What You've Been Playing This Week

[Team Andromeda]

I just beat Cardiff 2-1.

Take that, TA!

Harris Out !!!

[QualityChimp]

Been playing a lot of The Forest again. Like I said, it has that "I'll just do this, then this" until 1am.

Went on a spelunking adventure with my mates, raiding a cave and found a SCUBA kit, so we started looking for other submerged caves. They all contained extra blueprints so we can now build a church or a coffin, but even better, a glider or a roller coaster!
Basically, it's a track you can slide down on an upturned turtle shell.

You're supposed to be looking for your dear precious son, Timmy, but it's more fun building stuff!

[Neon Ignition]

Start of a new week and a little shake up:

Nintendo 3DS
All the way on and up to World 4 of Super Mario 3D Land

Nintendo Switch
Half a mill from clearing the final loan, pretty ready for Animal Crossing to be done now.

PlayStation 3
With MW3 done I'm now starting Call of Duty: Black Ops as well as Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe

PlayStation 4
Late Ch6 in Judgment and also bought a few games in the sale so need to focus on this system more

PC
No movement so still Tomb Raider

[Atticus]

Spent some more time with Twilight Princess over the weekend. I do love how it leaves the player to work things out and explore ... not signposting next objectives all the time like so many other games. The game requires you not rush ... and every thing that stumps you feels great to suss out. Much as I loved BOTW it is a treat to be knee-deep in a proper old-school Zelda game again. Even if I'm in another water temple The quiet, twilight moments in the game are really special too. Love the mood in it. It's a brilliant game.

[prinnysquad]

Grand Ages Medieval.

I was just tootling along, enjoying it.

My scout found another town. I immediately opened trade negotiations. Then the game threw an objective out:
Secure a trade license and sell 300 commodities.

Easy, I thought. I have a trade deal already. So I sent over 300 commodities. Nothing.

Weird.

I looked at the diplomacy options. I couldn’t see trade license anywhere.

Would it only appear at a certain point? I spent a fortune gifting money to the village until my relationship with them was 92%. That didn’t work.

So I tried reducing the nature of the relationship to 20%. Maybe you have to go down to Neutral terms before ‘trade license’ becomes available after that, as the option above it.

Nope. Still nothing.

So here I am, trying to secure a license that doesn’t exist, gifting commodities that seemingly don’t count towards the objective.

At this point, I just switched it off, utterly perplexed.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Plague Tale. Really enjoying it so far. Good setting and stealth gameplay. My only issue is the bad guys have insane vision. I've been spotted behind a wall before. Frustrating.

Trackmania. Also frustrating. Fun, but like trying to thread a needle in a hurricane.

[JazzFunk]

Playing a really fun Metal Slug/Metroidvania mashup called OMEGA STRIKE, it's like £2.39 on Xbox right now and at that price I call it a "Mastertronic experience" and this is bloody grrrrrrreeeeeat!!!

Very emotional, cool music on the first bit, right now. This looks like it's gonna be bloody good fun and it really is fun to play.

THE MASTERTRONIC EXPERIENCE tm

[CMcK]

Really been enjoying Bullet Beat this week. It’s a sort of rhythm action bullet hell shooter but with puzzle elements. It has a very clean, simple geometric shapes for the visuals which react to the music. Each level has a different theme to its puzzle element. Some really smart ideas in it like the enemies that attach a cable to your avatar and you have maneuver to swing them round in front of you to shoot them. Worth a look if you fancy some twitch action.

[Neon Ignition]

Weekend round up again:

Nintendo 3DS
Finishing off World 6 on Super Mario 3D Land

Nintendo Switch
Should have Animal Crossing done completely by the start of next week, onto Episode 4 of TWD

PlayStation 3
Black Ops campaign but I think this will remain benched to focus on PS4

PlayStation 4
Judgment, right - really time to crunch this to completion now

PC
Still Tomb Raider but also likely benched for now

[JazzFunk]

Splurged on both the deluxe eds of DEAD RISING 3 and 4 on the current Xbox sale. Now I've got them all. OCD. I'm nuts. At least I won't miss out on owt and my fellow pauper pal will be happy with my freebie physical copies.

Anyhoo, decided to stick on DEAD RISING 4 as I *know* it's not as cooooool as 3. 3 is a strange one, it's a bit wonky but has a lot to it. This is streamlined and feels different to play.

Tbh, I'm just playing it seeing what fun juice I can squeeze out of it. I can't be arsed comparing it to the others, I just wanna see the wintry, snowy bits, I'm not out to pick it to pieces. In all honesty, I thought I'd do this first then get to the REAL zombie meat, ie. DR3 (which is a very high quality game).

[Dogg Thang]

As well as checking in daily on Animal Crossing, I got the Bioshock collection for Switch and have been playing through the first one. It's pretty much as I remember - wants to be smarter than it is but that just amounts to lengthy speeches playing all the time. It's set up like it's a horror game but it very quickly just reveals itself to be a basic shooter. Like the very first time I played it, I feel slightly disappointed that they were able to create this beautiful world and the most they could think of to make it a game was to have you shoot people.

And yet all that said, it is a really great shooter. It works really well. The location is gorgeous, the sound is good (lengthy speeches aside) and the design rewards exploration and risk-taking. It's a fun game to play. And as all those things, it's hard to fault it in spite of everything I wrote in the first paragraph. It's a very strong game.

[QualityChimp]

Not played since Thursday, but my mates and I tried CoD WWII as it's included on PS+ this month.

The four of us played Vs. with each other (not going online to be shot by 12 year olds) and had a real laugh.
I was on fire ! Mind you, they were too courtesy of my incendiary shotgun rounds!

Did Vs., one of the team scenario things, the zombies and back to Vs.

Personally prefer WWZ and The Forest for co-op japes, but it was a nice palate cleanser.
Not sure if I'll ever get onto the story solo though.

[QualityChimp]

Played some more CoD: WWII last night with mates and it was good fun.
It really got the blood pumping with tension!
I think everyone had a decent match at some point, whereas last time they got wound up with me bringing the pain!
Tried some different weapons out and various perks.

[Atticus]

Can't believe I bought a new game the same week The Last Of Us 2 is due but i really liked the look of Desperados 3 so took a chance on it in the lockdown lottery. It's a realtime stealth-strategy game that's, so far, super addictive and genuinely satisfying upon completing a level (or even just a small part of it that was proving a challenge). The cowboy setting might have sold the game to me but the gameplay delivers plenty substance. Early days yet but my first impressions are very good. Might be my favourite cowboy game since Outlaws.

[Atticus]

Had another sesh on Desperados 3 last night. The new mission I started was in a western town with four main targets in it. You can tackle them in any order, any way you want ... and that's part of the beauty, there is no one path to victory, your way of getting things done will be different to how others might do it. So it took me just over an hour to dispatch one of the four targets last night, full on stealth, and if felt so good to have that dent in the mission. I should also mention that as well as your main character there are additional ones you get to take along which provide different abilities (sniper, healing, bear traps, booby traps etc) which mixes up strategies a treat ... as well as making some of the kills super satisfying. You can also enter a mode which stops the realtime to plan out a move either solo or cooperative before executing it and watching it play out. This is pretty handy if taking out multiple baddies simultaneously.