What We Played #514 – WRC 10, Days Gone & No More Heroes 3

The summer drought is finally coming to an end, and we’re taking our first steps into the crazy autumnal tumble towards Christmas. I’ve started things off by reviewing Madden 22, WRC 10 and a solitary Stadia exclusive in the shape of Young Souls. There’s way more to come in the next few months, and I can’t wait to see how they all turn out!

While Nic B has stuck to his mainstay Pokémon Go, but Tuffcub has been much more adventurous. He’s been playing Days Gone and he has opinions:

Days Gone is a game I dismissed on launch and gave a quick try a few months after and got annoyed with it. As it’s on PS5 PS+ I thought I’d try it again and it’s bloody fantastic. I like that it just takes it’s time, and while the map is huge, there’s just sections where nothing much is happening, you can just cruise through the wilderness. That makes it feel so much bigger than AC Valhalla, even though the map is much smaller.

It really nails the “two years after the zombie apocalypse” feeling in that the zombies aren’t really the story, they just happen to be mostly annoying buggers you can run over with a motorbike. The story is really good as well with themes we rarely see in gaming, and it’s really quite subtle. Basically what I’m trying to say is its much, much better than The Last of Us Part 2 which had very one-note storytelling. Also I’ve not played Destiny 2 even though the new season launched, as Days Gone is more fun.

Nine Woofs out of Ten.

Steve has been paying (literally and figuratively) for his total absorption into the world of Indie demos over the past couple of Steam Festivals by buying and downloading a frankly ridiculous number of cool looking indie games. He tells us, “I’ve now got queued up – Garden Story (played a few hours), Hoa, Arietty, Lamentum, Kitaria Fables, Tormented Souls, Monster Harvest, Death’s Door, Haven Park, and Greak. All of that after managing to actually finish the wonderfully punishing Grime. Look out for a feature on how this has become the Summer of Indies. The one problem is that I have been totally addicted to Hades and spent most of my time playing that instead!”

Aran has been jumping around different games. He started Mass Effect Legendary Edition, going through the first game for the very first time. It’s not been plain galactic sailing though, “I got annoyed at a mission to find missing people on an asteroid as I got killed after finding the last one, so have to redo all of that. I’ve also been playing the original Psychonauts before I jump into the sequel – it has held up rather well as an experience – and a bit of Football Manager 2021 where I decided to do an Arsenal career. It’s going better than it is in real life.”

Gareth has played Recompile for review, but has also been hammering Ghost of Tsushima, where he’s now got 100% completion of Iki Island on NG+ with very little effort. He’s also been getting his PSVR on, “I picked up Sairento as well, which is a VR game in which you’re a cyber ninja. Earlier today I slaughtered a bunch of enemies with a double-bladed plasma sword before blowing another’s face off with a shotgun whilst backflipping in slow-mo. It’s quite fun.”

It’s been quite a varied week for Miguel who’s been playing Aliens: Fireteam Elite, No More Heroes 3, Apex Legends, a little bit of Genshin Impact, and a spoonful of the El Shaddai PC port. Meanwhile Reuben has been mostly playing older games this last week, dipping into Transistor and continuing through Shin Megami Tensei IV on 3DS for his sins. He told us, “I have also started playing through every dungeon, trial and raid in order in FFXIV to get myself ready for Endwalker, and forgot how well-designed some of the early instances actually are.”

Finally, we come to Tef, who’s had to pack away all his many, many games consoles and PC so he can move home. There’s always his trusty Nintendo Switch, which has allowed him to kill a little bit of time by playing some smaller games, but he mainly decided to watch Jaws because he spotted it on Netflix. He got a true cinematic experience by watching it on his phone with cheap headphones, while sat on the floor. He also spread it across three days.

And what about you? Have you played anything good?