Last game played...

[Keef Monkey]

Catching up on some DLC expansions for games I enjoyed, so played through the Frank Rising and Super Ultra Dead Rising 4 Mini-Golf expansions for Dead Rising 4 (good scrappy fun and the mini-golf is surprisingly addictive) and the Operation Spearbreaker and Awakening The Nightmare packs for Halo Wars 2, which were excellent. Awakening The Nightmare in particular has probably my favourite Halo Wars missions actually, some really intense moments and the mission variety was great, each one had a different wrinkle to think about.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Ooh. Just got Halo Wars 1 & 2 to play. Looking forward to it

[Keef Monkey]

They're great! And I say that as someone who has never really clicked with the RTS genre, I've always been far too terrible at them but these were really accessible. That probably means that hardcore RTS folk might find them a bit shallow I guess, but they were pitched perfectly for me.

[JamesC]

Raiden V on PS4.
It’s very good - I like shmups as long as they aren’t totally based on pattern recognition and memorisation and this is a fun arcadey shooter.
My criticisms would be that it’s quite hard to see what’s going on and enemies & bullets don’t always stand out well enough. It’s interesting because, though I like the game, it isn’t really any improvement over  (actually it isn’t really as good as) the 25 year old titles I play on my Megadrive.
HDMI and the convenience of playing on the big telly from my sofa add value though.

[I, Cosh]

The bendy purple laser from Raiden 2 is one of my all time favourites. Will need to give this a try.

[Keef Monkey]

Finished a replay of Dead Rising 2 last night, which I remember not really liking at all when it came out.

I thoroughly enjoyed it this time round and spent most of the game wondering why I'd been so hard on it...then hit the last couple of bosses and it all came flooding back. Those guys are DICKS. I guess that being the last thing that happens in it had just left a bad taste so that was how I recalled the game!

Other than that though it was really fun, I really enjoy the structure and timing constraints of those early DR games, and also the replayability hook where if things get too tough you can new game plus it at any point. I remember when the first game came out I would play it up to a certain point over and over until Frank was super overpowered, and then have a last playthrough where I could blitz through it and complete all the objectives. Satisfying!

[Greg M.]

Just completed The Evil Within 2. A huge improvement on the previous game - the 'open world' take on survival horror (for the first two-thirds of the game, anyway) is extremely refreshing. Eventually it lapses into the linear style of its predecessor, but the story is much more satisfying, so it gets away with it.

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

Just completed The Evil Within 2. A huge improvement on the previous game - the 'open world' take on survival horror (for the first two-thirds of the game, anyway) is extremely refreshing. Eventually it lapses into the linear style of its predecessor, but the story is much more satisfying, so it gets away with it.

Really want to get round to this, but I keep telling myself I should play the first one first. Will I be completely lost or will it be fine just jumping in to EW2 do you think?

[Greg M.]

Really want to get round to this, but I keep telling myself I should play the first one first. Will I be completely lost or will it be fine just jumping in to EW2 do you think?

I don't think you'll be lost - it's less the second half of a story, and more a retread of the same central conceit - but it does reference the previous game with some regularity, particularly towards the end. I was glad I'd played EW1 first, mostly because EW2 is significantly better, so it feels like a real step-up in comparison. EW1 is a lot harder and much more old-school in its approach.

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

Thanks for the info, I've decided to install EW1 and take a run at it soon - Currently got RE7 and Nier Automata to finish though!

[Keef Monkey]

Playing Nier Automata just now myself, it's lovely!

The story in TWE is pretty surreal anyway, so anywhere you jump in it's going to be a bit bewildering by design I think. Greg's right about the difficulty too, the first one is way less forgiving on the default. I'm sure I read the devs felt like they balanced those difficulty levels one notch too high, so for the second game Hard is closer to the first game's Medium etc.

Love those games, and the first one is great, but the second one was a real step up. Definitely worth playing both, especially if you like your old school survival horror.

[Greg M.]

Greg's right about the difficulty too, the first one is way less forgiving on the default. I'm sure I read the devs felt like they balanced those difficulty levels one notch too high, so for the second game Hard is closer to the first game's Medium etc.

That bit towards the end of the first game, in the fleshy, spiky, eyebally arena - that took a few goes! At one point I ran out of every type of ammo, but succeeded in punching the chainsaw dude to death. And as for that bloody squid...

[shaolin_monkey]

Rebellion’s ‘Zombie Army Trilogy’ was going for £9 on PS4 store the other night. I noticed it had 3D comparability! It turns out it’s one of only a handful of PS4 games that do. It was an instabuy for me. The 3D is great, and the game is a lot of fun!

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

ZAT is fantastic isn't it, 9 quid is a steal. Better than Left 4 Dead for my money. It's one of the games included on Game Pass now too if anyone's a subscriber to that.

[Keef Monkey]

Yeah I do like a bit of ZAT. I originally played through the first game on PC on my own and found it a bit of a slog, but teamed up with a friend to play through the whole trilogy on XB1 and we had a brilliant time. Like GrudgeJohnDeed says, it scratches the same stressy co-op itch that Left 4 Dead does for me and can often outshine it.