What has everyone been playing this week? 2

[k0pp0]

Marvel lego heroes avengers or whatever it is called. Usual issue with lego games of sending me to sleep whilst playing.

[randombs]

Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon on PS3. Bloody hilarious.

Also bought GTA4 in the sale. It's fun.

Might get Arkham Asylum and City but I seem to have too many in-depth games and not enough time to play them.

[gunrock]

Been playing Person 4 Golden (Vita) and really liking it so far (first 2 - 2.5 hours a bit of a drag but gets going after).
Tomb Raider Definitive (PS4) - just went back to this after four months of nought. Really bloody good. Sure, the Tomb Raiding itself is a bit twee (five seconds and they're all over), but the bow and the climbing axe with mastery are two mechanics that just don't get old.
Splatoon (Wii-U) - just got this over the weekend. Not sure it's my cup of tea. Like the paint and squid climb mechanics but it all feels a bit 1990s. Someone said Fur Fighters which is what came to mind when I was playing it but the visual style in the city hub brought to mind JSR whilst the levels looked like the terrible DC racer Trickstyle with a Space Channel 5 paint job (no pun intended).

[Pikate]

Splatoon - Finally levelled up to 20 and made a start on ranked, easily my favourite competitive online game ever, I can see me going back to this every time they release a new weapon/update and I'm actually thinking of getting the full Amiibo set from Japan just to have more of the single player to complete.

Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush - Really gorgeous game with beautiful music but gets quite tough in parts, I went from 40% - 67% completion over the weekend hoping to finish it off before the end of the week and shelf it.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U - Gave Ryu DLC a whirl which is fab, hoping to spend more time with it (local multiplayer) when my boyfriend gets back in two weeks.

[fallenangle]

Been playing Person 4 Golden (Vita) and really liking it so far (first 2 - 2.5 hours a bit of a drag but gets going after).
Tomb Raider Definitive (PS4) - just went back to this after four months of nought. Really bloody good. Sure, the Tomb Raiding itself is a bit twee (five seconds and they're all over), but the bow and the climbing axe with mastery are two mechanics that just don't get old.

But the game isn't a TR game any more. It has been turned into an often patronising, linear third person shooter with totally unnecessary, entry level optional stealth. For me only Shanty Town had that concentrated but open feel which characterised the best games in the TR series. TR2013 is undoubtedly good at what it is trying to do but that is so limited in scope and imagination it almost depressed me. It plays well and there were times I really enjoyed it but it is thin stuff.

The bow is indeed a good addition to Lara's armory (BTW a crossbow was used in TR4) and the meaty way it dispatches animals and enemies doesn't get old but it is hardly an original idea either. I spent many of 500+ hours I played the almost ten year old Morrowind TESIII doing much the same thing, shooting animals with bows, raiding countless better looking and better designed tombs in the sort of game that dwarfs TR2013 in every department. If you've played any other games with similar scale and vision (Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption, Fallout 3, GTA:V etc) TR2013 just feels empty.

[Golgo]

Just finished BF4 SP campaign and Infamous Gods Among Us SP campaign. Really glad they're over.

[Dogg Thang]

Finished Wind Waker yesterday so started ZombiU this evening. I have barely played any of it and already I love it. The visuals, the feel, the atmosphere and the control are all superb. Not sure about scanning but I'm sure it will be fine. Looking forward to really getting into it.

[Dogg Thang]

Finished Duke Nukem. Still fantastic after all these years. Some of the level design is excellent. Started the DC add-on and not loving it anywhere near as much. The levels are designed to look like real places and succeed in that but the side effect is that, so far, they have been really boring to play. Currently wandering around the Smithsonian alone and lost.

[nakamura]

But the game isn't a TR game any more. It has been turned into an often patronising, linear third person shooter with totally unnecessary, entry level optional stealth. For me only Shanty Town had that concentrated but open feel which characterised the best games in the TR series. TR2013 is undoubtedly good at what it is trying to do but that is so limited in scope and imagination it almost depressed me. It plays well and there were times I really enjoyed it but it is thin stuff.

The bow is indeed a good addition to Lara's armory (BTW a crossbow was used in TR4) and the meaty way it dispatches animals and enemies doesn't get old but it is hardly an original idea either. I spent many of 500+ hours I played the almost ten year old Morrowind TESIII doing much the same thing, shooting animals with bows, raiding countless better looking and better designed tombs in the sort of game that dwarfs TR2013 in every department. If you've played any other games with similar scale and vision (Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption, Fallout 3, GTA:V etc) TR2013 just feels empty.

Yup. Imagine an old Tomb Raider with modern visuals and controls. No location markers. Puzzles. Hints. Sparse enemies. Lots of exploring but encounters with impact.

[Pikate]

Goddamn that was unexpectedly tough (Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush)! Nice to get it done just in time for Yoshi's Woolly World. I also played some Splatoon (Online Ranked Matches) and Ryu in Smash Bros.

[Cepp]

TF2 and Dirty Bomb. I haven't really been in the mood for any single player stuff this week.

[Dogg Thang]

Is that Kirby game any good?

[fallenangle]

Yup. Imagine an old Tomb Raider with modern visuals and controls. No location markers. Puzzles. Hints. Sparse enemies. Lots of exploring but encounters with impact.

Hell yes - I'd be up for that.

Just started the overlooked XB360 game Majin And The Forsaken Kingdom and the quality of the gameplay puzzles and the well executed traditional boss fights just further highlights the paucity of such content in TR2013.

Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom is not without its flaws, the script is wince inducingly awful most of the time and the usually unnecessary prompts you get from the secondary NPCs (optional thank goodness) both patronising and embarrasingly delivered. The movement and jumping controls are not that good either. The game's use of invisible barriers to prevent your character or Majin getting to places they're not supposed to is also the most blatantly crude example of this I've come across in years.

However these things are not game ruiners and underneath there's a good, clever, hack and slash/platformer I'm just to beginning to really enjoy. Its definitely not at, for example, the original XBox's Sphinx and The Cursed Mummy or Darksiders level of greatness but it has a definite feel of that sort of game. There is even a hint of Onimusha Dawn Of Dreams' (another under rated game) AI co-op combat system. When your AI partner isn't just baggage but an integral element in the combat with his and your character's survival often depending on working together you know some real thought has been put into that element of the gameplay.

[QualityChimp]

QC what did you think of Ghost Squad?

Sorry, I missed your question, Chaz.

Loved it, but spent ages setting it up. I need to play it some more. I much prefer it to HotD as that's impossible to prevent getting hit quite often.

Gun adapter was great for a fiver delivered!

[Pikate]

Is that Kirby game any good?

It's probably the best Kirby game they've made since the NES. It's definitely more challenging than Epic Yarn and it also looks fantastic, I was initially skeptical but the clay style is great and it was an excellent choice for Nintendo to make this and move that Yarn style over to Yoshi.

The touch gameplay obviously isn't as tight as a traditional platformer but with NSMBU/NSLU, DKC: Tropical Freeze and (soon) Yoshi's Woolly World out there I think that variety is a good thing for Wii U. For what it is though the physics/controls are flawless, whether that's something for you is another matter but it's the best game it could be as both a Kirby game and a "touch platformer".