What You've Been Playing This Week

[wakka]

I mean, basically, Call of Duty as a whole is highly propagandistic and insensitive. It literally makes some of the worst things that humans do to each other into a fun game, and while doing so unequivocally endorses the US and UK military industrial complexes as the good guys.

It kind of is what it is and I do personally think the games are generally really fun and do play them. But it's sorta like how I feel about eating meat. Me personally doing it is not evil or anything but at the same time I wouldn't really be able to mount a moral defence of me doing it either.

I am still tip tapping away at Baldur's Gate 3. My characters are becoming slightly less squishy but I'm really looking forward to being able to smash through the combat with some cooler moves. Getting there, though. Wherever possible I do avoid combat through persuasion/deception etc in dialogues which is extremely satisfying.

[egparadigm]

I mean, basically, Call of Duty as a whole is highly propagandistic and insensitive. It literally makes some of the worst things that humans do to each other into a fun game, and while doing so unequivocally endorses the US and UK military industrial complexes as the good guys.

It kind of is what it is and I do personally think the games are generally really fun and do play them. But it's sorta like how I feel about eating meat. Me personally doing it is not evil or anything but at the same time I wouldn't really be able to mount a moral defence of me doing it either.

I think it was Modern Warfare that I eventually once played on 360. I couldn’t get past the Screen Wipe criticisms of Charlie Brooker. Have never played a CoD since.

[wakka]

One thing I would add that I find interesting about CoD in terms of its multiplayer - which for me is the part I enjoy most - is that despite the great lengths the designers go to to give it military trappings, what it actually most resembles is a series of online playground games.

You basically log on to play variations of British bulldog, manhunt, and stick in the mud with strangers. Just with a lot of elaborate military cosplay.

[fuse]

You basically log on to play variations of British bulldog, manhunt, and stick in the mud with strangers. Just with a lot of elaborate military cosplay.

ACTIVISION PRESENTS: ANDY McNAB'S KISS CHASE

Only dipped my toes in the MH Wilds beta but I can absolutely see me diving headfirst back into the full game. I've always felt that it's a series that only needs small additions to feel totally new (see: verticality in 4), and I think this one's arguably done much more than a little. The weather changing effect is great, having proper packs of large monsters is great, and more than ever the transitions in and out of areas and quests feels very seamless. Can't wait for this one.

Finished The Plucky Squire too, which I liked! I was sold on this from the first trailer I saw, and while it's a little bit in the 'jack of all trades, master of none' camp, it's pleasant fun and not too long.

Have just started Indika too, which feels quite playfully subversive. You play a nun who's trying her hand at piety while there's this very (intentionally) incongruous "game-y", point-scoring interface wrapped around it, and then there's the backseat narrator who is seemingly the devil? Only meant to be a few hours of game there but that's just fine by me.

[QualityChimp]

"I'm Andy McNab, I'm Andy McNab, I'm Andie MacDowell!"

[Golgo]

Coop ghost hunter Phasmophobia dropped on PS5 this week so I nabbed it and had a go. Did tutorial and a couple of solo attempts at the first house on easiest setting. Seems really fun, and it did an excellent job of spooking me I have to admit. Ghost killed me twice, and the ghostly goings on were different in each case. There seems to be a lot of ghost-hunting kit to unlock and it looks quite involved, and this is not helped by the rather ****ty UI and menus, but I'm going to give it a proper airing and see where it leads for a while. Couldn't get an online coop match to work. I either got linked to much higher level players who insta-kicked me from the lobby, or landed amongst plain old stupid ***** on voicechat which caused me to bail ("I've got cheats enabled so I can dominate this ghost hunt, guys!" "No, I will be the one to dominate this ghost hunt and do you know why? Because I am Muslim and you are not.") Maybe I'll just play solo - which I understand is quite viable and even more scary - unless any friendly folk from hereabouts get involved.

EDIT: tried another couple of hours on Phasmophobia. It's the first time in ages I've attempted to play with randoms on mic and I'm just astonished at the level of juvenile bile and bigotry - particularly for a game that's meant to be 100% cooperative. Maybe I shouldn't be astonished, but I haven't managed to remain in a lobby long enough even to start a single coop game. It's a really depressing state and I think I might be done with it almost as soon as I started. Single player is tense and atmospheric but it's clearly designed for multiplayer as you can only carry three items at a time, so you need to be schlepping back and forth to your stash to get different bits of ghost-hunting equipment.

[hudson]

I get jump scared by seeing my mic arm in my peripheral vision when I wear my headset

[Anpanman]

Had to replace the drive in the PS4, lost my game save for EDF5, therefore I've started from scratch. I'm going through on Hard to unlock the other two difficulties.

Great fun replaying and trying different strategies.

[QualityChimp]

I was done with Vampire Survivors, only to find my son's bought all the DLC packs including Contra and the new Castlevania stuff.

Ended up playing a couple of sessions trying to get as many of the new weapons and their evolutions as possible.

So good!

The Contra stuff is ace, culminating in a boss battle with the alien mechskeleton opening those doors.

[Neon Ignition]

The Invincible
I like a good walking sim, breaks up the other genres nicely, but the live or die on their story. I can see why this has its fans but personally this one bored me heavily

[Golgo]

Finished Inscryption. This game, which is so self-aware and meta it hurts, truly absorbed and annoyed me in almost equal measure. I'd conclude with my early impressions: it's like There is No Game but a bit more onanistic. Turns out it does have a pretty good story, but it's buried so deep in obfuscation and post-game ARG shenanigans that I only really 'got it' when I read up afterwards. The deck building and card play is quite good but is upended almost constantly with the addition of new card types and modifiers that are rarely explained, or explained in a leering and sinister way with "We're doing this now, don't worry, you'll work it out...probably, heh heh!" There are instruction manuals in the gameworld but they contain only partial information or the information is deliberately obscured, because why not? And so you spend several turns working it out, and it turns out not to be such a fun or remarkable modification after all. For some stretches of the game you are literally stuck/reset with a crap starter deck and need to just hope RNG gives you an advantageous deal that will get you through and hopefully pick up some better cards. Rule modifiers in the boss battles were pretty ingenious and enjoyable, though. I felt that the game peaked in Act 1, after which it never quite hit the same heights of invention and creepy surprise. All that said, I did enjoy it overall. Also tried the post-game Kaycee's Mod which is a pure gameplay-focused deckbuilder set in Act 1 with none of the story, which was really good tbh.

[Golgo]

Tempest 4000 on Switch. After the superb, zoned-out precision of Akka Arrh going back to this feels like a step back. The visual busy-ness and twitchy-ness of the controls just spoils it. You can think you've cleared a tube then get zoomed away down it and lose a life on a plant stalk hidden within all the fireworks going off everywhere. Minter's finishing off something now, so hoping it leans more to the Akka Arrh vibe.

[QualityChimp]

Just a bit more CoD: WW2, but I replayed a level I'd already completed. Not sure why it didn't save my progress.
No matter, it's a great level where you play a French Resistance spy infiltrating a German stronghold.
Loads of espionage and Nazi soldiers checking your papers, finishing with a great stealth section where you're separating the troops to take them out in solitude or shooting the ones that rumble you before they can raise the alarm. It made me wonder if you can kill everyone on the level!

It's to look down on the CoD games because they're so popular, but there's a reason why they are and I'm enjoying the cinematic action.

[wakka]

I've also been playing some CoD, the new one, Black Ops 6. Haven't tried the campaign yet, just been dicking around in ye olde multiplayer mode.

One thing I found really funny is that I was anticipating having to do an absolutely humongous download when I stuck the disc in, but discovered that the entire game was already installed?! I already had Modern Warfare 2 from a couple of years ago on my drive, so I'm guessing the entirety of Black Ops 6 must have been installed as a patch update without even asking me?!

Seems a bit mental but to be honest it was pretty convenient so I'm not complaining too much.

As it goes it's a good one. I like the new MP levels and there are plenty of them. The new omnimovement system is fun, too. It leans into what I personally enjoy about CoD multiplayer, which is maximum frenetic silliness with everyone diving and sliding everywhere.

As QC points out, it's easy to rag on CoD, but the fact is, there's a good reason it's so tremendously popular - it's basically a lot of fun.

Looking forward to digging into the single player at some point this week.

[fuse]

Continuing to dip into Victory Heat Rally every now and again. The main adventure mode gets bogged down a bit with all of the interruptions, but the gameplay's fun enough. Despite what it looks like - Power Drift - the music is screaming Ridge Racer at me, loudly.

You know when you didn't like a thing and backed out of it, but a bunch of time has passed and you've read enough positive impressions since to make you think you might've been too harsh and should give it a second chance? That's me with Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate, now in HD. At the time I had already not enjoyed the first Lords of Shadow game, and saw MercuryStream as a developer that didn't get Castlevania. Since then though, I was okay with their take on Metroid, so thought I'd give this another shot. NOPE. Still don't like it - it keeps shifting out of its main presentation to show me cool things via cinematic rather than letting me play, and god damn is the opening tool tipped to the nth degree. One incredibly bad example was when I walked past a very obvious, glowing thing that I was clearly meant to use, only for the game to stop me and display a "PRESS USE" tooltip, only then when I did that, it then brought up another to say "YOU CAN'T USE THIS YET". Particularly after re-playing the DS games, this is such a step back. Think that opening hour is probably enough for this to get re-shelved.

Emio: The Smiling Man - The Famicom Detective Club is quite a nice-looking adventure game, with nicely animated characters and charming backdrops. For an entirely linear game where conversation is the only way forward though, wow have they managed to make it clumsy to find your way forward. There's always a host of options to select from - ask about x, ask about y, ask about z, think to yourself, look at surroundings, look at person, present person with x, present person with y... you get it - and more often than not, what you need to say next is not as clear as it should be, and the responses are pretty brief so you're again back to the list of options to test until you find the right one again. Still enjoyed it enough, despite it being slightly clunky and there being a few points which require active suspension of logic. Also, lol at how they allocated the cut scene budget (structural / pacing spoiler below).

->Open Spoiler<-

One (1) fancy anime cut scene, but make it 30 minutes long, and put it RIGHT at the end? After the credits AND the epilogue? Ok!

aaaaand quite a lot of Raiden Nova. As a twin stick shooter, I kinda like it! It says I've completed a few "loops" now but in reality these are individual runs through.