wildcat_kickz

Would someone please explain to me why this guy deserves so much animosity?

Do I think TLoU2 could have been more cohesive and have a more satisfying ending? Sure. Do I think either the story should have ended when Ellie first got to the farm or Ellie should have died saving Abby? Yes.

Do I think the story, as it is, is some affront to my existence? No. You know why? Because I'm adult who knows how to compartmentalize mild disappointment.

This is a human being who has put more creative energy into his work than any of us could ever dream of. Neil has earned his success.

I've tried so many times to get back into D2 after falling off in year 1, but every time I boot it up, the directionless menu/quest overload kills any desire I have. I really don't understand how a GaaS can have such terrible onboarding for new/lapsed players. It's like they're deliberately whittling down their audience, rather than trying to grow it. Oh well - guess I'll wait for Marathon.

@nessisonett I kinda think that's a false equivalency. $40 is the price of some full games, but that's pretty rare now, Helldivers 2 being an example.

Sure, Elden Ring launched at $60, but if it came out today, I'd wager it would be $70, easy. I suspect to play through all the expansion's content, it will take 30-40 hours for a fresh run, which is much longer than many $70 games. While how long it takes to play through content shouldn't be the end-all be-all of value, From Software has more than proven themselves as being capable of delivering a high-quality product.

I haven't seen From Software's/Bandai Namco's financials, so I can't comment on the profits, but I can say with certainty that those entities aren't non-profits. It would be unreasonable for them to sell the expansion without making a buck. The thing will have taken like 2.5 years to come out, so no doubt it was expensive to produce.

@nessisonett £35/$40 is a tough pill to swallow, but I suspect the size of the expansion will justify the price tag.

@Bez87 the ps4 (original) and ps5 (remaster) versions have separate trophy lists and are treated as different games. If you want to earn a platinum the organic way for the remaster, then you just need to play it as if you never had the ps4 version. Similarly to spider-man and ghost of Tsushima, there’s an option to import your ps4 save data into your ps5 version (this is done in-game). If you do, all the trophies you earned in that save file will unlock, but if you don’t import the save, that won’t happen.

I love this game, but the servers and matchmaking continue to be pretty bad. Waited like 10 minutes to get in and then couldn't matchmake with anyone, making higher difficulties basically unplayable.

Not only should they implement an AFK autokick, but they should also just have a server queue. At least then, you'd know how long you're actually going to wait to get into the game.

@Khayl @sanderson72 Dominic Monaghan is already in the worst Star Wars movie ever (IX), so let's give that idea a pass, haha.

Unless I misunderstood, didn't they just confirm that CoD will be day 1 with GamePass going forward? If true, that's a pretty ballsy move - potentially eliminating millions of copies sold on their platform. In order to make those lost sales back, they'd need to keep a sub for 5 months...

@MikeOrator I would totally agree that it's not more pretentious than demanding 4K and ray tracing in your games, but I've also never heard anyone say "I'm never gonna play a game that doesn't support 4K or ray tracing."

I think you understand this, but game optimization isn't a simple tool in a game engine - it's a series of learned coding skills that some individuals/developers are just better at than others, so I find it understandable that some devs will just have an easier time with getting better frame rates than others.

That said, I'm definitely in favor of a more open source industry, where knowledge like that could be disseminated more widely, but on the flip-side, there's an argument to make that that would devalue individual studios' internally honed skills.

@KundaliniRising333 TL;DR XD

@vrubayka @GilgaMax96 As I said, "Options are always nice and I hope they provide one." Both of you are perfectly free to skip this title if 30fps really is such a deal breaker for you, but I'm also perfectly free to think that has an air of pretention associated with it. Obviously, 60fps is better than 30fps, but completely walling yourself out of games because there isn't a 60fps option seems ludicrous, to me. To each their own, though.

I totally understand the need for 60fps in first person games where camera pans basically become smush at lower frame rates, but I think this whole debate is soooo overblown. In third person games, as long as the 30fps is rock solid, I don't really find it much of a hindrance. You get used to the frame pacing very quickly.

Options are always nice and I hope they provide one, but when I hear people say "I refuse to play a 30fps game," I just roll my eyes...

@Porco The South Korean government has nothing to do with this story. Sony has decided not to release the game in Korea. It wasn't mandated by the government.

I understand the move, but I wonder if a trigger warning at the start of the game would have been sufficient, similar to how Mafia 3 warned about racist themes in the game. I'm typically more in favor of leaving artistic expression as is and disseminating it as much as possible, while providing important historical context, when necessary.

For example: "This game depicts Shōin Yoshida and his teachings; however, while this game does not villainize Yoshida within the context of the story, we recognize him as a controversial historical individual who advocated for the subjugation of the Korean people. To learn more about Yoshida and his legacy, please follow the link below."

Of course, if Sony is pulling the release to get ahead of a potential Korean boycott and media frenzy that would follow, that would be something else entirely.

Yeah, not a fan of this move. This screams "cost-cutting," to me. My assumption is the "open world" will just be whatever the current year's Warzone map is, which is super disappointing. I'll echo what many comments have said already, but I personally love the highly tailored bombast of CoD campaigns and this move will likely rob the campaigns of those spectacle moments. It remains to be seen, but I'm highly skeptical of this move.

A little strange, as far as mixed themes go, but free is free! I'll give the new LoP weapon a go when I get the itch to go on another Krat killing spree.

I'm certainly very curious about Steelrising. I'm always up for a good Soulslike, but worry it just will seem like the store-brand Lies of P... Here's hoping it exceeds my expectations.

@Loamy Seriously one of the only intelligible things said in this entire comment thread. It's fiction. Don't like it? Don't play it. Don't want it to affect how you see the characters? Don't take it into account. I'll say it once more for posterity: it's fiction.

@PegasusActual93 Completely agree - Infinite Warfare had my favorite campaign in the entire CoD series. Basically felt like the military perspective of the Expanse universe. Also, multiplayer felt like splitting the difference between a typical CoD and Titanfall. I really hope that Infinity Ward's next game is IW2.

Not gonna lie - booted up Witcher 3 the other day, just to slow trot my way across the Kear Morhen map on Roach's back. Take in the sights, zen out with the incredible soundtrack. Masterclass.

@Ghostngoblins Adjusted for inflation, that'll be $70 in today's moneys.

@colonelkilgore I accidentally did that for Ghost of Tsushima and Spider-Man Remastered. I felt like I cheated!

@Bez87 It is. If you don't want an instant unlock, then don't import your save and just start fresh.

This entire article can get boiled down to "Brian Cox got a nice paycheck for a few hours of work."

@nomither6 I think we just have different tastes. I'll admit that I didn't play AW multiplayer, but thought the innovation in mobility was a welcome change (something that Infinity Ward improved further with Infinite Warfare). At that time, I was just playing CoD for the campaigns and thought that one was pretty good. WW2 I also thought was pretty good. Good Band of Brother's inspired campaign, decent MP maps, and a genuinely scary aesthetic take on Zombies. Vanguard's campaign was decent, though I think the MP wasn't what I wanted. I actually like the WW2 period setting, but Vanguard wanted to have it both ways with the period and modern attachments. Ultimately, I agree that it didn't live up to it's potential and the Fortnite bleed hit pretty hard in that installment. Definitely don't appreciate the metaverse style skins seeping into military shooters.

However - I think Treyarch "picking up the pieces" isn't quite accurate, especially since dev cycles are several years. BO4 campaign was so off track, they outright cancelled it. Cold War's campaign they gave to Raven. Treyarch was missing milestones and should have been the studio to release next, but Sledgehammer was forced to release something that was intended to be DLC for MW2 as a completely standalone game (something that wasn't Sledgehammer's choice, I might add).

No matter how you slice it, I think IW makes the best CoD games, but I digress.

I'd also agree with the general audience sentiment that they should stop annualizing these games and just give all the teams more time to innovate.

@KundaliniRising333 @GeeEssEff Haters gonna hate.

@pharos_haven Same reason people still play chess, basketball, Destiny, etc.: it's fun.

@KundaliniRising333 Please provide your real gaming credentials

@NotSoCryptic I understand there's a ton of cross pollination for each entry, but each one definitely still has a "main" dev team behind it, with others providing robust support. Even with Cold War, though Raven made the campaign, Treyarch was lead on MP and Zombies, especially since that entry used Treyarch's own engine.

Ultimately, CoD games live and die by their MP maps, gun customization and gunplay. Campaigns are good marketing beats, but don't really play a huge role (at least, outside of the media). I've personally preferred IW and SH maps and gunplay to Treyarch's, but I also recognize that's just my own tastes.

Either way, I'm excited to see a shift either into the future or past. I'm a little burnt out on the modern settings.

I thought the Gulf War entry was also Black Ops? Surely, Treyarch isn't making both, so is the 2024 game an Infinity Ward entry? If so, my hype levels just skyrocketed!

Never been super hot on the Treyarch games, but I must also confess that this adds to the confusion on how these three mainline studios are treated (Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Sledgehammer). If BO is a 2025 game, that provides Treyarch with 5 years of dev time between Cold War and this, while Sledge continues to get pummeled by the community as being the "worst" team, except they were only allowed a year and change to make MW3. Something definitely seems off...

@get2sammyb I think it depends on how you're defining "number 1." I think Insomniac is no doubt PlayStation's most lucrative and prolific studio this generation, but Naughty Dog remains PlayStation's most prestigious. If Insomniac wasn't working with an insanely successful third-party IP, would they be so important? No one can really say. But ND's own IP has generated a massive amount of buzz through cross-media without even needing to release a new game.

@NinjaNicky Many gamers who play now weren't playing CoD in 2009, so they're new maps to them. I'd also second @J_e_f_f__D in that most people also don't care about the campaign. BO4 didn't even have one. Also, CoD has best-in-class FPS gameplay, so the fact that it hasn't really changed since the 2019 MW is a good thing, in my book.

@Deadlyblack This is America. You can sue anyone for anything. He won't win, though.

@get2sammyb At the very least, Sony should have a more hands-on approach to Bungie's operations. It's pretty clear that Bungie is floundering and maybe if they were more integrated into the PlayStation umbrella, there would be more opportunity for cross-studio support. This whole situation wreaks of Xbox's failed approach to studio "management."

@OmegaStriver "Beatings will continue until moral improves."

Doubt it would have won many votes, but CoD MW3 not being on the list is a little weird. That said, here we go:

1. Lies of P
2. Jedi: Survivor
3. Hogwarts Legacy
4. FF XVI
5. Diablo IV

Haven't played a lot of the others, but my top 3 I thought were all fantastic!

Just got to the PL DLC in a new playthrough, so this is much appreciated! Can't wait to have a digital midlife crisis in that convertible Porsche!

As a consumer, I would love this and would grab GP on Playstation as a no-brainer move, but, on the other hand, it kind of reads as Microsoft throwing in the towel on Xbox as a hardware platform. I know Xbox has really struggled to move units the past two generations, but it's going to take time to rebuild respect and trust after Xbox One. They have the resources to make it happen, but we just haven't seen much fruit from their vast array of studios. They need truly excellent games to compete with Playstation, not better hardware. The Series X is great, as far as platforms go, but the games just aren't there yet. I really hope they start churning out some excellent titles that make me jealous of the folks that own a Series. Where's Indiana Jones? Where's Fallout? Where's something NEW? Where's virtually anything that isn't developed by Obsidian??

Playstation needs a strong competitor to keep the pressure on and Nintendo isn't playing the same game. I worry for an industry if it really only has Playstation as the viable AAA couch machine.

@nessisonett I think Playstation's bet is a sort of "scatter-shot" approach. They've got 10 (theoretically) live-service games in various stages of production, but I don't think they're under the impression that they'll all succeed. They just need one big hit that will justify the expense of all the others, but they need to cast a wide net, since the live-service player base is incredibly hard to convert from one game to another.

I also think the majority of those live-service games aren't 1st party, so the general Playstation single-player pipeline is largely unaffected.

I haven't really played Destiny 2 since it's first year. I found much of the changes they made from Destiny 1 completely backwards and diminished much of my drive to play it. Every so often, I would try to jump back in, but since they switched to the free-to-play, seasonal model, I've found pretty much nothing to interest me. It's sooo bad at onboarding new or lapsed players.

That said, the foundation of the game is solid, so there are plenty of talented artists working on the game, but management seems to be completely detached from reality. There needs to be a serious shake up in the top brass and decision makers at the studio.

I probably sunk 1000 hours into Destiny 1 and countless more into Halo; even played a ton of Myth and Myth 2, back in the day. Bungie used to be one of my favorite studios, but I just can't understand the template they're using right now.

I really hope they use the Final Shape as the final DLC for Destiny 2. They need a hard reset. They're playing a game of attrition that no one can win.

@koverby Glad you're thinking about diving in! All hyperbole aside, it's a really special game and I think the plaudits are well deserved. Even 8 years on, it holds up remarkably well (especially with the current gen update).

@Areus They outsourced that to another studio.

@koverby Not sure how much sarcasm is in that question, but... incredibly biased opinion alert:

Yeah, if you like dark fantasy RPGs, then this is a must-play. No need to worry about Witcher 1 and 2, though. I started with 3 and it's my favorite game. If you do take the plunge, my recommendation is to take it slow. The game is just dripping with atmosphere and subtle story-telling in the environments. Got me hooked so badly that I went and read a bunch of the original books (which are treated as backstory for the game).

@ShogunRok This is exactly what I would want from Witcher 4. Geralt's story is over and Ciri has way too much power to make for an interesting and grounded RPG main character. I would love to create a custom character and select a school, similar to selecting a class architype, in other RPGs.

@AhmadSumadi I think you have your cake and eat it too. CDPR could very easily have a named character, but allow for build and appearance variety (like "V" in CP2077).

Dig it! Very reminiscent of the armor sets from the D1 Rise of Iron DLC. I like the Destiny aesthetic much more when they lean into the fantasy/medieval aspects. Destiny always struck me more as a fantasy game set in the future, rather than a sci-fi game. Haven't played Destiny in a few years, so they won't be seeing any money from me, but always happy to see Witcher stuff!

A bummer in the smallest sense, but oh well. @xDD90X The disappointment is just that some folks, myself included, sometimes like the new trophies as an added incentive to revisit an old game they love. I've platinumed the Witcher 3 twice now and am slowly working through the PS5 version for the 3rd. Would a lack of a new trophy set stop me from playing the Witcher 3? No. But it's a nice bonus.

@Reveluv Yeah I think I'll need to beat the Nameless one more time to get the plat, but I'm not too worried about it. I'm at the Abbey in NG++ and have gotten the parry rhythms pretty down at this point, but even without the perfect guards, the Aegis is nutso!

Nooooooo! They fixed the Aegis glitch. Guess I'll have to get good again XD

@Flaming_Kaiser It's a pun... "I don't see the issue."

@CallMeDuraSouka I really hope Microsoft doesn't continue this trend with slave-driving Activision's flagship studios. If you ask me (which you didn't ), if Microsoft is determined to keep the annual release schedule for CoD, they should add Raven to the list of "mainline" CoD studios and give another year to each to make their games. I understand that all of the studios collaborate on each release to some extent, but the 3 year cycle is clearly not enough time anymore, especially if they're treating Treyarch with more reverence than Sledgehammer. I think it's pretty obvious that Treyarch missed their milestones again (see BO4's absent campaign) and Sledgehammer was left to pick up the slack. I personally find Treyarch's games uninspired and gunplay lacking, so I'm biased, but I just don't understand how they keep getting away with murder, but Sledge just keeps getting shafted.

Man, such a heartbreaking story for Sledgehammer. They keep getting the shaft in this rotation! I thought Advanced Warfare was actually a really great campaign (Spacey not withstanding) and showed what Sledgehammer can do when they're given the proper support they deserve. Activision should be ashamed of themselves for what they keep doing to this talented studio.

I think Baldur's Gate 3 will ultimately get the nod, but my personal GotY is Lies of P. Currently on NG++ and haven't gotten tired of it yet!