Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (June 15-16)

While it released in a rough stage (and sadly running worst on Xbox than on PlayStation at the beginning), it still was a great game that didn't get the proper attention because of the Dead Space reboot anticipation.

Hopefully more people will play it on GamePass.

I'm currently playing Capes. Very much enjoying it, and I love the upgrade mechanics whereby you have to not only complete the mission, but also complete the challenges to obtain the necessary skill points. You get points for completing each mission, but to max out your characters, and give yourself more chance to succeed at both the missions and the challenges, you need those skill points. Makes for some real thinking about your strategy as you go, and a single mission can take an hour or two as a consequence. I had one mission that took me about 4 hours simply because I was trying to max out the challenges. Once completed, it was a real rush of satisfaction... 😊

After emptying my PS Plus backlog (sub expired) now it’s Xbox time for the coming months. I’m still a relative newbee, since I bought my Series X last year for Starfield having never owned a Xbox before. So lots to discover with my Game Pass sub.

Perhaps I’ll start with my Resident Evil Run (1, 2, 3, 4R, 7, 8). Or Gears 5, having never played the series.

I beat the High on Life: High on Knife DLC yesterday before the base game leaves game pass, and while it was fun, it was very short, maybe 3 hours, and probably not worth the asking price, even though it was on sale. The new gun was pretty interesting to use - not sure I've ever seen anything like that in an FPS game before. The absence of JR was welcomed, I just think he is obnoxious more than anything, but this DLC was still not very funny imho. But it didn't have to be. I hope their next game just focuses on being unique and creative, something they're good at, rather than using humor as a crutch.

Last night I played some more Zombie Army 4: Dead War and I don't understand why this game isn't more popular and talked about. It has a ton going for it: great variety in mission types, weapons, upgrades, environments, etc., great pacing, and it's just flat out fun. If you like games like Left 4 Dead, WWZ, Vermintide, etc., give this game a go. It's way better than it looks like it would be. Is that it's problem? Branding? It looks super generic, and has a bland title, but it's a blast to play with friends.

Also playing more Warhammer 40K: Boltgun. It's fun to play, but I can't bring myself to play it for long sessions for whatever reason, and it's taken me forever to get even 2/3 of the way through it.

Doom eternal on my tv.

Harold halibut on steam deck in bed of an evening.

@everynowandben I’m a bit like that with doom eternal I play a level every now and then when I can be bothered halfway through hopefully have it finished for when doom dark age is released.

First and foremost, I finally beat my personal GOTY, Dragon’s Dogma 2. It took me 130 hours and I still want to play more. As I said last week, this game is going down as my favorite RPG of all time. The sense of adventure is unlike anything I’ve experienced before. There are so many stories within the stories due to unscripted events whilst undertaking missions, and it truly makes the adventure my own. It’s a rare feat to create something that unique and special.

With all of that said, I am annoyed with the game, in a personal way that doesn’t necessarily reflect the product itself. I’ll explain. I managed to achieve the true ending (the unmoored world). There is a ton of post game content and story, with two trophies related to this — one for completing all trials and another for evacuating all townsfolk in the five main locations you visit, within a seven day period. I did everything in two days. And these trophies coincide with each other, so if you unlock one you subsequently unlock the next. Unfortunately, I only got the trophy for completing all trials. My motivation to do a NG+ run to get the platinum trophy has been nullified because of this. I’m sure I’ll replay the game at some point, especially if DLC is released. Right now, however, I need a break.

Lastly, I’ve started Tomb Raider Legend on the PlayStation Plus catalog. I’m surprised by how truly great this game is. For context, I had never played the original so I don’t have a frame of reference for comparison, but what I’ve played has impressed me.

For a PS2-era game, it has a lot of cinematic flair and set pieces. There are diverse locales to visit, motorcycle chases, parkour, things blowing up or falling apart and a fun use QTEs to escape nefarious situations. You can definitely see how the Uncharted series is heavily inspired by this franchise.

An aspect I love about Lara, similar to Nathan Drake, is her witty one-liners. One line that made me laugh happened when I was exploring an underground tomb. As I was solving a puzzle my partner radioed in saying enemies were heading to my position. Lara simply responds, “This is a tomb; I’ll make them feel at home”. Another quip she had while in Africa was, “If all else fails, I can get into the postcard business”. It’s very endearing.

As for the mechanics, the game has great controls and the gunplay is pretty solid. Lara has a plethora of tools at her disposal that enhances the gameplay. One instrument is a magnetic rope that can help you reach new heights or can be used in the environment to solve puzzles and defeat enemies. The only complaint I have is the hand-to-hand combat. It doesn’t seem very intuitive, and the game wants you to rely on guns.

Sadly, the game on runs at 480p and 30fps. It still looks great all things considered. I’ve been playing on my PlayStation Portal and the OLED screen really makes the game more vibrant. I’m bias, however, as I have a strong affinity with PS2 style graphics. There is something distinctly charming about these 3D environments and disproportionate character models.

Overall, the game is resonating with me a lot right now. There is a level of interactivity that makes the game feel more personal. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the game evolves over time, if it does at all. I can see myself replaying this gem multiple times because it’s just a darn good time.

I won't be gaming very much at all over the next 3-4 weeks because of 1 thing...

EURO 2024.

But when I do, it'll PGA tour golf, and I'm slowly working my way through Somerville.

Happy gaming everyone 👍👍

On Xbox: Baldur's Gate III and Sand Land
On Switch: Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth and Cassette Beasts
On PS5: Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance

Ice Age Village (Windows Phone) - My comfort game of nearly each day.

Microsoft Bingo (Windows Phone) - Also still playing daily at this point.

I’m playing Hellblade 2 on Game Pass. Loved the first one but honestly I have to agree with the PX review. It’s a graphics and audio design showcase and little more. I’ve played through 2/3 of the game and I’m forcing myself to finish it. The voices in Senua’s head just won’t shut up, the puzzles are lame and the combat shallow, if still visceral. The plot seems very tacked on and I’m glad I can play it on GP. I’ll be switching to Persona 3 soon, or so I hope.

I’ve played a little less than usual due to some great weather here but here goes 😎

Destiny 2 the Final Shape - Bungie did it! The Final Shape was a great ending to the Light and the Darkness saga, the campaign was good with a lot of nostalgia thrown in and it ended in a very satisfying way imo. I did get to finish Destiny on a high note as I hoped for with some new great memories and as planned I´m dropping it now even if is kind of hard as I´ve had a lot of fun but I know it will eventually outstay its welcome for me (and I don’t want to put all my gaming time on Destiny). That said, over the years Destiny has truly given me some of the greatest gaming moments of my life (like clearing Vault of Glass the first time or going flawless and reaching the Lighthouse etc) and some clan friends that keep in touch even after we´ve stopped playing Destiny. Would I return for Destiny 3? Maybe… 😊

Ghostbusters VR - Nice to get this on Plus, haven’t play much but seems decent enough so I´ll play more 😊

Rise of the Ronin - Picked it up in the sale, was planning on buying Stellar Blade but I´ve had this on my wishlist for a while. Its very fun to play a few hours in, but god its ugly. Looks like a ps3 game sometimes which can be a bit distracting. However, graphics isn’t everything which this game proves pretty good. Doesnt hold a candle to Ghost of Tsushima though imo. But anyway, fun game and I might even go for the platinum. Thankfully I seem immune to open world/Ubi filler fatigue so I´ll be petting a lot of cats… 😊

Callisto Protocol, always been on the verge of buying it since release. Played first couple hours and quite enjoying it.

In addition to xDefiant, Forza Motorsport and Bombrush Cyberpunk as palate cleansers!

I've bought SMT V but I don't think I'll be playing it yet.
I'm between Jedi Survivor and Ace Attorney Trilogy right now.
I've also just started Sword and Fairy (the one on Game Pass) so I'll see how I feel about that one.

Gears of War: Judgement and SMT V: Vengeance

Thinking about getting back into Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I played it a lot when it came out but stopped for a while. Looks like they've added new maps and characters the past couple months.

Forza Motorsport, Starpoint Gemini 2, and finally giving Elden Ring a go as it's been so widely recommended. It gives me the same feeling of captivating fantasy that Oblivion did, and the alienness of Morrowind.

One day I'll finish AC: Odyssey. 96 hours in prior to the DLC and still not finished the main game 🤣

i like tcp more than dead space games but its way more difficult, its gonna drive people away.

and some halo infinite/gen zero coop.

I really haven’t had a chance to play for any length of time so a few runs of Brotato here and there… still playing AC1 and would like to 100% it one day. Of the newer games would like to play Humanity so we’ll see….

Ni no Kuni 2 on the Series X, Castlevania: Bloodlines, and Mega Man: The Wily Wars on Miyoo Mini+, a portable console with RetroArch

Gonna be Octopath traveler 2 for a long time for me. Not even done with all the chapter 1s yet !

@Lup curious if sword and fairy is any good. It might actually be leaving game pass in July so you might have to play it fast !

SMT V: Vengeance for the foreseeable future.

@jesse_dylan

That's why I finally started it. I was curious about it and if it's leaving, it was a good time to try it.
If it's good or not... Well, I just started it, but I can say the game it's janky and the translation is bad.
Reminds me a little of old PC games, like from the 2000s.
Definitely not a AAA experience, but it seems fine so far. It has main and side quests, and it has its owm charm.
I'll keep playing a little more and see if it's for me or not.

Final Fantasy XV on ps4. Easily one of my least faves in the series but the plan is to beat it before starting the 7 remakes

Jedi survivor still for me at the moment.
It’s making me want Star Wars outlaws to be a great game.

Recently finished Psychonauts 2, great trippy platformer. This week started Callisto Protocol from the creators of dead space and it starts strong. There is a lot of gore and scary stuff so not for the faint of heart but still pretty good. Also started Final Fantasy 14, the free trial. It’s being many years since I played a MMO and it is actually pretty good even on single player. Of course if you like your games right into action it’s probably not for you but I wanted something relaxing, doing some quests and combat here and there with decent story and for that it works 😂.

In all honesty, @Darude84, if you are tempted to play Gears of War, start with the first one. It has been remastered and looks good and plays very well. You do really benefit from understanding the story, and therefore the best place to start is at the very beginning. There is actually another called Judgement, but that does not feature all the main characters, and is one that is not completely necessary to play though if you enjoy the rest, it is one that does fill in some backstory for some of the characters. Regardless, enjoy... 😊

Are you able to answer a question for me, please @mac_da_man?

I only wish to play the campaign for Destiny 2 from start to finish. The Raids don't really interest me, though I do occasionally like to solo the Strikes (if I recall correctly that is what they are called, but it's been a few years since I've played), and do the Patrols, etc., as I prefer to play solo, and none of the guys I game with play Destiny. However, I've read that some of the content has been removed from the game (even if you have bought it) so would I still be able to play all of the campaign content, or is some of it now unavailable? If so, do you happen to know which planets/campaign elements have been removed?

Hope you don't mind me asking. Thank you.

As for Rise of Ronin, I'd be curious to know what you think of it. I have played, and very much enjoyed Ghost of Tsushima, that game looked and played stunning! I've also played Stellar Blade to completion, and that game was lovely to look at (😉), and very enjoyable. I highly recommend it...

How does BG3 run on the Xbox, @Fishysensei? My Deluxe physical edition finally arrived today, and so I'll be looking to start it in the next week or so...

I need to get back to Street Fighter 6.

@Fiendish-Beaver

Rise of the Ronin is fun but compared to GoT its not nearly as good as that game in any way imo. But if you can look plast the dated graphics etc its fun. But maybe best to wait for it to be on GamePass or PS Plus.

As for Destiny 2, no you cant play the campaign from start to finish anymore, which is a shame. The original campaign and some of the earlier DLC story content is gone, but I think its easier to read up on a Destiny website as its a lot to keep track of. I used to play with a clan but since I returned to Destiny I’ve played solo for the most part and there is matchmaking or you can use the in game groupfinder for Nightfall etc so thats not a problem.

@Fiendish-Beaver

I guess it runs well enough, both in performance mode(60 fps) and in graphics mode(30 fps).
I guess loading times are slightly longer than I think is necessary but at the same time it's not really something I think is annoying.

Trying to complete a flawless 9 relic run on the Call of Duty Ghost's extinction mode on the map called Nightfall.

@Fiendish-Beaver Thanks for that! I considered it already, but was held back because I did the same with Halo (starting with the first one since I never played any), but couldn’t get into such an old game I have no nostalgic feelings with.

TTYD on switch and Evil West on Xbox

Yeah, people can keep their opinions to themselves and play whatever they want. As for me, mod support finally arriving on Starfield means I'll be busy for the next several months to say the least.

PS5: I'm on my 3rd playthrough of Stellar Blade. Trying to collect every outfit.
I also might start the Alan Wake 2 DLC.
Series X: Jumping between Witcher 3 (my comfort game) and Starfield. Having a blast testing different mods.
Switch Oled: Nothing.
Have a good weekend everybody!

Finished:

Wolfenstein trilogy - so many damn cutscenes. Was expecting all gameplay, but got 60% cinematic dreck. Old Blood was my favorite as it has the least story.

Evil Within 1-2 - first one is pretty intriguing and has a ton of variety. 2nd is a total soulless slog that is barely a horror game.

Playing:

Fallout 3 - one of the greatest games of all time, haven’t replayed it since 2009.

Next:

Debating whether to buy Dark Souls 3 digital. Enjoyed DS1 and most of DS2, but I try to avoid buying games digitally I’ll never replay.

Finishing "High On Life" and "Bramble". Hopefully, MS will announce the next departing Gamepass titles this weekeend.

@everynowandben
The humor and dialogue of High on Life is the main strength and the reason I obtained 28 out of the 32 base game achievements. Without the humor and tone, I would have been way more critical of the gameplay. I like that they threw out a sequel bait in the same comedic tone of the game.

Hey all hope you all are having brilliant weekends. On the Xbox been playing Boltgun, which is nice simple fun. Then, gave Immortals of the Aveum a try and I'm actually surprised. Genuinely shocked this game has reviewed so relatively low, maybe it gets worse, but so far I feel is a solid 8.

Finally some Mario Rabbids 2 on the Switch

I am going on a Gears binge in celebration of Gears of War E Day announcement. 🤘🏻

@everynowandben I really enjoyed zombie army 4 was really fun

Finished dead island 2 yesterday. Enjoyed it but skipped all dialogue as characters are so annoying. Game play was great. Look forward to dying light 2 at some point. Started Mad max today and really enjoyed a few hours on it. Thinks it’s a long one but started great. Also chipping away on xdefiant to get to level 50 for the 1000G. Have a great weekend all and happy Father’s Day to the dads

Went back to Gears of War Ultimate Edition to play some multiplayer after the announcement of E Day. Still was able to find games of team death match. It was so much fun, and felt so good to play purely for the fun of the game instead of chasing some carrot on a stick..like every online game today.

Will also be starting Age of Empires 4. My first time playing any of the series. I’m really excited to jump in and see what it’s all about. I’ve wanted to play forever, but never had a gaming PC.

Enjoy the weekend everyone !

I’m making my way through Stellar Blade, I have a couple more missions before I move on to the first point of no return mission. I’m also playing Redfall on Steam Deck because it was absurdly cheap, honestly, it’s not good, but it is fun.

Final Fantasy 13 via BC on my series X.

Trying to get through it before Dawntrail launches for FF14! Which I will be playing on PS5, of course, due to the utterly idiotic over-censoring of in-game chat on the XBox side that, to my knowledge, STILL has not been addressed or even acknoweldged by Squeenix or MS.

I started Cocoon today and I'm about halfway through. It's a beautiful game with a great ethereal soundtrack and some fun brain teasers! I'm not generally into puzzle games, but I like this one.

I’ve been playing Perfect Dark for the first time and I’ve been enjoying it. It’s different (at least for me) because I’ve played other first-person shooters like Overwatch that are more fast paced and to the point, though PD involves other things in its gameplay, like the use of gadgets and opening up doors to get to enter areas, not to mention it’s focused on being single-player than multiplayer. The fourth level is a little annoying so far, but I think I’m not used to it yet and I’m still going to progress through it.

I was also replaying parts of Conker’s Bad Fur Day on Rare Replay, but I didn’t play it for long because of the bad control scheme it has thanks to being an old game. It’s really hard for me to play the game in full again without getting slightly frustrated with the difficulty spike, which is made worse when paired with the outdated controls that they surprisingly didn’t fix or improve when porting it. I tried playing through the War segment specifically and the controls make it so bad…

SMT V Vengeance and Octopath Traveler 2

I'm into about my 2nd or 3rd week of being a series X owner. Starfield for me, only just got to Earths moon, very early into it.
Got to about 3rd chapter of Hellblade 2 and deleted it, didn't care for the puzzle aspect unfortunately.
Oh, and me little one has played a bit of Bluey👍🏼

Finished Lords of the Fallen last night. It definitely started stronger and dragged towards the end, and then the ending was abysmally lazy, an all timer in terms of pure dogsh*t endings. I dont mean that it wasnt a happy ending, fine with that, but kill the boss, fade to black, a few lines of text, credits. We are seriously in KOTOR 2 territory. Dragged down an otherwise solid game.

Well here we go with another excellent WAYP. Been an interesting week around here. Weekends been mostly busy with work tho I did beat Little Kitty Big City. Also got to take Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance for a ride as well. Excellent games both of those. Thinking the rest of the weekend will just be a Persona 3 Reload weekend. Gotta keep working at that game if I want to beat it by my deadline of July 21st a fitting full moon. Can’t wait to beat it and immediately throw myself hard into the Canon of Vengeance for SMTV:V. Think I’ll pick up the expansion pass for that game and a preorder of Visions of Mana while I’m at it. Otherwise I’m thinking this week is mostly gonna consist of some Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, Paper Mario, more P3R and some Guilty Gear Strive Slayer sets with a friend. Maybe some Stellar Blade and going back to FFXIV for the Yokai Watch event. Oh and giving Monster Hunter Stories on the switch a try on my day off. Been really really excited for that one. Anime of the week gotta go to Kaiju No.8, Go Go Loser Ranger, Delicious in Dungeon and Urusei Yatsura of course. Loser Ranger specifically is superb honestly. Might splash some cash and get the last 4 manga volumes of the authors previous work The Quintessential Quintuplets. Podcasts of this week gotta go to Castle Superbeast, Big Think Dimension, Into The Aether, RPGsites Tetracast,Minnmax, Jeff Gerstmann, Kit and Krysta, Last Stand Media, Easy Allies, Second Wind, Nextlander, Cultaholic Wrestling and Remap Radio. And yet we wouldn’t be done without a incredible huge lovely shoutout to my dear friend over at twitch.tv/akibread and their wonderful streams please give them a look. Here’s hoping we get ourselves a Nintendo Direct this week to go Gaga over. As always yall stay safe, be incredible to each other. Have an excellent weekend and of course Happy Gaming. Oh and Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there