What You've Been Playing This Week

[QualityChimp]

Been dipping into Arkham City and it's a lot of fun. There's an insane amount of puzzles to find, though!
Loads of side missions too. I've just done the AR missions and got the grappling hook boost, so you can indefinitely fly across the city, which is so much fun.

Opted for the 70s Batman last night, mainly as I had a batman brush when I was a kid and that's how I kinda mentally picture his costume's blue and greys.

[importaku]

Batman sure has some unruly back hair.

[Dogg Thang]

I'm now quite a bit into the Suikoden 2 remaster and it's absolutely fantastic. Even better than I remember, really building on the first game and strengthening everything. And the remaster of 2 looks absolutely gorgeous. I think they did a brilliant job with this one.

[Golgo]

Unicorn Overlord. Everything about it is so thoughtfully crafted and pretty, from the systems, UI and menu screens, maps, all the way to how my unit of bikini witches wiggle their bottoms when they fight.

[QualityChimp]

Started playing Cites Skyline (PS4).
It was free with PS+ ages ago and I've been meaning to play it ever since as I do like a Sim game, although I haven't played anything since Roller Coaster Tycoon.

It's got a real community around it and there are loads of tutorial videos on YouTube, which is a good job because it's an incredibly unintuitive and unfriendly UI that totally leaves you to it. Even though I've watched some videos, I still end up a bit lost as to how avoid going bankrupt!

I think I'm enjoying it?

[QualityChimp]

I bit more Arkham City, which had me doing "one more thing" until midnight.

[hudson]

Schedule 1 (Steam) - Currently waiting for a drop off of Grandaddy Purple. I'm also working on expanding my contacts so I can employ a second dealer. We are making quite a bit of money now. Had to buy a business so I can launder our money.

Monster Hunter Wilds - Had a little break, but now Title Update 1 has arrived, tonight we hunt.

[Neon Ignition]

Bulk of my time is still going into Final Fantasy XVI - I'm enjoying, it's easy enough to glo along with the flow with as Square have essentially made a lovely looking high budget walk along beat em up. I can see why fans were put off though and the GOT inspiration really wears thin early on with a lot of repetition taking place, hopefully it holds up to the end as I've had a check and I still have roughly 40% of the game to go.

[Finsbury Girl]

I revisited an old character on Dark Souls last week which got me into looking at one of my old half finished characters in Dark Souls 3. So I've been smashing this for the past week or so. Forgot how magnificent this game really is. As much as I love Elden Ring (it's possibly my favourite game of all time) I'd love to see a smaller scale Dark Souls 4.

[wakka]

Yeah, I'm with you, I'd love to see another game in the mould of the earlier titles too.

[importaku]

Finished the uk release of Snackworld last week 46 hours of unhinged RPG fun. Now working my way through the Japanese version as with all the realworld NFC jara stuff it becomes a lot more fun. Plays just like fantasy life with the battle dungeon system which is making it a great stopgap to scratch that itch until Fantasy life releases next month, there's so many items and weapons to find in snackworld that it's addictive going through the randomly generated dungeons adding to my armoury.

[kryss]

I've had that sat on my switch since COVID first hit. One day!

[importaku]

Story is basic but it's made up for by all the ridiculous english voice acting, the monsters in the japanese version don't have mad voice clips. Level 5 went off when they did the localisation the amount of word puns & cheesy gags are through the roof, probably why i have had so much fun it doesn't take any part of itself seriously.

Has got me totally in the mood for fantasy life, i swear if level 5 delay it again i'm gonna rage lol.

[Neon Ignition]

Mario vs Donkey Kong: Very early, seems very simple and easy so far

Split Fiction: Around a quarter of the way through, it's great fun. It feels more balanced an experience between players than It Takes Two sometimes was, the side stories make up for the broader generic visual styles most of the game is made up of. It constantly throws things at you with very little downtime which keeps you on your toes. It feels like it's going to be another leading example of co-op only gaming, on more broader terms I wouldn't say it's that amaze as it seems to be called out as being - the co-op nature lends it a lot of distinction rather than the gameplay or world building etc itself.

Final Fantasy XVI - Every interesting characters arc is done and the game has reached the point where it should wrap up but there are still around 15 chapters to go which is where I think this one will go wrong. I think I'll come away preferring it to XV but Square doesn't seem to have had the gas in the tank to keep this one going strong for its length making the current chapters feel like padding.

[QualityChimp]

Had a pretty decent gaming sesh on Arkham City (PS4) on Sunday.
I cleared a particularly tricky AR mission where you have to divebomb and glide for quite a way in a tight tunnel.

I keep forgetting that it's Metroidvania in design and wonder why I can do some stuff, then realise I need to forward the plot and then you get a "Here's a new gadget that lets you get to the areas you couldn't previously" cutscene.

I like how there are gangs hanging around and one of them will be an informant, so you'll take out the other enemies first, which adds a level of crowd management.
Then he'll reveal where The Riddler has hidden his various trophies, so you're not reliant on guides to find everything.

Did a bit of story and then I was able to complete some of the side-missions that weren't popping.

Batman is a bit of a menace though, isn't he. Just swooping in and smashing the guys in the face.
I mean, the Batcomputer is clever, but I'm not sure how he know that every single person is a bad egg.
My son started questioning what the inmates were locked up for.
"That guy was caught doing 31 in a 30 zone! The other one you smashed up was late paying his taxes!"