Whatcha Been Playing?

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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

Finished Vanquish on PS4. Not sure I followed the plot, but also not sure that was necessary to having a great time shooting big stuff with big guns in some great-looking, fast-paced environments. A lot of fun!

I was massively excited when Bloodstained 2 was announced, then decided to voice my opinion on it costing more on Switch than PS4 by not buying it on any platform... Protest over! Just bought it in a Switch sale, played Episode 1 to the credits, and it’s wonderful! The gameplay is so tight, it looks and sounds glorious, and it’s up there with the best of Castlevania!

Also played loads of Mario’s Super Picross on SNES on Switch. Played a bit on emulation before, but having it on a big screen makes all the difference. Great nonogram puzzler, even in Japanese!

And I had to re-buy Stunt Car Racer on eBay because after cleaning and setting up my Atari ST again (complete with new Quickshot joystick), the game I went through all that to play again had just disappeared from my big box of ST games. Haggled the seller to £20, and it’s worth every penny. Still one of the most exhilarating games I’ve ever played, and one of my favourite racers ever.
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Angry_Kurt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Angry_Kurt »

stvnorman wrote: September 29th, 2020, 9:10 pm Finished Vanquish on PS4. Not sure I followed the plot, but also not sure that was necessary to having a great time shooting big stuff with big guns in some great-looking,fast-paced environments. A lot of fun!
Vanquish is by far my favourite platinum game, though I think that's partly because I'm not very good at the other style of action games they make. A Vanquish 2 is a sequel I would love to see but may be a bit of a pipe dream.
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DomsBeard
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by DomsBeard »

Just had a couple of hours on Star Wars Squadrons in VR. After a super slow hand holding tutorial it is very good. Didn't feel overly ropey afterwards either (I had a 30 minute break after 1 hour).

After a lot of chat about you having to finish the campaign to play multiplayer it was nice for it to be opened up once you've finished the 30 minute a side tutorial for a Tie and X wing, I imagine you'll get a more hands on tutorial with the other fighters in the campaign.

One thing great about VR is the Tie fighters as they should do feel quite restricted in view vs the x wing.

Had two Multiplayer dogfight games 5 v 5 both worked well and featured players from either console or pc as they had different icons v PSN.
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Flabyo
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Flabyo »

Been seeing a lot of talk about Genshin Impact, and as it’s a free to play title I figured I may as well take a look. It’s on mobile as well as PC and PS4, but I went with the PS4 version.

It’s an open world RPG. It borrows a lot of mechanics and design elements from Breath of the Wild. It’s definitely it’s own thing though, it has a very interesting elemental combat system which makes you switch between party members frequently to combine effects (eg, hit an enemy with a water attack and it gets the status ‘wet’ which now makes it weak to lightning attacks, or you can use an ice attack to freeze them now etc...)

I’m not really sure how the thing actually makes money yet. There’s a gacha thing for getting new characters to play as but it currently feels far from essential to have to use it. Maybe in the later game the levelling curve is such that it turns into a heavy grind, but at least so far it feels about as generous as Path of Exile.

I’ve seen a few articles about it recommend you stick with it at least until the end of the opening prologue quest and I’d agree, it drags its feet a lot at the start but as soon as you start to see the potential of that combat system it begins to get its hooks in.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Yeah I'm interested in this, so good to hear its worth a look. I was waiting for the Switch release but that doesn't seem to be coming out any time soon so might just try the PS4 one. I've also downloaded it to phone, so will probably have a look at that too. Wonder if it's cross save?
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chase210
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by chase210 »

I’ve had a go at the Star Wars Squadrons game, not my cup of tea. Feels very awkward to play, kinda boring, maybe designed for VR which I’m not a fan of either.
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ReprobateGamer
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ReprobateGamer »

I tried out Felix The Reaper last night.

I want to like this game - you play an slightly overweight always dancing reaper from the ministry of death who is smitten with his opposite from the ministry of life. The visuals are somewhat surrealist and and kooky enough to be appealing, the soundtrack is something I will have have hunt for and narration is by Sir Patrick Stewart himself.

However the game is basically get from point A to point B. As a reaper, Felix can only travel in the shadows, and you are able to switch the sun around in 90 degree sections (only two to start but I presume more later in the game) to travel along the grid.

And that's it. There are things like blocks that can be moved to change where the shadows fall and items that will interact with the world but it is just a reach the correct point, sometimes with an item. By the time I reached the end of the first 'world' (just six levels), I was already bored. And constantly fighting the camera that seemed to move very far away at a moments notice.

The care put into this game shows (the producer's AMA on how the game bombed makes for interesting reading) - it's just a shame that the core gameplay loop isn't rewarding enough
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andthenweplay
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by andthenweplay »

I have been replaying some of my favourite video games lately and for the first time in my life i am actually doing platinum trophy hunting. I am currently working my way through Odin Sphere Liefthrasir and it is almost more enjoyable now then when I played through it the previous times. I am just about done Gwendolyn arc on high difficulty before I move on to the next ones. Incredibly stylised game, it is almost as enjoyable to look at as it is to play. It is one of those titles that is worth checking out just to see the animation and detail that goes into everything
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

Seen the credits twice now in Bloodstained 2 on Switch, and it really is wonderful - if it looked like Super Castlevania IV it would be the best old-school Castlevania of them all! I really didn’t see where it was going in this newly unlocked final episode, but had a ridiculous grin on my face when it did it! That said, I need to go back through the game a third time of sorts to power up for the final final boss. It plays like a dream, is inventive while being familiar, and looks and sounds absolutely stunning. Game of the year territory without any doubt.

It might have some competition from Star Wars: Squadrons on PS4 though! I’m a couple of hours into the story and I’ve played a bit of multiplayer, and so far it’s everything this Star Wars nerd wanted it to be! Obviously I’m still useless at it, but until I get average the sights and sounds are more than enough!

Super Mario 3D Land on 3DS has kept me occupied for a few weeks during my son’s 3 times a week closed-doors football training, and I finished it and had a lovely time doing so! Incredible feat for this handheld, and I often wished this is what Sunshine plays like (which I’m now finding increasingly frustrating on GameCube). I know there’s all the post-credits special levels still to play, but I’m not sure the 3DS control scheme combined with my lack of patience is going to make them enjoyable. They’re there when I want them though!

Also enjoying Super Mario Bros 35, though I seem to be doing worse now I know exactly what’s going on. Fantastic lick of paint to an old favourite though.
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Angry_Kurt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Angry_Kurt »

I picked up Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time on Friday and have been having a great time with it. I was interested in the game knowing that Toys for Bob were the developers who did a great job with the N'Sane trilogy and Crash Team Racing, but given they were remakes, I wanted to see what the reviews were like first. Once the reviews came out with 8s or even the odd 9 in places I decided to pick it up.

It looks gorgeous and is just really fun to play, they have added some new mechanics to the game which help to make it feel like a true advancement of the standard Crash formula. I particularly like how they have added a little circle underneath Crash when he is jumping so that you know where he is going to land. It's also quite challenging, even early on. I did get a little frustrated on the first boss but once I got the hang of it I was ok. Well worth a look if you have liked Crash Bandicoot games in the past.
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Jon Cheetham
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Jon Cheetham »

No time for or access to pc/console games the last few days but I have been checking out various free card games on Android.

Dungeon Tales
This is known for being a Slay the Spire clone, but free and on mobile with ads and an optional class you can purchase or just grind towards. I haven't actually got round to trying Slay the Spire yet (waiting for a discount on Switch), so this has been a good introduction to the synergy-based card combat that game is known for. You work across a map through fights, bosses and campfires, it is a roguelike so if you run out of hp it's all over and you just keep some exp. I've ended up playing it quite a bit whenever I've had five minutes, and honestly it's never frustrating to die as you just go straight back in and the randomised encounters mean it's a bit different every time anyway. Going to keep this installed, the game itself is class, it hasn't been begging for money and the ads are generally unobtrusive.

Card Crawl
Solitaire style game where you have to keep your character alive while the whole deck is dealt by managing potions, weapons and enemies via cards dealt out three at a time. It is very short and pretty fun. I haven't really played Solitaire but by dressing it up with trolls and potions this game has put it in a form I can appreciate. Also, Mike Bithell has a solitaire-style card game coming out this week so that will be interesting to compare. If there is a way to spend money on this I didn't even notice it, you can download this and play through a run or two without being asked for any money and there aren't even any ads.

Night of the Full Moon
Didn't like this one. It's a lot more lavish visually than the others with some pretty detailed cartoony characters, and there's even VO. I did a few battles, you basically have a hand of two cards and you can buy extras etc, it seemed very strange that I was apparently playing a kid looking for her grandma and a local wood cutter who knows me would first attack me because I'm out late then offer to help me, then I fought a bat, I don't know it didn't grab me.
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DomsBeard
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by DomsBeard »

My light level is now 820 on Destiny 2 I'm not really taking in any story beats but the combat is still so good. I'm also thinking of resubbing to Stadia so I can use cross save with my Mac. I will 100% be doing that if Google announce that the dlc coming in November is added as part of the pro subscription.

Speaking of Stadia I'm still dipping my toes in MK11 both on and offline. Not being a pro member means I'm sticking to playing on Mac as playing on a tv isn't great without surround sound.

Ghost Of Tsushima I'm still working my way through slowly, it really came out at the right time as it is the antithesis to TLOU2 as it is not overly intense. Story is predictable but fun and there's some great characters. Evety time you unlock another skill it makes you rethink your strategy going into a fight. I've also done about 100 stand offs now and they will never get old.

I also have a 4 year old obsessed with Fall Guys so much so his Switch gets little use now. He spends so much time talking about what outfits he wants to wear and colours. I've never understood the paying for skins thing but thriugh him I can totally see it now (hot dog is his favourite). So ready for srason two tomorrow as I'm getting slightly tired with some of the game modes.

They'll be printing money if they announce it on Switch as I'll buy it twice for both of us and I'll have to get two Switch online passes. That's getting expensive actually!.

Night In The Woods I'm thinking of deleting and reading up the plot. It isn't doing enough to keep me invested in it in any way.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

I'm supposed to be working on a case analysis for uni, so of course I've put three hours in to Greedfall this morning. And wow, I'm really enjoying it.

I've not left the opening town yet, still looking for my cousin but have been doing all the side quests along the way. I have niggles. You have to play for ages before you're able to unlock really simple skills like lockpicking and crafting. I do feel like the first level of these skills should be available from the start, with options to increase skill in each. The way the game is set up, it's not possible to complete an early quest without the crafting skill. Had I known this prior to starting, I'd have picked that as my starting skill.

The game seems pretty open with how you can complete quests which is nice (hopefully there's another way to kill the aforementioned quest). Actually - I wonder if anyone knows? I have to tamper with a ships manifest to smuggle some crates on board, but I'd already killed the guards in the warehouse in a previous mission, and now it's asking me to craft a sleeping potion to use on those same (dead) guards. Not sure if I've broken the quest or not now.

That aside, it actually looks really nice, and it's one of the few games I've noticed HDR actually making a difference on my base PS4. Combat seems fun, much the same as The Witcher, and I've not explored magic at all yet (which always tends to be an afterthought in my usual RPG builds).

Seems good so far though, I've only stopped playing to watch game 4 of the Lakers V Miami Heat Playoffs (no spoilers please if you know the result!) but can't wait to get back to it tonight. When I'm supposed to be working... :|
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Flabyo
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Flabyo »

You don’t need to do the sleeping potion thing, the quest completes when you meet the main goal, however you get to it.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Ah yeah, I found the manifest last night, I'd been looking in the wrong place! I played about six hours now, and just got to the main island last night. Really enjoying it so far. It's every bit as janky as people warned, I've had two full crashes back to the PS4 dashboard and a couple of getting stuck in scenery bugs as well as oddities in the menu systems. The voice acting is on another level. The indigenous people that live on the island have the most bizarre accent - half Irish, half Bristolian, the pronunciation of some of the words is frankly hilarious. The dialogue is laughable at times, too. Example:

Guard: "There have been reports of guards extorting money from traders".

Player: "Wait, are you telling me there have been reports of guards extorting money from traders?"

Guard: "Yes sir. Guards have been extorting money from traders".

:lol:

But for all its jank, it's very enjoyable, and the combat is really fun too, especially now I've got the stasis magic. Oddly enough it really reminds me a lot more of Neverwinter Nights 2 than something like The Witcher. Mainly around the sorts of quests I'm doing, but also that kind of ramshackle feel about it, and also the fact it's not a true open world, more like hub areas. All in all, really enjoying it though.

EDIT: To be honest, my only real bugbear at the moment is the excessive film grain applied to the graphics, which cannot be turned off. They went a bit overboard on that.
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Flabyo
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Flabyo »

I really must go back and finish it at some point, I’m about half way I think.
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duskvstweak
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by duskvstweak »

I've never fully played the original Doom games, just bits here and there growing up. Doom 3 was my first go through a whole game, and DOOM 2016 is now one of my favorite games of all time. Decided to start October with the first Doom (well, Ultimate Doom), just finished the third episode and I'm almost done with the fourth.

I had to use gzdoom to play instead of Steam. Playing the original was making me motion sick(!) so I turned off the gunbobbing, the flash on item pickups and shrunk the screen, and I've been fine. I never get motion sickness, so I was a little shocked that this game from 1993 was doing it to me. But, it's been smooth sailing since.
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ReprobateGamer
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ReprobateGamer »

Played Among Us for the first time this week.

It was an impromptu session that we set up ad-hoc - with a couple of us not even owing the game and others who had been playing for a while. We went straight into a game with very little issues, and the cross play between the various Android and Steam versions just worked first time (using Discord, and self-moderation, for voice chat).

I had a bit of an issue using the arrow keys for movement but this was more to it being on the right hand side of the keyboard - I'm far too used to using left hand for movement but it was nice to play a game that just worked and that we could have a variety of ages and skill levels without having to go through tutorial levels.

Nice to get a win my first time as an imposter as well (venting the O2) and promptly messed up my second time by misclicking too near to a vent ...
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

duskvstweak wrote: October 11th, 2020, 3:41 pm I've never fully played the original Doom games, just bits here and there growing up. Doom 3 was my first go through a whole game, and DOOM 2016 is now one of my favorite games of all time. Decided to start October with the first Doom (well, Ultimate Doom), just finished the third episode and I'm almost done with the fourth.

I had to use gzdoom to play instead of Steam. Playing the original was making me motion sick(!) so I turned off the gunbobbing, the flash on item pickups and shrunk the screen, and I've been fine. I never get motion sickness, so I was a little shocked that this game from 1993 was doing it to me. But, it's been smooth sailing since.
Doom 2016 was the first time I ever got motion sickness playing a game. And it was bad (though not as bad as Tetris Effect and Wipeout in VR)! I played through the first three again this year after they were literally pennies on Switch (as well as the new 64 port) and never even thought about it again until just now. I find it fascinating how it affects different people and what might trigger it, and wonder how accessibility options might develop to compensate.
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Cornelius_Smiff
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Cornelius_Smiff »

After bouncing off Red Dead Redemption 2 for what seems like forever, I am giving it another crack. I made an immersion rule... No fast travel, no obsessing over typical open world completionist tropes and to psuedo RP it e.g. Play it as an actual character. Having a blast as a result.

As a result of the recent Patreon exlusive pod chat between Jay and Leon, I've given Genshin Impact a go. I wont mention that game that everyone compares it too, but Yes I see why. However, for a free game it's all sorts of well polished and content heavy. Love the cross save feature between PC and Android (a nice commute game since I sold my Switch boo!).

Got a a few buddies of mine into Elite: Dangerous (drop me a shout if you want to wing up). I gota kinda bored a few months back after figuring out the game breaking mining loop for fast cash but dropped into a basic ship and went bounty huntin' with the chaps. Super fun!
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