Old-Red

I still think Starfield will come to both Sony and Nintendo consoles eventually, probably years down the line, and this palava will be a load of stuff and nonsense for nothing.

MS just can't say that for obvious reasons. They need a flagship game and Starfield is the only thing they have to cling on to at the moment.

Meanwhile everyone else wants a tight single player campaign. Instead, one of the best first person developers on the planet is intent on targeting and exploiting a minority with predatory monetisation and nefarious game design. Talk about selling your soul for coin.

And this is why I will be PC and steam after this gen going forward. Unless the console ecosystem prices come down, only fools will carry on paying the inflated costs.

SquareEnix need to wind their neck in and focus on releasing a solid run of strong games. They're a long way off being a publisher that offers day one games for me, mainly cause I've learnt that there will be multiple releases of every game they make and I know I'm better off waiting to get a definitive, compete copy for much cheaper a year or so down the line.

The market is saturated and hopefully publishers will learn that if they want to stand out they need to treat the fan base with a bit more respect. This unfortunately means that a few great games have to suffer lower sales while they get people back on side. If a company takes the pi$$ for long enough they start to smell of it.

RIPSVR2

TotK will come l keep me in going for a good few months at least. Good thing too, as I can save these games for later on at a discount.

There's no way the PS4 could handle that much Clive!

I was far more engaged with Factions than anything to do with Destiny. I just wasn't spending any money, and I'm guessing that's what this is really all about. Sounds to me like Naughty Dog have been told that they were focusing too much on making the game fun and not thinking enough about how to exploit people with addictive tenancies.

Not actual gameplay

@theMEGAniggle I get that games take time, but when I see decisions like Japan Studios being shuttered cause they don't make crazy money, I just feel bored of what's on offer. A few titles like Puppeteer, Bloodborne or Gravity Rush to break up the monotony would really have gone a long way these past couple of years. I think Jim Ryan's been shortsighted by ignoring the impact of innovative games, even if they're developed at a slight loss.

After playing a game like Tears of the Kingdom for the past 10 days I think Sony should be worried. Their games look so dull and devoid of any inspiration. It's all the same old stuff with shiny bits tacked on. It's just won't cut it for me anymore.

I'm sure they'll be fine with the loyal fan base prepared to buy anything they release, but it's time for me to sit their games out for a good few years. I'm so bored of it all, especially at £70 a pop. I'm sure GTA6 will be worth it and a few other titles, but man has this gen been stale as all hell when it comes to Playstation. Shame, as it started quite well with Returnal.

I'd rather save the money for whatever the Switch follow-up is at this point. I almost gave in a bought one for the hype, but I'm glad I didn't. I don't want to put a big plastic thing on my head to play games. I know it's more comfortable than before, but I'm happy to give it a miss for now and possibly pick up a cheap set on discount down the line.

Bit of a weird situation, but I kind of hope it fails real hard and gets a heavy discount when retailers try to get rid of stock. Not a nice sentiment I realise, but it's probably going to be the only thing that gives me a chance to try vr out in any substantial capacity.

TotK is something special. I don't see myself turning on the PS5 for a long time. BotW was a warning to the rest of the industry, and all the big studios wasted the last five years focusing on service games. Now they're ten years behind Nintendo. It's ironic that the game is made on hardware ten years behind the competition too.

What a waste.

At least Sony are doing something to keep the second hand market alive, that's nice of them.

Been saying this since the beginning of all the subscription models coming in. Most people don't have enough time to play all these games and having too much choice can be stifling when trying to chose a game. I've got a huge library of unplayed PS+ games, why would I want to pay more for hundreds of even more games I'll never have the time to play? I only have PS+ cause you need it for online, if I could, I'd drop it in a heartbeat.

The number of games to play has never been an issue for most people, it's the quality and innovation in gameplay and AI that needs to be addressed.

I've been saying this from the beginning of MS's assault on the industry with the Bethesda buyout. All they've done is take established IPs and games already in development away from people in an attempt to hobble Sony. If only they'd spent a fraction of all this money on building some new studios and fostering fresh young talent in order to bring some new games to the table as their own exclusives, the whole industry would have benefited. I might have even been tempted to buy an Xbox if they made some new, interesting games, but now I'm completely put off by them and won't go near anything they make or release.

This has got 7 out of 10 written all over it. I'm sure it'll be good and I say this as a huge From Software fan, but this series has always sat in the 'not quite' sphere. It's probably a good thing for them to release a good but not great game now in order to bring expectations down to earth a bit.

If they do somehow manage to work out how to make a great mech game and release yet another banger, it'll be some feat. It will also give them some room to step outside of the Soulsborne genre a bit more often, which I think is needed before it becomes tired.

I relate to this in a big way. It's the same with Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I wish they wouldn't show so much of anticipated games like this. It's hard to not give in a watch some of it, let alone avoid thumbnails and articles discussing this and that.

I managed to mostly avoid Elden Ring stuff and FFXVI, but I fell off Final Fantasy around XII, so it's been easier to ignore everything about it so far. I'm hoping to go in blind and get a nice surprise.

@LeeHarveyOzgod your comparison is deeply flawed I'm afraid. A grocery store doesn't charge $50+ dollars to simply get through the door.

I'll make a more fair comparison of monetisation in full price games for you if you like. Imagine going to a book store to buy a book, say... Catcher in the Rye, that should be right up your alley. You sit down in a nice cafe to read your book only to find the book store clerk has followed you and abruptly places a menu between you and the book you have already paid for and are trying to read. This menu has a wealth of options offering you a quick explanation of all the book's plot points, including the ending for an abundance of small separate fees. There's one big difference here though, you would be able to tell the clerk no thank you and that you don't want to be bothered and want to focus on the book you've already paid money to enjoy.

I was simply suggesting it would be nice to have an option to say no thank you in games in general when they pester you with microtransactions. This game might not be as bad as others, and it's not a major burden for me or anything, but the option to hide the store link or any monetisation would be nice.

I don't like it, but if they are going to do this I would like the option to turn them off in my game if I want to. Simply seeing them every time I play a game leaves a bad taste and I wish there was a law forcing a microtransaction visibility toggle.

You know things aren't going so well for a hardware product when there are more articles about how badly it's doing than there are about anything being released for it.

It has also quickly become the sort of thing that when spoken about in presentations is going to be more of an annoyance that takes up time than something to be interested in. The discourse around it is already starting to get tiresome.

There's a lot of 'cheating', as it's called in the industry, going on here. I'm not even sure the games have been re-sealed. It looks like clever editing and tearing off carefully placed plastic sheets to give the impression they're being opened. It's a bit misleading, but that's not the point I suppose. It's more about giving the feeling of opening a new game.

I play games to relax, the last thing I want is a hunk of plastic hanging off my face. It's fun or interesting for a short period, but until they can get it to something akin to wearing a pair of glasses it'll never become mainstream.

Still playing this beauty after more than a year. Other studios and publishers must kind of hate it. I've barely bought anything else new since it came out, especially on ps5.

There are many stores in London that sell games before release date. There's an obvious incentive to do this as they get to charge more than RRP, sometimes £80-100 for a copy.

At this point Miyazaki could fart in a box and seal it and I'd buy it.

Xmas release would be nice, but I'll take it when it's ready. Can't wait!

Interesting, losing mikami games was the thing I was most disappointed about with the Bethesda acquisition.

It seems to me that all these Microsoft moves have only had a negative impact on the industry, and this departure only adds to that sentiment.

Personally, I'm fed up with this murky, re-release / paid for updates of games from gen to gen. I don't want to have to keep reburying games I already own. I have a bunch of vr games built up from plus and other deals that I thought would be worth keeping for PSVR2, then it all become a mess of maybe-maybe nots. Add in the high cost and I couldn't be bothered in the end.

It's such an expensive risk to take too, not knowing if I'll get used to the dizziness or not. If there was a way to trial run the device for a few weeks I'd probably give it a go, but that's understandably not feasible. It has far too many roadblocks imo.

@Marquez errrm, yeah, it's not possible to finish the game three times for the plat in under 60 hours without save scumming / cheesing.

@jrt87 @WallyWest I wouldn't dismiss bayo 3 too soon. I was up and down on it until I started replaying the levels for high scores and ignoring all the story nonsense.

Like most Platinum games, it really shines when you start to master the mechanics and achieve high scores. It's a great podcast game to play while listening to other stuff too.

It's alright. Hard to argue against certain qualities it has, but it came at a time where I'd recently finished the first and can only take one Ubisoft formula mindless open world game every 3-5 years.

I'm glad it turned out well for those that get their kicks from it though. It's been a pretty stella year as a PS5 / Switch owner.

They're becoming so common, I guess there'll be a need for a remake / remaster ROTY list eventually.

@middyone the wall outside my neighbour's house is lower than three feet tall.

Easily the biggest disappointment of the year for me. One the most average, soulless games I've ever played. I keep trying to go back to finish it, but it's such a chore.

I have to agree with others in the comments. The first two were really good games, but I don't need or want anymore. Five more years of tedious development for a series and world that has been rung dry and should be put to rest. The whole infected/zombie enemies thing is dull now. So much talent, why can't they move on? The studio has enough clout to make something new. Maybe Druckmann is still in control but spent creatively. I'm not even sure the original was his concept to begin with.

The only way I can see the series being worth carrying on is if the next game starts with the infected being mostly wiped out, with some big boss exceptions, and the story focusing on human conflict for territory whilst trying to rebuild society. That would actually be pretty interesting thinking about it.

Realistic car damage mods would be ace

All Microsoft have done this generation is take big hitting IPs away from people, and added nothing to the industry. What a waste of money. Just think what all these billions could have created if they worked on building some new talented teams to makes their own exclusives.

A large part of this is Sony's fault too. Paying for timed exclusive deals for multiplatform games was a d*** move, forcing MS to play dirty. All this buying of studios has produced nothing of benefit for any gamers outside a subscription service that will eventually charge whatever it wants and fill games with more in game purchases.

They can animate the game's own death animation while they're at it.

I think an important aspect has been lost here, and that's the fact that this 6/10 review has not been included on metacritic. If ever there was proof that there's some backhand shenanigans going on with reviews scores and metacritic this is it.

Also, IGN US having more sway in the overall meta scores of games is all kinds of games media mafia bullsh@t.

If your character has to keep telling the player what to do, you haven't designed your game well enough. Breath of the Wild is a gold standard example of how a game and its puzzles are well designed.

The whole protagonist chatter thing should at least have the option to be turned off.

I'm glad it turned out well for everyone who's excited, including some of my mates who won't shut up about it haha.

I'm gonna save this for Xmas. I probably would have given in and got this today if Bayonetta 3 hadn't turned out the better game😜

I never would have thought Bayo 3 would've trumped Elden Ring and probably this for my game of the year, but here we are.

Xmas release pretty please. I've planning three weeks holiday. Saving God of War Ragnarok for it and Elden Ring dlc would be the juiciest of cherries on top.

This is actually a massive risk, going in so hard on something so few want. If it does pay off, it'll pay off big, but I can't see it working at that price, especially with the PS5 requirement too.

It'll be interesting to observe either way. Not sure what outcome I'm hoping for really. I'm just not interested in wearing a helmet and having to set up a load of stuff when I want to chill out with a game. Until vr sets are like normal glasses I'm fine with steering clear.

Why have discs at all in that case? It's grossly irresponsible to waste all that plastic, materials and energy for a download in a box.

In my opinion, a better solution would be to release the game digitally first, then have a physical copy with all the patches a few months down the line for collectors.

As someone who likes part two, I hope not. Abby is a pretty dull character.

Hahahahahaha... hahahahahahahaha... No

@gaston whether there's a work around or not doesn't change the fact that I'd be expected to pay a lot more to play a bunch of games I already have in my library.

They will release psvr2 versions of all these games and they will charge full price again. I'm happy to wait for the headsets to drop in price and the games to be given away on plus again.

All I'm saying is I was very tempted to try it out and now I'm not so fussed. I'm not blaming anyone, just giving my outlook and opinion as a consumer who's on the fence about VR.

The big kicker of psvr2 for me is that the psvr games won't carry over. I've picked up a few over the years with ps+ and when they gave some away a while back, thinking it might be fun to pick up the new headset with a bunch of games ready to play on launch.

Now all those games are useless and you'd need to buy them all again along with the expensive headset has killed any thoughts I had of trying vr out. Seems like the worst decision on their part if they're trying to gain traction in the vr sphere.