It's that time of the month again! This (last month, I tried to write this yesterday but helping my mom with her car troubles got in the way) was a weird month for PS+. For one thing, #DRIVECLUB wasn't free, just like how it wasn't free at the launch of the PS4 last year. At least then they replaced it with something else (even if Contrast ended up being a bad game). And then there's the line up of games that actually were free. On the one hand, it has some pretty incredible games. Assuming you hadn't already played them. Batman Arkham Asylum, Dust: An Elysian Tail, and Spelunky are all fantastic games...that I've played before. At least in the case of Dust and Spelunky they were PS4 versions of games I already owned, so it made a fair amount of sense to download those. Especially with Spelunky, which I had not "beaten" until I got the PS4 version (and even then, I've only beaten Olmec, as I detailed in a previous blog).
The port of Dust seems good (gonna replay all of it at some point), and Spelunky brought in my save from the PS3 version...somehow. I checked, and I had cloud saves turned off on the PS3 version, so I don't really know HOW it did it. Maybe that stuff is saved in the servers? I would say that maybe it checks Trophies, but it had my stats and journal. It had, on record, the number of times I had died (over 400 at the time of this writing), and my settings for controls and stuff. Which was great, because it just took that stuff and worked. But I don't know how it did it, and it befuddles me. Oh well. Either way, those are two fantastic games that you absolutely should play if you haven't.
And now back to The Regularly Scheduled PS+ Catch Up Feature, where I discuss games I had not previously played!
The Regularly Scheduled PS+ Catch Up Feature.
Pix the Cat.
Pix the Cat is that weird sort of game that you never heard of before playing it, but then turns out to actually be pretty good. It's also really weird, in a "we couldn't really think of logical reasons for anything in this game, so we just arbitrarily chose things and made the game," kind of way. Why else would a cat be playing a video game about a cat that collects duck eggs (which instantly hatch and start following the cat) but also has to avoid floating skulls and spiky things? That's not a bad thing, but it does seem so random that it's a tad off putting.
But, the game itself is fun, which is what's important. The goal is to navigate around rooms, collect all the eggs, and drop them off in little egg drop off points (with there being one per egg). And, if you want to get your combo up (which you do), you want to try to collect all of the eggs before dropping any of them off, which is often quite challenging. There's a time limit to see far deep you can get, new levels, modes, and voice overs to unlock, stuff like that. It's fun, but kind of a "I'm just gonna play this a bit and then not play it for a long time" kind of game. But it's good.
However, this is not the last time I'll mention it in this blog, SO STAY TUNED!
Judgment: Good and fun. Will dabble with in the future.
Dungeons and Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara.
So, this is a bit of an odd one. I vaguely remembered watching footage of this once on Giant Bomb, but I didn't really remember what kind of game it was. Which is why I got really surprised when I saw an Iron Galaxy logo when I started up the game. Turns out it's a port of an old arcade game. Actually, ports of two old arcade games, both D&D related. Both also olde style beat'em'ups, which, okay, I need to have a quick little aside. I really like D&D. Over the last year, I played a bunch of it (ie, two quests that took forever because we didn't play super regularly, but I was the dungeon master for the second one), and I love it. I don't think these two games are a good use of the D&D license.
See, the appeal of D&D is that there's far, FAR fewer restraints on what you can do compared to what you can do in a video game. Want to try to reason with the kobolds? Sure! Want to steal their kobold blood, use it to poison the town well, and then "accidentally" burn down the local tavern? Why not?! The appeal is that it's so open ended that you're pretty much just limited by your imagination. Granted, there's still rules, you still have to roll to see if you succeed, and you need the DM's approval, but it's still vastly open ended.
So a game where all you do is run to the right and smack things with a sword seems like a poor use of the license. I mean, yes, there are different characters, that probably play differently, but when I played it (all in one sitting whilst listening to a Bombcast), I just stuck to one character and mashed my way through. Granted, I died dozens of times, but I didn't really care about playing well. I just wanted to be able to have things to say about it.
That's a lie, I did enjoy it, for what it was. So far as old beat'em'ups go, it was pretty good, really. I only played through one of the two games in there (though I did play the first level of the other one), but it was enjoyable for what it was. There are little special moves that can be done by doing things like quarter circle forward and attack, and there are items and things. But for the most part, it's just running to the right and mashing. Which is fine. It's fine!
Judgment: It's fine, but still a poor use of the D&D license overall.
Rainbow Moon.
This game is impressive. Why? Because it's the fastest yet I've gone from, "let me check this out," to "nope," and I deleted it. About five minutes. Now, I know, not really a fair shake, so I went and re-watched the Quick Look for the game, which confirmed what I vaguely remembered, and what I felt from playing the first few minutes. It's a strategy RPG rife with microtransactions and a poor art style. So I didn't feel bad about stopping playing. And I'm not gonna write anything else about it.
Judgment: Not going to play it ever again.
Sharing with Share Play.
So, if you don't keep up with PS4 firmware news, then you might not be aware of what Share Play is. It's one of several new things added to the PS4 firmware (the other notable ones being new themes (including PINK, which, in the course of this year I have gone from disliking (mainly due to avoiding "girly things" when I was in the closet), to liking ironically, to legitimately liking), direct upload to YouTube, changes to the interface that don't really help, and a bunch of bugs) in a recent update. But what is Share Play? It's a thing that lets you Share footage of a game with someone else, LIVE, and over the internet. Sound boring? What if I said you could also let the person you're Sharing it with PLAY the game that's running on your PS4? What if I then said it allows you BOTH to play, and thus play local multiplayer only games ONLINE? HM?!
On paper, it's super cool. In practice? Well, I spent some time messing around with Share Play with my internet friend Jay (@smashecontrollers here on Giant Bomb). And we had mixed results. As you might expect, this is a feature that your enjoyment of will depend largely on the speed of your internet connection. My internet is pretty decent, and does what I need it to do most of the time, Jay has much faster internet. I could get faster internet, but when my dad is the one paying the bills, it's hard to justify, you know?
Anyway, we tested it with both me Sharing and Jay being the Share-y, and with Jay Sharing and me being the Share-y. When I was Sharing, Jay said he noticed very little lag, and most games were completely playable (Injustice being the one he thought suffered the most, which makes sense). We played a variety of stuff, like Sportsfriends, Towerfall, Spelunky, and some other stuff. All playable to him.
But when I was on the receiving end? VERY laggy. And blurry (which is probably the same regardless, given that it's not streaming at full resolution). Kinda unfortunate that it was as laggy as it was given that my internet is fine for doing things like playing games online with people. Or maybe I just have a lower tolerance for lag than Jay does, I dunno. I really doubt that's the case, given that I'm a Console Scrub Lord that has put up with bad frame rates in a lot of games over the years (like Skyrim and Far Cry 3 on PS3). I don't really have any way to actually get hands on with trying this with better internet, because I'm not going all the way to Jay's house (especially when I don't know where he lives beyond what state), and I don't know anyone locally with a PS4 and better internet than me. I'm also not THAT interested in finding out, to be honest.
The weirdest thing about Share Play is that not all games work with it. Apparently Sony said that they should, but that's not the case. Take Pix the Cat. When we tried to play that, I got a message that said there was a region something or other that meant I couldn't see it. Which is absurd, given that Jay and I live in the same region. Hell, we're only one state apart! I can understand if this was a US to Europe thing, but this was just absurd! And I don't see any reason at all as to why Pix the Cat would be the one that wouldn't work with it. Just strange.
So that's that. It's a cool feature. I might use it in the future, if I want to do something like play a local game with a friend online. Like Sportsfriends. I'd like to play more of Super Pole Riders. I love riding those poles.
You know, I wasn't going to comment how I had to upload my own screenshot of Pix the Cat because there weren't any on GB, but now I can't get any decent SportsFriends ones from GB either! What's up with that?! And I don't think I can get into Sportsfriends without it being two player, and I don't feel like turning on a second controller for that (especially when I forgot Rest Mode still bugs out half the time and have to manually shut down my PS4 now by holding the power button).
Instead here's a doggie. It's timely for Halloween.
The Final(?) Destiny Check In!!!
I finally did it. I finally managed to get through the Vault of Glass. We cheesed the first boss (which my other group beat proper like on my first attempt), but beat the second boss properly (given that it was patched to remove cheesing). And what were my rewards?
The shader. A stupid shader that I would never use because I don't like the look of it compared to my pink one (because pink is rad). No gear, no guns. The only gear-ish thing I got was a stupid glowing arm band that I already had from my previous attempt at the Vault of Glass. Well, not counting a few greens and a blue I got as drops along the way. And more Ascendant shards/energy that could be used for upgrading stuff (assuming I had things I needed to upgrade and also the dozens of Relic Iron/Helium/Spinmetal). But that was too much for me. I couldn't take it.
So I'm done. I'm not playing this game any more.
Probably.
See, the part where you shoot stuff is still pretty fun, especially with friends. But I'm done with seeking out things in this game. I'm done with trying to get to level 30, I'm done with obsessing over Strange Coins so I can buy another stupid thing from Xur when he shows up on Fridays. I'm not going to say that I've never going to play the game again. If a friend wants to goof around for a while whilst shooting stuff in the game, I'm gonna do it. But beyond that? Nah. I'm done.
The news of the Expansion could have swayed me in the opposite direction, but instead it only cemented my feelings on it. What does your $20 get you? Three new story missions, two new strikes (one of which is PlayStation exclusive, which means it's probably bad like the other PlayStation exclusive strike), one new raid, and some new weapons and gear that can get you to the new level cap...of 32.
That's not $20 worth of content. $10? Sure. $15? Stretching it, but I might still think about it. But $20? No way, Bungie. It's become apparent at this point that Bungie doesn't understand how much content a game like this needs, and they're more interested in making money. Which, I mean, yes, I know that's how the system works. They are in it to make money, but this is too far.
It was fun for a while, but it's time to move on.
In Other News.
So, I have also played Bayonetta 2 to completion. But, I don't feel like writing about that right now. I'm already putting this blog up a day later than I really wanted to (not that it matters much), and I'd like to replay Bayonetta 1 again to better compare the two first. So, all I'll say is that Bayonetta 2 is fantastic, and that it's a game that everyone with a Wii U should buy, and everything that likes Platinum style action games should buy. Even if you don't have a Wii U, I strongly suggest you take a long, hard look at the Wii U's library and consider getting one. It really is a super great game, and deserves as much support as it can get. If Bayonetta 3 doesn't happen because of the poor performance of this game, I'll be very sad.
As is usual, there's not much going on in my life outside of video games that is worth writing about here. After getting all gung ho about getting back to work on my (third) novel, I fell back off it again. I'll finish it eventually, because Dave Lang once told me (and a Twitter friend who was also in the tweet) to never quit until it's done, so I'm not going to quit until it's done. It's just taking me a lot longer than it should. But one of these days I'll get back in the novel writing groove and I'll get some serious progress done.
And video games! The heavy fall season of game releases is finally upon us! Next week I'm likely being peer pressured into buying Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare by my internet friends, then I think Assassin's Creed Unity is out the week after, and Far Cry 4 might be out the week after that. Along with GTA V on PS4, which I might also be peer pressured into buying. And LittleBigPlanet 3. And Dragon Age Inquisition, which I had been thinking about buying, but might not if I'm getting other stuff like GTA V (which I'm not committing to yet, as much as I loved that game on PS3). Then Super Smash Bros. For Wii U is out on the 21st. And that Mario Kart 8 DLC! I'll have to get that too, so I can play as Link.
November is going to be a busy month. There's also a part of me that is feeling the, "I should get an Xbox One while they're on sale," pressure reeeeeaaaaaaaalllllllyyyyyy hard. It's hard to justify for two, maybe three games though. The "two" being D4 and Sunset Overdrive, the maybe third being Forza Horizon 2. $350 for the Sunset Bundle (which comes with a white console that I would regret for years to come as it clashes with my other stuff), plus $15 for D4, plus $60 for Forza comes out to $425 without tax. I could get all of the non-Xbox One games I mentioned above (and the MK8 DLC) for $432 (also without tax). I can't justify doing all of that (over $850) this holiday season without getting a job and paying for it myself, and if I could, I'd be smarter to putting that toward finally getting a decent gaming PC.
But enough about my financial woes, and trying to use logic to stop myself from buying a console I don't need. I think this blog is a tad shorter than what I've been doing lately, but it's long enough. I'll be back some time in the near future with more blogs about more games!
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