Topic: What PS4 Games Are You Currently Playing?

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Yeah, the DQXI S demo is super generous. It's like the first eighth of the game or something.

The Switch port, IMO, looks amazing considering the capabilities of the system, but the PS4 version of DQXI S has some improved texture work and runs at a higher resolution, as far as I'm aware. Although the dumbed down lighting from the Switch version means it'll never look as good as the original did on PS4/PC.

Oh, and about the weird free movement during battles... you can actually disable that. I did. In the settings, you should see something called... "classic camera," I think. It makes the game pure turn-based without the nonsensical free character movement during battle. You should also be able to increase the battle speed. Combine those two, and you get some amazingly snappy battles.

I just finished Immortals: Fenyx Rising, and I came away extremely impressed. I wasn't originally going to get the game due to lackluster reviews and suggestions that it was too short for my tastes, at about 30 hours. I ended up getting it due it going on sale half off after the Holidays, and after putting 90 hours into my first playthrough, I can say that I really enjoyed it. Its a somewhat more casual experience than the recent AC games, but still fun to play, has really smart funny dialogue, and has really tight gameplay.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Yeah, I have mixed feelings about the system in DQXI where characters will sort of randomly power up. I thought the tension system from VIII added a pleasant layer of depth to the combat. One of the few things I prefer in VIII over XI.

The music is simple, but I feel like it's a good match for the straight-forward heroic fantasy of the game. Also, some pieces are just lovely. Like this one:

It definitely wouldn't top my list of best video game soundtracks, but it's about 1000x better than the MIDI version of the score from the original version of Dragon Quest XI.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy The pep powers and soundtrack are the two main reasons I kinda dropped off the game a bit through Act 2. A lot of what it does it good but it’s as if the game is trying its best to make me not enjoy playing it.

Started Resident Evil 7 today and it is amazing! I am on the search for the Serum now.

And the setting of Village will be even better!

I’m finally onto the finale of Yakuza 5 and this game has been a bit of a slog.

The fourth (and new) character was mildly interesting but his whole story leans very heavily into baseball. Luckily I have a passing interest in the sport but god help you if you don’t!

@TheBrandedSwordsman enjoyed Fallen Order, how's Death Stranding though... Still enjoying I hope?

@TheBrandedSwordsman I used to be a huge Star Wars fan but the prequel and sequel trilogies have taken their toll on me and I don't have the same love for it any longer. Having said that though, stuff like Fallen Order and The Mandalorian really stoked the remaining embers.

I liked it basically. Wasn't my favourite of the non-From Souls-likes but im still to play a Souls-like I don't like... and it 'felt' like Star Wars (as does The Mandalorian) and that is surpringly important to me when consuming something from the Star Wars universe.

@TheBrandedSwordsman so I havent played 4 yet (done the online trophies so the Plat will still be achievable when I get around to it though) but played... and enjoyed the first 3 (which I also want to go back and plat eventually).

It's weird the series really never appealed to me but when I eventually got around to playing them the epic narrative, locales and character-moments... and I can't deny that whenever 'that' Uncharted music kicks in that it doesnt hit the spot.

I'm looking forward to eventually playing 4 and seeing how Drakes legacy pans out. I've also heard that Uncharted: Lost Legacy is very good (it's also nestled in the backlog for a loose 2023 playthru).

@colonelkilgore I’m really impressed with the organization you’ve made of your backlog. I thought I was on the ball with a running list and rough outline of what games are on deck. But you have the whole thing planned into 2023! Do you build in any flexibility depending on your mood? So if you wake up on Saturday and feel like you really want to play Lost Legacy will you move it up the list?

Persona 5 Royal and Nioh 2 have been my jams lately! These two games alone are all I need to hold me over till April-June, when Returnal, RE: Village, ME: Legendary Edition, and Ratchet and Clank comes out.

Besides those two definitely some matches of Apex and Warzone when I get some single player burnout. Some others in the backlog are Doom Eternal, Little Nightmares, DBZ Kakarot, and RE7 so that I can get ready for RE: Village. What are you guys playing?

@Th3solution mate, I have to plan it out or I’d get nowhere fast... especially with the fact that I can only really game once per week (although as I’m unable to work out right now I am getting the odd extra hour here and there throughout the week too).

So 2023 is extremely ‘loose’ as a plan but 2021 & 2022 are pretty solid as far as plans go but I’m still willing to swap certain games out for other ones if the ‘fancy’ takes (like next month I’m now playing AC: Black Flag but I was originally planning on finishing off the plat on Sekiro). The only games I won’t swap out right now are PS3 ones as my main priority this year in as far as my gaming habits go is to get as close to finishing that particular backlog off as possible... there are a couple of PS3 games that have landed in early 2022 though.

I think there are like 12 PS3 games, maybe 150ish PS4 games and 7 PS5 games in my current backlog. If I stopped buying games today, with the current number of hours that I am able to game I probably have enough games to see me through to 2027 or something.

@colonelkilgore 😂 Awesome! I love it. I also feel like I would never make progress if I didn’t have some sort of system in place. And I know some people seem to think it strange to approach leisure activity in a regimented way, but I get more enjoyment from the hobby if I have some semblance of a plan. My plan is much more fluid that yours sounds, but I think your backlog sounds even bigger than mine. I’ve basically abandoned my PS3 backlog. I have a handful there that I’ve consigned myself that I’ll never play. On PS4, I think my last count was around 50 games... maybe? I forget exactly, but once I did calculate the hours it would take to play them all and it was just an enormous amount at my current play rate. Like you I have a limit to my free time and I also have other activities I’d like to do, movies, TV, etc.
So my current system was to pick out the 20 or so games that I’m most excited to play and seem to be the highest priority, then I have them roughly broken down into sections based on genre, length, etc. and I just pick the next game from that group. So after beating GoW I felt like something shorter and maybe nostalgic so I ended up at Uncharted. After this I’ll likely feel more adventurous and take on a new IP that I have no prior experience with, thinking of Hitman or Outer Worlds. All the while I have Persona 5 pecking away in the background when I feel up to it, as well as the Rayman game with game club to mix things up a bit depending on my mood. Anyways, it’s a loose and dynamic process that I try to keep myself focused on a core group of high priority games, but can move and wiggle around within that list of 15-20 games instead of looking at my library of 50 (or even 300 if you include PS Plus games) and just being overwhelmed by choice.

As I've never played any before, I just started GOW iii Remastered... and I'm exhausted!!
At the risk of repeating myself, I just got my PS4 last August as a lockdown gift to myself, jumping all the way up from PS1 back in the day. So, I'm going through the backlog of games. GOW is in my list so I thought I'd check out the previous game for context.
It certainly doesn't start off gently...!

@Th3solution 😂🤣😂🤣 it’s good to meet a fellow planner then. I get how some (if not most) people would find it extremely weird to plan a hobby so explicitly but... I get a strange sense of satisfaction in setting goals and then hitting those goals.

I also like to research a game (or game series) very in depth before I buy (or certainly before I actually play) as I like to know (or as close as possible to knowing) that I won’t simply be investing 10 or 20 hours in a game before I realise that I will get no enjoyment from it. It also helps when ‘feeling’ like playing a particular type of game to have a fairly accurate expectation of what you’ll be getting yourself into.

I’m basically a huge nerd about anything that I’m ‘in’ to... you wouldn’t believe how strict I am with my food and nutrition (though I have relaxed it a little while I haven’t been training)... my work colleagues are absolutely fascinated by how much I eat, what I eat and how strict I am with the when I eat. If they only knew about my 5 year gaming projection calendar eh? 😅

@RogerRoger by all means interrupt away... as long as you’re on the list that is 😎

@bluedex The original trilogy of the GoW games are good fun and III is a rather bloody pinnacle of Kratos’ journey.

The “reboot” is so much better though so I hope you get to that! It is easily played separate to the original games but has plenty for fans of the old game in there.

@RogerRoger you’re dead on there, I’ve honestly never known a time like it. I think I am definitely more open to a wider variety of games than I used to be but also, I don’t think there has ever been this many games of high quality available (just my opinion of course).

As appreciative as I am that I have a job right now (I know many people personally who have lost their livelihoods during Covid) I can’t help but think what a dent I could’ve put into my backlog if I had been furloughed like a lot of people... and how much fun I would’ve had ploughing through game after game!

@Thrillho thanks yeah I have the reboot on my list and iii wasn't .. but it was on sale and I thought what the hell, let's see what happened before. I had to get quick summary of 1 and 2 on the web so at least I had some idea what was happening at the start of 3. Took me a bit of time to get used to the gameplay, as I'd being playing tomb raider/Uncharted/TLOU, but enjoying more now as I get the hang of it.
To me, it's the most obvious remaster of previous gen game that I've played but that's still ok.

@RogerRoger Haha! Yes you and I have compared notes before. It turns out that we have another kindred planner in @colonelkilgore . Wouldn’t it be great if Sony shipped the PS5 with Excel Spreadsheets pre-loaded on the console? It would really make things much easier to track. 😉