Tag: nintendo

PS5 Pro: The Most Expensive Way to Notice a Frame Rate

Hardware Review · Purchased December 9, 2024 · $1,075.18 CAD via EB Games

PlayStation 5 Pro console
The PS5 Pro. Photo via Best Buy Canada.

This was the single biggest console purchase of my year, and it is also the one I have gone back and forth on the most while writing about it.

The Background

Sony announced the PS5 Pro in September 2024 with Canadian pricing set at $959.99 before tax, positioning it as a mid-generation refresh rather than a true next console: better and more consistent ray tracing, higher and steadier frame rates in supported titles, and a beefed-up GPU, all while keeping the same basic PS5 software ecosystem and game library rather than starting over. It also ships with a built-in 2TB SSD, up from the base model’s smaller drive, which mattered to me given how quickly modern installs eat through storage.

I picked mine up at EB Games in early December, and the total I paid ($1,075.18) reflects tax plus whatever accessory or bundle got attached at checkout on top of that base $959.99 price. By the time I bought in, launch week chaos had settled and stock was reasonably available, which was one small mercy in an otherwise expensive month.

Living With It

The honest starting point here is that the PS5 Pro is a real, measurable upgrade, but only in games that specifically support its enhancements. Sony calls this “PS5 Pro Enhanced,” and through the back half of 2024 that list was still filling in rather than covering the full library. In supported titles, the difference is genuinely noticeable: steadier frame rates during busy scenes, meaningfully improved ray-traced reflections and lighting, and in some cases the ability to run performance-mode frame rates at what used to be quality-mode resolution. In anything outside that enhanced list, you are playing the exact same experience as a base PS5, just on more expensive hardware.

The built-in 2TB drive is a genuinely welcome quality-of-life improvement on its own, and it means less immediate pressure to add an internal expansion drive the way base PS5 owners often need to.

Where this purchase gets harder to defend is the price-to-benefit math. Going from a base PS5 to a PS5 Pro costs roughly the same as buying a second console, for improvements that, outside of enhanced titles, you will not notice at all during actual play. This is squarely a purchase for people who already care about frame pacing, resolution, and ray tracing fidelity at a level most casual players simply do not track moment to moment.

What I Liked

  • Noticeably better and steadier performance in PS5 Pro Enhanced titles
  • Meaningfully improved ray tracing quality where supported
  • Built-in 2TB SSD solves the storage anxiety base PS5 owners deal with
  • No ecosystem changes, every existing game and save just works

What I Didn’t

  • Enhanced title support was still incomplete through the back half of 2024
  • No visible benefit at all in non-enhanced games, which is most of the existing library
  • At over $1,000 CAD out the door, this is priced like a luxury upgrade, not a necessary one
  • Requires you to already own or be replacing a base PS5, so the real cost comparison is steep

The Value Verdict

Rating: 3/5

I do not regret this purchase, but I also cannot recommend it to everyone. If you are the kind of player who genuinely notices frame pacing dips and resolution compromises, and you have the specific games in your rotation that support the Pro enhancements, this delivers real, tangible improvement. If you are a more casual player, save the money and put it toward the games themselves.

Where to Buy

Disney Dreamlight Valley: The Storybook Vale, More of a Formula I Still Enjoy

DLC Review · Purchased November 20, 2024 · $71.76 CAD via Xbox.com

Key art for Disney Dreamlight Valley: The Storybook Vale
Disney Dreamlight Valley: The Storybook Vale. Photo: PlayStation Store

The Background

Disney Dreamlight Valley built a loyal audience by blending cozy life-sim mechanics (farming, decorating, friendship building) with actual Disney and Pixar characters and storylines, and The Storybook Vale is a premium expansion pack adding new realms, characters, including Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, and story content on top of that established foundation.

Living With It

This is the priciest DLC purchase in my entire 2024 spreadsheet, and coming in above the $70 mark puts it in a different category than the roughly $12 PowerWash packs and $21 currency bundles that make up most of this section. That price is more defensible than it might first appear, given how much new content the expansion actually adds: new realms to explore and decorate, meaningful character-specific storylines rather than generic filler quests, and enough new systems and content to genuinely extend the life of a game that some players had already worked through the bulk of.

Reviews at launch (and my own time with it) landed on similar ground: this is a well-produced, content-rich expansion that clearly understands what the existing Dreamlight Valley audience wants, more of the same core loop, done well, with new characters and settings to wrap around it. What it is not is a reinvention of the formula, and a small number of reviewers specifically flagged that as a minor disappointment given the price point, wanting the premium expansion to push the format somewhere genuinely new rather than expanding it along the same lines.

For someone already invested in the base game’s rhythm, spending an evening building out a new Rapunzel-themed area of the valley delivered exactly the kind of relaxing, satisfying progression loop that made the base game worth playing regularly in the first place.

What I Liked

  • Genuinely substantial amount of new content, not a thin premium reskin
  • Rapunzel and Flynn Rider’s storylines are well written and true to the source material
  • Extends the life of a game I was already invested in rather than replacing what worked

What I Didn’t

  • The priciest DLC purchase of my entire year, worth going in with clear expectations
  • More of the same established formula rather than a meaningful evolution of it
  • Value is heavily dependent on already being invested in the base game’s core loop

The Value Verdict

Rating: 3/5

Reasonable if you are already invested in Dreamlight Valley as an ongoing game, this delivers real, substantial content. Just know going in that this is a “more of what you already like” purchase rather than a must-have reinvention.

Where to Buy

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, A Discount-Bin Curiosity That Confirmed the Discourse

Game Review · Purchased October 20, 2024 · $20.15 CAD via PSN

Key art for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Photo: PlayStation Store

The Setup

Rocksteady’s live-service superhero shooter launched earlier in 2024 to a rocky reception, a genuine surprise given the studio’s beloved Batman: Arkham legacy, and by the time I picked it up in October at a steep post-launch discount, the game had already become something of a cautionary tale in the industry about chasing live-service trends with a studio and franchise built around single-player storytelling.

The Review

Coming in with lowered expectations and a heavily discounted price actually made for a more fair assessment than launch reviews probably allowed for: the core shooting and traversal mechanics are genuinely fine, even solid in short bursts, with each character controlling distinctly enough to matter. The problems reviewers and the community flagged at launch are still present though: a live-service structure bolted onto characters and a universe that fans wanted a proper single-player Arkham-style story from, and narrative choices (without spoiling specifics) that a large portion of the existing fanbase found genuinely unwelcome.

Playing this months after launch, once the initial backlash had already reshaped the wider conversation around the game, it was hard not to view it as a case study in mismatched expectations between what a studio’s fanbase wanted and what got built.

What I Liked

  • Solid core shooting and traversal mechanics
  • Distinct character playstyles
  • At a steep discount, low financial risk to see the discourse firsthand

What I Didn’t

  • Live-service structure clashes with what fans of the studio’s prior work actually wanted
  • Narrative choices proved divisive within the existing fanbase
  • Full launch price would be very hard to justify given the reception

The Verdict

Rating: 2/5

At the deep discount I paid, this was a reasonable curiosity purchase. At full launch price, this would be a hard no, and the wider gaming community’s reaction backs that up.

Where to Buy

Dead Island 2 Deluxe Edition: Buying the Whole Meal Instead of Ordering Extras Later

Game Review · Purchased January 16, 2024 · $70.50 CAD via PSN

Key art for Dead Island 2
Dead Island 2. Photo: PlayStation Store

The Setup

Dead Island 2’s Deluxe Edition bundles the base game with its full expansion pass and a handful of cosmetic extras, essentially pre-purchasing both the story expansions I reviewed separately elsewhere in this series and the core game in a single transaction.

The Review

The base game earned its positive reception honestly: gory, physical melee combat with genuine weight behind every swing, and a strong, distinct sense of place across a zombie-infested, sun-bleached version of Los Angeles that manages to feel different from the series’ earlier tropical island settings despite the shared DNA. Character progression through the skill card system gave real room to build a personal combat style, whether that meant leaning into elemental weapon effects, crowd control, or straightforward melee damage.

Buying the Deluxe bundle upfront, rather than the base game alone with the intention of grabbing the expansion pass later, turned out to be the financially smarter move: bundled together, the combined price undercuts what buying both pieces separately at full price down the line would have cost, a fairly rare case of a “deluxe” tier actually representing straightforward savings rather than just cosmetic upselling.

The expansions themselves (covered in more depth in their own post in this series) landed as solid, if not essential, extra content, which does put a small dent in the overall value proposition of the bundle, but the core game alone was strong enough to make this purchase worthwhile even setting the expansions aside entirely.

What I Liked

  • Genuinely satisfying, weighty melee combat
  • Distinct, well-realized setting
  • Bundled pricing meaningfully undercuts buying the pieces separately later
  • Flexible skill card system supports different playstyles

What I Didn’t

  • Included expansions are decent rather than essential, slightly softening the bundle’s overall value
  • Open-world structure occasionally repeats itself across the map’s different districts

The Verdict

Rating: 4/5

Buying the Deluxe bundle upfront was the smarter financial call versus buying the base game and expansion pass separately later at full price, and the core game’s combat and setting hold up well enough on their own to justify the purchase regardless.

Where to Buy