PlayStation 5 |OT| This SSD has no limits

Gaming
,
8350

I don’t disagree with what you’re saying but as much as I love Ubisoft (they’re my favorite company, publisher and developer), Sony has surpassed them at their own game because the combat/gameplay is usually better and the story/characters is far better.

As big as Horizon/Tsushima/Days Gone are, they all pale in comparison to Valhalla for example which not only plays worse than Origins/Odyssey, it’s far too big, bland and boring. In general and including BOTW/Elden Ring/The Witcher 3, etc., they’re all Ubisoft open world games.

They either are simply better or do things differently like letting you explore and discover points of interest on your own. I personally prefer the “guided” approach. I want points of interest (? icons) on the map once you either enter the region or unlock it via a tower/viewpoint as this is my preference. Walking around a massive map unfogging the entire damn thing is a waste of my time especially when instead, I could just go to the ? icon on the map and see what’s actually there.

I don’t want to know WHAT is there but I do want to know that SOMETHING is there at that location. The biggest issue I have with Sony’s open world games is that the protagonist (Kratos, Aloy, etc.) never shut the fuck up and spoil a lot of the puzzles by giving you the solution before you even have a chance to look over the puzzle, think about it and then solve it on your own. After that would be not allowing me to free climb in Horizon/Tsushima and then no underwater combat.

Ubisoft to me has lost their way. They keep trying to do different things say with Assassin’s Creed and then paste it over to their other open world games when what they should be doing is give each franchise it’s own setup and stay with it.

For example, having free climbing in Origins/Odyssey (and Valhalla) but also having viewpoints, points of interest for side quests and activities is what Assassin’s Creed should be setup as. The best setup in my opinion is Origins because it started their RPG direction which the series needed badly in my opinion. Being able to then use the Eagle to scout/mark enemies and get an overview of the land is awesome but now, they went back to using eagle vision which I hate in games. It’s so fucking horrible and this applies to every game that uses it. I hate it.

Far Cry should be setup like Far Cry 4 which is the best one because it added verticality to the game which 3 didn’t have. But it’s setup slightly different and is an open world FPS. The Division 3 should stay like 1 and 2 but with a different location. Ghost Recon should be like Wildlands. Give me that drug cartel overseas action adventure game in an open world location that’s rarely if ever in games.

Watch Dogs should have kept the vigilante aspect of the first game which is by far the best of the three. WD 2/Legion become a joke story/character wise with no actual direction whatsoever. Having a vigilante aspect is something different because you don’t feel like that in the other Ubisoft games. Keep the hacking and whatnot as the main focal point but not over do it to where you can’t have shootouts and whatnot because that would just be stupid.

With all of that said, again, I love Ubisoft but they need to make a lot of changes starting at the fucking top. Ubisoft cancelling Immortals Fenyx Rising sequel was fucking stupid as it’s their best new IP since The Division in 2016. Getting away from the licenses like Avatar and Star Wars would be a great start because first and foremost, licensed games are becoming oversaturated and due to having to work with what Disney/Lucas/Cameron/whoever wants the game to be, you’re restricting the creative process right from the start.

Haven’t played Outlaws yet as im waiting for the update this week but I played Avatar. The visuals carry the game. The world is fucking awesome but having to find every damn activity or this or that just pads out the length because you spend more time looking for shit as opposed to actually doing shit in the game. Story/characters was solid but the combat/gameplay was piss poor. Way too restrictive, why are their power levels or whatever they were called, why can’t I aim down sights in a FPS? Just UGH.

I could literally go on and on in regards to Ubisoft but back to Sony. Their games are great for the most part but like with Ubisoft, you have to be into them. If you’re not, then chances are you won’t ever will be. Outside of the free climbing issue, I look at Tsushima for example as what Assassin’s Creed should have had already but instead, they’re years too late and are going to get beat out by Yotei because like Sony or not, Sucker Punch at this point in time is far better than Ubisoft especially at creating an amazing open world. The last great open world from Ubisoft in my opinion is Assassin’s Creed Odyssey which was 6 years ago. They’re just not at the same level.

Massive is awesome with Division 1 and 2 but they should have been working on Division 3 all this time instead of wasting away on a generic boring open world game with an Avatar or Star Wars skin.

While Sony is definitely overexposing the Horizon IP, the world, environments, atmosphere, combat, gameplay, story, characters are all better than any Ubisoft game since Immortals Fenyx Rising and Odyssey. It’s just BETTER. Stealth actually fucking works. Combat and gameplay feels great but most of all, the enemies are mainly machines which is great because you don’t get that in games. Every game is either humans, aliens or some kind of monsters. Every time. Not only are the enemies machines but they represent in a lot of ways dinosaurs which you also never see in games.

Capcom should bring back Dino Crisis. Fuck Dead Rising. They have Resident Evil and instead of using the Dino Crisis IP which would be far more refreshing than just another zombie game, they bring back the IP no one asked for. smh. lol

So while I love Ubisoft, they’ve disappointed me way more times in the last decade than Sony has. Sony for me has been hot as hell but Ubisoft outside of a game here and there (Immortals Fenyx Rising baby!!!) has been cold as ice. So while again, I don’t even disagree with what you’re saying, I don’t believe that Ubisoft is the best when it comes to open world games. They were but not anymore.

Hell, subtract Origins/Odyssey and Immortals since the IP appears to be dead, what does Ubisoft even have? It’s literally just The Division 2 which I fucking love and can’t wait for The Division 3 on next generation hardware but that’s it. Ubisoft open world games have the graphics, immersion and atmosphere, their worlds are awesome but everything you do in them and how you do them is just so fucking boring nowadays and when they do have something great like Immortals or free climbing in Assassin’s Creed, they take it away for some odd reason.

Tsushima was my second best game of the PS4/XBO generation behind only The Witcher 3. The combat/gameplay was superb, the story/characters were great, main quests were excellent, character quest lines were great, basic side quests were fine like they are in every other open world game, the world though was awesome a pleasure to play through and as you progress through the game, you get more and more abilities and weapons. You feel like you’re progressing which I haven’t felt that way in a Ubisoft game since Odyssey/Division 2.

I’ll just leave it as it is. lol. Sorry for the long freaking post as once I get going, I tend to get very carried away. lol

2 Likes
8351

2 Likes
8352

I’m not that confident PS6 will support PS4 games. If that doesn’t bother you then I’m not even sure what we are talking about :upside_down_face:

1 Like
8353

In response to @peter42O

Star Wars Outlaws is awesome, loved every second of it.

Far Cry 5 is the best Far Cry.

Watch Dogs trilogy is perfect. All three games have a unique charm that sets them apart.

I agree that Assassins Creed Odyssey is the best one and is my favorite as well.

PlayStation is coasting. They are not on a hot streak. They are a shell of their former selves. All they do is remasters and remakes and sequels that no one asked for. And the wanted sequels that we do get feel lazy - same map Spiderman, or in the case of Ragnarok something felt off about it, I can’t even put my finger on it, I’m still trying to figure out why I didn’t love it.

I don’t mean to be too negative though…

Astrobot is awesome.

PSVR2 is a way better AAA experience than Meta Quest 3.

And even the PlayStation Portal is kinda cool, even though I don’t use it much.

2 Likes
8354

Apparently, Jedi Survivor isn’t running well on Pro. I know a patch can help but it’s giving me PS3 launch titles vibe.

1 Like
8355

Haven’t played Outlaws yet but when you can’t hold weapons climbing ladders or the stealth being horrible, it’s not exactly inspiring me to play it. Hoping their update this week fixes a lot of core issues the game has.

Far Cry 5 was good but compared to Far Cry 3/4, it’s worse. Silent protagonist kills the story and character interaction. To each their own though.

Watch Dogs Legion has no identity or direction. Switch from character to character doesn’t do anything to improve the story and gameplay wise, it was too gimmicky. As for Watch Dogs 2, it’s a joke. In fact, every character outside of the antagonist is a goof ball jokester. It’s horrible in my opinion.

As for Assassin’s Creed, my favorite is Black Flag followed by Origins, then Odyssey and then Rogue. I prefer the straight dialogue when talking to NPC’s of Origins as opposed to all the dialogue choices in Odyssey which still ends up leading to the same path.

Yeah, Sony has been remastering a bunch of their games but people need to stop acting like they have no games just like others need to stop acting like Xbox has no games. They both have published 20 new games thus far and Microsoft will go up to 22 after Flight Sim and Indy.

As for sequels, I wanted another Horizon, God of War and Tsushima game. Either a reboot or new IP from last gen so why wouldn’t anyone want that? Also, companies don’t create new IP’s just to make them a one and done. Sony gets away from Killzone and Infamous which both overstayed their welcome and release new IP’s, yet people complain about wanting the older franchises while at the same time, complaining about less new IP’s. I believe that a new IP should be at least a trilogy and you then move on to a new IP.

Look at Ubisoft, they just stay with what they have for 20+ years and when they do something new, they give up on it. I understand the issue of the location for Spider Man being the same but has Spider Man ever been set in any other place than NYC? If not, I don’t know why people would expect that to change with the games.

As for when I said Sony is hot, I meant for me than in general. They haven’t missed yet for me through the games I have completed for PS3/PS4/PS5.

I have zero interest in PSVR 2/Portal but yeah, Astro Bot is freaking awesome!!

1 Like
8356

A friend pointed out to me that devs seem to be prioritizing the wrong stuff wrt Pro patches, and I’m inclined to agree.

3 Likes
8357

Yeah, for sure.

All I had been seeing was praise from owners about how clean the picture quality is in games, well for Sony’s own games perhaps that’s the case but certainly not with others. That’s some really ugly stuff there, and when it comes to picture clarity I don’t even see a noticeable difference, if at all.

2 Likes
8358

It’s a product for Sony fanboys, not for hardcore video game players. There’s a difference. The confirmation bias from early adopters is real (& is tainting perceptions). Everyone should have seen this coming, i.e. diminishing returns is very real and the spec jump on paper was simply nowhere near enough to justify the PS5 Pro’s existence (& price, aka 800 euros in Europe without a disc drive or stand).

4 Likes
8359

By the way, that confirmation bias I mention isn’t even exclusive to fanboys, i.e. a lot of people dropping that sort of cash on a piece of hardware will try to sing its praises during the honeymoon phase. It’s only natural that people want to believe their investment was awesome and they’ve got something for their money.

Over the past week I’ve seen a hell of a lot of people praising patched games running on the Pro… which then according to tech review sites turned out to be highly problematic and in some cases outright broken.

3 Likes
8360

Sony’s own developers likely had a lot longer to prepare for the Pro.

It appears other devs probably didn’t have as long to do their patches so it’s not been tested as much as it should have been.

Not ideal - you’d have thought Sony would have their own certification process for Pro patches where they test the game themselves and certify it, but that would cost them more.

So instead of providing a rock-solid Day 1 service like you’d expect for £700/€800 + extras, Sony just penny pinch by allowing self-certification and roll in all the cash from fanboys and maybe bung a little advertising spend to media friends for positive coverage (although more likely from rumours they just threaten no review keys etc in future if negative)

3 Likes
8361

See I agree with you in places, strongly disagree in others.

I agree I’ve enjoyed AC more since it became more of an RPG - I’ve enjoyed Syndicate, Origins, Odyssey and most of Valhalla (my issue with that game is more I don’t want to play the pillagers and looters lol).

And I agree, I loved Immortals: Fenyx Rising.

Even when they force you into story arcs you don’t like (and sometimes can see coming a mile off) they at least let you get revenge (one Valhalla storyline in particular - that fuckface was never, ever getting his wish to go to Valhalla after the shit he pulled lol) - they at least give you some agency.

I agree Ghost has some of the best gameplay of any Sony game recently (the original Spider Man being a close second for me) but the complete lack of player agency just fecks me off particularly from end of Act 2 to the ending - it soured me completely on Ghost to the point I’m not sure I’ll ever go back and finish up the map, something I normally do in any open world game I’ve enjoyed.

Sony games might as well be on rails - while I’m glad they do some open worlds now too, even those the story bits are decided for you.

If I wanted to watch a film I’d watch one - I play games to choose my own story, not have my character do something clearly out of whack with how I’ve been playing them for many hours.

I’ve really come to realise Sony don’t have any RPG developers and just can’t cope with player decisions - think of Bioware, Bethesda and Obsidian games where they cope with the many variations of your decisions, Sony studios don’t appear to be able to handle that.

So yeah their games are kind of sour for me now - I can appreciate a great story if it’s well delivered and enjoyable, but Sony games now too often seem to either just do misery or give the illusion of choice but it only works if you’ve got their opinion on the narrative - maybe it’s because I don’t think like a North American that I end up having issues with the story when it starts to go in the “your choice we didn’t actually give you was obviously this as it’s the way we’re going” direction.

I think it takes way more talent to make big, quality games with branching decisions that single-thread games no matter what the media seems to think.

The film-style games might have given Sony their PS4 win but honestly I think they may have backed themselves into a corner as how do you really innovate when it takes a generation and a ton of money to make their current games let alone add new features / use new assets or do something new?

4 Likes
8362

So who else is sort of enjoying the Sony fanboy meltdowns? I realize it’s a bit of a ghoulish hobby but the PS5 Pro defense force is working overtime right now. All hands on deck, defend the brand at all costs. Many of the takes I’m seeing on other era and GAF are simply hilarious.

Special shout out goes to the people embracing the lazy dev rhetoric in the name of defending their $700 plastic box, i.e. it’s not the hardware, the upscaler or Sony… it’s the useless devs who aren’t doing their work properly!

Personally when I see comparisons like the COD Black Ops 6 running on the PS5 Pro versus base PS5… there’s nothing much to say, really. I mean 800 euros versus 450 euros sort of speaks for itself…

8 Likes
8363

I don’t own a PS4 or have any games for a PS4 It’s not a worry for me.

What does worry me is I see and hear more chat of Xbox pulling out of console gaming compared to Nintendo or SONY

8364

Why worry when Xbox have repeatedly said they’ll make more consoles?

7 Likes
8365

Xbox will always have its ecosystem, regardless of whether it’s in the cloud, PC or console - and they’ll make the latter for as long as consoles exist as it’s easy money, in the same way they make Surface devices despite those not being massive sellers, as they make a good profit.

The only chat of Xbox leaving the market is from Sony fanboys who’ve wished for the death of any PlayStation rival for generations, and who then moan when games get more expensive due to lack of competition (unless they’re fully converted weirdos who feel the need to defend every Sony action).

On Xbox I can see stuff I did back in 2007/2008 and even get cloud saves back from similar times or play the same games purely by putting my 360 disc in my Series X.

When PlayStation or Nintendo offer anything close to that will their fanboys have any point about legacy or leaving markets etc

5 Likes
8366

Until it comes out, I will worry a little that Microsoft investors might say making consoles is a waste of their time and money.

PC and Cloud are great for those who enjoy those echo systems. I don’t use those echo systems and have no interest in doing so. I like a console box under the TV that’s how I’ve gamed since 1987 when I moved to a console for my 8-bit and 16-bit microcomputers that were the ZX Spectrum and Atari ST and became engrossed with console gaming via the Master System.

I have no interest in system bashing or fanboy wars but I have seen some Xbox fans get a little worried over the Xbox console program and if they will stay the course.

Agree with you on how Xbox does a wonderful job of allowing players to play their old games on modern systems. It might sound simple, I also loved how when I bought the (then new) One X all my digital bought games were carried over to download or how you can use your 360 cloud saves to download on the new Xbox consoles

It’s all so well thought out. It might sound sound small but I love little touches like the dynamic background pictures one can download on Xbox too Everything from the console tech to the consoles front end side is handle so well by the staff at Xbox

3 Likes
8367

https://x.com/Xbox_Series_XS/status/1858245368753885205

For the owners of the Pro I genuinely hope this gets fixed in a later patch because…bro.

4 Likes
8368

Maybe this is the old man in me yelling at a cloud, but I feel like this is the situation we find ourselves in when instead of developers deliberately crafting an image that they want the game to look like, the plan is "Eh, just do whatever and we’ll let the AI upscaler sort it out :man_shrugging: "

5 Likes
8369

Absolutely agree. All the hardware and technology seems to make optimization even worse, I really don’t like the word “lazy” but something like that fits. Limitations breed innovation is real. Looking at what was achieved on last-gen specs vs new gen specs, something feels missing, and it’s probably all the new techniques that devs just offload to instead of intentionally creating their own optimized techniques.

3 Likes