@ralphdibny Not sure about the Xbox external drive; I assume it should work on a PS5 (provided it’s formatted for it first), but I’m not much of an expert there.
You might benefit from a database rebuild after all these download / deletes. Have you done one of those in a while?
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Yes, it really is now known as Battlegrounds: Battlegrounds. They’re working on the sequel Battlegrounds: Battlegrounds: Battlegrounds as we speak. Don’t say the name out loud though otherwise Battlegrounds will appear in your house.
I did quite enjoy MLB though! It is weird making you play a whole match at the beginning but it’s cool how many different modes there are to play for pitching and batting. I just played Road to the Show which is the “Be a Pro” equivalent so you only play as your guy. I only wanted to hit the ball as far as possible so just had a decent batter who played outfield. Like all American sports though, each season seems to last about five years.
@Th3solution yeah could do I suppose! I'll see how it is when I go to play a proper game. These games all get installed on the external anyway so won't make a huge difference if I end up getting a new one. I think the last time I did it was when I upgraded the internal hard drive which I believe was around march/April last year.
@Thrillho haha I'd ask why so many games incorporate cards but I think we all know it's for the money but I'm not sure I saw an option in the tennis game to actually pay real money for them. Just weird though!
😂 B3: Battlegrounds Battlegrounds Battlegrounds: The Sequel.
I was a bit nervous about ragging on a flagship Sony franchise, hence my preface 😅. I know there are a lot of devout fans of MLB The Show! I was kind of curious to give Road to the Show a go but I am 90% sure it would require me to learn the mechanics of the games which I don't think I have the time for. I'm satisfied with just giving it a go to "get my money's worth" even if that makes little sense when I only played it for an hour!
I think these kind of story modes make sports games seem more attractive, especially ones based around a well known celebrity of the sport, but still not attractive enough for me. I liked the idea of that Tiger Woods one in one of the golf games, also the Attitude Era mode in WWE 13 but I never tried either. I think I'd probably be more inclined to give a golf or wrestling game a proper go though, but still not massively inclined.
@Kidfried I agree that this is a good month. Although I fell off Hitman 1 at the end, it was such a quality experience. I might be motivated to go back to it and then do Hitman 2 one day. Even Overcooked is a good one to have in the library for anytime family or friends visit that you need a couch co-op for.
Anything’s better than last month. 😅
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Kidfried Yeah, Hitman is pretty hard. I don’t mind the difficulty too much, but frequent failing and reloading on PS4 was a little tedious so maybe playing it on PS5 will make for a smoother experience
Ok my final round of PS Plus reviews for a while (it's the weekend!)
Monster Energy AMA Supercross FIM World Championship The Official Videogame (PS4) - this game has weirdly been on my radar since I saw its announcement on Nintendo Life. It was possibly either a paid advertisement or a tongue in cheek reference to one. The article mentioned Monster Energy so much that I almost went out and bought one. Instead I sat back and laughed. Unfortunately I can't find the article now to show you, maybe it got tidied in some site-wide housekeeping or maybe the Monster sponsorship money run out. More likely a game page hadn't been made for this announcement article to be attached to so it is now lost to the NLife archives.
I never bought it, maybe I would have if it was less than £3. The allure of that toxic green logo associated with a sickly sweet heart attack inducing beverage nearly got to me. Luckily I held out (and the price never dropped significantly) and the game got added to PS Plus.
So I'm glad I tried it. It's not horrible. It's like a three dimensional version of ExciteBike. As I usually do with racing games that come as part of a subscription, I don't bother with the career mode and just race on all the tracks. I did it, I raced on 17 or so tracks. I don't know why I bothered, the attraction must be in the way the tracks are laid out because they all basically look the same. Just brown mud. The only exceptions were one track that had grey mud and another track that had a slightly darker shade of brown mud. Exciting, to say the least.
It also has a track editor where you can upload your tracks for others to play. I was going to play some of these tracks but when I went to do it, they all just looked like more mud. I just couldn't bring myself to play any more of this game. I did make a track, called "muddafujja" and after some trial, error and Google searches, managed to upload it. I played on it, it wasn't good.
In this game, you can play as lots of characters. Most of them look like Master Chief from Halo but are covered in tiny sponsorships for brands your average person wouldn't have heard of. One of the characters is called "Broc Tickle" which made me laugh. The irony is, that is what I'd much rather be doing that (Tickling Broc) instead of playing this game.
The game performs okayish, each race starts off really sluggish with a poor frame rate. Probably because there are like 22 racers on the track and on screen at once. The performance gets up to par (ish) when the racers spread out and the PlayStation has less to deal with. Unfortunately the racers always left me in last place.
To summarise, well that was all a bit of a summary really. I remember when sponsored games were really neat such as Cool Spot on mega drive. Unfortunately this isn't Cool Spot. Rating = M for monstrous
Worms Rumble (PS4) - I'm not sure what I thought this would be. From the box art (digital box art?) It looked like Worms but in 3D and I'd read that it was real time instead of turn based. I thought i was going to have a quick go and then delete because the 3D wouldn't appeal to me. I did have a quick go and deleted it but...
It wasn't 3D, it's actually just normal 2D worms but it's real time instead of turn based. I actually thought this could be quite a good idea and I wouldn't mind giving it some more time if I could play with friends. I can't do that, I don't have friends. (I'm joking so no need to feel sorry for me, I have some friends.) But yeah, I didn't fancy playing it with strangers and there's no single player. Rating = R for Rumbley in my tummy
NBA 2K20 (PS4) - despite my disdain for competitive sports, I did actually used to play some when I was at school such as rugby and basketball. A long time ago. I thought I was quite into basketball when I was young but I think I just liked wearing the vest tops because all the rappers used to wear them. Yes, people at school did call me names.
One of the first GameCube games I ever had was NBA Courtside 2002 with Kobe Bryant on the cover. I remember buying it from WHSmiths. I used to play that quite a lot when I was younger. It was decent.
I honestly think I could give NBA 2K20 some more time but I don't have any more time to give. I had a quick go on the different modes. Men's basketball, women's basketball and some other mode called Black Top or something. I couldn't really work out what that last mode was, just seemed like a regular game of B-Ball except the camera was really annoying and zoomed in.
I played as some legacy Lakers teams that featured Kobe and Shaq. That was cool. Then I played some of that black top mode and used different characters like space jam stars Michael Jordan and LeBron James, Kobe and Shaq and two versions of Kareem Abdul Jabbar. One was like Game of Death-era Kareem Abdul Jabbar and the other one was a much later, older and balder Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
I didn't finish any of the games I played, I just quit them during the first quarter and moved on to the next mode. Rating = NBA for erm, I duno, no blimmin' antics, or something
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (PS4) - I actually quite like this game, in brief spurts anyway. It's like if Mario 64 was combined with Mario Kart but then was themed like the television programme Total Wipeout. It's a Battle Royale game, I guess but it's not bad.
However, I can see it wearing thin pretty quickly. Might be better if I was playing with friends. I ended up doing the same course a few times so it didn't seem like there was a huge amount of variety. I assume the courses get refreshed every now and then. Unfortunately this is "now" and I won't be playing "then". Rating = BB for bouncy bouncy having a good time
@Sorteddan 😃 cheers! Glad it gave you a lol!! I think doing them (something creative) as made me feel a bit better about my week too because it's been slow and tiring for me so it's good for me and good for others! Thanks for taking the time to read, much appreciated!!
Fall Guys was great fun and perfectly timed with the release being over the initial lockdown. I played quite a bit of it, even when there were relatively few rounds and got a fair few crowns. There could be some serious adrenaline pumping when it got to the last few seconds of the final round!
And the highs and lows of the final round could be intense...
I think the same, I played it a bit with a mate who now lives in Ireland when it was released. It's sort of quite addictive and it definitely has that "one more game" mentality. Unfortunately I never hit that elusive final round 😅. I think the furthest I got this week was round 3. I'll probably play a few more games of it while it's installed but I am quite happy to tick it off on my spreadsheet
@ralphdibny Oh yeah, it’s so easy to just keep playing. It took me a while to get my first crown but I ended up with a fair few and think I got at least one from every final round.
Some of the team rounds sucked though as it was so demoralising to be on the useless team.
I had a blast with it though but have never felt the urge to go back to it.
Just had a few fair but worthwhile tasters on a few Plus games that are on both PS4 and Vita. I've been playing them on Vita because I'm away for a few days.
Titan Souls (PS4/Vita) - you know when you read a book? Your imagination fills in the blanks. Sometimes it adds details that weren't even in the original text. For some reason, Mad Eye Moody's bulging eye made me think of him as gaunt, hooded and green skinned with really sallow features. Of course, that was until I saw the movie and realised that I had added all those details myself. I'll still remember my original vision of Mad Eye Moody but Brendan Gleeson's excellent portrayal has replaced it in how I envision the events that unfold in the Harry Potter series.
Games can occasionally be like this too, they can feature a minimalist but evocative design that isn't beholden to pages of lore. ICO springs to mind in this instance. Titan Souls is a bit like that, the game opens with you atop (have I just added that detail?) a windy castle/fortress before tutoring you in its 3 input mechanics. Move with the stick/face buttons, roll/run with X and shoot/retrieve an arrow with Square. You are initially in an area faced with four doors that can be entered in any order and what appears to be a fifth door that I guess opens at a later point.
Behind these doors are bosses. They are mostly one-hit defeats and the weak point appears to be fairly obvious but working out how to hit that weak point is less so. It's kind of tough, there is a bit of trial and error. I did 3 of the bosses but a quick bit of research tells me that there are 20 bosses. I'd say that the puzzle aspect is fairly obvious but it requires skill and reflexes to actually solve the puzzle.
One of the mechanics I should point out is the retrieval of the arrow. Holding Square will actually bring the arrow back to you even if you are on the other side of the stage. This means for each arrow shot, you have two opportunities to hit the boss, one as the arrow leaves your bow and one on its way back. Think Yondu's whistling arrow in Guardians of the Galaxy but it can only go away from you and back to you and not in all the crazy directions that Yondu can send it. When retrieving your arrow, you are also locked in place and unable to move. You can stop retrieving the arrow if you face imminent danger though and leave it at the point where it had reached as you had stopped pressing Square.
This game is 2D and top down. I like the aesthetic, it's nice. I feel like it's clearly going for a demake idea as if something like Shadow of the Colossus was made on earlier hardware but it definitely feels different to SotC. As well as the aesthetic, the mechanics have been demade into something more difficult and skill based.
It's not often that something modern that is made in 2D pixel graphics fills me with such wonder but this did. Well an appropriate level of wonder at least. Less wonder than other things but more wonder than the zero wonder I expected. Maybe like 3/10 on the wonder scale. I'm sure I would only be filled with more wonder if I carried on playing.
If I had more time and didn't have a plethora of other games to play then I would stick with this. It seems like a Desert Island Discs sort of game. If you were stuck on an Island and had only 5 games to play, you might choose different and much longer games but this wouldn't be a terrible option to be stuck with as you'd have plenty of time to work out each boss. Rating = W for wonder
Don't Die Mr. Robot (PS4/Vita) - this game is fairly simple to explain. It's like a bullet hell shmup but without any shooting. Maybe it's like an Avoid 'em up? You can kill enemies by collecting fruit that send out a wave that kills enemies within a short radius. Almost like Pacman except the wave does the killing and not your powered up protagonist. So a bullet hell avoid 'em up that's a bit like Pacman but without any mazes. Was that easy enough to explain?
Thinking about it now, I'm not sure if each dead enemy also sends out a wave that kills the next enemy along and can also trigger another fruit so you can chain kills. At the very least, you can trigger other fruit with your wave.
The game looks addictive, there is an Arcade mode that unlocks after two levels of the Remix mode. The remix mode serves as the main campaign though. I progressed through about 5 levels of the remix mode and it looks like there are a substantial amount of levels to play. It's a decent time waster if you've got the time to waste, which unfortunately I don't. Rating = WW for waka waka
Ninja Senki DX (PS4/Vita) - this is a pretty unremarkable side scrolling shooter/platformer. You throw shuriken at baddies and progress through stages. I mean, it's ok. I'd play it if I had nothing else to do.
I had a look online to see how many levels were in this game. There's 17 but I also found a troubling piece of history in the comment section of the PushSquare review of this game. A poor review led to the downfall of its reviewer. It made me hesitant to review the game here, not because I fear for my own downfall (I do but 2021 has different criteria for cancellation) but because I didn't want to dredge up a touchy subject/sad memories.
I highly doubt any of the game developers actually read my reviews, especially as these games came out many years ago but I think I've made clear that if I don't like a game or don't have time for it that it's because of personal reasons. I do try to exaggerate my feelings sometimes for humourous purposes however. I am confident that these games have an audience, or at least had an audience in the past. I am but a mere bystander who walked through a door looking for an experience. Too often I quickly have my fill and walk right back out again. Occasionally I stay for the party.
@ralphdibny I actually rather liked Ninja Senki DX, particularly from a trophy collecting standpoint, since some of the trophies are incredibly challenging and require mastering the levels. I don't believe I collected all the trophies, but some of the harder ones are among the trophies I'm most proud of collecting.
Granted, I'd never sit in front of a TV and play it. This is a true portable game, IMO: something best played on a lightweight handheld as you're listening to a podcast or something. But, played that way, it was addictive, and something I reached for over and over to achieve different endings and whatnot.
I had no idea there was so much drama with a one-off reviewer on here! That comment section, in particular, was rather embarrassing. That dude's style and personal conduct isn't professional or mature enough for anything other than his blog, it seems.
@ralphdibny Oh dear, now I’ve went and searched for that review of Ninja Senki DX! Must have missed it the first time around because I was definitely around back then. Bloody hell though, that escalated!
@Ralizah it's a bit of a weird one, there's definitely nothing wrong with it. I actually thought it controlled really well from my initial playtime with it. I thought the platforming was fairly tight which I could tell early on because there were coins in holes that required falling into the hole and double jumping out of it in order to collect them. (Technically not a double jump but normally the second jump of a double jump can either be done after the first jump or just a fall)
I can see it being quite addictive, perhaps Super Mario Bros style addictive. I think it's just a case of nothing immediately hooking me in, either graphics wise, story wise or gimmick wise. VVVVVV in contrast, got me hook, line and sinker from the opening moments. Or at least hooked me long enough for me to keep going and get to the more addictive parts.
I think there's always going to be an element of "time and place" to my reviews too. My initial batch of PS3/Vita reviews in the PS3 thread were sort of under a time limit due to me deciding whether I wanted to buy them when my Plus sub lapsed back in May but I still had the freedom of the pandemic to actually put more time into the games. I think I'm being a bit harsher now, not with my reviews but with my time because I do actually have limited time as I'm back at work now.
I think Ninja Senki DX, especially as you've now pointed out the rewarding part of the gameplay loop, will probably be in the back of my mind. I'll delete it and tick it off my spreadsheet but it remains to be seen whether I'll return to it if my time ever becomes less of a commodity. I did decide to call time on Exile's End after all, which is a game I treated in the opposite way in that I intended to return but didn't.
I didn't actually read much of that review to be honest as I didn't want to be too influenced when writing my own minutes after 😅. But yeah, I probably wouldn't want to comment too much on it. To each their own I suppose. I guess people handle criticism in different ways.
@nessisonett it certainly did! I think that was before my time, certainly with Push Square at least though I may have been lurking on NL. It's hard to frame the timeline of when I lurked, when I joined and when I participated. I could tell you why and how I ended up on this trio of sites and I can tell you key moments that led to a larger participation in them but I'd struggle with the times/dates/years!
@ralphdibny I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on Titan Souls. I've seen this game on sale for so many years now and I always want to get it but I never do because like you said, I'd rather play so many other games than one that focuses on having difficult boss fights with trial and error. That's just not my cup of tea, even though the game would probably be a lot of fun to play on the Vita.
@ralphdibny Yeah, there's nothing that really distinguishes Ninja Senki DX from about a million other competent indie platformers like it. Which, I've found, is usually the case with so many ignored indie games out there: they're often fun enough and well-designed, but lacking in that bit of artistic or interactive novelty in order to allow them to stick out from the crowd (whereas vvvvvv is stylistically and mechanically unique enough to be quite memorable). Although, to be fair, there are a huge number of AAA games I feel the exact same way about.
I can say that if I had played it on my PS4, I'd have bounced off of it like you did. I happen to have a weakness for tightly-designed portable platformers, though, so I ended up spending tens of hours on it.
Putting aside the lack of professionalism in how that reviewer handled the community criticism, I've found, over time, that it's just best not to bicker too much with people, online or off. There's this natural tendency to want to get the last word in, to "win" when disagreeing with someone, but by that point any semblance of constructiveness in the conversation has vanished. Language used purely in the service of stoking one's ego is wasted. The review, for me, was obnoxious because he was clearly using someone's game (undoubtedly the result of hundreds of hours of painstaking effort) as a platform on which to flaunt how clever he is at dunking on people. I imagine that's probably why other people called him out as well: a poorly-worded conclusion and/or review, in and of itself, wouldn't generate that sort of irritated response.
Currently Playing: Fields of Mistria (PC); Cookie Clicker (PC); Metaphor: ReFantazio (PC); Overboard! (PC)
@LtSarge cheers for reading bud. Yeah it's deffo the most remarkable of all the games I've played today. Different time, different place, I could see myself getting lost in it for a few hours. I don't think it would take that long to finish though, I think there's a trophy for beating the whole game in under 20 mins!!
@Ralizah yep same here! I've said it with regards to my previous reviews that it doesn't matter if it's AAA or indie, loads of stuff is either generic by design or just generic because the market is so over saturated that it's hard to tell the difference between games. No amount of marketing push is going to get me to buy a Far Cry or an Assassin's Creed at launch when there's a ton of games already that I haven't played but actually want to play. (Apologies if you like those games, for all that they might do uniquely, id put them under the umbrella of "generic" AAA games)
Yeah, I totally agree that it's not worth arguing with people online. We spoke briefly about this recently actually.
I know I've dunked on a bunch of games in my reviews and I do find negative reviews very funny sometimes. John from this site is a great example, his WWE 2K battlegrounds review was hilarious and I've seen similarly worded reviews about the Legacy FIFA editions over on NL. There's probably a fine line that can be tread between funny and obnoxious. It's probably how tongue in cheek you can get about it, I love a lot of the AVGN stuff but it's clear that it is an exaggerated character that's doing those reviews.
But yeah, I hope I don't offend too many people with my short musings, I've said that it's down to personal preference and these games are usually stepping stones to me fulfilling my mission of "getting my moneys worth" out of PS Plus. Contextually, playing these games in the way that I have, levels a direct comparison between titles. It's an interesting way to experience them, through this lens of a paid subscription but I don't think it's neccesarily the best way to experience these games.
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