Whiskey_chaser

Hah - I wish I knew, think that was more luck than judgement. I got the most of those kills holding the objective. I had a shotgun and a gravity hammer and just nailed anyone that got near. Also, stay close to your team mates and always be aware of the ability you have. I had the repulsor which is great, any close combat sword times get close and you can just blast them backwards and finish them off in the confusion. It's great for knocking back enemy vehicles as well. The grappling hook is also invaluable. It's so easy to grapple jack people out of vehicles, and it's not something I see many people do.

I can generally hold my own in multiplayer, though i've had a few games like that where i've absolutely tanked. That being said, I think I had the best game of Halo (or any multiplayer shooter) of my life the other night...

I played around three hours last night despite being so tired I could barely focus. Oh my, I got goosebumps a few times whilst playing. This is hitting all the right nostalgia notes for me. The grappling hook is a fantastic addition. Grappling a power core, zipping over enemies heads and lobbing explosives at them will never get dull. The sandbox combat here is absolutely sublime. I managed to clear some sort of refuelling compound pretty early on and bagged a Scorpian for my troubles and have already had a few of the power weapons. It's not holding back on giving you the good stuff early on.

I just blitzed through Arcane on Netflix. It's so good. Don't let the League of Legends affiliation fall you (I know next to nothing about the game other than that it's a toxic cesspit), this is something pretty special. It's up there with the best animation i've ever seen, I don't know how they've managed to maintain such a high quality throughout all nine episodes. If you've ever enjoyed anything like the Mistborn books or the Kingkiller chronicles, you're in good hands here. Every character is brilliant, it's superbly written and yeah - I don't want to say too much more. It's one of the best TV series i've seen in quite some time.

I've been playing a lot of this, i'm now level 10 and am absolutely loving it. There's a few issues they need to sort - the progression doesn't really bother me. I put a shit load of time into Halo 2 without having to chase xp, but they need to make winning a game more of a reward if they're going down this route. I've had a few games of Oddball where no-one goes for the ball because they're chasing some stupid challenge. Halo multiplayer (well, two and three at least) has always been one of my favourite online games - the matches are short enough to not out-stay their welcome, there's a good mix of game modes with Big Team offering a vastly different experience to Swat (or ranked as it's known here) and there's a good balance of skill and luck, with just enough crazy stuff going on in each match. The new fiesta mode is good fun as well, random weapon and vehicle spawns that make the game feel more like you're dicking around with mates. The new weapons take a little bit of getting used to, but there are some good ones in there. Favourite being the skewer, a one-shot rail gun that's immensely satisfying to get a kill with.

I'm tearing it up in this, though the 3500 hours I put into Halo 2 seem to have cemented some level of skill into my brain (it's nice to be half decent at an online game whilst being in my 40's). Weaken them with grenades, shoot them in the head until you're close then gun butt them in the face. Agree about some of the guns though, I avoid anything that isn't 'human' - lots of the alien weapons are shit with the exception of a charged plasma pistol that's great for taking out vehicles.

This could be my favourite bug of recent memory...

I only played a little of Halo 4 and never touched five, but to me it felt like Halo 3. From what I remember of four it was a bit of a side-step from the standard formula.

Yeah, I played a few games of this last night, again - was expecting it to be a hot mess of a launch but fair play to them, managed around five games without a single hiccup. I also smashed my first few games of this, nice to know the old Halo muscle memory was still there. It also just felt good to be playing Halo again - it was one of the franchises I missed when I switched to PS4 last gen.

Managed to switch my timezone to New Zealand and play this early last night. The opening is incredible, as @Nag says, if it doesn't have you grinning from ear to ear you're dead inside. And still screenshots don't do this game justice, it's absolutely beautiful.

I try not to be 'that guy' who gets overly protective about things I enjoy, but whoever designed/ok'd that sandworm design should be kneecapped.

That's the one, though i'm not discrediting anyone called Terry from Gillingham 😂

Second up in my GamePass games that can be completed in a couple of hours; The Procession to Calvary. A point and click adventure based on Renaissance art that's heavily inspired by Terry Gillingham. Not for the easily offended/religious types - this is the follow up game to Joe Richardson's Four Last Things. It follows a woman who is back from a murder spree in a Holy war and wants to do one final murder as it's now frowned upon. Whilst the humour won't be to everyone's taste, I was laughing out loud from the offset. The game is bonkers. As with my last post, I won't go into it too much as I don't want to spoil it, but a couple of highlights were helping a street magician off a crucifix as he was turning water into wine that killed people, and giving snuff to a midget so he played music faster.

I managed to play a couple of cracking little games on GamePass over the weekend. First up is Superliminal - a cracking little puzzler that I managed to play through in a couple of hours and what a treat this was. It borrows heavily from games such as Portal but by the time you see the achievement for beating the game, it's earned it's place up there with the best of them. The concept is you're someone that's involved in a lucid dreaming experiment and you have 'wake up' in a location that presents you with a series of puzzles based on perspective and your surroundings. It twists these challenges in a way that each never out stays its welcome and the final two levels were sublime. I can't say much more than that to avoid spoiling it (i'd even suggest not watching the trailer) but if you liked Portal/The Witness - that kind of thing, i'd strongly suggest giving it a go. One of the best endings to a game i've seen in a while as well!

I loved the last four seasons of SoA. The first two seasons were ok, the third was absolute shite and then four onwards were a blast.

So i've been trying to figure this game out over the last few nights and it's been a bit of a mixed experience. The main issue is that this is a brutally hard game with a complex set of systems in play and absolutely no tutorials at all, with the exception of a pretty vague field manual. If anyone is interested in this, i'd recommend watching at least a few of the many tutorial videos out there as if not, you're gonna have a bad time. It's all about playing the objective, with an overall commander who can speak to the officer of each squad. The officer of each unit (and I believe the spotter for a recon unit) of each squad is equipped with a watch that lets them build outposts (spawn points) in certain areas of the map, dependant of where the friendly and enemy lines lie. There's also a support system that lets supply trucks and the support class deliver supplies to the commander who can call in air strikes and the like. What makes it tougher is at the moment, the game is flooded by people that have absolutely no idea what they're doing (I still hold myself in that bracket but at least I have the decency to lay down outposts if i'm the officer). If you die (and you will), and there are no outposts for your squad, it's right back to the starting HQ spawns for you. That being said, when you do get a team that knows what it's doing, and everything goes to plan, oh boy is this game a treat! The sense that your part of a massive battle is immense, and the audio is so immersive that it's unsettling at times - it's almost a bit too real. The sound of bullets whistling past your ear as the pounding of an air-strike goes off in your headphones is a treat, hat's off to the audio guys for this game.

No Time to Die Hammy, tedious and simultaneously trying too hard to be a Bond film whilst trying really hard not to be a Bond film? It's a shame, as the opening was brilliant, and there were a few great characters introduced for a fleeting few minutes but the whole thing just seemed too contrived in the end. And Malek was easily one of the worst Bond villains ever. Think it's time they put this franchise to bed. Edit - there was also a line where M, upon learning of bad things happening, says 'get me the Prime Minister' as if Boris would have any idea how to handle a situation more complex than tying his own shoes.

What character did you play as? I'm currently going through as Yuiot, I might even go for a playthrough as the other character if the game isn't too long, just to see how the story pans out from the other perspective.

I'm actually really enjoying this. If it wasn't for Game Pass I wouldn't have even given it a second look, but i'm now around the five hour mark and the story is starting to go a bit bat shit. I think @DANGERMAN has hit the nail on the head with everything he's said so far. The combat is fantastic though. It boils down to a basic attack with x, a heavier attack that restores your 'special' bar (can't remember what they call it in game). R trigger lets you use that to hurl random objects at enemies and if you time it at the same time as an attack it gives it a little more wallop. Your parties abilities are mapped to the a,b,x & y, and if you stagger an enemy you can perform a 'brain crush' - a swishy animation that's a one hit kill on the basic enemies. One of my favourite aspects though is the L trigger. This lets you hurl heavier environmental scenery about, with a little QTE that you need to pull off. There was a bit last night where I could use the L trigger on a bus. On doing so, I jumped on top of it and drove it through the area, mowing down everything in its path. It's excruciatingly anime at times and the story throws names and terminology at you so thick and fast that I have no idea what's going on but i'm really enjoying my time with this.

I played the flight, not sure if i'm allowed to talk about it because of NDA's?

I think one of my issues with the game was the learning curve, maybe I missed it but the game hardly seemed to explain anything. Might have to go back to it and follow your advice there.

I've played the first few hours of this courtesy of Game Pass. I have no idea what's going on story wise, something about a team of combat trained teenagers with special powers that can fight 'The Others', a group of enemies that seem to consist of things such as fetishised flower arrangements. As Dangerman said, it throws more Characters at you in the first hour than three seasons of Game of Thrones, but the overall aesthetic seems pretty cool and the actual combat is great fun. Slamming down massive pieces of scenery on enemies is immensely satisfying. Not sure if this is the kind of game i'll stick out to the end, but it's enjoyable so far.