Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 540

Switch: 100% The Messenger - good fun, not too sure on the pacing. Going to rest it for a while before going on the DLC

Florence: completed on a train ride - very sweet game with some lovely graphics and music but I need to know more!

Now I’m figuring out what to play on my holibobs - probably Super Mario Sunshine or The Minish Cap

PS5: haven’t had much time at home this week so still on the final boss of Sifu but managed to bring my age down quite a bit

On PS5 i will be playing Trails Through Daybreak and Fairy Tail.

On Switch its Pikmin 1 and Tears of the Kingdom

@get2sammyb I honestly just happened to go on the page at the same time and had already written the comment for NL! I’m not stalking, I swear 😅

Final Fantasy VII Remake: Having played XVI a month or so ago and heard that this is one of the greatest RPGs of all time I was naturally curious, and it mostly holds up.

Cloud is a smartly written conflicted character, Tifa is the loyal best friend who reminds him of who he is beneath the SOLDIER, and Aerith serves as the conscience and motivation that we'd all be lucky to have. The city of Midgar is beautifully unveiled as a world not too dissimilar to our own, but with a healthy dose of futurism injected. Some of the story is truly humorous (such as Cloud dressing as a woman for a lascivious lecher of a potential groom) or appropriately epic, i.e. the team taking down a robot designed to execute them in front of the whole city.

It can be a bit linear, but I suspect the development team was aware of this as, even during those story missions that are, they include multiple branching pathways with tons of loot just itching to be found. The combat is (for me, since I played it first) reminiscent of Kingdom Hearts, and it's quite cool to see the origin of the Limit Break system, especially utilized so smoothly. On that note, there's hardly a stutter in framerate: not usually a concern for me, but it's nice to see the game play so buttery smooth.

I need to experience the full tale, but I've sunk twenty hours over the past two days, which should tell you everything you need to know about how much I'm enjoying this title.

The Excavation of Hob's Barrow

Atmospheric point and click adventure that made me feel like the 90s again - good stuff!

They Always Run

Action platformer with a 3-armed mutant. Great artstyle but controls were a bit finicky.

The Invisible Hours

Whodunnit VR mystery where everything happens realtime on a small island with 8 characters. A bit similar to Deracine where you move around as an invisible voyeur.

Pseudoregalia

Platformer-metroidvania with PSX graphics and nice atmosphere and music. Feels like playing Mario64 in a Team ICO castle with the move set of Mirrors Edge.

I got a 'running hot' message on my PS5 whislt playing BG3 yesterday so I'll be playing in short bursts this weekend.

Im almost at the end of the instant hit the awsome tunic.what a game wow.Im still playing one of the best video games ever in the excellent mass effect 1. From mass effect legendary trilogy.and i will be playing the incredible one of the best video games ever in the incredible sifu. I will be watching usa basketball play.usa 🏀 got 3 Boston Celtics 💚🖤.lets go.i will be watching legendary sitcoms tv 📺 comedy shows in good times.the Jeffersons.sanford and son.and saved by the bell.word up son

Picked up Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth on-sale. Going to be diving head first into that.

Sea of Stars on Game Pass. Such a heartwarming, engaging game. Normally I can’t get into pixel art games, but this one is a gem.

For my birthday a few days ago I got Rise of the Ronin. It’s very early days but so far combat seems like fun, though graphics are very average (but I knew that before getting it). Also playing the excellent Doom-esque roguelite Deadlink, which is a blast. Oh yeah, still chipping away at FF7 Rebirth!

Black mesa and Alice madness returns on the lappytop. prodeus and attempting to finish spider-men 2 on the 5.

Bit of AC Mirage and some Honkai Star Rail event stuff. Then early to bed to wake up at stupid O'clock for the Terence Crawford vs Israil Madrimov fight. Have a good weekend all!

Having just finished Still Wakes the Deep I am doing a 2nd play through in Scottish Gaelic for the platinum! Brilliant game , great story.

Might start Prince of Persia the Lost Crown, Happy Gaming everyone

Cyberpunk 2077 (for the first time) and Thank Goodness You're Here!

Still on my MH World Iceborne Rise. If I had to add cumulatively I'd say I've crossed 1500hrs. Monster Hunter is just so good! Will be back in the Shadow of the Erdtree after that Consort made me pack my bags and leave.

The saga continues: Shenmue II.

Working on several items:

Finished FF7 Rebirth. Incredible and moving. But bloated.

Platinum for Nobody Wants to Die. Up there for my favorite games this year.

Playing through:
Prodeus- awesome boomer shooter
Super Perils of Baking - much harder than I thought.
Rise of the Ronin- will chip away here and there.

Mostly though I want to work more on Shadow of the Erdtree. It’s a nice DLC and I love Souls games but I think I’d like a new experience instead of more of the same.

Having an absolute ball on my return to Liberty City in GTA IV and very close to wrapping up that Castlevania: Lords of Shadow plat.

@Yousef- it’s a slog mate, have to do a full playthrough to unlock Paladin (Extra Hard) difficulty, there’s a butt-load of collectibles, a trial for each stage (all 46 of them and you’re not able to do the trial until you’ve already completed the stage once) and then the actual Paladin playthrough… not gonna lie, it’s a lot like 😅

I was one of the PSVR2 adopters last week so I will be playing some more of that. Synth riders is really fun and I am finally starting to get used to VR enough to give the resi evil games a good go. When I’m taking a break from the headset it will be FF rebirth chapter 10.

Dark Souls 3 and Kunitsu-gami path of the goddess what a gem of a game

@ApostateMage it's been actual summer for a few weeks, which probably doesn't help, but maybe time for hoovering out the old girl? 😅

Probably finishing Daybreak this weekend; What an excillerating game, love it alot; plots of twists and turns around every corner.
Will probably also do some more Mass Effect on the side

I’ve not been in the mood for gaming much this last week! I’ve been watching the Olympics, some series, read a book etc. I picked up Nobody wants to die and tried it for 30 min or so and it seems great so I’ll dig into it properly soon. Also finished the campaign in The First Descendant so I’m now done with that game. Enjoyed it a lot more than I initially thought I would and it was fun playing with others in co-op. Still not really a good game 😅

After I finish Nobody wants to die I think its high time to play Stellar Blade 🙂

I tried to get into Undernauts but just couldn’t so, I’ve booted up my old game rig (first time in almost a year) to play Grimrock, the wifi dongle almost caught fire (it was seriously hot!) trying to update about a petabyte of games. I’m still pathologically addicted to Arizona Sunshine 2 so I’ve played a bit of that and GT7. I had a quick look at upgrading the PC, but I don’t fancy dropping £4K, so I think I’ll stick with the plan of getting a Pro! Have a great weekend folks!

GTA 5 😱 moderately enjoying finding my way; back in San Andreas

And probably back to Star Wars: Jedi Survivor too

I’m stuck in gaming hell at the moment. I have a tone of games to play, but I’m not really in the mood for anything. I’ve booted up the sims 4 to check out the latest over priced expansion that I still enjoy buying.

Jedi Survivor, Overwatch

@Ravix Aye. I've got a dog who sheds like mad so I'm dreading to see the amount of hair in there when I do open her up. The PS5 of course, not the dog.

Still playing Blasphemous on the Portal. Excellent game. Will get the second one after I complete it. Tempted to go for plat too

I'm about to complete my first run of BG3 on Xbox. I only have a couple quests to wrap up before I go to the final boss.
It's been a fun journey. A couple months ago I was about to give up on the game because I thought it was sluggish and boring. But now I can barely put it down.

I downloaded a few old JRPGs I'd never heard of from the classics collection and had a little look at them. Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light is one of them. It seems pretty cool but the main character moves so slowly, like he's underwater, and there's no sprint button (which is typical of older games, but still). You also have to press Square to target something before you can interact with it, including NPCs. Oh, and you move the camera with the shoulder buttons and it's soooo slow.

It's interesting playing older, forgotten games and then playing an older, not forgotten game like Tales of Symphonia. It's really clear why some games did well and others fell by the wayside when you play them years after release.

@Mikey856 You should check out the other games Wadjet Eye have published and/or made. Loads of great stuff there.

Dragon Dogma 2. A freaking Drake dragon showed up in Vernworth. I honestly don’t feel like messing with it right now.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope

I'm still playing First Descendant, finished the campaign and now i am firmly in farming mindlessly territory whilst catching up with Critical Role... Mainly focusing on farming Ultimate Bunny until I get bored at which point I'll finally move on to something else.

Baldurs gate 3. Picked it up in the sale.

This weekend I’m playing Ys: VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana on the PlayStation Vita. I am a big fan of developer Nihon Falcom and their games, but this is my first foray into this particular series.

I’m a couple of chapters in, playing on nightmare difficulty, and it’s been sublime. The game is incredibly well paced, and the setting and story involved is an intriguing concept. You play as Adol, an adventurer on board a Lombardia, a large ship hosting many, when all of a sudden giant tentacles attack the ship and send everyone overboard. You eventually wake up on a deserted island, stranded, looking for other survivors. You’ll slowly build a community, and as time progresses you will continue to make strides to improve your camping lodges, and hopefully eventual escape. All the while, the story elements are slowly drip fed to you, and I’m curious to see how these two sides of the spectrum make contact with each other.

Meanwhile, earlier this week I got two platinum trophies. The first was for one Nobody Wants To Die (PS5/Portal), which I praised days ago, and secondly was Severed (PS Vita). The latter, which was my first time playing, might go down as my favorite Vita game, right alongside Uncharted Golden Abyss and Persona 4 Golden.

It is a short, but tight experience — 7hrs for 100% completion, without a guide. There is no filler. It’s essentially a first-person dungeon crawler, with a fun map, beautiful environments bolstering an exquisite art style, interesting traversal mechanics, simple puzzles and secrets, but rewarding, excellent combat that continually evolves, and solid RPG elements that mix up gameplay all the way until the end. It also features one of the best implementations of touch screen gameplay that I’ve played in many years. I think it’s safe to say it’s an exceptional game from beginning to end.

Just got the plat on First Descendant so rather than just grind forever more, I’ll delete that and give Mount and Blade 2 a try.

I started RDR2 again, because last time I tried it I think I was a little unfair to it. We'll see. It's a painful opening, man. Walk and talk is not for me.
Also I reinstalled Bloodstained: RotM on my Switch at someone's suggestion that the performance issues weren't nearly as bad anymore. I disagree. I got it on my PS5 now, and am a lot happier for it. I have too many games on my Switch anyway...

I updated my Eve client and undocked for the first time in ages. My main turned 17 this past June - time flies. I couldn't be bothered to build an alpha-friendly fit to get in some trouble with, and I didn't feel much like slapping down for Omega, so I did some ship spinning in Amarr and logged off. The temptation was there as I was longing to poke my head in to a wormhole, but alas.

I've been playing Clash Royale lately - fun little game, especially challenging if you commit to not spending any money.

I went back to Stellar Blade and am working through the Normal boss challenges. It only took me 5 tries to beat Raven this time.

I bounced off SMTV. I thought for sure it would grab me. The desert setting is so bland. I'll try again another time.

Not terribly excited to play anything else right now.

I have options depending on mood In the last two weeks:
Dark souls platinum achieved
Resident Evil 3 platinum achieved

Now:
Outer worlds

And potentially a few others

@Zuljaras I always wait for your comment and the picture of your collections. Keep posting man!

As for me, I've just finished the Phantom Liberty expansion yesterday and got the ending where the main story of the vanilla continues so I'll be playing the final part of Cyberpunk this weekend. What a game folks!

@IntrepidWombat I feel you on the whole EvE thing, every so often I re-install realise the F2P version means I can't pilot most of my ships so I do a little mining/trading and log out feeling vaguely dissatisfied but the itch is scratched enough where i can uninstall for another year or so.

One of I’m sure the many new psvr2 owners here. I didn’t buy any games but have been playing RE4 and did Horizon demo.
Is it worth upgrading my PS+ account for the vr games you get access to?

Kingdom come deliverance x ok monkeys edition. What a game. Best £3.19 I’ve ever spent

@Elock
Yes, there are quite a few. Worth it for a month to see what you like at least. Walking dead s&S is worth it alone. I envy you playing RE4 in VR for the first time.

Shadow of the Erdtree mainly, might dig into some post-credits secrets on Animal Well too.

this weekend I am playing Gotham knights going for the platinum trophy oh and for anyone who is finding the new Astro bots added to astro play room the 3rd one is now available

Playing

• Baba is You (Switch)
• Divinity: Original Sin (XSX)
• F1 23 (PS5)

Paused

• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (PS5)
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)
• Yakuza: Like A Dragon (PS5)

Backlog

• Days Gone
• Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
• Persona 3: Reload
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Currently playing Hades on Steam deck, the perfect Steam deck game.

On PS5: probably going to continue my journey towards the platinum on Elden ring. Amd may continue my journey in Trails of cold steel 2 for something a little more light-hearted

@Mikey856 Yeah I think the Wadjet Eye games are only on Steam (or GOG etc). There might be some exceptions. I'd really recommend Technobabylon, Unavowed and Resonance. The Blackwell games are very highly thought of, but I've not played them yet. Not a Wadjet Eye thing but that Pillars of the Earth game is meant to be really good too but again, I've not played it. It has a PS4 version.

@Mikey856 It's very good if you like the genre! Pretty short though, at about 6 or so hours.

@Marquez yeah Death Stranding is incredible… but certain aspects of the press and the community went after it for some reason. I still can’t convince one of my mates to even try it and he’s a huge kojima fan.

@Marquez I think it’s down to open-world fetch-quests becoming a dirty word (or term) within gaming, since they were introduced in the early GTA games and then just thrown into most subsequent open-world games since, without much thought going into it. So when the gameplay loop of DS was revealed to be a delivery simulator, people who were already sick of fetch-quests made their minds up before even playing it… and let everyone possible know about it.

What they didn’t account for was all the little intricacies and decision making that goes into every square-metre that you navigate when manoeuvring across DS’s landscape.

@ApostateMage I have a dog and two cats, and the room where my consoles are is the one place they are not allowed! They hate it and are always trying to get in, but I am tired of pet hair in and on my gaming machines! 😃

Labyrinth of Galleria, Class of heroes 2g and then maybe give the assassins creed: origins dlc good old go. Finally got the dlc so it'll be nice to finally check it out.

Early this week, my PS4 HDD got corrupted and i lost plenty of save files. So i replaced it with a new HDD but why i always got message "Cannot access system storage. Error code CE-34335-8"? I can't access safe mode too. sigh...next week i will bring my PS4 to a repair shop which i hope they can found and fix the problem 😔

Fortunately, my PS3 slim is still working. Right now i'm playing FF XIII and at chapter 5 with Lightning & Hope try to pass Gapra Whitewood. I must give my salute for SE. For a 15 years old game, XIII graphics still looks good and holding up really well.

Btw a bit off topic. Anyone in here still have a physical copy of 3D Dot Game Heroes, Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions, Bayonetta, Demon's Souls, and TloU for PS3? My PS3 slim always gave a "An error occured during the start operation (80010514)" message after i inserted the disc and try to run it. I tried with other games and they're working just fine.

Finding myself with some more gaming time again 😄 so I’ve been enjoying Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Happy gaming!

Edition 540 still without a poll so it's just a bunch of people commenting with no trends from week to week

Trails through Daybreak. Brilliant game, over 80 hours in and still only on Chapter 3.

@Foxhound I am also 80 hours in and on chapter 3. I’m not sure how people are saying this game is only 40-50 hours long. I had to personally take a break from the game, but I plan on jumping back in soon. I’m glad you’re liking it just as much as I am!

Life is Strange: Before the Storm - Starting the second episode of the game. Looking to finish all 4 games this summer.

Baldur’s Gate 3 - A few hours into Act 2. Hoping to get to Moonrise Towers this weekend.

The Witcher 3 - 15 hours into this game & have been enjoying just exploring around Velen. Will eventually get back to Main Quests.

Just finished 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim and tbh, the last few hours felt like a slog.
I really need to something to get some adrenaline pumping.
While Ys VIII is next on my backlog, I might try out something like ghostrunner.

@playstation1995 congrats on Celtics winning the title! As a spurs fan I like Derrick white

I’m mega stuck on the final boss of Erdtree. I’ve beaten every From Software boss solo, but there’s no way I can get through this fight without summons. I’m just hoping for a lucky run or some crazy skilled player to join me at this point. It’s frustrating as hell.

Also beat Streets of Rage 4 with my nieces today. They loved it and even managed to work together without arguing too much.

Since I only have tomorrow for gaming:
P3 Reload, Ghost of Tsushima and Returnal for PS5.
ESO daily log in, Dragon’s Dogma and AC2 for PS4.
Had a day trip to Scarborough today and won’t be back home till late on this evening so won’t get any gaming time in today

@Dragonaged. Yes.thanks playa.boston Celtics 💚🖤 got banner 18.easily one of the best nba teams ever.word up son

@Kraven Hey, nice to chat to a fellow Trails aficionado!
I know exactly how those saying the game is only 40-50 hours long "play" the game: skipping all cutscenes, not bothering to do sidequests, not talking to NPCs... It's sad, really, as that is exactly the opposite of how a Trails game is enjoyed. Imho, no other gaming series has such a solid cast of characters, worldbuilding and lore.

Sorry to hear about you having to take a break, hope you can resume it soon no problem and enjoy the next chapters even more!

@PuppetMaster , it sounds like your PS4 can’t read the hard drive, it’s worth taking it out, checking the model and make sure it’s compatible with the PS4 (I think they can only handle 5400RPM drives, so if it’s 7200RPM you might have an issue). Just taking it out and re-installing it might fix it, but it’s a long shot. If the drive is incompatible, you could always get an external drive case and use it as external storage, but you’ll need a compatible internal drive (just google “PS4 compatible drive”, you can probably still get them from Amazon).

With your PS3, if you have any disks that work, it’s probably a scratched/dirty disk, if none of your disks work, it’s probably the DVD drive. You can replace them, but it’s a pain.

Good luck 🙂 🤞

Replaying Horizon Forbidden West and it’s so damn gorgeous

Welp I'm debating whether to continue in Bloodborne or finish other games like Star Ocean 2 Remake or try the Visions of Mana demo. It's probably just me but I'm finding the Reward part of the Risk/Reward loop is a bit lacking.

I'll also be watching the Olympics.
Have a great weekend everyone!

I finally beat Genichiro in Sekiro and made my way through Senpou Temple, so on to the next area.

Just started Alan Wake 2. Too early into it to get a sense of what I think about it other than it’s very different what with the heavy emphasis on the detective work.

I’m finally playing Ni No Kuni on the PlayStation 5. It’s the perfect blend of Studio Ghibli and a Dragon Quest style RPG.

Good afternoon.
This Sunday morning, i played Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town PS4. 😊

Then i played dance machine Infinity at local Arcade Mr Token ITC Mega Grosir this afternoon.

Just finished lies of p, awesome game and started tales of arise

@Shepherd_Tallon I’m not that far yet, so it’s a bit early to tell. If you like heartwarming characters with funny dialogues and turn based combat you can’t go wrong.

I´m still playing incredible Dark Souls Remastered on ps5, currently in Tomb of Giants and also unlocked DLC. Picked up Lies of P physical copy and Tales of Arise digital on ps store. I don´t know when I will play them - so many games, so little time...

Happy gaming!

Unfortunately nothing for the next times...
For personal and financial reasons had to sell my PS5 and my Switch along with the majority of the games...
Will grab new onee in the future when the time is right

Dungeons of hinterberg, elderand and the last faith for me got too many games on my backlog n it keeps getting bigger 😭

Well here we go with another awesome WAYP. Been an incredible week. Almost beat Stellar Blade and secured preorders for the Deluxe Edition of Dragon Ball Sparking Zero and Shadows of the Damned Hella Remastered. Also bought the ECW Punk pack for WWE2K24 with the reward points I got from PlayStation Stars for that. Very happy about it because I love CM Punk. Also ordered a copy of Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ for switch. Owned the original on PS4 and always said well it feels like it fits on Switch and here we are. Can’t wait to boot it up on my day off. Also scored a awesome deal of the Borderlands Pandora’s Box collection for $37 instead of 150 so I think that means at some point a Borderlands Marathon is on the books like my Uncharted and Resident Evil marathons before it. Also might wanna see that movie too. Speaking of movies I saw Deadpool and Wolverine this week with my best friend and man that was a terrific movie seriously I think it may be easy top 3, definitely a comfort movie I would watch on Disney Plus again if it came out there. Otherwise I enjoyed some more Trails Through Daybreak and FFXIV: Dawntrail. Took a little for both to click but man I just love both of those games so much I really wanna pour loads more into them. Thinking the rest of the weekend will just be a Persona 3 Reload weekend. Made it to December and that means there’s just that and January left. Otherwise I’m thinking this week is mostly gonna consist of some Paper Mario, more P3R and beating Stellar Blade, Luigi’s Mansion, Trails Through Daybreak, beating Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble, FFVII Rebirth, Kunitsu Gami and Dragon’s Dogma 2.. Also think I’m gonna try to get some Eshop money this week to secure copies of Tsukihime and Fate/Stay Night Remastered which just got a release for this week. Already own Witch on the Holy Night on PS4 so I think I wanna try to beat all three of those visual novels before the end of the year. WWE SummerSlam too was absolutely amazing I got to see it with my best friend and stepdad and it was just absolutely peak. I won’t go in depth and spoil for those who haven’t seen it yet but I don’t think there was a bad match the whole thing. The pop for a certain comeback was so loud it was absolutely insane. I think my standouts would be Cody Vs Solo, Rhea Vs Liv, and CM Punk Vs Drew. Let’s just say that this weeks RAW and SMACKDOWN are gonna be absolutely amazing. And I got surprised with tickets for SMACKDOWN in October which I am absolutely stoked for as that will almost certainly be building up for a Bloodline Civil War Wargames at Survivor Series in November. Anime of the week gotta go to Demon Slayer, Oshi No Ko, Vtuber Legend and Delicious in Dungeon. Demon Slayer was excellent especially and I’m very interested to see the trilogy of movies they’ve announced to end the series. Podcasts of this week gotta go to Castle Superbeast, Big Think Dimension, Into The Aether, RPGsites Tetracast, Minnmax, Jeff Gerstmann, Kit and Krysta, Last Stand Media, Easy Allies, Second Wind, Nextlander, Cultaholic Wrestling, Aetheryte Radio and Remap Radio. As always yall stay safe, be incredible to each other. Have a beautiful weekend and of course Happy Gaming.

Hot Wheels Unleashed was this weekend's fun. It's worth saving every monthly game to your account, you never know when you might want to play them 🙂

Metro Exodus