Gaming Thread- Ps5/4, Xb1 & Pc

Knights of the Old Republic 2 had a canonical female protagonist.

 

EA used to offer an excellent golf game in the Tiger Woods franchise. In fact I still play it on my PS3. But later versions were bugged to hell and increasingly pay as you play or pay extra for courses etc. Their servers for on-line play were all shut down after too short a time imho.

Their recent reputation hasn't improved much.

 

Wii U? Amateur.
I still have a Wii and still play Mario kart and the curling game on pro celebrity sports. One of the playable characters on that is Avril Lavigne

 

Micro transactions and pay to win in games, the single worst thing to happen in gaming. Ruined some franchises and corrupted others.

 

My kids (10 and 7) want a console this Christmas.

PS5 or XBox?

 

The new steam deck OLED looks very, very nice and capable. https://www.steamdeck.com/en/

 

PS is generally accepted to have won this gen's console wars, but it really depends on which exclusives they find most appealing.

 

It's a much longer list than that if you compare versus PS and don't include PC versions in the equation (which you shouldn't, because there is no reason to play a game on a console if there is a PC version available and you have a decent PC).

Grounded, for example, is excellent (disclaimer, I played the PC version).

I'm surprised you ruled Bethesda out on primciple because their games tend to be phenomenally popular.

Microsoft also just bought Activision-Blizzard, which won't mean much right now but is likely to change a lot in the next few years.

Being a PC master race type, my console of choice is Switch for all the Nintendo first party games, but that's a whole separate conversation. I certainly wouldn't recommend buying one right now though, with Switch 2 looking like it'll be along in 2024. It is a dated platform now.

 

Got a crazy deal on an Xbox on Black Friday so now have both consoles.

Enjoying the Xbox far more than I believed I would. The console is faster and easier to use (instant resume even on full power off blew my mind), and Gamepass easily beats PS Plus in terms of content and you can use it on PC as well.

PS5 was fantastic when it was first released and I’m sure it won the initial ‘war’ but as others have said, having Bethesda is a big win (Starfield is great) and Xbox’s backwards compatibility (Xbox 360 discs work) wins the day for me (if I had to choose).

Unless you really really want to play The Last Of Us, get an Xbox.

 

I'd still recommend a switch. Often more fun, way more suited to kids, instantly have 2 controllers, can take it with you, will likely hold value on release of new console. And if they're like my kids, they won't always be happy sharing a device. So if you need to get two of them, the switch will be more wallet friendly. Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft etc are all available on the switch and kids shouldn't really be playing call of duty or the last of us anyway which takes some shine off the big 2 options.

PC gaming is also not for kids imo, even if you've got enough money to build a decent machine or 2, their friends will mostly all have one of the 3 consoles.

 

GTA VI trailer . Meh

 

Mega Drive
Game Boy
N64
SNES
Game Boy Advance
Gamecube
Dreamcast
PS1
Xbox 360
Switch

Pretty similar experience here, I remember always being super excited to go round my nans as my uncle had a mega drive and we always used to play (the very first!) FIFA for hours. He eventually ended up gifting it to me and I ended up always buying Mega Drive games for a few quid each week in CeX once the Mega Drive was out of fashion (basically when PS1 etc came along), probably ended up with about 50 or so games for it! My mum loved a lot of the games on it as well so we'd often play Micro Machines or a Track + Field game together after school.

After that I remember playing Goldeneye round a friends house and thought it was simply insane, so badgered my parents and managed to get one for Xmas. Again I had a huge number of games for that, the whole family (mum, dad + sister) used to love Mario Kart (tbf they still do - will be playing lots this xmas!). My mum loved the Zelda games (still does, she's been playing the most recent ones on the Switch - and she's in her 60s!) and I used to play a lot of Goldeneye + Perfect Dark with my sister.

After that we switched to the Gamecube, lots of Mario Kart and Super Monkey Ball. I picked up a Dreamcast, PS1 and a SNES at various carboot sales years after each was basically defunct but never really played them at all.

But PC gaming has always been king for me, I started very young on that (probably when I was around 9 or so!) playing Ultimate Soccer Manager 98 (probably helped spark the footballing fire in me!) and playing various strategy games (Red Alert ) with my Dad. Then I got the FPS bug as I got a bit older and played a lot of online games - Unreal Tournament, Medal of Honor Allied Assault, the original Call of Duty - set in WW2 a LOT (I was 200th in the world at one point!), until I discovered a MMO called Anarchy Online that again really took me as the character tweaking process was unlike anything I'd ever seen (lots of maths and perfection required - right up my street) and I spent thousands of hours playing that.

My whole family still plays games, my mum still plays Zelda and games on the Switch, my dad likes War Thunder. I still play about an hour a day but only really play PC games, namely Fortnite and Rocket League as they're easy to dip in and out of (younger me would be ashamed!)

 

Also got a Series X and it's great, the only PlayStation games I'd like to play is the FF7 remake and FF16. Other half streams on twitch so has a really good PC set up so will have to play FF16 on PC when it eventually gets released there.

 

Oh yeah it will make billions no doubt . Will prob gross over a billion in first weekend, but was hoping for the animation and lighting to be a step on from GTA V but it looks exactly the same .

 

Seems like a pretty snap judgement based on a 90 second trailer doesn't it?

 

Wait and see of course but again, seems like a snap judgement. There's plenty in this list that suggests there's far more going on graphics wise than GTA V:

https://www.ign.com/articles/99-details-from-the-gta-6-trailer

 

I’ve worked in Film VFX and CGI for 25+ years and have won an EMMY for doing so ( I don’t like humble bragging so I might as well just brag) and judging from that trailer , which is all we have to go on , there is little to suggest we are going to get the major leap forward that came with previous iterations especially as GTA VI will be using the PS5 engine .

However it’s still a year away from release so who knows, it may not just be more of the same but with bigger world . I hope so because Vice City is may favourite game .

 

What would you have hoped to have seen then? Or is it a ‘know it when you see it’ type thing? Genuine question…

 

Have you seen Red Dead Redemption 2’s graphics? Lightyears ahead of GTA V’s.

I’ve no doubt that GTA VI’s graphics will be similar, if not even better than RDR 2’s.

Historically, Rockstar releases games that have been upgraded visually since the first trailer. If you look back on GTA 5’s first trailer and compare it to the game that was finally released, you’ll notice a marginal improvement in visuals.

The visuals of course will continue to improve on future re-releases of the same game on newly released consoles. I.e GTA 5 on PS3 and then on PS4

 

I love RDR2 , my favourite game of all time by a long way . Not just from a technical perspective but as a piece of story telling it was superlative .

And I hope that GTA 6 will be a generational improvement too because Rockstar have never let us down yet .

However my only point was that from the trailer that wasn’t evident , especially the character animation . The lighting was never going to be naturalistic because GTA has a distinct visual style that must be adhered to and that’s fine .

 

Just a something that looked an improvement . The trailer looked like it could have been a GTA V mod for a new city .

I would have liked to have seen better character animation that would be indistinguishable from real life , not the lighting just the animation . Similar quality ti the animation seen in the Planet of Apes created by the WETA guys .

But like yourself and others have suggested is it’s just a trailer and they are 18 months away from release . Rockstar have never let us down yet so fingers crossed .

 

It’s always difficult to judge on one trailer, but there’s little things like NPC population density, and individual NPC characteristics that screams improvement, at least to me, on the upcoming GTA.

A good comparison to make is the shots shown of the beach on GTA 5’s trailer, compared with the beach on GTA 6’s

GTA 5 - rather open shot with very few NPC’s. Graphics starting to look a bit dated/cartoony by today’s standards.


GTA 6 - In contrast to the above, this has a huge population of NPC’s, with each and every one of them looking “different”. At a glance, you could almost mistake it for being a real life photo of a beach in Florida. I don’t think the same can be said for the above.

 

Yeah it may be a case of the game looks and plays same as GTA V but is far far bigger and more densely populated .

Hopefully it will be both .

 

Actually I just looked back at the GTA V trailer and it was a lot less realistic than I had imagined.

So Im eating hat and agree that GTA 6 is a big leap forward. Still think some of the animation is a bit hokey but its pretty bloody good.

 

Will GTA 6 ultimately run on Unreal 6 ?

That will help with the shaders, ray tracing , animation etc ?