It’s been a long couple of days travelling – I’ve been taking a look at the upcoming Final Fantasy XIV expansion Stormblood in Germany – but there’s the promise of being home soon. Once again, it’s been Nintendo that have joined me on my trip, though now I have to cart my 3DS and my Switch about with me.
It’s been my first proper time travelling with the Switch, and yeah, it’s not remotely as portable as the faithful 3DS, but if you’re meandering around with a backpack or some other bag-like affair it’s fine. I even thought about being like those beautiful people in the adverts taking part in a bit of airport based multiplayer, before realising I didn’t have the extra Joy-con grips that make them at least vaguely grippable, so I soon went back to reading my Kindle instead.
Besides that I tinkered some more with Fire Emblem Echoes, slayed a solitary monster in Monster Hunter Generations, and played some home-based Mario Kart multplayer with my little boy.
Dave has also had a Switch-heavy week, playing Ultra Street Fighter II and a bit of Disgaea 5 Complete. Besides that he also played both Victor Vran DLCs, The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker – a brilliant indie game for PC that he’ll let you know more about next week – and Vanquish on PC, which is apparently a great port!
On the other hand, Miguel played some of the new Overwatch anniversary “junk”, and also dabbled a bit in Games of Glory which is a really dissapointing moba-type game on PS4. During his train ride home he also played a few hours of Fire Emblem Echoes, which he correctly thinks is awesome. He also started playing Dark Rose Valkyrie for a future review.
Aran has played more Injustice 2, and surprisingly – his words not mine – he’s managing to do quite well online, despite there being some players who are ridiculously good. He also finished Arkham Origins and stands by his original statement that it has a better plot than Arkham Knight. He’s now working on reviews for Star Trek Bridge Crew, and the PS4 port of Lock’s Quest.
Jim’s been hopping from game to game this week, starting with Get Even – the game is delayed after this week’s tragic events. He says that it’s by far one of the strangest games of 2017 so far, blurring the line between thriller, shooter, horror, and walking simulator. Next to that, Marvel Heroes Omega has been another considerable timesink for him. It’s basically Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 with a bigger character roster and multiplayer features and he’s enjoying it so far. Paladins has also started cropping up a fair bit too.
Tuffcub has played Demon’s Crystals, a cheap and cheerful twin stick shooter, Star Trek: Bridge Crew with Aran, Tef and Jim, and that’s it. The observant amongst you will note that this doesn’t include any Titanfall 2. No, his hands haven’t dropped off, he’s just been very busy, and had huge amounts of TV to catch up on as well.
Our fearless Editor in Chief Tef reviewed the “simply lovely” Rime this week, and he thinks it’s great to finally see this released while also being a wonderful game. There was also Steel Division: Normandy 44 over the weekend, which makes Eugen’s hardcore strategy games that little bit more accessible, and he played a bit more of Puyo Puyo Tetris while killing time. He thinks he’s kind of got the hang of Puyo Puyo, while still not really knowing what he’s doing, which is almost good.
Steve has spent much too long on Spellspire – a review will come after the weekend – finished up with Van Helsing, and finally cleared the decks for Horizon, which he loves. He thought that the world had a real sense of life, an interesting narrative and combat that nicely blends action and strategy.
And finally, Kris has played Infinite Warfare a bunch. He doesn’t know why people disliked it! He says “It’s quite enjoyable. Still very CoD-like, but with lots of space stuff, enjoyable (if lightweight) space fighter combat, cool zero-g combat, an interesting approach to breaching enemy ships, strong characters and a nice dollop of non-linear elements in the campaign.”
So there you have it, that’s what we’ve been up to. But what have you been playing?
Eldave0
Nothing much for me this week – weather has been too toasty for gaming really.
I picked up Overwatch on PC during this week’s sale but ended up getting a refund as the game gave me motion sickness – think I’m finally “done” with FPS’ :(
My brother-in-law is staying at ours this weekend so I’ll be giving him the grand tour of the Nintendo Switch, which should be fun. I foresee a lot of Mario Kart and a lot of beer :)
Oh, I dusted off my N64 and played a few matches of No Mercy. Despite it’s clunky-ness, its still probably the best grappler out there. Great fun.
Crazy_Del
Alot of Injustice 2 for me but first completed DeadNation with Tony. I am two trophies away from Injustice 2 Platinum and hopefully it’ll be by next week depending on my social and other co op gaming (Borderlands 2 with Roy and Tony starting tomorrow) plus bought myself Friday the 13th Game and I am really enjoying it aswell (big fan of Jason)
As for the Injustice 2 progress played 1,701 matches. 12 events away from the trophy (100 events) 5 characters maxed out with just 23 to go and 3 are close to max so I’ll just say 20 characters left to max out for the Platinum.
Hopefully For Honor Platinum on Wednesday and it better ping!
TSBonyman
Most of my time this week was spent in NMS..
http://imgur.com/a/ZEINC
Also some Skyrim.
ron_mcphatty
Your NMS gallery is great, loads of really good shots. Have the creatures and scenery gotten more varied since the base building update?
TSBonyman
Thanks – i took so many pics i had to merge them into collages :) . What’s really made the difference to the critters is the increased texture detail and the colours really distinguish them more now too. But there are definitely newer forms of critters appearing which hadn’t appeared before. I haven’t quite fond my diplos yet but one day …
The landscape also has improved with better terrain generation, better flora clumping and placement, larger flora too making for some striking scenes. Again the colour palette and better rendering has added to the scenery. There are also completely barren planets with no bases or aliens and no sound but the wind, really eerie but cool.
If you fancy watching some video, actually fom 2 months ago but fairly representative of the critters ..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvIUF0qQN5k
MrYd
Bits and pieces of all sorts odd things.
And lots of Skyforge again. Finally did a big hour long 4 stage invasion boss thing with random people for a reasonably rare trophy.
And that free Marvel Diablo clone. Quite fun, with the easiest boss fights ever. You can die lots and respawn just outside the boss room, but the boss doesn’t regenerate any health. Just keep at it and it eventually dies.
Stupid F2F money making scheme though. Loads of loot and very limited inventory space. Unless you pay real money. Don’t pick up anything less than blue loot after the first couple of hours. It’ll drive you mad.
Steelhead
I’ve had a week off work but didn’t get around to much gaming.
A little bit of Stardew Valley and the first two episodes of The Walking Dead season 1.
Andrewww
Still trying to cope with what Alien Covenant did to my perspective on lifeforms, the universe and everything. But Fallout 4 and Hegel helped a little.
ron_mcphatty
Just a bit of Carmageddon for me, many thanks to Forrest for helping me bag the silly multiplayer trophies that would’ve otherwise taken weeks of boring grind! Lots of sitting in the sun and a bit of tinkering with a Pi Zero W, a Dualshock adapter and a Numskull PS4 thingy.
http://pre04.deviantart.net/dccc/th/pre/f/2017/146/7/2/d1427d7b_1c1f_4bfe_bf31_03230c10da9b_by_mcphatty-dbai9mz.jpg
TSBonyman
I had a retro pi setup but never thought about rehousing it like that. Nice job it looks sweet as pi! :)
ron_mcphatty
Cheers mate! The DS4 adapter is the best bit, providing the wireless control and blue blinky light which goes solid when the DS4 connects. I’m really pleased with the transparent bit of plastic too that let’s the light through, that’s a thinly sliced piece of PS3 game case which fits snugly in the gap that previously had a solid black piece. I tried to make a second case but only managed a lot of cuts and solder burns, so it’s gonna be a limited edition :)
I’ll check out your NMS videos later!
tactical20
Finally 100%’d Wildlands. Took about 36 hours in total. Surprised ai stuck with it to the end because after the first quarter, it’s basically just more and more and more of exactly the same. Sadly the platinum requires 2 online trophies, so will have to wait for another free weekend of ps+ to jump online and grab it. Worked for Watch Dogs 2 a few months back!
The Lone Steven
I’ve been playing Mercenaries 2 and Valkryia Chronicles(the original). Mercs 2 is as good as i recall it being but by god, it can be utter cheap with the deaths. WHY IS THERE NO FECKING PARACHUTE?! Seriously, why? I do hate that they never added that in. There are a few annoying bugs and one is very frustrating. On a certain mission, you can’t call in anything delivered by helicopter if you die on the mission. It’s a very fun game and i would easily compare it with 80s action films.
Valkryia Chronicles is fecking amazing and i am disappointed/outraged that they never did sequels to it on console. PSP? Really? You put it on the PSP? REALLY!? It’s very unique and has it’s own charm. It knows how to make me shed tears and one part is very sudden. I’ve watched the anime version of that on youtube(one with english subs, BRING THE ANIME OVER HERE YOU GITS! SHUT UP, TAKE MY CASH AND DO THAT!) and by god, if they did what the anime portion did, it would have made that part of the game a very sad affair. It’s sad but they should have done the aftermath of it better. Hopefully, the recent remaster will be the shot in the arm the franchise needs. Convinces Sega to either speak to Sony about doing an english version of the anime(Seriously, get the voice cast from the game for the anime and release it, profit!) or handle the anime or just do a major release with english subs.
The game is very interesting and tatics are key. The atmosphere, the soundtrack, the art style, all are excellent. I do kinda wish that the cutscenes featured more of the squad apart from the main 6 but i suspect that was a budget/time reason or wasn’t worth the effort of 50 characters and the sheer amount of variables.
Probably going to get to back where i was a few days ago(I restarted after realising that I was too underpowered and wanted to start anew), tonight and from there, it will be very interesting.
Sega, please do a proper sequel and bring the anime over here or remaster the PSP sequel and then a proper sequel with the anime. Please do that! PLEASE!
aerobes
Been a little cash strapped recently so I’ve put what little spare time I have into some older games. Namely Driveclub which has blossomed into a fine game after a tough start and Destiny… still strangely compelling despite being pretty boring quite frankly when not played co-op.