The Video Games Thread

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What are you playing? Talk video games here.

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Those Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters have been released on console this week, with improvements over the PC release (including a better but still not great font option). Bit pricey though. 1 and 2 are £9.50 each, 3-6 are £15 each and the full bundle is £65. Admittedly cheaper than getting copies of the GBA remasters or the DS remake of 4, but not quite impulse purchase price imo.

Yeah, I’m waiting for a PSN sale for the Pixel FFs.

Meanwhile, with the local internet deciding to have a collapse day, that stopped my ESO activity so returned to Like A Dragon: Ishin.

Did the scene in the Bath House.  A whole of strategically placed steam in there! The actual fight? Isn’t very good.  It’s the start of the game, you’re still working stuff out, it’s crappy and messy.

Which is a wider problem – this remaster needed more modernisation than it got. A better camera, ability to lock on to enemies – something earlier Yakuza games had, ability to quickly re-orient the camera to better see enemies, a clearer sense of distance for enemy attacks. The enemy health bars are also tiny, you can easily think you’ve taken an enemy out but they have a fraction of health left.

These flaws are OK in standard fights most of the time. In boss fights they can really irritate. The boss enemies also tend to be out of proportion to the standard enemies you fight. My likely route will be over-level and nuke.

Outside of these combat flaws, the story, always the true heart of RGG games, really gets going after the Bath House. It carries it through its crappy boss fights, difficulty spikes and camera feckery.  By the time you start Chapter 4, you’ve a large cast of colourful characters, backed up by excellent animation and voice work.

The city is very well depicted, night time is particularly impressive.

For those nabbing Star Wars: Jedi – Survivor, better set aside some time for the download:

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/star-wars-jedi-survivor-physical-versions-will-reportedly-require-a-download-to-play/

Not that surprising due to the reported size of the game.  If my local internet isn’t fixed by Friday? Definitely not playing on day one.  If it is? Maybe not due to the file size download.

My copy of Star Wars: Jedi – Survivor is in the post.

Looks like the install size is a whopping 147GB.

For this one though? It may well be justified.  Will soon find out.

Likely that Final Fantasy XVI could be around the 100GB mark.

Spider-Man 2? Harder to say as less is known of it currently.

I’ve been playing The Messenger the past week or so. Retro 8 bit styled indie action platformers were a cliche even when it was released, but it at least does that well and adds a twist of having 16 bit areas (I thought the game let you switch on the fly between the two but it hasn’t done so – yet at least). And it is really well made. It’s clearly heavily inspired by Ninja Gaiden on NES and while I have zero nostalgia for that, Messenger makes a modern version of that fun but crucially fair. The boss fights are pretty tough but never feel like a con (well, one element of the one I’ve just done did, but beyond that never) and they force you to adapt techniques you’ve unlocked and sometimes think about using them in different ways.

Also, it’s very funny. The script is sharp and full of knowing humour. Definitely a highlight of the game.

The same team have Sea of Stars out in a few months, a retro RPG.

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Martin Smith

Ben wrote:

My copy of Star Wars: Jedi – Survivor is in the post.

Looks like the install size is a whopping 147GB.

For this one though? It may well be justified.  Will soon find out.

Likely that Final Fantasy XVI could be around the 100GB mark.

Spider-Man 2? Harder to say as less is known of it currently.

I haven’t even finished the first game.

It did creep out though,  to see that the ginger guy was real!

I saw that video of him doing moves with all the sensors on him and the green screen.

Mark Hamill was there too and visited the whole thing.

Strongly recommend you go back to it Al, especially if you enjoy story-driven games, as the narrative really ramps up towards the end.

Now have my copy and the PS5 is slowly installing the monster just-under 148GB game data for it.

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Al-x

The next Xbox game showcase is…Sunday 11 June?

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/microsoft-announces-xbox-games-showcase-start-time-and-live-streaming-details/

Weird timing.

Anyone else getting the new Zelda this week? My pre-order’s been dispatched and I’m getting pretty excited.

Microsoft exec admits Xbox lost console war to Nintendo, Sony: ‘Worst generation to lose’

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer candidly admitted in a recent podcast interview that Xbox cannot win the “console war” against rivals Nintendo and Sony when using conventional strategies.

Phil Spencer, 55, made the comments during an appearance on Kinda Funny Games, an Xbox community YouTube channel.

The Microsoft exec said it was naïve to think that Sony or Nintendo players would switch allegiances over hotly anticipated games.

“It’s just not true that if we go off and build great games, all of a sudden you’re going to see console share shift in some dramatic way,” Spencer said, adding: “We lost the worst generation to lose in the Xbox One.”

Spencer downplayed the idea that Xbox could eclipse its rivals by merely creating games, saying it doesn’t “relate to the reality of most people.”

“We’re not in the business of out-consoling Sony or out-consoling Nintendo. There isn’t really a great solution for us,” Spencer said.

The exec said Xbox would be focusing its energies on Game Pass, Xcloud, and ensuring that its games work seamlessly across all devices.

“I see a lot of pundits out there that want to go back to a time when we all had cartridges and discs, and every new generation was a clean slate, and you could switch the whole console share,” Spencer said. “That’s just not the world that we are in today. There is no world where Starfield is an 11 out of 10 and people are selling their P5s. That’s just not going to happen.”

Martin Smith wrote:

Anyone else getting the new Zelda this week? My pre-order’s been dispatched and I’m getting pretty excited.

I’m not but be interested to know how you find it.

As to the Spencer interview, it’s a strange success measure.  Not least as it’s so extreme and not going to happen, but does Starfield, Outer Worlds 2 and Avowed give me sufficient reason to also buy an XBX? Yes, they did.  Oh and the Forza series really deserves its reputation.

The idea that, outside of financial constraints, buyers are exclusive to one console doesn’t fly.

Ben wrote:

The idea that, outside of financial constraints, buyers are exclusive to one console doesn’t fly.

Yeah, I always figured avid gamers would have multiple platforms. They may have one they play more than others but I never thought having only one system was the usual way.

Zelda arrived early! I made a bridge out of some logs and a death slide from a bit of wood and convenient hook! 10/10 GOTY.

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Dave, Ben

So I’ve spent a few hours with Tears of the Kingdom (I’m still in the “training” area equivalent to the Great Plateau, on my way to the third shrine) and these are my initial thoughts.

As you might expect, it is very much Breath of the Wild at its core. If you didn’t like BotW this isn’t going to win you over.

The difference, so far, comes in the powers. Magnesis, Cryo-whatsit, Stasis etc are (so far) gone and the game is structured around new abilities. Thus far these are Ultrahand (might have that name wrong) which is a bit like Magnesis but greatly expanded. This allows you to telekinetically move things around but crucially splodge them together. So you can make rafts out of logs, power minecarts with fans etc. I’m sure there’s far more depth to it than I’ve found so far.

The other is Fuse, which allows you to meld weapons and materials. This means you can upgrade your shield to have, say, a big boulder stuck on it to increase its strength, stick bits on swords or sticks to make more powerful weapons or, on the fly, power up arrows to be elemental or homing (with Keese eyes). This feels like its potentially huge but I get the feeling it’s going to be shallower than it looks. For some reason it makes me think of Monster Rancher, which would make custom monsters from your CDs, which sounded vast and expansive but really it was just grabbing an arbitrary number and looking it up on a table.

Still, it is fun. I think it’s Ultrahand that is going to bring the real depth. I’ve hit a bit where I don’t know how entirely to proceed and mulling it over I reckon I can create a multi-fan powered device to get to where I need to go. Will it work? Who knows? It’ll be fun finding out.

Also, Link hums old Zelda tunes like Saria’s Song and Zelda’s Lullaby when cooking. Very cute.

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Ben

It is sounding very impressive.

Don’t feel impelled to buy it fast as Nintendo’s digital prices are brutal.

Plus, massive game backlog.

Zelda TotK Qs:

Difficulty – Reviews suggest this is a harder game.

Controls – How tricky are they in terms of dexterity required? As I found the abilities in BotW tricky to use and coordinate.

Guardians – Are these super-bastards back?

[Martin Smith]

Ben wrote:

Zelda TotK Qs:

Difficulty – Reviews suggest this is a harder game.

Controls – How tricky are they in terms of dexterity required? As I found the abilities in BotW tricky to use and coordinate.

Guardians – Are these super-bastards back?

Difficulty – it feels harder than I remember BotW being. Every time I stray off the main quest I end up getting killed in a cave or a surprisingly well fortified bokoblin base.

Controls – quite tricky. For instance, to throw something at an enemy, you have to hold R, hold up on the d-pad, then use the right stick to move through the options, then release all in reverse order to throw it. I’m constantly getting mixed up on bits.

Guardians – no Guardians (that I’ve seen so far).

• This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Martin Smith.

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Ben

Thanks for that, especially on the controls.

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Martin Smith

Just over a couple of hundred hours later and Elder Scrolls Online‘s main game plus Morrowind expansion is done.  Main quest, the three alliances, Fighters and Mages guilds plus Craglorn.  Cyrodiil is a duel zone so don’t care about that.

Have nabbed the other three Year 1 expansions: Theives and Assassin’s guilds.  They both embody the game’s worst aspects: A Blade of Woe that is woeful, stealth with NPCs that possess 360 degree awareness, an all-seeing eye that will do you for murder even if you kill all the witnesses, telepathic guards and lockpicking.  Lockpicking in ESO is particularly bad in its audio and vibration cues it gives within a 25 second time limit, yes you read that right.

Despite that the zone for each is pretty good.  Compact but well designed, with a handful of sidequests independent of the guild quests and the usual exploration objectives.

Expect these to be pretty quick then I’ll move into Orsinium.

Soldner-X 2

This could be a really good shoot ’em up if it could only get out of it’s own way.

Take the ship health and power bars.  Initially you’ll see a bar and think you’re good but then you realise that bar is decorative!  The actual health bar is the same colour but below it.  In a game this fast this design decision really sabotages your ability to quickly see your status.

It also, as you play, says a tutorial is unlocked.  So there will be a Tutorial section at the start menu? No.  Instead, when prompted that it is available, you have to hit a button and view it! In a shoot ’em up when your attention is on shooting everything on screen. Don’t hit the button? You can’t know how it works.

Some of it I eventually worked out, like the weapon select – which was nice.  But much of it, like how it gives power-ups and how long they last for, remains opaque.

Its final weakness is thinking its levels need in-level narrative and characters.  The practical effect of that is distracting when you don’t need it.

It’s a shame as there’s a good game trying to get out here.  It shows its missiles well, some good enemy design, OK soundtrack.  But it sabotages itself massively. I got it very cheap but, even on that basis, can’t recommend this.

I continue to fail at stopping playing Elder Scrolls Online.

Finished up in Orsinium. Overall, it’s a flawed chapter due to some really bad quest design.  It’s a minority of times but the design is terrible.  Like a timed spike trap, or timed switches run with a bad map, infinite enemies and attacks from all directions.

The plot was also pretty weak, with Kurog’s despot tendencies showing up early.  The revenge though, that was quite to something to literally execute.  Killed his wives, his soldiers and his mum.  In the final boss fight he got to do a very cheap and pathetic “mum, heal me” three times, three! “King Kurog, you have failed this city!”

Have now gone to the Clockwork City, which has proven to have a very distinctive look.  There’s frequently times where it’s absurdly detailed and intricate in its design.

I really need to get to playing some other games.

Watched tonight’s PlayStation showcase and there’s an awful lot of nice looking but pretty unexciting games. Nothing really must-have leaps out, other than Spider-Man 2.

That trailer was pretty good in the end though. Some nice action setpieces, and it looks like they’re packing plenty of story into this game – Kraven, black costume/Venom, Lizard, Harry and more. I think making it a Pete/Miles double-header will be fun too.

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Martin Smith, Ben

There’s some others in there that could really land well – Foamstars, Tower of Fantasy, Phantom Blade 0.

Good to see the MGS games heading to PS5 plus the remake of MGS3.

FF XVI doesn’t need a marketing boost at this point but looks amazing.

Sword of the Sea was a great surprise, loved the previous games from that lot of developers.

So, having been sucked into Elder Scrolls Online about three months back, and some 260 odd hours later, I have hit an excellent pause point with the end of the Summerset chapter.

The game is odd in how it classes chapters and DLC.  The former can all be bought in a package but not the latter.  Yet, the middle chapter of an expansion trilogy is deemed DLC, not a chapter.  Can imagine a lot of people going from Morrowind to Summerset and being confused as they’re missing the entire middle act.

But what if you get that act? It works very well.  There’s a definite order that the game’s various pieces are played in, which really pays off.  For instance the ending if the Orsinium DLC sets up the Daedric Wars trilogy above.

Unfortunately I found the finale of Summerset to be a case of the story being better than the gameplay.  Not least due to a boss, Wraith-of-Crows, having an unblockable one-hit kill attack that’s hard to see coming, so feels cheap and undermines whatever quest it turns up in.

The final fights with Veya and Nocturnal weren’t great either.  Did get to kill Veya three times over though – and I certainly wanted her dead.

The recurring star character of any plot in relation to the Aldermi Dominion, in equal part due to the writing and voice work, is Razum-Dar.  Raz is always fun to talk to.

I will come back to this at some point, as the world design and story more than makes up for gameplay weaknesses, but there are other games I need to get back to as well.

This sounds rather, well, spectacular:

Spider-Man 2 by @insomniacgames will indeed feature a map twice the size of the original games.

Also, co-op was never going to be an option. It was a Day 1 decision to keep it a single player game. https://t.co/z3JXYIDy7g

— Gene Park (@GenePark) June 1, 2023

Does it need a map double the size of the last one? It didn’t feel like the first game’s map was small or anything.

From the recent gameplay preview it looks like the game’s map extends out into Queens, which probably makes sense story-wise.

I certainly felt like the original map was big enough though, no complaints there.

One of the things I spotted in the demo footage was the speed of the webslinging – it was pretty fast.  So the map is bigger but your ability to traverse it has likely also increased.

The other thing that jumped out at me is it sounds like the character switching is not limited and scripted.

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Dave

Like A Dragon: Ishin

I think this should have been sold more as remaster than remake, because it feels a pretty minimal remake.  Much of it feels like a game from 2014, which its source material is.

The other flaws in it also seriously drag it down.  This could have been excellent, but its self-inflicted wounds render it as good.  Compared to other entries? This is among the weakest of them.  Does that make it bad? No, but parts of it certainly are.

Of those the biggest are its bosses.  This is where an unholy combination of bad design and Souls influence make every boss fight bad.

Why? When you fight normal enemies you can stagger and knock them down, that gives you openings to experiment. All the bosses cannot be staggered and they are never knocked down.  You can be doing a combo hit on a boss and no matter what they will do an attack after X hits.

Then there’s the massive health bar and difficulty.  Even on the easiest level, this is a harder game than the others.  Does that difficulty benefit Ishin? Nope.  This is where I see that Souls influence coming in, but it doesn’t do anything good for it.  The gap between normal and boss enemies is huge.

Should there be one huge life bar or multiple health bars for a boss? I say multiple bars give a better sense of progessive damage than one bar where your attack does fractional damage.  One bar gives a clear message that the boss fight is going to be one of attrition and that applies to all of them.

What else does it get wrong? It tends to assume you will remember far more of where things are than you do.  Stuff that should be on the map isn’t.  If you want a reason for why the UbiSoft style open world game exists, Ishin supplies it.  Similarly being told to go find something somewhere is more than a bit irritating.

The upgrade and training systems are good, but the upgrades are very grindy.  You can get the materials to get an upgrade but the smithy isn’t levelled enough.  How to raise it? Do loads of smithing or a huge amount of buying and donating equipment.  But, until the final level and post-game, your cash will be limited.  Thus, the grind.  Plus, you get better gear from story quests so you lack reason to level the smithy up.

And then there’s weird minor things like a progress bar for relationships with characters being a mix of light grey and lilac or light pink that blend into each other, you can’t see the progression.  Oh and the enemy spawn rate can be ludicrous but fighting normal enemies is always fun so that one is sort of OK.

Back to a big flaw – heat moves.  This is one of the Yakuza series’ best aspects.  Ludicrous overkill yes but so fun to use. So why do a game where they are so hard to use? The heat moves here are situationally restricted and the window to use one is very, very small.

Finally, the four combat styles? Gunman and brawler are far weaker than swordsman and wild dancer.  It’s a pity the camera can’t keep up with the action. One boss fight will see you hit by many off camera attacks as the arena is too large.  The combo meter also resets fast.

That’s a lot wrong – what does it get right? Normal enemies are often very fun to fight, though your block / guard only works when the game says it does. If you do trigger a heat move it will be great to see go off.

The design of Kyo is superb, especially at sunset and evening.  Story and characters have frequently been the series’ trump cards and it is so here.

The levelling up of your abilities and how the training / style orbs work is good.  Each of the trainers you find has their own story that you want to see play out.  The wanted men sidequest chain is well worth doing.  And then there is the general oddball charm and weirdness that make these games work also present.

For anyone playing this, be wary of the main sequence in Chapter 11, as it starts a sustained chain all the way to Chapter 13, with three boss fights, two of which are very difficult.  All the ones after were easier.  Ensure you have an expanded and stocked set of food / healing items.

The battle dungeon, while repetitive, gives you instant access to one of the series’ best aspects – long battles.  Running through a location taking out numerous enemies is always fun.

It’s quirky, but the battle troopers system, even set to auto as I had it, was still a fun addition. Most of the minigames failed to land for me but the farming and cooking duo is quite addictive.

Overall? It’s good but buy it as cheap as you can.

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Dave

Talking of remasters, today we paid the extra fiver to upgrade the first Spider-Man game to the PS5 version, and it’s very slick indeed. I also realised I never played the DLC so I might have to work through that before the sequel arrives.

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Ben

It is amazing. Don’t hesitate to drop the difficulty on the DLC if you need to.  The second chapter has quite a spike.

The PS5 version also has expanded accessibility options.

Also, for Spider-Man 2, ensure you have played and completed Spider-Man: Miles Morales – it continues the story from where the DLC ends.

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Dave

I actually 100%-ed Miles Morales the Christmas it came out, so have done things in a slightly odd order!

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Ben

Agent Intercept

I feel conned.  Both by how this game presents itself and the reviews that go along with it.  That line is that this is a fun spy action racer and it could be that. It could, if not for everything that gets in the way.

Let’s see:

– The angled perspective means you will frequently miss pick ups, enemies and misreas how to approach any bends.

– You do not control your speed, you only move left / right with a finite boost.

– Time limits that are often brutal and arbitrary, which sometimes look scripted, sometimes not.  Either way they are crappy.

– Finite weaponry, need I say more?

– An unlock requirement for levels with some pieces that are brutally difficult to get – for some you have to be perfect.

– Very uneven difficulty.  Even with Assist mode to the max still those time limits and some boss fights are very difficult.  Mostly due to the limited controls.

– Oh, and not to forget, an interrupting cutscene that wrecks your sense of flow in a level.

The sad thing is the art style is superb, the aesthetic fits perfectly.  But all of the above severely gets in the way of the fun factor.

I had thought Assist mode might solve the uneven and brutal difficulty, it helps but can’t solve it due to time limits and boss fights being unaffected by it.

If someone modded this with a god mode – infinite health, boost and weaponry – Bond would demand nothing less, right? It’d be the superbly fun experience it wants to be.  But instead its perception that s game requires numerous constraints on the player stops that dead in its tracks.

If you can put up with these numerous flaws, with a story vs game tension and some unclear bosses, then yeah there’s some fun to be had here.  But even with 50% off and getting it for £7.99, I feel conned by this game.

This is cool – Turtles DLC is inbound….

AND IT ADDS USAGI YOJIMBO AS A PLAYABLE CHARACTER!

I had my criticisms of the game but I’ll have to buy it now.

Oh, it’s on sale on PSN until 21 June, how very handy…

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Martin Smith, Dave

Spider-Man 2 release date confirmed:

20 October 2023

Not yet active on Hit for preorder.

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Dave

Preorders start on the 16th apparently.

The tough part for me is going to be waiting for Christmas to open it.

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Ben

You could try playing the “Dad has to download the huge patch” card to access it a little early.

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Todd, Dave

Dave wrote:

Preorders start on the 16th apparently.

The tough part for me is going to be waiting for Christmas to open it.

The tough part for me is going to be getting my PS4 to read the PS5 disc, but I’m going to try!

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Dave

This sucks:

https://www.eurogamer.net/theres-confusion-over-like-a-dragon-gaidens-physical-release

Digital only.

Xbox had a good showcase.

Big ones for me were Starfield and Avowed.

Good to get a reveal for Yakuza 8 aka Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and Cyberpunk 2077’s expansion Phantom Liberty, out 26 Sept.

Plus one other game I will address elsewhere.

For those with a PS5, FF XVI demo now available, save data carries over into the main game.

Ben wrote:

Spider-Man 2 release date confirmed:

20 October 2023

Not yet active on Hit for preorder.

Nice… And now I want to know the release for PC…

There was a thread which asked which of the game series was more interactive and gave you more of a open city adventure:

The Batman Arkham games or the Spider man games?

Personally, it is an apples to oranges thing. 🤣

Hmm, not entirely, as there’s a major Arkham influence in Spider-Man’s combat.

As to PC port, probably 2024.

Meanwhile Final Fantasy XVI has the best demo I’ve played in years, really looking forward to the main game now.

Star Wars: Jedi – Survivor

Overall this is a very good sequel and a very good game, but I said overall, because in specific aspects it is far more variable.

The best card the game plays is accessibility.  Forget about it being a Souls-style combat because, with the Story setting, Respawn have crafted a game for everyone.  If you want a hard run, there will be a setting here that gives you that but it is not required.

The only flaws in this respect is it sometimed doesn’t go far enough for me in accessibility.  There were times when I could not tell that I could interact with something, it just blended in too much. Horizon: Forbidden West had a highlighting feature for showing what was and was not interactive. Something like that would have been good here, plus zipline transfer assist.

That said the assists for traversal that are here are fantastic, the auto-grab for climbing and auto-wall-run make it far, far better.  The only feature I found variable was the distance needed to trigger the grapple points.

Next, story and characters – this is mostly superb.  On the whole the new characters are not as good as the existing set, but it is good having Master Cordova in this.  For many Tony Mendola is best known as Stargate’s Master Bra’Tac so good seeing him doing a SW role. The villains are pretty weak, not helped by an appearance from You-Know-Who at one point in the game.

Combat is OK.  I can’t say I get on well with the combination of multiple enemies + single enemy lock on.  The camera is very close in, it can be hard to keep track of which enemy is where.  Plus quickly identify enemy types.

The stances are weirdly inconsequential.  This is not a Ghost of Tsuschima system where you must use stance A to successfully stagger and kill enemy type X.  Plus you can only have two of five equipped at a time.  It feels a rather artificial limit.

But, despite these aspects, combat feels incredibly good to play because they have nailed the lightsaber.  Playing on Story arguably amps up the effect of wielding a lightsaber because you tear through everything! Add in smart haptic feedback and it looks and feels great.

Exploration and the 3d platforming can be good but can also frustrate.  The main difficulty I often had was where to go.  What is interactive and what isn’t, often it hid this a bit too well.

Add in that often the platforming penalty for failure is death and the need for clarity here only goes up.  Unfortunately you often don’t havr that clarity to be able to see the route ahead in time to correctly respond to it.  This is an aspect that should lessen on replay, why would you replay this? More on that below.

But it lessens the hit by smart respawning.  There are some that go on a bit too long, requiring a few too many perfect hits for my liking, but mostly they are well paced and the right length.  And when you pull it off? It is very satisfying.

The map here is a lot better than its predecessor.  The zoom is strange but it is a lot clearer and far more useable.  It is odd that there is no minimap setting or I never found it.

Why would you replay this? Because the game is limited save slots with auto-save.  Thus you will go past certain sections and there are at least two stunning sequences that you will want to experience again.  Possibly better the second time around as you know what to do.

The biggest weakness is you may hit a wall as to what to do and how, but those times pass, it gets back to the good stuff and you keep going.  If you are not a SW fan, does it work well enough? Hard to say as much of the fun of the game is it being SW.

In audio-visual terms it is amazingly good.  Absurdly detailed worlds, areas, designs, animations, cutscenes – if you want to know why this game is 147GB, that’s why.  Add in excellent haptic feedback that aids the controls massively and it’s a very good overall package.

What if they had delayed it by another few months? I think that would have seen them reduce some of the flaws I’ve described.  Things like bounty hunting being locked out due to a bug might have been avoided. More time might have given it that extra level of polish.

In its final third the way the story and gameplay combine is perfect, delivering pay-offs that equal God of War: Ragnarok.  Yes, they are that good, that sustained – these are stunningly successful.  There is stuff here I didn’t think could be done or had no idea was possible.

Overall, it’s a very good game.  Sometimes it’s excellent and I really hope they go on to do a third game.

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Dave

Ben wrote:

Hmm, not entirely, as there’s a major Arkham influence in Spider-Man’s combat.

As to PC port, probably 2024.

It is a toss up to me. But since I am a New Yorker and swinging across the city like that.
It is 1 and 1a for me…

So… Sometime next year for PCs.
Ok. I should be done with Parker and then Morales by then.
Also sneaking in a spaceship game (SW Squadrons) to not be burned out by all that Spider-man

Al – there’s no guarantee S2 will get ported to PC in 2024, might be later.

Squadrons is very smart but it is strictly first person view only.

I find that really difficult for flying ships so hit a wall fast, but what I saw was very nice.

Ben wrote:

Meanwhile Final Fantasy XVI has the best demo I’ve played in years, really looking forward to the main game now.

I saw some gameplay on Youtube of the demo (PC gamer here so always have to wait). I was surprised at the move to an ‘R rated’ game for the FF franchise, f-bombs and all. Not that it bothers me at all but it actually looks a lot like Game of Thrones the computer game with the adult fantasy take.

I’ve been playing a lot of Final Fantasy this year, working through the PC ports of X-2 to XV (skipping 12 as I played that a year or two back). I have some potted reviews for brevity.

FFX-2 – is very light hearted compared to its rather melancholy precursor, it has a slightly annoying structure where it really pushes you to press on with the main game narrative which means unless you push back against it you miss a lot of the game.

FF13 – This game is beautiful, the design is incredible. The structure very weird, you are on rails completely for 3/4 of the game and then it opens to massive map that is very easy to get lost in. Technically hard to fault but that structure is its failing.

FF13- 2 So this sequel is apparently not that well regarded but I think it fixes most of the faults of the previous game. It retains the good parts of the battle system but now opens the game out from early on. It has a nice balance of letting you press on with the main story or explore about.

FF13 – Lightning Returns – so we have an even more open world which opens up pretty early on but the very strange addition in an RPG of a time limit. You have 13 days to complete the game and each hour in it is 2.5 minutes in real time. You can’t grind by fighting but only by completing quests, some of which only appear at certain hours of the day. I did enjoy it once I got into the swing of it and there’s cool stuff in there but I followed guides a lot of the way because otherwise felt I was getting lost wasting time.

FF15 – It may just be me but felt this game got some negative vibes from fans. I don’t know why as I think it’s fantastic. Graphically it’s beautiful, the characters are fun, there’s plenty to do, lots of quests and side games. I guess it’s a bit of a departure because it’s more ‘real world’ than any previous FF game, you drive a car around a rural US type environment, stopping at diners, taking selfies etc but that’s fine by me, I like that each FF game changes its world. If there’s one criticism that could be made it is easy to break, you add experience only when you rest but with experience multipliers for spells used, food eaten, accessories worn and hotels you stay in I have not completed all the sub-quests in the first area and am already level 99. You can choose not to take those boosters though or play on hard mode.

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Ben, Christian

You are more accurate than you know on FF16 Gar.  It is pretty much FF-meets-GoT, and it doesn’t hold back.

FF15 is very much a game of two halves – the first open world half is spectacular. The later half is more variable due in part to being more linear, but not just that.  There is still good stuff in that half, especially the game’s version of Venice.  It also has a day / night cycle where night time is very scary.

It’s funny how gaming culture tends to be a bit nostalgic about ‘open world’ FF – as yes, the older ones are, to a degree, but they’re not that big either.  Then again I started on FF10, enjoyed FF13 as well as the more open FF12.

FF16 feels like what they were trying to nail from FF12 onwards. FF13 and FF15’s systems can be seen as steps to FF7R’s combat, which FF16 is trying to take further still.

I only really got into FF13’s conclusion Lightning Returns and came to really like it last year.  Doesn’t hurt that it’s boosted on the XBX.  Waiting on a sale to nab that trilogy.

Hit now have Spider-Man 2 for preorder:

https://www.hit.co.uk/buy/product/marvel-s-spider-man-2-ps5/dgc-spider~2Dman2ps5.htm

Ben wrote:

It’s funny how gaming culture tends to be a bit nostalgic about ‘open world’ FF – as yes, the older ones are, to a degree, but they’re not that big either.

To be honest I’m not that fussed about an open world or how huge it is, I think sometimes they can be structured badly and you miss things or lose narrative. Sometimes the quests can be quite tedious.

FF13 was just a bit weird how ‘on rails’ it was until 3/4 in, it was hugely linear, more than any previous iteration, and considering how games were going at the time it’s a wonder nobody in the design phase called it out. Limiting the character expansion by chapter also removes the option to grind if anyone is struggling.

FFVII, VIII and X were pretty linear for most of the game and then allowed free roaming before the end, which is a good enough mix for me. Even with XV which kind of works the other way round I have just ported back in time to explore everything before reaching the end game.

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Ben

Hmm, tedious quests you say? Tell me you’ve played Skyrim’s radiant quests without telling me.

FF13 is odd on that it not only stops you choosing your party, but also limits the progression of the party members past a max point. Which made the second fight with Bartandalus an absolute bastard, even for a fully powered-up party.  The other bastard move FF13 pulled was having “leader dies = instant game over”, in a series where some enemies have instant kill attacks.

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garjones

Ben wrote:

Tell me you’ve played Skyrim’s radiant quests without telling me.

You guessed it.

I did really enjoy Skyrim overall but yeah there’s some tedious grind in there.

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Ben

Interesting Nintendo Direct today. No big hitters beyond maybe the new 2D Mario (which always sell pretty well even if the critical reception is a shrug) that has decided to have an art style for once.

The HD ports of Pikmin 1 and 2 are welcome by me (and 4 looks good), as is the remake of Super Mario RPG. I’ve been trying to get a copy of the original SNES release at a decent price for about a decade now with no joy, so I will absolutely go for a £40ish redux.

Playing games like Skyrim and Elder Scrolls Online on the PS5 is an initially odd but really good experience.  What’s odd at first is there are practically no load screens, in a series where you’re used to them.

Well, found my copy of Final Fantasy XVI so game on.

Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

Sad to say but a much more fun start second time around could not save this game from its own worst tendencies.  Namely, being cheap and nasty.

As the levels go on they do get harder but they do so by cheap and nasty tricks.  Enemies that do not respond to your attacks and hit you. Bosses with long phases of invincibility that the boss shamelessly spams. (This is practically the final boss.)

Things like the dodge and double jump attack really help on some bosses, but knockdown immune bosses should have been consigned to video game history.  So, I find myself returning to my original outlook on the game, albeit with a measure of positive improvement.

Overall? It’s fun.  The game is at its best in its early levels, before it gets cheap and nasty.  The later levels? There is little reason to reply them, they’re just not that good.  Oh and the level challenges? To my surprise I passed some, not sure how as they are video game crap incarnate like doing an entire level without being hit. Also, no subtitles option.

One thing is for sure – I’m going to enjoy playing this when they add Usagi Yojimbo to the roster.

Let’s talk Final Fantasy XVI.

This’ll be non-spoiler and I’m using the plot trophies I’ve got so far to structure this.

Chapter 1 is your introduction.  It’s pretty standard stuff, but with a very high level of audio-visual spectacle applied.

Chapter 2 is far more variable, being very up and down.  It has moments of brilliance, but also great irritation.

Chapter 3 has been easily the best one so far.  It’s a far more integrated, sustained experience that is a lot of fun to play.

Dead Cells PS5

I did not expect this.

I liked a good amount of the PS4 version.  World design, enemies, aesthetic style – it has a unique look.  But it also had brutal, roguelike difficulty; very, very fast combat that was a bit too fast for my dexterity and unlock systems that were pretty opaque.

In the end I gave it a few runs but found the carryover rewards to be way too low to incentivise my continues playing.

Until now.  For in this version, there is an assist mode! And it is nuts – change enemy health and damage, auto jump and attack, reincarnation at the last checkpoint rendering the roguelike element optional!

There will be purists wailing across the internet in response to this.  There will be no end of macho gamer posturing.  But what Motion Twin have really done here? They have made their game far more attractive to far more people, who may well buy the DLC too. For an indie studio, all sales are good sales!

I’ve had a huge amount of fun with this tonight and expect to continue doing so.

Since I dove back into retro gaming, however many years ago now (8 maybe), I keep seeing people say how nothing compares to playing older consoles on a CRT TV. The innate fuzziness of the picture smooths out sharp pixel lines etc. I’ve largely ignored that, dismissing it as rose-tinted nostalgia. Besides, my current LCD TV is pretty great – an early HD model that can do 1080p while also having loads of different inputs (s-video, SCART, HDMI, component etc). So I’ve never really felt compelled to go seek out a CRT.

Anyway, I was walking my dog this evening and noticed that my neighbour over the road had cleared out some stuff and had it on the end of their garden with a sign saying free. And in there was a portable CRT. So I had quick look and it has a SCART port, so I grabbed it (no easy feat for a “portable” CRT while also walking a dog, I should point out). I figured it’d be worth a go just to see if I can see what people are on about or it really is rose tinted nonsense. I can also donate or scrap or sell on the thing if not.

So I’ve just hooked it up to my SNES (which is modded to output in 60hz NTSC if wanted and has an RGB SCART cable). Had to overcome the remote not seeming to operate half the TV’s menus (I think it’s a “universal” replacement) but was pleasantly surprised to find it had a separate RGB SCART display mode and…

My god, they were right. I’m not saying it’s like night and day or anything (and given the remote, I can’t tweak the colour and brightness or anything, so it’s not perfect) but it does look better with the games I tested. The rain early on in Link to the Past looks much more atmospheric, while the pre-rendered 3D graphics of Donkey Kong Country are much more pleasant, as the scanlines remove much of the harshness of the downscaled colour gradients.

So it’s a pretty cool find, especially as it means I can play lightgun games now, if I was so inclined.

I just have to actually try and find room for it now.

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Ben, Dave

Yeah, CRT displays definitely had that effect. I’ve seen various attempts to replicate it (on-screen and in print) over the years, as while there’s a lot of pixel art that is beautiful in its own right even without that softening effect, you definitely do lose something on modern screens by not seeing it as the makers originally intended.

The other retro thing I’ve got in the works is wireless N64 controls. Nintendo finally restocked the Switch N64 controllers so I grabbed one (after waiting for over a week for a glitch that stopped my NSO sub showing as active in the shop, preventing me from ordering). I had been considering getting 8BitDo’s new drop-in wireless N64 mod kit that puts wireless connectivity comparable to their full controllers into original N64 ones, but then the official ones came back in.

To go with that I ordered the latest in retro gaming tech advancements; a BlueRetro wireless receiver for the N64 (which was about £13 off AliExpress). This is similar to the SNES one I’ve got form 8BitDo, but using a new opensource design (the BlueRetro of the name) and the kit I got is a small box that plugs into all four controller ports on the console to allow four wireless controllers – of pretty much any make – to connect.

So today I had a test set-up of N64 hooked up to CRT with wireless receiver and Switch N64 controller. And it’s pretty sweet. The new controller feels totally authentic to the original (even if the expansion slot is covered and a bit heavier for holding the battery and stuff) and getting to use a properly new, original N64 analogue stick is a wild experience. I’d forgotten how much spring they had to them. Really made me realise how worn even my good vintage pads are. The wireless receiver works well and the really handy thing is that you only have to plug it into as many controller ports as you need controllers, so you can mix and match between wireless and wired. I definitely recommend this.

Only downside to that wireless set-up is the lack of ability to use a memory card, but there are other Blue Retro based adapters that are single controller only but have a memory card built into the receiver. They’re about £30-40 a pop though.

Haven

I want to like this more but an identity crisis and too many flaws have brought it to a sharp and premature end.

In terms of its graphical style and soundtrack, it makes total sense that this is a game creates in France.  It has a fantastic sense of style. The story is also pretty good.

The core exploration concept, plus environmental clean-up, is generally very good.  Only marred by the game playing unfair on where the final spots to hit to clean an islet.

In addition to these two there is cooking and other interactive options like chatting and sleeping.  Later, you get to craft stuff, apparently including a synthesiser but that has not unlocked, nor does the entire internet know how to unlock it. This is one of the game’s major failings – it is stupidly opaque on areas where it shouldn’t be.  Like with cooking, you select what you want to cook then release the selection buttons to get to the next bit.  That interim stage is not communicated at all, so you can be blocked without anything to indicate what you should do.

And then there is the combat, which eventually killed the game. Combat feels very misplaced in this game. It feels bolted on to a game where it doesn’t belong.

The idea of controlling two characters simultaneously is a bad one that can just about work in practice, but I find it very difficult. For the bulk of the game it is OK and not too complicated.

Then they add in robot enemies, do not explain how it works, mess with the view and render the timing windows much, much shorter.  This combination required more dexterity than I have so the game comes to a dead stop, as these cheap bastards are everywhere.  Worse, the intro fight with them gives you a false impression.  As the next time you fight them they have new, not at all explained abilities that render them impossible to defeat.

Finally, the game claims that it is “not challenging”.  This is total bullcrap.  The very limited healing, the cooking, the finity of items, opaque systems and combat do not add up to a chilled gaming experience.  Maybe the game wants to be that but it wants to be other things too.

I think, despite its self-sabotage, I got to the final mission, with 88% story completion.  Enjoyed some of it, baffled by a lot of it and exasperated by a high profile minority element.  Would have liked to have finished this one but don’t see any way through its stupid, difficulty spike barriers.

Huh, didn’t see that coming.  To my surprise I finished Haven.

In my defence, doing so involved a YouTube video for me to see what I was unable too, tweaking an option to slow down the display so I could spot and successfully action and a total surprise of no final boss fight.  With the way it had brought in the hornet robots, I had every reason to suspect a brick wall boss but nope.

If anything, the final section is insteas built around the game’s best aspect – the flow speeding.  You take out the flow bridge flow by flow.  It fits perfectly and makes for a very satisfying finale.

There’s an epilogue section that was fun to play too.  Managed to get the duo to max relationship level too.

Do I feel differently about the game now it’s finished? I don’t think so. It would be good to see how the synthesiser unlocks, as it never did. Overall, the game would benefit from being more straight forward in its navigation.

Sure, I can find the answers via YouTube but I’d prefer not to.  There are a few islets that I can finish but no clear route of getting to the final areas.  A couple I’m getting nowhere on as the enemies are too severe.

Michael Jackson strikes Street Fighter 6!
Just Beat It.#ストリートファイター6　#キャラクリ#StreetFighter6　#MichaelJackson pic.twitter.com/7ippyDMb2o

— ギﾉﾚエフvsデカポリステスカトリポカ (@Gill_F) June 24, 2023

One of my most anticipated games of the year just got its release date confirmed.

Everspace 2 hits PS5 on 15 August!

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/judge-declines-block-microsofts-record-69-billion-deal-101095067

Yeah, that’ll go through now.

Not a fan of anyone being able to drop $70bn to spend to won but can’t do anything about it either.

For all the IP it is getting, MS have also purchased a large dose of corporate poison. I’m not sure this’ll go the way they’re expecting.

It’s going to be bad for the industry. As for Microsoft, well, they’re paying $70bn mainly for Call of Duty, which I guess they’ll eventually make their money back on (unless they fuck it up, like they have with most of the studios they’ve bought in the past). But there’s going to be a large trove of ActiBlizzard brands just consigned to the dustbin because they were throw-ins with CoD as far as MS care.

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Ben

I recently completed the three DLC packs for Spider-Man (Remastered) – they were OK and I enjoyed playing them, but they often felt a bit like going through the motions, with a story that was a bit nothingy and repetitive, and too many relentless wave-based battles.

And Ben, you were right about the difficulty spikes – once the bad guys start getting outfitted in tech it gets pretty tough and chaotic.

I also found some of the boss fights a bit frustrating, largely because they give the bosses long periods of invincibility and the ability to avoid/escape your gadgets and attacks, while also making them powerful enough to knock you out in just a couple of hits. Which feels a bit poorly balanced to me.

(It feels more fitting for something imposing like the big robotic Hammerhead fights, but kind of stupid for a rooftop fistfight with Silver Sable that really shouldn’t trouble Spidey as much as it did.)

It all looks great though, and it’s got me even more keen to play the sequel. Although let’s hope the boss fights and the story are a bit better than what we get here! I’m sure they will be.

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Ben

It’s a weird set of DLC.  Ep 1 had the ‘catch guy before he escapes’ but they were practically teleporting in randomly. Outside of that ep 1 is OK.

Ep 2….ooof. The tech upgrades send the difficulty through the roof – the shielded goblins being the new king bastards.

Strangely, despite the enemy upgrade, I found ep 3 more straight forward, possibly due to being far more aggressive in the fights.

I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t have completed these without the expanded PS5 assists.

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Dave

Ben wrote:

The tech upgrades send the difficulty through the roof – the shielded goblins being the new king bastards.

They’re annoying but at least you can get them with finishing moves. It’s the chunky guys with miniguns that really pissed me off.

Also, the game clearly wanted me to feel a lot more upset than I did about a load of crime lords being buried in cement.

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Ben

Ah, yes – those two-focus bar draining gits.

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Dave

I got chance to use my N64 Wireless Adapter thing in anger last night with my retro gaming group. We had two of those N64 Switch Pro controllers to use with it. How did it go?

Not well! Because it turns out there’s a known issue with the entire BlueRetro source code that means it can’t handle having two Switch Pro controllers connected to one board at the same time. A Switch Pro with a Wii U Pro or a Dual Shock 4 or an Xbox One or any combination thereof? No problem. But more than one Switch Pro, regardless of whether it’s a normal one, an N64 one, a SNES one etc, and it will at best mean unusable lag on the second connected controller but mostly just continuous desyncing. Which given that I would think using wireless N64 controllers with this would be the ultimate aim for most people isn’t that great.

Apparently the only current work around is to have a single wireless card for each Switch controller you want to use.

As I’m on the endgame for FF XVI, for a change of pace I once more booted up Dead Cells.

There’s a lot I like about the game, the graphical style and environment / enemy design. Exploration is often very fun but…

The Derelict Distillery level should be consigned to the deepest depths of gaming hell. An awful, utterly nasty level with nothing to recommend it.

Final Fantasy XVI

This is a flawed game.  Good? It can be, but it can also be bloody awful.  At times it will have monents or even entire extendee sequences of genius, but also pieces of immense stupidity.

Generally, it’s graphics are good but what often stops them being great is a weirdly muted style.  It is odd to talk of lighting in a video game but too often this game is far, far too dark, even with brightness and contrast settings on max.

The game is also in desperate need of a compass and map at all times.  The game’s creators may believe the visual cues are clear enough but they are not.  The visual signposting is nowhere near good enough to remove these.

Gear is massively stripped back compared to previous games in the series.  Arguably too much so.  It is also difficult to see the effects of new gear in combat – oh, so a fractional sliver more is being taken off this health bar? Nor is crafting of better kit really enabled or encouraged. There’s numbers displayed all over the place but with only a graphic health bar shown, they lack meaning.

The combat, in the story version I played was OK, at times great, other times awful.  If I had played on other settings, with auto-assists disabled, I would have probably found it far more frustrating.

The cooldowns are irritating, as is the need to look in two places at once.  Despite this, when you can see what is going on well, it can be fun. Later on some fights suffer from graphical clutter, an inconsistent dodge I never understood the mechanics of and special moves that go on too long. It is also in desperate need of a FF XV style use of Libra to scan the battlefield.  Without it there is little opportunity for strategy, as your view is too compromised.

The Eikon fights are generally better, though it is fair to say they sacrificd control for spectacle.  The majority are incredibly good, although after a certain point the game gives up on trying to top the preceding one.  This is a huge shame and missed opportunity.

QTEs. Do these contribute anything positive to the game? No.  When you have cinematics as excellent as they are here, you should want the player to be able to enjoy them without reservation. The QTEs get in the way of this to a severe degree.  The game would be far better without them.

The hunts it introduces for high level enemies is generally pretty good, until you hit S-rank.  At that point the enemies become cheap and underhanded, the fights cruel and unpleasant to play.

The great bulk of the story and characters I liked.  Its themes and concepts are very Final Fantasy.  Plus, from a boring, uninspired start, the sidequests hit far harder by the end. Talking of, I disliked both the final boss and ending.  I don’t think either fully pays off what preceded it.

Soundtrack is pretty good. It tends to excel in the Eikon fights and there’s a brilliant reworking of the main FF theme towards the end.

Will I keep this game? Despite the flaws, the combat being up and down, the drop off towards the end for the main quest and Jill being done over, yes.  The primary reason is there’s a stage select and some of those I will always want to experience again, they are that good.  There’s also entire sets of Eikon abilities I haven’t tried out.

Can I see what they were going for with the zone world design? Yes.  Each is very detailed in a way that probably couldn’t be done with an open world and day / night cycle requirements.  It’s good being free of those, along with ideas like stamina bars and weapon durability.

Despite its up and down nature, I still felt hooked enough to play it to the end, so it did some things right.  And the highs are spectacular.

[Martin Smith]

So, it’s been literally two months in which I’ve played it almost every day and finally I’ve nearly finished Tears of the Kingdom (got two shrines, a bit of a side quest and killing Ganon left). And I’ve definitely played it wrong.

Thing was, when I played Breath of the Wild, I followed the path the game nudges you towards, which takes you on a set route around what is really an open world. And I kind of regretted that. I wondered what it would have been like if I’d gone off towards the Gerudo Desert initially instead of letting the game guide me to Kakariko Village etc. So with Tears of the Kingdom, I tried to do that. I determinedly went off path a lot.

And I’m not saying it ruined the game, but I think it made it wonkier than it should have been.

I might spoiler tag the rest of this.

As soon as I got off the starter Sky Island, I tried to make my own path in the game. The game says “hey go here and do this”, I said “No, I’m going to do this shrine I saw as I fell”. Except right in that shrine it turned out you needed the paraglider to progress and you got it from going where the game was nudging. At that point, you’re given a four point main quest, where you need to go to each of the races of Hyrule and sort some stuff out. Now, the game pushes you to go Rito, Goron, Zora, Gerudo. I went Rito, Gerudo, Goron, Zora because I’m a rebel. And there’s no penalty for doing that, you’re free to. Except there kind of is. The Gerudo section has the toughest enemies (and harshest environment) and while I was able to power through fine because I’d built up my health with a lot of shrines (and somehow survived navigating the desert blind) I was rewarded with better weapons and shields than you’d get in the Goron and Zora areas. The game also powered up the general enemies more. While there are some that are set throughout the span of the game (Lizalfos, for instance, are themed by elements and don’t generally upgrade) things like Bokoblins and Moblins have progressive strengths based on colour – red, blue, black, silver – and the game upgrades many of them through that as you progress and they respawn, based on hidden metrics. I don’t know if it was entirely due to doing the Gerudo section earlier or I’d just power-levelled but the game jumped up to silvers really quickly, to the point that they’ve been around for most of my play time.

Once you do all the regions, Zelda appears in Hyrule Castle and lures you over. This is, roughly the midpoint of the main quest and from there you’re tasked with getting the Master Sword, finding the secret fifth sage, discovering Ganon’s location and, not specifically, but it’s implied, finishing off the geo-glyph side-quest thing. Thing is, I only went to Hyrule Castle to speak to fake-Zelda last night. I’d got the Master Sword two weeks ago, I finished the geoglyphs about three weeks ago, I finished exploring the Depths (thus narrowing Ganon’s location down) last week and I’d stumbled into finding the fifth Sage long before I did all Goron and Zora quest lines and got those Sages.

Now this doesn’t throw the game for a loop entirely. Purah, the main quest giver, basically went “what, you already found the fifth Sage and the Master Sword?! Why didn’t you say something!” so they’ve accounted for this. But it does feel like, by having stumbled into those things through exploration, I’ve cheated myself of the experience a bit. There’s a whole quest line for finding the fifth sage, which involves clearing a storm cloud from some of the Sky Islands, activating a device which then leads you into the Depths where you find the Sage. Well, I went blindly exploring the Sky Island while the cloud was still up and found the device. It’s gated to stop you doing it too soon, but that gate is just your health level, so if you’ve done loads of shrines, like I have, then you can get through it, even though you’ve no context as to why. It’s essentially sequence-breaking in a Metroidvania. It’s only now, as I mop up the last few Shrines, that I realise you’re meant to clear up the storm, (as there’s another shrine hidden there you really can’t get to while it’s cloudy) and that it’s part of a quest line.

Similarly, the encounter with Zelda in Hyrule Castle was a bit of a non-event for me. Admittedly, I’d been consciously putting it off while levelling up through shrines and I could have just gone and done it. But kinda thought it was the start of the end-game and wanted to clear up side quests. It’s not. The Zelda in the castle is an illusion (a running theme in the game) but the thing is, I already knew this from doing the Geoglyph quest line, which explains where Zelda is, and getting the Master Sword. So the story element of that Hyrule Castle quest felt a bit of a non-event. Link is there in cutscenes being shocked by stuff he already knows. And the fight itself was relatively trivial due to my high level. That latter bit, I only have myself to blame for, but the geoglyph stuff especially is entirely reasonable to have done before you go to Hyrule Castle and I got the Master Sword using only information the game gave me, not the internet or anything.

So is this bad design? I don’t know. Part of it is entirely down to me being pig-headed and that the game is a sequel. The surface map is largely the same as Breath of the Wild, so I always knew where I was going which made wandering off the main quest path more feasible. I don’t think I’d have been able or willing to do it as much in a completely unknown map. But I feel like it maybe wouldn’t have been a bad idea to put in more hard paths for the main quest stuff, like the fifth sage and the Master Sword, to limit sequence breaking.

All that said, I have really enjoyed it. Super keen to finish it and move on to something else, mind (backlog anxiety causing that as much as anything else) but it is a great game.

 

• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by Martin Smith.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by Martin Smith.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by Martin Smith.

Martin Smith wrote:

So is this bad design?

If you’re consciously choosing to deliberately do things differently to how the game suggests you do things – and then it turns out that the game plays better if you do it the way the game suggests – then that sounds like good design to me.

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Martin Smith

Hmm, perhaps. But would it be better design to have a barrier around certain main quest bits saying “not yet buddy!”? The same way GTA 3 blocked off the successive islands of Liberty City until you progressed so far in the story or how RDR2 stops you taking Arthur to New Austin.

I guess you could but I always gathered that part of the appeal of these Zelda games was allowing you the freedom to explore in an unusual order if you could work out ways to do it (like you did).

It would be really easy for the developers to just shut down certain areas/quests altogether and force you to do them in a certain order – but if they did that, then it’d turn it into something much more linear and conventional, and likely dilute some of the appeal.

I do understand the appeal of trying to ‘break’ these games though. In GTA San Andreas I always enjoyed swimming to off-limits areas and getting an instant mega-wanted level.

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Martin Smith

RDR2 is the best for that in that, because it can’t throw helicopters and whatnot at you, if you try to get to New Austin by land, you get an unstoppable posse on you instantly, which pretty quickly kills you, but if you try to go by sea, you get proper “act of god” weather events that take you out.

I’m not necessarily advocating shutting down exploration, but, for example, you can’t go do the four main temples without having started the individual quest lines for them. You could probably get up to the Wind and Water ones, if you knew what you were doing, but if you got there, the central terminal just wouldn’t activate properly (I had that in the water temple because I’d missed the point where I was supposed to meet up with the Zora dude just outside the entrance). I think something like that on the Fifth Sage quest would have been good, rather than just gating it by how many hearts you have (probably not feasible for the Master Sword, which is just gated by your stamina).

Ye olde JRPG flag that you’re in the wrong area – you get one hit killed by a new monster.

I know for certain I’ve said this in the past, but not for a while: god I hate Steam.

I’ve not used it in a while, so I’ve opened and updated it. It has decided – without informing me – that it will now run, by default, automatic updates on every title in my library. You have to manually disable that game by game to stop it doing it. I’ve set everything to “update on launch”. I’ve then gone to download C&C Remastered, which I bought a few months ago in a sale. “oo, you’ve got no internet connection”. Yes I do, you’re using it to look at the store and I logged in with it. It keeps timing out on the download, so I go to run a pre-installed game to see if it’ll let me do that. Starts trying to download an update before launching it. Doesn’t look to be any update for it. So I stop that and go to launch a Poker Night At The Inventory 2, which, as a decade plus old Telltale game, definitely won’t have any updates. Steam again gets stuck trying to download a mysterious update for it and won’t launch it.

So now I don’t appear to be able to actually run any of the pre-installed games I own because Steam has randomly decided it doesn’t like my perfectly adequate internet connection.

Courtesy of Sonic Origins Plus, I just did something I’ve never done before and completed Sonic CD with all Time Stones, and with all machines and holograms destroyed. (I didn’t have a Mega CD as a kid.)

It’s reinforced to me that the game is by far the worst of the original Sonic games – wonky level design, a time-travel gimmick that’s clever and imaginative but really badly implemented, irritating special stages and pretty crap bosses (especially the hugely underwhelming final boss).

The only things it really has going for it are the music (Tidal Tempest zone is one of the all-time best Sonic tracks) and the Metal Sonic design, which is pretty cool even if the character is underused in the game.

But otherwise it really doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as the Megadrive trilogy. It’s like a dodgy off-brand Sonic game.

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Ben

Dead Cells is a clever game.  There’s optional runes, well save for the first one you can’t really miss, which change how the game plays.  Teleportation, floor smashing, wall jump, exploration assist.

These are not minor things.  They open up the way to new levels, including a new boss.  Now, one of those levels, Forgotten Sepulcher, is on par with Derelict Distillery as a level you will avoid after your first encounter with it.  The others? Far, far better.  Still got one level to find.

At the same time, been getting blueprints and weapons unlocked, which changes how the game starts up and what is on sale from merchants.  Pure Nail or Impaler are fun weapons. Combine with the auto crossbow and a bow, plus a set of mutations, and the result is excellent for slaughtering through levels.

Might be I pick up the other DLCs at some point, including the new Castlevania one.

Looking good.

The Turtles’ DLC Dimension Aftershock is out 31 August.

Been playing the xbox one version of Skyrim since May. Racked up about 200 hours on it. Not done with it – still hot the Solsteim / Dragonborn DLC to do but I’m feeling pretty burned out so planning to take a break from it. Planning of a palette clenser of indie puzzler Superliminal before getting stuck in to Yakuza 5. Then maybe back to finish off Skyrim.

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Ben

Yakuza 5 will take you a while.

Yakuza 5 – the janky taxi driving / racing missions are kind of addictive and account for a majority of my 7½hr playtime.

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Martin Smith, Ben

No Man’s Sky is 7 years old!

Cue major update that looks very cool including pirate freighters and battles against them.

[Martin Smith]

I’ve finally got around to playing Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate which besides being a few years old now, I’ve had on my shelf for 18 months or so. It’s…

I’m mainly sticking to the story so far, which is fun. Mostly. I do wish it’d stop removing tags I’ve put on moves between each fight, but I can live with that, I guess. The story is about some time goddess woman not happy about the way the timeline’s gone and so causes some big time quakes that brings forward people from the past to the present. I suspect that’s maybe meant to be allegorical and the result is it’s quite fan-wanky. So far – and I’m only four chapters in, so I’m hoping it’ll twist and turn a bit – it’s mainly using that to just do “all the baddies are recruited by the new baddie to team up” which isn’t desperately inventive. But it gives you moments like Kano meeting his younger self and bantering, which is nice.

But it does speak to a more concerning trend in the Mortal Kombat series, which is that it never seems to have the confidence to fully move away from the 90s games. It tried it with Mortal Kombat 4, which had a big influx of new characters (most of whom, were, admittedly just functionally similar to previous MK characters) who I’m guessing weren’t very popular and are rarely seen since. So it did Shaolin Monks to rehash MK 1-3. Then they did Deadly Alliance and Deception, which I loved, and had loads of new, different characters and story directions and ideas. Only for all that to get bluntly dead-ended by the awful Armageddon. Then time-travel reboot for MK 9, which retreaded the 90s games again, but purposefully making changes. And that was a lot of fun and set up for new stuff, which MK X delivered on, with new takes on old characters (Scorpion becoming human was one in particular I liked) and a raft of totally new characters and ideas. But now with 11, it’s like they’re redoing Armageddon again, in a way (a better way) and seemingly cutting off all that stuff to… well, I’ve been avoiding seeing too much about the upcoming Mortal Kombat 1, but I know enough, even from just the name, that it’s another reboot and probably going to retread the 90s. And it’s just a bit tiresome because these new things they keep abandoning are interesting. Not always brilliant, but I’d love to see Nitara or Havik or Hotaro again instead of just getting a shinier take on Mortal Kombat 2 for the fourth time.

Another frustrating thing is that even with this being a direct sequel to X (and 9) there’s so little consistency in how the returning characters look and sound. The way Netherrealm can’t seem to hold onto most of the voice actors for more than two games is frustrating enough, but something that is possibly outside of their control, I guess. But that is compounded by some many characters just not looking like the same people. Take Jacqui Briggs, who was introduced in X and looked like this:

That’s a perfectly good design.
In 11 she now looks like this

Another perfectly good design, sure. But in no way is that the same person. Same is true for Jax, who beyond the general description of being “a black man” hasn’t been the same person for three games in a row now. Kitana and Jade are even worse, as they don’t even look the same race as the previous games. This isn’t just not liking change, it’s at times confusing. Jade is one of the people who comes through from the past and I genuinely didn’t recognise her for ages because a) she had a different voice b) she looks different c) she has half her face covered and d) she’s not wearing predominantly green clothes. Across the series she’s been white, Arabic and now Asian. I genuinely love the way Mortal Kombat makes characters in a slapdash, haphazard way (like how most of Masters of the Universe was created) but they really need to stick some things once they come up with them. The most grievous change though is with Sonya, who has gone from being voiced by Tricia Helfer to Ronda Rousey, who cannot act.

I’ve made a couple of small forays out of story mode so far, but those modes are just as confusing as MK’s casting and design choices. X had a pretty cool system where each character had three variants you could choose between, highlighting different aspects of the character. So for Johnny Cage you had one that focused on buffs to punches, one that improved his special attacks and… another one I can’t remember. This has been massively expanded here into a system so complex it seems to have wandered in from an RPG. You can create your own variants, setting up their special moves from various options to fill slots. Not a terrible idea, I guess. But it’s further complicated by the gear system. Each character has three parts of their model that are customisable (so again for Johnny Cage that’s his sunglasses, his belt buckle and his gloves/watch) with over a dozen options on each (most of which you have to unlock through gameplay). As well as being cosmetic, these all have augment slots, that you unlock through grinding and then fill with augments. Augments are… well I’m not entirely sure. I think I have one. I’m not sure how I got it or how to apply it (I’ve not done enough grinding to open any slots yet). The augments let you… have some buffs in arcade mode, I think? And you get more by… I guess spending one or more of the four(?) different currencies the game has, probably in the Krypt. Where I’ve had a small look, opened some chests and received loads of other items that aren’t augments, but I think are combined to make them using recipes – which you also get from chests – but the recipes aren’t complete and I have no idea where or how you do them.

For a game about punching people it’s very complicated. Fortunately, the core gameplay is solid. It’s mostly the same as X, save for a couple of smart changes. The X-Ray moves have been renamed as “Fatal Blows” and you can’t do them as freely. You have to be on low health and if you miss, you have to wait a bit before attempting it again. That’s a smart change, as X-Rays were a bit OP in X. The way you power up special moves has changed as well though. Instead of pressing the button as you input the attack button of the special, you have to press it a moment or two later, as the move is going, which is really tricky. The tutorial has you doing it with Scorpion’s spear move and I just could not get the hang of it. You have to press it a second or so after the moves starts, but before the spear hits. I don’t know why they put in that change, but I guess there’s some reason to do with competitive play.

These are just very initial impressions, I’ve only spent about three hours with it. I hope I can get my head around it enough to delve in as deeply as I have with the previous ones, but I guess I’d have my money’s worth from just the story mode.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Martin Smith.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Martin Smith.

I am becoming convinced that the answer to the Q of: “Why do space games not become more popular?” is that too many designers do stupid, game-killing missions in them.

RedOut: Space Assault and Manticore: Galaxy on Fire did it by having dumb, stupidly harsh “racing” levels. Everspace 2 took a very effective go at creating a goddamn terrible level and nearly, nearly succeeded in killing in their own game.

The mission is smuggling incredibly explosive booze. Where it goes wrong is in having the booze become volatile if you spend too much time in warp, if you go out of warp it explodes if you take 3-4 hits! Yep, it is a space stealth mission! And it is absolutely awful.

It combines all the flaws of the game into one terrible package, the limited boost, the poor visual signposting and then adds to them. Within a location, as you have to seek out these stabilising beacons, you cannot save – there are no checkpoints, it has to be a perfect run all in one go.

It gets a lot right, there’s a lot of fun to be had with the game but this one goddamn level near killed it.

Oh and talking of space games, Starfield is upon us – well, not yet out and the discourse around it is already toxic.

Negative press? The only thing I’ve really read that can be construed as negative is folks complaining that Microsoft have quietly killed the £1 trial of Game Pass ahead of Starfield’s release.

Oh, it’s a gamer culture special – people kicking off over leaks, pro and anti crowds – the usual online bollox but on steroids.

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Todd, Ben

News titbits – a new patch has dropped for Jedi Survivor and Final Fantasy XVI is getting two DLCs. Hopefully they will continue the story.

Meanwhile, Everspace 2. How a game can have such a great central concept and then absolutely trash it in its main campaign is baffling.  From the awful, forced stealth volatile cargo mission you get at just under the halfway mark; to locating invisible signal locations by sound and a flickering indicator; to drone deployment which is an avoid hazards or die very quick; to an abysmal missile defence level and “puzzles” that I got past by sheer luck, it’s a How Not to do a Video Game Level set.

The missile defence level feels exactly what it is – a blatant endgame difficulty spike, even playing on Very Easy.  It’s also very inaccurately summarised in guides online.  The missiles are slow? No, they are not.  Hard to see? Yes.  Worst is when you do take one out there’s a huge explosion that practically prevents you seeing and keeping track of the others.  With the frequency of missile launches and the visual sabotage, it was a very unenjoyable level. One I miraculously did with a sliver of base health left.

The drone deployment levels suffer from a terrible camera angle and difficulty seeing where to go.  One level had the drone to be flown down vertically, avoiding forcefields.  Problem is the graphic design blended the fields together making it hard to see the third dinension and the gaps between them.

Location of invisible items by sound – game designers love this one but does anyone else? One too long level required six of these to be located.

It’s a minor miracle I’ve got to the endgame at all. It’s a shame because the central loop – get gear, upgrade ship, level up, repeat – is good.  Each small, compact location is well designed and looks great.  Its radiant quests have a decent level of variety and fun.  But the main campaign too often departs from all this.

I’ve managed to get my head around the many currencies, items and ancillary systems of MK11 and my conclusion is: christ this is a grind.

To fully load out a character with all its skins, gear, fatalities, brutalities, intros, outros, victory taunts and other bits I’m probably forgetting, you need to a) open loads of chests in the Krypt (which are randomised in placement) b) complete their “character tower” (which is a set of five themed ladders ending with one that’s a fight against proper boss Kronika) five times over c) complete many other types of tower with randomised rewards d) perform 25 fatalities *against* them to have their head put on a spike in the Krypt, opening a character chest e) send your AI fighters out to compete against both the internal CPU fighter towers but also other players’ AI fighters f) fully explore the Krypt (which requires a lot of all the currencies) to open Shang Tsung’s throne room, which has a non-randomised chest for each character.

To do that for one character, let alone every character, is a heck of a lot of work. And while I suppose you can view that as providing a lot of single player gameplay, it is one heck of a grind. Earning the heart currency is really tough. You can get three per fatality you do. Each character has a special Shao Kahn chest in the krypt which costs 250 hearts to open. It is mad. Especially, as so much of that is filler. Johnny Cage (my main) has about 80 skins, but it’s really endless colour variations of about six actual designs. Thankfully, I’m not feeling particularly completionist about those (I would like all the brutalities, fatalities, intros etc though) but the fact they’re purposefully randomised in how you get them means you can’t really just aim for what you actually want.

Of course I suspect this is all partially so you’ll but the “time crystals” currency, which you can pay real money for (although you do earn a small amount of them through gameplay) which you can use to buy unlockables from the game’s internal store, but the selections available are, again, not set, changing every day, so you can’t just target the one thing you want.

Underneath all this, it is a fun game. The core fighting mechanics are solid – better than X in some aspects, worse in others – and they’ve included an admirable level of variety for that (and I suppose endless towers is better than the PS2 era’s extras of Motor Kombat and Kombat Khess). It’s just tiring how much of it is locked away behind busy work.

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Dave, Ben