Comments 468

Re: Review: PS Access Controller - An Innovative But Expensive Game Changer

NotSoCryptic

@TechaNinja Not really. Considering more take has gone into these controllers than the Dual Sense. These aren't even being sold at a profit. Not even getting into the cost to try to produce these kinds of solutions every console generation. Kind of a d**k move to be calling out the price, when no money is being made off of it and the massive benefit they provide.

Re: Kratos Voice Actor Underfire for Roasting New Call of Duty Campaign

NotSoCryptic

"A franchise in serious need of a complete reboot, Modern Warfare 3 has to be the straw that breaks the camel's back,”

Lol a reboot. Like they haven't done that already 5 times. That isn't even getting into how that doesn't address the actual problem Mr Post Launch Game Dev.

MW3 hasn't broken any backs either. It certainly has given the franchise a black eye, but it isn't emblematic of what is actually going on.

Games media seems to have a short attention span for a yearly franchise. It's no longer yearly. This release was intended as dlc. Its all there. Plain as day. Problem is share holders pushing ceo's to continue the yearly premium model. I think next year you'll be eating those words. Black Ops usually follows MW, they've had an extra year to work on their game thanks to this disaster.

Re: Final Fantasy 16's First Expansion Should Be Revealed This Month

NotSoCryptic

Pass, I'd take a prequel with new characters going back to the first extinction event to help expand on the history Ultima loosely described that might have lead to the demise of Leviathan. I'm not interested in lazy bolted on content that took a year to put out that takes 5 hours to complete and is a lesser experience than the core game.

This just seems like a waste of resources.

Re: Microsoft Still Wants to Put Xbox Game Pass on PS5, PS4

NotSoCryptic

Must have hired some moron from Kotaku to run Microsoft or something. What Incentive does Sony and Nintendo have in providing GamePass on their consoles? ZERO. Gives another company a foothold onto your platform, reducest he amount of money coming in from that division. Even if Microsoft provided a deal for Sony to take the lions share of the gamepass subscription fee that MS typically keeps for it's self, that's still money sony would be leaving on the table with PS+ Extra/Premium. It would hurt Sony, it would hurt Nintendo. Basically creates a loop hole to circumvent the current model of game purchases, which isn't a bonus either, taking us back to the days of blockbuster. Something First Party was never fond of in the first place.

Putting aside the implications of how bad of a deal that is for Nintendo and Sony, how does that benefit the gamer? Forcing everyone to consolidate into one just amorphous ball, were innovation is completely lost. Will I be earning Xbox Achievements or PlayStation trophies? will microsoft even concede on this or unlock both? What if Microsoft pulls out completely? This seems like a sour deal for gamers. If microsoft is interested in becoming a third party developer, it should just become one. I'm not interested in game pass just to play gears, halo, or the many IP they yanked out from under gamers feet to hold them hostage. Couldn't even keep their own games division competitive, now they want to Internet Explorer the rest of the games industry.

As far as camp sony goes, this could put the nail in the xbox console brand, what the hell is the point of owning a Series X at that point when you can just play a PS5. I'm not interested in the xbox eco system.

Re: Talking Point: Is Bungie Really the Right Developer to Aid Sony's Live-Service Push?

NotSoCryptic

"Massive Entertainment, the vast developer behind The Division wouldn't have been let go by Ubisoft as it's now got Avatar, Star Wars Outlaws, and The Division 3 in production."

It's far more complex than that. MASSIVE is the drive core tech developer of Ubisoft's Snowdrop Engine. Many of their games use it now, they would be losing their core tech arm after converting games like Farcry over to using it. I would not be surprised if they ditched Anvil editor and the underlying engines they keep hooking up to it in the future and finally shelve that tech in favor of snowdrop, once they actually optimize its code and stop processing raw text.

Only reason they got Avatar was because they were the tech providers for snowdrop, not because the developer was of any quality. The Division 2 was a flop and The Division 1 was a mess. I'm honestly confused how there is a Division 3, I'm pretty sure that game is going to not win them any brownie points. Don't even get me started on how boring their new star wars game looks.

As far as Bungie goes, I've been confused by the acquistion from the very start. People have been complaining about that train wreck for years. Forsaken was probably as close as hte game ever got to the original vision of Destiny, which Destiny has never managed to achieve. A lot of good faith put into the game, but as it stands bungie is a shadow of its former self and has no idea what its doing or how its going to survive. Honestly I think they should step away from live services and find some way of repackaging destiny to move it away from its current live service model. For them to give advice to Sony developers is a bit of a joke. Then again some how sony took a good thing like Uncharted 2's Multiplayer and ruined it on Uncharted 4. Haven't been back in some time.

Re: Ubisoft Says In-Game Ads in Old Assassin's Creed Titles Were Down to a 'Technical Error'

NotSoCryptic

Just one more reason to stop buying Ubisoft games. The fact that this code even exists in a game as old as AC Odyssey should tell you something about the company. You are not someone they are selling their vision too. You are someone they want to exploit dollars out of to the point of wringing a stone for blood. This is not a good company. They want to monatize you. If they are sneaking this into their games what else are they doing with your information. What else are they planning.

No one knows that Ubisoft, before the current generation of consoles was announced and revealed to them, that the company was looking to turn load screens into an opportunity to load streamed videos and commericals while you waited to load. The load screen was the advertisement. It wouldn't just be ubisoft products. They wanted to add advertisements from other companies both gaming and non gaming alike. Only reason they didn't carry that plan out was the push to move us away from load screens. If SSD's ever get to a point where they can't load a world fast enough, that code is still their waiting to be turned on. I'll bet you anything they are still considering it for prematch loading in multiplayer games.

Re: The Last of Us 2 PS5 Version Appears Inevitable Now

NotSoCryptic

Hard pass, first game was a train wreck covered by the beauty of nature trying to reclaim it. Big fan of most of what naughty produced until tlou2. So I see no reason to be fooled a second time. To add insult to injury uncharted 1-3 remakes would be more desirable than a remaster of a ps4 game that runs just fine on my ps5. Seriously an uncharted drakes fortune remake would be fantastic. At the end of the day, what I really want is a new ip, not from Neil or current leadership. They've clearly gone off the rails and forgotten what's important in gaming. They do not understand what made past games fun or important to playstation and have invested in the message and platforms over fun, immersion, and good story telling. So slow death for ND.

Re: PS5 Is Now Above PS4 in USA, While Its New-Gen Rival Flounders

NotSoCryptic

@luke88 not so much stuck, but never given a compelling reason to leave playstation. Last time it was given such a reason was when ff7 became exclusive to the ps1 and had no hope of being on an N64.

As far as ps5 goes. Plenty of reasons to own one, especially as a ps4 adopter. Your games run better on ps5. That ssd can at times fix ps4 load times or make them bearable. Some have improved frame rate etc. Ps5 versions of ps4 games tend to be better as well, not just because the ps5 has better hardware to better hit targets like 60fps or 4k, but the system level features tend to be better as well. Trophy tips, trophy progression, download speeds (cpu's got more overhead to work with so speeds down suffer while in game). Then there are the actual exclusives, especially the ones that take advantage of the dual sense. Don't get me wrong ps4, is a nice system, I can see the appeal of sticking to it. Especially for my ff7 tifa water tower theme. I miss booting up my pro and hearing her theme as she sits there looking up at the sky just before booting up ff7 remake. I honestly just don't see myself going back to it. The ps4 pro or base. They mostly get used as remote play machines. Even as I got through mega man x collection, I still find myself going to the ps5 to play it, even though there is little benefit in doing so beyond the fact it's what I prefer to use because of everything out side the game.

It's hard to explain to a ps4 gamer other than, you won't understand till you've fully adopted a ps5.

Re: 14 PS Plus Extra, Premium Games Coming Next Week

NotSoCryptic

Jet Moto and Grandia?! Please tell me they have trophies?! this is fantastic news. though I'd prefer the Grandia HD remaster, this would be enough incentive to finally get me to play that game. Jet Moto would be fun to unlock stuff on.

Same for the PS2 game Pa Ra Pa, glad to see more PS2 games coming. I really hope they ramp this up.

Re: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Is Pulling Inspiration from PS5, PS4 Greats

NotSoCryptic

@colonelkilgore Yes. You are the minority. Open World is janky lazy procedurally generated game design. A fluff piece that offers nothing, most of the time. It just doesn't have the framework to support a game like Final Fantasy. I have a friend who swears FF16 should have been open world, but still can't get him to finish FF15 even though he played and finished FF16 and Stranger of Paradise. Big open world guy too. Open World just doesn't lend its self well to story driven games. It's good for things designed with exploration in mind, not narrative driven story telling. Not without redefining what open world is in game design.

Re: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Is Pulling Inspiration from PS5, PS4 Greats

NotSoCryptic

"While the release has its fair share of critics, we actually really enjoyed the road trip vibes of that particular title a lot."

probably because you have no idea how much of a drag that brought down on the rest of the experience and failed in just about every other category that mattered. Vibes be damned, if the rest of the game isn't good, then what's the point.

This better be definitively as FF7 as Remake was. I love Horizon, but if I wanted to play Horizon, I'd play Horizon. Every time they start injecting open world into things it turns to trash. Killzone Shadow Fall wasn't a better game, because it had open spaces. I'd go as far as to say that it hurt the experience compared to KZ2 and KZ3. I don't see anyone talking about these things in MW3 as being the thing that saved its SP or new Zombies mode. It certainly didn't help FF15. FF16 just blows it out of hte water, which is a shame because the core story and lore of FF15 is so huge that it's versus roots in place could have been a much better game. They screwed up with FF15 hard.

Now I don't feel like Rebirth will have hte narrative problem Forbiden West Suffers from to its own detriment right down to its DLC. They need to focus on FF7 more than anything. I don't play FF7 because I'm clamoring for modern game design fallacy. I come to see the magic of a Masterpiece reborn as a modern classic that doesn't forget it's self. If Rebirth just becomes a collection of regrets over Remake, it will be a bad game. Because there was nothing wrong with Remake. To add insult to injury doing so will just introduce the Mass Effect Andromeda problem into the mix, a game no one asked for, with an attempt to return to the original game doc, when the world wanted more trilogy, not a dead design doc.

Re: Cyberpunk 2077 Quest Director Thanks Fans for Keeping the Faith After 'Heartbreaking' Launch

NotSoCryptic

@Mad001 how? Because it released in a broken state and took 2 years to fix all of its issues? That by time anyone got to play a better version of the game it was able to release its DLC that you have to go through its garbage campaign to get too?

What about Cyberpunk makes it deserving of game of the year when 2023 is loaded with fantastic games that are far more deserving and didn't need 2 years of patch work to make up for the betrayal of trust. I'm sorry dude, but they deserve nothing for what they did. That was utterly shameful what CDPR did to its fan base, especially waiting an entire console generation for this game to come out. I mean this is how long this gmae was in development there was a Xbox One X Limited edition of this game to help promote the One X as the best place to play, just in time for the game to launch on both Series X and PS5. they still couldn't even make their targets.

So no, They don't deserve game of the year in any capacity.

Re: Sony Has Stopped Updating PS Plus' Subscriber Numbers

NotSoCryptic

@ILikeStake "They don't provide support for issues with physical games either"

What do you mean by "support for issues"? What issues do you need them for with a physical game or did that point just go over your head. Take the game back to the store. Get a refund. Sell the game. Is it a technical issue for a game they make? Or are you call them over a Namco Bandai game to figure out why your Tekken 7 match keeps stuttering.

My recommendation if you didn't come to the internet to debate, don't comment or at the least don't respond ever. You're not ready for the internet if you're just here to spout what ever random thought enters your head and not expecting a response that challenges you to explain your position.

To be quiet honest any passive aggression you get on here is justified, given your inability to engage in proper discourse.

Re: Sony Has Stopped Updating PS Plus' Subscriber Numbers

NotSoCryptic

@ILikeStake A book lol. child, I read more that says less in a corporate email each day.

As far as the No Refund. Ive gotten a few, they don't have the best refund policy in the world. I think steam still holds that honor, but then again its your fault for buying digital if thats a problem for you. Literally the main reason I don't buy new releases digitally, as someone who commonly preorders games. Hurting their own market there. I've gotten support with my issues. Sorry you've had bad luck.

As far as assumptions go, if I made them, its because you wrote so very little in the first place, what else was I left with other than a vague assertion based on the topic. I'd say if there was a shift in discussion you didn't intend, then its largely your fault for not communicating yourself properly.

Not everything I wrote there was about my response directly. There were some actual points, actually related to PS+ that you might have found interesting. I'm guessing you TL;DR'd your way through it like you do life. I can't wait till STOP signs are TLDR. It'll be a crazy world we live in at that point.

Re: People Are Beginning to Play Around with PS5's Remote Play Handheld

NotSoCryptic

@Member_the_game nothing wrong with that. Though keep in mind the Mobile experience is generally pretty stable. I usually ahve to reset my wifi or restart the app on my S22 Ultra to get it to play nice again. I do it every time I get some chop. A lot of the time its not remote plays fault, its the communication layer it sits on top of that is the problem. That just boils down to networking industry standards that can't be helped.

Re: Sony Has Stopped Updating PS Plus' Subscriber Numbers

NotSoCryptic

@ILikeStake Exactly how is a price increase an Anti Consumer policy. I see a lot of people throwing it around without really understanding what that means or what it implies. Yes I get it, its more expensive now, but the price hike isn't absurd and given the state of the economy we should be happy it wasn't higher. Second waht you are paying for are services that need to be maintained. If they can't pay their staff to make said services work and stay running and expand them, then isn't that anti-consumer as well. Sony has been expanding and changing PS+ a lot this year, I'd have to say its been in an attempt to give the customer what they want.

That's putting aside my own issues with PS+ and moves that I would take with PSN as a whole. As I don't think the current model is particularly good. The Base tier of PS+ is probably anti-consumer for just existing as it is.

Get rid of the free games, they don't serve their original purpose anymore and only a small subset really takes advantage of them. Online Play should be free. Cloud Saves should be part of the base tier along with any thing else that enhances online play.

Straight Free PSN should basically include: Trophies, Online play, Friends lists, and Party Chat

Tier 1 or Base PS+ should include: Cloud Saves, Trophy help, Discord (maybe?), share function uploads to the app. This should be as cheap as it has always been. Get rid of the free games and you're in good shape. Even if you use the existing model getting rid of hte free games would help keep that cost down.

Tier 2 and 3, extra/Premium respectively could probably stay the same.

Even then I wouldn't call that anti-consumer, its just trying to figure out hte market and finding that balance betwee profitability and benefitting your consumer base.

Nothing about the price hike is anti-consumer. I'd honestly poke at your politicians for making stupid decisions that resulted in inflation so bad that people are crying for a recession.

Re: Sony Delays Six Live Service PS5 Games, But Company Remains Committed to Model

NotSoCryptic

@Rob3008 I agree and disagree. What sony needs is a diverse portfolio of games and genres. That means they need some kind of multi-player or live service game. That being said pairing back production on the main reason gamers buy your console over Xbox or Nintendo is a stupid decision. 12 games, 6 of which will release in 2025. They can barely get one game out a year let alone 6. All we got from sony this year was a vr version of horizon and spiderman. Let me tell you I'd be happy with a remaster trilogy of resistance to help fill the gaps in the release schedule. Lucky for them, this year I've been busy with a huge collection of 3rd party titles mostly from square enix and EA. Not a single game I've played this year has been from either of those models. I'm honestly baffled why we haven't heard about sonys next big game for 2024 yet. This makes me think there isn't one. If all they are releasing is live service games they will start to see interest waiver on ps5.

Re: Next Mass Effect Gets New Teaser, Featuring a Masked N7 Character

NotSoCryptic

@RawnDawn gonna have to disagree about Andromeda. Sure they fixed a few things and refined what they had done in me3, but the gunplay was still a mess in Andromeda. Who adds a jet pack mechanic to a cover shooter. I think some of frostbite origins helped, but there were a ton of design decisions that just didn't make sense and even the abilities were kind of nonsensical. Just isn't enough there to give it praise for game play.

Re: Rumour: Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition Drops Next Month at $60 Retail

NotSoCryptic

Probably not. There are what? 2 more expansions planned? We also don't have confirmation that all content is on the disc either. That's the deal breaker if it isn't. I'm also seriously considering just waiting for the disc version on PlayStation 6, remastered with all the cool ray tracing tech they've messed with in the last year.

As far as I'm concerned the game is incomplete. Calling this an ultimate edition based on Witcher 3's history is kind of a joke. Let's wait for the Complete Cyber Edition or what ever stupid thing they call it.

Re: It's Clear to See Why Sony Isn't Calling the New PS5 Model 'Slim'

NotSoCryptic

Is it though? Like seriously when has sony ever called a playstation model "The slim" model. They don't. It's simply the newest model that takes over for the last. WE call it the slim because its smaller, but I can't honestly remember a day that was put on marketing material or on the box. Closest we've come to them calling something slim was the PSOne. What we call the PS2 slim is the community calling it hte PS2 slim. For sony it was simply the model that doesn't have a hard drive bay and had its power supply removed with a smaller manufacturing process for the chipset, that ran cooler. That model got several revisions, if memory serves had one where the power supply was still inside the damned thing. PS3 same deal. We all called it the slim, but for sony it was simply a means of getting to 299, super slim..... couldn't tell you the reason why that was even made, but there ya have it. What about the PS4? Simply a means of getting the price down and making the look of the PS4 Pro and PS4 to have a common appearance. It was simply a revision, barely much smaller than the base PS4 that launched prior. Some how it got the name slim.

This thing is the PS5 Slim, because the community deemed it so. As far as sony is concerned. It's just a means to revise their distribution approach and cut costs. Likely to get it aesthetically in line with the PS5 Pro/Edge next year.

Re: Sony Will Help Fund and Distribute a Live-Action The Legend of Zelda Film

NotSoCryptic

@Ralizah because those of us in the aging Link to the Past crowd aren't interested in bonkers wind waker style garbage (as a fan of ww myself, I feel the same lol).

It makes the most sense to do Zelda in live action, same with metroid. Mario, Pokemon, Kid Icarus, animated features please.

though I'm of the like mind that this won't be good. As much as I enjoyed into the spiderverse, I'm no fan of the Uncharted movie. I'd assume eat bowl of wet socks worn by the Eagles before watching that garbage again.

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

NotSoCryptic

That'll depend on the third game. Right now spider man 2 is a slog to get through. Side quests are boring and the story elements just aren't carrying the game. The main quest is just limping along with occasional highs. The jumping between main characters is annoying and I'd be happy if either spiderman becomes the focus of the next game or give me a resident evil 2 solution where I play through as one or the other. The switch mains is lame and I'm kind of over it.

The first two games were really good, but this one is just falling short constantly. Seems to take the worst aspects of the first 2 and puts them front and center. Hopefully this game picks up once all the side mission types unlock. I can't deal with this too much longer.

Re: My Hero Academia's Battle Royale Has Been Downloaded Over 7 Million Times

NotSoCryptic

@mrbone lol OK that was a nonsense response.

This wasn't a low key release, it has been advertised for a few months now, turn your ad blocker off.

The ip carried this game.

You also disregard everything I said about steam and gravitated to what you wanted to see. Doesnt really matter if you are a pc gamer or steam user for that matter. We are using the data there to gauge engagement and success. There is a ton of information there including the average engagement time. That's time spent by users since playing it. It's not doing to well in keeping interest.

So no 7m is not a lot given the space it released in. It's not a lot with respect to a lot of things. Including when compared to games that achieve success with no advertising.

As far this particular games success is concerned, none, zero interest, not relevant to me in the slightest. My problem is toting 7m as an achievement like an off the shelf release with a 60-70 dollar price tag. As you stated, this is not a good metric. It's like including your demo download numbers with your sales. Which is basically what happens in the first 10 hours of a f2p game. Gamers grab it, play it, try to give it a chance, then fall off it in the first 10 hours. If it has no retention, then it's not doing very well. So I ask you if 7m people are playing the game and averaging 4 hours on it. What do you think the odds are that an f2p game that requires hundreds of hours of attention is going to do in the long term? Is it really a success if the top 10% of players is carrying that average? Of that 700,000 how Many of them are investing in mtx? If we follow the f2p forecasting data, we are looking at maybe 11% here best case scenario if there are compelling items priced reasonably. For every download, just the download they need to make 5 dollars per player. That isn't even including dev and just getting the game out there. That's basic first year operations. If your whales don't carry, then by the end of the second year the game is toast or just dying a slow death till they figure out how to save it. A lot of this will depend on your engagement numbers.

Re: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's First PS5, PS4 Campaign Review Is a Massacre

NotSoCryptic

"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 won’t be judged solely on its campaign, as multiplayer is the main reason fans play."

First part is true, yes it won't be judged solely on its campaign.

Second part is not true however. Even internal activision data does not reflect this.

CoD is evaluated by its fans as a complete package. Its true a good MP in CoD can save the game, but the same can be true of the campaign. There is a sizable portion of the player base that spends little to no time in the multiplayer. Don't get me wrong there is a dedicated online player base, the fans of the MP will certainly way MW3's accomplisments of that mode as to whether or not this game was a success. Equally so CoD has alerady lost those people who were interested in playing the campaign. Who were lead to believe this DLC, masquerading as a premium product worthy of a vault edition was somehow supposed to live up to MW2, CW, or MW1. Not to mention live up to those games' namesake.

Hopefully for Sledgehammers sake, this doesn't impact them too hard.