Behold! The Playstation 5. Marking the beginning of the 9th Generation of Video Games (nobody cares about Xbox Series X). First of all, I know a lot of people made jokes about it looking like a WiFi Router, but for some reason it reminds me of an Imperial Stormtrooper from Star Wars. Especially the controller design. Anyway, this thing has a bunch of technical mumbo jumbo that my artsy brain is too chaotic to understand, but from what I gather this thing's mechanical prowess is so good that (in theory) loading times should be instant. Yes, if all goes according to plan, the PS5 should have no loading screens/times whatsoever. It also has 825 GB storage, which without context seems really huge, but then you remember the PS4 had 500-600 GB storage, so this only really feels like an incremental improvement, rather than a exponential one. To be fair, 825 GB is a respectable storage size, and should last you a good while. It also (apparently) has backwards compatibility with the majority of the PS4's line-up, so that's nice. But nobody cares about the numbers (especially if you come from a Nintendo-focused background) so lets talk about some games on this thing.
First up, a new Ratchet & Clank game! Ratchet & Clank is a franchise of platformer-shooter hybrids with a lovable duo adventuring in a wacky, over-the-top sci fi universe, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart seems to continue the tradition. The game's main gimmick (if you want to call it that) is that a bunch of portals in the space-time continuum have opened up, and Ratchet/Clank can hop in and out of this portals to reach new areas. Also, Dr, Nefarious is back. Again. The dude's like the Ganondorf of sci fi games. But most importantly...
We got a female Lombax in the trailer, and the entire Ratchet & Clank fandom went nuts. What's a Lombax? That's what Ratchet is. But in the series official lore (yes, there's lore for a franchise about a space cat and his robot friend beating up phony super heroes and corrupt business tycoons) Ratchet is the last living Lombax in the galaxy, since the rest were either killed or banished to a purgatory-style world between worlds. So who's this chick then? Did she escape Lombax jail? Does she come from a time-line where the Lombaxes never went away? She is just a Girl-Power alternative to Ratchet? Is she ACTUAL Ratchet but as a girl? So many questions, Insomniac Games. So many questions.
Speaking of girl power, Horizon: Zero Dawn is getting a sequel! Honestly this is the game I'm most excited for. Why? Because Horizon: Zero Dawn has an amazing story set in one of the few post-apocalyptic settings that ISN'T dark and depressing, but its ending strongly hinted at another adventure for the sassy huntress Aloy. Horizon: The Forbidden West focuses on Aloy unraveling the mystery of a strange plant choking out all the wildlife from the region, and she will once again have to delve into the ruined cities of the Old Ones to save the world. Also, we may get underwater traversal and combat fleshed out, seeing a big chunk of the trailer has Aloy swimming around with makeshift diving gear. So, calling it right now. Sylens will be a major antagonist this time, and the final boss will be a reconstructed Metal Devil. Seriously, if we never get to fight a Metal Devil, despite being hyped up as THE most dangerous war machine ever made according to the official lore, then Guerrilla Games have failed foreshadowing.
Next up is Kena: Bridge of Spirits, an original IP made by Ember Lab... who got their start making fan-made short films for the Legend of Zelda franchise. So this is their debut game. And again, this is yet another beautiful looking game, and honestly looks as good as a modern Pixar movie. Anyway, Kena: Bridge of Spirits is about a young spirit guide who stumbles across an abandoned village while searching for a shrine. She is given the task of aiding the trapped spirits in said village, and also has to fight strange plant monsters. Also she has a wizard's staff and can cast magic spells, up to and including glowing, magical arrows that explode. Definitely one to keep an eye on.
We also got a new Spider-Man game, titled Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Starring, well, Miles Morales. Insomniac Games has said that this game is not a direct sequel, but is a spin-off side story meant to give The Second Spider-Man a day in the spotlight. A decision totally not influenced by the breakout success of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Anyway, it looks great (noticing a pattern here?) and I will actually finish it this time. I still have never finished Spider-Man (the PS4 game), mostly because I got stuck at the third and final Mary Jane segment, saved and quit in the middle of it, took a long break from it, and every time I try to play it I rage-quit because of the poorly timed save, and never touch it again because it left a bad taste in my mouth. Don't get me wrong, the game is fantastic. Just don't lock yourself into the part of the game you like least, because it will sour your opinion on the game overall. Because not finishing Spider-Man is one of the few regrets I have, even though I could just delete something to make room for it and try again from scratch. ...There's something to do for the next couple of weeks.
Then we have this game. Goodbye Volcano High, developed by KO-OP. To be honest this is probably the strangest (major) game revealed, but I want to talk about it anyway. It is an interactive narrative adventure starring anthropomorphic dinosaurs just trying to enjoy their last year of high school, with some good old fashioned teenager drama thrown in for good measure. So... Night in the Woods: Jurassic Park Edition. Or Life is Strange but with Dinos. Take your pick. But it has my curiosity, since "Dinosaur high-school drama" sounds like it'd be a neat experience, even if it would wind up being a "so bad, it's good" guilty pleasure. I will point out that the while the animation is decent, the character designs are a mixed bag, and some of them definitely need to be cleaned up a little. Like the Pteranodons' snouts are way too long in proportion to the rest of the head, and the beaks(?) being rounded off at the tip makes them resemble dolphins instead of actual Pteranodons. While I could criticize the rest of the cast, I feel like the Pteranodons are the ones that look worst. Seriously, their designs are just really janky compared to the other dinosaurs. But again, I can totally see this as being a guilty pleasure kind of game. Who knows? Maybe it'll fill the void that Night in the Woods left, and turn out to be a genuinely good game. Maybe this game will get rated M for Mature and angry conservatives will accuse me of being a negative influence on children (this is the only game here that hasn't been rated yet). ...Do kids actually read my blog? Do parents let their kids read my blog? This something that is legitimately bothering me now.
Also, Godfall! Developed by Counterplay Games, and published by Gearbox! ...Are people excited about this game? The artwork looks good, and the game play looks good, but I haven't really seen as much hype for this game as I have the others.Which is a shame, since this was not only the first game revealed for the PS5, it also is planned to be THE main launch title (think of how most people got a Nintendo Switch just for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild). Anyway, Godfall is a co-op action-RPG that was made as a melee-focused alternative to the Looter Shooter genre popularized by Destiny. Which means the game will be banking really hard on multiplayer stuff like raids and PvP in order to keep a consistent player base. Also, the decision to have rap music play for a fantasy game trailer is... Interesting... I guess...? I'm probably not going to even touch this game (multiplayer looter shooters are kind of a turn off for me personally), but for the people that enjoy Looter Shooters, here's something that you might want to check out.
And for the bonus round, where I quickly gloss over the games that I don't have enough information on, games that are probably going to me M-rated, or games already exist on other consoles!
- Fortnite. We can't escape this game. It's the Thanos of video games. It is INEVITABLE.
- Resident Evil: Village. I kid you not, I had a dream where I was playing Resident Evil 3 (despite never playing or even buying a Resident Evil game in my life) prior to this game's announcement. I'm tempted to play Resident Evil 3 just to see how accurate my dream is to the real thing.
- Destiny 2. The original Destiny was the first shooter game I ever played, and because of that I tend to fondly remember the good old days... Back when you grind an infinite amount of loot by shooting blindly into a cave for 45 minutes, or how you only needed to buy Shaders once and you can swap them out whenever you want without fear of running out. But I kind of just left the series after the first game, since I started to develop a preference for single-player RPGs, and Destiny 2 simply wasn't scratching that itch.
- Grand Theft Auto V. I'm not a fan. Of the whole series. Not because the games are bad, per se. I hate this series because it (re)ignited the "moral debate" of what kind of content is acceptable to appear in a game. And whenever I think of Grand Theft Auto, I remember that weird period of history during the 2000's where the political conservatives actually gave a crab-cake about gaming culture, even if they did so to scapegoat and demonize the hobby. Much like how rock music was scapegoated and demonized during the 60's. Because kids doing dumb stuff they clearly shouldn't be doing is TOTALLY the fault of a game that exists as a parody of old-school mobster movies intended only for adults, and couldn't POSSIBLY be the fault of neglectful parenting and lack of research on the consumer's part. But anyway, long story short, I don't like Grand Theft Auto because it makes me think of self-righteous hypocrites who can't take responsibility for their own actions, which in turn makes me angry.
- Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. It looks cool. It's got Vikings. Assassin's Creed was always a franchise I wanted to know more about, since the idea of people using a device to relive the adventurous lives of their ancestors through different time periods is just inherently cool to me. It's like time travel but without any of the plot-breaking loopholes or paradoxes. Plus, free history lessons!
- Bugsnax. This game looks so outlandish and absurd that just watching the trailer for it feels like a fever dream. Might wind up being another guilty pleasure game. Also it's being made by Young Horses, the guys that made Octodad, and in retrospect a game like Bugsnax is perfectly on-brand for them.
- Demon's Souls Remake. It's a remake. Of Demon's Souls. The game that served as the foundation for Dark Souls. So I'll probably check it out, if only to see how far the From Software team has come since their debut.
- Cyberpunk 2077. It's made by the guys and gals that made the Witcher franchise. They got Keanu Reeves to voice a main character. And it combines the silky smooth marksmanship of a (good) shooter with surprisingly thorough RPG mechanics. There's a lot of things going in this game's favor, and I wouldn't be surprised if it one Game of the Year from the pre-release hype alone.
- Dying Light 2. The sequel to that one zombie-focused survival horror game built entirely around parkour, movement, and a day-night cycle that radically changes the world itself. Neat.
- NBA 2K21. It's a sports game that uses the Playstation 5's groundbreaking horsepower... To make realistic looking sweat on the digital likenesses of famous basketball players. ...OK? I'm going to be avoiding this like the plague since sports games are my least favorite genre, but if you like sports games and watching sports celebrities sweat (you degenerate), then all the power to you.
And that will do it. Stay tuned for more information on a hyped-up console that nobody knows the price of yet. Seriously, that's like the one detail Sony neglected to mention when they revealed this thing. And now I leave you with a question. If you plan on picking up a PS5, what game are you going to get for it first, if any? Personally, I'm gunning for Horizon: The Forbidden West, but I'm interested to hear what games have grabbed the attention of others.
