StrickenBiged

Strong Lemmings vibes here too.

I came from XB360 in the previous gen. After watching both conferences, my wife remarked - quite rare of her to humour me and watch this sort of thing with me, but she did so there you go - that "Xbox didn't have much on the games". I thought I would stick with XB for the last gen, but her unprompted non-gamer remark made me reconsider. Glad I switched horses and became a Sony Pony, I'd have missed many great exclusives had I not done so.

Too many reviews highlighted it's similarity to MH for me. I played MHW, became obsessed with it for a while, and then put it down. If I wanted to scratch that itch again, I know where MHW is. The building mechanic doesn't seem like it offers enough differentiation to me, and in fact seems overcomplicated. I liked the purity that came with carefully crafting your weapon, gear and tools in MHW, and then flawlessly executing on a hunt with others.

Enjoyed the first one much more than many reviewers and commenters led me to believe I would. My midi-chlorians are ready.

Is BeatSaber available in PSVR2 yet? I keep banging on about it, but it's my favourite VR game so I'm keen to know how that fares on this platform. Particularly keen to know how the controllers feel while playing it, as the two rings around the wrist look like they might get in the way of fast wrist flapping motions, and/or collide when you have to make simultaneous cuts in opposing directions in some of the tracks.

@Constable_What "The outcome I foresee, is this deal goes through, but with a caveat that CoD remains accessible on Playstation platforms indefinitely."

Not sure about any other jurisdiction, but I don't think that such a caveat would be enforceable in the UK as it would infringe too much on MS/Activision's property rights in the CoD franchise.

I recall that one of the CMA's possible remedies was that the CoD business would be spun off into a separate business. PlayStation and MS would then be able to compete on more equal terms to do business with the new CoD publisher/developer, as they currently do with third parties.

Has Kotick only just figured that out now? If so, MS should knock a few billion off the price.

I only really use VR currently for BeatSaber. So I'll be looking at how PSVR2 lands among that community in particular before making any decision about the headset. I'm particularly concerned about the PSVR2 controllers, which look like they won't withstand being accidentally smashed together at high speed while you're pulling off some of the moves required in that game.

"there’s a quiet understanding that not every project in its portfolio needs to be a success: if one of its ten titles hits even half as hard as Fortnite, then it’ll have a multi-billion dollar game in its catalogue."

This. Only one needs to hit to make megabucks. The non-financial downside of cancelling or killing some of the others that don't make the cut is that Sony will earn a reputation in the eyes of its customers for being an unreliable publisher. The gamble is that the payoff of the hit will outweigh the loss of player goodwill.

As a fan of the tabletop game who doesn't get to play anywhere near as often as I like, I'm looking forward to this.

@tgt She doesn't though. JK's point is that reforms such as de-medicalised self ID make it easier for people who are NOT trans (such as predatory men) to PRETEND to be trans to gain access to women's spaces and potential victims.

The game being published by WB, I'm heartened to read that there are no microtransactions in it. But now I'm scared that it will do what Activision did with Crash Team Racing and simply wait until they've had glowing reviews across the board before sticking microtransactions in at a later date. While I'm keen to play this game, I think I'll hold off for a little while to see whether that comes to pass. It doesn't hurt that my backlog is sure to keep me busy while I wait.

I agree with other commenters that the second and third paragraphs of this review detract from the piece as a whole, and are not relevant to the discussion of the game in any way. I'd remove them, personally.
They are arguably a slur on the creator of the Harry Potter franchise and universe. While the Glamour article linked in the first comment gives a one-sided re-hash of Rowling's alleged 'transphobia', other journalists have looked into it too (and more recently) and reached different conclusions. See, for instance: https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/jk-rowling-transphobic-how-i-went-from-spreading-this-false-narrative-to-seeing-right-through-it-ej-rosetta-3961211
I agree with PushSquare's right to moderate it's comments as it sees fit. It does however strike me as hypocritical to take a stance in the review and then forbid discussion of that stance.
In case it makes any difference to a moderator, I support both trans-rights AND women's rights. As the father of a little girl, I share Rowling's concerns over women's spaces being opened up to anyone who claims to be a woman (which is available to anyone under a de-medicalised system of gender self-ID). This is not even a view on trans-folks, but a view on safeguarding women, because predatory men (again, emphatically NOT the overwhelming majority of law-abiding trans-women) have and will continue to avail themselves of any loophole they can to gain access to victims. I view this stance as also being supportive of trans-rights, which will only lose political support as scandals occur (as for example in the recent Scottish cases involving rapists being placed in women's prisons).

All depends on the terms of this offer. SIE's filings with the CMA show (although the numbers are redacted) they need parity with MS when it comes to CoD. That means parity across multi-game subscription services also.

Great if true. I've been itching to replay ME.

Well deserved. I'm 31 hours in and the game just keeps getting better. I'm doing a lot of the side content, and then I stumbled upon a whole new area in one of the realms which is absolutely stuffed with sorely needed upgrade materials and side-missions. Sorry main quest-line, you're going to have to wait a while.

I'm about 23 hours into Ragnarok. Taking my time and savouring every morsel of content on this one, doing as much side-content as I can as I progress the main story.

Improved loading times will make this a lot more playable. I had just started my Death March playthrough, so might pick this back up after the current gen version drops.

Playing GoW:Ragnarok at the moment. Personally, I find it immersive - I think it would be weird for your companions to stand around in silence while Kratos struggled to realise how to overcome a simple moving platform puzzle. But I think it would be a good idea for the developers to allow players to fiddle with the settings to further delay or entirely remove this sort of commentary from NPC characters so that you could find the solutions entirely by yourself if you wanted.

I loved Elden Ring on my first playthrough and character, but on starting a second character the shine quickly wore off. The magic of EL is in the exploration and discovery, I think, and subsequent playthroughs are spoiled by knowing what's coming up and where everything you need to build your character is.
Looking forward to getting into GOW:Ragnarok later though... High expectations after the reviews...

Klever F**kin' Commerce

@TheDudeElDuderino I was being facetious, glad you enjoyed it.

"One of the biggest gameplay changes in Overwatch 2 sees each team drop a player for a 5v5 bout consisting of two DPS (damage per second) characters, a Tank, and a Support."

Forgive me, but 2 DPS + 1 Tank +1 Support makes 4 players in a team. What is the 5th role?

@Razrye888 InB4 Colin Moriarty - it's "fewer".

But they can't get PS3 emulation running on PS5?

Aaaaah, in my youth I'd have been all over this, whiling away long summer days in front of the TV and becoming totally engrossed. I don't think I'd ever see the ending of a game this deep now though...

@TrickyDicky99 Ok, you got me. XD

Reminds me of the way I always had to pass the controller to my dad to kill Bowser for me at the end of Super Mario World on the SNES. I never managed to kill that ***** dinosaur. Well done to this little girl. With my first on the way, I'm looking forward to playing games with her in a few years time.

Well done to them. A "greatest hits" of Sly and inFAMOUS which ran natively on PS5 would be a nice way of celebrating...

If its the accessibility features, then fine, that should be a free update, and absolutely not paywalled (can you imagine the message that would send... less-abled gamers get to pay extra, yaaaay!). But given that H:ZD has been patched to run great on PS5, is backwards compatible and available for purchase, there is no point in re-releasing it. Well, other than $$...

This is in contrast to TLoU:P1, which while I didn't buy it, I could see the point for people that missed the original. I just realised it wasn't for me; my nostalgic memories of the original release put it on a par with everything I've seen of the remake, even if it isn't technically true. It's for people like my wife who, if she like the TV show when that comes out, I might recommend she tries the game and, if she's up for it, I'll buy her the recent Part 1 version so she can experience it at its very best.

Nice month for me. Hot Wheels has tempted me a few times, SuperHot VR was great so I look forward to trying the couch version, and I enjoyed the story mode in Injustice 1.

I like this approach, which makes more commercial sense. I'm not currently subbed to Extra. What I fear most would be getting part way through a game and then it rotating out of the subscription. If Extra subscribers then got a decent discount on games they had played while they were in the rotation I'd probably sub.

That's insane. I can just about follow what's going on - I'd forgo the flipping if I were playing it. I bet combat is completely incoherent in first-person though, though I'd like to see that demoed.

Haven't played since SF4 but I really enjoyed that - until I hit my personal skill ceiling which was, indeed, input related. So if it's more approachable then that's piqued my interest in SF6. Now on my radar.

Might be the right time to jump in then - been on my wishlist for ages.

Sony looks a little desperate, but as has been pointed out, the scale is completely different. A Sony first party exclusive like TLoU Part 2 only recently topped 10 million copies sold. Each CoD release can now be expected to sell at least double that, and there is an entire ecosystem of developers working together under Activision to make that an annual endeavour.

Been keeping an eye on this one. Looking forward to reviews of v1.0.

"One specific addition allows you to “feel” speech through haptic feedback, which in conjunction with the subtitles will allow visually impaired players to physically appreciate the way lines are delivered."

Surely you mean "deaf players"?

Still think those controllers look like a terrible design for BeatSaber. I'm going to smash them to bits the first time I have to cross my arms in front of me. I would totally buy a pair of dedicated BeatSaber controllers.

Lots of comments that do not understand competition law.
The argument is that Sony is in a monopolistic position viz. the PSN store. The abuse is not "the prices are too high" but "by preventing competition for digital PlayStation games there is no competition which might have led to lower prices".
I have heard on podcasts, etc, that indie developers do not even get a say in when their games go on sale, so it seems that Sony is quite controlling of the store. No doubt major publishers have more of a say.
So imagine the difference it could make if the store was more open-platform, or each publisher was allowed to operate its own store on the console, etc. If you could choose to buy the next CoD from either the PSN or the Activision store on your PlayStation, that's what could drive down prices.

@get2sammyb "the suit only covers the past six years of purchases"

This will probably be because the Limitation Act imposes a hard limit on how long after a civil 'wrong' - e.g. a breach of contract or, in this case, anti-competitive behaviour - the 'victim' has to launch their lawsuit. The deadline is very strictly enforced by the courts.

Where exactly was Lara hiding the parachute in the scene they acted out? Those things aren't small!

@Luigia Yeah, not proud of it. I accept I willingly spent the cash at the time - I really wanted that skin! Now I can't even remember if I even won it. I have no idea how much I'd have paid for the skin outright if they just offered it to me for a cash price - that's the thing about loot boxes, the 'I'll just open one more pack' mentality takes over. In principle I have no problem with Overwatch offering skins for £45 though provided they drop the loot-boxes. At least that's a fair transaction where you know what you're getting and how much it costs.

I voted for a lack of interest. But the truth is that Overwatch was the game that made me swear off lootboxes and any other game with these manipulative practices. I blew ~£60 in a weekend on lootboxes gambling for a seasonal legendary skin that I thought was never going to come back if I missed it. Then the following year they did the same event again, and the skins from the previous year were available again, and with a price making them purchasable with the in-game currency you get in dribs and drabs when you get dupes from lootboxes. I remembered blowing the £60 the previous year and felt so manipulated by the manufactured sense of FOMO that I turned off Overwatch immediately and stopped playing. To the best of my knowledge I haven't played a game with lootboxes since.

It's all very pretty and what have you, but it doesn't change the fact that it's the same story beats, etc. For £70 I'd rather be playing something new, because the truth is I've played TLoU enough to know that I will blast through it in no time at all, barely appreciating the upgrades. £20-ish for me, maybe.

And that's a compliment to the original game, by the way, which looked great on PS3, and amazing on PS4, and still holds up IMO.

ND and Sony can spend what they want on updating the visuals. Whether or not it's good value to me is up to me alone. And £70 to play a game that I've already played, with no new story beats and (now) apparently no new gameplay, and with the multiplayer stripped out, albeit looking a bit shinier, when I could go play the PS4 version which still looks stunning to this day... I personally don't see the point in this remake existing at all.

This remake must be for people who haven't played Part 1 yet and want to jump in on the best version available, or diehard fans, only. Personally, I may purchase on sale but I'm thinking I would pay no more than ~£20 for some updated visuals. That's not a dig at what I'm sure was a huge amount of work, (I have no reason to doubt what they say at any rate), it's to the credit of the original release and how good it already looked.

That's it, I'm out. Was excited for this too.

No one is saying that it's a cash grab or in any way lazy - I have no idea how much ND spent on resourcing the game. But don't pretend that as much work has gone into this game as would have done a new game. Just a few things which will not have been needed on this remaster, off the top of my head:
1. Level design;
2. Concept art (or, at least, not to the same degree as if from scratch);
3. Storywriting;
4. Multiplayer, networking, etc, etc;
5. Enemy design, encounter design, etc;
6. High-level playtesting/focus-grouping on pacing, story coherency, etc.

Sony can charge whatever it likes, and Naughty Dog can spend billions on making sure that every pixel down to the one which will only be seen by astronauts when the game is projected onto the Moon at 64,000K resolution is polished to a brilliant shine if it wants to - that's their prerogative. But asking for £70 for the game when so much of the work involved in making a game was already in place and ready for them still feels like nasty price gouging to me.

Why the hell didn't Sony negotiate a licence agreement which gave them the right to stream those films in perpetuity when they were, you know, advertising those films as available for purchase and viewing in perpetuity...

I've been praying for this.