Topic: What PS3 game(s) are you currently playing?

I should add something about a weird double feel that Papers Please gave me. It was that cheeky chancer. Every time he tipped up with no documents, blatantly forged (in crayon) documents and outdated documents, he really wound me up. Every second I take dealing with him is $5 less toward my family's subsistence.

At one point, I even tried to have him detained so he wouldn't bother me again. Also I would have got a $5 bribe from my colleague who gets paid a bonus for every person I detain, presumably hazard pay for the trauma from executing innocents. I felt bad but I needed that dollar. (Un?)fortunately, the game wouldn't let me detain him because I had no good reason to do anything other than reject his entry.

Eventually he did turn up with both the correct and legitimate documents and I let him through. A sigh of relief, the next day he wouldn't be back and my precious time wouldn't be wasted. He was so happy to be granted entry, he gave me a cheap worthless token as a sign of thanks. It was a souvenir from his country. Boy, did I feel bad for the way I had treated him and thought about him. But it also gave me a brief sense of abandonless optimism and happiness for the chappy. Until I abandoned it and got back to work.

Yeah, just thought I'd share because it was a powerful process of emotion that the game put me through. I found it interesting!

@ralphdibny Just to add some validation to what @RogerRoger says, I’ve been following your posts and your entertaining review code. 😄

Papers, please was one of the few games you’ve been trying out that I’ve actually played. I can say there is definitely a depressing mood to the whole thing, but I remember it to be an good experience. I agree that mouse and keyboard might be easier, as the latter stages can get pretty hard while trying to click around the screen under a timeline. It’s a game that I don’t know if I’ll ever play again, but I’m glad to have experienced it.

The game does make you ask yourself difficult questions and challenges your moral code, which I appreciate, although only have the mental energy to do every once and a while.

By the way, the token is important in that it’s tied to game trophies, I believe.

@RogerRoger yeah I suppose your right! It's weird, especially in the case of VVVVVV which was made buy a person who preferred the smaller scale of indie development and Papers, Please which was made by somebody who left naughty dog after Uncharted 2 and went indie after that; well I hope, even if it's not financially viable, that the quality of these games and the fact that people such as myself are still discovering them years later really vindicates their approach to game development.

I think "subtle gut punches" sums it up perfectly. I am actually really glad that I couldn't "complete" the game in the short time I have because it would have thrown up the question of whether I should buy it or not. As it stands, I can buy it and take my time with it. I think "winning" in dystopian fiction is usually a complete breakdown of the status quo with a hopeful ambiguity to the ending, but yeah, would be interesting to see if Papers, Please features such an ending! Somehow I doubt it 😅

Would the PS Plus sync? Wouldn't it just stack on top so your renewal date would be 12 months from your current renewal date anyway? Probs worth doing it anyway, especially as you have a PS5. I just find it too stressful, I know it's only £30 but I still like to get my money's worth. I think I need to generally care less 😅.

Don't worry about paying scalpers prices for Truck Racer on eBay, it will probably still be up for pre-order at Amazon 😂

@Th3solution ahh cheers!!! Yeah I did unlock a trophy for getting the token! I wonder if the positive trophy "bing" sound had any impact on my brief elation.

I think that's exactly it regarding the moral code, how under pressure you can treat people like garbage because of how it affects your own bottom line. I sort of had an incline that the "right" thing to do would be to not grass up the insurgent to the feds but I really felt compelled to keep my head down and do the state approved "right" thing just so I could keep my family safe and fed.

Obviously I ended up with a bullet in my head for being a government lapdog! Never again!

Just wanted to pipe up and say I've been enjoying these mini reviews off you too @ralphdibny! I haven't had the time to properly look over the stuff in the review thread but these have been a fun little treat to read amidst work... Keep it up!

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy haha aww thank you! Means a lot! I wish I could keep up with the reviews thread and also the screenshots thread but it's just so much content that it's overwhelming! That being said, I did read @RogerRoger 's review of Star Trek Invasion and would like to see more Trek game reviews!

@RogerRoger I had to reread that bit about a misbehaved canine before it registered that you meant naughty dog. For a second I thought the person was involved in some scandal with a dog 😅

It's kind of weird you know, indie games are sooo popular. I think it's why I find them difficult to get into because there is such a plethora of them. When people work out what their favourites are, they become very passionate about them and you hear recommendations fly left, right and centre for hundreds of games that don't really stand out apart from their reputation.

It's possibly similar with AAA games, I think both the blockbusters and the Indies can come across as generic in their abundance. The lines between them are massively blurred these days too, you get top tier indie games that look like they've had hundreds of people working on them and also a triple A franchise that a big studio has assigned a team of ten to knock out a quick installment of.

There may be more but I think the best truly indie games I have played are VVVVVV, Torquel, The Bridge and King Oddball all discovered through PS Plus. I'd give them scores of 9/10, 8, 8/9 and 8 respectively. I know it's a bit arbitrary to assign numbers to them but those are my scores. I think V and King Oddball get such high scores because I'm a big fan of their music. I'd give Golf Peaks a 9/10 too but I played that one on Switch.

I think the next tier down for me with scores of around 5-8 would be stuff like Zombie Driver, Divekick, possibly Q*Bert Rebooted (again great soundtrack and an addictive game), What Remains of Edith Finch, Anna, Eat Them! - it's hard to tell if some of those are even "indie". Eat them! Is a first party game, Qbert is a storied franchise...well sort of lol. But yeah, all PS Plus games there too.

4 more reviews of PS Plus games on the Vita. Apologies, I don't think these will be entertaining as I don't have a lot to say about them. Let's see how my stream of thought decides to write them!

Gunhouse - a touch screen game that's kind of in a tower defense style. Admittedly, I don't have a huge amount of experience in the genre barring brief forays into Metal Gear Survive and Star Fox Guard so I can't say how much of it fits the description. You basically play as a house and you do sliding puzzles to get guns to put on your house which then get used to attack a wave of enemies in the next phase of gameplay. It's ok, I didn't play much of it because it's not really my bag. The graphics are cool, somewhere between Cuphead and Metal Slug. Rating = M for maybe, just maybe

Furmins - I played through all of this because for some reason I thought it was a Sony published game. I actually don't think it is but it is more or less a Vita exclusive apart from an iOS version (I use android) so I'm glad I played it anyway. This game is developed by Housemarque who have recently made Returnal for PS5

The game is OK, it's hard to describe, somewhere between Lemmings and Angry Birds with a bit of Bridge Constructor thrown in. You move a few gimmicks around a stage in order to get the "furmins" into a basket being held up by an owl. I guess it's a nest or something. Furmins are fairly similar to furbees.

I've just looked up Housemarque and interestingly they actually developed or worked on "Angry Birds Trilogy". They also made Alienation, which was a PS Plus game and I thought it was complete ass. Just a generic isomeric shooter.

You can get 3 stars per level, awarded for getting all furmins into the basket (compulsory), doing the level within the par time and also for collecting all the candy with the furmins on the way to the basket.

So there's two stages to a level, the arrange stage where you move selected gimmicks around such as bouncy boards, melting ice blocks, metal balls etc. and the play stage where you set off the level. The furmins start falling and if your gimmicks are well placed then they will end up where they need to go. You also have some control over spring pads and the direction of conveyor belts in this phase by touching the screen so it's not entirely passive.

I mean yeah, I've basically just described the game. It's OK, I probably won't go back to it. I managed to do all of the levels including the bonus worlds which I think were a separate download. You have to use the stars to unlock the next world and in the bonus worlds you use them to unlock individual levels. Some levels I only got 1 star, some I got all 3 and on some I got 2. I had just about enough stars from my playthrough to unlock all of the levels without repeating any for more stars. Rating = WCO for worth checking out but the replay value didn't really appeal to me.

Wanted Corp. - Speaking of generic isometric shooters... oh my days, this was tedious. Long and slowly voiced cutscenes for a story I couldn't give a monkeys about. You play as two characters, one has guns and one has lightning powers. You are bounty hunters or something sent to clear up a planet where a prison space bus has crashed. The only redeeming thing about this game is that one of the bounties is called Monkey Grunk which gave me my signature huff of incredibly mild amusement.

But yeah, this reminded me of Alienation. Totally lame. I think there's only 13 missions so I was really really tempted to just finish it but when I failed Mission 2, I was blessed by the mental ability to bin it off completely. Oh and I was forced to sit through a painfully slow tutorial as well as cut scenes. Well not forced but it was strongly recommended by the game that I do it. The game broke at the start of mission 1 as well and I almost binned it off then until it started working for no real reason at all. Confusing controls which sometimes didn't work. No visual indication of when, how or whether you can use different weapons. That's even with the tutorial. Rating = TL for totally lame.

Level 22: Gary's Misadventures - confusingly just called Level 22 on the Vita home screen. This game is actually pretty good. It's a stealth game where you play as a hungover guy who is late for work the day after his birthday who has to sneak in without any of his colleagues noticing. It's pretty charming. The animation is something like a pixelated Rick and Morty and it has funny dialogue. I quite liked the music, it's a catchy tune with a small element of "g-funk" riffs thrown into it (think snoop Dogg but way more chipper and quirky).

There are 20 levels spread over 4 worlds including 4 boss fights. I say worlds but they are just different floors of this guy's workplace. There's two collectibles in each of the non-boss levels, a "secret" which is a safe where you have to use clues found around the level to work out the combination and there are also dolls to collect which are based on pop culture characters. The only one I can really think of right now is "Solid Smack" which gave me a laugh.

Some of the gimmicks are a bit hard to work out at first. You can hide in filing cabinets and car boots (trunks for our American friends). You can distract guards with donuts that you can also poison with laxatives or radioactive waste. You can hit people over the head with books and hide from lower level enemies with a newspaper or a cardboard box. You start each level with no items though so you have to find those things around the floor if you want/have to use them. I guess in that sense, there is a bit of a puzzle element to it as you kind of have to work out what to use and where to use it.

I played through it all, I didn't find every doll or safe but I feel like they would be quite hard to do. I won't buy this game but maybe I will return to 100% it if/when I renew my sub. Rating = D for decent!

My sub runs out tonight. I think there is only one Sony published game exclusive to these two consoles that I haven't played which is Invizimals: The Lost Kingdom. I am going to run through my spreadsheet in a minute though and see if any other games are either Sony or generation exclusive. They are all fairly long (8-10 hours) so I suspect I will only have time for one more game, if that.

@RogerRoger haha not at all, it made perfect sense but I was just being thick about it.

I think I'm the same way though. I feel like all the unbridled passion for Indies makes them even more generic. It's just like a wall of praise that's impenetrable. But I have found a few that I like and a few more that I've stuck out to the end. I have just got to be picky, I already spend most of my free time playing games, I can't just check out every pixel graphic, chiptune, rogue-lite, tower defense, platformer/survival game that people recommend. I know I am being ridiculous in my genre description of a typical indie game lol but still.

Cheers for reading again! It is a house with guns to be fair but yeah 😂. You might like Wanted Corp to be honest, I just have to be harsh sometimes so I can move on to a different game. I'm sure if I had loads of time to burn then I might have got into it more. Just seemed a bit generic and also obtuse for such a simple concept. Level 22 unfortunately doesn't have a wiki entry so I can't see what platforms it's been released but it seems like it's on all the major gaming platforms. I haven't seen anything about a smartphone release but it looks like it could work because you can use the touch screen to control it. I just used buttons though!

@RogerRoger it's funny you mention Undertale. I've obviously not played it but it is on my radar from game club but it's a game I get consistently mixed up with two other Indies Hollow Knight and Downwell. God knows why. But that's kind of my point, is that they look so similar that individual games don't often stick out. I know I shouldn't judge a book by it's cover though! I think I can be a bit frightened by having a less than fervent opinion sometimes! I normally just eject myself from such conversations so as not to dampen the excitement for others or to not attract the wrath of the maniacally passionate 😅.

I've just cross referenced my list with other platforms and most of them are available on steam or other platforms so I am not too fussed about them. Invizimals is available for £4 at CEX and I can't see myself wanting to buy that anyway.

So I've got 2 games to look into tonight, possibly 3. Monster Jam Battlegrounds doesn't appear to be available anywhere else. Should be a quick one to check out. Spelunker HD appears to be a PS3 exclusive. I will play those tonight. If I get time then I will play/try Element4l on Vita, it's available on steam but not sure if it's a touch screen game so might be better on Vita.

The only other outlier is Space Hulk on Vita which is an adaptation of the Warhammer tabletop game or something. That was a weird one because it got removed from my download list so it's the only game I had to transfer from PS3 (that file is now gone as it's a one way ticket). I honestly can't see myself enjoying it though and I can't buy it anyway so it's something that can wait until my next sub.

Actually the sub has gone prematurely so I won't be trying out any more games. All done then! Guess I can start working on some more modern games now lol.

I still have some housekeeping to do in terms of buying games that I wanted but yeah, I'm pretty happy with what I managed to achieve there.

This should probably go in the PS Plus Thread but yeah:

The top two pages are predominantly PS3 and PS Vita games.

Green is finished - whether it's played and I don't want to buy it or not played but I've bought it or got it for free somewhere else.

Orange is to buy - not bought yet basically.

And Pink means that it's either on game pass or claimed through games with gold i.e. there's a time limit on playing it but on a different sub

Also I wrote some notes on the PS3/Vita section today to tell me where else the games may be available, for reference

Edit 1: Ummmm, that's weird my PS3 just let me open a PS Plus game but a bunch of them wouldn't work 🤔...must investigate further....

Edit 2: looks like it might be a bit of a headache. The games I can open are still available in the store to buy. I'll probably buy the ones I wanted just in case this extended access is just a glitch or something

Edit 3: I've got Anna (7.99), Eat Them! (3.29) and Tokyo Jungle (9.99) in my basket. Also the DLC for Tokyo Jungle. I thought that was going to be pricey because there are 19 "add ons" but there is a bundle that includes the lot for £3.29. but yeah, it looks like that's all I wanted in terms of ps plus games that I haven't been able to buy so far, not bad really, not too expensive in the end...

I might wait and see if top up credit goes on sale during days of play. I've got no idea if there is precedent for that as I only started buying the cheaper top up credits recently!

Edit 4: and this one is for @RogerRoger . I forgot another indie game that I really liked and it was purely because of the live action cutscenes. But it was called Roundabout on PS4. I just loved all the cutscenes in it!

I’m playing Breath of Fire IV. Yeah, it’s a PSone game, but I’m playing it on my PS3!

The camera is a bit of a pain, but it holds up well.

@RogerRoger haha you should see my Xbox achievements list. They give you weekly monetary incentives for just booting games up. It's not much but it adds up, I've got around a £75 gift card over the last 5 months. Just going to keep going for a couple more years until I have enough for a Series X I think because I like it when games pay for themselves lol. So yeah, my achievements list is just a bunch of games I'll never play with 0 gamerscore 😅

To be fair though, I care slightly more about trophies. Probably because I have more of them but still, I won't bother getting them all unless I've accrued a healthy amount through natural game play. Even then, I won't to do the grindy ones. I just checked my profile and I've got 15 Platinums and the only game where I had to do more than play the game once or pick up a few extra collectibles was Shadow of the Tomb Raider which I played again on extra hard mode. But it was quick because I was fully upgraded in new game plus and skipped all the cutscenes, collectibles and map completion that I'd already done on medium.

I guess my OCD is picturing all of your unclaimed PS Plus games 😂. Just kidding of course, I admire your restraint in the face of a "tragedy of the commons" situation. It's beneficial in many ways to never take more than you need as is evidenced by my backlog/spreadsheet fiasco!

Roundabout is a weird one, the game itself is pretty annoying but quite funny still. I am just in love with it because of the cut scenes.

@RogerRoger haha it's pretty decent I think. I originally bought a One X in late 2019 (heavily discounted) just because I wanted to try out the Xbox exclusives like Halo and Gears of War. While I ended up finding those games a huge drag, I have discovered a couple of truly amazing games like Forza Horizon 4 and 3 and Ori and the Blind Forest. So I don't regret my purchase in any way.

I feel like it's the gift that keeps on giving as well. Through a promotion I ended up getting 2 and a half years of game pass ultimate for £73 when the RRP for that much GPU is something like £330. Having GPU allows you to claim more reward points and I'm pretty sure (I haven't done the exact calculations), that you could actually just keep exchanging your reward points for more months of GPU and never have to pay for it again. I've started the multi year task of saving my points for a Series X though so I probably won't get any free GPU out of it! I've discovered quite a few games I wouldn't buy normally through it too such as Yakuza and other things. I definitely wouldn't pay full price for it but I think it's more than worth it at the reduced rate.

I'm nowhere near being a convert but I do see the value in the system if you are clever about it. I'll always be multiplatform and wouldn't turn my nose up at a good deal on a PS5. I did originally get my PS3 from coke zone points after all! That was a lot of diet coke I got through back at uni 😅. I normally buy multiplats on Xbox now though just because it's the mid gen upgrade whereas I only have the base (MGSV branded of course!) PS4. Having said that, I do have tons of backlogged PS4 games I'm yet to get through, both multiplat and exclusive.

I don't remember the turkey thing in Shadow, it really wasn't hard though and I normally balk at the difficulty of some games! I know Shadow gets slated and I have my own criticisms of the story and Lara herself but I really enjoyed the actual gameplay of it. I particularly really liked the natural and achievable collectibles and map completion. It's a bit like Insomniac's Spider-Man in that respect.

They are kind of self-aware cheesy. I do like live action cut scenes in stuff like Command and Conquer ("from God, to Kane, to Seth" is a frequent quote in my household 😂). I'll send you a PSN message about it I think and explain all 🤔.

I actually bought bulletstorm when they added that Duke Nukem expansion thing, haven't even got around to playing it yet though!

@RogerRoger no worries 👍. I haven't actually played red alert 3 because I never had a good enough computer. Anyway, be well!

I have seen that clip though (probably from one of your previous posts) and it still makes me laugh!

@ralphdibny @RogerRoger Just butting in here to drop my obligatory daily Control praise 😜, but it probably has the best live action cutscene integration of any game I’ve played (not that there’s a lot of competition in that regard).
The live action scenes are mostly shown on TV clips and film clips that you come across within the game’s native graphical environment, as well as background overlays of shadows of the actors, etc. It all runs pretty seamless like it’s part of the scenery and there were moments early on when I was like, “Is that live action or CG?” while I was playing.
Apparently Remedy employs the live action parts in their other games too, so it may just be their calling card as a studio. It takes a specific type of acting and transition to make it not look super cheesy and they seem to pull it off well.

I haven’t played Roundabout but I have a morbid curiosity every time I scroll past it on my list of copious PS Plus games in my library (yes, I too am a PS Plus game hoarder). The screenshots of the game look so incredibly campy and ridiculous, it looks like the costuming and character design of a grade school theater performance. 😅
Even full live action games struggle to keep an ambiance of realism — Erica and The Bunker are two of most recent of such games I’ve played and although I enjoy them for what they are, there’s always a qualifier. “The acting is good, for a live-action video game...”

@Th3solution the first method about live action being on TV screens was used in remedys old game Alan Wake actually! The second method with the live action overlayed on the game was used in Hellblade Senua's sacrifice...I think... like you, I was a bit confused as to whether it was live action or CGI and I don't think I ever looked it up.

Did you play control on base PS4 or PS4 pro or PS5 our of interest? I just wondering because that game is in my pipeline at some point and I don't know whether to play the PS Plus copy (if I resubscribe) on my base PS4 because it includes both DLCs or whether to play the game pass version on one X where I'd have to pay for the DLC (don't want to buy DLC for a game I don't own). I just heard it was buggy/rubbish framerate on base PS4 and I also understand that it's the sort of DLC that you'd have to progress through the main game to actually play so I couldn't play main game on Xbox and switch to PS4 for DLC

Might be worth checking out Roundabout if you get some time. It's a bit of a throwaway game so it wouldn't take long to check out but you might get hooked!

@ralphdibny I’m playing Control: The Ultimate Edition on PS5. It’s basically been without any noticeable flaws as it relates to frame rate or technical function. I’m finishing up the 2nd of the two DLC packs, ‘The Foundation’, and for the first time in about 40 gameplay hours I noticed my first frame stutter when panning across a particular destructible barrier that is unique to the DLC. It was strange, but literally the first time I’ve noticed any performance issue and there is often multiple enemies, flying objects, and copious particle effects and destructible environments all on screen during chaotic combat sections. I think that’s when the base PS4 struggled is during these regular battles and I heard it pretty much ruined the experience for many PS4 players. Not sure how well it performs on PS4 Pro. The PS5 version has been fantastic though and I’m playing it on 30fps with ray-tracing rather than the other option for 60fps performance mode because I just love the pretty reflections and special sheen on the glossy surfaces that the RT provides. 😄

The DLC is actually better than I expected because some people have said they didn’t care for it, but The Foundation is a whole new underground cave section with an interesting storyline that is only accessible after completing the main game. AWE is the other DLC where they integrate Alan Wake and it actually can be played during the latter part of the main campaign, it unlocks about halfway through the main story, but is probably the toughest part of the game and has imo the toughest boss battle so is best done toward the end when you’re more fully leveled. So ... yes, there really isn’t a way to play the main game on Xbox and then jump in for DLC in PS4.
It probably just all depends on how sensitive you are to frame rate drops. If you’re not one to be bothered by hiccups now and then you might get along fine with the base PS4 version. If you have plans to obtain a PS5 though then it would be worth the wait for the smoother experience.

@Th3solution cheers, that's a decent run down of the game!

They had the season pass on sale for £6 on Xbox a little while back. My rule is not to buy DLC for games I dont own but if it's on sale for £6 again in future, I might just do it, the One X has gotta be better than base PS4 for playing a demanding game surely. But yeah could be some time before I get around to it anyway!

@ralphdibny One option could be to do one of your brief trials of the free PS Plus version on your PS4, then if it seems to resonate wel with you in the opening hour or two then you can commit to buying the DLC and just switch over to the XB1 version, because yes, I assume it’s more stable than base PS4.