Game Diary
Little snippety hot-takes on the games I’ve been playing
GreedFall
I hadn’t really been kindled by the central conceits of GreedFall – I think it came out while I was deep in Days Gone or Red Dead Redemption 2 Online at the time and by those standards it looked low budget and a bit too much like 3rd person Europa Universalis or something – yeah nah said I and I let it through to the keeper.
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
It’s very tempting to start any review of an Ubisoft game with ‘here we go again’ and while that may sound like a terrible slur, the Canadian game giant does rather ask for it. Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla looks like it uses exactly the same engine as all the Assassin’s Creed games since maybe Unity, and at this point I have to say the engine is starting to look distinctly Last-Gen.
Hades
So about 6 or 7 hours in I noticed that Hades was playing subtle tricks on me. In most games like this, heck in most games, dying is a failure to be regretted and that the game will most likely punish you for. In Hades I’d come to realise that I was totally OK with it
Spiritfarer
Spiritfarer as a game is a perfect antidote to much of the chaos and swearing and panic of many of the other games I’ve played in 2020.
Desperados III
Desperados 3 is a hard game. It’s a hard game on the Playstation 4 even though the control scheme is innovative and clever. It’s a hard game on its own merits and it keeps kicking my butt.
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
I had very little time to get excited about playing Fall Guys. I’d seen it foreshadowed on Twitter and tried like every other human on earth to get Steam or PS4 keys but even though they resorted to a live stream with new keys being random key numbers every 12 seconds.
The Ghost of Tsushima
Ghost of Tsushima is not a particularly innovative game – it’s fairly standard open-world adventure fare with enemy camps, side quests, skill trees and so on – but there are a couple of little things that distinguish it from what might otherwise have just been Assassin’s Creed Samurai.
A Plague Tale: Innocence
Asobo’s “A Plague Tale: Innocence” is a better game than it’s awkward klunky title might suggest.
The Last of Us Remastered
I worked out that I started playing The Last Of Us around July 2013 on my newly acquired PS3. I finally watched the credits roll for the first time yesterday on my PS4pro – nearly 7 years and nearly 3 consoles later.
A Short Hike
I had plopped “A Short Hike” on my “must keep an eye out for” list since it got some surprisingly glowing and misty-eyed reviews and crept into the “most overlooked games of 2019” type lists of some fairly austere organs.
The Shadow of the Tomb Raider
A month or so ago I took advantage of a JB HiFi offer to pick up Shadow of the Tomb Raider for the princely sum of AU$9. I also paid an additional AU$9 to add the “definitive edition” content pack which was basically a bunch of DLC “challenge tombs”.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
I enjoyed the build up the March 2020 release of Animal Crossing – not especially from my own expectations as I’d not played any of this game’s predecessors, but I very much enjoyed the bright optimism and indeed hope that was placed in the latest incarnation of the tamagotchi.
Control – Game Diary
Control: Game DiaryControl - PS4 - Game Diary Firstly Control has boss sound - not a game to be played with crappy tinny tiny headphones - if you can risk the wrath of thy neighbour go the full subwoofer - you won't regret it. Aternatively a really good...
Death Stranding
A Death Stranding Game Diary – follow the Mash Mash impressions as we make our way across a ravaged US – much like we did in Overland…
Ghost Recon Breakpoint – Game Diary
It was interesting to gauge where the critical consensus was at the release of this game – there was a fair amount of “Oh my god – Micro-transactions!”, and there was a fair amount of “eee gads – the jank!”
Overland – Game Diary
Overland is a great little game that sits where XCOM meet Hitman Go and Kentucky Route Zero runs into Death Road To Canada.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
It’s about time my Switch got some love and that love is coming in the form of a very loving recreation of the 1993 Game Boy classic The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.
Red Dead Redemption 2 Online
I’ve found myself back in the Red Dead Redemption 2 Online loop a bit since the Frontier Pursuits update – its given me something to do as a soloist which I’ve appreciated.
The Swords of Ditto – Mormo’s Curse
I am aware that having put so much time into Days Gone, all that gritty realism left me wanting something lighter in both tone and pallet. Where this left me was at the start of Swords of Ditto
Remnant From The Ashes
Remnant from the Ashes is a great game – its fast, its very easy to understand what you’re doing and how to do it better, its a collection of nicely executed ideas presented simply.