What You've Been Playing This Week

[Golgo]

Akka Arrh. Are there any other games out there, I wonder? I don't know, anymore. Can't think...I can only see colours moving and hear strange pinging noises and bells and people saying things like 'all the shooting'. And moos, plenty of mooing. Just reclaimed my top spot on the leaderboards after replaying all stages and raising 'deltas'. It won't hold for long. I'm barely a million points clear which is nothing.

[Atticus]

Put a fair bit of time into Jedi Survivor ... it's a beautiful production in many ways but I just couldn't get invested in it. No compusion. Maybe I've just been spoiled with 3rd persion action of late but this did not grab me. So I cashed out while it's still new and shiny and picked up something with far fewer expectations attached ...

Dead Island 2 is a basic game. You forage, you craft, you kill. Yes, it has a story and objectives and side quests and stuff, but thats the basic rub. Nothing more. But what makes it worth a look is the sheer fun of killing the zoms. You can be creative with environmental stuff, you can lure them with bait into traps, you can deal with different types with different aproaches, and they come apart with tons of gory detail. So the killing is fun. Probably repetivie to a point, but a few hours in I'm still enjoying every kill ... especially if it involves jump-kicking one into something fatal or off a ledge. Another thing I like is the look of LA, or HelLA as the game likes to trade on ... it's a nice sunny but ruined vibe, full of the undead and stuff to collect. I also like the card system to tailor your skills and buffs. It's no classic in the making but its good honest brutal fun.

[wakka]

I started playing the remake of Dead Space on PS5.

A couple of chapters in and enjoying it. It's been a while since I've played something from the 360 era and it's oddly nostalgic. I'd forgotten all about when every game had to have a 'psychic/magnetic object flinging' mechanic for solving puzzles!

It's very well paced and I really like the weighty solidity of the gameplay. Blasting the limbs off the monsters with the deliberate firing rate of the plasma cutter has a great feel to it.

Genuinely creepy atmosphere, too.

[QualityChimp]

Not had much time for gaming this weekend, but I worked out how to add my 3rd-party pad to my daughter's Switch and we played some Justice League Cosmic Chaos together.

We just did the freeplay thing, so we were just milling about, beating people up and trying the vehicles out.
I'd like to play the story with her, but I suspect I'd be trying to play the game and she'd be parking the batmobile in someone's garden or something.

It plays a lot like the Lego games, but it's not as good on first impression.

I also noted on [MENTION=345]Neon Ignition[/MENTION]'s previewing next month poll that the sequel to Darkest Dungeon is out on Steam.
The original never made it to mobile (even though it'd be a good match), so I charged up my PS Vita (thanks, [MENTION=9465]Brad[/MENTION]!) and had a little play on it. Started off OK, then spaffed too much money on upgrades, unable to afford food and torches for the next level, resulting in the team going hungry, demoralized, frightened, insane and TPK dead in that order.

I might start again because I want to make a couple of parties that can take what's thrown at them in those hellish ruins.

It's such a good game, though, maaaassively elevated by the phenomenal commentary:
"Many Fall In The Face Of Chaos, But Not This One.
"Remind Yourself That Overconfidence Is A Slow And Insidious Killer."
"Prodigious Size Alone Does Not Dissuade The Sharpened Blade."
"As life ebbs, terrible vistas of emptiness reveal themselves."

[Neon Ignition]

I'm becoming very time restricted due to home stuff atm but I'll drop in here that myself and Jr1 are doing short nightly co-ops on Sackboy and it's making a great little platformer even better. I also fired up Hogwarts Legacy aka That Wizard Game and did the opening section. It's overly handholding but to give it its dues, it's actually very nice visually and seems to play much better than I expected.

[fuse]

FF Pixel Remasters, mostly. They're good! They've struck a nice balancing act between being faithful to the originals and updating them - not just for modern eyes and ears, but for modern lives that are probably have a bit less time to be redoing huge chunks of game because you made a bad call going that extra floor further in a dungeon. No doubt in my mind that 6 is still my favourite, but I've been doing them in order, so that's there as a special treat if I can make it through the rest.

Have also been playing a little of Graze Counter GM, an indie shmup that I'm quite partial to. The system's pretty straightforward - graze bullets to build a counter bar, unleash that when it's filled to cancel enemy fire and build a break bar, then when that's maxed go into break mode for a big one-time cancel and huge damage. I've been playing on the 'Novice' mode which is almost too easy - it's particularly generous with 1ups - but I'm also quite liking the illusion of being a capable player.

[Atticus]

Still have fun with Dead Island 2. Some next-level-bies are shuffling into the mix, keeping the combat varied and tactical. Going from area to area there's a bunch of locked stuff hiding precious goodies ... these might be locked vehicles, safe boxes, outbuildings, etc ... some have puzzle elemets on-site and others might have the key on a specific zom somewhere else entirely (the locked item will give a clue to the type of who might have the key). There's lots to keep you invested. And slicing and smashing your way from a-to-b is always bloody good fun. The supporting cast are a hoot too. They remind me of the raggedy b-movie ensemble from Dead Rising 3. Way ott and all the better for it.

I still can't recommend it whole-heartedly as there are undoubtedly better games out there ... but right now it feels like just what I need. A proper king of the mid-tier.

[huxley]

Resorted to guides to find the final couple of shrines in BOTW before Tears of the Kingdom arrives tomorrow.

[CMcK]

Finally got round to starting Battle Axe last night. Utterly gorgeous Henk Nieborg pixel art combined with pick up and play hack and slash mechanics makes for a winner. And a wee bit of Missle Dancer as a palette cleanser too.

[importaku]

Finally got round to starting Battle Axe last night. Utterly gorgeous Henk Nieborg pixel art combined with pick up and play hack and slash mechanics makes for a winner. And a wee bit of Missle Dancer as a palette cleanser too.

Battle axe is a good one i can barely get to the 3rd stage it's pretty tough especially in single player with friends it becomes a bit easier to progress. The pixel art is what drew me to it as that genre of games i rarely play but that one is a hidden treat,

This week still making my way through enter the gungeon absolutely love this, the character designs as well as the bosses are so fun add in the hundreds of zany guns & items and all the wild synergies that happen when you get the right combinations & it becomes endless mayhem. I love bullet hell mechanics so having screen of projectiles while trying to take down a boss is a pleasing challenge but it is kicking my ass the furthest i have manged to get down to is the 4th floor some of the bosses are brutal unless you have a gun strong enough. Been a few occasions where the rng gods were kind and i was pretty much a walking WMD spewing destruction but even that was not enough as the floor 4 boss handed my ass to me on a silver platter the amount of secrets in this game is insane secret levels, secret bosses, secret secret bosses. Super secret items layers & layers of content. Wonder if i'll ever see it all.

[QualityChimp]

Still really enjoying Darkest Dungeon on the Vita.
I don't need to be taking up a telly and I can dip in and out.
Didn't want to start watching a film and go to bed late, but did a short dungeon instead.
Got through it and got some sweet cash.
Everyone is borderline insane, but a win's a win!

[Atticus]

I finished Dead Island 2 last night. Around 20 hours. Never outstayed its welcome. It puts fun first and features a considered trajectory of growth via card buffs and other stuffs ... it offers a huge anmount of flexibility in how you tool up and operate. Best apect of the game for me is the joy of crowd control. Throwing a petrol can towards a mob and then doing a well timed flaming jump kick into a wanderer, sending them right into the mob and igniting them. Stuff like that. One side quest involved kicking zoms off a pier into the sea for a content creator ... time to bust out jars of meat bait, drawing them to the edge, ripe for the kicking. Boof! It's all good fun. But now I'm ready for something deeper. And Zelda-y.

[QualityChimp]

I really liked the original Dead Island, playing it through on 360 with some peeps on here.
Then we started playing it again on PS4 during lockdown, but we didn't get as far because the atmosphere and soundtrack are oppressively downbeat.

Sounds like the sequel is a bit more zany, though!

More Darkest Dungeon for me.
Got a couple of decent teams, but I can't even do a short dungeon without most of them limping home with borderline insanity and a bunch of quirks!

[Golgo]

Back on Akka Arrh. Yeah. Some dude found approx. 400,000 points to get the top score back from me, with top score of 173,000,000-ish. It seems nothing in scoring terms, about 5-10 seconds concentration without screwing up, but I'll be buggered I can find it and pull it back. So, in short: damn you and respect you, the sir or madam who is 'shoshin'!

[hudson]

On holiday and been playing some Picross S Megadrive and Master System Edition. I love a bit of Picross and this sprinkle of 8/16bit nostalgia is just enough to keep me plugging away.