What You've Been Playing This Week

[Lebowski]

Stellar Blade Fishing all done, collecting cans getting their, and i have more outfits in game than i have in my own wardrobe. I've exhausted the quest board and moved back into doing some more of the story, what a cool world to be exploring. I've unlocked some of the more risque outfits now but they feel a bit out of place, seeing poor eve fighting monsters in her underwear feels like it wouldn't be very practical so I always make sure she properly dressed for battle the all black planet diving suit feels very in universe so I tend to stick to that one.

Death standing Directors cut started this on the steam deck, I say started it's been a little bit of walking and a massive amount of cutscenes, loving the world and the setting so will be giving this my full attention once Stella Blade is put to bed.

[Neon Ignition]

"Me? The Thirteenth Duke of Wybourne? Here? Playing Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Stellar Blade and Hitman: Absolution?..."





"...Scandalous"

[QualityChimp]

I've been dipping into Sifu the last week and really enjoying it.
I've set it to Disciple mode ("easy"), but it's still really tough.
You can do really well, then get outnumbered and it's game over.
I'm determined to beat the first hideout without dying, but it's quite the challenge at the moment and I've not even got to the boss yet!

There's almost a puzzle element to it where you work out what weapons to use, which order of enemy to take out and which route to go.
Like a normal-speed Superhot but no guns.

I'm getting better and there's a sweet section that shifts to a side-on perspective and looks like the hammer fight in Oldboy, and if you do that well, you feel like a total badass.

[importaku]

80 hours in Grounded & i finally decided to end the story, managed to help Wendell solve the puzzle on how to save him so i got the good ending it's been an amazing adventure so far but while reading up i realized just how horrifyingly big the game is. There isn't just 1 new game plus but theres actually 10 of them, with certain things only unlocking as you go through the various ones however you keep everything you have found and built so you don't start totally off from scratch, however the insects get harder & harder i dread to think how powerful they are in new game plus 10. So now i'm finally starting to decide where to start bulding a permanent fancy base i have been gathering materials in chests ready for this point so the crafting shouldn't be too painful. I have found most of the best weapons and armour in the game so far however that's only the ones i can find in pre new game plus as theres way more & new mechanics that appear. There's more i need to do before the game will me start new game plus so i'm making sure i max out my stats as going forward as the difficulty jumps it's going to be essential.


Suffice to say this one will be keeping me going on & off for years, however now i have seen the end i have opened up some playtime slots for other games.

Found this one randomly and boy am i glad i did Grow; Song of the evertree is probably the coziest game i have ever played on switch. Extracting elements to build miniature world seeds that you then revive and grow which in turn allows you to harvest materials & elements to craft more world seeds. Depending on what you put into the seed you never know what the worlds gonna turn out like. It's like part adventure, part city building sim & part gardening. The environments are really pretty to explore and the gameplay mechanics are super addictive plus the photo mode allows you to do alsorts of goofy stuff so my hipster alchemist is going all out with those poses. It's a gentle low stakes game where you can just hang out and slowly explore and build, totally loving it so far.

[MartyG]

XDefiant

Online squad shooter, few different game modes such as base domination and escort, played over Ubisoft themed maps. Looks quite nice (it's on the Snowdrop engine which is excellent), plays very smoothly, fast TTK and plays similarly to CoD. There are less load outs and from what I can see, four different class types - unlocks seem pretty slow. It's free to play but obviously littered with microtransactions because of this, season passes etc. It's worth a try.

Mythforce

A first-person rogue lite - the Saturday morning cartoon look is very good, but the gameplay is pretty simple and easy almost to the point of a bit boring to play. It supports co-op so is probably better suited to that.

Jagged Alliance 3

A tactical strategy game, kind of similar to the XCOM style. There's more map free roam and less base building, the combat is turn-based and the story is very early 90s action film. It's not a bad strategy game for those not looking for a deeper over-world game.

Loddlenaut

A sort of PowerWash Simulator lite - you're cleaning up garbage underwater, it claims to be relaxing - I thought it was just a little tedious and wished I was actually playing PowerWash Simulator.

[charlesr]

Shock Troopers on a Candy. Excellent fun at Madbury's house. And Moto Roader MC

[fuse]

Think like most folks here, I tend to know what I am going to like, and don't often find myself disappointed. With it being a sequel to a game I quite enjoyed, Read Only Memories: Neurodiver did the rare thing of really letting me down - while I didn't totally hate my time with it, it definitely is not as strong as the first game. It's also much, much shorter, and ends really abruptly - to the point that I was genuinely surprised to watch a very clumsy ending play out.

On the other hand, I thought I was going to like Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, and it turns out I absolutely love it. There are flecks of Twin Peaks, Killer7, and Flower, Sun and Rain all over this, which feels like a direct attack on my sensibilities. As it's a puzzle gam, which is not exactly my area of expertise, I'm pleased as well to find that the primary guide on Steam is one that gently nudges you towards figuring many things out by yourself (helped by the fact many of the puzzles are randomised for each player), rather than just giving you the answers.

Also had a very quick revisit of Street Fighter 6, though mainly in World Tour mode to maintain 100% completion since the first season's DLC is all out and the big balance has landed. Haven't gone back into ranked, but do know that my main JP has had some nerfs, though I'm not sure I was taking full advantage of some of those strengths to full capacity to really feel the downgrade.

[briareos_kerensky]

A whole lot of Devil Blade Reboot.

[Neon Ignition]

"Hello and welcome to Jazz Club, bringing you all that's the best in Neon's weekly gaming. On the playlist this week we expose your eyes to the sophomoric climaxes of Hitman: Absolution and the expansive visual and audio pleasures of Stellar Blade"




"Nice"

[QualityChimp]

Been playing a chunk of Streets of Rage 4, but had to get my son to learn how to play it because I needed help with the final boss fight!

We completed it, but went straight into it again to try with some new characters. I played with Blaze at first, but tried with the DLC character Estelle, who has this great groundpound move that piles on the damage. Might learn some other combos with her.

Also played a load of Sifu. I managed to get to the boss without dying. The trick is to use the environment and not be afraid to separate the pack. If there's more than one around you, you're highly prone. Boss killed me once.

The menu system is a bit clunky, making you think you're going to lose progress.
I wanted to go to the second level or practice fighting the 1st boss, but not really sure how to do it or if it'll wipe out my progress.

My son also had a crack at this - he died more than me, but he'd get back up again, whereas I'd restart. I've unlocked a couple of permanent attacks now too by replaying, so I can kick stuff at people, which is really useful for crowd control.

[hudson]

Been playing Metroid Prime Remastered on Switch whilst on me hols. What a game. The remaster is tip top.

[QualityChimp]

Got home from work and my son reveals he's replayed and beaten the first level of Sifu without dying, so the challenge has been laid down!

Practiced fighting the first boss, but also the dodge mechanism.

I'd been tapping the block as enemies attack, trying to get the timing right (and regularly failing), but you can hold block and soak up all the standard hits.
You can take a finite number of hits before they break your block.

However, on top of that, whilst holding block, in you use the stick you can outright dodge blows, jumping low blows or ducking punches.
This leaves the enemy prone, having dodged their combo and you can lay into them. Game changer!

So, by this point, I've run through the level so many times, it's like a kung-fu film and I'm decimating the enemies as I know where they are and how to deal with them.
I Jackie Chan flip over a gate, sweep the legs of a startled thug and punch him on the ground, then leap to his mate, parry his punch and knock him out.
Through the door and parkour up a wall, sprinting all the way, grabbing a bottle, rounding a corner and smashing it to an unsuspecting guy, and down him, then his mate who meets abruptly with the wall.
Up the stairs and there's a guy nonchalantly smoking one moment, then next, his face has met a flying bottle and he's been thrown over the banister, then his mate follows after him. I run back down the steps past the pile of bodies to collect a pipe for the next bit.
Leap to the next building and past the 2 enemies into the guy hiding in the bedroom.

At one point, I cleared out the warehouse so fast, I got an achievement!
Previously I'd been running around in circles to land a couple of hits then run.

So, I've got to learn all this again on the next level (nightclub), but I feel slightly more confident knowing the rhythm of the game.

[Colin]

Finished playing Titanfall II, and I thought it had borked my PS4 Pro! The fan for some reason has been going nuts when I play downloaded games, on my run through of Wolfenstein II prior to TF II it had at times sounded like a jet engine. After I completed TF though, it actually self switched itself off to cool-down from overheating, something I've never seen before.

[Golgo]

Still on Cyberpunk. Just opened up the Phantom Liberty DLC section after brain-frying and slicing up

->Open Spoiler<-

every last one of the Voodoo Boys/Girls

, and while I'm still really enjoying it I'm approaching 65 hours now so I'm probably going to pause it for a few days in case I get burned out.

[Finsbury Girl]

Elden Ring still has its claws in me!

Having a blast though