VIDEO What are you currently playing?

Well, even with elite mortars, Seranilla was a bastard of a fort to crack. Also took out its support ships in the fight.

Still, got the map opened up and it is quite the set up. Only have a couple of upgrades left to get and that'll be it, save for the odd drop in from time to time to blast a vessel or two.

 

With the final upgrades obtained for the Jackdaw, it's time to play something else thus:

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

Well, I really hope this improves because the first five chapters are not good.

The opening is damn good, with an amazing high speed water chase. It’s after that the wheels go off with a really crappy kiddie Nate sequence that has stealth bits. Yay.

This is followed by a prison fight where it’s hard to tell which bit is you playing and which is mandatory cutscene. The fight system is also shown to be far, far too find of QTE bollocks. There’s a good enough intro for the climbing and jump mechanics, but it’s still a bit too reliant on unclear signposting and instant death dead ends.

There’s another fight, in which despite playing on easy, Nate also gets killed in a QTE sequence no less. Easy is supposed to be, you know, easy? There’s then a chase / escape sequence that the game director thinks is a movie so its shaky camera all over the place! A static camera would have supported the game as a game.

Jump forward 15 years and Nate’s on an underwater dive that ends up being another load of QTE bollocks. There’s nothing in the whole ‘player actually doing it’ bits that wouldn’t have been better as a cutscene. Cue Nate’s normal life, with a mandatory Crash Bandicoot level that’s total arse.

Sam turns up and the story of how he gets out of prison wasn’t bad, but neither was it great.

So far, it’s only the graphics and the voice acting combined with the cutscenes that are keeping this going. Hopefully Chapter 6 improves things.

 

You should probably just save yourself some time and stop now. Sounds like you hate just about every Uncharted staple.

 

The middle of Uncharted 4 is really boring.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

 

Au contraire, Reynar - if that were so, however did I enjoy the bulk of Uncharted 2? Interesting you see certain aspects of the series as essentials whereas I'm simply not. I don't recall UC2 having anywhere near the level of QTE in its early levels as UC4 had, yet the earlier game would have had better reason to resort to them. When a series goes from PS3 to PS4 some changes should be expected - so far, it's just the grappling hook, but I expect to find more as some of the footage I've seen of the game shows far more interesting levels. The other point that will likely improve is more characters turning up, Sam doesn't really cut it but sounds like Sully's soon going to be in the story.

Funny, I've an opinion from elsewhere that says the opposite! Guess I'll find out which it is for me.

 

Bureaucrats are killing me in This is the Police.

There is this bothersome employee who filed a formal complaint against my conduct, and the bastard just won't die. An entire football stadium breaks into a riot and mass brawl, and this efficient bugger comes back from it successful, with only two supporting officers (the minimum requirement)! If I had sent anyone else, they would require at least four partners and a SWAT team. If I could just arrest the head of the mafia organisation one day later, I could have arranged for this annoying employee's untimely death, but alas, taking down the mafia means that I no longer can enjoy their services. I've replayed this week several times over, and no matter what I do, he testifies against me...

 

Well, it's a safe bet I'm not going to complete UC4, but might persist it with enough to get to Chapters 10-12, which looks to have the cool stuff - maybe at the end of the week.

 

Red Dead Redemption

I completed the main story for the very first time last week, which I loved! I'm making my way through the Undead Nightmare DLC right now, then I'm going to be getting Red Dead Redemption 2 this weekend.

 

SWTOR. I returned after a 3 year break and felt playing a Jedi Consular Shadow would get me in the mood for IX since she fights like Rey!

 

I made it through the week from hell! It turns out that you can still choose to keep the mob around even after arresting their leader. By doing that, you can still avail yourself of their services! This allowed me to kill off the backstabbers in my staff who reported me to the labour union, ahead of the date of their testimony. I don't know if it's possible to keep the mafia around without the leader indefinitely. I've never tried waiting to see what happens if I don't collect the bonus for their dismantling. Perhaps the game decides after a certain point that it's too late to tie the organisation to its leader in court, and the case falls apart. Or maybe it simply regroups under new leadership. I've replayed this week of the story probably 10-15 times trying to get it right, so I don't dare tamper with it any further. I dismantled the mafia and collected the bonus for their arrest as soon as I didn't need them anymore.

It's now day 154 in the game, out of 180 (many weeks in the game are skipped due to story events. You don't actually play all 180 days). The mafia is gone, so I don't need to be corrupt any longer, strictly speaking. The mayor still makes illegal requests of me from time to time, but as long as I am successful in keeping crime down, I can still keep him happy while refusing his requests.

That leaves my employees. I have no way of knowing their satisfaction with me without hiring a snitch, and they keep killing off my snitches, which is costing me a lot of money. Unfortunately, the game never tells you outright what pleases your staff and what angers them, so I'm having to guess. The one thing I've learned from other players online is that you should allow them days off when they ask for it. Unfortunately, being too lenient with days off teaches them to continue asking for it, and they spread the word to their coworkers, until soon enough half my staff asks me to sit the day out!

I also don't know if they are aware of my corrupt dealings or not. The game gives you the option of splitting ill-gotten gains with your staff, but I don't know if that will work against me or in my favour. In one play-through, I shared whenever I received large sums, but I still got reported. Perhaps splitting with them actually makes them aware of something they weren't aware of and makes them dislike you even more. Or maybe I should share with them even more than I already were doing... The game not giving me any hints whatsoever about how to go about it is the biggest source of frustration here. It's one thing to be stressed with the time constraints and having to manage available resources wisely. It's another to be fumbling in the dark not knowing what the game wants from me. Maybe the staff has split opinions on the matter, which makes me ****ed no matter what I do... And maybe that's precisely the point...

Being that you are more or less forced to be corrupt for the first half of the game in order to stay alive long enough to make it to the latter half (where you can dismantle the mafia), I suppose the most successful strategy is to try to please all the corrupt employees on the staff and killing off all the morally upstanding ones?

 

Decided to play something more fun so booted up Tales of Vesperia.

Way back when, this was a XBox360 exclusive in the west, Japan had a PS3 version but it was never translated. This was a shame as lots of people didn’t get to play it, when it’s the missing link between Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Xillia, with bits of each. It has the map style of the former but the enemy link encounter of the latter too.

Did the intro last night, did the rest of the intro and got out into the world tonight. Have three characters in the party, got a couple of skills learnt and encountered the weapons system, which has a lot of potential.

The remaster has made a decade old, prior generation game look as good as it can too.

Also accidentally chose the Japanese voice track on tonight’s go - it’s actually very cool, can see why it’s wanted on translated JRPGs.

 

Im in postgame, unlocked the fel weapons today and finishing up 100 man melee’s. Then ill take another crack at spiral draco. This game has been amazing. I beat the story a fee days (a week?) ago and i still just keep playing it despite a massive backlog.

 

Final Fantasy: Dissidia NT (Free Edition)
So I downloaded the free edition of Dissidia NT off of PSN last night. It has pretty much the same complicated controls that the original PSP game had with a few exceptions. The free edition grants you four random characters to choose from (changing on a weekly basis), online and offline play, tutorials, leveling, and a special "shop" to use gil earned in the battles towards in-game nik-naks like a player icon and music from the various FF games. You can buy characters in the PSN store and of course they'll be yours permanently. I mostly played the offline modes. I attempted an online match but after waiting for about 5 minutes for anyone else to join me I gave up.

 

Can someone tell me why Devil May Cry 5 is so damn good? Everyone is raving about it but each time I try the demo I have - well, I don't end thinking I must buy the game which I really should do.

I just tried the demo again, but it does an awful job of selling the game. I've downloaded the demo twice, each time I've got to the boss - no matter what I do, I lose - result? I don't want to buy the game if it's that ****in' hard.

But it's not just that - this time I tried both the Normal and Auto settings. There should be a way for me to be able to do the moves I'm doing in Auto in Normal, but the game gives me no way to work it out. Where is the launch move? Do I have it? If so, how do I use it? Zip. Even on Auto the end boss still kills Nero.

 

DMC is one of those games that you really need to unlock combos/skills for the game to feel good and have fluid combat. And then it takes a ton of practice against every enemy type to really “get” the combat.

Probably easier if you have played any of the previous 5( not sure if you have) Cant really just pick it up and combo immediately like say Bayonetta.

 

So the demo isn't necessarily that representative of the final product? OK, might play the long game then, wait for it to be cheap then buy the disc - if it is the same can always re-sell it.

 

Yeah the demo is quite frankly hella slow. Especially if your used to fast-paced nonstop combo games (again bayonetta has much faster combat).

I felt the same about DMC4 when it came out but it made me love the series once i had everything opened up and could cut loose. You can usually find videos of people playing these flawlessly without ever getting a low score or hit in a level on hell or hell mode.

Waiting on price is what i was going to do until it became free so ymmv.

 

I'll say this for DMC5 - there were times when Nero was a tear that it did look stunning! Flaming sword cutting through demonic hide, followed by shotgun to the face, all in mid-air, finished off with a missile combo.

 

Made some more progress in This is the Police. I have reached a juncture in the game where the mayor and the character with the pseudonym "Robespierre" both have plans to kill the other in a massive police assault, and of course that means they both want to involve you – the police chief – in it. You have to decide who to support. I think logically, the smartest move would have to be to support "Robespierre", as he has a mole in the mayor's office and is already aware of the plot against him, whereas the mayor is not. But from a story standpoint, I have the feeling that "Robespierre" will be worse for the city than the mayor.

 

Finished post game of Vesperia, picked Star Ocean 3 back up. Im either at or very close to the end, trying to up defense because my guys hit like trucks but go down like paper.

 

Day 178. I'm dead.

 

I was as close to the end of Star Ocean 3 as i thought.

Anyone familiar with it think the postgame is enjoyable or should i move on to:

Star Ocean 4
DMC 5
Division 2
Ff13 3

 

Still slowly slogging through Ocarina of Time and Yoshi's Island, not having a particularly great time with either.

 

How far are you in OoT? What was the last thing that happened in the story?

 

Going to go buy Sekiro later on.

On Ch5 of Xenoblade 2 with 99hrs 59 min and 51 seconds of playtime.