What We Played #57

Thanks to a curious time dilation effect which has seen this week’s ‘free time’ morph into something entirely different you get a rare treat this week. You get to read what the team have been playing entirely in their own words without them being sullied by any of my attempts at humour.

First up, my own trivial amount of gaming. It started okay with a couple of friends around last weekend and a good Rock Band 3 session. Cue a next-day loss of voice from spending too long on vocals.

I’ve also dipped my toe into Mass Effect 3‘s multi-player and found what little I’ve played surprisingly enjoyable. When attempting the missions as a team of two relatively low-level (levels 1 through 8) characters the objective-based third wave becomes something of a roadblock though.

Maintaining my sanity while my free time evaporated has been sporadic holes on Everybody’s Golf played on my PS Vita. Being able to pick it up, play a hole or even just a couple of shots and put the PS Vita into standby ready for the next time I get a spare minute has been invaluable.

I’m not the only one Vita-gaming this week. Tuffcub has again been purely indulging in handheld action:

Nothing on PS3, but more Treasures Of Monty Python on Vita. That bug I mentioned last week wasn’t a one off and almost every time I swicth on the game it tells me I’ve been away for over one hundred days and gives me loads of freebies. As a result I now have more lives than the game can handle it it just display “1000+” in the counter.

I’ve also been playing the LBP Vita Beta (which is awesome) and Velocity.

LittleBigPlanet Vita has also been keeping Alex and friends entertained:

LittleBigPlanet Vita, which is under NDA but I’m not really fussed – it’s brilliant. I showed it to a mate last night (and didn’t get to sign ANYTHING) and he was like – woah – it’s a PS3 game. I said NO! it’s not, it’s a Vita game and he was like – woah – really? Yes. YES. It’s gorgeous. Plays better than the PS3 versions because the floaty jump isn’t so floaty, the level design is top notch and some of the user content is mindblowing. Hopefully Sony decide to advertise this one.

Not much else. Installed iOS 6 on my iPad and it broke it, which was a real laugh. Now I need to wait until the next beta to see whether they’ll actually let me use by two year old router on it or not. Apple have a thing about two year cut-off dates, huh?

If you were listening carefully at the start of the week you’ll have heard Peter sobbing with disappointment after a certain review:

I really haven’t been able to play much this week, aside from trudging through around 30 hours of the Game of Thrones RPG. That was dreadful in almost every way, unfortunately the good ideas in it seemed to stumble at the first hurdle every time and the voice acting and audio was embarrassingly poor. The one positive was the plot and how it builds slowly before really picking up pace in the last few hours. Not enough to be able to recommend it to anyone though.

Also spending some time in Westeros is Aran:

This week my gaming has consisted of a tiny bit of ME3 and Crusader Kings 2. I restarted my Insanity run on Mass Effect 3, after getting stuck the first time trying it. I’m now playing as an Engineer which is helping me play to my strengths as a tactician.

Crusader Kings 2 is a true tacticians game. A world in which I have my own area and my allies could stab me in the back. In the first game I played I watched as my brother became King of England. Right after that the Normans invaded meaning I had to supply men to the army. The war lasted over a decade, the Normans eventually retreating. Then my nephew went and usurped the throne from his father. At this point I plotted the usurpers overthrow, with the help of one of his allies. Triggered a civil war, which I lost due to the other Lords siding with the new king. Still, I got to keep my lands.

Then I discovered the Game Of Thrones mod. I am now a Stark playing through Robert’s Rebellion (or the War of the Usurper, depending on your loyalty). The story has taken a completely different turn from the books/show due to this Rebellion lasting at least 10 years now with no end in sight. Westeros remains divided and Winter Is Coming.

Territorial wars of a fungal nature have been keeping Toby occupied:

I’ve been playing Mushroom Wars that I downloaded through PlayStation Plus – it’s a game that I wouldn’t usually devote myself to but since trying it I’ve been hooked! Sometimes simplicity is the best route to entertainment, and Mushroom Wars supports that philosophy through and through.

Lastly, crippled by his Internet-free status, Josh has been sharpening up his driving skills ready for the imminent collapse of society:

I’m currently offline after moving house, but before making the move I made sure to pick up all the new Plus freebies and have been playing a little of those here and there – as in I played everything a little bit, and then completed MotorStorm Apocalypse. Despite owning the first two games and playing snippets of Arctic Edge, I never really got into the series before, but Apocalypse is amazing. As great as the tracks and music and everything are, it’s really the atmosphere of the festival and the disaster zone itself that gripped me. Honestly cannot recommend it enough.

Aside from that, I’ve done a couple more levels of Mutant Blobs Attack, played around a bit with the LBP Vita Beta (which annoyingly can’t be launched without a net connection), a bit of the Mahjong game that was free on Plus last month, and finishing up my replay of Arkham Asylum before I get started on City.

So what have you been playing?