What You've Been Playing This Week

[QualityChimp]

Right mish-mash this weekend!

My mate gave me his 360, so I could play some Guitar Hero, so I played Warriors of Rock, which was great to dip back into.
Glad I bought the Megadeth pack when I could as they're great to play. Definitely rusty though!
Side note: 360 RRoD was the PSU, not the console.

Bro-in-law bought me a Live pass to play Back 4 Blood together. Played it with him and my niece, which was a first and nice thing to do. As a game, it's okaaaay, but feels a bit bloated. You get overwhelmed in L4D and WWZ, but you know why, but this felt like you didn't know what was going on half the time. I guess familiarity with the game mechanics/enemies/defence positions help.

So with the pass, I also downloaded Lonely Mountain: Downhill (thanks [MENTION=9333]kryss[/MENTION]), which is a lovely little game and quite addictive as you explore the mountain and find quicker routes down.

However, that got me itching to play Trials HD, so I downloaded that and it's as brilliant as ever. Thought the sequels got too silly and more random, but every mistake is yours in the original. My son also had a go and he loved it too and didn't want to hand the pad back!

My daughter saw me playing Downhill and wanted to try it, but it's a little tricky, so I thought Peggle would be a nice game for her to try. She like it, but mainly choosing the characters like the unicorn, rather than the game. I carried on from my last save and it was the last level, so I've completed Peggle!

Trying to finish off a few other games, so I chipped away at Tekken 7's story. It's pretty clunky and you just want to get on with the punching. Got to Akuma Vs. Heihachi and he was caning me. After a crash and restart with him on his last point of health (grrr) I sussed just light punches were enough to stop him, which was a disappointing cheesefest of a solution.

Also played a bit more of Split/Second, which I've really enjoyed playing and can wholeheartedly recommend!
I think I have about 2 or 3 sections left. I'm 1st in the season, but sometimes I want to get a 1st in every race, then other times it's more fun just progressing.

[wakka]

Lonely Mountains Downhill is such a fun game. I sunk a ton of time into that when I had an Xbox. I really like the sound design. It gives it such a chill atmosphere.

And Trials HD was just legendary. I remember getting that off XBLA on release and spending hours and hours sitting with a mate retrying for perfect runs. And Peggle as well...oh man. You've been playing some proper 2000s era videogame crack with those two!

EDIT: Ah ****, I just googled Lonely Mountains and it's on Mac. This could be deeply harmful to my productivity.

[QualityChimp]

Lonely Mountains Downhill is such a fun game. I sunk a ton of time into that when I had an Xbox. I really like the sound design. It gives it such a chill atmosphere.

And Trials HD was just legendary. I remember getting that off XBLA on release and spending hours and hours sitting with a mate retrying for perfect runs. And Peggle as well...oh man. You've been playing some proper 2000s era videogame crack with those two!

EDIT: Ah ****, I just googled Lonely Mountains and it's on Mac. This could be deeply harmful to my productivity.

Ah, I meant to say how lovely the sound is on LM: D, as it really stood out! Obviously Trials is all about the rock music and whoops at explosions, but LM: D has no music, just the sound of the mountain: the wind, goat bells, a river and so on. The ambient sound changes on the night runs too. It's pretty chill, but really addictive as you keep finding new routes.
It almost needs an explorer mode where you are less likely to fall off and can just explore the mountain at a relaxing pace, rather than pressuring you to go quicker to unlock more bike parts!

So yeah, between Trials, LM: D and Peggle, I was on a real trio of one-more-go games!

[randombs]

Beavering away at Horizon Forbidden West and it’s wonderful. I’m still at the beginning(just saw the opening credits after an hour or so) and it’s basically loads of improvements without ruining what made the first one great.

[Colin]

Finished Gears Of War 4, so decided to jump straight in to Gears 5. Only issue was I downloaded it and for some reason it just absolutely would not load from the main menu screen. So instead I downloaded the original Gears remaster which I’ve been enjoying replaying immensely. I’ve nearly completed it at this point so I tried downloading 5 again, which this time appears to be working, so I’ll move on to that next.

[QualityChimp]

Need your Gears ranking, [MENTION=9865]Colin[/MENTION]! I think I only ever played the original on the 360.

[Finsbury Girl]

Elden Ring what else

[QualityChimp]

I finished off Split/Second on Sunday and I thought it was brilliant.
Downsides are that I don't like those helicopter battles where you can't fight back and the rubberbanding is pretty strong, but I guess it makes the races a challenge.
However, the game itself was bloody brilliant and I've really enjoyed playing it. Many times I've triggered the course change and a dam has collapsed or a air control tower has toppled and I've muttered shocked expletives to myself!
Won the overall championship, but there are a few more races to win for perfection and another car to unlock, but I'm moving on.

I dipped back into Lost Planet 2 and that was a real treat. I do remember the controls being like any other game and it took ages to remember the basics and I'm still not sure of all of them. Still a real epic of a game with some really cinematic moments and huge bosses.

Played some Tekken 7 and completed the main story, most of which I was skipping by the end.
I was breezing through a lot of it, mainly struggling with new characters I didn't know any moves for.
However, the last couple of battles using Heihachi are stupid because the enemies get this invulnerability mode.
You can't hit or throw them, dodge, counter or avoid their attacks.
I had the final boss in an attack loop for about 10 seconds and the last bit of energy wouldn't go because it has to play some animation or other first, but he killed me first. Rrrrrubbish.
I then dipped into "Treasure Mode" with my boi King. Each win earns you money, XP and special items to decorate your person with.
There's a real variety and many of the characters can be made to look completely different.
King now is all silver, has a top hat, fake-eye glasses and a rubber ring. Ridiculous.
Started playing and won a few rounds, but never died. Got a bunch of perfects. The difficulty of the opponents increased, but still kept dispatching them - 30 rounds later, I finally lost, mainly through being a bit complacent by that point!
Learning that 10-hit combo on Tekken 3 around 1999 has really paid off!

[fishbowlhead]

10 straight hours on Horizon Forbidden West yesterday

[Atticus]

I’m really enjoying Forbidden West. I just wish you could fast-loot crafting materials on the move like you can in Ghost of Tsushima … my momentum is always broken by gathering wood and plants that I find impossible to leave alone

[fishbowlhead]

Year that was a master stroke of design on Ghost of Tsushima, it made farming and collecting actually fun.

[Atticus]

Grand Theft Auto IV on Series X. For me this was always the most atmospheric and cinematic GTA game. Back in the day its qualities were clear but its ambitions went somewhat beyond the hardware capabilities. Fast forward to now and playing it on the Series X is wonderful. As I understand the 360 version had an uncapped frame rate so it runs on the X (and possibly other modern xbox consoles??) at 60fps. What a difference. Yes, it's still 720p but the image is clear and smooth and the game still retains that dirty, grungy vibe I've always loved about it. Driving around the city pumping out some Liberty City Hardcore (or some Jazz if it's later in the day) feels great all over again.

One slight issue, according to the internet, is the 60fps factor can make a later mission/qte-style event more of a challenge than it should be. But it is possible with some mad button mash skillz, apparently.

[wakka]

Just now finished Disco Elysium (playing on Mac).

I absolutely loved it. What a wonderful, wonderful game. I felt that I connected deeply with the buddy cop relationship between my protagonist and Kim Kitsuragi, his partner. I love Kim! He's such a great character and I felt genuine warmth towards him. And for my protagonist, I felt that I genuinely shaped him into a version that resonated with me and that felt it had a dramatically satisfying arc by the end. It's very clever how it allows you to do that - they hit upon, for me, a golden ratio of character customisability, pitched between the overly rigid format of a pre-ordained Geralt and the unsatisfyingly loose silent protag of an Elder Scrolls.

Brilliant. Highly recommended. Might be one of my fave games ever.

[importaku]

Picked up Getsu Fuumaden undying moon on switch, really challenging but the art style is amazing and the fighting is satisfying once I worked out how the upgrade system works. The double swords do crazy amounts of damage once upgraded to the bosses. The bosses are a treat to fight the remind me a lot of muramasa as this one goes heavy on the Japanese mythology. Just really wish Konami had made this physical as it’s really reaaaally good.

[Baseley09]

Nice little retro inspired FPS bundle on humble bundle at the min which included Dusk and Amid Evil, I've actually been playing games for a few hours at a time and on PC wonders will never cease, I'm loving both!