Julius

Officially official that the games leaked the other day are indeed this month's games: Hood - meh, I have no interest. SpongeBob - could be a fun game to play in the summer, has that vibe. Slay the Spire - seeing how addicted @drahkon is to it, I'll gladly skip until I've got the time to potentially become obsessed

Yeah, that's a great article summarising a lot of thoughts I know a few of us have shared in here. We should be elated that legacy titles are coming to these systems, but instead we're left questioning the what, how and why of it all – which isn't our jobs as consumers. This is why transparency is so important, and they're really missing the mark with that. I was banging on yesterday about how they should just answer all of our questions before we get a chance to ask them, but well, that unfortunately hasn't happened. I don't think anyone shared it yet, but something I spotted going around from Jim Ryan's interview with Famitsu about the PS+ changes kind of says it all to me. Now, look, it's been translated through DeepL, so could be missing the mark...but it doesn't sound at all like he's even tested this himself. I think that's the thing that irks me. It's fine being a business person before being a fan of gaming, but look back at when these companies have excelled and you'll notice a pattern of the people at the heads of these meeting tables being fans of games themselves. Iwata. Layden. Phil Spencer. There are plenty more, I know, and they have businesses to run and at the end of the day that's what they're paid to do, but it's so abundantly obvious when the person calling the shots isn't a fan of games (be that playing them, or developing them, or at the best of times both!) almost first and foremost, because they're not answering the questions that we would have. What you get from that is a cold and almost despondent touch to a company which lacks conviction and foresight, because they aren't just trying to develop great games or services anymore, they're almost exclusively looking at the bottom line. And that's a dangerous place to be when you are in an industry which thrives off of creativity. The only reason I think they've announced it now is that it's the end of the financial year tomorrow, it's the only reason that makes any real sense that I can think of. When I think of "old Sony", I think they either would have come out swinging yesterday (as we all know they should have), or smartly left the announcement until June, just after everyone's E3 and summer announcements, to steal the headlines. The weird part to me is that while I'm sure they'll have their own internal meetings discussing EoY financials, shareholder meetings reflecting on the previous financial year as a whole are typically saved for the end of April/start of May, so I do feel there was a good 4 or 5 week window that we're just now heading into that they could have also announced this in, building up to that meeting

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is coming to Switch (and Steam, PS4/PS5, XBO and Xbox Series X|S) on 27th April 2022. This was announced at The Game Awards...in 2018, right? Damn, it's been a while. Seems like it's delay from 2019 resulted in it getting hit hard by COVID.

Alright then, I have a question: what does everyone think is going to happen to the PS3 digital storefront once these PS Plus changes happen in June? I ask because they were pretty keen to shut down the PS3 store along with the Vita and PSP stores last summer, but in the end only the PSP store was shuttered, with the other two left open - but nebulously with no closure date in sight - as a result of a very vocal backlash. I think it's pretty clear in hindsight that they were doing this in preparation for the PS Plus changes, as was the case with PlayStation Now cards being pulled just a few months ago back in January. I wouldn't be surprised if the PS3 store was shuttered by the end of this year, if not by the end of this summer, or if they did something like pull games available on the service from the store.

Oh man, I'd love if it were. I've said it before, but give Zelda a magic skill tree and I'd be over the moon, especially if she makes it to the surface and the way we interact with the lands of Hyrule is different through her lens (bringing towns back together, hunting down more knowledge on the past, etc.) compared with Link's in the first game. We can only hope

What's worth mentioning is that more than 95% of PlayStation's 50+ million subscriptions are to PlayStation Plus, whereas less than 5% is to PlayStation Now: In that context, it makes sense that those on PlayStation Now would be getting upgraded to premium, as the overwhelming likelihood that a customer with PlayStation Now also has PlayStation Plus in the first place. I am curious to see how existing PlayStation Plus subscriptions are handled, though. I have to imagine it'll be something like up to 50% off the annual subscription calculated pro rata, like with NSO's Expansion Pack.

Durability is back and now you can permanently destroy the Master Sword In all seriousness though, yeah, it'll definitely have a role in the story. I'm guessing there'll be some ancient forge or something underground or in the skies for someone to fix it. The full shot of Link's new get-up and his arm was super cool, as is the robe he's wearing. They've gone full Princess Mononoke with the "infection" spreading up his arm, and I'm here for it. Cool looking prosthesis (or glove?) too. Yeah, no real surprise there to be honest. I'm very curious to see how traversal works between the different islands: portals? Are the islands going to be neatly overlapping to allow us to warp up as seen in the second trailer? Will there be a constant airflow to allow for gliding between these spaces? I find it really curious that they haven't actually acknowledged the underground area yet, whereas the sky has been shown much more, hinted at to be quite expansive in previous game descriptions on the official site, etc. Maybe it's only going to be limited to small areas and the temples, which is why they're showing so little...but I'd guess from the first trailer that it's actually the opposite and is kind of expansive. Either way, I'm hoping that we're in for some cool ancient race stuff both above and below the ground. Predicting Nintendo is always such a sticky wicket - Kings of Left Field and all that - but I think they do show more of the game this year. It really depends on if the game comes in Spring 2023 and isn't delayed further. At the latest, I think it's a safe bet that it shows up at The Game Awards, and could close it out. If it is making Spring 2023: trailer, potentially the title, release date, and "we have a Direct for the game next month on X date, now enjoy Christmas ya filthy animals". If it's not making Spring 2023 and is delayed further, trailer and "stay tuned for more". But I think it would be wise to have it in their E3 slate (I mean, we say E3, but you know, just whatever they have going on in June). If it sticks to Spring 2023 it'll be the last big E3 before release, and I think the next time we see this game, we really need to see some gameplay and potentially get the game's title (I can't think of a single logical title that would be so revealing about the game and it's mechanics that would cause not telling us the title for 3 years, so either they just don't have a title, or they are playing coy). I know it could be argued that the first game was the only thing needed for E3 2016 and was the only thing they showed off for the Switch pre-reveal and so far out, and they don't need to do it this time so far out from it's scheduled release, but I think they need to start distinguishing between the two games clearly once we get some gameplay, and a title would help with that. I don't think gameplay at their summer event if it turned up would be nearly as exhaustive as we got for BOTW at E3 2016's Treehouse, as they have other games to show, so an hour at an absolute maximum in my head...but honestly, it could be as short as 15 minutes. Again, they could easily have their own Direct to show off so much of this game by itself. I'm really curious to see how Nintendo handles the marketing of this game, because while they know success in all of its forms, I don't think there's been as much pressure on an individual title from Nintendo before. It is exceedingly rare that we get direct sequels from them in the first place, and games that have received direct sequels before haven't been nearly as big or successful in either the commercial or critical sense as BOTW has been for them these last 5 years. Add to that Elden Ring's success - very different games in terms of tone, but I think it's clear as day that Elden Ring was heavily inspired in its open world by BOTW in addition to all of the other usual inspirations for Miyazaki and From - and the fact that sequels these days are often to very linear story experiences (whereas BOTW was very loose), and I really think the heat is on. I'm excited, of course, but I think it would be really easy to mishandle this game's marketing. So yeah, very, very curious to see how they handle it.

Officially delayed to Spring 2023. Pretends to be shocked Some interesting new shots on show and Aonuma rocking a new haircut was a nice little surprise, but yeah, the delay wasn't unexpected. It's a shame, but hey, they should take all the time they need as far as I'm concerned. It's not like we're currently starved for games. Let it cook!

Worth mentioning that 12 months of PS Now has been pulled from the PS Store (in fact, the only remaining subscription is the 1 month subscription for £8.99), but can currently be picked up from eneba for €65 (around £55) and can be stacked. Probably not worth pulling the trigger on it until we have some clarity on what exactly is coming, but could be worth keeping an eye on. That's the big thing. I know it's an easy hook for speculation, rumours, etc., to keep the conversation on this self-sustaining...but we've know about this for around 6 months now, and today they practically confirmed what we already somewhat expected from the original rumours/leak from Schreier. Big companies are weird This next bit isn't aimed at you H-o-T, but it's also worth mentioning separately, though, that a few here are only quoting £100/year for PS Premium when there are monthly and quarterly options available - which is strictly not the case for NSO's Expansion Pack. So, if you only have a few games you want to check out from the retro catalogue, you would have the flexibility to move between tiers, but naturally the longer subscriptions come at a discounted price. If some of these ultra rare games or games never released over here do come to the service, you could pay for three months, play them all, and then just go back to a lower tier? So even more bang for your buck than could potentially be the case with an annual subscription if you aren't interested in the long haul. To be fair, that article is from 2015, and the patents found and published last year imply that they've found a solution - should they actually choose to use it - which would be much faster. From IGN's article which covered the patent last year: Either way, they've got the money and time to do both. Unfortunately, though, PS3 games being streamed rather than native makes me question how much money and time they actually wanted to invest in this service. Not saying it would have been easy, but if they wanted, I think they could have managed it.

If I'm going to be downloading a bunch of PS1, PS2, and PSP games, they better get a bloomin' shift on with getting folders on the PS5 I said it in my post just before the news dropped, but the lack of specifying which retro titles are coming doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Yes, we're a bit over 2 months away now from when this will be releasing, but this level of transparency (or lack thereof) is exactly what I don't think they need to be doing. I guess it starts a conversation for them, but it kind of reminds me of how a good chunk of people completely misinterpreted that the PS5 would only have BC for 100 titles, based on PlayStation's own poor wording and messaging. And how about potential for things like Share Play to co-op? A lot of questions, which I'm sure will be answered, but it's a shame they weren't more up front. Now we've got to put up with another two months of rumours and speculation. 340 is a sizeable number of games across the PS1, PS2, PSP and PS3, going well beyond what I was trying to hope for and confirming that there's definitely going to be a good number of third party games included. But, of course, the question now is, which ones? That's going to be the absolute make-or-break for pretty much everyone, but the sheer quantity means that there's very likely something I can't easily get my hands on now that I'll be able to in June, and that's an exciting prospect. I'm definitely going to be holding fire on purchasing PS3 games now until we get some clarity on what, exactly, is coming. Weirdly, no technical details? I know they're not showing the service or games off today, but I'm surprised there's no mention of aspect ratio, resolution, etc., because the quality of emulation is going to be a huge in whether or not this works out. @Hero-of-Time right there with you crossing my fingers for trophy support, I know there was that patent a while back where they seemingly figured out how to retroactively add trophies to emulated games (by basing it on triggers in the games themselves), so yeah, all fingers and toes crossed for that. Hopefully we get a dedicated State of Play or something of that ilk in the next 4-6 weeks to provide some clarity on all of this. I mean, depending on the games included in the service, that could be a great deal (obviously, only if you're interested in checking out games that might be selling for an eyewatering premium in the secondhand market these days/weren't released over here in the first place). If that does turn out to be the case, then yeah, my money would also be staying in my pocket. Guess we'll just have to wait and see, but the quality of the emulation, and of course the fact that some games from the PSP and PS1 libraries are being included (which I don't believe are on PS Now?), could still be huge. It's for this exact reason that they should have said as much as they could out of the gates.

There's an option for both cloud streaming and downloading for PS1, PS2, and PSP. Shame about PS3 though.

Here we go, it's coming in June! Not sure if it deserves its own thread, so if someone wants to make it, feel free, because I'll be sorting the formatting on this post GamesIndustry.biz also have an article up following an interview with Jim Ryan.

I honestly don't know what I'm expecting at this point from today (or whenever news drops) specifically, but I think they need to send a very clear message with their initial lineup of games and make it crystal clear what the plan is moving forwards. I think NSO for Nintendo has been fine, but the way they've updated us has been very haphazard from the outset; it's tough to be excited with a drip feed of games dropping pretty randomly and, before the N64 Expansion Pack was added, not knowing what to expect. If third parties are included in any capacity, I think we need to see some games from them listed out of the gate (i.e. Metal Gear Solid), and say that you're working closely with third parties if that is the case (as in, call them out and show who we can expect games from). If there's going to be trophy support, come out and say it. If the plan is to drop decently sized catalogues for PS1, PS2, and PS3 all at once: say it. If the plan is to go a console at a time: say it. Clearly state the differences between tiers and the pricing structure (don't pull a Nintendo with the Expansion Pack and say "it's X amount annually" then not confirm the fact that there won't be a monthly option available - I get it from a business speak perspective, as you want to avoid any perceived negatives, but it raises more questions than it answers). It's the really simple things like transparency about their plans which I feel PlayStation has been stumbling over a bit in the last year or two, so if and when we get an update on this - today, tomorrow, Friday, next week, next month, whenever it may be - they really need to nail the messaging. I agree in that I think it'll be pretty middling to begin with, and my expectations are very low in that I want to go in just thinking it'll just be what's available on PS Now and maybe what was available on the PS Classic (probably barring Final Fantasy VII, seeing as that's available separately?) too. Anyone got any ideas on how they might name the tiers? I imagine PS+ Silver/Gold/Platinum would be a pretty easy and clear way to distinguish, what with how it relates to trophies and the old Platinum line. Only drawback is it does sound a bit Xbox Live-ish... Man, those are some good picks H-o-T! For me I'd want a balance between what I'd personally want and what I'd want my friends to check out (for instance, none of them have ever played a Metal Gear Solid game), but I'll be selfish on focus on myself. I'll also do away with lack of localisations too PS1 - Xenogears, Suikogaiden Vol. I (Suikoden graphic novel spin-off - by implication, I get Vol. II as well right, as a freebie? What do you mean, "no"? What kind of democracy is this?!), Legend of Dragoon PS2 - Suikoden V, Dragon Quest VIII (in lieu of a modern HD release because Square Enix continue to be silly), Star Wars Battlefront II PS3 - Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzan! (the first samurai Yakuza game), 3D Dot Heroes, Final Fantasy XIII (and, by extension, the rest of the saga...right?! What do you mean "no" again?!) PSP - Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (which one is the subtitle?!), Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, The Legend of Heroes: Trails on the Sky

You could say he was floored

Been a while since I've posted any pick-ups in here, but got my bonus last week, so here are the latest additions to my collection: Okay, in fairness, only Twilight Princess HD, Dragon Quest VI and Dragon Quest IX are new here, as I picked the rest up when I got my Wii U, but I forgot to post them at the time the former I got as one of my gaming aims for the year is to play all of the 3D main console Zelda games released before Breath of the Wild (currently one down, four to go), and the latter two I got as I have the others and figured I might as well pick them up before their price continues to sky rocket. And yeah, before anyone says it, that Splatoon case is annoying me too, forgot to check it when I received it so I'll probably pick up a new case for it at some point Also picked up a few PS3 games: One of my other aims for the year is to finish playing through the Metal Gear Solid games, and as I've only got Peace Walker and V: The Phantom Pain left, figured Metal Gear Rising Revengeance looked like good and silly fun that I'd want to add it to the list of Metal Gear games I want to check out. I also picked up Puppeteer because I've heard good things and ever since Astro's Playroom have kind of been missing the sillier, Japanese side of SIE, so I'm looking forward to checking that out too. While I don't always aim to get games sealed in packaging, I figured that I haven't had a pristine PS3 game before, so now was a good chance to treat myself, so I got both of these sealed. Finally, I picked up Spec Ops: The Line. I love narratives in video games, but on the whole I think there are few games that with their narrative justify gaming as the medium to tell their story. I've heard Spec Ops is an exception in that regard, and that I pretty much have to check it out, so I'm excited to get around to it

The part that doesn't make sense to me is that you'd commit assault before screaming obscenities or shutting him down from his seat. A simple "hey asshole, that's not cool!" would have sufficed when it came to defending his wife, and if anything he could have talked to Rock after (I also think the joke was in poor taste, should've been checked with Will and Jada first, but didn't at all deserve the response it got and wasn't nearly as offensive as it's been made out to be – Demi Moore was a badass in G.I. Jane? But I can also understand the insecurity about losing hair, and the joke had very little to do with film), but instead he committed assault and went off on an unhinged acceptance speech which I don't think he should have been in the room to give in the first place. I also feel like the old adage of "any press is good press" applies less and less with how widespread social media is now and how easy it is to voice your opinions, so even if it was some sort of stunt for attention, I do think it's hurt him. His actions and acceptance speech words don't add up, so even if it was staged, I think it's set a terrible example for viewers on how to handle insults, showed how effective gaslighting is, and showed off for all to see just what Hollywood privilege is. Oh, plus the whole Scientology thing. Dude needs help. Probably because they would have been one of the many in the audience to give him a standing ovation after his acceptance speech. Same folks blissfully ignored everything going on with Harvey Weinstein for years, and some pretended to be shocked when Ricky Gervais was joking about it at the Golden Globes a few years back. The Oscars are less and less about the films these days, unfortunately (I mean, there's no award for editing anymore, which is kind of insane!), and more and more about the privileged crowd in attendance. It's gross. The worst part about all of this for me is that the rest of the show was completely overlooked again, drawing attention to a rich guy being an absolute buffoon ahead of films people have poured years of their life into. That it's ended up being a leading story ahead of an ongoing war in Ukraine on a lot of radio stations and in a good number of newspapers, too, is outright disgusting.

See, I thought the same actually...until he got back to his seat and started shouting obscenities in a completely silent audience. It went from "oh hey it's a bit" to "uh what the hell is going on?" real fast. You also see Chris Rock stop himself from firing back once Will gets back to his seat, which, you know, would've been easily done given Jada's infidelity and whatnot.

Well there was Will Smith going full Kanye by hitting Chris Rock followed by a very unhinged award speech, proving yet again that if you're big enough in Hollywood then there aren't any repercussions for your actions (bet the producers were laughing to the bank though)

My journey is finally over. It's late, so I'll be brief for now, but I'll be back with my thoughts on the latter stages of the game and some final thoughts. As someone who loves to dig deep into lore, and finally playing one of these games at launch, I finally found myself able to enjoy these games in the way many others do, reading item descriptions and trying to figure things out about the world and it's characters for myself before the collectively accepted lore is settled upon, as I found to be the case with Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, what with being so far removed from the release of those games when I first experienced them. I actually want to make some story DLC guesses, because I'm sure it's coming: I'm one of those who loved Breath of the Wild, and yeah, the comparisons between the open worlds of Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild is absolutely fair. The difference? The world of Elden Ring is much more tightly focused, abundant in and saturated with discoveries - whereas Breath of the Wild wants you to breathe and just soak everything in, Elden Ring is much more keen to nudge you along, but it's up to you whether you want to follow their guidance - and those discoveries feel much more rewarding in how they enrich your journey, whether that be through finding a new location and your jaw dropping to the floor at its environmental design, finding an awesome item in a chest, or even coming across NPCs, of which there are plenty in this game. For the first time in one of these games, I think the decision to make the game open world allows for some nice breathing room in how you approach things, as you aren't having to walk down the same corridor and die to the same boss over and over again, and this being coupled with more contextual NPC summons, Spirit Ashes, and a crazy variety of weapons, spells, and incantations means you're never truly taking this journey on alone (if you don't want to), which relieves a pressure that I've personally felt in both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls before. It's not flawless, but then, I don't think any game with any great complexity to it beyond its mechanics can be. I think there are a few weird boss fights, in terms of a lot of things: crazily overpowered combos, too many duos, and just a tad too much repetition for my liking with some of the minor and mid-level bosses. I think the decision to rebalance the single player experience of a game with a focus on the multiplayer experience made for a bit of a weird adjustment period for me when I sat down with the game after the update, and reading into it more now, I think they toned down a boss fight which should have been difficult a tad too much, whereas they kind of ignored another obvious candidate for tweaking. I also think by and large that the boss fight music was kind of forgettable; there's definitely a standout track or two, but I'm not going bonkers over 50%+ of the soundtrack like I might have done with the other games of From's I've played so far. I need to let my thoughts sweat it out some more, but honestly, I think this game is a masterpiece and will rightly be talked about in the same breath as Breath of the Wild in how it's revolutionising modern open world games. Now, open worlds - especially ones a bit more free of direction like these two - might not be for everyone, and that's perfectly okay, but I think the key difference above all else for me with Elden Ring is that it masters almost everything from a micro- to macroscale, and that legacy dungeons - while generally shorter than what I've experienced in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls - still have a level of intricate level design which shows From at a whole other level, so if that's what you're looking for and the open world isn't for you, you have the flexibility to beeline it to wherever the game is pointing you and enjoy the game how you want to, playing how you want to play. I've brought up Breath of the Wild a lot, and I typically hate comparing games so much, but that game had a lot of issues for me that I think Elden Ring very overtly addresses, so I hope they were paying attention to the criticisms before, because otherwise they're going to be unavoidable going into Breath of the Wild's sequel for now. I've said it before, but now having finished the game, I'll say it again: it's the end of March, and I genuinely struggle to imagine any game surpassing Elden Ring for my pick for GOTY 2022. The year is long, and we'll see what happens, but in terms of my own personal rankings, I think Elden Ring is firmly in the Top 5, and possibly in my Top 3, favourite games of all time. Hell of a game. Kudos, From!

Physical Switch version is coming to Asia with English support: Imagine it'll end up being a bit of a Dragon Quest trilogy situation where it isn't made available physically in other regions and is kept in Asia. Curious to see if it ends up with a physical release on any of the other platforms it's coming to.

Feel like this will be appreciated here

I 100% agree with this, and I still find it incredibly confusing that that's the case when this has been rumoured for so long - what, nearly 6 months now I think, with more and more details coming every time? - that comparisons are still being made to Game Pass. Then again, as always, it's a vocal minority of people who aren't PlayStation fans (not calling out anyone on here, but definitely seen it elsewhere) who seem keen to make the comparison. Maybe one day PlayStation does get to the point where they have to do that, but for now, they have enough consoles out in the wild and sell a crazy amount of copies with first party releases, something Xbox was frankly struggling with and resulted in their transition to Game Pass and xCloud. I'm really curious to see how the retro side of it is handled, because yeah, I think it's clear that - on here at least - that's what we're collectively most interested in. Do they have third parties onboard? If so, are we just expecting the usual suspects to support it and, for example for PS1, get a similar slate to the Classic? What's the rollout going to look like: is it going to be a drip feed, or a good chunk all at once? So many questions, hopefully we see some answers next week! Personally I'm just really hoping we see some Konami representation in MGS titles and Suikoden, specifically V as it never made it's way to PSN on PS3 like I to IV did. I don't think that would be too surprising, especially with what all of these reports have said. At best I think PS1 and PS2 could be made playable through native emulation (I mean, I think they all could be, I just see them wanting to take the cheapest and easiest route, whatever that is), but I don't see them going that far with PS3. From what I've heard PS Now is much better on PS5, and that service already has a modest slate of PS3 titles available to stream.

Looks like we're finding out what's up with Project Spartacus next week: I'm pessimistic about the whole thing based on what we've heard from reports so far, but at this point I'm honestly just really curious to see what it actually looks like. If there's trophy support for any classic games on the service then they'll have my attention (and I'm not even really a trophy hunter, I just think that'd be super cool), otherwise...eh. Also curious how many times we'll see this turn up in articles next week if it is revealed

£78. Honestly, I know it's a lot, but it's thankfully not as high as I think it could have potentially gone for (I watched eBay like a hawk for a few days and it was the only sealed copy I saw in that time). I don't have any games pre-ordered for the next month so didn't mind taking the hit

Target acquired, sealed and delivered! First time I've had to do any bidding on eBay, pretty exhilarating, it's a good thing I don't care about more serious collectible items (or have the disposable income to chase them) or I'd be hooked. I was going to get it for a bit under RRP, but set my max. bid to a good bit over to be safe, and then raised it by another £5 with 10 minutes to go. Good thing I did too, because two chaps came in to try and snipe it with 30 seconds to spare!