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Insomniac is being coronated way to soon

Lately I have been seeing alot of people calling insomniac Sonys "premier studio" in combination with their output and their quality...but I think this is being a bit short sighted considering the quality and proven studios Sony has under their belts.

I would say that the premier studios who could be considered their top dog are:

Naughty Dog
Insomniac
Santa Monica
Sucker Punch

You could throw guerrilla in there but I would argue that is a bit short sighted too. Now the talk on Insomniac being the premier studio started with Spiderman and since they made Spiderman Miles Morales and Ratchet and clank rift apart...these three games have an average meta critic of 86.6. Now the studio who I would still consider the best of the SIE first party Naughty Dogs last 3 games have a metacritic of 90 even with lost legacy bringing them down with an 84 average...but it seems that since Naughty dog doesnt have the output of insomniac I would argue due to the fact that naughty dogs polish is still a tier above the rest of the industry it feels people are wrongly putting them over naughty dog even tho their projects are still a step below Naughty Dogs.

While they have been killing it with output and really well recieved games, it does feel like their tremendous climb to the top (no pun intended) has a large part to do with the massive IP they are in charge of as I would argue they haven't produced a game that is even the level of Ghost of Tsushima and still feel that putting them at the top of the SIE pyramid is a bit too soon. I would probably put them third behind:

1. Naughty Dog
2. Santa Monica
3. Insomniac

But with GOT being better than probably any Insomniac game imo they could climb to 3 if their next game is of the same quality.

TLDR: Why people looking past my boy naughty dog
 
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kyliethicc

Member
People are bored of Naughty Dog's 12 year run of GOTY award winning success and want someone new to cheer for.

Insomniac are great too. Solid 3rd place contender within PlayStation Studios along with Guerrilla.

Naughty Dog are still the top dog number 1. Santa Monica Studio are number 2. Scoreboard.

Insomniac will be or already are the studio that makes Sony the most money tho. Spidey sells.
 
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Tripolygon

Banned
People are bored of Naughty Dog's 12 year run of GOTY award winning success and want someone new to cheer for.

Insomniac are great too. Solid 3rd place contender within PlayStation Studios along with Guerrilla.

Naughty Dog are still the top dog number 1. Santa Monica Studio are number 2. Scoreboard.
morgan-freeman-pointing.gif
 

Fahdis

Member
I don't care which Sony studio is better, just give me some good games as they already are all amazing. The fav studio of mine depends on which games I enjoy the most. Dick-riding Spiderman does nothing for me, so far Guerilla is my favorite because they make games I like.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Call me crazy, but I'd put Santa Monica as the top tier studio. I know their other studios are bigger and their games sell more copies.

But God of War is an awesome franchise spanning 3 generations (soon 4) and it's gameplay, setting and production values hold up every game. There is no way anyone can watch a slew of first party games across 3 systems and not think GOW is the coolest and freshest franchise out them all.
 
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ParaSeoul

Member
That is Sony's strength: multiple high-tier, industry leading, awards winning studios, making it impossible to crown one of them "the king".

Playstation Studios is truly a powerhouse in gaming and Insomniac is just another reason why.
I can't tell if you're making fun of that other thread or not
 

bender

What time is it?
But God of War is an awesome franchise spanning 3 generations and it's gameplay, setting and production values hold up every game. There is no way anyone can watch a slew of first party games across 3 systems and not think GOW is the coolest and freshest franchise out them all.

Eh. Before the series was rebooted, God of War was a really simplistic action game that fell into the trap that most of Sony's AAA games fall into, style over substance and while they are highly polished, they follow mechanical trends rather than innovating.

The advantage that Insomniac has at the moment is it seems they have the best pipeline for delivering games. They are the anti-Polyphony Digital. I'd take Ratchet and Clank or Spider Man over anything from SSM, SP or GG have ever produced or anything ND has produced in recent memory. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't lose much sleep skipping the next entries in Insomniac's stable.
 

ParaSeoul

Member
Eh. Before the series was rebooted, God of War was a really simplistic action game that fell into the trap that most of Sony's AAA games fall into, style over substance and while they are highly polished, they follow mechanical trends rather than innovating.
The older God of Wars aren't the deepest action games buts they're far from simplistic.
 

bender

What time is it?
The older God of Wars aren't the deepest action games buts they're far from simplistic.

Compared to their contemporaries in Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry, I'd say simplistic is fair. That's not a knock. The series has certainly found an audience that those deeper action games could only dream of.
 
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Nobody talked about them when they did the 80+ games Sunset Overdrive or 2016 Ratchet and Clank. Now that they did 1,5 80+ Spiderman games and another Ratchet and Clank + the Wolverine accouncement they are gods. Superhero franchises help a lot.
 

ParaSeoul

Member
Compared to their contemporaries in Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry, I'd say simplistic is fair. That's not a knock. The series has certainly found an audience that those deeper action games could only dream of.
They're simpler but there is depth.They're not as mechanically deep as those two but then again what series was back then? Seen too many posts retroactively turn the older games into button mashers with no story or character.
 

bender

What time is it?
Nobody talked about them when they did the 80+ games Sunset Overdrive or 2016 Ratchet and Clank. Now that they did 1,5 80+ Spiderman games and another Ratchet and Clank + the Wolverine accouncement they are gods. Superhero franchises help a lot.

With Sony and Marvel cozying up, I wouldn't be surprised if Sucker Punch gets tapped on the shoulder to do a super hero property.
 

ParaSeoul

Member
Nobody talked about them when they did the 80+ games Sunset Overdrive or 2016 Ratchet and Clank. Now that they did 1,5 80+ Spiderman games and another Ratchet and Clank + the Wolverine accouncement they are gods. Superhero franchises help a lot.
They put out smaller titles but they weren't releasing triple a games within months of each other back then.
 
Eh. Before the series was rebooted, God of War was a really simplistic action game that fell into the trap that most of Sony's AAA games fall into, style over substance and while they are highly polished, they follow mechanical trends rather than innovating.

The advantage that Insomniac has at the moment is it seems they have the best pipeline for delivering games. They are the anti-Polyphony Digital. I'd take Ratchet and Clank or Spider Man over anything from SSM, SP or GG have ever produced or anything ND has produced in recent memory. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't lose much sleep skipping the next entries in Insomniac's stable.
To be fair GOW was essentially the pinnacle of its hack and slash combat and third person action games of the early 2000's...the fact it was able to evolve with the industry is only a notch in their cap...I still think Naughty Dog is a better overall studio. combat in the last of us II is borderline perfect.
 
With Sony and Marvel cozying up, I wouldn't be surprised if Sucker Punch gets tapped on the shoulder to do a super hero property.
Hope not...I hope Sony doesn't become the Marvel machine...theres enough original stories that video games don't need a bunch of super hero deep fakes of MCU characters.
 
Who really cares. Besides NeoAbbys that are still hurt Naughtydog hurt their feelings. Insomniac is slowing turning Sony to a licensed gaming company. Fast and Furious by the makers of GT7!
 

nowhat

Member
Yea, they just seem to be massively efficient at development.
Also when in comes to at least Spider-Man, tons of procedurally generated assets, that helps too.

(just to be clear, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that when used appropriately, which Insomniac does - but it's easier/feasible even to recreate "Manhattan" that way compared to something like the environments in GoW/TLoU)
 

bender

What time is it?
To be fair GOW was essentially the pinnacle of its hack and slash combat and third person action games of the early 2000's...the fact it was able to evolve with the industry is only a notch in their cap...I still think Naughty Dog is a better overall studio. combat in the last of us II is borderline perfect.

Hard disagree. Ninja Gaiden Black and Devil May Cry 3 hold the crown.

Naughty Dog has come a long way since the original Uncharted which had a substandard Gears of War cover based system (How Nathan held the riffles in the game never seemed to match were the cursor was pointing). Uncharted 4 is pretty neat with the grappling hook mechanic (grappling hooks make everything better). TLOU was solid but felt a bit dated at the time. I did really enjoy how brutal all the weapons felt. TLOU2 ratcheted that brutality up a notch or two. Going prone was neat I guess? I think Naughty Dog is the biggest example of what I mean by "polished, but not very original". Maybe that's a bit reductive on my part, but I wish Sony's studios would take more risks and bring more originality to the table. I do give a lot of credit to SSM for the God of War reboot.
 
Hard disagree. Ninja Gaiden Black and Devil May Cry 3 hold the crown.

Naughty Dog has come a long way since the original Uncharted which had a substandard Gears of War cover based system (How Nathan held the riffles in the game never seemed to match were the cursor was pointing). Uncharted 4 is pretty neat with the grappling hook mechanic (grappling hooks make everything better). TLOU was solid but felt a bit dated at the time. I did really enjoy how brutal all the weapons felt. TLOU2 ratcheted that brutality up a notch or two. Going prone was neat I guess? I think Naughty Dog is the biggest example of what I mean by "polished, but not very original". Maybe that's a bit reductive on my part, but I wish Sony's studios would take more risks and bring more originality to the table. I do give a lot of credit to SSM for the God of War reboot.
Fair enough...I never played those two games. I think from Uncharted 3-TLOUII could arguably be seen as the best run for a video company ever. In that span Naughty dog set the standard. I do agree their story telling isn't very original tho....but I think the same could be said about Insomniac as well...Naughty Dog does character development really well tho...but I think the best story telling/original ideas are mostly in the indie space right now. AAA games in a way have to be safe enough to recoup cost sadly.
 
Not sated enough by console wars, PlayStation fans are now doing infighting too?

Why are you always looking for the best console / game / dev to crown? You have those devs and games on your favorite console, just enjoy them.

Also, ND looks more and more like a cult around here these days.
Because its 2am in my city and its an interesting topic that crossed my mind...not really all that deep. I'm not a playstation fanboy tho...more of an xbox fanboy who also plays playstation games (bloodborne and tlouII are two of my favorite games ever)...so just a gamer I guess?
 
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For me they put out 7 to 8 out of 10 games. Never bad - never great.

Of the recent stuff I did enjoy Spider-Man and MM but the open world was so pointless and with hardly any interactivity so it was basically only there so you could mess around web-swinging to missions. Fun combat so worth playing but super basic game design that I’m sure would have got flack if certain devs had released it. The license did a lot of heavy lifting as if it was a Man-Spider game with Paul Porker as the hero with the exact same everything else it would have reviewed worse for sure as it was all very bare bones.

R&C was a real disappointment. Basically felt exactly like the PS3 games but with great graphics. Again the combat was very fun and made the game worth playing but it always was. Super uninspired level design with probably one main exception being the mine level which was still pretty basic. The more open world levels were complete shit IMO like someone had knocked them together in an afternoon. The rift stuff was almost completely pointless after being hyped up for months. I completed it and didn’t go back to get any stuff I missed as once was enough.

God of War was amazing and I’ve completed it a few times now and still enjoy it as much as the first time I played it. Santa Monica put out fewer games but if I had to trade the Spider-Man games and R&C to get my hands on GoW I would do it in a heartbeat.

You can buy Insomniac games with confidence that they will not be turkeys but I doubt many people would say that the best game they own was made by them.
 
People are bored of Naughty Dog's 12 year run of GOTY award winning success and want someone new to cheer for.

Insomniac are great too. Solid 3rd place contender within PlayStation Studios along with Guerrilla.

Naughty Dog are still the top dog number 1. Santa Monica Studio are number 2. Scoreboard.

Insomniac will or already are the studio that makes Sony the most money tho. Spidey sells.
ND have not won GOTY for the last 12 years running, you mean to say they've won GOTY on occasion over a period of 12 years.
 

bender

What time is it?
Fair enough...I never played those two games. I think from Uncharted 3-TLOUII could arguably be seen as the best run for a video company ever. In that span Naughty dog set the standard. I do agree their story telling isn't very original tho....but I think the same could be said about Insomniac as well...Naughty Dog does character development really well tho...but I think the best story telling/original ideas are mostly in the indie space right now. AAA games in a way have to be safe enough to recoup cost sadly.

Ninja Gaiden is BC if you have an Xbox. Devil May Cry 3 is on the Switch. Bayonetta 1-2 are dope too.

I still think Uncharted 2 is the best of the series. It had the perfect amount of bombast. Uncharted 3 felt like they wanted to top all of those set pieces and it felt exhausting because of it. Uncharted 4 was the most mechanically interesting but it was a pacing mess. Lost Legacy, I was just tired of the series by that point. I think what Naughty Dog does best is their casting and direction. .It really elevates the well worn territory their stories and character archetypes tread in. Joel and Ellie's performance in TLOU carried that also-ran story. It's also why TLOU2 didn't work for me as no one else had that bond.
 

Bryank75

Banned
Santa Monica, Insomniac and Sucker Punch are my favorites out of first party.

Naughty Dog certainly used to be top pooch. But after the pacing issues in Uncharted 4 and what I consider poor writing in TLOU2..... they are nearly dropping down. I'll leave them hanging out with the others for now cause Lost Legacy was actually pretty fun and well paced and Uncharted 4 multiplayer was great.

For me, the three I mentioned just have an impeccable mix of gameplay, story, character, pacing, fun and technical ability.

When I played TLOU2, I felt like it was trying to manipulate me emotionally so much...I could feel the hand of the writer...it was ham-fisted, clumsy.
It felt amateurish compared to how natural the first game felt.

I hope they get a hold on these issues.... tackling a multiplayer game will avoid these issues in the short-term.


I often harp on about Sony acquisitions.... and I apologize but if you look at it, there really are not that many making content at this level....
I think there should have been more top tier studios added and they are really cheaping out with their acquisitions. They are just not up to snuff.... and some might find that a bit savage. But I just have very high standards for PS.
 
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TonyK

Member
Personally, I think Spiderman and Ratchet, and the previous Imsomniac games, don't have the same level of quality of Last of Us or God of War. They work fine but they haven't done a masterpiece yet.
 
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