What You've Been Playing This Week

[Neon Ignition]

I enjoyed the first two characters, both their stories get very truncated by forcing in the boring cop who seems to speed the story to its conclusion and then by the time Kiryu turns up his chapters feel mostly like cutscenes where he's catching up on everything and then gets involved after all the interesting stuff has happened off screen. It definitely makes sense of Zero now. When I move to my next unplayed entry I think I'll continue to wait with Y5 and do Ishin next instead.

[wakka]

Yeah it pretty much goes off the rails narratively. It's not surprising they didn't have confidence in releasing the fifth entry in the West afterwards.

[hudson]

Looking to finish my initial playthrough of Dragon's Dogma 2.

In between that and a bit of Street Fighter 6, I've been pouring time into my PGA Tour Golf career mode. As it stands, I've made it to the PGA Tour. Loving it.

With friends I've been playing Helldivers 2 and Warframe.

[Finsbury Girl]

for some reason I decided to continue on with some different character classes in Dark Souls 3. It's been a while but man this is still magnificent to play.

I've also dug the limited time game mode in Battlefield. It (mostly) forces players to PTFO which has been really awesome and I've been in some tense
AF matches because of it. They should definitely expand on this mode in the next one.

[MartyG]

Manor Lords

Quite a nice city builder and colony sim. Looks very nice and there are some smart little details about how your minions behave - it is early access but there's enough content there to justify the current £26 asking price. I'd already bought it on Steam, but I noticed this is available on the PC Game Pass.

Rimworld

Continue to play this as it's excellent. You don't really need any of the DLCs (and they are a bit overpriced) as the base game has a lot to offer already. Definitely worth a look if you like colony sims.

Paleo Pines

A farming sim / base builder with dinosaurs. A bit meh, not a lot to it really so ended up being a bit on the boring side.

System Shock (remaster)

It was a 90s game and feels like a 90s game. While there are some QoL changes, it's still a maze of a game and in parts not intuitive - it doesn't hold your hand and it's easy to die, but it provides the original game feel with improved looks.

Kithack Model Club

From a couple of people from Kerbal Space Program, it's another early access game but this one feels it. Needs a lot more work to make it viable - clunky UI, awful controls. Difficult to build models as the snapping is horrible. It could be a good game, but needs a lot more work.

[Neon Ignition]

The Last of Us: Part I
Finally gotten around to this one, took a long time to build the muster to go through the game again even if this is the spruced up version. It's okay, still amazes me how differently I connect with this compared to Part II which I vastly preferred. To give it it's dues, it definitely looks better in motion though the creak to it playing the same as it always did is there.

[Dogg Thang]

Since getting another Switch, I have been totally engrossed in Tears of the Kingdom. It is an insane amount of game. Just a crazy amount of things to do, so I don't really have room for much else. It's generally wonderful, although the building hasn't really grabbed me all that much and that's a central feature. The most frustrating enemy in the game is rain. But overall, I'm loving it.

Even with Zelda taking up all my time, I have been slowly making my way through Oxenfree 2. It's not pulling me in like the first one did but it's possible that's because I'm just chipping away at it bit by bit rather than devoting big chunks of time to it. That might be affecting the immersion.

[hudson]

Stellar Blade. I am in love with this game. I'm about 40-odd hours in. I'm exploring every pixel, taking my time, just absorbing it all in. It started out as 'okay this is good', but once you get deeper into it when it starts opening up and you've unlocked a good chunk of the skill trees, I'm like...

I really hope they do a sequel!

[QualityChimp]

You should play Oli Oli and Oxenfree!

Mainly EDF5, I'm up to 98% complete.

I did download Human Fall Flat, which I intend to play with my daughter, but was curious about how the controls compared to the Switch version.
3 levels later, I realised I should probably stop and wait for her!

[wheelaa]

Currently have five games on the go, retro aside.

Gears 5 - habit really, daily challenges to add to my coins pile that I don't need

Halo Infinite - fun, plus the career rank grind to Hero (currently Diamond Master Sergeant 3)

Vampire Survivors - actually I'm a DLC behind as I spent far too long ascending one of the adventures the maximum 60 times to see if anything cool happened (it didn't), with an update yesterday, and a new DLC next week...awesome!

Brotato - have 14 or 15 character runs left for the 100%. Saving it for easy May daily rewards towards the 1k monthly

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes - not that far into it, haven't considered anything to be amazing yet, nothing bad either. Really enjoying it.

[Yakumo]

Soulstice: Deluxe Edition series X

It's kind of like Devils May Cry, bayonetta and the asthtic of a souls game all rolled in to one.
It's not a AAA title for sure but still a good romp. The combo system is quite involved and like Bayonetta it evolves the more you play and upgrade.

Syberia the world before - Series X
A beautiful adventure game set in a retro futuristic European setting. There's not much in the way of action but the game does contain a good story that kept me interested throughout.

Observer: System Redux - Series X
A cyberpunk action adventure played in a FPS style. The game has you doing detective work as well as action sections. The play area is rather small but it does present a lovely atmosphere. The main character is voiced by the late Rutger Oelsen Hauer. You can tell he'l was really getting on when the voice recordings were made as he really does sound like an old man at times. Such a shame but still cool.

The Chant - Series X
Another adventure / action title played very simialry to other story based adventure games of recent years. The store is fine but nothing that's going to excite you. Gameplay is again, fine. If you fine it cheap, it's worth a play through. It is quite short though.

[importaku]

Currently surviving my way through Grounded, ever since i finished both subnautica games i have been wanting another crafting survival type game i already play no mans sky and astroneer but those dont have the same feel as subnautica. Grounded seems to have filled that void perfectly, the story is really intriguing the setting is amazing and the voice acting & soundtrack are top notch. Managed to build a temp base of all the bits of gear i need to craft and have slowly started upgrading my weapons and armour,played about 7 hours so far and i have managed to find the next set of Dr Wendells labs, getting into them is a different matter.

Love the whole vibe and artstyle, looks so vibrant on oled switch, while not as impressive as running on pc it still holds up pretty well.






My current base until i choose where to build a proper full kitted out base


The sense of scale is great, running fact to face with huge spiders not so much lol.


The lighting and shadows are really nice.



Visiting BURG.L in the oak lab is always a nice excursion, managed to revive the duplacator and find some of his missing chips to progress the story. Love his design.



Also found one of these things, had to fend off waves of bitey gits till it finished mixing, worth doing though as it gave me a load of science points.


So far it's an amazing game, so pleased it fially came to switch. Been wanting to play it for years since i saw it originally appear on youtube from people playing the steam early access version.

[QualityChimp]

The sense of scale is great, running fact to face with huge spiders not so much lol.

Sounds like you're lacking your basic training with the EDF, soldier!

[importaku]

Sounds like you're lacking your basic training with the EDF, soldier!

It’s bug trauma for sure. At first I found it weird why the devs made it so spiders made snoring noises when asleep then I realised it’s so you don’t turn a corner and get jumpscared by one just been there. Hell even when you play for the first time it thoroughly warns you of spiders lol.

[QualityChimp]

I enjoyed your write-up, by the way! Looks a fun game!