What Games Are You Playing?

Final Fantasy XVI: Echoes of the Fallen (DLC) (PS5)

What a nice surprise drop announcement for today. This was a fun DLC at around 2 - 3 hours in length featuring a new story, area and enemies / bosses. I found the new bosses a lot of fun and were real engaging to fight, keeping the player on their toes. The final boss of the DLC goes crazy as well, not so much in the cinematic way like the other major bosses in the game but with how it doesn't let up with the flurry of different attacks. The upcoming second DLC will be the major one but this was a lot of fun, if you enjoy the combat in this game, you'll love this one for sure!

They also added the Buster Sword which is always sweet.
 
Damn, you done already?!

When I read this was 3 hours, I decided to wait for the whole thing. Leviathan looks so gooooood.

Didn’t watch the game awards, but the trailers and info coming out of it were great!

Ah well, since I’m here.

Finished Atomic Heart and initial impressions weren’t very good. Some of them remained throughout the game, some vanished by the time I was done with it.

The game doesn’t get balance right and makes it extremely hard to wander around the open world because there are seemingly endless waves of robots and they take a toll on your inventory, be it bullets or healing items. Result: I treated each open world section like a corridor to the next dungeon.

Combat feels simultaneously punchy but floaty, it’s weird. By the end I was having fun, because I had tons of ammo and a considerable number of upgrades but I was still getting stuck into corners with gangbanging robots all around.

The writing is bad but the plot is alright. Otherwise, this is an artist’s game, the art direction, cutscenes and animations are great with the art direction and world design being particularly stunning. Retro futuristic designs are very much my jam.

Also finished Cocoon and it was very enjoyable. Not 🐐 status like Inside, but pretty good. I loved the final puzzles where you’re doing things within worlds, the result of which will affect the world within the world, WITHIN the world. So good.

Good pace, great style and the sound byte you get when you find the solution to a puzzle is almost addicting.

I’m now playing Forspoken (thank god for adjusted expectations, it’s very acceptable so far) and Super Mario RPG which shouldn’t take long to finish.

I think I’ll stop buying games just because and work through my enormous backlog for a while.
 
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Resident Evil 4 remake: Separate Ways
A surprisingly substantial DLC for £8, this clocks in at about 7 hours. It mostly recycles environments from the main game, but adds a few new areas too. The core action remains as satisfying as ever. Boss fights are a mixed bag though. The early ones that include phantom copies of the boss are annoying in a game with limited ammo. It's a solid companion to the main game, but as with the expansion to Village it benefits from leaving some breathing room between playing the two due to mostly covering the same locations.
 
Good observation on the breathing room bit, I didn’t think that about because I beat the main game when it came out but yes, good advice.

I enjoyed it a great deal and think it makes the whole package remarkably strong.

I finished Wanted: Dead aaaaaand I enjoyed it, surprisingly. Or maybe not surprisingly as watching bits of the game before release and reading opinions after put my expectations in the most realistic of places lol. Jank and low budget are your constant companions but it’s one of those cases of a game being more than the sum of its parts.

The battle mechanics are not the most sophisticated but they’re engaging enough, there are a ton of execution animations, and believe me, it helps a lot. It’s like a mini-reward you expect for each enemy you defeat. There is no true level design to speak of, just rooms full of enemies and corridors to lead you there. There is an attempt at a story but I struggle to believe it was made by professionals.

It feels more like following a day in a squad of rag-tag soldiers than following an actual story. So there is a significant number of cutscenes but you will spend time seeing characters saying not very meaningful things but it’s all weirdly endearing, maybe because of the voice acting or the banter between team mates. Slurping ramen and karaoke are also on the menu as mini-games.

I don’t think I’ll touch this again, but I’m glad I played it.
 
João Gomes said:
Also finished Cocoon and it was very enjoyable. Not 🐐 status like Inside, but pretty good. I loved the final puzzles where you’re doing things within worlds, the result of which will affect the world within the world, WITHIN the world. So good.

Good pace, great style and the sound byte you get when you find the solution to a puzzle is almost addicting.
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I finished this as well, I quite liked it, but yeah not as good as Inside/Limbo. By the end I was a little tired of having to carry my backpack of world orbs around with me everywhere lol!

Have you played Somerville? similar vibe.


I'm still working my way through:

AC: Valhalla (a bit of the way in but loads left to go).
Octopath 2 (a lot done, on chapter 4 for most of the characters now).

I'm going to check out Against the Storm on Game Pass as well, looks like it could be interesting.
 
The new avatar game I just got it on pc and unlocked the max settings the unobtainium setting now shows up.my GPU is a 3080 my monitor native resolution is 2560x1440 and it's running like dream so far.
 
Lordhippos said:
I finished this as well, I quite liked it, but yeah not as good as Inside/Limbo. By the end I was a little tired of having to carry my backpack of world orbs around with me everywhere lol!

Have you played Somerville? similar vibe.


I'm still working my way through:

AC: Valhalla (a bit of the way in but loads left to go).
Octopath 2 (a lot done, on chapter 4 for most of the characters now).

I'm going to check out Against the Storm on Game Pass as well, looks like it could be interesting.
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I’m actually super in the mood for this type of game so I jumped straight into Inside once more and was thinking of replaying both Little Nightmares, which makes for my holy trinity for these kinds of games.

Somerville looks right up my alley, I love the premise. But I’ve read some less than stellar opinions. What did you think about it ? Is it eerie ?
And while we’re at it, is Limbo worth it or is it too simplistic? Kinda always had that vibe.
 
João Gomes said:
I’m actually super in the mood for this type of game so I jumped straight into Inside once more and was thinking of replaying both Little Nightmares, which makes for my holy trinity for these kinds of games.

Somerville looks right up my alley, I love the premise. But I’ve read some less than stellar opinions. What did you think about it ? Is it eerie ?
And while we’re at it, is Limbo worth it or is it too simplistic? Kinda always had that vibe.
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Dunno about Eerie, if you get it cheap or whatever I'd say worth a go, it's fairly short.

Limbo is a little simplistic I agree, which is why I liked Inside more, but both were cool Limbo was just the practice run for Inside.
 
Been playing a few chapters of Evil West so that I can clear a good bit of space off my PS5, it’s pretty good overall and it’s good that it’s a tightly crafted, linear game, rather than a big, empty open world game, overall pretty solid so far.
 
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Sorry for doing that annoying Spotify thing with games.

I actually lied the other day saying RE4 was my GOTY but only because I’m old and my memory is bad.

My actual GOTY was Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty. Just astounding. Excellent mission design, narrative, characters and dialogue, music, gameplay and graphics, it’s the whole package.

If you’re even a bit invested in the world, this game puts you into so many cool situations. Spoiled for details of mission objectives in the game. Playing spy, infiltrating parties to get info on targets, planning how to attack a MaxTac convoy, get a glimpse of what’s beyond the Blackwall, straight up horror sections, just so good.

2. Resident Evil 4 - because Capcom successfully remade one the best games ever made and it’s unbelievable that it could be said it’s even better the original.

3. FF XVI - I’ve made my thoughts on this game known before but it should have been a full-on action game or they should’ve gotten people with the expertise for good quest design. Were that the case, I swear I would still be replaying this to this day. Still, they delivered on the rollercoaster promise and the eikon battles are among the most expensive feeling set pieces I’ve ever seen.

4. Jedi Survivor/Armored Core 6

6. Alan Wake 2

7. Dead Space

Played Spider Man 2, Cocoon, Atomic Heart, Wanted Dead, Forspoken, Mario RPG and Wo Long but they’re not GOTY tier as far as I’m concerned.

This year’s gaming regrets are Baldur’s Gate 3 (waiting for deluxe edition), Octopath II (have it but not started yet), Lies of P (which I know I’ll love but I’m also waiting for a Deluxe Edition order I’ve got with Amazon that will probably never come) and anything on Switch, which I bought but didn’t get to play, be it Zelda, Fire Emblem, Metroid, Baten Kaitos, Pikmin, Rain Code... Hell of a year for games and I’m missing out on so much.
 
Might as well share mine as well!

Surprised at RE2 being on there the most as I was only doing the B scenario routes I hadn't done yet when I originally played it and I felt I played less of that than I did Crisis Core but I did start Crisis Core the year before tbf.

The rest were expected, Sonic Frontiers being a re-play as I originally played and beat it on Switch on release.

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OlliOlli World has been in my sights for a while, each time I see the complete edition on sale I hesitate… but it’s a matter of time until I get it, it looks really good !
 
Dai said:
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Oh no, I've turned into a normie. This was the first time since 2016 I've bought CoD, and MW2 got its hooks into me this year.

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😂😂😂

For shame indeed!

I think I've only played Alan Wake Remastered and a bit of FF XVI this year... Spending much more time on the gacha stuff given the ease of access on the mobile on the go. Can only wish I had more time to sit an enjoy console stuff on the big screen😔
 
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