PlayStation State of Play February 23 2023 Live Reaction

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Did the industry villains have anything to impress me?

Yesterday, I portrayed Sony as the videogame industry's group of villains, opposing the Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard King and lobbying worldwide business regulators with misleading information. And today, Sony had a State of Play that promised over fifteen minutes of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League from Rocksteady Studios, five PlayStation VR2 games coming up, and “new looks at some anticipated games from our third-party partners[.]”

There's some potential in that. And because KoopaTV just live-reacted to Microsoft's Xbox Developer_Direct and the Nintendo Direct all within the past 30 days, I ought to ensure that this site is FAIR AND BALANCED by also covering Sony's direct-to-the-public presentation of game trailers and narration. It's just me live-reacting to this, so watch to the video (...if you want) and read along with my time-stamped reactions. It's... a slow start, especially considering the subject matter of the first several minutes are mediocre-looking PlayStation VR2 games.

[3:56 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us81cwC69fA
[4:03 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: So the February 23, 2023 State of Play focuses on "PlayStation VR2", which I don't care about and if anything, actively would feel sick from and not appreciate.
[4:03 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: I'll try to pay attention though...
[4:04 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: This "SUBTITLED" stream is not sub-titling the music lyrics for The Foglands, though.
[4:05 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: "Green Hell" VR has you in a jungle with... I dunno, wild big cats. Whatever. They said they'd show five PlayStation VR2 games and we're already on the third without much care or fanfare for these individual titles.
[4:05 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Watching the disembodied hands move around when not watching a game in VR is...uncomfortable.
[4:06 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Synapse is the third game and looks...artistically colourless.
[4:06 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: The fourth trailer opens up with a quote from Foundation.
[4:06 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: "This may be hard to hear..." Fortunately I'm on the sub-titles stream.

Easy for me! SUBTITLED stream for the win!
Kind of reminds me of playing Donkey Kong Country's Game Boy Color port on the GameCube's Game Boy Player on a television and feeling greatly advantaged due to being able to actually see things.
...Though the context of the screenshot is that it's emotionally hard to hear, not literally hard to hear. STILL.

[4:07 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Oh, it quoted Foundation because it's based on Foundation, not just because the developers are fans of Isaac Asimov.
[4:07 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: "Journey to Foundation"
[4:07 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: (Well I'd hope they'd be fans if they're making a game.)
[4:08 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: My neighbour is apparently named Chloe in this fifth game.
[4:08 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: "Close your eyes." Very different than how The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild started.
[4:08 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: "Before Your Eyes" is the last VR2 game.
[4:09 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: VR2 section done, now onto other games like Destiny 2: Lightfall from Bungie.
[4:11 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: It's releasing February 28... yeah, that's really bad reacting from me.
[4:11 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Now here's a game brought to us by the... Pacific Islands, I dunno.
[4:12 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: "Tchia" "inspired by New Caledonia"
[4:12 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Pronounced as "Chia". The narrator said it's one of PS4's/PS5's "most anticipated games", which should be completely embarrassing.
[4:13 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Because Tchia looks, uh, like a generic 3D character-based platformer but with a boring human from New Caledonia.
[4:14 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Probably still better than BALAN WONDERWORLD.
[4:14 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Meanwhile, whatever the heck they're showing now features...a lot of walking or running people. Some with lightsabers running into each other.
[4:14 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: (It's a puzzle game.)
[4:15 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: "optional PS VR and VR2" not gonna happen. It's called "Humanity", because that's what humans are reduced to under communism.
[4:16 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Here's a... scaley rhythm game?
[4:16 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Featuring real-time dialogue options in cutscenes/story scenes between the band-playing.
[4:16 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: "Goodbye Volcano High" goodbye trailer.
[4:17 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: We go from that animated snoozefest to NarutoXBoruto.
[4:18 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: "Why are you so obsessed with me?"
"Because we're friends!"
Sounds like the "difference between flirting and harassment" meme.
[4:19 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: "Captivating fantasy worlds await in our next two games." Promise?
[4:19 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: And does that imply that all of the fantasy worlds prior to this part of State of Play aren't captivating?
[4:20 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: "You have something he doesn't... allies worth having." As they're showing a dude throwing another dude off a roof?
[4:21 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Baldur's Gate (3) was the first captivating fantasy, and now Wayfinder is the second.
[4:22 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Ooh, two highly anticipated CAPCOM games.
[4:22 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: One of them is for Street Fighter VI (6).
[4:23 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Zangief trailer, and he's tearing things up.
[4:23 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: I'm surprised that they're not banning Zangief due to the war in Ukraine.

It seems like we've stopped cancelling Russians and Russian-esque figures, to the benefit of Zangief and Blue Moon.

[4:24 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Now here's Lily, a photographer that I'm pretty sure is new to this game.
[4:24 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: She can hear spirit voices.
[4:25 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Cammy is the third character revealed here.
[4:25 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: She has great animations.
[4:26 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: And the second CAPCOM game is... clearly not Ace Attorney.
[4:26 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: I mean, unless they're doing a crossover with Resident Evil.
[4:26 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Or it's just exclusively Resident Evil.
[4:27 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Features "kinda fun" minecarts.
[4:28 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Resident Evil 4 is re-re-rereleasing next month.
[4:29 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: And the rest(?) of this State of Play is Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League releasing this May.
[4:30 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Flash is being a dick.
[4:31 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: It's implied the footage they're showing is online co-op? I dunno.
[4:32 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Lots of character switching which is either one person or editing of multiple people.
[4:33 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Or it's all just highly edited trailer stuff and not really how the gameplay is sequenced.
[4:33 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Am hoping it's that because otherwise this'd be incoherent to actually play. <.<
[4:35 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Flash wants Wonder Woman to kill him.
[4:35 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: And...that's it?
[4:36 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Nope, "Rocksteady Studios has even more to share today."
[4:37 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: (to be clear, Flash is being a dick because of Brainiac brainwashing)
[4:37 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Rocksteady very much wants to portray the game through villains' eyes. But fighting the Justice League is a good thing here.
[4:39 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Harley Quinn is the wild acrobatic of the group with grappling. Deadshot has a jetpack and precise sniper rifle assassin shots. King Shark is the team brutish tank who is a melee character. Captain Boomerang is also acrobatic and they didn't do a great job describing what makes him unique.
[4:42 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Acquiring gear lets you get build and customise your character, including those themed after other characters like Bane.

I think Harley Quinn looks great!

[4:43 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: If you don't play with friends, the other Suicide Squad members are controlled by bots.
[4:44 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Alright, that's all Rocksteady has to share.
[4:44 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: "Thanks for watching."
[4:45 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Well, I still think Xbox's Developer Direct was better.
[4:45 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: ...
[4:45 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: But I figured that'd be the case going in.
[4:45 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Just wanted to be FAIR AND BALANCED.


Did you think this was the best presentation ever? Were you expecting more? None of this changed Ludwig's view of Sony being the scummiest and least interesting of the big three console manufacturers, but what about YOU?


The last State of Play with a reaction log on KoopaTV is from September 2022.
The next PlayStation reaction log wasn't a State of Play, but an entire PlayStation Showcase 2023.