thefourfoldroot1

@naruball
The only thing I don’t is that sometimes some of the controls seem off. Perhaps it doesn’t track as well as other games out of the headsets direct view, but climbing along ropes and such I’ve found a bit unnatural, and getting out of water too…not a big deal. Everything else is great, and the graphics and world building is excellent. Decent length too. I’d give it a solid 7.5/10, and at £12 I’d definitely recommend it.

Hubris at £12.49 is massively recommended.

The fact it’s a card game was the only thing that led me to download it from plus. Still haven’t played it though. Had my itched scratched with Roguebook lately

So what you are saying is that, within a couple more quarters, PS5 is on course to move ahead of PS4 at the same point in its lifecycle (catch up on that 1m), even without dropping the price of the hardware as it could with PS4 (in fact increasing it in some areas), or releasing a Pro model to get the faithful to double dip?

And this is after not being able to meet demand due to a pandemic?

All sounds like it’s positive to me from a Sony perspective, although not so much for consumers.

So good for those who have to share a screen with others or who just want to play a game in bed

Was does “enhanced” and “richer” even mean outside of marketing speak?

The only thing that would match up in gaming, for me, would be if they had auto VR implementation. That would certainly be an enhanced and richer experience.

I renewed last November, mainly because of a sale, but I really think I’d rather put £120 in my wallet and buy games when there is a good deal. As most of my new game time is VR, and Sony don’t seem inclined to add VR games to plus, it’s just not worth It for me.

Currently I’m playing Tales of Vesperia on Extra. Which is great, but will take me several months to fully finish and platinum before I’m done. That’s around £30 of PS Premium time, and the game is usually only £6.99 to buy digitally…

I do get the occasional gem pop up on extra I haven’t heard of, such as Roguebook which I was playing recently. But I’m sure I can just take a note of the monthly additions and buy them separately if any appeal at all. Everything goes on sale after being added to plus so I’d benefit regardless.

For me personally, a bright future would consist of more JRPGs and WRPGs, and then a load of VR games. Now, admittedly I have more on PSVR2 games than I can possibly find time to play, and I have a backlog of JRPGs to get through, but in the longer term Sony pivoting to live service stuff, and then everything else focusing on existing IP, well, it doesn’t inspire me. Plus it would be nice to know Sony are working on a method for flat games to be converted to VR easily.

Has anything really changed for PS gamers though? Probably only positively in terms of getting Switch games. SE will just port to systems where the cost of said port is warranted by the likely sales and that will include PlayStation.

@Colt22
Not that I disagree with your principle (I don’t spend on Microtransactions and rarely DLC), but aren’t all gamers “paying real money for digital goods” when we buy our games (even physically).

By the way, I recently tried FC 24 on plus having not played a FIFA since FIFA 14. How have they made every aspect of the game so much worse over the decade? It boggles the mind.

I wouldn’t mind ads and product placement in suitable games. Billboards in burnout were fine. Adverts for champions league sponsors during the champions league matches in fifa would be fine. Wouldn’t mind real world products like Pepsi etc in the Yakuza games or similar. I actually think it would add to immersion rather than detract from it.

Having it in mythical worlds so it’s completely out of place though would be jarring.

What I would require when this happens would be a lower purchase price though. Yet I suspect EA would just pocket all the extra revenue, so they can bugger off.

Everything is telling me to play this game so I guess I should download it and give it a try. Problem is, honestly, the screenshots and short trailer I’ve watched make my eyes hurt. I seem to find it hard to parse and am just seeing semi-random dots everywhere. I’m sure it’ll be better when I actually play it, but I can’t help but wish for a different aesthetic.

Sega should just stop everything else and release four Yakuza games a year. They are better than pretty much anything else in non-VR gaming.

On top of that, 5 was a big drop in enjoyment compared to golden.

@dschons
I’m the same. Apart from RE5 coop with the wife, and maybe the original on ps1 as it was different to anything I’d played before, I’ve never enjoyed resident evil. RE4 in VR is one of the best games ever though. VR makes games like this infinitely better.

Now it looks like games may get trophies it opens up PC to me. So it’s gone from something that doesn’t impact me to something that encourages me to get a PC especially with PSVR2 being compatible. Just hope third party games start putting trophies on their games too. Would just need Sony to encourage them (and they then get the sign up).

@dschons
One of the best games ever when played in VR. I envy you just starting it.

Ancient dungeon and tales of vesperia for me.

I think the main problem is that Microsoft have a different concept of profitability and success. They could easily have made Xbox a profitable and healthy part of the gaming space, but instead they were chasing their 3 billion players metric. That was never going to be in the traditional gaming space, so we will see a shift to mobile and GaaS. It’s been happening for years. Closing down lionheart after forcing them to scrap a single player fable and chase online success was the first thing I remember. Also remember them saying that, historically, lionheart had not been as successful as the people thought because they weren’t making first person shooters and online games, so the market was small for them.

Take note Sony, take note.

He greatly overstepped the bounds in what he did and it’s perfectly understandable that he was fired from his job. This isn’t a democracy as it’s his employers paying his wages. Are those signing the petition happy to pay his wages instead, as well as bear the cost of any further bad actions, if he gets his job back as they ask?

Wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually released a tiered service with a higher price for the option that has the day one big releases.

To be honest, putting aside all the anti-capitalist stuff and the fact it’s EA, I do think it’s necassary that AI takes a lot of the work off devs because games have simply become too costly and time intensive to make and then sell at a reasonable price. Hence publishers not wanting to take risks and adding all the game destroying monetisation strategies to recoup costs.

Ironically, I also think AI can lead to more originality in the art design. Fewer preconceived notions of what “should” be, even if it is all an amalgamation of past designs (but then what art isn’t?)

This is actually somewhat appealing. If I need some advice on how to get a particular trophy challenge, for example, how to beat a boss only using a certain skill loadout, then having someone upload an example of their doing so would be great.

And, yes, I could search through YouTube, and then fast forward up to the part of the video I need, but if these clips could just be pinned to particular challenges on the ps hub that would be far more convenient. More convenient still if they could do Picture in Picture.

@Max_the_German
I guess the argument is that, due to a lack of enough subscribers, Gamepass profits don’t cover the cost of running these studios, even supplemented by full price sales of their games on Xbox and other platforms.

If you think about it, MS shuttering devs who could make first party games (which are day one releases on Gamepass) because they don’t feel these studios would be profitable, is basically a tacit admission that they don’t feel these games will grow Gamepass significantly in order to make the studios profitable.

An industry that drives towards both a subscription model and a game as a service model is fundamentally schizophrenic. They are two completely opposed characters; one requiring a gamer to play lots of different games to be worthwhile, the other requiring a gamer to shackle themselves to the one product. It seems the latter type is winning, largely because they are often free to play or very cheap, and encourage social engagement that pulls friends of gamers in.

Honestly, if all Sony release now are more third person cinematic experiences, I wouldn’t care if they released more. If they released more JRPGs or VR games, or even true WRPGs, then I’d be disappointed more weren’t coming.

@get2sammyb
Hi. After returning from my temporary ban I have reflected and decided I owe you an apology for some rather childish conspiracy theories I’ve thoughtlessly associated with you on a number of articles. It was needless, and not reflective of my usual rational self. Embarrassing really.

Here, for example, I fully accept that you were simply uninformed about the extent of the censorship, or did not consider the list relevant to the general discussion. To suggest that you deliberately used a cropped image to try to mislead or cause controversy is stupid, and even were that the case (which it wasn’t) that would be a decision for the editor, not you.

Similarly with your New VR releases article. To suggest you deliberately left off many dozens of games to try to ensure PSVR2 failure is real tin hat stuff and really stupid of me. And, again, although that article clearly has its problems, it would be down to the editor to decide on its quality. Not me or even you.

So, again, many apologies for these examples of idiocy. I will try to do better.

@Zenos
Yes, yes it would. Although there is not really any doubt about that to anyone who knows this dev’s output, and Sony’s influence (which includes not allowing devs to talk out about Sonys censorship policy, nor do they publish it publicly).

@Zenos
Not really, technically they could have been finalising all the designs at once and decided on a policy change on all the outfits. That’s extremely questionable though, given, you know, the game. And their other games. And some other outfits…also, “finalising designs” is kind of a parry. They don’t say what caused them to finalise designs to cover Eve up top and bottom (*cough, Sony, *cough).

@Balie3000
I envy you, knowing I’m continuously being treated like a child would seriously impact my enjoyment on a second to second basis. Regardless of the extent or type of censorship. I’m the same with movies and increasingly, I’m sad to say, books.

@Johnny_Ace
Yes, I was very pleased to see it!

@Zenos
Numerous outfits, top and bottom. You wouldn’t even know the extent of the censorship to even the one outfit they picture because they have cropped it to only show the top half and don’t show the bottom or back (which is what you are seeing 95% of the time). You can kind of see the effect on the bottom if you look low on the picture, but only to the less interesting point lol.
And yes, the level of blood and blood splatter on Eve. Although some claim this was to “improve performance”, so I’m leaving that out as it’s debatable. That the devs where happy with the more revealing designs during the entire development phase, put a lot of work into them, and then had to change a load at release is not debatable however, at least not to anyone who has been paying attention to Sony strong-arming these last 6 years, or this devs general output.

You know what, apart from Destiny, this is a good lineup for me. Even FIFA. Haven’t played since 14 (after which they nerfed the manual through ball and made it less fun), and don’t really want to give EA money, but happy to play it now and then and see how much has changed in the last 10/11 years.

Pretty much everything will be exclusive to meta quest 3 in the beginning (especially with meta owned devs like this) because it’s sold way more. It’s cheaper and doesn’t need a ps5 after all. We just hope when it comes to psvr2, if it does, that it takes advantage of the hardware to be loads better.

@Darude84
Yes, I’m going to join you. Not worth reasoned debate in some cases.

@DennisReynolds
The spider man outfit was changed simply to reflect the suit in the movies. I’m not sure what you are not getting about that. You do know that every change is not censorship right. Censorship is when someone with overall control changes something because they deem it to be inappropriate morally for people other than themselves. That does not apply to Spider-Man. You know this, so why are you being deliberately disingenuous?

@DennisReynolds
I gave you an answer to the Spider-Man suit. No, of course they didn’t. You even answered that question yourself. Why do you keep bringing up a completely irrelevant topic?

And why do I have to see other “non censored” outfits to have an opinion on the ones that were censored?

Are you expecting Sony to be consistent? Because if so you haven’t been paying attention these last 6 years.

@DennisReynolds
You are incorrect, I did consider that they may have made an artistic choice, before concluding that this would be a foolish opinion given everything we know about the game and the devs who made this and other games of similar titalative appeal.

I played the trial, didn’t buy the censored version. As the censorship is visual however, playing the censored content is not necassary to form an opinion, visually seeing it is all that’s required.

I think what you are doing is ignoring all context and what we know about this dev, publisher, and about Sony and their completely irrational, moralistic, yet inconsistent censorship policy.

You are also ignoring that many outfits have had the cleavage covered up, not just the one “artistic change” to the one outfit.

The only thing you are correct about is that there is one more revealing outfit in the game. The so called “nude” outfit. There are obviously various differences with this, but I think the two main points would be that Sony likely do not have a policy on “skin colour” suits that actually cover an avatar because, you know, Sony. And also that this skin outfit actually has a gameplay mechanic tied to it (which makes the game more difficult), so it is not the same as a purely cosmetic change.

I’ll ignore the straw man of the Spider-Man suite because, clearly, I am not saying that it is not possible for a dev to change an outfit for reasons other than censorship.

@Cutmastavictory
The bottom and backside was also censored, Pushsquare just decided yo yo mention this and to use a cropped image, and only of the front, for reasons

I do find these articles interesting. There are only really 4 types of people who comment. The first kind are those who set up the petition mentioned here. I think I’ll list them:

1) Those who believe that censorship is a bad thing, especially when controlled by a platform holder with such market share, and get genuinely insulted and frustrated

2) Those who love to take every opportunity to insult others, and have seen that reducing this argument to saying someone doesn’t have access to T&A, and that’s the only reason they are against censorship, is a way to do this without repercussion.

3) Those who don’t care about censorship and are happy to be dictated to.

4) Those who secretly agree with the censorship but can’t come up with a reasonable argument for it, so default to just trying to say everyone should ignore it as it isn’t important. These people will commonly also try to hide the extent of said censorship or claim in was an “artistic choice” even if that isn’t supported by the rest of the artistic choices in the game.

Not saying any of these opinions and approaches are worse or less moral than any other (with the possible exception of 2 of course). Just interesting.

@get2Sammyb

Why did you minimise the actual censorship, which is not only the cleavage, but also the lower half? Are you unaware? You seem to have used a cropped image. This is why the outfit was censored and others with cleavage were left.

Plus, do you actually think it’s only a couple of outfits for which Eve’s cleavage has been covered up?

Also, why no mention of the devs making it a marketing ploy to say the game is uncensored and then sneaking it in?

Could you answer these questions please?

1) This is not alleged, it is clear
2) you minimised the actual censorship, which is also below the waist, and what differentiated this outfit from the rest, making this article completely misleading (although there are actually many outfits that have had the cleavage covered not just this one, a quick google search is enough to see that).

Most importantly, they made it part of the marketing that the game wasn’t censored, then snuck it in post the disc going gold.

Ancient dungeon and Blue Reflection have me occupied at the moment. Very good games.

@Kidfunkadelic83
Yep. That would be the way. PS5 has always had an issue with auto updates.

@UltimateOtaku91
If you want an answer “Sony”.
Yes it doesn’t make sense, but that’s because those who decide these things out of California have no minds to speak of. Anything slightly revealing below the waistline is anathema to their “morals”.

@Kidfunkadelic83
Maybe. Can’t say if it will work but worth a try.

@DennisReynolds
Wow. Just wow, lol.
Firstly I didn’t say I wouldn’t buy or play the game. I said I’d buy the physical version, as it is uncensored, and I would get it second hand so Sony (who censored the game) don’t get any of my money.

As to this being self censorship or (my Lord!) “artistic changes”, that is just laughable. Do you really think this dev would go back to make garments uglier and less revealing (two different things) by their own choice? Are you completely uninformed about Sony’s history here?

Do I want the game to fail? Tough question. The dev still showed more honesty and integrity by making this game than they lost through capitulating at the end. But the dev has a massive cash cow already so they’ll be fine, and hopefully if it does fail they skip PlayStation in future so they can make games unmolested.

@Kidfunkadelic83
As you’ve already bought it, and it was actually very well optimised at release, I say play it unpatched. If you really want the new game plus options you could save right before the end and then update it I guess. I wouldn’t be able to play through it censored though, I’d be constantly frustrated and resentful.

Due to the censorship to outfits and gore, I’ll not be buying it until I can get it second hand. Don’t want to reward Sony in any way.