What We Played #214: Life Is Strange, QUBE & Yoshi’s Woolly World

July is quickly coming to a close, but we’ve got time for one last edition of What We Played for the month, the piece where we tell you all our tales of gaming greatness and failures, just before you reciprocate in the comments section.

Tuffcub checked in first this week and has now returned from his wonderful holiday to Hawaii. The plane back afforded him time to play Geometry Wars 3 on Vita, and then he played a bit of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag once he returned home. He also managed some time with Journey on PS4, but said he still finds it a bit boring.

Dave started his week with Victor Vran, which he just reviewed very favorably. He also played Super Metroid for WeView Retro this week, citing it as a game that it’s still “a testament to great game design with limited technology.” Finally he got around to finishing Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, which he says is well worth a purchase.

Aran spent his week with QUBE and Never Alone Foxtales. In his review of Foxtales he noted that it isn’t as good as the original game, but he gave QUBE a solid recommendation for anyone who likes puzzle games.

Adam checked in this week as he started with Battlefield Hardline. He praised the campaign for being more than “just another straight out the bat corridor shooter,” but he felt the multiplayer was more of the same Battlefield. He’s also been sitting down each night with a F2P mobile game titled Alphabears, which is a word game that he says is a great little workout for your brain. He finished his week with Yoshi’s Woolly World, and he had some very positive things to say about it:

Woolly World is an undeniably beautiful game, bursting with colour and pure fun – if you’ll pardon the expression – forming the very fibre of its being. While very much a  classic Nintendo platformer, Good-Feel’s design is what’s really been pulling me back to Yoshi over and over again. It’s got to be noted too that there’s some proper tough stages in here, so it shouldn’t be written off as just for the younger audience.

Speaking of Woolly World, Mark played his share of that this week as well, though a busy work schedule kept his gaming time limited to that and hunting a few Riddler trophies in Batman: Arkham Knight.

Stefan has been juggling a busy schedule leading into Gamescom, but he’s also been a review machine this week. He started by heisting up a storm in The Swindle, which he awarded a solid score and praised it for its ‘one more go’ gameplay. Then he hit up the fourth episode of Life is Strange, which he said is the best episode yet. Finally, it was time for N++, commenting that it contains “further distillation and refinement of what made N and N+ cult classics in the first place.”

And then we have Dom, who started his week with a gaming headset fiasco:

My ultimate win of the week started with annoyance as I bought a set of Turtle Beach 500X headphones that, whilst amazing, only worked within a metre of the wireless hub. Having taken them back I really wanted a pair of Astro A50’s but couldn’t justify spending £250 on them. Somewhat amazingly though, having just had the the refresh of the A50 release Argos were selling off the original (and identical) headphones for £135. They are amazing. I will definitely go deaf.

He used those fancy new cans to play a bit of the Master Chief Collection, though he said it still suffers from party issues. Luckily that didn’t stop him from enjoying co-op in Halo 2, which he said looks fantastic. He also played more Lego Jurassic World with his boy, who refuses to move onto Lego Batman 3 until every last bit of loot is gone. Sounds like a real gamer in the making.

Of course, we can’t talk about Dom without rattling off his crazy list of games this week: Halo Master Chief Collection, Lego Jurassic World, Rory McIlroy PGA Tour, Battlefield 4, DMC: Definitive Edition, Guilty Gear Xrd Sign, One Piece Unlimited World Red and Monster Hunter Ultimate 3.

As for me, my Rust server went bye-bye on the 28th, so I said farewell to that game for the foreseeable future and began working on season two of The Walking Dead game. I’m only two episodes in but it seems rather fantastic so far. I also started playing co-op in Left 4 Dead 2 with a friend, and boy is that a crazy and frantic game. We found out almost immediately that moving slowly is the exact opposite of what they want you to do, and almost certainly means death.

And now it’s your turn. The summer isn’t exactly churning out blockbusters right now but several good little games have made their way to market in the past few weeks, so let us know which of them you’ve been playing and how you’re getting along.

13 Comments

  1. The usual Borderlands 2 co-op with Forrest and Pixel.
    Some more Dying Light co-op with Forrest, Pixel and berzerka.
    Made a start on Bastion, which I’m quite enjoying.
    A few rounds of PGA Tour, my character is now maxed out.
    A bit more of QUBE.
    A few games of Binding of Isaac.
    A little bit of Rocket League.
    For the past few days though I have been mainly playing N++ which is really fun but extremely infuriating.

  2. DriveClub :)

    Starting to get bored with super/hyper cars and the complete absence of grip in many events though. Plus the elite levels I don’t have a problem with stars or the challenges (generally) – it’s the grind to meet the required XP level that I can’t be doing with now.

    My nephew has also been using my account this week to play Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare that I picked up when EA gave it away free last year, but I never got round to playing myself. Looks quite fun though so when he goes home I’ll have to have a go!

    • PvZ is scandalously fun. Despite getting the platinum for it last year I still play it with my lad at least once a week. Top game.

  3. This week i re-completed Journey, also re-completed TLoU remastered and Left Behind and i’ve almost completed re-completing Wolfenstein N.O.
    Time to pick up something new..

  4. Just finished Life is Strange 4… :O

  5. Thought I’d give my ps3 a warm up this week so have been playing a bit of Dishonored and a bit of Fallout 3 before the next versions of each are released.
    Also been getting infuriated with Geometry Wars on vita, and some Fat Princess Piece of Cake on vita too.

  6. I platinumed Black Ops 2, got 100% trophies on Metal Slug 3, restored my Never Alone 100% by completing the new DLC, I got the Rocket League platinum (what a game!), and completed a couple of playthroughs of Journey which is still magnifique et silky smooth on PS4!

    Glad the grindy Black Ops 2 platinum is over, it’s quite the grind what with having to prestige in multiplayer, do a nazi zombies Easter Egg, and MANY campaign playthroughs due to the different paths/outcomes and the 160 bloody challenges!! The platinum actually became my 4th rarest trophy according to PSNprofiles.

    It was nice to play Metal Slug 3 again, I remember it being on an arcade machine I used to play at a social club when my Mum lives in Hertfordshire. Bargain for £2.80 in the recent sale, particularly as you get it on Vita, PS3 & PS4 and the co-op can be played across any combination of platforms!

  7. Bit of Driveclub, finished a season on rocket league to get to grips with it before I venture online, and advanced warfare online. Must admit to being a bit addicted to the multi-player of ad war, and must admit to being absolutely gash at it as well ;p

  8. Nearly forgot, also grinding teeth on extinction and trying to 100% it.Only 1 trophy left.

  9. Love this podcast…playing the indies. Right up my street

  10. Batman for me! The thing with the clouds just happened, wow!! I think the problem I’ve had with the game is there’s too many side missions and the pacing of the story is left up to the player too much, I played Arkham Asylum by focusing on the story and I think I’ll finish Arkham Knight by doing the same. Also, Jonathan Noble does a great job as Scarecrow, his creepy bottled up rage is cracking and I bloody love Fringe so I’m happy to consume anything he’s in. And best of all there’s Mark Hamill, what a treat!

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