What You've Been Playing This Week

[Neon Ignition]

I finished up Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 as well - bazinga!

[QualityChimp]

I played that wrestling game that comes with PS+ this month. WF Battlegrounds.

Had fun making a wrestler and having a couple of battles with a mate.
Neither of us really knew what we were doing, which made it funnier.
It keeps flashing up move prompts, but in the heat of the battle, you're not going to stop to look at what they say and let the opponent take over.

If you've ever played a wrestling game, you know what to expect.

We'll probably have a few laughs with this once we all have it, but it's not going to be a long-term thing.

->Open Spoiler<-

Then dipped into TCGR:W and did some missions with a mate. It is clunky, but still fun. The map is mahoooosive!

[wakka]

Sunk an evening into Black Ops 4 yesterday, courtesy of PS+.

I focused my gameplay on the standard Multiplayer action - I didn't try the 'Blackout' battle royale mode or the Zombies stuff.

And....eh. It's OK. I'm not sure I'm going to put a lot more time into it. The core gameplay is as solid and fun as ever, but there are quite a few things about this particular entry that leave me cold. For some reason it has the aesthetic of a Chinese mobile game, which sucks, and the progression of one too - it all seems to be based around lootboxes. An awful lot of content seems to be gated behind DLC which is not included in the PS+ version, too.

[Golgo]

The Witcher Tales: Thronebreaker. Put about five hours into this after nabbing it in a Switch sale. It's that spin-off where combat is replaced by Gwent card battles. Typical Witcher grey-morals stuff in the story with enthusiastic acting in regional accents - good stuff. Not feeling the gameplay, though. Gwent is quite good but this is a simplified version (2 instead of 3 rows) which immediately makes it less involving, and the card synergies are pretty duff, one-note affairs if you're lucky. Mostly cards just go down for their basic point values and then you tot it up at the end, so you can brute force the battles with fat cards. This is my experience so far. The puzzle battles with unique challenges are more interesting. The cards do look gorgeous and detailed though, especially the animated ones, but the downside is you cannot tell at a glance what they do unless you've to a great memory, so you need to be reading their rule-sets constantly. As a card battler it has none of the quick snappiness and wild synergies of Slay the Spire, for example. The other part of the game is you walking your Queen Meve around a map - quite attractively designed and animated - encountering main and sidequest situations and basically stealing bits of planking and coin from peasants' sheds while they watch you do it and say what a fine queen you are. Standard RPG overworld litter-collection gameplay. Not feeling it, to be honest.

[importaku]

As i was in the mood for some spelunker with the impending HD collection incoming i went looking for the previous release on the eshop minna de waiwai spelunker as it was on sale for under 2000yen instead of it's usual 5478 yen, when i first got my switch this was one of the demos that i tried but the full price kind of put me off but with it getting slashed i finally dived in, so far i'm really enjoying it. It's tricky but never unfair the rules are clearly laid out he has the same weak knees as mario in the first donkey kong even fall more than a few inches and it's certain death lol. I'm enjoying hunting for the parts of the treasure tiles as they unlock some ability upgrading equipment, some of it has been super useful like the helmet that saves you from been crushed by rolling boulders 3 times per stage. Liking the variety of stages too there's different colours all with set rules one set are super challenging, another set treasure laden, another set you have to survive attacks from rival spelunkers as you make your way through then there's the main set of story stages as well. So much to find & unlock, just wish i could play it in multiplayer with someone as it would be a blast, thankfully the incoming release at least has online so i can pretend i have friends.

[edit] seems it has online as well after all. I can't find anyone hosting an online session though will probably have to be on at certain times to get a game unless anyone on here has this one lol, hell even finding online matches for taiko tournaments is a challenge. If it's not splatoon 2 or mario kart 8 nobody wants to know.

[Cassius_Smoke]

God help me I'm still hooked on Disgaea 5... I don't think I'm going to get out of this pit any time soon.

[QualityChimp]

Played some more Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise and although it's fun, it's really archaic in how you interact.

NCP was supposed to be showing me around. You wait 1 second and he's saying "C'mon! We ain't got all day!", but the moment you catch up (not even overtake) he's saying "Woah! Wait up!". So a short walk is just those two phrases on repeat.

You have to listen to the backstory, you can't skip.

You have to watch some cutscenes, you can't skip.

People are talking and sometimes you can press X to bring up the rest of the speech and X again to get to the next line (I can read a lot faster than they deliver the lines), but sometimes you have to wait for them to say a certain amount before you can skip to the next bit of script, which is particularly frustrating when you're waiting for the ability to skip when Kenshiro has finished thinking as indicated by "...".

I think I mentioned one cut scene was fifteen minutes long!

I'll be honest, I enjoyed Ken's Rage more, but I guess I'm still early days and as the game opens up and everything doesn't feel like a tutorial, it'll be more fun, but it really makes you work to get to some head 'sploding action.

EDIT: Punch Mania is still my fave FotNS game!

[QualityChimp]

I played some more Lost Paradise and I'll be honest, I'm not really enjoying it very much.

It's OK, but the conversations and the inability to skip is grating.
They're normally just long ways to say "go here and explode some heads".

Got to a boss battle last night and wanted to wind up, but there was a massive difficulty spike and I kept dying.
After initially refusing to drop the difficulty, by about the 4th time of asking on every-other attempt, I accepted, won and could finally go to bed at gone 1am.

It's proper nuts too, because it's a Yakuza/FotNS mashup, so one minute you're making the heads explode of some S&M punks hassling the bartender, the next you're helping him make cocktails.
I'm driving a guy to be healed, but have to stop at a baseball stadium and hit motorcyclists with a girder to see how far I can hit them.
One minute I'm chasing thugs who've mugged a granny, then I run past the casino and it makes me play roulette.
I won two treasure maps from winning fights, but have to find them in the wilderness within 10 minutes, but then it's making me jump through narrative hoops and refusing to let me out at night as it's too dangerous. I'm bloody Kenshiro! The night should be scared of me!

[Travesty]

A friend of mine came for a visit and we played some DS and 3DS multiplayer games.

Pippi Longstockings 3D: Not fun at all, it has 4 multiplayer maps, on two of the maps one has to collect a set amount of candy/ice crea/whatever on a very boring map. On the other 2 maps it's basically just a game of tag, where one takes a (little bit morbid looking) dog head and runs around with it and the other player(s) try to get the dog head, and the player must keep the dog head for a set amount of time to win. The single player game alone is awful, and now I can say that the multiplayer does not make it any better.

Rhythm Paradise Megamix: I'm not a rhythm game fan, but have been somewhat enjoying Rhythm Paradise Megamix on solo play. To me the multiplayer did not bring anything extra to the experience, it's just a co-op where the points are tallied together, you don't even see the other person play, just a small indicator if they are doing good or bad. It was neat to try but I'm not sure if I'll play the multiplayer again.

Pac-Man Vs.: This was on Namco Museum DS. I already knew that I like this game because I have owned the Gamecube version ever since I bought it 15-16 years ago. Nintendo DS version does work a bit better as there is no need to pass the GBA to the Pac-Man player as was the case on Gamecube. It's a shame this was not ported to 3DS to get a bit better graphics (and maybe stereoscopic 3D as well). But yeah, good solid fun game even when played with only 2 pleople, would be more fun with 4.

Frogger 3D: As a single player game it's not great in my opinion, but as a multiplayer game I really enjoy it. One needs to take keys and leave them to designated areas, but most of the 10 stages feel like they are well designed with their stage hazards like the traditional cars and snakes, but also grenades and cannonballs that really gives a nice change to the frogger gameplay. On multiplayer it's possible to bump to the opponent to push them to the stage hazards, which got some good laughs from us when we succeeded in it. Would probably be much more fun with 4 players, but 2 player game was great too.

[nonny]

Just finished Maneater on game pass. Easily the best shark sim I've played given it's the only one I've played.

Really cheesy game but pretty good fun while it lasts.

I'm now onto Deaths Door which is excellent. Hoping to knock that one over before The Ascent is out next week (and Flight Simulator).

[Colin]

My first day off in over six weeks has been absolutely hoovered up by Mighty Goose on PS4, a fun little run’n’gun. Really wish it was easier to find old school stuff like this on the PS store, only came across this by complete accident.

[Cassius_Smoke]

I got Judgment. I'm not a fan of the Yakuza games, but this has a bit more depth and gameplay elements. It's intriguing enough to keep me playing.
It's just the combat thats a complete mess. I spend 90% of the time swinging at fresh air or facing the wrong way. It maybe the worst combat gameplay I've used for at least a decade.

I still like it though.

[Neon Ignition]

I've been dabbling with several free to play titles on PS5, none of them have anything close to hooks though. A lot are too clunky or have bad systems and UI's etc. You kind of just want a solid playing, simply presented title because if you can't get into the gameplay easily then the project's a waste of time. War Thunder, Paladins, Rogue Company etc and several others - dull or pap. Crossout was the funniest, it's nothing amazing but as a brand new player I won the matches 100% of the time because the standard of player on their is so weak it seems, makes for a dull experience and the Destiny like single player elements aren't involving enough to care.

Only one left now to try is Genshin Impact.

[QualityChimp]

I played @shinobi7000 at Soul Calibur VI last night.

Just like with Tekken the other week, I beat him in every single fight until he begged me to change to Street Fighter V.

He finally beat me, using a character he knows all the moves to, whilst I tried a new one.

He could sense he was going to start losing again, so made up some story about having to phone someone.

As for the games, it was the first time of loading, so had 3 rounds of T&Cs to agree to before we could play Soul Calibur and even more faffing with SF, with downloads and updates and T&Cs and tutorials, when I just wanted to crack on with the punching.
SF was a faff to set up a lobby with too, so I'm glad Shinobi knew what he was doing.

Of the games themselves, I'm not that big on Street Fighter. I think everybody knows it, so never really feels massively technical.

With Tekken and Soul Calibur, it feels more tactical, with side steps and counters.
Tekken feels more like actual fighting styles with some of the guys, and you recognise moves from the kung fu flicks I've seen over the years.
Soul Calibur is different because the weapons add range to your tactics.
I love Maxi (Priest) because I've always loved how cinematic nunchakus are, but some of the long-range guys seem to be at an advantage, although our fight between Knightmare and the ninja woman in the outrageously tight yoga pants was quite balanced.

So yeah, Tekken is my fave.

[monel]

Lol he said his screen had died in SF and we played more than one game. He said he needs to buy a fancy joystick.

I typed a long reply but it got lost. I think soul cal actually looks more like a film, but with weapons.

SF is less 3d the way you described it, but is it still technical. They updated the older games. The Namco fighters are great but feel a bit random unless you're at a high level.