Be Excellent To Each Other

This is an idea I've stolen from the Videogames list in work: a weekly thread people post to with a few sentences about what they've played this week. It's a good conversation starter. Dunno if Beex will like this but thought I'd give it a go.

I have been playing Katana Zero. I think I'm quite a long way through now (I'm up to "Three Days Remain", and the game starts at "Ten", so...) The more I play, the more I like it. There's no doubt that aesthetically it owes a huge debt to Hotline: Miami but there's a very polished core gameplay loop in here and that's not something that just happens because the dev team copied someone else's homework. Despite the unforgiving instadeath, I've never once become frustrated at the game for cheating me; I've always blamed my own failings, it's never felt unfair. That's a tricky thing to pull off. The time-slow-down mechanic gets more and more interesting as you go on and face harder levels and you have to start rationing it out -- well, unless you're willing to cheese it by standing around waiting for it to refill, but then your replays look awful, and who wants that?! The ways the game finds to mess with your head are also pretty cool.

It's a game where you genuinely feel your skills improving, too. My wife was ahead of me and asked me to do a boss for her that she was stuck on. Dying every 10-20 seconds, I think it took me 10 minutes or so to beat him, and that was a narrow victory where I got a bit lucky with his attack patterns. But when I reached the same boss on my own save, I killed him after just a few attempts, and quite easily.

Really enjoying it.

I played Dead or Alive 6. It's still brilliant and I'm still good at it but - more importantly - I was playing a demo. Remember them?

It's a really generous demo too - you can play 1v1 (CPU, couch or online), choose one of four characters and one of (I think) five stages. And you can play that forever.

Game wise it's still brutal-puncy-kicky-throwy, and it still has it's lovely 'high-risk' block options, although I think they're slightly harder to hit in this version. And it still has mental stages where you do things like fall into a pirate ship and the walls blow up and there are gold coins everywhere.

Absolutely loving Astro Bot Rescue Mission still. On the last planet now. Cant recommend it enough for PSVR owners.

Got into work this morning and there was a copy of Resident Evil 2 for my birthday so I'll be playing that this week too. Demo was ace.

I noticed that demo in the store the other day and it seems like a good idea. What put me off is seeing that the full game is £54.99.

I've been flitting between games this week so far - on the Xbox I've hit the wall (often literally) on Trials Rising so I might be done with that now. Then maybe a round on The Golf Club 2 or a match on PES 2019, but then I've also got pretty hooked on Good Knight's Story on Android.

While I've got my PS2 hooked up, I might give Um Jammer Lammy a go later in the week. And if the Carby 2 arrives this week, I might do a little HD Gamecube gaming.

Red Dead Redemption 2: after four months away from it, and games, it is still brilliant. Even if I have lost my favourite Tri cornered hat.

I’m in mop up mode in Super Mario Odyssey having finished the game once (recently, after a lengthy hiatus of over 200 hours of Zelda BOTW)
[edit] oh and can I say that in a handheld console, having controls (any) that require detaching the joycons can fuck off. It’s still a lovely game, though.

I will be starting xenoblade chronicles 2. I hope it lives up to the original.

RE2 is a fucking treat and a half. You have good times ahead.

Is it better than RE6?

Rimworld, obv.

Oooh, it's play/want/bin by another name!

Play:
Marvel v capcom infinite (PC) : Had a quick go on this as I got it with the xbox gaming pass thingy. It was quite good fun for the half hour I played it. I expect I’ll go back to it as it seems like you don’t really need to know what you are doing to progress…. If I have to learn combos, it’ll get dropped very quickly.

Forza Horizons (PC) : Again game pass related. It’s kept my save from when I used to play it, and they have fixed the constant crashing for AMD graphics cards, so it is actually playable again for me. Looks lovely, plays great, completely overwhelming to get back into now as there is so much content on the map you can’t actually see the roads anymore…. I might come back to this once I have worked out what’s new, what’s locked behind expansions that I don’t have etc…

Hearthstone (PC) : Back playing this off and on. Did a 10 run in arena last night, which I was pretty pleased with. I had enough dust saved to build a tempo rogue deck for the ladder, which is reasonably fun to play and works quite well.

Hustle Castle (Android) : This is my goto gacha game for my commute, I’m in a fun clan and pretty high level, but it takes a long time to get more powerful at this level, as I refuse to pay real money for the in game currency.

Want:
A new VR headset, probably the quest or the index, but I don’t really have the cash for buying those sort of toys at the moment. Plus I cleared out the spare room and turned it into an office, so space is tight for VR in there. I’ll wait till I move house and have more space before I properly get back into VR, I expect.

Bin:
Battlefield V (PS4) : Haven’t played it in weeks. It’s a “live service” game that hasn’t released any real content for months now, the updates they do constantly break stuff, and the only thing of any size that was released was a battle royale mode which was shit.

Currently, Forgotton Anne; a narrative puzzle-platformer with Ghibli-esque visuals. It's alright so far.

(and no, I haven't misspelled that title)

I actually wrote more than a sentence about that...

https://www.beexcellenttoeachother.com/ ... 37#p994337

Will be interested to see your final thoughts on it.

Dial the details back a bit, man. This thread is supposed to just be a summary.

Joking aside, though, and to be fair to you, Rimworld isn't the sort of game that generates amusing anecdotes, though. So not much to add I guess.

If it's the pirate one from the island it'll be in your wardrobe back at camp.


Skyrim Special Edition again. 6th runthrough all told.

YES

Yoshi’s Crafted World. We are having to do one or two levels a night as I can’t look at the screen for too long at the mo, but really enjoying it. Needed something to play whilst I continue to wait for Animal Crossing.

*Sizes doc up for suitability of being made into hats*

Small.

Oh, I also played FrostPunk on my typewriter. It's a survival / city builder set in a frozen post-apocalypse world. Your people crowd around the coal-powered generator in the middle of your city which provides power and - far more importantly - warmth. As a result your city grows outward in circles. You have to make painful one-way decisions on a near-daily basis (do I send children to work in potentially dangerous roles? Do I keep the amputees warm, or are they just another mouth to feed? Shall I force women into prostitution to please the hard-working miners?) to try and stop the population from running out of hope or just flat-out killing you.

It's really good - and the campaign is blessedly short.

I also played Factorio for an hour or two last night. UH OH

Solitaire. And sometimes Mahjong.

And Wii 10 pin bowling when my granddaughter visits.

And Repton, but it's difficult on an iPad.

I did this too, stupid Snooker finishing early.

On the commute: Civilization Beyond Earth
Not sure how I feel about this yet. It feels at once familiar but also completely unfamiliar. Which I suspect is the point, on several levels.

I've had to resort to some quick guides to give me some pointers when setting out as, frankly, the choice is too bewildering for me. I took one look at the science tech tree (though tree is being generous, it's more an exploded star), laughed, then turned off my laptop.

Not sure I'm a fan of the apparent emphasis on trade. I didn't come to space to trade, I came to space to colonize.

I'm going to leisurely play my way through this first playthrough and accept I'm going to do terribly. Will see what I learn.

On my sofa: Transformers Devestation

Inspired by Devilman's comment about giving up on games with too much exposition, it reminded me that I still hadn't given Transformers Devastation a go. Platinum aren't known for going light on exposition, but with the likes of Bayonetta, it was at least bonkers and enjoyable. Sure enough I was charging around an intensely blue-sky city and bashing shit up. Playing it on the easiest difficulty and it feels forgiving - I'm stringing together combos that make me feel like I'm a bad-ass. That illusion is fine by me. I can imagine the game getting repetitive, but enjoying what I've seen so far.

Ongoing, probably forever:
Rocket League

Not put as much time into it lately because a) my regular doubles partner is taking a break and b) I’ve not been around all that much. I’m still yoyoing between high gold and low plat for doubles and firmly entrenched in mid-plat for 3s.

Mobile:
Max Payne

Yes that’s right, I’m playing the original Max Payne on my iPad, albeit using a controller as touchscreen controls would be ridiculous. I’ve just made it to the Ragna Rock club. It looks like crap but the bullet time shooting never gets old.

Big SP RPG:
Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Another ancient game. I’ve installed some mods with enhanced textures, bug fixes and extended draw distance etc. The combat is…not great, even by Elder Scrolls standards. However, I’m really enjoying the environments even though the character models are laughable by today’s standards. I’ve always read it’s the best ES game so I’ve wanted to give it a go for a long time. I probably shouldn’t have waited this long, so the jury’s out on how long I’ll stick out the bad graphics and terrible combat.

Switch:
Flashback

There’s a reasonable game here, although the combat is a bit fiddly, and it’s not always obvious what the solution to a problem is. I’m in the Hunger Games style game now, trying to win so I can afford a ticket to Earth. Not sure if I’ll finish this but I’m not giving up yet.

Overcooked 2

This is like The Purge for domestic arguments. Basically anything goes while we’re playing this. The things we’ve called each other when accidentally putting a pizza with no cheese in the oven or throwing a finished dish in a pit of lava are pretty much unrepeatable.

I’m also playing the occasional game of L4D2, Verdun/Tannenberg and Portal 2 coop maps.

Diablo 3. I played it before on the PS3, but fancied something entirely non taxing, and wandering round a dungeon beating things to a pulp hits the spot.

Stardew Valley, of course.

(Also waiting impatiently for Animal Crossing.)

I AM EXCITE

Killed Sean Bean again. Nice touch that he had a bandage over his eye this time around, as that was how I killed him last time. 193 hours put into Hitman 2 now. My second favourite game from last year after Subnautica.

I'm slowly nibbling away at Days Gone, now that I'm over the controller and the low framerate. I'm slowly beginning to master the PS4 controller and even though I still prefer the layout of the Xbone controller (with the sticks higher and farther apart) there's absolutely no denying that in other areas the PS4 controller is a class act. Firstly I had no idea about the clicking touch pad, and secondly no idea it had a speaker in it. The latter of those discoveries scared me half to death, as all of a sudden my TV sound system shut off and I got a radio message through the controller.

Any way I digress. The game is solid enough and there is fun to be had. I kinda like the freedom of just riding around, finding petrol and picking the game off nice and slow. Shame about the framerate but I'm beginning to get my head around it. You just need to steer early and do everything slightly in advance when it gets choppy.

Good game. Not great (the weapons wear out unrealistically quickly) and it can be a bit sparse but overall a good way to kill a couple of hours

Make sure to set your PS4 to the correct date.

Over 24 hours and I think that was neurotypical humour? Lol if not I have no idea.

If you were referring to the dates on the thread? Yeah, my bad. I mainly use my blackberry for cruising forums as it's more wallet and eco friendly but I tend to miss things like thread titles etc.

Either way it's what I've been playing for around two weeks, and will be until I finish it. I've not even unwrapped the other games. I was gonna post here when the thread was started but it slipped.

Last night was MAMEMAGEDDON and I was in a shoot-em-up mood.

So we had:

TRUXTON
TRUXTON 2
RAIDEN 2
VARTH
THUNDERCROSS 2 <<<< Best shoot-em-up ever? You could make a case for it. And the music is fantastic.
VULCAN VENTURE
VAPOR TRAIL

And then I wanted to see some boobs so I played NEW FANTASIA.

Last night I downloaded Wreckfest for my PC... Me, playing an actual PC game.

I'm using it with a force feedback Sidewinder wheel that I got off ebay recently for cheap. I primarily bought it for Sega Rally and Ridge Racer but it still works with Wreckfest.

The game is like a modern Destruction Derby and it's really good fun! I like it!

Mods - please ban all non date reading buffoons

His credentials as a time-traveller are well-established.

It'd make more sense to change the thread title every week and then we'd have a contiguous history thread.

You...you want a mega thread?

They work for some things and not for others. It's a complicated system that makes sense in my head.

Like car buying.

When they make the Beex movie the poster quote will be "You're doing it wrong".

And what's the benefit of that?

Less title reading.

Fewer

Easier citations?

Well, I don't see a replacement thread for the week after.

I would like 52 locked pre-populated threads please. Then just unlock and lock depending on what the date is.

How hard did you look?

https://www.beexcellenttoeachother.com/ ... =3&t=11356

It seems easier to just use the one thread, and maybe sticky it too. Definitely.

How about "What's Everyone Playing while Hearthly owns N car"?

I could handle a new thread every single week, but that's just silly.