What You've Been Playing This Week

[QualityChimp]

Played some more Skyrim VR last night.

I'm pretty tough by this point.
I'm skulking around these catacombs with archer, conjuration and stealth perks, doing triple damage with each arrow and even the dungeon bosses are dying after about 2 arrows. I even had a dragon swoop down to attack me and I took it out with a max of 3 arrows.

So, I'm really enjoying running through these tombs, looking for the prize loot, sussing the puzzles and vanquishing the bad guys, but I'm kinda getting in a loop where I'll go somewhere, raid the dungeon and then hobble home to dump my stash.

I mean, what am I going to do with it? I've got so much tat and I can sell for more money, but I have loads of gold - about 6K even after just buying a house with all the upgrades.

I really like the exploring and the plundering, but I'm finding the constant trudge back to the house to store everything a bit of a chore.

I'm pumping stats into stamina now, looking for clothing "of carrying" and I'll probably start taking a companion, just to be a packhorse, rather than their fighting abilities.

I've found some cool enchanted weapons, but will probably never use them because this Bound Bow is so mint.

Maybe I should focus on the story a bit more, now that I'm pretty OP, because it really has been a fun experience so far, but don't want it to turn into a slog.

[wakka]

The other thing you can do is get into smithing and enchanting. Then you can make your own cool stuff and come up with amusing names for it. Like The Mighty Banhammer (+10 Banish, +5 Fear).

[QualityChimp]

Yeah, maybe I should look into smithing an amazing bow, but I'm definitely going to pursue some more plot for now.

[Neon Ignition]

I've slipped off playing stuff again. Headed into the weekend (as on leave tomorrow)

I'm mid-Chapter 2 in Life is Strange: True Colors and have early started Chorvs

[fuse]

Started Afterparty recently, from the same folks that did Oxenfree. It uses the same kind of conversation system, but rather than a getaway-gone-spooky, the story is much lighter and playing more for laughs, revolving around two best friends being sent to hell and trying to out-drink Satan in order to earn the right to return to the world of the living. There's never really any challenge in the puzzles (I don't think the terms even fits, but... you know) and instead it takes much more delight in analysing and teasing you about how you decide to handle every given situation. Nothing groundbreaking, but I am enjoying it.

[Golgo]

Kharon's Crypt: Even Death May Die. A delightful little horror-themed Zelda-em-up with tons of charm and neat ideas. Came out earlier this year. I'm about a third of the way through, so will do a First Play some time next week some time - it's a real treat of a game.

Edit: the further I go into this, the more I fall out of love. I'm not colour blind but the game frequently succeeds in making me feel that I am. A dark red boss in an ochre red arena with bright red minions and pulsating red-black attack orbs was a killer. Also not fun was navigating a dark green path between deadly poison of a slightly lighter green (or maybe it wasn't poison - maybe a drop into open space?) which you slide into if you veer slightly off center. Looks very atmospheric, mind you. Also, the mock Gameboy Color aesthetic, while initially lovely, feels rather cramped for the somewhat precise controls you need to juggle combat while tactically transferring between hosts (via the ghostly possession mechanic).

[fuse]

Afterparty

Feeling a little deflated after finishing this; I was enjoying the story and I'm sure there's an ending I would've enjoyed in there somewhere, but it would seem I managed to steer off course and was left with a bunch of questions unanswered and a rather limp conclusion. Also - by heck it's buggy. Big pauses and frame drops as you walk about, different characters talking over each other, some bizarre dips in volume, complete standstills in dialogue as it seemed to be trying to figure out what to do next... yeah. Hope this kind of thing doesn't come up in Oxenfree 2, as I'm really keen for that. Still liked this, but would find it pretty hard to recommend without huge caveats hanging over it. Turn on subtitles, and play with a guide, maybe?

Whizzed through Say No! More too. Quick little 2 hour thing that's mostly about getting a message across rather than creating any particularly compelling gameplay mechanics. It's a nice message though, about learning to set boundaries, particularly in relation to work/life balance, and is totally daft and with a lot of references that folks will get a kick out of without being too in your face.

[QualityChimp]

Really enjoy reading some of these more unusual games out there, Fuse.

In contrast, I played some Skyrim VR at the start of the week, but not much else apart from that Spongebob Squarepants game that came with Games With Gold last month, which is really poor, but could play with the kids.
The combat can be really hard and some of the puzzles have no explanation, so can imagine many younger kids binning this off.
Too tough for my daughter (she gave me the pad for the tricky bits, which got more and more frequent), but my son was on it for ages, so he obviously liked the challenge!

[QualityChimp]

There's a new VR place opened up in Brum that looks great and one of the games they have is Arizona Sunshine, so I fired that up at home last night and tried it out with the Aim controller.

One thing this game has 100% nailed is the gun accuracy. Each gun has a sight and I was squinting down the barrel, popping headshot from across the map.

It's fairly chilled at first, with a few zeds just shuffling around, but before long, there are swarms of them and some runners in the mix.

There's a clear narrative of what you're doing and where you're going, but you're always mooching for ammo and supplies.

There are set pieces where you trigger an alarm and the dead come running, so you find a good place to make a stand and start shooting - calm headshots at first, then as the panic sets in, you're just trying to hit them as they swarm.

A nice moment in this last night was making a stand against a swarm and just switching to an uzi and just letting rip.

Works even better in co-op, but this is a brilliant VR game.

https://www.other.world/birmingham

[wakka]

That place looks bonkers! Really futuristic. I like how they've gone all-in on the theming. I see there are a couple of branches in London, too - going to have to give that a try I reckon.

[QualityChimp]

Yeah I popped in and it looks like the Moloko Lounge from Clockwork Orange!
Love the destination boards like you're going on holiday!

Fun review here of the Brum one:

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/went-birminghams-new-vr-bar-23632055

[Golgo]

I went back to Divinity Original Sin 2 to finish up a crucial end-of-chapter, around 40 hours in (I'm ridiculously slow and read everything). It turns out the game then killed 2 of my 6 heroes because they weren't in my party of 4 and you can only select 4 to proceed. So: they're dead. You're not told this, mind you. I couldn't believe this and went online demanding answers! Apparently this was a narrative decision by the devs to stop people from trying to carry all 6 heroes through the game and seeing too much of the story on one playthrough. I was intending to do exactly this and had saved up experience points and decisions around the progressions of these two (dead) characters to bring them out running for the next 'act', so I felt really cheated to be honest. It also (the game's decision to execute 2 of 6) makes very poor narrative sense. Much less worthy characters were selected to survive the battle. All in all, I feel a bit deflated with D0S2 now. Then again, given the really horrible inventory system in the game, the fact that it has killed a third of my crew does make it all much easier to manage.

[Cassius_Smoke]

The Ascent

Can't recommend this enough. It's a great shooter that looks fantastic too. Cyberpunk environments are insanely rich, combat is challenging and needs good strategies. And the music is brilliant too. All this from a team of only 12 people. Remarkable.

Parasite Eve 2

Tank controls ahoy! Retro classic? Maybe not quite. I remember liking this when it first came out and I thought I'd revisit it after probably 20 years.
It holds up pretty well against the likes of Resi Evil. The gameplay is a cross between RPG and capcom shooter. You gain XP and level up and can unlock Magic.
The environments look nice but maybe aren't as well thought out as Resi. The 'Horror' isn't very horror but I get that it's trying that body horror style. It's engaging enough that I might carry on with it.

[Cepp]

Lot's of Kirby, some Apex and Disaster Day 4.

Not sure what to think of Disaster Day 4. It's complete jank but fun in a weird way.

[QualityChimp]

Started Resident Evil 3 after reading Neon's thread about the series.
I got through the first bit, but it was all a bit much straight before bed!

My Live sub expired so on the One I'm back to 360 games.
Played a bit of Peggle, then really got into One Finger Death Punch 2. I think I only have a handful of levels left and I'm adamant I won't use a continue, even on the levels with 1000 enemies. Holy smokes, it gets fast by the time there are about 300 enemies left!
Bloody great game, though. I wish more people on here would try it.

Did a smidge of Skyrim VR and A Fisherman's Tale VR, but the real world was calling, so had to phase out.