Community Round-Up: 01/08/15

Good news! Not only did the Top Gear trio find a new home, but I’m back after Tef kindly covered for me so that I could spend a weekend watching the America’s Cup Sailing in Portsmouth. And to top it off, August has arrived, bringing with it sunny weather and lot’s of flying ants, it seems.

So, with a pinch and a punch, let’s get started with this week’s Community Round-Up!

CRU2-PCARSMeet

Looking at the Meets, chances are that Monday will see the Project CARS or F1 2015 meet, with the odd Rocket League or GTA V Meet thrown in also.

If you’d rather play something else, you can add your own Meet to the list, provided you have more than 250 TSA Points.

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It was actually a very high scoring week in the reviews, and Episode 4 of Life is Strange takes the top spot on a 9/10. With another “outstanding cliffhanger”, Stefan declared it to be “the best episode yet”. Next up was a sequel to a game that I remember wasting many hours playing in school. N++ was the first of five games to be given an 8/10, and it’s easy to see why. With a staggering 2360 levels, plus the ability to create your own, I don’t think anyone will manage to get bored of it any time soon, so long as they can live with the incredibly simple graphics.

Stefan’s last review was for The Swindle, a stealth-based risk management game that sees you playing a thief attempting to steal as much as you can, before calling it quits and making your daring escape. Moving over to Dave now, he reviewed Victor Vran, a top-down action RPG with a heavy emphasis on action. Although there is not a huge amount of replay value, the game does bring some new ideas to the genre and has a good selection of fun and challenging puzzles.

Our last 8/10 title was Q.U.B.E Director’s Cut, a Portal-inspired puzzle game with a minimalist art style which Aran thinks puzzle platformer fans should definitely consider buying. He also looked at Foxtales, the expansion to Never Alone, which although isn’t as good as the main game, it’s completely worth picking up if you enjoyed it. Our last review of the week came from Jim, who gave a 7/10 to The Legend of Kay Anniversary. He enjoyed the remaster, calling it a fun game that doesn’t feel particularly dated, considering it was originally released back in 2005 on the PS2.

For Mobile Watch, Jim had a look at Deathwatch – Tyranid Invasion on iOS, and he also blogged about if we’ve already seen the last of the action platformers.

The Chronicle, meanwhile, discussed Rise of the Tomb Raider’s exclusivity deal, Windows 10 Streaming and a new poster for MGS V. Meanwhile, on WeView, Sunset Overdrive received a favourable Verdict, as Super Metroid replaces it as this week’s game in a retro special.

Rounding things out, Episode 187 of the Podcast was very dino-centric, while What We Played #214 includes several of the games we’ve already mentioned today.

The Forums have perked up a bit, which is great to see!

It was quite a week, with plenty of reviews and a healthy dollop of Forum activity. Let’s hope it’s the same when I return next week.

8 Comments

  1. I’ve spent a bit of time this morning looking at steering wheels for PS4/PC. It’s crazy that there seems to be no mid-range wheels anymore, you’ve either got the T80 (with no force feedback so it’s basically pointless) or you’re looking at the £250-300+ range for the G27’s and T300s. The T100 sounds ideal, except it’s not an officially supported wheel for the PS4 so I’d hate if 6 months down the line developers decided to stop supporting it.

    Does anyone have any recommendations, or news of if there’s some new mid-range wheels arriving soon? I know Logitech announced the G29, but I’d like a wheel similar to the DFGT/T100 provided it supports PC too and will cost ~£80.

    • No, nothing mid range announced at the moment. The T100 is the cheapest FFB wheel. T300RS is the next, then the T500 and G29 at the highest price. There’s fantatec, but that’s the same price as a G29 at the very least.

      The T100 is the best compromise for now. It’s another offputting thing about next gen at the moment. It’s even more crazy when the DFGT is supported by PCars and other racing games, but only on PC.

      • I found a place that does the T100 for £65, (it seems to be over £100), would looks like a great deal. I’m wary though that it doesn’t seem to be ‘officially’ supported by the Ps4, so I’m unsure what that will mean in the future. Will it still work with every game? Or will it suddenly become unusable should a developer not decide to support it, or will it still be usable, just without full functionality that you need to use the DS4 for say menus?

      • Hard to say for sure. People have used the T100 on several PS3 games which don’t support it, and it works fine. Apparently with F1 2014 it got recognised as a T300. I’d estimate the worst case scenario as having to use a DS4 for menu navigation.

      • I can live with using the DS4 for menus etc, so it did look like the wheel for me, just not anymore :( (see below)

    • @Gaz The T100 is really an upgraded T80 to include force feedback so it’ll get the same support as the latter in future releases.
      I wouldn’t have any qualms in buying the 100 over the 80, in fact I’d positively recommend it at that price! I know a few friends using just the T80 that absolutely thrive using it playing DC or PC

      I personally plumped for the T300RS with F1 steering wheel add on…especially for the new F1 2015 game release, being a bit flush at the moment, the quality and feel of the higher end Thrusty is sublime….as are apparently the lower echelons!

      Best of luck in your choices dude ;)

      • Annoyingly, it looks like the £65 price was just a trick to get them up the search rankings as it’s out of stock and they’re not sure they’re going to get anymore. :(

        Guess I’m back to square one, my only option is to wait for a new mid-range wheel to come out, or legitimate T100 sellers to drop it well below £120 which is currently what they’re selling it for :/

      • Ah, that old chestnut, awaiting stock arrival that was never actually ordered.
        Sound too good to be true and it probably is. As a slight consolation though most next gen racers do play very well using the controller as a stop gap before finding a suitable rounded hand thingy ;)

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