Spikeout wrote:Stele wrote:Higgledy wrote:On the upside I had an unbelievably great time in Ireland, which included meeting that Spikeout bloke irl.
That's a bucket list item! Maybe someday...
If you're ever over in Belfast let me know!
It was great to finally meet Higgledy, had a lovely meal together & wondered around Belfast for a short while before I dropped him off at the airport.
The State Of Play wasn't too bad but Astro Bot I'm friggin stoked about. Hopefully GOTY material!
I have such complete faith in Astrobot I will be buying day one no matter what the reviews an honour held only by Fromsoft in the bbk house in recent years.
It's 100% day one for me as well. Astro's Playroom was a true delight plus the little I've played of Astro Bot Rescue Mission on my nephew's PSVR was superb.
Likewise. I'd buy Astro Bot right now if I could.
93_confirmed wrote:I feel they crushed MS last gen with their exclusive library but MS has caught up and is pushing past them now.
Not backing a horse in this race, but how? I see no evidence of this.
I'm just comparing Sony's last gen vs current gen exclusives. 3 years in and it feels (without doing a full analysis) that the library is weaker. MS is buying studios and seems to be doing better than the previous gen.
I'm just comparing Sony's last gen vs current gen exclusives. 3 years in and it feels (without doing a full analysis) that the library is weaker. MS is buying studios and seems to be doing better than the previous gen.
I wonder whether the word 'weaker' is doing more work than it can handle there. Are we talking quantity of releases, quality of releases or sales figures? Or some combination of those?
We are unlikely to be able to answer the sales question. Sadly, console-makers, and game publishers and developers jealously guard their sales figures. But what we do know is that games are missing sales expectations, franchises are going on hiatus, and development studios are closing. That tells a story. As does the recent NewEgg report that indicating that players' attention and wallets are focussed on a fairly narrow band of games.
From a purely personal point of view, there have been two Game Pass games this generation that I have lusted after: Pentiment, and Starfield. Pentiment came to Playstation a few months ago, and I played and enjoyed it. My love affair with Starfield ended when I read the reviews.
For the dozens of us who bought a PSVR2 - the PC adapter is coming August 7th!
https://blog.playstation.com/2024/06...
PS VR2 was designed from the ground up specifically for PS5 – so you’ll notice that some key features, like HDR, headset feedback, eye tracking, adaptive triggers, and haptic feedback (other than rumble), are not available when playing on PC. However, other high-fidelity and sensory immersion features of PS VR2 are supported, including 4K visuals (2000 x 2040 per eye), 110-degree field of view, finger touch detection, and see-through view, as well as foveated rendering (without eye tracking) and 3D Audio in supported games.***
From a purely personal point of view, there have been two Game Pass games this generation that I have lusted after: Pentiment, and Starfield. Pentiment came to Playstation a few months ago, and I played and enjoyed it. My love affair with Starfield ended when I read the reviews.
It's looking more and more like Xbox management no longer believes in the power of exclusives. It remains to be seen how that will shake out. However, with PC sales of Sony "exclusives" going vertical, the console exclusive strategy does seem like leaving money on the table.
It's looking more and more like Xbox management no longer believes in the power of exclusives. It remains to be seen how that will shake out. However, with PC sales of Sony "exclusives" going vertical, the console exclusive strategy does seem like leaving money on the table.
Absolutely. And that's broadly what Phil Spencer admitted around this time last year:
Most people, ninety percent of people that walk into a retailer to buy a console are already a member of one of the three ecosystems. Their digital library is there...
I see a lot of pundits out there that kinda want to go back to the time when we all had cartridges and discs and every new generation was a clean slate and you could switch the whole share. That’s just not the world that we are in today. There’s no world where Starfield is an 11/10 and people start selling their PS5s. That’s not gonna happen."
I've long been sceptical about exclusive games being "system-sellers". I'm sure it factors into the decisions of some player, but I'm also sure its a very small minority.
I disagree. I think Sony's selling point of "exclusives" has worked great. And Nintendo as well. It is really Xbox which has fallen behind this round.
I think they are just trying to spin their failure as a success.
Heck just look at Last of Us, Uncharted, God of War for Sony and Mario, and Zelda for Nintendo. Those games sell systems.
Xbox has been less successful with using exclusives to sell their systems, but I do think the market overall is changing in such a way that it makes exclusives less helpful.
The disparity between cost to make a game and what consumers will pay for a game has eaten away at the profit found in an exclusive.
Xbox is the most vulnerable to this. But Sony putting games on PC is part of their effort to counteract this.
Unless something changes in that disparity, and I don’t think it will, we’ll see Sony shifting slowly away from exclusives over time as well.
Nintendo will be Nintendo meanwhile, of course. But they are arguably the best situated when it comes to exclusives so the least vulnerable to these market trends.
So, exclusives haven’t disappeared, and they probably won’t for some time, but their overall effectiveness has reduced, not just for Xbox.
For the dozens of us who bought a PSVR2 - the PC adapter is coming August 7th!
https://blog.playstation.com/2024/06...
PS VR2 was designed from the ground up specifically for PS5 – so you’ll notice that some key features, like HDR, headset feedback, eye tracking, adaptive triggers, and haptic feedback (other than rumble), are not available when playing on PC. However, other high-fidelity and sensory immersion features of PS VR2 are supported, including 4K visuals (2000 x 2040 per eye), 110-degree field of view, finger touch detection, and see-through view, as well as foveated rendering (without eye tracking) and 3D Audio in supported games.***
Yessssssss!
I disagree. I think Sony's selling point of "exclusives" has worked great. And Nintendo as well. It is really Xbox which has fallen behind this round.
I think they are just trying to spin their failure as a success.Heck just look at Last of Us, Uncharted, God of War for Sony and Mario, and Zelda for Nintendo. Those games sell systems.
As a primarily PC gamer for most of my life I bought a PS4 and a PS5 for the exclusives. I've never felt like I was missing out on anything Xbox so never owned one. If Sony started making all of their exclusives port to PC in a short timeframe I'd ditch PS5 too. There's still no promise that all of their games will get ported and when they do it's quite a long time after initial release. I think this system is working for Sony.
For those curious, here are all of the games from the Xbox showcase also confirmed for PS5 so far:
-COD : Black Ops 6, October 25th 2024
-DOOM : The Dark Ages, 2025
-Dragon Age : The Veilguard, Fall 2024
-Fallout 76 DLC, June 12th 2024
-Clair Obscur : Expeditions 33, 2025
-Metal Gear Solid Delta, No release date
-Sea Of Thieves Season 13, July 25th 2024
-Flintlock : The Siege of Dawn, July 18th 2024
-Diablo IV Expansion, October 8th 2024
-Life is Strange : Double Exposure, October 29th 2024
-Mechabreak, 2025
-Wuchang Fallen Feathers, 2025
-Assassin's Creed Shadows, November 15th 2024
-Atomfall, 2025
-Mixtape, 2025
-Stalker 2 ( Supposed to be 3 to 6 months timed exclusive)
I posted in the Life is Strange thread already. So excited.
-Stalker 2 ( Supposed to be 3 to 6 months timed exclusive)
Oh, very good news. I was settling in for a year or two’s wait.
For those curious, here are all of the games from the Xbox showcase also confirmed for PS5 so far:
-COD : Black Ops 6, October 25th 2024
-DOOM : The Dark Ages, 2025
-Dragon Age : The Veilguard, Fall 2024
-Fallout 76 DLC, June 12th 2024
-Clair Obscur : Expeditions 33, 2025
-Metal Gear Solid Delta, No release date
-Sea Of Thieves Season 13, July 25th 2024
-Flintlock : The Siege of Dawn, July 18th 2024
-Diablo IV Expansion, October 8th 2024
-Life is Strange : Double Exposure, October 29th 2024
-Mechabreak, 2025
-Wuchang Fallen Feathers, 2025
-Assassin's Creed Shadows, November 15th 2024
-Atomfall, 2025
-Mixtape, 2025
-Stalker 2 ( Supposed to be 3 to 6 months timed exclusive)
I wish I could give you a coffee for taking the time to post this. I had been looking for this info but for whatever reason couldn't find a quick list. Much appreciated.
I’m watching Ubisoft’s extended look at AC: Shadows. This looks like it will be my return to the AC series.
Also, Star Wars Outlaws continues to impress. It occurs to me that Nix serves many of the same functions that hacking did in Watchdogs. I have no problem with that. Love the way the little pangolotl (I made that name up) hangs onto the back of the speeder as it takes off.
I’m watching Ubisoft’s extended look at AC: Shadows. This looks like it will be my return to the AC series.
Also, Star Wars Outlaws continues to impress. It occurs to me that Nix serves many of the same functions that hacking did in Watchdogs. I have no problem with that. Love the way the little pangolotl (I made that name up) hangs onto the back of the speeder as it takes off.
Question for you: I just noticed that my Playstation+ Premium account entitles me to a good assortment (if not all of) the PS4 AC games. Are there some of these that shouldn't (or should be) bothered with? I've never been super into the franchise but am wondering if I should change that.
Both Origins and Odyssey were good imo.
It is very Ubisoft(tm) gameplay. They are making the same game over and over.
But some nice settings (Egypt and Greece).
Question for you: I just noticed that my Playstation+ Premium account entitles me to a good assortment (if not all of) the PS4 AC games. Are there some of these that shouldn't (or should be) bothered with? I've never been super into the franchise but am wondering if I should change that.
How much time do you have? Odyssey is by far my favorite AC game (just barely surpassing Unity for me), but even doing the minimum needed to play through it, it can be sixty hours or more. Origins is long too, but not quite that long. Valhalla is even longer than Odyssey. I have yet to play Mirage, which is a more focused experience.
The earlier games in the franchise are not as large. The earlier games also do not support 60 fps on PS5. The remasters look pretty nice, though.
The first AC game I ever played was Brotherhood, and I was happy with that. It had a lot of refinements from AC2, which I would argue is the first real "game" game in the franchise. I still view the original Assassin's Creed as more of a tech demo. The combat is satisfying, and the story is interesting, but the overall game design is anemic. But PlayStation doesn't do backward compatibility that far back, so you can't play it on PS4 or PS5 anyway.
BadKen’s is a very good assessment. I liked AC1 because it was a little Soulsy in that fighting more than three guards was likely a death sentence. The combat got a little too easy for me after that but I had the odd fun fight or chase across the rooftops. The exploring and busy work was always fun. AC2 and Brotherhood pretty damn good in those respects (they may be a little old mechanically and visually now but I haven’t tried the remasters.) I personally enjoyed AC Revelations and AC3 but they’re probably best skipped at this stage. Black Flag is my favourite. There is plenty of annoying quest design in there but I just adore the sailing and ship combat, visually as much as anything else. Such a masterful depiction of the sea.
It was after that that I started to feel burnt out on the series and I realised that, in spite of the changes from game to game, I was playing the same game over and over. I loved the setting and combat of Unity but it felt too buggy for me at the time (my burnout was always in the background.) Syndicates combat was way too spammy and fast for me. AC Origins was the last one I played. A gorgeous game but the combat and stealth weren’t particularly solid. I’ve not been drawn in since despite liking the settings in concept.
A lot of it, as you can probably tell, is personal preference. I want great fights in games so that influences me. AC has always had very good animation for traversal and there was often standout animation in fights. AC Shadows is looking extremely promising. Hopefully it’s scratch both my combat and stealth itches.
My Assassin's Creed journey closely matches Higgledy's. I played a couple of hours of the first game, completed the second and got a long way through Brotherhood. The next one that I played (and finished) was Black Flag.
By that point, the games were already getting a bit long, but Black Flag's novel ship combat and upgrading went a long way to mitigating this. I too was burnt out on the Ubisoft open world formula by this point, and I haven't played another AC since.
However, I bought AC: Origins yesterday, because the consensus is that it's represents a reset for franchise, because it's dipped below the magic £20 barrier, and because new copies are starting to become scarce on Amazon.
I'll probably get to play over the holidays.
If I were only playing one or two of them I'd go with Black Flag and Origins. My runner up would be Syndicate.
If I were only playing one or two of them I'd go with Black Flag and Origins. My runner up would be Syndicate.
I'd throw Rogue in there as well for a Black Flag psuedo-sequal.
I really enjoyed Syndicate overall, though like Odyssey, the female PC more than the male PC.
You know, I've played every console AC except Rogue(full disclaimer I've finished about 1/2 of them).
I've been looking for something new to play and nothing's hooked me yet, maybe its time to try Rogue.
Rogue is quite good. Also noticeably shorter than other ACs of its time. Syndicate is my personal favorite of the "classic" style of AC games before Origin introduced the RPG formula.
I played all of the AC games up until Origins. I'd recommend most of them, but I'll stick with the last three I played: Unity, Syndicate, and Origins. I thought all three were great! 
The more I see of AC Shadows the more I like the characters, gorgeous (and destructible) environments and the animations around movement, stealth and combat. Since we don’t seem to be getting a new Splinter Cell any time soon, if ever, Naoe’s approach to missions will do fine. In fact might even be better than a new Sam Fisher outing.
If anyone is interested in checking out the closed beta of Concord this weekend on PS5 or PC shoot me a DM, I have some codes I can provide.
I’d like to give Concord a go if you have a spare. I have hopes I might be into it.
Oh I’ll DM you.
Ps5 disc drive has packed in sigh. Gives me a cannot read disc on games and films. I have given it a blast of compressed air to no avail so need to do some google fu tonight as I am well out of warranty.
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