What You've Been Playing This Week

[QualityChimp]

Bit of flitting after splurging in the sales.

Played about 40 minutes of The Division 2. I shot some NPCs. Feels like Crysis without the special abilities. Need to play more, but didn't grab me like WWZ instantly did.

Ruiner is pretty cool. Got past the first level and it opens up a bit. Thought it'd be all like Smash TV, but there's a bit of a story and different locations.

Swapped to Hotshot Racing and the shift from the gloomy cyberpunk of Ruiner to the neon dayglo of Hotshot was really stark!

Of the three I played, I loved this the most. It's pretty easy on normal, with me winning most races, but I love the boost mechanism and the blocky retro tracks will appeal to anyone who's pumped a few quid into a Daytona cab! Recommended and it's only £3ish at the moment.

[Brad]

As someone who usually only plays DCS I appear to have almost finished Hellblade over the last week!

A graphical masterpiece for sure. The latest patch adding ray tracing among other things. To me though turning ray tracing on just turned the framerate down. I saw no change in the already great graphics.

The story and setting are good and the whole psychosis thing was a difficult subject to tackle but I feel like they did that but quite well.

The combat is weak. A cut down batman system basically and towards the end it really feels like they’re dragging it out.

So, graphics, voice acting and audio all excellent. Gameplay not so much although I do appreciate the lack of collecting stuff or levelling up. Hopefully finish it this week.

[MENTION=10111]QualityChimp[/MENTION] Skyrim VR on PlayStation is pretty good. I say go for it. The archery is quite satisfying with move controls IIRC

[Brad]

Ok I hadn’t almost finished hellblade. It’s going on a bit now and there’s some jankiness. Pushing on but it’s outstayed its welcome at this point and I’m pretty fed up with “Let me tell you ANOTHER story about the Northmen”

[QualityChimp]

Had a proper go on The Division 2 last night with a couple of mates and enjoyed it.

Downsides: The constant replacement of weapons as you level-up is counterintuitive to someone used to carrying a crowbar from lab to Xen. It's easier to believe the weapons are better when they're fictional (Borderlands 2), but a little crazy when a clearly worse gun has better stats, or even an identical gun.
We found it a bit easy and we were fighting over perps to drop. On your own, it's solid, but we were blazing through.
Quite the opposite of the target rich environments in WWZ!

However, it looks gorgeous and is really atmospheric. They've made an open world shooter, which is really impressive.
The guns are great and varied. I was actively swapping between M40, sniper and semi-auto depending on the situation.

There's a bit of a story, but we were just shooting everything, tbh.

I was crying with laughter because my seasoned expert mate was telling me double X makes you combat roll, oblivious to the fact I'd been rolling everywhere for comedy value.

[Atticus]

Had a proper go on The Division 2 last night with a couple of mates and enjoyed it.

Downsides: The constant replacement of weapons as you level-up is counterintuitive to someone used to carrying a crowbar from lab to Xen. It's easier to believe the weapons are better when they're fictional (Borderlands 2), but a little crazy when a clearly worse gun has better stats, or even an identical gun.
We found it a bit easy and we were fighting over perps to drop. On your own, it's solid, but we were blazing through.
Quite the opposite of the target rich environments in WWZ!

However, it looks gorgeous and is really atmospheric. They've made an open world shooter, which is really impressive.
The guns are great and varied. I was actively swapping between M40, sniper and semi-auto depending on the situation.

There's a bit of a story, but we were just shooting everything, tbh.

I was crying with laughter because my seasoned expert mate was telling me double X makes you combat roll, oblivious to the fact I'd been rolling everywhere for comedy value.

Great stuff. I love the world of The Division ... still one on my fave gaming experiences of the past 10 years, esp the first game.

[QualityChimp]

Great stuff. I love the world of The Division ... still one on my fave gaming experiences of the past 10 years, esp the first game.

Not 100% sure on the plot. Something about a Black Friday sale that got waaaay out of hand?

[Atticus]

Not 100% sure on the plot. Something about a Black Friday sale that got waaaay out of hand?

Yeah, I've got vague memories of that. Timely.

For me it's about being there. It's a gaming world full of atmosphere that I can lose myself in. The NY snowy winter setting was perfect. And it was a game I'd put on with no real plan and just see where the game took me for a few hours (prob like you with RDR2) ... missions, dark zone, mooching around, co-op with my mate, co-op with randoms ... so much stuff to do and experience. Love it. The second is a better game in many ways but it didn't quite take hold like the first one did, but I will dive back into that one day.

[QualityChimp]

As I missed the first one, I would imagine it would be a regression for me, but less of an advancement for you.
I can still happily play L4D 1 & 2, you miss the extra features 2, but 1 has a certain je ne sais quoi.

I still daydream about RDR2. Absolutely monumental achievement in gaming.

[Tobal]

Mortal Shell on gamepass, another in the increasing line of eurojank dark souls games missing the point of customisation. Tried to give it a fair shake for about 2-3hrs but the lack of guaranteed (and useful) healing items means one mistake is costly, you can get HP back if you have 'resolve' stocked up and parry attacks, but it's such a small amount for the gamble. The armour suits unlockable abilities are all pretty lame and offer no clear upgrade boost (talk to npc for resolve) and the one decent one of halfing the harden cooldown was a alot of tar and glimpses (dual soul currency).

Did have alook at a guide before giving up, all of them just mentioning running away from everything to grab first 4 suits and upgrade for the sword to use resolve for weaponskills (silly me for thinking you have to beat bosses, not run into the room and ransack the open chest), but not much on getting away from being locked into the long sword.

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other than that i've been putting alot of time into the Stellaris on the PC a 4x space conquest game, friends took me into a 5 man MP server (with 9 other A.I. empires) to show me the ropes as it does a piss poor job of explaining how to play the game (the in game guide just tells you what the toolbars do) and now i'm hooked. Usually starting new solo campaigns outside the MP server and just having alot of fun learning the different types of empires, crushing those that come for me and making deals with others.

[Junko]

Finally got around to buying Ratchet Rift in Time , bloody brilliant , loving it

[randombs]

I was planning to replay Halo 5 in preparation for Infinite next week and decided just watch Halo 4 cutscenes on YouTube to get up to speed.

However, the cutscenes are sooooo good I decided to replay Halo 4 instead

[QualityChimp]

A bit more The Division 2.
I feared it would be a pay-to-win loot-em-up, but it's actually really good and all content is in-game.
There's lots to do, but we're trying to focus on missions with something to do, rather than just go here and shoot everyone.

[Atticus]

Started a new game from scratch on Resi Village on hardcore difficulty. I do enjoy this game but repeat plays being over tooled up only yields so much fun. I still might resort to it if h/c kicks my ass too much.

[nonny]

I was planning to replay Halo 5 in preparation for Infinite next week and decided just watch Halo 4 cutscenes on YouTube to get up to speed.

However, the cutscenes are sooooo good I decided to replay Halo 4 instead

Halo 4 is great despite what people say. It had a decent setup and pacing. Going back to it now it's surprising how well it stands up.

Halo 5 not so much as the story was weak but even that is still technically solid. It just makes you realise how important a cohesive story/plot is to the whole process as without it you've got half a game.

[randombs]

It’s telling that most of what I thought were cutscenes from H5 were actually from H4.

I remember bits and bobs from H5(Luke Cage, mostly) but if I can’t finish it in time I’ll just watch the remaining cut scenes before I play Infinite.