderlands 2), not to mention PSP's likes of GTA and GUN a generation prior or Nintendo's hybrid queen that filled many a commute with all kinds of God of War Ragnarok tier journeys a generation after. The tech is there, so hope springs eternal. Leading Aloy through the HZD wilderness on the go courtesy of Deck feels downright worth having forfeited my sizeable PS4 playthrough and more "transformative" than ten PSVRs could hope to be.π
Re: PS Plus Premium More Popular Than Extra, 30% of Subscribers Upgraded
Credit where due, the streams have proven decent at least on home WiFi, so on top of that much more games, the function can viably mitigate the first world storage struggles of Catalogue-induced gluttony (or even just PS Stars campaigns where you find 50 extra points nice but not nice enough to [clear up and] download 30+ Gb for them) - and for the twenty buck difference in yearly subs, too.
Re: Sony Won't Back Down on PC Ports, But PS5 Is the Priority
I'd naturally rather see them give some older diamonds Switch versions (from Bound and Gravity Rush 2 to Folklore and MotorStorm), but PC versions are also worth a shot to me now. One of the first things I did after picking up my Deck was splurge on a handful of Steam games (yes, besides the usual bunch of more Switch onesπ) including a discounted Days Gone and a full-priced Horizon Zero Dawn. Sure helps that, unlike several other publishers, Sony's games with the inexplicable exception of the first Spider-Man (Miles Morales still shows up) are still available on local Steam... or maybe it's really just their seeming tendency to forget that Belarus exists?π
Re: LEGO 2K Drive Is Reportedly Eating Pre-Order Players' Save Progress
Colour me confused. So the game has problems syncing back with 2K servers but this, instead of failing to upload the local save now and then, forcibly downloads the earlier backup to overwrite the local???π€ As someone mostly dealing with cloud storage on Switch (where it's more system-level for most games), I've been used to it outright demanding that you close the game before downloading the respective save file (and being quite vocal in its repercussion warnings overall), so this kind of situation being possible at all sounds... sounds unorthodox to say the least.
In the same vein, Switch also likes to jam its connections in sleep mode which, IIRC, may result in temporary 2K server cut for Bioshock or Borderlands (emphasis on "IIRC" because I rarely pay attention to that). But I wouldn't dream of it just overwriting the latest local save behind my back upon reconnecting. Or is it something like the game itself specifically being designed to prioritize cloud over local somehow? I think I'm too humanitarian for this [beep].π΅π
Re: 17 PS5, PS4 Games Marked as Leaving PS Plus Extra, Premium Soon
Most of the list evokes reassuring eShop deja vus, but Agents of Mayhem is certainly a bummer - like Spider-Man, it's been among my first and most recurrent PS4 playthroughs since going for the Catalogue. Oh well, time will tell if I pick it up on PSS itself to resume later or restart it on a different option I'm currently weighing all the pros and contras of (the latter mainly revolving around 36 months of 30 buck payments and the former obviously revolving around native portabili- WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS GAME IS ALSO LISTED AS "UNSUPPORTED"?!πΉ).
Re: Horizon Vocalist Receives Abuse Over the Use of Her Voice
Homophobic bigotry is not unlikely to change, at least. But I wouldn't hold my breath for the mentality that attacks anyone's contribution to a fiction work on the asinine premise of having "ruined it". Fans gonna fan, alas. Best we can do is suppress the ones that nest inside us.π
@Uromastryx all fandoms are full of "Dbags" by nature - addictions and entitlements rarely breed lasting positivity. It's just that Online Disinhibition Effect is also a catalyst, and gamers were among the first fiction audiences to embrace the online environment (and its communicative segment) as it spread.
Re: UK Sales Charts: Nothing on PS5, PS4, Can Compete with Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
@Slippship @Soulless666
crickets chirping
Re: Next Week's PS Plus Extra Lineup Has Been Changed Again
Maybe someday someone will make a documentary on Sony's licensing paperwork. It seems more action-packed than us on the outside would ever expect it to be.
Re: PS4 Game Seemingly Removed from May 2023's PS Plus Extra, Premium Refresh
"We're a consumer tech giant, not a web content one" - Sony, probably
Re: Google Stadia's Biggest Exclusive GYLT Is Coming to PS5, PS4
@bpomber the friends we made along the way.
Speaking seriously, I once read about some folks here in Belarus who set out and invested big sums into building cottages outside Minsk so they could "just drive to work and otherwise live closer to nature, like many people in the civilized west do". Private initiatives for the most part, they kinda overlooked the part where said "civilized west" would tend to the necessary infrastructure from gas and water to communications before building anything, so they ended up with big houses that looked nice but weren't exactly fun to live in.
This is what Stadia and cloud gaming for the most part is to me. A fancy option that, unlike many other gaming schticks, heavily and almost DEBILITATINGLY relies on third party infrastructure to the extent few other projects in the industry do. We might get there in 5-10-15 years, but in this day and age Stadia had all the success odds of a gas station opened circa 1800. Β―(γ)/Β―
Re: 23 Games Hit PS Plus Extra, Premium Next Week in Big Update
Pretty cool stuff. I have Dishonored 2 on Steam (and briefly had a giveaway DotO on Epic before it got force-refundedπ), but as I mentioned elsewhere the other day, I rarely take my laptop downtown these days so PS4 has come to almost match its session times at home (where I can even stream the Catalogue stuff to said laptop of I can't afford enough time to bother hooking the console up), making both games relatively viable here. And I certainly wouldn't expect to run the PC version of Watch Dogs Legion! Much of the rest is available much more portably as it is, but if you don't have a Switch and/or a PSP/Vita, games like RF4, Sakuna, FoMM, Soundfall and Pursuit Force are great additions in their own right. Meanwhile, the Tomb Raider games and Conan Exiles can serve to "recover" another portion of my currently too-costly-to maintain Russian PS+ stash... at least as long as they're around.π
Re: Former PlayStation Boss Saddened by PixelOpus Studio Closure
Guess I jinxed them after trying Concrete Genie and finding the studio to be "at least some of the folks to possibly carry on the torch of Japan Studio". Hopefully Media Molecule isn't next.π
Re: Soapbox: I No Longer Think Subscriptions Like PS Plus, Xbox Game Pass Are the Future of Gaming
I reap my own share of benefits of PS Premium these days, but I can still concur - at least as far as rotational subs go. A library to amass and generally access anytime you have an active sub (PS+ Essential, GWG, NSO) is one thing, but indeed, we only have so much time to cover a game backlog like a sub catalogue - and if it's unpleasant to part with eventually tagged-out licenses for an album you've looped for months, imagine the feeling of parting with a game you never got a chance to play because you were busy with several others in the same lineup. Or even beyond it - we recently got Horizon Forbidden West on Extra, but will it still be there to engage by the time I'm finished with Zero Dawn? And back to the catalogue, will I beat FFXV fast enough for its DLC eps to still be available? Some will chuckle that this may encourage actually tending to backlogs, but backlogs usually don't worry someone like myself with full awareness of being interested in way more games than his lifetime can possibly accommodate anyway. Just like with other Fiction media, part of the gaming hobby's functionality and appeal lies in the ability to meet a given mood, play what you feel like playing. Backlogs are only stressful when they become a second job of sorts, and FWP as it unarguably is, the FOMO factor of sub catalogue rotations can only fan the flames of it. Is it fun to be motivated for one game but play another just because it's leaving the lineup soon? Just buying the latter certainly feels like less headache. Which, of course, is why publishers offer and pull licenses in the first place - it basically works as a longer version of "free weekends" for them, meant to hook once indifferent or hesitant customers on a started playthrough. But that's a long run win for them; will it be one for the sub over a similar term? Or will many subscribers really come to ponder just spending the sub money on sale splurges to gradually tie the same games to their accounts more stably?
Re: PS Plus Essential Games for May 2023 Announced
Grid Legends with its promised story mode is certainly the highlight of the lineup for me, all the moreso after missing out on NFS Heat last autumn. Descenders is on Switch but Chivalry 2 isn't and sounds interesting as well.
Re: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor PS5 Physical Copies Require a Download to Play
Nintendo should have stuck with optical storage, they said.
It's higher capacity, cheaper to produce and wouldn't ask for big obligatory downloads, they said.
Re: Scalped PS5 Prices Plummet as Retail Stock Surges
Eight bucks, and I can announce Gravity Rush collection on Switch? Hmmm... hmmmm...
Re: Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Trophies Revealed, Including a Platinum Trophy for Each
Final Fantasy II platinum trophy: "win the first battle in the game"π
Re: American Senators Continue to Target Sony Over PS5, PS4 Timed Exclusives
Nintendo, Microsoft, Epic Games... wait, do I need multiple puppet glance pics here, or will one suffice?
Re: Soapbox: Final Fantasy 16 Is the Most Excited I've Been for the Series in Almost 20 Years
On the contrary here, XIII trilogy is among my top faves in the franchise and I've had a blast with XV as well, not to mention that science fantasy settings score with me more than the comparatively medieval[ish] ones (unless the latter can feel deliciously alien in other aspects like Gaia or Ivalice do). XIII's Paradigm Shift also remains the best Final Fantasy combat system in my book.
Does any of that sour me towards what I've seen of XVI by now? Not in the least. For all the things it's trying to do differently (and not all of them necessarily the franchise's firsts they're painted to be), I can see an unmistakable Final Fantasy experience behind it, the one which has always tried to do something differently and other things in a familiar way. Preferences don't mean I'm allergic to high fantasy and it feels only fair to revisit it again after Eos where people rode chocobos and drove Audis in the same day and age. Action combat is anything but new to the series and looks to be fun - like I said earlier, I only wished it to retain the party aspect (even if AI-controlled one - it's not like the aforementioned FF juggernauts alongside many a Tales or Xenoblade haven't shone like crazy diamonds therein), and this whimsical hope has been met as well. It will be a great ride when I finally get down to it in the future (distant as that future may be for other reasons), and yet my heart will still welcome more Final Technofantasies down the road. Which I don't doubt shall come, too - this series has room for oh so very much under its roof. Here's to what it can offer as of today.π»
Re: Final Fantasy 16's Theme Song, Performed by Kenshi Yonezu, Is Kind of a Banger
@Ralizah am I the only one who didn't spot anything overly "western" in last night's trailer? Especially in the presence of notably more WRPG-influenced JRPGs like Dark Souls and Dragon's Dogma? Then again, not the first time fans and media get wacky with nomenclature. But on that subject, I don't see any "anime openings" here either. Or even an opening for now - a theme song is a theme song. FFXIII's never even played in the game intro.
Re: Poll: How Was Final Fantasy 16's State of Play Showcase?
The game's only current platform remaining outside my scope of reasonable usage as a home console without decent RP options, I don't have much of a stake in the matter (and there is plenty to keep me busy in the franchise for the visible future as it is - continuing XII, Type-0 and XV, finishing Revenant Wings, replaying XIII saga and Dissidia 012, properly starting Crystal Chronicles and restarting Crisis Core on Switch... you name it), but my only personal concern from the early announcements - that the game would end up a solo gig without any semblance of a party - has successfully dissipated at the sight of what evokes various FFXV, Tales and Code Vein vibes at different moments, with some Bayonetta or Warframe tier spectacle mixed in. Although I'm still scratching my head at thr insistent marketing of "first truly ARPG Final Fantasy", especially given the aforementioned XV vibes (and maybe even some from VIIR going over my head because I have yet to play it). In the end, something new, something familiar - which is how Final Fantasy has always grown. There are even apparent aerial combat sections that can vaguely remind you of Drakengard!
The base of operations has a lot of promising stuff as well, including even what seemed like a sort of Xenoblade-esque NPC network at a glance. Between all this, the teased lore (which looks like the most emphasis on eidolons the series has had since IX and X) and the story premise... No telling when I will ever get to play this game, but I certainly expect to enjoy it.
Re: Become the Proud Owner of a Shuhei Yoshida Bobblehead with PS Stars
Gotta check if any of them are in Catalogue - the whole list looks like it's on Switch, so I'm afraid you won't catch me investing in respective PS4 ports for a digital collectible. The only exception in this context was that lite Konami baseball for a 50 point reward, but it cost a dollar and my wallet had spare change.π
Re: 32 Games Will Be Taken Off PS Plus Extra, Premium Next Month
Another month where most of the catalogue departures are on Switch (and some already in my respective library) regardless, leaving little to feel bummed about. But Spider-man was among the tangible playthroughs I started right after getting my US account subbed, so it sure is a pity to see it go. Might as well delete the game right away until better times, tossing it on the wishlist. And FlatOut 4 being in the roster somehow went over my head; perhaps I'll give it a roll while it's still around.
Fingers crossed that my primary Catalogue focus these days, FFXV, may "survive" the summer and ideally the winter holidays. I'm still weighing up my odds of renting a PS5 to claim the PS+ Collection titles (so I can at least "secure" them for whenever my US sub is active) but, in all irony, already having this game processed among the Extra titles may get in the way for all I know.π Then again, I'm knee-deep enough here that I would probably make it my wishlist priority [at the nearest sale] if I had to.π
@Sam_Atlus as someone unironically amicable towards both games, I can procure Balan Underworld on Switch but Mighty No.9 is sad to see leaving since its proverbially troubled release skipped everything portable in the end and the PS4 version, once a PS+ monthly giveaway, is no longer accessible to me (not without buying 3 months of Essential for the price of 1 year of Premium, at leastπ) - part of the Catalogue's appeal at the time of me deciding on a new sub tier was in at least nominally "returning" a bunch of such titles within my reach. But I knew this wasn't meant to last.
Re: 16 Games Hit PS Plus Extra, Premium Next Week
I had Kena wishlisted but hey. Might try Riders Republic and Evil Within, too. The classic Dooms, on the other hand, evoked a chuckle since I just grabbed them on Switch last week.
Re: This PlayStation Patents Terminology Row Is the Stupidest Story in Games
@Hydra_Spectre ah yes, the company whose console ads showed SNES and Mega Drive thrown out like garbage. Them and Sega both exiting hardware biz in the end can seem borderline karmic at times.
Re: This PlayStation Patents Terminology Row Is the Stupidest Story in Games
"Sony is underfire for insinuating that it makes superior products to its rivals"
Gen 4 Sega:
Re: Almost Every Mainline Final Fantasy Game Will Soon Be Playable on Current PlayStation Consoles
@Keyblade-Dan I know, and I gave an opinion about an opinion. Just another day in the internet.π
Re: Almost Every Mainline Final Fantasy Game Will Soon Be Playable on Current PlayStation Consoles
@Keyblade-Dan of course there would be at least one fanhead barking at the game.π But then again, just a couple posts above, another commenter managed to express their lack of interest in the sequels without sounding fanmouthed about it, so I guess the cosmic balance is maintained.π
Re: Resident Evil 4 Fans Aren't Exactly Thrilled with Microtransactions on PS5, PS4
Fans are thrilled by microtransactions about as often as people notice them.
Re: Final Fantasy 16 Would Still Be in Development Without the PS5
@KaijuKaiser a JRPG series will be right at home with PlayStation once PlayStation has a portable system once again (and I don't mean streaming). After all the games Square Enix has made properly accessible on Switch over the recent years, hoping for their output to be ball'n'chained to living rooms either sounds counterintuitive or betrays the perspective of someone barely past the college years. Besides, I'm not sure I look forward to what Sony can "do with Japanese franchises" after what they did to Sony Japan Studio. Especially in comparison to all the cain they've been raising about a western FPS franchise.
@NEStalgia huh, I thought XIV was Crystal Tools from the start. Or is it Realm Reborn that went to Luminous afterwards?
Re: Talking Point: Would You Care About a PS5 Remote Play Handheld?
There's nothing "reported" or "apparent" from what I've seen so far (outside the typical waste products pretending to be which I do understand remain part of Push Square and other fanblogs' bread and wine), but outside last May and this half year's lucky streak I can never afford to take for granted, Remote Play has always been the pinnacle of my "home" PlayStation experience, at least where control schemes so allowed. Vita, while purchased first and foremost for its own offerings, was the reason I ever came to invest in a PS4 at all whereas PS5 limiting RP to peripheral-crutched third parties single-handedly (or "-footedly"?) kicked me out of the market for it.
When it comes to new PlayStation portables (the likes of which, unless/until proven otherwise, I wouldn't expect until a few years into Gen 10, especially with Sony barely just ending its struggle to produce ONE current console), I've already fantasized that even a "PlayStation Legacy" using a Vita-esque format with more buttons and possibly just enough juice to handle decent PS2 emulation (with PS3-5 left for streaming) and gathering all the libraries (sans the delisted/delicensed stuff, but what will you do) under one roof would be bee's knees. A streaming handheld machine obviously sounds like less than that, but still viable enough to turn my head, hand under chin, towards PS5 again. Of course, I've voted to "at least check it out" here because the resolution options would matter as well - Vita's generally work (once you claw your way past the whimsical connection assessment screen which better have less of a final say on a hypothetical new device in general) but 4G can't even stream 720p under the slightest network strain (read: anywhere urban where it's available in the first place), and 5G largely remains a first world cryptid. But if this were to be solved... again, you'd definitely have my attention. For whenever such a handheld actually shows up where I live, of course.π
Re: Steam Deck Support Not Naughty Dog's Focus as It Fixes The Last of Us
@Itachi2099 unless they're already playing the original. The promise of [at least decent] PS3 emulation on the go is arguably one of the biggest things SD can offer, even if it means turning it into an honest Win10 machine with everything that entails.
Re: Resident Evil 4 Modders Give Leon a Tramp Stamp, Dress Him as Kratos
You call that MORE child-friendly?π¨π
But hey, I guess it's not a modern PC game if it hasn't got a Thomas mod.
Re: Soapbox: Hold On, Is the PS3 a Retro Console?
Don't shoot the messenger, but us having a hard time perceiving Gen 7 consoles as "retro" may well testify that the subsequent generations haven't added THAT much on top, at least when you compare it to the other example at hand. SNES was where 2D graphics truly blossomed; PS3 (especially its later years) was where CGI finally hit a similar stage. SNES and PS3 feel like different eras in the way that PS3 and PS5 ultimately don't quite.
@Stevemalkpus Steam Deck is a handheld micro PC, those come with a bit too much fine print to be the best anything. I'm in the market for it myself (someday when it won't cost me a kidney to import one, not that either of my kidneys might even fetch the needed price by now), but my experience with GPD Win has ensured that I will only use it for games I can't play on Switch and the console handhelds.
Re: Hateful Comments Prompt Resident Evil 4 Remake's Ada Wong to Nuke Instagram Account
@CallMeDuraSouka it's not about gamers alone - excessive attachment to anything can breed this kind of mentality that proceeds to bring out some of the worst in people, be it fiction like games/books/shows/movies or events like sports. The word "fan" itself is traced in equal measure from "fanatic" and "fancy", aka obsessions and whims. When we stop to think about it, what good is expectable to come from blending the two? The examples usually ascribed to fanship to the point of sharing morphology (fanfiction, fanarts etc) are actually instances where the human manages to overpower the unhinged hunger within and, rather than try soiling others' moods/lives with their vocal craving for another dose of what once hooked them hard, convert this energy into creative "self-service" that can fulfil their cravings on the DIY basis and, in uncountable incidents, produce worthwhile results that a whole lot more people around can come to resonate with (sometimes including the original work's creators themselves). Not to mention how many folks eventually find this experience to be a stairway to their very own non-derivative creative endeavours and achievements in the future.
Alas, when centered on just getting new "doses" and left to steer the person's behaviour unchecked, fanship is an innately egocentric destructive force. As, indeed, are a good number of mentalities out there.