{"id":50146,"date":"2020-06-16T06:00:33","date_gmt":"2020-06-16T10:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=50146"},"modified":"2020-06-16T10:22:35","modified_gmt":"2020-06-16T14:22:35","slug":"playstation-5-titles-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=50146","title":{"rendered":"Playstation 5 Titles Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last Thursday Sony had a livestream event where they showed off their next-gen console and their upcoming lineup of games. If you missed the event and are in the mood to watch three hours of gaudy salesmanship, then here it is:<\/p>\n<p><table class='nomargin' cellspacing='0' width='100%' cellpadding='0' align='center' border='0'><tr><td><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XR0hk700H_4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen class=\"embed\"><\/iframe><br\/><small><a href='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XR0hk700H_4'>Link (YouTube)<\/a><\/small><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p>Dear IGN, Gamestop, and other sites that have the permission \/ connections to upload this footage to YouTube: Is it too much to ask that you throw this video into an editor and chop off the initial FORTY MINUTES of bumper footage? That huge block of nothing is a pain in the ass to scan through, particularly for people using mobile devices. I&#8217;d do it myself, but the last time I uploaded an industry event I was peppered with a flood of endless copyright claims regarding tiny snatches of barely-audible music, and also from major publishers who <a href=\"?p=43028\">didn&#8217;t want me to show people their advertisements<\/a>. The claims dragged on for weeks after the fact. You folks evidently have special dispensation, or you&#8217;ve got dedicated staff to deal with this. In any case, since you&#8217;ve been entrusted with this data, please be responsible with it and make it convenient for the masses. Okay? Thanks.<\/p>\n<p>In any case, the PlayStation 5 reveal event showed us a whopping 25 new titles. That&#8217;s an awful lot for a new console. I don&#8217;t think the PlayStation 3 had that many titles in its first <b>year<\/b>. Here are my thoughts on what Sony had to show&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>Grand Theft Auto V: Aw shit. Here we go again<\/h3>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/ps5_gtav.jpg' width=100% alt='This screenshot is from the PC version and not the upcoming Playstation 5 version, which is fine since THEY ARE COMPLETELY INDISTINGUISHABLE.' title='This screenshot is from the PC version and not the upcoming Playstation 5 version, which is fine since THEY ARE COMPLETELY INDISTINGUISHABLE.'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>This screenshot is from the PC version and not the upcoming Playstation 5 version, which is fine since THEY ARE COMPLETELY INDISTINGUISHABLE.<\/div><br \/>\nSo GTA V is the new Skyrim: The ancient, once-popular game that gets ported everywhere, in an effort to milk that popularity for all it&#8217;s worth. It looks like you&#8217;ll get the game for free on Playstation 5, where &#8220;free&#8221; has a bunch of qualifying asterisks that I&#8217;m too lazy and disinterested to decipher.<\/p>\n<p>What I found obnoxious is that the game looks exactly the same. They went to all the trouble of leading the PS5 reveal with this GTA V trailer, and the game looks identical to how it looked in 2013. Fine, do a lazy re-release. But if that&#8217;s all you&#8217;re doing, then why is it one of the headlining titles for your next-gen console? Why are you trying to sell me next-gen hardware using a game that looks unchanged from 2013? You couldn&#8217;t even throw in an HD texture boost?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Of course, all of this is just to make sure people keep coming to the obnoxious GTA Online cash shop after the next-gen jump.\u00a0Gross.<\/p>\n<h3>Marvel&#8217;s Spider-Man: Miles Morales<\/h3>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/ps5_spider-man.jpg' width=100% alt='We need a name for the dread you feel when you know an upcoming game is going to disappoint you but you know you&apos;re going to buy it anyway. Maybe &apos;Preemptive Buyer&apos;s Remorse?&apos;' title='We need a name for the dread you feel when you know an upcoming game is going to disappoint you but you know you&apos;re going to buy it anyway. Maybe &apos;Preemptive Buyer&apos;s Remorse?&apos;'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>We need a name for the dread you feel when you know an upcoming game is going to disappoint you but you know you&apos;re going to buy it anyway. Maybe &apos;Preemptive Buyer&apos;s Remorse?&apos;<\/div><\/p>\n<p>I was <a href=\"?p=44629\">very positive<\/a> on the 2018 Spider-Man game and <a href=\"?p=45431\">I even named it my GOTY for 2018<\/a>. Yes, it had some rather flagrant structural <a href=\"?p=49265\">problems<\/a> with <a href=\"?p=49631\">the story<\/a>, and the gameplay <a href=\"?p=46983\">needed refinement<\/a>. At the time, I assumed this was something that would get smoothed out in subsequent efforts.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, the secondary villains were a bit of a mess, but the main villain was really good. Some of this story probably came together at the last minute and maybe their plans were tripped up by external studio politics<span class='snote' title='1'>Like Sony Studio&#8217;s flailing around trying to create a cinematic universe with their collection of B-list Spider-Man supporting characters.<\/span>. There was enough good in the first story that I figured the team just needed to work the bugs out.<\/p>\n<p>But then I watched <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0A0Ol0ViGEE\">the Silver Sable DLC on YouTube<\/a>, and I no longer think this is a good storytelling team that made a couple of mistakes. Instead, this looks more like a broken clock that managed to be right twice a day.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, the main game gave Silver Sable a character arc that wasn&#8217;t set up, didn&#8217;t make sense, and failed to give the character a reason to be in the story, but like I said&#8230; maybe we can blame that on studio politics?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But then here comes the DLC that not only fails to patch any of these problems, it clumsily walks back that undeserved character arc and then doubles down on every blunder that made the character so annoying in the first place. There&#8217;s no indication that the team realized their mistakes, which suggests they&#8217;re going to keep making them.<\/p>\n<p>Fine, made a dull generic villain. Make her an <a href=\"?p=31743\">obnoxious and smug jackass that wins by writer fiat<\/a> in every cutscene. Make her a dumb incompetent hypocrite. Give her an unearned personality switch at the end of the game and then undo that switch in the DLC. That&#8217;s annoying and lazy, but whatever.<\/p>\n<p>But <b>do not make Spider-Man long for the friendship and approval of a brutish fascist thug<\/b>. You can have them team up out of necessity, but Spider-Man should never be this morally blind without a really <b>spectacular<\/b> explanation. The game kept showing us that Sable was a treacherous, murderous, trigger-happy hypocritical jackass that puts her self-interest above the lives of innocent civilians, but then Spider-Man behaves as though she&#8217;s just a really grouchy hero. That&#8217;s not just annoying, that&#8217;s <b>wrong<\/b>. You can&#8217;t do this with Spider-Man. This level of moral blindness destroys his character, which is built around the idea of always doing the right thing despite the personal cost.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll probably play the new <i>Spider-Man<\/i>, but if this writer<span class='snote' title='2'>Again, I realize we&#8217;re actually talking about a team of people, but I don&#8217;t know who to point the finger at and it doesn&#8217;t matter.<\/span> is going to mess up Miles Morales the same way they messed up Peter Parker, then I&#8217;m going to bitch and moan the whole way through this sequel. I find this sort of thing to be extremely off-putting because it attacks the very thing I look for in this genre of fiction, and this hero in particular.<\/p>\n<p>Then again, maybe the PS5 will retail for $Ridiculous and I&#8217;ll end up skipping this game because it&#8217;s a platform exclusive. I guess we&#8217;ll see.<\/p>\n<h3>Gran Turismo<\/h3>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/ps5_gt.jpg' width=100% alt='We&apos;re STILL having trouble making photorealistic humans in realtime, but we&apos;ve gotten really good at cars.' title='We&apos;re STILL having trouble making photorealistic humans in realtime, but we&apos;ve gotten really good at cars.'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>We&apos;re STILL having trouble making photorealistic humans in realtime, but we&apos;ve gotten really good at cars.<\/div><\/p>\n<p>I was confused the whole time I was watching this trailer. I kept waiting for something to HAPPEN. There were no crashes. No crazy stunts. No explosions. No voice-over dialog from characters talking about how everything is on the line and you need to push yourself to the limit. No sexy girls starting the race. No antagonist. No drama at all. It was just cars driving quickly and uneventfully through a very pretty course.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Then I saw the GT logo and it all made sense. This is what Gran Turismo is all about. While it looks like a typical racing game, it actually has more in common with Microsoft Flight Simulator than with <i>Need for Speed<\/i> and <i>Burnout<\/i>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This is not my series, but I&#8217;m glad it&#8217;s staying true to itself. They didn&#8217;t add any of the crap I mentioned two paragraphs ago. It&#8217;s surprising devs can still make something that dry and technical in this day and age, but also kind of encouraging.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>Destruction Allstars<\/h3>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/ps5_destruction_allstars.jpg' width=100% alt='I SAID, I CAN&apos;T HEAR YOUR SALES PITCH OVER THE CASH REGISTER SOUNDS THIS DLC IS MAKING.' title='I SAID, I CAN&apos;T HEAR YOUR SALES PITCH OVER THE CASH REGISTER SOUNDS THIS DLC IS MAKING.'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>I SAID, I CAN&apos;T HEAR YOUR SALES PITCH OVER THE CASH REGISTER SOUNDS THIS DLC IS MAKING.<\/div><\/p>\n<p>This doesn&#8217;t look like a game, it looks like a platform for selling overpriced cosmetic items. Now you can pay to customize your character AND your car!<\/p>\n<p>Publisher: Are you trying to make an Overwatch clone, a Fortnite clone, or a Rocket League clone?<\/p>\n<p>Developer: Yes.<\/p>\n<p>Me: Whatever.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I look forward to ignoring this when it comes out. I have no interest in the game, but it might serve as a useful shorthand symbol for &#8220;everything wrong with the industry these days&#8221;.<\/p>\n<h3>Goodbye Volcano High\u00a0\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/ps5_gvh.jpg' width=100% alt='I have questions about how reproduction works in this world where every character seems to be a member of a different species. Actually, nevermind. I don&apos;t want to know.' title='I have questions about how reproduction works in this world where every character seems to be a member of a different species. Actually, nevermind. I don&apos;t want to know.'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>I have questions about how reproduction works in this world where every character seems to be a member of a different species. Actually, nevermind. I don&apos;t want to know.<\/div><\/p>\n<p>Huh. A story of humanoid animals, stuck in the void between adolescence and adulthood. It looks like the main character is a young woman from a small town who is part of an indie band. This reminds me of <a href=\"?p=41369\">Night in the Woods<\/a>, although I&#8217;m willing to bet the similarities are strictly superficial. I&#8217;d be very surprised if <i>Goodbye Volcano High<\/i> was about supernatural cults.<\/p>\n<p>Although, I wouldn&#8217;t mind knowing what it <b>is<\/b> about. The trailer was all mood and no story, so we&#8217;re going to have to wait a while to know what kind of game this is.<\/p>\n<h3>Hitman III<\/h3>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/ps5_hitmaniii.jpg' width=100% alt='Well, looks like death is going to have to keep waiting, because the game isn&apos;t due for seven more months.' title='Well, looks like death is going to have to keep waiting, because the game isn&apos;t due for seven more months.'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>Well, looks like death is going to have to keep waiting, because the game isn&apos;t due for seven more months.<\/div><\/p>\n<p>So IO Interactive is going to self-publish this one? Square Enix published the 2016 quasi-reboot, and Warner Brothers published Hitman 2 in 2018. Also, what&#8217;s up with this naming scheme?<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Hitman<\/li>\n<li>Hitman 2<\/li>\n<li>Hitman III<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Dear IO Interactive: If you&#8217;re going to do this sort of thing, then you need to go all-in. I suggest&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Hitm4n<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Hitman the Fifth<\/em><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fast_Five\"><i>Hit Six<\/i><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Hitman: Seventh Coming<\/li>\n<li><em>OctoHit<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>The Hitman<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Hitman: Origins<\/em><\/li>\n<li>And then the 11th game in this series would be called&#8230; <em>Hitman X<\/em>!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Come on, IO Interactive. You&#8217;re self-publishing now. Embrace the stupidity. Nobody can stop you. DO IT.<\/p>\n<h3>Demon&#8217;s Souls Remaster<\/h3>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/ps5_demons_souls.jpg' width=100% alt='So these souls belong to demons? Doesn&apos;t that make them really dark?' title='So these souls belong to demons? Doesn&apos;t that make them really dark?'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>So these souls belong to demons? Doesn&apos;t that make them really dark?<\/div><\/p>\n<p>This is <a href=\"?p=49908\">Obviously Not My Thing<\/a>, but I am interested to hear what diehard SoulsBorne fans think of it. The name of Demon&#8217;s Souls isn&#8217;t invoked very often when discussing this series \/ genre. Informally, I get the impression that the original Dark Souls is where this sort of game really hit its stride. It feels like <i>Demon&#8217;s Souls<\/i> is to <i>Dark Souls<\/i> as <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Catacomb_3-D\">Catacomb 3-D<\/a> is to <em>Doom<\/em>: It was a necessary intermediate step in the creation of a new genre that doesn&#8217;t really hold up the way its descendants do.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Or maybe I&#8217;m reading this wrong. Are people excited for this?<\/p>\n<h3>Death Loop<\/h3>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/ps5_death_loop.jpg' width=100% alt='I think that &apos;Bethesda Softworks Presents&apos; is basically a warning label at this point.' title='I think that &apos;Bethesda Softworks Presents&apos; is basically a warning label at this point.'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>I think that &apos;Bethesda Softworks Presents&apos; is basically a warning label at this point.<\/div><\/p>\n<p>On one hand, this looks like a fun idea for a game: Two assassins caught in a time loop, endlessly trying to kill each other. On the other hand, Bethesda is the publisher, and they have a horrible track record lately. The last few Wolfenstein games have been <a href=\"?p=41551\">a mess<\/a>. Fallout 76 was a disaster of broken technology, broken promises, and rapacious monetization. Rage 2 was <a href=\"?p=48844\">tepid dreck<\/a>. Their recent mobile offerings have been <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Elder_Scrolls:_Blades#Reception\">cynical and underwhelming<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I guess <i>Doom Eternal<\/i> was okay, although their batting average remains abysmal. I&#8217;ll check out Death Loop because I like the look of it, but I&#8217;d be surprised if the publisher didn&#8217;t find a way to annoy and disappoint us.<\/p>\n<p>So that&#8217;s a handful of the titles Sony had to show us. Okay, I didn&#8217;t really comment on the games themselves. Instead I used them as a launching point for a bunch of random tangents. Whatever. I&#8217;ll talk about the rest of the games later in the week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last Thursday Sony had a livestream event where they showed off their next-gen console and their upcoming lineup of games. If you missed the event and are in the mood to watch three hours of gaudy salesmanship, then here it is: Link (YouTube) Dear IGN, Gamestop, and other sites that have the permission \/ connections [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[613],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50146"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50184,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50146\/revisions\/50184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}