Recently completed game(s)

Finished Arkham Origins (PS3) and then bought the Cold, Cold Heart DLC and finished that too.

I really, really enjoyed this game. I'm not really knowledgeable about comic book lore so finding out the genesis of some of these characters was really interesting to me. Yes, the game was a little glitchy and I did have a few lock ups and reboots but even those did not dampen the experience.

I'm missing the game now. I'm going on to play the Blackgate game on Vita but it feels a little restricted in it's side scrolling design after the free roaming PS3 game. Arkham Knight simply can't come soon enough!

Just finished Call of Duty Ghosts on the xbox one, tempted to go buy Advanced Warfighter as its 25quid in Tesco's

Finally nabbed the Platinum trophies for both the PS4 and Vita versions of Resogun , TBF, they're not too difficult.

I still intend to continue playing due to the high score nature of the game, my highest on Arcade mode: Experienced difficulty is 84 million on the PS4 and I'd love to get that to 100 million. As for the Vita version, I'm currently ranked 27th* in the world on Arcade Experienced with a score of 69 million and ranked 25th on Arcade Veteran with a score of 41 million, both of which I feel I could improve upon.

EDIT* Now up to 24th with 71 million

Finished Pac-Man World on teh GBA.

Very short but tough game.

Completed God of War 3 yesterday.

The first half of the game felt a little sluggish and samey but it really comes to life in the second half.

Updates in bold.

January
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor [PS4]
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood [Xbox One]
Valiant Hearts: The Great War [PS4]



I really enjoyed this simple adventure game. There are no really taxing puzzles in it and only a couple of having to think really outside of the box moments. The story and setting are really interesting and the way it conveys things to the player without speech is really well done. The game did feel a little bit too long for what it was but I was hooked right until the heartbreaking ending.

Updates in bold.

January
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor [PS4]
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood [Xbox One]
Valiant Hearts: The Great War [PS4]
Final Fantasy X: HD Remaster [PS Vita]




I got to bored of the grind to get all the extra and hidden stuff so yesterday/this morning I breezed through the end of the story with my overpowered characters

This is still a great JRPG with a fantastic story. There is a lot to see and do despite its more linear nature. Playing FFX again took me back to my early teens and memories of playing it during the summer holidays and having a blast with it. The HD aspect of the remaster is done really well and cleaned up UI is a godsend making things a lot quicker and easier to navigate. The only downside is the pushed in camera to make the game widescreen. For the most part it is fine but during cutscenes and conversations people's heads regularly get cut off which gets very annoying, very fast!

Completed Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness.

There are stars that I can get but I'm not going to bother but it was fun while it lasted.

Just finished Episode 1 of Life Is Strange and absolutely loved it.

Admittedly not much happens story wise but it did just enough to set itself up for the future episodes, so that's all you could really ask for. This episode also did a really good job of introducing the characters and due to the artsytle and wonderful soundtrack I loved the atmosphere of it and I felt completely immersed. 

All in all, whilst I loved Season 1 of The Walking Dead (never fancied bothering with Season 2), I felt that this worked far better than that game as a character piece, aided by the fact that similar to Heavy Rain/Beyond it was best during the quieter (even mundane) moments. Really hoping that thread continues in future episodes as I feel that going for more focus on action may not suit the game best.

I seem to have managed to miss a lot of the optional photographs that you can take/collect so maybe there was some game mechanic I overlooked, especially as thought I was quite thorough. Maybe I just made some incorrect conversation decisions. Perhaps I'll return to look for them through the chapter select whilst waiting for the release of Episode 2, although I also want to be mindful of sticking with my original decisions because, whilst you can backtrack to a point if you want to make a differing choice, I do believe that in games of this ilk you should also stick with your initial reactions.

I tried the Life Is Strange demo and enjoyed it enough to buy Episode 1, I've played as far as the Dorm section so far where you have to retrieve to USB stick and it's really good, the first pleasant surprise of 2015. It will be interesting to see how the story develops.

Finished the Jill play through of Resident Evil HD on PS4 the other day.

What a game this still is. If you've never played this or never finished it but you're a RE fan then you owe it to yourself to play this. There's never been a better time to play this game. It looks amazing and the new control scheme will help players not familiar with the 'tank controls'. The new control scheme still has some issues though. If anyone cares to know why then I'm happy to go into more detail.

I would highly recommend using a guide though. Whilst it was fun originally to explore the mansion and work out it's puzzles and clues, I just don't have the patience these days for the trial an error and backtracking required to play without a guide.

I will definitely be going back to play through as Chris and see how that plays out.

I'm interested to know about the new control scheme, MarkySharky.

Did you stick with the tank controls? I think I'm too used to them to change now.

Updates in bold.

January
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor [PS4]
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood [Xbox One]
Valiant Hearts: The Great War [PS4]
Final Fantasy X: HD Remaster [PS Vita]

February
Game of Thrones Episode 2: The Lost Lords [PS4]



Another superb and mostly bug free episode from Telltale! This felt a lot shorter and more constrained than the first episode. This is mainly because this episode is all about advancing the plot forward quite a bit. There are two new playable characters, more intrigue, world building and of course cameos from characters from the books/show. This is shaping up to be a gem of Telltale's lineup.

sorenlorensen wrote:I'm interested to know about the new control scheme, MarkySharky.

Did you stick with the tank controls? I think I'm too used to them to change now.

I used the new controls but I'd advise against it. Like you, as soon as I started playing the game muscle memory wanted to take over and use the tank controls because I was so used to them!

Basically the new scheme allows you to use the left stick to move in whatever direction you choose as per most modern games. The stick can also be used to control how fast you walk/run rather than pressing a button at the same time as moving.

At first this is great. Less input actions needed, feels more modern etc...

However...

There's a feature that I assume is supposed to be helpful but I actually found it to be the biggest reason for the majority of my deaths. I'll try to explain it as best I can...

Basically, let's say your character is moving forward down a long corridor away from the camera. You're pushing the stick up as that's the direction you want to travel. 

Halfway down the corridor the fixed camera angle changes (as it does in RE) which now means you're running toward the screen. The controls are designed so that whatever direction your character is running before the camera angle changes, they will continue to run in that direction as long as you haven't let go of the direction you were pushing the stick. With me?

So you were pushing up to go forward but when the camera angle changed you're technically running down (toward the screen) but you're still pushing up.

It's like some kind of old/new hybrid controls and it confused the hell out of me and in situations where you need to quickly change direction this led to a lot of confusion for me and as I said, led to quite a few of my deaths.

Did that make sense?

Just completed Trials Fusion, easily the best in the series. It's by far the best looking and has some fantastic tracks. The creators really went to town in creating some imaginative, unique and exhilarating levels. The gameplay remains exactly the same as before but the difficulty is more balanced this time round. (I wasn't good enough to complete the last Trials game but have managed to do so here...getting a gold medal on the other hand is purely for experts - I can just scrape through a bronze on later levels). It's fairly short for it's quite steep price, but with the DLC included there's a lot of content. Great fun once again and I still got that DLC to play now.

MarkySharky wrote:

sorenlorensen wrote:I'm interested to know about the new control scheme, MarkySharky.

Did you stick with the tank controls? I think I'm too used to them to change now.

I used the new controls but I'd advise against it. Like you, as soon as I started playing the game muscle memory wanted to take over and use the tank controls because I was so used to them!

Basically the new scheme allows you to use the left stick to move in whatever direction you choose as per most modern games. The stick can also be used to control how fast you walk/run rather than pressing a button at the same time as moving.

At first this is great. Less input actions needed, feels more modern etc...

However...

There's a feature that I assume is supposed to be helpful but I actually found it to be the biggest reason for the majority of my deaths. I'll try to explain it as best I can...

Basically, let's say your character is moving forward down a long corridor away from the camera. You're pushing the stick up as that's the direction you want to travel. 

Halfway down the corridor the fixed camera angle changes (as it does in RE) which now means you're running toward the screen. The controls are designed so that whatever direction your character is running before the camera angle changes, they will continue to run in that direction as long as you haven't let go of the direction you were pushing the stick. With me?

So you were pushing up to go forward but when the camera angle changed you're technically running down (toward the screen) but you're still pushing up.

It's like some kind of old/new hybrid controls and it confused the hell out of me and in situations where you need to quickly change direction this led to a lot of confusion for me and as I said, led to quite a few of my deaths.

Did that make sense?

Thanks, Marky. I'm sure I've played a game before that did that 'reverse control' thing and it resulted in deaths for me too! If/when I get this, I think I'll stick with tank controls.

Good plan!

Just finished The Swapper. I played it for many hours last night, but it is still a fairly short game. I don't think it is designed for long play sessions however, as I started to get a bit fed up of the game after about 4 hours of play, so decided to leave it for a bit, and came back this morning just to finish it off. But it was pretty good, and worth a play, especially as it was free on PS+. The game doesn't really change much from its central gameplay mechanic, and so can feel a bit repetitive. Some of the puzzles are hard, and I did use a guide for some (also used a guide for collecting the 10 crazy hard collectibles), but I actually found the hardest puzzle mid way through the game, and it got easier towards the end, or perhaps I just got more attuned to it. I like the Dead Space feel to the storyline. I don't know what it is about exploring derelict space stations, like in this, Dead Space and Alien Isolation, but I seem to like doing that! I got a video of me collecting the last collectible, and then the ending, which I might post later, obviously don't watch it for spoilers, but it contains the rather creepy ending that I really liked.

Updates in bold.

January
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor [PS4] - Platinum Trophy Unlocked 08/02
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood [Xbox One]
Valiant Hearts: The Great War [PS4]
Final Fantasy X: HD Remaster [PS Vita]

February
Game of Thrones Episode 2: The Lost Lords [PS4]

I decided to trade in Shadow of Mordor today but before I did I wanted to have one last go at this brilliant game. I ended up looking at my Trophy list for it and working away at it for a couple of hours to get the last few trophies I needed for the Platinum! I really enjoyed this game and I can't wait to see what they do with the inevitable sequel.

Updates in bold.

January
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor [PS4] - Platinum Trophy Unlocked 08/02
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood [Xbox One]
Valiant Hearts: The Great War [PS4]
Final Fantasy X: HD Remaster [PS Vita]

February
Game of Thrones Episode 2: The Lost Lords [PS4]
Super Mario 3D World [Wii U]



Been playing this on and off with the wife for awhile now and today we finally finished the main game! It is a great Mario game (good but not as good as Galaxy/Galaxy 2) and we've had a lot of fun playing through it. We loved the majority of the levels and while there is some repetition there is usually a twist to it to keep things fresh. The new power ups are great with the Double Cherry being my personal fave, although the cat suit is really good fun.

In the end I decided against getting all the Stars and doing the bonus levels because that way lies madness (trust me!). So I promptly traded it in for Hyrule Warriors which is really good fun and scratches the Dynasty Warriors itch I've had for a while now

I preferred SM3DW over Galaxy (though loved the Galaxy games too), mainly because of the co-op.

We did try to do all the stars but ground to a halt around the 320 mark, iirc

On topic, I finished Tomb Raider on PS4. Really liked it (again), a worthwhile this gen remake. I thought it easier than on 360 - spikes I found first time round seemed much easier. But that may be due to my being more diligent with salvage and upgrading weapons this time around.

sorenlorensen wrote:I preferred SM3DW over Galaxy (though loved the Galaxy games too), mainly because of the co-op.

We did try to do all the stars but ground to a halt around the 320 mark, iirc

I found getting the stars in this to be a grind which is why I stopped. In the Galaxy games each star had a task to it in 3D World it is just a case of looking in the nooks and crannies until you find them all.

I just completed hatoful boyfriend... yes that pigeon love game  lol

It came up on humble bundle a little ago so I brought it just to see what the fuss was about, it helps charity so why not and yeah its weird.... very weird... its pretty much just an electronic choose your own adventure game about pigeon love

kerr9000 wrote:I just completed hatoful boyfriend... yes that pigeon love game  lol

It came up on humble bundle a little ago so I brought it just to see what the fuss was about, it helps charity so why not and yeah its weird.... very weird... its pretty much just an electronic choose your own adventure game about pigeon love

Sweet, sweet pigeon love!

Updates in bold.

January
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor [PS4] - Platinum Trophy Unlocked 08/02
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood [Xbox One]
Valiant Hearts: The Great War [PS4]
Final Fantasy X: HD Remaster [PS Vita]

February
Game of Thrones Episode 2: The Lost Lords [PS4]
Super Mario 3D World [Wii U]
The Order: 1886 [PS4]



I honestly do not understand the level of hate this game has received! I have just spent the best part of a weekend having a blast playing through The Order! I stuck the game on Hard mode and turned Aim Assist off and got to it and really, really enjoyed it.

It is the kind of game I like. It is focused, to the point and very well put together. I enjoyed the characters, story, gameplay and presentation. The only real downside is the abrupt ending that screams sequel bait. Everything else with the game is fine in my book. It is a good solid game, it is not mind blowing or genre defining but it doesn't need to be. It accomplishes what it sets out to do admirably and in these days of every other game being a giant open world grind fest of collectables and crappy mission design, I was more than happy to step into the world Ready At dawn have created for The Order and go on the thrill ride that this game took me on.

If you like the sound of a narrative focused cinematic game like Beyond: Two Souls or Telltale's more recent output being mixed with solid gunplay and some of the best graphics I have ever seen in a game then I implore you to check The Order: 1886 out.

And honestly I really hope that all the negativity surrounding the game's release doesn't put a stop to any further plans they have with this IP because man, there is a lot of depth and room for growth in this.