Happy New Year!
My winter vacations are almost over and it has been very productive couple of weeks, as far as gaming is concerned at least. Spent the days with family and personal stuff, but was free most of the nights so played for at least a few hours each night.
Finished Assassin's Creed: Rogue Remastered.
Ubisoft games are known for their bloat, but I mostly stuck to the main story and had lots of fun playing the game. Only did side stuff near me, didn't go out of my way to do anything, except maybe a handful of exception.
I liked this about the game, that it dosen't force you to do any of the side stuff. You do need to do some naval battles to upgrade your ship but other than that all side activities are optional. Maybe this has been true for previous games too, but me wanting to clear all the icons on map is what made AC: Black Flag start feeling as a chore and why I ended up dropping it. Not being forced to do everything made me enjoy the game more.
Gameplay and visuals felt pretty good. Game didn't feel dated, but since I mostly play 5-6 years old games I am not sure I am a good judge of that.
I am done with the naval part in these games though. Hope the next games in the series have significantly less of them.
Played and finished Beyond: Two Souls. Got this a long time ago as PS+ monthly game, finally got around to playing it.
Comparing it to the previous game by Quantic Dreams, Heavy Rain, the gameplay and the narrative was much better. And for a game that was originally released in 2013 (with the PS4 version releasing in 2015) the game holds up very well. The controls are very simple, you move around from left stick, interact with the world using right stick (intearctable objects have white circle above them, you just move the right stick in that direction) and all other actions are done by pressing or holding the button they are showing on screen.
Each level ends with showing the choices you made and what percentage of the people in the world who made the same choices. Game also has multiple endings but I just played it once, will probably see the other endings on YouTube.
For those who like adventure / narrative games, and haven't played Beyond: Two Souls, I'll highly recommend the game to them.
Played (and dropped) Returnal.
Gameplay wise this is probably the best game I have played lately. The movement, the controls they are all super smooth. Narrative is also pretty interesting, but I didn't reach far enough to see how it unfolds.
Took me a few tries but I reached the first boss, then died, and since it's a roguelike (or is it roguelite?) started from the beginning again. And that is the only issue I have with the game, the roguelike nature of it. Every time you die you have to start from the beginning, and you have to explore the whole map before fighting the boss, so that you can get some powerups and better weapons, you can't just directly run to the boss. After dying to the boss 2-3 times, I just gave up and dropped the game.
Finished Mutant Mudds Deluxe . I was already about 80% of the way through, so went back and finished the last few levels, which were the toughest ones yet.
As for the secret levels, or the other game in the collection Mutant Mudds Super Challenge, they were too difficult for me. Played them a bit and decided they aren't for me. Great games if you like difficult platformers.
Looking for some some short game, I started (and finished) Blue Rider. It's a top-down shmup where you can move in all directions, and no auto-moving screen. Which actually makes the game much easier, since you can get back to safety when there are too many bullets flying around. Not possible in boss fights, but there is still enough area to keep moving. I think the game is closer to twin stick shooters than usual shmups.
Game has 9 levels, and if you die you can start from any of the levels that you have reached. The most trouble I had with the level was the second last one, when you pass through any place it gets covered with lava, so you can't escape backwards and have to keep moving. Other than that the game wasn't too difficult.
What about all of you? What have you been playing and/or plan to play?