What We Played #93: Pixel People, Binary Domain, WWE ’12

With Alex in the States for the PlayStation 4 event it’s tempting to suggest he’s enjoying playing games with the other TSA. But as their games involve the uncomfortable combination of real guns and latex gloves, that’s something best left well alone. Which is probably what Alex is hoping…

Back here in the UK, where you’re less likely to find yourself fulfilling the role of an impromptu finger puppet (although as Sucker Punch pointed out, you are surrounded by 4.2 million CCTV cameras. Smile!) all the PS4 excitement has led to a degree of PS3 neglect and we haven’t played much.

Random thought warning: I wonder if Space: Marine would be a good title for game about exploring the great voids beneath our oceans’ surface? Maybe I’m just too tired and when I think about gaming, which for me is all Mass Effect 3 and Aliens: Colonial Marines still, those two words are just branded on the left side of my brain.

Peter’s latest gaming experience is “an awful lot” of Pixel People on iOS (If he was alternatively playing on Io’s surface, space marines could be involved!). He says that Pixel People is “one of those town management things a bit like The Simpsons one”, although as I’m not familiar with that one either it doesn’t really help.

Fortunately he goes on to explain:

You get clones [like storm troopers, AKA space marines?]  delivered to your splicing centre and you have to splice two sets of genes together, from different professions, to create a clone with a new profession.

Then the game gives you a new building when you have a clone that needs a specialist place to work and those buildings earn you coins to level up and buy new houses, landscaping, etc. for more clones and a more productive city.

There’s not a lot of point to it but you can get very far without spending real money on any in-app nonsense and it’s something to do while I try not to think about my life trickling ever onwards towards my inevitable demise, right?

Riiiight, and on that happy note (not that talk of Peter’s demise is happy you understand, it’s just a turn of phrase, though Kris might start eyeing up TSA’s corporate ladder) it’s over to Aran who played Urban Trial Freestyle for our review and summarises by calling it “a decent game” with a “ridiculous amount of leader boards [that] means there will always be a challenge to beat”.

[drop2]He’s also played through Binary Domain (which is kind of space marine-y without ever leaving Earth). While he only found the story “okay” he says the “action was brilliant”, “the boss fights were entertaining” and overall he “really enjoyed the game”. He finished by saying that while it’s not without the odd niggle, it’s well worth a dip in the bargain bin for.

Tuffcub is still playing through NfS: Most Wanted on his PS Vita which this week gets the vaunted rating of “the most fun you can have on the London Underground without taking your clothes off”. Prototype 2 has also got a look in because he gets “to stick [his] appendage in soldiers”. There’s a theme there and it’s not space marines.

Last up this week is Kris who’s been playing a game filled with over-muscled men and women in daft costumes. No, not another space marine title, but WWE ’12.  “It’s really, really bad in terms of gameplay”, he begins, before trying to salvage something for the game by saying that “some of the storylines in story mode are as good, if not better, than what’s on TV”.

I really, really hope he’s talking about WWE-based TV as otherwise someone needs to sit him down in front of shows like Ripper Street, Utopia and Dark Mirror and drag him away from I’m a Celebrity…

So as we probe further into the PS3’s last year as Sony’s flagship console, what have you been playing?