Shepherd_Tallon

Dragon Age and potentially Fable are the games I'll be playing from what XBox showed me tonight.
Sony gave me Behemoth and Astro.

Two each.
A good haul.

I don't care about the pacing of the show or how bombastic the announcements were. That's just side dressing.

It definitely doesn't feel like a dark fantasy anymore, at least not going by that trailer. Makes me nostalgic for the Sacred Ashes or Warden's Calling trailers for Dragon Age: Origins.

That said, I don't mind the visual style. They were going that way in the Inquisition trailers too. Plus, I love Harding and Varric.

I can stay patient until we see some gameplay.
Inquisition was a great Christmas Day game. I won't say nope to this either.

Sometimes it feels like we're judging the show based on how it was run and how one trailer leads into the next for impact.
It didn't have the most riveting announcements, but if you were to take the show away and just put the trailers side by side, one after the other, it's by no means a bad offering.

@Bez87 Agreed. The only thing I would add to what you've said is that we are completely hooked on new info. We need more and more, and each info hit needs to be an escalation over the last or we just get bored.
I see some people tuning in not for the games, but for the announcements (if you take my meaning).

Dragon's Dogma II and probably Dredge or Bulwark on Portal. They both play really well on the handheld.
I might see what those new astro trophies are about too.

Sometimes when I refresh the page the icon reappears, but it will be in it's original state. When I click on it, it tries to introduce me to stars like I've never used it before then gives me an error message when I hit the signup button.
I used the live chat and support told me that they can see I'm already enrolled so it should be fine once they fix it. 🤷

I haven't had any issues with it up to now. Makes me wonder if they're preparing it for something.

@get2sammyb I was like you and didn't think Helldivers would take off outside of a dedicated community.
But positive word of mouth does wonders.

Concord could potentially do the same.
Potentially.

Games like this are not my cup of tea, but, the gameplay looked very tidy.
If some of my friends pick it up and IF it follows the same battlepass model as Helldivers at 40 euro up front, maaaaaybe I could be convinced.

After all, haven't we spent years complaining about the f2p model and lamenting how online games don't let us just unlock skins the old fashioned way?
Hopefully we weren't just doing that to be contrary on the internet.

@BearsEatBeets It's the same for me. There's no "wow" moment because the big reveals are spoiled.
And you can't avoid them. They end up everywhere.

I was delighted when I heard Google were going to investigate the leaks, but then I heard they had already done it twice before and nothing changed.

@WizzNL I had this thought too. Would have been a lovely surprise during the show.
But at least we get to complain about the show afterwards...

Huh. Wasn't expecting this.
I haven't played any of them.

I hear the Saints & Sinners games are pretty good.
I might dabble over the weekend.

@get2sammyb If they take a similar approach to battle pass and cosmetics as Arrowhead it could balance it out. I would expect all first party live service games to do this going forward.

Otherwise yeah, I fully agree.

I'm always excited to see more games or gameplay, but I prefer the PlayStation and Nintendo streams to Geoff's shows.
I can't put a finger on why. I just do.

@mariomaster96 Same. I used to get hyped for E3 like it was Cup Final day or something. Just a massive event about new gameplay.
I understand why it's gone and tbh I agree with the reasons, but it was epic while it lasted.

@ShogunRok
Cheers for not running the leaks and spoiling the show. It would have been easy traffic for you guys.

@add286 This was a refreshing post.
Agreed with all of it.

Apparently in one of the Sony financial/corporate strategy calls recently there was a reference to the company seeing a big return on investment from first-party in fiscal years 2025 and 2026.
I'm not seeing any articles about it, but we could be in for an exciting period.

@Rich33 You're absolutely right. It was very well put together.
Wages were well earned for whoever worked on that.

I get hyped for games all the time, but when I saw the trailer for this it was something else.
I can't remember the last time I felt excitement like this from watching a few minutes of gameplay.
Intense goosebumps the second the "I am Astro Bot" jingle started.

@Nakatomi_Uk Steering is a lot harder than I remember. That's the first thing I would say to anyone considering it.
But other than that, it's a lot of fun to replay it if you enjoyed it back in the 90s.
There was a moment back then that I always remember where I switched from being terrible at the game to vibing with it. That doesn't seem to want to happen for me this time, but there's an instant rewind feature now that helps massively.

Still G-Police and Dragon's Dogma II for me.
Been thinking about starting Dredge properly too. I played a little bit during the week for the PS Stars collectible and really liked it.

Astro Bot.
But if I was to pick any other game, Behemoth is a close second. Been waiting for that game forever it feels like.
Path of Exile II was a nice surprise too. I keep hearing great things about the first game.

I've said this already but, going in I asked for Astro and Behemoth 🤷
It's the first SoP where I saw all of the games I was hoping to see, and I only ever hope for one or two.

If there's a narrative beyond that, fair enough.

@themightyant @PsBoxSwitchOwner
Agreed here.
It was a middling show, but all I asked for before I went in was Astro and Behemoth so I really can't complain. 🤷
Nothing they showed actually looked bad, just most of it wasn't for me. And that's okay too. I have plenty to play.

@Titntin tbh it feels like some fans are looking for a narrative more than a new game to play.

@themightyant What struck me last night was, while the reaction to the SOP was generally negative, the reactions to the individual games were positive.
(Even Concord had a more more mixed reception in the live chat than I expected. I thought it would be outright hated.)

@get2sammyb "it doesn’t change the fact that the Sony of 2024 seems out of touch with the fans who ultimately built the brand."
I disagree with you here. I've been saying since before PS5 launched that this feels more and more like the PS1 days to me. It still does.

• There are amazing third party games to play, some of them exclusive.
• There's a smattering of top quality first party mixed in. Not as much as last gen (so far) but all I need to know is that something is cooking.
• And they've been giving me a lot of the old classics I grew up with. I already bought many of them on my PS3 way back so it cost me nothing to install them on my PS5.

Feels like good times to me.
Did you see Behemoth??? fml that looks incredible.

There won't be anymore iconic E3 style moments and reveals, not with the leaker economy in full swing.
Eventually the new Resi remakes will be revealed in a show, but there will be no impact because we already had the headline.

@BeerIsAwesome @get2sammyb @ED_209 I was thinking something similar.

• We see people cry out for a fun, quirky game because they're tired of AAA.
• A fun, quirky game is announced and the other half of the community cry out for a AAA game.
• If there's not too much singleplayer there's too much multiplayer.
  It's always going to be this way though. I'm pretty sure if we dug out our old magazines from the 90s we'd see the equivalent complaints in the letters sections.

@Titntin "for an audience that grew up on a steady stream of Resistance, inFAMOUS, and Uncharted, the PS5 feels sorely lacking."
This is the key line for me from this article.
My induction to PlayStation was with third party games like Tomb Raider, Armoured Core, MDK, Loaded, Resi and Final Fantasy in the PS1 and PS2 days (with a pinch of Splinter Cell, Medievil and G-Police.) I came late to PS3 (2011) so I came late to a lot of the big first party franchises that are still going strong today.
But because of those PS1 and PS2 days I've never felt the need for first party to have a constant stream of games or even one game every year. As long as I have good games to play I don't care where they come from. And right now I have more to play than I have time to finish before the next big release window.

Fondly remembering watching 30 seconds of OG Resi 3 gameplay on a VHS I ordered from GamesMaster back in the 90s.
Play > Rewind > Play > Rewind > Play > Rewind...

Ghost of Tsushima seems to be doing well enough on PC with the same requirements.
This sounds the same as that whole "boycott Hogwarts" thing.

This is the one I've been dying to see more of.
It looks fantastic.
More games like this and Legendary Tales please. Help me scratch that King's Field itch.

I asked for Behemoth and Astro.
They gave me Behemoth and Astro.

It's been working on me.
I have some disposable income this gen and the accessories are genuinely useful, so I've been picking them up here and there.

tbf the missus bought me two dualsense controllers I didn't need because I liked the colours (bless her), but everything else has been eagerly bought.

Astro or Behemoth would do it for me.
Anything else is a bonus.

@naruball It has great experiences, but yeah in this era the platform will be judged based on the first party support. It's a fair demand too - We want to know how committed the platform holder is to the platform.

For right now I'll be happy with some gameplay for Behemoth.
It's the VR game I'm most excited for and the only game that I feel I really need to be shown something of at this point.

@naruball I'll be surprised (pleasantly) if we see anything from first party for VR2 in the next year.
The strategy for now seems to be funding third party AAA and AA games like Resi.
Before they launched the headset they said they were going to take a rising tide approach. It's reminding me of what they did with PS1 and the focus on blockbuster third party games back then.

I'd love to be wrong though.

Nice. I'd be happy with either one.

I replayed Resi 0 a ridiculous amount of times when it first came out on GameCube.
On the other hand Code Veronica is one of only two Resi titles that I never played more than two times. (Gaiden being the other one.) I just couldn't stand Steve Burnside.

@Alexface Yeah I'm crying out for Dino Crisis too.

G-Police and Dragon's Dogma II for me.
I'm surprised at how well I remember G-Police. I haven't played it in about 26 years.
A VR reboot for that series would be serious fun.

Did anyone see that mod for Skyrim VR on PC that allowed the player to have actual back and forth conversations with the NPCs? It made me think that we're on the road to holodeck levels of interaction.
The possibilities there for narrative in RPGs especially are very exciting.

@Titntin @TheAmbienWalrus
😂😂
(Someone in work is asking me to share the joke after I chuckled. Bracing myself for a blank stare and a "I guess you had to be there" response.)

Downloaded G-Police.
I'm eager to see how it's aged. I loved it on PS1.

The Settlers looks interesting, but I can't wait to play G-Police again. I loved it in the 90s and haven't played it since.

Dragon's Dogma II now as soon as I pull myself out of bed.
I have a Mario Kart itch this morning too. I haven't played in a few months so I'm due a few hours of that I think.

@Cutmastavictory I had a similar experience recently.
I can't remember what I was doing, but I fired up my PS4 Pro to do something.
The changes may not seem like much, but to me using PS4 after PS5 felt like trying to run in deep water.

Plus, I've never had a backlog of new games like the one I have now.

@UltimateOtaku91 Same. I've always liked the look of the lego games but never committed to any of them.
I'd definitely get this though. I love Horizon and Aloy was probably my favourite new character from the PS4 gen, along with Quill from Moss.

I'd love to see the Resident Evil: Outbreak games on this.
They hold up fairly well visually. At the time they looked amazing.

Or all of those PS2 era Lord of the Rings games.

@Boucho11 Yeah I remember the second game kind of came in under most people's radars.
tbh I only played the first one because my friends wanted to try one of my games so we traded for a few weeks.

I ended up loving it though.

Oh, very cool. I really enjoyed both of the GPolice games back in the 90s.
A VR GPolice game would be nice. It'll never happen, but it would be nice.

@get2sammyb @Titntin I agree. I never thought this would be a problem, but I have too much to play on PS5 atm.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but having experienced burnout in this hobby myself in the past I'm convinced it's widespread today based on what I see some people say.

@bowzoid I'm convinced they lead to burnout. I'd love to know if anyone has done a study on it.

Just Dragon's Dogma 2 this weekend. Taking a break from FF VII.
I'll probably play some Helldivers too.

@TheArt Yeah I can't remember what it was exactly that made me leave it, but after the first few missions I just felt like I had done it all before and quit.

Fallout 4 cost €5.00 on PSN where I am last month.
Was it similarly priced everywhere else?

I already had a physical PS4 copy, but I bought it again at that price for the convenience.
I hadn't played it since I quit half way through the Nuka Cola expansion back in the day, but that game is addictive when you get into it.

tbh I was very surprised when it looked like he wouldn't be fired.
I work alongside community management teams and while I've thankfully never seen one of them fired, I know how careful they need to be. It would take a lot less than what this guy did for red flags to be raised.

@Deadlyblack I was just about to say exactly this.
This one is simply not our business. It's a shame when someone loses their job, but this is between him and Arrowhead.

@AverageGamer That's just community management though, and the Arrowhead CEO took responsibility for his part in the mess too, then thanked Sony for listening.

Even if they are mad now, give it another month of Helldivers related income in the bank.
Money makes everyone happy.

This will be filed under "lessons learned the hard way/bullets dodged" and everyone will move on.

@AverageGamer They seem to have a really good relationship.
If Sony had stood their ground here I'd be worried about this, but as it stands, from the outside, it seems to be a very collaborative back and forth.

Sony have funded them for years too, so I'm sure there's good will on both sides.