The only other Housemarque game I ever played was Resogun. After all early PS4 was slim pickings in early 2014 when I got mine.
But man was Returnal great. The story was good, the particle effects were amazing, the gameplay loop was literally crack cocaine. I couldn’t put it down for weeks. It’s easily my best game of 2021.
It felt like a retro arcade shooter like 1942 transported to 2021. But even better.
I’m super down for another Astro game with a focus on Sony history. It was a love letter to people like me who have owned almost every PlayStation platform (never owned a Vita, but I did have a PS TV if that counts). I’d love to see them do something similar, but expand it to include references to other Sony franchises and even some of their pre PlayStation era hardware.
I’d kill to see my old Sony CD Walkman as a collectible. That thing was my ride or die as a kid. I played my CDs on the PS1 in my room and when I went to school I had the CD Walkman.
On that last point. I don’t think it would hurt PS sales at all.
PC gamers and console gamers are drastically different people with very different gaming passions. Not only that, but PC is being hit harder by the chip shortage than even consoles. We are living in a world where 2070 Supers are selling at two or three times their MSRPs. It’s worse than the PS5/Series X kerfluffle. High scalp demand for the consoles is driven by scarcity. On PC, scalp demand is driven by crypto miners who aren’t going anywhere soon.
According to current reports the great chip shortage should start to ease up by the end of 2022. So probably not this year for just walking into any store and buying one. But maybe 2023.
It’s a solid game. The fundamentals are very good. I’ve been playing it on and off for two years now on different platforms. Started on PS4, then Switch, now PS5. Game has gotten better with age.
I will forewarn you though. It’s a sweat fest. Like worse than Call of Duty or Battlefield. The skill gap between the sweat population, the general fans, and the casuals (I’d classify myself somewhere between general fan and casual) are greater than any other shooter I’ve played. It seems simple at first but it’s actually incredibly complicated to manage building, editing, and shooting together at the same time. I’ve been playing for two years and I can’t compete with sweats most of the time unless it’s just one of those rare pure shootouts where neither of us have enough material to build a lot.
When you run into a true sweat, you’ll know. They can build ten story structures in less than two seconds, they will trap you and edit different corners while keeping you from doing anything, and they make assault rifles look like sniper rifles with their accuracy. And that’s just the pad sweats. The mouse and keyboard sweats are ten times worse because this is a game where M&K really helps you out if you get good with it.
It’s a fun game. But the skill gap is insane. There are sweats and then there is everyone else. If you want to get to their level, you have to treat it like a full time job. I already have a full time job so I’ve resigned myself to only being average in all the games metric.
I dunno about it. I get migraines from 3D movies. If VR is more intense than that, I’ll puke my guts out.
No one I know personally has a PSVR. I hope Sony gets some units set up as demos in stores so I can give it a shot. To see if I can tolerate it or if I have to run outside and puke in the parking lot.
Sony’s overall system is good. It has had issues on individual components of the plan. But the overall plan is good.
The PS5 hardware is excellent. The first year of software releases has been much stronger than past PlayStations.
I think a lot of people are forgetting just how poor the PS3 launched. That launch was a disaster. It’s first two years were slim pickings. The PS4 launch was miles better, but software availability for year one was pretty weak. Hell, even the PS2’s launch lineup was weak; it sold mostly on promises that were fulfilled a year later.
The PS5 has honestly been Sony’s strongest launch from if we are thinking solely about software. Year One has been excellent overall.
Plus I think people were ready for new consoles. I know I was. For me it was loading times. Red Dead 2 proved that to me. We needed new hardware that would specifically attack load times, which had gotten back to the PS1 era (or worse in some cases).
There was pent up demand. Then the virus hit. And production cannot keep up with demand for either Microsoft or Sony. Nintendo has been the great victor here, since they had the one console that’s been routinely available.
I watched the video earlier. You’re right the game is poorly optimized for PS5 and I would go for the PS4 version in that instance.
One person in the comments mentioned that he felt like ambient bloom occlusion may be the culprit, since turning that setting on tanks the game’s FPS on the PC version. PS4 doesn’t have it while it seems like PS5 does judging by the quality of the bloom effects.
If that’s the culprit, Square could disable it and it would probably lock to 60 in all cases.
I figured the PS5 version would run better by default on that game. On PS4 it runs at 30FPS with dynamic scaling right?
Pretty bad move on the developers not to further optimize it. I know the engine is old as dirt but it should be an easy locked 60fps at an internal 1440p resolution for that game.
The only game I know of where the PS4 Pro version is superior is GTA Trilogy. And it looks a lot worse; it just plays better right now since the framerate is more consistent than the PS5 version.
I’m curious to what the other ones are. Every PS5 version of a PS4 game I’ve played blows its original version out of the water. I’m currently playing Ghost of Tsushima Directors Cut. It’s not the biggest visual upgrade I’ve seen, but man the load times are literally non-existent and it runs at Native 4K/60. Not many PS5 games can do that right now.
Not every game needs to be open world. There’s nothing wrong with a more traditional design where it is a series of expansive sandbox locations.
Halo:CE is a good example of the beauty of that game design. You have a linear path. There isn’t a bloat of objectives. But the sandbox is expansive enough to allow for combat experimentation.
Don’t get me wrong. I love good well designed open world games. But I generally prefer the more linear sandbox to sandbox design popularized by games like Halo and Jak and Daxter.
I’m a Sony fan. But this is one area where Microsoft absolutely beat Sony over the head with a baseball bat.
Microsoft’s solution is simple and easy, whether you authenticate with discs or use digital. The best version of the game for your system is what is installed. No searching the store, no drop down menus, none of that nonsense.
I really wish Sony would have taken a page from Microsoft on that one.
I upgraded my PS4 disc copy (I found a copy of the collectors edition at a GameStop on sale for twenty bucks) to Intergrade. Easily one of my favorite Final Fantasies of all time. I haven’t played the Yuffie DLC but now that it’s getting discounted, I’m gonna reinstall the game and play through it.
I agree but we live in a world where a 2070 Super (which the PS5 is roughly comparable to) costs twice it’s msrp. Going to a 3080 (which takes a dump on a PS5) will set you back the cost of two and a half PS5s at MSRP. And that’s before we deal with everything else needed on PC.
Right now, PC is hard to get into. And it’s expensive. And finding decent graphics cards are nearly as hard as finding PS5s.
I love the PC and I want to get back into it, but this market needs to stabilize.
As for consoles, I think the PS5 and Series X have reached a point where most of the PC’s key advantages aren’t as dramatic as they used to be. During the PS4 era PC load times were on an order of magnitude faster for SSD users. That alone was a good reason to go PC. Series and PS5 have narrowed that gap significantly.
I don’t blame you. I told my friend to do the same thing. He literally only plays 2K every year. He mentioned a PS5 and I told him “bro, you have a PS4 Pro. You only play one game every year. Don’t waste your money.” He’s a fiend with that game. Puts in at least 1200 hours every year.
I told him the only next Gen console that makes sense for his use case is Xbox Series S.
The worst was the original Xbox. The community had it cracked in theory before it was even released. They used an exploit of the south bridge (the original Xbox was basically an off the shelf PC with a custom OS); the north bridge south bridge design was shared with PCs. They used PC knowledge to find the hidden key data, which Microsoft left on the retail units’ motherboards. Tried it on retail hardware at launch and it worked right out of the gate.
Microsoft’s decision to use open PC hardware on the original Xbox doomed it to be cracked immediately, since knowledge of PC exploits helped narrow down which exploits could theoretically work on the OG Xbox.
The original PlayStation was stupid easy if you judge wanted to play backup burns of games made before 1999. Swap trick. Put in a retail game first, then before the black PlayStation screen comes on you swap it in for your burn disc. The PlayStation’s method of detecting disc wobble (the method used for security) was gimped. It was stored on the first read sector of the disc. So the PS1 only needed to read that one section of data to clear the game as legitimate.
I’m glad it looks good on PS4, but I have this suspicion that the load times for both cold boot and fast travel are going to be appalling.
I like my PS5 a lot. Mainly because of the ultra fast load times and 60fps modes on most games.
But I’ll admit that outside of Ratchet and Clank, I haven’t been entirely floored by any PS5 game’s visuals yet. They are prettier than their PS4 equivalents, but not by much.
People are already cheating in online multiplayer on PS4. There are aim bot solutions for consoles.
That is completely unavoidable. It’s always existed. You just have to hope and pray you don’t get stuck in a lobby with them.
I’ve always bought games and weirdly enough despite my support for modding and jail breaking I’ve only jailbroken one console. My PS3. And that was primarily to enhance to its media player capabilities since it was what I used as a networked media player. The home brew media players were far superior to what Sony offered and you could download codec packs that the system didn’t natively support.
Most of the community jailbreaks to unlock devices that you paid for to allow them to be used to their full potential. Or they do it to challenge theirselves.
A hacked PS4 would be a great affordable emulation box with a port of Retroarch. It’s x86 architecture so porting wouldn’t be difficult. It could certainly run PS2, Xbox, and GC games at native speeds and leveraging the PS4’s GPU to upres the classic games.
Yes some of them are pirates. But that’s just the risk. The benefits of hacking firmware on older consoles that are soon to be depreciated are too big to ignore.
Hell, hacking fixed the problems the Vita had, allowing you to use affordable SD card media and truly back up your games. It was also perfect for emulating older depreciated 32 bit and 16 bit consoles.
It could run on PS4. But it wouldn’t have Ray tracing (which to me is a requirement for that game; it has so many metals in its world construction that when you play without ray tracing it looks like a totally different game), the load times would be appalling, and the textures would have bad pop in due to the rifting sequences.
I need a new dual sense and I’d love to change my plates. Think I’m gonna go for the Galactic Purple. Normally I’m all about black but that purple resembles an old Chrysler color they used on the Barracuda.
I’ve seen the PC version running in real time on a 2070 Super (which the PS5 is roughly equivalent to) and it looks like a totally different game than the PS4 version that released while running very smoothly.
I’m a patient gamer. Id rather play something closer to the PC version than the nonsense that was the PS4 version through back compat.
I will say that from an artistic, graphical, and technical standpoint the Last of Us II is state of the art and a masterpiece in those areas.
Unfortunately the contrived and predictable story really holds it back. Plus some writing issues that plagued the experience and it’s poor pacing.
But I’ll give it credit. The game is drop dead beautiful and the artistic vision is second to none in the industry. It really makes you feel like you’re in a ruined Seattle.
I really want to get back into PC gaming but man… the market is just broken right now.
A friend of mine has a 3060 that I’m considering picking up since he told me he’d sale it to me for 50 bucks less than msrp. He’s never used it because Amazon screwed his order up a few months back and they sent him a 3070 to make up for their mistake. He ended up getting the 3060 a month later. That’s crazy cheap compared to the open market where that same card costs as much as the msrp of a 3070.
If I pick it up, I’ll just build the rest of the pc over a few months as I find decent prices on components. Thankfully the CPU market isn’t nearly as broken at the moment.
Games are ultimately limited by the hardware they run on. The developers build around the target hardware.
In the case of PC, you’ve got a much higher ceiling because there is hardware that greatly outmatches what’s available on console. It’s been this way since Doom hit the scene in 1993. Before that, in the era of sprite and tile based visuals, consoles were far superior to PC.
When a game is built for console, all of that console’s limitations are taken into consideration. Some developers go the extra mile and try to push beyond what the hardware is capable of, like The Last of Us on PS3 where CELL SPEs were being leveraged to create polygonal geometry in addition to handling their usual tasks to aid the GPU. But for the most part, they stay within its boundaries.
On PC, the sky is literally the limit. Back in 2004 there was no graphics card in existence that could run DOOM 3 on its highest settings with all effects maxed out. It took another year before ATI and nVidia released cards that supported all of the game’s features at max settings with a playable framerate.
So really this isn’t a big deal. Games will always look better on PC because your ceiling is always much higher.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love a PS5 that had the same GPU power as a RTX 3080. But that theoretical console would also cost 1700 bucks considering all the other features the PS5 offers.
That’s my main issue with Fortnite. Every other Epic franchise had to die to let their teams work on it.
At this point, I’d be cool with them handing it off to a competent outside studio to develop Unreal Tournament 4.
We need more multiplayer shooters like UT. Simple gameplay, max of 24 players, conventional game modes, and no MTX skins. Just a plain basic shooter, a revival of the original UT or Quake 3: Arena.
Hell I’d be satisfied with a remake of UT:2004 in Unreal Engine 5. Certainly there’s a studio out there who could handle that project.
It’s ridiculous. With how fast these updates are coming I firmly believe the game wasn’t finished and someone at R* and Take2 made them release their latest build in time for Christmas.
I’m getting sick of it. Delay your game, developers and publishers. We are sick of paying money to be beta testers.
If you want to release a free “in progress” version for gamer feedback, that’s fine. But don’t charge money for this stupidity.
I’m going to play it eventually. But I’m waiting for the PS5 version.
The PS4 version is using the PC versions low settings. Much of the graphical flair that makes the PC version a gorgeous game is completely missing from that version.
I’m assuming that the PS5 version will be capable of running the game at 30fps on PC’s high settings with Ray tracing effects turned on at 1800P resolution. The PS5 GPU is roughly equivalent to a RTX 2070 Super. So that’s what I’m expecting out of it.
And yes, PS5 cannot natively output at 1800P but the games internal resolution will probably target that setting. The PS5 will scale it appropriately.
Super Turbo is my second favorite. Mained Chun primarily and on her rare bad matchups I played Sagat.
I like V more than IV, though. Once again, Chun-Li main despite her dropping down the tier list over the lifetime of the game. Ryu as backup.
I’m primarily a Chun player and while she’s no slouch on IV, it felt like the game was designed around nerfing her gameplay. Chun is principly a footsie/poke character. Except in Super Turbo where I play her as a rush down character thanks to standing medium punch being absolutely broken in terms of frame data. Focus attack/dash canceling really, REALLY hurt the footsie/poke characters offensive viability.
I think my main issue with Cold War is how overpowered the Sniper Rifles are. They made it much easier to quick scope. It’s weird running around with a shot gun and getting into fights with guys carrying the Tundra or the Pellington and getting bodied at point blank range.
Also they need to nerf the Akimbo Marshal. I’d say cut the one shot range down a bit. As it is now it makes most of the shotguns completely pointless. If you’re running the Hauer with optimized build and get into a fight with someone using akimbo Marshals with long barrel and the flame shot, you’re gonna lose almost every time.
That said, just about every developer is in a permanent state of crunch. Modern day AAA games are extremely difficult to design and program. That’s not including the hundreds of thousands of man hours poured in by artists. There is the pressure to get the game out by a certain quarter leaning over their shoulders constantly.
That’s why devs who were talking ten years about AAA development being unsustainable are being proven correct. The games are far more complex to build than ever before. Yet publishers are still acting like it’s the PS1 era where developers could put out a game with just six months of development. Mash those two things together and you end up with the modern era. Expectations are higher. Manpower is limited. In the end, I think AAA development is going to have to be scaled back at some point. Maybe release AAA games once every four years and build more AA games to compensate for the loss.
Sort of like a more extreme version of the N64’s game release cycle.
There’s still a decent size community playing Black Ops 2 on PS3. I booted it up last year. It took about three minutes to find a game but it was a full match.
Comments 775
Re: Game of the Year: #1 - Resident Evil Village
@KeldorTheCursed
Village is a great game, but to me Returnal is way ahead of it.
Returnal felt really special.
It came down to Returnal or Metroid Dread for me. But Returnal just edged it out.
Re: Game of the Year: Best PS5, PS4 Developer of 2021
Returnal blew my ever loving mind.
The only other Housemarque game I ever played was Resogun. After all early PS4 was slim pickings in early 2014 when I got mine.
But man was Returnal great. The story was good, the particle effects were amazing, the gameplay loop was literally crack cocaine. I couldn’t put it down for weeks. It’s easily my best game of 2021.
It felt like a retro arcade shooter like 1942 transported to 2021. But even better.
Re: Feature: 15 PS5, PS4 Predictions for 2022
@Grumblevolcano
I’m really hoping Sony has at least one traditional multiplayer shooter in the lineup.
Maybe Factions will feed that itch.
Re: Feature: 15 PS5, PS4 Predictions for 2022
@BritneyfR_ee
I’m super down for another Astro game with a focus on Sony history. It was a love letter to people like me who have owned almost every PlayStation platform (never owned a Vita, but I did have a PS TV if that counts). I’d love to see them do something similar, but expand it to include references to other Sony franchises and even some of their pre PlayStation era hardware.
I’d kill to see my old Sony CD Walkman as a collectible. That thing was my ride or die as a kid. I played my CDs on the PS1 in my room and when I went to school I had the CD Walkman.
Re: Feature: 15 PS5, PS4 Predictions for 2022
@Uncharted2007
On that last point. I don’t think it would hurt PS sales at all.
PC gamers and console gamers are drastically different people with very different gaming passions. Not only that, but PC is being hit harder by the chip shortage than even consoles. We are living in a world where 2070 Supers are selling at two or three times their MSRPs. It’s worse than the PS5/Series X kerfluffle. High scalp demand for the consoles is driven by scarcity. On PC, scalp demand is driven by crypto miners who aren’t going anywhere soon.
Re: Feature: 15 PS5, PS4 Predictions for 2022
@F1at8mot0
According to current reports the great chip shortage should start to ease up by the end of 2022. So probably not this year for just walking into any store and buying one. But maybe 2023.
Re: Feature: 15 PS5, PS4 Predictions for 2022
My predictions list.
1. Last of Us Factions revealed and set for a late summer launch. PS4 and PS5 are target platforms; PC comes in 2023.
2. Square fully details FFXVI. It will probably miss a holiday release. Early 2023 title.
3. FFVII Remake Part 2 revealed and detailed. No confirmed release Window.
4. Insomniac shares more details on Spider-Man 2.
5. Sony buys someone. No idea who. But someone.
6. PS VR 2 released by holiday.
Re: Game of the Year: #1 - Resident Evil Village
Returnal was definitely my Game of the Year. It’s one of the freshest games I’ve played in years.
Resi 8 is damn good though. So not upset with this ranking.
Re: Star Wars' Boba Fett Drops into Fortnite on PS5, PS4 for Christmas Day
@Jslade
It’s a solid game. The fundamentals are very good. I’ve been playing it on and off for two years now on different platforms. Started on PS4, then Switch, now PS5. Game has gotten better with age.
I will forewarn you though. It’s a sweat fest. Like worse than Call of Duty or Battlefield. The skill gap between the sweat population, the general fans, and the casuals (I’d classify myself somewhere between general fan and casual) are greater than any other shooter I’ve played. It seems simple at first but it’s actually incredibly complicated to manage building, editing, and shooting together at the same time. I’ve been playing for two years and I can’t compete with sweats most of the time unless it’s just one of those rare pure shootouts where neither of us have enough material to build a lot.
When you run into a true sweat, you’ll know. They can build ten story structures in less than two seconds, they will trap you and edit different corners while keeping you from doing anything, and they make assault rifles look like sniper rifles with their accuracy. And that’s just the pad sweats. The mouse and keyboard sweats are ten times worse because this is a game where M&K really helps you out if you get good with it.
It’s a fun game. But the skill gap is insane. There are sweats and then there is everyone else. If you want to get to their level, you have to treat it like a full time job. I already have a full time job so I’ve resigned myself to only being average in all the games metric.
Re: Soapbox: PS5's Next-Gen PSVR Headset Is Going to Drop Jaws in 2022
I dunno about it. I get migraines from 3D movies. If VR is more intense than that, I’ll puke my guts out.
No one I know personally has a PSVR. I hope Sony gets some units set up as demos in stores so I can give it a shot. To see if I can tolerate it or if I have to run outside and puke in the parking lot.
Re: Mini Review: Among Us (PS5) - Social Deduction Sensation Is Best with Buddies
@get2sammyb
It can’t be any worse than Call of Duty lobbies to be honest.
Re: Sony's Backwards PS4 to PS5 Upgrade System Is Still Causing Headaches
@Gh05tm4ch1n3
Sony’s overall system is good. It has had issues on individual components of the plan. But the overall plan is good.
The PS5 hardware is excellent. The first year of software releases has been much stronger than past PlayStations.
I think a lot of people are forgetting just how poor the PS3 launched. That launch was a disaster. It’s first two years were slim pickings. The PS4 launch was miles better, but software availability for year one was pretty weak. Hell, even the PS2’s launch lineup was weak; it sold mostly on promises that were fulfilled a year later.
The PS5 has honestly been Sony’s strongest launch from if we are thinking solely about software. Year One has been excellent overall.
Plus I think people were ready for new consoles. I know I was. For me it was loading times. Red Dead 2 proved that to me. We needed new hardware that would specifically attack load times, which had gotten back to the PS1 era (or worse in some cases).
There was pent up demand. Then the virus hit. And production cannot keep up with demand for either Microsoft or Sony. Nintendo has been the great victor here, since they had the one console that’s been routinely available.
Re: Sony's Backwards PS4 to PS5 Upgrade System Is Still Causing Headaches
@thedevilsjester
I watched the video earlier. You’re right the game is poorly optimized for PS5 and I would go for the PS4 version in that instance.
One person in the comments mentioned that he felt like ambient bloom occlusion may be the culprit, since turning that setting on tanks the game’s FPS on the PC version. PS4 doesn’t have it while it seems like PS5 does judging by the quality of the bloom effects.
If that’s the culprit, Square could disable it and it would probably lock to 60 in all cases.
Re: Sony's Backwards PS4 to PS5 Upgrade System Is Still Causing Headaches
@thedevilsjester
I figured the PS5 version would run better by default on that game. On PS4 it runs at 30FPS with dynamic scaling right?
Pretty bad move on the developers not to further optimize it. I know the engine is old as dirt but it should be an easy locked 60fps at an internal 1440p resolution for that game.
Re: Sony's Backwards PS4 to PS5 Upgrade System Is Still Causing Headaches
@thedevilsjester
The only game I know of where the PS4 Pro version is superior is GTA Trilogy. And it looks a lot worse; it just plays better right now since the framerate is more consistent than the PS5 version.
I’m curious to what the other ones are. Every PS5 version of a PS4 game I’ve played blows its original version out of the water. I’m currently playing Ghost of Tsushima Directors Cut. It’s not the biggest visual upgrade I’ve seen, but man the load times are literally non-existent and it runs at Native 4K/60. Not many PS5 games can do that right now.
Re: New Uncharted Movie Trailer Shows Off Bombastic Action, Sully's Moustache
@MyThoughts31
Witcher is guilty of it too. I like the show a lot, but when they revealed Triss in season one I had to do a double take.
Like Triss is white with red ass hair. Not my skin tone.
Re: New Uncharted Movie Trailer Shows Off Bombastic Action, Sully's Moustache
@MyThoughts31
I love Idris as an actor, but I agree with that.
Woke has gotten out of control. There’s nothing wrong with white characters being played by white actors and actresses.
I say this as a person of color.
Re: Horizon Forbidden West's Huge PS5, PS4 Skill Tree Spans Traps, Stealth, More
@Migoshuro
I agree.
Not every game needs to be open world. There’s nothing wrong with a more traditional design where it is a series of expansive sandbox locations.
Halo:CE is a good example of the beauty of that game design. You have a linear path. There isn’t a bloat of objectives. But the sandbox is expansive enough to allow for combat experimentation.
Don’t get me wrong. I love good well designed open world games. But I generally prefer the more linear sandbox to sandbox design popularized by games like Halo and Jak and Daxter.
Re: Sony's Backwards PS4 to PS5 Upgrade System Is Still Causing Headaches
I’m a Sony fan. But this is one area where Microsoft absolutely beat Sony over the head with a baseball bat.
Microsoft’s solution is simple and easy, whether you authenticate with discs or use digital. The best version of the game for your system is what is installed. No searching the store, no drop down menus, none of that nonsense.
I really wish Sony would have taken a page from Microsoft on that one.
Re: PS Plus Version of Final Fantasy VII Remake Can Be Upgraded to PS5 Version for Free from Wednesday
@Amusei
I upgraded my PS4 disc copy (I found a copy of the collectors edition at a GameStop on sale for twenty bucks) to Intergrade. Easily one of my favorite Final Fantasies of all time. I haven’t played the Yuffie DLC but now that it’s getting discounted, I’m gonna reinstall the game and play through it.
Re: Not Everyone Had the Fortitude to Finish Returnal on PS5
I beat the final boss, but I didn’t find the car keys so I haven’t gotten the true ending. At least I think that’s how it works.
Re: Nixxes Responsible for Recent Horizon Zero Dawn PC Patches
@Bismarck
I agree but we live in a world where a 2070 Super (which the PS5 is roughly comparable to) costs twice it’s msrp. Going to a 3080 (which takes a dump on a PS5) will set you back the cost of two and a half PS5s at MSRP. And that’s before we deal with everything else needed on PC.
Right now, PC is hard to get into. And it’s expensive. And finding decent graphics cards are nearly as hard as finding PS5s.
I love the PC and I want to get back into it, but this market needs to stabilize.
As for consoles, I think the PS5 and Series X have reached a point where most of the PC’s key advantages aren’t as dramatic as they used to be. During the PS4 era PC load times were on an order of magnitude faster for SSD users. That alone was a good reason to go PC. Series and PS5 have narrowed that gap significantly.
Re: Guerrilla Shares PS4 Screenshots of Horizon Forbidden West
@sanderson72
I don’t blame you. I told my friend to do the same thing. He literally only plays 2K every year. He mentioned a PS5 and I told him “bro, you have a PS4 Pro. You only play one game every year. Don’t waste your money.” He’s a fiend with that game. Puts in at least 1200 hours every year.
I told him the only next Gen console that makes sense for his use case is Xbox Series S.
Re: PS4 Hack Exploit Allegedly Opens Hardware to Homebrew
@PegasusActual93
The worst was the original Xbox. The community had it cracked in theory before it was even released. They used an exploit of the south bridge (the original Xbox was basically an off the shelf PC with a custom OS); the north bridge south bridge design was shared with PCs. They used PC knowledge to find the hidden key data, which Microsoft left on the retail units’ motherboards. Tried it on retail hardware at launch and it worked right out of the gate.
Microsoft’s decision to use open PC hardware on the original Xbox doomed it to be cracked immediately, since knowledge of PC exploits helped narrow down which exploits could theoretically work on the OG Xbox.
The original PlayStation was stupid easy if you judge wanted to play backup burns of games made before 1999. Swap trick. Put in a retail game first, then before the black PlayStation screen comes on you swap it in for your burn disc. The PlayStation’s method of detecting disc wobble (the method used for security) was gimped. It was stored on the first read sector of the disc. So the PS1 only needed to read that one section of data to clear the game as legitimate.
Re: Guerrilla Shares PS4 Screenshots of Horizon Forbidden West
@Flurpsel
I’m glad it looks good on PS4, but I have this suspicion that the load times for both cold boot and fast travel are going to be appalling.
I like my PS5 a lot. Mainly because of the ultra fast load times and 60fps modes on most games.
But I’ll admit that outside of Ratchet and Clank, I haven’t been entirely floored by any PS5 game’s visuals yet. They are prettier than their PS4 equivalents, but not by much.
Re: PS4 Hack Exploit Allegedly Opens Hardware to Homebrew
@Flaming_Kaiser
People are already cheating in online multiplayer on PS4. There are aim bot solutions for consoles.
That is completely unavoidable. It’s always existed. You just have to hope and pray you don’t get stuck in a lobby with them.
I’ve always bought games and weirdly enough despite my support for modding and jail breaking I’ve only jailbroken one console. My PS3. And that was primarily to enhance to its media player capabilities since it was what I used as a networked media player. The home brew media players were far superior to what Sony offered and you could download codec packs that the system didn’t natively support.
Re: PS4 Hack Exploit Allegedly Opens Hardware to Homebrew
@Flaming_Kaiser
That’s not accurate at all.
Most of the community jailbreaks to unlock devices that you paid for to allow them to be used to their full potential. Or they do it to challenge theirselves.
A hacked PS4 would be a great affordable emulation box with a port of Retroarch. It’s x86 architecture so porting wouldn’t be difficult. It could certainly run PS2, Xbox, and GC games at native speeds and leveraging the PS4’s GPU to upres the classic games.
Yes some of them are pirates. But that’s just the risk. The benefits of hacking firmware on older consoles that are soon to be depreciated are too big to ignore.
Hell, hacking fixed the problems the Vita had, allowing you to use affordable SD card media and truly back up your games. It was also perfect for emulating older depreciated 32 bit and 16 bit consoles.
Re: Hands On: The Matrix Awakens Is an Unreal Demonstration of PS5's Power
@sanderson72
It could run on PS4. But it wouldn’t have Ray tracing (which to me is a requirement for that game; it has so many metals in its world construction that when you play without ray tracing it looks like a totally different game), the load times would be appalling, and the textures would have bad pop in due to the rifting sequences.
Re: PS5 Controllers Coming in Pink, Blue, and Purple in January
I really like the purple one.
That and the purple face place will look great.
Re: Sony Is Releasing Official PS5 Console Covers in 2022
I need a new dual sense and I’d love to change my plates. Think I’m gonna go for the Galactic Purple. Normally I’m all about black but that purple resembles an old Chrysler color they used on the Barracuda.
Re: It's Been One Year Since the Release of Cyberpunk 2077
I’m waiting for the native PS5 port.
I’ve seen the PC version running in real time on a 2070 Super (which the PS5 is roughly equivalent to) and it looks like a totally different game than the PS4 version that released while running very smoothly.
I’m a patient gamer. Id rather play something closer to the PC version than the nonsense that was the PS4 version through back compat.
Re: Video: PS4 to PS5 Game Upgrades Like Uncharted are Messier Than They Ought to Be
It’s not confusing but I think Microsoft had the right idea with Smart Delivery.
I wish Sony would have went that route.
Re: Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann to Present at The Game Awards
@Pat_trick
I agree with that.
I will say that from an artistic, graphical, and technical standpoint the Last of Us II is state of the art and a masterpiece in those areas.
Unfortunately the contrived and predictable story really holds it back. Plus some writing issues that plagued the experience and it’s poor pacing.
But I’ll give it credit. The game is drop dead beautiful and the artistic vision is second to none in the industry. It really makes you feel like you’re in a ruined Seattle.
Re: Horizon Zero Dawn PC Patch Adds DLSS Upscaling Technology
@mucc
I envy that you found a 3080 at that price.
I really want to get back into PC gaming but man… the market is just broken right now.
A friend of mine has a 3060 that I’m considering picking up since he told me he’d sale it to me for 50 bucks less than msrp. He’s never used it because Amazon screwed his order up a few months back and they sent him a 3070 to make up for their mistake. He ended up getting the 3060 a month later. That’s crazy cheap compared to the open market where that same card costs as much as the msrp of a 3070.
If I pick it up, I’ll just build the rest of the pc over a few months as I find decent prices on components. Thankfully the CPU market isn’t nearly as broken at the moment.
Re: Franklin, Dr. Dre Headline Huge New GTA Online Story
@kingvosyoutube
You can play it single player. Just create a private session and when you start the mission select no fill.
Back when I used to play GTA online that is what I did on complicated missions. Because playing with randoms on cooperative games sucks.
Re: God of War PC Has More Detailed Assets, Higher-Resolution Shadows, and More
@truerbluer
That’s not entirely fair.
Games are ultimately limited by the hardware they run on. The developers build around the target hardware.
In the case of PC, you’ve got a much higher ceiling because there is hardware that greatly outmatches what’s available on console. It’s been this way since Doom hit the scene in 1993. Before that, in the era of sprite and tile based visuals, consoles were far superior to PC.
When a game is built for console, all of that console’s limitations are taken into consideration. Some developers go the extra mile and try to push beyond what the hardware is capable of, like The Last of Us on PS3 where CELL SPEs were being leveraged to create polygonal geometry in addition to handling their usual tasks to aid the GPU. But for the most part, they stay within its boundaries.
On PC, the sky is literally the limit. Back in 2004 there was no graphics card in existence that could run DOOM 3 on its highest settings with all effects maxed out. It took another year before ATI and nVidia released cards that supported all of the game’s features at max settings with a playable framerate.
So really this isn’t a big deal. Games will always look better on PC because your ceiling is always much higher.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love a PS5 that had the same GPU power as a RTX 3080. But that theoretical console would also cost 1700 bucks considering all the other features the PS5 offers.
Re: Demo Unreal Engine 5 in The Matrix Awakens, Available to Pre-Load Now on PS5
@solocapers
That’s my main issue with Fortnite. Every other Epic franchise had to die to let their teams work on it.
At this point, I’d be cool with them handing it off to a competent outside studio to develop Unreal Tournament 4.
We need more multiplayer shooters like UT. Simple gameplay, max of 24 players, conventional game modes, and no MTX skins. Just a plain basic shooter, a revival of the original UT or Quake 3: Arena.
Hell I’d be satisfied with a remake of UT:2004 in Unreal Engine 5. Certainly there’s a studio out there who could handle that project.
Re: Battlefield to Become a Connected Universe with Multiple Games and Experiences
@Juanalf
I hate the operator system all of these shooters are going for now.
Bring back nameless soldiers. Or let us create our own soldiers. Give me real factions with proper uniforms.
All of this nonsense is designed to sell skins. That’s all it’s for.
Re: Battlefield to Become a Connected Universe with Multiple Games and Experiences
Why not fix the train wreck you pushed out the door first EA?
Re: Poll: Are You Happy With Your PS Plus Games for December 2021?
If Godfall was the entire game, I’d call it a mediocre selection for the most part.
But it’s a glorified demo designed to sell you the deluxe edition. Hard pass.
Re: GTA Trilogy Patch 1.03 Fixes Another Boatload of Bugs, Adds 'Cloud Cover' on PS5, PS4
@Texan_Survivor
They just release the beta builds now.
It’s ridiculous. With how fast these updates are coming I firmly believe the game wasn’t finished and someone at R* and Take2 made them release their latest build in time for Christmas.
I’m getting sick of it. Delay your game, developers and publishers. We are sick of paying money to be beta testers.
If you want to release a free “in progress” version for gamer feedback, that’s fine. But don’t charge money for this stupidity.
Re: CDPR Still Confident It Can Turn Cyberpunk 2077 Around
@Arisen
I’m going to play it eventually. But I’m waiting for the PS5 version.
The PS4 version is using the PC versions low settings. Much of the graphical flair that makes the PC version a gorgeous game is completely missing from that version.
I’m assuming that the PS5 version will be capable of running the game at 30fps on PC’s high settings with Ray tracing effects turned on at 1800P resolution. The PS5 GPU is roughly equivalent to a RTX 2070 Super. So that’s what I’m expecting out of it.
And yes, PS5 cannot natively output at 1800P but the games internal resolution will probably target that setting. The PS5 will scale it appropriately.
Re: Street Fighter 6 Is Probably Going to Be Revealed Next Year
@SoulChimera
Third Strike is my personal favorite.
I mained Chun, Makoto, and Ryu.
Super Turbo is my second favorite. Mained Chun primarily and on her rare bad matchups I played Sagat.
I like V more than IV, though. Once again, Chun-Li main despite her dropping down the tier list over the lifetime of the game. Ryu as backup.
I’m primarily a Chun player and while she’s no slouch on IV, it felt like the game was designed around nerfing her gameplay. Chun is principly a footsie/poke character. Except in Super Turbo where I play her as a rush down character thanks to standing medium punch being absolutely broken in terms of frame data. Focus attack/dash canceling really, REALLY hurt the footsie/poke characters offensive viability.
Re: PS Store Black Friday Sale Live Now, Here Are the Best PS5, PS4 Deals
@NEStalgia
Returnal was my first rogue lite. And I fell in love with it. It’s my game of the year.
Re: PS Store Black Friday Sale Live Now, Here Are the Best PS5, PS4 Deals
As expected Far Cry 6 is already discounted. Never buy Ubisoft games at launch friends.
I’m really interested in Ghost of Tsushima. I never played it on PS4. Would everyone here recommend it for 49.99?
I am going to wait until I see physical prices, though. That’s a game I’d rather have on disc.
Re: Call of Duty: Vanguard Reportedly Has Series' Worst UK Launch in 14 Years
@marnelljm
I think my main issue with Cold War is how overpowered the Sniper Rifles are. They made it much easier to quick scope. It’s weird running around with a shot gun and getting into fights with guys carrying the Tundra or the Pellington and getting bodied at point blank range.
Also they need to nerf the Akimbo Marshal. I’d say cut the one shot range down a bit. As it is now it makes most of the shotguns completely pointless. If you’re running the Hauer with optimized build and get into a fight with someone using akimbo Marshals with long barrel and the flame shot, you’re gonna lose almost every time.
Re: PlayStation's Jim Ryan Admonishes Activision in Internal Email to Employees
@AFCC
They used to have really bad crunch practices.
The PS3 era was a giant crunch fest.
That said, just about every developer is in a permanent state of crunch. Modern day AAA games are extremely difficult to design and program. That’s not including the hundreds of thousands of man hours poured in by artists. There is the pressure to get the game out by a certain quarter leaning over their shoulders constantly.
That’s why devs who were talking ten years about AAA development being unsustainable are being proven correct. The games are far more complex to build than ever before. Yet publishers are still acting like it’s the PS1 era where developers could put out a game with just six months of development. Mash those two things together and you end up with the modern era. Expectations are higher. Manpower is limited. In the end, I think AAA development is going to have to be scaled back at some point. Maybe release AAA games once every four years and build more AA games to compensate for the loss.
Sort of like a more extreme version of the N64’s game release cycle.
Re: Call of Duty: Vanguard Reportedly Has Series' Worst UK Launch in 14 Years
@Flaming_Kaiser
More people are on MW2019 than Cold War.
There’s still a decent size community playing Black Ops 2 on PS3. I booted it up last year. It took about three minutes to find a game but it was a full match.
Re: Call of Duty: Vanguard Reportedly Has Series' Worst UK Launch in 14 Years
@marnelljm
I think Cold War was pretty good for the most part. Was it Black Ops 2 multiplayer? No. But it was pretty solid.
I haven’t played Vanguard since the alpha. So I can’t pass judgement yet.
Re: The Elder Scrolls 6 Isn't Coming to PS5, But It's Not About 'Punishing Other Platforms'
I mean it is what it is.
The sixth generation was far more exclusive laden than the current generation.
This is why the Series S exists. I’m going to pick one up sooner or later for Microsoft’s exclusives and to be my secondary bed room console.