MrPeanutbutterz

@MrHabushi Star Child from Concord to be renamed Opal Fruits.

@Vovander Because they're an additional revenue stream for the platform holder, and an alternative way of accessing games for players. Again, you're paying pocket change to rent from a library of hundreds of games. Sony have no doubt looked at how GamePass has devalued the Xbox brand and decided they don't want a repeat.

Why have discounts? Because that's how retail works. Not everyone wants to buy at full price. The publisher is better off eventually selling at a reduced cost to people who otherwise won't spend money on that particular product.

Your DVD analogy doesn't work. Yes, you want the cheap and cheerful rental for a few bucks, but you've also ignored the fact that the DVD phase of any film's shelf life involves paying full price for a DVD. And you're traditionally paying similar if not more than it cost for a cinema ticket.

Sony experimented by putting Horizon Forbidden West on the service, and it stopped sales of the game dead in their tracks. Being the for-profit business that they are, obviously don't want a repeat of that with one of their most popular games.

TL;DR - if you want access to GoW Ragnarok, then pay the admission price like the rest of us who wanted to play it. Otherwise, tough luck.

In other words, thanks to the beta testers who paid full price for the privilege, especially those who paid a premium for "early" access.

Stop calling this sort of thing "early access" and start calling it what it really is, namely "delayed access for regular buyers".

@nessisonett The Almighty Knack-Father Mark Cerny as the Knackmas tree topper or no buy...

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare The pandemic freebie doesn't count towards the total sales. Console pack ins aren't around for too long either.

PC has shifted 3 million copies of the game long after it was originally out on PS4. Forbidden West had sold 8.5 million copies (its addition to PS Plus stopped it dead in its tracks). There's clearly a thirst for it.

@SuntannedDuck2 How are people "too stupid to know what back compat is" not "gamers"?. If they have a console and buy games for it, they're gamers.

@ppitchfork I'm one person, but I love it. Have about 500 hours accumulated across both games + expansnons.

Again, I'm only one person, but the original sold more than 20 million units on console, and about 3 million on PC, so there's clearly a sizable audience for these games.

I swing two ways about the licenced music - sucks that it's been axed? For sure. But would suck way more if this re-release never happened because of it.

Like if they announced tomorrow they're re-releasing all the Wipeout games on PS5 but minus the soundtracks, I'd still throw money at the screen for them.

@Vovander Because one has customers paying full price for the game, and the other is access to about 500 games for the cost of a coffee per week.

You want quality Sony (or Nintendo) games, you pay for them. What Microsoft and GamePass have done to the industry really is gross.

@RoomWithaMoose Yeah it's definitely the weaker of the two Norse games (and I'm with you in the original games being better camp too).

The pacing is incredibly poor, the puzzles are repetitive and unfun, companions treating players like they've never played a videogame before, the incessant dialogue, Ironwood. The fact that the stages look open but you're still forced to find the developer's linear path through them.

I finished the game, but it's like a 6/10 for me. Heck, I enjoyed Ascension more than it.

@HotGoomba Yeah the uptake for this just isn't worth the price of admission.

And of the 260 games I currently have installed, I don't see any of them being improved quite like this.

If it's the same ten quid upgrade as Legacy of Thieves and TLoU Part 2 I'll happily take it.

@Troubbble I'm referring to the fact that you (and I quote) said "Your insistence that it be treated as offensive "garbage" just because that's the way you personally feel is not only censorship, it's indistinguishable from the type of censorship we've seen in the past from the religious right-wing." because they've removed the objectification of women.

@Troubbble Me - thinks objectifying women (for no reason other than cheap titillation) is gross and doesn't belong in a videogame (and the people who developed this port clearly agree because they've removed it).

You - "that's the same sort of censorship you get from the religious right wingers!!!!1!".

Something tells me you have no concept of what censorship actually is.

@Medic_alert Challenge levels were also my favourite part! Platforming levels forcing you to engage with the platforming mechanics in a platforming game. Who knew?!

I've just played the first hour of The Plucky Squire and it's mind-numbingly easy. But like Astro it seems to be creative, so I'll stick with it for now.

@KeenAerondight "The point is that it changes the original work to placate someone and cater to their views. That shouldn't happen."

It was changed to uh, checks notes remove the gross objectification of women and that shouldn't happen?

Interesting opinion.

I'll take this for a few quid if it's 60FPS.

@Medic_alert I got kinda bored of Astro Bot in places because of the lack of challenge.

For someone who grew up in the arcades and on the NES/SNES/Megadrive, being able to play games on close to autopilot just isn't engaging or enjoyable and I feel that the hobby is being dumbed down to oblivion (thank fudge for things like Street Fighter 6 ranked play and Soulslikes).

@Yousef- Ah, I was quoting the other guy who said it was "silly".

That outfit is indeed majestic lol.

@Troubbble So what notable line of dialogue was changed?

There's also a big difference between "anti-censorship" and "objectifying women for the jollies and cheap titillation of dorks is a bit ***** cringe and has no place in 2024 and I'd rather not have that in my videogames".

I am staunchly anti-censorship. And you know what, this sort of stuff isn't censorship. It's removing garbage that shouldn't have been there to begin with, that's all. Calling this sort of inane, inconsequential nonsense "censorship" makes a mockery of actual censorship and people who have to live under the yoke of it.

@DeepEyes So they removed the sexist trash. Good.

@Troubbble It's a minor part of the game and its mechanics, and it was removed because it caters to horny dorks who don't have healthy relationships with women and only see them as sex objects.

Goodbye and good riddance to this sort of trash.

@Troubbble What's different and "silly" about this version?

Genuine question as I never played the original (outside of playing it at a friend's circa 2006 and being unable to read the text on his CRT).

@StonyKL Having played the original Crash Bandicoot again a while ago, they're really not old school difficult at all.

The audio needs work. Can barely hear when he normal punches enemies, yet some of his death yelps are piercing.

@Frmknst If you play it completely blind it's a hell of a lot longer than 8 hours.

And some of us play games to you know, have fun and are happy to replay existing content.

@UltimateOtaku91 How did you look at more than three articles and not realise it's satirical?

@RubyCarbuncle They're not talking about Switch 2 because it hasn't been announced yet, and it certainly hasn't been announced at a controversial price.

@nedbvai You reckon owning a business makes you a grown man? Lol.

C'mon, what did you mean by "alarm bells"? Is the grown man too chicken to say what he really means?

@nedbvai You reckon it was aimed at the under 7s who played checks notes the PS1 demo disc with the T-rex in the mid 1990s?

@SlipperyFish I quite liked the gadgets in Rivals, ditto the handling to the point where I was playing Hot Pursuit Remastered and it didn't hit the same.

HWU2 was about a tenner on PSN recently. Sorry I didn't pick it up as I do enjoy noodling about in HWU1 regularly and 2 would suit the same sort of casual half hour sessions.

I wasn't aware of that about the devs! Had high hopes for Solar Crown as I quite like the WRC games (once they came to PS5 and moved to 60FPS at least), but alas.

@LikelySatan Oops, yeah that one. Looks nuts for sure.

@nedbvai My wife bought the game for herself, and we're playing a separate save file each. Oh, and your childish response just further cements that yes, you are in fact still a child.

Tell me, what are these "alarm bells", exactly? What are you implying?

@nomither6 They're cheap plastic tat designed to appeal to insatiable consumerism, and bring almost nothing of their own to the table.

I say "almost" because the one thing they do bring is the destruction of memorable character designs - look at the silhouette of any number of famous characters, they're still easily to recognise. Now look at the silhouette of the equivalent Funko - generic stick body with a generic block head.

Oh, and the bug eyes on them are hideous as well.

Precisely as expected.

I've a friend who's a clown for this garbage and sure enough, he's playing this game as if it was some sort of lifesblood.

@nedbvai Yeah you're still emotionally a child though.

So I'll go enjoy the kid's game, and you enjoy being a kid.

@nedbvai Your original comment says you are yeah.

Next question.

The "Clank bits" are by some distance my least favourite bits of R&C games, so a whole game of him is about as appealing as a dental extraction.

@SlipperyFish Yeah honestly I approached the Criterion NFS games as extensions/offshoots of Burnout instead of NFS games. And I rather enjoyed NFS Rivals as well - in fact I still have it installed on my PS5 external hard drive despite originally playing it at PS4 launch. 2015... I played the ass out of that as I had recently moved, started a new job and wanted a proper "switch brain off for an hour at night" sort of game and really enjoyed it. Got bored of Heat and Payback in no time, but did finish Unbound.

Didn't realise Automodelista was rare! I think one of the boys has it in his attic...

HWU2 isn't a bad game per se, but it feels like change for the sake of change, to add a list of "new features" to the back of the box. Being able to jump adds nothing to the game, neither does being able to tweak stats. The open-ish map checkpoint races are no fun. HWU1 was a much purer experience while 2 has these superfluous bits that add nothing. Definitely still worth a buy these days with the dearth of racers and the fact it's frequently super cheap.

Gah yeah I had my eye on Solar Crown but have been burned far too many times with pre-orders, so I said I'd wait and here we are. Hope it gets fixed for sure.

@Shinnok789 Your post is about the difficulty the kiddos had with the game and mention age ratings three times... so what was your point that I missed, exactly?

@LiamOliver I've the same complaint about this too. And Horizon. And God of War.

Returnal >>> Balatro >>>>>>>>>>>> Hades. Everything else here bored me to tears (maybe I just really like Housemarque and played the ass out of Returnal because of that, not because it was a Rogue-like).

Utterly joyless, horrid games. Can't imagine a big screen adaptation would be any better.

@Shinnok789 You're aware that the age rating is entirely to do with how appropriate the themes and content are for children, and absolutely nothing to do with the difficulty, right?

@LikelySatan Ha, yeah it really is. The sequel wasn't quite as good, but still enjoyable.

Have indeed seen DeathRace. Bit of me thought "would it kill you guys to use anti-grav crafts" lol.

@SlipperyFish Lol, I'll happily attend a TED Talk about racing games.

Funnily enough, the first NFS game I played was a demo of the original on PS1, and then... nothing until Hot Pursuit in 2010. I only hopped in on that because Criterion were developers, and it's also the main reason I got MW 2012 at launch. But I can see why it's not liked by many.

I've had most of those games you listed - bar Automodelista. I remember looking at it in a store but was neck-deep in university exams at the time so never got around to it. PGR4 was one of the reasons I bought a 360 to go with my PS3 (used to play PGR3 heaps at a friend's, and their grand daddy MSR). The epochal FM4 came with my 360, so was happy with that.

Am a big fan of most of the Burnout games too. Burnout Revenge was the first game I bought digitally on my Series X.

Actually the last racer I went all in was Hot Wheels Unleashed. Enjoyed it so much I 100%'d it on PS4, PS5, and Series X 😂 HWU2 felt like a step in the wrong direction.

Redout 2 has really messy track design, and I enjoyed Pacer until the AI craft started using flashbangs that actually blind the player - you can tell the devs only ever tested this on a little monitor at a workstation, and not sitting in a dark room in front of a 65" OLED.

Racing games are indeed in poor health at the minute. Solar Crown looks like a swing and a miss. Probably gonna pick up Super Woden GP2 next. But might fire up DriveClub for the first time in a while now. Cheers!

@nedbvai Garbage take. That's like saying a Pixar movie is only for kids. And the irony of you saying that yourself and your friends are 23 and wouldn't play this - 23 years olds are very much still children.