Author: Trafficblast

Nostalgia for retro consoles has been growing over the last several years. Nintendo kicked off a wave of plug-and-play style systems with 2016’s NES Classic Edition, and followed up with last year’s equally popular SNES Classic. Now Sony is throwing its hat into the ring with the PlayStation Classic, a small console that includes a collection of 20 original PlayStation games, set for launch on December 3. We spent some time with the system and have early impressions of the hardware, the menu system, and of the included library of games.

If you own an NES or SNES Classic, the PlayStation Classic will be very familiar to you. It’s a miniature version of the original 1994 system, featuring an HDMI port and Micro-USB for power in the back, and a slot for two controllers in the front. The back of the console even features a nod to the first system’s back panel with a non-functioning parallel port cover. The system also features the standard three physical buttons, some of which have been given slightly different uses. The power button does what you’d expect; it turns the system on and off. Just like Nintendo’s systems, the reset button brings you back to the main menu.

However, the open disc button is where things get interesting. The original button on the PlayStation would open the optical disc tray, but it’s now used for games that have multiple discs, allowing you to swap to the next one when prompted to by the game. It’s certainly neat that Sony found a way to emulate the physical act of switching discs, rather then just having it happen automatically. It’s also a nice reminder of how things were back in the day when some games were just too big for one disc.

As for the controllers, the classic Playstation pads now plug in via USB. These are the original gamepads that came before the DualShock, meaning they don’t feature analog sticks or rumble support. We brought one of the original controllers with us for comparison and the classic’s version feels very faithful. It’s just a touch lighter in weight and the buttons feel more clicky, but that’s probably because we are comparing them to a 20-year-old controller that’s seen lots of use. Sony has stated, however, that other devices won’t be usable, and you won’t be able to use the included controllers elsewhere.

It’s somewhat admirable of Sony for wanting to stick to the nostalgia of the original hardware, though you won’t much argument against the clear improvements that Dualshock offered over the original design, and it’s disappointing that we won’t have the option to play with analog sticks or rumble. In fact, without rumble, it will be impossible to fully appreciate iconic moments like the Psycho Mantis fight in Metal Gear Solid. This will be especially apparent when the villain attempts to read your memory card to look for save files from other Konami games–MGS is only one in the collection.

The Lineup

The game select screen features many callbacks to the original PlayStation’s aesthetic, sporting a cool blue background and that memorable rainbow paint splatter behind the text. When it comes to settings, the Classic is very barebones. The system runs at 720p with no options for alternate resolutions or aspect ratio adjustments. There are no borders or filters either–so forget about simulating the scanline look that other retro consoles offer. While scanlines are often a novelty feature for classic game bundles, many of these games haven’t aged gracefully, and an option to place a filter could help make them look less harsh. The PlayStation Classic is designed to just plug in and work with no fuss, which is respectable. Though if you were looking for a bit more control in your presentation, you’re not gonna get it here.

Thankfully, the Playstation Classic has support for save states. When you quit out of a game with the reset button, a suspend save point is automatically created that you can use to pick up where you left off. Unlike the NES and SNES Classic there’s only one suspend save slot and each time time you reset you’re asked if you want to overwrite that save. There are, however, internal memory cards that function like the original system. They even use the same game icons from the classic PS1 memory card interface, which is a great little touch.

The PlayStation Classic comes with 20 games, and when you consider that there were over 2,500 games released during the system’s 10-year lifecycle, there’s no way everyone’s favorite games would make the cut. Of course, there are big names like Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy VII, Twisted Metal, Resident Evil Director’s Cut, and even Tekken 3–which all hold up quite well. There are also some neat cult classics like Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, and Wild Arms.

Even with that in mind, we can’t help but be a bit disappointed in the selection, which is missing iconic games like Crash Bandicoot, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and Tomb Raider. Games such as Destruction Derby and Cool Boarders 2 are fine, but they don’t really shine when compared to other classics in the lineup. Revelations: Persona is one of the more niche games in this batch, showing the bizarre beginnings of Atlus’ JRPG series–which easily earns its spot in the collection. Unfortunately, many of these early 3D games haven’t aged well, and your nostalgia is gonna be a big factor in your enjoyment for games like Rainbow Six or Jumping Flash.

Thankfully, in our brief time with the PlayStation Classic, the available games seemed to run as we remember them. Polygonal models hold up when scaled on a modern TV, but the same can’t be said for certain UI and other static images. The rendered backgrounds in Resident Evil suffer and text in Ridge Racer Type 4 is so blown out it can be difficult to read. This isn’t really the fault of the PlayStation Classic but rather further evidence of how poor some of the early games of the 3D era have aged. Again, this is a case where a scanline filter might have helped out.

Overall our early impressions were pretty mixed. The PlayStation Classic does exactly what it’s supposed to do; let you play a limited selection of PlayStation games at 720p over HDMI. However, it does feel a bit barebones, especially with the lack of DualShock controllers. With that said, it certainly did a solid job of evoking that sense of nostalgia when first booting up the Playstation, with the iconic system startup theme bringing you right back to a very special era of gaming.

There’s much more to come for our coverage on the Playstation Classic. Check back with us in the coming weeks for our deep dive with the mini console, where we’ll put it through its paces and test out each game.

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Some intriguing and unconfirmed details about the upcoming Breaking Bad movie have come to light. SlashFilm reports that the movie will be a sequel to the beloved AMC TV show that follows Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman in the immediate aftermath of the show’s series finale.

The movie–which may be for theaters or TV–is reportedly being written by Breaking Bad creator/writer Vince Gilligan. The movie will apparently “[track] the escape of a kidnapped man and his quest for freedom,” and Jesse Pinkman is reportedly that man.

Paul is set to return to play Jesse again, and that’s great news considering he did such a wonderful job with the character on the original show.

The ending to Breaking Bad seemingly sets up something more for Jesse specifically. The last we see of Jesse is him driving away into the darkness after escaping the clutches of his neo-Nazi captors. Jesse as a character was one of the show’s best, so it’s exciting and intriguing to think about seeing more of him in yet another Breaking Bad spinoff.

The first spinoff was Better Call Saul, a TV show that focuses on how Jimmy McGill became the scummy lawyer Saul Goodman. That show remains on TV; a fifth season is on the way.

The Breaking Bad movie will reportedly begin shooting later this month in New Mexico, so if that’s the case, you can expect an official announcement to come down soon.

Bryan Cranston, who played Walter White on Breaking Bad, said on The Dan Patrick Show (watch it above) that he hasn’t read the script for the new movie and doesn’t know if he’ll be involved in it. Intriguingly, he teased that the movie may feature a couple of characters whose story arcs were not seen through completion.

Breaking Bad just celebrated its 10th anniversary, as the show originally premiered back in 2008.

Hitman is a game about killing people. Well, killing specific people and trying not to kill other people unless you really have to. But it’s also a game about exploring large, real-world-inspired spaces, learning about how they operate, finding multiple solutions to problems, and using that knowledge to improvise and manipulate the environment to hit the people you’re hunting. The episodic nature of the Hitman refresh in 2016 saw IO Interactive release one level every month–a contentious move at the time, but one that helped accentuate the potential in each mission. Hitman 2 ditches the episodic model and adds a few new minor mechanics, but the loop of continuously replaying a single location, slowly uncovering the wealth of possibilities, and being able to effectively draw upon that knowledge in new challenges is where Hitman is strongest.

Hitman 2 takes you to six new locales, and each poses unique situations to overcome as you attempt to assassinate your targets. Mumbai is a standout with its densely populated streets and labyrinths of tenement buildings–a great environment that makes the most of a new Assassin’s Creed-style crowd blending mechanic, allowing you to disappear into big groups of people. A mission in Miami, Florida takes place at an active raceway, a loud and vibrant stage that feels like a theme park with its swaths of attendees, distinct zones, and a concealed backstage underbelly.

These levels are overwhelming in the best way possible, and it’s exciting to begin peeling away the layers of these large, intricate areas–exploring the spaces, discovering routes, finding tools and disguises, and figuring out the best places to utilize them. If you’re familiar with Hitman, you know that each stage and its AI inhabitants run on routines like clockwork, making Hitman a game that rewards social stealth and patience. Eavesdropping, tailing, and passive observation are good first steps to success. Even the Whittleton Creek stage, a small, sparsely populated suburban block in Vermont, feels like a mindmap of interconnected causality when you begin to dig deeper. Having the curiosity to uncover how things operate within levels, stumbling upon minor plotlines and amusing flavor dialog along the way, is interesting in its own right.

Hitman does make an upfront effort to help focus your scope and give you some momentum toward your objectives, though thankfully your initiative is still necessary to solve some predicaments. Stumbling across a Mission Story (previously known as Opportunities) might lead you to a machine you can sabotage, for example, but you need to find the tool to do so and work out the best method of either distracting or dispatching the people around it.

Mission Stories are a great first step, but Hitman becomes its best when you start to internalize the stages and uncover the more obscure ways things can unfold in subsequent playthroughs, be it through pursuing alternative Mission Stories, Challenges that ask you to perform specific tasks, or your own improvisation. There are few fail states other than your own death, and there are so many approaches and tools at your disposal that the path to victory can be as creative and elegant or as bumbling and messy as it needs to be. Completing a stage typically takes a long time, and there will be plenty of moments when a guard catches you doing something you shouldn’t be doing and calls for backup. Unhinged gunfights still feel as futile as ever, but when things get out of control there’s almost always the opportunity to escape to a less hostile part of the level, swap your disguises, and come up with an alternative “make do” approach. In fact, Hitman is sometimes more exciting when your initial plans fail.

The only problem with being presented with such a staggering array of interactions is that the limitations of the sandbox will eventually reveal themselves if you push the wrong way. For example, while you can stash bodies in dumpsters and closets, I was disappointed to discover I couldn’t stash them in one of many vacant portable toilets. While Agent 47 can leap tall fences and shimmy across daringly high ledges, he seemingly can’t muster the courage to drop down from certain first-floor balconies. Guard AI behavior is stern but generous–if you’re found trespassing in a restricted area they’ll give you a chance to find the exit before reacting, but sometimes it’s too generous. I was amused to see a target’s personal bodyguard decide to go home for the day after his employer “accidentally” fell off a building, even though I was the only other person in the room.

Hitman 2 continues to embrace a trial-and-error playstyle in its campaign. The levels are long, but autosaves are generous and manual saving is encouraged, which gives you the freedom to experiment with different ways of approaching a problem. And the closer you get to bending the systems in just the right way–trying to narrowly squeeze past a guard’s sightline from different directions, or using coins and cheeseburgers to divert someone’s attention–the more thrilling it feels, no matter how goofy it actually looks. Hitman 2’s interstitial cinematics are as grim and dramatic as a British espionage drama, and it’s hard not to let yourself buy into the clinical overarching conspiracy. But in the field, the series’ tongue-in-cheek absurdity happily remains with ridiculous costumes, unlikely weapons, and Agent 47’s self-aware deadpan acting, which perfectly accompanies any bumbling improvisation. Both exist distinctly, don’t really compliment or detract one another, but are still enjoyable in their own right.

Hitman 2 also boasts a few significant modes outside of its campaign, including Sniper Assassin, which adapts the design seen in the Hitman: Sniper smartphone game and tasks you with taking out a series of targets from a single vantage point using only a scoped rifle. It’s a straightforward but enjoyable, low-stakes mode that allows for a surprising amount of creative freedom, and it can be played in two-player online co-op. But Hitman 2’s most enticing bonus, at least if you own the previous Hitman, is the ability to download the original stages into Hitman 2, which gives you feature-complete versions of them with the addition of new mechanics like functional mirrors (which enemies can spot you in) and the briefcase (which lets you conceal and transport tools discreetly), among other things. These legacy stages are wonderful to revisit under a new light.

It should also be mentioned that one of the most compelling elements of the 2016 Hitman was the continuous, free live content updates that occurred after the game’s launch. Escalation Missions, where you’re given specific conditional challenges of increasing difficulty, and Elusive Targets, limited-time events where you have only one chance to take out unique assassination targets, added tense trials that tested both your knowledge of levels and improvisational skills. IO Interactive has announced that these familiar features will be making a return, along with free content updates to Sniper Assassin and Ghost Mode. We obviously can’t judge the quality of this content at launch, but it’s surely something to look forward to.

The addition of other minor mechanical changes–like concussive weapons, a picture-in-picture enemy activity alert, and visible security camera sightlines–help to improve Hitman 2 overall as a dense and accessible stealth assassination game. But the new locations are the real stars, impressive and inventive sandboxes ripe for picking apart with exciting experiments. Hitman is about experiencing the anticipation of seeing whether a plan will work when you try it for the first time. It’s about feeling the tension of briskly walking away from a bad situation, hoping you can lose the suspicious guards. It’s the satisfaction of knowing the machinations of a level so well that when a target moves into a particular place at a particular time, you have the perfect way to intervene. Hitman 2 is a familiar experience, but in the Hitman world, familiarity is an incredible strength.

Hitman is a game about killing people. Well, killing specific people and trying not to kill other people unless you really have to. But it’s also a game about exploring large, real-world-inspired spaces, learning about how they operate, finding multiple solutions to problems, and using that knowledge to improvise and manipulate the environment to hit the people you’re hunting. The episodic nature of the Hitman refresh in 2016 saw IO Interactive release one level every month–a contentious move at the time, but one that helped accentuate the potential in each mission. Hitman 2 ditches the episodic model and adds a few new minor mechanics, but the loop of continuously replaying a single location, slowly uncovering the wealth of possibilities, and being able to effectively draw upon that knowledge in new challenges is where Hitman is strongest.

Hitman 2 takes you to six new locales, and each poses unique situations to overcome as you attempt to assassinate your targets. Mumbai is a standout with its densely populated streets and labyrinths of tenement buildings–a great environment that makes the most of a new Assassin’s Creed-style crowd blending mechanic, allowing you to disappear into big groups of people. A mission in Miami, Florida takes place at an active raceway, a loud and vibrant stage that feels like a theme park with its swaths of attendees, distinct zones, and a concealed backstage underbelly.

These levels are overwhelming in the best way possible, and it’s exciting to begin peeling away the layers of these large, intricate areas–exploring the spaces, discovering routes, finding tools and disguises, and figuring out the best places to utilize them. If you’re familiar with Hitman, you know that each stage and its AI inhabitants run on routines like clockwork, making Hitman a game that rewards social stealth and patience. Eavesdropping, tailing, and passive observation are good first steps to success. Even the Whittleton Creek stage, a small, sparsely populated suburban block in Vermont, feels like a mindmap of interconnected causality when you begin to dig deeper. Having the curiosity to uncover how things operate within levels, stumbling upon minor plotlines and amusing flavor dialog along the way, is interesting in its own right.

Hitman does make an upfront effort to help focus your scope and give you some momentum toward your objectives, though thankfully your initiative is still necessary to solve some predicaments. Stumbling across a Mission Story (previously known as Opportunities) might lead you to a machine you can sabotage, for example, but you need to find the tool to do so and work out the best method of either distracting or dispatching the people around it.

Mission Stories are a great first step, but Hitman becomes its best when you start to internalize the stages and uncover the more obscure ways things can unfold in subsequent playthroughs, be it through pursuing alternative Mission Stories, Challenges that ask you to perform specific tasks, or your own improvisation. There are few fail states other than your own death, and there are so many approaches and tools at your disposal that the path to victory can be as creative and elegant or as bumbling and messy as it needs to be. Completing a stage typically takes a long time, and there will be plenty of moments when a guard catches you doing something you shouldn’t be doing and calls for backup. Unhinged gunfights still feel as futile as ever, but when things get out of control there’s almost always the opportunity to escape to a less hostile part of the level, swap your disguises, and come up with an alternative “make do” approach. In fact, Hitman is sometimes more exciting when your initial plans fail.

The only problem with being presented with such a staggering array of interactions is that the limitations of the sandbox will eventually reveal themselves if you push the wrong way. For example, while you can stash bodies in dumpsters and closets, I was disappointed to discover I couldn’t stash them in one of many vacant portable toilets. While Agent 47 can leap tall fences and shimmy across daringly high ledges, he seemingly can’t muster the courage to drop down from certain first-floor balconies. Guard AI behavior is stern but generous–if you’re found trespassing in a restricted area they’ll give you a chance to find the exit before reacting, but sometimes it’s too generous. I was amused to see a target’s personal bodyguard decide to go home for the day after his employer “accidentally” fell off a building, even though I was the only other person in the room.

Hitman 2 continues to embrace a trial-and-error playstyle in its campaign. The levels are long, but autosaves are generous and manual saving is encouraged, which gives you the freedom to experiment with different ways of approaching a problem. And the closer you get to bending the systems in just the right way–trying to narrowly squeeze past a guard’s sightline from different directions, or using coins and cheeseburgers to divert someone’s attention–the more thrilling it feels, no matter how goofy it actually looks. Hitman 2’s interstitial cinematics are as grim and dramatic as a British espionage drama, and it’s hard not to let yourself buy into the clinical overarching conspiracy. But in the field, the series’ tongue-in-cheek absurdity happily remains with ridiculous costumes, unlikely weapons, and Agent 47’s self-aware deadpan acting, which perfectly accompanies any bumbling improvisation. Both exist distinctly, don’t really compliment or detract one another, but are still enjoyable in their own right.

Hitman 2 also boasts a few significant modes outside of its campaign, including Sniper Assassin, which adapts the design seen in the Hitman: Sniper smartphone game and tasks you with taking out a series of targets from a single vantage point using only a scoped rifle. It’s a straightforward but enjoyable, low-stakes mode that allows for a surprising amount of creative freedom, and it can be played in two-player online co-op. But Hitman 2’s most enticing bonus, at least if you own the previous Hitman, is the ability to download the original stages into Hitman 2, which gives you feature-complete versions of them with the addition of new mechanics like functional mirrors (which enemies can spot you in) and the briefcase (which lets you conceal and transport tools discreetly), among other things. These legacy stages are wonderful to revisit under a new light.

It should also be mentioned that one of the most compelling elements of the 2016 Hitman was the continuous, free live content updates that occurred after the game’s launch. Escalation Missions, where you’re given specific conditional challenges of increasing difficulty, and Elusive Targets, limited-time events where you have only one chance to take out unique assassination targets, added tense trials that tested both your knowledge of levels and improvisational skills. IO Interactive has announced that these familiar features will be making a return, along with free content updates to Sniper Assassin and Ghost Mode. We obviously can’t judge the quality of this content at launch, but it’s surely something to look forward to.

The addition of other minor mechanical changes–like concussive weapons, a picture-in-picture enemy activity alert, and visible security camera sightlines–help to improve Hitman 2 overall as a dense and accessible stealth assassination game. But the new locations are the real stars, impressive and inventive sandboxes ripe for picking apart with exciting experiments. Hitman is about experiencing the anticipation of seeing whether a plan will work when you try it for the first time. It’s about feeling the tension of briskly walking away from a bad situation, hoping you can lose the suspicious guards. It’s the satisfaction of knowing the machinations of a level so well that when a target moves into a particular place at a particular time, you have the perfect way to intervene. Hitman 2 is a familiar experience, but in the Hitman world, familiarity is an incredible strength.

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