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?
SpikeyMikey23
I’ve also completed Broken Sword 5 Episode 1. mopped up the remaining trophies. I didn’t have to use any hints which was nice however, i felt the puzzles were quite basic with more or less everyone solvable with what is picked up in the same scene which was a shame.
Looking forward to episode 2 though which is already paid for.
Apart from that, I’ve been sinking a few hours (when i’m able to get the mrs off it!) into Final Fantasy 14 and not far off the level 50 cap. Still plenty more to do though!