VIDEO What are you currently playing?

F-Zero GX, I have honestly never beaten this game ever since I got a Gamecube way back when...so I'm trying to change that now haha

 

Just downloaded the demos of both Gravity Rush 2 and NieR Automata on the PS4. Gonna try both of them out.

 

Good luck - you'll need it.

On other points....

So Steep was already excellent, then today I got the custom soundtrack operating via the PS4 Media Player. Took a bit of working out but once it was active....

So. Damn. Good.

Bombing down a mountain to Daft Punk's The Funk Unleashed, then Get Lucky, Foo Fighter's Walk, FF13's soundtrack of Dust to Dust was quite something. Oh yeah, not to forget Metal Meets Skyfall - going downhill to a metal reworking of the Bond theme was quite, quite epic!

 

Witcher will be a time-sink!

The biggest danger in Steep is you'll be going downhill at speed and it looks so very pretty, so you get distracted for a split-second and wham! Into a tree because the scenary was so stunning.

 

Got back to Minecraft and starting to regret it. Built a giant farm, for no apparent reason.

 

I've had a great week with Bionic Commando. Contrary to my initial reaction, the controls have become second nature to me now, and I'm also much more adept at the swinging, although I still make frequent miscalibrations of my release angle. It's the hardest part to master. I think I'm near the end of the game, and enemy encounters have become suitably harder.

 

Oh? I'll have to grab these too.

 

Ok... So I just went bombing down a mountain, wearing a Santa suit, to a metal version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen... Incredibly cool to do that on Xmas Eve.

 

I downloaded the beta version of Paldins and played a little bit today. It's certainly a rip-off of Overwatch; but you can't complain considering it's free-to-play.

 

Well, didn't get on well with either demo.

Gravity Rush was too floaty and complicated for my liking. Nier: Automata didn't too well as it's combat system is weird, never felt like I was in control of much either and it likes screwing with camera / viewpoint.

Probably work better for others.

 

Fallout 4.
Annoyingly bad companion AI and crashes.
I still like it though.

 

I actually liked that Nier: Automata game. The graphics are pretty amazing; I liked how on the fly it changed from 2D to 3D and featured all different viewpoints and angles. Certainly a different type of game. Since it's by Square Enix, I wonder if they might consider using those type of viewing angles in the Final Fantasy VII remake. That would be really amazing.

 

There were moments that Nier impressed graphically - the slag pits for instance, but little past that, it seemed quite subdued in that respect. I never really felt I had a sense of how the combat system worked. Though, I'd attribute the viewpoint angles more to Platinum Games than SE.

Then again, the big lesson from 2016 is you can have a brilliant AAA game and it still doesn't mean it'd be a good idea for me to play it.

 

The Good: Managed to unlock Peak of the Damned in Steep by hitting Level 16..

The Bad: Doing so required doing the now zero thought, crappy 'challenges' of the same game. The mountains are spectacular examples of well-thought out design. The challenges? Polar opposite! It's as if someone just crapped them out their head and went: Yeah, that'll do. I had thought the 'follow the flowers' was crap, but that paled to the 'follow the paraglider', yep, who prompty disappears from your line of sight and the game gives no distance from indicator. Any of the 'follow' missions are generally rubbish, as you will frequently have to wait for them to catch up because they're slo-ooo-oow.

Peak of the Damned does look spectaular, so outside of its Mountain Story bollocks mission, it'll be great.

Somehow doubt I'll get to unlocking the last two mountains - Matterhorn and Mont Blanc, or if I do, it'll take a long, long time.

 

still playing KOTOR 2K16

 

I got Battlefield 1,Doom(2016),Quantum Break, Batman the Telltale Series and Mad Max for Christmas.

Battlefield is fun though I'm far from the best player at it. Also played through the first episode of Batman yesterday and it was a good start to the series. I'll start the other games sometime in the New Year.

 

Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Halo 4.

Split screen co-op is severely underrated in today's console era, imo. There's something special and utterly joyful about playing a game with close friends or family on the same couch that online gaming can never replicate.

The Halo series has always captured this fun by refusing to drop split screen co-op, so when the MC Collection dropped to $30 and my brother was in town for Christmas, I couldn't resist. Needless to say, we had several hours of fun already.

 

Still playing SWTOR and Battlefront w/ the new Scarif DLC ...

 

I echo that remark on Steep. The closest I've ever been to skiing and/or snowboarding is playing SSX on the older consoles. I have the Steep demo on my PS4, but really don't find it as entertaining as SSX used to be. Probably because it tries to be too realistic. SSX was pretty straightforward with no technical gadgets to get you confused.

 

Oh I'm useless with the wingsuit - the thing's utter murder to fly, haven't worked out paragliding either and done little skiing, but have done a whole lot of boarding. Only started workjing out the tricks in the last day or so. Oh and I've never done this stuff for real either.

Hmm, that's a point ought to add you both on PSN, what's your tags?

SSX was more aimed at enabling you to do mad tricks more easily on equally mad courses but you couldn't deviate from them, here you can. I think that's what I like most, just exploring the mountains, suddenly finding a very sheer descent, having a mad few seconds where the outcome is either crash or survive spectacularly. And the graphics are fantastic - but then I'm mostly interested in going from A to B with less tricks and more speed!

 

My PSN is Jon1277. Send me a message and I'll add you, along with an invite to the JCF Community forum for Battlefront.