Currently Playing in 2019....

Lost Winds
Quite nice, this. Really nice soundtrack, looks decent (but you can't customise any graphics options - boo) and it's pretty relaxing to play as there's no challenge whatsoever, and it's very straightforward. Good though.

Letter Quest: Grimm's Journey
Again, no real challenge here (so far anyway, stage 13 or so) so it's pretty relaxing and a nice change of pace to some other games I've been playing recently. The multiple ways of playing a stage is a nice touch.

Grabbed both of these on Xbox and have been playing them:

Panzer Dragoon Orta

Been wanting to pick it up since it got BC'd on 360 but stopped when I learned it wasn't working very well, so I'm super glad to read that it works finally on Xbox One, and I have to say BC on Xbox One is fantastic. It doesn't lock me out of online service and I can easily go to Home then switch back anytime. Much better than it was on 360, I should replay KoTOR games on Xbox one soon...

Anyway, the game itself. It's really fun, but man I'm so bad at it. Managed to get to Stage 5 which meant I started out with half health and I'm struggling with it -- but it's still fun and I really hope there'll be new Panzer Dragoon game or remasters of older games coming soon


Resident Evil 7

Always wanted to play this but held off due to price+having other games to play, saw it for £17ish (Gold digital edition) in Xbox sale and grabbed it.

It looks really good, feels like quite close to classic three games although it's more scarier for me at the moment... I screamed out few times...

Seven wrote:...I really hope there'll be new Panzer Dragoon game or remasters of older games coming soon...

Re-makes of the first two will be arriving during 2019, Seven .

jawafour wrote:

Seven wrote:...I really hope there'll be new Panzer Dragoon game or remasters of older games coming soon...

Re-makes of the first two will be arriving during 2019, Seven .

Sweet. Hope they'll do Saga too as I never played that one and really want to but I'm not going to pay £300+ for a copy...

Mafro wrote:Currently playing Heaven Will Be Mine on Steam. A visual novel about lesbian space mech pilots in an alternative history post-Cold War 1980s.

I don't really play any visual novels, but that sounds really interesting. How are you finding it?

Lotus wrote:Lost Winds
Quite nice, this. Really nice soundtrack, looks decent (but you can't customise any graphics options - boo) and it's pretty relaxing to play as there's no challenge whatsoever, and it's very straightforward. Good though.

Both of them aren't that long either. The second game is a improvement, they are both well worth playing.

Lost Winds is a blast from the past! One day I'll play the sequel

Knoëleo wrote:

Mafro wrote:Currently playing Heaven Will Be Mine on Steam. A visual novel about lesbian space mech pilots in an alternative history post-Cold War 1980s.

I don't really play any visual novels, but that sounds really interesting. How are you finding it?

I'm intrigued at the space mechs and alternative history post-Cold War 1980s aspects but having looked at the Steam store page for it, it looks like it features far too much lesbian drama for my liking - I don't mean that in a homophobic way but as a straight man I just don't think I'm the target audience for it and wouldn't 'get' the characters.

Harmony of Dissonance (Castlevania). Had forgotten about it for a while so I've been playing it today. I do like it a lot despite its flaws. It's too easy and the bosses are pretty simple. Around halfway or maybe two thirds into the game and encountered a boss I just beat by standing in one spot and whipping over and over. It's not like the spot was hard to find either - it was right in front of me as I entered the boss room. But there are a lot of bosses and they are fun to wail on. And it seems like you can encounter most of them out of order, which is cool.

You get access to the alternate castle pretty early on in the game so combined with the open design you have a lot of control over what route you can take, although the two castles don't seem that different to each other. Many different ways of getting around though, which cuts out what could have been a lot of tedious backtracking.

Lots of cool if unnecessary items and abilities that make Juste even more broken than he already is.

Last time I played it I accidentally performed a glitch which teleported me to the other castle, and not even to the corresponding area (since the castles are mirrored). Went somewhere completely different. Was baffled at the time (looked online later and found it was - unsurprisingly I guess - a known bug), and a little annoyed but relieved it only took me to an area I had already been before. Didn't want to skip to a place I couldn't access normally at the time. Hadn't experienced anything quite like that before. By complete accident anyway.

Playing Infamous because I've decided to finish a load of ps3 games I never went too far in.

Decided to play good first and literally the whole time I'm thinking "I bet the gameplay would be more fun if I went evil" Good is fun enough and the evil story choices are hilariously unconvincing but it's still tempting just to have cooler powers.
Especially when you're getting dumb gooseberry fool like good morality grenades

EDIT: Also went back to The Last of Us and on top of all my old complaints about it the naff camera now also makes me motion sick!!!
I'm determined to finish it but I just can't ever convince myself to load the game over something else.

Since Sims 4 is on EA Access and all the expansions are half off, I decided to jump into it again with the Cats and Dogs expansion added. Going rather well. Yes, my first cat ran off, but it turned up quick enough. Then I adopted a stray cat, left it sleeping on a bench, then when it woke up it ran off and didn't show up for a few days, in which I'd got a lady friend now staying at the house and was well on the way to getting that relationship serious.

Once the stray returned, I encouraged it to mate with my first cat, who then proceeded to start a fight after they'd done the love-making. Immediately after. I ended the session off greeting a new kitten into the family.

Spider-Man , so bloody good. The writing is exceptional, the swinging is wonderful and I've already unlocked all towers. Playing on normal difficulty and combat is still taxing. Just a brilliant game.

Had a good hour playing Spyro earlier. Best described as lovely. So well made and shiny.

NFS Payback.

Christmas gift from the in-laws.

Played an hour or so and while it won't set the world alight it's pretty good, certainly better than the last effort. Definitely up there with the original Most Wanted.

Quakshot on Mega Drive. I’ve played just past the point where you open up the second batch of levels, I think i have to go to Egypt to open a tomb next. I’m gonna crack on with this once I get back from my parents house this afternoon.

Assassins Creed 3:

So from what I can remember I enjoyed this until randomly stopping it one day and never playing again. However upon playing the early parts a second time I'm realising just how strawberry floating long the intro is, I'm several hours into the game and realising I've probably got another hour before I even get to the playing Hide and Seek as a kid mission, no wonder people judged this one so harshly

(Also playing it after Black Flag highlights just how many control/qol/ui improvements they made in a year, it's not too hard to go back to or anything but it is really noticeable.)

Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition (PC)

Fancied playing an old school RPG. Still as marvellous as the first time I ever played it.

Over past few days I've been playing various indie games that I treated myself on Xbox.

I, Hope

It's fairly alright. The drawing scenes and the really short in-engine cutscene are really amazing but that's all I can say. The rest of game is just standard 3D platformer with, well, not really lot of platforming to have. For an amauter game it's decent, but having finished it I can't say it has left me impression where I'll remember anything from it.

Valley

Since it was £2.70ish I decided to get it. Not played much of it, but it plays ok and what I had played it seemed like fun world to get lost in, but for Christ sake why did they pick different font for main character's thoughts, to one where it's hard to read? Other sources of subtitles are fine, so its jarring to have different font that's hard to read whenever main character has something to say/thinking out loud.

Minit

As said on my Twitter:

Minit is short, but fun game -- you pick up a sword that's cursed and you only have 60 seconds before you die, sounds harsh but it saves your quest progress/items you've picked up so it never feels frustrating, it felt like more puzzler game than anything else. The artstyle happens to be of my favourites too, so I am biased in that but it really worked well for what it is. Also the extra mode added much more to the game and honestly I can't say anything without spoiling it, it's £7.99 and honestly felt it was worth every penny.

I've finished it but I definitely want to go back and give the extra mode proper go, feels it add much more to the puzzle aspect of the game.

And finally: Moonlighter. Said what I felt on twitter:

Moonlighter is what I've been playing all day today, it's like mash up of rogue like and shop management (somewhat like Recettear, except less anime and no deadline so far), you can run shop during the day then go dungeon running to get loot to sell for profit. There's rogue like element to it where if you die you'll lose all of the loot you have with you save first five, and it's been fun trying to maximize the profits so you can upgrade your shop, improve the town, and / or your gear to make progression bit easier for you. I normally don't play much of rogue likes as I have low patience for them but this I never felt like I was losing too much time and enjoyed my time with it. Worth giving it a look, it's rather high priced (£16) but it's on sale at the moment

Honestly one of my favourite indie games in 2018 alongside Minit and STAY, glad I gave them a chance.


I'll be returning to Resi 7 real soon, I'm at point where I think I'm about to fight the son of the family soon, I've done the birthday puzzle room.

It's good game but I really wish it isn't in FPS. I get it it's for VR purposes, just don't like it. Still didn't make me stop playing it though, it's good game.

I've been playing Mario oddessy on switch. I'm enjoying the mix of adding the retro looking parts of levels into the main ones, as well as the levels themselves.