What You've Been Playing This Week

[hudson]

I've been looking for sneaky moons in the absolutely amazing Super Mario Odyssey. How wonderful is New Donk City?

[Atticus]

I've been looking for sneaky moons in the absolutely amazing Super Mario Odyssey. How wonderful is New Donk City?

The whole game is wonderful

[randombs]

Mario Odyssey's a beauty. New Donk City is wonderful, but the first stage in particular blew me away. There's so much going on. And just when you catch your breath, you notice a T-REX SLEEPING OVER THERE.

I sort of rushed through it but I want to go back and get some more moons

[Neon Ignition]

Tell Me Why - Just got the third and final chapter to go now
Paper Mario: Origami King - About to start the fourth dungeon
Zelda: Majora's Mask - Part way through the fourth dungeon so not too much of the game left to do

[randombs]

Went back to Shenmue III after I left it a few months.

It’s crap. I was running around looking for some six point alley and got a cutscene with QTEs which repeated because ‘right’ means right on the d-pad, not the stick you actually move around with. I looked for a guide online which started talking about earning money and I turned the game off. I think I’ll just watch someone playing it on YouTube. I don’t really care where this story goes.

Then I tried Uncharted 3 and the beginning was a bore-fest with a silly bar fight. It then went back in time to Drake being a teen and meeting Sully which wasn’t too bad. Then back to current day and boring jumping about in London warehouses.

Hopefully it gets better.

Zelda and Spider-Man have ruined my attitude towards games. Everything I’ve tried since those is boring. Mario Sunshine, Luigi’s Mansion... both boring with rubbish controls.

[Dogg Thang]

Look, I'm not going to tell you that you should stick with Shenmue 3.


That's all I've got.

[hudson]

The whole game is wonderful

It is. Still one of the best looking games on Switch. Damn maybe one of the best looking platform games ever. It's one of the most generous servings of gaming ever. When I play it, it distracts my kids from Fortnite/Minecraft. They point out potential undiscovered areas, asking me for a go. Mario games are so special. Looking forward to 3D All-Stars next week.

[QualityChimp]

I finished off Astro Bot last night.
As you play through the main levels, there are hidden chameleons to spot that give a bonus level.

Having completed the main game, I've been working through these. They're not as pleasurable as the main levels, but some of them pack a real challenge. When you fail it's really frustrating (my wife told me off for swearing so much) but usually your fault, and when you succeed it's a real sense of achievement.
Hookshot Highway and the lava one were particularly tough. I loved the one where you're on a boat shooting everything with shurikens like a 3D version of the Shinobi bonus stages!

Apart from the high blood pressure on some of these bonus levels, this has been an absolute joy to play. It's weird, like I feel privileged to have been allowed to experience it.

There's chat above about Mario Odyssey, which I also loved, but personally, I feel Astro Bot just trounces it.

In years to come, I'll be remembering it when compiling my list of favourite games. It felt like I was a kid again, experiencing the joy of discovery that videogames give you.

I'll stop banging on about it now, but I think you get the gist that I quite liked it.

[hudson]

Astro Bot is phenomenal. I'm interested to see how he does in his slice of PS5 outing. Hopefully, there will be another VR offering in the future.

It does have that Mario Odyssey vibe in the gadgets department. Obviously, the freedom to explore in Odyssey, the back tracking sends Astro Not packing :P

[Atticus]

Been playing Spider-Man on the PS4. This really it top drawer blockbuster gaming. So, so good.

Also, Demon's Tilt on xbox one (on Game Pass). For anyone who ever enjoyed Devil Crash it's an absolute must. It's clearly been made with those old school occult pinball games in mind but it dials things so far ... it's like tempest 2k/3k compared to the original arcade game. It's big and loud and eyeball meltingly intense. I love it.

[QualityChimp]

Got a £1 Games Pass and I've been playing Streets of Rage 4 and loving it. Graphics and everything.
Can't get higher than a C rank though. I think I'm up to stage 5.

[randombs]

Been playing Spider-Man on the PS4. This really it top drawer blockbuster gaming. So, so good.

It's ruined a lot of games for me!

I tried a few that I posted about, but everything just felt a bit meh.

That was until I decided to try...

...GOD OF WAR (PS2)

I wanted to play the first three before trying the PS4 one. I know it's not essential to understand the story, but I wanted to get to know Kratos so that I could better appreciate the changes he'd clearly gone through before the PS4 game.

It's soooo good! There was a really annoying section involving me kicking a wooden box towards archers who kept breaking it, forcing me to go back and get another box. It took many tries, and I almost gave up! But I tried once more and managed to do it. I'm so glad I did. The spectacle! Huge bosses, and it's wickedly atmospheric. The music and graphics are great, but the sound effects in particular are wonderful. There's so much noise around me from things I can't see.

It really feels like I'm in the middle of a war.

And ENGULFED IN TITTIES! My brain was adding Jet Set Radio sound effects while I whirled my stick in semi-circles during the sexy mini-game.

[fallenangle]

Its so long since I even fired up my PS2 but that reminded me I still have God Of War sitting as it has been for (eeek) over a decade in my unplayed games collection.

I think its time I gave it a go as I need something good to overcome the disappointment of Rainbow Six Critical Hour which I finished a few hours ago.

[Golgo]

Played a lot of Dragon Quest XI on Switch. Easy fun.

[importaku]

Played mario 3D collection for a bit last night, sunshine & galaxy are still amazing to play the controls taking a bit of adjustment to get into but i'm having a blast with both. Mario 64 quite frankly sucks ass i really can't get on with it anymore it's just so damn dull to play, yeah yeah it defined a generation and all that but i have played it way too much in my lifetime every star a dozens of times over there's literally nothing left in that game that i haven't done a million times already when i played it on N64 & DS would have been at least a bit better if it had been the DS version as at least a lot of people would have been able to try the newer levels that were added but with non DS controls but nope we get jank 64 instead. I tried going in and playing and while the resolution is a lot nicer the textures are still horribly low res it is jarring with such a crisp resolution they really should have dumped it's ass and put galaxy 2 in it's place.