Topic: PlayStation 5 --OT--

@RogerRoger It's been one of those series I've been tempted to try off and on but always gets pushed aside or forgotten with so much else to play (new and backlog). I do remember Sony offering the original in one form or another for free at one point via PS Plus, so I believe I have that one in my library.

Is there any difficulty issues with the series? I tend to stay away from anything like that as I game to have fun or know I could end up wasting hours and hours and accomplish nothing.

@RogerRoger That sounds pretty reasonable and thanks for the write-up. You may receive your residual check from IOI at some point in the future then.

At least somebody understands. I'm guessing you don't play Souls games either then. I could look myself, but I'm not turning my PS5 on for that.

@KilloWertz I only played half of the first game, but I can corroborate what @RogerRoger said about Hitman. It is fun, although it depends what it is you like about gaming. If the sandbox elements of games, creativity, and puzzling things out is your jam, then you’ll be right at home. If you want a twitchy shooty-shooty, bang-bang, then there are other games that will fit the bill better. If you usually try to stealth it out when given the option in your games rather than go in guns blazin’, then Hitman is for you.

There is a certain amount of patience required. Not in the same way Souls games require patience, but more in the sense that tactical plans sometimes take time to set up and execute. A couple times I did eventually resort to going off script and just shooting the place up, and that can be done to an extent if you want, but it clearly feels wrong to do that and the gameplay mechanics are really not built for playing like a third person shooter.

I did struggle with the gameplay for the first few hours. It can be overwhelming the way each stage is set up. Sometimes the target seems almost impossible to get to and there’s a hundred possible ways to approach it swirling in your head. I felt pressured to be extravagant and creative but it was too difficult early on to do that and I failed a lot at first. But once I caught on to the guided “mission stories” it became less difficult. If you follow the script laid out in one of those then it’s not nearly as daunting. Once I gave in and just started using those prompts instead of creating my own plans, I started to enjoy it more. Some of those pre-scripted approaches are harder than others, though.

Also, as an aside, although the overarching narrative was surprisingly cohesive and better than I expected, be sure to set your appropriate expectations that this is not Uncharted or Metal Gear Solid, as far as storytelling goes. Perhaps the sequels amp up that aspect of the game but the in first game the gameplay was clearly the focus and the loose story threads between stages were secondary.

So there’s a little personal experience from a Hitman rookie for you. I ended up falling off the first game despite having enjoyed it once I got the hang of it. For whatever reason I got distracted and the game suffered the same fate as many others in my ‘partially completed and need to go back to’ pile.

@Th3solution Thanks for the detailed feedback. I am fine with playing games whichever way you're supposed to. Obviously some game's stealth gameplay is better than others, with some games implementing it as an option but not really designing it so it's either fair or implemented very well. Do a stealth mission, but we'll have it so somebody a mile away sees you attacking somebody else somehow. For normal games, the Arkham and Spider-Man games implemented it well enough. Obviously Hitman is specifically designed to be played that way, so I shouldn't be too concerned going in whenever that may be.

Can you save in the middle of a mission, or do you have to continue planning it out and executing it before you can? Obviously that would be an issue if I was forced to do a whole hit before I could save it.

That's fine. I know not every game can be on the level of some of the best narrative games. Obviously it would be cool to have a Hitman game like that, but not necessary. Maybe their Bond game will be closer to that, who knows, but still not a dealbreaker either way.

I try my best to finish games I start nowadays, but I'm sure the amount of unfinished games is not as bad as some people I have on my friends list where they will have hundreds of games played but only a fraction of them actually finished or played beyond an hour.

@KilloWertz Yes, unless I’m misremembering, you can save in the middle of a level. I think it’s fairly liberal with the ability to do so throughout the contract except in specific times like open combat or at narrative points. Going back to start over from a prior save is actually a big part of it, as well as replaying levels over and over to try something different.

There are incentives you’re encouraged to try which make the hit harder in certain ways, like kill them while wearing a certain disguise or with a certain object. In the few levels I played it felt like the point was to take the person out while making it look like a freak accident. Or at least in a manner where there’s just no way to trace it to you. Poisoning, having a large item fall on them, manipulating someone else to do it, etc, etc. Of course there’s also just times you can opt to snipe them or strangle them unexpectedly and whatnot. The trick is that after you kill them you have to get out of there unnoticed too.

The mission structure does lend itself to drop-in, drop-out gameplay, since it’s easy to just take a break after a contract is done. Despite being very convenient, in a way I think that’s part of why I may have dropped off because unlike a more contiguous game, the isolated missions can make it easy to lose momentum and get caught up in another game, if that makes sense.

Talking about it makes me want to revisit it though. Hitman 3 is supposed to be the pinnacle, but I have Hitman 1 & 2 in my library via PS+, so I should continue with those.

This website’s pretty cool. It combines various gaming profiles together so you can keep track of all their stats combined.

I do wish that Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft would come together and allow us to combine our different profiles on consoles. We have cross play now, so I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility.

@Bentleyma NICE ! had no idea it was something like this

I saw this commercial while watching TV today:

Another really good PS5 advertisement. How many game references can you find.
I saw: Horizon, GoW, Returnal, Avatar, Spider-Man, Hogwarts Legacy, Ratchet & Clank, Ghost of Tsushima, FF7R, and The Last of Us. Also the bridge breaking may have been what - Uncharted? And some of those felt like Destiny homages? Perhaps it’s supposed to be referring to FFXVI there with the dog supposed to be Torgal? And I’m not sure what that first scene is in the desert — Forspoken? Also the scene with the two people floating in a computer generated cube, and the scene with the jets flying by, the cars crashing in the desert toward the end, - not sure about those. And the two people kissing, and later two people hugging - no idea what games those might be. What else did I miss?

i picked up a cobalt blue dualsense recently and i can’t stress enough that you guys should get it , even if you don’t need it , it’s by far the best looking dualsense controller they ever made . it just came out this month too i believe, super eye candy controller !

but the real thing that should impress me is will it get stick drift within 2 damn months of use ???

Can't see this on the front page, but looks like Sony is publishing Stellar Blade.

@JohnnyShoulder Odd that they would have never had a formal agreement as I always assumed Sony was publishing this anyways since they were listed as the publisher on the PlayStation Store, here, etc.

@KilloWertz Yeah it is a bit of an odd one. I only knew as it was brought up on a podcast a few weeks back, and someone had looked into it.

@JohnnyShoulder Maybe now that it's formal we'll actually get some more footage and even just a general release window sometime soon. For a game that was originally supposed to come out this year, it's been strangely absent from everything for most of the year.

@KilloWertz I tend not to get wrapped in all that kind of stuff these days. I hardly buy any games near release, so I if I'm unsure of a game I'll just watch some content nearer the time I'm looking to buy something.

Crusader Kings 3 Fate of Iberia is finally on PS5. Had a literal last minute delay before it was supposed to release. Hate how messy the PS5 version is but it’s still a great game.

@RogerRoger I just finished watching the Game Awards trailers. Can't wait to see more of those Sega games.

That Wrap-up thing basically exposes me for being a filthy casual (in other words I play sports games alongside more hardcore games)

FIFA 23 - 261 hours
FC 24 - 181 hours and counting
Crusader Kings 3 - 149 hours and counting
Battlefield 2042 - 103 hours and counting thanks to a younger brother
NBA 2K23 - 88 hours

If you added all the Ratchet games that would probably be pretty high up. Plus Yakuza 7 must have just missed out.

I must have been slacking this year, as there are only 3 games I played over 100 hours! 😂

Horizon Forbidden West - 214 hours
Far Cry 6 - 184 hours
Borderlands 3 - 133 hours
Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order - 47 hours
EAFC 24 - 40 hours (so far)

I posted my hours/games over in the comments. I've had a quick compare to last years stats and despite playing 401 extra hours this year I played the exact same total of 44 games. Although I think I got into a bad habit of leaving my PS5 paused on a game for quite a lot this year which probably inflated quite a few hours overs over the year.