Whatcha Been Playing?

[Stanshall]

Nice. Never realised you'd written that one, Sean, and never read it! I'll give it a go later on.

[Alex79]

Well worth a watch:

Spoiler: show

Wow. I really had no interest in this game until I watched that video. It really does look absolutely gorgeous, and smooth as anything. I'd only ever played the Megadrive version, and always believed the general consensus was that Virtua Racing was 'a bit rubbish', but it would appear I'm completely wrong in thinking that! I honestly never realised how bigger deal it was and how people loved it so much. I'll definitely be getting that when it comes to the UK store.

[Magical_Isopod]

X is a funny beast. I think the art design of the planet itself is absolutely incredible. Whereas I hated the character design, music, lack of story, enemies, menus and combat all felt like massive backsteps after XC1. X has loads more in common with BOTW than XC1 or 2.

But despite all that, I rate BOTW as my favourite games ever, so figure that out..

That was a quality read, and I think it's helped me understand why Xenoblade worked for me and BOTW didn't.
- Xenoblade has you on a giant humanoid thing, which instantly demands answers to questions; BOTW is just another "stop Ganon" set-up in a big, empty field.
- Xenoblade has all kinds of wildlife in different biomes; BOTW has a small handful of scattered enemies.
- Xenoblade has an amazing soundtrack; BOTW has vague ambient sound.

It was also interesting to read about the feeling of exploration... A lot of people seem to feel this game has a degree of "realism" in exploration and problem solving. But I kind of disagree? I'm an avid hiker, so I was really expecting something analogous to that experience - it certainly sold it as such. But BOTW is far more restrictive than real hiking, and the journeys are far less interesting. When hiking for real, every tree is unique, the physical feeling of strain, the wind on your face, all that... it's missing. Plus in hiking, finding ways to navigate your surroundings are a puzzle in themselves - how do I keep adequate footing on a 60 degree embankment made mostly of mud or ice or loose soil? BOTW was nothing like real exploration, and that annoyed me.

With Xenoblade, I had this amazing mystery to propel me through the story - What are the giants? Why are the machines killing people? What's at the top of the giant? Where did the people come from? What is this world?

With BOTW it was more like... I have to beat the bad guy at the castle. I have to activate all the towers. I have to do all these trials. Nothing was there to discover - it was a checklist. It lacked the narrative hooks it needed to make me care.

With rumours that MonolithSoft is doing the next Zelda solo, I'm very curious to see what direction they take. I can't imagine they'll go back to disposable weapons and copy/pasta "dungeons" after the general poor reception. If they can actually make the world and story interesting, and fix the problems most people generally agree on, I might be sold.

[seansthomas]

Glad you liked it!

I know exactly what you mean about BOTW in so many respects but equally loved the sheer isolation and freedom it gave. The wind, the passing clouds, the situations where an elemental occurrence changes your situation, finding a stranger stranded somewhere remote... I adored it.

But XC is a different type of game and one I equally adore for vastly different reasons. Both are in my top 5 games ever.

[Flabyo]

The Megadrive version of virtua racing is nothing more than a fun tech exercise. It’s not a good port of it (The 32x version is better, but even then not that great), but getting the Megadrive to do that *at all* is quite the piece of code.

It was one of the first carts I shoved into my Analogue Sg, cause if it can handle that it can pretty much handle anything.

[Chopper]

Flabyo, how did you get on with Stellaris in the end? My game on PC took a restart and a total of 100 hours to beat, so I'm guessing you ran out of steam on the console version eventually?

[Flabyo]

Lost very badly in my first campaign when the reclusive but tech superior lot we’d all been ignoring decided we all had to go. Won my second campaign with a federation victory just before something appeared from interstellar space and starting eating us all.

Taking a break from it before I play again, as a bunch of the dlc I got as part of buying the more expensive version is out now.

It’s good. If you like that style of game. I doubt it’s going to convince anyone on the fence about them though.

I guess I could’ve added it to my ‘games completed’ list, but it doesn’t feel like the kind of game I’d ever consider ‘beat’ so I didn’t.

[Chopper]

Lost very badly in my first campaign when the reclusive but tech superior lot we’d all been ignoring decided we all had to go. Won my second campaign with a federation victory just before something appeared from interstellar space and starting eating us all.

Nice! My games played out very similarly, though I achieved the federation victory after the hungry ones appeared (I beat them eventually, but was lucky enough that they started eating my competitors rather than me).

One of the worries I've had about this game is replayability - as far as I can tell the campaign goes in generally the same direction each time, with the big bad at the end being one of a few (maybe three?) different threats. If you've got the DLC that allows your race to 'level up' that opens up more stuff at the endgame which is reasonably interesting, but I think the bits that add colour to the various 'side quests' add a lot. I never got the later DLC on PC that allows you to build Dyson Spheres etc, at least I don't think I did.

That said, I think I'll check it out on console eventually when the complete version is on sale at a decent price.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it though.

[Combine Hunter]

About half way through Devil May Cry 5. This may well be the series at it's peak in terms of mechanical sophistication and encounter design, but I do miss the more labyrinthine level design of 3 and the balls to wall creativity of DmC. There is a lot of running down corridors.

[Magical_Isopod]

I started playing Ys VIII and... Holy heckin bananas, this game is EXCELLENT. I had a fear it would be yet another by-the-numbers JRPG with a good soundtrack but boring gameplay and very slow story... but it's not. It's basically Gilligan's Island with anime characters, and the mechanics are just... Fantastic. It gets you into this loop where you're never waiting for something interesting to happen. It's not even particularly tropey, it actually does some really interesting things with its cast and narrative - everyone's a little more complex than you initially presume.

I'd been waiting for a game that I'm actually excited to pick up and play, and this is one!

The soundtrack is amazing too. I'm 9 hours in and I'm still genuinely excited for the direction the plot's heading, and very few recent JRPGs have been able to do that (in fact, I think the most recent one may be .hack//GU... which came out 13 years ago).

Edit: My bad, Xenoblade was great too!

I am probably going to be very tempted to go back and play the rest of the series - if not the whole thing, then at least the PSP/PC ones. Really cannot sing this game's praises enough.

Also - I feel like the subtitle should not be "Lacrimosa of Dana," but rather, "Adol Christin Evicerates All Wildlife On Uninhabited Island". He is a murder machine.

[hazeredmist]

FWIW, I thought Breath of the Wild was peerless in it's class. I even didn't mind the breaking weapons - it made me think differently about how I used them, more tactically. It was fun. I think my only criticism really was the lack of recipe usage so you have to keep manually cooking up things rather than learning them to speed up the process. But I think that's nit-picking.

@Magical_Isopod - I'm curious to go back to Xenoblade Chronicles X at some point, as I did discard that one a little too early, perhaps. The more sci-fi feel of it appealed to me, I can't really explain why I dropped it. Need to buy it again...

On this note I have reconnected the Wii U to the telly. Fired up Affordable Space Adventures last night, and got stuck on Level 7. I'm going to go back as that game does seem a lot of fun.

[Pitwar]

Days Gone

I'm a fair few hours in now and I'm still really enjoying it.

I had my first horde encounter which I was not at all equipped to deal with so I took the cowards route and ran, but it was quite a spectacle seeing all those Freakers coming after me.

Mortal Kombat 11

I've played through the story mode, played a bunch of solo matches, some towers and a few games online. If you enjoyed MKX then you'll certainly dig this. It's a very polished game and tons of fun.

Sea of Thieves

After hearing a fair amount of praise after the recent anniversary patch I thought I'd have a go and see what the game is like.

To say I'm absolutely lost from the get go is an understatement. I've been given some missions to carry out but can't see where I have to go or how I get there. It's all very confusing and I clearly need someone to show me the ropes.

[Chopper]

I've got some time off work....and I can't settle on anything to play; very frustrating!

I've been getting by with Out of the Park Baseball, as my stock game at this time of year. I've also tried applying MajorGamer's RNG method to my backlog, and it spat out.....Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion. This was free on Steam last December and I enjoyed the original game immensely when I played it on release. I've spent a couple of hours on the tutorial and downloaded a beginner's map (with the space lanes to the enemy AI cut off) but I just can't get into it. Bah.

[stvnorman]

I downloaded What Remains of Edith Finch today, one of this month’s PS+ games, and enjoyed the family-free few hours after work that it’s taken me to play through it, whilst not being especially blown away by it.

It was a cleverly told and mostly engaging story, but I found it a bit predictable and cliched in places (e.g. the being a monster section or the killer in the house while the Halloween theme played section), and had I not played through it in one session I doubt I’d have come back to it.

(I did go back to it because on checking the trophies I’d got, it turned out I only missed two first run trophies, which it spelled out how to get by doing one section again. Now if only there was a platinum for the second run I’d have a decision to make)!

Glad to have seen what all the fuss was about though, and another PS+ gem because I’d have never played it otherwise. Looking forward to trying Overcooked now!

[Stanshall]

I've been playing a little of a lot of games the past few weeks.

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate

Such a cheerful heartwarming game about slaughtering majestic creatures in their natural habitat to make a fancy hat. I love jumping into a hunt with experienced Japanese randos and swinging my hammer wildly as they choreograph balletic bedlam.

Shenmue

Will this ever click? Possibly not, but I adore the pause menu music and the artful mundanity. The voice work is really appealing to me, like some classic Shaw brothers chopsocky dub. So much charm and personality. The character movement and camera are unfortunately ghastly.

Skyrim

On the One X, I spent about six months tweaking mods to make me feel something new from the game. It looks stunning. Turn on the Switch version and it makes me feel as homely as I ever did. The music ranks alongside FF7 as my favourite ever in a game and has an evergreen quality that only grows on me more and more.

Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours

I found this very prosaic and austere when I first picked it up and it certainly is dry in comparison to my Cave regular rotation. That said, having started to appreciate the Gradius/R-Type style over the past week or so via the relevant Switch releases, I have enjoyed DB:CS much more this time around. I find the super wide screen triple monitor presentation strangely thrilling and I can't wait for the Darius Cozmic Collection to turn up in the next couple of weeks.

The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa

A strange retro styled 'open world' game which borrows as much from Double Dragon as from Persona. While there are various things to do, the game lets you approach its moments on your terms and according to your own time scale. Turn up for class and boost your grades, meet some gang next to the train tracks for a punch up or just bunk off, bottle it and have some noodles on your own. It's more about the feeling than the gameplay, there's a button to smoke a ciggie and a button to put your hands in your pockets and look cool.

Mushihimesama Futari Black Label

After a bit of time and a 1CC on the quite spectacular and unusual (and relatively easy) Arrange Mode, I've gone back to both 1.5 Mode and, particularly, to Black Label. It's only through playing Futari that I've understood how different these various modes are in Cave games. Enemy patterns, bullet patterns, scoring systems, bullet speeds, rank effects - they all significantly differ and affect how you play. Black Label is the one for me, though, and it makes Futari probably my favourite shmup ever. The bullet cancelling, the point blanking, the simple but satisfying scoring which encourages you to use both shot types, the colours, the music, the spectacular patterns, the dazzling showers of medals. It's sensory overload and unless you play on the front foot, high up the screen, you'll get quickly overwhelmed and trapped. This is everything I could possibly want from a shoot em up and I could write thousands of words on it.

[ReprobateGamer]

Glad to have seen what all the fuss was about though, and another PS+ gem because I’d have never played it otherwise. Looking forward to trying Overcooked now!

Just interjecting to say that whilst Overcooked is playable with one person (you get cooks you can swop between), it really needs to be played with other people to be properly enjoyed - a wonderful return to couch co-op

[Magical_Isopod]

Had a thought about Ys VIII today -

Despite its seemingly low budget (the graphics and animation are almost PS2 era stuff, and there aren't all that many music tracks), it's really a testament to how games can still be great and tell huge, epic stories without spending Anthem money. I am so thoroughly impressed with several elements of the game - how the art style more than compensates for the lack of detail, how the gameplay loop actually makes exploration fun without recreating ALL OF GREECE, how a good concept for a story can mask tropey characters and dialogue... I feel like someone should staple it to Bobby Kotick's forehead and be like, "Here dummy, here's how you pull a profit without exploiting addicts."

[stvnorman]

Just interjecting to say that whilst Overcooked is playable with one person (you get cooks you can swop between), it really needs to be played with other people to be properly enjoyed - a wonderful return to couch co-op

Thanks for that. Unfortunately I think one player is as far as I'll get with a 12-year old who thinks Mr Fortnite invented video games!

[ReprobateGamer]

Just interjecting to say that whilst Overcooked is playable with one person (you get cooks you can swop between), it really needs to be played with other people to be properly enjoyed - a wonderful return to couch co-op

Thanks for that. Unfortunately I think one player is as far as I'll get with a 12-year old who thinks Mr Fortnite invented video games!

Both my 6yo and 9yo have played and liked it, though they are coming from a minecraft/lego bias of video games. it does also have the handy feature that two players can share a controller so you can have a 3 or 4 player game with 2 controllers

Maybe promise him some V-bucks if he helps you get so many levels complete

[Alex79]

Played the first couple of levels of Cuphead. I did the run and gun level first and thought it was alright, but then a couple of bosses and that's where the game shines - I love it! I just kept concentrating on each one until I could A+ it. That's the game there for me I think, fantastic fun!