RBMango

@Loamy Again, it isn't "bad", but the remake's version of it lacks the emotional gut punch that the monologue in the OG delivers. It's obvious Monica Taylor Horgan was holding back real tears delivering that monologue in the recording booth and those cracks in her voice make the moment all the more raw. I miss that genuine human touch in the remake's version of it.

Everyone else in the remake is outstanding though, especially whoever they got to play Angela.

@TruestoryYep The actress playing Mary/Maria isn't "bad"; just inconsistent IMO. I think she just got poor directing at times, especially in the very flat delivery of the final monologue. That's one of my favorite bits of acting in a video game in the original and they butchered it in this remake.

Regarding difficulty, I found it harder than the original because of the increased number of enemies that could appear at a time. Especially during the Brookhaven and Toluca Prison, I had to be very careful with ammo conservation or I'd be screwed.

A solid 7 from me. I liked it a lot, but it's not perfect. The stupid mannequin jump scares, pacing issues, and an inconsistent performance from Mary/Maria's actress are my biggest gripes.

Even with those in mind, this is probably the best survival horror game ever made from sound design and art direction perspectives. It's been a very long time since I've played a horror game this emotionally and mentally draining. The highest compliment I can give is that I never want to play this again.

Arrowhead really pulled it off. Even before this patch, the last update made the game so much more enjoyable on the highest difficulties again.

@Amppari It is amusing. It's typical Xbox corpo non-speak.

I'd be curious to hear from others with first-hand experience, but Xbox was non-existent in the lexicon of the many people on my Middle Eastern side of the family. If you bought anything game-related, it was a PlayStation or a handheld Nintendo device. Granted, this is just my limited experience, but I also currently know quite a few Middle Easterns that associate gaming purely with PlayStation.

Jez Corden is continuing to play defense for his beloved Microsoft, I see.

I'd love to play this, but I simply don't have the time to get sucked into another 100+ hour Atlus JRPG right now.

Astro Bot placing in the top 4 in both regions is great news.

This is one of the biggest surprises in my gaming history. Bloober Team remaking SIlent Hill 2 always sounded like a recipe for disaster, but they actually pulled it off. I'm shocked.

Astro Bot is the easy GOTY for me, but I love Rebirth too. I wouldn't mind seeing either win GOTY here.

Ubisoft could shut down tomorrow and I wouldn't care less.

Papa Tree, Casino (No Guarantino), Quel Fromage, Discotree, Tan Tradicional, Marine Serene, and Trapped in Time SLAP so damn hard.

I'm a sucker for green, so that chroma teal controller looks slick as hell to me.

@Golem25 I couldn't believe my eyes and ears when Lawless at one point said "I Columbus'd some of Catwoman's merchandise".

It made me want to puke.

Automatic F grade if Kiryu doesn't sing Baka Mitai at some point.

The idea of a co-op Horizon game has always intrigued me. However, I don't trust the chuckleheads now running PlayStation to fully realize this concept's potential. Their multiplayer instincts have been mostly garbage. If anyone will find a way to screw this up, it's modern PlayStation.

@RubyCarbuncle Oh definitely. I'm also in this queue to try to get one for a friend. I couldn't care less if I got the Pro bundle for myself.

I know I won't get one, but I'm in the queue anyway just for the thrill of it. Hoping to snag one of those sexy controllers though.

It's amazing what the announcement of a cheap upgrade does for public perception. It definitely shut me up about this remaster.

Ghost of Yotei was easily the highlight for me. I was also excited to see the Astro Bot DLC, obviously. Hell is Us, The Midnight Walk, and the Legacy of Kain remasters are also things I have my eye on.

@Loamy The first game had quite a few compelling female characters. Outside of Jin, Lady Adachi was the most interesting character in the game IMO. I'm all in if Atsu is even one-half as well-written as she was.

These losers need to get laid and chill out. Jesus Christ...

Watching something like Blue Eye Samurai, Kill Bill, or Lady Snowblind probably triggers mental breakdowns for them.

YEEEEEEAH BABYYYYYYYYYYYYY

@ChrisDeku Working on a AAA budget live service in Washington state for five or more years would be comically expensive.

@Cutmastavictory Concrete Genie and Dreams were before PS5 and Sony sent those out to die.

@get2sammyb @Americansamurai1 Agreed. Shu, Andrew House, and Shawn Laydon did not have perfect records, but they were way more competent at assessing quality than the clowns now running the show at PlayStation.

If true, this is truly shocking and disheartening to read. I imagine all of the smaller and more genre-varied games we could have gotten this gen being thrown in the trash in favor of this and it puts my long-time support of PlayStation into an existential crisis. Dramatic, I know. But....damn......

Hulst parading Concord around as "the future of PlayStation" and a "Star Wars level IP" is pure insanity.

Yeah, Firewalk is done. Unless Sony sees some value in a significantly scaled-back version of the studio being a support team for Bungie or Sucker Punch, there is no way Firewalk will survive this. Sony would have to be delusional beyond belief to pump more money into trying again with Concord or greenlighting another AAA project from them.

If I were at Haven, I'd be sh**ing myself right now.

"If all next week’s State of Play has to offer is a couple of remasters and an update on Fairgame$..."

Oh God, that's all it's going to be, isn't it...?

@get2sammyb Is that Days Gone movie still in the works?

This is obviously going to be a UE5 upgrade since their next game runs on that engine.

However, I thought Days Gone sucked mega ass, so this is not for me.

I'm looking forward to this, but I have a feeling my thought will end up being: "this is fun, but it ain't Astro Bot".

I'll be doing a second playthrough of Astro Bot. Can't get enough of this game.

Also, I'll finally be getting around to Ace Attorney Investigations Collection.

One of the easiest 9's I've ever given. Minor quibbles aside, I adore Astro Bot.

Hopefully, it fixes the hard crashes I've seen a few people (including myself) experience. The only hard crash I got (of course) occurred just as I was about to beat the hardest challenge level.

I've also noticed some very rare instances of Astro getting caught on an obstacle or dying when no hazards existed. Other than those minor hitches, the game's extremely well-polished.

As annoying as the $700 price tag us, I know damn well I'll be buying one when the time is right. I need to play Ghost of Tsushima 2 at its very best.

I'm all here for @get2sammyb dropping some truth nukes.

Regarding Firewalk, I only see two paths for them:
1. They get shut down pretty soon.
2. They get gutted and become a support studio within PS Studios.

Despite what the studio director's corpo speak, there is no way Concord is coming back in any capacity. The IP has way too much stink on it now. And it's even less likely they'll ever be given another chance to work on a new game. PlayStation would have to be delusional beyond belief to fund yet another 4-5-year project from this team. No way. Not a chance.

8/10

I have embarrassed myself in front of Lord Astro Bot.

I know I will come across as an *****, but I don't really see celebrating this game's failure as a problem. Concord is one of the big representatives of Jim Ryan's aggressive live service initiative (alongside Fairgames and Marathon), and I totally understand why someone who hated this initiative would see its catastrophic launch as a victory. Obviously, the devs don't deserve to be harassed or anything like that, but I'm not willing to pass judgment on those who take some joy or relief in seeing Concord fail.

@Kanji-Tatsumi I watched a really good video on YouTube that analyzed how poor the character designs are beyond style, and it really opened my eyes to how badly the art and character design teams screwed up. Link below if anyone wants to check it out.

https://youtu.be/5eymH15AfAU?si=AE6d-EKzipYQJFVs

I pegged the total sales to being somewhere between 35-40k units sold. That's bad enough, but 25k units with most people probably buying the $40 version is so awful that it defies belief. And that's before Valve and Epic take their cut of the sales too on PC.

I don't think I've seen a AAA bomb on this scale in my lifetime. I'm really struggling to think of another AAA game within the last decade that financially debuted so poorly. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at PlayStation HQ and Firewalk right now.

Astro brought his own monke to compete with Wukong.

@AdamNovice In defense of Tassi and Legarie, they are plenty critical of Xbox. Tassi, especially, wrote multiple articles for ages about how bad Xbox had been during the XB1 era. I'm not a fan of how they behave online, but I don't think they're shills.

On the other hand, Lilly (and everyone at Kinda Funny, for that matter) is a grade-A shill who is a walking PR statement because he doesn't want to burn any contacts within the industry. God forbid he say something critical of Xbox and lose access to starring in Flight Simulator BTS videos where he flies in planes with developers and Xbox people.

I just want this live service nightmare to be over with...

@Arxagelos To be fair, that is a joke quote that originated from a Twitter account I follow. Hulst never said that in any interviews. Even the Twitter account that made the joke was surprised it blew up and was quoted by people as often as it has been.

Hulst seeing Concord and going "wow, let's buy this team" is enough of a big mark against him without that fake quote being attached to him. xD

@jrt87 Ditto. I seldom pre-order digital games until the pre-load is available, but I made an exception with Astro Bot. I have the utmost confidence my money will be well spent.

Is that HD remaster of Dragon Quest VIII in the vault too?

@colonelkilgore I'll take it a step further by saying I'm skeptical of all of their live service projects now because I believe PlayStation have inherently bad instincts when it comes to them. I think they got really lucky with Helldivers II, but everything else revolving around this live service initiative has been one embarrassing failure after another. They couldn't even make a good judgment call on which team to acquire for help with Bungie.

"The PlayStation maker needs live service to bankroll its extortionately expensive single player narratives..."

I respectfully reject this reasoning wholeheartedly. If PlayStation's spending on single-player games have reached such a ludicrous cost that they need live services to help pay for them, then the solution is to dramatically reign in the scope and technical prowess of a lot of these games. The Last of Us: Part 2, Ragnarok, Forbidden West, and Spider-Man 2 had fat and fluff on them that could have been easily trimmed to create better and more cost-effecient games. We don't need things like Concord and Fairgames around because someone at Guerrilla made the useless decision to add hair follicles to Aloy's face and body or someone at Insomniac thought it would be engaging to play as Peter Parker so we can pick up literal garbage in an apartment.