Whatcha Been Playing?

[Jon Cheetham]

Nice one thanks Kurt. I'll get on that... If it was retroactive I imagine it'd be an awful lot of Hitman 2 at the top!

[duskvstweak]

I'm still playing Arkham Knight, but I've been bouncing between certain games as well. I've been playing Fall Guys with my wife, which means we don't play often enough to get good and win a crown : (
We also started Spyro 2 via the Reignited Trilogy. Excited to see that game through.
Also, a friend gifted me Grounded and we've been playing a bit, went back in with the new update (and bird!). It's gotten me to invest time in this type of survival-crafting game that none of the others have done before, even the ones with the dinosaurs!

[Alex79]

I was really enjoying Death Stranding, but for some reason stopped playing it over a week ago and nothing was pulling me back. I'm a few hours in to chapter 3. Today I forced myself back in, and really enjoyed it again. Just chucked a bomb in a lake (I'm sure that's not a spoiler without any context) and am looking forward to getting back to it tonight. No idea why I stopped playing, I think I'd burned myself just delivering stuff for too long without trying to advance the story at all.

[Scrustle]

I've got back in to Hyper Light Drifter recently. I got tired of waiting for that physical version of the Switch port, and the idea of replaying old indie favourites has been on my mind a lot lately, so I went for it. I'm really liking revisiting it. Atmosphere is still top notch, and the lonely sense of exploration through this foreboding world is still as rich as ever. Really tight and pleasing controls too. Although it's not 100% perfect, it feels so snappy like very few games manage. Bosses are great as well, still very challenging but a lot of fun. One touch I really like is how when you get defeated, the music doesn't stop. It just carries on as you respawn. It's a really subtle thing, but does a lot to keep you motivated to keep trying. Like you're still in the same mental space and can just bounce back for another go, like you never stopped.

I noticed something weird as I first started playing though. I'm a huge fan of the soundtrack of this game. I like to frequently bring it up as one of the greatest soundscapes in games, or even beyond. But it's one of those soundtracks that I expect most people might not care for outside of the context of the game. But personally, I still enjoy it a whole lot by itself. So much that I spent years listening to it every chance I got. I probably ended up spending many more times listening to just that than I spent actually playing the game originally. So it got firmly stuck in my mind in the form I spent so much time with. So when I booted up the game again for this run, at first it felt a little odd to me to actually hear it in the proper context again. Kind of a weird opposite to how it was supposed to come across. Precisely because of how good it was in the original context to begin with. As I've settled in to the game that's worn off and it's back to feeling natural again, but that was a strange surprise. Funny how your own experiences of something can change how it comes across so dramatically and unexpectedly.

[Alex79]

I know exactly what you mean about that. I spent months listening to the excellent (Oscar winning) Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross soundtrack to The Social Network before ever seeing the movie, and it was so bizarre to hear the music I was so familiar with actually in context when I finally got around to watching it.

[stvnorman]

No game had sat unplayed on my PS4 for longer than Hotline Miami, but after a good five years it’s finally been played... and deleted! Prompted by the recent Cane and Rinse sequel podcast, I gave it a few chapters, but all that stealth-puzzling isn’t my bag, and the deaths by enemies off the screen were just too annoying!

Now playing Bayonetta on PS4, which I got for my birthday in May as part of the 10th anniversary pack with Vanquish. I’m never going to score high on these games, but I love the button-mashing chaos! It is a little more drab-looking than I remember it though.

I’m also loving Silent Hill 2 on PS2. After playing through the first one again recently, I’ve spent a couple of months hunting it down on eBay for a decent price, and it was worth the wait. First time playing and three hours in I just adore it! As much as the first though? Not sure yet!

[Angry_Kurt]

No game had sat unplayed on my PS4 for longer than Hotline Miami, but after a good five years it’s finally been played... and deleted! Prompted by the recent Cane and Rinse sequel podcast, I gave it a few chapters, but all that stealth-puzzling isn’t my bag, and the deaths by enemies off the screen were just too annoying!

Was it Hotline Miami 1 or 2 as I adore 1 but found 2 to be my most disappointing game ever. Partly due to the enemies killing me off screen like you say, which isn't something I encountered much in the first game.

[Alex79]

No game had sat unplayed on my PS4 for longer than Hotline Miami, but after a good five years it’s finally been played... and deleted! Prompted by the recent Cane and Rinse sequel podcast, I gave it a few chapters, but all that stealth-puzzling isn’t my bag, and the deaths by enemies off the screen were just too annoying!

Yeah, a lot of it relies on memory of enemy placement. I think the trouble with the Hotline Miami games is they look very much like one thing, but play like quite another. The enjoyment for me came from making incremental progress through a level, before being able to blitz it in one go once I'd learned all the enemies and worked out techniques, combos and plans to kill everyone. The first one especially I found more of a puzzle game than a shooter, but the thrill of dashing through a level...

Smash door, throw gun, catch dropped shotgun, blast to the left, dog to the right, move move move, shoot through the window, punch to the left, smash door on right, charge enemy, punch, exacute, LEVEL DONE.

But that might have taken 30 minutes of creeping forwards, learning the layout etc. The game is entirely predicable, too. Enemies rarely change their patterns.

But equally, its not worth wasting time on a game if you're not enjoying it is it.

[ReprobateGamer]

I spent a little bit of time working my way through Creature In The Well before it left Game Pass.

It started very strongly and I was blitzing my way through - then a week away for a family holiday meant that when I returned, my progress slowed right down. My game file was to the boss encounters on the sixth and seventh levels and had yet to unlock the 8th (last?) area.

Not certain if it was the week's gap, or a difficulty spike towards the end but my initial enjoyment of the game did not come back when I returned to it.

The art style was lovely and the concept was bizarre but seemed to work in game play terms. Realising that the various weapons actually gave different abilities helped to make progress but there were a few of the puzzles that seemed just a little too finickety in their placements and the homing sparks that could pass through multiple screens were particularly annoying.

I think I liked it generally but I have no desire to purchase it now that it's left Game Pass to finish it - so maybe it's more I'm damning it with faint praise ...

Also tried out Deep Rock Galactic last night - a sci-fi take on dwarves set in a FPS world with a touch of mining. It may be more interesting in a group but playing single player I found it to be slow and the controls just a little off [no ADS, no clear indication that mining was also usable as a melee option and a button to salute (!)] I played through a couple of levels with the public setting on and saw no other players in the hour or two playingm though my eyes were hurting towards the end reading the small font. Not a promising start really and not encouraging enough for me to return ...

[Angry_Kurt]

First horde done in Days Gone. That was tense but LOTS of fun!

[stvnorman]

Was it Hotline Miami 1 or 2 as I adore 1 but found 2 to be my most disappointing game ever. Partly due to the enemies killing me off screen like you say, which isn't something I encountered much in the first game.

It was 1. I think a lot of those might have been the same one enemy catching me repeatedly though! I completely get the attraction (as Alex also expanded upon) but that gameplay loop just wasn’t for me.

[Jon Cheetham]

Back on the original Dishonored. Loving it, That painterly art style is without equal, to me. Somebody said it has the most beautiful sky boxes in gaming and I think I'd go along with that. Just did Lady Boyle's Last Party, it really is an all-timer of a level. Still finding new secrets and lore, spending longer on these missions than ever. While walking around the party I overheard someone talking about one of the targets from the Knife of Dunwall expansion, for example.

Also playing Transistor which was $3 on the Switch shop. It's alright, quite enjoy the pause-based combat where you queue up your actions and then get into a strategic position to continue the fight, and visually it's really cool. Past the first boss at this point.

Still messing about with West of Loathing as well. It's still very funny, and it's surprising how immersed you can get in a world of stick men and line drawings. I most recently went to some soup mines to get bowls of boiling hot soup from cracks in the rock for a hungry town, and filled out some forms for a ghost. It sounds non-sequitur and deliberately "zany", but the writing makes it work and really establishes this little world around you.

[ReprobateGamer]

As it'll be leaving Game Pass in a couple of weeks, I installed Gonner to give it a whirl.

A roguelike platformer - this is a game that appears to be largely about the visuals. It's aiming to look as if it's being sketched in as you play, with short levels that disappear from view as you move along, leaving you with only a limited view of your environment.

Moveset is deliberately limited - you have a limited ammo weapon, a 'feature' (which could be reload, burst fire, or so on) and a head (that provides your health and a passive bonus), a double jump and wall jumps.

Have to say it's not grabbing me but roguelike's aren't a favourite genre of mine and the same can be said of platformers so it's facing an uphill battle before it starts, sadly.

A second game we've been trying recently is Override: Mech City Brawl. If you have ever played any King of the Monsters then you have an idea of what to expect - oversized mechs battle it out to be the last one standing. That's broadly it but there is a balance between your light and charged attacks, and managing an overheat meter that prevents too much button spamming.
It seems to struggle from the normal issue of anything like this where things can feel a little slow (with the aim to at least indicate that these are Pacific Rim sized characters) but it's solid enough and it's probably worth a go for anyone looking for a light hearted co-op game, or a brawler that isn't technically demanding

[Angry_Kurt]

After finishing Days Gone and whilst I went for Mario on the 18th, I decided to start Dreams after buying it a couple of weeks ago. I have a friend on Twitter who is massively into it and has been a huge advocate of it, he's quite big in the Dreams community and does a Stream dedicated to music videos in Dreams.

I must admit to being a bit of a Dreams skeptic through its development as it wasn't really clear what it was and I had no real interest in the creation aspect. But now I am a Dreams convert haha. The stuff I have played has been very impressive and it looks beautiful in places. The variety on offer is incredible as pretty much every genre of game is covered, but then there are also music videos and short films.

The campaign created by Media Molecule to show what can be done in Dreams is also a musical, which is not something I can think of seeing anywhere else in games before. The best thing I have played though is a game called 'A Little Perspective' which is so good I would have paid money for it. It's a puzzle game where you change your perspective to complete puzzles, very much like Monument Valley. I'm 18 levels into the 35 on offer.

I would still say I don't have an interest in creating stuff, but I don't think that matters as there is more than enough here if you just want to play.

I really hope more people give this game a chance.

[Alex79]

After finishing Days Gone...

WOOOAH THERE! Go back a bit! You finished it? What did you think?

By the way, we're on the last boss of Luigis Mansion so I'll try to get that polished off ASAP over the next day or two and get it sent back over to you.

[Angry_Kurt]

After finishing Days Gone...

WOOOAH THERE! Go back a bit! You finished it? What did you think?

By the way, we're on the last boss of Luigis Mansion so I'll try to get that polished off ASAP over the next day or two and get it sent back over to you.

Cheers, I'll get it sent back to you. To save me typing it all out again, check out what I put in the 'Games Completed' tab.

[Scrustle]

Been slowly chipping away at Gujian 3 over the months. I think I'm starting to get in to the closing hours, so I wasn't sure about waiting until the end to say more about it, but screw it. I need to rant about it a bit. I actually started it around the same time as Yakuza 5 I think, and if anyone read my post about that they will know how much of a slog that ended up being. So imagine what playing this game has been like, dragging on for the same length of time in the same period, without any sign of stopping. A lot of it has been getting on my nerves over time. The story is abysmally paced and constructed. There's no through-line to it at all. Everything feels like a massive pointless diversion, and I've long since lost track of any central driving plot the game might have been trying to put forward. Just feels like it's spinning its wheels forever, with every new thing getting in the way of whatever it seemed like it was trying to build towards by the end of the last section. The terrible translation doesn't help either, making it really foggy what is actually happening in the moment as it happens too. And because of how different English is to Chinese, sometimes you don't get enough time to even read a full line of subtitles before it's cut off and moved on to the next one.

The crafting system is an overcomplicated mess too. There's just so much crap you need to keep on top of for it, and it's basically all essential. Yet a lot of the items required to craft other stuff is a complete mystery. I can't do a lot because I have no idea where to obtain materials. You also have craftspeople who you need to manage, mainly through keeping their HP up with food. And big surprise, all the food they need is some complex crafting recipe that I have no clue how to put together. So because of that I've reached a point where some of my craftspeople are unusable because I can't recover their health. You also need to research items first in order to be able to craft them afterwards. In doing so you need to assist these craftspeople in their research, usually by answering questions about whatever it is they're doing. It expects you to have a deep knowledge of traditional Chinese cooking, blacksmithing, and tailoring for this stuff. Something that I highly doubt the majority of its native audience would even have. Oh, and you get three questions per research phase. Get a single one wrong, and you'll fail the research and waste your materials on that attempt too.

[Alex79]

After finishing Days Gone...

WOOOAH THERE! Go back a bit! You finished it? What did you think?

By the way, we're on the last boss of Luigis Mansion so I'll try to get that polished off ASAP over the next day or two and get it sent back over to you.

Cheers, I'll get it sent back to you. To save me typing it all out again, check out what I put in the 'Games Completed' tab.

Ah, just read it, glad you enjoyed it!

Instead of sending it back to me see if Rich wants to borrow it first as if he does you may as well send it directly to him

[Jon Cheetham]

Started Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Since it is often mentioned in the same breath as Deus Ex as a classic PC game and immersive sim it was on my list anyway but got bumped up after I played the Coteries of New York visual novel. The idea of "the masquerade" itself is quite compelling, and I like how the lore of this world basically has a range of clans that seem to reflect different portrayals of vampires in literature and media.

The combat is very clunky, but it isn't too much of a problem as the writing and narrative is at such a bar that I'd rather talk my way through situations instead. I'm playing a Toreador vampire which seems to be good for a first playthrough as I've been able to persuade, intimidate or otherwise lockpick and hack my way around problems, rarely getting into fights.

It's a Source game and actually released the same day as Half Life 2, and features extremely atmospheric, artfully minimalist environments, a beautiful colour palette and excellent use of music. It has a good sense of humour and I'm really glad to be enjoying it so much as the sequel looks like it will also be good. It has some pretty good voice actors too, including John DiMaggio of Bender in Futurama fame!

[stvnorman]

I’d heard of Super Mario All Stars but didn’t really know what it was until the Direct last week! I thought I’d have a quick look when it appeared on the Switch SNES app, and ended up playing through most of Super Mario Bros. in one go. I finished it off in a second session, and despite finding the look a bit jarring to begin with, it clearly grew on me very quickly!

While I was in there I remembered I was about one zone short of finishing Donkey Kong Country, so got that done over what turned into a very infuriating few days! I enjoyed it overall, but not that much - bit repetitive and some sections are just too hard to be my idea of fun.

Also finished Silent Hill 2 on PS2. First time playing, it’s absolutely wonderful and I’m straight into a second play-through! It’s disturbing, chillingly atmospheric and does a lot of bold things, especially when you consider the time it comes from. (And just check out the voice-acting should you forget)! And a special shout out to the noose puzzle, from someone that generally doesn’t like puzzles!

I’m about 4 hours into Bayonetta on PS4 and it’s still alright, which is pretty much how I felt first time around! I’m done with Fall Guys on there though - just had my fill, but it was a lot fun while it lasted!