Community Chronicle: 07/06/15

I don’t know about you, but I find all of these little leaks spoil some of the fun of a big game announcement. Instead of being caught unawares by so many of the things shown at E3, we’re bound to have a good number of them spoilt for us ahead of time, sapping some of the anticipation and the delight and surprise from the show.

Naturally, this week’s Hot Topics are all focussed around leaks… even if they were all quite obviously going to happen at some point.

The biggest of the bunch was Fallout 4, which was being teased a little by Bethesda before someone slipped and put a big countdown website online just a little bit ahead of time. The cynics among us might say that this was actually intended to drum up more news stories and garner more attention, not that Fallout 4 would need it.

DividSmythe is already completely sold on the game, as he said, “Just watched that trailer and looks amazing. I know Fallout 3 and New Vegas were buggy as they come but it didn’t kill my enjoyment. Games like these are what keep me gaming.”

Crawfail was similarly excited for a sequel to one of his favourite games. “Fallout 3 was one of my favourite games of last gen and this is very much anticipated,” he said before adding, “Hopefully the engine is a little more stable but the bugs last time around didn’t really ruin anything for me.

But not everyone was quite so enamoured, as Youles pondered the series’ popularity:

I didn’t realise how much people seemed to love Fallout 3 and wonder if they are looking through rose-tinted spectacles. Fallout 3 wasn’t without quite a few glitches, severe frame-rate and/or stuttering and the ever-increasing save file size frequently make my game crash – and I believe there were still a lot of problems with Skyrim. I also found the grey/grey palette of the wasteland very depressing.

If they can get around some of the technical issues on current gen hardware I’m sure that would help. I’m interested to know how closely the game will follow on from 3, and whether it’ll be set in the same wasteland.

The second big slip up let Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection out of the bag a few hours ahead of time, with an errant PS Store listing visible on mobile. It brings the Uncharted trilogy to PS4 in October, in lieu of Uncharted 4’s release, but sadly seems to be missing the excellent multiplayer modes of UC2 and UC3.

It seems to be pretty good timing for it, as Kennykazey said, “Well, I was planning on another playthrough of the trilogy before the fourth game is out. Might as well be on PS4 I suppose. But what’s up with copying the naming convention of the poorly received Master Chief Collection? Just call it ‘Trilogy’ or something.”

Considering that all of the games in the series star Nathan Drake, unlike the spin offs that we see in the Halo series, I can’t help but wonder who thought that title up as well.

Youles, meanwhile, wondered if he could return to the older games again, saying that “Having played each game through a minimum of 3 times, I’m not sure I could play them through again, as much as I love them. Ok, well maybe Uncharted 2.”

However, Tomhlord replied with an astute observation to say, “It’s not really for you (or me) but for all those 360-PS4 sales, this would be awesome.”

Finally this week, the USA’s FCC published documents online that mentioned a 1TB version of the PlayStation 4. 500GB quickly proved to be very much on the small side of things, just a few months after launch, so a larger capacity is always welcome, but don’t forget that you can perform the operation yourself.

“Upgraded mine to a 2TB on purchase,” said Bunimomike. “Silly not to and pretty short-sighted to be honest. No excuse unless you have zero money after initial purchase. If so, wait and save! It’s going to save you so much hassle in the future.”

And JustTaylorNow added, “I already switched from the moment my PS4 said full memory. I went and bought a Samsung 2TB. Was so worried about doing it myself but it was so easy I would do it again if I have too.”

A potential revision did spring open the hardware change wishlist, and Light Liguria said that the “DS4 needs revisioned, especially the thumb sticks.” JR. added, “Battery life needs to be doubled at least” and that he prefers the Xbox One sticks, as they “have a better grip than the DS4 sticks.”

Considering that I’ve worn both my replacement controllers down to the horrible sticky rubber underneath and had my controller battery die mid firefight last night, I can get behind Sony making a few changes…

With almost everyone diving head first into The Witcher 3 and its vast sprawling lands filled with quests and things to see, it’s no surprise that the achievements are a little quiet this week.

The Lone Steven is nearing completion of Dragon Age Inquisition, however, taking on one of the grandest games of last year, while tactical20 continued with his play through of Call of Duty: Ghosts, and wrapped up Infinity Ward’s latest this week.

Youles, meanwhile, has spent much of his time playing on PS3, not PS4, as he helped his brother to platinum Call of Duty: Black Ops, finished the story of GTAV and finally concluded his journey through the pontine heists with his brother, Crazy_Del and myself. Sadly, this was hit by a disconnection right at the last moment, meaning that Del didn’t get the trophy for completing all the heists in order with the same team.

Of course, Del’s given up his trophy hunting ways, but I think he’s taken it to the extreme, as he’s gone back and been playing Champions of Norrath: Return to Arms on PlayStation 2 with Cambo… I guess that’s one way to stop getting trophies.

A inferior race is off having fun in the real world this week, so there’s no leaderboard update this week. Instead, I leave you with the usual submissions form below and will see you all next week.