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PlayStation 5 Pro with Disc Drive

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 11/03/2025
Posted in: Hardware, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

A History of Pricing

There was a lot of controversy surrounding the PS5 Pro, and rightfully so. Sony didn’t read the room, as people are struggling in a post-COVID economy and gaming has gotten more expensive over the last five years. Prices of hardware are going up over time and not down, which is a trend never before seen. The PS4 Pro was well received, as it improved games significantly, and many developers quickly adapted to the newer hardware, but it wasn’t a significant cost difference over the original hardware. In fact, it was the same price as the base model, and that dropped $100 to $300. This was part of the usual trend. This generation has gone the opposite direction. The base PS5 launched at $500 with the slim version being the same price as the base model, with no price drop for the base model. On top of that, the slim with the disc drive is an $80 add-on, increasing the cost of a slim by $30. You could still buy a slim disc version at $500, but this was all a weird choice. What would be the rationale for purchasing a digital slim for $450 and then adding a disc drive later?

With that out of the way, Sony dropped the PS5 Pro as a digital-only console for $700 and the disc drive add-on increased that by $80. For $780, plus a game, plus PS Plus, a new user could be looking at nearly a grand for a new PS5 experience. This is completely unheard of. Forget the fact that the PS5 Pro comes with a 2TB SSD. It’s a nice bonus, but you can upgrade the drive at any time by adding an SSD up to 4TB. Who needs this much storage? During launch, it wasn’t worth the upgrade. Only a couple of games received Pro patches at launch, and the PS4 Boost mode was nice if you played a lot of those. Outside of this, the Pro offered nothing for already established customers. If you traded in your PS5 it could offset the cost by a few hundred dollars, but that still didn’t make it worthwhile.

Fast forward almost a year later, and the PS5 Pro has seen quite a few updates and many new games supporting its more powerful hardware. Games will don the PS5 Pro Enhanced symbol so you know it will take advantage. Many do this in several ways that we will get to later, but even games not supported can see boosts. Games with unlocked frame rates will run more stable as well as have lowered load times. There’s also the use of PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution), which is Sony’s own AI upscaling tech similar to FSR from AMD and DLSS from Nvidia. The hardware is 47% faster in the GPU department with twice the ray-tracing power and the added tech for super sampling. The GPU is an entire generation newer than the base PS5, as it uses RDNA 3 technology instead of the PS5’s RDNA 2.

Getting to Know the Pro

The system looks similar to the Slim PS5. The side panels are now split down the middle and are no longer a singular sheet like on the base model. We get three new “fin lines,” or stripes, which gives the Pro a distinctive look over the other models. There is a vertical stand that is needed with the disc drive. These are two small plastic pegs that raise the console up to meet evenly with the bump. The panels pop off much easier than the base model. Just a swift pull, and they come off, with one side revealing the SSD slot and the other for the disc drive. The system also comes with a new vertical stand, but it is honestly not needed. Due to the lighter weight and slimmer design, the system stands upright really well without a huge risk of falling over. The PS5 Pro is a sleek-looking system, and the subtle changes are a nice touch.

I won’t be getting into the controller or anything like that, as it’s all the same. This isn’t Xbox, where the controller changes three times in one generation. I will say that there are two USB-C ports in the front now, losing a USB-A port with two A ports in the rear. The LED lights on the front extend from top to bottom now rather than just around the top’s hump like on the base model.

As for games, the difference is noticeable, and the cost can justify this. I tested several games out, and while other sites do a better job with visuals, graphics, and what not, from just a gamer’s perspective I can easily say that games that aren’t PS5 Pro run better when they have unlocked frame rates. Using Balanced modes with a 120 Hz TV is night and day over the 30FPS locked Quality that we normally get. That extra 10 frames can really make a difference. Games like Cyberpunk 2077 have an unlocked performance mode so you can easily hit 70-80 FPS, while the RT quality mode is now mostly locked at 40FPS rather than dipping below 30. Games that use PSSR like God of War Ragnarok and Assassin’s Creed Shadows, look a lot better, and this is a great FPS boost as well.

With that said, the PS5 Pro is subjective to the user. Some current users may find the boost in power worthwhile, like I did. You, of course, need a proper TV that can take advantage of the hardware. 120 Hz minimum is a must, or you’re throwing performance out the window. I also highly recommend an OLED TV with at least 1,000 nits and HGiG for good HDR. While HDR doesn’t really have a standard yet, the brighter your OLED can display, the better HDR will look. You must also properly set up your TV with Game Mode and turn off all processing. Look up guides on your TV model for a suitable baseline.

For $700 (and now $750 as of this writing due to US tariffs), the PS5 Pro is a worthy upgrade and a perfect entry point for new PlayStation users. If you really want your games to look the best, this is the way to go. That is if you already have a proper TV. If you don’t, your setup could become astronomically expensive, shooting well above $2,000 for a proper setup for the Pro. I personally have a 65″ Samsung S90D to go along with the Pro, and I am playing console games now more than I ever have. Do yourself a favor; look up some videos on graphics comparisons to see if it’s worth it to you. If anything, a higher frame rate is more than worth the upgrade for most.

Haze – 12 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/02/2020
Posted in: PlayStation 3, Retro Consoles. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Free Radical

Release Date: 05/20/2008


Available Exclusively On

It’s not a mystery that developers around the world struggled with the HD era of gaming. Development went from a few dozen to hundreds almost overnight, and with the advancement of shaders, more complicated lighting effects, higher resolution textures, larger worlds, and more dialogue, it was a huge undertaking that put many companies out of business, and Haze is a casualty of this struggle.

You play as a private security mercenary named Shane Carpenter who is tasked with eliminating a rebel group for some reason, and it’s never said why. You are a supercharged soldier hopped up on the stimulant known as Nectar, and as the title says, halfway through the game, you are an outcast and deemed Code Haze. The nectar is used to force the soldiers to see the world in the way that the company wants them to see it, and in turn, you help the rebels take down the Mantel organization. Surprisingly, the story is the only interesting thing going on in this game. It had a couple of really good moments, and only if the developers had more time to work on this, Haze could have been one of the best shooters of the HD era of gaming. But, like most games back then, the publishers were pushing for money and time, and thus the game fell through.

The shooting, sadly coming from some masters of FPS games, is awful. There is zero feedback in the gun, the controller, or hit detection, so every enemy just feels like a bullet sponge. The guns feel the same, and there’s just no satisfaction or character in them, such as in a game like Resistance, for example. Why there is no rumble function for firing weapons is unknown, but it sucks big time. Aiming and shooting became chores due to the poorly laid-out control scheme, which I completely had to change. It doesn’t help that there are very few weapons. A shotgun and an assault rifle were the only weapons I used throughout the entire game, outside of a few areas that called for a rocket launcher. There are supposed to be rebel weapons and Mantel weapons, but they are both exactly the same with just different ammo counts. They both feel exactly the same, which is ludicrous. There are a couple of interesting ideas, like being able to create nectar grenades to confuse soldiers and make them fight each other. Meleeing enemies and taking their weapons is also a good idea, but it’s all executed so poorly and feels half-baked.

The level design is also bland and uninspired. Boring jungles, boring gray buildings, and hallways—the game just looks half-built. Many buildings are void of any furniture or character. I mean, why are there so many buildings in this world without desks or paintings? Does everyone just live on the floor? Then let’s get into the vehicle sections. I don’t think these were ever playtested. The vehicles are floaty and too vulnerable, and scripted vehicle sections actually destroy the vehicle and force you on foot. Imagine any other game with a scripted vehicle sequence like Uncharted and having your vehicle blow up, and you just walk on foot through that section while the rest of the sequences trigger. It’s broken and awful and should have been cut completely.

Visuals, you say? Outside of the boring design, I guess the game looks decent for an early PS3 game. The game runs well at a good framerate, but it could have looked better. The multiplayer servers have long since shut down, but you’re not missing much at all. For the bargain bin price, I can only recommend this to those wishing to fill a PS3 void that they missed or are just curious. Haze is one of the most infamously awful games, and it left a stain on the video game timeline forever. It’s short-lived, but you’re better off playing one of the other many amazing shooters on PS3.

Lair – 13 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/29/2020
Posted in: PlayStation 3, Retro Consoles, Sony. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: SCEI

Developer: Factor 5

Release Date: 08/30/2007


Available Exclusively On

Fun. This is not a word you will be thinking of during your playthrough of Lair. There isn’t a single redeeming value to putting yourself through the torture of Lair unless it’s for novelty or pure curiosity, like myself. I avoided this game like the plague during and after launch. It was quickly thrust into bargain bins just months after launch, and no one gave it a second thought. The HD era of gaming was a rough start for most developers, and this game put Factor 5 out of business. So what happened?

Well, for Factor 5’s history, you can watch plenty of YouTube videos on that, but Lair seems to start out okay, but within 10 minutes you realize you’re going to be in for a rough ride. The game seems okay during the opening pre-rendered cinematic, as it looks quite impressive for the time. Once the cutscene ends, you are on the ground, and you immediately notice the first few issues before you even jump onto your dragon. The framerate. It’s absolutely abysmal and one of the main reasons why the game is nearly unplayable. It never runs above 30 FPS and quite often dips down into single digits. Whenever there’s an explosion or thousands of enemies rendered on-screen in the form of armies far below you, the game just cannot keep up. The game from this point already feels half-made and like it’s in the alpha stage.

The second thing you will notice is how incredibly ugly the game is, even for its time. The textures are horrendously blurry, pixelated, and stretched out; the models seem half-done; the animations are broken and skip and jump around to different points; not to mention the awful controls. The dragon itself controls halfway decently, but without the patch to add analog support, this game cannot use the precision of the SixAxis motion with this horrible framerate. Nothing feels finely tuned, and you’re always doing large, gross movements to overcompensate for the framerate. When you finally get the hang of the controls, you are to lock on to enemies and shoot them down with fireballs. Pressing the circle allows you to magically zoom up to them, or just magically appear next to them for a takedown-style button-pressing fighting mini-game for health or a QTE animated takedown. You can also bash them on their side by swinging the controller towards them. This entire combat setup seems good on paper, but it’s clearly unfinished.

Locking on doesn’t work half of the time, as the dragon will stay locked on and face the opposite way of the enemy, yet somehow still shoot fireballs at them and sometimes make it. Usually, when you let go of the lock-on button, that’s when all hell breaks loose. Nine times out of ten, you will slingshot across the map and disorient yourself; hitting objects will also slingshot you and will just push you straight into the ground. Every single mission is either an escort or takes out X enemies until something happens. The objectives are so vague, and it’s so difficult to know who the enemy is and what units to attack. There are no highlighted areas, arrows, or anything to help you out. I restarted missions multiple times because I didn’t realize I was attacking the wrong side or completely missing an enemy that I didn’t see. While swooping down and attacking thousands of enemies at once seems impressive, and it should be, it’s not fun at all in this game. The draw distance is abysmal, as animations run at 2 frames until you get right on top of them.

Oh, and the story? Forget it. Two warring factions for no apparent reason, and then you switch sides halfway through. No lore, no goal, just a couple of armies fighting because they can. The enemy design is boring, the dragons are boring, and outside of fighting the controls and framerate, the game is just dull and uninteresting. Even if this game worked, the underlying gameplay loop just isn’t fun. Sure, the maps look huge and there are tons of enemies on screen, but it’s a jumbled mess of confusion and throws the balancing way off.

Overall, Lair is just an awful game and shouldn’t be experienced by anyone. Unless you want to play an infamously bad PS3 game, just stay away. Thankfully, the game is short-lived, but you couldn’t get gold ratings in missions even if you wanted, as the framerate and awful controls prevented you from doing it. There is also no trophy support patched in, which is a real bummer.

Handhelds: What Nintendo Did Right that Sony Didn’t

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/11/2020
Posted in: Blogs. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

Everyone knows what the Game Boy is. I had one as a kid, and while late in its life cycle, I received one for my 7th birthday in 1996. I was introduced to Tetris and Galaga and was hooked. I sadly couldn’t play it much because my parents couldn’t afford the batteries for it often, and rechargeable AA batteries were very expensive back then. It was one of the first generations of handhelds, along with the Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear. I never owned those two systems, but it was the start of something I will always love and cherish: handhelds.

In 2003, I remember Sony announcing the PSP at a press event and going insane for it. I actually pre-ordered the system and put all of my allowance down on it for 6 months. I even did some extra stuff for my parents for more cash so I could pick up a Ridge Racer with it. I owned a DS at the time, but I wasn’t too impressed with it. The PSP looked futuristic, and there is still yet to be a handheld that looks as sleek as it. It had powerful hardware, a sleek screen, and multimedia features that no other handheld had at the time. This was also the pre-smartphone era, so it was out of this world at the time. I loved my PSP and still play it to this day. I owned nearly every model available and modded the crap out of them. When the Vita was announced in 2011, I nearly lost it then too, but that’s when Sony started to lose me, and I still feel disappointed with the Vita to this day.

They got the hardware down pat outside of the useless touch features, dual analog sticks, and more power. I couldn’t be happier, but something else happened. The marketing was poorly done, and the Vita only saw a great run for maybe three years. Around 2015, the system started dying and lost all first-party support. The system turned into an “indie machine,” and outside of larger Japanese releases and ports, the system stopped seeing most regular releases in 2017. What happened? The first two years were strong and steady, and it just died. Was it the ever-growing market for smartphones? I personally don’t think that is what caused the demise of the Vita. The 3DS was still running strong at the time, with huge blockbuster releases and strong sales. What I think happened was the loss of first-party support.

We saw a couple of first-party titles on the system, like Uncharted, Killzone, LittleBigPlanet, and Tearaway, but where were the rest? Where were the unique IPs that kept Sony systems rolling? I feel if they had kept going, the Vita would still be strong to this day. While the slow death of the 3DS is clearly obvious and has nothing but an official discontinuation announcement from Nintendo, the Switch is our last bastion of handheld greatness. The Switch Lite is exactly what this world needs. Sure, the regular Switch is portable, but it’s heavy, sometimes too big, and just doesn’t feel like the best portable system.

Now hear me out. Let’s think about what a handheld system consists of. A small unit packed with the best features of consoles. Great controls, some multimedia features, internet access, and, best of all, fantastic games made that system unique and stand out. The Switch has all of this. The Switch has some of the best video games ever created, both first-party and third-party. Think about that. The Switch could literally be the best handheld system ever created, and it’s because Nintendo wasn’t afraid to do what Sony kept boasting about.

Sony touted the PSP and Vita as portable consoles but never actually treated them as such. Constantly pushing and implying that portable games should be in bite-sized chunks—much shorter, simpler games—when most gamers would spend hours on their systems. Not everyone only has 30 minutes on a bus or short car ride; some of us just like sitting on the couch or laying in bed comfortable, away from the TV and family, and playing our handhelds for hours. I did this with my GameBoy Advance SP, PSP, Vita, and so on. Some of my fondest gaming memories are on handhelds. So why was Sony so afraid to commit outside of paper?

Nintendo went all out and gave us both. A console and a handheld, and at the time of release, it seemed like a silly concept. If I wanted a console, I’d buy one, and if I wanted a handheld, I’d buy that, but why not have a choice? More people who own Switches now play more in handheld format than TV mode. It’s simple and convenient, and you can pull the system out whenever you have some spare time. Nintendo also treats all games like console games; we have a sleep mode on these systems for a reason. Even the PSP 15 years ago had a sleep mode, so the bite-sized gaming never made sense to me. I feel this was Sony’s biggest mistake going in. If you have this powerful new hardware with features no other handheld had at the time, like a sleep mode, insist that games are made like consoles. We got some games that seemed similar to a console version, but that didn’t exactly exist on the PSP. Most of those games were all bite-sized, smaller versions of their console counterparts. It changed a little on the Vita thanks to indie developers, but it never fully took off. I feel Sony focused too much on hardware (did we really need a 3G Vita?) and not enough on the longevity of the system.

The Switch Lite feels like a true handheld system that isn’t ashamed of being a console. It’s truly the next generation of handheld gaming, and it hasn’t been crushed by the smartphone industry. So that theory is clearly not the reason the 3DS and Vita are dead. We can get handheld experiences on our cell phones in bite-sized chunks; we now truly want our home consoles on the go more than ever. The Switch Lite isn’t as clunky as the original model, but it feels bigger than a handheld and isn’t ashamed of it. The system feels light, sleek, has fantastic buttons, and feels like a true next-generation handheld. We get full-blown console experiences on this thing. While it’s taken a step back on online features such as no media streaming or internet browsing, we get a total focus on games. Another thing Nintendo did right was not using proprietary expansion cards like Sony did. This was a huge blow to Sony, especially on the Vita. Many people refused to buy their systems because of this reason, and it didn’t stave off pirating at all.

To conclude, the Switch is the true next generation of portable gaming, not the Vita. Sony bragged about having a portable console but never once treated it as such. Nintendo took a huge risk and received an insane amount of criticism when they announced the Switch, like they do with every system they put out. In the end, it’s paid off and has proven that handheld systems are not dead and the smartphone industry hasn’t killed it. It’s the strongest it’s been since the heydays of the original DS, which sold out everywhere, and nearly every gamer these days owns one. It’s surpassed the lifetime sales of the Xbox One, even though this is clearly what people want. So, if Sony does decide to jump back into the market, they need to make a console hybrid, and I feel they could knock it out of the park and even do a better job than Nintendo. Their systems are insanely unique and feature-rich, but they need to back them up like a console and go all in.

Bujingai: The Forsaken City – 16 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/22/2020
Posted in: PlayStation 2, Retro Consoles, Sony. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Taito Corporation

Developer: Taito Corporation

Release Date: 07/25/2004


Available Exclusively On

Third-person action games were big on PS2, thanks to games like Devil May Cry. They were some of the largest games you could find on the system, and Bujingai followed that trend. The story is nonsensical and has almost no point. You’re following a former master around who has been possessed by a demon and has taken your girlfriend or something lame like that. Having almost no story isn’t a great way to start a game either.

One of the big draws with this game was the fact that the Japanese rockstar Gackt was involved, and I mean about as involved as showing up and grunting. Advertising someone as big as Gackt was at the time and only having him grunt and shout is a complete waste of talent. He has zero lines of dialogue and probably finished his whole recording session in a few hours. There isn’t even any music by Gackt in here, which is lame. With that said, the game is all about hacking and slashing, and there’s plenty of that.

The game consists of a quick and heavy attack as well as dodging and a defense meter that auto-blocks attacks until the meter is run down. 90% of the regular enemies are brain dead and are a cakewalk to slice through. As enemies die, you acquire orbs, which are used to upgrade various stats. You also have spells that are hidden throughout the levels and can be passive or active. I rarely use these, and most are not that powerful, but the passive attack increase spell wound up being the most useful. Lau, the main character, has some really nice animations, and the game is very flashy, but there are so many flaws that make this game a frustrating nightmare to play.

Something as simple as platforming is bogged down by an awful camera and finicky jumping mechanics. The character jumps in the direction the camera is facing, and the direction can’t be altered mid-air. This led to dozens of minutes just trying to get across a few platforms. You can wall run, glide, and wall jump, but they add to the chore and headache of platforming in this game. The combat solely relies on the lock-on mode, as the camera can’t keep up with the action. This proves extremely annoying during boss fights, and the final nail in the coffin is the uninterruptible animations that cause endless deaths and pointless damage. Lau will spin and slice, but one button press is a series of animations that must be played out before you can even dodge. Even if you time your attacks in between the enemies’ most of the time, you will still take damage because you can’t stop the attack. This also goes for the fall-down animations that take forever, and recovery is just as slow.

The level design is also very bland, with generic Japanese folklore-inspired enemies and repeated bosses. There’s not a soul in this game, as it just feels like a cookie-cutter Japanese game that tried to get sales with Gackt’s name. I honestly didn’t feel like there was any benefit to playing this game the entire time I played, and I couldn’t even finish the game due to how incredibly difficult it ended up being to just fight the animations and camera. I got to the second-to-last boss and had to just give up after 2 hours of trying. It also doesn’t help that orbs aren’t given out often enough to allow you to upgrade fully before reaching the final 8th stage. I like how if you die, you just restart the area you’re in instead of the entire level, but it means nothing if you can’t progress.

As it stands, Bujingai is a forgettable game with almost no point in existing. If you’re itching for a hardcore hack and slash that requires precise timing, then this might be for you, but there isn’t even a decent story to complete, and even Gackt fans have nothing to really gain here.

Syphon Filter 3 – 19 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/22/2020
Posted in: PlayStation (PS1), Retro Consoles, Sony. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: SCEA

Developer: Sony Bend

Release Date: 11/06/2001


Available Exclusively On

Gabe and Lian are now federally wanted fugitives and are marked as terrorists after trying to foil the agencies’ plans to acquire the Syphon Filter biological weapon. The game picks up right after the end of Syphon Filter 2. Both agents are testifying to Vince Hadden, the main villain of the previous game, and the entire game is made up of flashback missions filling in gaps for the entire series.

While this is a fine idea, Syphon Filter 3 suffers from a huge flaw, and that’s level design. The clever level design from the last 2 games is out the window here and seriously brings this entire game down. While I liked knowing what happened before the first game during the beginning cut scene with Rhomer and Mara in the jungle and seeing how Gabe, Lian, Mujari, and Teresa all met, the levels don’t do it justice. The issue here is both lazy-level design and over-ambitious design mixed with hardware limitations. This game came out too late and should have been made for the PS2. Levels in this game are large and open and suffer from the black distance and low draw distance from the PS1’s hardware limitations. The level design is incredibly confusing and hard to navigate. One mission as Lian in the Ancient Ruins is just a labyrinth of hallways, and instead of a smooth push through each level, there’s tons of backtracking and running around blindly.

Another issue the game suffers from is too much action. There aren’t really any required stealth missions anymore, and too many enemies are thrown at you at once, as well as a mix of low-ammo resources. I frequently ran out of ammo and had to exploit the game by resorting to headshots when I didn’t have to. The increased enemy count just doesn’t work with the game’s auto-lock-on system. Many times I died because I couldn’t switch between enemies fast enough. Another mission as Gabe has him running around a boat to plant explosives, which is incredibly boring, and one level is so short it only has four enemies in it. I feel like 18 months wasn’t enough time to develop this game and create the fun, clever levels and enemy placements that made the series so popular.

There are no new gameplay elements added this time around, just new weapons. The MARS, Spyder, and AUG3000 (that can see through walls)—and that’s about it. Even these weapons are hard to come by, and you’re left with the same weapons used in the previous two games. I also didn’t care for the multiplayer this time around, and the added mini-games, which are just trial runs, aren’t that fun either. The only really enjoyable part of the game was the final mission, as it felt like a classic Syphon Filter level and the satisfying conclusion to the story for this chapter.

There are no visual improvements outside of better-pre-rendered cut-scenes, and virtually no new gameplay additions or enhancements. Overall, I feel Syphon Filter 3 was a product of rushed development and trying to get it out the door for the PS1 players who hadn’t adopted the PS2 just yet. Is it worth playing? Yes, if you’re a hardcore fan, but just take the game with a grain of salt and be prepared for aimless wandering around levels and many frustrated restarts due to poor enemy placement and a lack of ammo.

Syphon Filter 2 – 20 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/15/2020
Posted in: PlayStation (PS1), Retro Consoles, Sony. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: SCEA

Developer: Eidetic

Release Date: 03/14/2000


Available Exclusively On

Syphon Filter is one of my favorite gaming franchises of all time and one of the top five PS1 series. It was the very first serious “adult” game I ever played and got into. Just the concept of how shooters work was totally alien to me before Syphon Filter. It was a game that I also spent a lot of time with my late father, and we aced each game, learning every enemy spawn point, hidden cache, and level design. We rented this game frequently and spent dozens of hours mastering each game. We probably spent more time on Syphon Filter 2 than any other game in the series, and for good measure, it’s the best game out of the three.

Syphon Filter 2 isn’t just an expansion, despite playing and looking exactly like the first game, as there is a greater and more expanded story, more weapons, new levels, and it’s also a couple of hours longer than the first game coming on two discs. You play as both Gabriel Logan and Lian Xing, as you are fugitives of the US government and are still fighting the agency, so get back the data discs that store the Syphon Filter data. The game picks up right where the last one left off when Gabe crashes into the Colorado Rockies. In the first level, the game introduces new weapons and gameplay elements, such as being able to leap gaps. New weapons include the unsilenced 9mm, H-11 sub-machine gun, silenced HK-5, UA12 auto-shotgun, hand taser, flashlight, teargas launcher, and more. These weapons are just as memorable and awesome as the first games. There are so many new weapons here that it nearly doubles the arsenal.

On top of this, there are other gameplay elements added, such as enemies being able to get a headshot on you. The HUD will flash red, and a headshot text will appear on the screen. You have mere seconds to get out of the way, or you will instantly die. New enemies are introduced, such as full-armored ones that only die with explosions in one level towards the end of the game. There is also a better balance of action and stealth with Lian’s levels in the air force base, which are perfect examples. Agents can be killed, but military MPs cannot. You must sneak around and tase the MPs with your hand taser, but the agents are fair game with silenced weapons. Another level has you sneaking around vents, and night vision automatically kicks in when the area is too dark, which is awesome.

The level design is on point, just like in the first game. Each level is memorable and fun and takes you around the globe. From the Colorado Rockies, the first disc mostly takes place in Moscow nightclubs, Agency bio-labs, and New York sewers. The levels are incredibly well designed, with the perfect balance of stealth and action. The train ride is a fun linear shooting gallery, while the bridge level requires quick thinking, stealth, and mastering enemy movement patterns. You can tell Eidetic has mastered this genre with the second game, and even the voice acting has greatly improved. This is an AAA PS1 game at its finest, and you will be hard-pressed to find anything better on the system.

The visuals didn’t really improve any, but they already pushed the system to its limits and still have plenty of detail, and the game looks great. There is some issue with slowdown here and there, but what PS1 game didn’t have that? There’s also a shoehorned multiplayer mode that I didn’t even care for. 1v1 on maps from both Syphon Filter games just isn’t very fun. If the game allowed 2v2 via a multi-tap, that would have been awesome, but what we have here is something just not very fun, and not to mention half the maps need to be unlocked by finding secrets in the game.

Overall, Syphon Filter 2 shows what the PS1 era of games would do and helps push the third-person shooter genre into what it is today. While it came out very late at the end of the system’s life cycle, a mere week before the launch of the PS2, it still sold incredibly well and showed that the PS1 had staying power even after its successor launched. The story, voice acting, visuals, and overall feeling of the game are fantastic, and there’s nothing else like it on the system. It’s a must-own for any PlayStation fan.

2019 Game of the Year Awards — Console Awards — Best PlayStation Exclusive

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/16/2019
Posted in: 2019, Game of the Year Awards. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

With this being the PS4’s penultimate year as a steady game console we still saw some amazing exclusives that its rival, the Xbox One, still has yet to deliver. The PS4’s ecosystem is now chock-full of fantastic AAA first-party titles that make the PS4 the must-have system.

Death Stranding

Death Stranding is a mixed bag at best. You have an ambitious and overly hyped game for the last 4 years and then it’s released as an over-glorified walking simulator with extra steps. The game is praised and hated by many, but you can’t deny the ambition Kojima had. With a AAA cast of characters, phenomenal visuals, and some pretty whacky ideas, Death Stranding makes the PS4 stand out more than any other time.

Runner-Ups

Days Gone

Catherine: Full Body

Medievil

MLB: The Show 19

Shadow of the Colossus

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/05/2019
Posted in: PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Retro Consoles, Sony, Sony Consoles. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: SIE

Developer: Bluepoint Games

Release Date: 02/06/2018


Available On

The PlayStation is well known for its artsy games and games that push the boundaries of the medium. Team Ico already did this with Ico for the PlayStation 2, and then again with Shadow of the Colossus. Pushing the PS2 beyond its limits, they were able to create a huge world with massive colossi that must be wrangled and toppled in hopes of saving a nameless girl from an endless sleep. You play as a boy only known as Wander, and with your trusty sword, bow, and horse Agro, you follow the light from your sword to each colossus to figure out how to take them down.

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Each colossus is a puzzle unto itself that requires using the environment, wits, skill, and thinking. One colossus may require agitating it and having it expose a weak point at which you use your bow to make a graspable part low enough to reach. You then climb the colossus, with some being climbing puzzles, and stab each weak point while they buck and try to toss you off. You can hang on by holding R2 and using X to jump. It’s not as easy as it sounds, as letting go of R2 can drop you to your death or make you start a climbing puzzle all over again. The controls have slightly improved with the remaster, but the animations are irritating and sluggish, and towards the end of the game, the frustration really starts to set in.

While the game doesn’t run at 10FPS like in the PS2 version, trying to do more advanced combat and relying on quick controls is not possible, and it gets really frustrating at around Colossus 12 or 13. One colossus is a small bull that must be chased off a cliff to knock off its armor, and then jumping on it just right from that cliff to land on its back is no easy feat. The issue here is that Wander just doesn’t have the agility to dodge attacks, as no matter how much I rolled or jumped, the bull always hit me. I missed the cliff jump the first time, and I died before making it back up to try again. Wander’s get-up animations are incredibly slow, with around 7 seconds passing before he gets up. Some colossi can hit you again and kill you quickly if you don’t know what to do. Outside of combat, the animations to jump around and grab on are wonky, as long climbing puzzles towards the end have to restart if you so much as get a jump at the wrong angle. You can adjust Wander mid-jump so he will go in that direction until he hits the ground.

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Outside of taking down these massive colossi, there’s literally nothing else to do. This large open world is completely void of life outside of some birds, and it’s my biggest gripe about this game. As beautiful as it is, I wanted more, as the story in itself is pretty bare-bones and vague in terms of what’s going on, even towards the end. I feel like this world could have been fully lived in with lore and people, whether they’re alive or dead. It takes around 10 minutes to get to each colossus, and that time is spent controlling Agro, who has sluggish animations and terrible controls, and staring at a barren wasteland. I understand it’s cursed, but it could have been more.

The visual upgrade is probably the most noticeable, as it looks amazing with flowing grass, Nvidia HairWorks on the colossi, HDR lighting, and high-resolution models and textures. On my 65″ LG OLED TV, it just pops up using the PS4 Pro. That’s also another thing; the game has framerate issues and doesn’t look as good on the original PS4, so the Pro is the way to go here.

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Overall, Shadow of the Colossus is well worth a purchase for newcomers and anyone who played the previous two versions. The visual upgrade alone and higher framerate are well worth it, and I feel this is the version that the developers originally envisioned but just couldn’t pull off with the technology at the time. Shadow of the Colossus is a piece of gaming history. Pushing gaming conventions to their limits as well as an underpowered piece of hardware and a vision that was bigger than life, Shadow of the Colossus is a must-play for any PlayStation fan.

Reviewed On

Detroit: Become Human

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/05/2019
Posted in: PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: SIE

Developer: Quantic Dream

Release Date: 05/18/2018


Available On

David Cage has been well known for fascinating stories that talk about the boundaries of the human mind and what humanity is capable of. Our destructive nature and so much emotion go into making us what we are. Detroit is easily his best work, with fantastic characters, tense scenes, and gripping dialog with moral choices that will test any gamer and really make them think and regret.

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Detroit is a game about the fight between androids and humans. There’s always been a theory that eventually AI will surpass us and get the upper hand. Isaac Asimov wrote about it a lot and created stories in which he blurred the boundary between human emotion and algorithms. Detroit does an amazing job doing this with a well-crafted story and really questioning the absolute core of humanity and addressing problems that we are facing in the real world today with racism, classism, and prejudice. You play as three separate androids, and each has its own goal and path. Markus starts as an android serving an older, famous artist and lives in an upper-class society. Kara, who is a maid for an abusive drug-addicted father in the slums of Detroit, and Conner, who is a brand new prototype android that is used in investigations for the Detroit Police Department,.

Like all of David Cage’s games, each level is a scene in which you play a different character; the scenes rotate, and as you make your choices, you unlock new paths that involve hatred or love for your character or cause. The player walks their character around and can interact with some of the environment by manipulating objects via button commands (like all of David Cage’s games), and each scene is played out with quick-time events, and missing them can actually impact the storyline as well. It’s a very sensitive timeline, with different outcomes for each character. I honestly can’t get too in-depth with how my timeline went, but let’s just say none of my characters survived, and part of this is because the timeline/path system isn’t explained well enough.

As you make choices and either succeed or fail in quick-time events, characters around you will hate you or love you, and there are a few levels of this. If a character hates you too much and you try to really fix it towards the end and it feels like you’re succeeding, once you unlock that path, you can’t really change it. There is an arrow at the top-right screen that will point up or down when a choice is made, and small arrows are little movements and large arrows will sway in bigger increments, but we never know how far that is, as eventually, you will get a status update of how that character feels instead of a meter. It would be nice to know so if we go too far down a path, we can just keep going down that way instead of trying to change things and ultimately get an ending we don’t like or weren’t working towards. The story does feel very organic despite all of this, and I think it’s because of how many micro-choices you can make. However, no matter what choices you make, once down a certain path, you can’t fix it.

Outside of this core path system, there is more story than gameplay. The entire game is made up of quick-time events and nothing else. This is really a game where you enjoy the story more than the gameplay, but it works well here and has for all of David Cage’s games. I actually sat through the entire game and didn’t stop because of how interesting the story and characters were. There is a constant sense of urgency, fear, dread, and sadness; I even teared up towards the end of the game! You never quite know what your exact outcome will be, as I made some choices on the fly, and I realized if I had chosen another option, things would have turned out fairly badly. It really tests you as a person and how you think and feel, especially given how political the game gets.

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Visually, the game is second to none. Outside of God of War, there is no other game in this generation that looks this good. The facial animations are incredibly realistic, with beautiful skin textures and minute details and twitches in faces that I have never seen in a game before. It just looks so amazing and is sadly overlooked. The voice acting is phenomenal thanks to the B-grade actors that were used here, and they’re actors that you say, “Hey! I know that guy from this movie!” but I don’t actually know the actor’s name.

In the end, Detroit: Become Human is one of the best games, storywise, I have played in the last 10 years. While it severely lacks in the gameplay department, it thrives in story, character, and fantastic visuals. I highly recommend this for all gamer types, as stories are the fundamentals of video games and are what make video games such a unique medium.

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