Currently Playing in 2019....

SWBF 2.

Its a lot of fun, such a shame EA made a hash of the initial launch.

However, those loading times.

Robbo-92 wrote:Put a couple of hours into Xenoblade this morning, finally found where I was going wrong (completely missed a dam I was meant to unblock) so I've at least advanced the story a little. Did anyone else find the battles really slow? I keep upgrading weapons, arts and the like but enemies still seem to take an age to take down unless its a 3 on 1 situation with the enemy a fair few levels below my party. Do they all just have masses of health or am I just not maximising my party's potential?

Can't remember if XC1 is the same as XC2 but if so then concentrate on arts that do Break - Topple - Launch - Smash in that order (it will need to go across multiple characters).

Gemini73 wrote:I think I've gone and got myself addicted to Conan Exiles. Put in 20 hours this weekend with the train of thought being "just ten more minutes, got to mine some more Iron ore etc." ...

I've watched a couple of vids about this and I'm getting really tempted to get it on PS4. I love the sound of the open-world gameplay although I'm a little apprehensive about the difficulty of the survival gameplay. I'm thinking about cancelling my Hyrule Warriors Definitive pre-order and getting this instead. I need to make a decision quickly, though.

jawafour wrote:

Gemini73 wrote:I think I've gone and got myself addicted to Conan Exiles. Put in 20 hours this weekend with the train of thought being "just ten more minutes, got to mine some more Iron ore etc." ...

I've watched a couple of vids about this and I'm getting really tempted to get it on PS4. I love the sound of the open-world gameplay although I'm a little apprehensive about the difficulty of the survival gameplay. I'm thinking about cancelling my Hyrule Warriors Definitive pre-order and getting this instead. I need to make a decision quickly, though.

Exiles does drop you in the deep end, but you'll quickly grasp the fundamentals. There is a constant set of goals in the top right hand corner which act like a tutorial of sorts, taking you from constructing your first weapon to building your first shelter.

There's lots of handy tips online as well which I used a lot to begin with. For example, concentrate your initial character build up on stamina, endurance and grit. Strength etc will come later.

Once you hit around level 10 look to the mountains in the north for plenty of iron ore.

Gemini73 wrote:Exiles does drop you in the deep end, but you'll quickly grasp the fundamentals. There is a constant set of goals in the top right hand corner which act like a tutorial of sorts, taking you from constructing your first weapon to building your first shelter...

Thanks for the info, Gem'. Watching a vid, I can see that there is a huge range of goals and I like the look of it. I shouldn't really buy games at the moment... but I think I'm gonna get this today!

jawafour wrote:

Gemini73 wrote:Exiles does drop you in the deep end, but you'll quickly grasp the fundamentals. There is a constant set of goals in the top right hand corner which act like a tutorial of sorts, taking you from constructing your first weapon to building your first shelter...

Thanks for the info, Gem'. Watching a vid, I can see that there is a huge range of goals and I like the look of it. I shouldn't really buy games at the moment... but I think I'm gonna get this today!

Play the single player mode to start, and lower the difficulty. Exiles doesn't need to be in an online environment to be enjoyed.

I was cautious about buying Exiles at first, but after taking the plunge I'm glad I did. It has become my "Quiet Sunday afternoon" game.

Enjoying Destiny 2. Haven't got far into the campaign yet as I'm picking up most of the adventures as I go. Can see being on this for a month at least....

Rex Kramer wrote:

Robbo-92 wrote:Put a couple of hours into Xenoblade this morning, finally found where I was going wrong (completely missed a dam I was meant to unblock) so I've at least advanced the story a little. Did anyone else find the battles really slow? I keep upgrading weapons, arts and the like but enemies still seem to take an age to take down unless its a 3 on 1 situation with the enemy a fair few levels below my party. Do they all just have masses of health or am I just not maximising my party's potential?

Can't remember if XC1 is the same as XC2 but if so then concentrate on arts that do Break - Topple - Launch - Smash in that order (it will need to go across multiple characters).

Yeah this definitely helps when I get the 4 stage combo, just not got my party set up for it yet (obviously break, then topple is easy enough), might meed to look into it some more then.

Started to play FFVII again last night. It's probably been about 15 years or more since I last played it. A bit dated looking, but it's still a very impressive achievement. Can't wait to stick more time into it.

Squinty wrote:Started to play FFVII again last night. It's probably been about 15 years or more since I last played it. A bit dated looking, but it's still a very impressive achievement. Can't wait to stick more time into it.

Whatcha playing it on?

I went through it on PSP which works really nicely for the pre-rendered backgrounds at native res, sadly they don't fare as well on modern displays. On PC you can mitigate it somewhat with a CRT filter via Sweetfx, though it'll take some tweaking and it's not to everyone's taste.

Also who you going to date at the Golden Saucer

Jazzem wrote:

Squinty wrote:Started to play FFVII again last night. It's probably been about 15 years or more since I last played it. A bit dated looking, but it's still a very impressive achievement. Can't wait to stick more time into it.

Whatcha playing it on?

I went through it on PSP which works really nicely for the pre-rendered backgrounds at native res, sadly they don't fare as well on modern displays. On PC you can mitigate it somewhat with a CRT filter via Sweetfx, though it'll take some tweaking and it's not to everyone's taste.

Also who you going to date at the Golden Saucer

Playing the Steam version. It's not ideal, but the polygon models still look nice enough.

Barret probably. I vaguely remember that being hilarious.

Jazzem wrote:

Squinty wrote:Started to play FFVII again last night. It's probably been about 15 years or more since I last played it. A bit dated looking, but it's still a very impressive achievement. Can't wait to stick more time into it.

Whatcha playing it on?

I went through it on PSP which works really nicely for the pre-rendered backgrounds at native res, sadly they don't fare as well on modern displays. On PC you can mitigate it somewhat with a CRT filter via Sweetfx, though it'll take some tweaking and it's not to everyone's taste.

Also who you going to date at the Golden Saucer

Playing the Steam version. It's not ideal, but the polygon models still look nice enough.

Barret probably. I vaguely remember that being hilarious.

I’m back playing Fifa again, I’m in league 3 in FUT so trying to get into the top division for the first time, I also got a Coca Cola kit free with a multipack of cans which I really like

SWBF 2. Online MP and I've started the campaign.

Putting aside the fiasco surrounding SWBF 2 I think it's a really good game with bags of fun to be had.

But now I've just read that EA are about to abandon it altogether.

Horizon Zero Dawn - PS4

Finally getting round to this and i'm impressed so far, despite the sometimes wonky dialogue. I think i'm about to finish the starting area and set off into the wide world and I'm interested to see where things go as its certainly a unique premise.

I was listening to a podcast earlier which talked about a new tier of game, the quadruple-a; something which is either so momumental that release schedules are moved to make way for it or every second you look at the screen you cannot help but see the hundreds of millions of development budget being shoved in your face, and this is absolutely one of those games. Even on the base ps4 and a 1080p tv its a real looker.

Trelliz wrote:Horizon Zero Dawn - PS4

Finally getting round to this and i'm impressed so far, despite the sometimes wonky dialogue. I think i'm about to finish the starting area and set off into the wide world and I'm interested to see where things go as its certainly a unique premise.

I was listening to a podcast earlier which talked about a new tier of game, the quadruple-a; something which is either so momumental that release schedules are moved to make way for it or every second you look at the screen you cannot help but see the hundreds of millions of development budget being shoved in your face, and this is absolutely one of those games. Even on the base ps4 and a 1080p tv its a real looker.

The problem I had with HZD was that it failed to keep up the momentum of the impressive opening. I managed to get about half way through before becoming bored and abandoning it. You might feel differently of course.

Gemini73 wrote:

Trelliz wrote:Horizon Zero Dawn - PS4

Finally getting round to this and i'm impressed so far, despite the sometimes wonky dialogue. I think i'm about to finish the starting area and set off into the wide world and I'm interested to see where things go as its certainly a unique premise.

I was listening to a podcast earlier which talked about a new tier of game, the quadruple-a; something which is either so momumental that release schedules are moved to make way for it or every second you look at the screen you cannot help but see the hundreds of millions of development budget being shoved in your face, and this is absolutely one of those games. Even on the base ps4 and a 1080p tv its a real looker.

The problem I had with HZD was that it failed to keep up the momentum of the impressive opening. I managed to get about half way through before becoming bored and abandoning it. You might feel differently of course.

I've come back to it after a bit of a break.

Enjoying it now I'm sticking to the main missions, the only part that I found tedious was the City of the Sun and Erand, I got a bit fed up of following him and carrying out investigations.

Agree with the dialogue, there's so much of it and so many characters that some of it just comes across as rushed, same with the less important character's facial animations, I guess this is just a symptom of being an open world game.

Despite this, it's one of the few open world games that has a story interesting enough to keep me gripped, I've been wondering how the world got in this state ever since the first trailer.

GRID 2
I'm enjoying this, but one thing that's annoying - and that I don't remember being an issue in GRID - is AI cars being like tanks when you touch them, i.e. not moving at all, but them giving you the slightest nudge sends you spinning out of control. Pretty annoying to have your race constantly scuppered by overly-aggressive AI ramming you at every opportunity and having little to no chance of doing the same to them.

Xenoblade Chronicles
Damn, this never ends. Nah, I'm still enjoying it, 92 hours in, but strawberry floating hell, there's just no end in sight. Will sink a few more hours in this weekend.

Mega Man 2
After cruising through the regular stages I'm now at Dr. Wily's castle and it's starting to get tricky. Should polish this off this weekend though.

Super Mario Bros 2
Struggling to keep going with this as I just don't find it enjoyable, but I want to see what else the game has to offer as I'm only in world 2. The game seems to take one idea though and really go to town on it, regardless of whether it's fun or not (eg. burrowing through sand and dodging Shy Guys in the process). Just annoying really, but didn't stop them basing a whole level around it.

Lotus wrote:Super Mario Bros 2
Struggling to keep going with this as I just don't find it enjoyable, but I want to see what else the game has to offer as I'm only in world 2. The game seems to take one idea though and really go to town on it, regardless of whether it's fun or not (eg. burrowing through sand and dodging Shy Guys in the process). Just annoying really, but didn't stop them basing a whole level around it.

My preferred character in SMB2 is usually Toad thanks to his (surprising) strength in picking things up quickly, helps the pacing of levels like that sand burrowing one

Jazzem wrote:

Lotus wrote:Super Mario Bros 2
Struggling to keep going with this as I just don't find it enjoyable, but I want to see what else the game has to offer as I'm only in world 2. The game seems to take one idea though and really go to town on it, regardless of whether it's fun or not (eg. burrowing through sand and dodging Shy Guys in the process). Just annoying really, but didn't stop them basing a whole level around it.

My preferred character in SMB2 is usually Toad thanks to his (surprising) strength in picking things up quickly, helps the pacing of levels like that sand burrowing one

Okay, I'm tending to favour Peach at the moment, but will give Toad a try. Ta for that.