Comments 1,092

Re: Bungie's Much Criticised Shooter Marathon Will Skip PS5's New State of Play

wildcat_kickz

@SeaDaVie Agreed. I didn't play the alpha, but a lot of the comments seem to just be trashing live-service games in general (which pretty much every modern multiplayer game falls into). That said, if @MFTWrecks is right and they don't have much of a meta grind, then retaining players would be a massive problem.

I still think that extraction shooters, at least up until now, have been so niche that you can't bet big on the genre, even with Bungie's pedigree for gameplay. The gameplay loop doesn't have as much variety as I think is required to keep people interested. Maybe if they have a PvP mode, similar to Destiny's Crucible, it might help.

Re: Bungie's Much Criticised Shooter Marathon Will Skip PS5's New State of Play

wildcat_kickz

I really don't understand why everyone is so cynical about live-service games as a whole, as if all things wrong with Marathon derive from the fact that it's a live service game.

If they announced Destiny 3 tomorrow, people would sh*t their pants.

I think the premise of Marathon is really cool. I'd love a great console extraction shooter, but Bungie/Sony need to understand that it's a niche genre and they can't put the fate of Bungie on this game. Destiny 3 is really Bungie's best bet forward (though selfishly, I'd love a Myth reboot).

Re: Is This the First Tease of Next-Gen PS6 Graphics?

wildcat_kickz

We've seen photo-real still images before, so this isn't all that special to me. Seeing models in motion is where the uncanny valley emerges. If they can inject micro-movements and subtle skin/muscle reactions into character animations, I think that is where the "leap" in photo-real characters will bear fruit. It's not the models themselves, it's how they move.

Re: Poll: Are You Playing Borderlands 4?

wildcat_kickz

The gameplay looks pretty fun, but I've always struggled with the humor of Borderlands. I may be tempted to get this on a steep sale down the road, but we were given 1, 2, and 3 as part of PS Plus, so I'd be more tempted to play those before jumping in here.

As @Northern_munkey says, there are much more interesting games incoming to make space for this one any time soon.

Re: USA's Top 20 PlayStation Games of All Time May Surprise You

wildcat_kickz

@KundaliniRising333 I don't think that's accurate. There are plenty of gamers (like me and my friends) who play plenty of CoD, but also much more. You can't take a franchise that sells 20mil each year and say only a small subset of "true gamers" buy them; that's a very elitist opinion. Call of Duty may be an easy target for ridicule because it's the top dog and is very iterative, but there are maybe a handful of games that even come close to matching the gunplay of CoD.

CoD is graded on a curve, so people love to say "CoD sucks," but if you took the exact same game and gave it a new name, it would be hailed as a masterclass of gameplay.

Not to your tastes? That's fine. But don't pretend like CoD isn't for "true gamers" just because it's incredibly popular. It's popular for a reason.

Re: Sony's Helldivers 2 on Xbox Gamble Is Absolutely Paying Off

wildcat_kickz

@BacklogBrad We agree that it would be better for us, the consumers, if there weren't any exclusives, but where we differ is I think it's just bad business for Sony. Aside from the games and the operating system, PS5 and Series X are virtually identical, so I'm not sure how the hardware itself is the selling point.

Yeah, probably not an insane amount of PC gamers will buy a console for GTA6, but GTA6 is going to be the biggest video game launch in history, so I wouldn't discount the impact it's going to have. That said, if I was an Xbox One owner and was waiting to upgrade, there is virtually no reason to buy a Series over a PS5 - and that comes down to exclusives. Xbox got clobbered over the last two generations and so they've had to pivot. Don't be fooled by their "we don't believe in exclusives" moral propaganda. Microsoft believes in making money, not being nice to the consumer. If appearing nice to consumers gets them more business, then that's what they'll do, but they would have never brought games to PlayStation if they didn't think they needed to to keep the bottom line in check.

Re: Poll: Are You Sold on 007 First Light?

wildcat_kickz

Day 1 for me, but that was going to be true even without the showcase. I'm a huge James Bond mark. I've read almost all of the Ian Fleming novels and seen most of the movies (the Roger Moore movies are a little too campy for my tastes). As a book fan, I'm really happy to see the cheek scar finally make an appearance.

Re: Sony's Helldivers 2 on Xbox Gamble Is Absolutely Paying Off

wildcat_kickz

@BacklogBrad I disagree. While there are plenty of people that will never change lanes (at least until they're forced to), there are plenty of pragmatists that just go where the games are; they just don't switch mid console generation because that would be financially stupid. Think about how many people are going to buy a PS5 or Xbox Series when GTS6 comes out just because it won't be on PC? Do you think they're more likely to buy a PlayStation or an Xbox? If it's PlayStation, why do you think that is? Spoiler - it's because PlayStation has exclusives that Xbox doesn't have.

Re: Sony's Helldivers 2 on Xbox Gamble Is Absolutely Paying Off

wildcat_kickz

@BacklogBrad It hurts the game, but benefits the platform. If all games went multiplatform, there wouldn't be a differentiating factor. 1st party games aren't designed to maximize profit for the individual game - they're designed to incentivize people to use the ecosystem where the platform makes most of its money from 3rd party sales.

Re: 'The Vast Majority of Players Don't Post on Reddit' - Helldivers 2 Boss Warns of Online Tunnel Vision

wildcat_kickz

I totally agree.

I hear a lot of things on the Sacred Symbols podcast where the host, Colin, will make some assertion like "people keep saying there aren't any games for PS5" and I keep thinking, "I don't know anyone who says that."

Reddit, Twitter, Discord, etc. all skew towards negativity. It's similar on this website where you'd be forgiven thinking that Call of Duty is the most hated franchise on the planet, but the data clearly shows something very different.

Re: PS5 Price Increases Confirmed for USA, Effective 21st August

wildcat_kickz

@kmtrain83 @Vovander I'd encourage you guys to check out Tom's reporting. He could certainly be wrong or things may change, but he has sources within AMD, NVIDIA, Sony, Microsoft, etc. and he has been incredibly reliable and knowledgeable about stuff like this before (see his reporting on PS5 Pro before it was revealed).

He points to reduced costs of internal tech, better cooling (smaller fan components), smaller silicon dies, better use of PSSR, etc., as well as Sony's desire to make a more affordable unit this time around, similar to the transition from PS3 to PS4, where PS4 was much cheaper at launch, though much more powerful.

I get that the current economic situation is different than 2013, but there's much more than tariffs and inflation to drive the cost of electronics.