Calling all serious console gamers! The rumor mill is aflame again, and the word is that Sony is setting up to reveal a PlayStation 5 Pro controller soon. How soon? Well, some are predicting the reveal will happen as early as this year. Is that feasible? We don't know. The news just broke starting only a few days ago, so we guess we'll see. For now, this is exciting because it allows Sony to compete on the pro circuit. Microsoft, watch your back. The actual best console controller maker in the world is coming for you. Yes, we said it. Sony offers the best hand feel and tactile experience in a console controller. Don't like that? Tough. Fight us.
Anyway, that's not all for Sony and PS5 news. It looks like a new PS5 model has also been registered by Sony. We're not talking about a smaller heat sink that may lead to small improvements, we're talking a redesign. Word is that the Digital Edition, the one that we would like to get, is expected to have a lighter version - approximately 300g lighter, in fact. Could it be just a smaller heat sink? Possibly, but we think that the total area and volume of the Digital Edition will be reduced as well. Both PS5 editions are huge, so we're hoping that smaller iterations are on the way. It's just better for a clean set up. That's all we've got to work with so far, but we'll keep an eye out for more word on this. That's all for this one! Thanks for reading! Aesthetics: 9 / 10We're back with another short review, folks! We've got a LOT to say and not a lot of space to say it, so hold on tight! It's going to be a wild ride. For starters, we have to give the team LOADS of credit for the impressive visuals. It really does look like the box art, with very few characters looking out of place. Of those that do, they're mostly females, such as Nora. Still, the team did a tolerable job on those particular sprites. The effects are also worthy of note, and the animation is solid as well. Overall, the game is gorgeous. Audio: 8 / 10If you want to have a discussion about good in-game audio, this is a great starting point. There's a solid mix on everything here, making all of the effects clear and punchy over the background music. Relive the late 80's and early 90's with the techno-funk / electronica that dominated the era. In fact, literally the only reason we docked any points at all was because of the lack of variety. It's a missed opportunity.
If you're an instrumentalist, like most of us here are, you're probably rather adept at quick mental math and have pretty nimble fingers. That said, precision would be something that you excel in. There isn't a reward for that in SOR4. Regardless of platform, because of the sensitivity of the controls and timing on animations, you'll feel the game lagging behind you in intense fights. This will break your combos, alter and severely limit your crowd control abilities, and open you up to tons of damage. It's easy to end up button mashing just to muscle your way through the scene. It can't even match Mortal Kombat 3.
As advanced as these characters are as fighters, why can't most of them at least run or dash? Make that make sense! Why can't they block or take parry stances like some of the adds can do? Most can even counter the moves that are supposed to protect the player from damage. That's infuriating! Sure, some players are dedicated enough to memorize the scenarios and discover the very specific ways to complete levels without taking damage, but most gamers don't have that kind of time. We DO need to work in order to feed our habit. This is too technical in a bad way. Free us! Let us run wild! Balance: 6 / 10If you're of the obviously wrong opinion that this game is well balanced, you get no quarter here. Adds hit hard. Not only that, being so severely kneecapped insofar as movement, makes it easy for even the weaker ones to pile up on you and take you out with cheap tactics and pincer formations. We had to use macros to get back attacks to work right, which adds unnecessary confusion to how the team plans for us to actually input them. They tell players to do one thing a specific way, but we have to modify the instructions for it to work. Worse, the adds can just power through or block most stuff. Frustrating. Tie all of that together with the AI being able to arbitrarily speed up enemy movement, keeping them out of range of your much slower hero [that can't run or dash], and the fact that players can't jump or attack diagonally, and most fights easily become disastrous. The adds CAN jump and attack diagonally. Want to level the playing field by throwing weapons? Get real! There are some that catch literally everything! And with movement being so slow, players are forced to get grabs off by moving up and down the area. If the positioning isn't great, that grab flat won't happen.
Narrative: 5 / 10If viewed as a period piece, it's excellent. We'll give the team credit for maintaining the spirit of the era. However, those stories were typically bad, and were just excuses for making fun action titles. There's no meat to go with these potatoes. We've got boiler plate villains with no character development, and the shockingly clueless cops getting in the way because reasons.
Replay Value: 7 / 10Making up for much of the frustration with this title is the support. For us, some of the mechanics were completely broken, like the DPS = health mechanic. We've watched videos of players regaining health by knocking heads, but we got nothing. As restrictive as it is, charging players health for using special moves was a bad choice. However, ongoing support and the release of DLC to expand on it were good choices. Other modes can be unlocked after beating it, which is a trial by fire. If you manage to do so, you'll have a lot of fun running through these. Verdict: 68 / 100Let's get down to brass tacks, people. We scored the game based on numerical ratings for individual components, and the numbers don't lie. When taking a more granular view, an HONEST reviewer MUST give Streets of Rage 4 about a D rating. It's not quite a turd, but it's darn close.
We're genuinely appalled by the raving over this game. We wasted $25 buying into the hype this time, which we almost never do, and don't want any of our currently unaffected readers to fall into the same trap. Integrity is vital to this industry, and when game reviewers can be bought like this, it only serves to the detriment of the entire community. We wanted to love it, but this just isn't a good game. The major failings were in the execution. Things like irregular knockback, inflexibility, invulnerable enemies, and memorizing all of the patterns and shoddy tactics really broke the immersion. Who wants to play on rails like that? Who wants to deal with that much frustration just to use a [nonsensical] combo that won't be of any use in the game? Who wants to mash buttons because the system won't accept inputs? Who wants to punch like a kid while getting cold clocked by even featherweight enemies? Who likes to constantly be interrupted by targets they're hitting? That's not fun. If you want a good modern Beat-Em-Up, try your hand at Young Souls. This one just isn't it, chief. We want to read your thoughts. Be sure to leave them in the comments below and share. Let's have a discussion. Thanks for reading! Peace! Coming as a surprise to few at this point, Microsoft wasn't able to beat Sony on overall startup costs for the coming console generation. Much to our chagrin, they opted for a proprietary upgrade option that will needlessly cost early adopters $219.99 at launch for their 1TB expansion. We expressed the exact problem with this in our last update, so we're not going to beat that dead horse. It's right under this post, so you can keep scrolling to have a look at our thoughts. Enjoy that read.
It may seem like we're just splitting hairs here because Sony could totally screw this up, but you've got to acknowledge the fact that the Series S is the weakest of the four consoles launching at year's end and will cost more than the estimated costs for the PS5 Digital with the same upgrade. It's been stated already that the only three differences between the PS5 and PS5 Digital are the optical drive, the price, and the overall size. That's it. Henry Casey gives a spec comparison over on Tom's Guide.
Got something to say? Leave it down below. For now, take a little extra time to go over your buying strategy this year. Apparently things are only just heating up. Keep an eye out for more, and thanks for reading.
See you next time!
Obviously we can't read Russian, so we relied on the magical powers of Google Translate to help us with this. Check out the block quote below for the contents of the message.
At the heart of Modern Warfare is a fully fictional story, carefully crafted to please all players. SIE decided not to sell the game in the Russian PS Store. We look forward to the release of the game in digital form for PC and Xbox on October 25th.
Preload #ModernWarfare now on all available platforms to be fully armed on Friday.
Due to the endless loop of Sony Russia blaming Activision and Activision blaming Sony Russia, there's an unfortunately large amount of conjecture from the onlookers about the exact reason why the game was pulled and banned from the Russian PS Store. We're going to reserve our judgment for now and keep an ear out for more news about this situation. Please join us in the comments below the cinematic trailer to continue the conversation.
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