What You've Been Playing This Week

[wakka]

I'm playing Metroid Fusion on the Pocket. I really don't know my Metroid at all. I dabbled with the latter two Prime games on their release but really haven't played anything of the 2D entries.

So as part of my project to use the Pocket to fill some obvious gaps in my gaming knowledge, I've decided to start with this entry, just 'cos I'm playing along with two mates who are using the NOS and this is where they wanted to start.

I was trotting through it quite happily, with its satisfying, compact little areas, then I reached the spider boss. That's quite a difficulty spike! I'm now just after that, needing to get past SA-X chasing me, but I'm a little low on health. Suddenly finding it challenging in a way I wasn't before.

[Atticus]

I'm playing Metroid Fusion on the Pocket.

I never got on with Metroid Fusion. One of thgose games I need to give another go (and now I can on the Switch).

Also doing the odd level in Pizza Tower every now and again. It's very good, and more people should be playing it.

It looks great ... hoping it comes to console.

[briareos_kerensky]

I decided to give Persona 5 Royal a decent try the last few weeks. I'm about 10 hours in now and I've cleared the first castle but I think it is going to take some time to get used to the gameplay loop. The time pressure is making me second guess every decision I've made so far. lol

It's not that bad. Do Palaces in one sitting (unless story dictates otherwise) and go to Mementos when you have two/three targets. Don't study too much or do many activities that raise intelligence, crosswords and class question are a decent boost already. Work on each job's busiest day. Other than that, go out with friends.
There are requirements for the true ending those can be clearled with plenty of time to spare.
Quite a long game though, I spent around 90 hours and haven't unlocked everything.

[randombs]

I wanted to quickly nab 500 MS Reward points for getting three achievements in some “powerful women of Game Pass” games.

I went with Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, a game that took the purity of the original and needlessly complicated it like sequels often do. You can’t pick up weapons but you can kick baddies sideways into other baddies. Boring, though.

[Neon Ignition]

I'm currently standing on the precipice of starting both Kirby and the Forbidden Land and Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition

[wakka]

I beat Metroid Fusion a couple of days ago.

It's an interesting one. Very much a game of two halves, with the first being an enjoyable romp around a space station, and the latter being essentially a fairly brutal boss rush. While all the bosses eventually turn out to be fairly exploitable via cheesing in various ways, you do tend to die plenty of times before you realise that - and even then they do require focus to beat.

One thing I would say is that it is pretty linear. There doesn't tend to be a lot of that classic Metroidvania feeling of 'Oh, now I have this item, I can go to that place I couldn't reach earlier'. You're pretty much directed where to go on this one. That's not necessarily a bad thing - it's a nicely compact, pacy game - but it's an interesting choice.

Between this and Super Mario World I think I've had my fill of 2D action for the moment. Not sure what I'll move onto next but something that enters the third dimension would be nice. Potentially Resi 4 remake.

[fuse]

Continuing on that theme, I just started Metroid Prime: Remastered yesterday. I've only ever dabbled very briefly with the Prime series (30 mins or so with the 3rd game) before, so this is a totally fresh appraisal of the game with no nostalgia bogging me down.

It looks fabulous and moves smoothly, to the point where nothing about it feels 20 years old. Your movement has a slightly floaty feel to it, but that's fine and if anything it feels like a stylistic thing that tells you this is an adventure game that just happens to be played from a first person perspective, rather than a super-tight test of your FPS mettle. Similarly, the lock-on feels much the same - you're only expected to point roughly in the right direction, and then let the L trigger handle the rest. I'm all good with this.

My biggest complaint right now though is that I cannot help but compare it to Super Metroid, and that is a comparison where no game comes off favourably. The biggest difference between the two I'm finding is that SM does absolutely everything through environmental storytelling; aside from the first 5 minutes where there's some brief scene-setting via text, all of the world-building and tension is expertly built through its looks, the music, and sound effects. I'm really early on so far, but Prime has had a lot of tempo-scuppering "scan this for some flavour text" and hasn't yet given me an area where all of the presentation aspects sing together in total harmony.

Still very impressed with it, and definitely want to stick it out, but if anything it's highlighting once again in how high a regard I hold its predecessor.

[Dogg Thang]

Prime has had a lot of tempo-scuppering "scan this for some flavour text" and hasn't yet given me an area where all of the presentation aspects sing together in total harmony.

I haven't played the remaster but I went back to Prime a while back on the Trilogy set and I struggled with this. It really slowed the game down for me, made it clunky and yet I didn't really find the text all that interesting.

[dataDave]

If you don’t want to read the flavour text skip scanning the yellow markers, if you want to avoid the lore entirely stop scanning the red markers. It’s all entirely optional. I lap it all up - I think it’s great.

[dataDave]

Ah, Phazon Mines. It feels like I’ve returned home even though I don’t remember anything about this section other than that it blocked many a player back in the day.

[fuse]

Played quite a lot of the Diablo 4 open beta this weekend. Whereas Diablo and Diablo 2 were really important games to me that I played for hundreds of hours each, I whizzed through the campaign once in Diablo 3 and then dropped it like a stone; this was after the initial launch mess but still way before it evolved into the live service monster that it now stands as. I can remember so little of it that I can't honestly compare it to 4, but I can say that this felt fast-paced and compulsive like I'd expect a good game to do in this genre. The very early part of the beta saw some bad queueing and some lag-related issues when I did find an opportune moment, but then the Saturday got a lot better and even in a crossplay party of 4 things worked very smoothly, and the game balancing things remarkably well across across the team (enemies matching each players' own level range) to keep it entertaining for all.

[Finsbury Girl]

I've been alternating between BF 2042 and Nioh 2 - whilst there are still real unresolved issues with BF it is a perfect game to take a break from Nioh when I'm getting my arse kicked by the bosses. I don't have to concentrate that much, you can still get some of those mental LOL Battlefield moments & I just pretty much chill.

[QualityChimp]

I played a round of Battlefield 2042 last night, hoping to play with my friend, but it downloaded half the game, which lets you play Vs the AI, but you have to download another 25Gb for the online bits, so I shot some bots and ran up and down the map wondering what the hell the rest of my team were doing.

So, to play some co-op, we played Hot Wheels Unleashed, which was a lot of fun.
I found the best car to be KITT, but they all have strengths and weaknesses.

It's like a cross between the stunt track insanity of GTA Online, crossed with the small cars racing in real environments of Micro Machines.

A couple of the tracks were rubbish, either boring to drive or unclear where to go, but the majority of them were great fun and we felt evenly matched, winning an equal amount each.

Hoping to play that with more mates soon.

Then my mate asked me what level my character was in Elden Ring, so I stupidly fired it up to check and ended up playing until midnight, doing "one more thing".

Cleared out a castle in the snowy mountains, then saw a tower that I'd not been to.
Looks like there's an invisible bridge to get to it that I'm not looking forward to trying to cross!

[Golgo]

Akka Arrh. Glorious. Truly. And a pox on all you rubes for neglecting it. I am now no #4 in the World Rankings Leaderboard in a 'world' consisting of 44 players (and counting?). Eat that, WORLD!

[CMcK]

A bit of Raiden IV Mikado mix on Series X tonight. Always enjoyed the Raiden series and this is no exception. Some new scoring modes to try and an alternative soundtrack which is ok. I miss the banging tunes from the Jet games.