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[SlimySnake]

I will literally never understand takes like this. You really can't put yourself in the shoes of someone wanting to seek vengeance against the man who killed their unarmed father in cold blood?

of course I can. But not when that man was me in the first game. the man i spent 15 hours (actually six playthroughs) associating with to the point where i walked into the hospital and literally fucking shot Abby's dad, and the nurses without a second's hesitation. I was Joel. So no, when someone kills me, i am not going to like playing as them. Especially when they have zero redeeming qualities. Especially when they were ok with murdering a 13 year old girl in her sleep just to get a virus working. Especially when they tried to stop a father from recusing said girl.

the whole premise of the game fell flat for me. And no, revenge is bad is not this deep, unique and genre defining plot we havent seen before. it's so common it might as well be generic. Abby and her crew werent just trying to survive, they actively sought out Joel knowing full well why he did what he did and executed him in cold blood. Ellie going back after Abby spared her is also lame. She was surviving just fine as a housewife with a newborn. She went out of her way to go back to santa barbara. It's just bad writing. A completely unnecessary epilogue. Actually a completely unnecessary sequel. The entire point of the first game's phenomenal ending was that Ellie knows he's lying and DECIDES herself to accept the lie just because she wants to be with him. For her to do a 180 to the point she hates him for it is completely out of character. She CHOSE to accept the lie.

Let's not forget Neil wanted to kill Elena at the kill of Uncharted 2. he wanted to kill off Joel at the end of TLOU1. Amy henning and Bruce Straley talked him out of those insane decisions. he needs someone to say no to his dumb ideas. And the new chick he hired to help write his female characters just wasnt able to say no to his numerous moronic ideas. Like completely removing the main lead from the game half way through the game for a good 12 hours. Insane. Shouldve been done switching back and forth between the two campaigns to avoid Abby fatigue. They did release a patch recently letting you play the game chronologically. So even they knew they fucked up there.

 

[SlimySnake]

Because Playstation still has to fill out 3 State of Plays every year. It is not that complicated. Barlog's new game probably won't release until Fall next year. It is the last big announcement for Playstation this generation. Henderson or Schreier posted last year that development was going well. Gotta stop doomsdaying and making shit up

henderson said that about the prince of persia remake before it was cancelled. And the black flag remake before it was delayed by a full year.

Sony had 12 gaas games in development. 9 were cancelled, one of which was effectively cancelled two days after launch. These cancellations happen. the only reason why they might not get cancelled is because they have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into them over the last 6-8 years. but that only means they will get released despite being garbage like horizon hunters gathering. if you spent 5 years working on a game then are forced to spend 2 months crunching to get a gameplay demo done before christmas, only for that demo to be so bad they are forced to end the show on some 2d garbage then clearly a product 6 years in the making wasnt even worth showing.

 

[GymWolf]

I'm about to start high on life 2, it's heavy as fuck apparently so it should be good

 

[Bojji]

I'm about to start high on life 2, it's heavy as fuck apparently so it should be good

It's heavy as fuck! And can go up to 14GB VRAM allocation (12 usage), rare for UE5 games (memory leak?)

But it looks decent:

But those SW lumen reflections...

 

[Msamy]

The best thing on this trailer is them saying it was captured on ps5 pro lol, 2D games those days are very hard to rendered so they need to directly confirm it was runing on ps5 pro amazing bullshit

 

[Msamy]

Those moorns or ninjas who attack most of us here because we don't accept sony bullshit, need that cunt hirman hulst to keep fuck them as he did this whole generation and they enjoying it

 

[analog_future]

It's heavy as fuck! And can go up to 14GB VRAM allocation (12 usage), rare for UE5 games (memory leak?)

But it looks decent:

But those SW lumen reflections...

 

[March Climber]

Those moorns or ninjas who attack most of us here because we don't accept sony bullshit, need that cunt hirman hulst to keep fuck them as he did this whole generation and they enjoying it

The way some here absolve Jim Ryan of any responsibility for this generation is...interesting.

The entire gaas directive that has led us to this point in time, happened under his tenure.

 

[SlimySnake]

let's see if Annapurna can outshine Bloober. this being a completely new game in the series, and first-person to boot , makes it a challenge for them
but I really like the visuals

Anapurana is publishing the game. The game is being developed by a studio called Screen Burn. Formally known as No Code.

Screen Burn (company) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

No Code was founded on August 19, 2015, by Jon McKellan and Omar Khan. McKellan previously worked on titles such as Alien: Isolation and Red Dead Redemption 2. After spending time directing the Alien: Isolation DLC packs and getting a taste for working with smaller teams, Jon looked to form No Code and brought in long time friend Omar as a collaborator.

That year, work began on a sci-fi thriller title called Observation, again with Devolver Digital and partnered with PlayStation. In 2019, Observation was released to critical acclaim, and winning both the Best Game BAFTA in Scotland, as well as the Best British Game at the 2020 BAFTA Game Awards.

After a few years of radio silence during the COVID-19 pandemic, in October 2022 it was announced that No Code were developing a Silent Hill game called Silent Hill: Townfall, with the help of Konami Digital Entertainment and Annapurna Interactive.

This was their first major game. Huge upgrade from this. Bloober esque.

 

[Msamy]

The way some here absolve Jim Ryan of any responsibility for this generation is...interesting.

The entire gaas directive that has led us to this point in time, happened under his tenure.

I attacked him when he was still on charge also that cunt hirman hulst was with him from the start

 

[CGNoire]

its happened before. Stig made GOW3 and moved to make a new IP that was cancelled after 4 years of dev time. he left the studio and went on to make Star Wars at respawn.

Factions was cancelled after 5 years of dev time. Bluepoint and bend just cancelled their games after 5 years of dev time as well. not exactly unprecedented.

Again, you dont reveal a game going into production when you are already in full production on another game you are planning to release in 2027 or 2028. if that game was so close to completion, the entire studio wouldve been working on it instead of starting development on a brand new game.

and of course im being pessimistic. what did you see at that show that made you optimistic about sony's efforts this gen lmao

they were making cross gen games until 2022. why would they switch to ps6 exclusive just to sell PS6s? it will be cross gen at best. and thats if the ps6 comes out any time soon. the ram fiasco is going to impact launch, and availability even if sony rushes out a console by the end of 2027. my guess is 2028 at best, and we will be getting cross gen games until 2030. games already take 6-8 years to make. no one is designing games around a 35 tflops GPU right now. its all 10 tflops. we will be lucky to get a next gen only game by 2032.

they are delayed because they were mismanaged to oblivion. not because they wanted to target some high spec console. they dont have the imagination or the ambition to do that. let's face it. they are probably just making a ps3 era game with ps4 era visuals just like Yotei, DS2, Spiderman 2 and Astrobot.

Stigs talented dude. Him leaving SWs has me scared for Jedi 3.

 

[PeteBull]

Jim Ryan formally stepped down march 2024 but annonced retirement back in sept 2023, plenty time to cancell unimpressive projects for new leadership and focus on blockbusters, instead we get 2d pixelated closer in feb 2026 state of play

 

[March Climber]

I attacked him when he was still on charge also that cunt hirman hulst was with him from the start

Fair I suppose.

The primary things I hold Hulst accountable for are the Horizon franchise push and his scramble to fill in certain quarters with remakes and remasters due to nearly every 1st party studio wasting entire years on gaas games that never came out.

Any echo effects that are just now occurring due to the gaas decision that was laid out near the beginning of this gen, I'm not giving Hulst full credit for.

Jim Ryan was handed a prosperous PS4 generation from Shawn Layden and nearly torpedoed everything from two massive company-wide decisions (being suckered by the overpriced Bungie sale was the second decision), but hey at least he got one lucky gaas break with Helldivers 2

 

[PeteBull]

Jim Ryan was handed a prosperous PS4 generation from Shawn Layden and nearly torpedoed everything from two massive company-wide decisions (being suckered by the overpriced Bungie sale was the second decision), but hey at least he got one lucky gaas break with Helldivers 2

Agree on almost everything, helldivers 2 wasnt strike of luck tho, it was made with purpose, targetted to actual core gamers(aka not modern audience/women) and dev studio focused on product quality as a priority, thats huge difference vs many other sony GAAS games we got or getting soon TM this gen, thats why it was a success both on pc and console.

 

[SlimySnake]

The way some here absolve Jim Ryan of any responsibility for this generation is...interesting.

The entire gaas directive that has led us to this point in time, happened under his tenure.

The buck stops with the CEO but Herman Hurst was the head of PS first party then co-CEO for the last couple of years. Neil was literally promoted to head of Studio after shipping TLOU2. Cory may not be the head of studio but he handpicked the director of Ragnorak and chooses whatever he wants to work on.

Everyone deserves their own share of the blame. Again, Jimbo let Insomniac make Spiderman 2 a PS5 exclusive. They let Kojima make DS2 a PS5 exclusive and gave Sucker Punch 5 years and no cross gen mandate. At some point, we have to stop blaming the suits for everything and blame the people responsible for making these dated games. Or making stuff thats not ready to be shown after 6-8 years.

P.S Gamers have a tendency to be pro developer on these boards and anti publisher. But i remember during the Battlefront 2 loot box fiasco, it came out that EA had no mandate to make Battlefront 2 so loot boxy. It came from DICE. Same thing happened with bioware. EA gave Bioware 7 years to make a new game and Bioware pitched Anthem as a GaaS game. There was no gaas mandate.

 

[CowboyLou]

P.S Gamers have a tendency to be pro developer on these boards and anti publisher. But i remember during the Battlefront 2 loot box fiasco, it came out that EA had no mandate to make Battlefront 2 so loot boxy. It came from DICE. Same thing happened with bioware. EA gave Bioware 7 years to make a new game and Bioware pitched Anthem as a GaaS game. There was no gaas mandate.

It took gamers so long to catch on to Bioware's shenanigans. The writing was on the wall since at least Mass Effect 3 but probably earlier. I still remember all the "EA forced Bioware to use Frostbite for Andromeda!!" nonsense.

 

[March Climber]

The buck stops with the CEO but Herman Hurst was the head of PS first party then co-CEO for the last couple of years. Neil was literally promoted to head of Studio after shipping TLOU2. Cory may not be the head of studio but he handpicked the director of Ragnorak and chooses whatever he wants to work on.

Everyone deserves their own share of the blame. Again, Jimbo let Insomniac make Spiderman 2 a PS5 exclusive. They let Kojima make DS2 a PS5 exclusive and gave Sucker Punch 5 years and no cross gen mandate. At some point, we have to stop blaming the suits for everything and blame the people responsible for making these dated games. Or making stuff thats not ready to be shown after 6-8 years.

P.S Gamers have a tendency to be pro developer on these boards and anti publisher. But i remember during the Battlefront 2 loot box fiasco, it came out that EA had no mandate to make Battlefront 2 so loot boxy. It came from DICE. Same thing happened with bioware. EA gave Bioware 7 years to make a new game and Bioware pitched Anthem as a GaaS game. There was no gaas mandate.

To clear things up:

-I blame the suits for making entire studios change course or re-do projects to suit something they see making money, in order to blindly chase that same money.

(This is traceable and we see these same things happen in the movie industry too and even in the tech world when they have trends. The VR gold rush being a prime example there.)

-I blame studio leads when targets are not met and a clear path/vision forward isn't made.

-I blame developers when a game's release is unoptimized or broken.

 

[March Climber]

It took gamers so long to catch on to Bioware's shenanigans. The writing was on the wall since at least Mass Effect 3 but probably earlier. I still remember all the "EA forced Bioware to use Frostbite for Andromeda!!" nonsense.

The funny thing here is how you're not correct about this.

Yes, Andromeda wasn't well made, but it was the Need for Speed guys who first brought up issues about Frostbite, and I think it was specifically when they made Need For Speed: The Run which ran terribly on consoles.

 

[PeteBull]

The buck stops with the CEO but Herman Hurst was the head of PS first party then co-CEO for the last couple of years. Neil was literally promoted to head of Studio after shipping TLOU2. Cory may not be the head of studio but he handpicked the director of Ragnorak and chooses whatever he wants to work on.

Everyone deserves their own share of the blame. Again, Jimbo let Insomniac make Spiderman 2 a PS5 exclusive. They let Kojima make DS2 a PS5 exclusive and gave Sucker Punch 5 years and no cross gen mandate. At some point, we have to stop blaming the suits for everything and blame the people responsible for making these dated games. Or making stuff thats not ready to be shown after 6-8 years.

P.S Gamers have a tendency to be pro developer on these boards and anti publisher. But i remember during the Battlefront 2 loot box fiasco, it came out that EA had no mandate to make Battlefront 2 so loot boxy. It came from DICE. Same thing happened with bioware. EA gave Bioware 7 years to make a new game and Bioware pitched Anthem as a GaaS game. There was no gaas mandate.

Yups, about blame, its same thing like with xbone fiasco, every1 and their momma blamed don matrick(and rightfully so) but "good guy" phil wasnt some noname outsider when it all happened, he was corporate vice-president at MS xbox division already in 2009 and participated in xbox e3 conferences from 2010 onwards- he wasnt a solution to the problem, he himself was part of the problem too

 

[CowboyLou]

The funny thing here is how you're not correct about this.

Yes, Andromeda wasn't well made, but it was the Need for Speed guys who first brought up issues about Frostbite, and I think it was specifically when they made Need For Speed: The Run which ran terribly on consoles. It was originally meant to be a sports game engine, first and foremost.

Huh?? It was an FPS engine first and foremost. Wasn't used for anything else until after multiple Battlefields and at least one Medal of Honor. Need for Speed in 2011 and EA Sports titles beginning a few years after that. But FPS from the start.

What I was pointing out was that I remember some of the BioWare defenders blaming Frostbite for Andromeda being a mess based on a couple dev comments about needing to create a lot of RPG systems from scratch. I remember all the claims that EA forced them to use Frostbite when there were better options to make an RPG. But it came out later that it was the studio's own choice.

I just remembered they had already used Frostbite for Dragon Age 3 so this drama was even weirder coming after that. But I guess Andromeda was a different and less experienced dev team.

 

[March Climber]

Huh?? It was an FPS engine first and foremost. Wasn't used for anything else until after multiple Battlefields and at least one Medal of Honor. Need for Speed in 2011 and EA Sports titles beginning a few years after that. But FPS from the start.

I know, I edited my comment due to that mistake.

What I was pointing out was that I remember some of the BioWare defenders blaming Frostbite for Andromeda being a mess based on a couple dev comments about needing to create a lot of RPG systems from scratch. I remember all the claims that EA forced them to use Frostbite when there were better options to make an RPG. But it came out later that it was the studio's own choice.

That's because blame isn't an all-or-nothing, one or other thing. Some of the blame literally can go to frostbite as an engine even if the developers are still to blame. We have heard multiple stories from different dev teams how Frostbite wasn't meant to do everything but was being pushed to do everything.

I just remembered they had already used Frostbite for Dragon Age 3 so this drama was even weirder coming after that. But I guess Andromeda was a different and less experienced dev team.

I would have to look up which specific dev members were on each team to be sure. Based on how each game turned out, it was either a case of two teams or a team who learned a lot fo lessons from a failure.

 

[SlimySnake]

-I blame developers when a game's release is unoptimized or broken.

Why wont you blame developers when the Technical Director at Sucker Punch says we are risk averse when discussing the mediocre implementation of ray tracing.

Why not blame the CTO (Chief Technical Officer) at Kojipro for making excuses when asked what the jump to PS5 lets them do, and he responds by saying dumb shit like the jump from PS4 to PS5 wasnt that great, its only just faster loading.

Why not blame the director of Horizon FW who literally said that the PS4 did not hold back the game in anyway because their vision was basically that of a last gen game.

Death Stranding 2 technical director says that the jump from PS4 to PS5 "isn't so great," it's just "more efficient"

"It’s more a case that on PS5 there are more efficient ways of arriving at similar goals"

www.gamesradar.com

Sucker Punch reveals all on Ghost of Yōtei's "surprise" RT Features

DF's exclusive interview: RTGI, PSSR, tessellation, and more.

www.digitalfoundry.net

Horizon Forbidden West director claims the PS4 version hasn’t held the game back | VGC

“I don’t think the cross-generation development was limiting in any way”…

www.videogameschronicle.com

Lets stop glazing developers. We literally have developers who are running studios now. They have more power than ever before. They are responsible for more than just bugs. If anything, some publishers like EA used to force developers to release games by the end of March to bolster their Fiscal year revenues, but with Star Wars Jedi Survivor, they offered Stig and Respawn 3 more months and delayed it out of March, only for Respawn to release arguably the buggiest game this gen. Sometimes its the devs.

 

[CowboyLou]

That's because blame isn't an all-or-nothing, one or other thing. Some of the blame literally can go to frostbite as an engine even if the developers are still to blame. We have heard multiple stories from different dev teams how Frostbite wasn't meant to do everything but was being pushed to do everything.

Well, yeah, ultimately it wasn't the tech and gameplay that killed Andromeda, it was the writing and other elements. I found the core gameplay fun and the visuals pretty nice outside of the facial animations. I could have tolerated those just fine if there was great writing underneath. So whatever else happened during dev they were still largely able to get the engine to do what they needed it to. No argument from me on that.

 

[March Climber]

Lets stop glazing developers. We literally have developers who are running studios now. They have more power than ever before. They are responsible for more than just bugs. If anything, some publishers like EA used to force developers to release games by the end of March to bolster their Fiscal year revenues, but with Star Wars Jedi Survivor, they offered Stig and Respawn 3 more months and delayed it out of March, only for Respawn to release arguably the buggiest game this gen. Sometimes its the devs.

...So you didn't read my post? Or did you just push me into that corner of pro-developer regardless of what I said?

Why wont you blame developers when the Technical Director at Sucker Punch says we are risk averse when discussing the mediocre implementation of ray tracing.

Look here:

-I blame studio leads when targets are not met and a clear path/vision forward isn't made.

Why not blame the CTO (Chief Technical Officer) at Kojipro for making excuses when asked what the jump to PS5 lets them do, and he responds by saying dumb shit like the jump from PS4 to PS5 wasnt that great, its only just faster loading.

Look here:

-I blame studio leads when targets are not met and a clear path/vision forward isn't made.

Why not blame the director of Horizon FW who literally said that the PS4 did not hold back the game in anyway because their vision was basically that of a last gen game.

Look here:

-I blame studio leads when targets are not met and a clear path/vision forward isn't made.

...Why are you suddenly addressing my post as if I never said this? Was your response pre-written? Maybe a potential hard prediction response to a post that I could have made?

 

[SlimySnake]

Huh?? It was an FPS engine first and foremost. Wasn't used for anything else until after multiple Battlefields and at least one Medal of Honor. Need for Speed in 2011 and EA Sports titles beginning a few years after that. But FPS from the start.

What I was pointing out was that I remember some of the BioWare defenders blaming Frostbite for Andromeda being a mess based on a couple dev comments about needing to create a lot of RPG systems from scratch. I remember all the claims that EA forced them to use Frostbite when there were better options to make an RPG. But it came out later that it was the studio's own choice.

I just remembered they had already used Frostbite for Dragon Age 3 so this drama was even weirder coming after that. But I guess Andromeda was a different and less experienced dev team.

yeah that was news to me too. For years we were told that was a mandate by EA. again, it was probably some dev loving insider being spun fake stories by some dev source who was like DONT BLAME US, blame the engine mandate from big bad EA.

Also most people dont realize that the devs themselves get bonuses based on certain milestones. so if a game got delayed out of a fiscal year or holiday/christmas window, they lose their bonus too. I can promise you these motherfuckers lie to their publishers knowing full well how buggy these games are. The Stalker guys literally self published a game that was dropping to 0 fps on consoles. Who was forcing them to release it during the holiday season?

The funny thing here is how you're not correct about this.

Yes, Andromeda wasn't well made, but it was the Need for Speed guys who first brought up issues about Frostbite, and I think it was specifically when they made Need For Speed: The Run which ran terribly on consoles.

And yet, NFS 2015 was one of the best looking racing games which is weird because in just two years, they were able to make frostbite work so well? BTW, They never hit those highs again and their next gen only NFS barely looked any better than NFS 2015.

I think its just the devs man. Some devs are talented while others make excuses and blame the publishers, gamers, critics, and their engines. Just look at any DF thread on a UE5 game. People go apeshit if it has issues when a dev with a total of 3 programmers was able to release a GOTY game while upgrading it to UE5.4 mid dev.

 

[SlimySnake]

...So you didn't read my post? Or did you just push me into that corner of pro-developer regardless of what I said?


Look here:




Look here:




Look here:



...Why are you suddenly addressing my post as if I never said this? Was your response pre-written? Maybe a potential hard prediction response to a post that I could have made?

A studio lead to me is someone like Ted Price or Evan Wells. I think the technical director is part of the dev team. So when you said you blame the developers for buggy games, i just assumed you are absolving them of blame.

 

[coachmcguirk91]

henderson said that about the prince of persia remake before it was cancelled. And the black flag remake before it was delayed by a full year.

Sony had 12 gaas games in development. 9 were cancelled, one of which was effectively cancelled two days after launch. These cancellations happen. the only reason why they might not get cancelled is because they have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into them over the last 6-8 years. but that only means they will get released despite being garbage like horizon hunters gathering. if you spent 5 years working on a game then are forced to spend 2 months crunching to get a gameplay demo done before christmas, only for that demo to be so bad they are forced to end the show on some 2d garbage then clearly a product 6 years in the making wasnt even worth showing.

Playstation is not showing gameplay of a game over 1 year away. Intergalactic was never going to be there

When was the last time Playstation canceled a single player game once it hit full production? GAAS games get canceled all the time, regardless of the publisher. Barlog had 4 years of pre-production. Zero chance it gets canceled at this point.

You keep overreacting and throwing tantrums. You freaked out that SSM was developing a 2.5D game. It gets announced that another studio actually developed it with SSM assisting and it's crickets from you. God of War Remakes get announced and you boldly say that Barlog's game is likely canceled now. It is just dumb hyperbole of you talking out of your ass

 

[March Climber]

And yet, NFS 2015 was one of the best looking racing games which is weird because in just two years, they were able to make frostbite work so well? BTW, They never hit those highs again and their next gen only NFS barely looked any better than NFS 2015.

Because engineers from other dev teams had to collectively help each other with Frostbite. NFS The Run came out in 2011. Criterion was absorbed into the NFS Team to help. You guys don't remember these things? What happened to the disgruntled Burnout fans on this forum? They should know about this.

A studio lead to me is someone like Ted Price or Evan Wells. I think the technical director is part of the dev team. So when you said you blame the developers for buggy games, i just assumed you are absolving them of blame.

I meant dev team leads. When Eiro Shirahama had his own team at platinum games, he directed the Legend of Korra.

Platinum games makes better games then that on a gameplay-scale as a whole, but under his direction they made a game that ran well but played mediocre.

I'm not going to specifically blame the combat devs for that error, I'm going to blame the lead dev guy who directed them to 'make her fight like this'.

 

[SlimySnake]

Playstation is not showing gameplay of a game over 1 year away. Intergalactic was never going to be there

When was the last time Playstation canceled a single player game once it hit full production? GAAS games get canceled all the time, regardless of the publisher. Barlog had 4 years of pre-production. Zero chance it gets canceled at this point.

You keep overreacting and throwing tantrums. You freaked out that SSM was developing a 2.5D game. It gets announced that another studio actually developed it with SSM assisting and it's crickets from you. God of War Remakes get announced and you boldly say that Barlog's game is likely canceled now. It is just dumb hyperbole of you talking out of your ass

i literally said that it might not get cancelled because its been in dev for so long costing sony hundreds of millions by now. its literally in the post you quoted.

As for the rest, simply stating facts is not talking out of my ass. 9 out of 12 gaas games were cancelled. the stig game was cancelled after 4 years of development time. Sony did force ND to crunch last month only for that demo to not appear at this show.

You on the other hand have always run defense for sony in this thread despite their pitiful graphics output this gen. The last five years have proven ME right. Their laziness, lack of ambition, lack of budget, focus on gaas, focus on PC, everything I have railed on about since 2020 has come to be true. i was called chicken little then, and now im being told im talking out of my ass the week after Sony announced that they have been working on a Horizon MP game since 2022 instead of Horizon 3, and a day after they had a 60+ minute conference without showing a game they revealed over a year ago, without showing a game that you yourself admit was in pre-production for four years and has been in full production for another 3+ years, without showing Wolverine which is coming out later this year or showing Horizon 3 some 4 years after its launch.

If you cant see that the house is on fire then you are truly the baghdad bob of this thread.

 

[SlimySnake]

Because engineers from other dev teams had to collectively help each other with Frostbite. NFS The Run came out in 2011. Criterion was absorbed into the NFS Team to help. You guys don't remember these things? What happened to the disgruntled Burnout fans on this forum? They should know about this.

I confused Run with rivals. I dont even remember the frostbite mandate happening before Dragon Age Inquisition. That was the first time i heard about how they had to develop RPG systems from scratch in Frostbite.

I meant dev team leads. When Eiro Shirahama had his own team at platinum games, he directed the Legend of Korra.

Platinum games makes better games then that on a gameplay-scale as a whole, but under his direction they made a game that ran well but played mediocre.

I'm not going to specifically blame the combat devs for that error, I'm going to blame the lead dev guy who directed them to 'make her fight like this'.

So then we agree, the developers are a huge part of the problem. And we shouldnt just blame everything on Jimbo and Herman.

 

[March Climber]

I confused Run with rivals. I dont even remember the frostbite mandate happening before Dragon Age Inquisition. That was the first time i heard about how they had to develop RPG systems from scratch in Frostbite.

Yes, NFS The Run was the first sign of issues regarding Frostbite because they had to make it work properly with a racing game. Bioware was just the loudest example afterwards because of the RPG issues and also because they had just went on a good run of legendary games.

So then we agree, the developers are a huge part of the problem. And we shouldnt just blame everything on Jimbo and Herman.

Right, which is why I only blame the two things above on them, the Gaas directive and Bungie.

The circle of conversation is now complete lol.

 

[PeteBull]

So then we agree, the developers are a huge part of the problem. And we shouldnt just blame everything on Jimbo and Herman.

It all is decided at the head, example- if sony CEO is based, he promotes/keeps based studio heads(merit based promotions) who in turn make sure activist devs actually have 0 say in how final product gonna look and inbetween their "smart working" from home and protesting cant destroy our beloved franchises...

Or like we got it in modern day ubisoft, sony, microsoft, blizzard and so many other western devs/publishers its a clownworld.
Gotta nib those bad practices in the bud or it will all spread, the mindset of not crunching, victimhood and pretending working in air conditioned office earning 6figures salary is some kind of hazardous slave job.

Other ppl in eastern europe and many asian studios will work harder, with more passion, without complains and for less, they also have more creativity and grit, both being extremly crucial in such a competetive field as gaming business.
No idea what would be english equivalent but here in poland we got that wellknown saying- The fish always rots from head down- basically elites/ppl at the top decide how things gonna turn out, if they are evil/corrupt/useless things gonna get nasty for that company/country/society etc.
Kinda like this:

 

[Msamy]

i literally said that it might not get cancelled because its been in dev for so long costing sony hundreds of millions by now. its literally in the post you quoted.

As for the rest, simply stating facts is not talking out of my ass. 9 out of 12 gaas games were cancelled. the stig game was cancelled after 4 years of development time. Sony did force ND to crunch last month only for that demo to not appear at this show.

You on the other hand have always run defense for sony in this thread despite their pitiful graphics output this gen. The last five years have proven ME right. Their laziness, lack of ambition, lack of budget, focus on gaas, focus on PC, everything I have railed on about since 2020 has come to be true. i was called chicken little then, and now im being told im talking out of my ass the week after Sony announced that they have been working on a Horizon MP game since 2022 instead of Horizon 3, and a day after they had a 60+ minute conference without showing a game they revealed over a year ago, without showing a game that you yourself admit was in pre-production for four years and has been in full production for another 3+ years, without showing Wolverine which is coming out later this year or showing Horizon 3 some 4 years after its launch.

If you cant see that the house is on fire then you are truly the baghdad bob of this thread.

Don't bother yourself with sony ninjas

 

[CowboyLou]

Honestly one of the reasons I love this thread is I don't give a shit about most of the Sony first party output, or a lot of the other big AAA studios. I can appreciate the best graphics out there but my actual taste in games mostly lies elsewhere. So this thread is pure cinema. I'm an oftentimes detached observer and participant. Although I guess I feel a little bad if you REALLY love Horizon or God of War or Uncharted and Sony decided to take a massive dump on you this gen. It's not schadenfreude - I'm not thrilled about all these studios dropping the ball, even if they aren't making games up my alley - but it does make it sting less.

There are a few top-tier visual showcases this gen that I also really liked as games (Alan Wake, SH2, Avatar) but plenty of others where I only showed up for the graphics. I'm more of an online multiplayer guy these days.

There was a comment ages ago where one of the regulars here said he was glad to have a place to talk about graphics because if he only cared about gameplay, the state of AAA would have made him kill himself by now might be slightly misremembering though.

 

[CowboyLou]

on the contrary, being a graphics whore lets me enjoy trash like hellblade 2, outlaws, avatar, ac shadows and starfield. if i only cared about gameplay, i wouldve committed account suicide years ago.

Found it, yeah of course it was SlimySnake

I get what you mean bro.

 

[SlimySnake]

Honestly one of the reasons I love this thread is I don't give a shit about most of the Sony first party output, or a lot of the other big AAA studios. I can appreciate the best graphics out there but my actual taste in games largely lies elsewhere. So this thread is pure cinema. I'm an oftentimes detached observer and participant. Although I guess I feel a little bad if you REALLY love Horizon or God of War or Uncharted and Sony decided to take a massive dump on you this gen. It's not schadenfreude - I'm not thrilled about all these studios dropping the ball, even if they aren't making games up my alley - but it does make it sting less.

There are a few top-tier visual showcases this gen that I also really liked as games (Alan Wake, SH2, Avatar) but plenty of others where I only showed up for the graphics. I'm more of an online multiplayer guy these days.

There was a comment ages ago where one of the regulars here said he was glad to have a place to talk about graphics because if he only cared about gameplay, the state of AAA would have made him kill himself by now might be slightly misremembering though.

part of the reason why i take these sony conferences and fuck ups so personally is because i almost exclusively like sony games. i recently realized i was a few trophies short of a platinum in horizon 2 and spiderman 2, and after getting the platinum, went through my history and saw that i only platinum sony games, along a couple of bungie and rocksteady games. So to see them just phone in this gen and have their best studios be straight up MIA is frustrating as hell.

last gen was particularly rough, i was going to do my goty vote on the main forum until i realized i only really liked two games last year enough to put them in my top ten. 2024 and 2023 werent much better either. I feel like gaming has been stagnant all gen, and game mechanics and level design peaked in the ps3 era. we are all sitting here holding our dicks waiting for rockstar to blow us away, for neil and cory to finally deliver a next gen game from sony, and they just keep punting year after year.

 

[ResetEraVetVIP]

because 'revenge/killing is bad'.

That wasn't the sole reason and most people who say this repeated viewpoint don't get it, Ellie, Abby and Lev are tired hurt physically and emotionally, they both are tired during the fight and give up. Ellie see's Lev hurt and she sees Abby as Joel, she sees the endless cycle and gives up. It seems Abby has already kind of given up before they get to the water area when she tells Ellie "There is a boat ahead" (Not Verbatim). Killing alot of enemies means nothing, They all have to kill to survive that world regardless.

I will literally never understand takes like this. You really can't put yourself in the shoes of someone wanting to seek vengeance against the man who killed their unarmed father in cold blood?


The whole theme of the series, the first game included, is there's no simple "good guys" and "bad guys" in this story. There's "my people" and "their people" and everyone is just trying to survive. Joel was not a good man. He was a man who wanted to protect his own, at all costs. No different than Abby or Abby's father.

This.

 

[ResetEraVetVIP]

Nah, they give a lot of reasons, tlou2 fanboys just can't accept these reasons.

I watched my fair share of tlou2 topics dude.

I don't give a fuck about any story or characters from nd games because i find them boring and predictable with too much easy drama so i had no expectations for a good story but people who loved tlou1 didn't do a 180° just because the game was woke.
Tlou1 dlc was already a step into the wokeness and people didn't minded that one.

Same reasons they review bombed a game they never played in 2020? There is a reason TLOU 2 was the awards champion a few years ago...

 

[Cumulus]

That wasn't the sole reason and most people who say this repeated viewpoint don't get it, Ellie, Abby and Lev are tired hurt physically and emotionally, they both are tired during the fight and give up. Ellie see's Lev hurt and she sees Abby as Joel, she sees the endless cycle and gives up. It seems Abby has already kind of given up before they get to the water area when she tells Ellie "There is a boat ahead" (Not Verbatim). Killing alot of enemies means nothing, They all have to kill to survive that world regardless

And they all came to this point by being written like lobotomized rats instead of intelligent humans like in the first game.
Sorry the script with the incredibly moronic characters in this game still makes me angry. It felt like playing a Mexican soap opera...
If the tech hadn't been so excellent I'd have dropped the game after the first 3-4 hours already.....

 

[ResetEraVetVIP]

Is the

And they all came to this point by being written like lobotomized rats instead of intelligent humans like in the first game.
Sorry the script with the incredibly moronic characters in this game still makes me angry. I felt like playing a Mexican soap opera...

Examples? What's a good story to you?

 

[CowboyLou]

part of the reason why i take these sony conferences and fuck ups so personally is because i almost exclusively like sony games. i recently realized i was a few trophies short of a platinum in horizon 2 and spiderman 2, and after getting the platinum, went through my history and saw that i only platinum sony games, along a couple of bungie and rocksteady games. So to see them just phone in this gen and have their best studios be straight up MIA is frustrating as hell.

last gen was particularly rough, i was going to do my goty vote on the main forum until i realized i only really liked two games last year enough to put them in my top ten. 2024 and 2023 werent much better either. I feel like gaming has been stagnant all gen, and game mechanics and level design peaked in the ps3 era. we are all sitting here holding our dicks waiting for rockstar to blow us away, for neil and cory to finally deliver a next gen game from sony, and they just keep punting year after year.

Yeah it's an interesting perspective. I've always been a PC guy but the PS360 era of games was my formative era. I still love a lot of games from that period but later on I got into 90s to early-00s PC games and it really changed my views. Now a lot of my all-time faves are from that 1993-2005 era and I see the rise of multiplatform development during the PS2/PS3 gens as detrimental to the kinds of games we used to get on PC (when PC and console were still separate spaces). But that's all ancient history now. These days I'm not sure I'd still call PS360 era the peak of game design, but it still beats today's AAA space in a lot of ways, especially on the Sony side.

I still play and love a lot of new games (from AAA to indie) and I'm not a doomer who thinks we're in a terrible time for gaming but yeah I get the disappointment on the Sony side for sure. I recently got a PS3 and I've been playing through all the exclusives that never came to PC. Honestly not loving a lot of it but I'm enjoying the history lesson and I get why some of these games are beloved. Even if I don't think PS3 titles like inFamous and Killzone are amazing I'd still take them over the more recent ND/SSM/Insomniac/SP/Guerilla output (or lack of). I loved Days Gone, I love Housemarque and Bungie (although neither feels like a "Sony studio" in the same way the big ones do) but nothing else under the Sony banner is for me these days.

 

[March Climber]

That wasn't the sole reason and most people who say this repeated viewpoint don't get it, Ellie, Abby and Lev are tired hurt physically and emotionally, they both are tired during the fight and give up. Ellie see's Lev hurt and she sees Abby as Joel, she sees the endless cycle and gives up. It seems Abby has already kind of given up before they get to the water area when she tells Ellie "There is a boat ahead" (Not Verbatim). Killing alot of enemies means nothing, They all have to kill to survive that world regardless.

I don't have a problem with the idea of the script, I have a problem with the execution of it.

If there was one very important thing I would have changed on this game's script, it would have been that Ellie actually kills Abby. That makes what happens after much, much more impactful, especially Ellie going home to an empty house. It all would have made the messaging more impactful because it would show how meaningless and empty she would have felt after thinking killing Abby was going to somehow make everything right.

The director of the game simply could not pull the trigger on this, so instead, along with other small cuts throughout the plot, the game's narrative suffered.

I'm okay with 'bad end' in games, I just wanted it to be a better bad end than what it was.

 

[Cumulus]

Examples? What's a good story to you?

The last really good example was Claire obscure.
Regarding examples of the script bullshit in lou2... There are 1000s of pages and I don't even want to know how many hours with deep dives on yt. I'll not reopen that can of worms.
I'm actually a bit angry that I was even reminded of that disappointment....

 

[ResetEraVetVIP]

The last really good example was Claire obscure.
Regarding examples of the script bullshit in lou2... There are 1000s of pages and I don't even want to know how many hours with deep dives on yt. I'll not reopen that can of worms.
I'm actually a bit angry that I was even reminded of that disappointment....

Seems like you can't name any reasons, just deflection and people post anti TLOU 2 videos for clicks and money on YT. TLOU 2 is always the target of manufactured unjust hate and troll attacks.

‘The Last Of Us Part 2’ Is Getting Predictably User Score Bombed On Metacritic

The Last of Us Part 2 is getting mobbed by user scores on Metacritic, which we all should have seen coming.

www.forbes.com

 

[CowboyLou]

I wish I could get into E33. At first I thought there was no way it could be as good as everyone was saying. Most of the time when gamers say something was deep and moving I'm immediately skeptical because most gamers haven't read an actual book or watched an actual movie in their life and their idea of peak profundity is some YA high-school drama aimed at 13 year olds. "But maybe this time the overwhelming praise for this game's writing isn't due to gamers being emotionally stunted impressionable ignoramuses. Maybe this time is different" I thought.

Then I started it and I thought I was gonna be sick. Title screen is floating rose petals with one of the gayest songs on earth playing in the background. I think the French were trying to make me grow a vagina. Won't work. I was feeling nauseous. This is what gamers are into? This is a damn chick flick. You're supposed to only watch this to trick a woman into getting close enough to grope.

Yeah I ended up hating it. I'll take TLOUII any day. I thought it was pretty misguided in a lot of ways but it somehow looped around to being charming again in a boneheaded "video game plot" sort of way. Not to mention it plays great.

But at least E33 devs came up with some nice visuals albeit a bit "stock UE5" looking and in the context of a pretty simple game. You can see the cracks all over after a while. Still, great first effort on the tech side.

 

[Cumulus]

Seems like you can't name any reasons, just deflection and people post anti TLOU 2 videos for clicks and money on YT. TLOU 2 is always the target of manufactured unjust hate and troll attacks.

‘The Last Of Us Part 2’ Is Getting Predictably User Score Bombed On Metacritic

The Last of Us Part 2 is getting mobbed by user scores on Metacritic, which we all should have seen coming.

www.forbes.com

 

[ResetEraVetVIP]

I don't have a problem with the idea of the script, I have a problem with the execution of it.

If there was one very important thing I would have changed on this game's script, it would have been that Ellie actually kills Abby. That makes what happens after much, much more impactful, especially Ellie going home to an empty house. It all would have made the messaging more impactful because it would show how meaningless and empty she would have felt after thinking killing Abby was going to somehow make everything right.

The director of the game simply could not pull the trigger on this, so instead, along with other small cuts throughout the plot, the game's narrative suffered.

I'm okay with 'bad end' in games, I just wanted it to be a better bad end than what it was.

So you wanted the predictable, run of the mill, standard, cliché, feel good, comfortable ending that millions of stories have told? Is this a reason to review bomb and hate a game that is a milestone in gaming and media in general?

 

[SlimySnake]

I don't have a problem with the idea of the script, I have a problem with the execution of it.

If there was one very important thing I would have changed on this game's script, it would have been that Ellie actually kills Abby. That makes what happens after much, much more impactful, especially Ellie going home to an empty house. It all would have made the messaging more impactful because it would show how meaningless and empty she would have felt after thinking killing Abby was going to somehow make everything right.

The director of the game simply could not pull the trigger on this, so instead, along with other small cuts throughout the plot, the game's narrative suffered.

I'm okay with 'bad end' in games, I just wanted it to be a better bad end than what it was.

its not just the ending, the entire premise is off. You cannot kill off the main character of the first game within the first couple of hours. You just cant do that. If you want Ellie to take over, make it happen gradually or have Joel simply tag along as an NPC. Dina shouldve been the one to get killed, maybe even Tommy which forces both of them to go on a revenge spree. You can at that point start to play around with the idea of how much bloodshed is enough.

This way you can also organically bring in the conflict between the two since Joel's actions in that hospital eventually led to her lover getting murdered. Have them deal with it as they go on their journey. It wouldve been a far more interesting journey than Ellie and Dina, or Ellie and Jesse, none of these characters had any chemistry with her. people wanted to see more of Joel and Ellie.

Having Abby be completely absent during Ellie's journey was also a big writing no-no. Instead we had to wait 24 hours before finally seeing their first scene and it was rushed into a boss fight before anything was said.

The last really good example was Claire obscure.
Regarding examples of the script bullshit in lou2... There are 1000s of pages and I don't even want to know how many hours with deep dives on yt. I'll not reopen that can of worms.
I'm actually a bit angry that I was even reminded of that disappointment....

Yep. Expedition 33 has fantastic writing.

Spoiler

They kill off the lead but replace him with an even better lead almost immediately.

One you dont hate. The main female protagonist doesnt immediately turn into an unlikeable bitch after going through a traumatic experience either. i hated almost every writing choice neil made with this game. played ghosts immediately afterwards and i was like wow, this is how you write a good protagonist and villain.

 

[ResetEraVetVIP]

Name some please, also I don't want this thread derailed. Thanks.

 

[SlimySnake]

I wish I could get into E33. At first I thought there was no way it could be as good as everyone was saying. Most of the time when gamers say something was deep and moving I'm immediately skeptical because most gamers haven't read an actual book or watched an actual movie in their life and their idea of peak profundity is some YA high-school drama aimed at 13 year olds. "But maybe this time the overwhelming praise for this game's writing isn't due to gamers being emotionally stunted impressionable ignoramuses. Maybe this time is different" I thought.

Then I started it and I thought I was gonna be sick. Title screen is floating rose petals with one of the gayest songs on earth playing in the background. I think the French were trying to make me grow a vagina. Won't work. I was feeling nauseous. This is what gamers are into? This is a damn chick flick. You're supposed to only watch this to trick a woman into getting close enough to grope.

Yeah I ended up hating it. I'll take TLOUII any day. I thought it was pretty misguided in a lot of ways but it somehow looped around to being charming again in a boneheaded "video game plot" sort of way. Not to mention it plays great.

But at least E33 devs came up with some nice visuals albeit a bit "stock UE5" looking for my tastes and in the context of a pretty simple game. You can see the cracks all over after a while. Still, great first effort on the tech side.

Did you ever finish the game? the story goes places.