Cloud Monday - Cloudpunk - Good Game To Stream From PlayStation Plus But Unclear Saves Are An Issue

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing Cloudpunk. I streamed this game, developed by Ion Lands, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service on my launch model Japanese PS4.

In part 1, https://youtu.be/o3KbvReYduI, i had a great experience streaming the game from PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Streaming Service. there were the occasional hiccups throughout my time with the game but nothing that seriously impacted my time and my enjoyment of the game. they were simply noticeable.

For the most part, that continued into this part 2. I felt no lag in the controls and the streaming issues we had didn't get in the way of gameplay nor my enjoyment of it. But there were more noticeable streaming artifacts than in part 1. there were Stream Tears, where grey appears on screen, and it felt like there were bit rates drops, where the video looked like "1080p" but not too detailed. 

A lot of the games design, intentional or not, helps mitigate the issues i had streaming the game from PlayStation. Most, if not all, of the conversations in the game are voiced and also have subtitles, if you don't accidentally hide them,  so if there is macro blocking and the text becomes illegible, then you can listen to what's happening. If the bit rate or resolution drops, you can slow down or stop. most of the game so far is us delivery items in our vehicle but these don't go fast and we don't move fast when walking so i never felt like i was headed to a crash. and i could simply stop and wait for things to get better. So for these reasons, and more, i do recommend this game as something that's streamable from PlayStation Plus and that it's a good game in general.

But...it's unclear when the game saves. And in a game that's being streamed to us on a service that can kick us off with just a 20 second warning, it's a little frustrating. I ended this video not knowing when the last save was, would i have to talk to the Coffee Man again or was the save when i landed. i don't know. The game has some other small issues like a so-so tutorial that i can work my through. But this save issue is big enough to give me pause and it's something i must add when i recommend this game, 'cause i do recommend it.

Cloud Monday - Cloudpunk - Unclear Checkpoints And Auto-Saves Bring Unwanted Anxiety

This week's Cloud Monday video is is on Cloudpunk. I streamed this game, developed by Ion Lands, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service on my launch model Japanese PS4.

Going in to this game, i didn't know much about it. over the years i had heard this and that about it so i knew that it was something like a taxi/delivery game with lots of talking. but the specifics were unclear. But one of the reasons for choosing a "Cyberpunk" style game is whether or not the aesthetics of it would hold up being streamed to my PlayStation 4.

For the most part, streaming the game from the cloud doesn't affect the aesthetics of the game. the biggest issue the game has in this regard is with the PS4. the draw distance isn't too far so there is a lot of pop-in. it's hard to get a sense of scale, the fully grasp the whole world, when it's popping in as you drive along. But what you do get to see is some amazing voxel art and some huge buildings.

As the game uses varying sizes of voxels, i never really had an issue with how it looked or with things not being clear due to issues with the streaming. in the video, there was some macro blocking, some stream tears, some small hiccups, but in all these instances i still could understand the world. thankfully, these all happened in the car so it's possible out on foot it could be a little bit more of a distraction. the only issue i had with the cloud stream was an instance where macro-blocking made reading what a character was saying difficult.

Once again, it was the game itself that provided the biggest issue. In this video, i was unable to save my game, nor was i able to workout if the game is auto saving or checkpointing. I'll find out when i start Part 2 next week, but it genuinely adds a bit of anxiety to the experience because if there is an issue with streaming a game from PlayStation Plus, there's only a 20 second warning. I have no idea when the last save was, so i have no idea how much progress is about to be lost. The game's pace is slow and that works well with it being streamed, but that works against it if a lot of progress is about to be lost.

As a streaming experience, i do recommend it. But that comes with a huge asterix over the saving and checkpointing that i won't know the answer to until the second part of this series.