Playstation 5 Catch-All

Thats me upgraded to the PS Plus Extra tier. There is definitely a lot of value for me in the £18 to upgrade for the rest of the year even just for Returnal, Red Dead 2 and Ghost of Tsushima none of which i have played.

I wasn’t going to, but I was about to buy a game for around $15 and it happened to be on Extra. It was the same price to upgrade until November.

Yeah, I’m thinking of going PS Plus Extra for the rest of the year. Spider-Man Miles Morales, Demon’s Souls and Returnal will pay for it several times over.

steinkrug wrote:

I wasn’t going to, but I was about to buy a game for around $15 and it happened to be on Extra. It was the same price to upgrade until November.

Yeah, my reasoning as well. I upgraded to Plus because it was something like $30 on top of my existing PS Plus subscription that runs until March 2023.

My excitement over new hardware over the past year means I already bought most of the big games it's offering that I'm interested in like Miles Morales and Tsushima. But I figured I probably would have bought Guardians of the Galaxy on sale for $25 to 30 at some point anyways, so if I play through that and if even one of the indie titles also ends up appealing to me I've already gotten full value.

I've also upgraded to Extra for the rest of the year. I have all the big PS5 games to look forward to, but I started by downloading a bunch of smaller "appetisers" to play while waiting for the bigger downloads. First up is Darksiders Genesis, seems good so far!

Any interest in a separate "hidden gems of PS Plus" kind of thread?

ComfortZone wrote:

I've also upgraded to Extra for the rest of the year. I have all the big PS5 games to look forward to, but I started by downloading a bunch of smaller "appetisers" to play while waiting for the bigger downloads. First up is Darksiders Genesis, seems good so far!

Any interest in a separate "hidden gems of PS Plus" kind of thread?

This one was started a few days ago but it’s already on page three so I’m not sure if it’s really needed.

ComfortZone wrote:

Any interest in a separate "hidden gems of PS Plus" kind of thread?

There's one Here

Thanks, completely missed it!

I upgraded as well. My PS5 gets very little use, mostly b/c I bought digital and have trouble with the pricing for digital games.

I'll play a few of the big one's I've been wanting to play, Returnal, Demon Souls, GoT, etc.

$40 is the price of one of those games.

I do wish Kena and Ratchet and Clank were on there, but maybe they'll come.

I'd be shocked if they don't show up at some point in the future; they have to hold on to some things for later months.

I went for Extra as well, only £84 to upgrade until 2025 which my current PS Plus runs to. There's quite a good collection of games on there, plus Stray is free next month which I'm very eager to play. It ended up being a no brainer in the end.

Do games that are available on plus go away?

Games rotated into and out of PS Now, so I'd expect they will do the same under PS+ Extra/Premium. AFAIK Sony hasn't said one way or another.

The free monthly games that were a part of PS+ remained available so long as you maintained your PS+ membership. Again, I'd expect that remains true under PS+ Essential, which is basically the old PS+.

I paid $10 to upgrade my PS4 disc copy of Uncharted 4 to the new PS5 version, and have started replaying. I was able to import my save into the PS5 version, so it still has all my stats and treasures collected. It even seems to have the progress towards certain achievements I hadn't quite unlocked, as I unlocked a couple early in the game that I know I wouldn't have been able to if I was starting from a blank slate.

So far I've been playing in fidelity mode, at 4K 30fps and have been enjoying it. Graphically, the only thing that really sticks out as an upgrade is how detailed the facial hair is in comparison. It's still a great game, and I'm having fun revisiting it. If you skipped it on PS4, it's a no-brainer purchase for PS5. Just be sure to tweak the camera sensitivity settings, as the Uncharted games continue to have consistently odd-feeling camera controls.

Play Uncharted 4 in performance mode, the 60fps feels so much better, especially with the aiming & shooting, much smoother. It makes a big enough difference.

Spikeout wrote:

Play Uncharted 4 in performance mode, the 60fps feels so much better, especially with the aiming & shooting, much smoother. It makes a big enough difference.

You’re right, it did make a big difference. I finished Uncharted 4 tonight and had a great time. I think I’ll go back and try to grab all the collectibles I missed. In the Chapter select screen it tells you how many of each collectible you still need, so it’ll be easy to just dip into each chapter and finish out the list.

Still a great game that mostly holds up, and the PS5 graphical improvements take an already beautiful game and really make it shine. I’ll revisit Lost Legacy eventually too, but will move on to other things for now.

Backbone controller for iPhone

Obviously I'd prefer Android. But I've used my Dualsense on Android and it works well. The power and charging bit would be nice though.

I have the regular Backbone and like it. From what I can tell this is the same, just a Playstation skin. I think they have an Xbox version too, but that’s even less different. It’s not as comfortable as a Dualsense (or Xbox controller) but it’s not bad and I’ve been using it a lot this summer.

Stele wrote:

Backbone controller for iPhone

Obviously I'd prefer Android. But I've used my Dualsense on Android and it works well. The power and charging bit would be nice though.

I just can't unsee they are looking like Joycon from the Switch.

Oh, and there will be one for Android too : https://playbackbone.com/products/ba... -- and the button are letters. Wonderful !

Yes, the regular Backbone has letters on the buttons. That’s why the “Xbox” version get like even less of a change than the Playstation one.

Anyway… the best options in this space seem to be Backbone or Razer Kishi. I went with Backbone. It’s not perfect but it works for me.

I bought the regular Backbone over summer as well. I like it quite a bit more than a xbox elite pad + phone clip. Even though as a controller it's worse but it's just much better ergonomics wise, and just feels like a Switch to me. Xbox live streaming over 5G feels just like I'd be playing on a local platform, it's awesome.

Yeah, same. I tried the phone clip and controller but I just don’t like the way it feels no matter how I adjust the position of the phone.

I also picked up a Backbone late last year. At this point, I've probably played a couple hundred hours of Genshin Impact on it, as well as a decent amount of remote play with both my XBSX and PS5.

It isn't quite as comfortable as a console controller, but it's better than Joycons. My only other real gripe with it is how loudly clicky the buttons are. I notice it when I have to get spammy on the face buttons.

Bit of a ramble, but wow. Our old 1080p 55 inch TV suddenly died, and we had a bit of extra cash to splurge on an upgrade. After a lot of research, I settled on this which was about $400 off in-store.

It's nothing too fancy, and judging by reviews, it's not the best TV I could have gotten for that amount of money. However, all of the really great TVs at that pricepoint weren't even available in Australia, so I think I did alright considering the situation.

Oh. My. Gosh. I had no idea what the PS5 could actually do until I plugged this thing in! The colours are so vibrant, it's so smooth! It's like VHS to Bluray. I can't believe what a difference this new TV makes when it comes to gaming. Guardians of the Galaxy is an absolute treat, with colours popping! Returnal is incredible to watch with all of the particle effects lighting up the room. FFVIIR is another treat, because I can directly compare what it was like playing on PS4 with my old TV compared to this one!

While I was grumbling about the idea of dropping a grand on a new TV out of the blue, I'm very, very glad our old one decided to break itself and force us into upgrading. It has made a HUGE difference.

That being said, I'm not sure if it's my eyes or if gaming just isn't at the point where 4k is viable because I notice such a small difference in visual quality when I select the quality over performance mode. If anything, the frame rate is the main thing that stands out, and it feels awful. I've confirmed (using the TV's info setting) that the output is indeed 4k when I switch modes, but it's such an incredibly small difference that I see no reason to use this over the smooth high framerate modes. Anybody else?

IMAGE(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/708552844168396840/1017378653430104125/20220908_201922.jpg?width=901&height=676)

Yeah, just go with the performance modes. The PS5 can't really do 4K with all the pretty stuff very well.

That's amazing the upgrade you've gotten A_Unicycle. I remember a similar thing when I first got my PS2 with NBA Street, we didn't have an HDMI (I think it was an HDMI, somebody correct me if I'm wrong) cable so were playing it through a scart lead, the picture looked very grimey & low res. The difference once we got the HDMI cable connected was a whole new level of clarity.

In regards to the 4K quality mode vs an upscaled 4K solution I find there's barely any difference. I think you actually have to watch some Digital Foundry videos where they actually pause it & zoom in to see the difference. I go for Performance mode every single time, it's a no brainer the 60fps option.

I tend to go with performance mode. In Guardians of the Galaxy, I could tell a difference in texture resolution when swapping back and forth between the two modes, but at the end of the day I preferred the 60fps.

I'm also down for performance mode 100% of the time until someone can show me a good reason to consider otherwise. The difference in visual quality is difficult to notice unless you flip back and forth between the modes, but the difference in frame rates is massive.

I've heard good things about the 40 fps modes with 120 hz displays. They supposedly look much smoother than 40 fps would imply, but I haven't seen them in person to judge for myself. I believe only Insomniac games and a few others have those options so far.

I'm still on my old 37in 1080p set which refuses to die, so I'm very jealous!

Naturally I tend to go performance mode, except in GotG where I thought it looked noticeably better in the fidelity mode with ray tracing etc.

There was a new God of War trailer at the end of tonight’s State of Play. I watched the start of it but managed to turn it off half way (?) through. I don’t need to see any more. Looks phenomenal.