What You've Been Playing This Week

[vabarna]

Witcher 3, 246 hours in (according to Steam) and still going strong. I have no idea where all that time has gone - Gwent maybe?

Also, a public service announcement. I decided to give Windows 10's ransomware protection feature a try the other day and lost approximately 1.5h of progress in W3 as a result. The feature blocks, by default, access to the active user account's "Documents" folder by any third party software. Coincidentally, this is the folder where W3 keeps its save files and W3 does not alert you if it cannot create a save file... You can create exceptions to the rule for specific programs, which of course I didn't think to do until it bit me in the behind. 'Experience is the teacher of all things', indeed.

[QualityChimp]

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Finished off Lifeless Planet last night.
It probably stayed around longer than necessary, tbh, but I'm glad I played it.
I liked the concept of landing on a desolate planet, finding telegraph poles and following them to discover an abandoned Russian village set up years earlier.
I also enjoyed pootling about as my little astronaut, especially when you had the extended boost activated.

I didn't like the difficulty spikes and momentum of the guy during tricky jumps.
I also didn't like the randomness of some puzzles.
In the tweet above, I spent ages trying to climb this tower.
Nearly quit and nearly smashed the pad, but looked online and basically, I had to traverse to a distant section and plug up a lava geyser with a boulder and that knocks the tower over.
I have no shame to admit I looked for help about 3 times as it was so obscure at times.

Overall, I'm glad I played it, but it's far from perfect.

Talking of games that seem to outstay their welcome, I then chipped away at Spider-Man.
Such a beautiful game with excellent combat, but it's dragging a bit now, so I'm focussing on the story apart from when it makes me patrol for a bit.
Collect-em-ups are normally Kryptonite to me, but even I'm tired of yet another set of things to complete in every borough of NY.

I'll be honest, I enjoyed LEGO Marvel Superheroes more, which is also set in a sunny NYC, but there are even more Easter eggs and the different characters to try out makes it more fun, plus you can drop-in/out with the kids playing.

I recently rinsed Batman: Arkham Knight, which also had some collect-em-up padding, but it never felt like a chore and really enjoyed it and didn't want it to end, although they proved The Crow wrong ("It can't rain all the time").
Traversing Gotham with an upgraded Batsuit and wings was more satisfying than Spidey's joypad acrobatics to race across town.

Not saying I dislike it, just saying the bloat is diminishing the experience.

[QualityChimp]

Bit more GTA Online with my mates, but loads of network issues means we didn't get much done.

Did a couple of missions were a laugh, though.
We had to take an A-Team van to a site and pick up another van, we kept going in on overkill, blowing the whole place up.

We're definitely coming to an end with it though and I'm itching to crack on with Strange Brigade.

[Neon Ignition]

PC
A few things to work on but largely sidelined at the moment in favour of other platforms

Switch
Super Mario Sunshine which around 30 off Shines in is really showcasing its flaws now with perseverance outweighing fun often, the replay definitely reconfirming it as the weakest of the main 3D Mario's.

PlayStation 5
Astro Bot: Rescue Mission which assuming I focus my time will be done by the end of the weekend. A joy.

PlayStation 3
Likely to start a replay of The Puppeteer next

[charlesr]

Finally figured out how to get my Speedcard GBA to save stuff, so played Guru Logic Champ from the very start again. Wonderful. I also ploughed through 2/3rds of the most horrific unskippable tutorial in the history of unskippable tutorials in Hikura No Go. It too me 40 minutes of mostly just hitting A to achieve that far.... And then.... OMG.... I noticed there's a translated version which might actually be worth doing the tutorial for.... Although presumably that will take about 13 days.

I've installed Dirt 5 but haven't fired it up yet.

[wakka]

Bit more GTA Online with my mates, but loads of network issues means we didn't get much done.

Did a couple of missions were a laugh, though.
We had to take an A-Team van to a site and pick up another van, we kept going in on overkill, blowing the whole place up.

We're definitely coming to an end with it though and I'm itching to crack on with Strange Brigade.

I'm disgusted with myself. Disgusted.

But I'm actually thinking of picking this up to play with mates on the basis of your posts.

And I hate myself for it. Believe you me.

[CMcK]

Started Touhou Luna Nights on Xbox. It’s a little gem. A kind of Metroidvania with a graze mechanic straight out of a shooter and a time freeze ability. Probably the kind of thing that sounds like a step too far but it’s really well done.

[Atticus]

Friday night sessions with the boys moved on to Diablo III last night. Can't believe this game has been around for so many years and also the sheer amount of support and refinement/development Blizzard have lavished upon it. It was always fun even playing solo but it obviously shines in co-op. After playing so much CoD the questing together in Diablo is almost relaxing, it's a welcome change of pace. Really great fun. Saying that, another mate coaxed us onto CoD for a nightcap and it was like being punched in the face for the first few games

[fishbowlhead]

Killzone Shadow Fall. Dropped this like a brick when it came out and a mate gave me his copy after he was done with it. Decided to give it a second chance a few weeks ago after being impressed with the alot of the other launch title technical improvements thanks to PS5.

The bad,
-Story is utter bobbins.
-Waypointing is awful meaning your spinning on the spot wondering what to do.
Levels progression is quite disjointed, had no idea id even gone back to Helghan at one point.
-Texture pop in is quite bad.

The good,
-Locked 60fps, smooth as.
-Looks fantastic for a PS4 launch title and still holds up well today, art is great.
-Characters are actually ok, with decent performances, voice acting all good.
-Owl is great gadget if underused.
-Levels are actually quite good, but waypointing lets them down to explore properly.

5/10 fishyb’s. Weakest Killzone by far.

[QualityChimp]

Co-op night and we're still rinsing GTA Online.
I am a pauper, though, down to about $200 after buying too many luxurious things with upkeep charges.

When you buy a property, it gives you access to a different set of missions.
We're currently doing the penthouse suite jobs and have the finale left to do.
Last night's missions saw us heading off a military convoy and stealing the truck and another taking out a biker gang and stealing their bikes.

Basically, they didn't go well.
We barricaded the bridge with cars and tried to stop them, but a combination of their uncanny accuracy, gun turret truck and attack choppah meant we died. A lot.

In the end, we took out the helicopter, then did a pincer movement and took them all out, then raced to shake them off and get to the safety point. Thrilling, but fatiguing how bad we were.

Biker mission was a bit more straight forward, but one of the things I've always loved about GTA is how you approach missions.
Head-on was met with a lot of gunfire, so I found a wall around the back, threw a grenade over the wall, then parked my car by the wall to get a boost over and attacked the bikers whilst they were distracted.
Driving the bikes to the storage proved tricky, though!

Then we did some races. Absolutely love the crazy Hot Wheels tracks where you end up a mile in the air.
It's also fun baiting each other at who's the best driver.

[Finsbury Girl]

Have played very rarely the last few weeks but I'm still finishing Rise of the Tomb Raider. Fun game, the archery is much better in Horizon Zero Dawn though.

[Cepp]

Played Beat Sabre until my eyes killed. VR is great but there's a limit on how much I can play in one sitting.

Also making my way through Yakuza: Like a Dragon which has me gripped with its story. Really enjoying it so far.

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, the longest stints I've ever done are probably around 60-75 minutes and that was in stuff like Alyx. VR remains far too agressive on the eyes and head to be enjoyed in the same way traditional gaming can.


This weekend:

PC
Far too much installed but still benched

Switch
I'm closing in on 40 Shines in Super Mario Sunshine and it's really deeply at a point where the game is showcasing all of the improvements it should have received but Nintendo couldn't be bothered to. I really want to enjoy it more than I do but the game is making a very aggressive argument for itself being the worst 3D Mario. There's so much room for improvement.

PlayStation 5
The main focus as I try to wrap up PSVR. I'm currently in the space walker shooter part of PlayStation VR Worlds. I have no interest in ever replaying Resi 7 but I did put it on briefly last night to see the VR mode which is immediately and very clearly astoundingly good looking. I've got one or two more games to try before I sell it on.

Oculus Quest 2
With Beat Saber still waiting for the mod update I'm likely going to be trying out The Climb

[teddymeow]

I've barely played anything this week.

I've fired up both the PS5 and Series S to find myself sat there, staring at the menu and struggling to commit to actually loading anything.

Even Destruction All-Stars, which has done wonders for my mental health recently by letting me just get into a game and forget what's going on around me, hasn't been played this week. I guess there comes a point where pandemic, consultation, potential redundancy and poorly parents just overrides everything.

I've done maybe 3 hours on Star Wars Jedi on Series S and am up to where I quite when I originally started it on PS4. Having it run at 60fps certainly helps with the combat sections and the traversal is Uncharted / Titanfall lite in its jumping, wall running and climbing.

[QualityChimp]

I seem to be back onto EDF5 again.

Bought both of the mission packs that have some super tough missions but swiggedy sweet rewards of high-level weapon drops.

Funny how you learn to game the game.
Failed miserably on the 2nd level as you're swarmed by alien greys, but Prinny showed me a trick where you're the same height as the aliens and can shoot their heads if you nudge a certain height up the roof!

Experimented with some shields as the Air Raider and they were effective too.

After that, carried on with some randoms, chipping away at the level complete percentage.

Same again last night, but me and Prin working our way through Hardest difficulty.
He's up to 80% and I'm on 40%.

Definitely don't want to spend hours grinding weapons and armour, though. Love EDF, but life's too short.

Played a bit more Spider-Man when I got home, and I'm about 75% done, with the final 3 challenge sections unlocked after a lengthy cut-scene section.

Fave suit is currently the retro animated look. I wish they'd do a whole game like this!

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