What You've Been Playing This Week

[Brad]

I've been playing mgs3 using the ultimate collection on PS3. Good frame rate but not remastered too much (bluepoint). It's amazing of course but crikey, kojima is such a perv! Enjoying it a great deal, 6 hours went without me noticing.

[wakka]

I want to play that again so much. I'm really glad we're getting a re-release of it soon ahead of Delta next year.

[huxley]

Finally finished Resi Village last night. The last boss area sections of the game were my most favoured. Loved how it tied up with Resi 7.
Gonna do the Rose DLC this evening.

[fuse]

Had a few little dabbles back in SF6, and also stuck on GG Strive briefly as I'd not tried it yet since getting a newer stick and buying the first season pass for it. Couldn't tell whether things no longer working was a result of shoddy memories, or a year's worth of patching, but it didn't feel quite as alien as it usually does when you take a year out of an ArcSys game, so that's something.

Have also reacquainted myself with my Steam account. Played through Videoverse, which is a pretty cute little VN-type thing about a teenage guy hanging out on a very thinly-veiled Miiverse clone, drawing doodles based on "Feudal Fantasy" characters, trying to share positive vibes and making with the other people hanging out there. It's nice - kind of like a more modern take on Emily is Away if anyone played that - but is a little clumsy towards the end.

Started The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, which... I'm not quite sure on just yet. I'm giving it a shot as I really liked other things this team have done (Gods Will Be Watching, The Red Strings Club), and whereas the story seems interesting, I'm not sure if the first couple of chapters are giving an accurate picture of what the gameplay will be like? We'll see!

Very, very brief dabbles with Schildmaid MX, which is a shmup that I've seen recommended elsewhere, and Fear & Hunger, which I am *fascinated* by as a result of coming across this video, but am probably going to get more enjoyment out of watching videos of people who are familiar with it playing, rather than actually playing myself. I played through the DLC for The Case of the Golden Idol, which is very good and highlights again that the game as a whole is excellent and something I'd recommend to most anyone, but particularly anyone that enjoyed Return of the Obra Dinn.

Lastly, have spent a couple of hours playing Xenotilt, the follow-up to Demon's Tilt, which just went into early access. It is visually overwhelming but in a fantastic way; I am basically sat like this and gawping at it in a constant state of confused over-stimulation.

[importaku]

Have so many games to devote time to yet Natsumon is taking up all my gaming time. 20 hours in and about halfway through summer in Yomogi town, experienced so many cool things. The most recent was obon taking place in the town and the lanterns going up for the bon odori. Hourly firework shows at night going on as well so everything is really gorgeous to look at. Managed to get my stamin gague to the 3rd line however still not enough to complete some of the quests as i'm told i have to scale all the high points in town the chimmneys at the factory are still way out of my climing ability. I did almost scale the mountain in the middle of the island and i also found out why the game is called natsumon as something special lies at the very summit i got a peek of the edge of it but not got there yet.

So far this is pretty much the best boku natsu game i have played out the series the previous holder of that title was boku 4 but the sheer scale of this new island along with the cast of colourful characters in town makes me want to take part in everything and to get those stamina stickers to climb higher you need to be a part of the community and show interest in everyone as some are rewards for completing villager quests. Also have to be more hands on with the family circus now as i have to choose the shows for each evening to raise the ranking of it. My only wish would have been to put some gashapon machines in the town store as i loved trying to complete the eraser monster set from boku 4 plus in this game you have the ability to get quite a bit of money from selling the stuff you find so once you have bought most items there's not a lot to keep spending it on heowever there are some games at the circus to play mainly smart ball & shateki.

I have a feeling i won't figure out all the quests before the end of the game but i will be playing through this one many times. Least i managed to finally get inside the castle on the hill, was like a mini zelda dungeon in there having to find all the targets & shoot them to get higher. That was a fun side quest.

[charlesr]

Zookeeper DS. Lovely.
Lemmings DS: OMG I can't see anything
Loopop Cube Lup Salad: Amazing. One of the best puzzle things ever.

Might fire up Loderunner next.

[Golgo]

Quake Remastered on Switch (again). Glorious.

[hudson]

Castlevania Advance Collection on Xbox SeriesS. I've almost finished Circle of the Moon. Next it will be onto Harmony of Dissonance. What a great goddamn package!

[fuse]

Wrote a bunch about Double Dragon Gaiden but then decided I can't be bothered going into details. Instead just this: I don't think it's very good. It is a short campaign that isn't balanced well, instead just wanting you to keep throwing yourself at it for unlocks. It's well timed though, because we've been spoiled with Streets of Rage 4, Shredder's Revenge, and the like, and you might be fooled into thinking this might be of the same standard. It is not. In the same damn universe as this you've even got the two River City Girls games, which are also leagues beyond this.

Also tried Spidersaurs, which is like channeling a Contra game through the aesthetic of a 90s-era Saturday morning cartoon. Might be alright, but not sure I'm really wanting to play something like this right now.

[Finsbury Girl]

Still on FFXV, I've spent far too long doing side missions etc so it is starting to feel like a bit of a slog. I've got to plough through the story now so I don't give up on it. I'm desperately trying not to buy AC6 as my backlog is now huge and Starfield is a couple of weeks away.

[Neon Ignition]

Lining up what to go through next I picked up 2-3 old COD's for Xbox following the news about their online userbases reviving, just ones that were the cheapest to nab and muck around on. Tried out Call of Duty: Ghosts and there were only around 200 online. I tend to stick with TDM so getting a match still wasn't too hard, I'm assuming it's remained dead and will till it hits GP rather than it has a decent userbase but you need the DLC - it's always been that the DLC kills matchmaking on old CODs in the past.

But, I'll give it a nod, I remember being really let down by it after the run the franchise had been on beforehand but going back it's actually pretty good. At some point I'll try the other two online too: Black Ops and Modern Warfare 3

[importaku]

Finally reached the end of Natsumon, i found a lot of what was on the island and about 180 out of 200 insects as well as scaling all the highest points on the island however i didn't find everything there's still plenty of reasons to go back & continue sadly no new game plus so i'll have to do it all from the start but i loved it so much the first time around i'm more than happy to dive right back in. This game came at just the right time for me and has been the highlight of the year so far, spending most days & evenings over the last few weeks enjoying evey inch of the island in total my playtime came to 35 hours but i went into the options first thing and changed the time flow to nonbiri so the days would last the longest giving me plenty of time to enjoy. The ending actually made me feel pretty sad i have spent time getting to know everyone on the island and taking part in the festivals and other events they were a fun & lively bunch to get to know. Same as Persona 5 made me feel when i had to say goodbye to everyone there.

Will probably post one more load of pics in the other thread as i have taken hundreds over my playthrough but here's a few.

[Dogg Thang]

I played through all the main missions on Quake 2. I had only ever played the N64 version, which was cut down, so this was my first full Quake 2 experience. It was good. I did get very lost in the last few areas which frustrated a bit but, overall, it kept me going through it at a good pace. And on medium it wasn’t hard at all, which I appreciated.

[importaku]

Currently making my way through Dragon quest X offline, playtime is already at 56 hours LOL oh my this ones addictive. Helped the fairies & the dwarves problems and gotten both of their key emblems now taken a train to a new town to find there's someone kidnapping kids. Apparently a demon has just shown up bitching about a promise they made 15 years ago and he wants the lives of all the kids in the town least that explains why they were all yeeted into some weird fairy portal where nobody could get at them. Least i have Duston & Fuura on my team now as fighting for a long time on my own was tricky especially when it's 1 vs 3 enemies.

Still haven't figured out how to get more inventory space as i'm already running out of space to pick up new materials in DQ11 you could transfer the items on your person into a main storage bag but it seems the game before it has some other system i haven't figured out yet. Haven't worked out how to use treasure maps either, i'm guessing the further i get in the more stuff will be unlocked. I know one thing the furigana are a godsend i'm having a lot easier time figuring out whan on earth some people are telling me, just wish they had put them over everything as the menus are super confusing but slowly working out what is where.

Looking forward to continuing,

[fuse]

SF6 remains a bit of a constant thing now; been going through arcade mode a bunch to figure out some side characters, but also putting in some Battle Hub time with Marisa. Feel like I'm still not using the game's full toolset - whereas I've got drive impact nestled into my play fairly decently now, I'm still not using drive rush effectively, either from neutral or using it for mid-combo cancels. Back to the drawing board, eh?

Barely played Armored (sic) Core 6 and not sure I'm too mad on it yet. Will try and stick it out a bit longer and see if it catches my attention.

Also playing Goodbye Volcano High, which I'm enjoying. It's got a pretty similar structure / vibe to We Are OFK, which I absolutely loved, and whereas I don't think this is quite as good, does have more involved song/game bits. Trophies are all buggered on the PS5 it would seem, which is a bit of a bummer.