RedShell

Am I ready for Nintendo’s next console? Yes… and no. Yes, because a new Nintendo console should finally bring about some brand new Nintendo games that will hopefully appeal to me. Seriously, it feels like ages since I’ve been excited for something from them, were it not for the upcoming Zelda TotK it’s almost as if they’ve ceased to exist. No, because even though I’d obviously love to play some original stuff from Nintendo again, I’m currently very happy gaming on PC and have such a massive amount of games (past, present and future) to enjoy on there that I’m not exactly thrilled at the idea of having to fork out for a new console (and no doubt re-subscribe to Nintendo’s extortive online “service”) purely to play a handful of exclusives. Unless they really knock it out of the park with their lineup for the Switch successor it could even end up being the very first time I don’t buy one of their systems at launch! Yep, I agree. And the more time I spend gaming on PC the more it’s actually made me realise that the sweet spot for resolution/performance should probably be 1080p/60fps! I know a lot of people that are massively into the high-end gaming scene will disagree with that (and then some ) but the fact is, unless you’re using a ginormous monitor or TV, 4K is complete overkill and something that absolutely tanks performance for a negligible benefit. Stuff like DLSS certainly helps, but not every game utilises it and some actually use it really poorly. And while insanely high frame rates are a nice thing to have, 60 is definitely smooth enough. The difference between 30 and 60 is way more noticeable than when you increase from 60. Perhaps it’s a bit more of a subjective thing, but for me personally, I struggle to see as much of a difference at above 60fps. I think ray tracing and other features that noticeably enhance visuals are a more worthwhile pursuit but they’re also very demanding on hardware, so attempting those kind of things while simultaneously pursuing high resolutions and frame rates is definitely pushing things too far too quickly.

Hehehe! Yeah, it went on for quite a long time too, so I imagine they might’ve been pretty pissed. Hopefully they saw the funny side though. I started cracking up afterwards at the thought of them potentially streaming their gameplay. That would’ve made for an entertaining show!

Credits rolled for this last night. It’s weird though, despite having played it for 60+ hours and “finished” the game, it still feels as if I’ve only just scratched the surface! But yeah, I definitely get why Elden Ring has received so much praise, it is absolutely crazy for a game that is so gargantuan to also be so polished, and the amount of content it offers at such a high quality level is quite frankly ridiculous. It’s certainly not perfect, although any complaints I have are pretty minor really, stuff like the mini dungeons becoming somewhat repetitive as the game progresses and UI related things, like not being able to compare the stats of your equipped gear to that of the gear sold by traders. There were a handful of iffy AI situations during my adventures as well, almost exclusively involving winged enemies, where they would end up landing from higher areas and killing themselves in the process, it even happened one time with a boss! Those were some easy runes. I ended up sticking with my starting gear (the bog-standard axe ) for basically 90% of the game, even defeated the fire giant with it. But I switched to a samurai sword for the final sections which had an amazing special move that could easily take out multiple small enemies and deal serious damage to bosses too. Probably should’ve started using it sooner, but oh well. @drahkon, you’ll be happy to know that I didn’t end up using any of the boss runes to level up. In fact, most of them are still just sitting in my inventory gathering dust. Did get a couple of weapons from them, but I was happy enough with my crappy axe/samurai sword combo so never even used those boss weapons in combat. Anyway, think I’ll still be playing this for a while yet, the exploration aspect is really enjoyable and I know for sure there’s a lot of stuff I’m yet to discover. Would also like to spend some more time with the multiplayer aspects. Speaking of multiplayer, I did have a funny experience one time when I summoned assistance for a particularly tricky dungeon. The place was a right maze with loads of intertwining spherical tunnels, I ended up getting separated from my helpers and despite their best efforts to then guide me (using those little light crystals to create a path) I just couldn’t for the life of me figure out where the hell to go! I’d always somehow end up on the other side of a room to them, and just when I thought the situation couldn’t get anymore embarrassing, I was invaded and the invader proceeded to destroy me while my helpers watched from the other side of that inaccessible room! They were probably glad I got killed actually. Anyway, fantastic game, glad I finally got around to playing it and also finishing it before the end of the year.

It does, yeah:

Maybe not, World is handled by a different dev team.

Huh? I take it they just meant to say that it'll be on GamePass. Cool that the game is eventually going to end up everywhere though. Well, it would be... if it had cross-play/save.

But the weapons look so crappy. And I don’t even currently have the strength/dex to use ‘em. You just want to force me to grind, don’t you?

Note to self: Don’t constantly back away from a boss without knowing what’s behind and then fall off a bloody cliff. Had a blast playing this over the weekend. Made a lot of progress with exploring the map and pinching loads of items on horseback! Also made it to what I imagine is the first big cheese of the game. Was actually kicking his ass on the very first attempt (with the assistance of my ghost wolves ) but then the bugger started using a dragon head to breathe fire everywhere, and in trying to avoid the flames I did the very stupid thing that I mentioned at the start of this post. Got him on the second attempt though. So yeah, now I have this special rune thingy. Am I right in thinking it can either be changed into one of the boss’s weapons, a temporary buff, or simply converted to a large number of standard runes? I took a look at the weapons it would unlock with creepy no eyeballs lady near the giant fingers, but reckon I’d prefer to just get the runes from it and add a couple more levels to my character. What do those that have finished the game recommend?

Yeah, that’s fine for you, but I’m blatantly going to need all the help I can get.

I’d forgotten just how much From Software like to troll players with their games. They really do an amazing job of getting inside your head and messing with you. Enemy placement and traps in dungeons can be so damn fiendish! The messages system helps to balance things out a bit though… mostly. Have to say I’m loving how the horse impacts gameplay in this. Makes getting around the world super speedy and also provides a nice option for cowardly avoiding danger. Shame you can’t ride it inside really. Going to have to spend some time properly looking into all the crafting malarkey soon I reckon, as I seem to be acquiring lots of items but not sure what to do with them. I tend to overlook most of the options like that these days, but it feels like I won’t be able to get away with doing that in this particular game.

Yeah, if Game Freak were able to take the capabilities of the Switch hardware into account more (or, at all ) during planning and development then they could have certainly made an infinitely better product. There have been numerous examples already of games which have no right even running on Switch getting pretty incredible ports, including open world titles. With that being the case, there can be no excuse for a game that is built from the ground up/exclusive for Switch to perform so poorly. Game Freak just seem to continually make poor decisions though. For example, I see they still insist on using those ludicrously high-polly Pokémon models. Lowering detail there would surely be a good starting point in better optimisation. Of course the worst thing about the situation with Pokémon Scarlet & Violet though, is that it’s highly unlikely the games ever get improved in the future, at least not drastically, like they need to be. With them selling so many copies regardless of all the issues, there’s literally no incentive for them to do it. We unfortunately won’t be seeing improvements like this: A huge shame too, as I have no interest at all in playing Ark, but would love to play a decent version of Pokémon Scarlet.

But which would get your vote for GotY? I never got into the God of War series, only ever played one of them, on PS3 I think it was. Once I’m done with Elden Ring I might look into to getting the 2018 game though as it’s now available on PC.

Well, I finally plucked up the courage to play it. A few hours in so far and I think I’ve already died way more than I did when starting out with DSII or Bloodborne! Perhaps I just underestimated the difficulty due to so much talk of this being the easiest souls game, or I chose the wrong character type (Hero), or… (most likely) I just suck. Game is fun though, and absolutely stunning! No problems with performance on PC either, but I’m guessing it’s been patched quite a bit since launch, and I’m also using VRR which is keeping things nice and smooth. Here’s hoping I’ll be able to get through the whole game, wish me luck, N-E!

I saw that on the Steam sale and was tempted to pick it up. Just started playing Elden Ring a couple of days ago though, so now really isn’t the time for anything else!

Has it really been 10 years already!? Damn, time flies! Well, despite its issues and overall lack of software, I still enjoyed my time playing on Wii U. Nintendo created some amazing titles for it, including the best Mario Kart game in the series (SMK is still my personal fave but there’s no denying MK8 is the pinnacle) and new experiences like Splatoon and Mario Maker, proving that they could still deliver fresh ideas as well, something that I feel has been somewhat lacking on Switch. Speaking of fresh ideas, then of course there is Miiverse, which was simply magnificent. I still struggle to accept how Nintendo just abandoned it. It was such a great way to connect with the community for sharing and discovering content. I think one of the most disappointing things about the Wii U for me, remains the fact that they didn’t really push the creative capabilities of the system anywhere near as much as I was hoping for. Sure, there were elements here and there, and obviously stuff like Mario Maker, which was awesome. But I feel they could and should’ve done much more to encourage user generated content and from a much earlier point in the Wii U’s lifespan. Anyway, even though the Wii U wasn’t a mainstream success it still provided a lot of good times and obviously helped pave the way for Switch, which really perfected the concept of a hybrid game console. I’m glad to have owned one, and actually still have mine set-up for occasional local multiplayer sessions.