What You've Been Playing This Week

[Cepp]

Chipping away at Skyrim and started Luigis Mansion 3. I hated the controls the first time I played it but they don't seem to bother me now. Lots of fun anyway, I love this series.

[wakka]

I was playing Elden Ring, but hit an absolute brick wall in terms of motivation really early on, after the first major zone and the castle. I'm just finding it a bit overwhelming if I'm honest.

So, I've been dabbling elsewhere. I've been doing bits and pieces of arcade racers while sat at my desk - making my way through Coast 2 Coast mode on Outrun 2 SP for the umpteenth time via a PS2 emulator, and also playing some SCUD Race and Daytona 2 via Supermodel. They're great dip in, dip out games for when you should be working want a quick hit of blue skies gaming for five minutes.

I've also just purchased Yakuza 0. Long time series fan, but first time playing this one. I've played through all five prior games in their original (i.e. non-Kiwami) incarnations, and loved them. Ended up doing 4 and 5 quite close to each other though, and felt burned out on the series afterwards, so took a multi-year break.

Dropping back into Kamurocho is like slipping into a warm bath. There's something deeply comforting to me about these games. The soap opera story, the minigames, the vibe...it's lovely, and I've always liked the character of Kiryu so much. Think it's just what I need right now.

At first blush this seems a particularly strong entry too. The story has an excellent setup, and the addition of stances to fighting is hugely welcome. It's great to see Kiryu and Nishiki in their heyday too - I'm enjoying seeing the former as a bit more of a young hothead than the more mature character he is in later games.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Resident evil 6

I'm sore of enjoying this game but two things are almost game-breaking designs.

1: the complete lack of any I-frames or hyper armour in a game were you have you fight hoards of enemies is crazy. You can be mid attack, reload, or any action and get it cancelled. Like mid reload it'll be cancelled and when they're attack is over, you have to attempt the reloads again only to be attacked. Even while you're kicking a zombie another zombie can literally cancel your attack and hit you.

2: During any cutscene the zombies don't freeze. Meaning you can active a short cutscene, like opening a door or even talking to someone in a story animation and the zombies will encircle you and pounce as soon as the cutscene is over.

[Cepp]

Trying Fall Guys out now it's F2P and it's pretty fun! Almost won my last game.

[fuse]

Lots of Neon White. Finished it now, but there's plenty of room to come back and improve times, get all ace medals, presents etc. Definitely can see me going back for this, though I am already worried how much it relies on building uber-familiarity with not only each card, but individual levels.

Also just started Elechead. It's a pretty charming, minimal little puzzle platformer about a little robot whose head carries a positive charge and is used to power bits of the environment around him to find a way along to the next screen.

[randombs]

My wife’s taking longer than expected to finish Octopath Traveller so I’m back on Horizon FW. I decided to ignore the main quest and spend a few hours levelling up. Well, three days! But it hasn’t been a grind and I’ve been enjoying myself with little side quests and using the spear as much as possible. Taking potshots from far away is still much safer but the combos and cool stuff you can do up-close means running into fights gung-ho is a lot more rewarding than in the first game.

Whacking up a machine, jumping off of it and then firing an arrow at its robo-goolies while in mid-air never gets old.

[QualityChimp]

I inherited a laptop that's pretty long in the tooth, but was a great spec when it was bought, so ideal for some older games.

I installed DUSK, but on the first menu screen, it just kept cycling through the options.
I even plugged a mouse in.
Someone else on Steam had the issue, but there was no solution, so that was the end of that.

Tried Syndicate Wars, but couldn't figure out the controls. I could only move one blokey at a time.
Could have done with a tutorial level and I'm not used to playing it with a mouse (although it's been decades since I played it on PS1).

So, when all else fails, play Half-Life.
I still love this game so much.
I got up to the tram kart section.
I always used to be really cautious with the ammo, but now I know there's always a bit more ammo up ahead, I'm a bit more triggerhappy and it's a different experience being really aggressive!

[Golgo]

Shame about Dusk. Hope you get it to work as it's a stunningly good game.

[fuse]

Also just started Elechead. It's a pretty charming, minimal little puzzle platformer about a little robot whose head carries a positive charge and is used to power bits of the environment around him to find a way along to the next screen.

This was short but there were some nice, quite subversive elements to this. This is a spoiler for the very end, but if you're not planning to play it you might get a chuckle out of it.

->Open Spoiler<-

One particular ending route, where you collect all 20 of the optional data chips along the way, opens up a door to a big lift. You take the big lift up, slowly, for three whole screens, into a room where there's only one thing to do. At this point you watch as the tiny, cute little robot guy you've been leading through all of these rooms of nondescript challenges proceeds to power up the giant laser cannon that utterly vaporises planet earth in a single unceremonious shot. Roll credits!

Also played through The Takeover, which honestly, is a jumble of an experience. It begins with an intro which talks about crime gangs organising and taking over the city, which is what prompts your crew to combat the titular takeover. That plot's right out of the window when you begin the game though, and instead it's about your daughter getting kidnapped and going after her. The "how to play" segment is impressively useless, given it instructs you as far as "Punch and kick enemies! Or maybe shoot them! Also use your special moves!" without telling you a single button command for how to do any of these things. The cut scenes (graphics, script, voice acting, all) are sub-par and simply cannot help focusing on the leading lady's arse and chest, and in-game all of the characters - who I might add are *total* copies of the SoR original cast - have a weird digitised CG look to them that places it right in the uncanny valley. Perhaps most irritating of all, guess what the developer chose to use as stage dressing?



That's right, the developer's previous game that got funded by Kickstarter, signed up for publishing with Nicalis, and then never released.

FWIW the game doesn't play awfully, but given I got the 1 credit clear on my second go, I'd say it's a little on the easy side. Enemy design and patterns are on the weaker side, the combo system's alright, but the soundtrack is surprisingly decent.

[Lebowski]

Been playing quite a bit of Corvis on gamepass its a space shooter with some interesting mechanics, combat feels a little clunky at first but when you unlock things like the ship drift and the teleport powers it makes you feel pretty bad ass. Levels are pretty fun and combat is meaty but I'm not a massive fan of the whispery emo protagonist who has a troubled past in that shes pretty much part of some space Nazis religious cult and after killing millions decided that it was all a bit much for her

[briareos_kerensky]

After completing Atelier Ryza (NSW), I moved onto Overlord: Escape From Nazarick (NSW). Also started SYNTHETIK (PC).

[QualityChimp]

Nice couple of gaming sessions this week.

Monday, four of us from our Lockdown gaming sessions met online and played some GTA races together.
Honestly, they're hilarious as we go from polite racers to dirty double-dealers as we get crashed into.
The stunt tracks are insane and there are regular moments where your car is just freefalling from above the clouds then back onto the track.

Last night, after years of planning to play it, me and a friend started on A Way Out, which was great.
We flew it pretty fast as it's pretty simplistic and focussed, but it's less a game and more of a co-operative interactive story, which is a lovely change to the normal open world games we play.

It's really cool though as you work together to distract guards whilst the other steals a tool or chisels a hole.
I must admit I was crying with laughter at one point where my mate had to make this leap of faith and I had to catch him.
You hold R2 to fill a meter and he does the same, but at the last second, I let go and he plummeted to his doom!



We got it in a sale but very generously, only one player needs to buy it and a friend can join their game.
I think we'll finish it in a second session (we played for about 3 hours), but it's a lovely experience.

Although, we were absolutely blazing along until we reached a house and spent about half an hour trying on clothes, playing horseshoes and doing a duet on the piano and banjo!

[Colin]

Past couple of days I’ve been really sucked in to Assassin’s Creed Origins via Game Pass on Series S. Very surprising really as I’ve tried a couple of these over the years and just couldn’t get in to them. I won’t lie, I have been skipping all the cut scenes as the story isn’t that interesting, but the gameplay itself has been really fun and I keep going back for ‘just a few more’ missions constantly.

[Neon Ignition]

I've done a few hours of Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC and whilst I've been trundling through it fine it kind of feels like it's not that replayable a game. I'm toying with the idea of uninstalling it and going back to my save on the PS4 version, it's less of a long term commitment and anything I do is technically new missions etc for me rather than doing so many hours again.

By the end of the weekend I should be fully done on The Walking Dead: Michonne as well

[Lebowski]

A Memoir Blue is a short little "interactive poem" thing from Annapurna. It's not a traditional game - blah blah yadda yadda - I think I have made it clear in the past I'm all up for this kind of thing, and given how subjective these experimental titles can be, the publisher's done pretty damn well by me to date. That said, it's also unsurprising that one of these finally missed the mark. It's clearly trying to tell a very personal story and I like that, but it's handled through snippets of memories that fall short in emotional heft, and generally it is presented in a way that keeps you at such a distance that I never really got drawn in.

I'm all for a chill experience but this was so Bare bones and dull i found it a real struggle to make it through, its more interactive screen saver than game, its super dull too no nuance to the story just predictable all the way through. I recently picked back up What Remains of Edith Finch as their was a game pass quest associated with it and i instantly I wanted to play through it all again such a cool chill experience, exploring this weird and wonderful house and it shows what you can do with these games with a good story and an interesting premise.