What PlayStation games are you playing ?

The Phantom Pain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118551229#Comment_118551229

As someone who started with Uncharted 4, I found that all the references and character growth at that point would have meant more if I had played the previous games prior. Probably why I wasn't as taken with Uncharted 4 as everyone else was at the time, despite thinking its the best of the Uncharted games I've played.

Sad Professor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118551540#Comment_118551540

U4 is definitely better if you have played the previous 3 and know the characters etc, I'd just be concerned that someone starting with 1 (which I think everyone agrees hasn't aged well) might give up and not play any further.

Zero-Cool

I have Virginia in my backlog for about 2 years, i definitely need to play it some day!

To contribute slightly to the thread, currently playing Dying Light while i like forward to the sequel next week. 7 years later and still an incredible experience. Dying Light with The Following dlc is currently on sale on psn for 12 euro of anyone fancies parkour zombie slaying fun.

Jordan 199

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118551806#Comment_118551806

You are really really fond of that game 👍️

mrcheez

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118551527#Comment_118551527

You're completing and platinum-ing games at an astonishing rate. You review games for a living? :)

I'd squeeze in a couple of hours every other day if I'm lucky!

Jordan 199

I started playing Spiderman a few days ago. It's damn good fun and should keep me going until Horizon Forbidden West is released.

The Phantom Pain

3. Abzu. Completed and obtained all trophies (there’s no platinum). 

Decided to indulge my monthly longing for a Subnautica sequel by playing this underwater adventure I picked up via PS Plus. This will be brief since the game is about 5 hours tops with 100% completion: Abzu is only decent by default because it’s aping a game that creative director, Matt Nava, previously did art direction for which is, of course, Journey. The problem is he has rather shamelessly pressed Ctrl C on so much of Journey without really recapturing what made that game so special or bringing anything new to the table.

Journey had memorable biomes and powerful story moments. Abzu is just…pretty. For some players the beautiful art direction and soothing musical underlay will be enough but, at worst, you’ll be bored. Returning composer, Austin Wintory, provides a pleasant but generic score that doesn't quite hit the emotional highs as seen in Journey. Whenever I hear the first few notes of 'Nascence' it instantly takes me back to the sands and decimated landmarks; it could have only been in Journey. I'm a fan of Wintory's work but his compositions here are weak by comparison. 

Like Journey, the story in Abzu is supposed to be pieced together rather than explained so I won’t go there, although it’s unlikely you’ll care since the mystery here isn’t delivered as well. The puzzles are fun, if not, very easy but that’s not a knock against Abzu since it’s supposed to be a meditative experience.  Although, for all its simplicity, Abzu has the most needlessly awkward boost mechanic. There’s a three-tap timing to it that I just couldn’t be bothered to master and, consequently, movement didn't feel as satisfying as, well, Journey.

Lastly, the quality-of-life oversight around trophy cleanups is shockingly amateur from a dev team who should know better. Whereas Journey allows you to select individual encounters at a central hub area that also documents your collectibles, Abzu sees the player replaying entire chapters for missed collectibles and only keeps track of one type of collectible throughout, whose tracker you can’t access without advancing further into the chapter. Unlike Virginia, it does at least save your collectibles when using chapter select but that’s the bare minimum. Do better.

You may have noticed that I’ve spent more time name-dropping Journey than I have actually talking about Abzu which is a metaphor in and of itself. This one is simple: if you liked Journey give this a go but be warned - it’s not as good. If you haven’t played Journey, pick that up instead. No need to experience an inferior version of it.

The Phantom Pain

Tried giving Monster Hunter World a go for the second time and did a little quest. The amount of stuff to learn is kind of overwhelming, and my poor eyes can’t deal with all the small white text on the screen. I have Iceborn and I’m using the armour that came with it, I think. I’m also using a greatsword and finding combat and general gameplay a little boring and janky tbh. Monsters seem almost as spongey as I am (my character has a huge health bar for some reason). I'm still very, very early though.

Penn

Had a few matches of UFC4 last night. It's pretty awful. Some of the gameplay is okay, but the camera is janky as f*ck considering how much you have to move as your character causing the camera to move with you and your opponent pretty much every step. All the grappling/submission stuff is awful to control to the point where my last few matches I just went for the striking-only matches.

Might have the odd quick fight in it here and there, but can't see myself playing too much more of it.

mrcheez

Finally completed Wolfenstein The New Order there last night... about time since I picked it up in 2017!

The incentive to finally complete it came after I purchased The New Colossus on Switch over Xmas, so had to obviously get through the first story.

Loved the weapons and lean-mechanic, though some of the AI left a lot to be desired.

I'm sure it was cutting edge back in 2014 ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDFnzRYr55M

Heading over to Switch-land for next month or so... got Luigi's Mansion 3 and Wolfestein New Colossus up next

The Phantom Pain

4. Gone Home. Completed and obtained all trophies (there’s no platinum).

I have to admit that, despite the hoopla over the years for the game, both good and bad, my expectations for Gone Home were less than enthusiastic. The premise didn’t sound interesting, and the indie walking sim genre, though easily digestible and accessible, is also incredibly formulaic and played out now. I also wasn’t exactly encouraged when I found out it was developed by Fullbright, having played one of their more recent titles last year, Tacoma. Tacoma had an easy-on-the-eye art style which was only eclipsed by its gorgeous disc cover art, but the story, set on a space station in the future, was awkwardly told, the characters cliched and the ending was predictable and underwhelming. Also, the optimisation was so bad that I was holding my breath during loading screens, hoping it didn’t crash (it did, and often). Not a bad game. Just not an amazing one either.

That said, as someone who likes space adventures, the premise of Tacoma was at least interesting to begin with. The set-up of Gone Home, however, is more mundane: Set in 1995 (because of course it is), it’s about an American woman in her early 20s named Katie who returns from her travels around Europe to her family’s new home in Oregon. The catch is that rather than the celebratory welcome you'd expect, Katie is greeted with total silence as she quickly realises that her family is gone. The how and the why is for the player to piece together. Now, with a synopsis like that it was very easy to just assume I knew how this story was gonna play out, but I’m happy to say I was pleasantly surprised by Gone Home. Playing it after all the indie walking sims that came after makes it even more obvious how influential it was, but it's mesmerising in a way its imitators aren't.

Though Gone Home is not a horror game (more on that "controversy" later), the house in which the player spends the entire runtime in has an unsettling aura to it. The game oozes mid 90s nostalgia with its music, technology and film references, and the house, itself, is very old. This makes it feel both comforting in its familiarity but also creepy because it’s so alien now compared to interior decoration and technology today. We often fantasise about going back to our childhoods but, in truth, we’d feel instantly foreign because who we are today wouldn't necessarily get along with the social and political climate back then, and our memories have a way of reshaping the past as time goes on which is scary in itself. I digress. Consequently, though I poked fun at the time period the devs chose, it doesn’t feel like an easy way out of an uncomfortable topic in Gone Home, but more like a creative choice that actually added to the experience for the aforementioned reasons.

Most importantly, this family home is new to our avatar, Katie, so she is uncovering its secrets at the same time the player is; we don’t even know if she feels safe. All we know early on is that townsfolk think the house is haunted and its previous owner, who I won’t name, is deceased. The house is also huge in size with secret pathways and winding connecting corridors, and occasionally you’ll hear a creek in the floorboards or a light will suddenly cut out leaving you in cold darkness. Not to mention the frantic voicemail left on the answering machine which is one of the first things the player can find… Fullbright knows exactly how to fuel the player’s paranoia through our preconceptions of the horror genre, and once you get the full context for these occurrences you'll realise those clever spooky set-ups were well worth the pay-off. 

Gone Home may seem more than it is at first but, even better, the story’s unveiling simplicity makes it feel authentic and not like a checklist of what a game like this should include. For many people, the ending is going to be a ‘that it?’ type of moment which circles back to my earlier PSA that this is not a horror game. That wasn’t a spoiler for an old-ass game by the way because - and I checked - Gone Home was never marketed as a horror game and if you go in for that experience you’re going to be as salty as the Gamers™ were. It is hilarious watching dudebro jock types on youtube get their briefs in the twist thinking that this was going to be like Silent Hill or something only to get, well, Gone Home. Must have been fuming with Hulk rage about halfway in. 🤣 But as someone who "got" what the game was going for, the seemingly anti-climactic conclusion was perfect. To reach that ending after all the tension built felt earned and emotionally powerful.

While we play as Katie, she’s more of a silent, blank slate for the player to project on to as she attempts to find out what happened to her family, notably her younger sister, Sam. All we know about Katie is that she is the obedient daughter and model student, although we do occasionally see her thoughts on her findings which can be amusing.  Actually, Gone Home is surprisingly funny in places. There was one note from the father reminding his daughters not to leave the lights on when not in use which made me feel both seen and personally attacked. 👀 Or even little things that show you the difference between Katie and Sam’s personalities like old school assignments that Katie completes accordingly, while Sam rebels by taking the opportunity to turn said assignment into a cheeky creative writing class much to her teachers’ anger.

And on that note, the main character isn't really Katie, but Sam. As one of the only voices we actually hear in the game (Sam's voice actress is fabulous by the way), it's the journals that she leaves for Katie to read that move the story forward. This brings me to, perhaps, the game's best asset:  its open structure. Sam’s journals act as the main quest line of sorts while everything surrounding the hidden family drama outside of that are the side quests, but they're not so bluntly distinguished. The game doesn't explicitly indicate what items will provide you with a journal update so you have to explore which, in turn, allows you to unmask those family sub stories as well. As a result, every discovery feels essential and I was combing through the contents of the house (especially because some “important” items are hidden under seemingly “unimportant” looking ones), getting all giddy when one of those items I touched rewarded me with yet another page from Sam's journal, and thus edging me closer to uncovering the truth.  I was just so eager to know what happened to this girl and learn about her life at that point that every single note was a, well, page turner. (This form of storytelling is the masterpiece Everybody's Gone to the Rapture would have been had the developers not made the daft decision to make the player feel like an over-encumbered hoarder in an RPG.)

Moreover, these audio diaries will make sense no matter what order you tackle them in, and with a structure as non-linear as this I suppose they had to. What’s even more amazing is that the only journal required to beat the game is the final one as I realised when going for one of the speedrun trophies. Everything - and I mean everything - outside of that can be skipped. In fact, on my first playthrough I missed two journal entries when I was so sure I had been thorough! But the fact that I could have completed the game pretty much right away had I simply looked closer is a powerful thought. I love that it doesn't gate progression behind locating a certain item because it made the house feel believable, as if it was there before I showed up because, evidently, it was. Only the player’s own imagination is the barrier to reaching the end sooner, and I’m glad I didn’t think outside the box that time because I would have missed out on the beautiful journey to get there.

I haven’t even spoken about the awesome score music - not the Riot Grrrl era cassette tapes which are, by the by, equally great and terrible in measure - but the main theme that plays throughout. It’s this one long drone of about two chords that feels sad but also strangely hopeful. Somehow, it made me feel mournful but, simultaneously, like everything was going to be OK and, now that I think about it, that was an entirely deliberate choice from the composer. 

Finally, should you play and enjoy this game I’d advise listening to the in-game dev commentary (you get a trophy for collecting all commentaries too). Their reflections cover everything from Easter eggs (where they hilariously make fun of the player for finding them) to the annoying door bug in the game. Ah, yes, the game’s one flaw. Had to have one.  There is a bug where some of the secret doors won’t open fully but quitting and reloading sorts it. The main doors are fine because, as the devs noted, they swing both ways to prevent this very problem. To be honest, I only encountered this glitch when going for the speedrun trophy so it seems to happen if you stand too close to them while they’re opening (as I did since I was in a hurry), but outside of that I had no problems. YMMV.

Overall, Gone Home has a compelling mystery, fantastic art and level design, an environment that is rewarding and fun to explore and nostalgia for 90s kids. I’d recommend this for fans of the walking sim genre who wish to see it at full mastery but, also, those who, like Sam, may be on their own journey of self acceptance, no matter what it is. Obviously, if you’re aware of the subject matter and have moral concerns to the point where it impedes your ability to empathise with the characters then this won’t be for you (on that note, I’m sure parents will use their own discretion to decide whether it’s appropriate for their kids). But it’s a really lovely game at its core and I think people from all walks of life will relate to it in one way or another. I can't believe I held out this long due to the price but I'm glad Sony stuck to their guns and didn’t drop it under a fiver or something because Gone Home is worth every penny. I’m now actually looking forward to Fullbright’s next game, Open Roads, which looks awesome. And to end, I really wish there was a platinum for Gone Home because it deserves one but, alas, I’ll just have to settle for 100% trophy completion and an experience that I'll never forget.

The Phantom Pain

5. Outer Wilds. Completed and platinumed.

It’s weird that I didn’t like Outer Wilds because on paper it should be right up my street. Space adventure: check. Mystery & intrigue: check. Brain teaser puzzles: check. High concept ideas about the meaning of the universe and our place in it: check. It’s all there so it pains me to see its talented dev team fumble the proverbial football so hard with some baffling design choices that seem to have gone completely unchecked by those who loudly dub the game, “the greatest of all time”. 

One of the early issues I encountered were the ridiculously small subtitles with no option to enlarge them in the menu. Accessibility in video games has come so far that it is weirdly archaic for any game now to have such oversights like this. I was gobsmacked when Mark Brown praised its one accessibility feature in his end of year review while ignoring every other way Outer Wilds fails in accessibility and dragging AAA games for less. If you need further proof, there’s a website that documents accessibility in games and Outer Wilds came up embarrassingly short when compared to similar titles like Subnautica (amazing, fabulous, dope etc etc etc) and No Man’s Sky.

I digress. Despite the subtitles issue, the first time I ran around Timber Hearth, my home planet, I was as hyped as the characters on it. Having learned I’m from a species known as Hearthians, I’m about to embark on my first solo venture as a would-be explorer and the townsfolk are so happy for me. My fellow Hearthians wish me the best on my voyage as they offer little prep talks and introductions as to what I might face. The local “hatchlings” think I’m some big shot and I play hide and seek with them using my Signalscope in a not-so-subtle tutorial.   The music is also excitable - from the main theme tune with its ascending chords as it loops on the menu screen, to the dreamy arpeggiated guitar that plays as the sun rises on Timber Hearth, signalling it’s going to be a glorious day. The game, at this point, is really trying to cut the impression that my nameless, genderless avatar has been prepping for this special day their whole lives and I believe it. 

I get the launch codes for my ship and as I make my way towards the launch pad something spooky happens. I don’t know what it means yet but I can’t wait to get out there and find out. Onwards, I get in my spaceship, suit up, strap in and fly off into the great unknown. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for - the so-called, “greatest game of all time!” is mere moments away.  I’m getting goosebumps, actually, just thinking about how I felt at this point. Little did I know that the best moments of Outer Wilds were already behind me upon entering that ship. It was here that the game’s first major problem was revealed: the flight controls. Encapsulating almost everything that Outer Wilds gets wrong, the controls for the ship will be, for many players, the torturous slog that gets the game uninstalled before they even experience their first loop reset. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention - Outer Wilds is a timeloop game but we’ll get to how it uses that to circumvent its horrible mechanics later, don’t worry.

Firstly,  there is no official tutorial for the ship so you’re essentially learning on the job when you hop into it. The model version back on Timber Hearth is about the extent of the prep you’re getting before heading out, and I don’t think I need to explain how operating a mini ship in third person in a gravity controlled environment isn’t quite the same as piloting one in first person in low-gravity outerspace... Consequently, I was trying to brute force the ship into being something it wasn’t but, to be fair, without a proper tutorial, the game never really told me what it was.   I had to teach myself to ease off on L3 all the time since it takes as much time to slow down as it does to speed up. I had to anticipate when to tap auto-pilot on and off, or to follow the arrows on the windshield of my cockpit when trying to match velocity manually. I had to estimate how fast or slow I should come into a planet. Admittedly, those initial humps felt great to overcome. At first.  But it’s actually once you learn how to pilot the ship properly that the real problem with it and the game at large is exposed: Outer Wilds has absolutely no skill, upgrade or mechanical progression. 

In better games, players gain progression through upgrades, skill points, weapons, vehicle and gear etc. You are constantly upgrading even if you don’t realise it. In Subnautica and No Man’s Sky you’re getting stronger vehicles and better equipment. In Deathloop you are getting trinkets and slabs. Even the talky Forgotten City (also badass, amazing etc etc etc) gives you a weapon and a tool that makes navigation much quicker. The developers of these games are aware the player is going to be retreading the same ground a lot and the only way to keep that repetition interesting is to change how you do it.In Outer Wilds, the first time I figured out how to land the ship confidently it was a great feeling, but that moment of accomplishment from the game’s actual mechanics was fleeting and didn’t resurface for me until I went for the ship-related trophies.  Trying to enter the Sun Station manually for the trophy ‘Hotshot’ put my skills to the test once again and gave the flight controls a renewed sense of purpose. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough to be good at piloting the ship. I had to be a master at it. But once I achieved the ship-related trophies I was forced to deal with how boring and slow it is again. 

My point is, there’s no arc. You will learn how to pilot the ship competently and once you do all you’ll be left with is a self-indulgent physics-led system,  the novelty of which wears off and outstays its welcome. Sooner or later, you just wanna quickly get to where you’re going but no, you have to go through all the routine checks. Why? It’s not challenging anymore and the game isn’t giving the player upgrades to make traversal feel different. The realistic physics don’t add anything to the gameplay but length.  It’s madness that your ship, oxygen and jetpack are exactly the same by the end of your journey as it was when you first woke up on Timber Hearth. Any and all progression is tied to your knowledge of how this solar system operates which, to be clear, is not a problem in and of itself, but when the mechanics are this much of a slog then you need to cut the BS and let the player act on that knowledge a lot sooner. 

Then there are the various environmental obstacles. One of the genuine complaints about another timeloop adventure from last year, Deathloop, was the A.I. behaviour. Indusry peeps like NoClips’s Danny O'Dwyer and God of War: Ragnarok writer, Alanah Pearce, argued in favour of this design decision from Arkane Studios, putting forth that the A.I. had to be “stupid”  because super smart A.I. would actively detract from the point of Deathloop. Outer Wilds demonstrates beautifully that experiment in action - and how right the aforementioned commentators were. In Outer Wilds everything is trying to kill you all the time and it gets very tiresome very quickly. I am not adverse to hostile video game environments but I don’t like feeling as if everything in a world exists solely around the player. Ghost Matter, for instance, an invisible substance that we learn early on will kill you almost instantly should you absorb it, becomes a crutch for the level design and it didn’t need to be. Mobius Digital prove in various instances that they are capable of more creativity than this so whenever they went back to that well I groaned.

It’s not even necessarily challenging and it doesn’t make the planets more immersive.  Actually, it takes me out because Ghost Matter (and cactuses, for that matter) are often strategically placed to slow down the player’s progress. It’s rarely there for just pure ambience so it makes an otherwise believable world feel fake. The real story behind the Ghost Matter is great, should you uncover it, but it becomes eye-roll worthy seeing the clear path to your goal being paved with it yet again, and then predictably having to find a longer route round. It would not be unreasonable, then, to assume that at a later point there would be a way to move through Ghost Matter safely but there isn’t. In fact, there is a hilarious thread on the game’s subreddit where the members ironically answer the poor OP’s question as to how to “deal” with Ghost Matter with responses like, “you get the Ghost Matter vacuum at level 8”.  So, clearly, Outer Wilds fans are fully aware of the game’s stagnant gameplay systems and are OK with them. I’m not. I don’t want to “avoid” Ghost Matter. I want to beat it. I’m just wired that way.

Furthermore, Outer Wilds rarely rewards you with shortcuts for subsequent treks back so when you solve a puzzle or figure out a way forward you’re often forced to reenact the entire sequence upon your return, transforming what was originally an awesome eureka moment into a chore.  Why? What joy is there to be had replaying a puzzle you’ve already solved? It’s a waste of time. The only shortcut I can think of right now was the entrance(s) to the Sunless City and even that shortcut had a bunch of Ghost Matter patches and a bunch of cactuses and the prospect of potentially falling to your death all waiting and ready to kill you. Again, why? At that point, I’ve paid my dues so just let me get what I want already. It’s almost as if the developers were worried that players would potentially discover that shortcut first and so had to provide a challenge just in case. And I suppose that’s understandable (even if Gone Home handles a similar approach to world design far better) but there were times where I just thought, “was this really necessary?” For instance, was the cactus in front of the most crucial warp portal in the game really necessary when you already have to deal with not getting whisked away by sand?  Was the Ghost Matter near the end of a certain trek to a certain observatory really necessary when the gaping black hole is constantly threatening to suck the player in with every oddly timed jump? It’s like Outer Wilds doesn’t have any confidence in its base challenges so it needs to keep adding more on top of them which, again, makes those environmental obstructions feel forced.

And if it’s not the cactuses or Ghost Matter that’s stopping you, it’s flying too close to the sun whose strong gravitational pull will have you seeing the white burning light of death when all you wanted was to land on one of the Hourglass Twins.  If it’s not the thorns in the Dark Bramble damaging your ship it’s the fact that you didn’t repair it in time so your fuel tank has leaked, leaving you stranded. And if you do manage to repair it then watch your back as you do because those bright white lights in the distant fog are not as heavenly as they seem. It won’t relent. It gets to the point where there are so many things all competing at once for the chance to kill you that story moments that should feel introspective can suddenly be clipped by a goofy, embarrassing death. Nothing is sacred to this game. 

Pretty much every puzzle has some sort of time limit element and the window to getting it right is often very small. It is also always more efficient to just reset the loop than to actually attempt to worm your way out of whatever predicament you’ve landed in, since you’re often moved so far back from the goalpost when you fail. In other words, I was ending loops in order to avoid engaging with the game’s mechanics and I get the impression the devs fully intended for the time loop to be exploited this way.  Furthermore, some of the puzzles have platforming sections where the jetpack is needed but it consumes so much fuel when in use that even if you do manage to nail it after the umpteeth time you’re likely dead and/or stranded from fuel and oxygen depletion anyway.  Speaking of oxygen , somebody asked me in the dedicated thread how many times I died from forgetting to equip my suit. At the time I thought the question was presumptuous as I hadn’t at that point. Now, having made that mistake, thankfully, just twice in my playthrough since then, I totally get it. After encountering many frustratingly premature loop resets all you’ll want to do is just get back to where you were, and it’s your own impatience - whilst understandable because Outer Wilds makes the player impatient - that will usually get you killed. I remember one time I died instantly upon exiting the ship without my suit even though I was right under the ship’s teleportation entrance which would have zipped me back up suffocating, sure, but immediately saved by the ship’s oxygen. I remember thinking, “really?” Putting on the suit first thing became second nature but I won’t judge anyone who consistently forgot.

In fact, restarting the loop by simply, you know, running out of time, or because I got the info I needed but could only act on it in the next loop became a rare occurrence. Often when I did run out of time I was right in the middle of a great discovery which meant rushing to get it into the ship log, as I did not fancy coming back again.  Speaking of the ship log, you don’t know if you’ve found everything in an area until you check it which means you could think you’ve been thorough only to have the log tell you that, ‘there’s more to explore here’, sending you back on yet another trip to the area. Oh, and did I mention that resetting the loop at will is a hard fought battle since the game buries that particular feature behind subsequent loops and a hidden dialogue option?

Alright, enough bitching so let’s focus on what Outer Wilds gets right. I’ve already mentioned the music which somehow didn’t manage to irritate me despite the game’s needless repetition and padding. I particularly love the “End Times” score that plays whenever the loop is about to end. It’s so good I couldn’t even be bummed whenever I ran out of time; it almost feels like it belongs in a different (better) game. As for the rest of what’s good about Outer Wilds, well, that’s the thing - it’s all spoilers but I’ll be as vague as I can:

The planets are very well designed. The amount of depth hidden beneath them is a revelation when from the outside they look so simplistic, and absolutely every area seems handcrafted. My favourite part of each loop reset was whenever I was going to the Hourglass Twins because sometimes I would just sit in my spaceship for a while and watch the sands from Ash Twins pour into Ember Twins (hence ‘Hourglass Twins’). It’s really beautiful, conceptually, despite not boasting the best graphics.

The game, mostly, doesn’t hold your hand or put intrusive, little markers everywhere so each discovery truly feels like a triumph. And because every planet is available to explore from the get-go and nothing is gated behind milestones you can, in theory, complete Outer Wilds in the very first loop (as I had to when going for the related trophy after my first playthrough). It also means that when you find something you’re not pressured to understand what it means right away because exploring somewhere else will likely shed new light on it. You learn to trust the game that way. Additionally, once you understand the clockwork of this solar system, obstacles become opportunities depending on where you are in the loop or what you’re trying to achieve.  It took me a while to realise what the actual point of the timeloop was in terms of how it benefited the gameplay (not just the story) but this is actually where Outer Wilds shines. Also, outside of the annoying environmental hurdles, some of the puzzles are genuinely clever. I particularly enjoyed the entire quest chain about a certain moon. (I’m imagining the poor soul who potentially finds the tail end of it fairly early on thinking they’re losing their mind). At the end of that chain I gasped. It was a fantastic reward after all the trial and error to get there and I had a lot of questions……  Sadly, that’s where the positives end as everything that I have described is consistently sandwiched in between all the BS. 

Finally, I should mention that I also own the Echo of the Eye DLC which, sadly, only cemented my negative feelings of Outer Wilds. It starts off well with an interesting puzzle, but then the actual process of getting to the new area is a boring-ass trek to a satellite in your ship. Once I got inside the new area I discovered, to my horror, that I now had, let’s say, limited control of my movement which is the absolute last thing I needed! Time ran out after much push and pull although I did manage to record some stuff for the ship log. After traversing the new area a second time in a more graceful manner I saw what looked like a really interesting house in the distance. As I left my vehicle to approach it I could see the dreaded blue/green crystals I’ve encountered so many times before sprawled out over the outdoor porch. I threw my scout onto it and it was, as I feared, Ghost Matter.   I immediately shut down the app and uninstalled. 

So what it comes down to is, with all that said, would I recommend Outer Wilds? Normally, I would say something like, “yes, if you like such and such.” In this case I can’t see how those who truly love exploring would enjoy it since it constantly punishes you for exploring.  The environmental obstacles at every turn makes an otherwise immersive world feel fake at best and smothering at worst.  The realistic movement physics are initially frustrating and then the moment you master them become boring and redundant.  Most importantly, the padding becomes apparent by not providing shortcuts or mechanical progression, diminishing even things that were fun the first time round through pure grind. All this results in a game that doesn’t respect the player’s time. And that’s why I just can’t bring myself to recommend Outer Wilds, despite its passionate cult following. It’s not just that there’s as much bad as there is good, it’s that the bad aspects negatively impact what is good to the point where many will never see the game’s most breathtaking moments. I have already read reports of people checking out fairly early or even just watching the ending on youtube because they just couldn’t put up with the mechanics anymore, which is a real shame.  Perhaps this serves as a cautionary tale to fans and reviewers alike as to not just barge in everywhere to sing a game’s praises when it’s clearly niche. To make the claim of, “greatest ever made” (as opposed to “it’s my favourite game”) is to carry on as if such an opinion is an objective fact, and discounts that gamers have different tastes. Outer Wilds is a well made game in a lot of ways; I don’t deny that. But it’s also a game that simply isn’t for me.

neveragain1985

Just got a ps5 through Done Deal a few weeks back. Currently playing Star wars Jedi fallen Order. It can be a bit repetitive and feels more like Tomb Raider and Uncharted. Getting that feeling of "cannot wait to finish it" to be honest lol its very long! After that, Death Stranding. It looks amazing

Xofpod

Anyone playing Horizon Forbidden West yet? I'm not kidding myself, I'm 100% going to pick it up once I've finished a few things I'm playing at the moment, but I'm interested in people's first impressions.

duploelabs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118641060#Comment_118641060

It's not out until Friday

Xofpod

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118641110#Comment_118641110

Ah cheers. Saw all the reviews (and an ad on a bus stop) and presumed it was out in the open already.

mrcheez

Good incentive for me finally to play the original from my backlog (I played it about 3-4 hours but got sidetracked by something else arriving) :)

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118641110#Comment_118641110

There are some here on Boards who have gotten review copies and have been playing (they've given some of their opinions on the main Games forum). Lucky b*stards. Looking forward to belting in over the weekend when it's available for the rest of us plebs.

Penn

Trying to platinum Sifu before the rest of the February games come out. It's a fantastic game, though some of the design choices can make it a frustrating experience in places. Some of those seem to be on the list for changing in the next update or two anyway.

Markitron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118641454#Comment_118641454

I haven't played or know anything about the sequel, but considering the nature of the story (and particularly the backstory) delivered in the first game, I can't imagine the sequel will make any sense if you don't play the original one first.

duploelabs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118641454#Comment_118641454

I think I sunk about 140 hours into zero dawn to get a full grasp of the lore, so I'd get cracking at it

Sidford

Started TLOU2 again but now with the PS5 update. Definitely worth it if anyone hasn't tried it yet on PS5

Sad Professor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118662031#Comment_118662031

I have been holding off on another playthrough in anticipation of the TLOU remake and a native PS5 TLOU2, but with the HBO show not arriving until next year I reckon I could be waiting a while.

Sidford

Didn't realise they were doing a full PS5 release of it but it's the only game (except Mario's on SNES and NES minis) that I've ever played for a 2nd time so if they release a full PS5 one il get that one as well.

CastorTroy

Started Vanquish on PS3 last night. So far I'm not very good.

apache

Playing Far Cry 6. The controls are terrible i can't focus on anything. My aim is way off.

bmorrissey

Finished Mafia on PS4, very good game, enjoyed it alot.

Moved onto Mafia 2 and not enjoying it as much, seems clunkier in terms of aiming, about halfway through so i'll finish it up this weekend most likely.

The Phantom Pain

Pure coincidence but...

6. Mafia II: Jimmy’s Vendetta (DLC). (Trophy completion 100%)

7. Mafia II: Joe’s Adventures (DLC). (Trophy completion 100%)

I replayed and platinumed Mafia II shortly after the definitive edition was released (patched, of course). I was surprised at how well it held up after all these years; even this botchling of a remaster couldn’t ruin it. Despite having beaten the campaign multiple times at this point, I never played the DLCs but they came with the definitive edition so I figured I’d give them a go. Some curiosities are better left unsatisfied.

The DLCs are essentially challenge modes that attempt to gamify an otherwise immersive and believable world. The way it works is you rack up points for different actions with the more impressive feats, such as consecutive headshot kills, completing missions in a timely fashion, jump stunts etc, nabbing you additional points. At the end of each mission you’re letter-graded on your performance, the highest being S rank. In Jimmy’s Vendetta, you can also earn points in freeroam but, other than vehicular stunts, there’s not much else you can do to increase your freeroam score since Mafia, by design, is not exactly full of side missions, and killing police and civilians don’t earn you points either. I think the devs realised that freeroam scores were useless, though, because in Joe’s Adventures you can only earn points in active missions.

The first thing that rubbed me the wrong way about the DLCs was the level design or, rather, lack there of. In the base game, story missions play out in curated levels where cover is abound, meaning that all mission locations are designed with shootouts in mind (while somehow still feeling organic). Whereas in this DLC, especially, missions are just plonked in locations that clearly were never conceived for third person cover based shooting specifically. Too many times in Jimmy’s Vendetta (and, to a lesser extent, Joe’s Adventures) the game places you right in the middle of the heat with no cover so you have to cheese it by parking your car in a way that gives you enough time to position yourself and select your weapon. Furthermore, the story presentation feels very lazy for lack of a better word. There are no cutscenes, instead, it does the GTA thing of making the player drive to different letters on the map, each representing the first name or surname initials of the job giver. When you select the mission you’re presented with text explaining what has happened and what you need to do but, honestly, I stopped reading them after a while so I can’t actually recall who Jimmy is and what he wanted revenge for. I think he did a hit job and the people who worked with him sold him out or something, I dunno, but I wasn’t going to read a bunch of info dumps when the base game has conditioned me to expect high quality cutscenes. All I know is that he went to jail and is out now for blood.

I digress. My point is, Mafia is not GTA. What makes the Mafia games so unique is that they’re not mired in absolute chaos, intentional or otherwise. The game wants you to respect civilian life, not use it to get your rampage jollies on. It wants you to obey traffic lights and to watch your speed limit (there’s even an in-game speed limiter toggle) and, if you don’t, your punishment will appropriately fit the crime. Therefore,  you will never be shot at for a hit and run if you don’t pull out your gun. The car handling is also more realistic and takes far damage more quickly than similar games.  Furthermore, jacking new ones without the police seeing you can be tricky so you’re encouraged to care for your cars even as you find and trade out new ones. All this may feel at odds with a game that puts you in the driver's seat, so to speak, of a criminal sociopath but that’s what I love about the first two Mafia games -  their respective worlds have clear, consistent rules and you’re expected to follow them despite being a no-nonsense gangster. Crime in Mafia is slick, dare I say it, organised. Crime in GTA is loud and goofy.  

However, when you introduce challenge modes, suddenly your semi-realistic world feels less immersive and more intrusive. Challenge modes are not inherently bad but the world systems of Empire Bay can’t accommodate it. For instance, that slow paced, soak-in-every moment approach simply does not work when you give every mission a time limit. Rather than the game rewarding you extra points for completing missions above average time, it’s penalising you if you don’t. Rather than allowing you to be creative you’re left with no choice but to put the pedal to the medal and hope you can just escape in time all while the boys in blue are on your tail. Simply put, challenge mode and Empire Bay just don't go together. Furthermore, because missions just seem to take place out in the open that means the law gets to have a piece of the action as well, making everything a total cheese. I quickly learned that a good strategy was just to lead police into gun fights and watch the two factions shoot it out from a distance since the police have no love for your enemies either. Additionally, the enemy A.I is so aggressive that sometimes they even completed missions for me. There was one task where I had to blow up the gas station but the NPCs were so determined to kill Jimmy that they ended up doing it without me even lifting a finger. This is on normal difficulty by the way so I have no idea why the A.I. was going that hard but I remember just driving away laughing. Again, had the level design been better this could have been avoided.

Perhaps the most tragic thing the DLCs do is make me resent things that I respected about the base game.  In challenge mode,  well rendered animations when going into restaurants to heal or changing clothes to lose your wanted level became a waste of time. The user friendly weapon wheel suddenly felt slow and awkward and I began to notice that the game forces you to select the weapon again when leaving your car, rather than auto equipping what you had already selected beforehand which in that time could get you killed.

This then made me think that maybe Mafia II was simply not as good as I remembered but then Joe’s Adventures DLC starts off very much like the quality you would expect from the base game: well crafted cutscenes, excellent level design and atmospheric environment. All of the boss levels here follow suit but, unfortunately, they are sandwiched between the mediocre challenge mode ones that play like a driving simulator at times, forcing the player to make long treks across the map to perform some meaningless task. In fact, in a way, this DLC is worse because the boss levels with their more linear, cinematic level design only exposes the quality drop when you get out into the open world, making everything in between feel like filler. Also, I think the devs realised that the police system could be used to cheese missions so in Joe’s Adventures they don’t spawn during missions… instead, they spawn after the last checkpoint has been completed, and you immediately get a wanted rating regardless of whether they saw you commit the crime or not. A prime example of correctly identifying a problem and then applying the wrong solution. 

Look, the DLCs aren’t terrible and they’re free with the definitive edition so you can check ‘em out if you own it and haven’t played them yet. Personally, though, I would not bother. They don’t really add anything to the ongoing story and even Joe’s Adventures - where you play as the protagonist's sidekick from the main game - is a wasted opportunity. Furthermore, they miss the point of what makes the base game so great: There are many GTA clones out there but Mafia II, despite being owned by the same publisher, rebels against that model by being a story-driven, immersive experience that really throws you into the lifestyle of a gang member, warts and all. It’s not a crime fantasy game but a cautionary tale of what happens when a person refuses to learn from their mistakes. Something is lost when you attempt to turn that into an arcade. That said, if you haven’t played Mafia II before but like linear stories that just so happen to take place in an open world then definitely pick it up. It’s a great game at its core but these DLCs aint it.

keane2097

Anyone playing Elden Ring yet? Is it good?

Also interested in whether Cyberpunk is worth playing now after the big update?

MrZibi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118712560#Comment_118712560

Yes and yes.

Played Elden Ring for a few hours on PS5 and despite some performance issues (occasional pop-ins and frame drops), it is a rich open world that looks really good. However, as someone new to souls like games there's a bit of a learning curve mainly because of slowness/sluggishness during the fights, something that you would not experience in Horizon, God Of War or Witcher. Also game throws you in deep water as soon as you finish a short tutorial so you quickly learn that you have to avoid some mini-bosses that you can spot within 10 minutes from loading the game. Ohh and you die a lot (unless you are an expert in Dark/Demon Souls) so perseverance and patience are key.

Cyberpunk on PS5 after the upgrade is finally a proper release (the one in 2020 should never see the light of day. It's not perfect but it's a solid game. Its defo worth the current price tag (25 euro).

Hope it helps :)