Grabbing short stints of gaming where I can has been my story this week. Aside from my now regular bit of Mass Effect 3 online with friends, there’s been some PS Vita-powered horticultural exploits in Plants vs. Zombies. I’ve bought that game too many times but can’t stop returning to it.
I’ve also taken advantage of the free games (see here and here) that have been made available for my Sony Xperia S phone. I’ve only played Laser Wars Lite so far, which is a fairly generic top-down tank shooting game but is nevertheless a reasonably fun way to spend a few minutes. Unless the tank you’re trying to accurately target happens to be under the virtual d-pad that is.
Fieldrunners HD, which I got a couple of smartphones ago after playing the Fieldrunners minis game on my PSP, has always felt too cramped on said smartphones. Playing it on my Google Nexus 7 is something of a revelation though, it’s like discovering the game all over again. I hope Fieldrunners 2 doesn’t take too long to make the jump from iOS to Android.
Watching Peter’s video review of the Nexus 7 on my Nexus 7 seemed kind of odd when I thought about it afterwards, I obviously didn’t need convincing to buy one, but there is always value in listening to other peoples’ opinions whether you agree or not. I give his review a 7/10.
Speaking of Peter, he’s been giving the Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 preview code a kick around in the local park and he’s “really loved” it. “It still has the deeper tactical play and the AI is again improved, keeping it head and shoulders above FIFA’s, but there’s also a fluidity to the passing and movement that’s been missing from PES.”
It also sounds like he’s been giving his own Nexus 7 a bit of gaming exercise with both Dead Trigger and ShadowGun getting some Android tablet-based exercise. He says they’re “very impressive, considering they’re running on a tablet!”
[drop2]Kris has been playing Tiny Wings 2 “on an endless loop, even though I’m quite bad at it”. And kind of staying on a theme of small winged things, Joss Whedon’s Firefly series has finally been discovered by Dan. His rating? “Absolutely fantastic.” I wonder if he’s got to the utterly brilliant final episode yet which makes the fact there will never be any more even more galling.Meanwhile, Alex has managed to find a PC game which runs on his “crappy laptop”. That game is the equiangular quadrilateral-populated Thomas Was Alone; you might have seen his post about it on the front page. Sounds like it’s a great game that pretty much any PC will run and well worth a few minutes of your time to at least check out the demo.
Anything else Alex?
Apart from that – pretty much nothing. Had a quick go on Tony Hawk again but it’s still missing the good stuff from later releases (for some reason I thought they’d just magically appear over the week) and I accidentally loaded some iPhone game instead of Skype, but that probably doesn’t count.
Staying with the ‘A’s, Aran has been continuing his adventures in the Witcher 2. Three bandits armed with spades have managed to demonstrate that he’s a little under-powered at the moment, by way of turning his character into a virtual corpse. The game’s levelling system gets the blame for that with Aran suggesting it needs improving if there’s a sequel.
Jim’s gotten around to picking up the PS Vita’s Gravity Rush having waited until he’d cleared so of his PS Vita game backlog. He says that he seems to be enjoying it, the story not being particularly riveting but the gravity-based mechanics “enough to keep [him] coming back”.
His PS3 has seen a little action with Spec Ops: The Line and DC Universe Online but most of his gaming has been with The Secret World. The game “combines what will be familiar to most MMO players with a multitude of interesting new ideas that ultimately makes it into something special”. A nice twist being provided by the “modern, slightly horror-inspired” setting.
Finally this week we have the normally cheerful Toby even happier than usual as he’s on holiday in Cornwall for two weeks.
[My holiday] finally motivated me to download Steam for my MacBook, which I’ve brought with me. Almost as criminal as staying in throughout this weather is the fact that I’ve only just finished Limbo, which I purchased in the Steam summer sale. I enjoyed it thoroughly – a really immersive and innovative experience that left me with a lot of questions come its finale and provoked me to spend the following hour on Google – if you’ve also finished it (which I’m guessing most of you probably have) you’ll know what I mean.
Have you been able to resist the lure of the great outdoors and pre-Olympic build up to remain glued to your gaming devices of choice?
Youles
I have also been playing PvZ (although I’d not played if on any other platform previously). I love it and only need Enlighted (collect all plants) and Alive and Planting for the Platinum. The latter has caused me some agro – spending 2 hours and dying on wave 36 is rather annoying. Cob-Cannons are useless due to the frame-rate drop and copious amounts of enemies in later waves! Anyone have any tips – I’m all ears?
Otherwise I’ve just completed Boring Steel, I mean Broken Game, I mean Broken Steel DLC for Fallout 3. Various client VAT Returns have been interrupting my usual flow of gaming. Now just Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta to do.
I shall break briefly this evening for the latest MW3 Spec Ops mission, and the BF3 Meet.
Greg Aldridge
I’ve been disappointed by the shaky frame rate on the PS Vita version of PvZ even during normal adventure mode. It’s not something I’ve noticed on the other versions I’ve played.
matthangzhou
Saw loads on psn. Thought it would be fixed by now. Pretty annoyed I have that to look forward to.
Youles
I didn’t notice it much normally, but when it’s stopping me from using my Cob-cannons and reaching level 40 in Endless Survivor it’s bloody annoying!
bmg_123
Almost finished Gravity rush, but the awful combat controls are really testing my patience with it; it’s just not as fun as it was to begin with.
Other than that I FINALLY got Fallout: New Vegas on PS3…and also nearly discovered everything; the quests are WAY to easy and very short too, so I probably won’t be buying DLC, as I got the standard version because it was only £4 or so.
Youles
With Gravity Rush, I found it best to tilt the Vita for combat as it allowed for slightly easier aiming….(if you’re not already trying that). I hated a couple of the Challenges more than the combat!
bmg_123
Yeah, I tried that a little and it’s quite good for touching up the rough aiming already done with the stick. I was more talking about the bits where Kat just bumps into the enemy and flies past it, doing no damage…that happens so much for me! Also when you get spun around and can’t see anything…or maybe that’s just me…
Youles
Yeah, she’d pass then enemies a lot when I just used the Triangle ability (not Triangle + Up/Down) so I stopped using that as often as I could.
It can get disorientating at times, especially when you’re “hanging” in zero gravity and the camera doesn’t level out as if you were in normal gravity – it can make your head hurt ;)
Crazy_Del
Been playing Ridge Racer: Unbounded and need 8 players for Online meets and 5 trophies for the platinum! Also played NASCAR for a short while. Currently playing PES 2010.
Also played Mortal Kombat and Everybody’ Golf on VITA
Tonight will be Saint’s Row The Third
mugsybalone
Started on my Steam haul, currently enjoying Sid Meier’s Pirates!, a very good game that’s preventing me from getting to the rest of the stuff I’ve picked up over the last week. Reckon it could stay that way for a while.
LTG Davey
Another range of games for me this week:
+ Virtua Fighter 5 (fancied a new beat em’ up and am going to wait for a price drop on DOA5. 100%-d the achievements in just over 2 hours!)
+ Perfect Dark Zero (achievement mopping against some agent sims)
+ Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (made a start on the campaign for the first time since finishing it back in 2006. Such a great game)
+ Gears of War 3 (getting heavily into the online with a couple of buddies. The sawn-off shotty still bugs me though lol)
+ Portal 2 (made a start on the co-op with the Mrs. As great as the campaign so far)
+ F1 2010 (finally managed to complete a Grand Prix without crashing out. yay!)
+ Smackdown vs Raw 2009 (played a few random matches after reading up some stuff about wwe 13)
+ Battlefield 3 (finally played through the campaign. Talk about generic!)
mugsybalone
Congratulations on the F1 result – all too often I’ve driven perfectly for all but one lap, spun out and turned it off in a childish huff! I’m sure it’s a really good game, I’m just not patient enough to find out.
Forrest_01
About Firefly – At least you have Serenity to kind of bring it all together in the end. No such luck for The Sarah Connor Chronicles which me & the wife have just finished watching.
Such a terrific series that whilst ended kind of well, left so, so many loose ends. The people at Fox are idiots for not greenlighting a 3rd series, as it really was picking up a lot of steam & the last episode was fantastic.
LTG Davey
I’m only a few episodes into the Sarah Connor Chronicles so far (my wife got me them for my birthday last month) but I’m loving it so far. Obviously its a shame it only ran for a couple of seasons but at least it acted as better fan-service than the 3rd and 4th movies :)
Forrest_01
Yeah, they are really quite good – Suffers from pacing issues part way through, but they more than make up for it.
Salvation wasn’t bad as far as terminator lore goes (in fact, it was pretty good from what i recall), but 3 was a bit of an abomination.
For some reason, i have a strange desire to watch the 3rd one though. Can’t explain it (apart from its the one i have seen the least).
LTG Davey
Lol i know what you mean. Despite really not liking that film I only have parts 2 and 3 in my collection and, out of the two, I find myself putting part3 on more frequently. Go figure…
Greg Aldridge
At least SCC got to finish its first series and had a second! :-)
Serenity did provide many of the ‘big’ answers but the way hints and clues were laid out throughout Firefly I wish Joss had been able to tell us the way he originally planned.
Forrest_01
It’s true – I gather it was a ‘best fit’ scenario rather than the intended revelation (no spoilers please, as i do intend to watch Firefly myself soon), but by all accounts a fair few of the fans were relatively pleased with how serenity turned out.
The problem with SCC was that it had slightly longer to become established (or rather ignored by American audiences) & so the final episode was great but just spewed up so many questions. Questions that had not even been touched throughout the series which was the weird thing.
I was genuinely quite gutted to see it end like that (although it was an enjoyable ride).
bigbaldwolf
I’ve been trying to nail the last 6 crown challenges on Everybodys Golf on the VIta but it is incredibly difficult and some of them are just luck if I manage to do it. Apart from that it’s been a quiet week for gaming other than a bit of MGS and Dungeon Hunter
R1MJAW
Finished of the time and shift goals in Quantum Conundrum a the start of the week, so now have 100% trophies for the main game … just need to wait for the dlc now (which is apparently releasing on August 15th and September 12th). Bought Foosball 2012 from the PSN store on wednesday, it’s surprisingly good.
For the last few days I’ve been primarily playing Yakuza Dead Souls, which is pretty good although I preferred Yakuza 4.
Forrest_01
Dead Souls is ace (& a nice change up from beating up Yakuza & street thugs all the time) – If it wasn’t for the godawful camera * somewhat strange gun controls (two aiming options eh? Hmm), it would be a fantastic game.
matthangzhou
Same as you. Loads of me3 and some p vs z. Just bought dead island and the walking dead whilst watching the tv series. Guess I’m on a zombie fix right now!
Greg Aldridge
Hope you’ll be helping contribute to ME3’s Operation Overwatch this weekend then. :-)
XisTG
Played ICO for the first time; liked the game, although it was short and the controls not that refined. Started Shadow of Colossus and killed the first two; once again, the controls are really the worst part of it all.
I was digging Rainbow Moon but now I find myself bored of the same enemies/actions for more than 30 minutes. And then there’s always the UC3 meets; I’ll try for some co-op tonight, it was actually fun.
I plan on starting Motorstorm Apocalypse this weekend, start training so I won’t be the last crossing the finish line :)