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ralphdibny

Grand Kingdom (PS4/Vita) - it could probably be best described as a tactical RPG. The battles are presented from a side on perspective and have 3 planes that can be travelled between. There is a lot of story between battles. Its not the sort of top down grid based Tactics type game of Advance Wars/Fire Emblem or the kind of open but limited by genre conventions style of Valkyria Chronicles/Gears Tactics.

There is a lot of story between battles though. HLTB has this pegged at something like 20+ hours for the main campaign. Part of the gameplay also involved taking on contracts from one of four warring nations but this appears to be a server based thing where the servers have now shut down. The additional stats on HLTB make me think that this war contracts aspect could add dozens of hours to the already lengthy game time.

Looks good in some respects but I would find it hard to be enthused by it because I'm too fickle to play an original IP that has a long runtime and in a genre I'm only marginally familiar with. Rating = NMT for not my thing

Space Hulk (PS Vita) this looks like an adaptation of a board game that is an adaptation of Warhammer 40K. I played one level. It seems like it's quite easy to get into but I couldn't really work out all of the controls and some of the on-screen and touchscreen options were a bit small and obtuse for me.

Probably worth checking out if you are a fan of the physical boardgame or Warhammer 40K anyway. Rating = FFO for for fans only

Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness (PS4/Vita) - this game is a visual novel. I've never played a visual novel before. All you do is literally press X through the whole thing. Rarely, you have to select between multiple options/choices. I played this whole game all the way through for about 5 hours and I couldn't have made more than 20 choices in that time. So that's 4 hours and 56 minutes of just pressing X.

The story is OK, it's another interpretation of humanity's future where a lot of stuff rings true even in 2021 but has obviously been taken to a much farther dystopian/utopian point. The characters seem fun and interesting. Despite that, I still wasn't that interested.

I skimmed through most of the text. A few moments hit home for me. I think the speculation and philosophy on happiness, mental health and free will was quite interesting to some extent. Characters working out whether they should go up or down stairs or stay on the same level of a building to explore was a lot less interesting.

I decided to play this game all the way through because I could just press X for a few hours and have another game to add to my completed games list, something that sits neglected with all these pick up and plays that I've been doing this week. I just thought it would be easy if not a little mind numbing. I didn't realise just how mind numbing it would be. I was literally falling asleep at times, just tapping X. I did end up having a nap at one point.

The first two chapters were relatively short, like a bit over an hour each. The third and final chapter was so very long though. Like 2-3 hours. It seemed like it was going to end on a cliffhanger (I honestly wouldn't have minded) but then it spent another hour and half resolving itself. I had read there is a fourth chapter if you meet certain conditions with your 20 or so choices but I am so glad I made the wrong choices and didn't get to see it. Despite this, the game did inform me that I had reached one of its "true endings".

Also this game is based on an anime. Also, thematically it's a bit like Minority Report but with AI determining criminality instead of mutant psychics. Rating = X because the button is drilled into my mind and physically imprinted into my thumb


I have made a lot of progress on my spreadsheet this week and I'm glad to have done so. While I still have a substantial amount of PS4 games and a few PS3 games left to try, I only have 11 more games that are either Vita only or compatible with Vita and I have them all installed and ready to go. All the rest, I've either played, completed or bought. Woop! (Un?)Fortunately those remaining games are ones that I think I'm either going to want to play properly or have some substantial length to them

Edited on by ralphdibny

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ralphdibny

@Th3solution I do wonder if PlayStation will bring back their reduced price Platinum/Greatest Hits/Essentials/Players choice (whatever it was called) for the PS5 generation. PS4 had it, 360 had it and I think Wii U had it. Switch and Xbox One just seem to have given up on their respective brandings though!

@RogerRoger cheers for the tip, that's actually a really good idea! Hopefully I'll get around to it at some point. I'm normally a first draft, trail of thought type of writer with sort of minor adjustments to text after the fact so stuff makes more sense (as you can probably tell from my reviews 😅). So alternate endings never occurred to me!

I am sensing that you may have written some Star Trek fan fic!! (Edit: or star Wars!) I can't think of anything else that lends itself to original stories with original characters in a world with an established lore. Naturally Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, the Matrix could work well too but we haven't discussed those as much if at all! I remember the star trek IP owners being fairly liberal with fan works and allowed them as long as they weren't for profit. There's full fan TV shows and fan movies that even feature the original actors!

My second screenplay was actually a fan fic. I had every intention of making it as well if I'd ever finished the damn script. It would have been fun to make I think but yeah, like you, life got in the way! I doubt I'd return to it now if I had the opportunity as the zeitgeist for the topic is now gone. It's definitely not the sort of thing that would work with transplanted characters though. The plot is entirely dependent on an existing movie and features an existing set of characters. I guess that means it's probably actually not very good if I couldn't make it original anyway 😂.

Edited on by ralphdibny

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RogerRoger

@ralphdibny I tend to write the same way, so I understand. It can be a good exercise to push yourself away from your usual approach, but it can also be a disaster, so don't force anything!

Not much Star Wars, really. I wrote Star Trek and original James Bond adventures, side by side because they both taught me different skills. Trek is all depth of character, imagination and morality plays, whereas Bond is more blunt, straightforward intrigue and action, constrained by its contemporary setting. Whatever I was in the mood for, I could still write. I never posted them anywhere with a high profile, it was just small fan forum fare. I'm not brave enough for wider exposure, not yet anyway.

Hey, it's a challenge to continue somebody else's work and keep the spirit intact, so don't be so quick to sell yourself short. I can't even begin to imagine what you were writing about, though, especially since you say you were thinking of making it; you mean, actually film it, yeah?

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

ralphdibny

@RogerRoger sounds really cool! Especially the different writing styles you employ. Can't be easy to go both ways. Authors are known for their "styles" and it's not often they diverge, unless theres a pseudonym involved!!

Yeah, I would have filmed it. I used to do some stuff like that when I was younger. It was fun but yeah, life got in the way. I somehow managed to crush my own ego as well. Like I went from one extreme to the other but really you just need a certain level amount of ego to do stuff like that. Enough to get it pushed through the door but not so much that you annoy everyone around you. I currently have none, with regards to my filmmaking skills at least and haven't done for pretty much a decade now. But yeah, I'll tell you about that movie when we speak privately. Bit too embarrassed about it to post on a public forum, even if I am semi anonymous!

Edited on by ralphdibny

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RogerRoger

@ralphdibny Gotcha; makes sense, and apologies for pressing!

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

ralphdibny

@RogerRoger Ahh no not at all! I was debating with myself whether to post about it for a while but I decided not to in the end. No worries, I felt no pressure!

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ralphdibny

Steredenn (PS3) - a side scrolling shmup. Seems ok and I believe it can be beat in a couple of hours. Unfortunately I was suffering from a John McClane level headache when I played it and I am not sure if I can be bothered to go back and finish it. Rating = PS for possibly short

Monster Jam Battlegrounds (PS3) - this game is awful. There are 3 modes. One plays like the Trials series (HD, Evolution, Fusion, Blood Dragon, Rising etc) except you play as a monster truck instead of a bike. It's not good. Trials is good, this is not good.

The other main mode is like from a behind the truck perspective and has you driving along a line in a 3D arena. Sometimes the game tells you that you've won and sometimes it tells you've lost because you've gone off the track. I couldn't really work out what the criteria was for attaining either of these end states. Which probably says a lot about the game.

The final mode which is unlocked after gaining some stars is like a challenge mode. It's from the Trials perspective again except now you may either have to destroy a certain amount of static vehicles by driving over them, perform a really long jump, perform a jump into a specific target pit or all three of these things.

Progression is confusing. You can get up to 3 stars from each event you compete in. I can't really work out how many stars are required to unlock further events (except the challenge mode which was helpfully labelled with 8 stars). Again, just confusing and messy.

The framerate is trash too. Unfortunately I didn't have a string of movie bad guys to ask for some aspirin for my "real bad f---ing headache". Once my progression stalled, I quit the game. Rating = JPT for just play Trials

Earth Defense Force 2025 (PS3) - this game is nothing like what I expected. With a title like that, you expect some kind of shmup. This is actually a disaster/kaiju style monster game where you play as one of four classes of person going around a city killing giant insects. Yes, giant insects.

It's arcadey, it's actually quite fun. I could see this being worth playing if not for the 16 hour run time and it's iffy framerate. It sounds a bit long so I didn't go further than the first couple of missions. The framerate might be expected from a third party (bandai namco) PS3 era game. It wasn't unplayable but it was choppy enough to be noticeable.

I tried out all the classes. The game plays like a really Japanese third person shooter. I tried soldier which is what you might expect, a flying lady in an exoskeleton which was quite fun (I flew to the tallest building in the map), some guy who can summon tanks I think (I couldn't exactly work it out) and like a mech thing.

It's fun, it's corny, there seemed to be plenty of homage paid to monster movies of the past and generally it's not too bad. Also some buildings are destructable. I was blowing up these massive ants and then some buildings blew up too. Rating = AA for arach attack

Predator Hunting Grounds (PS4) - DILLON!!! You sonofab---!!!! Predator is probably one of the best films ever made. It's fun, it's cheesy, it has an amazing cast and acts almost as a satire in the vein of many Vietnam war films of the era without getting too hung up on it. Predator 2 is ok. Not great but not god awful. The already on the nose subtext of the first film is somehow laid out even more obviously for this sequel set in the "urban" jungle 🙄. Predators (predator 3) is actually awesome, not as good as the original but still decent enough considering it was a (then) modern Predator film. I actually forgot there was a fourth film called The Predator too. But I was glad I forgot and then I was angry that I remembered it for this review. A truly terrible movie, almost as bad as the fifth Die Hard film but at least I've managed to stay awake long enough in The Predator to see the end of it.

ummm anyway. This is a multiplayer only title. I did the tutorial where you play as the predator. That seemed quite good. Then I actually hooked up with a friend to play online (shock, horror) and it was balls. Great to catch up with my friend as I hadn't spoke to him in like a year but the game was pretty average/bad.

Neither of us got to play as the predator in the multiplayer, im not sure if that was because we were in a party so it would have messed up the asymmetrical gameplay if the predator could talk to one of the soldiers. It wouldn't have mattered as we just had a catch up and barely talked about the game at all, the game is just an excuse to have the catch up!

I can't really work out what you have to do. You just go up to orange markers and hold Square and it does something. Occasionally you'll have to stick around and defend something you just pressed Square on. Pretty mind numbing stuff. You also have to avoid/kill other soldiers who are controlled by "AI" and also a Predator who is another player. The bots are shockingly bad. Loads of times, I'd just see enemy soldiers standing there looking gormless at me. Our last match actually had two AI comerades. Same again, just a couple of gormless gourds. They didn't even jump on the helicopter at the end and got blown up by a self destructing Predator. Playing as a human is just a standard FPS game, playing as predator is like third person and seems quite cool. Too bad only one person can play as a Predator.

Looking around in the menus of this game, it appears there are collectable audio logs of Schwarzenegger's Dutch character from the first film. No idea if he returns to voice them or they used a soundalike. There's also audio logs from Alice Braga's Isabelle character from Predators (the third film). Again, no idea if it's the original actor or not.

In summary, the Predator is cool. Everything about the predator whether you play as him (or her, there is a female predator option) or against him (or her) seems pretty spot on. Playing as a human is just average to bad FPS action. The music is good. Rating = G for gormless

Edited on by ralphdibny

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ralphdibny

Hyper Void (PS3/4) - what is this? Like a 3D shmup? But you can only move on one axis, left and right. But you can kind of curl up the sides and on some parts of the level go all the way around a cylindrical tunnel. Like the Sonic 2 special stages. Except not Sonic, and certainly not special. Rating = NS for not sonic/special, take your pick

In Space We Brawl (PS3/4) - this is like a multiplayer single screen twin stick shmup. Except its competitive instead of cooperative. It's a bit hard against bots. There's no single player to speak of except a "challenge" mode which is more like a tutorial. I can think of other games id rather play with friends. Oh yeah and there is a voiceover for the matches that sounds like a perverted old man. Rating = PHM for please help me

Starwhal (PS3/4) - Narwhals are cool right. They are like dolphins with a single tusk. Or something. This game could probably have more words to describe it than it deserves but I will try and be brief, if only for my own sanity. It's like a competitive thing where you face off against up to 3 other neon narwhals on a flat 2D plane. You can move in all directions, well you could if the controls were more intuitive. You hold R2 to move forward and then left and right to turn, like tank controls except your starwhal just flip flops everywhere. You bang into other starwhals with tusks and this removes parts of their body. Until they die, or you die.

There's lots of customisation options for your starwhal. Rating = WitP for what is the porpoise of this game?

Edited on by ralphdibny

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ralphdibny

Blood Knights (PS3) - you know, this game doesn't seem too bad. You play as a guy who gets bound to a scantily clad vampire woman before going around killing more vampires. Then you get turned into a vampire and get some more abilities. It's an almost isometric camera but like the modern kind where it changes angle automatically as you go into new areas.

You can swap between the guy and the girl. The guy is a brawler and the girl is a ranged attacker with her crossbow. When you get the vamp abilities as the guy, you can drain enemies blood for life. This is a good thing because the prologue has a lovely but weird priest who brings you back to life. That is until he forsakes you due to your vampiric impediment and gently kicks you off a cliff. Honestly, it was a really gentle kick.

The game looks good and performs well. The voice acting in the cut scenes is half way decent. To be honest though, that's all the game has going for it. It looks a bit simple and boring but has a mercifully short runtime of about 4 hours. Unfortunately I don't have a spare 4 hours! Rating = BtE for better than expected but I think my standards may have been lowered by the tripe I've played lately

Sacred 3 (PS3) - this is kind of a similar game to Blood Knights. You play as one of 4 classes and go around killing baddies from an almost top down isometric style perspective. A couple of frame rate dips were noticeable in my brief time with the game. There are some attempts at humour in the story and dialogue. This is a much longer game and considering I didn't stick with Blood Knights, I won't be sticking with this either. Rating = CBA for can't be asked

Risen 3: Titan Lords (PS3) - This game is a complete mess. You play as a pirate in what seems like a grim version of the first Pirates of the Carribbean film. It's a third person action style game. Graphics are terrible, game progressing actions ("press X to do such and such") seem disjointed, screen tearing abounds and worst of all, the frame rate runs at about 2FPS. That's probably a bit of an exaggeration but it is legitimately terrible. There's probably a mildly fascinating game under this facade of total faeces but I won't be digging through this doggy doodoo to find it. Rating CotBP for curse of the brown poo

Edited on by ralphdibny

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Th3solution

ralphdibny wrote:

Rating = WitP for what is the porpoise of this game?

… Rating = BtE for better than expected but I think my standards may have been lowered by the tripe I've played lately

… There's probably a mildly fascinating game under this facade of total faeces but I won't be digging through this doggy doodoo to find it.

😂 Just have to acknowledge how some of this made me laugh!

Edited on by Th3solution

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

ralphdibny

@Th3solution 😀 cheers!! I have to credit the porpoise pun to Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age as I heard him use it in an interview 😂

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jdv95

@Rob3008 it's a good month just for kingdoms of amalur alone imo.

jdv95

Voltan

I think this is from the same source that got last 2 months right. Not much for me but I guess I can add Kingdoms to the backlog

I’m not familiar with First Class Trouble

Edited on by Voltan

Voltan

Th3solution

KoA was a great game back on PS3. I heard the remaster wasn’t all that well done, but maybe the new PS5 patch will have it working better. It’s kind of got old-school God of War feel to the combat, and a really large open world fantasy setting. Story was forgettable, but if you’re craving a fantasy time-sink then you could do much worse. I doubt I’ll replay it, even with the PS5 patch, as it’s a pretty long game and too many other games beckon.

A quick read on the First Class Trouble game has me mildly curious, but it seems like a another multiplayer game, which I just don’t get along with usually. Same with Knockout City. Good to have them on deck in case there are get-togethers over the holidays, I guess. I’d rather have a single player game that I haven’t played yet, but I’m not too disappointed since I still have plenty to keep me busy for a while.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

JohnnyShoulder

I'll defo add Kingdoms of Amalur to my library. When I'll get round to play in entirely another matter however.

Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

PSN: JohnnyShoulder

Voltan

New rumour suggests December's games are:

  • Godfall
  • Mortal Shell
  • LEGO DC Super Villains

This is coming from the same source that got a couple months right before. Very good if true IMO.

Edited on by Voltan

Voltan

jdv95

agree this is a promising line up.

jdv95

sorteddan

Relatively happy if that's true. I enjoy the relative simplicity of Lego games but wouldn't want to have to buy one!

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

sorteddan

Also did anyone play First Class Troubles or the dodge ball game?? Any opinions/recommendations? Couple of people on my friends list have been on the Persistence and Kingdoms of Amalur but haven't seen anyone on the multiplayer stuff so just wondering.

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

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