themightyant

Have no interest in this game but I do like the art style which stands out from a sea of look a likes.

@ear_wig Agreed! TCL win a lot of awards for best tv’s at a lower price range. They often have features that panels in the same price bracket don’t which are usually exclusive to the top models. I’ve been really impressed with the one I got as a second cheaper tv.

Of course they are not as good as top of the line models like an LG OLED but they are usually half the price or less. But I suspect they will use the Sony brand for their higher end models, and if they can use some of Sony’s latest screen tech like mini-LED it could potentially be a great move for both Sony, TCL and consumers. Fingers crossed

@RoomWithaMoose So how about using Gen-AI for animation, or cleaning up mo-cap data, or code hints trained on what you actually use/write? I think there are valid uses for Gen-AI. It's just usually art that people draw the line on.

Surprised by the poll results tbh. There's so much noisy anti-AI no matter what chatter online that it drowns out everyone else.

It's been handed out for free by Epic Games twice already.

@Boxmonkey @JamesLimited5990 Read again. Games take a long time to make. When Anthem game was conceived and developed (from 2011 onwards) none of those games had released, most weren't even announced.

Yes by the time Anthem released those games had come out, but by then they had tried to move away from the worst of the live service stuff. It matters as plans changed during development. You can find out more about the Anthem timeline direct from the producer here.

A developer known for single player games tried to force its way into the bloated live service market to chase Fortnite dollars and failed miserably.

@JamesLimited5990 FYI this was conceived LONG before Fortnite was ever released. Additionally the live service market wasn't bloated at that time, this was before Destiny, Overwatch, Apex Legends, etc.

Great month of games!

How much longer are you prepared to wait?

I’ll wait until it’s ready, rushing it isn’t going to help anyone. But at the same time my anticipation for the game wanes with each Bethesda release.

Looks like Waterworld crossed with Subnautica and a Sunset Overdrive artstyle.Yet I have no idea what it's like as a game.

@Kraven @Oram77 @DennisReynolds I think the reality is most AAA games are PS5 only now.

However there's still plenty of games that come to PS4... and why not? Many AA and indie games with a smaller graphical scope can easily run on a PS4 so why shouldn't they just because we have moved on. The technology isn't always the limitation anymore, dev time, skill and budget are, PS4 is plenty powerful enough for these games. This will be the case for many games going forward.

Got to applaud Ubisoft for the number of free updates they do to their old games. It's appreciated.

Finishing off Final Fantasy XVI, I only have the final part of the second DLC and what I think is the final dungeon to go.

Really enjoying it as it's own game.
Not sure how I feel about it as a 'Final Fantasy'.

@get2sammyb Really like the tool, great work. Is it scraping Sony directly or are you having to manually update it?

EDIT: I don't know if it's feasible but adding a toggle for games that have cloud support would be great for PS portal users.

I heard the last major update in October was pretty great and well received - it jumped to 50k concurrents on Steam making it a Top 20 most played game at the time. The trouble is that spike was short lived and it was down to < 10k daily within a few weeks and < 2k daily within a couple of months, it just wasn't sticky.

While Steam isn't the only playerbase, it is a useful guide, that isn't enough to sustain a MMO of this scope with annual major updates.

Good to delay but those sound like pretty fundamental issues that will take a while to resolve.

@SMJ as you said yourself “they dropped Vita like a stone” so why compare it against the 3DS when trying to show you are being balanced. @LogicStrikesAgain had it right.

@RoomWithaMoose I didn’t say you can’t compare them, just that it’s not a fair fight. Should we compare Wii U to PS4, Virtual Boy to PS1 and expect to gain something useful from the comparison? No of course not.

All I am saying it that the PS5 is doing just fine in Japan as based against every other non-Sony TV console in the last 30+ years, only one has sold more. Whereas comparing it to handheld sales is pretty useless.

@SMJ comparing Vita - a console that wasn’t supported well and was cut short - to one of the most successful handhelds of all time (3DS) is hardly a fair fight. We can all cherry pick data if we wanted. LMAO.

Everybody knows TV based consoles are diminishing in Japan, since the PS1/PS2 era it’s been downhill, this is just a simple fact, not just for Sony but Nintendo too, whose decline in this area started even earlier. But comparing like for like the reality is the ONLY non-Sony TV console that has sold more than PS5 in Japan in the last 30+ years is the Wii. Just 5 years in PS5 has already outsold every other Nintendo TV console in that time and it’s just behind PS4 launch aligned. Hence why I said it’s doing just fine in Japan.

I think you are letting your own disappointment cloud your judgement here, you claim to be objective but are dismissing the obvious.

@SMJ I think the reality is PS5 is doing just fine in Japan compared to similar TV based consoles. Not amazing, but just fine enough.

The trouble is Japan has become more and more a handheld market so comparing the PS5 and Switch 1 or 2 is like comparing apples and oranges and doesn’t make much sense.

To be fair they got the classic look just about right.

@Greifchen Me! (and many others) at least for a second playthrough.

This would definitely make me more tempted to do another quick story run. One of the most time consuming things is all the unnecessary battles in most (J)RPGs, often extending a runtime from 5-10 hours to 30-100 hours. I've beaten all the enemies before, I don't feel I need to do it hundreds of times again.

@Hi569 That was a comedic movie not a serious drama, where the joke wasn’t him being black, it was him being a delusional actor so up himself that he can't see that what he’s doing was offensive. They deliberately trod a difficult line very carefully and pulled it off. Playing Kratos isn't remotely the same, there is no meta joke to be had.

Moreover they filmed Tropic Thunder almost 20 years ago, times have changed (for good or bad). Downey Jr. has been asked since if he could do it now, to which he responded with a laugh and a nod "you could do it..." with the implication that it wouldn't work with the public now. Which is a shame, but likely the truth.

I replayed it not that long ago and other than upping resolution and adding some quality of life features the only real issue with it was combat, which was always bad. I'm worried they will ruin more things that they will fix.

@BentIeyma Sure but that's one screen, that's quite hidden, dozens of other screens aren't filled with it.

I guess my point is YES they can do better, but it's hardly the epidemic people seem to claim.

@BentIeyma Ah I see. But to get to the specific screen you showed you have to scroll down 6 times, scroll right 20 times and find the specific "view all" tile and click on it. It isn't that obvious.

To be clear I am not saying shovelware doesn't exist on the store, just that they don't seem to be 'everywhere' like people seem to claim. It's one or two horizonal lines on the store that are easy to scroll past, most of the rest is curated.

But not all the games on these lines are shovelware, some are legit indie games from smaller devs, which is actually my problem with the PS Store, discoverability for smaller developers is TERRIBLE, but clearing out the actual shovelware should help.

@BentIeyma But that's kinda my point. Most of the store is curated and I just don't see much of this crap. How do you even get to "new games"? EDIT: Because if I go to browse and then sort filter by date I don't see what you are seeing, it's mostly big games like Saros.

@BentIeyma On the homepage? Scrolling down there's 10-12 blocks of games / tiles and all but one of them all seem legit massive games. If one horizontal line is smaller games I don't really have a huge issue with that, just scroll past.

My issue is more that they are the wrong type of smaller games. Rather than being unknown legit games that might be niche but appeal to someone it does seem like it's shovelware.

But that's hardly like it's taking over the store.

@BentIeyma OK that's fair. But it's one line of games I can scroll past. Hardly the epidemic "there's nearly as much shovelware as there are legit games!" people talk about.

@BentIeyma I see people say this... but I just don't see it. E.g. I am looking at the PS Store RIGHT NOW and the homepage is all the usual suspects Saros, Stellar Blade, KCD 2, E33, etc. "Collections" is a well curated list of great games. "Deals" is as you would expect, and tiered towards the most popular titles.

Where are you finding all the shovelware? I'm not saying it isn't there, but it seems hidden away for me. Though I freely admit I don't dig too deep as usually I go to PS store wanting a specific game and just use search. I can't remember the last time I tried to use it to DISCOVER something because it seems so focussed on games that are already popular. Which is actually my issue with it, unknown games get lost.

@Max_the_German Looked at another way Yotei is the most downloaded non-live service game in the US and second in the EU behind GOTY Expedition 33. That doesn't smell like failure to me, especially considering it's lower AAA budget. But you can spin it however you please.

I would love to see there we real progress here, online gaming is a cesspit of abuse and just about every ___-ism you can name, often in the name of "banter". I'll believe it when I hear it.

It's good they are gone... but honestly I don't know how anyone finds these, how deep are y'all digging?

Solid choice, really good actor in Sons of Anarchy and has the build and gruff voice.

@nessisonett don't you think casting a black actor and then painting him white would be a bit of an issue?

I'll take it! But honestly I've been very happy with PS5 Pro as it is.

Strong month if true

Never even heard of these, and seeing people talk about them like they are known classics is making me feel like I'm been stuck in some weird alternate universe. Like the movie Yesterday & The Beatles.

UPDATE: seems it was never officially released in the UK. That makes more sense. (Not completely lost my sanity then)

I enjoyed Control a lot more second time around on PS5 Pro it finally felt like I was playing the game they intended at 60fps with RT on. On PS4 it was one of the few games that ran worse on PS4 compared to XBO and was constantly under 30fps, and a bit of mess.

@Theamazing1 It was an average game AND the bar was set so high AND people were expecting a Bioware RPG which this wasn't, which put their hackles up. But I don't think it deserved the hate it got, while not great it was also underrated.

This is a complicated question. Taken on it's OWN merits as a game Anthem was pretty good in places imo. Flying round the world like Iron man was the second best movement I have felt after Spider-man, the world was interesting and the vertical level design was great. But it still had numerous issues, almost all caused by trying and make it BOTH a single player narrative and a multi player live service, as such it failed at both.

The larger trouble is we don't usually judge games in isolation. Bioware is a known quantity and people were expecting the next Mass Effect, Jade Empire, Dragon Age, or a game with as much depth, Anthem wasn't that.

So should we ONLY judge a game on it's own merits? It's tempting to say yes, but the truth is it's complicated because there is an opportunity cost in making each game. By making Anthem we know Bioware weren't focussing on Mass Effect Andromeda (and we know how that turned out, not bad, but not great). Honestly I don't have the answer to this question, but what I do know is I enjoyed Anthem much more judging it on what it actually was, than what it wasn't.

Nobody trusts you Atlus. Great games but too many sketchy anti-consumer business decisions.

Lots of great games in there but i've played all I want to in that list except just 5... and 3 of those 5 I already own. Silent Hill 2 is probably the only 1 I will play on PS+

I played this last week and as a game judged on it's own merits it was pretty good. Yes there were some issues with it, almost all caused by the desire to make it a live service multiplayer game. But it really wasn't the disaster I was expecting. It's a shame it's now unplayable as it could have easily been adapted to be offline.

RIP Anthem / Stop Killing Games

@Toot1st 100%. I do have a little sympathy as sadly ragebait gets clicks and comments, and it's a business relying on engagement.

@Dragoon1994 You know what I meant!

Makes perfect sense for a 1 year old game. Forza Horizon 5 was also cheaper, this isn't new or shocking.

Never got around to this, though it’s in my library. I should play it, I like Quantic Dream games because for all their issue they stick with you.

The timing of this is uncanny. I just added XIII-2 & LR: FFXIII to my watch lists on eBay and Xbox (Xbox due to 60fps boost) yesterday while playing FFXVI, but would happily wait for proper next gen versions. Will hold for now hoping for news.

That seems like a cool tie-in. Christiano Ronaldo... not so much.

Thought the subtitle was a jest, alas not, gooners going to goon.

Looks like a lot of fun. Hopefully it plays as good as it looks.

@JB_Whiting I feel a lot of psychedelics were involved!