Your 2025 Gaming Diary

[nekunando]

59 minutes ago, Nolan said:

 

Portal?! 

Yes, Portal.

I only bought it because it was under £4 in a sale and while my eyes and my gut already told me I wouldn't like it, I bought it because then at least I would know for sure at that price.

And now I know.

You and everyone else in the world are free to enjoy it. I'll be absolutely fine never touching it again!

[Hero-of-Time]

With Expedition 33 finished, I was free to get through a few other games.

Trophies we're finally patched into this and so I fired it up. I'm sure I played the 360 version of the game, back during my achievement hunting days. 

The game is your standard licensed game and nothing to spectacular. The main reason I wanted to play this was so I could finally achieve this.

It's so hard to be the first to earn a platinum trophy these days. Reviewers and streamers get games a lot earlier and so the general public are always behind. With this getting trophies patched in, it meant everyone was on a level playing field and so I went for it.

When it's a double platinum most play the PS5 version and so I opted for the PS4 game and it was the correct choice. This is something I achieved on the 360 with one of the WWE games and it's been a long time coming doing it on a PlayStation platform. It's finally off my gaming bucket list.

This was leaving PS+ (didn't even know it was on) and so I decided to play it before it left. I read it was a much shorter Lego game than the standard ones and I was happy to find this was the case.

Despite loving the first Lego Movie, I never got around to seeing the second and so I have no idea how closely the game follows it. The game is broken up into various hub worlds and it's here you have missions to get through. Like the Lego Horizon game, it was great to not have to worry about mini kits or red bricks and just concentrate of the worlds. There are still things to collect but not nearly as many as something from the recent games.

Amazon were selling this for a tenner and so I picked it up. Still not worth it.

In this collection you only get 3 games, which is ridiculous when you consider the amount of software Sunsoft created back in the day. Two of the games are stinkers but the third (Wing of Madoola) is actually pretty decent. It's a bit of a Zelda II clone and it's even tougher than that. Thankfully, save states and rewind functions made things a little easier. Overall though it's a very poor selection of games and just a shoddy collection in general.

Another game from PS+ and one from I series I love. This one is considered the black sheep of the franchise and I can see why. 

You spend the majority of the game as Clank and this means the platforming does feel as good as it usually does. There have always been Clank sections in the R&C games but they were more like mini games. Ratchet is far more agile and so Clank feels a little slow and stiff in comparison. Ratchet does appear in the game but these appearances are limited to arena type challenges.

The narrative is pretty good though, with Clank playing a James Bond type character and having various gadgets to use. This leads to lots of mini game sections, some of which are stupidly hard. The rhythm ones especially can be pretty brutal at times. Other mini games, such as the races, go on for far too long though.

It's the only R&C game I never played but now that is no longer the case and I'm all caught up.

It was time to tackle another one of my pledge games. This one was quite special as the platinum was 12 years in the making. I first played this and unlocked a couple trophies back in 2013 on the Vita amd then never played it again. Fast forward to this month and the game is finally done. I played it on the PS4 but the trophy list is shared between that, the Vita and the PS3.

The game is scrolling beat em up, a bit like Final Fight, Streets of Rage or Knights of the Round. What makes this different is that it's also an RPG.

You pick a class of character from such ones as Dwarf, Knight, Archer, Wizard etc. I went with the Knight as it seemd like an all rounder class. You then play through stages to level up. The way this is done is not by getting exp by killing enemies but rather the gold you collect and the score you achieve at the end of each stage. This is a nice twist and encourages high scores, much like you would if playing an arcade game.

The levels are pretty neat as well. There are 9 stages to play through but each has a second path that you can choose to follow. This path is harder and has a different boss fight but rewards the player with a special orb. Collect all 9 of these and you can challenge the final boss. Once this done the game unlocks a higher difficulty. To get the platinum I had to work my way through each of the difficulties. This required a lot of levelling so I could take on these difficulties.

The game can be played in single player but it also has online co-op. I was very surprised to see the game still had people playing after all these years, especially when Dragon Quest Heroes 2 had zero people on it when I was playing through that last month. It made the level grinding a lot more fun when playing with others.

If you don't want to play online you can hire help in the game. When playing through the stages you will come across piles of bones. These can be resurrected and then hired to give you a hand. This is a pretty cool mechanic and these piles of bones level up with you. If playing online, there's a chance these bones are from other players who have died and often they were a way higher level than me, which came in very handy.

With it being a Vanillaware game it's an absolute looker.

 

Given the games co-op nature, I'm very surprised it never got a Switch port. Baffling.

Anyway, fantastic game and one that I'm happy to have finally played and cross off my pledge list.

Loved this! I can't remember how I came across this indie game but it's been on my wishlist for a while and I finally picked it up while it was on sale for 6 quid.

You play as Pepper and use a drill to make your way through each of the stages. The game relies a lot on the momentum of the drill. Speed up at just the right moment as you exit the ground and you will fly father through the air. It all starts off fairly simple but eventually the game introduces things like hooks to latch into, drill guns to use and giant mechs to pilot. This progession feels very natural and the game does a good job of easing you into each of these mechanics.

In each of the stages there are 5 skull medals to find. Some of these require a good use of these skills and some are also well hidden.

There are also time trials to tackle. These took some doing and a lot of the times are very tight. I usually really dislike time trials and speed runs but the levels are snappy enough so that failing and retrying isn't a chore.

This is another indie gem and well recommended by me. I think it's on every platform. Check it out.

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Hero-of-Time

[Nolan]

4 hours ago, nekunando said:

Yes, Portal.

I only bought it because it was under £4 in a sale and while my eyes and my gut already told me I wouldn't like it, I bought it because then at least I would know for sure at that price.

And now I know.

You and everyone else in the world are free to enjoy it. I'll be absolutely fine never touching it again!

I’m sure you’ve already gone into detail so obviously no worries if you don’t wish to again, but may I ask why it didn’t click with you? Like just not your style of puzzle or writing?

[Hero-of-Time]

1 minute ago, Nolan said:

I’m sure you’ve already gone into detail so obviously no worries if you don’t wish to again, but may I ask why it didn’t click with you? 

Probably because it's not Wave Race.

[Happenstance]

I gave up trying to understand Nando’s taste in games years ago.

[nekunando]

3 hours ago, Nolan said:

I’m sure you’ve already gone into detail so obviously no worries if you don’t wish to again, but may I ask why it didn’t click with you? Like just not your style of puzzle or writing?

All the detail you need is that I felt absolutely no joy during my brief time with it and feel absolutely zero desire to go near it again.

I never liked it aesthetically and it actually made me feel a little sick when playing, which obviously didn't help.

You're probably right with it being not my style of puzzles. I honestly could not be bothered.

2 hours ago, Happenstance said:

I gave up trying to understand Nando’s taste in games years ago.

You and me both!