What You've Been Playing This Week

[QualityChimp]

We played one of the Diablos over lockdown when we were doing virtual meetups and playing co-op games, but we found it a bit rubbish.
We were falling over each other to race and get the loot, just holding X to kill the enemies.
Felt like there was no strategy to it and that was a real shame because I thought I'd love it.

Finished the first Adventure mode on Vampire Survivors and just have the 2nd and I've done everything. EVERYTHING.

[hudson]

TCG Card Shop Simulator (Steam) - This game is addictive. It copies the store building, services and stocking mechanics found in the Steam hit, Supermarket Simulator. However this time we are a Trade Card Game card selling store. In my case, the MonMon Card Kingdom. Here at MonMon, we sell a wide range of card expansions, board games, plushies, card sleeves and binders and loads more. You can even play table top cards at my store. I also sell individual rare card (that I get by digging into my own supply). I price them fairly in line with the market prices, but I add a little "je ne sais quoi" (10-ish %). We hold daily events. We have automatic air fresheners that go off when a musty mon passes by. My workbench will dump unwanted cards into a bargain no thrills style box for my customers to take a punt on. The empire is growing slowly, but surely and will continue to grow along side the dev's updates.

I recommend this to anyone looking for a chill time.

There's a free version called Prologue, but Early Access version is only £10.99.

[egparadigm]

Shadowman Remastered. It looks pretty good, considering it’s built on an ancient game. It’s still creepy as hell and reminds me of Bioshock and Manhunt.

The controls are a little dated, i.e. side step rather than true 3D movement.

Glad to finally be going back, previously put off from getting lost.This game needs to be played with a guide. I have no idea how I did it and bagged all dark souls BITD, it’s labyrinthine. I’ve also been playing Turok 2 and that, another Acclaim game, also needs a guide. Shadowman is much worse because of the sheer scale of the game (it’s massive) and the fact it’s more or less open world, bar a few loading screen.

[QualityChimp]

I think I'm done with Vampire Survivors (PS4), but what a brilliant game.
Recommended as a game that's both really simple to play, but crazy deep with lore and weapon combos.

Put on MGS3 (HD collection on 360 played on a One), but it's been 4 years since I last played and have no idea of what I'm doing or the controls, so as randombs suggested, I've started again.
73.2% cutscenes.
Killed a snake.
Got killed by an alligator on the 2nd screen.
Had to stop.

Will try to get back into it as I was enjoying it and it's nuts to think I LOVED 1 & 2, but stopped playing the series after that.

[wakka]

MGS3 is a denser and probably slightly less immediate game than 1 and 2, but it's worth sticking with. It's an excellent entry. To be honest 4 and 5 are much weaker games IMO. I'm not a huge fan of 4 generally and 5 is bafflingly unfinished but with moments of brilliance.

[QualityChimp]

Cheers Wakka.
4 felt like a bit of a departure, but 5 seemed tainted with an online-focus and the loss of Kojima, so never really investigated.

This collection has 2, 3 and Peace Walker.
Is the latter any good?

[hudson]

I absolutely loved Peacewalker. It's just a load of short-ish jump-in with a friend or 2 mission. The base/weapon building aspect found in MGSV was born out of this game. It's presentation is nice and the audio, especially the Vocaloid stuff you hear from the boss MG, is hauntingly beautiful.

[fuse]

As mentioned elsewhere, I've bounced off MGS3 before too, but when I did end up seeing it through it absolutely won me over. One of the best game endings I can think of, along with many, many memorable moments along the way. Can't really speak much for Peace Walker sadly!

Anyway, had last week off work to basically sit on my arse, very good.

Finished up all the remaining bits and bobs in Astro Bot, which was a very pleasant little endeavour.

Phoenix Springs was stylish as heck, and just my kind of weird. I remember an initial "what the... " feeling, particularly with the way that *everything* is delivered from the perspective of the main character reflecting on it as a past event, in a very deadpan, quite detached way. Mechanically it reminded me a lot of "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" - a fascinating but rather inelegant point and click that is absolutely worth experiencing, but perhaps not that fun to figure out a way forward entirely by yourself.

Then lots of Visions of Mana. I will do a first play for this to ramble some more, but it's a pretty middling entry to that series. Been taking a fairly completionist approach with this too, so although I just finished it in the early hours this morning, I'll stick with it a bit longer for the post-game before moving on.

[hudson]

I think I'm done with Vampire Survivors (PS4)

Man thinks he has escaped its clutches...(*cue Vampire Killer music!!)

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the new Vampire Survivors DLC NO ONE expected! Ode to Castlevania is coming October 31st to all platforms our biggest DLC to date, there's so much content you're guaranteed at least another 10 hours of gameplay, 20+ characters, 40+ weapons, 1 MASSIVE stage + more!

[fuse]

Motherfu....

[QualityChimp]

Man thinks he has escaped its clutches...(*cue Vampire Killer music!!)

Embedded Tweet

[wakka]

Cheers Wakka.
4 felt like a bit of a departure, but 5 seemed tainted with an online-focus and the loss of Kojima, so never really investigated.

This collection has 2, 3 and Peace Walker.
Is the latter any good?

5's online elements are actually really well integrated. It's still a single player game but incorporates the kind of connectivity that Dark Souls uses so effectively to make you feel connected with other players while still playing your own SP game.

It's also got superb gameplay and is the most open-ended of all the MGS games in terms of how you can approach particular challenges.

The problem is that it's just not finished. The whole last third of the game is pretty much missing. You can see footage of the concept art and partial development work on it that was released on a DVD that came with the LE of the game (I watched it on YouTube - don't bother watching if you haven't played the game through though).

The story is also egregiously half-baked, in part because of the curtailing at the end of the second act and in part because by that point we were deep into Kojima's worst excesses with writing.

I still like it but I feel it's a massive missed opportunity. I honestly think if it had been better managed, there hadn't been the falling out with Konami, and it had been finished, it could've been an absolutely top-tier all timer.

Peace Walker is a good game. It's a proper MGS but has a slightly different feel because it was originally designed for PSP, so intended for shorter bursts of gameplay. Definitely worth playing. Not as good as 1, 2 and 3 though (I really like 2 as well, I think it's absolutely superb).

[Dogg Thang]

I played through Zelda Echoes of Wisdom. Overall, I really enjoyed it. Not top tier but it’s fun and doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Then I moved onto Silent Hill 2. I’ve been excited to play the remake because the original is my favourite game of all time. But now after paying full price for this, well, I hate it. Not because it’s bad. It’s not. So far, it seems like a superb remake. But because it really does show that I have just softened to the point of not being able for horror games any more. It’s tense and I just don’t like feeling that way these days. I’m not very far in and it’s a long game. I don’t know if I’ll play much more, to be honest. Seems weird not to want to play through what seems like a strong version of one of my faves but here we are.

[Atticus]

I've had covid recently and couldn't face compounding the misery with any Silent Hill 2 ... the small amount of gaming I have done has been Mario Galaxy. Played a number of times before but never to completion. This time I'm further along than ever before so who knows, I might finish it. One thing I have noticed is the difficulty is a notch higher than Odyssey. Certainly has its challenges.

[wakka]

I'm continuing to play Baldur's Gate 3. It's been a long, long time since a game has started to absorb me like this. The hours in front of the computer fly by. It's highly immersive, and I enjoy the free format, decision-based gameplay a lot.

Even though I've logged 18 hours (at least some of which was while I left the game running while I've taken the dog for a walk, in fairness), I'm still in the earliest stages of the game. It genuinely feels quite complex in terms of deciding what path to take, who to side with, and what the ramifications of doing so might be. I actually got a pen and paper out last night and wrote down my next possible courses of action and what the cascading consequences of each might be. I think now I've got a plan for what I want to do next.

I really like my character, too. He's a bard specialising in the College of Swords, so he's not totally squishy and can deal some damage, but with a high specialisation in Charisma. Wherever possible I like to use persuasion, deception or intimidation to advance myself, and I get a lot of advantages in the dice rolls for these.

A very cool game.