Tag Archives: Vita

July Games 2020

July Games

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Completions, plural! Had to happen eventually I suppose, particularly as I’ve been playing two of these games for ages.

Games completed this month

Spider-Man GOTY - July Games

Spider-man – PS4

First of my completions this month, I finished the main story on Spider-man. I know a lot of my friends got so into this that they went for the full 100% completion. Unfortunately it suffers from far too much open-world “busy work” for my liking, and I didn’t enjoy the combat enough to persevere through repetitive ‘hideouts’ etc. I did really like the rest of the game though, and very much looking forward to playing the Miles Morales game on PlayStation 5.

This is the physical copy* of the Game of the Year edition I have, although I bought it digitally from the PlayStation Store.

Modern Warfare - June Games

Modern Warfare – PC

Also managed to finish the Modern Warfare campaign this month. Very much enjoyed it, nothing too imaginative but a good all round experience. Still dipping into the multiplayer occasionally, but I didn’t enjoy Warzone. Tetris 99 remains the only Battle Royale game I care about.

I think you can only buy the PC version direct from Battle.net, but you can get the console editions here*

FAR: Lone Sails - PC - June Games

FAR: Lone Sails – PC

Played the entirety of this during July, although to be fair it is about 3 hours long. Very pretty and compelling little adventure with some fairly straightforward puzzles. It’s a bit like Limbo in how it plays. Enjoyed it, but tough to recommend unless you can get it cheap, there isn’t a lot here.

Games played during July

Super Puzzle Fighter - PS3

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix – PS3

Great to dust this one off for a bit of two player battle. The PS3 version is pretty nice even if my usual default is to play the Saturn version.

Porsche Challenge - July Games

Porsche Challenge – PS1 (Played on PS3)

This was being talked about again on Twitter and I had a real craving to revisit it. It holds up really well although it is taking me a bit of time to get used to the difficulty again.

51 Worldwide Games - Switch

51 Worldwide Classics – Switch

Enjoying this, although the online doesn’t seem quite as well put together as it could be. Hopefully they’ll continue to improve it with updates.

I think I ordered from shopto.net to get a free notebook and pen (because stationary) but is also available on Amazon*

Super Arcade Racing - PC

Super Arcade Racing – PC

As mentioned last month, this is one I played at Rezzed in 2019. I’ve been playing a bit of the single player story mode. The story is a mildly amusing excuse to have a load of races. The racing itself is great fun though, would be nice to play it with some friends, but quite happy continuing with just the single player for now.

Project Highrise - July Games

Project Highrise – PC

Don’t even remember when I picked this up, but I was just looking for something a bit laid back to play and I was taken by the idea of a Skyscraper sim. Seems pretty good, and had an enjoyable hour or so with it. Think I made some mistakes early on though, might be worth reading up a bit if you’re going to put any amount of time into the game. I think

I’m playing on PC, but it can be had cheaply via Amazon* on the consoles. Well cheap on Xbox or PS4, and twice as much on Switch…

July Pick-ups

8bitdo Wireless Core Grafx Mini Controller

8bitdo Wireless Core Grafx Mini Pad

Pre-ordered last month, and it turned up in July. Very pleased to report that this works perfectly with no noticeable input delay. Played around with a couple of shmups to test and I am very happy with this controller.

Amazon link*

MicroSD Card - July Games

128GB MicroSD Card – PSTV

Okay so buying a MicroSD isn’t very interesting in itself, however, last weekend of July I finally sat down and installed Custom Firmware on both my PS Vita and PSTV. Some months ago I picked up 2 SD2Vita adaptors to get around the pricey storage issue with these devices. I have installed this 128GB card in the PSTV and installed a bunch of my favourite PlayStation 1 games on there (along with a few standout PSP games) pretty pleased with it overall. Not sure whether I’ll install any emulators or anything on either device yet, we’ll see.

This is the micro sd card* and although I got mine from eBay, this looks like the SD2Vita* adaptors I have.

*As usual, these links are affiliate ones, which may earn me a small commission if you buy something.

May Gaming

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Played a whole lot of games unsuccessfully during May, at least we managed to conclude a Telltale Game so as to avoid a zero completion month.

Games completed during May

Batman Telltale: The Enemy Within – PS4

Another really good Telltale game, as with the previous Batman series I really enjoyed the story. The game engine felt much more stable than the last one too.

 

Also played this month

Darkest Dungeon – PS Vita

Struggling a bit with this, the theme and art style are great and really hooked me. Finding it brutally difficult though, and making very little progress. I’ll try to persevere and see if it gets any easier. Or maybe I’ll consult some guides and see what I’m doing wrong!

Blood Bowl 2 – PS4

Played a mixture of the campaign mode and some online matches of this. I think I prefer playing the game on the tabletop, but it’s nice having the system do all the dice rolling for you. Although I am a bit dubious about the math, since my Elves seem to constantly fail picking the ball up, despite an alleged 83% chance of success…

Blood Omen – Legacy of Kain – PS Vita (PS1)

Restarted this recently for what is probably the 6th time. I’ve never finished it as I always end up leaving it too long in between sessions and forget what I was supposed to be doing. Maybe this time will be different.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus – PS4

Also returned to this in May, enjoying myself back in Wolfenstein. I’m not sure it’s as good as The New Order, but I am enjoying the story and the context of the game.

May Pickups

Stardew Valley – PS Vita

Had almost given up hope of the Vita version of this ever getting a release. Hoping it’ll fill the current Animal Crossing void, but so far I’ve struggled to get into it. I might have to put my farm on hold until I finish my current studies and can focus on it with less guilt.

Street Fighter Anniversary Collection – PS4

Been looking forward to this since it was announced, and as it released the day before my birthday, it seemed appropriate to treat myself to a pre-order. Pleased to confirm that it’s a worthy collection, pretty much essential for fans of the series.

 

January Gaming

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2018 is off to a pretty respectable start, chalking up three completions, on three different systems. Granted 2 of them were games started last year, but it’s all progress. Nothing ticked off the 2018 goals yet, but I’ve started one, so we’re all good.

Games Completed During January

header (5)Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened – PC

Pleased to finally finish this, although I had hoped to wrap it up in December. It was pretty enjoyable as Point and Click’s go, but I’m not going to be in a hurry to play more of this series until I’ve cleared some others in the genre from the backlog. If the idea of Sherlock Holmes investigating mysteries in the Cthulhu Mythos appeals to you, I’d also recommend the compilation of short stories, “Shadows Over Baker Street.”

headerAxiom Verge – Vita

Very satisfying to get properly stuck into a game again on my Vita. This has been an absolute blast and is the main reason I’m finally planning to get to Super Metroid. Axiom Verge is perfect on a handheld, and is definitely the way I’d recommend it be played. I believe there is also a Switch version if that’s your thing.

headerLife is Strange: Before the Storm – PS4

I wasn’t expecting too much from this, given how much I loved the first game. I had doubts once I heard it was being done by a different studio, and that as a prequel it didn’t even include the main character. I shouldn’t have worried though, this is a great game in its own right. It’s not quite as emotionally heavy hitting as the first game, but it still has plenty of moments. Once you reach the end, if you’ve played the original game, the context of already knowing what happens after the events of “Before the Storm” hits all the harder.

Also Played in January

PuyoPuyoTetrisLogoPuyo Puyo Tetris – PS4

After mentioning this earlier in the month in my Local Multiplayer blog post, I managed to play some of this in the 3 player mode. We played a variety of game types, and it was excellent. Too early to say if it would have made the top 5, but it is a great contender.

Wolfenstein-II-01-HDWolfenstein 2: The New Colossus – PS4

I got this for Christmas, and have made a start on the campaign. Early signs are that it’s just as fun as Wolfenstein: The New Order, and the story is already compelling, but it does seem a bit harder. I shall continue.

January Pickups & Purchases 

Blood-Bowl-2Blood Bowl 2: Legendary Edition – PS4

Despite already owning the first Blood Bowl game on PC, where I’ve only completed one match, I decided I wanted to give this another go. Mostly because some of my other friends have picked it up, so it could be great for multiplayer. Also though, I’ve now had a couple of games of the physical board game, and enjoyed it enough to pick up my own team. I bought a team of 12 elves, which took me approximately 8 hours to build, as they are much more complicated models than the other races available so far, and also because I don’t generally get involved in building minis for anything.

ryqmMYST IV – PC

Now I have a play through of Myst 3 planned for this year, it seemed a good time to address the one gap in my collection for the Myst series. This was also prompted by watching Lewis Clark over on Twitter replaying MYST and getting excited by the extended universe. Also thanks to Lewis for pointing out that the 32 bit console versions of Riven are quite playable. I’m now considering playing Riven on my Saturn, having previously given up on the PC version due to bugs.

header (1)Shoppe Keep – PS4

This is a bit leftfield. I went to a video game quiz night in Brighton, hosted by the team at Eurogamer. We had a great time, but didn’t actually do very well. Everyone who took part won a game in a lucky dip though, and I won a physical copy of this. Had no idea what to expect, but I immediately put a couple of hours into it. I can see me sticking with it for a while.

Wulverblade-previewWulverblade – PS4

Been waiting for this for a long time. I am friends with the creator so I had promised I’d pick it up on day one anyway, but it really is fantastic. The gameplay is a very satisfying Golden Axe style brawler, polished with a great art style, some strong voice work, and plenty of history. Definitely an easy recommendation if you enjoy Golden Axe, Streets of Rage etc.

maxresdefault (1)More Storage Space

This month I took advantage of a couple of Amazon sales & promotional codes to upgrade the storage on both my Xbox One & PC. Back when I wrote this post about upgrading console hard drives on a budget, 1 TB was plenty for my Xbox One. I’ve now replaced the external 500GB drive with a nice 2TB, giving me much more to play with, and means I can stop shuffling my installed games every time a new Games with Gold release appears.

Similarly, my Steam folder on my PC passed the 1TB install size a while back. I picked up a 3TB drive which I have just assigned to that. Next upgrade will be the dreaded CPU, Mainboard & RAM combo, so I need to start planning / saving for that.

 

November Games

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Only one real completion in November, but I’m going to throw a second in on a technicality. Well it is my blog.

Games completed this month

Nights into Dreams – Xbox 360 / XB1 BC

Although I did play through this last year on Steam, Nights was recently added to the free Games with Gold on Xbox, so I sat down to clear the main story with both characters in order to unlock Christmas Nights, ready to play over the holidays.

injustice-2-listing-thumb-01-ps4-us-06jun16Injustice 2 (again) – PS4

Yes, I’ve counted Injustice 2 before, when I first cleared the story mode. I’ve put a lot of hours into this during November though, and thought I’d record another couple of milestones. Firstly I went back and cleared the alternative choices in the story mode that I couldn’t do on my original play-through (unfortunately this meant siding with Superman, urgh). This month I also cleared the arcade mode in the multiverse with every character to unlock all their unique endings. I’m aiming to get every character to level 20, albeit with the AI doing a lot of the grinding. In this manner I’ve been using remote play on my Vita to play the game as almost a Superhero management sim, so I still gain XP / loot and contribute to my guild’s progress, when I don’t have time to break out my arcade stick.

Also played in November

headerAxiom Verge – Vita

I had been waiting for a deal on the Vita version of Axiom Verge, as although the Steam version was often available for very cheap, it seemed more suited to handheld play. I’m glad I waited as it is excellent on the Vita, and a great game all round. I’m probably around half way through, although my progress has been somewhat derailed by using my vita for Injustice 2. I’m going about this a bit backwards, as I never really got into any of the 2D Metroid games, but playing Axiom Verge has definitely bumped Super Metroid further up my “to play” list.

everybodys-golf-1_1Everybody’s Golf – PS4

This game is a joy. I played a fair amount of Everybody’s Golf back on the Vita, and am thoroughly enjoying this new version. It’s perfect for a quick game, with a round of golf taking around 10 – 15 minutes.

38923-Punisher,_The_(Europe)-1459753927The Punisher – Mega Drive

Safe to say I’m a late comer to this port, but this year I discovered it is one of the best brawlers on the Mega Drive. Playing in co-op with my partner, we’re yet to beat it, but we are getting there! One or the other of us has made it to the Kingpin each time, but I think we’ll need to get there together (and with some spare lives!) if we’re going to beat him.

header (5)Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened – PC

Still playing this, about 70% of the way through. Hopefully I’ll be able to tick it off in December, I seem to have too many games on the go again!

 

November Pick Ups

PSVRPlaystation VR

I almost made it through the whole Black Friday / Cyber Monday farce unscathed. The only bit of hardware I was keen to pick up was the PSVR headset, as I wrote about after trying it in August. Before the sales started I set myself a hard limit, if I could get the Headset alone for less than £200, I’d bite. I already owned some games, the camera and move controllers, so I wasn’t interested in a bundle. The sales included some very impressive bundle deals, which rapidly sold out everywhere, but nothing on the standalone headset.

That was until I discovered that Amazon had a blanket 20% off all of their Amazon Warehouse deals. In the end I picked up a ‘like new’ headset for £191. I’m very pleased with it, the outer packaging was ripped, but inside everything was mint, with all the protective plastic film still in place. So far I’ve mostly been playing the games I talked about in August, but hopefully my library will increase a bit over Christmas. Particularly keen to get Star Trek, a racing game, Rez Infinite and a few smaller titles like Batman, VR Worlds, and probably the VR addon for Super Stardust HD.

Gaming in October

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October Gaming

Only 2 games completed, and one of those barely counts. Decent amount of games played though, so here we go.

Games completed this month

Oxen Free – Xbox One

This was an absolute joy, and although I’d heard positive things, I had no idea what it was about (or even what kind of game it was). Turns out it’s a creepy little adventure game, and well worth your time.

header (3)The Beginners Guide – PC

This is one of those games that I heard great things about, and after playing it I was left wondering why. Some mild existential stuff going on, but it’s mostly just drivel. Only finished it as it took about 80 minutes, and by the time I’d finished hoping it was going to improve, it ended.

Also played in October

2018-porsche-911-gt2-rs-on-the-cover-of-forza-motorsport-7_100609564_mForza Motorsport 7 – Xbox One

Not entirely sure how I feel about this. The Career mode is easily the best it has been since Forza 2 or 3, later games in the series became so very stale. However it has also tripled down on heinous micro-transactions. Plenty has been written about the mods & loot crate systems elsewhere, but for my two cents: the mods are an annoying distraction at best, and the loot boxes (and by extension the pointless driver clothes that you only see when your avatar is loitering in menus) are completely out of place and soil the the rest of the game. Once in a race, it’s the best serious racer I’ve ever played, but the mods and loot box systems are absolute trash. Hence Forza 7 manages to also be both my favourite and least favourite Forza Motorsport game yet. Urgh. Roll on Horizon 4 and let’s hope they don’t ruin this one with sleazy cash grabs.

header (5)Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened – PC

I’ve somehow got loads of these Sherlock Holmes games across my various digital libraries, and never played any. Decided to start here with the Lovecraftian influenced Awakened, as it seemed appropriate for Halloween and who doesn’t like a bit of Cthulhu? I’m enjoying it and certainly expect to get to the end. Not sure if I’ll play any others from the series though.

header (6)Doki Doki Literature Club – PC

My experiences with visual novels haven’t been great. The two I’ve attempted previously lasted barely half an hour each. The first left me mildly traumatised as I discovered it was some kind of horror porn (this was about 20 years ago and the internet is a scary place kids), and the second was the frankly bizarre Hatoful Boyfriend. People raved about Hatoful Boyfriend but the characters were just too annoying for me to get far enough to find any story. At any rate I’ve decided to give this one a go, given the promise of some fourth wall breaking psychological horror. Jury is out.

header (7)Sky Force Anniversary – Vita

Passable shmup on the Vita, not blowing me away but it was free on PS Plus, and entertaining enough to play a few lives when hungover. Fully expecting to get bored of this before I get anywhere near the end, but I might give it a bit longer.

Retired / Thrown in the Sea* this month

header (4)The Evil Within – Xbox One

Buying this was a mistake really. Found it in a charity shop for a couple of quid and should have left it there. The gameplay is pure Resident Evil / Silent Hill with added Amnesia style hiding in cupboards. Not a fan of any of those tropes and I lasted less than an hour before I turned it off. The second time I climbed into the obviously person sized locker in a room to successfully evade a massive chap with a chainsaw (or something else sharp), my suspension of disbelief collapsed. Your mileage may vary.

*Not actually thrown in the sea…

October pick ups

Grabbed a couple of games in the Halloween sales that I’ve been meaning to play for a while…

fjNzEHqVampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines – PC

Not sure how I’ll take to this, but heard so much good stuff, it was certainly worth a punt for £3. As written about previously my RPG tolerance is generally low, but I can sometimes overcome that with a good setting.

 

3082597-indigoFahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy – PS4

Think this is the third time I’ve bought Fahrenheit. Had it previously for Xbox & PC, but don’t seem to own either anymore and never got round to playing it. Maybe this time…