PWB June: Another Month Of This Shit

Play

The Elder Scrolls Online. I played this a couple of years ago and enjoyed it, but I've gone back to it over the last couple of weeks and I am absolutely loving it this time around. It's probably lockdown that's responsible but it turns out this is exactly the sort of low-stress, endless-content experience I'm looking for right now. There's just so much stuff in this: it throws quests and diversions at you constantly, and each one of them is fun and diverting and well-written and fully voice acted. If you can't find anything to do, you can head off to literally anywhere in the game world and start picking up quests there instead. Its monetisation is a little complex but actually quite generous and the monthly subscription gets you access to pretty much everything, so that's what I've done. Almost everything in the game can be done single-player, and it's all so wholesome and fun that I'm really glad I've gone back to it.

Civilization VI. Another game that never seems to stop expanding. It's had two full expansions and a bunch of DLC and is now getting a year's season pass with half a dozen new content packs. I like that, I'd far rather they kept iterating on one instalment of Civ than keep rebooting it every couple of years. Anyway, I'm finally quite getting into this, though I'm sure I only understand about 40% of what's going on at any given point in time.

Minecraft Dungeons which is pretty fun in a kind of Lego Diablo way, but I can't really work out the save system.

Want

I quite like the look of that 51 Worldwide Games thing that's coming out on Switch this week. Am I mad? Basically I just want to learn how to play Shogi and Rishii Mahjong so I can finally 100% a Yakuza game…

Bin

Speaking of which, I'm taking a break from the Yakuza series. I really want to play 5 but need to give it a while I think. The games really are very samey.

My contempt for this government has reached levels even I didn't think I could attain. Stay safe, everyone.

Play

Still checking in with Animal Crossing every day, though I'm definitely into maintenance mode right now. Grab the fossils and the recipe card, check turnip prices, done. Though with the month ticking over I did spend quite a lot of this afternoon fishing for sharks. Only caught two.

I've been popping into various things for short bursts over the last day or two testing out this new machine. I've set up most of my HOTAS controls for Elite Dangerous but only managed to play it for long enough to break orbit on the hopeless rock I parked my DBX on months ago; I got to the opening credits in Control (which seems to have some really weird texture-loading issues); I lef the train station in Half Life 2; and I tried futilely to get to grips with the keyboard-and-mouse controls for Prince of Persia 2008, which is actually fine for the most part but digital direction input messes with the platforming far more than having to remap muscle memory for which button does which attack in combat.

Last week's 13th Age session ended rather abruptly mid-battle because I wasn't watching the time; it's bought me some more room to figure out what the hell they're going to be doing next. I've got a few ideas but some of them seem too "big" right now, and I don't know that I want to funnel them into a Major Plot Development right now. I'm probably going to do some shorter set-piece-driven adventures to get them back to a storyline they last interacted with months ago IRL, but that they were quite keen to get back to until one of their backstories intervened.

Want

I am desperate for some time off. I am feeling increasingly burned out. Where most of my co-workers are finding the lack of people a difficult adjustment as our company shifted to remote working, I have the opposite problem of suddenly having a very demanding four-year-old around all day. Minx is working from home at the moment too, but there are times where neither of our schedules permits the kind of attention he wants, and tempers are lost far more often than any of us intends. Even weekends, bank holidays or annual leave don't give much of a change of pace; we can't go anywhere, or see anyone, we're still in the same four fucking rooms all day. I've lost count of how many times he's asked, "did doctor's say it's okay to see granny and grandad yet?" and he's getting more visibly upset when we tell him not yet.

Bin

Everyone who's taking the "easing of restrictions" as carte blanche to totally ignore social distancing guidelines and medical advice around COVID-19. Our neighbour had a hairdresser over the other day in their garden. No masks or anything. They've constantly had their kids and in-laws around, too. It seems like utter fucking madness to me, but I'm about 90% sure they're probably semi-conspiracy theorists who reckon it's all being blown out of proportion.

Play

Xenoblade Chronicles:Definitive Edition
GOTY??? Sorry Persona 5 (if that counts, I'm pretty sure it should) and FF7(I'd be more inclined to vote for this if there were…changes, but maybe I'm being premature)

When this hit the Wii it blew my fucking mind, it was basically QoL:The RPG, sidequests completed retroactively and/or mostly on the spot, with only a few asking you to return to the quest giver. You could change the Day/Night cycle whenever you want, fast travel to any Landmark whenever you want, save when and where you wanted (Not huge but it adds to the rest).

The quests themselves aren't exactly Witcher 3 here, they're like…FFXV meets MMO style 'kill 5 Wolves' but the world you inhabit is so beautiful (and each area gets better than the last it's crazy, the real ones know about Valak Mountains at Night!!!!1) that it just means you're usually like 'Oh might as well get a reward for doing this here' and literally done. Even without I remember swimming out to the Anti-Air Batteries and finding this huge bird many levels above mine and being super impressed (I love the way this game puts down bit Lv90+ mobs in a field of Lv15s, you instantly know how strong you are but how strong you wanna' be). Finally, I think the DE of this added red exclamation marks on maps for where to find the exact point to do a quest?

If you've not played it, it's a faux-MMO and it low key teaches you how to play FFXIV. As soon as you have Shulk and Reyn you learn about cooldowns and positionals and how Side Slash and Back Slash require you to be at those positions or you're missing damage/effects. It teaches you about aggro and tanks and how maybe you want Shulk not being the target of most enemies at any time.

Wonderful 101
There's no 'I' in team and that becomes very apparent playing this, alone you are like an ant to most enemies in the game, with the team you become various constructs of Anti-Alien justice. There's a character in this called Wonder-Green, his specialty is the gun. His bullets? The rest of the team of course! it's alright because they're bodies in super form are super hard and they use it to their advantage and fire themselves out of his gun, iirc anyone shot at the enemy is another ally curently clinging on them to dizzy them. Even the bridges and ropes you make to traverse the environment are made up of your team clinging together inside a hard light type constructed shell.

Trails in the Sky
I know howm any chapters are in this and damn, I heard this game gets real near then end in which case it must literally go from 0-100 in minutes. I'm not saying it's bad so far, but it feels like nothing has happened yet. Also the trailer for Cold Steel 4 spoiled me a little about this games plot, oh well. ;_;

Want
A haircut still, then again I hate my hair, doesn't look good no matter what.

Bin

The weather already sucks.

Play
I keep downloading games and then not playing them. I now have Darkest Dungeons, Breath of the Wild, Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 4 all waiting for me to actually start playing. I'm not sure why I haven't yet, but lockdown and Animal Crossing and probably not helping.

Animal Crossing is still fun but I am certainly playing it less. I've started a serious attempt to breed flowers which at least gives me something to do everyday. It really hard to enjoy the landscaping elements when you are sharing your island with an eight year old.

D&D: I'm still running three games a week and loving it.

My Monday game is almost finished after 70 sessions, they have reached the City at the End of the World and all that it left is for them to talk to every NPC they want to, figure out what they want to happen after then end of the world and then go an trigger the appropriate end-of-game boss fight to make that happen. It could all be over this time next week, or they might make it last a few weeks as they spend ages weighing all their options.

My Wednesday game of D&D 5e is going well too. I'm not feeling it as much because I'm running an official campaign, but that does mean the game is minimal effort and my players are enjoying the change in pace with the more tactical system.

My Saturday group of teenagers are still exploring the Isle of Dread. They wanted more challenge and I've managed to kill one PC every session for the last four sessions. They are loving it, although I think it helps that they all enjoy character generation. Also I don't think any of them ever lose characters in their other games so my game is a bit of a change for them.

Want
The new Paper Mario game looks good and Little Miss Bloodaxe is keen. I'll probably wait for it to show up in a sale though.

Bin
You know, racism, capitalism, fascism, Trump, Tories, police states, Brexit, incoherent responses to a global pandemic, people who kick dogs…

The usual. plus Minecraft Dungeons which I've been playing couch co-op with Charly, we've finished the default difficulty, though that final boss is a proper bastard, she's wanting a mini break before we can go through again

Want
A haircut still, then again I hate my hair, doesn't look good no matter what.

I've always struggled with my hair. It's really, really curly, and tended to go Disco Stu if left to its own devices. I've spent years caking it on Dax Wax Red in order to style it, but this past fortnight decided I was going to actually take proper care of it, so have a routine set in place, I wash and condition is twice a week (using products friendly to curly hair) and then put a leave in conditioner in once a week. On the days in between I wet comb it and now use Brylcreem to just give some weight to my curls. The aim is to maybe see how I look with longer hair.

Want
A haircut still, then again I hate my hair, doesn't look good no matter what.

I always like haircuts when they get about halfway through but then they seem to keep going and take too much off. Damn those professionals. My girlfriend agreed to cut mine but we chose a poor time to do it and our toddler screamed as soon as the clippers went on. For a day and a bit I had this tufty Joe Exotic thing happening. Looks okay now once she finished it and since it's grown in a bit. She said I wasn't helping by cheerfully chipping in "I'll probably shave it all off before I have to go to a barber again."

Play Em… Call of Duty. At the moment, by the time I get around to gaming I'm usually knackered. CoD games give the adrenaline burst needed to wake me up. So I play multiplayer a fair bit and then have semi regular Warzone games with friends a couple of times a week. I bought Armello and For the King in one of the recent sales but the pace and text heavy nature of the games sends me to sleep.

Want Keen on the Last of Us 2. Keeping away from gameplay videos but assume it's going to be great. Not sure how my PS4 will stand up to it though. The din it makes while playing CoD is unreal. I've not really played anything without headphones for 4 years since having kids so haven't noticed the racket it makes. CoD and Spiderman in particular seem to be showing the age of my base console with longer load times and occasional texture pops. So… Maybe I just need to wait for a PS5 for Last of Us 2.

Bin I've not been exercising enough and boozing too much and it's started to take toll. I think… I need to… Stop drinking. My girlfriend was ill with a stomach bug last week but we isolated her for a bit just in case. Anyway, forced me into early nights because having no breaks from the kids meant it wasn't worth attempting to continue carving out some time for myself in the evening and made me forgo booze because it wasn't worth feeling fuzzy at 5AM. Feel loads better but am sort of sad. End of an affair.
Have realised that my exercise regime is largely centered around working out to then not feel bad about cakes, snacks and booze. Now though there isn't the cycle commute or swimming a couple of nights a week I'm just getting heavy.

Keen on the Last of Us 2. Keeping away from gameplay videos but assume it's going to be great.

I've watched a couple, and I'm not sure whether I'll pick it up. It's just so, so grim. Just like the first one of course, but with the added fidelity and the background of lockdown, it all looks a bit much.

They're not glorifying the violence at all, and I totally get the plot reason for the throat shivs… But right now I need Mario and rainbows.

Play
Mostly just FFVII Remake; for a giant, sprawling RPG, it's actually surprisingly easy to just stick on for an hour in the evening, especially on a second playthrough - skipping all the cutscenes means I can actually get through a fair chunk of game (as long as I don't hit a bastard of a boss fight).

Also booted up Star Wars Battlefront II for a spin, and jumped into a game of the starship battle mode I liked best in the original. Spent the whole match being repeatedly annihilated by an invincible high-level player in Slave I while I was still trying to figure out the controls. I think I blew a couple of players up? Anyway, we lost.

Want
The Last of Us Part II is the only thing I'm actively anticipating, thigh I don't know how much I'll be able to play it. I really ought to finish that replay of the first game.

Bin
Politicans, white supremacists (same thing lol), capitalism.

I'm still only like halfway through downloading Battlefront II and watching clips on Twitch is already making me regret it, is there no longer just a team deathmatch mode where I can play as some grunt and kill othe grunts? Everything seems to be gimmicky hero modes and stuff. Maybe I'll just redownload Overwatch.

EDIT - 11 hours to go, yeah fuck this

Download Valorant.

No fat. 4Gb. Runs on anything. Brutal.

Download Valorant.

No fat. 4Gb. Runs on anything. Brutal.

Literally just saw something on Eurogamer about this and watched the attached video while tuning out of a meeting. Is it Overwatch?

If I remember right, it's aiming itself more at the CounterStrike crowd? But yeah, it's Yet Another Hero Shooter.

It does look more Counter Strike than Overwatch. If there’s a PS4 (or PS5?) version I might look into it, though I’m very aware that, bearing in mind how angry Overwatch (or at least many of it’s players) makes me, it would probably induce some kind of rage blackout.

It's more CS:GO crossed with League than Overwatch, though the aesthetic is similar. I can't imagine it coming to console as it's a mouse driven shooter for sure - headshots are obligatory, and Riot haven't ever ported League (they don't need to either, I think 3 million people played the beta and it's probably going to do well enough on PC only).

It's clearly a cut above any other recently released shooter. The abilities of the characters add a layer of strategy and the level design (the design in general) shows Riot's pedigree in putting together top tier competitive environments. It's infuriating, exciting, tense, maddening, baffling and challenging in equal measure and I really enjoy it (only play it if you can get a team together with voice comms though).

It's also got hugely invasive anti-cheat that runs from bios and can not be suspended.

"runs from bios" wat

Additional Play: 51 Worldwide Games on the Switch. This is a kind of cross between the old 42 All-Time Classics on the DS, and Wii-era minigame compilations like Wii Sports and Wii Play. It's got a bunch of card games, a bunch of board games, darts, bowling, golf, some chunky toy versions of things like baseball and curling, and some other oddities. Yakuza fans can use it to finally teach themselves Shogi, Riichi Mahjong and Hanafuda.

It's… really rather nice. Everything's really tactile and beautifully presented, the games are an interesting mix of the very simple and the surprisingly fiendish, and there's bound to be a few classics in there you haven't come across before. (Mancala was entirely new to me, and I've become quite hooked on insane card game President. My son is beating all-comers at Shogi). Tutorials are functional but effective. It's very easy to jump into an online game of pretty much anything you fancy and plenty of people are playing it.

On the downside, there are some notable omissions especially on the card game side, options are limited (plenty of games could have alternative variations included, but don't) and local play for most games doesn't support more than 2 players. All these things could be fixed via patches of course but then this is a Nintendo title so probably won't be. It's still a really nice package though. Anyone up for a game of Uno?

Uno on Switch (the proper game) was £3 not long back, and everyone on my team bought it. So, possibly not. :)

51 Worldwide Classics is bloody lovely. Mancala is my new addiction.

Mancala…. HAS NOBODY READ THE WORLD'S GREATEST PAPER ON PLANTS IN BOARDGAMES?

https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ppp3.10057

Is there no end to your talents?

HAS NOBODY READ THE WORLD'S GREATEST PAPER ON PLANTS IN BOARDGAMES?

Not going to lie, I still haven't.

Played a few more. Blackjack is perfect, but they somehow managed to screw Texas Hold 'Em up. Limited rounds, small bets that you can't raise.

But otherwise this package is stunning.

Hanafuda’s really good. After years of squinting at it in confusion in various Yakuza games, I can now play it! A bit.

Can’t imagine playing with a real deck yet though, without the game helpfully pointing out what matches with what.

Unexpected pseudo-Want – Persona 4 Golden is getting released on Steam, this coming weekend.

Intrigued to see what, if any, graphical benefits come with it…

Thats just Atlus trolling Switch owners begging for P5 :lol: (not saying it isnt real, but it is fucking funny)

Persona 5, coming to Google Stadia and Google Cardboard.

Unexpected pseudo-Want – Persona 4 Golden is getting released on Steam, this coming weekend.

Intrigued to see what, if any, graphical benefits come with it…

Reader, I bought it.

Is it actually a PC game or did they just port it with zero effort? I'm genuinely curious, given my previous experience of producing a PC product with a Japanese studio and seeing how little understanding they have for the platform.

Is it actually a PC game or did they just port it with zero effort?

Seems pretty low-effort. Doesn't appear like any of the geometry has been tweaked at all, though the textures might be higher-res than the Vita version. The interface, especially dialogue text, doesn't really make any allowances for larger (or closer) displays either. Graphical options are pretty minimal (the only thing you can change, apart from the resolution, is shadow quality), but it does have options for both English and Japanese voices, which I don't remember the Vita version having. They're both pretty over-compressed though, with obvious static on "S" sounds in particular.

Here's a couple of screenshots from the first 15 minutes, which is all I've blitzed through so far; haven't even got a party yet.

Play

The Last of Us - I've already seen all of this when my brother played it, but I've never actually played it myself. With TLOU2 on the horizon I figured now is a good time especially considering I got this from PS+.

….
It's actually good! Even though the sum of its parts (besides stuff like voice actiong, visuals and whatnot) are arguably all quite average. Does rather nail the whole 'peaceful downtime/violent uptime' thing.

Valhalla
I like this so much that I ordered a physical edition from Limited Run Games and it took SIX MONTHS to arrive and it's totally worth that wait. It's basically a retro styled visual novel set in a dystopian city based bar. YOU LIKE THE GOOD WRITTEN TALKY TALK? PLAY THIS

Xenoblade: Definitive Edition
I'm really feeling it, worth it for the quest marker QoL thing alone TBH

Trails in the Sky
The pacing of the game was starting to get to me, but now I'm at the end it all makes sense. It's like a tour of the region of Liberl whilst you slowwwwly uncover a conspiracy, I dunno', it just felt..natural or less contrived in the way you advance the journey. Also the battles are great, it's a stratgey RPG in the body of a JRPG, you're usually outnumbered but with a bit of thought you can always turn the tables.

Want
Still so tempted to try out that Dead by Daylight game honestly

New Bin

Trails in the Sky: First Chapter - whoa, that sure left things on sequel hook right???

New Play

Trails in the Sky: Second Chapter - I'll start it tomorrow

Bin

The Last of Us (I really regret deciding write the titles of the game in bold ngl)

Finished it.

Man, this is a weird one for me, on the one hand I really enjoyed it, on the other hand I look back and some of it barely qualifies as a game. Like, the only bits I felt did qualify were the sneaking and shooting parts but if I wanted to be harsh I'd say the stealth AI is amongst the worst I've ever seen and the shooting, while really satisfying suffered from the same problem or AI that felt like it was barely programmed to do anything but hide forever behind a pillar or run dead at me and my already aimed shotgun and get ripped apart (the waves of people throwing themselves at your sniper fire to get to Ellie, Henry and Sam springs to mind). Then there's the really blatant 'find a ladder/plank/pallet bits' that practically scream 'gameplay filler, pls hurry so we can get to the next walking dialogue' that added absolutely nothing to the game other than what I just said.

This leaves the bits where you walk around and talk to Ellie, which are genuinely great and to be fair, kinda integrated in the bits I just criticised too, particularly after she starts to kill for Joel in fights. The writing for the two of them getting closer together was good, at least dialogue wise. I don't how to describe it but despite ripping on the gunfights, I do think the game breaks up the moments of peace with some really explosive, personal moments of violence and both sides of the game balanced out really nice.

Speaking of which, I give the entire 'Winter' section of the game a 10/10. Probably the best section of the game, after the amazing bit that preceded it too. (and yet, the Spring part after it was basically a walking simulator/interactive cutscene with a tunnel of clickers thrown in)

I also give the ending 10/10, some of the discourse around that ending has been fucking stupid, some people online are some clowns omg. The ending was so good it 1000% didn't NEED a sequel….but we got one and I dunno when I'm gonna get to try it out but I want to but I dunno if I wanna go back to back on this one.

EDIT - I'll try the DLC tomorrow. It sounds good, and short so why not.

Play - Star Wars Battlefront 2. I picked this up on the Xbox for 6 quid in a sale a while back and I've been going through the movies lately so I thought I'd at least give the single-player mode a whirl. It's actually decent fun, in an undemanding sort of way, and it looks astonishingly good. Very much a Star Wars-themed fairground ride and about as deep as a puddle but I'm happy with it for a few hours' uncomplicated fun. I have no idea about the multiplayer stuff at all yet, I'm aware it's 95% of the game but I'm guaranteed to be terrible at it.

I've played a few rounds of multiplayer, and had a wildly valuable experience, where it wasn't clear at all how much, if at all, I was contributing to my team's success or failure.

It's generally quite bad at telegraphing what's happening - in a match of starfighter assault last night, my side won the first two stages fairly decisively, then we suddenly lost, with no indication as to why, or any suggestion that defeat was even imminent.

Play - Star Wars Battlefront 2

You just reminded me this is the June PS+ game. Hadn't even thought to push it through my basket, let alone download it. Shows how much I care about that service now, I guess.

Play

The Last of Us II - not far in yet. It's very impressive, and not actually fun per se, so it's pretty much what I expected.

Slay the Spire - it's on iOS now, for a tenner. Other than not yet having cloud saves, it's perfect, on the basis that it's (finally) Slay the Spire on the iPad.

Late to the party, but hey…

PLAY
Sea of Thieves - Still having a blast with my crew, on the good ship The Vicious Coward (though I wish we could actually name our ships). We're actually getting better at it! The new ghost ship content is genuinely tense and exciting.
Pokémon Cafe Mix - Free to play puzzler on Switch/mobile, loving it. Great art style, simple but challenging.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons - of course. Currently stripping out my entire village area (about 1/3 of the map) and making it more rural/nature-like.

WANT
Paper Mario: The Origami King - I've already got this on my Switch, but it's not playable yet. Very much looking forward to it unlocking.
More delicious things - My partner has finally moved over here and now we seem to be making random delicious things where I once cooked the same meals over and over. She's mastered hot dogs wrapped in freshly baked croissant dough with marinara sauce as a snack, and magicked stuffed chicken breast with sun-dried tomatoes out of nowhere. I coated chicken strips in smashed bacon kettle chips (trust me, amazing) and appear to have mastered the sacred art of sauce making. We've also together become expert pizza makers with fresh dough and everything. I swear, I'll be 3st heavier by the end of the summer.

BIN
Finished LEGO Ninjago on PS4, quite the slog. Working from home is fine, but I'd still prefer to be in the office. German summer heat? It's already a regular 32° here, and it'll only get warmer.

“Chicken in crisps” is the most Mart thing ever. Masterchef awaits!

It was genuinely great. Thought it'd be shit, but it wasn't. Tasty app wins again.

Additional PLAY:

Death Come True - From the man who created Danganronpa, this very slickly-produced FMV adventure is rather enjoyable and not nearly as silly as it starts out. Won't spoil anything here, in case anyone gives it a go (it's £16 on either Switch or mobile), but I think it's worth it. Definitely more accessible than the likes of Shibuya Scramble, which was massively convoluted and hurt my brain. It's also relatively short, though I've only seen one ending so far. Still got a way to go, as I missed seven Death Medals (things you earn from dying). My only gripe? There's a bunch of extras in the form of bonus videos, but it seems someone forgot to do subtitles for them as they're all in Japanese while the rest of the game is fully subtitled. Oh well. Still enjoyed it.

OOh, you had me at Danganronpa! Though I'll have to wait for the Windows/PS4 release

You don't have a phone?!

I do, but I never play any games I download to it…

It's definitely a game that suits mobile well. Just depends if you can stomach spending £16 on a phone game. But I think it's a good one.

Just depends if you can stomach spending £16 on a phone game. But I think it's a good one.

buries Granblue Fantasy purchase history

Bit of a difference in a single investment against being a whale though.

(hides own Magikarp Jump and Idle Apocalypse purchases)

And I'd do it again!!! (come on Seasonal Zooey!!!)

Half Life: Alyx

I'm finally going in. I'm about an hour or so into it so far. I've almost shat myself only three times and I'm not sure I even have the courage to enter the next area.

brownpants/10

Suddenly Duo teaching me how to say 'the white pants were a bad idea' in Norwegian this morning seems oddly prescient.

Anyone here have Ring Fit Adventure? apologies if it's been posted in an earlier PWB thread. Saw someone on my Friends List playing it and it reminded me it exists, I want it but it's quite pricey.