Last game played...

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Been playing Scribblenauts Unmasked.



I love the open-ended nature of Scribs series and though I'm no DC hound the fact that there are ... what like 2000 DC characters that you can summon up and have fight eachother to solve puzzles is pretty bloody amazing. It's clearly been made with a lot of love and there are a ton of references that, actually I don't really get, but it's nice to see them played out and I'm learning a lot about DC lore. Who knew blue Kryptonite was the thing to defeat Bizarro superheroes?! ...probably quite a lot of people... but after a pitched battle where I set the entire Birds of Prey AND superman on Bizarro Superman and literally nothing had an effect I looked it up, hurled a block of it at him and HE DIED IN AN INSTANT. Ahahahaha!

Seriously though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_Cell <-- what have the company been doing for the near three years since?! If they got some more licenses under their belt this enjoyably creative franchise could beat the Lego games for family-friendly hilarity. I actually know some shit about Marvel... imagine if they got that involved...

[Keef Monkey]

Played through Sine Mora on PC, a bit of a bullet hell style shooter which isn't my usual cup of tea but as it's by Grasshopper (who I love wholeheartedly) it's got a really gorgeous art style. It looks niiiiiiiiice.

Pretty short but as it's a simplistic arcadey thing you wouldn't really want it to outstay its welcome I guess. Story is interesting too, although told in quite a confusing way, definitely hits pretty hard when it wants to.

Oh, and also been playing Jetpac! Got the Rare Replay collection and it's surprising how well the old Speccy games play. The rewind function and being able to save your game helps, games were brutal back then.

[CheechFU]

I've been playing this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=973&v=ZwGFZk9NLaU

But I've been playing it more like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CAYco-XAdM

[ThryllSeekyr]

I've been playing this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=973&v=ZwGFZk9NLaU

But I've been playing it more like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CAYco-XAdM

I used to kick those playing soccer as a five year older. Couldn't tell which end was which in all the confusion back then.

[Keef Monkey]

Polished off Dying Light last night and overall I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if it didn't really grab me initially.

Getting around the world felt a chore and fighting zombies felt like an annoying inconvenience. Then I had a co-op session with a friend where it all just clicked. We decided to scale the main bridge to get as high as we can and jump off and it was brilliant, tense fun. From there on I had a great time, the traversal gets more fluid the more you level up, the combat gets more manageable the better your weapons get, and the story and missions get more and more engaging.

The thing it does very well (probably better than any game I've played) is the sense of height - so much of it revolves around scaling huge structures and the sense of vertigo is really, really thrilling. Inching along tiny railings hundreds of feet up while the wind buffets the camera, had some really sweaty palm moments with it. And then you get the exhilaration of ziplining down again through the lovely looking environment and lighting.

Got a couple of gripes (and like I say there were chunks early on I wasn't keen on) but a really surprisingly good game, particularly as I really didn't like Dead Island at all.

[ThryllSeekyr]

I just started on that game, and played the same introduction sequence twice. I recorded both, but only kept the second for  uploading. Spent ages running around inside the tower getting my bearings and trying to complete the simplest of excercises before I was allowed to start on the parkour. There is no way I am ever jumping that distance onto a layer of garbage filled bags.

Really dumb unless it's my last resort. Which might have been the case in this game.

I stopped right after I complete all the parkouring around the tip of the tower I started in and was sent to the Quartermaster on the ground floor.

Did you notice the fellow who resembles Bill Gates and no chance to give him thumping for Windows 8.

If wasn't so concerned about videoing my games I would have been further into this and Alien Isolation,     Middle-Earth - Shadow of Mordor,  The Witcher Three - Wild Hunt,  Elite - Dangerous by now.

I don't even have space for all that on my hard drive.

I remember in my first play of this where I got as far contacting some other survivors holed up in a RV or Van what looked a basketball court and was sent to place car bombs on three vechiles parked in a street filled with zombies.  This was as hard as it sounded, and actually completed that part before I decided lower the population of undead in that small area alone by going hand to hand. Which involved a lot of running and dodging and doing leaping over their head while aiming downing with the weapon. Surprisely effective and very reminicient of Slaine's Salmon-Leap attack. Id very much welcome freestyle attacking in this game as opposed to the automatic-sleep fighting in Shadow of Mordor and Wild Hunt. Which still enjoy as well.

I stopped playing when I got to over confident doing this and was soundly clobbered and fighting the zombies in this game is not a requirement either. They can be avoided  if you don't need their pocket change and only in this part of the game so far.

 
 

[PsychoGoatee]

Been playing a lot of the ol' Duke Nukem 3D and DOOM lately, especially user made levels. Lots of good stuff out there.

Cannot wait for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain! Only a week away, gonna be incredible.

[I, Cosh]

So, Dark Souls 2 ... I knew it was going to be hard
...
Basically, should I abandon a week's worth of play and start again given that I'd be a lot more confident in what I'm doing and be a lot stronger/better equipped by the time I got to the same point?
...
Advice please.

In the end, I did exactly this and got further in one evening than I had in the previous week. I've been playing it off and on since then. The problem with that being that you think you're getting somewhere then fire it up a week later and immediately get spanked by the most lumbering and hopeless of enemies. However, over the past few days I've been hitting it quite hard and it seems to really have its claws in me now more than any game I've started for a couple of years. If I'm not playing it, I'm lying in bed hungover, watching other people play it on YouTube.

It's brilliant in terms of how finely balanced the combat mechanics are, its complete refusal to come out and tell you anything at all and how beautifully bleak it all is. The central village where everyone ends up has the most mournful theme tune ever.

It's unbelievably frustrating. I think I've come to terms with the fact that I am, quite frankly, a bit shit at it and am never going to be swapping out equipment in the middle of combat like my online heroes. That finely balanced combat doesn't count for much when the most common way I lose a closely fought battle is  accidentally swapping out my shield when my fat thumb slips off the stick.

At level 50-odd now and struggling a bit with these Ruin Sentinel pricks but I reckon a few dozen more tries and I'll be there. At this rate it should all be over in time for Christmas.

[Keef Monkey]

Played through episode 4 of Tales From The Borderlands and it really does have some of the best writing in a videogame, it can be surprisingly touching and is easily one of, if not the, funniest games I've played. Play it on my lunch break and am sitting with headphones on laughing my head off quite often. Brilliant.

[Keef Monkey]

Finally getting round to playing Life Is Strange and binged through the first couple of episodes, pretty blown away. It's such a nice world to explore and navigate, and the story is really clicking with me (unsurprising given it's a dash of Donnie Darko with a splash of Twin Peaks). The photo opportunities are a really nice approach to collectibles, and it's already done some very interesting and fun things with the time mechanics. It's already branched off from my brother's playthrough in a very major way too, it really feels like decisions are having big, big consequences in a way that Telltale doesn't always feel (they tend to funnel you towards the same outcomes a lot) and if anything being able to rewind and redo these things just makes them more agonizing and difficult because you really don't know long-term what the implications will be. Brilliant game, will be rolling into Episode 3.

Also played through The Fall on PC, quite a neat sci-fi puzzler with a great concept and lovely presentation, but some ill-advised combat and the fact that it's very easy to get stuck and break the flow by missing an object or a clue meant it didn't quite click with me. Would play another episode though, the story really did grab me.

[zombemybabynow]

Can't stop playing dying light

[ThryllSeekyr]

Can't stop playing dying light

That good, huh!

I wish I could reinstall it, but the problem with hard-drive space keeps popping up. Thought my discovery of Live-Streaming would smooth thing out, but not quite......

Just had long game session of Elite Dangerous and the entire thing was streamed, but not uploaded like the first one.

Don't know why either?

[Satanist]

Playing Until Dawn at the weekend and its right up my street. Basically a choose your own adventure in the slasher genre. If you've played Heavy Rain then its like that but better.

8 horny teenagers in a mountain resort being stalked by a psycho and you need to keep as many alive as you can. I'm about 70% through the story and have only killed 1 (possibly 2).

[Keef Monkey]

I really fancy Until Dawn, looks exactly like something I'd be into and different enough from the pack to warrant a play. It's the first PS4 game that's given me a bit of platform envy actually, so hoping the exclusivity is a timed thing and it appears elsewhere further down the line. Looks great!

[shaolin_monkey]

Kingdom Rush: Origins on iPhone. I have lost hours to it already. Incredibly moreish, and te passes so fast when playing! It's Tower Defence basically, but with loads of best touches and some really funny stuff. Feeding Obelix boars as he carves menhirs was a laugh.

Helldivers on PS4 is quite good - top down squad based blaster. It's almost completely multiplayer but ensures failure if you don't work together well. Finding a good squad is fairly strait forward, and I like the way every victory adds towards on ongoing 'war effort', from which perks and prizes are awarded.