I don’t know about you, but I had many plans for what I would be playing over my Christmas and New Year holiday. Turns out that I was wrong about almost all of them and the only one that did come to pass was Rockband 3.
I was away at my folks’ for a couple of days over Christmas and rather than sitting around playing board games I took my PS3, the aforementioned Rockband 3, a couple of guitars, drum set and mic. Much more fun than another uninteresting game of Monopoly, though I never thought of my mum as a bass guitarist!
Other than a couple of flower pots/levels of the beautiful Flower on my PS4 there was only one other game that I’ve played over the last couple of weeks and to my great surprise that game is Warframe.
This time last year I was spending lots of time playing Mass Effect 3 online with friends and it’s primarily the co-op aspect that has seen me put about 25-30 hours into Warframe over the past two weeks.
As Jim pointed out in his review, if you go the micro-transaction route to acquiring your kit this, like many other examples of the kind, could be a very expensive “free-to-play” game. PSN Store prices for the game’s Platinum currency range from £3.85 for 75 Platinum (5p/Plat) to an incredible £109.99 for 3125 Platinum (3.5p/Plat)!
What does that get you in game? Individual Warframes cost from 75 to 385 Platinum, most being 225 and many weapons are also around the 200 point. You could eventually get pretty much everything in game but I shudder to think about the number of hours it would take.
After 30 hours of playing I have chucked the devs a few quid for the Platinum to buy myself a Sentinel, basically a pet with a laser pistol, as I thought I owed them that much for the enjoyment I’ve had playing Warframe. Space ninjas FTW!
While playing it with a friend over the holidays has been great, it’s harder to meet up online now we’re back at work, so when not soloing missions I’ve dipped my toe into the murky world of randoms. It’s been great for some of the Alert missions in game when I’ve been lucky to drop into a group where at least two of the three know what they’re doing, but otherwise…
I’m having enough fun with Warframe to be able to envision sticking with it for a while yet. I’m also looking forward to Destiny to provide a similar experience, though I’m hoping for more story to that than Warframe has. Looking at the hours of entertainment I expect to get from those two games though, I’m wondering if there’s much else on PS4 I’ll be playing.
On the subject of my PS4, I’ve been very impressed for the most part and even the voice recognition has been useful at times (even if it does struggle with “Warframe”, offering up War Thunder, What’s New and even flOw!). However, the first few niggles are appearing.
It won’t play my Airborne Toxic Event Blu-ray, unlike my PS3 and Sony Blu-ray player, and the R1 button on my DS4 has started getting a bit ‘sticky’. I hope they’re not signs of things to come.
Luckily for this week’s WWP, others on the team have played a wider variety of games than I have. Take Tuffcub for instance. While it should come as no surprise to any of you that he’s been playing Killzone: Shadow Fall, completing over 500 challenges during the past couple of weeks, he’s squeezed in some other games too.
On his PS4 the likes of Resogun, Contast and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag have all had a good chunk of screen time along with the fabulous Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, which he’s “loving”, and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons on his PS3.
DanToo has studiously avoided video games over the holidays but in other respects hasn’t been studious enough:
I’m just starting the game called ‘Panic Revision’. Basically, you revise not nearly enough for exams and then cram everything in in the last few days before them, I’m hoping I’m good at it.
He’s already rewarded his efforts with a copy of Dead Space 3 from the PSN sale, so let’s hope that he’s celebrating and not commiserating with it in a few weeks’ time.
Stefan has been playing the latest GT5 expansion pack, Gran Turismo 6, with the site’s GT regulars, finished off the “hilariously bad” Aliens: Colonial Marines with community members Bodachi and topgearsam, “raged at the unfairness of the policing methods” in Need for Speed: Rivals and “pointed and prodded my way through the lovely first half of Broken Sword 5“.
Meanwhile Peter has a veritable laundry list of reasons for not gaming much over the past couple of weeks (just between you and me, mainly due to over-indulgence) so it’s mainly been little snatches of FIFA 14. He seems quite proud that his “virtual pro made his England début and scored 4 against Spain”.
I’ll let Dom tell you about his gaming as he had plenty to say:
I’ve been working super hard over Christmas and New Years so I’m just about starting to tuck into my Christmas acquisitions! On PS4 I’ve been enjoying Lego Marvel Superheroes, which has made me smile more than a lot of games that are supposed to be funny. It’s just more of the same character swapping simplicity, though I liked being able to jump into a car like in Lego City!
Vita has mainly been about Amazing Spiderman for my TSA review, with a little Lego Marvel remote play thrown in.
PS3 has had a hard time of it this week, mainly becoming my two year old son’s Netflix machine, but to a certain extent that was already the case, only now there aren’t many games being played on it.
I also picked up an Xbox 360 for £25 this week from a friends husband who’d bought himself an Xbox One (despite my best efforts to make him get a PS4). It cemented how much I loathe the Metro UI, but as it’s mainly going to be the bedroom DVD player, I won’t have to look at it all that much! [Just listen to those fans – Greg] I did play some Chime on it though, as I own it for both 360 and PS3, and some Uno too!
Last up this week is Blair who’s blaming Uni deadlines for limiting his gaming. That work didn’t stop him playing some FIFA 14 “along with an hour of the excellent, if filled with meaningful tutorials, adventure of Assassin’s Creed IV“. There was also “a bout of Super Smash Bros. Brawl at a party”, but that’s the sum total of his gaming efforts.
I hope that you’ve got more gaming to tell us about?
Eldaveo
Played a little bit of Peggle 2 over Christmas and fired up Dead Rising 3 for a couple of hours.
My Wife and I decided to grab a NES console off Ebay over Christmas too so most of our gaming time has been spent playing Mario Bros 3 :D Anyone who says games are better now than they were back in the 1990s is quite frankly a liar.
Vallon
Grab yourself a Wii U! New Super Mario Bros U is an epic platformer in the classic 2D style! :)
R1MJAW
After getting the platinum for Minecraft just before Christmas I decided to play through a few games that I purchased in the PSN sales. First up was Brothers:A Tale of Two Sons closely followed by Rain, two very similar games, essentially straightforward puzzle platformers with a very emotional story. I also picked up Magic 2014 which I have been delving into for short bursts every now and again.
I’ve not really played much on PS4 lately, a bit of Zen Pinball and the first few story missions of Assassins Creed 4.
I also bought a few 3DS games from the eShop sale, Steamworld Dig, Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Little Acorns 3D Turbo … which is what I’ve mainly been playing for the last few days.
Vallon
Over the holidays I managed to finish the story in Lego Marvel. Not a bad game, but probably my least favourite so far. I got more enjoyment out of my play through of Knack if I’m being honest.
My biggest achievement though was finishing the cop career in need for speed rivals, then earning the rest of my outstanding trophies for the platinum. I rarely bother going for platinums unless I’ve really enjoyed a game and that certainly was the case with NFSR – was my first on the PS4 as well! :)
Other than that though, been getting into Killzone multiplayer a bit. Ordered Battlefield 4 and Assassin’s Creed 4 yesterday so going to have fun with those. I wasn’t going to bother with either of them (already got ACIV on Xbox 360), but with very few PS4 games out in the next couple of weeks, I figured why the hell not :)
Cron_13
Ooo didn’t realise I could change my username, good stuff :)
Wardy-77-
And congrats to you also in the NFS plat ;)
TSBonyman
I played a bit of everything this week, Flower, Killzone SW, Soundshapes, AC IV, Resogun and i gave Contrast another go and was pleased to find the recent patch sorted a lot of the issues. I do think i will need some new games for PS4 soon though.
Taylor Made
Just assassin creed, man I’m in love with that game again, it reminded me why I loved AC2/brotherhood, made me forget my bad experience with AC3.
Played a bit of trine 2 with my wife, the game is beautiful.
Anyone interested in FIFA 14 co op, just need some coop trophies
Vallon
Is trine 2 any good? I keep thinking about getting it.
Taylor Made
It’s awesome, beautiful if your tele full HD
blast71
Skyrim.
MUST. STOP. PLAYING.
but can’t. :(
Taylor Made
I’m tempted to pick that game again, I platinum it ages ago but I want to play the DLC down guard etc but worried about freezing etc
blast71
I’m nearly 120 hours in and the freezing & lag isn’t as bad as I was expecting. Had a few hard-resets to do about 20-30 hours ago but it seems to have improved a lot now. The Dragonborn dlc is pretty good, by the way. Not tried the Dawnguard yet.
tactical20
Non-stop AC4. So relieved it’s much much better than AC3. Been playing for aaaaaaages and still have huge areas left to explore. Exactly what I wanted when forking out a touch shy of a bullseye for it!
Hopefully keep me busy for a few more weeks, then got Mass Effect in PSN sale for £4. Only one I’ve not played through. When’s Watch Dogs out btw?
Vallon
I’m pretty sure they’ve still not announced an actual date yet, though consensus is April from a lot off previews I’ve read.
element666
I’ve been playing black flag and Lego marvel on PS4,which I’m both enjoying,and I’ve started tearaway on vita which is amazing!
I’ve just picked up Lego LOTR for PS3 for £7 which I’ll start playing at some point :-)
hazelam
i’ve been playing a bit of Starbound.
a great little indie title on early access on Steam.
still in beta so it has a few bugs and stuff missing, but it’s already loads of fun.
basically it’s like Terraria, but with a sci fi spin.
you play a member of one of 6 races.
Apex, who are apes.
Floran who are a plant race.
Glitch, a robotic species.
Hylotl, which might be a fish race or a lizard race, i’m not too sure there.
Avian, a bird like race.
and Human, the humans.
though at the moment the only differences between the races seem to be purely cosmetic.
for example, the Glitch still need air and food to survive.
anyway, you start out on a ship where you’ve just left the rest of your people, for various reasons depending on your race.
and you find yourself orbiting an alien planet.
the first thing you do is get some tools from your ships storage and then beam down.
then you’re given a world to play with.
this is where it really gets like Terraria.
early game it’s pretty much the same, the world is procedurally generated, but so are the animals, so each planet could have widely different creatures.
another thing is there will sometimes be settlements already on the planet, i’ve seen people find secret bases, prisons i think, i’ve found tombs and villages.
and they can be occupied by NPCs.
some will trade, some will just say hello, i’ve had some flirt with me.
and some aren’t so friendly, i don’t know if they’ll ever attack without provocation, but they usually outnumber me so i haven’t tested that yet.
the actually gameplay is very similar to Terraria as i said, but with some differences.
the worlds loop around, so if you keep going in one direction, left or right anyway, not up or down. ^_^
you’ll eventually return to where you started.
in that way it simulates the surface of a planet.
and also you can go to other planets.
you need to get fuel for your ship, coal seems to be the main way that i know of to power the ship.
does that qualify as steampunk?
you start out with a matter manipulator that is your beginner mining too, it can cut down trees, mine any type of ground and cut down vines, but it’s slow as all hell.
you can upgrade to a pickaxe which is faster and more effective, mining a three by three square rather than the two by two of the manipulator, though it doesn’t have as much range.
and you can mine block singly by holding shift.
it follows the standard upgrade, get better materials upgrade further, formula of these games, but then you can build a distress beacon, which calls a UFO.
defeating that, and it’s dropped minions, gives you a Molten Core, which can be used for a starmap upgrade to access level 2 planets.
though i haven’t gone to any of them yet.
i barely beat the UFO with my bow.
there’s loads to craft, there are guns, jetpacks, armours, i even saw a video of somebody with a mech, i think i’m a long way from getting one of those.
anyway, it’s a fantastic game, it has the same issues that Terraria had with the limited building options due to the 2d nature, but that’s not enough to even come close to spoiling the game.
even in it’s current beta state it’s still worth purchasing, and you can be pretty certain it will get better.
oh and i’ve been playing a bit of Minecraft on my PS3, the third machine i’ll have bought the game on. ^_^
and i discovered something wonderful.
Minecraft is one of those very few PS3 titles that actually allows customs soundtracks through the XMB.
honestly when i tried it, i wasn’t expecting it to work, but it did.
and it’s just the type of game where it fits perfectly, no cutscenes, and no dialogue, just you and the world.
Wardy-77-
Played bits and bobs of a few games,I’ve dabbled a bit on Fifa 14 in career a couple of levels of Tearaway and Mario and a bit of AC4 black flag,then just before the stroke of midnight picked up my first platinum for PS4 with Knack :)
Cron_13
Nice one, gz on your plat :)
Wardy-77-
Thanks ;)