Topic: What PS5 Games Are You Currently Playing?

@PixelDragon Really great to hear you enjoying this, I absolutely fell in love with Returnal upon its release - and to this day I still believe it is one of the best 'showcases' for the PS5's capabilities. The use of controller haptics, 3d surround audio and general moment-to-moment gameplay are just so brilliant.

If you got the 1st boss down to a sliver of health, it is now just 'a matter of time' before you take him down Also, once you can take down boss #1 then you actually have the needed skillset to beat the entire game IMO.

One tip from me, which I learnt far too late (!), is that the most important thing in Returnal is making sure you DON'T GET HIT!
When it comes to collecting the green/health vials.... if you collect one of these at full health then it leads to your overall health bar being expanded. However, if you're hit/damaged and below the max health then any vials you collect will be used to replenish health lost - instead of expanding your total HP.
So basically by making sure you avoid getting hit as much as possible, this means you should normally be at full health - ensuring any collected vials expand you max health (vs just healing you for health already lost).

Easier said than done of course, but something to be conscious of! Agressive play, with careful/considered movement, is the best course. Try to focus more on the enemy bullets coming at you instead of your bullets firing at them.

Enjoy the game though, it just keeps getting better and better!

So I started to play the XIII remake a few days ago. Well so far its a really good and cool shooter. Now I plan to post a full review of the game once Iam done with the game which might take a little while. I plan to hopefully complete a horror game that Iam currently playing sometime in a not to distant future as well. Iam very glad that we have so many games to chose from hehe.

It's been a while since a game has had me actively interested and want to play it all the time, but I finally got into one of those grooves again with Marvel's Midnight Suns. What an absolute gem of a game! I only picked it up on sale less than a week ago and I've already clocked a little over 20 hours playing. That's very unusual as a game rarely holds my attention for more than an hour per play session, but it feels so good to have something that makes me feel such excitement and wonder about it again.

I love the elements of running your base and building the relationships with your team. This is one of the parts I always really appreciated about BioWare games, but I've found it hard to find any game replicate or even deepen that type of system like this game. Sure, the writing isn't quite on par with the companions in Mass Effect, let's say, but I still find the vast majority very likable and enjoyable to have conversations with. Add to that all the upgrading of your base, the exploration in the immediate area and the preparing for missions and it all comes together in such a satisfying gameplay loop. It's the type of thing I hoped for from Metal Gear Solid V motherbase, except that game never quite lived up to that promise.

And then for the other major part, the combat is so well-executed. I don't have much experience in the way of card-based combat. At best there was a short time where I played Hearthstone after that released, but never got particularly deep into it or became skilled in any way. If anything I was more intrigued by the combat here because of the X-Com connection, which I've never played but watched many a gameplay video of and always imagined I would enjoy. Especially aftee I played turn-based RPG's like Divinity: Original Sin or Wasteland 3. The way they mix and match the card-based gameplay with the signature turn-based tactical play from X-Com is just honestly so genius. It works so incredibly well together and the fantastic animations do a lot to make it all feel ever more vicious and fun. The tension when you don't have a great hand and need to work out the best case scenario so you don't screw up the mission is a great feeling of investment, whether it ends positively for you or not. Luckily I haven't failed a mission so far!

The only part for me that kind of drags is the content involving Agatha Harkness. I was delighted to see her show up after Kathryn Hahn's star portrayal of her in WandaVision, but obviously it's not the same vibe here and ultimately the conversations I have with her and the tasks she gives me bore me to bits. There's some interesting gameplay and lore that comes out of the sections attached to her presence, but I wish I could just uncover those without her poofing into existence everywhere with her incessant babbling. I don't think the voice performance does her any favours either. It feels a bit lifeless, which in some way is appropriate for a spirit I suppose, but it doesn't make for engaging exposition dumps. Esecially when she pales in comparison to a lot of the voice talent from other characters who bring their roles to life so effortlessly and with so much personality. My favourites to interact with are definitely Magik and Morbius. Yes, I did buy the season pass very quickly after I realised I was going to love this game and didn't want to miss out on any possible content!

Anyway, that's enough from me about this game for now. I'm sure I'll be back to post further thoughts might any of my feelings change or I experience new stuff I'd like to discuss! I'm only about five main missions in out of a grand total of, I believe, somewhere in the high 20s? Not including four out of the twelve DLC missions I've already finished. I try to keep a balance of one side mission to one story mission, so I'm sure I'll keep blasting througy the main story quicker once the DLC stuff is out of the way. Either way, still a long ways to go!

@PixelDragon I loved Returnal! As others have said, the first boss is tricky because of the lack of weapon options as much as anything. Once you find your groove you’ll get it no bother.

My other bits of advice would be to take advantage of the sword; it can one hit kill the small enemies in the first biome so rushing in and smacking them with the sword can be really useful. Constant movement is key too.

One of the few things that carries over between runs is unlocking the weapon traits so don’t be afraid to play around with those.

@Tjuz I loved Midnight Suns too. It was a good mix of the big name characters and ones I wasn’t familiar with and all of their combat abilities are quite unique so it’s fun to play around with them.

There is loads of depth to the game too and you can end up creating some killer cards and combos. I was always a bit blasé about deck builders and it put me off picking the game up for a while but the mechanic work really well. Just a shame it tanked commercially because of the deck builder tag.

I enjoyed the game enough to even get the platinum! I didn’t try the DLC though but it sounds like good fun.

Spider-Man 2, SM Miles Morales, GOW Ragnarok, AC Vahalla.

Lies Of P

I was just trying to think of anything else, and I realised although I cross platform own RDR2 it looks better on Series X, plus I'm doing a load of retro gaming of PS2 games on my [🇯🇵 CECHA00 BC] PS3. As always happens when I get a PS5, I fill the M.2 SSD with games, enjoy it for a bit and then get bored of it and turn to other consoles.

Mass Effect.

I’ve wrapped up all of the combat and exploration trophies. I just need to complete the game and I’ll have the platinum trophy. I should be able to obtain it by the end of this week. I might not immediately start ME2, but I will eventually play the entire franchise (I’ve played these games many times before) and get the platinum on all of them.

Bouncing back n forth between Star Wars n outriders (still) at the moment. Just recently beat Spider-Man 2 which was epic.. prolly one of the most recent games where i couldnt put down the controller.. also finished saints row which was tons of fun.. nothing else on my radar that im aware of.. robocop strikes a bit of curiosity

@Tjuz @Thrillho @RogerRoger Put me down on the list of people who immediately dismissed Midnight Suns due to the deck-builder based gameplay. And I did watch some early videos and it didn’t seem to sell me on it. The relationship building aspects are what tempt me because I usually really enjoy those in the old BioWare games and in the Persona games. I’ve read varied opinions about the quality of Midnight Sun’s companion relationship side stories and base building, so I’m glad to see some approval from trusted sources.

I’ll admit when the game went on a steep sale recently I also nearly pulled the trigger just because it was such a good deal and my curiosity had me giving it a second and third look. But my backlog gave me a stern side-eye frown of disapproval and so I passed. I look forward to hearing more of your experience with it, Tjuz!

@RogerRoger Yeah, it can wear thin after a while if you don’t switch it up. I’d really like to attempt the platinum trophy for Dead Space Remake, but I know it takes three playthroughs and I have a hard time replaying games after I beat them. A game really has to fully capture my attention. And the “Impossible” trophy sounds absolutely mental. With that said, I think I’m going to give it a try.

@Kraven Definitely give it a go, Impossible isn't too bad. Be sure to upload to the cloud every so often, I think I uploaded it at the start of each chapter and before a couple of instant kill sections. I'm a very average gamer and I didn't die at all during my Impossible playthrough although a couple of occasions I did reload a save if a fight didn't go entirely my way so be sure to save at every opportunity.

PS. I'm sure it only took me two playthroughs. EDIT Oops, it was three although NG+ on easy was a quick blast through.

@Thrillho Yeah, I thought the more obscure characters like Magik and Nico might end up taking a backseat while more of the big name ones come in, but I'm glad to see that they're still as important as ever. There's a great balance in terms of the narrative where it feels like everyone really has a place and time to shine at different points. Maybe the only exception there is the DLC characters for obvious reasons, but at least they have their own little storyline going on in the background that involves all of them.

I would recommend going back for the DLC at some point if you're interested at all! I'm not sure how end-game works regarding if you're locked out or not after you've finished it, but if you can return to the Mirror Table to just play through the DLC missions I think you'd have a lot of fun with it. I've enjoyed the characters so far, but I still have to unlock Venom as I'm not far enough into the main story yet that that would make any narrative sense at this moment.

@Thrillho @RogerRoger @Th3solution I would honestly recommend not to be turned off by the deck-builder tag. Not because I am incredibly biased in how much I've been enjoying it, but because I can say from experience I've engaged minimally with actual deck-building. The idea of min-maxing cards and builds doesn't appeal to me in the slightest either. And while the opportunity to do so for the people who do enjoy that is certainly there, I personally barely go into the screen to edit your deck.

Typically, you'll receive a few cards as a reward after every mission which you can then use to either implement in your deck, salvage for resources or upgrade an existing card of the same type. I usually just go into the deck menu to switch out a card for whatever new one I got and that's as far as the deck-building goes for me. I'd say this is maybe like one minute of my time at most every hour and no real thought is put into it. Of course in some games this might mean you're just screwing yourself over with a bad deck, but I've found with this one in particular that it hasn't held me back at all. I'm sure a lot of the combinations I have might be not optimal or whatever, but I've still been able to kick butt and take names all the same.

I think a lot of the help there comes from the mechanic where you upgrade the cards to make them slightly better versions with usually some type of added bonus. It can make even the most basic cards feel pretty powerful. You don't really have to think about that either though, as you'll just unlock the upgrades organically as you switch out cards once in a while. The upgrading itself is nothing more than a menu with a quick click within the training facility of your base, no different from sending a hero on an operation at the War Room for example.

@Tjuz Sounds pretty good. I sort of regret not picking it up the other day when I saw it for less than $20. Maybe some other time.

https://x.com/suicidesquadRS/status/1745495278646648839?s=20

Now that the NDA is lifted, I can say that I enjoyed the alpha test and while I'm a little worried about the open world gameplay loop getting old fast (depends on how much stuff they introduce over time, really), I'm definitely more interested in the game than I was before playing - and my impressions were more positive than those high profile press previews.

The things that stand out is the parts tied to specific missions - not just the cutscenes (good performances and direction) but also very cool environments like the museum in which you're being hunted by corrupted Batman - those are very, very good.

I know a lot of players have similar opinions, which is probably why they lifted the NDA after disappointing press previews.

edit: looks like twitter embeds no longer work... oh well

@Th3solution There can be a lot going on in the hub between missions for Midnight Suns but it never feels overwhelming and the mechanics are all pretty hassle free. I really would recommend when it reappears in the next sale

@Voltan It’s an interesting decision to lift the NDA but it certainly sounds like they had nothing to lose in doing so.

And the Twitter embed not working might be because you still have to put Twitter.com rather than X.com to embed it..

https://twitter.com/suicidesquadRS/status/1745495278646648839...

EDIT: clicking on the link says it needs age verification to view so might not embed for that reason.

@Thrillho That must be it. I tried with Twitter.com too and didn’t work.

Anyway, game potentially actually good.

@Tjuz It's so great to read someone else being so positive and enthusiastic about Marvels Midnight Suns. I platinumed the game about a year ago and still think its one of the most underrated and overlooked games of 2022. I'm not a fan of strategy games and deckbuilders normally, but Midnight Suns was so much fun to play. It sucks that it did bad financially but let's hope that it becomes some culthilt after all the big sales and being in this months humble bundle so we might get a part 2 one day. Lets hope

@Thrillho What hurts is that I had a chance to pick it up for $20 physical, which means I could resell it for probably $10 if I didn’t like it, but alas, I didn’t pull the trigger. I also think it would be a great PS+ game, so here’s hoping.🤞🏼