Topic: The PlayStation Fan Thread

Woot woot!

Got my 2TB Samsung 980 Pro installed with heatsink, and all is well! Still have a 1 TB external SSD for my collection of permanent PS4 exclusives which collectively take up almost exactly 1 TB. Perfect. Cheaper storage externally to keep the internal free for PS5 games. I’m guessing if this generation accounts for another 1TB I can have all PS4 and PS5 permanent, non-PC exclusives on the internal without need of an external. But for now, to be safe, I’ll leave it be.

Anything else of note in this update? Aside from the 3D audio for speakers that only does 2 channel?

@Losermagnet
Samsung 980 Pro.

And… the 2 channel 3D audio can’t even calibrate. When measuring your room acoustics it just pops up an error saying your TV volume is too low. No matter how loud I turned it it would continue to give me this error. I had it turned up so loud I would be shocked if the neighbors weren’t woken up out of their sleep. Yet it STILL says the volume is too low.

Whatever. Not like I would ever use the crap anyways. Just wanted to see how it sounded out of curiosity.

Mr. Driller Encore
https://www.play-asia.com/mr-driller-encore/13/70eva1

@JaxonH Is the microphone of your controller turned on?

@Octane
Ya. I checked that after trying a few times. But it wasn't muted or anything.

After waffling the past couple times Black Desert went on deep discount, this time I finally pulled the trigger as the game is currently 60% off on the PS Store. Just another mmo with a healthy chunk of single player content I've always wanted to dabble in. Despite its well known P2W cash shop, that flashy combat has my attention. I also went ahead and grabbed Mad Max for a fiver.

I still haven't finished to unlock all songs from Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix PS1 so I guess I will play some DDR songs tonight on my PS2 Slim.

@JaxonH thank ya 👍 looks like it's gonna set me back a couple hundred so i'll bide my time.

Kinda bummed there isnt an option to create folders still (although I had no reason to suspect it was happening). The more i interact with the PS5 menu the more I realize it's near-identical to the Switch's: most recently played depicted at the main screen with everything else thrown in a giant pile under the last option.

Interesting tidbit about the KOTOR Remake

Apparently Aspyr were originally pitching a remastered collection of both the first game as well as The Sith Lords, and Lucasfilm Games rejected it in favor of the remake of the first one we're getting now. Hopefully if this remake does well and is well received, Aspyr will give KOTOR 2 a similar treatment because mechanically it is superior in every way

@TheFrenchiestFry Lucasfilms made the right move with this, given that while remasters would be nice, we can see the gameplay more modernized, and the graphics shine a bit more.

@TheFrenchiestFry My worry with KotOR remake is that they're going to "remake" it as a modern action adventure game with RPG lite elements instead of a faithful reproduction of a legit CRPG. In fact, I fully expect that's exactly what they're going to do. Aspyr ain't no Bluepoint that runs Cell code on a PS5 just to make sure it's exact.

@Losermagnet
Ya, try to catch on on Black Friday or during some other sale. Be sure to grab a heatsink as well. One that fits in the little NVMe cubby.

@NEStalgia
I hope not. Seems everything is going that direction now. I'm highly suspicious DQXII is going to do it as well.

My worry is they're going to rewrite the story with liberty and bork it.

The lady they hired as their writer for this has been very outspoken about not liking the original game back before this was ever conceptualized.

Putting someone in charge of the writing who doesn't like the original, and who also happens to be of the Anita Sarkesian variety who sees video games as a mere tool for ideological propaganda... it doesn't sound like a recipe for success.

But we'll see.

@NEStalgia I have faith Aspyr will preserve the original in most regards, especially narratively and structurally given their statements on what the remake is supposed to be in terms of faithfulness. My one gripe is that the battles feel incredibly slow despite the D20-like system creating a lot of intensity during those fights, but they definitely should at least increase the pace of the encounters without going full on action-RPG like a lot of these remakes do. In fact KOTOR wouldn't really work nearly as well as a pure real-time experience

My one big adjustment would probably be restoring the cut content and dialogue options like the entire planet of Sleheyron which is only available through modding the game on PC.

@JaxonH Sam Maggs never said she didn't like the original game. She said it was one of her favorite games of all time but followed up with "did I say it was my favorite? No."

There's a lot of misinterpreting regarding her actual stance on KOTOR. This isn't even her first time she's writing for Star Wars at all since she also writes for the IDW comics

@JaxonH Yeah, it's the low-risk tried and true formula that every big budget game wants to safely replicate. If you want to guarantee financial success of any big expense project, cinematic action adventure with some RPG-lite elements works without fail! Or a Marvel/SW license. Combine both and it prints money, unfortunately. The masses gobble it up like a Michael Bay film.

The writing worries me as well. I've heard about the writer they put in there and I can't fathom who assigns a writer to a game remake that hates the game. That means by definition you want it to basically be a different game that goes in a different direction, at which point, why remake it at all? Why not just make a new series entry that's everything you wanted it to become? And yes, the dreaded politics.... Though, Sarkesian was involved in Psychonauts 2 and didn't manage to corrupt anything. Though Tim really does most of the writing himself, so I'm not sure what her role really was in that.

But yeah, so far we have a game remake of a classic game, that sounds like they want it totally rewritten into something else, and they hired a writer who both hates the game they're remaking, and sees projects as a political tool, along with every indication being a genre change as a mass-market adventure instead of an RPG, which is what the game IS. I'm writing the game off as non-existant at this point. I'll replay the OG on XB with nicely improved visuals. If the remake turns out not sucking, that's a bonus, but it sounds like it's going to be a controversial mess that changes the game's narrative direction, gameplay, and even genre into something different. Of course I suppose it could be summarized by saying "It's Disney..."

I'm not sure what to worry about with DQXII. I'm highly worried about it, and I'm not even sure what to worry about. DQ as an action adventure would be so bad I don't think I could stand the box art. I don't think they'll do quite that with it, but I do fear it'll be a "real-time" ARPG FFXV style. I kinda like FFXV, actually, but that would be dreadful for DQ. The tone is also most of what makes DQ special, and they've all but directly said they're changing the tone. Eww. I'm kind of viewing XI as the last real DQ game, for now.

I'm very much in "wait and see" mode with DQXII, FFXVI, and particularly KOTOR remake, since I could see this Sam Maggs thing blowing up into another ridiculous culture war issue. If the writing of the game has been compromised, or if it has been turned into an action-adventure title, then it should be readily apparent once they start showing off the game. I'm not going to completely disregard the game because the lead writer is annoying on Twitter, though.

Really not liking the samey character designs, grim atmosphere, and action combat look of FFXVI thus far, but I won't write it off completely before we know more about it.

DQ is inherently more concerning because it was the one really consistently solid S-E series that never tried to rewrite the book when it came to JRPG game design. Some people don't like that, but it was nice to have something traditional to fall back on when Final Fantasy was (frequently) tripping over its own feet.

I'm nowhere near close to disregarding the game based on no footage, a teaser of Darth Revan standing in a room and a few blog posts. A controversial writer also doesn't necessarily mean a bad writer and Aspyr have had my trust instilled in them before due to their excellent work on Star Wars remasters, so it's nice seeing them being given a project to make from the ground up with both Lucasfilm and Sony's backing.

There are a lot of ways to f*ck a KOTOR remake up, but under this kind of developer specifically I feel safe in saying they won't.

@TheFrenchiestFry
It does seem there's truth to what you just said. Upon further investigation it seems the "NOT KOTOR" when read in proper context of the entire thread is not specifically dismissing the game. Without that context it sounded like, "what's your favorite Bioware game" with the answer being "NOT KOTOR" as if to say, "anything but THAT".

Doesn't address all my concerns with her but it does make me feel more confident.

I wouldn't equate having concerns with automatic dismissal. It would have to have a very serious problem to automatically dismiss. But I can't say I'm fully confident either. I've seen these activist types so many times before, and they have a tendency to use their positions of influence to preach their dogma and virtue signal.

As long as the writing isn't changed, I'm happy. Don't really care what her personal beliefs are so long as it doesn't crossover into the game.

https://www.play-asia.com/summer-in-mara/13/70ewzh

Wow !
Summer in Mara will get physical release too on PS4 due to 29 Nov 2021. 😀

Just make a new Star Wars RPG ffs. When a game is held in such high regard, how can a remake deliver? I know FF7 Remake seemed to go down well, but that's a game not as consistently well regarded as KOTOR.