This video made me laugh, and it seems like Dave Klein playing the currently patched version on PS5 resulted in more bugs than when I played the Day One patch on PS4 Pro with a 2TB SSD upgrade. It did crash a lot on the PS4 Pro though: literally every 2-3 hours.

I didn't bother with most of the story or side missions, mostly just the side jobs like the NCPD gang clearouts and whatnot. I think I put 85 hours just into those, and there were some good scenes that stuck with me, like the sad part where you confront a PTSD-afflicted war veteran who commits suicide in some rundown, crumbling old building.

It was clearly released a couple of years before it was ready, and some of the fundamental issues (the terrible driving physics, the sometimes bafflingly dumb AI) will never be fixed, but it's not totally without merit. There's some good sense of scale and general world building going on - I like the fact that I found a poor murdered woman in a junkyard and later on ended up doing a mission for the ex-husband that killed her, him totally unaware I knew he'd murdered his wife and that he was trying to cover it up by continuing to harass his ex into taking a settlement or whatever it was.

@heavymetalman77: It's a mostly solid 60FPS. It does tend to tank downwards to about 30-40FPS temporarily in places, like the challenge rooms, and there is often micro-stutter when going quickly around the maps. The latter seems to be an issue when streaming data in from the SSD - I've seen it in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart too, to name but one. Series X may have a slower, M.2 slot SSD rather than an SMD'd to the board approach but it also doesn't have the same problem.

@ninboxstation: Well said; from the moment I started looking into it, and again when I actually started playing, I saw a lot in common between Soulsborne and Returnal.

@dantaris: I know, and while developers are at it I think they should start including options to race and gender flip all characters in games whether they're playable or not. I refuse to play any Mario games now until it's a hispanic Prince Peach and a black female lead character called Marion in the red and blue coveralls. Straight white characters have ruled the roost for too long, so we should eradicate them all because it's more "inclusionary" this way.

Oh please... 😂

@Lord_Sesshy: I have to admit, it's amazing how many games aren't given the 60FPS boost on the PS5. Even stuff I considered core hits, like Horizon: Zero Dawn and Bloodborne. The Series X kinda has spoilt me with this feature.

@Lord_Sesshy: I've been able to buy two, both Disc Editions, both under RRP, one of which was boxed with media centre remote etc.

@thecupidstunts: Agreed. For me personally, an 8/10 game is a high score. Most games struggle to get a 9 or 10. I gave this one a 9.

@Dezuria: I'll be honest, having played it 4K HDR (gaming monitor) and 4K SDR (TV) I don't actually see that much difference. It looks great either way, but being in SDR doesn't hurt it as much as I thought.

@Barighm: Everyone moaning it doesn't save anything and you lose all your progress is starting to suggest they were criticising it without even playing the game, because it does save progress, just not all of it (for example you retain ether, the item fabricator next to the ship after it first appears, any weapon upgrades, the light saber). So people saying you lose everything when you quit the game or sleep the PS5 are totally wrong and can be safely ignored.

@Barighm: Beyond female character with a gun in third-person perspective, nice particle effects and a single-word title, I don't see that Returnal and Control have that much in common.