PWB March 2023

Play

Persona 5 Royal - you all played this years ago, didn't you? More fool me, it's absolutely superb. It's got a slow start, and the English dub is an assault on the ears, but once you get past both of those things it's an absolutely amazing game. The characters are instantly likeable, the hand-crafted Palaces are a big step up from the procedural dungeons of the previous games, and the pace never lets up. I've put way more time into this in just a few days than I ever thought I would.

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap - holds up very well indeed. I kind of miss 2D Zeldas, we haven't had one in nearly a decade. This isn't strictly Nintendo (it's one of the slightly odd Capcom spin-offs they did for a few years) but you'd barely know it, it follows the classic formula perfectly and still plays well today.

Marvel's Midnight Suns - dipping back into this post-completion as each bit of DLC is released. The new characters are actually very good, and surprisingly well integrated into the main game - of course this means they make much more sense if you've actually got them all before you start playing, so doing things the way I'm doing it is a bit of a compromised experience, but it's still a fun game to revisit every few weeks or so.

Want

I see Like a Dragon: Ishin is out now, I'd very much like to play that but then again I've still got Judgment to play. It keeps popping up in sales (it's in one right now) and I keep nearly buying it then holding off thinking it's bound to come to Game Pass very soon. I think I might just have to take the plunge.

Bin

Didn't last long with Pinball FX this week.

Decided that Hi-Fi Rush isn't really for me. I like the aesthetic but I can't get the timings down or remember the combos and I just end up button-mashing my way through it. It doesn't seem to mind me doing that, but I don't feel like I'm getting the best experience out of it at all.

the English dub is an assault on the ears

The Japanese track is pretty good, if you can stomach that option. It also makes some of the more… questionable/embarassing dialogue less explicit to other people in the room.

Yeah, I switched it to Japanese and never looked back. Just vastly better on every level.

Bin

Street Fighter Duel

Came out just a few days ago on mobile. This ain't it man. Was hoping for something to get stuck in with until Street Fighter 6. You more or less just watch your fighters fight. The only difference you can make is leveling up you characters and buy gear. All of this is behind a pay wall or wait 10x as long to get it for free if you keep playing. No thank you.

Ahh… I have that installed but not started. Shame.

EDIT: Oh jeez, no. An idle hero clicker in Street Fighter clothing. Deleted!

@Garwoofoo

Are you absolutely sure the latency is bang on. Even slightly less than perfect and it feels like a button mashing nightmare. Once that's sorted I found it effortless to keep roughly in time to the beats - and I'm not that good at stuff like Rock Band and Beat Saber.

@Garwoofoo

Are you absolutely sure the latency is bang on. Even slightly less than perfect and it feels like a button mashing nightmare. Once that's sorted I found it effortless to keep roughly in time to the beats - and I'm not that good at stuff like Rock Band and Beat Saber.

It seems fine, it looks OK in the testing thing in the options screen, and in general stuff like lip-syncing on the console is spot on (which is where I tend to notice any kind of latency issues quite quickly) but I never seem to score more than about 45% accuracy.

I'll have to try it with headphones to see if that makes a difference, or possibly dig out Rock Band 4 and see what sort of latency scores that gives me.

I was the same, I was hitting 40-45 percent accuracy and it was driving me insane. Then I tried it on something else and doubled in accuracy. It wasn't entirely clear from the latency tester how out it was either. I'd never noticed any lip sync or other issues on the TV and use it to occasionally play stuff like Apex or other comp shooters (at only 60hz granted, but you'd still notice if it was out) but have never had any real issues.

It was just startling how quickly I went "aaaahh, I get it" when I tried it on my laptop screen. But YMMV.

Additional PLAY:
HarmoKnight - Because the 3DS eShop is about to close and I re-bought it (despite having it before on my Japanese 3DS) and it's awesome and I haven't played it in ages and why the bloody hell not eh.

Play: Urg, the Last of Us on TV sent me back to the game. The games really because the digital version of part 2 was on sale for £8 and I'd played a borrowed copy on my launch ps4 so it seemed like a thing I wanted to go back to. TLOU was kind of fine - the PS4 remaster not "Part 1" - it was much shorter than I remembered but that is possibly because there were no surprises and I played as violently as possible because, let's face it, Joel is a prick in the games and sparing no one and nothing makes the whole thing a lot easier. There was still the occasional section where I tried to perfectly stealth an encounter only to fail that approach and make it out by the skin of my teeth but by and large I avoided the repetition by just trying to fuck things up immediately and the game seemed to respond to this approach by allowing me to progress very quickly. Winter is still the only real stand out section which is fine and makes the direction of Part 2 seem like the least controversial decision made by any video game creative ever. For that short section where you control Ellie in the first game it feels novel and fun and interesting. I've started Part 2 and so far it's quite nice. I'd be delighted if Naughty Dog would put in an accessibility option that lets the player skip all their Yak Patting characterisation bullshit and let you get to the game. It feels like since they let Drake pat the yak in Uncharted 2 they've just kept leaning into the gated 'no danger' sections in their games and it's getting pretty tired. I have, however, downloaded UC4 & the Thieves follow on I bought but didn't play to continue my season of Naughty Dog when the ps+ sub runs out this month.

Also playing Mafia Definitive Edition. Surprised how fun it is to be in an open world that isn't really open at all. Reminds me of LA Noir where the whole thing just sits around you to serve a very specific story and there's no pissing about. Shows its age a fair bit but really having a good time with it.

Want: Maybe a switch to play more games with the kids. I got them going with Paw Patrol on ps5 bit its so shit. I'm struggling to find something in the vein of games I played when I was 6 like Chuckie Egg, retro stuff to get the basics down. Paw Patrol is - hear me out - a good introduction because it looks okay and has a few video games basics bundled into it like the jump is fine and transferrable to other games. The rest of it is absolute garbage though.

Bin:Valkyria Chronicles 4? Loved VC1 which I played back in 2009 and have bought No Games since signing up to the PS+ pass but this was cheapest its been and I though I'd love it. I really don't or don't have the patience for it. It just seems much more complex than the first game - I'm fully prepared to accept that having missed most of 2 when my psp got burgled and no sniff of 3 that I'm out of touch with the series but it seems very hard very early on and I've not truck with that.

I played Sackboy: Big Adventure with a 5 year old and she loved it.

She also enjoyed Niddhogg, but it turned her into a murderous rage monster and her mum was not too happy (so perhaps not that).

Additional PLAY:
Dredge - Just the demo for now, the game isn't out for a few weeks. It's a fishing game, but with puzzle-like elements (fish are Tetris blocks that you have to fit into your grid shaped boat), RPG elements (missions to complete, people to interact with) and, most importantly, dark story elements of an Eldrich horror variety. I'm enjoying it so far, though the game's a bit outside my usual indie instabuy price at over £20. On the wishlist it goes.

Additional Play: Mirror's Edge: Catalyst which cav and Brian were surprisingly positive about recently.

It's an odd game because the stuff it takes from the original (aesthetics and traversal) is amazing, and everything it adds (hateful NPCs, pointless open-world box-ticking, endless chuntering) is dreadful, but the good still mostly outweighs the bad and it still ends up as a pretty decent game. The over-abundance of pre-rendered cut-scenes just smacks of a marketing executive demanding that they need to include more of the girl that's on the box, and Faith herself with her surly attitude and salon-fresh haircut is the kind of antihero that only a focus group could love, but there's still a real thrill about bounding over the rooftops and falling repeatedly to your death (maybe that last bit's just me). More to the point it still feels fresh and original (it's amazing what a unique control scheme can do for a game) and as one of only two games that look and feel like this it's still well worth playing despite its flaws. Thanks for the recommendation.

Play - Quest 2
I realise Justin Roiland is awful, and I'm a hypocrite, because is he more or less awful than Rowling. But I did end up with a key for Trover Saves the Universe on the Quest 2.

I'm sure everyone on the society knows the answer to this, but there are plenty of first and third person action adventure games available, but only, to my knowledge, two second person action adventure games that have ever been produced. This, and what's the other one? (and to be fair it's just a segment in that game, not the entire thing).

If you hate stuff from Roiland and Squanch games, this will not change your mind. But it is vaguely like Astrobot, and quite creative, with the usual burbling, stuttering profanity laden narrative over the top. You play a person in a chair, playing the game. So you play the guy in the chair, in the game, in the game. It works pretty well. It's also very graphically nice on the Quest 2 native.

I also picked up a few other VR games (as my Quest 1 broke and I got a replacement 2) - Light Brigade (a roguelike, minimalist, Risk of Rain type thing which is truly excellent), Little Cities (a beautiful Sim City VR thing), Rising (a vomit inducing Spiderman-traveral type game) and Boneworks (on PC via link - an old game now, but still decent). Another big one was Project Cars 2, with a wheel and pedals in VR. It doesn't look really amazing (even with everything cranked up), but after a while I was convinced I was spanking an Audi R8 around the backroads of Scotland. Also went back and tried some of the old classics (Alyx/Tetris etc). Alyx still too scary to play.

The Quest 2 is a weird one. The build quality compared to the first is scandalous. The fixed IPD locations weird. And while the image quality is better and screendoor reduced, the lack of OLED screens is quite noticable. I ended up getting a better strap for it, as it was incredibly uncomfortable out of the box. Air Link has come a long way and works well now - and I think on balance I don't really see how PSVR2 can really be true VR without losing the wire.

Overall though, I got it really cheap from a guy desperate for drug money in Bristol, and while I won't use it much, I'm glad I still have a VR thing lying about.

Two Gamepass games I finally fired up yesterday whilst off ill.

Ship Breaker - where you work in a space junkyard cutting up old ships and processing the parts. I was utterly in love with this initially but then it started to add in too many bits that get in the way of the enjoyment for me, like the Fuel and oxygen level. I still like it but it's not Power wash Simulator or whatever its called.

Phoenix Point - I actually own the phsycal copy of this too somewhere and need to find it and open it to check if its got any DLC as the GP version doesn't install any, but I was enjoying this as a janky seeming 7/10 Xcom a like. It's from the original creator or director of Xcoms earlier stuff and plays very similar, and has a line of site feature that remembered me of the one time I played a game of War hammer 40k, admittedly about 26 years or so ago I'd guess.

That's the XCom with crab monsters right? I didn't think Xcom needed more crabs and I was right.

Also, I'm going to need an answer to another game that features a second person segment. Clue: you can no longer buy this game digitally. Second clue: it was a remarkably forward thinking and creative game in the shell of a shit by-the-numbers franchise entry.

Yeah it's hidden behind some kind of alien invasion or biological story that seems mostly gibberish but at least they try to explain it in about 23 seconds rather than dragging out.

No idea on your question though. I not even sure I understand what 2nd person perspective is despite having looked it up.

I know 2nd person in prose. It's Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. I can't get my head around 2nd person in videogames though.

1st person is through the eyes of your avatar, 3rd person with a view of your avatar.

In short I have no idea wtf cav is on about. As usual.

The clue sounds like Spec Ops: The Line though, but I would say that.

I'm going to say it's "Driver: San Francisco" which I think had a section where you controlled your character while looking through the eyes of someone else.

Yes, you could probably argue that that is a 2nd person game. Good call.

Garwoofoo nails it and wins today's special prize.

World of Warcraft's very opening monologue is second person. Does that mean the whole game is, technically, as that's the set-up?

With the armies gone, the defense of Stormwind now falls to its proud citizens. You must defend the kingdom against the foul mongrels that encroach upon it and hunt down the subversive traitors who seek to destroy it from within.

If Driver is 2nd Person then so is a lot of Assassin’s Creed.

Also, I'm going to need an answer to another game that features a second person segment. Clue: you can no longer buy this game digitally. Second clue: it was a remarkably forward thinking and creative game in the shell of a shit by-the-numbers franchise entry.

There's another answer to this question as it happens. Coincidentally it's God of War 3. You view the final part of the first boss fight, against Poseidon, from Poseidon's perspective, and control Kratos from the point of view of the guy you're murdering. It's visceral.

There's another answer to this again: the Chromedome boss fight in the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. He 'becomes' the screen and watches the fight while punching into it, and you have to throw enemies towards the screen to hit him.

A few games have CCTV style sections like that then that I have played but struggling to remember them now.

Does the Airship in Call of Duty partly count too as you are controlling that but watching your actual player.

If Driver is 2nd Person then so is a lot of Assassin’s Creed

There is a second person section specifically in Driver SF. Not the entire game. It's pretty meta.

Edit: I've realised you mean because it's taking place in the Animus… hmm. I need to ponder further on that one.

Good additions with GoW and TMNT. This is clearly a category of games that might be wider than I first suspected.

Play: the Resident Evil 4 remake demo is out now and it's really good. Very much in the mould of the RE2 and RE3 remakes as you'd expect but it's a proper reimagining of the game with an updated control scheme, quite a lot of changes and some of the best graphics I've seen this gen. They seem to have done a very good job of nailing the atmosphere of the original while still tweaking enough to make the new game its own thing and surprise over-confident veterans.

The demo gives you the village fight from the start of the game, which is the best bit of the whole thing anyway. Definitely worth checking out.

They've certainly gone harder on the horror this time. I remember 4 being a camp, light-hearted stroll through a daytime forest.

Play
Hogwarts Legacy. Discussing this at face value, away from any external politics, so keep scrolling if you'd rather – certainly wouldn't blame you. It's surprisingly great, and does more than simply scratch the Potter itch. The combat is a joy, with seemingly endless spell combinations. In the space of a 30 second melee you might have thrown someone off a cliff, frozen another before cutting his ice block in two, turned his mate into an exploding barrel and sent it flying at another group… and it all flows beautifully. It's Arkham Asylum-levels of empowering fun.

The story is engaging, the visuals veer between stunning and (on Xbox) hilarious, the audio could be straight from the films, and the whole thing feels like a lost Lionhead game. If you're happy seperating art from creator, this comes recommended. It'll probably surprise you.

3DS games. I'm following everyone else's lead and getting up-to-speed on 3DS titles I missed out on. Currently playing Bowser's Inside Story (great, but that wiggler boss can fuck right off), Pullbox (wonderful), and Layton Versus the Aztecs or whatever it's called (I'm always disappointed by these – I feel like I should love them but they're a bit too plodding).

Additional PLAY (on Wednesday):
Have a Nice Death - Apparently, it's very good so bought - hopefully that's true when the game unlocks in a few days. We'll see!

Bought Anno 1800 after a few days playing the free trial. It's a really solid conversion of one of my favourite games of all time, with an exceptionally well thought out control scheme. A game like this is never going to be as intuitive on a console with a controller as it is on a PC with a mouse, but I don't have a PC that's capable of running it any more so I'm very happy to be able to own it on the Xbox. Hopefully if it sells OK they will reconsider their "no DLC" stance.

Play

Mighty Doom

Can't stop playing. 😅 It's a pretty additive roguelike with the Doom IP. It doesn't do anything I've not seen before but dose it all well. The controls feel good for mobile too. As always with these types of game I worry down the line it will turn into a pay to win title, but we'll see. Definitely worth a download.

I played a bunch of 'big' mobile titles lately:

The most recent Sackboy auto-runner: shit.
That new Tomb Raider game: shit.
Mighty Doom, which is basically the Tomb Raider game with a Doom skin: shit.

Sorry Beany, but I hated it. Deleted it so quickly, my phone barely had time to register.

Played both Tomb Raider and Mighty Doom. Bit cold on both because they are, as Mart says, the same game. It's a bit of a downer that these aren't more inventive like the Go series.

Found myself having a hard time for one reason or another so took a measure to be in bed by 10 last week to see if sleep improved the situation (generally speaking: yes). One of these evenings I loaded Netflix on my phone and noticed 12 Minutes is a title they offer now (along with Into the Breach, Shredders Revenge and Oxenfree). The trailer for that game really excited me so I gave it a go. It's a thing isn't it… I don't want to spoil the story for anyone who wants to play it. The game itself is as frustrating as I usually find point and clikers and more so on the phone because I'm a fat handed twat.

The conceit of the 12 minute time loop can also become frustrating in the middle section of the game. You can get to various points where one incorrect action causes the loop end to trigger. This bit was tedious; knowing the steps to take to get to where you wanted and having to repeat multiple times because of stray clicks or – most frustrating – getting stuck in a loop of locking and unlocking the bathroom door rather than opening it.

All of this is to say that despite being in bed at 10 I didn't go to sleep until well after midnight. I ended up using a guide to finish the last couple of steps to see an ending. Felt at the end that the actual story got swamped by the mechanics a bit. I didn't really care what the plot was by the end. It's only thinking about it a week later that I'm getting any appreciation of that part of the experience.

Played both Tomb Raider and Mighty Doom. Bit cold on both because they are, as Mart says, the same game. It's a bit of a downer that these aren't more inventive like the Go series.

Yes! Both Hitman Go and the Tomb Raider equivalent were great. These polished turds really aren't. Pity.

Dammit, now I've redownloaded both Hitman Go and Deus Ex Go. I've finished Lara Croft Go but it must have been on my old iPhone… seems I don't own it on Android. Oh well.

The kids have been doing a lot of scrolling about with Google Sky Map recently, so I've been back on Elite Dangerous, of all things, trying to eke my Federation rep to the point that I can go to Sol and fly them around the solar system. Unfortunately, I've racked up a bunch of fines that I can't figure out how to pay. Oops! Such a fun game…

My older kid has been playing it again. She's been visiting nebulae and neutron stars and accidentally got Elite in exploration when she returned and sold her data.

a bunch of fines that I can't figure out how to pay

IIRC, sometimes you can pay them to the parent faction, other times you'd have to go back to the specific system (or station) where you got it, to pay the podunk backwater mayor's aide directly.

According to community stuff, there are people who should allow you to remote-pay fines now, too, but I've been to the place I picked up the quest, a place run by the faction who administered the fine, and to a third place with one of these intermediaries, and nowhere had any option to pay the thing - in fact, they didn't list any fines anywhere at all (it's just shown in my left-hand Transactions panel), though the faction-owned station gave me restricted access…

Additional PLAY (on Wednesday):
Have a Nice Death - Apparently, it's very good so bought - hopefully that's true when the game unlocks in a few days. We'll see!

Update: it's alright? I love everything about it except the actual gameplay, which feels a bit generic for a procedurally generated game (the levels are very barren because they're random). I'm hoping it clicks soon, because it is very lovely otherwise.

Also!

DREDGE - I really like this. Fishing with Eldritch horror? Yes please. It's both relaxed and terrifying all at once. Give the demo a try!

Oh! Also:

Dragon's Crown - Why don't people lament how great Dragon's Crown is? It's great! Very great! I'd love to see Pro remade for Switch. Hell, just port it over, no remake necessary. What a fantastic game.