Video Games – What Are You Playing?

Topic

From Playstation to Xbox, through smartphone, Steam and Switch – what’s pushing your buttons?

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I have a new PS5.  Replaced, not repaired, which is so much better.

Currently it is chomping through various updates so to get the set of free PS5 upgrade games in place.

Used Astro as a test – 10 mins, no overheat.  Yay!

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Todd, Andrew, Dave, Martin Smith

Great. Glad they sorted you out with a new one so quick.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Ben

The last bit was crazy – notified last night, arrived 9.00 this morning.

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Todd, Dave

No Man’s Sky on PS5 is quite a showcase for the console, it loads so damn fast and looks amazing.  Some quite neat haptic feedback too.

Really good to see it get recognition at the Game Awards.

Oh man, those awards… what a bust… it was a sweep for TLOU2, they should’ve given a win to some of those other really good games.

I’ve been replaying Transformers: War For Cybertron the past few days. It’s a decent game, but not a great one. I can see why it did well and was popular, but it hasn’t aged brilliantly. Despite featuring a lot of colours, it’s an incredibly drab game. Everything is so desaturated and grey. Not entirely the game’s fault – it was the prevailing style of that generation for some reason – but it doesn’t do the game any favours and makes it very hard to spot enemies, especially at a distance.

Gameplay-wise it desperately wants to be Gears of War. Which is fine, I guess. Even though it throws in some space battles and driving stuff, it does get rather repetitive and tedious. The first time you get to use a turret it’s great! The eleventh time you have to use a turret, it’s very boring, as you just churn through waves of enemies. I’ve been replaying on easy, because I can’t really be arsed doing anything higher, and even that gets to be a grind at times.

Going on to Fall of Cybertron next, which I remember being a big step up.

 

Have been able to enable 4K HDR for the PS5, which really amps it up on the visuals.  Pathless and Valhalla look quite stunningly different.

Hadn’t had any reason to look into enhanced HDMI, as I had nothing that output at 4k.

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Dave

We got a 4k TV for the first time recently, so I’m looking forward to the upgrade on that front.

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Ben

I’m grinding dead cells like a motherfucker right now, wanting to finish the game on Very Hard before the next big update drops and alters the mechanics of the game in January. I’m alternating between listening to audiobooks (Thinking, fast and slow) and hardcore retro/synthwave (Hotline Miami 1&2 Mix) in the background, having grown rather tired of the games original soundtrack. It’s good, it’s just that I’ve been grinding this game periodically for almost two years… It’s old is what it is.

Dave wrote:

We got a 4k TV for the first time recently, so I’m looking forward to the upgrade on that front.

You might have to go exploring the menus quite extensively to find the setting, which can be massively frustrating but once you have it enabled?

Oh, yeah.

Also feel quite happy bought a more heftier, more future-proof TV last year.  At the time the thinking was ‘what if I get a PS5?’.

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Dave

Destiny 2 on PS5, with it only having come out 10 Dec, is quite something.

Above all, it demonstrates that the PS4 to PS5 jump is far more about the gaming experience than just improved graphics.  Load times, control responsiveness, haptic feedback, smoother running of games – that’s what it is about.

Very hard to advertise, so they’ll stick with the visuals to sell it but that isn’t the major draw here.

Tested the game boost on the remaster of Kingdoms of Amalur, load times were noticeably reduced.

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Dave

May I say that going from the graphics/resolutions of a late 90’s game like Tomb Raider 3 to the modern Avengers and the latest Star Wars games… Incredible.

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Ben, Dave

One point that’s worth flagging on the PS5 front: You cannot transfer PS5 games to an external drive, even for storage only.

I had thought you could, but you can’t.

Is this that big a deal? On PS4 the answer would be yes, but PS5? On PS5 it downloaded the PS5 version of Destiny 2, just over 60GB, in just over 5 hours, which is, well, fast.  So, with that kind of download speed, plus disc-based games speeding it up, it’s likely not as much of a problem.

It may be transfer to external storage is enabled later but for now, careful space management is the name of the game.

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Dave

My 500GB PS4 has trained me well for that already.

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Ben

Cyberpunk 2077 just keeps on giving :

Crunch culture

PC Review copy causes grand mal epileptic seizure in a reviewer

Lying advertising on how the game runs on last-gen consoles

Lying about its game to get it certified

Sony and MS having a useless certification process

Spotlight on Sony and MS’ dodgy no refunds policy they’ve ran for years

CDPR’s stock has tanked and could even impact on Poland’s economy

And now Sony have pulled it from the PS Store.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-55359568

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Todd

Yeah.  Fair, given the hell PS’ customer services team will have had since CDPR’s “refund” offer a couple of days back.

And it’s just over a week, this is one hell of a wrecked launch.

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Dave

I’m not that surprised as everything I’ve seen of the game up to launch looked somewhat unfinished and a bit wonky. Still, you’ve got to feel sorry for those who shelled out for it expecting the experience they were promised.

I’m getting flashbacks to the original Watch_Dogs launch where that game was clearly optimised for the new-gen consoles (then PS4) but a mess on the PS3.

Talking of, Darth Bezos is flogging Watch Dogs Legion for £33.99 – worth a punt at that price.

I saw a streamer (RTGame) playing this game and I gotta admit, it looks boring and railroaded af.

Well, it’s UbiSoft.

Ben wrote:

Talking of, Darth Bezos is flogging Watch Dogs Legion for £33.99 – worth a punt at that price.

Just saw that the PS5 version of MK11 with all the bundled DLC had gone sub-£30 too – think I’ll grab that.

My post was unclear, I was talking about Cybertrash 2020

Dave wrote:

Ben wrote:

Talking of, Darth Bezos is flogging Watch Dogs Legion for £33.99 – worth a punt at that price.

Just saw that the PS5 version of MK11 with all the bundled DLC had gone sub-£30 too – think I’ll grab that.

Fairly certain MK11 is in the PS+ collection if you have PS+.  Probably not the everything edition though.

Immortals Fenyx Rising

I really like the game world design – easily one of its best cards.

Hiding its interactive objects as part of the scenery with an insufficient or zero cue they can be interacted with is one of its worst. (Something it shared with <i>Assassin’s Creed Valhalla</i>)

Along with the awful guided arrows bollocks – the problem there is the aim lies, you put the crosshair on the flame, it flies low and hit the rim but even if it makes it? The camera is in so close it’s very difficult to see your destination or get the turning arc in time. It could be good but it’s not due to it screwing around.

Combat is pretty but the enemies have the same lack of imagination as <i>Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, </i>especially shield enemies. i.e. batter shield, get one hit, shield restored. The stagger mechanic? I’m not seeing the point of it really, better to just keep bashing enemies. For me, playing on anything other than story would be an exercise in masochism.

Now, onto the biggest problem – UbiSoft are marketing this as a game suitable for everyone. It is not. If you like obscure, cryptic, opaque puzzles – this game is for you. If you don’t, you’re going to be going to the internet a lot of the time. It’s idea of physics-based puzzle is highly inconsistent. You invoke physics to me and I expect observable, repeatable and replicable sequences – this game has none of that in its puzzles, its idea of logic is all over the place or it does cheap stuff like getting you to walk with a box with fireballs being shot, but the camera is in so close you cannot see those fireballs coming or judge your position relative to them. These are all self-inflicted, avoidable wounds.

I’m really not sure how far I’ll get with this one. I’ll map and explore the world, get as many upgrade as I can but the God Vault I did tonight? Became an exercise in tedium and irritating to bad design, like placing a target behind a wall, in an area filled with poison mist – I’m supposed to know that is there, how? The most straight forward part of it was the end boss fight. Still not quite sure how I pulled off the final guided arrow shot before that.

If, unlike me, you’re excellent at not mixing up your left and right and can use both at the same time, along with dealing with the manual bow aim – it desperately needs an optional auto-aim – and can use the target lock-on, which you need in order to use some of the powers, you are highly likely to enjoy it far more. For me, some of the controls are too fiddly or inconsistent, which diminishes it.

Ben wrote:

Dave wrote:

Ben wrote:

Talking of, Darth Bezos is flogging Watch Dogs Legion for £33.99 – worth a punt at that price.

Just saw that the PS5 version of MK11 with all the bundled DLC had gone sub-£30 too – think I’ll grab that.

Fairly certain MK11 is in the PS+ collection if you have PS+.  Probably not the everything edition though.

That’s MK X I think.

Finished replaying Fall of Cybertron tonight. Ye gods that holds up well! Just such a fun game. It does away with the Gears of War template from WFC and goes for something closer to Uncharted really. Third person shooter with a bit of platforming but very heavy with scripted set-pieces. These continually make you feel like a total bad ass, even if you’re not strictly doing a huge amount.

There’s far more variety than WFC too, with a much better story. The sections where you play as Bruticus and Grimlock give real variety, but they’re not overplayed. The normal TFs you play as give a nice amount of variety too, from Jazz’s grappling hook heavy level to Cliffjumper’s stealthy one to Megatron just blasting his way through the Autobot army.

There’s so much care and attention to detail in things. Like when you first play as Grimlock and escape Shockwave’s lab. The first bunch of Decepticons you come across react in such fun ways. Some shoot at you, but one tries to climb out through a too narrow window, another hammers on a wall in the vain hope of breaking through it and escaping, while yet another throws his comrade in your path to slow you down and let him get away.

It’s also really fun leaving the game hanging on scripted moments where it just wants a single input from you “press B to knock out Starscream” or whatever, as characters will often ramble on nervously as you fail to do anything.

It’s such a shame this game didn’t get a proper sequel (and its developer was scrapped).

So, <b>Watch Dogs Legion</b>…..

Despite it pulling some major crap, like having black wearing enemies on a black background in the H-of-C shootout – and why do I have go looking for the full accessibility options?- it did manage to be more successful than its predecessor in that I finished its opening level.

After that, its opening missions were surprisingly fun in terms of enabling a far more substantive set of stealth options. Ones that were entirely new to me, the idea of being able to go from camera, open a load of data files remotely, set off traps remotely via camera were hugely fun – taking out a Captain in this way was rather satisfying.

Unfortunately, the game gave me the impression you have to immediately recruit people and I ended up with a crappy, counter-intuitive mission that felt far more like an older style game, with all the requisite style bollocks that entails. Enemies turning up out of nowhere, with the addition of a fucking drone. Also found the options being more restricted on it – I could summon a cargo drone but I couldn’t use it to pick up the item I was to destroy and drop it in the river. No, instead the only solution is shooting a big, very durable metal box with a gun, so alerting the entire area.

Some of its explanations aren’t as good as they could be, or some aren’t even supplied – they tell you not to draw your gun but not how to holster.

Still, driving around an uncanny representation of London is quite weird and clever in equal measure. Although how UbiSoft can go around claiming it’s a non-political. Really? As the city goes into Tier 4, I’m driving around a representation of the city that has Severe Threat warnings all over the place!

At night the game goes up a notch too and just driving around is fun, though the Autodrive is a far better driver than I am.

I stepped into the 21st century playing Avengers and some of the latest Star Wars games, but I am still old school now and then.

I played Asteroids on the Mame emulator and I found out my reflexes are shot… Wish I had this emulator all those years ago…All the quarters I would have saved.

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Todd

I had planned to fill the time to Christmas by cramming in another Xbox 360 replay with Perfect Dark Zero. Unfortunately, it turns out my disc for that is scratched, so it won’t load anything beyond the main menus (but what menus!). So that sucks.

Instead, I’ve decided to play Kid Dracula in the Castlevania anniversary collection. An interesting little NES/Famicom platformer, rather crippled by slowdown, unfortunately. There’s a platforming section in the second level with three rotating circles of four platforms, arranged in a < shape. It should be fairly simple to do, just time the jumps. Unfortunately, the game (as emulated at least, but I assume they’ve got it at correct speeds) begins to chug when it’s showing two of the circles at the same time, making the jumps between them really hard to judge. There’s a rollercoaster thing just after that has a similar problem.

Still, it’s quite a cute little game, a nice inversion of Castlevania. It was fun to go through the first level and realise it was the classic clock tower and then staircase leading to Dracula’s chamber from the end of the original Castlevania, but rendered in cartoony graphics.

Al-x wrote:

I stepped into the 21st century playing Avengers and some of the latest Star Wars games, but I am still old school now and then.

I played Asteroids on the Mame emulator and I found out my reflexes are shot… Wish I had this emulator all those years ago…All the quarters I would have saved.

Dude, you should at least use Fightcade… mame is REALLY old… =P

Looking for some advice. Myself and two buddies play Star Wars Battlefront 1 (number 2 is junk) online multiplayer but the servers are pretty sparse these days and we are continually running into ‘super’ players who routinely trounce us (you can hear about this in more detail on my podcast. Cheap plug later in the post!)

With that in mind we are looking for a new game all 3 of us can play. I’m thinking more campaign style than online multiplayer. So, has anyone played the following games and what would you recommend?

The Division 2

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime

Zombie Army 4 dead war

Destiny 2

Monster Hunter World: Iceborne

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls – Ultimate Evil Edition

Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince

Warframe

Pay Day 2

Then for 2 players I’m looking at the following:

A Way Out

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

Any thoughts greatly appreciated. Also, cheap plug, I co-hosted a retro based podcast earlier this year that might interest some people. It covered games, comics, movies, hobbies and even had some spin off shows. We went on hiatus a few months ago but just did a couple of Star Wars watch along audio experience eps which are worth checking out. Anyway, it’s on most pod players, just search The Outtatimers. Here’s an iTunes link below. I suggest going back to the start (there are only 19 eps of the main flagship show).

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-outta-timers-podcast-network/id1496581051

Bobby Stride wrote:

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

You got to try this one out if you havent already. It does not have a lot of endless replay value, but it is so much fun I still recommend it.

Destiny 2 earns its rep.

Diablo would be  very fun online co-op.

MHW – suggest you try the base game first, it’s very good but also rock hard.

Streets of Rage 4… if you’re looking for a couch co-op…

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Dave, Ben

Saw this and thought I’d share. Alien: Isolation for the PC is currently free.

 

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/alien-isolation/home

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This KFC gaming console is real after all, and keeps your chicken warm

https://www.cnet.com/news/this-kfc-gaming-console-is-real-after-all-and-keeps-your-chicken-warm/

Finally getting around to the Doom Eternal DLC: Ancient Gods. It throws you into the deep end right at the beginning. No tutorials or reminders, just straight into the action proper. I’d forgotten how fast and punishing the game is. Thankfully it does a “new game +” style carrying over of your upgrades from the original campaign which make things a bit more manageable.

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Ben

Oh, by the by, if you play a DVD on a 4K outputting PS5 – it boosts it quite a bit!

The PS5’s custom soundtrack / MP3 ability is pretty damn sweet.

Bombing around Paradise City, which has never looked better, at night, with the Nightcall track from Drive playing was superb.

 

Yeah, but does it keep your chicken warm?

Chick mate.

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Andrew, Todd

The Yong vid on the KFC consile is funny to watch, as Yong keeps cracking up while trying to cover it seriously.

Maneater PS5 is a PS+ freebie for Jan 2021.

Did not expect PS5 games to come under PS+ so fast, but will definitely be nabbing it.

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Bruce, Dave

It’s well worth it – it’s a lot of fun.

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Dave

I finished Far Cry New Dawn – while I was still playing it, I snapped up Witcher3 and FallOut4 as they were on sale digitally for pretty cheap.

But as soon as I finished FC New Dawn… I started a new game of FC New Dawn – it’s that good! I played it through in full over the past week, even completing more of the side challenges this time around. Just loved it; an all-timer for me.

I played about 30 minutes of Witcher3 last night – it might be something that takes me a while to get to, it didn’t immediately grab me, despite apparently being one of the best games of its generation (or all time?).

First impressions of the PS5 after a week of play are really positive.

I agree with all the comments on the controller – it feels like the next evolution of the Dualshock but one that adds quite a lot, both in terms of the refined shape (it fits in your hands so comfortably, thanks to some fairly subtle rounding in the design) and the new features, with the subtlety of vibration and the variable-resistance triggers both adding more to the experience than I expected.

In terms of performance the console is great – super-quiet compared to the PS4 and with really fast load times. Going from the console being off to swinging through New York as Spidey in around 30 seconds is going to mean completely recalibrating my switch-on console/boil kettle/load game/make drink/sit down to play routine.

In terms of individual games, I’ve played a few PS5 games and a few PS4 games on it and have been happy with both.

For the PS5 games, Miles Morales is the standout and is really the title to sell the console – while the gameplay isn’t that far evolved from PS4 Spidey, the look and feel of it is a noticeable leap forwards, particularly when it comes to the lighting and reflection effects (and also the 60fps smoothness if you choose that mode). Plus the lack of any discernible loadtimes makes a massive difference to those times when you have to restart or reload, eliminating one of the only real bugbears I had with the PS4 game.

Demon’s Souls looks great and I’ve only scratched the surface of it so far, but it looks to be an enjoyable and sufficiently challenging experience.

MK11 is amazing looking – super-smooth and incredibly detailed, just the best these characters have ever looked. I’m looking forward to giving the Story Mode a go.

And Astro is a fun showcase for the Dualsense.

In terms of the PS4 games, I’ve had a quick blast on TLoU2 and it looks good, and many of the kids games (that they had missed in recent months due to the broken PS4 disc drive) have had an outing too. The effect of playing on PS5 seems fairly variable – for some of them there are still quite long load times – but just having everything in 4k makes a big difference to how they look.

So overall, really pleased with it and no problems so far. Hopefully January will give me some quiet evenings to really get stuck into the new stuff and the backlog.

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Chris-S, Ben, Andrew

Andrew wrote:

I played about 30 minutes of Witcher3 last night – it might be something that takes me a while to get to, it didn’t immediately grab me, despite apparently being one of the best games of its generation (or all time?).

Ive repeatedly tried to get into The Witcher 3 but it just didnt click with me. No discernable reason, i just couldnt get stuck into it.

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Dave

Bruce wrote:

Andrew wrote:

I played about 30 minutes of Witcher3 last night – it might be something that takes me a while to get to, it didn’t immediately grab me, despite apparently being one of the best games of its generation (or all time?).

Ive repeatedly tried to get into The Witcher 3 but it just didnt click with me. No discernable reason, i just couldnt get stuck into it.

Same for me. I think that style of game just isn’t for me, possibly because I just don’t have that level of time to invest these days.

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Chris-S

Just finished the main story mode of Miles Morales. I thought it was cracking, a good story and fun to play throughout.

I know some people have complained about the length but for me this is perfect – substantial enough to feel like a full story but without being padded and overlong (and all that sidequest/levelling up stuff is there if you want it).

It also finds a great balance between letting Miles and Peter coexist in the story. They should be prepping the Miles Morales movie based on this if they aren’t already – it made me realise just what a great creation Miles is, and the kind of new entry point to Marvel that younger audiences need. I think I liked Miles even more here than in any of the comics I’ve read.

I’ll definitely be coming back to this to try and finish off all the extra missions and secrets over the next few months.

It reminds me of the Batman Arkham games, just endlessly playable and captures the character perfectly.

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Chris-S, Andrew, Ben

Bruce wrote:

Finally getting around to the Doom Eternal DLC: Ancient Gods. It throws you into the deep end right at the beginning. No tutorials or reminders, just straight into the action proper. I’d forgotten how fast and punishing the game is. Thankfully it does a “new game +” style carrying over of your upgrades from the original campaign which make things a bit more manageable.

Fuck me. This is kicking my ass. Never feels unfair but it’s definitely hard. Having fun though and it keeps suckering me back in for “just one more go”.

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Dave, Ben

Today, I bought some frozen pizzas for my wife. On the back of the box, there was a code for Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War.

Here it is for whoever wants it:

I’ve been playing Horizon Zero Dawn since Christmas. It’s a good game but not a great one.

It’s essentially Fallout meets Tomb Raider, the middle ground of those games’ genres of course being an open world adventure thing. And that works mostly. You wander around post-apocalyptic North America killing pseudo-animal machine creatures, bandits and the odd real animal, collecting scrap and collectables and doing some quests. And it’s fine. The story’s loose enough to give you latitude in wandering off to do whatever. I like some of the world building stuff. Main character Aloy’s tribe is called Nora, because, it turns out, they leave in around Cheyenne Mountain, where NORAD is.

The biggest problem with the game is that the platforming stuff doesn’t really work properly. It throws in sections that want to be like Tomb Raider’s (the reboot ones). Which is a decent idea, but it doesn’t really work in an open world where you can come at the glorified climbing frame elements of that from any angle. In the likes of Tomb Raider and Uncharted, you’re following a linear path for the most part, so you’re funnelled into a platforming section and led along it. Here you can just stumble into the middle of it and be completely lost. It’s not helped by the game using yellow as it’s subtle “this is a climbing point!!” colour (where Tomb Raider uses white – as splashes of paint on manmade objects and wear on natural elements) which is hard to see at the best of times and is frequently obliterated by the strong natural lighting.

On top of this, Aloy doesn’t really move like she’s intending to platform. Trying to scale a rock formation can be pretty frustrating as you make Aloy jump in hopes of hopping up a level or at least grabbing a ledge and she does… well, it’s like how the Hulk jumps, without the distance. Or a cartoon character jumping up and down on something they don’t like. A jump that is permanently a squat. It’s very odd.

The other thing that’s unduly annoying me is the weapon training quests. When you buy a new weapon you get given a task to do with it, ostensibly to teach you how to use it, which rewards you with XP. Usually just stuff like “kill three people with this weapon” or whatever. Grand. Easy to do in the course of gameplay, especially if you’re in a large battle as part of a story mission, say. Except to clear these weapon training tasks they have to be your active quest, displacing all others. You have to manually select one of them when you think you might have an opportunity to use that weapon. It’s incredibly clunky and does nothing to really encourage you to bother using them because it’s such a hassle to juggle the active quests.

Can’t really say I ever considered HZD’s climbing bits to be platforming, due to the set route.

Taken on your first Thunderjaw yet?

I’ve seen one. I considered taking it on and set up some traps in case it saw me and charged, but I managed to sneak round it. I’ll hold off for a bit, I think. I’m still struggling with glinthawk packs (and those bigger bird ones) so I don’t think I’m ready for a Thunderjaw yet.

Stormhawks are, in some ways, harder than Thunderjaws.

I love how you hear those before you see them.

Tearblast arrows and explosive tripwires are practically mandatory when you do take one on.

I got ambushed by one when I was in a hunting ground, having just taken on a load of Glinthawks and Tramplers. I used tearblast arrows to remove pretty much all its weapons, so it resorted to divebombing me, while I failed to do any real damage to it (and couldn’t tie it down with the ropecaster). Thankfully, I managed to fast travel out of there before I died.

They are total bastards – Thunderjaws you can at least shoot with its own disc launchers, if you shoot them off.

Well, Mad Max was…. mediocre.

Its first failing was not putting up the controls for the first fight, so I get hit without knowing what to do, then it says hit this for this – why not say so earlier?  It also does a load of visual clutter with weird effects that are no help to me whatsoever.

Then there was the driving – every open world game that there ever was that isn’t designed as a racer has shit driving controls and camera – this is no different.  Except this one compounds it by really fucking with the camera for vehicle combat and throws in fiddly controls – while you are holding down R2 to accelerate and the right stick to steer, you’re also to use L1 and circle and the left stick to aim, at which you get a bad camera angle to shoot but screws with your view of where you’re driving.  So, fiddly crap.

It then offed itself by telling me to take out a camp.  As soon as I drive up, camp goes on alert – turns out there is no way to avoid this and instead you drive up and take out all the hazards identified – with your car! Yes, really.  Screw this crappy piece of turd.

It’s a shame but fortunately it’s only £8 down the drain.  I shouldn’t have really been surprised, as all of WB Games stuff has been lazy imitation, crappy lazy synthesis of systems developed and lifted from other games, while contributing zero that is new or innovative.  This isn’t smart synthesis, it’s just crap.

I remember I enjoyed playing Mad Max (I played it on PC though, so not so many control issues), but yeah it’s kind of a lazy Arkham Knight clone… Still, that game grabbed me a lot more than Shadow of Mordor for some reason.

In more positive news, Maneater has downloaded.

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Dave

Enjoy Maneater. It’s tons of fun.

I had a go at some demoes last night. Not that I don’t have full games to occupy me, but… anyway.

The Casebook of Arkady Smith is some very low rent adventure game. But a 3d one with incredibly bland visuals. I’ll be honest, I spent about two minutes with it and decided I didn’t care. It felt like a relic of the early 00s, objectively the worst period for adventure games. So it might actually be alright if you put some effort in, but I shan’t! I shan’t!

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is pretty fun. I did kind of feel like keeping on top of everything in combat was a bit much, even in these tutorial stages, so I maybe should have given the “classic” mode (where everyone auto-attacks and you just tell them when to do special attacks, magics and items) a go. Still, that’s a minor thing. It’s otherwise grand. Lovely graphics, good acting and a nice update to the game. Especially Jesse. Ah, Jesse. It’s always “Aeris this and Aerith that,” but Jesse is the real tragedy of FF7. Also, I thought it was interesting that they made it so Shinra were aware of AVALANCHE’s mission and blew up the reactor themselves, when Jesse’s bomb failed to do anything. Apparently that’s implied in the original – if you really squint – but it feels a bit like making Greedo shoot first. I’m not saying I need Barret, Cloud et al to be mass-murderers, but… actually, you know what it’s like? It’s like when Doctor Who revealed Gallifrey wasn’t actually destroyed by the Doctor in the Time War, but hidden away and he forgot, so he still had all the grief and guilt about it, but it rang a bit hollow because he didn’t actually do it. . I’m convinced to pick up the full version of the game, but I think I might hold out until the other chapters are done – whenever that is – because they’re almost certainly going to be on the PS5 now.

Hitman 2. I’ve said for years that I don’t like stealth games, but I realised while playing Horizon that I do kinda like taking a stealthy approach in it and before in Spider-Man and the Arkham games (though I was never terribly good at stealth in the latter). I think it’s because whenever I think of stealth I think of the guard evasion bit of Ocarina of Time, which was awful. I’d also seen some Outside Xbox videos about Hitman and it looked quite fun. So I gave the demo (which is actually a full installation of the game but with bits locked off) a go and yeah, it is fun. The generous save system helps, but I like the variety available. Even in the one mission I did, there’s lots of replayability available from achievements incentivising different approaches and tactics. And it does what I thought Alpha Protocol did, in offering interesting ways to deal with people. I put chloroform in the target’s sugar, so they felt sick when having a cup of tea and then ambushed them with a shuriken in the bathroom, for instance, which is just much more interesting than straight sneaking and killing. So I’m quite keen to dive into this series (the recent trilogy at least).

FF7R’s “classic” mode is nothing of the kind and terribly boring.

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Martin Smith

I haven’t played Hitman 2 but I imagine it’s not too different to its immediate predecessor which I did buy in 2019 I think, and did start, and did enjoy, but because it’s quite tense I really took my time with the first few levels (to an extent wanting to savour each; they’re so well done) and I at some point lost interest and moved on.

The replayability is real; each level/mission is filled with plenty of characters, items and details, even if the map is relatively small, so you are presented with  dozens of different ways to reach your goals. I just find myself getting so tense and my heart races so much I can’t play long sessions, compared to an FPS.

Should get back to it. The other issue I had is it’s really quite slow to save and load (I’m not running it from a disc; it’s a digital-download copy; I thought that would be faster).

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Martin Smith

Shit I forgot I bought Hitman 2 some time ago… I should probably play that… u_u

Andrew wrote:

I just find myself getting so tense and my heart races so much I can’t play long sessions,

Yeah, I think that’s part of the problem I have. It feeds into my anxiety and I worry about screwing up and everything going to hell (which is ridiculous, can just replay the level). Hopefully this will deprogram that out of me. I think maybe the Arkham games are partially responsible for that, because if you’re doing a takedown room and stuff up the stealth, you just get hammered by enemies and it’s quite stressful.

First thing you should do in a Hitman game is get familiarized with the map, even if you get caught and all that… once you do, it’s really not that stressful because you’ll know where you are and what are your options, where you can hide, etc… so maybe try that.

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Martin Smith, Andrew

Jon wrote:

Shit I forgot I bought Hitman 2 some time ago… I should probably play that… u_u

Aaaand I just remembered why I haven’t played Hitman 2… I need 110GB to install… wtf! Ridiculous…

Can confirm, am minecraft player. It’s me and Arjan and Tobias vs you lot.

Minecraft all the way for me.

Dave wrote:

Minecraft all the way for me.

I would like to believe you, but I can see your avatar is clearly fortnite-coloured.

Fired up Hitman over the weekend, good fun. I think it’s more that I have a distinction between games that need my full attention (like Hitman) and games where I can listen to a podcast at the same time (FPS and FIFA). The former are much more stressful.

I’ll get into Himtan 2 soon… I just need to finish what I’m doing with Fallout 4 once and for all, so I can free up some HD space… I ended up installing mods and the whole thing is very big now… xD

Yeah, but you have 16 times the detail now, right? ;)

No, it’s not graphical mods… I got some mods for building, some power armors, some clothes mods, a couple of fixes, etc… doesn’t seem like a lot but they do add up pretty quickly. I’m just finalizing my Sanctuary re-build… I’m like 90% done, but what’s left is pretty annoying and time consuming…

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Ben

[Ben]

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

It’s a good game that sabotages itself every chance it gets.  If you were expecting a more conclusive finale for this whole “trilogy” of games, think again too because it’s not that either.

Is it a good graphical showcase for the PS5? Yes, yes it is and it’s easily the game strongest card that kept me playing despite its reams of bullshit.

Mechanics

The biggest problem with the game is its mechanics.  The controls are overloaded.  R3 is particularly bad in this respect, that and the L3 sprint was horribly inconsistent and unreliable.  At one point I expressly reset an ability that used R3 because it kept getting in the way of the Odin’s Sight ability.  Talking of which – that is the biggest change here.  The ability to see and then use that information to plan is massively constrained compared to its predecessors.  The raven? Fucking useless, it’d be more use BBQ’d.  It sees nothing, you can tag next to nothing.  Odin’s Sight? Temporary indicator of enemy placements, but you can’t tell from that lines of sight.  Since all your enemies have super eyesight and can see through your hooded cloak disguise in about two seconds, stealth is rarely a practical option unless you take to the rooftops.  Even then, some super-bastard will probably start shooting you from far distance.

Does the light and heavy attack system work? No and, with the exception of Ghost of Tsuschima, it has never worked in any game I’ve played.  Heavy attacks take too long to charge, hit is inconsistent and you can do more damage by light assault battery. Shield enemies are stupidly overpowered, with the game having the belief that a shield confers 360-degree protection.  Combat is messy and not that great unless you’re overpowered.  Even then, it lumbers itself with a stamina system that contributes sweet fuck all.  This becomes particularly evident in boss fights, which are frequently unclear and boring.  It’s battering a health bar down, but rarely do you get to actually kill them.

Oh and let’s talk about the bow.  You have never had a more useless, always manual aim weapon, with the tiniest aim window you have ever had.  Auto-aim? Ha, it’s a joke.

Story

Until the second half, the story was pretty good.  The problem is it’s too easy to think that the higher level areas will be where the best arcs are – and they don’t work out that way. One point it never really deals with is that you are the ones invading, burning tons of stuff and killing loads.

Then there is the endgame, of which there is no way to talk of without massive spoilers:

The actual end of story quest, as in the end of Eivor and Sigurd’s tale comes up far faster than you expect.  For this it also throws in boss fights without a health bar, so you can’t tell how you are doing – which is very accurate for this game, as frequently it wishes to you fuck all.  The mechanisms are pretty damn awful – one of them, the Odin fight I would not have ever worked out without a guide.  The actual revelations come out of nowhere – although if you waste your time on some of the Animus puzzles, tried one- hated it, it apparently makes more sense, but as it was on my playthrough? Zero.

Then there is replacing Layla with Basim / Loki (which I only found out online, no, I didn’t put the pieces together to work it out, like I had any to work with.  After that plot bomb, despite loathing Layla, she’s an awful walking plot device but this isn’t the solution either, my motivation to continue with the game plummeted.  If they were going for a ‘the bad guys wins, all you did was for naught’ story, they clearly didn’t consider how that impacts on the player.

The final section of Eivor’s tale? A big, fat anticlimax, where, out of ideas, the writers resort to killing off a few characters.  But due to the previous plot bomb detonation, I was caring little for it all.  I was more or less totally disengaged and wanted to finish it.  And the final quest? Messy and unsatisfying.  Most of the time a game will pull it together at the end, so improving and raising up the whole experience.  This went way, way in the other direction.

To borrow a line from Heat: You waste my muthafuckin’ time like this?

Raids and Sieges

Raids mostly work, they’re fun, despite being lumbered by the Force Ooen mechanic.  This wouldn’t be a problem except your crew act like a bunch of stoned hippy sloths on a raid.  They slowly walk over, as if with all the time in the world, and then, slowly, they help you open the door and then, slowly, help you open the chest.  But not always – sometimes that script just doesn’t run, so you’re stuck.  The other problem is you can only get raw materials from monasteries and they do not restock.  Still, raids look like masterworks next to sieges.

Sieges are long, boring pieces of narrow, shit game design and are a total disaster as a signature feature.  If they didn’t constrain your option to the degree they do, there is little in the way of creativity permitted, it might be better.  It would be far, far better without it warping in infinite hordes of enemies, which it does – you can never clear and secure an area in a siege because more enemies will always be warped in.

Puzzles

Did you know that in the ninth century they had impregnable locked and barred doors that were impervious to any injury or assault? No? You’ll be seeing a lot of them here, combined with impossible architecture – for how was the door barred without anyone being inside?  Then there are explosive walls, some of which blended in so well with everything else it too me ages to see them.

And that’s the biggest problem – the Odin’s Sight ability does not give me enough info to solve them, instead it’s manual sight of this, of that, of a tiny red dot at distance, or that requires your angle of view to be just so.  I frequently found it to be a pain in the arse.  I wasn’t feeling appreciative for clever design, instead it just reminded me that I was playing a video game.

There’s a chest in Jorvik I haven’t got because it requires three keys and no indicator is given for them and the world is too massive to search manually.

Final Thoughts

Despite all of this, until that endgame section, I was still wanting to play it because the world depiction is that damn good.  When you are traveling the draw distance is amazing.  The various synchronizations of viewpoints have never looked better. Difficulty settings generally make it accessible to everyone to a minimal degree.  The settlement building I really wanted to do, though the end there was strangely muted.

Granted, the combat was never going to match the glorious achievement that is the system in Ghost of Tsuschima, but it could have at least tried to compete with it.  The boss fights, the drinking minigame, flyting, animus puzzles, the other padding content – none of that worked for me.  The Order members? Strangely muted in comparison to previous games.  The Zealots? Don’t match to Odyssey‘s Mercenaries, who had specific weaknesses – these guys? Just batter them to death every time.

If I consider what this game would be with some of its predecessors’ information systems, a no stamina combat system and much reduced puzzle count? Yeah, that’d be great, this? As it is?  It’s good – and, even that is arguable.  It’s a good enough launch title for the PS5, but will probably be superseded in time.  Will I play the next Assassin’s Creed game? I really don’t know at this point.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Ben.

Couple of days ago, before Assassin’s Creed Valhalla went off the rails completely, I went back to Dragon’s Dogma, did the Griffin quest and…. It. Was Epic. Baited it with a dead Goblin, duffed it up, pursued it to a tower, taking out a load of bandits, harpies and a Golem along the way. Stormed the tower, with harpies and skeleton knights and mages. Got to the griffin with a full storm raging. Cue chase sequence then final fight where I got to off it.

Went back to Gran Soren to find doing so had opened up a ton of quests and unlocked new equipment. Going to be occupied with this one for a while now.

I finally 100%’d Miles Morales today. I’ve had such fun with this game that even pursuing all the sidequests felt like a blast (I remember feeling the same about the first one too).

Also, saving the majority of it until after I’d finished the main story meant that I could make use of all the extra powers and upgrades and take out a lot of the enemy bases with relative ease.

Even stuff like the hidden caches and time capsules was fun, and the post-game postcard scavenger hunt was very sweet and led to a nice emotional moment at the end there.

The only sidequests I didn’t really enjoy were the audio/recording ones – a nice idea, but the execution was a little fiddly.

I also have to say I love all the variant suits in this game, particularly the cat one, the scarf and the Spider-Verse movie suit. The way they get that suit mod to mimic the animation style of the film is brilliant.

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Bruce, Chris-S, Ben, Todd

I’ve recently bought Skyrim Special Edition. For €12, which is a bit of a steal.

Now, in the… checks notes…  nine years plus since this game was released I’ve done several playthroughs of this game wih different degrees of roleplaying to it. Admittedly, for every playthrough to bear fruit I have to roleplay even more, as doing the same thing over and over again isn’t that great.

I say roleplaying, but it’s so easy to get stuck in some of the meta-stuff that it’s basically just setting up some rules and constraints, do and do-nots, to adhere to.

My current character is a wood elf that grew up in complete poverty and loathes rich people with a passion. Humans especially. I give every beggar money, I befriend poor people. I’d rather pay someone money than intimidate or persuade, unless it’s a rich person. My definition of rich is a bit loose, but if you can afford a house you’re rich.

The only thing worse than rich people are imperials. Since the vanilla game always starts with the player being in imperial custody and lined up for execution for crossing the border, I’ve made a background story where I fled to Skyrim because I was wanted for crimes, crimes, crimes and more crimes throughout most of the empire. And just as I got here I get jumped by the empire, gave them a false name of the top of my head (my real name is Feridagor Fernblossom but I told them my name is Toxi Thunderfart) and they decide to execute me anyway? Those absolute bastards!

So the number one rule that makes my playthrough tough: Kill all imperials on sight. Even a civilian Nord with an imperial sounding name is subject to my rage. I’ve joined the Stormcloaks, but only for personal gain. Getting the empire out of Skyrim would give me an advantage, with a somewhat clean record to establish myself here.

Other rules:

Never wear armor found on a corpse. It’s likely broken and or defect since, you know, the original wearer is dead. Besides, it probably won’t fit and it would be quite disgusting. Store bought or made by myself.

Never use a shield or heavy weaponry. I’m a bows, daggers and poisons kinda person.

Not too much meta-gaming, so no quicksave-quickload shenanigans unless I die. My follower dies? Tough shit.

Always lie if that is an option. Feridagor is a compulsive liar and afraid someone’s going to realize he’s not actually Toxi Thunderfart.

Wear no religious stuff. No amulets of the gods, no daedric staffs or weapons. That stuff is cursed. I do the gods bidding if I get a quest but only out of fear of reprisals.

I’m going to play through the entire game vanilla, not 100% but close, before I lean heavily into modding and start it all again.

I love this game.

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Martin Smith

The only thing that was wrong with Skrim SE is the vampire DLC is active from the start and the vamps appear able to kill anyone.

Ben wrote:

The only thing that was wrong with Skrim SE is the vampire DLC is active from the start and the vamps appear able to kill anyone.

I think that’s been adressed in a patch. Not sure though.

[Bruce]

Anonymous wrote:

I’ve recently bought Skyrim Special Edition. For €12, which is a bit of a steal.

Now, in the… checks notes…  nine years plus since this game was released I’ve done several playthroughs of this game wih different degrees of roleplaying to it. Admittedly, for every playthrough to bear fruit I have to roleplay even more, as doing the same thing over and over again isn’t that great.

I say roleplaying, but it’s so easy to get stuck in some of the meta-stuff that it’s basically just setting up some rules and constraints, do and do-nots, to adhere to.

My current character is a wood elf that grew up in complete poverty and loathes rich people with a passion. Humans especially. I give every beggar money, I befriend poor people. I’d rather pay someone money than intimidate or persuade, unless it’s a rich person. My definition of rich is a bit loose, but if you can afford a house you’re rich.

The only thing worse than rich people are imperials. Since the vanilla game always starts with the player being in imperial custody and lined up for execution for crossing the border, I’ve made a background story where I fled to Skyrim because I was wanted for crimes, crimes, crimes and more crimes throughout most of the empire. And just as I got here I get jumped by the empire, gave them a false name of the top of my head (my real name is Feridagor Fernblossom but I told them my name is Toxi Thunderfart) and they decide to execute me anyway? Those absolute bastards!

So the number one rule that makes my playthrough tough: Kill all imperials on sight. Even a civilian Nord with an imperial sounding name is subject to my rage. I’ve joined the Stormcloaks, but only for personal gain. Getting the empire out of Skyrim would give me an advantage, with a somewhat clean record to establish myself here.

Other rules:

Never wear armor found on a corpse. It’s likely broken and or defect since, you know, the original wearer is dead. Besides, it probably won’t fit and it would be quite disgusting. Store bought or made by myself.

Never use a shield or heavy weaponry. I’m a bows, daggers and poisons kinda person.

Not too much meta-gaming, so no quicksave-quickload shenanigans unless I die. My follower dies? Tough shit.

Always lie if that is an option. Feridagor is a compulsive liar and afraid someone’s going to realize he’s not actually Toxi Thunderfart.

Wear no religious stuff. No amulets of the gods, no daedric staffs or weapons. That stuff is cursed. I do the gods bidding if I get a quest but only out of fear of reprisals.

I’m going to play through the entire game vanilla, not 100% but close, before I lean heavily into modding and start it all again.

I love this game.

I am sorely tempted by the Skyrim remaster myself but I’m not sure I’m in a place where i can commit to 300 hours on a single game just now…

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Bruce.

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Dave

Bruce wrote:

NERRRRRRRRD

Oooh, talk dirty to me Daddy.

Bruce wrote:

I am sorely tempted by the Skyrim remaster myself but I’m not sure I’m in a place where i can commit to 300 hours on a single game just now…

Can’t you just take a few days off from parenting? Just fill out some form and give it to the child, and demand to be called Bruce rather than Da during your vacation. I think the success of the application rests heavily on leaving your wife out of the decision.

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Rocket, Ben

Skyrim was a quality remaster.

In other news, EA no longer has the Star Wars license exclusively – first announcement is an open world game with UbiSoft.

What would you say is the high water mark for Star Wars videogames?

I loved Dark Forces back in the day and also really liked the Rogue Squadron/Rogue Leader games. I also spent a fair bit of time on the original KotoR.

And for pure shooty fun, Sega’s Star Wars Arcade was pretty good.

For me – Rogue Leader / Rebel Strike, then Lego SW.  Never got to play KotoR – surprised it hasn’t has a remake / remaster in the way FFX and FFXII have had.

Ben wrote:

open world game with UbiSoft

X-Wing vs Tie Fighter, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Jedi Knight II.

As a non-Star Wars fan, I’d say Pod Racer (sorry “Star Wars Episode 1 Racer”) and, erm… Jedi Knight was alright from the little I played.

Martin Smith wrote:

As a non-Star Wars fan, I’d say Pod Racer (sorry “Star Wars Episode 1 Racer”) and, erm… Jedi Knight was alright from the little I played.

I was just have a browse through the xbox store sale section and noticed Pod Racer has been rereleased on Xbox One. It boasts modernised… and that’s it by the looks of it. Looks like it’s a direct port of the N64 one.

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Martin Smith

Looks like the big Hogwarts game isn’t coming until 2022.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/13/22229085/hogwarts-legacy-delay-2022-release-date

If you have any ambition to actually finish it properly, don’t bother with Dragon’s Dogma.  Why? Because it’s final boss fight is one that makes a mockery of any and all preparations, is wholly contrary to the game you’ve played up to this point, which includes your previously very effective pawns turning into total fucking idiots in it. You’re supposed to hit the dragon’s heart but, if you manage to put up with the numerous instant death failure chase / pursuit sections to actually get to the final fight, you will find it next to impossible to actually do so.  It cannot be manually targeted with spells, you can supposedly climb to it but the controls are so imprecise it never worked for me.  Your pawns will stand in front of the dragon and get roasted to death quick, regardless of gear or level.  After a short while of this, I drew the logical conclusion: Fuck. This.

Instead, I went back to the last checkpoint save – further than I would have liked but its save system is shit too. I then went and sacrificed the person the game thought I cared for.  It’s actually whoever you have highest affinity with, a weird mechanic I didn’t give a crap about, so didn’t care about the character that got torched.  So got what was supposed to be the”bad” ending.  I deposed the rapist murderer Duke and had previously broke his estranged wife out of jail, yeah, that’s actually a good ending.  The actual “good” ending? World gets wrecked, the Arisen is blamed for it – yeah, that would have also fucked the game over.  So whatever the outcome, the endgame wrecks the overall game.

What’s so bad about this is the game’s primary selling point and successful execution of it is in fighting big monsters.  It pulls this off.  Your pawns are smart, they evade attacks, they learn elemental weaknesses, they heal – when your pawns are kicking arse, you know and can see it!  All of that goes out the window in the abysmal final fight.  They do dumb shit, with the area you’re supposed to hit, no one is able to.  It is a load of stinking fucking shit.

The tragedy of this is, underneath all its old game bullshit – and there is a lot, from not indicating enemies on map or screen easily, to no red sight to indicate target acquisition, to no indication of enemy level or indeed area level – there is some smart stuff here.  The final fight plays as if the developers who did 90% of the game all got fired and some other bunch of bozos came in to finish it off and they did not give a shit.  The game sells itself as any style being suitable but the final fight render its a lie.  Not that going for elemental weaknesses works as the targeting is shit and the dragon has 100% armour except the tiny heart that is never in range.

For a game over eight years old, its world design proves that design is not dependent on graphics – it frequently looks very, very smart due to the style used.  On cutscenes and characters, it is far, far weaker and shows its age.  But world and enemy design? Pretty damn sweet.  It’s particularly so when duffing up the big monsters, with an impressive level of detail.

It’s flaws are all built around the same thing – a lack of transparency that hurts it terribly.  You will start a quest and then be told you failed another by doing so, but without warning.  Some quests you will only find with a guide.  It also has a time system that starts off intriguing and then becomes irritating, with food spoiling over time.  Its weight system also is seriously lacking.

A sequel that knows and understands what makes this game really smart, with improved Pawn AI and current tech audio and visuals? Could be something, unless that base it on that bullshit final battle.

The night time effect felt seriously different, more active enemies.  It also makes the case rather effectively for a smaller, well designed open world over a bigger one.  Every part of it looks good.

Gear upgrades and skill system is OK, not without flaws, but you do feel a difference after getting improvements.

Still, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla now has some company in the category of ‘games that went off a cliff in their endgames’.

Stay the fuck away from VR Chat.

Don’t ask me why. Just…

Stay. Away.

Started on Man-eater, it’s all right.  A good choice for the first PS5 PS+ game.

Problems are they’ve made it more complicated than it needs to be; the game loves the ‘jump out of water’ stuff and I hate it; every enemy has the same tactic – go to the camera blindspot; map’s pretty useless too.

Still, the PS5 version looks amazing and I’ll likely dip into it every now and again to get an upgrade or two.

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Chris-S

Nope, scratch that, Maneater’s a piece o’ shit game.

It has one card, it plays it all the time – your sense of distance is shit, your view of your environment is shit, every enemy gets to hit the blind spot and then hit you from it, rendering the dodge useless.

Fucking hell, how the fuck did these fucks fuck up a fucking shark game? Oh yeah, lots of videogame bullshit, that’s how.

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Chris-S

I’m a little over 50 hours in Horizon now yet I think I’m only halfway into the story, perhaps. (I was 30~ hours in before I discovered Lance Reddick is in the game and he’s one of the main characters). That’s mainly because I’ve been farting around with side quests, collectables and the DLC area instead of the main quest, which I’ve gone back to now that I’ve mostly done the rest. I suppose the point of open world games is that it doesn’t matter what you focus on doing, but it always felt like the main quest was pushing in me in different directions to the rest of the game. Once you get to Meridian, all the side quests push you south, yet the main quest wants you to go north.

It’s ended up that I’m level 52 or so, while the recommended level on the main quests are still around 25. You’d think that would make me OP as all get out, yet they’re still a bit of grind when it sends a wave of heavy weapon wielders at you, who double being offensive titans with being really high in HP and able to shrug off head shots. It’s not desperately fun and something’s a bit messed up when it’s easier to kill a giant murder machine than it is a guy with a fireworks launcher.

I’ve also just reached the reveal of what Zero Dawn is and jeez that’s depressing. I’ve read/played/seen my share of doomsday and apocalyptic media before and it was hardly likely to be happy fun times, but… I think because the reveal mission is so long and has you tour the entire facility and throws all these audio logs and hologram recordings at you (I started ignoring the optional ones after a while) it just feels like it’s wallowing in it all. The whole “the government’s been lying to you; we can’t beat the robots destroying the planet so we’re making a doomsday prepping regenesis programme and you’ve been kidnapped to work on it. You can either pitch in and live in this bunker, refuse and be released into the world (but only after the robots have destroyed all life) or we can euthanise you. Your choice!” is super grim. And I know it’s going to be the kind of thing that nestles in my subconscious and stays there.

The core gameplay of the game is fun, despite it’s shortcomings and I want to see the story through to the end, though I really don’t know what kind of satisfying ending it can offer (especially considering a lot of the questions Aloy’s been asking seem to have pretty obvious answers). But I’m definitely getting itchy feet and already starting to write off bits of the game I can no longer be arsed with. I feel like I’ve long since seen everything it has to offer, which isn’t great when you’ve got so much story left.

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Dave

If you’re playing on Normal, it’ll probably be difficult – don’t think Guerrilla have ever seen the ‘easy’ setting as easy!

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Martin Smith

Trails of Cold Steel I

The endgame really marred this.  The final dungeon works OK, save for enemies pulling luck-based bonuses out of nowhere and the boss of it is massively cheap.  It then follows that up with a series of plot revelations that are, well, they don’t really work for me at this point – it overplays its hand and for these to work, it’s going to require future developments and explanations.  It then compounds these errors with a new battle mode for the final boss that relies on guesswork and image memory, neither of which I care for.  All of that? Made for a crappy endgame that was far weaker than what preceded it.

One important point: If you’re playing this and you know you like it, ensure you have the sequel bought before starting the endgame – it’ll make sense when you’re playing.

Away from the final chapter errors, how does the game work as a whole?  The regular structure applied to the bulk of it: Practical exam, old schoolhouse visit, field study is surprisingly effective.  The schoolhouse changes sufficiently from visit to visit and each of the field studies felt distinct and unique.  The way you get to know the other characters works very well too.  It all ends up becoming far more engaging than you might expect, with a ludicrously ambitious story and battle system to match, with a very wide range of characters and players – and it works!

There’s some very smart stuff here and it’s great to see.  It’s not an open world game but, over the course of the game, you get enough sense of the geography for the final plot moves to pay off.

So, yeah, the endgame sucks, but the rest of the game is damn good.

Trails of Cold Steel II

First, don’t even think of playing this without playing the first. Sure, there’s a Backstory option on the start page but I doubt it’ll be anywhere near effective enough.   It does tutorials yes, but really, I seriously doubt anyone will be starting here.  Just play the first game.

I have to admit the second game started disastrously with this weird opening where it would have text on the screen, then go to audio segments without them, back to text, then audio only – it was infuriating.  Especially as the first game had subs on almost everything, though I noticed gaps on the final boss fight that was a shame.

After that bad start, the intro was pretty good.  Standard opening stuff, but at the end it threw some great curveballs – none of which work if you haven’t played the first game.  But if you have? Oh, they work all right!

Nor does it play the ‘all your skills from the last game are lost’ card.  Some stuff is but not everything, which is refreshing.

This opening hour certainly makes a good case for the ambition of the series, which I really like.  Others will watch an opening sequence that throws in 20+ characters and may be more intimidated, but if you are? Well, the chances of you getting to the second game are low.

I’ve got the main cliffhanger from the first game now resolved, with many, many new questions.  Ok, fine, bring it on.