Stuffgamer1

I'm torn on this...I have in the past finished 100% completion runs on some of those "old-school hard" PS1 games...all of the Crash and Spyro titles, to be specific. But it's really a pain in the butt, and I have a lot less patience for time trials now. We'll have to see how this goes...

As long as they don't throw in some BS time trial like they did on Kingdom Hearts, I really don't think the Trophies will upset me too much...I'm a completionist anyway, so I'd already be going for a lot of those optional things. I never finished the game on PS2...I was in the middle of monster capture farming at the time, guess I got distracted. I think Trophies might help me stick with it...hard to say.

@ShogunRok: If that's what you want, you don't even want a next-gen console at all...there's simply no way this can be avoided if you want gaming to evolve past current-gen, as they canna change the laws of physics.

I have the PlayStation 3D Display, and I really have no reason to upgrade. 1080p goodness squeezed into a 24" screen is PERFECT for a small room like mine, and the 3D is a nice plus even though I don't use it all that much (more for movies than games).

It's probably a PS2 classic, so...most likely $10.

I think they need to add a way to select who appears...there are certain people I would want to make sure were always available on PS3, and I don't like the thought of them not showing just because they're far along alphabetically. I mean, is there no way to interact with the people who aren't displayed? That could be a huge problem for some people!

Not that I've hit 100 on PS3 yet, and I honestly have a lot of people on my list I don't need, but still...

This one came with my PS3...glad I didn't pay for it, anyway. Game's STUPIDLY hard...only impressive thing I managed before I got sick of it was earning the Dick's Harder Balls Trophy.

Don't forget that you have to install disc-based games on the hard drive, too...an upgrade would definitely be a good idea for anybody who wants quick no-hassle access to a lot of games.

Wow...is there really a demand for this? Based on the slow start the campaign has had, I'm not so sure...but they've still got just over a month, so who knows?

I'd MUCH rather have Contrast anyway, to be honest...but I'm REALLY not a racing game guy, so I wouldn't presume to suggest too many would or should agree with me. But hey, at least they're putting SOMETHING at the launch instead of leaving a gap, right?

@3Above: They ended the Kevin Butler campaign BEFORE he got in trouble for that other ad...I don't think they'd have been looking to bring him back one way or another anyway.

Not terribly interested in pretzel buns myself, but Auntie Anne's pretzel hot dog is awesome. Those have been around for YEARS now, so it's just kind of surprising it's taken this long for everybody else to catch up.

No Bluetooth? WHY? I'm sorry, but that makes no freaking sense to me whatsoever.

@Munkyknuts: Oh yes, KH2 had a vastly improved camera.

I think the biggest and best reason they did NOT put Birth By Sleep in this set is that its story relies on knowledge from KH2...after all, the teaser cutscene from KH2 was for BBS. True, 358/2 Days also released after KH2, but it's still a HECK of a lot easier to follow without playing KH2.

I don't recall ever having particularly huge issues with the camera even though I readily admit it was inferior to what came later. It's not so much that it was outright BAD as it was designed strangely and took getting used to. This is mostly because the game started development on PS1 and they couldn't guarantee DualShock ownership, otherwise they probably would have made better use of the right stick.

Easy-to-earn sounds like a nice improvement from the Welcome game on Vita. That thing was a lot tougher than it should've been, mostly because of the timed puzzle Trophies.

@ErnisDy: Okay, I agree maybe using the words "spoiler warning" would have been good, but it's not like "For those not up to speed with the Fabula Nova Crystallis saga" doesn't ALSO indicate likely spoilers ahead.

Ideally, game discussion would ALWAYS include spoiler warnings, but it's just not realistic. I heard about the big FFVII spoiler rjejr mentioned several times before playing it...but to be fair I also played it quite a few years after it released. It's nigh impossible to define the right amount of time to require spoiler warnings, and you have to know that you always risk getting burned on that front using the internet.

@charlesnarles: Shantae was one of the last GBC games ever released, which resulted in a small print, low sales, and cult following status. It's a really good series for hardcore action game players, and I recommend checking it out now that it's accessible cheap.

Don't forget the backer-exclusive Tinkerbat tier! Pledge at least $55 to get the Tinkerbat transformation, which is a totally kick-ass multipurpose spell only seen before if you played the original Shantae on a GBA.

@get2sammyb: I find the extremely biased nature of this article strange (although I admit I didn't think much of it until a friend pointed it out). What gives, anyway?

@ErnisDy: Spoilers for a three-and-a-half-year-old predecessor to the game this article is about. These are situations where it's up to the reader to tread lightly. And believe me, I've been in your place before...wrote in to a magazine about it once and got schooled by their reply. I've long since decided they were right.

@Confused_Dude: It's quite simple...the persona she portrays to her teammates is noticeably different from that which she uses in the narration of the game. She even talks in the narration about how hard everything is on her and how she feels the best way to deal with it is to put on a phony happy face all the time. I really have no idea why everybody forgets that.

Poor girl is so misunderstood...she comes off as vapid and useless because she's trying to suppress her real feelings. It's actually a pretty deep character if you bother to think about it.

@divinelite: Maybe you'll get lucky and they'll release the game with crossbuy.

We'll, be lucky to hit PS4, never mind Vita.

@get2sammyb: I KNEW you were going to say that. The first sentence specifically, that is.

Gee, I clicked on this article expecting it to be about the value of playing a wide variety of genres...I was a bit disappointed to find it was about optional stuff in sandbox games.

Anyway, I've made my viewpoint on open-world game design quite clear recently...and it does tie in to my completionist tendencies to a point, but it's also just about game quality. Most sandboxes just wind up replicating that tired old saying..."Jack of all trades, master of none." This because most developers simply can't afford the time it takes to perfect every element of a game with more to it than the periodic table. By your own admission, even the minigames in GTAV aren't all that great, and that's coming from a company you say DOES have the luxury of time to work on it.

So yeah, I think the mechanics, level design, and overall production quality generally can't help but go up when a game ditches the open-world style...providing the developer is good, of course. The question is whether or not the trade-offs are usually worthwhile. It would seem that's a "yes" for you, Sammy, but I disagree.

@charlesnarles: You forgot the VERY important qualifier that you shouldn't be forced to wait for things to happen if you don't pay...and there shouldn't be things that are TECHNICALLY possible to get in-game but take FOREVER. Balance on this business model is EXTREMELY difficult to do right, and I just don't think Capcom can pull it off.

Free-to-play from a company in severe financial trouble...I don't see this going very well for the consumers. This, especially considering their teasing of degrading weapons the other day. Too much could go wrong with this, and I see no reason to assume it won't.

@Reverend_Skeeve: I get the feeling from all of this that more people are going to take the impatient route than otherwise would because they see this as a value...and THAT makes this whole thing an evil genius money-making scheme.

Really, it makes no SENSE to buy current-gen and upgrade in less than two months, IMO. So you're going to start playing the inferior version and then try to switch up partway through the game? I'd rather play the better game all the way through, thanks.

@Madd_Hatter401: "Gamer-friendly?" All I see here is publishers milking impatient gamers for $10 per game. After all, the PS4 games cost the same at retail as PS3 games, so this program is designed to get people wasting money in a rush to get the game fast. Whole thing is incredibly stupid, IMO.

@JCE: Ah-hah, somebody else thought of this! I'm quite certain that is the case...no reason the PS4 would need to read all the PS3 code just to do this.

@Alpha: I didn't like The Last of Us all that much, honestly. It's way too stressful for my tastes. Certainly don't assume that if you love Uncharted you'll like this...the differences are much greater than I'd expected.

I read the TITLE of the article and instantly knew the fruit was mislabeled. Wumpa fruit it is...I suppose a complicating factor is that there's no such thing as Wumpa fruit IRL.

Okay, here's the thing: For a completionist such as myself, open-world equals tedium, 100% of the time. Repetitive, boring tasks thrown all over the map bogging down the overall experience. That's not to say I've never enjoyed some open-world games...I really like InFamous, and I've had some good times with Assassin's Creed on occasion. Heck, I even liked Bully, though I never finished it. But there are variables, of course. Take Saboteur, for example. There are SO DAMN MANY things to blow up in that game. It gets EXTREMELY old, thanks in no small part to your limited dynamite carrying capacity.

The thing is that anytime a game mechanic which can so easily be done so poorly gets popular, the flood of games using it are BOUND to do it wrong more often than not. Then even otherwise linear games decide it's a good idea to have a sprawling hub world (Sonic games have suffered from this for years). And now it seems that open worlds are practically the NORM for next-gen...I just think that's going too far.

To be clear, I do think it's about balance. Linearity to the degree of the majority of FFXIII is overkill, obviously. And like I said, I do like some open-world games. But think of it as the comparison between the first two AC titles in terms of collectibles. The first one was straight-up asinine, and 2 took great strides to fix the problem. Heck, InFamous 2 fixed the biggest complaint with 1 by adding that blast shard ping power. So yes, the genre is improving, but even so if EVERY game is like that, it's going to get old fast.

With everyone looking forward to this game, I'm sure my opinion will be unpopular, but...man, I wish that world had come to pass. Not only because I don't like GTA in particular (although that is true), but because it was the #1 cause of the open-world explosion, a game design choice I'm less than thrilled to see become more and more NORMAL nowadays. Sure, somebody else probably would've figured it out sooner or later...but we don't know for sure. All we DO know is that GTA was a prime factor in the real world, and I for one do not appreciate that. :/

Yeah...I've never been a fan of deteriorating equipment, and I don't care how nicely it's done in-game. This is a definite ANTI-selling-point for me. Way to go, Capcom...you want more money and you're still doing NOTHING to earn it.

@odd69: I couldn't agree with you more. I don't give a crap how cool their cutscenes are...if the gameplay isn't to my liking, it doesn't mean a damn thing.

@rjejr: This trailer is meant to be reminiscent of Sega-CD-style animated cutscenes...and it does a good job of that. But I can definitely see where people wouldn't realize it was a JRPG based on that footage alone.

As there ISN'T any gameplay footage, I'm not really excited yet. I'm sure they'll be able to grab my attention sooner or later, but for now I'll just move on. Certainly not Kickstarting or anything crazy like that, at any rate.

@ferrers405: When you get down to it, the kind of competition Sony and Microsoft have going is INHERENTLY childish. They're just being a little more open about it than usual as of late.

This can't be properly compared to Pokémon quite so easily just because the majority of adult fans today grew up with it. What Activision is trying to do is draw us into a kids' series many of us simply won't ever care about.

Personally, I DID care about it first-gen...but I'm MORE than over it now. They aren't getting me back...period.

This isn't news, really. Maybe a slight clarification at best. Won't help me much anyway, since I don't have a smartphone.

This beats the SNOT out of the refurbished Vita's they gave their managers last year. I'm definitely all for equal representation among the managers...now if only we could get these guys to learn about NINTENDO. In my experience, most GameStop employees are worst versed in that area...something I was good for, but I'm no salesman so they dumped me anyway.

@jaz007: By and large, I agree with you. Though to be honest, just the TEXT "flick-based combat" set off the warning alarms for me.

@rjejr: I could be wrong, but I THINK the text at 0:56 is telling us it costs 1000 yen on mobile...pricy, but if there's no micro-transactions it could be a fair deal.

I wonder...will the PS4 version REQUIRE second-screen devices, make heavy use of the touch pad on the controller, or be redesigned to work on a console? We have too little information. I'm willing to keep paying attention for a little longer just because of the developer's pedigree, but they're going to need to dish in the right way for me to actually get excited for this.

@divinelite: Based on the announced launch lineup, I think they're going the "all at once" route. Leave it to Microsoft to learn NOTHING from the competition.

@get2sammyb: Fair chance of it, yeah. My concern is that usually, games are announced more than just a few months before their release. So if they're trying to get content ready for spring and summer, they're playing it oddly close to the chest at the moment. Sure, I have no trouble believing some of the as-yet unannounced games are set for Christmas 2014, but that's a long ways off yet and it's the interim they need to be focusing on.

The question is, will these unannounced games be ready to release quickly enough to avoid a Vita-sized post-launch drought? Here's hoping.

I used it once, I think. Friend wanted to discuss Golden Abyss treasure grinding...which as I recall we couldn't even do while playing Golden Abyss at the time. So yeah, not a very useful application for me.

Still, people want it. There ARE people who use it all the freaking time on Xbox 360, so I'm sure having that feature will help acclimate former Xbots to their new home.

Good! I want to give this game a fair chance, but I couldn't get anywhere in the PC demo with mouse/keyboard controllers ad I couldn't find I good way to use a controller. Problem solved now, I guess.

Not a fan of AR...and this looks like yet another example of a game that could've worked perfectly fine without that particular gimmick. I really wish developers wouldn't make interesting concepts and attach them to problematic hardware so I can't even play them. :/

If the ad didn't call it a sale, I'd be more inclined to believe this...but in my experience, leaked ads showing price drops usually announce them as such, not as sales. Not saying it couldn't happen...just this seems like pretty shaky evidence to me.

It's funny...I really like my Mii, and I enjoyed the Avatar system back when I had a 360, yet I'm really not too concerned about PlayStation getting a similar setup. I mean yeah, there have been games that would benefit from it but instead got stuck with generic junk in their place, but I guess that's down to developer choice. For most games, the avatar pic works just fine.

This could be cool, I guess. I hope they still keep menu options open for those who prefer to prioritize a different part of the game, though. For example...the trailer they had showing Killzone downloading single or multilayer first. That was a menu option, and I think that system needs to remain intact.

Better yet, I want menu options for games with character creation...give me what I need to make the class I KNOW I want and skip the others so I can get into the game faster. Not based on what's popular, but on what I want. Personalization is key here.

@DVD_Sandwich: To be fair, the old method of cloud saving was SO cumbersome and difficult to find in the first place, I only attempted it once. This update was sorely needed.

And yeah, this video is insane. But hey, at least it gets the point across. That's all that really matters anyway.

I would because of the value inherent in such a package, but not really because I care about remote play or anything, because I don't. But it's all moot because I bought a Vita at launch anyway.

@psnstores: Precisely. It's like freaking Fat Princess all over again. Quality before quantity, guys. Sheesh.