Topic: What PS4 Games Are You Currently Playing?

Loving The Disney Afternoon Collection. It’s a neat package of games, artwork and music, a joy to browse through, due to the colourful and straightforward presentation.

I only played the Rescue Rangers games as a kid, a lot of fun and not too hard. The other games are great as well, the rewind button is a blessing though (did people actually finish TaleSpin without it?).

After having it in shrink wrap for about a year(!) I finally opened Ghost Blade HD!

Excellent Cave style, simple, bullet hell shmup. Really enjoying it!

I'm playing Yakuza Kiwami and this is my first Yakuza game ever! It's obviously rough around the edges but still enjoyable so I'll get to the end of it but without playing side activities, just not my cup of tea. Maybe I'll even play other Yakuza games, depending on my feelings at the end of this one.

@JJ-firl I finished Tale Spin once as a kid. As much as I tried to repeat that feat I have never been able to. Guess the gaming gods were on my side that day.

In my quest to fully explore my PS+ backlog, I'm currently playing Transformers: Devastation. It's... surprisingly excellent. The presentation is beautiful (and true to the animated series) and the combat is, as usual for Platinum, incredibly engaging. I actually like this quite a bit more than either of the Bayonetta games I played.

It's a massive pity that this was delisted.

@Ralizah it is a fine game! Really nice fanservice. Massive shame it didn't get any Decepticon DLC.

@Kidfried I'd say so. If you're a fan of how Platinum make brawlers, that is.

It is very Transformers though. 'Proper', as most people like them G1 styled Transformers with excellent voice work (and cast) and a really hammy script.

I'd recommend giving the 1985 movie a watch before diving in actually. You won't find any of that BayFormer nonsense here!

@Kidfried I'm not a huge Transformers fan or anything, and I'm having a blast. As KALofKRYPTON said, it's a very classic Transformers experience, which means its also very campy and Saturday Morning Cartoon-esque, but if you can deal with that, you'll enjoy it. The environments are samey, but otherwise I'm really liking it!

@KALofKRYPTON That movie was actually my introduction to Weird Al's music.

@Ralizah Ha! Dare To Be Stupid! I guess it was mine too, I was very little, at a very local cinema and cried quite a lot when Prime kicked it.

Who are you playing with? i did Nemesis Prime, Sideswipe (my main man!), and partials with Wheeljack and Grimlock.

Grimlock is great once you get the hang of him, but very different from the rest.

@KALofKRYPTON Bumblebee. I don't really have a preference for which one I play as (like I said, I'm not really a fan), but I like his design and it seems to be working out OK. I'll have to go through the game as a few other characters when I get the chance. Does the game ever go back to forcing you to play as other Transformers?

@Ralizah Not as I recall - it's been a while. I started trying some of the challenges before whatever else it was came along and i stopped playing it...

@KratosMD Good to see someone else giving MHW a go as it’s a great game. I had loads of fun with it but had never played the series before. It’s a great experience solo and with others (sometimes I weirdly found it easier to beat enemies solo).

I hope you post some thoughts in the game thread!

@KratosMD The winter event starts tomorrow and depending on your level you might be able to get some good rewards.

@Kindaichi Sorry, I’m late to the question (I’ve had a crazy few days), but although I have yet to play it, I did buy the entire Season of The Council when it was on the PSN sale last month for like $10. It sits comfortably in my backlog, on the hard drive ready to go. I will definitely post my impressions when I play it. I doubt I’ll get to it by Dec 4th. The fact it is getting a physical release is interesting though. It would suggest there is still interest in the game, and yet there is complete internet silence regarding it. It’s as if no one played it.

Been playing some Heavy Rain. It started off slow, but it's getting better. I'm still quite early on in the game, so I'm curious about what's going to happen next.

The old school private detective is my favourite of the playable characters so far, so I'm hoping that he'll be the one to catch the villain instead of the FBI agent with all his gadgets. I've not seen much of the female character just yet, so I'm eager to see what her story is going to be.

@RogerRoger @Kindaichi The Council is on sale on the EU PS store £14 for the complete season or you can buy the individual episodes separately.

Just started up Yakuza Kiwami. Not much to say about it yet other than the fact that I'm liking the dense neon-lit cityscape.

@Kindaichi @RogerRoger Well, I decided to have a go at The Council after we brought it up recently. I needed a little break from the epic of Arthur Morgan, preferably one that didn’t involve horseback riding, large open worlds, or third person shooting. So The Council seemed to fit the bill — A nice story driven experience with choice and consequence.

Welp, I’ve played it for about 2-3 hours and I’ll leave my first impressions.
At first blush the game looks quite good, especially for an small studio production. ...That is, it looks good until the characters start to speak. The graphics look great when static, but the dynamic facial expressions leave something to be desired. The mediocre lip syncing and somewhat poor quality emotive facial displays are obvious within the first 5 minutes. Coupled with the odd audio, it definitely takes some getting used to. It’s hard not to compare the game to Detroit: Become Human because of the similar genre and gameplay style, and Quantic Dreams latest makes this look and sound like a PS2 game. It’s a very strange level of quality here, because on one hand I think the visuals look quite good, but then you have the wonkiness of the characters when speaking which is at times jarring. The art direction is great for the most part and the setting is interestingly manufactured. I think if the audio quality, acting, and writing was better then it would have easily covered up for the slight visual missteps. For example, in Red Dead 2, some of the NPC look a little weird due to lower quality character modeling compared to Arthur, but the voice acting and writing is so well done, it is hardly bothersome and barely noticeable. Here, the sound of the voices is a little bit “tinny” as if it was recorded in someone’s garage with an iPhone and then the acting is pretty average at best. The voice for the protagonist’s mother, Sarah, is just awful and does not match her character at all. The other voices are sort of hit-or-miss, but none are great. The combination of the audio shortcomings seems to magnify the visual flaws, rather than cover them up as most games do.

The story seems decent enough so far. It’s still early but there is a level of mystery and I want to find out what’s behind this secret society that has so many important world leaders involved. The build up for the conflict could have been better handled in the opening episode, but it’s not terrible.

The real strength of the game is in the innovative gameplay. I knew the game would be a story driven, choice and consequence type of outing, but the RPG mechanics seem to be well done. Depending on how you allocate points to your skills and talents, new dialog options open, or you have easier access to certain dialog or activities. It’s hard to explain, but it makes good sense and the tutorials are good about how the skills are developed and used. For example, in the opening parts of the game I was able to explore a bit and pick a lock to get access to some new information because I had chosen to be an “Occultist” with its accompanying perks (other options are Diplomat or Detective) and had some points in “subterfuge.” I was not, however, able to pry open some loose boards on the walkway to follow that clue because I didn’t have skill points in “agility”. Similar things occur when you’re speaking to someone and trying to convince them to do something for you or to give you secret information.

There is mild exploration, a lot of dialog choices, and then the aforementioned strategizing of how to use skill points to build your abilities. Some choices are timed, like in the Telltale games, and some are not. I actually missed a choice because I was sitting back watching a scene unfold and suddenly I had a choice to make and couldn’t do it in time.

As for the question of whether the game deals with just plain mystery or whether it deals in the supernatural, I’ll say that I’m not sure yet, but I do think there is a supernatural component because the protagonist is having short fits of visions which appear to be maybe premonitions of the future. It’s not clear to me yet.

So by my first impressions of the opening episode, the game does seem a solid 6/10 like Sammy gave it in his review. I like it enough to be excited to play through all of it to its conclusion, but I might be a bit biased because I really like the this type of QD/Telltale style of game and they really did some interesting things with the RPG elements. I can’t tell you whether to buy it or not, but for me, i think it’s worth the sale price I paid, so far. I’ll update with more impressions as I play more of it, but I wanted to get this out there since it’s on sale now and you all may be considering it.

@Kindaichi No problem! If you don’t mind reading my boring drivel then I’ll gladly share more thoughts as I have them. I love talking about games. It’s why we’re here in Push Square, after all! 😄

@Th3solution Nice, detailed impressions there.