Whatcha Been Playing?

[KSubzero1000]

I hope it's not DOOM 2016.

Who could possibly 'abandon' DOOM 2016?

[stvnorman]

I hope it's not DOOM 2016.

Who could possibly 'abandon' DOOM 2016?

Anyone that suffers from motion sickness or red-black colourblindness if I remember right!

With post-op recovery time on my hands, I finally finished the original Super Mario Bros; I’ve come close several times on the NES Classic Mini, so decided to knuckle down having just finished 3 on Switch. I really liked the last level - amazing how it takes seconds once you finally work it out, often thanks to the lucky “accidents” that seem to help you along when you’re completely flummoxed by it. Incredible level design!

A YouTube wormhole found me watching a review of Super Cycle on C64, which I played loads on the Spectrum but have overlooked until now on the C64 Mini. It’s wonderful! After becoming strangely obsessed with it I’ve discovered there’s an ending and I’m now enjoying some score chasing. Never seen a game with more C64-looking graphics either!

Getting a bit more up to date, I’ve just got the AutoBleem hack running on PlayStation Classic. It’s really simple and runs off a USB stick so no risk. Having a great time with Destruction Derby 2 - one of my all time favourite games - as well as Legacy of Kain, Parappa the Rapper and Nightmare Creatures, and I’ve also got a few Nintendo 64 titles running on there, which is a whole new world for me!

[stvnorman]

I hope it's not DOOM 2016.

Who could possibly 'abandon' DOOM 2016?

Anyone that suffers from motion sickness or red-black colourblindness if I remember right!

With post-op recovery time on my hands, I finally finished the original Super Mario Bros; I’ve come close several times on the NES Classic Mini, so decided to knuckle down having just finished 3 on Switch. I really liked the last level - amazing how it takes seconds once you finally work it out, often thanks to the lucky “accidents” that seem to help you along when you’re completely flummoxed by it. Incredible level design!

A YouTube wormhole found me watching a review of Super Cycle on C64, which I played loads on the Spectrum but have overlooked until now on the C64 Mini. It’s wonderful! After becoming strangely obsessed with it I’ve discovered there’s an ending and I’m now enjoying some score chasing. Never seen a game with more C64-looking graphics either!

Getting a bit more up to date, I’ve just got the AutoBleem hack running on PlayStation Classic. It’s really simple and runs off a USB stick so no risk. Having a great time with Destruction Derby 2 - one of my all time favourite games - as well as Legacy of Kain, Parappa the Rapper and Nightmare Creatures, and I’ve also got a few Nintendo 64 titles running on there, which is a whole new world for me!

[Alex79]

I can't settle on much lately. Started and abandoned Wolfenstein, Doom, Prey, Saints Row IV...

Managed to finish Horizon Zero Dawn and now playing Mafia III. I was a big fan of the first two games, and know this got mixed reviews, but I'm enjoying it so far.

Which Doom and Wolf?

Doom 2016 and Wolfenstein The New (the first 'new' one anyway!)

Yeah just don't like the arcadey shoot shoot shoot keep moving keep moving shoot shoot shoot-ness of Doom. Prefer something a little slower paced with a story.

[Magical_Isopod]

I rented Astral Chain, and that game is excellent. Like. A rare Platinum game that actually had substance behind the style. I see a lot of commonalities between this one and Nier Automata, so I suspect there's a similar dev team. I'm definitely gonna buy this one, but I'll wait to see if it goes on sale - something it hasn't done since launching in August.

This weekend is a long weekend, so I think I'll try to finish up Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair or Metroid Prime 3. I haven't had much time to game lately. So I wanna accomplish something.

[DomsBeard]

Gylt Continues to be oppressive and quite unsettling throughout. It dials into your childhood fears quite well and does leave you on edge. It doesn't rely on jump scares just setting a great atmosphere and soundtrack.

Pretty sure I'm near the end now and I'm not sure narratively it is going to stick the landing but it is a good horror game to play. I imagine it'll be coming to everything else soon so I would recommend it if you want to be gently scared.

[Simonsloth]

I can't settle on much lately. Started and abandoned Wolfenstein, Doom, Prey, Saints Row IV...

Managed to finish Horizon Zero Dawn and now playing Mafia III. I was a big fan of the first two games, and know this got mixed reviews, but I'm enjoying it so far.

Which Doom and Wolf?

Doom 2016 and Wolfenstein The New (the first 'new' one anyway!)

Yeah just don't like the arcadey shoot shoot shoot keep moving keep moving shoot shoot shoot-ness of Doom. Prefer something a little slower paced with a story.

Wolfenstein New Order should be perfect then. It’s lauded (and quite rightly) for it’s storytelling and it’s shooting is slower paced. It starts out a bit generic but I think that’s probably deliberate. Give it a bit more time if you fell off early on.

[Jon Cheetham]

Wolfenstein New Order should be perfect then. It’s lauded (and quite rightly) for it’s storytelling and it’s shooting is slower paced. It starts out a bit generic but I think that’s probably deliberate. Give it a bit more time if you fell off early on.

Yeah the combat in Wolfenstein N.O. is extremely good, and the game is also so well paced that you get just the right amount of breather time and narrative-driven chapters. I played it a couple of weeks ago and I could not put it down.

Just wanted to co-sign!

[ThirdMan]

I can't settle on much lately. Started and abandoned Wolfenstein, Doom, Prey, Saints Row IV...

Managed to finish Horizon Zero Dawn and now playing Mafia III. I was a big fan of the first two games, and know this got mixed reviews, but I'm enjoying it so far.

Which Doom and Wolf?

Doom 2016 and Wolfenstein The New (the first 'new' one anyway!)

Yeah just don't like the arcadey shoot shoot shoot keep moving keep moving shoot shoot shoot-ness of Doom. Prefer something a little slower paced with a story.

I had the same issue with Doom. Absolutely adored the first hour but then the sugar rush faded and it all felt rather pointless. But if that feeling stayed with me it would have been one hell of an experience.

[Magical_Isopod]

I liked the stories in both Wolfenstein New games, but the first one was kind of a wave-based slog and the second one was just... Kind of bad. Especially at launch.

[duskvstweak]

Doom 2016 and Wolfenstein The New (the first 'new' one anyway!)

Yeah just don't like the arcadey shoot shoot shoot keep moving keep moving shoot shoot shoot-ness of Doom. Prefer something a little slower paced with a story.

I am a bit surprised you're having the same experience with both those games. I played them basically back-to-back and had very different reactions to them. I loved the hardcore, shark-like focus of DOOM's arcade action, while I found Wolfenstein to be much slower, what with it's story beats, hub-station and depressing as hell world (more depressing than DOOM's Hell!). If you like shooters, but don't like DOOM, it does seem like you might want to give more time to Wolfenstien, but our time on this planet IS finite so more power to realizing you don't want in sooner than later!

[Jobobonobo]

Getting a bit more up to date, I’ve just got the AutoBleem hack running on PlayStation Classic. It’s really simple and runs off a USB stick so no risk. Having a great time with Destruction Derby 2 - one of my all time favourite games - as well as Legacy of Kain, Parappa the Rapper and Nightmare Creatures, and I’ve also got a few Nintendo 64 titles running on there, which is a whole new world for me!

I knew a fair few people were disappointed in the PS Classic but if you could get it hacked, then I might be more inclined to check it out! One thing I am curious about though, is if a hacked PS Classic can take dual shock controllers or are you stuck with the old school controllers? Especially in regards to N64 titles, being stuck with just the D pad would be an absolute pain.

[Scrustle]

Been playing more Monster Hunter World: Iceborne and slowly chipping away at some of the post-game stuff. At this point though, I think I'm starting to run out of steam for the game. It's still a good time, but to get to the last few assignments that are left, I need to get my master rank up quite a bit, and I'm not sure I feel motivated to do so. Not really any appealing short terms goals in the meantime to get me there. I did fight Zinogre though, which was very cool. That's a great monster. I also got over some of the problems I had with the game recently too. One thing that has bothered me was that some of the new monsters are really fast and jump around excessively, and it's just kind of exhausting to play. With the camera constantly flying around everywhere, it gets kind of bewildering and it felt like I couldn't keep up with the pace of the game. But for some slightly different reasons, I decided to change the type of lock-on I was using, which I haven't changed before my whole time playing. I stopped using the type that constantly focuses on the monster all the time like most games do, and started using the old school camera where pressing a button turns the camera in the direction of the monster, but otherwise gives you manual control. You'd think that would be worse for something that jumps around out of view all the time, but actually it's much better. It allows you to get your bearings much more effectively, and also helps with attacks that depend on moving the stick in relation to your character. It made monsters like Nargacuga, Ebony Odogaron, and Shrieking Legiana much less of a stressful time.

Also started playing Yakuza 3 Remastered as the physical version for this just came out. Still in the slow opening hours. It's interesting to come back to this game again, since the original was the first one I played and which got me in to the series. The substories really have improved a lot in later games, although that's something that was already apparent with the Kiwami remakes. This one feels like something of a strange transitional game. Stuck half in the style of the PS2 games, but clearly making progress towards the more ambitious and fleshed out later games. Combat still feels really good, if a bit less fluid than later entries. The way background characters move seems rather cartoonish now as well. It's kind of strange.

[stvnorman]

I knew a fair few people were disappointed in the PS Classic but if you could get it hacked, then I might be more inclined to check it out! One thing I am curious about though, is if a hacked PS Classic can take dual shock controllers or are you stuck with the old school controllers? Especially in regards to N64 titles, being stuck with just the D pad would be an absolute pain.

I think I was in the minority that wasn’t disappointed which is why it took me so long to mess with it, though I was given it as a gift knowing it had been bought in a period when it went very cheap. There was enough on there I adored and enough I’d never played but wanted to to make it worthwhile for me.

As I’ve delved a bit deeper into trying stuff from other systems, N64 is the only place where I’m having some difficulty. Some things work fine “out of the box” but both Mario Kart and Mario 64 aren’t taking directional inputs from the PS Classic controller. I’ve not spent that much time experimenting yet but I’ve seen a video of someone remapping the controls for Goldeneye so I know it’s possible. I’ve also been looking into an adapter from 8BitDo that seems to allow you to connect any wireless controller, so I think with a combination of both you can probably set up something that does a decent job.

For the time being I’m pretty happy spending my time elsewhere on it, specifically Destruction Derby 2!

[Jon Cheetham]

Titanfall 2

I've got PS Plus again at the moment as my brother and I have been doing some co-op Dark Souls and Monster Hunter World, so I decided to give this another go after only doing part of the first mission a few weeks back. Now I can't put it down! An amazingly good feeling FPS, and the environments are so attractive.

I also like the way you just choose one gun to hold at a time, as I obviously pick the best one available rather than hoarding the best guns and using something less optimal. Clever way to make the gunplay really immediate and satisfying (and I suppose it ties into multiplayer, which I haven't mucked about with yet unless a few hours of Apex Legends a year ago counts).

Assassin's Creed Syndicate

Got a craving to fire this up after scrolling through old screenshots and seeing an amazingly atmospheric view of London I managed to catch. This has never stopped being a beautifully rendered game world even after half a decade. The interiors are also just sublime - something this series has always knocked out of the park.

I never touched The Dreadful Crimes, a series of murder investigations where you have to gather clues and then choose who you accuse. Turns out they're pretty fun! I just downloaded the DLC stuff which I'd picked up in a sale a while back, so I can see myself getting back into this game for a few hours over the next couple of weeks. Sadly, the combat controls still just ain't great.

[Alex79]

Assassin's Creed Syndicate

I'm currently on a very slow play through of the entire series. I've got to start and finish Unity first, but I'm really looking forward to Syndicate.

[DomsBeard]

Sorted Nvidea Geforce now to see how it holds up vs Stadia and to play Disco Elysium on my Mac.

Interesting without being blown away so far. I think you need mouse and keyboard to play it optimally so glad I picked it up before waiting for the console ports.

[Jon Cheetham]

I'm currently on a very slow play through of the entire series. I've got to start and finish Unity first, but I'm really looking forward to Syndicate.

Nice! I also like Unity a lot. Paris is just incredible to explore. It's like being there (despite the guards having British accents, haha)

[ThirdMan]

Sorted Nvidea Geforce now to see how it holds up vs Stadia and to play Disco Elysium on my Mac.

Interesting without being blown away so far. I think you need mouse and keyboard to play it optimally so glad I picked it up before waiting for the console ports.

Cool. Never heard of that service before. Might give it a go. I'm also quite keen on trying out that game. What speed connection do you have?

[Alex79]

I'm currently on a very slow play through of the entire series. I've got to start and finish Unity first, but I'm really looking forward to Syndicate.

Nice! I also like Unity a lot. Paris is just incredible to explore. It's like being there (despite the guards having British accents, haha)

Ah, I always play in local language with subs (if option exists). Made Renaissance Italy a lot more authentic!