WHAT PLAY YOU!? Version 3.0

[BomberPat]

I finished Call Of The Sea yesterday - it's a first-person puzzler, with a Lovecraftian theme. I was shit at some of the puzzles, because a lot of them are very visual and abstract in ways I'm bad at figuring out; give me Monkey Island logic puzzles over this kind of thing. Luckily it's the sort of thing my other half loves, so I deferred to her for help with the trickier ones. 

It was nice enough. Simple, short, and kind of predictable given the usual Lovecraft tropes, though doesn't go quite in the directions you'd expect, and has a bit more of a nuanced take on the usual Shadow Over Innsmouth trends. I didn't know it was going to be a bit Lovecraft thing when I started playing it - it was a free game and I figured it would be some oldy-worldy exploration stuff, though it lays its cards out pretty early. There's a choice of two endings, and I know which one I think of as the "good" ending, but it doesn't really manage to get the weight behind either of them to make that choice land the way it should. 

Glad it was a freebie on PS Plus, probably never would have paid for it, but it's broken up some time between playing Monster Hunter and WWE 2K24.

[LaGoosh]

Jumped on the Astro Bot train. Incredible fun, a platforming classic. It's a joy to play a game that just nails the basic fundamentals of good pure gaming. It's quite rare these days. Some of the "shape" levels are brutal but overall the difficulty level is pitched just right. The end stage levels based on other games in particular have me beaming ear to ear.

[Dr. Alan Grant]

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

Glad it was a freebie on PS Plus, probably never would have paid for it, but it's broken up some time between playing Monster Hunter and WWE 2K24.

Which Monster Hunter? I’m debating which one to jump into. World, Rise or just wait for the new one next year. 

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

Jumped on the Astro Bot train. Incredible fun, a platforming classic. It's a joy to play a game that just nails the basic fundamentals of good pure gaming. It's quite rare these days. Some of the "shape" levels are brutal but overall the difficulty level is pitched just right. The end stage levels based on other games in particular have me beaming ear to ear.

I’d love for them to release more of these as paid DLC, although at this point I’m sure they’ll be looking ahead to what they might want to do in a sequel.

I nearly gave up on some of the shape levels, but got there in the end each time. It was the final main game bot level that had me tearing my hair out to a whole new level. Give me Elden Ring any day, this was a whole new level of brutal. 

[BomberPat]

51 minutes ago, Dr. Alan Grant said:

Which Monster Hunter? I’m debating which one to jump into. World, Rise or just wait for the new one next year. 

Rise - it was another PS Plus freebie, otherwise I'd have probably never got around to it. I've played it to death, and am bogged down in free DLC at the moment, so needed a break from it. 

I enjoy it, but I've not really played it to its full potential - I don't switch up weapons or tactics very much, just use swords and brute force my way through everything rather than learning how to use other weapons, and I hardly ever play online. 

[Onyx2]

I picked up the Darksiders trilogy for £9 the other day on a recommendation. Fun fact, I ignored the series all this time because I thought everyone was referring to Capcom fighter Darkstalkers. Now I've actually played it, surely it should be called Horsemen or Apocalypse or something? 

The first one was decent: chunky omnipotent combat, decent platforming, good ability progression, fun level design. It thinks it's well 'ard though, like a really edgy teenager, when in fact it's a middle class dweeb wearing eyeliner. Chunky art style with thick outline is so of the time. 

DS1 was a fun little jaunt but it does have a habit of giving you a new ability, making you use it once, and then never using it again. And badly needs proper fast travel. 

A few hours in to DS2 and they've fixed loads of stuff: enemies have energy bars, fast travel is plentiful, and it's just all round prettier. Looking forward to the rest of it. 

[CleetusVanDamme]

Black Ops 6 campaign was a mixed bag. On the one hand, the bread and butter war stuff was really good, the spy shit was great, especially the big casino heist, the open world bit that I was dreading turned out fine (I even did all the optional stuff), and crafting fucked off, hopefully forever.

On the other hand, silent protagonists are always crap, the story falls apart at the end even worse than in Cold War, it has the most hilarious "who the fuck is that guy?" moment, that even when you hit Google afterwards will still leave you none the wiser. And the err, experimental parts were trash, I was desperate for them to be over the second they started...

Spoiler

Dream/drug sequences need to banned from gaming. I like Raven Software, I'm not against them trying to stretch their creative muscles, I love Wolfenstein 2009, and Singularity was one of the first things I replayed when I got my Steam Deck, but shoehorning it in here in this cowardly "didn't happen LOL" manner is just lazy. As bad as the Zombies mission was it had nothing on the Harrow "the biggest enemy is the one within during this dream sequence, let's do some ghost maths" section. It's shit seeing reviewers praise these parts, I'm sick of it just from playing the last few Spidey games alone!

I had much more fun than I didn't overall, but those bad parts and the unsatisfying ending stop it from being among the best in the series. 2 still reigns supreme as king of the Black Ops games.

The GTA: Definitive Trilogy has had a big update, with a lot of the fixes added for the later mobile ports implemented in. I made the mistake of buying it digitally for PS5 at release and quickly abandoned it, I'll try it again and hopefully get some value out of it now.

 

Edited November 13, 2024 by CleetusVanDamme

[SpiritOfTheForest]

I completed a wonderful little game last night called Under The Waves (free on PS Plus if you have it) and it wasn't what I was expecting. It gets a strong recommendation from me but first I must say that the theme of the game is one of grief so if this is something that has recently affected you, then I'd be cautious about playing. 

Indeed, without going into the story, I found Under The Waves to be a powerful and emotional experience and the ending was wonderfully done and presented me with perhaps the most difficult choice I've ever had to make in gaming. 

Dark themes aside, the game is actually very relaxing and chill to play for the most part. Exploring the depths of the ocean floor and watching the various wildlife and delving into the husks of old wrecks, clearing up plastic waste (ocean environmentalism is another big theme here and one that's presented very well) and genuinely zipping around in your little submarine under the, erm, waves, is a really peaceful time. The soundtrack is excellent too and compliments everything perfectly. There's a strange paradox going on between the tranquil nature of much of the gameplay and the heaviness of the plot but I felt it worked well. Technically wise, there were times when the framerate would drop significantly when in the submarine but a quick reload normally solved that. The character facial mannerisms are also weird during the voice acting: The voice acting itself is well done but the mouth movements don't fit the words - although this is explained by the fact the game was originally in French so of course the English lines don't match up. 
 

Under The Waves is also relatively short with full completion probably taking about 15 hours. If you're looking for a game you can sit down to after work without having to commit 500 hours to it then this could be a shout. A lovely game and I'm grateful for PS Plus providing titles like this I probably wouldn't have heard of otherwise. 

I think now I'll be on to the final part of the Assassin's Creed: Ezio Trilogy: Revelations.

[Devon Malcolm]

Started Rayman Legends. It's good and there's more to do but it's not as good as Origins, for me. I might feel differently as I go on though. I miss the speed runs though, why did they take them out?!

Either I'm really shit at Zuma Deluxe or it's really hard in places. I do like it though, I stick it on in the morning before 16yo gets up for school and it eases me, swearing, into the day.

[Shirtie]

On 11/13/2024 at 12:09 AM, CleetusVanDamme said:

Black Ops 6 campaign was a mixed bag. On the one hand, the bread and butter war stuff was really good, the spy shit was great, especially the big casino heist, the open world bit that I was dreading turned out fine (I even did all the optional stuff), and crafting fucked off, hopefully forever.

On the other hand, silent protagonists are always crap, the story falls apart at the end even worse than in Cold War, it has the most hilarious "who the fuck is that guy?" moment, that even when you hit Google afterwards will still leave you none the wiser. And the err, experimental parts were trash, I was desperate for them to be over the second they started...

  Hide contents

Dream/drug sequences need to banned from gaming. I like Raven Software, I'm not against them trying to stretch their creative muscles, I love Wolfenstein 2009, and Singularity was one of the first things I replayed when I got my Steam Deck, but shoehorning it in here in this cowardly "didn't happen LOL" manner is just lazy. As bad as the Zombies mission was it had nothing on the Harrow "the biggest enemy is the one within during this dream sequence, let's do some ghost maths" section. It's shit seeing reviewers praise these parts, I'm sick of it just from playing the last few Spidey games alone!

I had much more fun than I didn't overall, but those bad parts and the unsatisfying ending stop it from being among the best in the series. 2 still reigns supreme as king of the Black Ops games.

The GTA: Definitive Trilogy has had a big update, with a lot of the fixes added for the later mobile ports implemented in. I made the mistake of buying it digitally for PS5 at release and quickly abandoned it, I'll try it again and hopefully get some value out of it now.

 

As a Zombie player, I loved all the Zombie stuff in it, My mate who I've played Call of Duty with since MW2 (The Original one) he hated it. But he's never liked Zombies. 

Personally I thought it was the best campaign in ages, Treyarch tried and I think succeeded in trying out new stuff, We had the big set pieces That are always in COD campaigns. 

[Merzbow]

Is anyone else playing that new mobile Pokemon TCG game? For something free to play it's quite generous so far with the ability to get free booster packs, I haven't had to spend a penny to get myself a nice little psychic deck, was lucky to get an EX Mewtwo and a good shiny Alakazam.

[FLips]

2 hours ago, Merzbow said:

Is anyone else playing that new mobile Pokemon TCG game? For something free to play it's quite generous so far with the ability to get free booster packs, I haven't had to spend a penny to get myself a nice little psychic deck, was lucky to get an EX Mewtwo and a good shiny Alakazam.

Yeah I've been all over it since launch day. The generosity falls off after the first couple of days when suddenly you can't earn any more hourglasses, and the social rewards have very stingy caps on them, but other than that I can't complain too much for a free to play. I converted from Marvel Snap though which was much more balanced and generous with a lot more to do and earn.

[Vegeta]

4 hours ago, Merzbow said:

Is anyone else playing that new mobile Pokemon TCG game? For something free to play it's quite generous so far with the ability to get free booster packs, I haven't had to spend a penny to get myself a nice little psychic deck, was lucky to get an EX Mewtwo and a good shiny Alakazam.

After reading this I just installed it and jumped on it, been enjoying it so far at least.

[TildeGuy~!]

You get a free pack a day for a week if you do the free trial but make sure you cancel it before it expires otherwise you’ll be charged £7.99 a month.

I’m currently at level 15 and I’m only in it for the collecting factor so never play battles, if you add friends they can like your showcase which gets you 1 ticket for the shop, it resets daily.

Other then that looking forward to when the trading aspect finally gets released.

[BomberPat]

I got to a point in Monster Hunter Rise where I'm pretty much happy to say I'm done. I got to Level 100, long past the point where it feels like there's any story left to do, and while it's added a few new hunts to be done, they're all either bloody difficult or just rehashes of what I've done before, and I'm not all that tempted to go back and keep doing the same thing in the hope that a monster drops enough of the right goodies to craft a marginally better bit of armour. It was fun, and I sunk God knows how many hours into it, but all that's left is busywork or forking out for DLC. Maybe one day.

I've been playing Tails Noir - it's a 2D thing, anthropomorphic animals doing film noir, you play a raccoon detective investigating a crime. It's nice and simple to play; there's a few puzzles, but none of them are overly obtuse or complicated, and most of your time is spent interrogating people, and getting a sense of the world from that. But the plot has taken about three different unexpected sharp turns that I didn't really see coming, and I have some ideas of how it might end, but it's anyone's guess. It's nothing spectacular, but I'm enjoying it.