render

Returnal is easily my favourite rogue like and also my favourite PS5 game to date. Such an incredible experience. Hades is great as well and looking forward to the second one when it releases on PS.

But now not everyone can play 😟

That's possibly one good thing about a cloud gaming future, that because the game is running in a controlled environment then people won't be able to install these kinds of cheats. I'm sure they'll still be able to cheat in other ways e.g. aimbots etc but at least it's limiting it somewhat.

I still don't really understand what people get out of cheating like this as I've had a great time with this game ending up in those situations where everything can be lost at the very last second. Where's the fun if you are invincible and have unlimited ammo?

The server issues don't cause that much of a problem. Yes it would be nice to be able to jump right into a game at any point but it's not the end of the world, especially when you know they are working as hard as they can on this and will get it sorted eventually.

Also one the best weapons available is the Breaker which is available in the free warbond so that should shut down some of this talk about pay to win.

Had a few times over the weekend where it wasn't possible to get on because of server capacity issues but I'm sure they will have fixed that soon. The guys at Arrowhead sound like they are putting in all the hours under the sun to get things sorted and they deserve plenty of credit for that as well as producing an amazing game in the first place.

@Kidfunkadelic83 Those were some good games the other night, had a blast

Sounds like MS is basically saying they want to save gaming by getting rid of everyone else but themselves. It's very good of them to offer but... no thanks.

A 9 for democracy!

@Kidfunkadelic83 Just sent you a friend request. Been playing plenty of HD2 so welcome to join us if you like.

@pharos_haven Those are great. Have you seen the reviews on the equipment in the warbonds menu? I had one the other day for some armour which said something like "The wife said it was this or her. I will miss her"

Played one too many games of this last night. The gameplay loop is really solid and enjoyable and between the guns and the stratagems it's really fun delivering Democracy and Liber-tea to the universe.

Went through the tutorial level this morning and it feels like a pretty solid game. Seems that you can play solo but I don't think you'll get the most out of this game, it definitely needs to be played coop.

@Perturbator @Cherip-the-Ripper I was just about to pretty much say what @KAIRU has, except I'm far worse at this game than he is but have still really enjoyed playing it.

So much relies on how the game plays out, so one game you might end up in a spawn fight where you get killed within a minute of the game starting. Other times you might end up being the last team to get to the boss lair whilst two other teams are fighting it out and with stealth and patience manage to kill them all before they realise you are a different team. There's just that many things that can unfold during a game.

Also loosing your hunter is actually a great element of the game. It forces you to play different loadouts and traits between hunters as well as perhaps using a less than ideal load out because the gear was free and you didn't have much money. It also adds to the pressure and makes the game all the more rewarding when you manage to banish and extract with the bounty over all the other players / teams in the game.

@Boucho11 Also they introduced some new tutorials this year which are a lot better than what was there before and make things a lot more understandable.

Another addition was the shooting gallery where you are placed at one of the compounds and can test out different loadouts. With that it's even possible to go in with a partner and play one on one which can really help learning location from sounds as well as aim and how much to lead shots with the different weapons.

If you haven't played this then I urge you to give it a go. Brilliant gameplay, atmosphere and mechanics. Yes it's a live service game but that really doesn't make any difference to the game, you can spend absolutely nothing after the initial purchase and still have a great time.

Is it worth waiting for the Digital Foundry analysis of this game first? So many games have inconsistent frame rates these days.

I would have been more interested if it had the option to stream from the cloud with PS+ Premium, that way at least it would have been like having another PS5.

This really reminds me of The Witness which had some great environmental puzzles. I'll be trying out the demo for sure.

Housemarque's output has been excellent over the years, can't wait to see what they come out with next. It's hard to imagine they could produce something better than Returnal for my money - it was just that good.

I finished this game over the weekend and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes it doesn't break any new ground but it's a damn solid game with a fun combat system, great exploration and a very well planned and executed plot.

The only thing I would call it out on is having perhaps one too many trolls but that's probably another easter egg what with JKR having to deal with more than enough trolls herself.

"In addition, the company is Cantwell's largest political donor, having forked over more than half a million dollars over the past few decades."

Rumour is this is the 'same' amount of money that 'certain' users on this website 'receive' from MS to 'shill' for them 🤔

Lucky for us Uncle Phil is here to save us all from the tyranny of these repugnant billion dollar multinational corporations. What a guy!

@Would_you_kindly I think they pulled that slogan because they couldn't actually prove that it was, especially as a lot of benchmarks were proving that it wasn't necessarily. They now just use "The fastest, most powerful Xbox ever" which at least they can prove.

@themightyant If one single thing as simple as time tracking would put you off of playing the majority of games (yes the majority as there are way more 3rd party games than there are exclusives) on the platform that you are supposed to be openly promoting then the sum of all the other great features the console offers can't amount to much.

I also never said that he can't game or like things about other systems, after all I use multiple systems myself, however I would personally find it strange if I worked at PS and did the majority of my gaming on a non-PlayStation system.

Always interesting to read someone else's point of view though and even though I don't agree thanks for letting me know.

@themightyant Pretty sure I didn’t say he had to be up anyones crack, after all there’s only so much love anyone can give Jim and co and that’s perhaps stepping over the bounds a little 😂

While I do agree with you about people being impartial I would say that as this isn’t a multi platform site then that doesn’t apply so much. For someone to be working on a site like this I would expect them to generally be a fan of the platform, spend the majority of their gaming time using it so as to be an authority on it. That would include playing 3rd party titles on said platform and not telling people that the console they own is useless because it can’t track the time they played a game. Just seems a bit bizarre really.

@LiamCroft So Assistant Editor of a PlayStation specific website likes to play games on his Xbox more? Sure you are working for the right site?

These numbers are pretty amazing. It's not even out on full release yet and the Steam figures for concurrent players are somewhere around 270k. When it's available to everyone on Friday those numbers are going to be off the charts.

It could be that a good number of those Twitch viewers are also the very people that said they didn't want to give any money to JKR yet are happy to watch someone else play it.

@StrickenBiged Very well said. If more people did their research instead of just jumping to conclusions then we’d end up with more discussion about these things.

Good to see this reviewed well. It sounds like the developer has done an amazing job and added to an already great franchise. Can’t wait to get playing it at the weekend.

It is a shame the reviewer had to take sides in the debate over the author though as I think it would have come across better without that.

@The_Moose @RawnDawn Pretty sure that’s why I got blocked by that user, either that or saying that I respected women’s rights. Ah well, not going to dwell on it.

As much as I also hate this idea of constant growth it’s pretty much unavoidable as we all want the latest gear. Somethings got to pay for it. That and I’m pretty sure the alternatives don’t work either, then having been tried before and failed.

Playstation are showing that you can make money by shifting plastic boxes and selling games. Guess that must be because they are selling something people are willing to pay for.

That's not to say that the Xbox camp doesn't have something to offer, more that the jury is still out on whether the games they are able to offer are of a sufficient quality compared to Sony first party due to them having to fit in to the game pass model. It seems to me that the MS subscription is more about getting people excited about getting games for "free" rather than how good those games are or if they even turn up.

Hogwarts for me, easily. Looks like it's going to be a great open world game set in a brilliantly constructed universe. Hoping that it reviews well but even so I've got it preordered and I'm sure we are going to all love it here in the render household.

Having recently been on the Harry Potter studio tour with the family we are all pretty hyped for this game. The kids have been re-reading the books and we've re-watched all the films whilst wearing all the Harry Potter merch we can. We literally couldn't be more Harry Potter.

I hope this game sells really well as the developers deserve it for the work they've put in. Equally JKR surely deserves the success too as she's worked hard to create this world that a lot of people enjoy. Some people might not like her views but she's done plenty of research so can at least back them up. Like others here, I have a wife and daughter, and would hope that their voice gets heard in all this craziness that's going on at the moment - they also deserve it.

Can't be more hellish than a Disney cruise!

@JudgeDredd I can't un-see this image now, it's completely and utterly abhorrent!

Can’t say if I’m a fan of the Medium as I haven’t played it yet but hopefully it’s better than The Game Awards show normally is.

The past few months have been games that I already own. At least that goes to show the quality of the games on here 😁

A death is a death regardless of how cool it looks!

@videoman190 If the car is driving itself then I think the wheel should be available to play GT on even when you are moving. I can just imagine someone hanging on round 130R at Suzuka in a GR1 car whilst their actual car is just pootling around at 30mph 😆

I'm also stuck on premium having had PS Now previous to the new plans being launched but didn't really want to continue with that plan as it's just not worth the extra. I'm wondering if anyone has tried to cancel their existing plan and then to see if you can resub at a lower level? It probably won't work but just a thought.

@JudgeDredd I’d imagine you are the expert when the discussion is Snowrunner 😉

@JudgeDredd Your wife is correct 👍

@kyleforrester87 That's what I assumed so disappointed to hear that's not the case. He needs to put more effort in for sure.

@ShogunRok @Max_the_German If I remember rightly Housemarque said they went with 1080p in Returnal for ascetics as much as performance, however one of the pros of that was that they could use the extra GPU cycles to do other things.

Could well be that Focus are doing something similar here and without the spare GPU cycles they might need to make other sacrifices.

Thought Control was brilliant so if they are offering something similar then I'll probably take it.

It has more gameplay footage shown than the Ben Stiller ad yet somehow manages to be more confusing 😂

The music really did give Death Stranding so many beautiful moments and wouldn't have been the same without the Low Roar. I've listened to them frequently since playing the game so it's really sad to learn of Ryan Karazija’s passing.

The Nismo definitely has my interest piqued but I'll check out some of the others if they aren't crazy money. Hoping they are cheaper than a DualSense Edge at least!

I was going to suggest it's because Xboxs strategy is to tell a company that the only way they will make any money on their platform is if a game is on game pass so they might as well give it to them for cheap, but then I remembered that game pass subscribers buy more games.

Seems a shame that they don't invest more in their home country and just grow the existing studio. I wonder if this hints at the possibility that they are struggling to find the relevant talent in Poland though and are having to look further afield?

@Kairu Well I’m rested now anyway 😂