Gaming [spin-off topic]

Any other lucky PS5 owners? It’s a bit of a desert out there, and although I know they will have some amazing things planned, I wish they would be more upfront. This silence from them about games now being cross gen for the foreseeable future is somewhat annoying. Nothing been shown over E3. I can see why people would want to jump over the Xbox, if I had a PC I’d probably have game pass. I still think Sony’s first party games are unbeatable at the moment. The last of us 2, despite being kinda toxic at release with huge divisiveness over the plot, you still have to admit it is almost magic how they made something so detailed, beautiful and technically stunning run on a base ps4. Th two games are my favourites of the last decade, I think despite some pacing issues people will look back on the sequel in a few years and see how ground breaking it was, I’ve never seen such brilliant acting, use of music and atmosphere etc in any medium…I felt like I’d gone through some trauma when I rolled credits. One of the few bits of media that made actually cry. Bleak, grounded but absurdly well told ant he game play is absolutely brutal.

I’m yet to bother with ratchet and clank (it’s a series that kinda past me by) altho the tech is absolutely mind blowing shit. I played the shit out of Demon Souls and it has similar super fast load after death (which makes the game really playable, also the unbelievable graphics and surprising depth) it’s kinda got me hooked in soulsborne games…I’ve almost platinumed bloodborne, which was my first proper introduction to the series. At first I fucking hated it, rage quit so many times. But when it finally clicked with me I became properly addicted to it. I gave dark souls 3 a chances due to BB withdrawal and loved it, and now I’m about half way through the first Dark Souls. Im also half way thru sekiro which again, I hated at first due to the difficulty but it also clicked and in learned to understand the battle system. On PS5 all these older games running at solid 60fps and some with graphical upgrades has kept me going, and I recently bought returnal….

I’m at this stage with returnal in which I’ve rage quit, I’ve stayed up all night completely unable to give up due to being on a perfect run, only for it to come crashing down. Now I’m stuck in the first biome, I keep getting to the 7th lockdown area before the portal and the katana and getting smashed by a barrage of super strong and annoying enemies, later game enemies and it’s got me a bit demoralised….but it’s without a doubt one of the best games of the last couple of years, the loop is super addicting and I’m not a rogue-like fan usually. I hope it goes well and Sony allow the devs to make a follow up or new IP. If you have a PS5 I highly recommend giving it a shout.

Oh, and I also got the PS5 version of Disco Elysium, which is outstanding. It deserves to be more loved, I’d have it included in the curriculum at all schools.

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Euro2020 has made me start playing Football Manager again, now on my iPad. FM Touch is a nice throwback to CM97-98 or the early naughts FM, streamlined and pretty fast moving but deep enough to feel like you’re in control. That said it has some horrible p2w mechanics that you can thankfully not use BUT STILL pay to win on Football Manager??? How lame is that?

I wish someone would port FM01-02 or one of the better early versions to iPad.

PS5 gamer here.
I’m stuck at the third area of Returnal, I made it to the boss once, died in about 30 seconds.

Returnal is a fantastic game, ruined by the drones in the third area.

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Man, it is maddening at times. I got into a really good rhythm after putting a ton of hours into it, but I got so frustrated with the randomness and never getting a decent build and bounced off. Now I can’t get back into it in the same way despite it being super fun in the moment, not making any progress anymore and it’s annoying the shit out of me. Still on the whole it’s a phenomenal game, I’m just crap at rogue likes I guess, but I don’t play games to be up all night and go to bed seething…ha well actually I do it all the time, but with souls games, I always make a tiny bit of progression, when I sucked at them it would be enough, now i feel fairly comfortable just taking my time and have defo ‘got gud’ over the last year or so.
Thank you bloodborne, and where is the PS5 upgraded 4k60 version

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anyone with a PS5 or Xbox X or S need to get the Unreal Matrix free demo.

its really something to look at. has me excited about up coming games.

I found this comment too late. I was just looking for a nice spooky game- that one was too overwhelmingly suspenseful and scary for me to keep playing.

Really impressively executed, tho

Yeah, it’s rough. Being in the house at night and someone starts knocking on the door? Playing with headphones so you can hear all the sounds of unseen things moving around in the dark outside… it’s so creepy. And I like the line of sight mechanic as well, keeps you looking over your shoulder constantly

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Seriously. I wouldn’t have expected a top-down retro styled game to be so creepily immersive, but my goodness was that a terrifying game

Loop Hero is free today on the Epic Game Store and it’s an amazing little game. I just got it on the Switch and I’m grinding like there’s no tomorrow, and loving it…

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The best thing about it is that everyone can download it and use it and it comes with lots of free assets, I just did a quick video, pretty much just a camera fly-through on a scene using Unreal 4.26, and I was impressed by how easy it was to get a good result compared to Unity (Which I know better than Unreal).

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I’m glad that all the PS4 games I’ve bought recently also work on a PS5 if I ever decide to upgrade. So far there’s few games only on PS5 that seem worth playing.

I started Persona 5 and while it’s pretty fun, I’m kind of overwhelmed by all the choices. I haven’t played an RPG in a long time, so making decisions seems hard. I think I’ll take a break (now about 10 hours in) and try something more linear, or maybe with less impactful choices. MGS5 perhaps? Or Death Stranding. I’ve always loved the MGS series, so having two (three if you count Ground Zeroes) Kojima games to play is awesome. I wish there was more games like this on the PS5, like scifi but kinda grounded in reality. More scifi in general actually, I have 0 interest in fantasy or historical games so most of the “best” games on PS4 don’t interest me at all.

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Funny, is that a common thing? I used to love scifi and fantasy equally as a kid/teen, then something happened and today I could care less about trolls, orcs and magicians (unless they’re in space with laser guns of course.) Fantasy sucks, scifi rules forever.

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By complete and utter pure luck I managed to get a ps5 and it came today. Never really used my PS4 much (other than odd online coop stuff with my mates) as just preferred playing switch on the couch sitting with my wife and the dog but this new beast has me excited to be more of a gamer again, just looks awesome on my 4k monitor, first time I’ve seen graphics in UHD 4K (my old jet engine noisy ps4 only managed HD).

I’ve got gt7 with it and it just takes me right back the day I got a ps1 and gt1.

Although ordering online, delivered to your door…. All my consoles I bought (mega drive, game boy, ps1, ps 2, n64, ps3, ps4) I can still remember going to buy each one, the excitement going into the city knowing your were away to buy one and take it home… ps5 turning up at my door wasn’t the same.

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I don’t know man, maybe it is. I’m still a huge scifi nerd but can’t stomach fantasy at all. I have no intention of ever playing Witcher 3 for example despite being an RPG fan and hearing nothing but praise. On the other hand all the cool new SF games seem to be FPS’s, which I think don’t work on a controller at all.

Well, thankfully there’s MGSV and Death Stranding.

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Have any of ya’ll with PS5s played Returnal yet? That has been the highlight of having PS5 for me, so far! Though, being a rouge-like I can see it not being everyone’s cup of tea

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That one does look pretty fun. I’m kinda burned out on roguelites tho, having a shitty computer that could only run indie games for 10 years. I pretty much only played metroidvanias and roguelites, and honestly I think developers should take a break from the format. OR at least I need to.

That said, Caves of Qud is one of the best traditional roguelikes ever released. And Noita is just a brilliant game.

I’m really looking forward to this, should come to PS4 later this year. I love Moebius & that whole artstyle so much:

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That Sable game looks refreshing and fun!

I’m probably in the minority but I think aesthetics are really important with games. Not graphics, but like the art direction. I absolutely loathe most gaming aesthetics, super muscular idiots with huge weapons for example. Or futuristic games where the characters look like modern gaming computers: huge, blocky and filled with neon colours. Hah, such a stupid thing to complain about I guess but I just can’t get myself to play God of War for example, or any games like that. Or Deus Ex, game was kinda cool but fucking hell, who decided the protagonists should look like Monster Energy Drink adverts?

Look at this fucking douchebag…

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I have a hard time making blanket genre judgments that actually stick. I’m inclined to broadly agree with you, but Ted Chiang’s The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate is straight up fantasy and works extremely well.

Asimov is hilariously anachronistic - not only does he have virtually no female characters, but there is a major plot arc that deals with the horrors of infertility which makes no sense in 2022.

I’ll devour Gibson as literary sci-fi, Stephenson is very hit or miss. Of Stephenson’s recent work, I particularly enjoyed the DODO And Mongoliad series - both of which are more fantasy than sci-fi, but also lean on other writers than just Neal.

Iain Banks is arguably more fantasy than sci-fi, just with AIs instead of more traditional gods & spirits.


As far as gaming goes, gameplay is king for me, visuals and aesthetics are king for my partner. She loved watching Ghost of Tsushima, doesn’t love Elden Ring, but I’m very much drawn in to Elden. We both enjoy No Man’s Sky after the recent updates.

Edit: How could I forget Umberto Eco? Very much fantasy / historical fiction.

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Honestly as far as scifi goes, only 3 writers worth reading if you don’t want genre fiction are Dick, Gibson and especially Ballard. Everyone else is kind of deritiave.

With fantasy it’s only Tolkien I guess?

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