All of that said. I do highly recommend the Vaatividya series in YT about ER lore. The story really is quite fascinating and his production value is off the charts.

Finally, I killed Puff the Magic Dragon!! Yeah as much as I hated it at times it one of the greatest of all time. It’s just so massive with so much to explore. So many open world games are just a map full of objectives to tick off. Elden Ring is just so much to discover and I love that they just leave it up to you. As hard and frustrating as it was there was never a moment I felt I couldn’t do it. It was always that just so close one more try feeling. It has some issues but still a masterpiece.

Playing Dark Souls remastered right now after Demon Souls remastered was my first souls game. While not quite as polished as Demons souls, Dark souls is pretty fun as well. I have Bloodborne I need to get into next. Although my most desired game is the new GOWR which now for sure drops this November!

I don't know if any of you have played Hell Let Loose yet, but if you like WWII shooters, this thing is the real deal. Online only, played in squads with commanders that tell people where to go and what to cover. One shot kills you, just like IRL. It's my first experience with headphones/microphones, in-depth online play, and a game where your health doesn't automatically regenerate...and it's the most realistic shooter I've played. Scared the shit out of me hiding behind walls and hedgerows thinking I'd get shot. It's THAT immersive. Takes a ton of practice and getting used to, though...

Yeah Hell Let Loose is super intense. That's a game I grab a dining room chair for and get as close to the TV I can. Just so I can read the map and see what needs to happen next. The level of detail is amazing. Very Strategic and communication is a necessity.

For those of you with a Steam Deck, PS5 Local Remote play is awesome on it. I can't even tell I am not playing the game natively. Played a few hours of Elden Ring last night with no issues.

Anyone else playing The Quarry? If you liked Until Dawn and The Dark Pictures anthology, you should check out.

Same exact situation lol. Played through demon souls 2x in a row. Dark souls now. Bloodborne downloaded but haven't played it. I lean Xbox but my oldest kid's broke and he stole my series x lol. PS5 and/or Xbox Series X and I'm happy.

Need to play the recent horizon enjoyed the first one.

Almost grabbed it today. Enjoyed until dawn and I'm a horror guy so it fits!

Forbidden West is great! Funny thing is I was off all weekend and just cracked open Fractured But Whole that I bought for $10 a few years ago. It's actually really fun if you like the show. It's presented just like your playing an episode of the show. A little pallet cleansing between souls is good

100% agreed something between games like souls is great. That title I never played buy always heard good things.

Will I ever be able to purchase a PS5????? The boys have made it impossible!

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seen them in best buy today, I know I'm nowhere close to you, but they had plenty. The employee told me all the stores in the area got a bunch.

Waste of money and crap. Can’t believe I bought this rubbish PS5. The over hype is insane!

Of course I jest, hope you acquire one soon buddy
BF2042 s3 is awesome now

I have seen them on the shelves several times the last few weeks at Walmart and Target around here. Hope you can get one. Still love mine.

On a side note, don't sleep on Nioh 2, especially if you have PS+ as it is free this month. Outstanding game.

I've received several offers from Amazon and Sony direct. Have you put yourself on any interest lists?

Also, you can set up deal alerts on Slickdeals for "PS5" and people will post as soon as it's available anywhere.

A few buddies and I have been playing The Quarry. We are really liking it. A choose your own adventure horror movie. Set out a few beers and link up. Makes for a fun movie/game night.

My wife even wants to start a game together after seeing it and she has never shown any interest in video games.

Highly recommend

What's the verdict on Ragnarok? Got it. Haven't opened it yet.

Loving it so far. Very much a continuation of the story but much more grand. You play with different sidekicks not just Atreus. The equipment upgrade system is expanded as well as the skill tree.

I really need to give my PS5 a fair shot this winter. It was played for about 2 hours Christmas morning and sat all year. Lame.

I have put several hours into it. It's hard for me to get into after Elden Ring. I want so badly to be able to jump... I hope jumping in Elden Ring hasn't ruined my ability to go back and play souls games without it. Nioh 2 just especially ends up feeling like the lack of jumping is artificially making navigating levels harder. I'm running across a roof and a simple log or sandbag it's an impassable barrier? I look over edge and there's an enemy I want to drop down on to attack... Oh, just a step too far away I guess.

Love it. Already played over 23 hrs and I think I’m less than halfway through so it’s definitely meaty. Keep going off in different directions for these side quests, but they add to the story so I don’t mind. Plus they are puzzle heavy which I like.

Ended up preordering the psvr2 from Sony direct the other day so I need to sell the old psvr since I won’t need it soon. Hopefully I can find a buyer for it before my wife finds out what I did.

Yeah, I had a bit of a buffer playing DS3, Sekiro and Bloodborne after Elden Ring, so I got it out of my system Honestly tho, Nioh 2 is as good as any of those IMO.

That said, Team Ninja's next game Wo Long Fallen Dynasty comes out in March and is basically Chinese Nioh with jumping

Intentionally waiting until after Thanksgiving, since I imagine its going to be a pretty big time suck once I get into it. Hearing nothing but good things though, looking forward to it.

If you liked the last one you’ll love Ragnarok. I’m only 5 hours or so in and I’m really enjoying it.

Ragnorok is fantastic. Great acting and story telling. Gorgeous environments, and super fun combat. It's a little "platform" heavy, but still a great game. I'm probably about 15 hrs in. The "world" hasn't opened up yet, and it feels linear, but I feel like that's in order to drive the narrative.

This is coming from Cyberpunk 2077 and Elden Ring before that, both very open worlds that I sunk way too much time in. Red Dead 2 is next on the log. It will be my first time digging in, and needless to say, I'm looking forward to it.

Red Dead 2 is a masterpiece. Avoid spoilers and enjoy the (horsey) ride!

I have been trying to get into RD2. I like it, but the pacing is so slow early on. Hasn't sunk its teeth into me yet. Nioh 2 kind of hijacked that one for me for the time being.

I beat rdr2, but it was kind of a poor game with a good story. It intentionally makes you waste a bunch of time traveling, the combat is all scripted and very 15 years ago, etc. It could have been a great game but I think it’s only ok. I used to set my horse on autopilot for 15 minutes to go to new places, it was so annoying. Compared to god of war, cyberpunk, Witcher, etc I think it pales in comparison other than the fact that the world is amazing. The game itself is meh.

I bought Red Dead redemption for my PS3 last year. The beginning was so slow,and filled with a lot of boring stuff to do. I quit playing,and I still wonder if I should give it another try ?

First one is great. Second one is overrated. I think I spent half my time in the second one just walking or riding to somewhere because the fast travel system is not really useful most of the time. Basically, rdr2 does not value your time and wastes it whenever possible to artificially extend the game length. It’s a 30 hour game made to be 60 artificially.

I bought my dad a copy of the first game for the 360 and honestly, the little bit I played of it I enjoyed a lot more than RD2 so far. I am going to borrow it when he is done with it I think.

Finished the main game for Nioh 2 last night. What a great game. It is really more of an action game than souls game. Feels way more like Ninja Gaiden games which makes sense since it is the same dev. Bought the DLC since it is on sale.

Def worth checking out if you have PS+

I've decided that the God of War games just aren't for me, no matter how beautiful and fun they are to play. I have trouble even on the early bosses at normal difficulty (and I finish all the AC games on normal with no problem). But that's on me. What I can't stomach is being forced to sit thru endless cut scenes without any way to stop past them. I can hear what remains of my life ticking away and wind up shutting it off to do something else.

Thats an interesting critique. I finally downloaded Ragnorok this weekend and have been loving it. Honestly, I was just sitting here trying to remember what cut scenes would have been annoying. To me they have been interesting and integral to the story, but I'm only a few hours in at this point. I get it though, if its just not your thing. I've had similar moments in other games I've otherwise enjoyed. The endless horse riding in RDR2 that others have mentioned or the conversation "trees" in HZDFW that seem to go on for days.

It's for safety, that extra 6 inches you'd drop from on the sandbag would have made the landing fatal

Thanks to the both of you ,I'll give it a shot . I just started PS3 The last of Us. I've been meaning to play this game for awhile. I also just picked up " PS3 "Alice madness returns"
I'm not a real fan of Platform games,but I kinda like the theme.

The other issue with skipping cut scenes is that a number of them have quick-time events or transition in and out of battle.

The game definitely starts off strong and ties in a lot to the first one, where the “quick catch-up” video doesn’t really do justice to help those who haven’t played it, but was a nice recap for reminding me about some of the major things that happened.

It's sort of a divisive game because it so methodical(rdr2). I started and stopped three times but then for some reason I REALLY got hooked by it. I think partly because it is so different from most games where you end up fast traveling everywhere. I played it on my projector and it was the most immersive game I have ever played. I also loved the theme and enjoyed playing as Arthur.

I can't blame anyone for not liking it though, every complaint is valid but for me they became pluses. If forced to choose I'd probably say this was my favorite single player game of all time (I think rocket league would have to take the top spot overall). As slow as it was I didn't want the game to end and that's very rare for me.

I beat the game, but I was literally falling asleep playing it due to the long boring rides to places, lol. I've only had that issue (falling asleep) with two games, RDR2 and GTA5. I beat both of them, but both of them require you to do excessive traveling for 'the experience' which means 'we need to lengthen the game, so enjoy your commute to your next mission". It's literally like going to work in both games, before you can do your job, you have to commute through traffic (or the hillsides) for 15 to 20 minutes. They are the only two games I can remember where the developer went out of their way to do that. It also doesn't help that it has 360/ps3 era combat, meaning that everything is scripted and doing things out of order causes mission fails. Some of that was really annoying, I remember one time shooting the target before the game wanted me and 'mission fail', lol. It's really weird that a game that prides itself on having the most real environment where anything can happen has missions where there's only one way to solve them and any deviation is an automatic fail.

If you like exploring I could see how people would think it's the greatest game ever. And the story is great. But there was literally no reason to make me ride my horse for that long constantly...like give me a better fast travel option, and those than don't want to use it (like you) can still ride.

I still favor games like God of War, Witcher 3, Horizon Zero Dawn, etc over the Rockstar games most of the time. Same level story telling but without all the unnecessary time wasting filler (and not scripted combat).

I can understand the complaints about travelling in RDR2 if your sole goal is just to reach the end of the game, but if you're going for 100% completion, you can pick up a lot of the required elements along the way travelling to the next scene, but you need to know where you are stopping on the way.
I'm on my 3rd run through of it so far. The combat is a little one-dimensional, but that's because it's more story/exploration based - you can't usually have both.

I just haven't been able to get in to GoW yet, and have been focussing on HzFW - although the dialogue trees are exceptionally boring and pointless.

RDR2 was unplayable for me I just couldn’t get over the movement speed. The horse was bad but the walking speed was just crazy bad. I tried it recently when it went free on Extra. Maybe it wasn’t so bad when it first came out but comparing it to other recent 3rd person titles he is geriatric using a walker. I was spending ten times longer picking up loot than having any fun.

I started Elden Ring today. An hour in and I'm not so sure about it. The combat seems very clunky. No matter how I dodge I'm getting hit, even when it looks like the enemy is nowhere close to me. Equipping and changing weapons/shields isn't very intuitive either. I've battled enemies for 30 seconds or so without noticing that both my hands are empty. Or I'll die while trying to figure out the combination of buttons to go from one-handed to two-handed weapon attacks. The learning curve seems massive. Not sure I want to keep at it. If anybody wants a copy just opened today (PS5), $40 shipped and I'd probably take it and never look back.

FWIW, I only play about two new games a year and I tend to keep playing them for months, getting 100% completion on the ones that have that option. Since the PS4 came out, I think the only games I've played and finished are the two Horizon games, RDR2, The Last Of Us, Days Gone, Ghost Of Tsushima, and God Of War. I tried Farcry Primal, but hated it when I found out it was first person perspective. Started Witcher 3, but quit after the tutorial. I plan to go back to that eventually, I just wasn't ready to learn a new game when I tried it before.

Just sold all our old gaming devices and wound up with enough to get PS5, extra controller and 3 games without opening my wallet and boy was that nice .Kept all the old games and the kids sold them in bundles and I was so happy told them to keep that for themselves :)Love the GoW series as that was my pick .Youngest went with the new NBA game .My older boy picked Detroit:Become Human and that one has surprised me .I didn’t think I would like it but it’s really cool .My favorite games were the Departed series , GoW series and Tomb Raider.What PS5 games would I like comparable to these ? Any help would be greatly appreciated as I need to make my Christmas list that doesn’t include socks and undies

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Have you played any of the previous soulsborne games? If not, they definitely take quite a lot of getting used to. My first was Dark Souls on the xbox 360, and I unknowingly played for a couple hours with a broken sword equipped, basically swinging an empty hilt at the enemies. It would take 20 hits to kill the skeletons that are the first enemies in the game! I kept thinking, well, I heard this was a hard game, they weren't kidding! The games don't really try to help you at all with figuring out how to equip and swap weapons/shields. When I finally figured out was was wrong, and I could kill those same skeletons in one hit with an actual weapon, I felt a little dumb, but at the same time annoyed, like how was I supposed to understand that, From Software? Mostly I just lol'ed at the thought of all that time, laboriously clubbing skeletons with a handle!

After finishing that game, I went on to play Demon Souls, Dark Souls 2 & 3, and Bloodborne, so I'm completely sold on From's sadistic style of games. They're great games, but they really try to make you give up in the opening act of the game - every single one, the bastards!

Nope. Games kind of passed me by at some point. I had 100+ Atari games, 50+ original NES games, then only about 8 with the Super NES. When controllers went to....what 10-12 buttons now? with hundreds or thousands of different button combinations that do different things, games became more of a chore than fun for me. I'm fine with a challenge, but I don't want to spend 20 hours memorizing different ways to attack or defend, or crafting a bunch of new supplies and weapons.

Yeah, there's plenty of valid criticism out there of From's approach to onboarding new players, or more like their lack thereof, or more like their utter hostility toward the player lol! And the soulsborne fan community tends to be pretty elitist about any complaints about the new player experience, as if it makes us special for beating our heads against that wall until it sunk in and we got it. But I say there are so many great games to play out there that there's no sense in grinding on through an experience that you're not enjoying

I would definitely recommend watching a youtube video of a person playing the first hour or so of the game. It's not going to spoil that much, but you will learn the ins and outs of how the combat is supposed to work in those games. The games really are worth it, and it took me a few false starts with Demon's Souls and Dark Souls before it clicked with me. Fromsoft games have since become my favorite games ever and I have replayed many of them. It wasn't until I watched MFpallytime on Youtube play the first level of Demon's Souls before I had the lightbulb moment. Glad I did.