Your 2016 Gaming Diary

Ganepark32 · February 5, 2016

Sat down and finished up The Witness yesterday afternoon and collected the Platinum while I was at it! :bouncy: :yay: Only the second platinum that I've got but probably the only one I've had to work hard to get (the one for Life is Strange was straight forward).

Really enjoyed working towards it and getting it, definitely felt like I'd achieved something there as towards the end, the puzzles come thick and fast and are really hard to solve. I thought the whole panel thing would get boring quickly but the variety and nuisances that are brought in really do keep it fresh with some clever ideas and ensure that it is soberingly difficult at times. And love how everything around you is there for a reason. The lake at the village especially was a really nice touch with what it does.

And just generally, despite all the puzzles that needed doing, the whole thing felt very relaxing. If you're struggling with a puzzle, go off and have a wander as it's a beautiful game to look at. Stick on some music (Explosions in the Sky, Tycho, Christopher Willits or something along those lines was what I went for) and you're good to go.

I've still got plenty to do from the sounds of it. Roughly 40 odd puzzles left and a whole load of environmental puzzles to complete. I'll probably tackle these at a later date, especially the latter of these as there are some that I can see but haven't quite found the right spot to get them from.

Really good game though and well worth the price of admission if you ask me.

Will probably take a break before I come back to finish the remaining puzzles because every time I look at the tiles in the kitchen or bathroom at home, all I can see are more of those panel puzzles so think I'm all puzzles out for now

Completed

January

Axiom Verge (Started Dec. 2015)

Three Fourths Home: Extended Edition

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

Super Exploding Zoo

Among The Sleep

Amplitude

Just Cause 3 (Started Dec. 2015)

Fallout 4 (Started Nov. 2015)

Flower

February

The Witness (Platinum get)

As for what's next, I've started on Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition so that's where I'll be spending my free time on now. Did give both Helldivers and Nom Nom Galaxy a go as they're free this month on PS+ but not really feeling either at the moment so don't know if I'll go back to them yet or not. May just opt to go between Tomb Raider and SOMA.

gmac · February 5, 2016

It's such a great game. Despite being a title, it still feels like an old school shooter. There's something very raw about the whole experience. Definitely one of the best shooters in recent years.

Are you going to pick up Old Blood?

It did feel more like an old school shooter, even with the limited cover mechanics they had in place.

Think I will be picking up the Old Blood as can get it quite cheaply at the moment, but going to play Life is Strange and maybe some more backlog first

drahkon · February 7, 2016

Made a tiny bit of progress with Divinity: Original Sin. Finished the optional tutorial dungeon. Took me 45 minutes, even though its pretty straight forward with only two fights...

Tactician Mode requires a lot of thought. I love it

Started This War of Mine: The Little Ones. You can read my first impressions/experiences in the dedicated thread. I'll start this up again once I'm done with this post. : peace:

And finally...Crypt of the Necrodancer. Jesus Christ this game is difficult :laughing:

It took me about 10 hours to finish the first three zones. One zone left...

But...

Let me give a quick rundown about how the game modes work:

You can do each zone by itself. I.e. complete Zone 1 and the run is over. This is how you unlock the other zones. You can buy items/upgrades which are then available in shops/chests during your single zone runs.

Then there is All Zones Mode, which is self-explanatory. However, you start with all upgrades/items unlocked (you can find everything from the get go) but you only have 3 hearts at the start.

As far as I know there are currently 10 characters in the game. I have unlocked 4 or 5.

So, beating All Zones Mode with each character is something I will try to do.

Aaaaaand (yes, I'm not done ) there is an All Characters Mode. Yup, basically All Zones Mode with every Character without dying at anytime...

Gonna be fun

Currently Playing

____________________________________

Crypt of the Necrodancer (PS4/PSVita) long-term playthrough

Divinity: Original Sin (PS4)

This War of Mine: The Little Ones (PS4)

Completed

____________________________________

January

________________________________________________

Bastion (PS4/PSVita)

Tearaway (PSVita)

Transistor (PS4)

Life is Strange (PS4)

Ether One (PS4)

Tales from the Borderlands (PS4)

Defense Grid 2 (PS4)

Grimd Fandango Remastered (PS4)

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls (PS4)

Rogue Legacy (PSVita) "last-trophy-run"

Dust: An Elysian Tale (PS4)

February

________________________________________________

The Wolf Among Us (PS4)

Put on hold

____________________________________

GTA: Vice City (PS4)

Hero-of-Time · February 8, 2016

I played and finished Donkey Kong Country (Wii U VC) last week.

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I started Digmion Cyber Sleuth (PS4) late last week. Absolutely loving it and given the reception on Gaf and Gamefaqs, many others are too.

There's 20 chapters to the story and i've sunk 23 hours into the game and i'm only on chapter 8!

The digivolving is like crack. I've been trying to nab all the Digimon I remember from my youth. I've managed to get WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon on my team ( need to progress further to get Omnimon), Angemon and Angewomon soon followed. I then went and nabbed me a Veemon.

The digivoling is great. You can digivolve them to one of a few forms that are on offer. Don't like what you've picked? No problem. You can just De-digivolve to your previous form and pick another path. This is also a great way to enhance the stats of your Digimon.

Like the cartoon, you can acquire digi-eggs to help evolve into other forms and there's also DNA Digivolving available to those who correctly level up and train the correct pair of Digimon.

I have to say, I've probably had more fun on this so far than i've had playing any of the recent Pokemon games. It's one of those games where you are sat at work thinking about it and can't wait to get back in the house and play on it.

@Emerald Emblem I've seen you've been playing it quite a bit as well. You enjoy it as much as I am?

Tales · February 8, 2016

Finished and platinumed Rogue Galaxy. 37 hours to beat the game, 20 hours for post game stuff and misc trophies, and 10 hours of mind numbing grinding to reach lv 99. Aside from that last trophy the game was awesome, one of the finest rpgs on PS2. I recommend it if you like lengthy anime jrpgs like Tales of Symphonia and Dragon Quest 8. Similar combat to the former and same developer as the latter. You have to love hallways though, because they just won't end :p

Next up I will attempt to finish and plat GTA San Andreas and finish Flower. Then find something else to play while I wait for Far Cry Primal. Maybe get Gravity Rush.

Lego the Hobbit - platinum

Star Wars Battlefront - still playing

Grim Fandango - platinum

Rogue Galaxy - platinum

Emerald Emblem · February 8, 2016

@Emerald Emblem I've seen you've been playing it quite a bit as well. You enjoy it as much as I am?

You bet I am, I haven't played a Digimon game since 2007 and to my pleasant surprise it's virtually the same systems I loved so much back then in this new one.

Hard difficulty for the most part has been fairly straight forward but the boss battles against Jimiken have proved to be by far the most difficult. I've had to stay in the dungeon for the second battle to train my team up.

Hero-of-Time · February 8, 2016

Hard difficulty for the most part has been fairly straight forward but the boss battles against Jimiken have proved to be by far the most difficult. I've had to stay in the dungeon for the second battle to train my team up.

Yeah, the boss battles can be a little tricky. It's crazy because the normal enemy encounters are usually just rookie types and then all of a sudden you are thrown against champion versions.

Glen-i · February 8, 2016

I'm disappointed in you, @Hero\-of\-Time.

You start making puns on each boss, but stop at the fourth one?

You know what you lack? Commitment!

Anyway, I played a game, you may have heard of it?

It's Metroid Prime: Pointy edition!

OK, fine. It's Metroid Prime in the Metroid Prime Trilogy collection on the Wii.

Metroid Prime Trilogy originally came out 2009 on the Wii.

It features all 3 Metroid Prime games enhanced with the Wii controls that featured in the third game.

The later 2 are for the future though, let's focus on Metroid Prime.

Metroid Prime originally came out in 2003 for the Gamecube. It was a very radical departure for the Metroid series. Mainly because of one aspect, see if you can notice it. It's quite subtle...

If you guessed the first person perspective. Well done. That's a keen eye you have there.

Now, I mentioned this back when I talked about Sin & Punishment: Successor of the Skies last year. I generally hate shooters. None more so then those of the first-person variety.

The idea of using two sticks to aim and move is nothing but frustration.

And yet, I like Metroid Prime. Weird, huh? But is it?

What makes Metroid Prime so different to the traditional FPS? So different that it gets me interested?

Well, the main reason I would use is that Metroid Prime really isn't a shooter.

Not at it's core, anyway.

Yes, you do shoot stuff, yes, there's a degree of aiming involved.

But there's one big difference that changes everything. The lock-on system.

You can use this to focus the viewpoint on an enemy meaning you don't really need to aim at all, you'll probably hit your mark.

Instead, the skill comes in knowing what weapon to use and evading enemy fire rather than hitting your target. And that's the biggest reason why I like this game.

Of course, it's not the only reason. Plenty of Metroid's mechanics work it's way into this well. The suit upgrades, the copious amounts of optional secrets to find, stuff like that.

But one thing that feels very different to the 2D games is controlling Samus herself. Whereas Samus is well known for being fast and athletic, in Prime, she moves really slowly.

It's not a bad thing, it works well for the type of the game Prime is. You wouldn't want Samus performing millions of flips every time she jumps, you'd get sick!

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Wii controls, which fit this game like a glove, you point the Wii Remote to aim, and that alone makes it superior to the Gamecube version. Everything about it feels so natural.

There's also other things like flicking the Wii Remote to jump while in Morph Ball, meaning you don't have to wait for bombs to explode every time you want to jump. It helps make everything flow much more smoothly.

Add to that the fact that I was playing the WiiU download version, which dramatically cuts loading times, and you've got the definitive version of Metroid Prime. Also, the Trilogy is great value for money! Considering that it's actually quite expensive to get a physical copy.

Anyway, on to the story. Yeah, Metroid is not a story-driven series (Mostly). So why am I bothering to talk about this?

Well, I think Metroid Prime (In fact, all 3 of the trilogy) does a great job of adding backstory to what is currently happening.

The actual story takes place after the first Metroid game, the Space Pirates are on the run after Samus destroyed Mother Brain, Ridley and Kraid on Planet Zebes.

Samus manages to track them to a frigate orbiting a planet called Tallon IV.

Inside, she kills everything, per usual, and can't help but blow the frigate up.

During a remarkably early exciting escape sequence, she notices a familiar face.

Now hang on, isn't Ridley dead? This makes little sense. So naturally, Samus pursues this Ridley to the actual Tallon IV, but loses track of him.

So her job is to find this Ridley and blow him up, maybe the planet too while she's at it.

So far, so Metroid. And it pretty much stays like this if you just don't care about optional stuff. Where this game manages to inject some uniqueness is with scanning.

Samus is able to scan things in this game. Generally you use this to activate mechanisms and find out enemy weaknesses.

But now and again you can scan things that actually provide some backstory to where you are.

The most prevalent example are the Chozo Lores. Scanning these gives you some insight into what actually happened here before Samus arrived.

Reading these will quickly tell you that there's something far bigger buried in this planet. It gives the story of what happened to the Chozo (You know, the bird race that raised Samus and made her Power Suit) that lived there and their inevitable demise when a Meteor struck.

There's also the Space Pirate Logs, which chronicle the more recent point of view of the Space Pirates. From just before the arrival of Samus, to the present. These in particular are note-worthy because it actually provides a little comic relief, especially when you read about what they're trying to do to stop you from ruining everything again.

It gets even better when they try to reverse-engineer her Power Suit technology...

Aran's Power Suit technology remains a mystery, especially the curious Morph Ball function. All attempts at duplicating it have ended in disaster: four test subjects were horribly broken and twisted when they engaged our Morph Ball prototypes. Science Team wisely decided to move on afterward.

This is a great way of adding some story to Metroid without getting in the player's way. It's there if you want to find out about it, but you don't have to.

Anyway, visuals next. This is one great looking game. Seriously, it's truly impressive how good this game looks.

But one thing I'm not a big fan of are the actual enemy designs.

Apart from a few exceptions, mostly bosses, the enemy design in this game is pretty forgettable. Especially the Space Pirates themselves. They're too dull. I could describe to you how Space Pirates look in Super Metroid, but ask me about the Prime Pirates and I'd be stuck.

It's not a big thing, but it always stands out to me just how little they stand out.

Another aspect I'm not a big fan of is the soundtrack. It does the atmospheric sections just fine, but the actual melodic tracks are a bit boring by themselves.

The only really memorable song is Magmoor Caverns, which is a remix of a song from Super Metroid, which just proves my point really.

Oh, also, the Ridley remix in this sucks, it's easily the worst version (And it gets reused in Corruption...). The fight itself is great though!

So that about wraps Prime up. It holds up well, and the brilliant Wii controls and the almost non-existent loading times the WiiU download version provides means there's never been a better time to put yourself in Samus' boots!

And with that...

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - SNES

Shovel Knight - 3DS (Custom Knight amiibo playthrough)

Game & Watch Gallery 2 - GB

Radiohammer - 3DS

Ace Attorney Investigations: Prosecutor's Path - DS

Shovel Knight - WiiU (Co-op run with @Dcubed)

Puzzle and Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition - 3DS (Crazy Diamond Wall 2nd Playthrough Difficulty)

Metroid Prime - Wii

nekunando · February 8, 2016

February has been the month of the Dreamcast as I'm in the middle of Skies of Arcadia and playing through Power Stone with every character, though I'm not particularly good at it :blank:

I have, however, cleared my first game of the month in the form of Space Channel 5 :hehe:

I certainly wouldn't say it is my favourite rhythm game of all time, largely due to the fact that having to remember long combinations of button presses isn't really my strong point, but it was still fun! I was very tense towards the end as there were plenty of times were one or two mistakes would have meant having to repeat the entire stage again but I managed it at the third attempt :heh:

At the very least, I'm aiming to have Skies of Arcadia and Power Stone finished by the time Twilight Princess HD arrives at the start of March, if not something else as well..

Hero-of-Time · February 8, 2016

Power Stone & Skies of Arcadia are both absolute classics. You should easily finish Power Stone before March. It's pretty short compared to the superior sequel.

nekunando · February 8, 2016

Power Stone & Skies of Arcadia are both absolute classics. You should easily finish Power Stone before March. It's pretty short compared to the superior sequel.

I've done it with 6 characters so far but I really am terrible at it! I'm playing on the easiest difficulty and still losing regularly :red:

I tried to get into MSR at the weekend too but I just don't really like it very much :hmm:

gmac · February 8, 2016

Well finished Life is Strange over the weekend, really liked the experience, went back and forth over my decisions a few times

I did manage to save Kate, I think it's as long as you stood up for her with David and saw the letter from her father in her room then you can get the dialogue options to save her

I knew Chloe was going to be in a wheelchair as soon as the door opened. I too made the choice to end her suffering, that episode was just so sad overall

I also saw the twist with Mr Jefferson coming as soon as he was behaving weird at the party

I ended up saving Chloe over the town, as I thought she deserved to live

I really liked the concept and loved the music, a lot of it took me back to my younger days

Platinum

The Talos Principle

Wolfenstein: The New Order

Life is Strange

Completed

Transformers: Devastation

Hero-of-Time · February 8, 2016

Well finished Life is Strange over the weekend, really liked the experience, went back and forth over my decisions a few times

I did manage to save Kate, I think it's as long as you stood up for her with David and saw the letter from her father in her room then you can get the dialogue options to save her

I knew Chloe was going to be in a wheelchair as soon as the door opened. I too made the choice to end her suffering, that episode was just so sad overall

I also saw the twist with Mr Jefferson coming as soon as he was behaving weird at the party

I ended up saving Chloe over the town, as I thought she deserved to live

I really liked the concept and loved the music, a lot of it took me back to my younger days

Platinum

The Talos Principle

Wolfenstein: The New Order

Life is Strange

Completed

Transformers: Devastation

Glad to see you enjoyed it. I seen you playing it on your PS4 the other night and was looking forward to your post in here.

gmac · February 9, 2016

now I just need to decide what to play next, still got Fallout 4, MGS V, Witcher 3 and Xenoblade in various states of completion from last year.

May pick up Firewatch for a more relaxing experience

Emerald Emblem · February 9, 2016

Yeah, the boss battles can be a little tricky. It's crazy because the normal enemy encounters are usually just rookie types and then all of a sudden you are thrown against champion versions.

My god this second fight is brutal, I thought maybe if I focus one down I could make the fight easier. But then Jamiken pulls this BS move of buffing the second one repeatedly, he was one shoting all my Digimon. Looks like I'm going to have to go Ultimate v Ultimate for this one.

Hero-of-Time · February 10, 2016

My god this second fight is brutal, I thought maybe if I focus one down I could make the fight easier. But then Jamiken pulls this BS move of buffing the second one repeatedly, he was one shoting all my Digimon. Looks like I'm going to have to go Ultimate v Ultimate for this one.

I'm pretty much steamrolling everything now. I spent a lot of time leveling up these 3 Digimon.

DIGIMON%20STORY%20CYBER%20SLEUTH_20160207204018_zpsasukt9sd.jpg

These give out an exp boost if used in battle. You then give each of them 3 Tactician USBs to hold, which increases their exp output. Having 3 of these Digimon then stacks the exp dished out. In one fight I can go from level 1 to around the mid 40s.

My team are all level 99 now.

DIGIMON%20STORY%20CYBER%20SLEUTH_20160210054758_zpstpjrejpg.jpg

DIGIMON%20STORY%20CYBER%20SLEUTH_20160210054749_zpscpzkcv5b.jpg

I spent a bit of time last night to trying get Lucemon's stats just right so that I digivolve it. It took some doing but I finally pulled it off. I just need to level it up now.

DIGIMON%20STORY%20CYBER%20SLEUTH_20160210054820_zpsbomnvli1.jpg

killthenet · February 11, 2016

I've been playing through Super Mario 3D World again on my Wii U, I never collected all of the stars, so I've been doing that. Cat Bowser might be legitimately the greatest thing Nintendo has ever done.

Hero-of-Time · February 11, 2016

I've been playing through Super Mario 3D World again on my Wii U, I never collected all of the stars, so I've been doing that. Cat Bowser might be legitimately the greatest thing Nintendo has ever done.

Ive recently been tempted to play this again. Saying that, i've actually thought about going through all my Wii U games again, especially as this may be its final year.

drahkon · February 11, 2016

Saying that, i've actually thought about going through all my Wii U games again, especially as this may be its final year.

I thought about doing that, as well.

I'll do it.

Aaaaand done.

:p

Hero-of-Time · February 11, 2016

I thought about doing that, as well.

I'll do it.

Aaaaand done.

:p

nekunando · February 11, 2016

After all the recent talk in the NX thread about Wave Race, I decided to treat myself by revisiting Blue Storm today :grin:

A few races turned into me going through the entire game again which, admittedly, didn't take long :heh:

Wave Race: Blue Storm is one of my all time favourites and I just find it so unbelievably satisfying to play. It looks and feels amazing with the features of the Gamecube controller put to good use. You can really feel the waves as you battle against them and those shoulder buttons are perfect for cornering :hehe:

It's definitely time for Wave Race NX, Nintendo..

gmac · February 11, 2016

So I decided to pick up Firewatch on launch day on PS4 despite the warnings of technical issues.

It's a stunningly beautiful game, the atmosphere it has is brilliant.

Yes it is a bit short (I completed it within 3 hours) but I could see myself playing through it again as I really enjoyed the story

I did have some tech issues - semi regular frame drops and 1 crash, but nothing that really took me out of the experience.

I'd say it's definitely a game worth picking up if you like story driven games.

100%/Platinum

The Talos Principle

Wolfenstein: The New Order

Life is Strange

Firewatch

Completed

Transformers: Devastation

**Retro_Link** · February 12, 2016

So I was really in the mood to download Firewatch yesterday, but when I look at my backlog of games on the PS4 I came to the conclusion that I should probably tackle one of those first.

The game I chose was Ether One.

I chose this because it sounded like a cool experience, and because I was under the impression it was quite a short experience at that...

Damn was I wrong!

8-9hours of play yesterday and I've probably seen about half of what there is to see, if that, plus if I go for trophies and the platinum as I intended there's a lot more to it.

The dilemma I have however is I'm not sure how much I'm enjoying it.

The environment is pretty fun to explore. It's a story driven puzzle game as it turns out, however... maybe I'm just not paying enough attention [i don't really feel I could give the game much more] but the story is kind of all over the place and obvious themes aside, I don't really have any idea what's going on with the voices I hear and characters that are mentioned.

The story driven puzzles lead from one to the next with you having to store objects that you'll use later to solve another. However, some are extremely vague. Solving a time travelling puzzle in the mine stumped me for a good hour, and for the very last part I had left to solve (which was actually the middle part of the puzzle) I even had to take to the internet to clue myself in on what I was meant to be doing; something I don't like to do, and don't feel you should have to. Even then I somewhat stumbled upon the answer by trial and error.

I got to the end of my play session last night and thought, ok so it's been... different... but actually how much am I enjoying myself?

I find it very hard to find time for gaming at the moment and as such I want to be having satisfying experiences when I do. The flipside of this is that I am somewhat of a completions. In the past I wouldn't even buy a game until I was done with one, and I'd try and 100% it at that. As much as I feel compelled to finish games, maybe there are just those you should move on from.

Ironically Ether One is probably a lot like Firewatch, which made me think whilst playing, hmm I don't want this to take anything away from how much I enjoy Firewatch. It already has to an extent in that I wouldn't want to play Firewatch next.

Basically it raised two points with me yesterday...

1) Maybe don't always feel compelled to see a game through to completion. Yes I paid for Ether One, but quite frankly it's more important to always enjoy your time.

2) You should probably always play the game that you have a desire to play there and then, despite other games you've built up.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Retro_Link

Hero-of-Time · February 12, 2016

@Retro_Link gaming is a hobby and like any hobby it is supposed to give you enjoyment. It doesn't matter if you finish the game or not, especially if you feel you've gotten the most out of it. Just play whatever takes your fancy at the time.

For instance, I was listening to the PSO soundtrack at work today. This got me in the mood to play it, so once I got home I setup my GameCube and played Phantasy Star Online for an hour. Now, I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole and sink hundreds of hours into it again but at the time I just wanted to experience the game, even for a short time.

I will say that playing it brought back some great memories of me and my friends having weekly gaming nights on a Friday and sitting playing 4 player splitscreen on the game. The chase whenever a little red box on the screen appeared was hilarious and amazing. Ah, happy days. Gaming will never be like that for me again. Stupid adult life!

drahkon · February 13, 2016

I have just finished a 9 1/2 hours session of Call of Duty: Black Ops III with a mate. So many laughs have been had :laughing: Thank god for voice chat :bowdown:

I'm tired as fuck now and my brain has started to melt. Good night :zzz:

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