What We Played #368 – No Man’s Sky, Spider-Man & Overcooked 2

Ah! Sweet, glorious rain! Actually, it’s started to feel like all anyone talks about is the weather, so I thought I’d talk about something else. The first game of the NFL pre-season happened yesterday and for those excited by high impact American sports, it’s a welcome return. Alongside it you can also step out onto the field yourself in the latest Madden, and while our review will be coming next week it’s safe to say that it’s another excellent outing for the franchise.

I don’t know what it is about American sports that I find so much more interesting than our own, but I think it must be the spectacle. Every major team, whether they’re in the NFL, NBA or NHL, has this huge circus around it, and that extends into the way they’re presented and how the game itself plays out. Besides that I love the statistical drill downs that American pundits use all the time, because who doesn’t like a good stat?.

Besides Madden I’ve also delved into the PC release of Monster Hunter World, looked at the Hand of Fate 2 port on Switch, as well as worn my fancy hat for Pixel Ripped 1989, Electronauts and The Persistence.

Jason was the most prompt of the TSA writers to tell me what he’s played this week, and it’s mostly been Pillars Of Eternity 2: Deadfire – Beast Of Winter which “has some of the best dark humour of any game I’ve played”. He’s still been playing Dead Cells on console as well and his review will be up on Monday, while he also ended up getting Bloons TD 6 on his phone and has sunk “an unreasonable amount of time” into it.

Aran has played More Far Cry 5 and No Man’s Sky, both of which he’s having a lot of fun with. “In Far Cry 5 both my companions are pilots so I bought an attack helicopter. Now all three of us attack cult outposts from the air. It’s a ton of fun. Went back to NMS for the first time in 2 years after my friends told me to play again. Had some fun hunting bounties as a group. The game has finally reached the level that I imagined all those years ago.”

Flexing his culinary skills, Jim has played loads of Overcooked 2 for review. He also dipping back into Rainbow Six Siege again and finally got to explore the new Villa map and play with the two latest Operators. “It’s crazy to think how far it’s come along since that rocky launch”. He also decided to start Assassin’s Creed: Origins. “It’s… different,” he says. “The combat feels very sloppy and the movement mechanics have been massively simplified. Still fun, but it can feel like a completely different series at times”.

Ade has been playing through Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 in co-op and been marvelling at how incredibly glitchy it is. He also polished off 1970 Revolution Black Friday for review and has started on Phantom Doctrine for review too. Tuffcub meanwhile has been playing more H1Z1, and popped back in to Destiny to do the Solstice events. “I’ve almost finished the first round of grind, but I’m not sure I want to do it all again to get the armour up to 400”. He also fired up Burly Men at Sea on his PS4 and apparently the controls are awful compared to the PS Vita version.

Gareth has spent this week playing Castaway Paradise and Airheart for review, and some No Man’s Sky when he could get the chance. “It’s definitely more of a game now, rather than the holding R2 simulator it was at launch, so I’m enjoying it”.

Finally, Tef has had a busy week. There was some Spider-Man to start it off on the right foot, before trying out Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate on Switch, a spot of Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu! and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate with Jake, and conducted a very, very Strange interview for an upcoming preview. When not at game events, he’s been playing a spot of WarioWare Gold on 3DS and the odd spot of Overcooked 2 on Switch.

What about you? Have you been having some guilt-free gaming now the sunshine has gone away?

Written by
TSA's Reviews Editor - a hoarder of headsets who regularly argues that the Sega Saturn was the best console ever released.

8 Comments

  1. Quite a bit of NMS, despite the big update having broken lots of things. Lost my original save, so started again. Send a ship out on a mission, which is a fun new feature. Comes back with lots of rewards and some damage, which I can’t fix. Plus the framerate is now terrible and the stuttering sounds get really annoying, very quickly. But I found some valuable stuff (always head for purple chest icons), and haven’t died from those whispering eggs in a while.

    Destiny 2 is amusing at the moment. The event armor and some sort of matchmaking issue seems to have caused people to be running around and dying very quickly.

    And while it was a bit cooler, some VR fun. More Bridge Crew again (3rd Borg success. That’s how hard they are).

    And The Invisible Hours because it was on sale. If you understand it’s not really a game, it’s very good. Not going to spoil anything. Kind of a murder mystery play, with 7 characters. But they do their stuff in various parts of a house, so you can’t watch the whole story. 90 minutes watching one character, and it didn’t make much sense. Watch another, and things start to fall into place. Quite cleverly done, and some good voice acting. Recommended, but make sure you understand what it is, and don’t come moaning to me if you don’t like it.

    And Lumines can piss off with it’s time attack mode trophies. 320 target for the 300 second one, and I can’t get more than 317.

    Hopefully next week will be more VR stuff with Electronauts. That looks like fun. Assuming there’s nothing wrong with the PSVR version.

  2. A few more hours of EverSpace and a little bit more Gravity Rush 2. The latter is becoming a grind now, I’m doing all the side missions as I go, there’s some good plot in there and the activities are varied but they’re getting so dull! Chase this, spy on that, jump across the other, where’s all the Nevi smashing? I’ve done nearly all of them now though and only 2/3 of the story so hopefully sinking well into the rest of that will sort things out.
    EverSpace has been a big surprise, I’m not keen on the idea of rogue likes but the gentle bump in abilities after every death is just enough to keep me hooked. Plus, it’s gooorgeous, and the combat reminds me of Darkstar One and Freelancer.

  3. Whoop NFL pre-season!!!
    Well been playing Darksiders II and have finally completed the game earlier today. Now I just need to mop up side missions and collectibles and then another playthrough to get to Level 30
    Still play H1Z1 daily.
    Tonight I am off to the Cinema to see Ant-Man and The Wasp, looking forward to that. And then away to Manchester on Sunday for Iron Maiden gig on Monday night! \m/
    Once back, H1Z1 game with trophy support and new levelling system and whatnot xD

    • I’m looking forward to the H1Z1 update as well. Will be fun to get back into it, not seen the result of vehicles having much less fuel now, should be interesting.

  4. Besides my regular stuff (GTA, Wildlands and Kingdom Come) i also returned to No Mans Sky, and also dabbled a bit in Kerbal Space Program, although so far i didnt manage more than launching a rocket straight up, reaching the outer atmosphere and back again via parachute, but my kerbals survived, so thats a win. Also i picked up Gravel for cheap and its a fun little arcade racer. Quickly nabbed all the online trophies (well, both of them), so if the grind doesnt get to much this should be an easy platinum too.

  5. I love American sports. So much passion and patriotism. I was lucky enough to see the New York Giants at the Meadowlands, many moons ago and it was an amazing atmosphere and experience. Military helicopter flyover, fireworks, cheerleaders, the works. I think it was the first game of the season or something. It really was something else.

  6. Picked up the platinum for Jurassic World Evolution. Overall, I thought it was good but quite limited and repetitive. If you love JP & Dino’s, like I do, it’s enjoyable enough. The dinosaur models and SFX are fantastic. It’s great exploring the park in the original 1993 JP Jeep and getting up close and personal (in first person perspective). I only wish, you could get out of the car and explore on foot (maybe they finally to Muldoon and put locking mechanisms on the vehicle doors… damn you Muldoon!). In the end, I logged 64 hours play time overall, so there’s something to be said about that.

    Also, started playing LEGO Incredibles and really enjoying it so far. Incredibles isn’t one of our favourite Pixar movies, so I wasn’t expecting much tbh. Turns out, it’s one of the best Lego games in ages. Although I must admit, I do like them all. Well, with one exception…

    LEGO Marvel Superheroes 2… which I’ve also been re-playing this week and trying to unlock all the characters on my Nephew’s PS4 (I already 100% completed it once on my PS4).

    My god, what a dreadful game it is. The humour is flat, level design is clumsy and uninspired, missions (and side missions) are frustrating and unnecessarily grindy. The first LEGO Marvel Superheroes game was great, I really don’t know what went wrong? How do you mess this up with so many great characters and story avenues to explore?

    The difference between Superheroes 2 and Incredibles really is night and day. They must have used the dud team for Superheroes 2.

  7. Getting near the end on The Persistence VR. Excellent game, difficulty seems to ramp up very suddenly near the end so I’m working out how I should carry on. I’m hoping the game did well as I would love to see something else from the same team on VR.

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