What You've Been Playing This Week

[Dogg Thang]

I played through the new expansion that comes with Quake 2 remastered and I thought it was superb. A few frustrating boss fights towards the end and there was one segment that had a stupid amount of enemies but, mostly, I felt it was really interesting and inventive. Basically you are in a central hub and send out six marines to complete parts of an overall mission. You play each of those six missions in any order. Each one is different and none of them outstay their welcome. I really enjoyed it.

[Dogg Thang]

I started playing an another Quake 2 expansion and it was in a sewer and not as interesting so I finally loaded up Yakuza 0 and played through the first chapter. Why did none of you tell me I would love this game?! Are they all like this?

[Atticus]

finally loaded up Yakuza 0 and played through the first chapter. Why did none of you tell me I would love this game?! Are they all like this?

I had such a great time with that game. First Yakuza game I’d played too. I think it’s generally considered to be one of, if not the best one. I thought Like a Dragon was amazing too … interesting because it changes up the combat to turn-based.

[wakka]

Yakuza is incredible dude. Zero is a great entry point. Enjoy.

[Dogg Thang]

It’s already so much fun that I’ve added every single other Yakuza game to my Switch wish list. Also, it looks great. The faces are superb and it runs like a dream on my Steam Deck.

[wakka]

Play Kiwami after

[CMcK]

Started playing Huntdown which I’ve had for yonks but not gotten round to starting. It’s a run and gun with nice pixel art and a kind of 90s homage vibe. Quite good fun.
Also having a good time with Raiden IV Mikado Mix.

[Finsbury Girl]

In between Starfield sessions I decided to fire up AC Odyssey on PS5. Wow this looks and runs great. Playing as Kassandra, she's very cool.

It's pretty much Origins on 'roids. I can see it is going to take me a LONG time to finish this off. One cool thing is because I have a million AC games in my ubisoft account I get to have Bayek and Aya as my lieutenants and a female mejay crew

Not gunna lie I do feel like I am playing Far Cry/New Ghost Recon rather than AC but combat is fun, exploring is fun and I am intrigued by what is going to happen. Oh and yeah I can kick like Leonidis. THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAAAAAA

[Neon Ignition]

Last night I finished a replay of A Plague Tale: Innocence so took a look at what to move to next and whilst I've made solid progress in terms of number of backlog titles cleared I realised I've built a sizeable backlog when it comes to recent big releases. I've file managed my way to focus on them next so just need to decide which one to prioritise first.

[Dogg Thang]

I’m still playing Yakuza 0 and I am absolutely loving every minute of it. All the Yakuza games are on Steam and so I just bought 1 and 2 Kiwami. Would I be nuts to think I could play through the entire series or should I just skip some?

[Neon Ignition]

You could with ease and the Deck is a good way to do it, but it's definitely worth pacing them out. There's a lot of them and they're incredibly repetitive so worth having at least something else to break them up inbetween and help keep the experience fresh. I've still yet to get around to 4 & 5 despite having done 6. Also 7 but all this time later I still have next to no time or interest for turn based Yakuza.

Don't forget the two Judgment games too - They're great additions

[wakka]

Agree with Neon.

Definitely aim to play all of them - they're all great games. But they are incredibly similar to one another, which for me is a strength in many ways - I love that they're all rooted in the same consistent locations, and that each game is like a season of an ongoing TV show - but also a weakness if you try doing them one after another.

I've attempted to play one straight after another before and always ended up bouncing off the second one, because they are fundamentally very similar to one another.

My advice would be to take a break between 0 and Kiwami 1.

Worth noting that the amount of time they take to beat varies wildly depending on how much side quest stuff you do. I'm not a completionist player myself but I do like to get the most out of the chunkier business management side quests, and those can be quite grindy and absorb a lot of time. If you ignore those you'll get through the games much faster, but for me you are missing a lot of the fun.

[Dogg Thang]

That’s good advice. Thanks guys! I’ll end up buying them all in steam sales but can space them out a bit.

[importaku]

This morning has been trombone hero, my face is wet with tears from laughing so hard it's pure meme material & yet the rhythm mechanics are pretty solid. The switch controls are perfect for this game, the songs are so so bad & yet that's what makes them good. The sound of trombone destroying classical music is just too much fun. The menus and collectable cards have been making me laugh as well it's a silly silly game & i'm loving it.

[Yakumo]

I've played a few different games the past month but Remnant 2 is the main one. Man, this makes Souls games seem like entry level gaming. I'm flipping between the main campaign and quest mode or whatever its called, trying to build up XP. The thing is, there's no clear indication what my XP is and by how much it goes up.

I'm on the last world now but man, it's kicking my arse!