The High on Life PS5 and PS4 ports are out right now

Buying one version entitles players to the other. These ports don’t seem to have any new features or content, though. Regardless, studio director Mike Fridley thanked PlayStation owners for their patience.

“The fans have spoken. And spoken. And spoken,” said Fridley. “We’ve been thrilled with High On Life’s reception since it launched in December. Our PlayStation fans have been slightly less thrilled, which is why we’re so excited to share that it’s coming their way very soon. Like now soon! Thank you for your patience!”

This port seemed inevitable, as it was found on a patch update database earlier in the week. Trophy lists for the game were also uploaded to sites like Exophase and PSNProfiles the following day.

Squanch also talked a little about High on Knife, the game’s first expansion, and said it will come to all systems at the same time, meaning PlayStation players won’t have to wait. IGN got an extended look at the DLC and even interviewed two members from Squanch who talked about the upgrades for Knifey, new abilities, and the gun voiced by Sarah Sherman from Saturday Night Live that will all be in DLC.

Squanch also released a trailer for the new port that doesn’t feature Justin Roiland’s name or voice in any way (and it even lists 26 other voice actors). This isn’t too unexpected since news broke that Roiland, who is most known for co-creating Rick and Morty and voicing the titular characters, was arrested and charged with felony domestic battery and false imprisonment. This spurred other reports to come out that alleged he preyed on some minors, harassed his female colleagues, and was generally not an attentive worker. The criminal charges were later dismissed, but this was well after Adult Swim and Squanch had severed ties with Roiland. Roiland wasn’t featured in the DLC’s trailer, either.

The post High on Life PS5, PS4 Versions Out Now With New DLC Gameplay Trailer appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

Leaked Project Q video shows the portable PlayStation in action for the first time

As initially reported by Insider Gaming, a series of images and a short video clip of Sony’s Project Q handheld have appeared online. The images, which show Project Q in both its finished and disassembled state, reportedly came from a factory producing Sony’s handheld. Following the release of the images, a leaked video showing Project Q’s system software was posted online by Twitter user Zuby_Tech.

While the leaked Project Q video doesn’t show any games being played on Sony’s PlayStation streaming handheld, it does give potential buyers a glimpse at how snappy the software may be. Running on what appears to be a custom version of Android, the system looks remarkably responsive as the person filming navigates through multiple menus using both the analog sticks and the touchscreen. A half-empty battery icon visible on the system’s home screen could add support to reports of Project Q’s short battery life, but it’s too early to tell at this point.

Designed to stream players’ existing PS5 library rather than play standalone games like Nintendo’s Switch, Sony’s unorthodox approach to handheld gaming with Project Q is a big gamble. As PS5 sales continue to grow in multiple markets, though, it’s one that could pay off if Sony can sell PS5 owners on the idea of gaming on the go. But, with economic uncertainty leading many to bring in their budgets in recent months, even if Project Q costs less than $300 as rumored, the asking price may still be too high for many players’ pocketbooks.

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The Mortal Kombat 1 Kombat Pack has six base roster characters

Another official Mortal Kombat account put the trailer out a tad early before the reveal at Comic-Con, but NetherRealm Studios released the official one shortly after. It appears as though Homelander and Peacemaker have Antony Starr and John Cena’s likenesses, respectively, but it’s not clear if the stars will provide the voices. For context, Sylvester Stallone and Peter Weller voiced Rambo and RoboCop, respectively, in Mortal Kombat 11, but The Terminator was not voiced by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Quan Chi and Ermac have long been popular Mortal Kombat characters. However, Takeda is a relative newcomer. He’s Kenshi Takahashi’s son and made his debut in Mortal Kombat X. The pack will also include five Kameo Fighters: Tremor, Khameleon, Mavado, Johnny Cage, and Ferra.

Homelander was the only one given a release window, and will be in the game sometime in spring 2024. The Kombat Pack also comes with one-week early access to each character and the already announced Jean-Claude Van Damme skin for Johnny Cage.

This wasn’t all NetherRealm showed at the panel, as the first trailer had a few other character reveals.

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The newest Mortal Kombat 1 trailers are full of reveals

This trailer showed that Baraka, Li Mei, and Tanya will be in the main roster as playable characters, the latter two of whom were in the 3D era of games. Tanya was a DLC fighter in Mortal Kombat X, but Li Mei hasn’t been playable since 2006’s Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. Darrius was also in the trailer as a Kameo Fighter and has also not been playable since Armageddon. The trailer has gameplay sections for each character, giving users a look at their unique traits and styles.

The story portions revolve around the Umgadi, a collection of warrior priestesses selected from the first-born daughters of Outworld. They are meant to protect the royal family, which is the cause for conflict, as it seems as though Kitana’s father was killed under Li Mei’s leadership.

This panel has a few stars from the game, including Kelly Hu and Yuri Lowenthal. Hu has previously been in the Mortal Kombat series as D’Vorah, Sindel, and Frost in Mortal Kombat X and reprised her role as D’Vorah in Mortal Kombat 11. She is also going to be Ashrah in the upcoming animated Mortal Kombat film titled Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match. Lowenthal plays Smoke in Mortal Kombat 1.

Mortal Kombat 1 has already suffered a few leaks, one of which even detailed a batch of crossover DLC characters that ended up also being in these Comic-Con reveals. NetherRealm showed a second story trailer that had other characters like Motaro and Reiko in it, but it’s unclear if they are playable or just characters.

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The Switchback VR update patch notes describe many texture enhancements

The update patch notes are more detailed than the previous list of changes Supermassive Games revealed. It runs though the general improvements, the biggest of which is support for foveated rendering, which uses eye tracking to render the part of the screen the player is looking at at a higher resolution. Supermassive claims there is also better temporal anti-aliasing, textures, lighting, effects for wet objects, and overall effects, just to name a few. Most of these changes are visual in nature, but the studio has also added dynamic hit reactions to enemies.

These are just some of the alleged upgrades, as Supermassive detailed certain enhancements seen in each level. While quite massive, the studio explained that more support was on the way, but did not detail what was in store.

Players have been waiting for this update since its launch in March. Players and critics almost unanimously called out its muddy or blurry visuals to the point where Supermassive released a statement the following day.

After months of vague updates, the studio noted that it had missed its goal of releasing the update in late June and was aiming for the first two weeks of July. That window passed, which prompted Supermassive community manager Georgina Howlett to say that, despite it being 15 days later, the team meant two calendar weeks.

Here are the full Switchback VR update patch notes:

General

• Introduction of FSR (flexible scaled rasterization) and FR (foveated rendering) support to greatly improve visual quality.
• Enabled Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) for a smoother image
• Optimisation pass throughout the game for improved performance and prevention of objects and textures ‘popping’ as the cart moves.
• Memory usage improvements
• Various crash fixes
• Reduction in loading times
• New and improved models and textures for environment objects
• New higher-quality textures for several enemies
• Improvements to visual effects throughout the game, including fire, headshots and more.
• Added dynamic hit reactions to several enemies.
• Improved lighting in several levels
• Improved the look of fog throughout the game.
• Various fixes and improvements to enemy animations
• Various fixes to clipping issues throughout the game.
• Improvements to headset vibration caused by obstacles.
• Fixes for cart / track audio and haptic feedback on the controllers Improved fading effects for destroyed materials.
• Adjusted position of various objects throughout the game so they are no longer floating.
• Added missing materials to various objects.
• Various improvements to collisions, making it easier to shoot objects.
• Various fixes to checkpoints and reloading levels
• Various adjustments to enemy pathing
• Added shadow casting from the cart light.
• Improved decals like blood and oil
• Added wet effect on hands and weapons when the player is under the rain.
• Loading icon brightens up when spinning faster.
• Turning down audio sound effects no longer turns off haptics.
• Added sound effects to non-damaging head impacts.
• Fixed an issue where the player’s vision got progressively darker in several levels.
• Fixed various streaming issues that cause the environment to ‘pop in’ throughout the game

UI Fixes

• Various fixes to subtitles in several languages
• Various fixes to voiceover and subtitles timings
• Fixed an issue where an incorrect score was displayed on the leaderboard screen after every chapter.
• Fixed an issue where some text was getting cut off at the ‘Journey So Far’ screen in several languages.
• Fixed an issue where subtitles were visible in the pause menu if the subtitle settings were adjusted whilst dialogue is playing.

Haunted Shipwreck

• General
  • New and improved textures for the enemies in these levels
  • Added dynamic hit reactions to zombies.
• Maiden Voyage
  • New and improved fire effects
  • Fixed multiple instances of enemies clipping into the cart.
  • Fixed multiple instances of enemies floating off the ground.
  • Adjusted floating objects throughout the level.
  • Fixed issue with the chain-link fence in the first area changing opacity as you approached it.
  • Adjusted collision on the puzzle assets so only the valves can be shot to trigger them.
  • Fixed an issue with enemies not being close enough to the cart to cause damage.
  • Adjusted the timings of the light flickering in the encounter after the ‘Meat Tunnel’.
  • Adjusted the speeds of enemies in the boat encounter.
  • Reworked the paths and tasks of enemies in the last fight for better timing.
  • Adjusted curtain material to prevent seeing through them Fixed an issue regarding shooting the grenade launcher at the swarm of rats caused the game to crash.
  • Fixed an issue with gaps in the water.
  • Fixed an issue where an enemy left alive behind the cart and could be heard throughout the level, despite being far away.
  • Fixed collisions so the swarm of rats no longer gets stuck on the track.
• Into the Ship’s Heart
  • Fixed an issue where dying after the first branching track did not reset the level.
  • Adjusted floating and clipping assets throughout the level.
  • Fixed an issue with the blood rain visual where sound effects were not playing correctly in the ship’s kitchen.
  • Fixed an issue with broken helicopter blades appearing before the helicopter crash at the end of the level.
  • Adjusted timings on the last encounter with the boss’ attack to prevent the player being hurt too early.
  • Improved the demon dog animations.
  • Balance fixes to the demon dog fights.
  • Added rain haptics on the last outdoor section.
  • Fixed an issue where we could see an invisible barrel exploding when the boss dies.

Cursed Forest

• General
  • Multiple adjustments and fixes to the fog throughout both levels for better visual quality
  • New and improved tree and foliage throughout both levels
  • New and improved fire effects throughout both levels
  • Added more dynamic hit reactions to the enemies.
• Abandon All Hope
  • Fixed an issue in the Black Cat bar where some objects were misaligned.
  • Made the headset vibration more intense during the bus crash.
  • Adjusted collisions on objects to allow for easier shooting.
  • Adjusted the paths of the giant bats in the tunnel.
  • Adjusted the fire visual effects so they no longer clip with the walls inside the burning house.
• Burning Trials
  • Lighting improvements throughout the level
  • Demon in the police station can now be properly interrupted during their attack.
  • Improved the visual appearance of the UV decal.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the dolls to sometimes crawl sideways on the ceiling or walls.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the last demon to not attack during the final phase of the fight.

Forsaken Ruins

• General
  • New and improved textures for the enemies
  • Added more dynamic hit reactions to enemies.
• Ancient Temple
  • Lighting improvements throughout the level
  • Shortened the eclipse scene so that the fight starts sooner.
  • Fixed an issue with Belial clipping into the cart.
  • Fixes to several floating objects
  • Added missing sound effects when the environment changes with the blinking mechanic.
  • Added missing sound effects on the rock falls.
• Into the Abyss
  • Lighting improvements throughout the level
  • Environment improvements throughout the level
  • Fixed an issue where the passenger could still be heard speaking despite being dead.
  • Improvements on timings and other issues with the boss fight

Doomed Hotel

• Enjoy Your Stay
  • Scythes now deal significantly more damage.
  • Fixed several instances of enemies clipping through the floor when appearing.
  • Fixed an issue where shooting the mirrors resulted in blood effects coming out of them.
• Panopticon
  • Visual improvements to the acid traps
  • Fixed an issue where repeatedly shooting one of the animatronics with the stun gun caused it to be pushed through walls.
  • Fixed an issue where shooting through the mattress killed an animatronic on the other side.
  • Significant improvements to the environment, particularly outdoor sections
  • Lighting improvements throughout the level, particularly in the final section

Switchback Levels

• Welcome to Inferno’s Ride
  • New and improved trees and foliage throughout the level
  • Adjusted collisions on objects to allow for easier shooting.
• Frozen Hell
  • Fixed various floating objects, duplicated objects and clipping issues in dolls and mannequins
  • Fixed noticeable holes in icy objects
  • Fixed an issue with voiceover and subtitles being out of sync at the end of the level.

The post Switchback VR Update Patch Notes List Numerous Improvements, More Updates Planned appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

High on Life PS5 and PS4 trophy lists

The High on Life trophy lists for the PS5 and PS4 versions are identical. In fact, according to the lists that have appeared on Exophase, the only difference between the new trophy lists and the Xbox achievement lists is the addition of a Platinum trophy.

The vast majority of the trophy list are story-related trophies for obtaining weapons and defeating specific enemies. There are also collectibles to find and some missable side quests and optional tasks. The full list of 33 PS5 and PS4 trophies is below for those who don’t care about spoilers:

High on Life Platinum Trophy

• Call Your Loved Ones – Hey, you got all the trophies. And that’s great. But people have been asking about you. Are you okay?

High on Life Gold Trophies

• Hardest Battle in the Game – Defeat Dr. Giblets.
• Self-Actualization – Defeat Nipulon.
• Legendary Bounty Hunter – Defeat Garmantuous and take down the G3 cartel.
• Luglox Genocide – Find and open every Luglox chest.
• Mods Please Ban – Unlock every post in the Bounty Hunter forums.
• Playing Card to Get – Collect every trading card in the game.

High on Life Silver Trophies

• Who’s The Boss? – Defeat the Skrendel Brothers.
• Playing Favorites – Sacrifice a Gatlian other than Kenny during the fight against Garmantuous.
• A Starfish is Born – Watch Globo’s rise to fame.
• We Paid for the Rights to Put a Whole Movie in Here – Discover the movie theater.
• Epic Legendary Prize – Sit through the entirety of the really annoying countdown show on TV.
• Sequel-Bait – Discover Dr. Gurgula’s hideout in the Human Haven.
• Seeing All The Sights – Unlock and explore every collectible warp base.
• Carried Stan’s Load to Completion – Complete the game with Stan’s product in your inventory.

High on Life Bronze Trophies

• Fallout Doesn’t Let You Do This – Kill Slumsley.
• Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight – Obtain Knifey.
• First Bounty Down – Defeat 9-Torg.
• Don’t Knife The Hand That Feeds – Take Knifey’s advice and stab Gene in the gut.
• G3 Graduation – Defeat Douglas.
• Sweezy Like Sunday Morning – Obtain Sweezy.
• Gunning for Your Job – Use Sweezy to boss around the Office Moplets.
• Cold-Blooded Driller – Defeat Krubis.
• Satisfied Gustomer – Obtain Gus.
• Are You Packin’? – Obtain the Jetpack.
• Creature Feature – Obtain Creature.
• RIP Davey Glutes – Obtain the Mag-Boots.
• Eatin’ Good in the Neighborhood – Pay your bill at Applebee’s.
• Spent 15 Hours at the Alien Strip Club – Spend 15 hours at the very real in-game alien strip club.
• Lezduit! – Obtain Lezduit.
• Series Wrap On Suit-O – Say goodbye to Suit-O.
• We’re All Very Impressed, Trust Me – Juggle an enemy in the air with at least 5 shots.
• Eye Scream, You Scream – Pop 20 Grunt eyeballs.

The appearance of the trophy lists confirms the rumor that started yesterday when a PS4 version of the game was discovered in a game update database. At the moment, High on Life is only available on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC. A horror-themed expansion for the game called High on Knife is also in the works.

The post High on Life PS5 & PS4 Versions Revealed by Trophy Lists appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

Oyoung is happy to see Mister Negative return

Taking to Twitter, Stephen Oyoung — who voiced and played Mister Negative in the original game — celebrated the news, sharing the moment his character appears in the trailer with a celebratory “he’s back!” message.

The new trailer, which arrived yesterday from San Diego Comic-Con 2023, had a brief moment where Miles Morales runs into Mister Negative (aka Martin Li), wearing what looks to be a prison jumpsuit and sporting longer hair. In the trailer, Miles is clearly angry with him, yelling that Li doesn’t know what he’s taken from Morales.

In the original game, Li is one of the early antagonists that Peter Parker faces off against, and plays a pivotal part in the story. Li is the employer of May Parker and helps run F.E.A.S.T., but secretly runs a criminal organization known as the Inner Demons. After defeating Li in the game, he disappears, but his arrest is confirmed later in the game.

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The PS5 Pro is reportedly slated for 2024

According to Henderson on his new site KeyToGaming, the PS5 Pro is codenamed Trinity, keeping with the Matrix codenames for the PS4 Pro and PlayStation VR, which were “Neo” and “Morpheus,” respectively. It has allegedly been in the works since early 2022 and many studios will have their development kits by November 2023. Sony is also apparently trying to target a November 2024 release date for the improved system.

Henderson noted that he couldn’t track down exact specs, but it is being built to have a better and more consistent frame rate at 4K. He also explained that there will be a new performance mode for 8K and better ray tracing. The PS5 does support ray tracing, but it’s often limited, especially within the context of what high-end PCs can do.

This latest report from Henderson is a more detailed update from his report in March. He has also previously reported accurately on Sony hardware. Henderson was the first to reveal details on Project Q, Sony’s wireless earbuds, and the DualSense Edge, all three of which were later confirmed. He also noted again that there is no slim PS5, but doubled down on the PS5 with a detachable disc drive, which he has reported on before.

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Can Xbox Game Studios acquire more developers?

The European Commission (EC), that approved Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, is one of the regulators who has decided to define game markets by genre. As explained by ResetEra user Idas (via Wccftech), in layman’s terms this means that should Microsoft attempt to acquire another shooter or RPG studio despite having acquired a number of them via ZeniMax and Activision Blizzard, it could face opposition from EC.

It’s worth noting that EC previously refused to define the video game market by genre when approving Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax Media. According to Idas, the Chilean regulator has also adopted similar market definitions.

“The Advisory Committee agrees with the conclusions reached by the Commission in the draft decision in relation to the definition of the relevant product markets for development and publishing of video games segmented by platform (PC, console, mobile), by types of video game (AAA games vs. non-AAA games) and by genre (action and adventure, shooter/battle royale, role-playing games, sports, racing, fighting, and strategy),” reads the document in question from EC dated May 2023.

This move may also have implications for Sony. However, PlayStation has not made an acquisition as big as ZeniMax or Activision Blizzard.

The post Microsoft May Have Trouble Acquiring More Shooter and RPG Studios appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

Final Fantasy 16 sales should be seen relative to PS5 install base

In a statement to IGN, Square Enix said that FF16 has performed well considering the PS5’s install base — echoing what many have pointed out in response to sales comparisons with past titles.

“Taking into consideration the sales figures of the acclaimed Final Fantasy 7 Remake and the difference in size of the install base of the PlayStation 4 at the time of this title’s release, we can see that the attach rate of Final Fantasy 16 is considerably high, given the PS5 install base,” Square Enix said, adding that it considers FF16’s initial results to be “extremely strong.” The company also said that it will “continue to carry out a wide range of initiatives” to encourage more people to play the game.

Square Enix has earned a reputation for openly expressing its disappointment with game sales. The company said as much with reference to the popular Tomb Raider (2013) reboot among numerous other titles. Earlier this year, Square Enix admitted that Forspoken has flopped. In light of this, we’ll take the official word on FF16 sales over a random Twitter profile’s.

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