The Video Games Thread

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What are you playing? Talk video games here.

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On a more important note: Namco have announced that they’re doing a dual remaster of Game Center CX: Arino’s Challenge 1 and 2 for the Switch. The chance of an English localisation are, I guess, pretty much nil, but we can always hope.

Hope damn it!

Martin Smith wrote:

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.

It kind of baffles me how they’ve managed to take such accessible one-on-one beat-em-ups like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter and turn them into such faffy and complicated fighters in their modern incarnations.

I get that these games want to offer additional value but I think a lot of the detail and complex systems really bog them down and stop them from being fun in the same way.

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Martin Smith

Talking of beat’em ups, Turtles’ Dimensional Shellshock DLC has dropped and adds new playable characters, including Usagi Yojimbo!

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Martin Smith

Dave wrote:

Martin Smith wrote:

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.

It kind of baffles me how they’ve managed to take such accessible one-on-one beat-em-ups like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter and turn them into such faffy and complicated fighters in their modern incarnations.

I get that these games want to offer additional value but I think a lot of the detail and complex systems really bog them down and stop them from being fun in the same way.

Yeah, it’s weird (though I can definitely see the reasoning: money from people just giving up and buying the time crystals to unlock stuff).

I mean, MK’s had grindy collectable systems for years. Deadly Alliance was the first to do a Krypt and that had 626 koffins to open. It took me literally years, because they had six different currencies of koin and you earned them fairly randomly through just repeatedly doing the single player arcade mode. That had all the secondary costumes and even a few arenas in it, but it was mostly behind the scenes fluff (from the entire history of the series up to then, which gave it a real celebratory feel) and all in fixed positions, so you could easily use a guide to target what you wanted (although I somehow missed one of the arenas and didn’t get it until one of my return visits to the game years later).

But you look back at MK9 and that was relatively uncomplicated. You earned one type of koin for playing, you bought stuff in the Krypt for reasonable prices, most of which was behind the scenes stuff and an alternate costume for everyone. Two games later and it’s almost as complicated as that quiz show Joey auditioned to host on Friends. And every unlockable has a rarity rating too, which just makes it feel a bit more scummy really, because it’s all just digital stuff already in the game. Like, why is Johnny Cage’s red Teen Wolf style skin more rare than his green Teen Wolf style skin? I assume just so they can charge more time crystals for it if people want to buy it directly, but it’s a nonsense.

Ah, ok – that makes sense if you can just buy it all with real money too.

This stuff has really ruined some elements of videogames for me.

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Ben

[Martin Smith]

Yeah, same.

I’ve been avoiding seeing too much about MK1 (out next week) but just stumbled upon the fact that is has Tanya,Li Mei! Nitara! (Played by Megan Fox?!) and Ashrah!! Some solid PS2 era representation!

I’ll still be holding out for the inevitable GOTY-esque edition though, obvs.

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

MK1 has one massive new enemy that may catch you off guard – distractingly good looking backgrounds for the fight stages.

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Martin Smith

There’s one in 11 that keeps catching my attention in fights – the arcade arena, where there’s a set of projection screens set up cycling through MK1-3 backgrounds along with some arcade machines and standees surrounding them. Shame there’s not a stage fatality for it where you can knock the opponent into the old game or something.

Sega is pioneering a new approach to game preservation – package old games into Yakuza / Like A Dragon games:

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/after-25-years-sega-is-bringing-daytona-usa-2-to-consoles-for-the-first-time/

Finished Everspace 2.

The final mission was far better than the penultimate one, far less cheap but did, at times, suffer from the same, poor visual signposting that runs through the game.  The final boss also was a bit blighted by that, along with gameplay gimmicks – a failing shared with the preceding bosses.

The story I really liked – the final resolution was both smart and satisfying. Would I be interested in an expansion? I’d really need to know its missions in advance.

The volatile cargo and base defence were terrible to play. Yet those would also be fixable – tie both the volatility and base health to the difficulty setting. The higher it is, the more volatile the cargo, the greater the missile speed, number and impact. Its failure to do that here is a common failing in indie space games, with space races being particularly harsh gameplay walls.

The core aspect of the game – upgrading your ship, exploring, doing jobs, getting paid, shooting ships – a lot of ships – is superb.  The design for each zone area is often excellent – its only failing is it can be hard to navigate, especially in underground tunnels.

It is a good but flawed game.  Yet even with that being its nature I kept wanting to play it, to progress, get to new systems so it has to have done a few things right.  And those lay in its visuals, flying, combat, exploration – which is often rewarded – and an excellent soundtrack. So long as you can live with a good few bad main gameplay missions, there’s a lot to enjoy outside of them.

After a long time away, I returned to Forza Horizon 5.

The aim was to boot up the Hot Wheels, but after the inevitable how-does-this-play-again bit, turns out I hadn’t fully completed the intro section.  Did a race and that was it – both expansions suddenly became available.

It is generally true that no game series does introduction sections like this one.  Across games 1-4 and here, each was amazing. So, what happens when they’ve gotten the go-ahead for the insanity of Hot Wheels?

Easy answer – possibly their best and most stunning intro yet, as it takes you through the ice, volcano and forest areas.  Each looks amazing.  They are the kind of tracks you would find in the future racers of WipeOut, F-Zero and RedOut, but with a level of budget and resources those games never had.

Just from a short span, two things are very clear: One, I had forgotten how good this game is. Two, I am going to have a good time with Hot Wheels.

Where it gets strange is the earliest achievements in the expansion have a percentage way below 10%. Am I really reading it right? Over 90% of FH5 players are ignoring this? That feels very off.

Booted up Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge and played a couple of levels as Usagi Yojimbo. It was so good.

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Dave, Martin Smith

Nintendo’s just announced a Direct for tomorrow afternoon. The rumour mill has it that there’ll be a new Donkey Kong game (possibly a Mario vs DK) and a new F-Zero (possibly a battle royale style F-Zero 99). And supposedly the next Nintendo console has been shown behind closed doors at GamesCon and there’s a chance that might be announced (though I wouldn’t bet on it with the Christmas period coming up).

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Ben

My takeaways from the Direct:

The new 2D Prince of Persia looks fun. A bit MetroidVania (although I think more linear in level design) with some cool mythological beast monster bosses.

The Princess Peach game looks pretty fun. I really like the stage show presentation aspect and the costumes are cool (and are total Tumblr bait).

Funky Kong, Diddy Kong and Pauline are great additions to Mario Kart 8. To the point that I’m surprised Diddy and Pauline weren’t added before now.

The Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered set is tempting in theory but there were several moments in that trailer where I couldn’t tell whether they were showing the original graphics or the remastered ones. The new background textures looks really low-res.

F-Zero 99 looks cool. Stupidly, I hadn’t considered that it’d just be built from the SNES game, but still, should be a lot of fun.

Another Code Recollection has my attention just for the pun in the name. Not a series I ever really paid much mind back on the DS and Wii, but it looks interesting.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes looks exactly my kind of bullshit.

Remastering Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door is a smart move. It’s a popular and oddly rare game, with original copies going for well over £100. I have one and just the other day I was wondering whether I could actually justify keeping it – given I’ve played through it twice and am unlikely to do so again for years – in the face of its value. This pretty much nukes that concern, which is great.

It did strike me though that the Switch has, for seven years now, been a console of mostly remasters and remakes. Early on that was justified by salvaging the WiiU catalogue and bolstering new releases with games people might have missed. Now we’re in the twilight of the console and it feels like they’re holding back big new games for its successor, so we’re getting remasters. But it didn’t feel like there was much of a gap between those two. I love the Switch, but it’s hard to think of many entirely new big games it’s had (especially if you discount Breath of the Wild as a WiiU port).

Martin,

The Eiyuden Chronicles prelude / prequel Rising is a fun action RPG and will link to the one out next year.

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Martin Smith

Starfield

Opening section – started well, looked a lot better than expected, which can happen with new games as YT compression can’t accurately show the graphics. The mining bit, firefight with the pirates was OK but I was expecting a weapon change tutorial which never showed up.

This set things up for the exasperating space section, with both flight and combat being fiddly, frustrating affairs. Not helped by vague, incomplete “tutorials”. Eventually worked out how to get to the pirate base, cue a load of not great firefights, a heal cue when it hasn’t bothered to tell me where my health bar is. Topped off with a boss fight, where the standard enemies are level 2, the boss level 6 – have never liked this trick. Then, in the middle of a combat situation, I am prompted to fast travel to my ship. Why would I do that now? It was so weird.

After another crappy experience of transferring power from engines to hyperdrive, then selecting, got to New Atlantis. Here the strangeness of the game not doing maps really came to the fore. And what idiot went with the hold / press double on LB for flashlight / scanner?

After all this, it did start to get better. Did an activity that took me across the city, which also saw me nab two more quests from overheard conversations. It was here it started to recover a bit. Started to see how the scanner worked, got around better, get a sense of how it might work.

For all the talk of the loading screens, so far those have been pretty quick. Like the graphics and audio too. The one, big weakness is the lack of accessibility features. They are pretty minimal.

Minor problems:
– Find it difficult to assess gear and see which is better.
– The heal options being maths-based bollocks like heal x% over 10 seconds don’t appeal.But the level I’m playing on, it shouldn’t matter much.
– Lockpicking? Ugh, an abomination. Space that goddamn thing and let me blow a safe up!

But, despite this pretty bad opening section, there’s a load of stuff here that I can see myself enjoying, if I can but get to them.

The weirdest part of Starfield is it’s clearly a Betheseda game but, certain systems that they cracked very well years ago, aren’t here and they would help this game a lot. Alternatively, maybe some of those are here but I haven’t reached them.

The next sections should be a bit better as I’ve worked out how to favourite weapons, got a jetpack, better gear and some perks.

That was a good State of Play.

Started off weird with Baby Steps, what the hell was that? But recovered quick.

Resi 4 DLC, Foamstars – which could take off, some VR games then the big surprise:

Tales of Arise DLC – had no idea this was being done, out in November.

One expected big game was Spider-Man 2 and it did not disappoint. It looks amazingly good, but it turned up in the middle of the show, whatever could top it?

Cue Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth! Which looked even more absurdly ambitous than the last absurdly ambitious trailer they dropped. Looks to be weaving in stuff from Crisis Core. Release date set as 29 February 2024.

Other stuff included Honkai Star Rail which I will give it a go, as it’s a turn-based one.

Ben wrote:

One expected big game was Spider-Man 2 and it did not disappoint. It looks amazingly good,

Yeah, it looks great. Day one purchase for me, not that it was ever really in doubt.

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Ben

All right, Starfield day two – steps forward while, with every step, it punches itself in the nuts with immense gusto.

Did a set of activity quests of very varying nature in New Atlantis. The navigation arrows only showing when the scanner is used is an irritating feature. Compounded by them always being white, having a fade in and back cycle and they vanish after 10 seconds. Oh and no map, so no alternative. A quest tracking down power boxes really emphasised how this “navigation” doesn’t work. It’s an easy fix – keep the arrows constantly visible. I did, however, pull off a digipick.

Started Yuri’s quests, those are OK. The nabbing booze ingredients from secure storage was not for two reasons. One, the persuasion “system” is a logic-free, random mess. Two, Elim, who you have to persuade is a piece of crap. The solution for any persuasion ask is to quicksave before it.

Progressed the tree quest to the point it required me to go to Cayenne. On the first jump it was select blue spot in space, click X. Instead it was set course in starmap with X, then hit X again. Kind of odd, but pulled off three jumps. Really don’t like the having to manually re-route power for the hyperdrive, doesn’t do anything for me. Picked up a new quest along the way by chatting with a hauler, which was clever.

Got to Akila City and found a new quest about a bank job gone wrong. Aside from a persuasion level that set me up to fail – 7 points from 3 turns, seriously? It was an OK quest. It did convince me that this game is not a FPS.

The shooting isn’t akin to FPS, its closer to games like Cyberpunk 2077. There is no health regen. Ammo is very restricted, which makes no sense to me. Biggest difference is a lack of auto aim / snap to target assist which I am really missing. Not sure what to make of the level numbers on enemies as, in this quest, they went from 2 to 10 to 5 and back to 2. The enemies were oddly unresponsive to getting shot too. I shot one in the leg and he ran off as if it hadn’t happened.

At the end, got an offer to join the rangers. Also nabbed a couple of other quests too for Cayenne.

One thing that did help in that quest was nabbing a better gun. For sheer accuracy, a good pistol is hard to beat. The rifles used so far? They really are spray ‘n’ pray.

There’s a lot I like about the game – design aesthetic, that there’s nothing quite like what it offers, OK characters – but it really gets in its own way to an incredible degree. I’m at 5 hours so I’m some way away from the tipping point where it gets good.

The strangest thing about Starfield is Bethesda had various systems worked out in both Elder Scrolls and Fallout. They worked well, they were not at all broken – but they’re not in Starfield while others are. It’s odd.

Despite some immense irritation at times, I did have enough successes to encourage me to keep at this. Also got some weapon mods unlocked.

You know I really expected it to be the rhythm based combat that’d kill Hi-Fi Rush. But, as it turns out, I’m not too bad at that.

So if the combat doesn’t kill it, what might? Platforming and traversal “challenges” like the jump pads. Those are terrible – did one by pure luck, I couldn’t tell you what I did differently on the successful run compared to the previous ones. A millisecond off? Probably, but too fast for me to perceive. Some of the jumping sections suffer from weird timing, along with instant death crusher avoiding sections but there’s a lacking indicator of the crusher impact area.

Which is a shame as, for the combat, there are various assists. These really help and take the edge off the camera not always being able to keep up with the action.

In audio-visual terms, it’s brilliant. An excellent graphic style that gives a lot of personality to the characters and enemies. The soundtrack is perfect and is especially good in combat.

The two boss fights so far were not good. For the first, if a boss fight is to be held in a circular area in mid-air, put a barrier around the edge. I ran off the edge far too often. Also, pulling the camera out to have a huge boss wrecks space perception and makes it harder to tell if any attacks are landing.  For the second there were too many and too long phases of invincibility. Along with forever running away. As a result, didn’t care for either fight.

As a result, I don’t know how far I’ll get before I hit a wall I can’t get past, nearly hit that a couple of times in stage 2.

Starfield day three and this run is where it clicked into place. The plan was to do an hour or two, certainly not double that. So what happened?

I did the next main story quest, which was both an intricate and enjoyable undertaking. It had a significant amount of combat which started off tricky, but got better once I looted ammo and better weaponry. Found a really good Grendal plus better armour.

Turns out Sarah was a decent companion to have, reasonably smart – albeit not smart enough to not walk across my line of fire – and makes for a good human shield.  Do find its indicating of enemies a bit limited, but the limited health impact showed the prior combat run to be scripted.  Once I noticed I could take more damage it became easier and more fun. That the various corpses of slain enemies didn’t disappear was impressive.

After an extensive, multi-location firefight, a ship fight followed.  That then led to me boarding it, shooting the remaining mercs and finishing the mission. It had taken me to Mars, Venus and Neptune, mixed up gun and combat, added in boarding, all in a very assured package.

As a demonstration of what the game is supposed to be, it was an excellent showcase.  After it I did a load of side activities, helping some kids and a load if miners on Mars. One of those took me to the Volti nebula and the Neon city, which is the cyberpunk location.

This time around I was mostly able to find my way around more easily.  The one duff note was locating a medical bay to deal with an affliction. Oh and the “persuasion” system.  But they featured little in this near four hour run.  Think I’m getting nearer to that tipping point.

And I’m at the point with Starfield where, when a disc copy hits the right price point, I will buy it.

Why? Well, today’s run was to be about heading on with the next story quest, then I decide to join the Freestar Rangers, that leads to a couple more quests, which also saw a big of ship combat, then it heads to Neon.

Now I have other stuff to do there but I want to clean up on Akiva.  Nice idea, except as I’m clearing quests, I’m getting new ones! Did some exploration and found some zero-G sections, not a fan.  And all the quests are fun and some are chained – finish one, get another that is the result of the one you just finished.

There’s still the ship builder and outpost systems I have got nowhere near.  There is the random exploratory stuff I’ve barely started. And I know, after 13 hours, I’ll enjoy it all so it’s worth the purchase. The difficulty feels right too.

Nominally, I’m still playing Mortal Kombat 11, even though I’ve not booted it up in about a week and was just running AI battles before that. The absolute grind of it has worn away much of my interest. So I thought I’d get over and just do the DLC story mode, Aftermath, (which I had been saving til I’d done a chunk of the original game’s content, like arcade towers etc).

And that’s fun! Right out the gate, it retcons the end of the original story, which is a bit weird, but it’s basically Back to the Future 2ing it, bringing in a few characters that weren’t in the main game and having them, through time travel, dick around in the margins of it. One of these is Shang Tsung, who is played by Cary Tagawa (the actor who played him in the first Mortal Kombat movie. He also played the title role in Disney Channel Original Movie Johnny Tsunami, which you should definitely check out if you want to see how extensive his range is) and he is clearly having a ball. So that’s pretty fun. I don’t know if finishing that will have me particularly motivated to bother with any more of the rest of the game (I would at least like to do more with the non-story DLC characters like Spawn and Robocop, who I’ve barely encountered so far in playing Towers).

[Martin Smith]

I finished the DLC story of MK11 this evening and it’s fine. About on par with the main one, really. Bit of a dick move that the chapter select screen shows six chapters but it turns out to actually only have five chapters with the sixth just being the credits (which are not counted as a separate chapter in the main story).

Anyway, now I don’t need to avoid spoilers, I decided to check out the official site of Mortal Kombat 1 and look at the roster. It’s a nice mix really. Some stalwarts and some lesser loved characters in there (Ashrah, Havik, Reiko, Tanya, Nitara) while some heavily used characters have been omitted (Sonya, Jax, Kano). And of course some characters are completely different visually to their last appearances (Tanya is now a dark-skinned black woman rather than vaguely Asian).

Reading through the bios though, I was surprised by how extensive a reboot it is. I was expecting something on par with MK9 and 10: familiar faces in rejigged situations. But this is a total reworking of the entire concept in many ways.

For instance, Edenia is no longer a thing. Sindel is Empress of Outworld, Mileena and Kitana both her natural children and Shao Kahn just a general. Tarkatans are no longer a race in and of themselves but people who have contracted a disease. Sub Zero and Scorpion are now both in the Lin Kuei (rather than Shirai Ryu for Scorpion) and also brothers(!). Havik is not a denizen of Chaosrealm but a dissident resident of Seido, the Order realm (which was the entire schtick of Darrius back when those concepts were introduced). It all feels like retooling that would be done for a property being adapted into a different medium or to a different country, rather than as a part of a continuing series. I’m not saying it’s bad – some of those simplifications are solid – but it’s bold. I’ll be curious to play it… when I eventually get a PS5 and they do the inevitable mostly complete version. (I don’t think I’ll bother with the Switch version, which looks quite ropey).

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Martin Smith. Reason: Fixed broken spoiler tags. Sorry

The Switch, to no one’s surprise, can’t really run MK1.

Yeah, it’s weird it’s on there but seemingly not PS4 and Xbone.

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Ben

Couple of faster than expected GamePass plays:

Solar Ash

I wanted to like this more but it fell apart quick on two grounds. First, it’s main mechanic didn’t feel good, then it added jumping, which I rarely do well with on 3D. Second, more importantly, its communication of what I am to do was severely lacking. It’s a flaw that crops up in a good few indie games, the visual indicators aren’t as good as the designers clearly think they are.

High on Life

Whether this lives or dies for you depends in your tolerance for its brand of humour. I lasted, I think, five minutes before I concluded I could not play this crap. It starts with a retro homage Doom-style shooter, with you playing Buck Thunder, who’s getting divorced. Cue a tutorial from Buck’s divorce lawyer, who never shuts up. Then you get killed, the game exits where you meet your cocaine-snorting big sister…. And I went: Nope, I cannot play this.

Back to Starfield and I have not progressed the story, instead doing missions, exploring planets and the starting systems, surveying, ship upgrading, skills upgrading.

You can really combine skills well to get better effects, like boosting both your carry ability and commerce. You can get more stuff and sell it for me. Up the ballistics skill and shots do more damage, which reduces the ammo usage and, with commerce, restock is cheaper. In the early game it does feel like missions exist to drain your resources – and they do – it only changes gradually as your skills improve.  You can be strategic with that too, got level up, skill point to use, but was close to accessing a master rank, so got that then spent the point.

While the game is better described as being more mission-directed, it’s not fair to say there is no exploration.  There is. Even on missions, you can explore the planetary location, you can explore the system. And there are benefits to doing that, you can get a nice chunk of XP.

Bought my first place and this is weird. Go there and it has nothing in it! First inclination is to kill the lying realtor, then looked up the answer online, because the game is not saying anything, and there is this generic wall panel, not drawing attention to itself.  This is the build panel for the apartment! So crafted up a bed, couch, pair of chairs and a coffee table.

The most crazy aspect to this was doing a bounty mission. Target is holed up in an abandoned mine. I head in and spot a computer, boot it up and it talks about robot IFF settings. Do I want to change them so the robots protect me? I say yes, exit the system. Suddenly the game says mission complete! As by flicking the IFF setting the robots near the bounty target killed them!

I had no idea that I could do this. It really offers some doors for a more stealth type run. And talking of stuff I didn’t know I could do, there ate demolishable walls.

Finally, for what is throwaway, disposable content, the various missions is this game’s radiant quests, they are absurdly intricate locations. It is impressive that the game is doing what it is doing.

Has anyone ever used Game’s disc repair service? I got a PS1 game off eBay that turned up heavily scratched. It loads up to the menu ok but I did a rip and compared the hash to an online database and it didn’t match, suggesting there’s damage hindering reading deeper in. So I thought I might give this service a go, but I had no idea Game even did it (if they even still do – it’s on their website but could be out of date) nor if it’s reliable.

My wife used it fairly recently (last 12 months or so) to get a Wii game disc repaired for our eldest. The susc wasnt badly damaged. A couple minor scratches but it wouldnt load beyond the title menu. I’m not 100% sure what the repair process entails. I think they have a machine that buffs the disc / removes a thin layer of plastic from it. Whatever they did it worked.

Long story short: it’s worth going into the store and asking.

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Martin Smith

Cheers Bruce! Think I’ll get a few scratched discs together and give it a go.

It is on:

https://x.com/GameSpot/status/1706756868327030931?s=20

“The vote to authorize a potential strike for SAG-AFTRA video game performers passed overwhelmingly.⁠”

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Todd

Ben wrote:

It is on:

https://x.com/GameSpot/status/1706756868327030931?s=20

“The vote to authorize a potential strike for SAG-AFTRA video game performers passed overwhelmingly.⁠”

It’s on like Donkey Kong!!! 😜

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Ben

I’ve been subscribed to the development newsletter of this new Laura Bow game for a couple of years now (mainly so I didn’t completely forget about it, which given I’m always surprised by the monthly email, is entirely likely to have happened). I was a bit dubious of it early on, there was a lot of scuttlebutt that it was just going to be a hidden object game, but it’s a proper adventure and the level of facial animation and voice acting they’re achieved and are now showing off it really impressive for an indie production.

I don’t think they technically have the full license yet (they keep going on about the ABK MS buyout needing to go through before it can be finalised though I fear they might not like the end result of that, as MS aren’t necessarily going to be as likely to lend out the license as Actiblizzard are) so hopefully this doesn’t all fall apart at the last minute. And it could have terrible puzzles and writing, of course. But it’s looking pretty good at the moment.

We’ve been playing Goat Simulator 3 over the weekend. It’s dumb but tons of fun. It’s basically a kid-friendly version of the good parts of GTA (where you ignore the missions and just fuck around hijacking vehicles and causing carnage) except you play as a goat. Very silly, very goofy, and also slyly pokes fun at some videogame conventions.

It might not have much longevity but it’s a blast to jump on and play for short sessions with the kids. (It has split-screen two-player, which I appreciated as so many games forget that today in favour of online multiplayer.)

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Ben

Our Sophie loves the original Goat Simulator. It’s a janky broken assed piece of crap but the fact that stuff explodes and people ragdoll like crazy means it has provided many hours of free babysitting.

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Dave, Ben

Bruce wrote:

Our Sophie loves the original Goat Simulator. It’s a janky broken assed piece of crap

Ha, we did actually pick up the first one initially as it’s so cheap on the PS Store, but found it a bit too buggy and broken.

Well, they done it now:

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/final-fantasy-14s-main-quest-and-expansions-can-now-be-played-entirely-solo/

At some point I will be booting up FF XIV.

Continuing to find Starfield fun, as I take it slow. Did a rather smart couple of quests today:

• One saw me getting Sam’s relationship with Cora’s mother, Lillian, to an improved state. This involved locating her then saving her arse in a Syndicate camp, then blowing up a dodgy freighter, followed by an epic firefight. Steering the final conversation to a good outcome was satisfying too.
• The other saw settlers under attack from Spacers. Repaired some satellites, blowing up several Spacer ships in the process. Then convinced the settlers to band together, then hit the main base of the Spacers. First taking out their ships guarding the station and their reinforcements, then boarding the station to kill off the ones that were left. Good times.

Feeling curious, as it recently both got a new patch and expanded its free trial, so booted up Final Fantasy XIV.

Across the first two hours it throws in a lot of tutorials, an entire city to explore, new game systens but it does all start to combibe neatly. This is particularly so as you do the various intro quests.

What I really was not expecting was for there to be such a strong Xenoblade Chronicles influence. Enemy display in the field, response types, positional attacks – it’s all here.  Now this is both very, very good and very, very bad. Good because FF taking inspiration from XC is no bad thing, but it is also bad as it makes for a fiendishly engaging gameplay loop.  Due to that I will put this on the back burner, finish up with Starfield and Elder Scrolls Online, then start it in earnest.

The soundtrack lives up to its reputation too. This is a smart, well put together game that looks, sounds and plays well, while moving FF forward. It also explains why, in part, FF XV and FF XVI and the FF VII R quintet are the way they are.

My son just finished Spider-Man Remastered (he’s well pleased as it’s the first proper game like that he’s ever really finished). I’d forgotten how good the story is – it gets pretty heavy in places, especially towards the end, but I think it genuinely rivals (and even outdoes some of) the movie versions in terms of how well it gets the character and brings it all to life.

It’s made me anticipate the sequel all the more. I think there’s some great meat there for a Venom story that’s a bit different – I’d forgotten all the stuff about Harry’s illness towards the end, so it was nice to have a refresher on that.

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Ben

As a good dad, you’ve steered him towards Miles Morales right? Or does he have the DLC to do?

Have to admit to being rather envious that he gets to play this trilogy of superhero excellence for the first time.

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Dave

Yeah he’s decided to play Miles next and then maybe come back for the DLC later.

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Ben

The DLC is a really good bridge to the Miles game but the difficulty spike in chapter 2 is pretty nasty.

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Dave

Martin Smith wrote:

Cheers Bruce! Think I’ll get a few scratched discs together and give it a go.

I forgot to update about this. I went to the branch of Game in Cav House (House of Fraser) in Cheltenham. I asked about the disc repair service and the guy there said “we have the machine but we don’t have the liquid and don’t get in it,” very much in a tone of “I can’t be bothered with this”. I asked which other branches locally might do it and he just shrugged and said “maybe London or Cardiff” and then told me that CEX do it (which they do not).

I’ve just been asking Game’s online help which stores offer it (I emailed them last week with no response, trying Twitter now) and they’re saying they don’t know because it’s an in-store service. They’re telling me I would need to go to each store in person and ask.

Forza Motorsport

For those who love car games, this’ll probably be great but it really is a niche audience product.

It starts off terribly. Arguably Gran Turismo 7 is as bad or worse, as each start with videos that lovingly talk about cars.  Then it follows up with driver choice. I don’t care about this, I want to drive cars fast – get out of the way of me doing that.

The big idea of this game is realistic handling and clean racing.  Did anyone tell the AI about the latter? Because it is so dirty even Dick Dastardly would be cussing a blue streak. And that’s the big problem I have – the game demands I race clean, while setting me up for failure against opponents who don’t.

A less major but still a flaw is drawing my attention to the top right corner when I need to focus on the track. This splitting of view doesn’t work for me at all.

Graphically? It is superb. The presentation can’t be argued with, it looks incredibly good.

Which only increases scrutiny of the gameplay and I bounced off it hard.

Honkai Star Rail

Fresh from cataclysmically wrecking their first game, Genshin Impact, HoYoverse is back to prove it was no fluke. This starts off OK then shows itself to be cynically hollow before crawling up its own arse to self-combust.

Initially, it seems all right, albeit needlessly complicated. Having health and break bars for the enemies seems OK, but you quickly find that enemies recover so fast from break that it is pointless to do so. You also never have a good sense of your abilities compared to the enemies. Oh and you do not have a healer character in this Prologue section.

The game also.plays with a stacked deck on its elemental attack system, setting you against enemies your starting party does not have.  Sounds cheap? It is.

Then you get to this huge boss fight, take out its defences, hit the core – take it out too.  Then…. the boss fully regenerates! And the party is too weak to do the entire thing again. It starts to feel like a battle you are supposed to lose, which JRPGs are infamous for, but nope, game over.

Which applies to the game itself, as it got itself deleted.  If it is doing this level of bullcrap now, what will it pull later? Stuff I have no desire to experience.

But it’s free-to-play? No, it is not. You will pay for playing this game in so many ways – time, frustration, money, definitely money because this is also a gacha game.

Hollow, worthless rubbish.

Sony’s PS5 Access controller is out in December.

https://direct.playstation.com/en-gb/buy-accessories/access-controller?emcid=pa-co-422390&gad=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw-KipBhBtEiwAWjgwrGtKcrF3H0DNqKWVbfYCNExHO9TrJS-rKNCEwzqlYgW0mCCVsHSJPBoCGPwQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Is it in competition with XB’ accessible controller? Well, it can’t really be as both are dedicated, system-specific accessories.  If you did want to compare them? As usual, I’m deferring to Steve Saylor’s take which is they exist to do different things.

I had thought I wasn’t the target audience but turns out I may be. As one of the functions is assigning double button presses to a single button on the access controller, which can be used in combination with a dualsense.  I tend to find the double combinations – L3-R3, square-triangle, triangle-circle difficult to pull off so instead tend to go without them, or pulling them off patchily.  What if I don’t have to do that? I could hit a single button elsewhere? That could really change things.

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Dave

Reviews are out for Spider-Man 2 and seem overwhelmingly positive. Looking forward to Friday!

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Ben

I have to resist the temptation to watch the reviews.

I haven’t watched any videos, just read a few spoiler-light reviews. Sounds like we’re in for a fun time.

Parts of the Internet are on fire over it being short.

I’m relaxed about that as I still consider Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart to be one of the best £63 I’ve spent because the experience was that good.  It’s a short game yes, but the quality of it is amazing.

Yeah, longer doesn’t necessarily mean better for me. (Stop giggling at the back.)

I don’t have that much time for gaming so a really long campaign is actually off-putting for me. Something like the first Spidey or even the shorter Miles Morales is perfect.

Yes, if a game is great then I’ll put more hours in – I’ve done it with the Last of Us and God Of War games (I think I got to about 46 hours clocked on Ragnarok before I felt like I was ready to stop) but I like the balance of a medium-length game with optional sidequests to explore if you’re enjoying the experience, which it sounds like is the case with Spider-Man 2.

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Ben

But Dave, don’t you want the nineteen inches of Venom?

Fnar, fnar….

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Dave

Had a quick first hour on Sonic Superstars, and it’s…alright. The physics are slightly off (it still baffles me how regularly they mess this up, especially after Mania showed how it’s done), which is a bit annoying, and the art style is taking some getting used to as a weird halfway house between 2D and 3D, but it’s still an okay ‘classic’ style Sonic game with some fun gimmicks.

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Ben

My copy of Spider-Man 2 has despatched!

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Todd, Dave

Finished up Blackwood in Elder Scrolls Online.

One major surprise was getting a couple of companions, one of whom I can have active at a time. It works far better than any previous version as the companion is a lot smarter.

Onto the Deadlands….

First impressions of Spider-Man 2: it’s epic.

The opening setpiece reminds me of God Of War 3 in terms of making a statement about how fun and action-packed a game is going to be. And the whole city and character models look great, a subtle but noticeable step up from the other games.

I’m going to enjoy this.

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Martin Smith, Ben

Bollocks, my copy has not yet arrived.

Ah that’s disappointing. Hope it turns up soon. I guess there were probably an awful lot of copies going out this week.

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Ben

Yep. Hit sent it off Wed’s too.

Will just have to manage with Elder Scrolls Online, Starfield, Diablo 4 trial  Final Fantasy XIV….

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Dave

Diablo IV

After a terrible start, this got good. That start? First, I don’t think they wanted this trial to be easily found. I used a guide to get to it. Then it requires logging into their Battlenet, then you link the account, then you’re in a queue, then it boots up.

And the initial opening? The cutscene was excellent, only ruined at the end by EE deciding to ring me about a phone promotion I have no interest in. The first control bit isn’t all that, it gets better when you do the first dungeon, which is where the visual design gets better.

The combat is good but is marred by enemy challenge being little more than relying on your dodge being blocked, movement being blocked and it will literally warp enemies in. That is all very cheap and it certainly lessened a boss fight as the enemy was swarming and I couldn’t dodge fast enough.

Talking of dodge, why is it on the B button when the controls don’t use the second stick at all? The answer is likely tradition but screw that. Have it as an option but not the control option.  Being able to use the stick to dodge, with no cooldown would make it far better.

For dealing with standard and elite enemies, it is generally very fun and there is a lot of stuff to do here. I’ve found three areas across the 3-4 hours played, they have nearly 10 dungeons between them, and sidequests.

I’m not too bothered by it but neither am I won over to its level scaling. The loot and inventory space are very good, it takes time to fill it up, unlike say Diablo II.

Simple and repetitive? Yes but that’s also part of the appeal. It’s a game that can be dipped in and put of.  The skills system is pretty good too, have a sorcerer, specialising in lightning and the basic attack, once powered up a bit, is electric chaos.

I can see myself picking this up when the price is right – ie not £60-70 – but that might be a little time away. That’s OK as, in 2023, there is no shortage of games to play.

Dave wrote:

First impressions of Spider-Man 2: it’s epic.

The opening setpiece reminds me of God Of War 3 in terms of making a statement about how fun and action-packed a game is going to be. And the whole city and character models look great, a subtle but noticeable step up from the other games.

I’m going to enjoy this.

…and I will have to wait for it to be on Steam.

It’s Ok. I am too far behind on all the games anyway. 🤣

Dave wrote:

First impressions of Spider-Man 2: it’s epic.

The opening setpiece reminds me of God Of War 3 in terms of making a statement about how fun and action-packed a game is going to be. And the whole city and character models look great, a subtle but noticeable step up from the other games.

I’m going to enjoy this.

…and I will have to wait for it to be on Steam.

It’s Ok. I am too far behind on all the games anyway. 🤣

[Sean Robinson]

Fall Damage in Spider-Man 2 is BRUTAL

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by Sean Robinson.

Good news – my copy has arrived!

The bad news – at work for the next few hours.

Guinness rules apply.

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Dave

Ben wrote:

Guinness rules apply.

And Spidey’s dressed appropriately.

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Ben

Started on Spidey 2. It’s a good opening, but not as great as it should been due to some messing around. There’s also some surprising odd errors and lack of polish, which stands out because this a very polished game. And some, for me, major accessibility blindspots, which stand put because it is generally very good on that area.

I’m not sure an intro boss fight really works as an intro.  Especially when the initial attacks take off 20% of health, on the easiest setting. It gets better after that, then kills me by dropping a floor on me in what was supposed to be a ‘how to heal’ bit.

It recovered again and the rest of it was OK. Definitely feels like Insomniac had an eye on Final Fantasy XVI, as it is a very extended fight. Overall I liked it despite those momentary flaws and I could see myself replaying the fight.

Where the odd imperfections come in is in assuming I know the drone controls, I don’t, and it keeps quiet about them.  When I am to get a car out of sand, no prompt displays for several seconds then L1-R1 came up.

The one big accessibility flaw in the game is the swipe up / left on the touchpad. I find it difficult to do this without activating the touchpad and bringing up the map / other options.  Maybe it was the same in the earlier games and I’ve forgotten.

Graphically it is amazing. Switching between webswing and weddings was very fun, as was watersurfing with them. It is rather difficult remembering the sheer array of button combinations it throws at you in this opening section.

One of the biggest demonstrations of what SSD tech means in gaming is also one of the most subtle. When you switch from Peter to Miles, it is near instant, at most a couple of seconds. There is no way the PS4 could do this.  And it’s so smooth you overlook the magic of it.

Story is as good as ever, but the timing of phone calls in the middle of fights is a pain.  I suspect the game will improve as it goes on.

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Dave

I think there have been a couple of improvements on the controls front for this sequel – for example, the elimination of the gadget wheel in favour of the two L1/R1+face button inputs for gadgets/special moves is definitely a plus.

However, there have also been some new wrinkles introduced in the mechanics. The red warnings for a final dodge and an unblockable parry being virtually identical-looking is really unhelpful and has already led to errors in fights for me. I can’t believe they didn’t just make parries a different colour.

Overall though I’m still having a great time with it. As well as looking fantastic (with unbelievable detail in places, particularly inside buildings when looking in from the outside) and being lots of fun to play (as in the first game, just swinging/gliding around the city is great, let alone all the many and varied sidequests), they’re nailing the story too – better than most of the recent Spidey comics and movies. I’ve played several hours over the weekend and am probably just starting the second act of the story now, and they clearly just get what works for these characters and their world.

It’s just a real thrill to play. A great central story, and even the sidequest stuff is fun and engaging.

I hope it lasts me a long time.

Ben wrote:

One of the biggest demonstrations of what SSD tech means in gaming is also one of the most subtle. When you switch from Peter to Miles, it is near instant, at most a couple of seconds. There is no way the PS4 could do this.  And it’s so smooth you overlook the magic of it.

There is one sequence in a fairly early story mission that takes particular advantage of this kind of quick location switching, and almost seems designed to show it off. It’s pretty impressive.

I think the delay in receipt worked to my benefit, as it allowed me to play the time-limited Diablo IV trial then start on Spidey 2.

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Dave

There is an alternative to the touchpad swipe shortcuts! Both FNSM app and camera activation can be done by the options menu, which is much easier now I’ve spotted them. One thing I might scale back is the adaptive trigger for webswinging as I’m finding that a bit too severe, suspect it’s adjustable.

Had lots of fun on a brief run tonight. Yanking enemies into the air and beating them up, along with the always reliable L1-R1 duo. The flow was excellent and having the attack set to 4-hit combat really cuts the button mash aspect.

Did the mission with Peter at home, meeting up with Harry, the school run and Miles bit with his mum. These sequences really set the theme of loss in the story running. It also emphasises just how much of a continuation from the preceding two games this is. Sure, you could jump right in but it is so much better if you do not.

Doing the mission with Harry, the bike ride section had some stunning visuals. As did the bit with Peter and MJ. MJ is ugly now? Get your arse to Specsavers bro, you need glasses.

Yeah. This is looking great.

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Dave

Ben wrote:

It also emphasises just how much of a continuation from the preceding two games this is. Sure, you could jump right in but it is so much better if you do not.

Yeah, very much so. I like that they included the “previously on” section as a refresher, it reminded me of one or two points that I’d forgotten.

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Ben

Revisiting Fallout New Vegas for the first time in a decade. I’d forgotten the difficulty level can be quite tough if you wander too far from the main story path initially.

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Ben

You mean it kills your arse? Yes it does.

Back to Spidey 2:

Did better on the side stuff this time, mostly.

The game really does sabotage its combat by having too many enemies come in close, so the game no longer knows which enemy you’re hitting when. So you dodge behind a shield enemy, go to hit them, but hit the other nearby enemy, which allows shield enemy to turn around. It’s frustrating.

Peter main mission:

[This is the one with the stealthed hunter base.  The stealth is pretty good, especially when you get the weblines.  Only thing that felt off was the enemies looking up when they didn’t have reason to. Felt like the game deciding to reveal Peter no matter what.  Taking out the Laserbeak drones was very satisfying.

Map indicators that only appear when you’re in the right area are irritating, how do you know the right area to get to?

The fight with the robodogs was OK.  Had times when it was good then those combat flaws came into play.

Yeah, that mission was very up and down but then the next one turned it around. Before doing that, did a hunter crime and smashed the hell out of three robodogs in a very stylish manner.

Miles mission:

This is the Black Cat one and it starts off quietly. Not a fan of the move-the-beeping-cursor puzzles.

But then it goes up a notch, with the Black Cat doing a break-in on Doctor Strange! Before that you take out a load of snipers on four roofs.  One thing I liked is they are not a hive mind, got spotted by the last two on a roof, took them out, the others left were not alerted.

Then its a chase, but it’s a chase involving portals! At this point the game goes heavy on “this is why it is PS5 only”, as you jump through absurdly fast scene changes.

it then follows that up with a fight where, for most of the time, I was able to stay ln top of it all. Portals help on this and there’s some great team-up finishers.  Then the tanks turn up and you start talking those out, on top of the humans, Laserbeaks and Ravages you’ve already done.  This was a ludicrously extended, very fun fight.

And, after that, decided to call a halt.

Starfield

Went and nabbed a load of powers, including the personal atmosphere. Took out a couple of outlaw gangs. Went after a Crimson Fleet captain, expected it to be a group of ships, nope, just one. Well, a job’s a job – killed his Lv 6 arse fast.

Did a mission to take put some Spacers, destroyed one but for the other I shot put their engines and boarded.  That is damn smart, shot the crew then got told my piloting skill is too low! Dammit, next time it won’t be.  Left, undocked and blew it sky high.

Time to head back to the main / faction quests.

Diablo IV

Last weekend Xbox did a up-to-10-hours free trial of this.  Did 7-8 hours across the weekend and had a fun time. Fun enough that I’ve ordered a copy as Hit was flogging it for just under £45.

This is a huge game, with a lot to do.  Don’t see it as one to blitz but, similar to Starfield, one that is played over a longer span, with other games.

Not really sure the level scaling works, but world and enemy design is excellent.  Having 20 enemies turn up is both an “oh shit” moment that changes as your character slaughters the lot, with slain corpses and innards everywhere.

There’s entire systems I have yet to understand, numerous areas to find, and this is only Act 1 of six.

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Dave

I went to what turned out to be a pretty shitty video game market in Cardiff last weekend. Had hoped to get some cool stuff but instead got half a dozen things, a significant number of which are in much worse condition than I realised (note to self: always check the condition of the disc before buying!)

Anyway, one thing that was ok was a loose copy of New Super Mario Bros for the DS. That’s not really for me though. My brother dumped all the game cases for his DS games on me and it seemed shame to bin all covers and inserts, so I decided to get loose copies of the games and sell them on. NSMB isn’t a game that’s interested me much before but I figured I’d give it a go before selling it on. It deep into the second world.

It’s weird how it just doesn’t feel right as a Mario game. The handling of Mario is just kinda… slippery, I guess? And the whole thing’s just missing that spark properly good Mario games have. Feels like a cash in.

Final Fantasy XIV

Damn, this is a very clever game.  With the expansions on offer until end of 1 Nov – 50% off – I decided to do some more of the massive free trial, aiming to get to the first dungeon and test the expanded Duty Support system.

For all that the start is said not to be much good, compared to what it does later, I’m finding it pretty good. Yes, the quests are basic but the story is pretty good, even at this early stage.

Got to the point where airships are unlocked, visited the other two realms, along with an intro the bad guys, the Garlean Empire. And then hit the first dungeon.

The Duty Support system allows you to do a dungeon with a NPC party, so no need for actual match-making.  It turns out those NPCs are pretty smart too.

Dungeons are linear, multi-part, time-limited undertakings. The time limit isn’t something to worry about, as it is massively generous.

How did it work out? Really good. Good narrative, it all flowed well, party was good.

I’ll likely nab the expansions now I’ve a better sense of how it all works. The one thing I haven’t got the hang of is switching targets, but time enough for that.

Oh and it turns out, as a monthly sub is required for it, I don’t need PS+ to access it.  O’ll probably finish Elder Scrolls Online, then pause PS+ and start on this, when I get to the end of the free trial – which will be some time away as it is huge.

I got to the end of what I presume is the second act of Spider-Man 2 tonight – the part where Peter finally gets rid of the black costume, with some help from his friends. I’m still finding it really enjoyable (with lots of new gameplay mechanics regularly introduced to keep things fresh) and there have been some good boss fights – Lizard is a pretty epic city-wide battle, Kraven is tough and Miles vs Peter is great.

And the story in general is great, they’re doing a take on the black costume storyline that’s better than any of the movie versions so far.

[Ben]

I am way behind on Spidey 2.  But the next Yakuza game, Gaiden, is out 9 November. So I might look to catch up across the next few weeks.

Finished the Deadlands expansion in Elder Scrolls Online. It was mostly very good but marred by the design of the Incarnate bosses.

The first one had a crappy mechanic of Lyranth setting an energy pool in a random location, which was poorly indicated amid the graphical clutter.

The second had a mostly working mechanic with Rynkyz shielding at set moments. But it also did some weird 80% health hit attack that was cheap.

The third and final one was terribly designed. He has an attack that fills the entire area with lava! If there was a safe area I could not see it. It was awful design, success was practically luck-based, that that attack isn’t used. As the fight went on, it became more chaotic, more cluttered, it was a mess.

I’m now on the epilogue quests that pull the two pieces together. Will see how they go.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by Ben.

Finished the core story mode of Spider-Man 2 today – helped by having a few days off for half term this week, which gave me a decent chunk of time to play through it with my son.

It’s a great game with lots of fun moments and a solid story – including some teases at the end as to where a sequel might go. And I’ll definitely keep playing for now to finish all the sidequests and post-game stuff.

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Ben

With one exception, the story parts of Spider-Man 2 remain good, but the rest of the game is becoming less so. Both stealth and combat are becoming far more frustrating for me.

Stealth suffers too much from the game changing the safe / danger too quickly. Or the game deciding the perch takedown is suddenly no longer available. And then there is when it does weird crap like freeze me in place as I’m about to zip back up so I get spotted.

Combat is reminiscent of Arkham Knight, but not in a good way and very much in the same way that game became blighted. The flaw is simple – too much, too fast, too complicated. Combined with a camera that can’t keep up and dodgy targeting. I dodge through a shield attack and expect to hit the same enemy from behind, but I don’t because another enemy has gotten closer and the camera hasn’t re-orientated.

The parry system? Pretty much a bad joke, even with the extended window. Parry systems need both clarity of view and precision, the game’s combat is set up to provide neither.

Were it not for the Story setting, and the immortality it provides, I would have given up on it over these last two days. Some of the “optional” crime content throws stupidly difficult enemy combinations at the player. It was a flaw in the first two games- it couldn’t have been fixed for this third game?

Then there are the bugs. Do A prowler lair, the minimap is gone and it’s not coming back. Go after a Spider-bot, nothing there, just a glow spot I can’t interact with. Button prompts that forget to mention they are distance sensitive.

It adds up to a not a particularly good time, hell on one fight I let them just hit again and again because there was no answer to dealing with it.  The story, world design and web-swinging / wings are carrying the game. With the last two being especially spectacular.

Skills and upgrades? The combat skills are not useful to me as they are more complicated combinations in a combat system that already has too many. Some of the traversal ones are OK, I’m hoping the double stealth webline takedown is worth it but have only just got it, not yet tried it out.

There are times when I have a good combat run, but those have been in the minority the last two nights.  The other thing that breaks the game’s spell is the sheer number of enemies. It becomes a bit too ludicrously high for my liking.

I agree with some of those criticisms (particularly the fiddly proximity aspect of activating interactive icons!), but as far as the combat goes, I found that working on suit ability upgrades – notably health and strength – made the combat considerably easier and more fun as the game went on. So if you’re ignoring those you might have a tougher time.

Ben wrote:

The parry system? Pretty much a bad joke, even with the extended window. Parry systems need both clarity of view and precision, the game’s combat is set up to provide neither.

This is the biggest flaw in the game for me, the parry system just doesn’t work reliably – it’s a total crapshoot as to whether it works or not – which makes some of the encounters, particularly later bosses, very frustrating at times. Hopefully it’s something they tweak with an update, because as it is it’s pretty broken.

Yeah, it does seem the game’s not too subtle hint to get upgrades but I was lacking Hero Parts. So, working on the “one last go” basis….

I wasn’t exactly won over by the Mysterium intro, the rhythm game I loathed, so wasn’t sold on the others. And, oh it’s time-based? That’ll be good.

Then I noticed it would, minimum, give out one HP. All right then, only need one, let’s give it a go. Got the one, got couple of combat upgrades. Did a couple more, this time nabbing gold so bagged four each time.

Did some fights and they definitely played better, did even pull off a parry or two. Having started to do that successfully I don’t think I’d class it as a parry, it’s more like a general counter move, as you don’t seem to need to be aligned to an enemy to do it. It’s more akin to Arkham’s counter than a parry.

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Dave

Yeah it does function more like that. When it works, at least!

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Ben

Spider-Man 2 continues to be a very uneven game, which really hurts it.

Miles:

The Funky mission was terrible. The stealth was awful. It wasn’t good.

Since I had, surprisingly, some success with the Mysteriums, I decided to try the others. Bad idea. They were uniformly awful, with bad, cheap conditions or, in the case of one where I had actually succeeded in not getting good hit, bugged and didn’t spawn the remaining enemies. On the finishers one I was doing OK, but then it decided for the final finisher the focus bar would fill very, very slowly and empty very, very quick – it was very cheap and underhanded.

Peter:

Did a fun flashback mission that was a good change of pace.

Then did MJ’s first “stealth” mission. The problem here, like with Miles’ Spider-bot mission, is not that Insomniac are no good at this kind of gameplay. It is that they are terrible. They should stop trying to do these kind of levels because they are rubbish.

What’s the line of sight for these enemies? How long and how wide? Game doesn’t tell you. In the end I went with the approach of “screw it, I’m Immortal, let’s take everyone out”. Easily the best decision I made because trying to stealth it would have been immensely tedious.

That Kraven happens to be immune to a taser is story breaking plot bollocks of the highest order. The fight that followed was bad because the lighting really stopped me seeing what I needed to.

The part with the symbiote, however, was damn cool because every single one of those hunters deserved the pain they received.

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Dave

I rarely do this but I’ve now 100%ed and Platinumed Spidey 2, just such an enjoyable game to play, especially after you unlock all the abilities, skills, costumes and so on.

I feel like I’ve seen everything it has to offer now but it’s been a fun couple of weeks.

Hopefully they do some DLC extensions at some point, like they did with the first game.

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Ben

Open to DLC yes, but not with the difficulty spikes.

Think I’m nearing another major setpiece.

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Dave

Ben wrote:

Open to DLC yes, but not with the difficulty spikes.

Yeah, hopefully they keep that in check this time. Hammerhead and Silver Sable weren’t much fun.

Spidey 2 ups and downs.

Ups:

The mission with Hailey was excellent. In effect, this is a game version of what Rose Ayling-Ellis did on Strictly Come Dancing in 2022. Vert smart, very clever.

The fights were mostly OK, save for the weakness described below. It has to be said the symbiote rage has to be the best rage mode going. It’s not just the graphics and sound, but the haptic feedback during it which elevates it. Cal’s dark side rage mode in Jedi: Survivor was similar, but not as effective as the one here.

For all that I get the gameplay control versus spectacle discussion, I’m pretty much down for spectacle and quite OK with surrendering total control. It worked extremely well in Final Fantasy XVI and it does so here too.  The chase with the Lizard, taking out hunter boats then the gunship was stunning. The creepy lead up to it in Connors’ lair was superb – and I’m enjoying the double webline perch takedown a great deal.

Before that the drone following mission with Miles was far more fun than I expected. So many ways it could have gone wrong but it was great.o

Downs:

Who thought giving shield brutes a health bar was a good idea? Ditto the Q Shaman axe brute. Those fights weren’t good.

Overall:

Despite combat speed bumps on the road, it is really going along nicely now. There’s a good amount of new stuff to do, have more upgrades, which really do improve the game. Graphically it is amazing.

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Dave

Ben wrote:

It has to be said the symbiote rage has to be the best rage mode going. It’s not just the graphics and sound, but the haptic feedback during it which elevates it.

Yeah, I think one of the great successes of the game is in taking the symbiote suit storyline and presenting it in a way that makes players empathise so closely with Peter’s love of his newfound power. Because the haptic feedback is really effective, the new moves are loads of fun, and the sheer strength of the attacks is a real thrill, and it all has a real addictive quality to it as you plough through waves of villains – which obviously neatly parallels what Pete is going through and makes you feel his attachment to the symbiote and reluctance to give it up.

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Ben

Damn, can you smell what Spidey 2 is cooking? It’s getting good.

Took out a load of hunter blinds, one I had it down to couple then got spotted and it warped loads more in. On the other two? Got them all. The stealth upgrade that lets you see the enemy link changes it greatly.  This was especially so in the base assault, got them all then it did a shield bearer, with two Ravages. Took out one of the dogs, then the shield bearer, then the final dog.

Connor mission is absurdly ambitious. A creepy set-up in sewers, a partial boss fight, an insane chase sequence, followed by final boss fight, then you get the origin of the symbiote.

After that did another drone data run.  And another of the flame missions. At one point in that it highlighted two enemies for a webline double takedown – which is always great – clicked, and then it choose a different target. Then there was this hole I could not spot at all. The boss fight? Not great. Yuri can get stuffed.

The last FBSM mission, which was quite sweet – gave a blind old lady allergic to dogs a hacked Ravage!

Then went home thinking it wouldn’t be a major section. Yeah, about that…

Another MJ “stealth” rin, which wasn’t great. Ludicrous number of enemies, but the fight with the hunters was good, even did well on taking out the axe brute.  Then there’s the bit with MJ and Peter that was seriously creepy, Miles gets got, then Peter wakes up and does not give a crap.

And I had to stop it there for tonight.

This is getting seriously good. It’s getting better at sustaining the general flow too.

One of the other missions I did yesterday was the museum one, where you’re getting the instruments back. And that ends so well. The crapbag behind it was exactly who you thought – and he would have got away with it, if not for the pesky kid – and the exhibition is well worth taking the time to look at.

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Dave

This game is proving rather hard to drop!

Did some side stuff as Peter, then returned to Miles.

Really liked the escape sequence with Miles, didn’t like the Li boss fight or the mind trip that followed. The boss fight was annoying, the mind trip predictable, with swarm enemies.

However….

Peter’s encounter with Li and storming Kraven’s base was quite the sequence. The boss fight was, like his goons, a bit too obviously a game, it would have been good for him not to being to interrupt every three hits so you can smash the hell put of him.  But the fight with Peter, now near possessed by the symbiote, was far, far better.

Then thought the next bit might be, you know, quieter…

Took the symbiote back to Oscorp, got ambushed by Harry, crap goes down and… enter Venom! What follows was nuts. Playing as Venom! Similar to Jedi: Survivor‘s prison level rampage but scaled way, way up, this was a blast. It all came down to fighting Kraven once more, still a puffed up weakling at heart. And then Venom ate his head! Now, Kraven had that coming but, had they not done that, no way is he dead given what the game has shown him shrugging off.

After that, did the next mission, met the new enemies and I really did have to stop playing!

Separate to all of the above is, with the game out less than a month, gaming media splashing news about how it ends, you can’t really avoid it, is hugely irritating. Slow. The. Hell. Down!

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Dave

Glad you’re getting into it. The story starts off with fairly measured pacing but really gets going by the stage you’re at, and becomes pretty crazy by the end. Enjoy the rest of it!

After a mostly excellent sustained, tonight the speed bumps were back in force.

New enemies / activity:

I really do not like the symbiote enemies. They embody the worst aspects of enemy design, they are not fun to fight and both the camera and targeting cannot keep up with them. The symbiote nest activity then compounds this with a ‘protect this’ requirement. Were it not for the Story setting rendering the item immortal there is no way I would have completed any of them. They are a crappy, bad activity. Even the various upgrades obtained via the main story do not improve the experience of fighting the things.

The Flame finale:

The game deciding to both mess around with webline availability and deciding to suspend the double takedown move really soured this. Then it did a ‘disarm bomb’ thing where it failed completely to explain it. That was followed by a rubbish where lighting and camera were easily the greatest enemies, followed by a parry that worked very variably. And the conclusion at the end? Nasty and unpleasant. The only bit that might redeem it was the mention of one of The Flame’s aliases…. Cletus Kasidy. Hhn, I know where that’s going.

Unidentified Target finale:

This was weirdly inconclusive too. Most of the time these were a fun diversion. But they would have benefitted from a more stable camera that didn’t suddenly veer all over the place. On one it completely sabotaged me coming out of a cutscene too.

Main story:

This was, in relative terms, the best part, but I did not enjoy the MJ / Scream boss fight. The best I can say about it is the post-fight cutscene was great. “Jonah. Kiss my ass. I quit.”  The biggest surprise was Li’s role in helping purge Peter of the symbiote. With the subsequent light-side suit being very fun to play with. Sadly, that boost was temporary.

Do get the sense I’m in endgame territory, with the finish line coming up, so am clearing the map, getting gadget upgrades and then new suits.

Yeah, there’s really not far to go now. Good luck!

Had a brief run around last night, nabbing spider-bots and tech parts, but the game is making a very persuasive case for finishing it, then finishing off the city.

Got to the end bit, those two final missions were… I can’t recall a game where story and gameplay were so opposed. The story execution was brilliant, the gameplay was dire.

I did not enjoy the fights in either mission. The idea of fighting in an environment where the lights switch off is better in theory than practice. The final boss fight was particularly bad in just about all respects – systems, concepts, choice of additional enemies. The story was excellent but it was a pain to play.

It is testimony, however, to the Story setting. Insomniac clearly wanted people to be able to get to the end no matter what.  The Story setting enabled that for me.

There are some accessibility gaps, which is strange given how good Insomniac have been on this. But there are additional accessibility features being added in December.

Next? I could see them doing a multi-chapter DLC set to address the hanging side quest plot strands, while setting up Spider-Man 3.

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Dave

Ben wrote:

Next? I could see them doing a multi-chapter DLC set to address the hanging side quest plot strands, while setting up Spider-Man 3.

Yeah, I could see some DLC involving Carnage and Chameleon maybe. Possibly some more Black Cat too as her role was fairly limited here.

I could also see them potentially releasing a short (Miles Morales-length) mid-quel game starring Venom to fill the gap while we wait for Spider-Man 3.

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Ben

Spider-Man 2

This is a tricky game to assess. It is both the first PS5 only title but also the third in a series. It is, in story terms, definitely a continuation of those two games.  Like those, its upgrade system mean it gets better as it goes on.

Webswinging, and the addition of the webwings and air tunnels, along with the expanded world are clear winners. The same is true for the story, which is superb.  Stealth for Miles and Peter improves with upgrades. Stealth for MJ does not work at all.

Combat is where the game is most variable, where it can go from fantastic to terrible and back again in seconds. The problems are it is a bit too fast for the camera and the auto-targeting to keep up with. The enemies tend to have one strategy – swarm.

The bigger problems are the new additions. The parry system is more akin to Arkham’s counter but is far more patchy.  The colour indicators don’t really work – there’s a reason red = unblockable attack as a design convention, it works. Here, red can mean perfect dodge and parry, it’s not distinct enough. Blur = unblockable is a variation that isn’t great. And all these colours can be indicated from off-camera too.

This is also a game where I can see a baleful influence of the Souls subgenre. The level of health lost to some attacks, even on Story setting, is high, with only the immortality taking the edge off. In its combat difficulty it feels like Insomniac were only listening to those players who said the earlier games were too easy, even on the hardest difficulty.

It is fair to say that the Story setting enabled me to complete it. Without it there are numerous sections I would not have got past. The combat is too chaotic, there’s too many button combinations to remember and, while we’re at it, the useless and unreliable triangle-circle double can go too.  It does, however, have the best rage mode going, with an inspired combination of graphics, sound and haptic feedback.

The game is also highly variable on its side content. The final Flame and Hunter missions were rubbish, as were the nests, the Sandman, FNSM and EMF ones were often very good. Prowler and Hunter blinds / bases tended to be both good and bad.

The way the story balanced between Miles and Peter, along with the near-instant switching, is one of the game’s big successes. MJ’s levels are not. The stealth is imprecisely explained, they go on too long, with poor signposting and too many enemies.

Talking of enemies, these felt less varied, with some endgame ones being very cheap.  Boss fights also suffered from this variability. Some were superb, with madly ambitious, extended sequences, while others were a total drag.

Puzzles were variable, but there is a skip option I used on a couple of the more irritating ones.

In audio-visual terms, the game is superb.  The night time is especially impressive. Haptic and use of the Dualsense speaker is smartly done. There are sequences here that absolutely need the PS5’s capabilities.

Whatever else it did or didn’t do, it kept me coming back across 30 hours. I got to the end of the story and 100% completion. I have no inclination to platinum it.

Should you play this? If you have played the first two yes. If not, then nab the PS5 copy of Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition, download Spider-Man, and start there, play those two, with the DLC, then start this one.

For me, it’s a very good game, with some fantastic and excellent elements, but self-inflicted wounds and flaws prevent it being as great as it could be.

I am, once again, playing Kazama Kiryu and it has been too long.