Comments 2,996

Re: Game Director of The Last of Us' PS5 Multiplayer Project Says He's Still Working on It

Constable_What

@PegasusActual93 I totally agree man. Not only way longer, but they are appealing to more and more people. Even niche franchises and genres are picking up a lot of steam just look at the Yakuza series and fighting games right now.

While quality is purely subjective. You gotta really think...we did not get games like Alan Wake 2, Baulder's Gate, or Tears of the Kingdom back in those days. I would even very much argue that masterpiece games like Resident Evil 4 were remade even better in this year, the original Dead Space as well.

But it's fine if you prefer games of that time. There was a charm to them, but I would go as far as to say that feeling, comes more from my own naiveté from being young and more full of wonder than how games actually were, and the nostalgic feeling is just me trying to capture that feeling of wonderment again.

Re: Insomniac Confirms Primary Marvel's Spider-Man Moving Forward

Constable_What

Part of me is sad about that, but at the same time, I'm also glad that Peter gets a happy ending. He deserves one, and with how much the comics and movies love to torture him, I'm good on seeing this character get a happy ending or at least a rest.

Miles is great too! I think Insomniac's rendition of Miles is probably the most interesting.

I love Spiderman...but I have to admit... some of these stories don't make being a righteous person or a superhero sound all that fulfilling. Being selfless just for you to lose everything piece by piece until you die in agony doesn't inspire me. Sure there should he consequences for being a super-hero, but there shouldn't be so much to where that idealized version of what a hero actually is, shouldn't be attractive...and using Peter's loved ones as props to hurt him like they do in a lot of the more recent comics just sucks...

This is why people are relating to characters like the Joker more and more, rather than Batman... If you're screwed either way in these stories, and the only thing that's stopping you is morality, why wouldn't you just let lose and go nuts? What good is all the power when you can't save the people you love? I guess that's what recent Spiderman stories love to ask. I just wish more stories would answer their own question in a more emotionally human way. Kinda like the Sam Raimi Spiderman movies did at first.

Re: Game Director of The Last of Us' PS5 Multiplayer Project Says He's Still Working on It

Constable_What

@Matroska Yes. Hit the nail on the head with this comment. I've said this before when "old school" gamers harp on microstranactions and gacha mechanics. Do they seriously not remember arcades where you could easily spend 10 - 20 dollars for 30 mins of gameplay? Do they not remember LJN shovelware? Carbon copy platformers with different coats of paint? The pervasive and consistently garbage licensed games in 00's?

How many amazing games have we gotten in this year alone? I am of the opinion that the industry hasn't really changed all that much aside from getting much bigger. It is like the movie industry. Has that industry changed all that much over the decades? Not really.

Gamers as individuals will change more than the industry ever will. It's an industry that has always wanted your money, and many games were and will always be more blatant that so long as we exchange money for games. Which will never stop, so pining for the good ol' days just reeks of looking back with rose tinted glasses.

Re: Another Baldur's Gate 3 Patch, Another 1,000+ Fixes on PS5

Constable_What

@Fiendish-Beaver This is exactly why early access is good for games sometimes. You can play the game in a unfinished state and follow the development, you're not obligated to submit bug reports, but if something bad happens you will probably talk about it and the devs will take notice once more and more people start talking about it.

A game like this, with so many different outcomes for so many quests....oh man. It'd be so fun to be QA for this game.

Like I said in the comment above, bugs that lock out a resolution to something might not even lock it out entirely because of the bevy of systems in place to utilize.

One other "bug", but more like a quirk of the game's systems is an NPC having me protect them while they do something, them finishing, and me still having wall of fire up. To which they walked into it, went hostile, turned into a zombie, walked back through the fire, and then died.

Gotta remember to unconcentrate those spells... Classic D&D DM trap right there. That'll teach ya to leave walls of fire everywhere, you think I'm made of wall of fire tiles?

Re: Another Baldur's Gate 3 Patch, Another 1,000+ Fixes on PS5

Constable_What

@Max_the_German I agree, and I am glad my insight is appreciated. You are very welcome.

The types of bugs you are talking about are very high priority, and get fixed fast. There aren't going to be too many of them out in the wild if any, but sometimes things happen and it is very important for the end user to call that out so it can be fixed ASAP!

In BG3, I encountered 1 bug that kinda locked me out of, not an ending, but a possible resolution to a quest due to doing things out of sequence. QA didn't account for me not wanting to commit to something, and then coming back later! I could still finish the quest, and get the "same" resolution but I had to lie to an NPC and tell them their family was still alive lmao. Which in and of itself, is amazing, I think, that is even considered.

Re: Well-Received Souls-Like Lords of the Fallen Tops 1 Million Sales

Constable_What

@gipsojo I think with the updates, it's actually...pretty good now! Performance is so much better, enemies don't mob you like you owe them money, vestiges stick around longer, and those stupid witches can't hit from behind walls from a mile away anymore along with tweaks to ranged enemies being overly aggressive, it feels challenging still but not tedious and messy. Like you can use more than one strategy for encounters now instead of either:

Running past absolutely everything.

Or

Running past absolutely everything killing the ranged enemies, and then abusing the roll to get yourself back in position.

It feels like you can slowly progress now and participate in a battle of attrition without repeatedly getting shot in the face by AK47s.

Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Alan Wake 2?

Constable_What

Easy 10/10. I finished it, only have 1 trophy to get, but I missed something and I'm locked out. I am FIGHTING the temptation to just buy this again on PC. Playing Control to tide me over until NG+. I didn't think anything could top Baldur's Gate 3... This is right on par for me, and I think BG3 is one of the greatest games ever made, so Alan Wake 2 also...one of the greatest games ever made lmao.

2023 has got to go down in history as one of the greatest years in gaming ever, and it is why I never believe the people that say "Oh modern gaming is bad, it's worse than it has ever been". Nope!
Still just as good if not better, and I've been gaming since '97!

Re: Another Baldur's Gate 3 Patch, Another 1,000+ Fixes on PS5

Constable_What

@figboot It is meant to be like that. It's a CRPG so it's a top down perspective for most everything but exploration. Being able to move in third person with a controller is very unusual for genre, and on PC on mouse and keyboard you can't even do that, it's all top down and you point and click where you want to like the genre standard.

That's like asking for an FPS to fix not being able to go into third person. It's by design, not baffling at all.

As for inventory the game already gives you all the tools to organize your inventory. You can go back to camp whenever you want, even when you're overencumbered and have chests there for each type of item you have, or even put them into bags to organize them... What else could you possibly want? It's an RPG with a lot of items, and the game will already let you sort them by type? So really not seeing how inventory is bad or even obtuse in any way.

Re: Another Baldur's Gate 3 Patch, Another 1,000+ Fixes on PS5

Constable_What

@Max_the_German BG3's metacritic is a 96. That's is not a half baked product. Sure you can choose how you want to release a game, and whether or not to offer post launch support, but why would any studio not want to offer that? Even TTK has that with updates and DLC.

I work in QA, it is a very long and thorough process. Some bugs are not even present on our equipment the way they are on some of the end user's equipment. This is due to the sheer amount of people getting to play verses the very limited amount of QA Functional and Requirements testers that are testing the game.

There are also deadlines and end user expectations. Delaying due to the game being a little buggy just wouldn't make any sense. Even a two week delay is a big financial hit, as you have to play your employees, and not only that, but it can cause more stress and more potential for burnout in the organization which will lead to a worse products. Delays to meet an arbitrary standard by some random people online just don't make any sense when you can ship a game that is up to Publishing's or the studio's quality standards.

And when you look at analytics, these games are released in a "great" state. Most of these bugs the typical end user wouldn't run into. They're either bugs a few people ran into, or bugs picked up by more extensive QA testing during the post launch cycle.

Re: Another Baldur's Gate 3 Patch, Another 1,000+ Fixes on PS5

Constable_What

@Max_the_German No game is bug free. Even GoW:R and TOTK had and have bugs. LOD pops, hitching, clipping, collision issues, physics issues, you can find them if you know what you're looking at and you're looking hard enough.

God of War also had a few patches for bugs and new content and features post launch. Post launch is included in the dev cycle nowadays to encourage people to buy the game later, keep playing, or play the game again.

With BG3 day one, it was still a full experience. They've just added more things because post launch is a core part of Larian's dev cycle, they will compile these fixes, enhancements, and added features into a Definitive Edition of some sort as they have for their previous games, and even those games will have some sort of post launch support. That's how modern dev cycles work nowadays.

Re: Bungie Acknowledges Destiny 2 Concerns Following Layoffs

Constable_What

Even if Final Shape delivers, they will just dissapoint with the next expansion or project. They do this every time. TTK, Witch Queen, Forsaken....that's only 3 good expansions out the bunch of other mediocre to bad ones they've put out. These expansions aren't notable because they're objectively amazing, they're notable because they aren't trash. Destiny uses psychological tricks to temper your expectations so that you think things are better than they are within the context of that experience, they had a psychology adviser help with the design to keep players in a state of induced stress to keep them playing, and the expansion release is a part of that.

They've done this **** 3 times already. Just saying.

Re: Six Weeks Later, PAYDAY 3 Gets Its First Patch

Constable_What

There's QoL fixes in those patch notes? Seemed more 100+ bug fixes, and, for some reason, giving everyone pre-order and special edition content?

What in the world is going on over there at Starbreeze? This patch 6 months into the game's life cycle reads like a day one patch.

Edit: I mean 6 weeks not 6 months lmao

Re: Latest Alan Wake 2 PS5 Patch Applies 200+ Fixes

Constable_What

I finished the game, had a few minor bugs like lip sync issues, door animations being desynced, and my hunting rifle disappearing until I put in and then took it out the shoebox.

I had one pretty major bug, where one of the Writer videos just didn't show up late unto the game. It locked me out of the platinum until NG+ which sucks.

I'd still give it a 10/10 as the bugs were my only big complaint with the game. I absolutely loved it.

Re: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Really Is Just DLC, Says Its Trophy List

Constable_What

I never buy CoD for full price, but there are a lot of judgemental people in here. Like why do you have to feel guilty about buying a video game?

This mindset of "Oh you're hurting everyone by supporting trash" is not helping anything.
Didn't stop people from buying "trash" in any other industry, not gonna stop it here. You're not gonna stop playing video games either, just like you're not gonna stop watching TV shows or watching movies...

Mazlow's Heirarchy of Needs at work here.

As for not having a platinum... That is weird. Super weird.

Re: Did You Love Lies of P? There's Much More of the PS5 Fairy Tale to Come

Constable_What

There were really only 3 places that seemed a little unbalanced in my opinion, not so much for technique builds, I think you can pretty much just get through the game at a steady difficulty curve, but definitely for motivity. The boss weapons for motivity really kinda suck compared to the technique weapons because of how slow they are, and changing technique weapons to motivity weapons is fine, but at that point why not just wait an hour for fruit to change your build to a technique one so you have optimal damage?

I wish leveling into motivity gave you more poise or something to offset the slower animations for the weapons. The game is much faster paced in bosses, so using a bigger weapon that has a 20 year wind up against a boss that can can chunk your health doesn't feel too good, and there's only so much of just using the Krat Baton I can take.

Re: The Next Shenmue Could Potentially Be a Prequel Story

Constable_What

No Yu please finish the story, or at least progress it in a meaningful way if you get another shot. Shenmue 3 was bad...I didn't dislike it because it was dated, I disliked it because it was a massive step down from the original two games, most notably combat, stamina, pacing, and story. I feel like the shot to see this story through was blown, and as 100 dollar backer...that really saddens me.

Re: Bungie Layoffs Reportedly Impacted Around 100 Staff, Revenue 45% Below 2023 Projection

Constable_What

I'm a bonafide Destiny hater, I used to love the game, but I've been disappointed too many times. It's a cycle of abuse, you get a little it seems like they change their ways, and then they go and stick their pippili in your ear, and it hurts and you're confused, and you're angry. You're angry at yourself because you trusted this stupid game again... After first year of Destiny 2 I had enough of the ol' "I've changed shtick". Bungie will never learn. They treat their players like disposable paypigs, and so is it any wonder they treat their employees the same?

Bungie truly has become the villains they were trying to get away from. Like many abusers. Truly sad.

Re: PS5 Live-Service Game Marathon Has Reportedly Been Delayed to 2025

Constable_What

I don't mind live services, but Sony should have made a pivot to these kinds of games a while ago. They had plenty of opportunities within existing franchises to make the multiplayer components of those games live service. GoT Legends mode is a good example, it got some decent post launch support, but if Sony could have made a support team take control of that pillar then it could have really been something special, GT is another game, but the support that game receives seems very sporadic.

I feel like Sony keeps saying they want more live services, but their scared to do anything other than a half measure, scared to put anything out there to see what sticks, scared of tarnishing the quality that is associated with their brand, and that's not really how most live service games start out. A lot of them start out kind of average or pretty good, and they grow into something great. It's a genre of game that grows from feedback from the players that play the game, and it is a lot of work and dedication from the teams that make and support them.

Bungie I feel...I don't know. I want to say they aren't a good choice to head up a live service initiative, but that's because I legitimately hate Destiny. I don't think that game is fun, and I genuinely think no one really has thought it was fun in years, andnl they are just addicted to the gameplay...well not really a loop anymore...a spiral. A downward spiral.

We will just have to see how it pans out in the not so near future, but I think Sony needs to invest in other experts in the field for live service, because it seems like they have absolutely no idea what they are doing.

Re: Alan Wake 2 Dev Praises Epic's Publishing Team for Acclaimed PS5 Release

Constable_What

Beat it a couple hours ago. I don't know which game I liked more...this or Baldur's Gate. There were a lot of bugs, most minor, but some much worse, like not being able to get into the Mind Place at the start of the game when it prompts you too, and some things like Words of Power not getting marked off the map when you've already done them, but all in all it was amazing.

10/10 game, and everything I wanted from an Alan Wake sequel, this is the Return.

Re: Former PlayStation Boss Shawn Layden Says It's 'Criminal' Industry Isn't Properly Preserving Games

Constable_What

@nomither6 The PS3 has a special place in my heart. Uncharted 1, 2, and 3 were my fondest memories, Siren Blood Curse is still on of my favorite survival horror experiences, and Metal Gear Online 2 was my very first online game that I played in my own home as a kid. My OG 80GB fat PS3 also died as I was playing. Yellow lighted. RIP.

I did prefer my 360, but the PS3 had some truly unique experiences, and some amazing features for the time. It wasn't revolutionary, but it was truly unique...and also what other console was bought in bulk and rigged together to crunch numbers by the US military?

I don't agree it was revolutionary, but I think if any console deserves the moniker "super console" PS3 gets it just for that. The military made it a super computer.

Always a pleasure talking with fellow Push Square members. Thanks for the discussion. It also got me thinking about the PS5's launch and how it compares to last two consoles.

Re: Former PlayStation Boss Shawn Layden Says It's 'Criminal' Industry Isn't Properly Preserving Games

Constable_What

@nomither6 The PS3 doesn't have a bad reputation though. It used to when I first released, and until Uncharted 2 came in 2009 we didn't really see any amazing blockbuster games that Sony is now known for, we had some good games sure, but we didn't have those killer apps year after year like we do now. The PS3 has a reputation for failure yes, but also redemption.

That's 3 years the PS3 had to flounder until it started redeeming itself.

PS5 came out in 2020. It's 2023 now, and I don't think it is as rough as the launch as PS3, and even still it's too early to write it off as bad. That's like writing off the PS3 as bad just when great marquee games were coming out for it.

I do miss being able to play games natively from PS2 and PS3, but the PS3 basically had a PS2 included in the console itself for the 60 and 80GB version that supported that, and the power consumption was off the charts, literally as much as fridge, and the reason we can't play PS3 games on PS4 or 5 is because of the CELL architecture, these games had to either run utilizing that architecture or workaround it, and because of that it is incompatible with current software.

So, a lot of the hate right now, is that PS3 as great as it was for the time, is a wall in the way of preserving games. PS5 can play PS4 games no problem, but it can't run PS3 games. Xbox Series X can run games from OG Xbox to Series Xbox, and it's because they have used the same traditional CPU/GPU architecture that we have been using in computers for years. That architecture does not need to change, because we can continously innovate on that basic structure.

PS5 isn't without its faults too. The online service is dogwater, is too expensive, doesn't have good value, and they talk about vague changes, but never deliver.
There aren't as many multimedia features as older consoles, and there are missing PS4 features that should have been standard.

But it still only about 3 years the PS5 has been on the market.

Also, loading times are a feature. The fact that you can resume a game in seconds from the front-end is great feature...it's not a multimedia feature, but still.

PS3 simply can't be a revolutionary console man I'm sorry. If it was, then it would have changed the gaming technical landscape and every PC and console would be utilizing CELL, but they are not. It is obsolete tech that could never match the power of PS4 or even Xbox One, and even when you compare it to an Xbox 360 CPU... It isn't really that much more powerful for gaming.

Re: Former PlayStation Boss Shawn Layden Says It's 'Criminal' Industry Isn't Properly Preserving Games

Constable_What

@nomither6 I played enough PS3 games, and recently too, to know that there is screen tearing present. It's not an arbitrary complaint, it's really annoying, it's fine if you don't notice it, but don't act like it doesn't exist. That's just a lie.

That's a bad tradition to keep. Also the PS3 on paper, was much more powerful than the Xbox 360, there was no technical reason other than their insistence on using CELL architecture, and their lack of support for third parties.

You can disagree all you want. Any objective analysis of the hardware contradicts your feelings on the PS5. If you buy a game console, it should play games, and play them well, and the PS5 does that and comparably and even in some edge cases, better, than the competition as well. The PS5 is missing some multimedia functionality yes, but it also has some other features like being able to easily share your gameplay, capture media, upload that media to your phone PS app, it can start up games in a flash thanks to the SSD, and can still stream movies and play BluRays, and can even stream games now. Saying it has less features than a PS3 is disingenuous, and there is a reason they don't let you use your console as a multimedia station. It makes the software easy to exploit.

Awful library and first party support? Compared to who? Xbox? Nintendo? Maybe Nintendo I'll give you that, but Xbox? So far a at leasr a new first party release has come out a year since the release of the PS5, many with impeccable quality.

I had a PS4 Pro as well. The PS5 performs so much better, especially the front end dashboard. It doesn't take close to a minute to check your messages in game on PS5, it doesn't take upwards of a minute to load a game, the PS5 isn't NEARLY as loud as the PS4 Pro... I guess if you're not impressed you're not impressed, that's fine.

Don't act like the performance, features, or enhancements are on par with PS4 Pro. They are not. That's a straight demonstrable lie if you are doing that.

Re: Former PlayStation Boss Shawn Layden Says It's 'Criminal' Industry Isn't Properly Preserving Games

Constable_What

@nomither6 Screen tearing, an arbitrary complaint? I don't think that's the word you want to use. You can't arbitrarily add screen tearing and saying that complaint is arbitrary is like saying that when someone says its hot out that that is an arbitrary complaint, and it did have screen tearing. You just didn't notice it, probably because your TV settings are so overly saturated it is akin to looking directlt at the sun, I would not be able to see anything either, but blinding yourself is NOT a solution. You can pop in a game like Fallout NV and see it clear as day. You can believe that TV settings will fix hardware issues all you want, but it's just not how that works. Just like you can't turn up the sharpness on your screen to smooth out a lack of anti-aliasing, you can't fix screen tearing that occurs due to hardware.

And just because the PS2 and PS3 always had bad multiplats doesn't mean it's automatically invalid to criticize that fact. That doesn't help your argument and there's no logic to it either. What? Just because something has always been bad doesn't mean you just have to accept that it's bad...especially if you're paying 600 bucks for console, like PS3 at launch, which is around 750 dollars now.

And yes...if you go through the hardware in the PS5 it does justify its cost. Objectively. The PS5 GPU alone is a great value card. A raytracing capable card in 500 dollar console? That's pretty good. Not to mention the M.2 SSD which is still a high end piece of hardware.

It isn't "cool" to bash PS3. It did have a lot of faults, and people still remember them. Sony was barely able to make up for that with their amazing first party games, but third parties could not work efficiently with the CELL architecture, while also developing their games for other platforms that they were much more used to. If you're going to use obscure proprietary tech, you need to offer support to your partners so they can make use of it. Sony didn't, and guess what? They do now.