Given that Watch_Dogs complete generally goes for a tenner on PSN sales, this is... an alright bonus, but I can totally see why people might be upset by it.
I mean, I primarily play single-player titles, but even then, if a game is written to support cross-system play and sharing, that absolutely should be standard across all platforms, 100%, no questions asked. It's a real shame that for example Wargroove isn't on PS4 day-and-date with every other system because of Sony's unwillingness to communicate with Chucklefish.
These sorts of decisions kill smaller and more niche titles quicker than they otherwise would and surely the health of a development partner's game is in the interest of a platform holder, because that drives game sales and, more importantly in Sony's case, licensing revenue. The single most profitable aspect of being a platform holder, by most reasonable accounts.
That said, I still think Sony can get away with dragging their feet over this because, like most of the detractors say, this isn't exactly a mainstream issue, most people don't know or care that the possibility's there, and even if they do know, it's kind of a hard sell without a clear, massive example a lot of mainstream people can latch on to. Fortnite used to be that, but, uh, Sony fixed that eventually, so the mainstream moved on.
As it stands, I would just like Sony to take a concrete, public stance on the issue already and let people move on. This whole issue has been coming up on-and-off ever since last year, and it's getting kinda tiring.
@get2sammyb I get his concern, but I also think, at least currently, Nintendo are the most permissive of the platform holders, probably because trying to restrict third-parties and the content they released on the Wii U didn't work out too well for them.
Granted, I have no idea how far in development this game is, and by the time it's done, he could be right, every major platform could start cracking down on fanservice content in a similar manner to Sony. I just don't see it happening unless a major controversy over those sorts of games arises in the near future.
I have a proposal for Takaki if he's worried Sony won't be receptive to a Senran Kagura game. There's a little hybrid system his team recently released a Senran Kagura title on, and said title is probably the most explicit in the series to date. The platform holder for this system didn't ask for any changes to his vision, even in the west.
In other words, the Switch is a thing and I'm pretty sure it's a thing he's fully capable of shipping a game on.
I cannot disclose that I have my code and I cannot disclose that I feel considerably different about Dreams upon actually playing it than I did when it was just a bunch of prerecorded videos from trade shows and developer streams.
It's weird that Sony has a game where you cannot describe its quality without letting folk try it for themselves, then they go out of their way to have folk be unable to try it for themselves.
I mean finally getting Super Dragon Ball Heroes In English is nice. The card game's been running in Japan for a decade so I'd kinda given up hope on that.
@Paranoimia Yep. That's the state of video game analysts in the investment sector for you. Pachter has job security basically because his competition manages to be even more off-the-mark than he is.
@solcross for what it's worth, Pachter is good for getting a feel on how investors writ large think about the games industry, and since most games companies are financed by investors in some form, what he says does have some bearing on the fortunes of the industry.
Like, Pachter's opinions, as backwards as they seem to the people actually playing the games he comments on, have value, largely because the rest of the investment sector stays quiet about games, even if they're putting millions, or billions, back into the industry.
Honestly, good for Sony. I am also in the camp of "Do I really care about this game?", But I genuinely want it to be the best game possible for those who do, because I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed God of War despite also being in that camp about that game initially.
@get2sammyb they survive because those sorts of sales are -fine- for a lot of them. They're generally made on the cheap by small dev teams over short development cycles, to the point that only selling a couple of thousand copies makes most of them profitable.
It's also why so many of them get localised - when they're already making a profit, western sales, as long as they cover the cost of paying translators and distributors, are just bonus money for the Japanese parent company. Doesn't matter how they chart, or if they chart, as long as the same few thousand people keep buying.
I think I'll bite the bullet and pick up The Crew 2, I doubt it'll get much cheaper than that after Christmas, and hopefully it fares better on my newer, faster Internet connection than the first Crew ever did.
Pretty sure that's the Eden's Gate church from the very start and very end of Far Cry 5, so perhaps this is going to do the Far Cry Primal "old map in a new setting" deal, but being way more direct about it.
What gets me about this list is - not a single game on it broke even 500,000 units. That's not a good look for any platform, especially when commercial failures like the Wii U managed to push a couple of million-sellers. I have to wonder how many PS Vitas Sony actually managed to sell in the US, because I'd be surprised if they managed to break 1 million sales.
Honestly, this whole situation is just getting ridiculous and feels, increasingly, like the newly minted US headquarters and new CEO trying their absolute hardest to scare away niche publishers and developers. They're willing to completely tank the PS Vita less than a year after a new CEO takes over, with all physical software and hardware production coming to a halt after this fiscal year, it's no wonder why there's an increasing sentiment of "I'll just bring it to Switch instead" among small/independent developers and publishers. Because, you know, alienating that market worked out AMAZINGLY in the early years of the PS3.
For the record, I don't -want- to assume this whole situation can be attributed to some malicious intent. Perhaps people are right. Perhaps this really is the reality of the market now, and the avoidance of controversy really is in the best interests of Sony and their customers. But given that Nintendo can let a third-party release a title like Senran Kagura : Shinobi Refle completely uncut, and ride out any and all controversy by just... ignoring it until it goes away, I really can't come to any other conclusion. I just can't.
@bbtothe From what I understand of the ongoing controversy - submissions got moved to the US with the rest of the headquarters. Presumably, now being staffed entirely in the US, they have no/limited Japanese speaking submissions staff, thereby meaning all communications will have to be in English unless they luck out and get to speak to a Submissions person who actually is able to understand Japanese.
I think it goes without saying that this will not last, unless SCE wants to completely concede the Japanese market to Nintendo which, as a now California-based company with heavily western-focused titles as their main output, they may be happy to do that.
Speaking of Nintendo, we had a period of this sort of heavy handed censorship with the Wii U and 3DS, which absolutely didn't help get titles like Tokyo Mirage Sessions out to wider audiences, and in fact Probably hurt the sales of titles like FE Fates. Granted, those are first-party titles Nintendo had significant investment in, and these are third party titles by small companies with a limited reach, so perhaps when it's Sony's own purse strings not being affected they really won't see any downsides to these new policies.
That said, the bulk of my PlayStation enjoyment has came from Japanese third-parties, especially in recent years, so I can't help but be a little worried for the future of Sony's Japanese Third-party relations if they continue down their current path.
I do still like gaming magazines, I mean, I'm subscribed to Retro Gamer and used to be subscribed to Official Nintendo Magazine, but I think unless your magazine is something specialised like Retro Gamer is, people are just gonna go online to get the same, or similar, coverage in a more timely and less costly fashion.
It's a shame, really, but it's the nature of the market. Games mags have been, by and large, competed out of existence, and anything they could do to compete, like Retro Gamer's amazing written features about specific games and series, generally with input from the original creators, is either too niche or too expensive to back in a large-scale fashion.
My PSN Name is a holdover from the PS Forums, a service I joined when I was 13. Since I can't go back in time to slap Past-me silly, I'll just have to make do with changing my old godawful username.
@get2sammyb it had, and still has, some major performance issues, with bugs that haven't been present in Java or Console for years being a big issue until very recently, but they're slowly bringing things back to standard.
It's also the branch with a ton of neat new gameplay modes and features being added to it, so if you're into Minecraft, you're getting an inferior experience by missing out on it.
Oh, and the cross-platform multiplayer aspect, while not something I've dabbled in too heavily, is super seamless and basically transparent, which is what you want it to be.
@Flaming_Kaiser not sure I get your logic here? It's... Easier to kill exclusives because a game with cross-platform play provides competition? Miss me with that, please. Not every game has to be cross-platform, not every game has to have a multiplayer component, at all.
Did we just forget that a single player platform exclusive became the single fastest selling game of the year or something? Heck, given God Of War and Spider-Man both broke sales records and all expectations, and they're both single-player platform exclusives, surely you have to see those kinds of games aren't going anywhere?
I don't think cross-play is some deal breaking thing for the majority of people, I don't even think it's viable for the overwhelming majority of games. But the fact that it's there is a nice bonus. If anything, normalising the idea now will make people more likely to buy a platform off of the strength of its exclusives, rather than "all my friends are there", a proposition Sony is only going to benefit from with their First-Party studios completely blowing Microsoft's out the water.
I think cross-platform multiplayer should become the norm, specifically because, as another commenter has said, it's the kind of feature that helps keep games with smaller playerbases alive long-term, and surely that's a good thing for everybody, right?
As it stands, I'm sure we all know the cross-platform games will begin and end with popular free-to-play and eSports games, so Fortnite, Rocket League and so on so forth will be the only things to really get it. That's... Not really a bad thing, to be perfectly honest.
As far as commercials go, this is inevitably going to get a lot of play on prime-time TV in the run-up to Christmas and, frankly, it's what you want. Guns, explosions, cowboys and superheroes. All things likely to get people who don't already own a PS4 to plonk some cash down and get one.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is finally time to dust off the hashtags and get #puddlegate trending, let Insomniac know we'll only take massive puddles in our AAA video games!
Or, you know, stop judging the quality of video games based entirely off of Youtube's compression algorithm and pre-release footage in an age where games have had graphics and framerate changes as a result of day-one patches.
@ShadowWarrior It's gonna be $5 for two new characters, the encore mode and 4-player multiplayer. Given that Mania's the sort of game you can -easily- spend hundreds of hours playing if you're into speedruns, challenge runs or the robust extras menu (including the option to play with the physics from past Sonic games); $5 extra for even more options is hardly the end of the world.
@ShogunRok The same developer was responsible for a game called Melty Blood : Actress Again Current Code.
At this point I'm almost certain that anime-style fighting game titles are just a contest to see who can create the most confusing word soup, especially with things like the Japanese title for Persona 4 Ultimax (Persona 4: The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold).
I can remember getting this game just as I was getting in to DBZ, and having all of the major forms and villains spoiled for me definitely kind of sucked; but that's irrelevant. This game brings back memories of watching the show on a friend's VHS recordings of the original broadcast and sometimes nostalgia (and a kickass Hironobu Kageyama Opening theme) can be enough to carry a bad video game.
Speaking of Hironobu Kageyama, here's another Opening Theme he sang for PS1 3D fighter Psychic Force, a Taito effort that's way better than Final Bout and definitely worth a play if you're in the mood for some janky polygonal fighting -
This all sounds like stuff that would sway people, myself included, to come back even if they haven't touched the game since launch week.
Which, well, that's nice, but it needs to be a proper "relaunch" of the game, with a decent promotional push. Not just a few social media posts and a community blog post. Probably not treated with the same level of fanfare as something like The Taken King, which was really did feel like a "relaunch" of the first Destiny as "the game we should have released to begin with"; but you get the general point, surely?
Of course, this could all be horribly mismanaged and backfire, but I'm cautiously optimistic, and hope Bungie has a massive reversal of fortune that sends them back into people's good books.
Games wise, even if titles like Days Gone get delayed into 2019 (I think it will); and there's no major first-party announcements that we don't already know about, I think Sony knows they can spend another year coasting off of third-party titles, so I hope they'll instead dedicate resources to more experience-focused improvements.
Stuff like the much-discussed ability to change PSN names and improvements to the stability and speed of the PlayStation Network to meet the expectations of people used to the (considerably less problematic) online experience on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One are all nice things to have, not to mention ways to justify the recent increase to the price of a Plus subscription.
Speaking of Plus, hopefully the current trend of one PS4 retail game per month, one higher-priced download title and a bonus PlayLink/VR title continues, with the bonus titles getting rotated out a little more often - I doubt I'll ever buy a PSVR, but it would be nice to build up a decent library of VR titles, just in case... hell, giving me a decent library of titles through Plus is what eventually swayed me to buy a Vita, so perhaps lightning can strike twice in those regards.
Brief edit - that said, I think all of my whining about features and services is downplaying just how good the PS4's library really is - I've currently got three games on pre-order for this month alone (MonHun, Digimon and Dragon Ball FighterZ); not to mention stuff like Seven Deadly Sins, which I'm having to skip because, well, there's only so much money in the world.
If this sort of pricetag sticks after Christmas (unlikely), I might have to gather together some pennies and finally upgrade myself to the PS4 Pro. I'd grab one right now, but my wallet got decimated by Christmas presents and assorted impulse Black Friday buys.
On the one hand, this does really bother me, because I liked being able to chop and change shaders on a total whim; even if it served no actual functional purpose, it was nice to be able to switch up colour schemes with sub-classes and different loadouts. Having to commit to one colour scheme per item is, to say the least, disheartening; and I find the practice of doing so to retrofit the game around a loot box economy disgusting for obvious reasons.
On the other hand, I think people should take into account the following - a lot of the complaints surrounding Destiny 2, and the way Bungie/Acti have chosen to monetise it, focus on this one incredibly baffling change. I'd consider that to be a positive in the grand scheme, especially when other big upcoming games cough cough shadow of war cough have actual "pay to win" mechanics in their microtransactions.
This is the sort of high quality, hard-hitting real journalism this industry needs more of. Knack's cold, metallic, potentially unsafe under current health and safety regulations embrace needs to be felt by as many people as possible before he returns this coming Tuesday (Wednesday in Europe, to prove he can compete with Destiny 2 on his own terms) to smite the nonbelievers.
I think it goes without saying that the next couple of months are absolutely packed with big AAA titles on all systems; and while Sony are all for pushing legacy AAA games, I doubt it'll be anything that's likely to step on any toes or potentially harm sales for upcoming titles - the Heavy Rain/Beyond twin-pack would be a decent candidate, seeing as it doesn't really step on any toes, and those sorts of games prove super popular when the price is right. Of course, it could be another third-party AAA title. Just Cause 3's approaching two years old now, so something similarly aged would be a good guess - Rise of the Tomb Raider (technically two years-old due to appearing on Xbox first), for one, has frequently had deep discounts and probably doesn't have much more sales momentum for Square to exploit, so it'd make for a good gesture.
Personally, though, as far as I'm concerned - I just want to get games I don't already own digitally - at least one month this year, I've had months where I've not owned only one or two of the six games offered.
Nice to see Everybody's Golf getting some actual advertisement, at least!
That said, the fact they're -still- having to give prominent advertisement placing to titles like Ratchet and Clank, now nearly eighteen months old, really demonstrates how lacking the system is in first-party titles aimed at all age groups. I mean, third-parties more than make up for it, but I kind of miss franchises like Ape Escape and LocoRoco getting acknowledgement beyond download-exclusive re-releases and remasters.
I think it's a fine balancing act - a (fortunately small) group of indie devs think it is just enough to have the pixel art style - with very limited understanding of what makes games that inspired their own works great experiences that stood the test of time. I've definitely played one or two games on PS4 where I've felt like the retro stylings are entirely superficial; but it's not quite as bad as some of the uninspired rubbish I've seen on platforms like Steam or Itch.io.
But, like I say, they're the minority. I'm glad they're the minority, because I think retro aesthetics and pixel art will always have a place in gaming; even as 3D technology gets more and more advanced, leading to things like the amazing shaders used in Guilty Gear XRD to blur the line between hand-drawn 2D and 3D modelling.
For all of the complaining about "retro indie trash" you get, especially in the comments on the PlayStation blog, I don't think gaming would be quite the same if we didn't have new titles like Shovel Knight, remasters like Wonder Boy : The Dragon's Trap and collections of retro classics like the Mega Man Legacy Collections readily available for gamers of all stripes - even people who are too young to remember when those sorts of games were king.
I'd be completely unsurprised if they made a "special edition upgrade" package for people who didn't pre-order that version of the game; even if the ridiculous trophy situation was not the case.
I mean, you -could- be paying for "early access" to the episode a-la Square-Enix's pre-order DLC from other recent titles (FF XV's 2D prequel game and Deus Ex Mankind Divided's bonus mission); so Square not properly communicating the deal here is quite worrying.
@AhabSpampurse Some stores in the UK (GAME and ShopTo, probably others) are offering the digital code as a pre-order bonus. Check with whoever you've pre-ordered with if you're unsure; because I think Sony is doing similar incentives with retailers in other countries.
See, I can understand why people would enjoy Andromeda, even if it really isn't my cup of tea, because it has all the ingredients of an "okay" game; provided you're able to ignore the frankly ludicrous number of glitches it seems to have.
As for why the Internet dogpiled on it? Just look at the releases around it on PS4 alone - Nier Automata, Kingdom Hearts 1.5+2.5 HD, Horizon : Zero Dawn, Persona 5 and probably some others I'm forgetting. While one of these is a HD collection and all, they're all absolutely fantastic games and considerably more worthy of your time and money than a game that even the fans are seemingly openly admitting isn't great.
Is that EA's fault? Probably. They needed their "big" Q1 game, and presumably rushed the game out the door; but regardless of -who- the blame for that even lies on; it's still not acceptable to push out an unfinished, unpolished product; and it's nice to have seen some degree of resistance, no matter how most of it seemed to center around minute things like animation flubs.
It's a shame that I already own Transformers physically, but I've had plus games at retail before and downloaded the digital release for convenience's sake, so that's a nice option. The game is an absolute must-play if you like G1 Transformers or Platinum's beat 'em up games.
I also highly recommend Saurian Dash's series of videos explaining the gameplay systems in TFD - this guy is inhumanly good at Platinum's games, and his system breakdown videos are incredibly worthwhile watches.
Also nice to see the PS Vita getting a nice mix of indie and niche titles out to a wider audience - been meaning to try Actual Sunlight; and given that I really enjoyed Amnesia : Memories, another Otome game by the same team absolutely cannot go amiss... and based on the story synopsis, I'm likely gonna enjoy this one even more.
I'm guessing that, at some point in the game's development, online features -were- planned, and that they've since been shelved either due to having very little point, or due to technical issues. The fact Sean has never been upfront about this bothers me, and I think if he had, a lot of the ongoing situation would not have even registered on the radars of most people. I mean, it would have still been a disappointment, and it would have still caused an uproar; but less of one.
I'm also fairly certain the PEGI rating got revised at some point before the game's release, and I can't blame Sony for not wanting to re-print all of those cardboard boxes.
Ultimately, I never really "bought" the idea that I'd be able to see another human being in a huge randomly generated sandbox, so if the feature -has- been removed, or is being tweaked for future addition, that doesn't really bother me. Should still make it clear for those who -do- consider it a dealbreaker, though.
@banacheck launch day review embargos are, sadly, the norm nowadays. Post-launch review embargos seem to be reserved for more online-focused titles (so reviewers have a chance to play on production servers with the general public), though I do not think this is a formal post-launch embargo, more the developer asking reviewers to be patient.
I've seen enough of the $1300 guy's leaked footage to say that I'm a fan of the idea, and the core gameplay looks fun enough for my tastes, both of which are definitely points in the game's favour; so I'm still considering dropping £50 on the digital pre-order.
The patch, however, seems like it's probably needed. Achieving the core goal of the game in 20 hours seems to have been due to exploit in the way the game works, and I imagine other issues were encountered once the game went gold that the team either didn't have the time to fix, or hadn't even thought about prior to it, so getting a patch out in time for release is probably a good idea, as is asking reviewers to hold back reviews if said patch is a significant change either in how certain gameplay systems work, or the amount of content in the game.
I don't really mind the cover, it's not anywhere near as bad as some of the actually-bad boxart in my collection, and while I -am- eyeing up the lovely steelbook edition, it's either £60 on its own (GAME Exclusive) or £110 with the figure I do not have the space or inclination to display, which feels like a bit of a waste to me.
Were Crash to make a comeback, I'm not sure I'd want ND working on it. The team who made the Crash games have long since moved on, bar maybe one or two people, and given the track record of some of them (Jason Rubin, for example, worked on the abysmal Sonic Boom game for Wii U); I'd argue that it was a "right people, right place, right time" situation Sony couldn't possibly repeat.
I mean, I'm sure a modern Crash Bandicoot reboot could be a good game - Sanzaru have proven themselves capable of doing another company's franchise justice with Sly 4; and I'm sure people with more knowledge about this sort of thing could name other developers they'd trust to make a decent platformer. Probably Traveler's Tales if they weren't stuck in the salt mines making LEGO games for the rest of eternity... they worked on Twinsanity, which was probably the last good crash game, arguably the only good post-ND one, too.
@Ralizah "They ought to ditch the indie titles that almost nobody cares about and dedicate that time to talking about some of their console's Japanese offerings." Journalists seem to care about those, probably a little too much for how much certain publications have hyped certain games up; so it probably gives Sony the impression that it's what the public wants to hear. I mean, I'm all for indie titles, but not to the extent I think one should be given more than a cursory glance in an E3 presser - unless it's an exclusive Sony's funding, then they can go nuts.
I think certain Japanese games have a place at E3 - top-shelf titles like Persona 5, Yakuza, Ni no Kuni and first-party funded titles like The Tomorrow Children, New Everybody's Golf and Gravity Rush 2; especially the latter list, have more of a place in Sony's presentation and the PlayStation "brand" than belated ports of PC games that go on deep discount within a couple of months of release to catch up to the fact the PC version has already been in two humble bundles and a Steam sale.
I don't think anybody would be nuts enough to claim Akiba's Beat or an upcoming Senran Kagura title should be showcased in a presentation aimed at general audiences; though I think the moral outrage such a decision would cause would totally be worth it.
Neither of the PS4 games are really "My thing" - but as always, I'll download them and give them a go, just in case.
@booshy89 It was originally a PSP game if memory serves me correctly, no idea if the PSN version is compatible with the Vita or not, though I'd hope so.
@get2sammyb I dunno, a lot of the titles they've been giving away in recent months are "lesser" first-party published titles, some of which are actually really good games that just didn't get much press first time around, or were too niche to really make an impact. For the stinkers like Little Deviants (which I actually remember quite liking), we get an actual decent game like Siren: Blood Curse; and this mixed bag is fine by me if it means I get to re-play a few really good PSP games on my Vita without having to directly pay for them. I doubt the gesture costs them too much, and I'm all for it as a way to inevitably "wind down" the service on either console - a mixed bag of legacy titles being given a second chance is a better proposal to me than nothing at all.
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Re: Watch Dogs Legion Season Pass Includes Free Copy of the First Game
Given that Watch_Dogs complete generally goes for a tenner on PSN sales, this is... an alright bonus, but I can totally see why people might be upset by it.
Re: Poll: Do You Think Sony Is Telling the Truth About Cross-Play?
I mean, I primarily play single-player titles, but even then, if a game is written to support cross-system play and sharing, that absolutely should be standard across all platforms, 100%, no questions asked. It's a real shame that for example Wargroove isn't on PS4 day-and-date with every other system because of Sony's unwillingness to communicate with Chucklefish.
These sorts of decisions kill smaller and more niche titles quicker than they otherwise would and surely the health of a development partner's game is in the interest of a platform holder, because that drives game sales and, more importantly in Sony's case, licensing revenue. The single most profitable aspect of being a platform holder, by most reasonable accounts.
That said, I still think Sony can get away with dragging their feet over this because, like most of the detractors say, this isn't exactly a mainstream issue, most people don't know or care that the possibility's there, and even if they do know, it's kind of a hard sell without a clear, massive example a lot of mainstream people can latch on to. Fortnite used to be that, but, uh, Sony fixed that eventually, so the mainstream moved on.
As it stands, I would just like Sony to take a concrete, public stance on the issue already and let people move on. This whole issue has been coming up on-and-off ever since last year, and it's getting kinda tiring.
Re: Senran Kagura 7EVEN Impossible to Release After Sony Censorship Row
@get2sammyb I get his concern, but I also think, at least currently, Nintendo are the most permissive of the platform holders, probably because trying to restrict third-parties and the content they released on the Wii U didn't work out too well for them.
Granted, I have no idea how far in development this game is, and by the time it's done, he could be right, every major platform could start cracking down on fanservice content in a similar manner to Sony. I just don't see it happening unless a major controversy over those sorts of games arises in the near future.
Re: Senran Kagura 7EVEN Impossible to Release After Sony Censorship Row
I have a proposal for Takaki if he's worried Sony won't be receptive to a Senran Kagura game. There's a little hybrid system his team recently released a Senran Kagura title on, and said title is probably the most explicit in the series to date. The platform holder for this system didn't ask for any changes to his vision, even in the west.
In other words, the Switch is a thing and I'm pretty sure it's a thing he's fully capable of shipping a game on.
Re: Fans of Dreams Are Devastated by Bizarre Beta Rollout
I cannot disclose that I have my code and I cannot disclose that I feel considerably different about Dreams upon actually playing it than I did when it was just a bunch of prerecorded videos from trade shows and developer streams.
It's weird that Sony has a game where you cannot describe its quality without letting folk try it for themselves, then they go out of their way to have folk be unable to try it for themselves.
Re: Bandai Namco Baits Fans with 'Big News' Livestream, Tells Everyone to Watch Dragon Ball FighterZ Finals
I mean finally getting Super Dragon Ball Heroes In English is nice. The card game's been running in Japan for a decade so I'd kinda given up hope on that.
Re: Poll: Vote for Your PlayStation Game of the Year 2018
Yakuza 6, Dragon Quest XI and Tetris Effect. This year was a good year for Japanese cult classic franchises.
Re: Sony Made a Bad Decision to Skip E3 2019, Says Pachter
@Paranoimia Yep. That's the state of video game analysts in the investment sector for you. Pachter has job security basically because his competition manages to be even more off-the-mark than he is.
Re: Sony Made a Bad Decision to Skip E3 2019, Says Pachter
@solcross for what it's worth, Pachter is good for getting a feel on how investors writ large think about the games industry, and since most games companies are financed by investors in some form, what he says does have some bearing on the fortunes of the industry.
Like, Pachter's opinions, as backwards as they seem to the people actually playing the games he comments on, have value, largely because the rest of the investment sector stays quiet about games, even if they're putting millions, or billions, back into the industry.
Re: Days Gone Multiplayer Was Pitched, But Sony Said No
Honestly, good for Sony. I am also in the camp of "Do I really care about this game?", But I genuinely want it to be the best game possible for those who do, because I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed God of War despite also being in that camp about that game initially.
Re: Persona 5 B, Persona 5 M, Persona 5 S Website Domains Registered by Atlus as Mystery Deepens
@Spectra Persona 5 Dancing.
Therefore we can officially have P5BDSM.
Glad I could help.
Re: Japanese Sales Charts: Dragon Quest Builders 2 Sells Best on PS4, But Can't Beat Smash
@get2sammyb they survive because those sorts of sales are -fine- for a lot of them. They're generally made on the cheap by small dev teams over short development cycles, to the point that only selling a couple of thousand copies makes most of them profitable.
It's also why so many of them get localised - when they're already making a profit, western sales, as long as they cover the cost of paying translators and distributors, are just bonus money for the Japanese parent company. Doesn't matter how they chart, or if they chart, as long as the same few thousand people keep buying.
Re: No, Sony's Holiday Theme Probably Isn't Teasing PS5
@Rhaoulos Play5tation, the console that plays Wip3out and nothing else.
Re: EU PlayStation Store Christmas Sale Ends with Some of This Year's Biggest PS4 Games
I think I'll bite the bullet and pick up The Crew 2, I doubt it'll get much cheaper than that after Christmas, and hopefully it fares better on my newer, faster Internet connection than the first Crew ever did.
Re: Far Cry: New Dawn's Cover Art Leaks Ahead of Reveal
@get2sammyb I hate that I agree with you and yet I'll probably buy this because I need my generic open-world gunshoots to pass the time.
Re: Far Cry: New Dawn's Cover Art Leaks Ahead of Reveal
Pretty sure that's the Eden's Gate church from the very start and very end of Far Cry 5, so perhaps this is going to do the Far Cry Primal "old map in a new setting" deal, but being way more direct about it.
Re: PS Vita's All-Time US Best-Sellers Show Why Sony Binned System
What gets me about this list is - not a single game on it broke even 500,000 units. That's not a good look for any platform, especially when commercial failures like the Wii U managed to push a couple of million-sellers. I have to wonder how many PS Vitas Sony actually managed to sell in the US, because I'd be surprised if they managed to break 1 million sales.
Re: Japanese Developer Sheds More Light on Sony Censorship Scenario
Honestly, this whole situation is just getting ridiculous and feels, increasingly, like the newly minted US headquarters and new CEO trying their absolute hardest to scare away niche publishers and developers. They're willing to completely tank the PS Vita less than a year after a new CEO takes over, with all physical software and hardware production coming to a halt after this fiscal year, it's no wonder why there's an increasing sentiment of "I'll just bring it to Switch instead" among small/independent developers and publishers. Because, you know, alienating that market worked out AMAZINGLY in the early years of the PS3.
For the record, I don't -want- to assume this whole situation can be attributed to some malicious intent. Perhaps people are right. Perhaps this really is the reality of the market now, and the avoidance of controversy really is in the best interests of Sony and their customers. But given that Nintendo can let a third-party release a title like Senran Kagura : Shinobi Refle completely uncut, and ride out any and all controversy by just... ignoring it until it goes away, I really can't come to any other conclusion. I just can't.
@bbtothe From what I understand of the ongoing controversy - submissions got moved to the US with the rest of the headquarters. Presumably, now being staffed entirely in the US, they have no/limited Japanese speaking submissions staff, thereby meaning all communications will have to be in English unless they luck out and get to speak to a Submissions person who actually is able to understand Japanese.
Re: Sony Underfire in Renewed PS4 Censorship Row
I think it goes without saying that this will not last, unless SCE wants to completely concede the Japanese market to Nintendo which, as a now California-based company with heavily western-focused titles as their main output, they may be happy to do that.
Speaking of Nintendo, we had a period of this sort of heavy handed censorship with the Wii U and 3DS, which absolutely didn't help get titles like Tokyo Mirage Sessions out to wider audiences, and in fact Probably hurt the sales of titles like FE Fates. Granted, those are first-party titles Nintendo had significant investment in, and these are third party titles by small companies with a limited reach, so perhaps when it's Sony's own purse strings not being affected they really won't see any downsides to these new policies.
That said, the bulk of my PlayStation enjoyment has came from Japanese third-parties, especially in recent years, so I can't help but be a little worried for the future of Sony's Japanese Third-party relations if they continue down their current path.
Re: Poll: Are You a Fan of Gaming Magazines?
I do still like gaming magazines, I mean, I'm subscribed to Retro Gamer and used to be subscribed to Official Nintendo Magazine, but I think unless your magazine is something specialised like Retro Gamer is, people are just gonna go online to get the same, or similar, coverage in a more timely and less costly fashion.
It's a shame, really, but it's the nature of the market. Games mags have been, by and large, competed out of existence, and anything they could do to compete, like Retro Gamer's amazing written features about specific games and series, generally with input from the original creators, is either too niche or too expensive to back in a large-scale fashion.
Re: Poll: If PSN Name Changes Are Really Happening, Will You Change Yours?
My PSN Name is a holdover from the PS Forums, a service I joined when I was 13. Since I can't go back in time to slap Past-me silly, I'll just have to make do with changing my old godawful username.
Re: Minecraft's Better Together Update Could Yet Come to PS4
@get2sammyb it had, and still has, some major performance issues, with bugs that haven't been present in Java or Console for years being a big issue until very recently, but they're slowly bringing things back to standard.
It's also the branch with a ton of neat new gameplay modes and features being added to it, so if you're into Minecraft, you're getting an inferior experience by missing out on it.
Oh, and the cross-platform multiplayer aspect, while not something I've dabbled in too heavily, is super seamless and basically transparent, which is what you want it to be.
Re: Poll: Do You Care About Cross-Play Now That It's Available on PS4?
@Flaming_Kaiser not sure I get your logic here? It's... Easier to kill exclusives because a game with cross-platform play provides competition? Miss me with that, please. Not every game has to be cross-platform, not every game has to have a multiplayer component, at all.
Did we just forget that a single player platform exclusive became the single fastest selling game of the year or something? Heck, given God Of War and Spider-Man both broke sales records and all expectations, and they're both single-player platform exclusives, surely you have to see those kinds of games aren't going anywhere?
I don't think cross-play is some deal breaking thing for the majority of people, I don't even think it's viable for the overwhelming majority of games. But the fact that it's there is a nice bonus. If anything, normalising the idea now will make people more likely to buy a platform off of the strength of its exclusives, rather than "all my friends are there", a proposition Sony is only going to benefit from with their First-Party studios completely blowing Microsoft's out the water.
Re: Poll: Do You Care About Cross-Play Now That It's Available on PS4?
I think cross-platform multiplayer should become the norm, specifically because, as another commenter has said, it's the kind of feature that helps keep games with smaller playerbases alive long-term, and surely that's a good thing for everybody, right?
As it stands, I'm sure we all know the cross-platform games will begin and end with popular free-to-play and eSports games, so Fortnite, Rocket League and so on so forth will be the only things to really get it. That's... Not really a bad thing, to be perfectly honest.
Re: New PS4 Commercial Shows Where Sony's Fall Focus Lies
As far as commercials go, this is inevitably going to get a lot of play on prime-time TV in the run-up to Christmas and, frankly, it's what you want. Guns, explosions, cowboys and superheroes. All things likely to get people who don't already own a PS4 to plonk some cash down and get one.
Re: Spider-Man PS4's Puddle Drama Is An Absolute Embarrassment
Ladies and gentlemen, it is finally time to dust off the hashtags and get #puddlegate trending, let Insomniac know we'll only take massive puddles in our AAA video games!
Or, you know, stop judging the quality of video games based entirely off of Youtube's compression algorithm and pre-release footage in an age where games have had graphics and framerate changes as a result of day-one patches.
Re: Sonic Mania Plus Promo Apes Old SEGA Advert
@ShadowWarrior It's gonna be $5 for two new characters, the encore mode and 4-player multiplayer. Given that Mania's the sort of game you can -easily- spend hundreds of hours playing if you're into speedruns, challenge runs or the robust extras menu (including the option to play with the physics from past Sonic games); $5 extra for even more options is hardly the end of the world.
Re: Store Update: 6th February 2018 (Europe)
@ShogunRok The same developer was responsible for a game called Melty Blood : Actress Again Current Code.
At this point I'm almost certain that anime-style fighting game titles are just a contest to see who can create the most confusing word soup, especially with things like the Japanese title for Persona 4 Ultimax (Persona 4: The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold).
Re: Hold On, Dragon Ball FighterZ Is Pronounced 'Fighters'?
The "Z" is for Coolnezz.
Re: Feature: Dragon Ball: Final Bout - The Worst Fighting Game with the Best Opening Movie
I can remember getting this game just as I was getting in to DBZ, and having all of the major forms and villains spoiled for me definitely kind of sucked; but that's irrelevant. This game brings back memories of watching the show on a friend's VHS recordings of the original broadcast and sometimes nostalgia (and a kickass Hironobu Kageyama Opening theme) can be enough to carry a bad video game.
Speaking of Hironobu Kageyama, here's another Opening Theme he sang for PS1 3D fighter Psychic Force, a Taito effort that's way better than Final Bout and definitely worth a play if you're in the mood for some janky polygonal fighting -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6bUAP85oRU
Re: Bungie Plans on Making a Lot of Changes to Destiny 2, Details it All in New Blog Post
This all sounds like stuff that would sway people, myself included, to come back even if they haven't touched the game since launch week.
Which, well, that's nice, but it needs to be a proper "relaunch" of the game, with a decent promotional push. Not just a few social media posts and a community blog post. Probably not treated with the same level of fanfare as something like The Taken King, which was really did feel like a "relaunch" of the first Destiny as "the game we should have released to begin with"; but you get the general point, surely?
Of course, this could all be horribly mismanaged and backfire, but I'm cautiously optimistic, and hope Bungie has a massive reversal of fortune that sends them back into people's good books.
Re: Poll: Is 2018 Looking Bright for PlayStation?
Games wise, even if titles like Days Gone get delayed into 2019 (I think it will); and there's no major first-party announcements that we don't already know about, I think Sony knows they can spend another year coasting off of third-party titles, so I hope they'll instead dedicate resources to more experience-focused improvements.
Stuff like the much-discussed ability to change PSN names and improvements to the stability and speed of the PlayStation Network to meet the expectations of people used to the (considerably less problematic) online experience on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One are all nice things to have, not to mention ways to justify the recent increase to the price of a Plus subscription.
Speaking of Plus, hopefully the current trend of one PS4 retail game per month, one higher-priced download title and a bonus PlayLink/VR title continues, with the bonus titles getting rotated out a little more often - I doubt I'll ever buy a PSVR, but it would be nice to build up a decent library of VR titles, just in case... hell, giving me a decent library of titles through Plus is what eventually swayed me to buy a Vita, so perhaps lightning can strike twice in those regards.
Brief edit - that said, I think all of my whining about features and services is downplaying just how good the PS4's library really is - I've currently got three games on pre-order for this month alone (MonHun, Digimon and Dragon Ball FighterZ); not to mention stuff like Seven Deadly Sins, which I'm having to skip because, well, there's only so much money in the world.
Re: Deals: PS4 Pro Scores Another Temporary Price Drop in the UK
If this sort of pricetag sticks after Christmas (unlikely), I might have to gather together some pennies and finally upgrade myself to the PS4 Pro. I'd grab one right now, but my wallet got decimated by Christmas presents and assorted impulse Black Friday buys.
Re: Destiny 2 Butchers Shaders for the Sake of Microtransactions
On the one hand, this does really bother me, because I liked being able to chop and change shaders on a total whim; even if it served no actual functional purpose, it was nice to be able to switch up colour schemes with sub-classes and different loadouts. Having to commit to one colour scheme per item is, to say the least, disheartening; and I find the practice of doing so to retrofit the game around a loot box economy disgusting for obvious reasons.
On the other hand, I think people should take into account the following - a lot of the complaints surrounding Destiny 2, and the way Bungie/Acti have chosen to monetise it, focus on this one incredibly baffling change. I'd consider that to be a positive in the grand scheme, especially when other big upcoming games cough cough shadow of war cough have actual "pay to win" mechanics in their microtransactions.
Re: Feature: How to Prepare for the Second Coming of Knack
This is the sort of high quality, hard-hitting real journalism this industry needs more of. Knack's cold, metallic, potentially unsafe under current health and safety regulations embrace needs to be felt by as many people as possible before he returns this coming Tuesday (Wednesday in Europe, to prove he can compete with Destiny 2 on his own terms) to smite the nonbelievers.
Re: Talking Point: What Free September 2017 PlayStation Plus Games Do You Want?
I think it goes without saying that the next couple of months are absolutely packed with big AAA titles on all systems; and while Sony are all for pushing legacy AAA games, I doubt it'll be anything that's likely to step on any toes or potentially harm sales for upcoming titles - the Heavy Rain/Beyond twin-pack would be a decent candidate, seeing as it doesn't really step on any toes, and those sorts of games prove super popular when the price is right. Of course, it could be another third-party AAA title. Just Cause 3's approaching two years old now, so something similarly aged would be a good guess - Rise of the Tomb Raider (technically two years-old due to appearing on Xbox first), for one, has frequently had deep discounts and probably doesn't have much more sales momentum for Square to exploit, so it'd make for a good gesture.
Personally, though, as far as I'm concerned - I just want to get games I don't already own digitally - at least one month this year, I've had months where I've not owned only one or two of the six games offered.
Re: PS4's Latest European Commercial Goes After Kids
@wiiware I would be all for a Ratchet & Clank 2 remake, but I think the failure of the film has caused that pipe dream to die.
Re: PS4's Latest European Commercial Goes After Kids
Nice to see Everybody's Golf getting some actual advertisement, at least!
That said, the fact they're -still- having to give prominent advertisement placing to titles like Ratchet and Clank, now nearly eighteen months old, really demonstrates how lacking the system is in first-party titles aimed at all age groups. I mean, third-parties more than make up for it, but I kind of miss franchises like Ape Escape and LocoRoco getting acknowledgement beyond download-exclusive re-releases and remasters.
Re: Soapbox: Pixel Art Is Prolific, and That's Pretty Great
I think it's a fine balancing act - a (fortunately small) group of indie devs think it is just enough to have the pixel art style - with very limited understanding of what makes games that inspired their own works great experiences that stood the test of time. I've definitely played one or two games on PS4 where I've felt like the retro stylings are entirely superficial; but it's not quite as bad as some of the uninspired rubbish I've seen on platforms like Steam or Itch.io.
But, like I say, they're the minority. I'm glad they're the minority, because I think retro aesthetics and pixel art will always have a place in gaming; even as 3D technology gets more and more advanced, leading to things like the amazing shaders used in Guilty Gear XRD to blur the line between hand-drawn 2D and 3D modelling.
For all of the complaining about "retro indie trash" you get, especially in the comments on the PlayStation blog, I don't think gaming would be quite the same if we didn't have new titles like Shovel Knight, remasters like Wonder Boy : The Dragon's Trap and collections of retro classics like the Mega Man Legacy Collections readily available for gamers of all stripes - even people who are too young to remember when those sorts of games were king.
Re: Life Is Strange: Before The Storm's Platinum Trophy Requires the Deluxe Edition
I'd be completely unsurprised if they made a "special edition upgrade" package for people who didn't pre-order that version of the game; even if the ridiculous trophy situation was not the case.
I mean, you -could- be paying for "early access" to the episode a-la Square-Enix's pre-order DLC from other recent titles (FF XV's 2D prequel game and Deus Ex Mankind Divided's bonus mission); so Square not properly communicating the deal here is quite worrying.
Re: Jak & Daxter's PS4 Trophies Go Live Ahead of Launch
@AhabSpampurse Some stores in the UK (GAME and ShopTo, probably others) are offering the digital code as a pre-order bonus. Check with whoever you've pre-ordered with if you're unsure; because I think Sony is doing similar incentives with retailers in other countries.
Re: Talking Point: Was Mass Effect: Andromeda Unfairly Torn Apart by the Internet?
See, I can understand why people would enjoy Andromeda, even if it really isn't my cup of tea, because it has all the ingredients of an "okay" game; provided you're able to ignore the frankly ludicrous number of glitches it seems to have.
As for why the Internet dogpiled on it? Just look at the releases around it on PS4 alone - Nier Automata, Kingdom Hearts 1.5+2.5 HD, Horizon : Zero Dawn, Persona 5 and probably some others I'm forgetting. While one of these is a HD collection and all, they're all absolutely fantastic games and considerably more worthy of your time and money than a game that even the fans are seemingly openly admitting isn't great.
Is that EA's fault? Probably. They needed their "big" Q1 game, and presumably rushed the game out the door; but regardless of -who- the blame for that even lies on; it's still not acceptable to push out an unfinished, unpolished product; and it's nice to have seen some degree of resistance, no matter how most of it seemed to center around minute things like animation flubs.
Re: PlayStation Plus October Includes Resident Evil and Transformers on PS4
It's a shame that I already own Transformers physically, but I've had plus games at retail before and downloaded the digital release for convenience's sake, so that's a nice option. The game is an absolute must-play if you like G1 Transformers or Platinum's beat 'em up games.
I also highly recommend Saurian Dash's series of videos explaining the gameplay systems in TFD - this guy is inhumanly good at Platinum's games, and his system breakdown videos are incredibly worthwhile watches.
Also nice to see the PS Vita getting a nice mix of indie and niche titles out to a wider audience - been meaning to try Actual Sunlight; and given that I really enjoyed Amnesia : Memories, another Otome game by the same team absolutely cannot go amiss... and based on the story synopsis, I'm likely gonna enjoy this one even more.
Re: Sticker on PS4 Copies of No Man's Sky Removes Reference to Online Play
I'm guessing that, at some point in the game's development, online features -were- planned, and that they've since been shelved either due to having very little point, or due to technical issues. The fact Sean has never been upfront about this bothers me, and I think if he had, a lot of the ongoing situation would not have even registered on the radars of most people. I mean, it would have still been a disappointment, and it would have still caused an uproar; but less of one.
I'm also fairly certain the PEGI rating got revised at some point before the game's release, and I can't blame Sony for not wanting to re-print all of those cardboard boxes.
Ultimately, I never really "bought" the idea that I'd be able to see another human being in a huge randomly generated sandbox, so if the feature -has- been removed, or is being tweaked for future addition, that doesn't really bother me. Should still make it clear for those who -do- consider it a dealbreaker, though.
Re: No Man's Sky PS4 Reviews Reportedly On Hold as Dev Finalises Day One Patch
@banacheck launch day review embargos are, sadly, the norm nowadays. Post-launch review embargos seem to be reserved for more online-focused titles (so reviewers have a chance to play on production servers with the general public), though I do not think this is a formal post-launch embargo, more the developer asking reviewers to be patient.
Re: No Man's Sky PS4 Reviews Reportedly On Hold as Dev Finalises Day One Patch
I've seen enough of the $1300 guy's leaked footage to say that I'm a fan of the idea, and the core gameplay looks fun enough for my tastes, both of which are definitely points in the game's favour; so I'm still considering dropping £50 on the digital pre-order.
The patch, however, seems like it's probably needed. Achieving the core goal of the game in 20 hours seems to have been due to exploit in the way the game works, and I imagine other issues were encountered once the game went gold that the team either didn't have the time to fix, or hadn't even thought about prior to it, so getting a patch out in time for release is probably a good idea, as is asking reviewers to hold back reviews if said patch is a significant change either in how certain gameplay systems work, or the amount of content in the game.
Re: E3 2016: Sadly, The Last Guardian's PS4 Box Art Sucks
I don't really mind the cover, it's not anywhere near as bad as some of the actually-bad boxart in my collection, and while I -am- eyeing up the lovely steelbook edition, it's either £60 on its own (GAME Exclusive) or £110 with the figure I do not have the space or inclination to display, which feels like a bit of a waste to me.
Re: Feature: Is Crash Bandicoot Coming to PS4? 10 Reasons to Believe He Is
Were Crash to make a comeback, I'm not sure I'd want ND working on it. The team who made the Crash games have long since moved on, bar maybe one or two people, and given the track record of some of them (Jason Rubin, for example, worked on the abysmal Sonic Boom game for Wii U); I'd argue that it was a "right people, right place, right time" situation Sony couldn't possibly repeat.
I mean, I'm sure a modern Crash Bandicoot reboot could be a good game - Sanzaru have proven themselves capable of doing another company's franchise justice with Sly 4; and I'm sure people with more knowledge about this sort of thing could name other developers they'd trust to make a decent platformer. Probably Traveler's Tales if they weren't stuck in the salt mines making LEGO games for the rest of eternity... they worked on Twinsanity, which was probably the last good crash game, arguably the only good post-ND one, too.
Re: Talking Point: Should Sony Leverage PS4's Japanese Game Lineup at E3 2016?
@Ralizah "They ought to ditch the indie titles that almost nobody cares about and dedicate that time to talking about some of their console's Japanese offerings."
Journalists seem to care about those, probably a little too much for how much certain publications have hyped certain games up; so it probably gives Sony the impression that it's what the public wants to hear. I mean, I'm all for indie titles, but not to the extent I think one should be given more than a cursory glance in an E3 presser - unless it's an exclusive Sony's funding, then they can go nuts.
I think certain Japanese games have a place at E3 - top-shelf titles like Persona 5, Yakuza, Ni no Kuni and first-party funded titles like The Tomorrow Children, New Everybody's Golf and Gravity Rush 2; especially the latter list, have more of a place in Sony's presentation and the PlayStation "brand" than belated ports of PC games that go on deep discount within a couple of months of release to catch up to the fact the PC version has already been in two humble bundles and a Steam sale.
I don't think anybody would be nuts enough to claim Akiba's Beat or an upcoming Senran Kagura title should be showcased in a presentation aimed at general audiences; though I think the moral outrage such a decision would cause would totally be worth it.
Re: Your June PlayStation Plus Games Have Been Revealed
Neither of the PS4 games are really "My thing" - but as always, I'll download them and give them a go, just in case.
@booshy89 It was originally a PSP game if memory serves me correctly, no idea if the PSN version is compatible with the Vita or not, though I'd hope so.
@get2sammyb I dunno, a lot of the titles they've been giving away in recent months are "lesser" first-party published titles, some of which are actually really good games that just didn't get much press first time around, or were too niche to really make an impact. For the stinkers like Little Deviants (which I actually remember quite liking), we get an actual decent game like Siren: Blood Curse; and this mixed bag is fine by me if it means I get to re-play a few really good PSP games on my Vita without having to directly pay for them. I doubt the gesture costs them too much, and I'm all for it as a way to inevitably "wind down" the service on either console - a mixed bag of legacy titles being given a second chance is a better proposal to me than nothing at all.