General gaming discussion

Alan Wake sure uses a lot of batteries.

Illuminating.

Just bought the Soul Reaver remasters. Had a quick look at a comparison video and my rose tinted glasses were firmly on as I remember it looking like the remaster looks... so there may be hope that I'll like them.

However, bad start. There's no game specific music when you go to the game on the XMB, where it should be playing Ozar Midrashim. I am disappoint.

Me and some friends are looking for a PvE crossplay game to play. Not into the pvp anymore so looking for a more coop style game that would work with PS5 and Xbox series. Would help if any suggestions are on either gamepass or ps+ but not a deal breaker

Eurogamer readers' top 50 games 2024:

Just rolled the credits on Soul Reaver 1, and while it brought back the great memories of playing it back in the day, it felt like a low effort attempt. They really did just upgrade the character models and textures and slap them on top. It definitely lost some of its darker feel, but I can't fault them for bringing the models up to the level of the box art for SR2. But not perfect. Kain eyes are weird for one. I feel like they could have done more overall.

The background textures were minimally upgraded. They're still flat surfaces, the gates are still a pixel deep, and the ability to switch between original and remastered can show the low level effort off more. There's bo visible improvement to lighting, aside from the Reaver itself, but on my C2 it made dark areas hard to navigate as the glow from the Reaver was too bright. Add in zero attempt to improve the movement, certain cathedral sections and the boss fight remain frustrating due to the poor by modern standards camera and platforming.

I watched a good video last night where it shows why some modern AAA games look worse than 10 years ago, and it's due to higher quality graphics mixed into lower quality ones. Characters, effects, RT, nano particles, etc all added to the main focus, while backgrounds and textures don't get the same treatment and it's jarring. It's why the end PS4 era looked amazing, because it was the best of what was available across the board, whereas now main characters get all the glam and everything else is of lesser quality. While not to the same degree, its very obvious in SR due to the 3d modelled main character, lower quality 3d modelled secondary characters and flat backgrounds/surfaces.

I still enjoyed it, it is still one of my favourite games, albeit the rose tinted glasses remember it even better than this remaster. It's a missed opportunity imo. A Resident Evil type remake would have been amazing, but Embracer are just trying to cash in. I can't imagine the work on this was too hard or taxing, and didn't take too long. Shame.

I can't see it winning over any new fans because it just can't compare. Everything it did that was amazing at the time has obviously been surpassed since. The story at the time was leagues ahead of most games out then. The shifting was unique but anyone who has played Guacamelee has experienced a better version of it.

Still looking forward to playing 2, just to experience the story again mainly. And I'm holding hope some mad man will do the extra work on pc via mods and I can come back to it in a few years and play something that looks better. Tis tough when they remaster a favourite, my expectations were definitely too high but I expected more than this. Can't let my personal love of the series overlook the low level effort here. I've not played other low level effort games for the same reason (GTA trilogy).

Really want to win the lotto now so I can dedicate my life to learning how to remake this in Unreal and do it myself! Or pay someone to do it.

Yup, boards sending me back in time when I go to a thread. Maybe it's ok on desktop, but on mobile, FFS.

On the final final boss battle in Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown, and it's 3 ******* stages.

Then it seems wasted because for all that effort, the result is not that impressive. Having the ability to switch instantly to the original highlights the issues more. I'm not taking away from the work they did, I've no idea the level involved in doing something like this, but if that's the best that can be done, again I'd question why bother. Why send out a survey before working on it and then give this as a result...

I'm only taking it extra bad because I love the games. I knew the GTA trilogy was a pile of shyte, and it's even worse considering the owners of them and the vast wealth they have accumulated by doing very little (in comparison to years gone by). But I'd still consider updating some models and textures lazy overall. Bare minimum work tbh. Haven't played the TR games, but if they're basically the same deal, og games with just texture/model updates, then I'll probably feel the same about them.

No disrespect to Aspyr, they did what they were paid to do and probably did a good job at what they did, but to me the end user who has only positive memories of the SR games, it fell completely flat (literally, everything but the character models are still flat). And it's not perfect, I've had the entire scene turn black after going through a door, could see the world through the other side of the door. This happened a few times. Have to retrace your steps until it pops back and then continue on. Kains eyes are terrible and you can see through his head. Clipping is still everywhere and often can see through the environment. Obvious lines where textures join. Literally no improvement to the portal graphics (switching to og and back there is zero difference)...

Each to their own, but this is a fail for me. All it does is highlight how old and poor it is in comparison to modern gaming. Deserved so much more.

Anyway, my disc drive and Black Myth Wukong arrived today, and I'm off for 2 days, so I'll be taking a small break before hopping off 2.

If you are enjoying it a bit into chapter 2, i highly recommend Phantom Liberty. That can be started near the start of chapter 2 but i jumped in before starting the final mission. I planned to so it earlier but was having so much fun with the main game, i kept putting it off. Went with katana/ninja build and had great fun when it was sneaking around or going all out slashing up 1 person to the next.

Strangley, after just playing a game with Idris Elba and Keanu Reeves, I'm just out of the cinema seeing (hearing) the 2 in Sonic 3 and reminded me Idris wants to do a Cyberpunk film with Keanu. A Phantom Liberty film could be brilliant.

Got Resident Evil 2 and 3 PS4 (with digital PS5 upgrade) remakes. They are 10.20 stg on Amazon at the moment. Couple more disks for the backlog. 🙄 Have RE 4 remake. Not sure if they need to be played in any order. Would probably prefer to start with 4 since that's the best game AFAIK.

There are physical PS5 versions coming out but I'll deal with the double install shenanigans on PS instead of paying full price for those.

It's really strange on PS5 with a physical disk you need the disk, the PS4 version installed and the PS5 version installed to play the PS5 version of the game. It was much more seamless on XBox Series X when I had that.