What Video Games did you play this week? (2024 Edition)

[wonderfly]

What video games did you play this week?
5/13/24:


New Releases this week:

Homeworld 3
(coming to PC)



So what have you played this week?!?​

 

[wonderfly]

Another week with no major releases (none that I'm into, anyway).

Having said that, there's one last week that I didn't pick, but apparently it's getting a lot of good "word of mouth" online, and that's "Animal Well". It's an "Metroidvania" Indie game, but it's getting "game of the year" discussion around it.

Here's a recent trailer. I'm intrigued but also wondering what the fuss is all about:

 

[the_joker]

I'm at the postgame of Kirby and the Forgotten Land, and those levels have been more challenging than I expected, and the new bosses which were really just reusing the story bosses had new attacks and became trickier to beat. And I think the game's biggest weakness became a bit more apparent while playing though it, which is the weapons being pretty poorly balanced.

All attacks are more or less equally viable against regular enemies as those aren't difficult to kill, but there are some that are straight-up better against mini-bosses and regular bosses. Needle and Tornado attacks suffer the worst for being close-ranged attacks and having low damage outputs. At least the Drill lets you travel underground to avoid most attacks, but the damage also isn't great. The Bomb can travel to enemies but also deals low damage against bosses. This means ranged attacks are most effective against them with the Fire and Ranger easily being the best among those. The burn damage from Fire can deal huge damage over time, and Ranger has the best range with the charged attack slowing enemies and dealing plenty of damage over a large area while also slowing a boss's movements. There's the Ice attack, which works similarly to Fire with a similar range, but the damage from freezing is more than easily outdone by Fire's burn. And there's the cutter, which can deal decent damage while holding down the Attack button at a range, but Ranger and Fire can deal just as much or more damage without needing to hold down the button as long. The Sword and Hammer abilities deal good damage for close-ranged attacks, but since the bosses move around a lot and over great distances, they still feel inferior to Fire and Ranger as I wouldn't need to run up to the bosses as much (or get as close in the case of Fire) to deal damage.

I know the idea behind the variety of attacks is the creators saying, "Here are a bunch of toys. Go have some fun." But when fighting (mini-)bosses, it's like choosing to play with either a paper doll of a crudely drawn Barbie or a regular Barbie doll. There's almost no reason to use the inferior abilities, and the boss fights (at least the postgame ones and maybe the final boss of the main story as well) don't feel as varied as they should in terms of approach.

 

[Light Lucario]

I've been playing more of Pokemon Scarlet/Violet. I haven't been using my Switch for awhile, so I figured that I'd try to work on that by playing these games, especially when I haven't finished the DLC for either of them yet. I just completed the Pokedex for the first time in Scarlet. I wanted to get the Shiny Charm and the cute congratulations poster with all of the Paldea starters too. I finished the first half of the DLC in Scarlet awhile go, but I wanted to get the Shiny Charm before heading off to the second half of the DLC. I'll probably do a bit more work with Violet, possibly completing that Pokedex before heading off to Blueberry Academy.

 

[wonderfly]

What video games did you play this week?
5/20/24:


New Releases this week:

Senua's Saga: Hellblade II
(coming to Xbox Series X/S and PC)

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
(coming to Nintendo Switch)


​

So what have you played this week?!?

 

[the_joker]

Surprisingly, I haven't played a FPS on console yet, and I didn't want to play a multiplayer one, so I decided to go with BioShock. I didn't know anything about the game before starting, so I was surprised that it was something of a horror game set in 1960. There was an underwater city (not Atlantis) which has fallen apart for some time, and its inhabitants were empowered and went mad. More information about the city and some of its people can be found from audio logs. In addition to shooting enemies, you can also use plasmids, which were fluids that pretty much gave a person superpowers, explaining the "Bio" in the title. Strangely, you can't use both hands to attack, so there's no option to shoot fire from one hand and lightning from a weapon with the other simultaneously, but at least you can alternate between them and even skip reloading animations while doing so in some cases. There is also telekinesis to pick up, catch, and throw objects, and while this can't affect living enemies (which would probably make the ability too useful since that could easily neutralize most encounters), there is one power to throw back enemies and another to throw them into the air. It seems I should get to the end of the game for some full thoughts, but it has certainly piqued my curiosity at the very least.

Also, the first game at least doesn't seem to be optimized. I'm playing this on the PS5, but I don't know if playing on a PS4 (Pro) would yield different results. The game actually froze at one point, and it also got stuck on the loading screen for more than while during another.

 

[wonderfly]

Surprisingly, I haven't played a FPS on console yet, and I didn't want to play a multiplayer one, so I decided to go with BioShock. I didn't know anything about the game before starting, so I was surprised that it was something of a horror game set in 1960. There was an underwater city (not Atlantis) which has fallen apart for some time, and its inhabitants were empowered and went mad. More information about the city and some of its people can be found from audio logs. In addition to shooting enemies, you can also use plasmids, which were fluids that pretty much gave a person superpowers, explaining the "Bio" in the title. Strangely, you can't use both hands to attack, so there's no option to shoot fire from one hand and lightning from a weapon with the other simultaneously, but at least you can alternate between them and even skip reloading animations while doing so in some cases. There is also telekinesis to pick up, catch, and throw objects, and while this can't affect living enemies (which would probably make the ability too useful since that could easily neutralize most encounters), there is one power to throw back enemies and another to throw them into the air. It seems I should get to the end of the game for some full thoughts, but it has certainly piqued my curiosity at the very least.

Also, the first game at least doesn't seem to be optimized. I'm playing this on the PS5, but I don't know if playing on a PS4 (Pro) would yield different results. The game actually froze at one point, and it also got stuck on the loading screen for more than while during another.

Yeah, those are PS4 ports, I believe (it was also ported to the Switch at one point). They are in no way optimized for the PS5.

I'm letting my Playstation Plus subscription expire in the next couple weeks, so I'm not starting up any games that I won't be able to finish. I've also just kind of scaled back my playing of video games lately.

I recently tried playing Tactics Ogre Reborn on my Nintendo Switch and am quickly realizing....I'm just not very good at strategy games. Makes me hesitant about trying out the newer Fire Emblem games, which I've wanted to get into (the only one I've played is that one on the Gameboy Advance part of Nintendo Switch Online).

 

[wonderfly]

What video games did you play this week?
5/27/24:


New Releases this week:

Multiversus
(coming to Playstation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, and PC)


​

So what have you played this week?!?

 

[wonderfly]

We're entering "E3" season (except there isn't an "E3" convention any longer). Still, we're expecting to have a Sony "State of Play" revealed this week, and there's a confirmed Xbox and Nintendo Switch "Direct" coming up in the first or second weeks of June.

Things are about to get interesting, with a bunch of new games to be revealed!

 

[Marble]

I finally got around to playing Papers Please.
Very addictive gameplay loop but perhaps a little overrated and set my expectations a little too high.

In the game, you take on the role of a border control agent in a fictional country, reminiscent of Cold War-era Europe. As the game progresses, the complexity of the required checks for visitors escalates, yet you receive minimal additional support. Your income depends on maintaining the pace of clearing individuals in the queue. The gameplay involves examining documents, cross-referencing them, and investigating any discrepancies.

The job presents challenges such as dealing with individuals who attempt to bribe their way in or evoke sympathy to gain entry. You must consider if the potential reduction in pay (and the effect that will have on your family's health!) is worth allowing entry to someone's spouse who lacks the proper documentation, for example.

My main source of disappointment is the lack of replay value. After memorizing the nations, cities, seal designs, and document layouts, the challenge diminishes. The game lacks variation; non-standard visitors appear at scripted times. It would be interesting if these events were more frequent and randomized. There's enormous potential for expanding on the premise!
Also, I think a lot of reviewers maybe put too much emphasis on the empathetic and "thought-provoking" elements. There wasn't really any event where I genuinely felt bad for an individual, maybe I just have no soul...

Anyway, very addictive game until it has nothing left to offer, but makes my brain hurt!

 

[the_joker]

I'm (re)playing Dark Souls, though I'm playing on the PS5 instead of the Switch which I previously played the game on. I've been curious about the Souls games, though I didn't get around to playing more of them. I even decided on playing Demon's Souls at some point as that was the first Souls game, and even though the PS5 version is a remake, I read that it's almost identical to the original game outside of getting updated graphics. Too bad it didn't get a discount for some time, so I just decided to buy Dark Souls and jump back into that, and the remake of Demon's Souls just so happened to get discounted as I was playing Dark Souls.

As for the game, I liked it back a few years ago, and I still like the game. I just got through Blighttown, and I forgot how obnoxious the enemies in that area were. There are ghouls who can track you from a great distance and even from a different platform, but arguably worse are the giant mosquitoes in the swamp area as they can track you from a greater distance AND respawn, so being "forced" to deal with them felt annoying. I also wonder how the average person was supposed to figure out how to find the ring that made wading through the poisonous swamp easier as that required you to go back to the starting area by taking an awkward path, and even then there wasn't much of a reason to go back there. I'm guessing the intention was to wade through the poisonous swamp and fight enemies in an awkward fashion, but when I first went through it, I actually thought I missed a thing or two and searched aimlessly before looking at a guide. And "rolling" through the mud could be a little faster, but that uses stamina, so -

Now, I'm at Sen's Fortress, and it offers rolling boulders as well as narrow walkways with swinging pendulums. I even got "pulled down" to the bottom area a number of times because the camera was "fixed" on an enemy that fell off a walkway during a fight. That's also gonna be annoying.

The area after that, Anor Londo, should be much more interesting.

 

[Light Lucario]

I finally got to complete the Pokedex in Pokemon Violet. I probably could have done it earlier, but I wanted to complete it with the remaining Paldea starters that I didn't choose in that version. It's still pretty cool to get the Shiny Charm and the congratulation poster too. Now that I completed the main Pokedex in both versions, hopefully I'll be able to work on the rest of the DLC. I've been surprisingly lucky in avoiding most spoilers for the storyline, so hopefully I'll be able to keep that up until after I finish it too.

 

[wonderfly]

What video games did you play this week?
6/3/24:


New Releases this week:

Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game
(coming to Playstation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC)

Star Wars: Hunters
(coming to Nintendo Switch and cell phones)


​

So what have you played this week?!?

 

[Sparklefan1234]

The games I played this week-ish were WWE 2K24 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time.

 

[the_joker]

I beat Ornstein and Smough in Dark Souls, and I forgot how great (and tough) that boss battle was as you had to keep track of 2 bosses with different attack patterns, and the grand-sounding music that played during the fight also helped. When killing one, the other powers up for the second phase of the fight, so I feel like doing a New Game+ run at some point just to see the "other" fight in that mode, though I'll have to figure out room for doing that.

As for Anor Londo, I like how pristine and grand the area looks especially in contrast to the earlier areas of the game usually looking dead/dying. Supposedly, that presentation is actually an illusion that can be dispelled, but I also don't know if or when I'll look into that.

I also increased my strength stat enough to wield the Zweihander with one hand, and it's probably my favorite weapon in the game in terms of attack patterns. Slamming an enemy onto the ground doesn't get old.

 

[wonderfly]

What video games did you play this week?
6/10/24:


New Releases this week:

Monster Hunter Stories
(coming to Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC, previously released years ago on the Nintendo 3DS)

V Rising
(coming to Playstation 5, previously released a few months ago on PC)


​

So what have you played this week?!?

 

[Classic Speedy]

I'll be playing Rocket Knight Adventures Re-Sparkled today. I've played the first Genesis game but never the SNES equivalent, nor the Genesis sequel.

 

[wonderfly]

I've been looking to save some money, so I finally let my Playstation Plus subscription expire. Not just the more expensive "Playstation Premium" or "Playstation Extra", but all of it, including the base Playstation Plus Essential.

So I've lost access to every single Playstation Plus "free" video game I've acquired over the last 5 or so years. And I wanted to take a tally of how many games I have left, either digital purchases through the Playstation store or the handful I have on physical disc.

And after I did my count of what I have left....I have about 50 to 55 games total. And about 15 of those are games I've already beaten or a handful of which I played a little of and decided "Eh, this isn't my type of game after all" or "Wow, this games sucks, bad purchase".

So that leaves me without around roughly 35 games that I haven't beaten or haven't started. I'm thinking of going back and finishing some of these now. Stuff like "Alien: Isolation", "Dragon Age: Inquisition", "Horizon Zero Dawn" and the original "Watch Dogs". Or to start playing some games I bought but haven't started, like "Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order" and "The Outer Worlds" or "Dark Souls: Remastered".

Still, 35 (or so) games doesn't feel like as many games as I thought I'd have. Guess I'd gotten too reliant on Playstation Plus these last few years, to supply me with games.

I'll get by. I'm concerned about online multiplayer games though. I can play "Apex Legends" still, so that's fine. But I'm wondering if the multiplayer component in "No Man's Sky" works or not. I might break down and renew my subscription eventually, but....not for a while.

 

[Spacething7474]

I got Trainz Simulator 22 yesterday as it was on sale for 9.99. Like all other entries in the Trainz series, it has 4:3 support (which is always nice to see!)