mfnick

Fucking Destruction All Stars making me want a racing game to use DualSense on. Heard this does it really well and the timing couldn’t have been better - just put on sale.

Take it I’m ok to sell on here? Selling my copy, good as new condition. Let me know if anyone wants it before I Ebay it. Price includes postage.

I’ve put in another 3 hours. Unfortunately I think I’m done. Just a bit one note and not got that pull really good MP games have. I’ll probably keep it installed for the time being for the odd match here and there but that’s it.

GotY 2021 1: No More Heroes 3 2: The Artful Escape 3: Guardians of the Galaxy 4: Forza Horizon 5 5: Resident Evil Village 6: Psychonauts 2 7: Metroid Dread 8: Narita Boy 9: Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart 10: Persona 5 Strikers  Games not from 2021 discovered in 2021 1: Yakuza Like A Dragon 2: Sekiro 3: Spider-Man Remastered 4: Hollow Knight 5: Octopath Traveller Most Anticipated 2022 Game 1: Stalker 2 2: Replaced 3: Death Trash 4: Scorn 5: Sifu

Cheers. Dammit, opted out of data collection so can’t see mine. Ah well.

How did you guys get these wrap ups? Can’t find mine.

Honestly, just try the Performance RT mode. Can barely tell a difference in the graphics during gameplay but combat and traversal is night and day better.

No one else try this yet? Gave it a couple of hours. It’s a strange one. Everything about it seems pretty good, looks nice with good presentation, has a varied selection of characters, the controls are genuinely great, driving and abilities feels good as do the characters. In fact the direct control of the characters surprises most, the way they leap out of cars, jump and wall run genuinely feels spot on. The controller is really well used too, haptics aren’t special but running feels good. What makes the difference are the triggers. The brakes have a real tension to them which builds the more you press and when you’re heavily damaged the right one clicks in such a great way where you really feel the vehicle is fucked and is a brill way of providing feedback without looking at the health bar. I’m desperate for a good racing game on the PS5 now. There’s huge potential there. Gameplay comes down to running around the map jumping onto pads which have cars on them. Get in the car then ram the competition using dash attacks on the Right stick or the character specific ability on L1 with points awarded for strength or hit and wrecks. You can also run over the people as they’re running about. There’s 4 different game modes. 2 solo, 2 teams. Chaos - basically a free for all where the most points from hits and wrecks wins. Fun enough, especially for a quick 5 minute blast. Gridfall - Elimination mode. Parts of the track falls away creating death pits as well as the danger of other players. Not keen on this, can take a short while to match make and can die within 30 seconds meaning a 5 minute wait again. Could do with starting with a 2-3 lives IMO. Carnado - My personal favourite so far. In 2 teams you earn Gears from hits instead of points, you then have to bank these in the middle of the course. This also blows your car up in a dangerous place so you have to run and dodge your way to either stealing someone’s else’s car or finding another before you get run over. Stockpile - 2nd team mode. 3 points on the map, team who controls most when time runs out wins. To gain the points you have to wreck opponents and then on foot pick up the gears their wreck leaves. You deliver these to one of the 3 points to defend or gain them. The courses and player numbers are well thought out. It avoids the pitfall of most vehicle combat games where you’d drive pass a opponent then have to mess about turning around for another go. There’s enough other players and the arenas are designed in such a way where it doesn’t frustrate like normal as you’re likely to be only a couple of seconds away from having a go at another. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve played so far but going back to what I said at the beginning, it’s strange. All the parts are good and do work well together but it just seems to be missing something to hook me where I’m desperate for one more go. Hopefully that comes in time.

The sniper rifle in the gears series is probably my favourite in any game ever. So satisfying & it’s the only one I’ve ever reliably got headshots with.

03/01/21 - Gears 5 Hivebusters (XSX) - Normal 13/01/21 - DIRT 5 (XSX) - (09/01/21) Career Complete / (11/01/21) All Events 3 Gold / (13/01/21) 1000/1000GS 15/01/21 - Gears Tactics (XSX) - Beginner Complete 20/01/21 - Astro’s Playroom (PS5) - Complete & Platinum 21/01/21 - Bugsnax (PS5) - Complete & Platinum 29/01/21 - Gris (PC) - Complete 01/02/21 - Yakuza Like A Dragon (XSX) - Complete 03/02/21 - Spider-Man Miles Morales (PS5) - Normal & Platinum Brilliant. 9/10

Completed and absolutely loved. Did everything, fucking great to have a more condensed type of open world where there’s not a hundred million things to do and icons everywhere. Great combat, great traversal mechanics, fantastic animation, actual unlockables which are fun to unlock and use, looks beautiful, decent story. Just a full and complete package. Got the Platinum too, @Nag don’t worry about the NG+. I mainlined the story and put it to easy & completed it about 2.5 hours. Some cut scenes aren’t skippable which is annnoying but it’s not too bad. I definitely recommend playing in Performance RT mode. It made a huge difference to my enjoyment of the combat and traversal. I went from dying in almost every big combat encounter to immediately doing 60+ hit combos and barely died throughout he rest of the game. Just feels so much better. + the lighting and reflections still look incredible. The only noticeable difference is in the character models, they definitely take a hit, especially in cut scenes. But it’s worth it. Brilliant game.

Oh yea, definitely remember that bit. ? Giant Worm became a bit of a meme.

Haha nicely done Sky Comedy.

Man this is a blast from the past. I loved this game. The gameplay could almost be described as bad, but it also had a certain charm to it. What really kept me going was the story & character interactions though, still think back on this fondly. It was so good.

Ha. Basically same. Have no idea who this was far. Just did nothing to compete with the established big players, the value was terrible and there’s the potential technical and data issues. I will say around Xmas adverts were all over Youtube for it touting the no updates or waiting benefits. But I don’t know if they were targeted ads since I subscribe to a few gaming channels. & I am definitely not the audience for this. It needed to be aggressively marketed towards a casual audience.

Glad you’re enjoying this. I remember back when it came out thinking it was a huge step up over the first in every conceivable way. Bigger, better and more badass indeed.

Going to give it a go yea.

Tank controls FTW.

Completed. All timer for me this, fucking adored it throughout my entire 60 hour (felt like 20) run time. Such a brilliant group of characters, can’t wait to see what’s next. Also, if this game isn’t for you. Please at least just check out the “essence of” attacks and Summons on YouTube. You won’t be disappointed.

03/01/21 - Gears 5 Hivebusters (XSX) - Normal 13/01/21 - DIRT 5 (XSX) - (09/01/21) Career Complete / (11/01/21) All Events 3 Gold / (13/01/21) 1000/1000GS 15/01/21 - Gears Tactics (XSX) - Beginner Complete 20/01/21 - Astro’s Playroom (PS5) - Complete & Platinum 21/01/21 - Bugsnax (PS5) - Complete & Platinum 29/01/21 - Gris (PC) - Complete 01/02/21 - Yakuza Like A Dragon (XSX) - Complete Absolutely fantastic. I can’t fault it in anyway. I put in just over 60 hours. Heard it can be about half that length but I was enjoying it so much I did just about everything I could. & it felt like I’d played it for a fraction of that time I was loving it that much, didn’t ever feel like it was a slog to get through. Very rare that happens with games these days. Really hope they continue this JRPG style going forward. 10/10

I’ve got a few. First meeting Azel and Atolm in Panzer Dragoon Saga. Thought her black Dragoon was so fucking cool and still think back fondly on it now. A very strange one & very personal to me but had Sega Worldwide Soccer 97 on Saturn. During the opening of a match the commentator would say his name - Gary Bloom - but if you pressed start while he said it he would stutter on the surname. For some reason as a stupid child, my friends and I found this hilarious. For that reason Gary Bl- Bloom is forever etched in my memory. First experiencing the mansion hall in REmake on the GC. I was in awe. Same with the death star level in Rogue Leader on GC. Basically all of God of War 3. In particular the opening - I couldn’t believe what I was seeing at the time. The fight against Chronos. & tearing Helios’ head off. Fighting a helicopter in a collapsing building in Uncharted 2. A recent one, but pretty certain I’ll still think of it if a question like this appeared again in 20 years so I’ll include it. Last of Us 2 -

This. The new UI isn’t even that different so it’s not exactly a great excuse for them to have removed functionality and QOL improvements made previously. Surely when building the new interface you do it with these improvements in mind. Not like theyre starting from scratch. They sorted all this on the PS4 so why go backwards? Again. It’s not bad, still think I prefer it to Xbox UI, but it just baffles me why they’ve gone backwards so much & is how stupid some of the decisions seem to have been.

Part way through chapter 12 OMG Fantastic summon too That was by far the hardest battle I’ve had in this so far. Fitting for such a character. Can’t wait to see what happens next.

Sure things will get added & yea it’s only been 2 months... but in a way it hasn’t just been 2 months. They did all the R&D through the PS3 and PS4 era’s. So it’s been years. They knew what worked (such as holding the PS button for power functions) and where it made logical sense to put options and allow customisation. So why have they gone backwards? You basically admit as much here. It was barebones, they fixed it and now gone back to bare bones again. The dash isn’t such a change whereby it must have been difficult to keep those features. Exactly this- Don’t know why but when companies ‘update’ stuff they always feel the need to make you have to do more button presses and go though more menus for the same options which uses to be only 1 or 2 presses away. It’s really annoying and backwards. Saying all this I think the new UI is visually nice and easy enough to use. But when we can highlight simple issues easily in the first couple of weeks of use why didn’t they while testing? Just irritating more than anything.

I want to be able to hold the PS button to have the option to power off etc. like the PS4 does. Instead of having to scroll all the way to the right and press multiple buttons. Be nice if I could customise and choose what appeared on the bar which appears when I press the PS button too so I can easily access trophies - was a right pain when I was finishing Bugsnax and Astro. I know you can customise it at the moment but only with very limited options.