Video Games – What Are You Playing?

Topic

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

Replies

Tales of Arise

On the one hand this is an excellent example how to do a big, but not too big, not open world game, with the emphasis on quality over quantity.

Plot and characters are well executed, the skits have never looked better.  The world design looks amazing.

The problems are then? An ambivalent, divided upon itself combat system.  If it had stuck to its system of elemental weaknesses, armour, boost strikes it woukd have probably been fine.

But it does this weird, substandard Souls-style dodge requirement while not tracking enemies, which seriously impairs your ability to dodge.  As you often won’t see where an attack is coming from or too much other stuff is going on.

You can do both ground and aerial attacks but it can be hard to tell the space needed for them.  Similarly, you may start a five hit special move, only to circle around the targeted enemy with a minority of actual hits resulting.  This self sabotage seriously hurts the combat in the moment to moment experience.

As the game went on, the boss fights became the weakest part of it.  The combat relies on interrupting spells or breaking defence – neither of these work on the bosses.  The final endgame boss was a disappointing, unsatisfying total mess and not good to play.

That all the other elements that do work manage to outweigh these flaws is testimony to how good it can be, and why you’ll stick with it despite the flaws.

Difficulty, another casualty of a Tales game trying to follow Souls, is all over the place.  I started on Story but dropped it to Very Easy for the last third of the game.  It was a good decision but even then you have to be attentive in the fights.

Whatever a main villain needs to be successful, the one here doesn’t have it.  The final resolution doesn’t pay off, it’s a mess.  The final boss fight is set up so you can’t die.  Which is just as well as it’s a solo duel, when you’ve been fighting as a party for hours.  And it involves status effects that no one is around to cure.  With the other flaws of the system in full display.

Overall? Good but flawed.  A sequel with Tales having the confidence to be Tales, and not Souls, could be fantastic.  Worth playing? Despite the flaws, yes, because the other pieces of it are that good.

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Martin Smith

So, acquired an Xbox Series X.

Ben wrote:

Series X

Is it exclusively for porn?

Come on, that can be far more easily obtained.

“The Internet is really, really great…. For porn.”

Nope.  Different combination of factors:

– Looks like recent UK stock influx might be reducing

-:Inflation is going up, might see the RRP go up from £449.

– Possible UK-EU trade war could also see the price rise.

All that said now was a good time to nab the tech.

Add in the legacy aspect of being able to access all the XB games I’ve heard of for 20 years.  Along with the big exclusives expected to hit next year with The Outer Worlds 2 and Avowed.  Plus far better music capabilities including CD playing.

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News just in – AC Origins to get new 60FPS next gen patch 2 June:

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/assassins-creed-origins-60fps-update-for-new-gen-consoles-arrives-on-june-2/

Xbox GamePass day one results

Black

Some games can cross time, some can’t.  This one cannot.  Its audio does still hold up, the guns sound great.  The game itself lacks the complications of later shooters too.

Where it goes wrong is having a difficulty setting that says lots of health packs but the second level has very, very few.  Add in a lack of sensible checkpointing within the level, plus terrible stealth and it gets shot down fast.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

This one had a major advantage as I pretty much bought a PS3 to play it and it did not disappoint.  Now? The biggest advantage it has is the XBX boosting it so the loading is a second, if that.  Given how frequently this game loads areas, it transforms the game for the better.

Looking forward to booting up Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas – the latter of which I never played.

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Long have I heard of this.  How does it work now? If I can find a way to better manage its pretty severe stamina drain, I think it’ll do OK for itself.  It does look its age but its world design mitigates that to a degree.

Fable Anniversary

This is pretty good.  The combat systems have some flaws but it looks good.  Again, the importance of good world design.

Some of the characters are pretty awful – I want to kill Whisper and post body parts to her dad for being such a crappy parent.  Its binary good / evil morality is very basic too.

It is pretty fun but I can now see why Kingdoms of Amalur was seen as covering similar ground, but better.

It will be interesting to see what Playground Games do on the remake.  And talking of Playground Games….

Forza Horizon 5

Is this a system selling game? Absolutelty.  Does it beat Gran Turismo 7 in the fun stakes? Also yes.

Its world design, especially the draw distance is amazing – I haven’t ever seen that done so well in a racing game.  The accessibility assists are very well executed and boost it massively.

It has perhaps the best opening sequence I’ve ever played.  It’s impossible not to enjoy it.

Forza Horizon 4

True, due to being four years older this cannot look as good but it still is also amazing.  Setting it in the north of England and southern Scotland is very, very smart.  I have a far better sense of how this looks than Mexico.

Like its successor, it has an incredibly good opening sequence.  Due to age, its accessibility options are more limited but still very good.

The small set of flaws common to both games is that the AI has no honour.  Along with race checkpoints that can axe your race chances to zero if you miss one – even on the lowest difficulty.

Overall though both games more than live up to their stellar reputations.  I will be buying both of these in due course to support the series.

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Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

This is not a good game.  It is a goddamn awful atrocity that is carried at every stage by the SW name and world.  And at every point it is stabbing the player in the eyes and kicking it everywhere it can.

I tried to like it.  Use of the cheats got me to the end but no further.  Maybe, if you can understand its impenetrable systems, the Star Forge level will be better.  As it is? It is the laziest, most uninspired piece of game design going.  It takes that sense of this being the big, bad final level, takes a dump on it, sets fire to the turd and then keeps crapping and pissing in a perpetual stream of incontinence.

Infinite spawning enemies.  Your stupid party splitting up and going all over the place – they were never taught that the party that stays together slays together.  It’s a mess.

Then, if you put up with all this, including its goddamn awful combat controls, you get to fight Bastila, who despite my not caring about, I did try to save.  Only to be screwed over by its opaque speech choices – screw it, she dies.

Then, then it has this section of perpetually spawning droids.  The idea is you’re to overload the terminals for the spawn generators.  Problem is you cannot select or easily even see them because you’ll be locked onto one of the droids.  Cue a very dispiriting, despressing and frustrating experience that has ensured I do not want to play it again.

The farce that was the final “fight” with Malak was the final nail in the coffin.  Your health goes down faster than you can heal and he keeos regenerating.  The thing keeps breaking the flow, not the game has any.  This game has only one form of challenge: your action is cancelled, your action misses, you are frozen by a status effect.  And the last one gets really, really boring.

The other thing it does – and remember you’ve been operating as a party the bulk of the game – it takes them away.  You got to do various bits solo.  It doesn’t work.

Towards the end a couple of enemies restored their entire health from near death instantly, while freezing everyone.  That’s not good, that’s just cheap.

I’ll see the ending on YouTube, it’ll be far more enjoyable.

The story is good, the game is abominable.

Nor do I have much confidence in Aspyr.  Frequently my ability to attack would be suspended, the options were not active.  Party members would disappear.  On top on everything else, the Star Forge level was a buggy, exasperating mess.

The remake? Why would I want to go anywhere near after having had this kind of experience? Unless they rip the entire thing apart and rebuild it from the ground up, no.  If they did that? Gameplay videos are needed first. A faithful version? No, not interested.

My experience of the original? Waste of time, waste of money.  There are some things I like about it but the Star Forge level poisoned it all so very, very badly.

GamePass results so far.

Passes:

Fallout 3

Fallout: New Vegas

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Final Fantasy XIII

Forza Horizon 4

Forza Horizon 5

Maybes:

Hades – buy on PS5 when cheap.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

Fails:

Gears of War

Mighty Goose

The Ascent

Doom: Eternal

Tunic

Sable

Exo One

Need for Speed: Heat

Ninja Gaiden Sigma

Sunset Overdrive

Still to try:

Sea of Thieves

Guardians of the Galaxy

Plus a load I’ve yet to download or not yet available on GP but will be soon.

It Costs $100K To Fully Gear Up One’s ‘Diablo Immortal’ Character, Because Microtransactions

Diablo Immortal is finally out, and it likely won’t be the game to save Activision Blizzard from a curse in ancient gamer tongue that roughly translates to “easily predictable consequences of their dumbass actions”.Yes, Diablo Immortal currently occupies third place in the inverted podium of Blizzard’s worst games of all time, and it seems interested in getting even “higher”. Fans have hated Diablo Immortal ever since its announcement, but just like the ugly duckling in the story that all real-life swans are based on, it too grew into something neat – right before bitting off the dick of the people trying to pet it. Yeah, Diablo Immortal is a surprisingly good game, but only for those of us capable of making the intellectual or monetary effort of looking past all of its microtransactions shenanigans.

And the problem isn’t just mere microtransactions, it’s microtransactions that we actually need to make if we want the chance to be more than a moving target on PVP. While Diablo Immortal isn’t technically pay-to-win because most players will feel like they can get everything just from playing the game, hardcore players who aren’t actual immortal beings will likely disagree with the statement. Everything is fine and dandy up to level 50, but then the game becomes an intentional slog where the biggest enemies are no longer big-ass demons but pop-ups trying to get players to buy stuff that’ll somehow make the difficult-but-totally-fair game a bit easier. Even worse, grinding won’t get the best possible gear, and people don’t even get to directly buy a demon hunter’s signature rocket launcher. Players have to contend with buying loot boxes legendary crates in the hopes that they’ll get the real good stuff. And it is expensive. People have already done the math, and to get the best equipment in the game, players will need to spend upwards of $100,000. Yes, that is not a joke.

Diablo Immortal currently enjoys a 0.7 user score, a mere 0.1 points higher than Warcraft 3: Reforged, but a very strong 0.3 points higher than World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic.

Doom Eternal

There’s a good game trying to get out here but it dies due to too many self inflicated wounds.

Over the last couple of years I’ve had a lot of fun with Destiny 2.  In that game, if you play Titan, the melee punch is absurdly fun.  It takes out almost anyone.  So you would expect that, of all game characters, Doomguy would have that ability.  Nope, he doesn’t.  Melee attacks are always non-fatal, you have to shoot enemies.

That wouldn’t be a problem except this is a very stingy game.  A low ammo status will constantly be displayed, it is practically the status quo.  Aim assist? Says it’s on but I don’t think so, I didn’t feel much assist.

Weapons? Could be good but they are blighted by the ammo constraints and the fact the enemies move fast.  At one point you get to told to shoot this weak point, good fucking luck trying shooting it.  More likely is you’ll drain the ammo.  Chainsaw? There but you won’t have the ammo for it.

Finally, first person platforming.  This universally sucks. No game I’ve played has made it work – and guess what? Neither does this one.

If they took off all the pathetic, blatant restraints and got rid of the platforming, this’d probably be awesome.  As it is? Goddamn irritating.  Kind of a shame but, yay, GamePass.

bb-but what about the gameloop?

xD

What gameloop?

That’s what Doom Eternal fans call the gameplay… it’s some bullshit term the id guys sold to players as if it somehow justifies the tediousness and repetitivness of the gameplay

If you ever watch a video about DE, you’ll hear that term most probably…

Decided that I wanted to at least finish the first level of Doom Eternal.  Which was a total bastard to do.  Had a go at the second level and, by pure luck, managed to get past its platforming bollocks at the end of it.

Do I like it any better than a day ago? Fractionally.  The ammo system still cripples it massively, without it the game would be more fun.  But the biggest hit is its’ “platforming”.  Someone needs to remind Id that they do shooters, not first person platforming.  Its abominable.

Just to see if I was misremembering, booted up Doom 2016.  Ammo was far less restricted, a weapon might run out but not all of them, which is what happened in the sequel.

It’s a shame because the flow aspect of Doom Eternal, when it is working, is very good.  One thing that is brilliant is its idea of a training level – you can practice with infinite ammo and health!

I also do have to give it due credit in its raytracing mode on Series X.  It looks amazing.

Moving on….

Forza Horizon 2

Wow.  For a 8-year old racing game, a genre that is one of the most vulnerable to tech developments rendering it much more inferior in the face of more impressive, newer games on new hardware, this looks great.

Can’t quite work out what it is that enables it, but this series works better for me than almost any other.  Burnout Paradise is its nearest competition, but there’s a level of accessibility assist in FH that is absent in BP.

Ben wrote:

It’s a shame because the flow aspect of Doom Eternal, when it is working, is very good.

That is the “gameloop”… you’re supposed to get into that “flow” and keep switching between weapons and special attacks (hence why they restricted ammo count). I think it’s super limiting in terms of gamplay, but lots of people loved it, so

It needs more ammo to really fly, not the levels that are in the game.  The training pit in the Doomfortress proves this too.

Chorus

Could have been great, has a great visual look but….

Terrible controls? Check.

In desperate of an auto-aim / aim assist? Check

Lead character that you instantly despise and don’t care about? Check.

Any one of these maybe, just maybe, could be overcome.  But all three kill the game very, very quickly – and that’s before it kills you in its tutorials even on “easy”.

The controls seem OK at first but once they add in enemies you can’t respond quick enough, the controls get in the way.  The lack of any auto targeting combined with large 3D environments and dispersed enemies, with poor direction of fire indicators, does not help.

Then there’s Nara, who joined a genocidal cult, killed thousands, killed a world then decided she would be really, really sorry about it.  So much so she tells you every 10 seconds.  To the degree that you will quickly: How about not doing any of that Nara?

Still, GamePass, yay.

The new Turtles game comes out next week – with 6 player co-op!

Hmm, not sure we’ve enough people here.

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Dave

Does it have cross-platform play? I might get it when it comes out, depends on price.

I finally beat Fire Emblem Binding Blade! It feels like a real achievement simply because it’s taken so long (best part of two months). Each map takes up best part of two hours and that’s assuming you don’t fail and have to restart. The game actually gets easier as you go on (helped by me abusing the save system and arena to grind characters up levels) which is handy because it’s borderline cruel early on.

It’s a fun game, don’t get me wrong, but I can see why Nintendo skipped over it to release the next Fire Emblem (which has a bigger variety of missions parameters and a tutorial mode opening) as the first for the West, even though it meant not using Roy, who had just been in Smash Bros.

Don’t know about either price or cross platform.  I’d guess a £16-20 price point.

Cross platform ought to be easy for a game like this.

I see that The Last Of Us “Part I” remake/remaster has been announced for PS5.

The visual overhaul makes it look pretty incredible (in fairness, the original is still pretty amazing all these years on), even if there are a few aspects that have been changed that I feel like I prefer in the original.

While I’m not usually a fan of remasters that change things to this extent, it looks like the attention to detail for facial expressions and realism might actually help some of the story beats to land even better, so it might be worth a look just for that.

Here’s a video with some nice comparisons.

To the extent of paying RRP £70?

That’s where I think Sony is making a mistake here.

No, I don’t pay RRP for many games these days and wouldn’t for a remake.

I’m assuming you’ll be able to pick it up cheaper soon enough.

Same here, it’ll eventually fall in price – I think they could have done what they with the Uncharted bundle.  Own either game, upgrade to the bundke for £10.

Maneater currently free on Epic Games Store!

It’s worth a look as a freebie but it fell apart fast for me.

Ben wrote:

It’s worth a look as a freebie but it fell apart fast for me.

My sentiments too. It’s casual mayhem fun but a bit… much. And still… not much.

It was more it’s fiddly 3D controls that did it in for me along with a lack of target lock.

Submerged

Currently on sale with a PS+ discount of 90%, this is a steal at £1.49.

Easily one of the best examples of chilled gaming going, this is a nearly flawless little indie gem.

I said nearly flawless? Sadly yes.  Its telescope system to locate things is pretty much dependent in you being in judt the right spot.  Sometimes its hard to see where there is a platform due to either the colour of it blending in, the perspective used or both.  Nor can you zoom the map in.

But these are very minor, moment to moment flaws.  Only the vagueness of the telescoping prevented me finding the last building.

There’s secrets, landmarks and creatures to also find, but the last two don’t feel particularly meaningful.

Where the game succeeds is in its world design, its controls – 99% of the time they work great and its compact nature.  You can complete this in a weekend.  There’s no padding.

Combat? None and it would have been strange to have any.  This is supposed to be a submerged, deserted city.  Having an Uncharted-style horde of enemies turn up out of nowhere would shatter the spell.

It also goes against the standard video game doctrine which states that everything in the world is hostile.  Thus you must kill everything before it kills you.  This isn’t that kind of game.

Based on how I enjoyed this I’ll be getting the recently released PS5 sequel.  Also on sale with PS+ 50% off, so £12.49.

A week or so back:

Sony to Microsoft: Bring it! <drops badass State of Play showcase>

Tonight:

Microsoft to Sony: Challenge accepted! <drops badass XB-Bethesada showcase>

And there was a lot of good stuff here:

Forza Motorsport

Forza Horizon 5 DLC

High on Life

Diablo IV

Starfield

Figured I’d replay Far Cry: New Dawn – still loving it. The map is just too beautiful to stay away from. Still a 10/10 game, so satisfying, so well calibrated.

One of the “free” games on PS+ this month is God of War, which I’ve never played but know is one of the top rated releases on the platform so I hope to at least DL it sometime over the next few weeks and give it a go. Literally no idea what it’s about.

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Bruce

Andrew wrote:

One of the “free” games on PS+ this month is God of War, which I’ve never played but know is one of the top rated releases on the platform so I hope to at least DL it sometime over the next few weeks and give it a go. Literally no idea what it’s about.

Did you ever play (or see any of) the old God of War games on PS2/PS3? It’s a sequel to those but plays quite different.

It can be approached on its own but a little bit of the past backstory is helpful to know (like who Kratos is and what he did in those previous games).

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Andrew

Andrew wrote:

One of the “free” games on PS+ this month is God of War, which I’ve never played but know is one of the top rated releases on the platform so I hope to at least DL it sometime over the next few weeks and give it a go. Literally no idea what it’s about.

Go for it! It’s a great game!

Dave wrote:

It can be approached on its own but a little bit of the past backstory is helpful to know (like who Kratos is and what he did in those previous games).

Nothing a little bit of Wikipedia won’t solve! That said, I really really really recommend playing the previous games too. Good story, nice gameplay and – above all, perhaps – lots and lots and lots of violence.

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Ben, Andrew, Dave

I’ve been playing Eidos’ Guardians of the Galaxy the past few days. God it’s fun!

A bit glitchy at times (it actually stuttered to a halt and crashed in a cut scene one time) admittedly, but combat is hectic fun, exploration is interesting and the constant bickering between the group is entertaining.

I think what I love most is that, despite being heavily influenced by the movies (it has the movie team with the movie personalities) it’s largely based on the comics (the good ones, I mean, the DnA run). Which makes sense given Dan Abnett worked on the game, I guess. But the backstory is largely Annihilation with the Chitauri pasted onto it in place of Annihilus and it uses big elements from the comic like the Church of Universal Truth and Cosmo as the head of security at Knowhere, with loads of little easter eggs and references on top. Like Jack Flag in custody and Wraith’s file in the Nova Corp criminal database.

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Dave, Ben

Yeah, I need to get back Guardians – it has some really neat writing.

Andrew wrote:

Figured I’d replay Far Cry: New Dawn – still loving it. The map is just too beautiful to stay away from. Still a 10/10 game, so satisfying, so well calibrated.

One of the “free” games on PS+ this month is God of War, which I’ve never played but know is one of the top rated releases on the platform so I hope to at least DL it sometime over the next few weeks and give it a go. Literally no idea what it’s about.

God of War lives up to its rep.  Although I played it in boosted form on PS5 – if you have that option, use it.

Some of the combat moves you do you will not believe, even after seeing them.  But the game is far more than its combat.

There are things I don’t like about it.  One of them being loved by just about everyone else.

Dave wrote:

Did you ever play (or see any of) the old God of War games on PS2/PS3? It’s a sequel to those but plays quite different.

Nope, never played any of them! I have to admit I really don’t like story in games, and haven’t really been taken by any apart from maybe GTA5. I tend to skip cutscenes, so if God of War is held high because of its story I may not stick with it long!

It’s definitely more story oriented than the earlier GoW games, but a lot of the fun of game is in the combat, puzzle solving and exploration so hopefully you enjoy those.

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Andrew

The story in the previous GoW games can be summed up by:

Kratos is a formidable warrior. The gods screw him over. He kills the gods. Repeat.

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Bruce, Andrew, Dave

Anonymous wrote:

The story in the previous GoW games can be summed up by:

Kratos is a formidable warrior. The gods screw him over. He kills the gods. Repeat.

You’ve forgotten one key aspect.

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The early GoW games were very teenager targeted i.e. hur, hur ‘boobs’.

2018 God of War was very much: Boy, time to grow up.

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Dave

Dave wrote:

You’ve forgotten repressed one key aspect.

Fixed that for you.

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Dave

Turtles is on Game Pass.

There goes my weekend.

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I am trying out this Android emulator for the PC. BlueStacks to be exact.

I got the Marvel Future Revolution and configuring the gamepad now.

So far so good.

I just couldn’t wait for Avengers to put in the Vision and Scarlet Witch! 🤣

Ben wrote:

Turtles is on Game Pass.

There goes my weekend.

Sounds like you need to call animal control.

Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

If you can, play this on Game Pass, as it may become the disaster for you that it did for me.

First, I don’t like the art style.  The pixellated graphics just don’t look like right to my eyes.  Having a smoother display option would have helped.

Things that are good – automatic back attacks, hold to escape but that needs a button reminder.

The worst way to start – a 21-step intro that introduces you to 21 sets of controls.  This would have been better as an optional, separate tutorial section you can boot up any time.

The two actual levels that followed were pretty good.  You can move around and hit fast, the auto grab really helps, there’s some nice visual touches.  The only flaw is stuff that looks destructible isn’t.  It can also be hard to tell your horizontal alignment to enemies due to the perspective.

Boss fights were rubbish.  Reflective of the source material? Yes.  This is an area where I’d like the remake games to depart from.  The unstoppable attacks and invincibility were blatant cash extraction devices 20-30 years ago, they don’t need to be revived.

Cue the first hoverboard level and the game died.  Take that difficulty of horizontal alignment and add in enemies that require jump attacks.  There were sone in level 2 and I found judging the depth difficult.  But then also add in speed effect parallax scrolling….

From the start it was doing my eyes in.  I have not experienced this with any other game.   Cue flying enemies – can I hit them? No. Can they hit me? Yes.  Stuck with it for a while but got to a point with 4-5 flying enemies, could not hit them, the speed scrolling is continuing – it felt unpleasant to play.  So I had to quit.

A very, very unexpected outcome.  I’m not that botheres by it since, as soon as it started, I remembered that I never cared that much about these characters.

So, er, yeah.  Play this on Game Pass if you can.

Ben wrote:

Turtles is on Game Pass.

There goes my weekend.

A fine way to waste it.

Well, if only….

Meanwhile I booted up Octopath Traveller.

It did OK, interesting battle system, looked all right.  Then it decided to have enemies use poison, which does massive damage and you have no ability or items to cure it.

That is so underhanded and cheap I’m not inclined to continue with it.

Gave Octopath another go.  There is a peddler in the cave but the healing items sold do not cure poison!

Having done the boss fight, those Scaled Lizards look even more out of place.  Every other adversary feels right for a starting area in a way those don’t.  Have made it to Rippletide and started Tessa’s story.

Also gave Astria Ascending a go.  Nice art style but it is a confusing game to play.  If you can get your head around its intricate systems there might be a good game here, but the learning curve is pretty steep.

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Ben wrote:

Gave Octopath another go.  There is a peddler in the cave but the healing items sold do not cure poison!

Having done the boss fight, those Scaled Lizards look even more out of place.  Every other adversary feels right for a starting area in a way those don’t.  Have made it to Rippletide and started Tessa’s story.

Also gave Astria Ascending a go.  Nice art style but it is a confusing game to play.  If you can get your head around its intricate systems there might be a good game here, but the learning curve is pretty steep.

Which character did you start with? I don’t remember poison being particularly troublesome early on.

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Olberic.

The bandit cave has these Scaled Lizards that are easily harder than the boss you fight!

Of course, the only reason they are murder to deal with is that they use poison and, in this starting area, you have no poison defence or cures.  The healing you have is HP only.

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Hmm, I have to say, I’d forgotten that. It’s worth sticking with the game, it’s not generally that frustrating. The only balance issue I had was the encounter rate, which could be a little high but then if you equip an item to lower it, it becomes too low.

You have unfortunately started with the character with the least interesting path skill too, so you’re yet to get a taste of the variety of novelties it offers.

As usual with JRPGs, getting more party members boosts a game and so it is for Octopath.

Got Tessa, interesting how her intro chapter was non-combat.  That was a good difference.

The game has also started looking better, with the combination of art styles being more effective.

Having a second party member, more weapon types, breaking enemy defence, using boost to break an enemy just before they do their super move – it works well.

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Martin Smith

Ben wrote:

But then also add in speed effect parallax scrolling….

Yeah they fucked up the speed of the background… hopefully they’ll fix it. Oh, btw, with flying ennemies you need to look at their ground shadows to know whether you are aligned to hit them or not.

But other than that, nay, it’s great… it’s a 100% nostalgia trip back to the arcade games buuuut with some modern mechanics… Only played the 1st two levels, but goddamn I was impressed with the quality.

Problem for me is the sense of horizontal / vertical blurs with the perspective angle. Booted up SoR 4 and the effect is lessened due to it being a bit flatter.

I also got TMNT this weekend and am really enjoying it. Only played for about an hour so far but I like what I’ve seen. It leans heavy on the nostalgia (for both the arcade game and the show) but having said that my kids enjoyed it too so it’s obviously not just the 80s fanboy in me talking.

Gave Astria Ascending another go.  It’s a strange, strange game.  It’s clearly been inspired by other games but not understood why they work.

For instance, it drops an entire party of eight on you from the start.  But you don’t know any of them, their skills and abilities and text dump exposition doesn’t supply it either.  It makes a very good case for why just about every other RPG staggers the party characters.

It throws lots and lots of numbers at you, but doesn’t give you a good sense of what they mean.  The menus – lots of them – like their stats but you have little context for them. It has an upgrade grid with lots of choices – a node might be set to one of two or more options, but you don’t know how the game works.

You go into a weapon shop, each character has dedicated equipment but it’s not great at quickly indicating what works for who.  Again, loads of options, options everywhere, as far as the eye can see.  This is why games need an intro curve.

In a way, this suffers from comparison to Octopath Traveller.  But that game also shows just how good Square Enix are at designing JRPGs.  So much so that Final Fantasy X‘s battle system kicks the hell out of this over 20 years later.

Talking of, the battle system is, supposedly, its best card, along with the visuals, but I’m not seeing it.  It drops everything on you in one go – seeing a theme here? – including 10-15 positive and negative statuses! I don’t know, maybe if you manage to wade through this swamp of information it gets good?

Add in some pretty brutal difficulty, even if you scale it right down.  Weak characters, who are taking chunks out of each other the entire time.  An enemy strike mechanic that lots of other ganes have done better – this one triggers really early.  It all adds up to a strange game.

It’s clearly trying.  It’s had lots of work put into it.  It looks good, soundtrack is OK.  But it has a gap of understanding at its core.

Nothing demonstates this better than when it says you can select three additional jobs for each character.  But you cannot respec any of them later! Its the start of the game, you’ve no way of knowing what the good combinations are.  Maybe playing with a guide works but that’s rarely the best way to play.

So it sounds like the Sonic Origins collection is a bit of a flawed and overpriced package. Not only is it quite limited in terms of what it offers, but for rights reasons it’s lost half of the music from Sonic 3 (replaced with wonky sounding new tracks based on old prototypes) – and they were really good tunes too, especially Ice Cap zone – and has some of its content locked behind paid DLC.

I already own these games several times over, so I don’t think I’ll be shelling out £30 for the few additional bells and whistles on offer here.

Even more galling given they took the originals down from sale from digital platforms. If you’re gonna do that, your new package better be perfect.

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Dave

I still have the Nintendo DS compilation, which is probably the best re-release of these games since the original MD versions in terms of faithfulness to the original, so will probably just stick with that.

Even if playing Sonic on a Nintendo feels like a betrayal of my 10-year-old self.

Sounds like I better buy that Sega Classics collection on PS4 quick!

Ben wrote:

Sounds like I better buy that Sega Classics collection on PS4 quick!

That doesn’t have S3&K, sadly. Even some of the previous ones that had both S3 and S&K didn’t have the combined version.

Ah, scrap that plan then.

Sonic 3 has really been the bane of these reissues. How they managed to release a Sonic game for which they didn’t have full music rights is a bit baffling to me even now, but it’s an interesting story.

Didn’t know there were Sonic games with licensed tracks.

Ben wrote:

Didn’t know there were Sonic games with licensed tracks.

They weren’t licensed exactly, but it’s a complicated rights situation involving Michael Jackson and some of his musicians who worked on the soundtrack.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/06/brad-buxer-reconfirms-michael-jacksons-involvement-with-sonic-3s-soundtrack

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Ben

Submerged: Hidden Depths

A sequel to the first game from a few years back, it’s a good sequel and game.

The first game had you searching a submerged city for supplies.  This time you’re seeking energy orbs to undo a black goo over buildings.

There’s also greater interaction with the world – using the boat to pull down entry gates or break gates.  The buildings themselves are more intricate and it taps into the PS5’s abilities effectively.  Just getting to the mooring point is a navigation puzzle.

Things that hold it back from being great are meaningless collectables and the telescope, a flaw of the first game, doesn’t work here either.  It’s still very dependent on you being in the exact right location to look.

For a game that is entirely dependent on visuap cues, they are sometimes not easy to see.  Some of the collectables are dependent on you knowing exactly where to look, as if not, they can easily blend in.  There are some good accessibility options, including changing the guidance / interact colour.  But, with the lighting effects, even that isn’t always.  Does prove there’s no perfect colour.

Still, even with these factors holding it back, it’s a good game.  The water effects are excellent, as is the world and building design.

Would it be good to get a third game? I wouldn’t say no and it would be good to see them nail it.  This is better than the first game, but it’s not quite what it could be either.

https://screenrant.com/marvels-avengers-game-future-disney-crystal-dynamics-approve/

As some of you already know from my postings, I follow some games because they are branded under a

big name franchise ie, the Batman games, some Star Wars and Trek games and  Avengers.

(I know there are better games that aren’t branded after a huge franchise. I will experiment when I have the time.)

 

Now that the game and the Guardians game have been sold, now apparently is up to Disney and their approval.

The game will add Jane Foster, but like the other additions aside from Black Panther, they are all really gender

swaps with no real change to different displays of power. I mean She Hulk smash is more or less like Bruce,

Kate Bishop and her archery is like Clint.

 

It would have (and still be) nice to add a Wanda or Dr. Strange given it is streaming now. But the tricky part would

be the display of powers  given the gamepad controls. Like what would be done?

 

Anyway, I am trying to configure the Future Revolution game and see how that game is doing things.

 

What are you playing on Al? PC, PS4/5, XB, Switch?

Avengers on the PC

Marvel Future revolution (netmarble) is a mobile game but there is a PC Android emulator called Bluestacks

which I am currently configuring the gamepad controls. It looks good on the screen so far. I have to see how it plays.

 

You have so many better options available to you, especially with PC Game Pass.

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Al-x

[Al-x]

I got that and I have to input this 25 digit code for a free two weeks of the Ultimate Pass

 

I really want to look into this, but if I did now, I would be into social media, streaming shows,

sports games, gym exercise, training. all on my “free” time.

I will get into gaming more but just not now.

 

For now, I just want to see if this Future Revolution does Scarlet Witch and Strange any justice.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Al-x.

Sometimes sequels tend to be a let down, failing to build upon the madness of prior instalments. On the other hand sometimes sequels allow you to batter a bunch of fully grown angry baby men.

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Ben, Martin Smith, Dave

It can only be…. Yakuza.

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Bruce

I don’t know, given Sega’s track record, that could quite easily be the next Sonic game.

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Bruce, Ben

I gave the Marvel Ultimate Alliance a look on YouTube

All you are in the game is this small character roaming like an ant (your point of view is overhead)
walk around and depending on the button combos you push…

I decided to pass. Still working on controls for Future Revolution.

Al-x wrote:

I gave the Marvel Ultimate Alliance a look on YouTube All you are in the game is this small character roaming like an ant (your point of view is overhead) walk around and depending on the button combos you push…

I used to love Ultimate Alliance. It maybe looks a little primitive today but it was a lot of fun at the time.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Well, given the talk around the title, this was a surprising failure but does demonstrate the value of Game Pass.

What killed it? Combat. Though, even before that, it did this crappy jumping sequence, where you have to avoid wind gusts in order to avoid falling to your death.  Each time you fail you get a chunk of health chopped off too.  It sounds bad? It is.

Then it started this combat sequence and…. It got so awfully boring so fast.  Also chaotic.  Complicated controls. So much going on that I have to keep an eye on three things at once which I can’t do.  It was flying around or run and dodge enemies, use the right Guardian ability – but this is at the second level of the game so you don’t know what those are – then shoot more.  But the shots still do too little damage and there’s a cooldown on the ability you use.  Plus it’s hold down stick and select, but you have to do it twice, you can’t go left and it’ll happen, no, it’s hold, select left, confirm the choice then it happens.

I had the difficulty dialed down so I wasn’t getting killed, but neither was it fun.  It also does this thing where it doesn’t display the enemy health bars all the time, so it’s easy to think you’ve killed something when you haven’t.  It then did a “free Rocket” bit, how? Give me a reminder, there’s a lot of complicated controls here, but nope.  And this is the start, it’ll only get more complicated and fiddly, not less.

Had to cut my losses.

Forza Horizon 4

I’m now at the point where the game has opened up far more.  The gameplay loop is also far clearer.  Do stuff, gain credit, influence and XP, that in turn opens up more stuff and more cars, round and round you go.

There is stuff I don’t like in it, like when it decides the assists don’t apply on a cross country run or the AI is a cheating bastard who blantantly blocks you on races.  Nor do I care for the Showcase events.

The wheelspin mechanic is OK but it does some rather weird things at times.  Fortunately, it’s outweighed  by the game being generous with cars.  I’ve nabbed nearly 60 just by playing.

And it is those cars, well some of them that really sell me the game.  The Ferrari I got was nice, the Lamborghini and Bentley were better still.  None of them matched the McLaren Senna! That cars drives beautifully and feels amazing.

This game frequently looks incredible but it also manages to do so when you’re going at +200mph! With that kind of experience on offer, I’ll always want to boot this up from time to time.

Plus FH games do get delisted and the DLC becomes unavailable.  With this being the Lake District and Scotland? It all adds up to an excellent set of reasons to purchase it.

Fallout 3

Playing old games can be weird.  For instance, they can show up all the things that came along afterwards – like distance indicators and route assist.

After a very nasty start I’m certain it was not as hard at the start as this was.  But having nabbed a shotgun and slightly better armour, along with working out the repair system, it tipped today into getting good.  Cue many Raider and Super Mutants having a very close up view of a shotgun blast in the face! Which then explodes their head.  It’s all very Highlander – but with guns.

Dave wrote:

I used to love Ultimate Alliance. It maybe looks a little primitive today but it was a lot of fun at the time.

I agree it’s a fun game. It has that Gauntlet arcade game energy, a lot of chaos going on.

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Dave

Fallout: New Vegas

After a pretty brutal and offputting start, I decided to have a look online and the line is: Apply JRPG rules.  That is to say: don’t explore too much, follow the main quest first, do some sidequests to up your level and get better gear.

Did this, did a couple of NCR quests, one of which introduced the Legion.  Those got me a good rifle, including armour-piercing ammo.  So I returned to Primm and inflicted Old Testament style vengeance on both floors of the hotel.  This included breaking out the armour-piercing ammo to take out the flamer-packing, armoured leader.

That then led to a quest to get a new Sheriff.  Went to a prison that the Powder Gangers had taken over.  Cue a slaughter as they were already unhappy that I ran them out of Goodsprings.

Its only flaw now is its omnipotent and very narrow karma “system”.  Killed everyone and decide to take their stuff? You lose karma because the game cannot be blocked.  You might have killed a load of total psychopath murderers but don’t steal their stuff.

Forza Horizon 4 Expansions

Of the two expansions, Fortune Island and Lego Speed Champions, I had expected to prefer Fortune Island but…. the Lego one is far, far more fun and clever.

If you like drifting then Fortune Island is for you.  But I found the Lego one to have greater environmental variety.

Both expansions add a lot of content, they are very good value for money.  New cars, new events, new areas.  You get a lot for your cash.

Decided to give Turtles another go.

This time it went better but it’s still a good but not great game for me.  Better in co-op? Probably, but there’s aspects here that won’t solve either.

For whatever reason, maybe my eyes just knew what to expect, but that third level wasn’t as bad.  Being tipped off to use the double jump attack helped but still not easy to take out flying enemies.

The biggest problem I have with this game is it overcomplicates its controls.  An easy fix for this would be a simple control scheme, which SoR4 has, or auto setup similar to what Bayonetta and Devil May Cry 5 has.  The lack of that hurts it greatly.

What emphasises this weakness is the enemy variety falling flat for me.  It is supposedly one of the game’s best cards.  I found it was more-or-less this-enemy-is-immune-to-x, which made the later levels a slog.

Adding to this were the weak bosses.  These boil down to hit boss, boss activates invincibility and hits you, repeat until boss is dead.  You can’t throw them around, interrupt their attacks, it’s a battle of attrition.  Just pounding a health bar down.

What would make it better for me? Better assists, better boss design, more modernisation over homage to the past.  Oh yeah, scrap all hoverboard levels.

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Dave

I’ve been enjoying Turtles ok (playing couch co-op with the kids) but I do agree that the simplicity of those old arcade scrolling beat-em-ups doesn’t translate brilliantly to the modern day.

At least SoR already had a relatively well balanced and honed control/combat system to fall back on without too much tweaking needed. Turtles feels a bit more like random button-mashing and there are too many sections where avoiding hits (especially from bosses) is virtually impossible. Some evolution there would have been nice.

Although I guess there’s a balance between doing that and straying too far from the original.

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Ben

One thing it definitely is – a perfect example of how well Game Pass can work.  I played the entire thing as part of it.

Andrew wrote:

Dave wrote:

Did you ever play (or see any of) the old God of War games on PS2/PS3? It’s a sequel to those but plays quite different.

Nope, never played any of them! I have to admit I really don’t like story in games, and haven’t really been taken by any apart from maybe GTA5. I tend to skip cutscenes, so if God of War is held high because of its story I may not stick with it long!

Finally spent some time with this over the past few days – I always forget how games work, and that there’s usually some kind of learning curve and transition period with a new game (I don’t play that many), and that completely loving it from the start is pretty rare (Far Cry: New Dawn!) – this is certainly very story and lore based but you don’t have to get too invested necessarily. The combat is pretty fun and having the RPG elements of upgrading weapons and attacks has a fair bit of depth. You’re basically working your way through small sections of the map at a time dealing with enemies and solving problems/puzzles to clear your path; quite a simple setup. I can see myself sticking with this to the end (whereas I baled on Witcher 3, Arkham Knight, and Fallout4).

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Dave

Of those three, W3 is the biggest loss as there is some very significant pay-off to your in-game decisions.

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Andrew

Andrew wrote:

The combat is pretty fun

I love the axe-throwing mechanic. That made the game hugely enjoyable from the start for me.

The one hurdle I hit early on was the combat mechanics, which took me a while to master due to the very 3D/360 degree aspect of some of the fights, and the way you have to play more defensively than the old games. But once it clicked, it all started to flow nicely.

Some of the stagger moves you can do in GoW are quite brilliant.

In gameplay terms, they’re massively satisfying.

Graphically, they are absurdly detailed and very well animated.

Ben wrote:

Of those three, W3 is the biggest loss as there is some very significant pay-off to your in-game decisions.

I may go back to it; I might have just not been in the right mood at the time.

Just watch out for certain dialogue options that have unexpected outcomes, which in turn closes off entire quest lines, with impact on the final ending!

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Andrew

Heh… I bount the TMNT game… still haven’t played it beyond my quick test.

Also bought the new Dune game yesterday… I’ll try to play it too… I’ve been going down into the AVN rabbit hole, very time consuming =P

Jon wrote:

new Dune game

Is it RTS like the old Dune game?

Anonymous wrote:

Is it RTS like the old Dune game?

I haven’t played it yet, but I know it isn’t RTS… it does look like one, because they use that sort of isometric view and some other visual elements of RTS games, but it’s more of a 4X strategy game, if you’re familiar with that term.

The conclusion I reached is that it’s actually more similar to the very first Dune game, but yeah, with a visual flair from an RTS game.

At first I was sad it wasn’t RTS, but honestly, I’m too old for RTS games, so I’m actually more excited to try this, so we’ll see.

BOY!

God of War: Ragnarok – PS4 and PS5 hits 9 November 2022.

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Dave

That’s my Christmas sorted.

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Ben

Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning: Fatesworn DLC

If you haven’t played, definitely grab the main game.  It includes the first two DLCs and both of those work OK.  Though the Dead Kel will trap you on the island.

Do not, however, even if it is on sale, buy this DLC.

Why? Because it is the worst kind of DLC.  It throws in the usual stronger enemies, but these enemies are also cheap.  Cue a Heavy Knight with an unbreakable shield and an absurdly high health level.

Still, those are irritants, not a DLC killer.  The damage starts with the Chaos enemies.  You have to use certain weaponry to take out their armour – generally, far weaker than your other swords.

Then you have to go around closing Chaos Portals.  To do that you have to first close a number of small portals to unlock it.  Then there is the dungeon itself.

Problems? One, these are the definition of game bloat / padding.  Two, there are 25 of these things but they are not shown on the game map.  Amalur’s game world is far too big to go manually searching.

Still, these are gaping wounda but not mortal.  So what finishes it off? For the final level it has this barrier you must pass.  To do that you have to wear – and keep on – a specific armour set.  The problem? If you have crafted endgame gear it will be far superior to the piece of crap armour set you have to use to survive the barrier.  In my case my gear was three times better, with numerous buffs. Get past the barrier then swap back? Nope, if you do that, it kills you.

Stuff that.  That piece of design idiocy kills this DLC stone dead.

The game’s best selling point is it allows you to choose how to play, with ability to craft gear to match.  This crude finale goes entirely against that.

Enjoy the main game but don’t touch this DLC.

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Round Two

KoA: Re-Reckoning: Fatesworn DLC

What was different this time?

Turns out the Chaos Sight isn’t just an auto-gained ability but is an upgradeable skill! If you upgrade it? You can actually find and close those Chaos Portals. All 25 of them.  Yes, 25.  The presentation suggests that you don’t really have to do all 25 – yes, you do.

If you do all 25, what does that do to the final boss fight? It makes it manageable but not enough to make it good.  One of the worst enemies in the game are the flying, teleporting mages.  This boss? Is one of those.  Even massively weakened, he gets to do far too much damage to a max level character on Casual difficulty.  Chasing the Souls subgenre? Maybe.

If anything, it was the epilogue section that made it far clearer as to what they were going for with this.  They wanted this to end the story, so put together something that would act as a farewell tour of the world of Amalur.

Does it work? To a degree.  That each Chaos Portal has to be unlocked by closing its supporting portals bloats it.  Doing the 25 is one hell of a slog.  The concept of Chaos enemies is better than its execution, as along with extra armour they cannot be staggered while they have it.  Add in that the enemies know where you will be before you do, can shoot projectiles through other enemies and the result is, unless you were smart enough to craft health regen armour, you will likely get stunlocked to death.

Outside of its badly bloated endgame, it’s an OK DLC.  The new region is well designed, looks good enough and there are some brilliantly over-the-top fights that see your character tearing through 20-30 adversaries.  More of that would have been better than the chaos enemies.

I still think that, unless you really need a definitive ending to the game, this is skippable.  With this DLC I am questioning the need for it.  Something new and more is needed in DLC than new area with higher level enemies.  Its become too established a set of tricks.

Bayonetta 3 out 28 October on Switch.

Ok, I’m done, do not waste your time with Edge of Eternity.

It starts off rocky, but gets better, OK battle system – well, until they do to it what they do to the rest of their game – kill it completely.  And yes, I’m playing on Casual settting.

Chapter 2, of 8, they start wrecking it.  Puzzles become too complicated, big wide open areas become too big even for the moggie mount you get, quests deliberately send you from one side of the map to the other.

But it is chapter 3 that killed it.  It does a locked in badly explained, badly signposted, zombie escape sequence.  It then eventually ends in a boss fight, but the difficulty on it is far higher than before.  There quickly becomes too many enemies to monitor and the game’s info indicators become overloaded fast.  You will move the wrong character, you will not be able to see what you need to either.  A character that holds the healing utems dies? You’re screwed because your battle items are limited – a bit of total artifice as you have a huge inventory.  Besides, until this point no one probably died either.

The developers being a small studio does not excuse this kind of design idiocy.  They have destroyed their own game on the altar of difficulty.  It is crude, stupid, self-destructive – why would anyone do this to their own work?

They don’t know when to stop.  When limiting things would have been better.  Prior to chapter 3 you would have had battles of up to 6 enemies.  Chapter 3 starts with you taking 10-15 zombies on two waves and using turrets to take them out.  The battle area is bigger but not better.

At the same time they put massive limits on the game systems.  You’ll have crafting recipes you can’t get the items for. Armour is also very limited.

If anything this does demonstrate just how good the major JRPG studios are.

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Ben wrote:

They have destroyed their own game on the altar of difficulty.

Oh that reminds me, the new Cuphead DLC is out!

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Ben