Your 2016 Gaming Diary

drahkon · January 8, 2016

Completed my first game of 2016

The Talos Principle on PS4

I'm a sucker for puzzle games and this one is really good, some of the puzzles were pretty straightforward, but the further you get in the game they get a lot more convoluted. Managed to solve the majority on my own, only looking up a guide for a couple and some of the collectables.

1st Platinum of the year

I've seen you play this on my friend's list. I was sooo close to buying this as it's on sale but that would violate one of the rules I gave myself :laughing:

Will definitely get this some time this year.

Congrats, by the way : peace:

Finished Episode 2 of Tales from the Borderlands. : peace: Enjoying it a lot.

The voice acting is incredible. It's weird hearing Joe Swanson talk in this game, though :laughing: I keep having this video in my head whenever Vasquez opens his mouth:

Edited January 8, 2016 by drahkon

Hero-of-Time · January 8, 2016

Yeah, I've looked at the trophy list for Tales of the Borderlands. Seems like you just need to finish the game.

By the way...the game's awesome. Really funny Done with Episode 1, will start Ep 2 in a few minutes.

Yeah, standard for any Telltale game. All their games are great for trophy hunters.

I'm actually tempted With TFTB but I would prefer a retail copy of the game. I'm not sure if they are going to produce one though. They have for all their other games but they've been very silent on this one, which is strange as many consider it to be one of their better efforts.

Ganepark32 · January 8, 2016

Glad to see you enjoyed Life is Strange @drahkon and well done on the plat in The Talos Principle @gmac. Happy to see more people playing both of those games. Has reminded me that I need to go back and play the expansion to the latter game, Road to Gehenna, so might get on with that soon. And have my collector's edition of Life is Strange to come in a couple of weeks so that'll most likely get another play through :yay:

Anyway, I wrapped up another couple of games yesterday. First up, finished Super Exploding Zoo. A PS+ title that initially I wasn't that fussed about playing but I've been going through some smaller titles before jumping back into the likes of Fallout 4, Just Cause 3 and Mad Max and this seemed to fit the bill for what I was looking for.

And I wasn't disappointed. Love a good puzzle game and despite my initial reservations, I ended up really enjoying it. Simply collect animals and use them to get rid of the aliens that are bearing down on an egg that you have to protect. Sounds simple but gets deceptively difficult later on and involves a decent amount of forward thinking and strategy to clear some stages and what animals are better suited for using/losing to get more powerful ones.

For the most part, it strikes a good balance between being easy and difficult, albeit with one or two levels which throw that off a bit but even these are things that once you think out you'll manage to take care of with milliseconds to spare, and there's a steady stream of new creatures to make use of for clearing the stages, all of which look and sound derpy as anything.

So yeah, nice little game there and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Next up, finished up Among The Sleep. Did this more or less in one sitting as it's not the longest game, maybe 2 hours or so to clear.

You play a 2 year old child that is looking for his mother with his teddy bear. Doesn't sound like much but it's quite an interesting title and the undertones of the narrative, and the ending particularly are quite striking.

There's some simple puzzle work going on as you walk around 4 different locations trying to collect memories to find your mother. The first 2 are pretty straight forward and don't pose any threat, though you are introduced early on to a dark figure that causes the screen to go fuzzy when it screams and this thing rears its head in the 3rd location where you have to hide from it otherwise it's lights out. Considering you're playing as a child, the heightened state of fear prevalent throughout is palpable and while not a scratch on most horror titles, there's something unnerving about the whole game and it all sort of makes sense at the end and why your crib got dragged across the floor and you chucked out of it early on.

Again, another game that I wasn't sure about but ended up enjoying it.

Finally, I've put quite a bit of time into Amplitude, seen the credits and got most of it cleared on Intermediate bar a few songs left to unlock now. Really enjoyed this. Haven't played the original or Frequency but really liked how the game splits the tracks up into drums, bass, synth and vocals and you can layer the track on the go with the track you want more or less. The music is just like any other music game, so you'll get the good and the bad, but for the most part, I enjoyed all of it.

Something that I'm going to keep plugging away at, not just to unlock the final couple of songs but also to dabble in Expert and beyond.

Axiom Verge

Three Fourths Home: Extended Edition

Resogun* (Rookie complete, 3 difficulty settings to go)

Super Exploding Zoo

Among The Sleep

Amplitude

Gone back to Just Cause 3 for now and going to hopefully put the story missions on that to an end at the weekend before moving on and having a play through of Uncharted 2 Remastered and maybe God of War 3 Remastered, although I'll see about that latter one. Also tempted by SOMA as it's on sale on the PSStore, anyone given this one a shot?

drahkon · January 8, 2016

I'm actually tempted With TFTB but I would prefer a retail copy of the game. I'm not sure if they are going to produce one though.

If you have the time to play this right now, I'd say go for it. For 6.49£ you can't go wrong, and if they ever do a physical release it will be much more expensive at launch.

dazzybee · January 8, 2016

Finished Shinobi 3 3D, didn't really like it much at all really. Currently playing Thomas Was Alone, Wave Race, about to start Alien (a year later)... Started Wolfenstein on PS4 but stopped after a few hours, really wasn't enjoying it and decided that from now on, if I don't love a game, I aint playing it. Went through loads of plus games to see which ones I can delete, surprised that a lot of them were good fun... But then I looked at the games I still need to play and again, thought fuck it, Mouse Trap is a pretty good puzzler, but there is a hundred games I'd rather play. Same with most on plus. Going to be ruthless this year on games!!

Hero-of-Time · January 8, 2016

Finished Shinobi 3 3D, didn't really like it much at all really. Currently playing Thomas Was Alone, Wave Race, about to start Alien (a year later)... Started Wolfenstein on PS4 but stopped after a few hours, really wasn't enjoying it and decided that from now on, if I don't love a game, I aint playing it. Went through loads of plus games to see which ones I can delete, surprised that a lot of them were good fun... But then I looked at the games I still need to play and again, thought fuck it, Mouse Trap is a pretty good puzzler, but there is a hundred games I'd rather play. Same with most on plus. Going to be ruthless this year on games!!

That be crazy talk. Easily one of the best story driven FPS shooters so far in this generation.

I noticed you were going through your PS+ games due to the amount that appeared on the recent activity feed on the PS4. Were you just firing them up, having a 5 minute go, and then turning them off? I think there was about 5 of them that appeared in the space of half an hour.

dazzybee · January 8, 2016

That be crazy talk. Easily one of the best story driven FPS shooters so far in this generation.

I noticed you were going through your PS+ games due to the amount that appeared on the recent activity feed on the PS4. Were you just firing them up, having a 5 minute go, and then turning them off? I think there was about 5 of them that appeared in the space of half an hour.

Haha, didn't know it tracked stuff like that. Yeah I wanted to go through them, play them for a bit and see if I wanted to keep them or delete them. It turned out that I actually quite liked a lot of them - Mouse Trap, Magicka, Gauntlet, the spy one etc etc I was hoping to delete lots as I'm a bit of an organising freak (love deleting emails and texts and games and such once they're done and out of the way)... so was disappointed a lot were pretty good. But then I looked at the games I still need to play - some are really embarrassing, like Last of us, even bioshock - all three, portal 1 and 2... and I just thought, however fun these little games are, do I want to play them over all these games I've let slip over the years...

drahkon · January 8, 2016

Started to play Defense Grid 2. Bought it because it's on sale and because I haven't played a Tower Defense game since Warcraft III (or Plants VS Zombies, but Defense Grid 2 is much more similar to WCIII TD).

Played only one mission because I just ordered some Pizza and will watch a movie, but I can see myself spending quite some time with it. I love planning and figuring out the perfect tower placements.

Earning 12 trophies after that one mission was a nice bonus :laughing:

Will try to finish Tales from the Borderlands tonight.

Won't have a lot of time to play during the weekend and next week university starts again and I have to work at least three times per week so gaming time will be reduced significantly

Edit: Tales of the Borderlands has been completed. @Hero\-of\-Time do youself a favour and get this.

It's hilarous, has a great story and awesome characters. Was a hell of a ride.

Currently Playing

______________________________________

Defense Grid 2 (PS4)

Completed

______________________________________

Bastion (PS4/PSVita)

Tearaway (PSVita)

Transistor (PS4)

Life is Strange (PS4)

Ether One (PS4)

Tales from the Borderlands (PS4)

Edited January 8, 2016 by drahkon

nekunando · January 10, 2016

I was sort of expecting to be done with Mario vs Donkey Kong by now but I'm enjoying it a lot right now and instead of looking at clearing the 'Plus' world and leaving it there, I'm focusing on achieving star ratings on each level in order to unlock and beat the 'Expert' stages :grin:

One game I have beat this week, though, is Bayonetta 2 on Wii U :hehe:

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It was definitely worth playing but my enjoyment levels were probably just about where I expected. I still strongly dislike the characters :heh: 'Moon River' also kept bringing up some less than favourable emotions :blank:

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I could see myself playing through parts of it again and unlocking different costumes but, for now, the journey is over :heh:

killthenet · January 11, 2016

Received The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D for Xmas and just finished playing it. I always mentioned it as my favourite Zelda game but had not played it since it's initial release so I was keen to see if it lived up to my memories and I'm happy to say that it does. If anything it's an even better game than I remembered, the masks offer such a wide variety of gameplay mechanics that it gives the game a completely different feel to every other entry in the Zelda franchise. The dungeon design is also impeccable, each one utilising the unique abilities of each mask and Stone Tower combining all three of them in brilliant fashion. Obviously it also helps that the game is fantastically weird, with so many notable characters and sequences. Grezzo have done a wonderful job remastering the visuals while managing to keep the sense of oddness that was always so charming.

nekunando · January 14, 2016

I never expected to get into it quite so much or endeavour to fully complete every single stage, including 12 unlockable expert levels, but Mario vs Donkey Kong (3DS Ambassador) is finally complete :grin:

The picture isn't great but the gold crown above my save file says it all :heh:

As fun as it ended up being, I did find myself punching the sofa on several occasions in frustration! The controls aren't as fluid as traditional Mario platformers, presumably intentionally, but it did feel a little awkward on occasions and led to a few infuriating deaths :blank:

With Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow being a surprise early hit last year on Gamecube, this may well be the game that fits that particular bill for 2016 : peace:

drahkon · January 14, 2016

A new patch has been released for Diablo 3 :blank:

Thanks. Will play again I also have some trophies left. Need 3 or 4 more classes at level 70.

Created a Barbarian and got him to level 30 in 2 hours :laughing:

Still enjoying Defense Grid 2. Don't play that much these days, but slowly making my way through the story. : peace:

Very interested in The Banner Saga, but with Crypt of the Necrodancer out in two weeks there's no use in buying that.

Currently Playing

______________________________________

Defense Grid 2 (PS4)

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls (PS4)

Completed

______________________________________

Bastion (PS4/PSVita)

Tearaway (PSVita)

Transistor (PS4)

Life is Strange (PS4)

Ether One (PS4)

Tales from the Borderlands (PS4)

Tales · January 14, 2016

Finished the plus game Grim Fadango. Not my type of game, but I don't have much else but Battlefront to play these days and with a guide it was an easy plat. Story wasn't bad though.

Lego the Hobbit [ - platinum

Star Wars Battlefront - still playing

Grim Fandango - platinum

nekunando · January 15, 2016

It's now roughly half way through January already and I've just brought my 4th game of 2016 to a close in the form of Kirby's Adventure

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As my Miiverse post suggests, I wasn't overly fond of it and ended up just ploughing through it in the end to say that it was done. I suspect I'll be doing something similar with MadWorld very soon on Wii but it absolutely needs to get crossed of the list after years of just doing a level here and there and not being gripped enough to stick with it :blank:

As for Kirby's Adventure, it was the first time I ever played through the game. I didn't grow up with the little pink ball of joy so never had much of an attachment to the character. Kirby's Epic Yarn was so good, though, that I had to check out some of his other games. Unfortunately, I didn't have a great deal of fun playing through it and find it somewhat strange that you can hover across the top of the screen to evade large sections of platforming and enemy encounters.

Anyway, I kinda already have the rest of January mapped out with what I want to play (which should take my total for the month to 6 games :heh: ) but I've been considering so many more games that I wish to play right now that February looks pretty full too :eek:

drahkon · January 16, 2016

Finished the plus game Grim Fadango. Not my type of game, but I don't have much else but Battlefront to play these days and with a guide it was an easy plat. Story wasn't bad though.

How long does the game take with a guide and were you able to find a mostly spoiler-free one?

I don't like to play point-and-click games more than once, so I'd love to get the platinum in one go.

Tales · January 16, 2016

How long does the game take with a guide and were you able to find a mostly spoiler-free one?

I don't like to play point-and-click games more than once, so I'd love to get the platinum in one go.

Story-wise, I didn't feel the guide spoiled much. It will tell you the solution of every puzzle though. Took me 8-10 hours I think, but I didn't learn that you could run until halfway into the game.

http://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/grim-fandango/262238-grim-fandango-complete-walkthrough.html

Kagato · January 17, 2016

I started the new year how i seem to start every year now, grinding away on Final Fantasy XIV. A new relic weapon was released mid December which involves progressing through 3 very frustrating phases to complete. I also had enough of the Free Company (guild) i was in and moved to a much more social one which has aided in my progress.

I started playing another game by Square-Enix by the name of Life is Strange, its an adventure game not unlike something Telltale would release but with a slightly more grounded setting and a weird mix of the Butterfly effect and Donnie Darko thrown in. Suffice to say i was taken aback by just how great the story telling is and some of the WTF moments that i never saw coming, I am very much looking forward to seeing how the whole thing rolls out in the end.

I spent some time playing Monster Hunter Online (the chinese mmo) and it only made me wish i could play Monster Hunter 4 on the big screen all the more. I have made such little progression on the 3ds game that i have decided it is going to be the target of renewed focus, especially after hearing just how amazing Monster Hunter X has been so far.

Tamazoid · January 17, 2016

My gaming time in 2016 so far has been utterly consumed with Crusader Kings 2. It's quite scary how quickly the day disappears whilst playing it. I really need to disavow myself from open ended games like Crusader Kings, as I inevitably become hooked and pour numerous hours in with not much to show for my efforts. I guess that's an interesting aspect in regards to linear vs non-linear game experiences in terms of games without a perceived end goal.

Hero-of-Time · January 18, 2016

Finished & platinumed Hardware: Rivals (PS4) yesterday. This is a game that needed more time in the oven. The car combat idea is a great one but the matchmaking/servers need some major work. Had these been up to scratch then the game would have been a lot more fun.

I still can't bring myself to play anything big at the moment and decided to fire up Super Mario Land (3DS) yesterday, due to me reading the recent Gaf thread.

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The game is crazy short but it does leave a lasting impression. Some of the tracks are very catchy and memorable.


	Audio


	Audio


	Audio

After that, I headed straight on to Super Mario Land 2 (3DS).

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Still haven't finished it but playing this back to back just made me realise just how stale the newer 2D Mario games are in terms of their settings. Both Super Mario Land and it's sequel have some crazy worlds to play around in, as opposed to the usual Grass, Lava, Ice, Sand settings we seem to constantly get with the newer games.

Ganepark32 · January 18, 2016

Finally managed to finish up Just Cause 3 the other night. I put it that way because by the end, it was becoming a bit tedious. The same happened with the first and second ones from what I remember so it's not very surprising.

The story missions weren't up to much (at least they've been consistent with this across the games so far :heh: ) and I didn't care much for any of the characters or what was happening and the humour really hit a flat note throughout. But that's not what the game is about, it's all about the destruction but sadly, it begins to wear thin.

Loved it at the start where I could throw a single grenade and watch the whole screen light up and bring the game crawling to its knees with everything going on but towards the end, it stops being like that and it's more "Let's get this over with". At least that's how it was for me. It's a shame as, like I say, I lover the destruction in the beginning and the ways you can play with the grapple/tether for amusement but with how quickly the enemies group up and your wanted level rises towards the end, it becomes more about flying overhead and bombing from a jet and it's not quite the same.

The challenges add a little extra to the game but for some reason, the online connectivity in game is appalling and the leaderboards for those or for the feats while playing free roam wouldn't appear/work half the time so I didn't bother too much with them outside a couple of dabbles here and there.

At least the load times had improved by the time I finished it up. They're still not the best (it does seem as though Avalanche Studios have struggled with optimising their games so far this generation as Mad Max is the same, although nothing quite on the level of how long it took to load into game here just after release) but at least improved but the drops in frame rate were frequent and quite bad for me, not just with explosions going off. Hopefully they'll learn to iron out these little things in their game engines for future games because at the basis of it, there's a really good engine there and the visuals at time were stunning. The lighting in particular was amazing at times (e.g. where the sun was shining through the trees and split into shafts of light). They've really nailed those effects here (and in Mad Max).

So yeah, in the end, it was ok. It dragged towards the end which is a shame as it was something I was interested in going for the Platinum for but really can face doing it now. Still, it's finished and I enjoyed it for the most part.

Axiom Verge

Three Fourths Home: Extended Edition

Resogun* (Rookie complete, 3 difficulty settings to go)

Super Exploding Zoo

Among The Sleep

Amplitude

Just Cause 3

Next up, managed to fix the problem with Volume on the PS4 so I'm diving back into that. About half way through it so hopefully playing it on and off will finish it soon enough. Also decided to pick up SOMA so interested to give that a go and see how things are. But think I'll dive back into Fallout 4 and finish that up before the likes of The Witness and This War Is Mine are released next week.

gmac · January 18, 2016

Finished the story in Transformers Devastation last night, really enjoyed the game even with it being a bit short.

Now I've got to work on the grind that is the trophies!

drahkon · January 18, 2016

Still taking my time with Defense Grid 2 and I'm still enjoying it There are only 20 missions, but several variations on each one which keeps the game fresh.

There is one trophy which is dependant on RNG, though...hope I'll get it until I'm done with the other trophies.

For Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls I need to level up two more classes to lvl 70 and complete a lot of bounties. Crank up the music and enjoy the grind : peace:

Glen-i · January 18, 2016

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Yes, I played through Shovel Knight. Again. Why so soon?

That would be my 4th amiibo.

This amiibo was a bit controversial, because one of the things that it unlocks is a local co-op mode in the WiiU version.

You know, never mind the fact that Yacht Club were nice enough to make a completely new character with a new story for absolutely nothing along with 2 more coming sometime in the future! No! This is unacceptable! How dare they!? HOW DARE THEY!?

Oh well, I play the 3DS version anyway, so I can't even do co-op on that. That's what @Dcubed's WiiU version is for!

So apart from the "disgusting" co-op mode, what else does this amiibo provide?

Well, it gives you 5 new challenge stages (10 in the WiiU version) revolving around the new custom abilities.

Oh right, and custom abilities!

That GIF shows only a handful of the new goodies that the amiibo provide you with. Modifications to existing relics (That anchor slam), flashy new charge attacks (That horizontal air attack green does), special moves previously unavailable (Including a Kirby style sprint) over 50 different colour palettes, unnecessary gestures (Playing dead during cutscenes is funny!) and most importantly...

Flashy, acrobatic and useless visual effects!

You unlock all this neat stuff by leveling up your amiibo, treasure collected now functions as experience points, because you can't get relics by purchasing them when playing as Custom Knight. Each level you go up gets you a new colour palette and a random upgrade. By the end of this runthrough, my Custom Knight had some truly broken upgrades. And because these are saved to the amiibo, it's possible to start a new game with a fully pimped out Custom Knight, it's truly a speedrunners dream!

So yeah, I bought the amiibo because it's a cool figurine, but this is easily the best use I've seen of them. The idea of using this figure over at DCubed's house so I can quickly set the customisations I like is very cool.

So, screw the haters! This amiibo is awesome! And Shovel Knight just keeps on getting better!

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - SNES

Shovel Knight - 3DS (Custom Knight amiibo playthrough)

While visiting Miiverse to post my Shovel Knight... post, I noticed that I had a notification from the Miiverse police.

Naturally, I thought this was about my little outburst about the Final Fantasy Crystals in Super Mario RPG, that I mentioned in my previous entry here.

Turns out I was wrong. Apparently one of my Mario RPG posts was considered spoileriffic and I hadn't marked it as a spoiler.

So, what post was this?

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Dcubed · January 18, 2016

WTF!? How could THAT be considered a spoiler!? You've posted stuff way more spoilerrific than that before! :heh:

Hero-of-Time · January 19, 2016

Finished Super Mario Land 2 (3DS) last night. Nothing really to say other than I enjoyed playing through it again.

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