I still find this notion that they had a sudden artistic impulse to make changes to a bunch of outfits after the game had already gone gold, which coincidentally all make them slightly less revealing, in a game with a heavy focus on sex appeal, to be patently and transparently absurd.
People have pointed out that the changes aren't consistent, but, to be brutally honest, censorship is often inconsistent, which I think goes to the hastiness of appeasing the publisher with some last minute alterations.
That said, if the developer is playing ball with the messaging to avoid controversy, there's really nothing else to be said, is there? None of the people claiming censorship can prove that contention in the face of contradicting testimony from the developer, after all.
@Zenos It's apparently going to be at least a few years before the successor arrives. Steam Deck OLED improves on the original model dramatically in pretty much every way, and upper-tier models are more reasonably priced to boot. I'd jump in ASAP.
@nessisonett lol I totally forgot about Call of the Mountain. That was, like, one of the only worthwhile first-party experiences on PSVR2 before they abandoned it, right?
@Ainu20 Two full games releases since 2018. Two Horizon games since 2017, plus DLC expansions. TLOU Part II, TLOU Part I, and now TLOU Part II Remastered since 2020.
And not a lot that has been genuinely new, aside from Returnal.
Still need to play World this year while it's still active. One reason I tend to play games at launch is that I often don't get to them if I wait years down the line, like I've done with World.
@Colt22 I understand why Sony dissolved them. Doesn't mean it didn't substantially detract from the appeal of the brand for me. Sony is almost in Microsoft territory for me when it comes to first-party releases now.
@Kienda It'll definitely depend. For me, keeping semi-updated in terms of PC technology is automatic, so if all of Sony's games are going there, I don't really see why I would ever buy their console.
But if you're buying their consoles by default, then yeah, it wouldn't really matter, would it?
@Konks Given the accelerated pace of PC releases, I fully believe the release window gap will shorten. Hell, it was approximately only half a year between the PS5 and PC releases of TLOU Part I. I expect, once Sony catches up with their back catalogue and gets their developers accustomed to releasing games on PC as well, that'll become the default for all their single player games. I wouldn't even rule out eventual day one releases.
Anyway, I dispute your contention. Let's say someone really only likes God of War in Sony's catalogue, but doesn't care about The Last of Us, Ratchet and Clank, etc. They'd have probably bought a Playstation console in the past in order to play those games, since they were exclusive, but even if they were hyped for Ragnarok, if they knew it was coming to PC eventually, would it really be worth buying a $500 console for instead of just waiting a bit and playing other games?
Obviously hardcore PS people will have reason to stick with the consoles. But for those of us who aren't, but still bought PS consoles for their exclusives, what's the incentive to stay on console? There isn't one. Sony is bringing everything to PC.
I said it devalues the console for me. As in, I don't feel a need to buy into Sony's hardware now. Their exclusives are pretty much all hitting PC. The hardware is, for the first time, very skippable.
As I also said, this won't really hurt them as long as they're essentially the default player in the high end home console market.
It absolutely devalues the console brand for me. Which is a little sad insofar as I grew up with Playstation consoles, although it'll be nice going forward not needing to buy expensive consoles in order to play their games.
That said, Microsoft seems to have given up on being a serious competitor in the console market, and Nintendo is... Nintendo, so, by and large, this won't hurt them with the majority of consumers.
Aww, I kinda liked the reliance on save points. Really made it tense when you were exploring Da'at.
The biggest improvement, which isn't really highlighted here but was discussed on Twitter, is the way they re-balanced the game's aggressive level scaling when it came to damage calculations. SMT games are supposed to incentivize experimentation with the mechanics, not push the player to level grind.
@Rich33 "Though if a 3rd party game launches on GP I tend to (mostly not always) blacklist buying the game on my PS5 as the devs/publisher clearly had no faith in it!"
I don't really think that follows, as several games with plenty of interest in them launch on Game Pass. I think the gamble is that people tend to play on preferred platforms, and, by and large, you're not likely to make a ton of money from Microsoft's player base unless you're Activision or From Software or something. Game Pass ensures they make their cut from that ecosystem, even if they don't make much from it in actual sales.
Actually, in some cases, like with Atlus, I think GP money was used to motivate investment in the ecosystem in the first place.
All that being said, like you, if a game launches on Game Pass alongside other console versions, I pretty much never end up buying it at launch, since it feels like a waste of money to buy something that was just added to an affordable subscription service. But I don't really like playing games on GP, either, so the end result is that I don't engage with it anywhere. And once I'm out of that launch hype state, it becomes just another game to buy after I contend with my large backlog, so I don't end up buying it at all unless it goes super low in sales.
Did that with Omori. Did that with Sea of Stars. Did that with Persona 3 Reload. Did that with Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. And will probably even do that with Silksong, assuming it's not vaporware.
For me, a GP launch is like a kiss of death to my interest in it.
@nessisonett Yup. Western civilization has completely disappeared down the tribal rabbit hole. In the US, EVERYTHING is subsumed by the culture war, even down to the brand of beer you buy lol.
@Cutmastavictory It's possible the market is small enough in a lot of underdeveloped countries that Sony doesn't see potential profitability in officially expanding a presence there.
I imagine they'd still grow their PSN numbers quite a bit if they merely incentivized account linking.
@nessisonett One thing I've learned: the audience this website pulls, and even some of the staff, is HEAVILY invested in console war tribalist nonsense like it's the 90s.
No reason not to resume sales in those countries if the account linking is optional.
I still think it's weirdly beautiful that a co-op game designed around having players focus on focused goals collectiely managed to spark a coordinated effort among nearly the entire fanbase to roll back the PSN account requirement.
Sony and Microsoft are in a rush to kill off the remaining studios of theirs that aren't making AAA mainstream fare.
I'm glad the Japanese game studios I actually care about are mostly insulated from the influence of Microsoft's checkbook. Let's hope this serves as a valuable example for any companies that Daddy Warbucks tries to scoop up in the future.
As I think we've all learned by now, third-party exclusives don't really exist anymore. They're always going to go elsewhere to make money from new audiences.
This one's image quality issues were super noticeable to me compared to the comparative sharpness of Danganronpa, so hopefully it'll shine on the new platforms.
I think people forget Sony isn't Nintendo. They won't just mercilessly plough ahead through a firestorm of controversy and bad press.
Recall online anger also pushed them not to shut down the PS Vita and PS3 storefronts.
The absolute best thing about Sony is that they can be pressured into doing the right thing.
@truerbluer Considering the sheer amount of mindless tribalism I've seen in the last couple of days from Playstation fanboys in this community, I'm inclined to think Sony's base would be more likely to thank them for jacking up prices than complain about it.
Actually, as I recall, the more expensive PS5 versions of their recent cross-gen games like HFW and GoW:R sold better than the PS4 versions, so that's probably not far off the mark.
Arrowhead wanted this. Consumers wanted this. There was no reason to force this account integration, and it's an absolutely massive win on the part of the gaming community and a totally grassroots consumer protest.
Imagine having a monstrously popular live service title on PC that's even penetrating markets where you don't have a console presence. You've gained a ton of good will with an enormous number of new players in a market you've been desperately trying to tap into.
Then you nuke that good will entirely, shut off access to multiple new and emerging markets, and severely damage your momentum in the PC space because you simply must, more than anything else, force integration with your own accounts, rather, than, say, providing incentives for account integration that would have probably still seen in a large uptick in PSN account numbers without all the self-inflicted damage.
The dumbest move I've seen in this industry in a long time.
In fairness, the biggest reasons to own Sony's consoles have historically been their third-party exclusives. The problem is those exclusives don't stay exclusive anymore. Not even Sony's own first-party exclusives. As a multi-platform gamer, the PS5 simply doesn't feel like a necessary purchase in the same way previous Playstation consoles were.
Not that Sony's studios are putting out much of anything worth buying anyway at the moment.
@nessisonett We live in a world right now where "PS5 games" run adequately on handhelds. The generational model is on the verge of death, IMO.
@Intr1n5ic It may be a non-issue to you, but it clearly isn't to a lot of people. My apologies if you're actually a big PC gamer, but my guess is you're probably in a completely different headspace than most of the people upset about this.
Anyway, with regard to people who are regionally barred from access to PSN, I think I'd be pretty angry if I paid for a game, got invested in it, and then, months later, once it's outside of the refund window, I'm told that I won't be able to play the game because I need an account with a separate company that doesn't operate in my region.
With regard to 'constructive criticism,' imagine the people who were angry about this politely complained on the forums and maybe wrote letters to the company instead of review-bombing it. Do you think it'd be getting nearly as much attention? The whole point of a protest is to generate interest in and awareness of what you're angry about, so, more often than not, being rowdy is justifiable insofar as it makes your discontent more widely understood.
@Intr1n5ic Sure. But there's always degrees of caution in any situation. It's not like one's only choices are either to live completely off the grid as a paranoid hobo or to just share your information with anyone and everyone, right?
There ARE reasons, historically, that people might not want to share their information with Sony specifically.
Playing devil's advocate a bit, Sony has been subject to some pretty severe hacking and data leaks over the years. If I'm paranoid about my data, I'd be hesitant to make an account with them as well.
Also, PSN isn't available worldwide, which might very well cause issues for some PC players who want to continue playing the game as they have.
Anyway, I'm not sure I appreciate Sammy calling these controversies "overblown." Even if you don't care about Stellar Blade's censorship, for example, the game was explicitly marketed as being uncensored worldwide on the PS5, which didn't end up being the case. In the case of this controversy, even if you think making and connecting a PSN account is a minor thing, it's still introducing a needless extra layer to the process of enjoying the game on PC at best, and actively alienating users from certain regions at worst. Why not just allow for players to opt out of connecting at all? I've played games published by Bethesda that wanted me to make an account, for example, but they've never held access to my game ransom until I do so.
@NEStalgia My problem with that is that there are plenty of legendary games that have obvious shortcomings, and also plenty of ultra-polished games that nevertheless wouldn't really deserve to be on 'best of all time' lists.
I guess the difference between us is that, for you, the best games are the least flawed, whereas, for me, the best games are the ones that reflect transcendently excellent qualities in spite of any flaws that may be present.
@nessisonett I'd argue that's the only way to reasonably judge games on the same assessment scale, since they're often going for wildly different approaches, depending on genre, so expectations will differ. Dark Souls and Tetris are just not going to have much comparable overlap, y'know? Or Portal and Uncharted 2. Or Super Metroid and Final Fantasy VII. Or Breath of the Wild and Metal Gear Solid 2. I don't really know how you'd compare them in any meaningful way.
All the same, I think you'd be very well-positioned to list all of those as 10s for the qualities that make them immortal in the public imagination.
@nessisonett There's definitely an arbitrariness to any sort of ranking system, considering things excel in different ways. Like, I'd say, putting aside my own preferences, Portal 2, Dark Souls, Uncharted 4, Super Mario Odyssey, and Breath of the Wild could all reasonably be called 10s. But they're also wildly different games that are barely comparable in many respects.
It makes more sense if you think of scoring a game a 10 as signaling excellence instead of it being some sort of objective numerical representation of a game's ultimate value. In that respect, you could call both Dark Souls and Elden Ring 10s and still be able to maintain that one is a clear improvement on the other.
@bestuardo Definitely a fair point. I guess, for me, the thing is that, despite loving (good) horror, I have a limited tolerance for it, which keeps me from binging series like RE.
That said, these games come out infrequently enough that I could play, say, two a year and catch up sooner than later. If only I could tear myself away from these blasted 80+ hour JRPGs and open world games!
@NEStalgia Yeah, dude. The Godfather Part II; The Empire Strikes Back; Terminator 2: Judgment Day; Toy Story 3; Mad Max: Fury Road; The Dark Knight; Wrath of Khan; Dawn of the Dead; etc. etc. All corporate junk.
I will concede that it is far more common for video game sequels to be roundly superior to the original games in large part due to the 'gamey' parts being refined and expanded on over time.
I don't think 'different' equals 'flawed.' I just think that it's more often the case that inventiveness comes at the expense of refinement. My point is more that it's rarely the most polished experiences that live on as revered, immortal classics. So I think it's coherent to say that 10s can also be flawed in obvious ways.
I mostly read Ebert's reviews. Despite a lot of obvious shortcomings of his (he's given a number of very good films very contentious reviews, and too often allowed his own personal biases to cloud his judgment), I always admired the sheer joy with which he seemed to discuss the medium. Passion is infectious.
I've heard FFXIV is excellent. But online games, man. And it has a subscription model as well, right? Ugh. Maybe they'll make an offline version one day for someone like me to enjoy.
@NEStalgia I'd argue that many times the best games are obviously flawed, because they go out of their way to be different and forge a path of their own. I value that far more than any game that's merely a harmonious symphony of its parts. Actually, a ton of pretty good Sony and Nintendo games tend to hit this level, where they're super polished and well-constructed, and it's difficult to find any obvious flaws in their construction. But they lack the inspirational fire that the very best games have, y'know? They don't have that magic quality that tells you you're playing something really special.
I liked how Roger Ebert had his 0 - 4 star review system, and then hosted a separate discussion of "Great Movies," which he usually decided on with years of foresight to guide him.
Oh, you really should set aside some time and give TW3 a proper go when you can. It's far from the perfect gem of a game some of its obnoxiously fanatical fans like to pretend it is, but, all the same, I struggle to think of another modern Western RPG with stronger character writing or more elegantly constructed side-quests.
@NEStalgia "Best in genre" should easily score a 10. What's the point of a scoring system where almost nothing hits the top?
I liked Elden Ring, and I agree it does some things better than BotW (the way you can just almost randomly stumble on giant dungeons and entire underground cities is really cool, and a testament to FS' skill at excellent, multi-layered level design), but what hurt it for me is that it's almost entirely just combat. Zelda hits a better balance with combat, puzzles, character interactions, and a gigantic plethora of environmental interactions. ER also has the FS problem of having, like, no noteworthy music aside from the title theme and maybe some combat music, which is ironic considering people like to roast BotW's vastly better OST.
Somewhere between the combat and level design of Elden Ring, the traversal, environmental interactions, and puzzles of BotW, and the music, side-quests, and storytelling of The Witcher 3 is your fabled perfect, 10/10 adventure RPG, I'd say. Alas, we just have to settle for merely excellent games that do some things better than others.
Apparently this will lock out players from regions without access to PSN, which does suck.
The PS account requirement should have been communicated more clearly, and it shouldn't have been sold in territories that would eventually run into issues caused by this.
Hopefully Sony is accounting for all this and will give players in affected regions a workaround.
@colonelkilgore I feel like I'm just always going to be behind on Resident Evil, Yakuza, and the Trails series.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since I'll be getting the Ultimate Super editions (where applicable) for $20 or less in sales when I do get to them lol.
Always annoying when you have to juggle yet another account to play your Steam games, but considering this is a necessary step for cross-play, trophy support integration, etc. I think it's justified.
And anyway, it's an online game, so you'd expect interaction with PSN.
Comments 5,821
Re: Shift Up Director Puts Stellar Blade, Sony Costume Conspiracy to Bed
I still find this notion that they had a sudden artistic impulse to make changes to a bunch of outfits after the game had already gone gold, which coincidentally all make them slightly less revealing, in a game with a heavy focus on sex appeal, to be patently and transparently absurd.
People have pointed out that the changes aren't consistent, but, to be brutally honest, censorship is often inconsistent, which I think goes to the hastiness of appeasing the publisher with some last minute alterations.
That said, if the developer is playing ball with the messaging to avoid controversy, there's really nothing else to be said, is there? None of the people claiming censorship can prove that contention in the face of contradicting testimony from the developer, after all.
Re: Sony Shipped 4.5 Million PS5's Last Quarter, Almost Five Times More Than Xbox Series X|S
Microsoft was pretty much giving Series Xs away during the Christmas season last year online for $300 and apparently couldn't move product even then.
The brand is dead in the water, even in the U.S.
Re: Crossplay in Ghost of Tsushima Co-Op on PC Starts as a Beta
@Zenos It's apparently going to be at least a few years before the successor arrives. Steam Deck OLED improves on the original model dramatically in pretty much every way, and upper-tier models are more reasonably priced to boot. I'd jump in ASAP.
Re: Crossplay in Ghost of Tsushima Co-Op on PC Starts as a Beta
SO cool you can play these AAA Sony games on a handheld PC that feels very console-like.
tbh I don't even feel about not getting a Vita successor anymore. Steam Deck OLED is better than that ever would have been.
Re: Sony Committed to Better First-Party Games, 'Richer' Experiences, More PS5 Users
@nessisonett lol I totally forgot about Call of the Mountain. That was, like, one of the only worthwhile first-party experiences on PSVR2 before they abandoned it, right?
Re: Sony Committed to Better First-Party Games, 'Richer' Experiences, More PS5 Users
@Ainu20 Two full games releases since 2018. Two Horizon games since 2017, plus DLC expansions. TLOU Part II, TLOU Part I, and now TLOU Part II Remastered since 2020.
And not a lot that has been genuinely new, aside from Returnal.
Re: Monster Hunter Series Tops 100 Million Sales Milestone
Still need to play World this year while it's still active. One reason I tend to play games at launch is that I often don't get to them if I wait years down the line, like I've done with World.
Absolutely loved MH4U and Rise, though.
Re: Fans Positively Review Bomb Hi-Fi Rush in Wake of Xbox’s Closure of Tango Gameworks
@Colt22 I understand why Sony dissolved them. Doesn't mean it didn't substantially detract from the appeal of the brand for me. Sony is almost in Microsoft territory for me when it comes to first-party releases now.
Re: Fans Positively Review Bomb Hi-Fi Rush in Wake of Xbox’s Closure of Tango Gameworks
@RoomWithaMoose It's a big, big reason why I never bought a PS5. Still gutted that Gravity Rush is gone, and we won't get any more Team Ico games.
Re: Rumour: Is LEGO Horizon Aloy's Next Big PS5 Adventure?
Not a fan of Lego games, but, done right, this could be brilliant!
Re: Poll: Years Later, How Do You Feel About PlayStation's PC Strategy?
@Kienda It'll definitely depend. For me, keeping semi-updated in terms of PC technology is automatic, so if all of Sony's games are going there, I don't really see why I would ever buy their console.
But if you're buying their consoles by default, then yeah, it wouldn't really matter, would it?
@Konks Given the accelerated pace of PC releases, I fully believe the release window gap will shorten. Hell, it was approximately only half a year between the PS5 and PC releases of TLOU Part I. I expect, once Sony catches up with their back catalogue and gets their developers accustomed to releasing games on PC as well, that'll become the default for all their single player games. I wouldn't even rule out eventual day one releases.
Anyway, I dispute your contention. Let's say someone really only likes God of War in Sony's catalogue, but doesn't care about The Last of Us, Ratchet and Clank, etc. They'd have probably bought a Playstation console in the past in order to play those games, since they were exclusive, but even if they were hyped for Ragnarok, if they knew it was coming to PC eventually, would it really be worth buying a $500 console for instead of just waiting a bit and playing other games?
Obviously hardcore PS people will have reason to stick with the consoles. But for those of us who aren't, but still bought PS consoles for their exclusives, what's the incentive to stay on console? There isn't one. Sony is bringing everything to PC.
Re: Poll: Years Later, How Do You Feel About PlayStation's PC Strategy?
@Kienda
I said it devalues the console for me. As in, I don't feel a need to buy into Sony's hardware now. Their exclusives are pretty much all hitting PC. The hardware is, for the first time, very skippable.
As I also said, this won't really hurt them as long as they're essentially the default player in the high end home console market.
Re: Poll: Years Later, How Do You Feel About PlayStation's PC Strategy?
It absolutely devalues the console brand for me. Which is a little sad insofar as I grew up with Playstation consoles, although it'll be nice going forward not needing to buy expensive consoles in order to play their games.
That said, Microsoft seems to have given up on being a serious competitor in the console market, and Nintendo is... Nintendo, so, by and large, this won't hurt them with the majority of consumers.
Re: Rumour: SEGA Wants Persona to Be an Annual Franchise Alongside Like a Dragon, Sonic
I'm still waiting for Persona 5 on Ice and Persona Kart Racing.
Re: SMT 5: Vengeance Gets a Super Detailed 13 Minute Video on All Its New Stuff
Aww, I kinda liked the reliance on save points. Really made it tense when you were exploring Da'at.
The biggest improvement, which isn't really highlighted here but was discussed on Twitter, is the way they re-balanced the game's aggressive level scaling when it came to damage calculations. SMT games are supposed to incentivize experimentation with the mechanics, not push the player to level grind.
Re: God of War Ragnarok Set for PC, New Report Claims
Glad I waited. This'll run beautifully on my PC. Plus handheld play with Steam Deck!
Re: More Xbox Layoffs Reportedly Inbound as Company Attempts to Cut Costs
@Rich33 "Though if a 3rd party game launches on GP I tend to (mostly not always) blacklist buying the game on my PS5 as the devs/publisher clearly had no faith in it!"
I don't really think that follows, as several games with plenty of interest in them launch on Game Pass. I think the gamble is that people tend to play on preferred platforms, and, by and large, you're not likely to make a ton of money from Microsoft's player base unless you're Activision or From Software or something. Game Pass ensures they make their cut from that ecosystem, even if they don't make much from it in actual sales.
Actually, in some cases, like with Atlus, I think GP money was used to motivate investment in the ecosystem in the first place.
All that being said, like you, if a game launches on Game Pass alongside other console versions, I pretty much never end up buying it at launch, since it feels like a waste of money to buy something that was just added to an affordable subscription service. But I don't really like playing games on GP, either, so the end result is that I don't engage with it anywhere. And once I'm out of that launch hype state, it becomes just another game to buy after I contend with my large backlog, so I don't end up buying it at all unless it goes super low in sales.
Did that with Omori. Did that with Sea of Stars. Did that with Persona 3 Reload. Did that with Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. And will probably even do that with Silksong, assuming it's not vaporware.
For me, a GP launch is like a kiss of death to my interest in it.
Re: Helldivers 2 Director Pushes PlayStation to Backtrack on 170 Steam Delistings
@nessisonett Yup. Western civilization has completely disappeared down the tribal rabbit hole. In the US, EVERYTHING is subsumed by the culture war, even down to the brand of beer you buy lol.
It's very tiring at times.
Re: Helldivers 2 Director Pushes PlayStation to Backtrack on 170 Steam Delistings
@Cutmastavictory It's possible the market is small enough in a lot of underdeveloped countries that Sony doesn't see potential profitability in officially expanding a presence there.
I imagine they'd still grow their PSN numbers quite a bit if they merely incentivized account linking.
@nessisonett One thing I've learned: the audience this website pulls, and even some of the staff, is HEAVILY invested in console war tribalist nonsense like it's the 90s.
Re: Helldivers 2 Director Pushes PlayStation to Backtrack on 170 Steam Delistings
No reason not to resume sales in those countries if the account linking is optional.
I still think it's weirdly beautiful that a co-op game designed around having players focus on focused goals collectiely managed to spark a coordinated effort among nearly the entire fanbase to roll back the PSN account requirement.
Re: Rumour: Hi-Fi Rush Dev Was Pitching Sequel Before Microsoft Closed It Down
Christ, this just gets worse and worse!
Re: Mini Review: Crow Country (PS5) - Brilliant Retro Horror Wears Its Influences on Its Sleeve
This sounds awesome. Will definitely be giving the demo a go.
Re: Metaphor: ReFantazio Might Be a Much Harder RPG Than We Realise
Awesome. My one issue with recent Persona games has been that they're brain-dead easy even on higher difficulty settings.
I'd love to see them give us something closer to SMT in terms of engaging and challenging combat.
Re: Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, More Closed in Brutal Bethesda Restructure
Christ.
Sony and Microsoft are in a rush to kill off the remaining studios of theirs that aren't making AAA mainstream fare.
I'm glad the Japanese game studios I actually care about are mostly insulated from the influence of Microsoft's checkbook. Let's hope this serves as a valuable example for any companies that Daddy Warbucks tries to scoop up in the future.
Re: Metaphor: ReFantazio Might Be the Most Stylish Atlus Game Ever, Going By New Screenshots
Between P3 Reload, SMT V: Vengeance, and now this, Atlus is having one heck of a year!
Re: Announced as a Switch Exclusive, Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE Is Coming to PS5 After All
As I think we've all learned by now, third-party exclusives don't really exist anymore. They're always going to go elsewhere to make money from new audiences.
This one's image quality issues were super noticeable to me compared to the comparative sharpness of Danganronpa, so hopefully it'll shine on the new platforms.
Re: Helldivers 2 CEO Praises 'Willpower' of Community in Sony Showdown
I think people forget Sony isn't Nintendo. They won't just mercilessly plough ahead through a firestorm of controversy and bad press.
Recall online anger also pushed them not to shut down the PS Vita and PS3 storefronts.
The absolute best thing about Sony is that they can be pressured into doing the right thing.
@truerbluer Considering the sheer amount of mindless tribalism I've seen in the last couple of days from Playstation fanboys in this community, I'm inclined to think Sony's base would be more likely to thank them for jacking up prices than complain about it.
Actually, as I recall, the more expensive PS5 versions of their recent cross-gen games like HFW and GoW:R sold better than the PS4 versions, so that's probably not far off the mark.
Re: Helldivers 2 PSN Requirement Backtracked on PC After Brutal Review Bombing Campaign
I love how even the developer is happy about this.
The ONLY people upset about this are some random and probably clueless corporate bigwigs and a bunch of very, very salty Playstation console fanboys.
Re: Helldivers 2 PSN Requirement Backtracked on PC After Brutal Review Bombing Campaign
Arrowhead wanted this. Consumers wanted this. There was no reason to force this account integration, and it's an absolutely massive win on the part of the gaming community and a totally grassroots consumer protest.
Re: Helldivers 2 May Turn Negative Steam Reviews into a Fashionable In-Game Cape
I have to imagine the people at Arrowhead are breathing a sign of relief about now.
For the record, they handled the situation way better than a lot of other smaller devs would've.
@ShogunRok Definitely make that into a cape design for the PS5 version of the game. Console exclusive.
Re: Helldivers 2 PSN Requirement Backtracked on PC After Brutal Review Bombing Campaign
Removed
Re: Sony Doubles Down on Helldivers 2 PSN Requirement by Taking It Off Sale for PC in Numerous Countries
Imagine having a monstrously popular live service title on PC that's even penetrating markets where you don't have a console presence. You've gained a ton of good will with an enormous number of new players in a market you've been desperately trying to tap into.
Then you nuke that good will entirely, shut off access to multiple new and emerging markets, and severely damage your momentum in the PC space because you simply must, more than anything else, force integration with your own accounts, rather, than, say, providing incentives for account integration that would have probably still seen in a large uptick in PSN account numbers without all the self-inflicted damage.
The dumbest move I've seen in this industry in a long time.
Re: Talking Point: Have Sony's Third-Party PS5 Deals Made Up for Its Lack of First-Party Games?
In fairness, the biggest reasons to own Sony's consoles have historically been their third-party exclusives. The problem is those exclusives don't stay exclusive anymore. Not even Sony's own first-party exclusives. As a multi-platform gamer, the PS5 simply doesn't feel like a necessary purchase in the same way previous Playstation consoles were.
Not that Sony's studios are putting out much of anything worth buying anyway at the moment.
@nessisonett We live in a world right now where "PS5 games" run adequately on handhelds. The generational model is on the verge of death, IMO.
Re: Helldivers 2 PC Is Getting Review Bombed Over PSN Requirement
@Intr1n5ic It may be a non-issue to you, but it clearly isn't to a lot of people. My apologies if you're actually a big PC gamer, but my guess is you're probably in a completely different headspace than most of the people upset about this.
Anyway, with regard to people who are regionally barred from access to PSN, I think I'd be pretty angry if I paid for a game, got invested in it, and then, months later, once it's outside of the refund window, I'm told that I won't be able to play the game because I need an account with a separate company that doesn't operate in my region.
With regard to 'constructive criticism,' imagine the people who were angry about this politely complained on the forums and maybe wrote letters to the company instead of review-bombing it. Do you think it'd be getting nearly as much attention? The whole point of a protest is to generate interest in and awareness of what you're angry about, so, more often than not, being rowdy is justifiable insofar as it makes your discontent more widely understood.
Re: Helldivers 2 PC Is Getting Review Bombed Over PSN Requirement
@Intr1n5ic Sure. But there's always degrees of caution in any situation. It's not like one's only choices are either to live completely off the grid as a paranoid hobo or to just share your information with anyone and everyone, right?
There ARE reasons, historically, that people might not want to share their information with Sony specifically.
Re: Helldivers 2 PC Is Getting Review Bombed Over PSN Requirement
Playing devil's advocate a bit, Sony has been subject to some pretty severe hacking and data leaks over the years. If I'm paranoid about my data, I'd be hesitant to make an account with them as well.
Also, PSN isn't available worldwide, which might very well cause issues for some PC players who want to continue playing the game as they have.
Anyway, I'm not sure I appreciate Sammy calling these controversies "overblown." Even if you don't care about Stellar Blade's censorship, for example, the game was explicitly marketed as being uncensored worldwide on the PS5, which didn't end up being the case. In the case of this controversy, even if you think making and connecting a PSN account is a minor thing, it's still introducing a needless extra layer to the process of enjoying the game on PC at best, and actively alienating users from certain regions at worst. Why not just allow for players to opt out of connecting at all? I've played games published by Bethesda that wanted me to make an account, for example, but they've never held access to my game ransom until I do so.
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Stellar Blade?
@NEStalgia My problem with that is that there are plenty of legendary games that have obvious shortcomings, and also plenty of ultra-polished games that nevertheless wouldn't really deserve to be on 'best of all time' lists.
I guess the difference between us is that, for you, the best games are the least flawed, whereas, for me, the best games are the ones that reflect transcendently excellent qualities in spite of any flaws that may be present.
@nessisonett I'd argue that's the only way to reasonably judge games on the same assessment scale, since they're often going for wildly different approaches, depending on genre, so expectations will differ. Dark Souls and Tetris are just not going to have much comparable overlap, y'know? Or Portal and Uncharted 2. Or Super Metroid and Final Fantasy VII. Or Breath of the Wild and Metal Gear Solid 2. I don't really know how you'd compare them in any meaningful way.
All the same, I think you'd be very well-positioned to list all of those as 10s for the qualities that make them immortal in the public imagination.
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Stellar Blade?
@nessisonett There's definitely an arbitrariness to any sort of ranking system, considering things excel in different ways. Like, I'd say, putting aside my own preferences, Portal 2, Dark Souls, Uncharted 4, Super Mario Odyssey, and Breath of the Wild could all reasonably be called 10s. But they're also wildly different games that are barely comparable in many respects.
It makes more sense if you think of scoring a game a 10 as signaling excellence instead of it being some sort of objective numerical representation of a game's ultimate value. In that respect, you could call both Dark Souls and Elden Ring 10s and still be able to maintain that one is a clear improvement on the other.
Re: Rumour: Resident Evil 9 Reveal and Release Imminent, Out in January
@bestuardo Definitely a fair point. I guess, for me, the thing is that, despite loving (good) horror, I have a limited tolerance for it, which keeps me from binging series like RE.
That said, these games come out infrequently enough that I could play, say, two a year and catch up sooner than later. If only I could tear myself away from these blasted 80+ hour JRPGs and open world games!
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Stellar Blade?
@NEStalgia Yeah, dude. The Godfather Part II; The Empire Strikes Back; Terminator 2: Judgment Day; Toy Story 3; Mad Max: Fury Road; The Dark Knight; Wrath of Khan; Dawn of the Dead; etc. etc. All corporate junk.
I will concede that it is far more common for video game sequels to be roundly superior to the original games in large part due to the 'gamey' parts being refined and expanded on over time.
I don't think 'different' equals 'flawed.' I just think that it's more often the case that inventiveness comes at the expense of refinement. My point is more that it's rarely the most polished experiences that live on as revered, immortal classics. So I think it's coherent to say that 10s can also be flawed in obvious ways.
I mostly read Ebert's reviews. Despite a lot of obvious shortcomings of his (he's given a number of very good films very contentious reviews, and too often allowed his own personal biases to cloud his judgment), I always admired the sheer joy with which he seemed to discuss the medium. Passion is infectious.
I've heard FFXIV is excellent. But online games, man. And it has a subscription model as well, right? Ugh. Maybe they'll make an offline version one day for someone like me to enjoy.
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Stellar Blade?
@NEStalgia I'd argue that many times the best games are obviously flawed, because they go out of their way to be different and forge a path of their own. I value that far more than any game that's merely a harmonious symphony of its parts. Actually, a ton of pretty good Sony and Nintendo games tend to hit this level, where they're super polished and well-constructed, and it's difficult to find any obvious flaws in their construction. But they lack the inspirational fire that the very best games have, y'know? They don't have that magic quality that tells you you're playing something really special.
I liked how Roger Ebert had his 0 - 4 star review system, and then hosted a separate discussion of "Great Movies," which he usually decided on with years of foresight to guide him.
Oh, you really should set aside some time and give TW3 a proper go when you can. It's far from the perfect gem of a game some of its obnoxiously fanatical fans like to pretend it is, but, all the same, I struggle to think of another modern Western RPG with stronger character writing or more elegantly constructed side-quests.
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Stellar Blade?
@NEStalgia "Best in genre" should easily score a 10. What's the point of a scoring system where almost nothing hits the top?
I liked Elden Ring, and I agree it does some things better than BotW (the way you can just almost randomly stumble on giant dungeons and entire underground cities is really cool, and a testament to FS' skill at excellent, multi-layered level design), but what hurt it for me is that it's almost entirely just combat. Zelda hits a better balance with combat, puzzles, character interactions, and a gigantic plethora of environmental interactions. ER also has the FS problem of having, like, no noteworthy music aside from the title theme and maybe some combat music, which is ironic considering people like to roast BotW's vastly better OST.
Somewhere between the combat and level design of Elden Ring, the traversal, environmental interactions, and puzzles of BotW, and the music, side-quests, and storytelling of The Witcher 3 is your fabled perfect, 10/10 adventure RPG, I'd say. Alas, we just have to settle for merely excellent games that do some things better than others.
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Stellar Blade?
@NEStalgia "The 8 is as much a joke as PJ OReily giving Dragon's Dogma 2 a 10/10 while it stutters and stammers"
In fairness, the highest-rated game of all time ran around 20fps most of the time.
So what 10s would you give away, out of curiosity?
Re: Family Friendly Level-5 Boss Would Love to Make Violent, Erotic Games
Professor Laidton. Ni no Coochie. The possibilities are endless.
@Savage_Joe Too late. He's more of a pony now.
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Stellar Blade?
@NEStalgia What would Stellar Blade need to do to boost that bad boy (girl?) up to a 6.9? Just curious.
Re: Helldivers 2 PC Players Blindsided by Seemingly Sudden PSN Account Requirement
Apparently this will lock out players from regions without access to PSN, which does suck.
The PS account requirement should have been communicated more clearly, and it shouldn't have been sold in territories that would eventually run into issues caused by this.
Hopefully Sony is accounting for all this and will give players in affected regions a workaround.
Re: Rumour: Resident Evil 9 Reveal and Release Imminent, Out in January
@colonelkilgore I feel like I'm just always going to be behind on Resident Evil, Yakuza, and the Trails series.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since I'll be getting the Ultimate Super editions (where applicable) for $20 or less in sales when I do get to them lol.
Re: Helldivers 2 PC Players Blindsided by Seemingly Sudden PSN Account Requirement
Always annoying when you have to juggle yet another account to play your Steam games, but considering this is a necessary step for cross-play, trophy support integration, etc. I think it's justified.
And anyway, it's an online game, so you'd expect interaction with PSN.
Re: Korea Announces Bold Plan to Buff Nation's Nascent Console Market
@R_Ryder tbh after seeing some of their crazy propaganda cartoons, I'd be deeply curious to know what a North Korean video game might look like
Re: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Sales Remain Muted in the USA, Compared to Past Games
The context is definitely different.
Direct sequel to a previous game, and also somewhat confusingly titled at that.
Released as an exclusive on a platform that has half as many units in the wild as the PS4 when FF7 Remake was dropped.
Remake released during COVID.
And, frankly, probably much of the nostalgia appeal of a release like this was expended with Remake.
This was always going to be one of the major issues with Squeenix's 'trilogy' approach to FF7.