Whatcha Been Playing?

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

I’m rarely without the temptation to start another game of Resident Evil 4, but I was off work this week and happily gave in to the PS4 version! A top 3 favourite game ever, but I still spend half my time reloading checkpoints to a see a cutscene again, or just hanging around a particularly picturesque area. Absolutely love this game!

Still playing the incredible Travels Through Time, the new ZX Spectrum racer that’s as tough as it is stunning, with a crazy amount of story, which is fortunate because I’m out of races now on Forza Horizon 4 so I guess I’m done there, though the PS2 F1 Racing Championship is still keeping me busy too.

I’ve got close to the end of Ghostbusters II on Atari ST, but I’ve no idea how to finish it and no great inclination to keep playing to find out. Stupid painting! Its variety, that follows the film plot, is all great in principle but clunky in practice, and not a patch on the Commodore 64 game of the original film. Had a much better time on there with Turbo Out Run this week, which is another recent eBay pickup and well worth the three quid I paid!

Otherwise a load of Arcade Archives Elevator Action on Switch and Cabal on ZX Spectrum for a Twitter high score contest. Got through three missions on new to Game Pass very-indie bruiser Bloodroots then I was bored. And Pit-Fighter arrived in the Midway Collection on Games With Gold, so I’ve beaten that on Xbox now too!
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Tolkientaters
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Tolkientaters »

I got the Streets of Rage 4 DLC, Shiva's just a ton of fun to play, the other 2 are good, but he's just a step above for me. The DLC is definitely worth checking out if you like main game; 3 new characters and a new survival mode.
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Truk_Kurt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Truk_Kurt »

Been playing Skyward Sword HD over the weekend and so far I am pretty impressed. Having not played it before and hearing some people say it's the worst Zelda, my expectations were low but so far I am having a whale of a time. The HD upgrade makes it nice and crisp and the gameplay is fun. I love Breath of the Wild but I am enjoying this games more linear approach.

I have only played in handheld and whilst the stick controls aren't ideal, I'm finding them perfectly fine and certainly not ruining my experience at all. I'm also not sure how they could've done it better to be honest. Looking forward to playing more.
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ratsoalbion
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ratsoalbion »

Every single Zelda game is "the worst" to some and "the best" to others.
:D
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Feirsteax
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Feirsteax »

Tolkientaters wrote: July 18th, 2021, 8:35 pm I got the Streets of Rage 4 DLC, Shiva's just a ton of fun to play, the other 2 are good, but he's just a step above for me. The DLC is definitely worth checking out if you like main game; 3 new characters and a new survival mode.
I absolutely loved SoR4 so this sounds great. Is there any new arcade levels,?
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Feirsteax
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Feirsteax »

Simonsloth wrote: July 16th, 2021, 9:57 pm
Alex79uk wrote: July 16th, 2021, 7:17 pm I'm thinking I might start a Dark Souls 3 new game (or maybe NG+, not sure yet). Don't suppose anyone else is playing at the moment are they? (Seems unlikely, but thought I'd ask!)
I’m sort of chipping away at dark souls 2. It’ll be a while before 3 I think. Give me a year and I’ll be all over it
I'm doing exactly the same atm :mrgreen:

I realised I only played the original ds2, never the scholar of the first sin rejigged version, so I'm enjoying going through and coming across little surprises
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

I'm about 15 hours in to Ashen on the Switch. What started off as a very definite 'Dark Souls Lite' has slowly evolved in to its own thing. Initially the challenge just wasn't there, but I'm currently finding where I'm at really quite difficult. It's a good game!
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Tolkientaters
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Tolkientaters »

Feirsteax wrote: July 19th, 2021, 1:14 pm
I absolutely loved SoR4 so this sounds great. Is there any new arcade levels,?
No, just a survival mode which includes some new weapons and enemies and those 3 new playable boss characters( Shiva, Max, and Estel) that you can play in any mode.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Inspired by this weeks show, I've been playing the hell out of Sega Rally Revo on my Vita (PSP version). It's absolutely fantastic fun! Looks nice, good tracks and a wicked sense of speed. I would recommend this game to anyone who felt like they wanted to play Sega Rally after listening to the podcast this week.
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Kal_Luke
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Kal_Luke »

Alex79uk wrote: July 16th, 2021, 7:17 pm I'm thinking I might start a Dark Souls 3 new game (or maybe NG+, not sure yet). Don't suppose anyone else is playing at the moment are they? (Seems unlikely, but thought I'd ask!)
Did you start a game? If so which platform are you on? I started a thread on play together but didn’t really have any uptake
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

No, didn't start one yet. I was going to but then I got distracted by playing old PS1 games on my Vita :lol:
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

Finished Resident Evil 4 on PS4, which is forever a pleasure of the highest order, and also perfect timing for my longest-running eBay hunt, Luigi’s Mansion on GameCube, to finally end! I am completely in love with the art style, which couldn’t be more suited to the platform, and once you’ve got the controls it’s just a real pleasure!

I did play an hour or so of Cris Tales, newly on Game Pass - really stunning art style and clever time-bending concept, but timing-based, turn-based combat and all that JRPG faff… no thanks! Similar for Atomicrops, also new to Game Pass, which is a farming rogue-like that reminds me of Plants vs Zombies, but gets boring fast.

Also had a really good time with loads of Cotton and Flicky on Astro City Mini, arcade Rastan (thanks to Video Wizards for the reminder!) and New Zealand Story on PS2 Taito Legends, and Super Off Road on Xbox. A few hours back in Stardew Valley too.
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Feirsteax
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

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After getting stuck on Mission 6 of Doom 64 and then sacking it for about 6 months, I decided last night to find a strategy guide and figure out what I was missing. Turns out there was an extremely hard to make out staircase on one of the walls that lets you climb out of a dark hole. I thought it was just a game-over hole and had been trying to avoid it, restarting every time I fell in.

Once I got over that I continued on to smash a few more levels, think I'm on level 12 now, it's really brilliant. Soundtrack has that PSX Doom vibe, completely different from the thrash metal inspired soundtrack to the original DOS games. And apart from that it's pretty much just DOOM with a few different sprites and stuff. It's great.


And I'm slowly making my way through the latter half of GTA V now too. I don't know how I feel about this game. It's really weird. The comedy rarely lands for me, the satire feels extremely weak and fairly incoherent at times, and the gunplay is somewhere slightly above average, but I still really enjoy hopping in a car, switching on the radio and zooming around the world, punching the odd pedastrian and throwing a few sticky bombs into a pile-up every now and again. That and some of the missions are genuinely fun set-pieces.

So it's a weird one. Every time I load it up I think about just uninstalling it as I feel I'm tiring of it, but then I get sucked in, roam around and play a few missions, and every now and again there'll be a really fun moment to keep me invested. I'll probably stick with it just to see the end credits, then once I'm done I'll uninstall and never play again.
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ThirdDrawing
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ThirdDrawing »

Finished the first Chapter of Great Ace Attorney.

The writing is sharp, the characters look great, the music is really fantastic.

If you're a fan of the Phoenix Wright games, or visual novels, don't hesitate to pick this up.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

I'm really struggling to stick with anything right now. Games, TV, books, comics... Keep starting new things and getting bored of them really quickly. I don't know what's happening, this isn't like me at all. Just can't concentrate on anything. I played 5 Switch games in the space of an hour last night, whilst changing the TV series I was watching twice. I'm normally all in on whatever I'm focusing on at the time. Not sure if I'm broken or what!?
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Truk_Kurt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Truk_Kurt »

Still plowing through Skyward Sword, I really love it. The dungeons are really wonderful and the bosses I have encountered so far really varied. Sure the control scheme with the sticks in handheld aren't the best but I think they're the best they could do.
Marlew
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Marlew »

Alex79uk wrote: July 29th, 2021, 6:31 pm I'm really struggling to stick with anything right now. Games, TV, books, comics... Keep starting new things and getting bored of them really quickly.
I've been like this quite a bit over the last year or so. With games, I've found that the more I push it, the more I lose interest. I have a few that I get bursts of interest for, normally Cave shmups that I will play for a week here and there and try to push my score or whatever, but not much has really gripped me over the last six months or so.

Monster Hunter Rise was great, probably my favourite MH game. I hammered it for sixty hours, loved every minute, and then I was done. I was looking forward to the updates and DLC but I just felt I'd had my fill when they came. Similarly, Returnal was excellent, gameplay and atmosphere are fantastic, but it's not one I'll play again and again. I finished a couple of runs, really enjoyed my time, and now I'm done.

I loved TLOU2 and FF7R last year and I was waiting for the PS5 patch to replay them but although I've flicked them on to look at the graphics, I don't really fancy playing them again right now. I expect I will do at some point, but if not, no worries.

Currently, I am really enjoying the tighter, gamey structure of Skyward Sword. It's really refreshing to have something where all the pegs fit neatly in well-designed holes. There's a fair bit of repetition and padding, but I look at open world games these days like Tsushima and Days Gone, even Miles Morales, and they're almost all filler and repetition. I don't have the appetite for that kind of thing any more. Even Ratchet and Clank has a mind-numbing level of repetition. I was bored within a couple of hours.

My main interest over the last six/nine months has been films because I can watch something in one sitting, but if I don't feel like it, I will watch it in two or three sittings. Some people may think that's sacrilegious but it works for me. Generally, though, it's a two-hour condensed experience. There's no artificial extension like I find with modern TV shows. You can rewatch and find new things or see it with different eyes because they tend to be denser with ideas.

Little patience for much else, though, at the moment.
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Simonsloth
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Simonsloth »

I’m alternating between Metro Exodus on Ps5, 428 Shibuya scramble and Super Mario Galaxy 2.

Exodus is actually quite impressive later on as uses the dual sense really well. The pneumatic weapons you pump are really satisfying as you can feel the pressure dissipating as you are firing. I find the tactile feedback easier than the onscreen pressure gauge. The 3D audio is also really impressive. It’s a bit strange in the opening stages the haptic feedback is largely absent but once it opens up a little it seems whoever was in charge of adding it in had a lot of fun. If every third party game used the controller this well I think the PS5 will be my main console for those games.

428 Shibuya scramble - I’ve been chipping away at this for a while as it’s surprisingly long. It’s delightfully bonkers and I think one of the best presented and interesting visual novels I’ve ever played.
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Seph
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Seph »

Resident Evil Village. Just finished it last night. I can see what people mean when it felt like a step back. Biohazard did an excellent job in bringing back the horror and did so much with so little, whereas this felt like an attempt to remake the fourth game. Not to say it was bad, I actually liked it and thought the level design was great throughout, but I wanted less shooty action and more slow intensity. It felt like I spent more time in the Baker house than I did a massive castle, it shouldn't be that way.

The sound design is also excellent. Since Remake 2 I've played these with headphones and you really can't go back. Every bit of scenery creaking puts you on edge.

I won't comment on the story, as I'll save that for when there's a dedicated thread, but it was campy and ridiculous in a way they've never touched before. It felt a bit Metal Gear as well with the different areas and the quirky bosses, which isn't a bad thing it just felt weird in this series. The main villain was also a little weak, but I did like how they tried to tie this into the overall series.

So, I'd say it's still a good entry to the series and better than 5 and 6, but I hope they've gotten the overblown FPS stuff out of their system now and tone it down for the next one.
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Jobobonobo
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Jobobonobo »

Tried out the Neo: The World Ends with You demo and despite me really liking the first game, was still pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. The main protagonist is actually pretty likeable with him not been as obsessed with fashion and consumerism as all the people around him and at one point, even being thoughtful enough to try and contact his no doubt worried parents when he is gone for so long. Really refreshing just to have a teenage character not be a mopey, selfish pillock. The soundtrack is really distinctive and the battle system is frenetic and fun with an addictive level up system involving pins. One I will definitely go back to when it drops in price a bit.

God, there are way too many RPGs on the PS4 I want to play. Going to be a while before I move onto next gen methinks. That is, if I ever even make the plunge.
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