lindos

@SweetSummerShunv
I find Apple high cost but NOT high value, i.e. lacking justifcation for the price and not favourably comparable to the competition. This is quire the opposite.

A full direct drive base (the motor) is usally £1000+, the wheel/rim is then typically £200 and the pedals another £200; and that is low end.

So this comes in at less than half the price of a tpical low-end direct drive setup and is generally perceived as giving 100% of the direct drive (low-end) experience from the feedback/reviews of the DD and pedas which have been out a while, its only a new rim.
This is a fair chunk of cash but its also very keenly priced.

I thought Village was on the list?

Poor with good potential.
I've bought 1 PS5 game, DS, a remake of a 13 year old game I've played previously. Tells me all I need to know about PS5 year 1.

When you think of Netflix's quality over 12 months you look at the content its provided, and the same for PS5; I dont give a hoot about firmware or other nonsense; its all about thew games and until we see some new Souls game (ER), GT7, some new Tomb Raider, some Uncharted, some new Last of Us - then there's nothing to write home about.

@kyleforrester87 Really - 30 seconds? Lets see if I can best that.

@VatoLoco47 Agreed.
Remake = put some effort in ala Demon's Souls, a lot of effort.
Remaster = zero effort cash-grab
Imho of course.

Remasters should be viewed with the same scepticism as horse armour was back in the day. (again imho).

@TheArt LOL. GT doesn't compete with FH mate. Completely different game type. It competes with FM and quite rightly that also sticks, as a track racing sim, to simulated racing tracks.

@kingbreww Agree.
Its the second 'Christmas' of the new consoles and I am sat wondering what are the tent-pole releases that really make these consoles sing? I remember when Oct/Nov was the prime-time for console releases; not even sure what are the 2 or 3 AAA games we are lucky to see this holiday season.

I know they will come; but its become Feb/March for big releases and appears the publishers have completely forgotten that there is still the odd Chirstmas list to be filled.

@EmperorJake They are not mate. Only Sony published games are £70. Eveything else is as you were pretty much, i.e. £50.

Looks and appears to play like a very polished Souls which is what I would love. I just don't know about the horse stuff - it looks janky for 'you' and even worse for the enemies. I have no interest in missing out on that wonderful world by rushing past it on a horse at 20 mph. I hope it can be played without using the horse for 99%.

I know some must love it but isnt 'once you die you start from the very beginning' akin to the Co-Op games of the 80s. i.e. pac-man and space invaders. That was OK for the arcade owner who wanted your money pumped in relentlessly but for a home console single player game I just dont get it (and I know some do). If I play Doom 2016 I expect to die lots, and I expect to upgrade myself and my stuff a lot (all like Returnal) - but I would be very frustrated in I had to start the whole game again every time I died (even if I could keep my upgrades). Just seems bonkers. Why not give players the choice. Some games do e.g. doesn't The Last Of Us have a 'die once and restart' difficulty setting?

And for those that suggest the idea of restarting is that you can get even better upgrades, then that doesn't rule out having saves. Again you can do that in Doom 2016; you can replay a previous level just for extra secrets and upgrades and yet keep saving and moving forward.

I really dont see the downside of having a save system. Seriously, what is the downside?

In related news..... "All FREE Netflix Titles this month*"

*Subscrtiption required, the titles are not yours to own or resell nor available for use once your subscription ends; standard Netflix terms and conditions apply.

@Luigia Agree with you but IIRC its only Sony published games that are £70. Third party games, like Deathloop, have never been £70.

@reek It is, and I too have argued that PSN is far better value. The thing is that the master of marketing i.e. Sony, have just got it wrong on this one. They allow MS to take the spotlight.

PSN has twice as many games, and is half the cost when you discount all deals (£50 per year versus £132) and it had cloud gaming in addition to downloading games way ahead of Xbox - but they just lost out on the marketing.

Would make an interesting feature as to why tbh. Some would argue its day 1 first party games, but look at what MS have released under that banner, about 3 games in 3 years - you would have been better just buying them outright.

I think the truth of the matter is the £1 deal for XBGP. Given most peeps have an XBL sub anyway its a no-brainer to add just £1 to convert it to XBGP.
It would be interesting to know what percentage of members acutally pay £11.99 a month.

Surely worth one comment that The Ridden is the worst name for zombies ever. What’s the connection?

@TheArt If that were true it would be very disturbing. Anyone who buys a game at £40+ on just seeing a score gets all they deserve but media also has an obligation to 'protect' its users and putting a 7 on a turd would be very misleading.

@darkswabber Not at all. If you have another look at the closing comments the negatives are all things that are 'the game' and not the presentation layer the remaster may have glossed.

tbh thats as it was received all those years ago. Very middle of the road. A few pairs of rose tinted have been sold these last couple of weeks

TLDR; its pretty but [quoting] (a) "repetitive", (b) "finicky gameply" and (c) "overcomplicated UI".
And yet a 9.

Not much room to go there for other games which could be pretty, non repetitive, great gameplay and a great UI.

Just a thought, as if I would know, but it would be good if you concluded with a short list of "in the same vein and, in the reviewers humble opinion, even better than this" and "in the same vein and, in the reviewers humble opinion, this is even better than".

Helps to pin these middle ground ratings based on the readers eperience with other games.

Can we please have an option to turn off those 'cards' or whatever they are called that are always selected when I switch the machine on from standby. I would much prefer one click of X to get back in to the game and not to pull up some random stuff for a game I once brushed by 3 years ago.

Jeez, if thats the highlights it aint worth a click.

really good to see a date on GT7, which inevitably means we will see it Q4 2022. Also GOW was great.

Mst bizzarre imho was that exhaustively long sequence at the start with the woman fighting robots or something - very niche audience for that sort of thing (overly sexualised characters) I would have thought.

here's hoping its more than just allowing the playstation rather than the TV do the upscaling.

Remaster to me says "we didn't have the budget to do a remake so have this instead".

cynic

Doesn't read as average tbh, it reads as quite poor.
Average and OK means good enough on a wet Sunday afternoon, this reads as a waste of your time.

@The_New_Butler for a games machine that is quite a killer advantage though 👍

@Tharsman Barrier? You ever put batteries in a remote? Nope? OK I see there's a barrier for you.

@commentlife really? Its about as complicated as replacing the batteries in a remote. You take the cover off, slot in the new one, put the cover back on.
Tons of items with battery compartments that have a small screw to help keep them in place. Its as simple as that.

@fR_eeBritney Nah, not for me. Love remakes and hate remasters.

Sony tried the PSP2, it was called the Vita.
It failed, bad. Ended up being nothing more than a retro rom machine, a raspberry pi with built in controller.

Much as peeps liked to say they wanted to play AAA on the go, or on the loo; they didn't. On the go one handed Threes is fine; on the sofa two hands are, well more suited.

@Rjak Agreed.
imho most of the semi-sim racers out there spend 95% of their time in online races and the other 5% doing hot-laps or races against the AI to prepare for online races.

The minute Codies had you out of the car is (again imho) the minute they started wasting valuable resources where they are not needed.

Imagine how good this could be if they just focused on the racing. All that extra time, effort, money and quality in to what you actually do with a racing game, race.

@themightyant Great list and I agree XBGP is good for those that want to sample a lot of variety; what grates is that MS sell it on AAA day 1 exclusives and even in your list I dont see anything other than Forza and Gears 5 that hits that mark. It is provding a vast quantity or cheap stuff but doing a FANTASTIC job of marketing.

For me Sony (what would I know) are failing in two ways:-
1. Not marketing PS Now (twice as many games at half the price of XBGP but they still fail to get the message over). Its an amazing service with so many titles at such a low price - how anyone could rate XBGP above it for Forza 4 and Gears 5 is a mystery.

2. £70 for PS5 first party is ridiculous. I've had a PS5 for 6 months now and I haven't bought a single PS5 title. I have the cash I just dont like to be over-charged.

Good to see MS release all it's AAA titles on both Xbox and PC. All 2 of them, Forza and Halo.
Will take Sony a long time to better that.
Really in that glasshouse MS should be quiet.

@danlk1ng I think thats about right if you go get scalped or mis-match.
You can easily build a Ryzen 5 5600X system, with M2 main drive, 16G ram and a good MB for £700.
I'd suggest that such 5600X build can be suitably paired with a 3060TI or 3070 and yup they can easily be upwards of £700 in these times.
So 50%-60% on GPU about right unless get for MSRP and then I'd say 30-40%. i.e. circa £350 on top of that £700.

@Alan_cartridge_
Sorry for asking but what does that mean? Perhaps a dumb question but do you mean as in PC monitor doesnt work but TV does [at 1440p]?

@Texan_Survivor Same for me but much more recently. When Control was released to PS+ earlier this year I tried 30 and 60FPS mode. Once I had tried 60 I found 30 positively appalling.

The Exodus deal is for the Gold Edition, so even better. I assume that includes the DLC expansions?

@Stoffinator personally I think its looks better. If you look back at say F1 2017 it had realistic levels of colour saturation but the last 2 have looked like the've had a highlighter pen thrown all over them and the saturation turned up to 11. Literally can't play them - makes them look like Lego racing rather than F1.

They are not free. They are part of the services provided by Sony for the subscription you pay them.
Its a like saying "what free programmes would you like Netflix to air in June".

Grrrrr. Pet hate. And yes I will post it every month.

Yup, refuse to call £60 a discount price, it may be discounted, but its not a discount price.

If I could play it and then sell back the licence to Sony for say 50% of the purchase fee (as I can with a physical copy to ebay/others) then great but given I will only ever see a 0% return on that investment its just not appealling enough.

@Wally. To be fair its each to their own. It will never be that all things are loved by all people.

I respect that people who like games of this nature love this particular example, just like people who like american football games like Madden, and peeps who like GTA games liked GTA 4 and 5 etc. But it doesn't mean it will 'convert' people - and nor, imho, should it try.

Its great to have so many genres to choose from - and to not feel any obligation to give a flying figg even for the world's 'best' in many of those genres. Thats the joy of choice.

@thefourfoldroot Agrreed 100%. The physical game is about £20 for all but that rare minority that want to fill their shelf with old games. Buy it - play it - sell it - repeat. £20 a pop.
So why would anyone pay £70? No point.

Digital is very convenient - but not that convenient.

I dont get the maths either, surely 100 sales of a digital thing at £50 is better than 50 sales at £70 (silly numbers I know but the point is valid; the costs are the same but the revenue increases - so it just makes sense).

There must be so much money 'left on the table' because Sony are hanging out for these £70 sales.

@lolwhatno irony?
I am amazed the government hasn't stepped in and insisted this term be banned. It should be 'free to download' or 'free to start'.

Hate the term.

@RBMango Hi there. Can you expand. For those who haven't bought it yet and aren't prepared to gamble £70 it would be good to have your thoughts on what design choices.

@Luigia I agree with you but fyi PS Plus is a competitor to Xbox Live Gold, not their additional subscription service on top of that which is XBGP.

I think Xbox has basically given up on games with Gold, shunting out any old nonsense most months - so yes I agree PS Plus does wipe the floor with its completion, but that is Live Gold and not XBGP.

Seriously has anyone in the U.K. ever used the word sneakers?
Anyone? Ever?

They are not free, they are paid for by the subscription.
Its a little like saying what free shows do you want with your Netflix subscription?

Sorry, love the site, but suggesting a subscription service is 'free' is nonsense.

@S1ayeR74 I don't mean create a unique demo experience I mean simply release a timed version of the game. Surely that '60 minute only' is something Sony could help make a generic slap-on rather than additional coding.

Apologies if mentioned above in which case I repeat..... I can't understand why all games don't have a 60 minute demo. That way if I like it I buy it and if its a middle of the road feeling for me I wait for the sale or PS+.
There's very very few games I'd take a £40 punt on let alone the new ridiculous £70 level.

Simple. There's no way you could lose sales with a demo, surely there aren't that many 'gamblers' out there - so why not?

Glad to see the top of the main dash screen has the 'dead icons' of old games (that you have deleted) now removed.
Made the centre piece of the experience a little ugly previously.

I am assuming the third option in the vote is "Nope, it was a great game but I don't need to buy it again to play it again - its works just fine on BC".

Looking at it now its graphics are ropey, even in the remaster (don't get me started on remasters, con con con) - but I don't think they are ropey enough to merit a RE2 style ground up remake.

So no, best left where it is imho.

Great service. At least twice as many games and half the price of XBGP. Alas, for the masters of marketing, Sony simply haven't won that PR competition and the gaming media are constantly banging on about XBGP and not PSNow. Shame as its so much better.