Topic: What PS4 Games Are You Currently Playing?

@Ralizah I think that’s where I tapped out as well. A time trial mode with a game where the controls can be a bit hit and miss is infuriating.

@Ralizah Hey it's been a while, did you enjoy your God of War playthrough? Also the red nose is a nice touch haha.

@render Oh, I did it. After 15+ tries and a profuse amount of swearing. The parts that kept screwing me up were the chest, because the damned thing wouldn't stop shaking, causing me to lose too much time, and then he didn't want to pound the ground with his fists after I caused him to drop the sword.

On my last run, I was able to get him to drop the sword early (before he destroys the bridge) by sniping his arm, and also shot his chest point with my arrows enough that I didn't need to spend as much time there.

@TraCuz- I thought so!

Yeah, GoW was pretty good. I platinumed it. The main story wasn't my favorite thing ever, but there's a LOT of post-game stuff to do, and the game is a lot more fun when it's not bombarding the player with constant talking and narrative story bits.

@Ralizah Solid analysis, story definitely has its highs I wonder what will become of Atreus being Loki, and if Ragnarok will be anything like GoW3 where Kratos killed the entire greek pantheon

No kidding! Those valkyrie fights can be incredible!....and incredibly annoying xD. It really is nice when you can just focus on the combat without using brain power on deciphering and retaining story bits.

@TraCuz- That reveal didn't really do much for me, since it doesn't actually tease the full implications of Kratos' and Atreus' relationship, given the former wasn't actually a part of Norse mythology. Although I suppose it gives us some sense of what his powers will be (shapeshifting, primarily, if they stick with mythology).

If Kratos ends up murdering the Norse gods, it'll be purely in self-defense. He isn't the vengeful, bloodthirsty character he was in the OG trilogy. If anything, the whole game is him reckoning with that aspect of his life (in the same game where you're chopping people in half left and right, lol).

I guess the second game in the Norse duology could go all out with the Ragnarok theme, but considering how restrained GoW4 was in its use of mythological figures, I'm not expecting that to be the case.

Valkyrie fights were interesting. The queen took me hours on a higher difficulty setting. Worst part about getting the platinum is tracking down the collectibles and killing the birds, since the game doesn't feel as well designed for backtracking as it should have been given the trophy requirements.

@Ralizah Well done, the patience has paid off. I’m not sure the controller would have survived as I’d likely have launched it.

I’ll have to reinstall the game and check my save as I’m really keen to see how far I made it though the time trials. Don’t think it’s as far as you though.

So, the 13th colossus time trial is either really easy or really hard, depending on whether you understand how to quickly shave time off the fight.

@render At least once I'm done with these hard time trials, the normal ones should be a cakewalk. Less shaking and fewer weak points to attack.

edit: 12th colossus hard time attack is suffering. Two hours and still haven't beaten it. fml

So, I've beaten the other colossi on hard time attack with relatively little sweat, but I think I'm done with my quest, because the 12th colossus is seemingly bugged on my version of the game. When I grab his belly, my fully charged stabs do very little damage, and he ALWAYS goes underwater immediately following two stabs, no matter how quick I am. Looking online at videos of people completing the same trial, other people are consistently doing more damage per stab and easily managing three stabs per grab on him before he goes underwater. I've gotten his movements down to a science, grab onto his belly before players online do, yet I CANNOT beat this hard time attack trial because the damage multipliers appear to be lower in my version of the game, and he gives me far less time per grab.

Also, the game has crashed TEN TIMES during this process. I've not seen a game crash this frequently since Corpse Party: Blood Drive on the PS Vita.

I've probably wasted four or five hours of my life trying to do this now, but I'd have to grab him 5 or 6 times at the rate I'm doing damage to him, and people online are warning that even 4 grabs is stretching it when it comes to beating him in the time limit.

I hate blaming the game, but when I see myself doing the same things more efficiently than players online while also doing far less damage, I have to conclude something is bugged about my game. I'm not sure how that would impact damage taken by the colossus, but I've stabbed him in pretty much every area on his sigil in order to rule our user error, and I'm just not doing good damage.

I really wanted this platinum, but I'm literally starting to hate the game, so I think I'm done with it now. I might try deleting and re-downloading the game to see if that changes anything.

@Ralizah that’s really unfortunate, been following your journey on this one and it seemed like you’d gotten ‘over-the-hump’ a couple of days ago. Hope you ain’t feeling too disappointed.

As I mentioned before, I’ve been planning on going for this one myself one day… your trials-&-tribs does give me pause for thought though.

@Ralizah Bad luck. I remember the controls and camera movement being a bit of a hindrance but a lot of that seems to have been a design decision. It really does make some of the colossus a real chore to do when you are having to do it against the clock. That’s why I gave up as I felt too much of it was fighting an up hill battle. It’s a shame as I love the game, it was awesome even on PS2. I’ve just got download so I’ll see where I got with the time attacks just out of curiosity.

@colonelkilgore @render @RogerRoger So, I know I said I was giving up, but... well, I'm stubborn. Nothing in the game improved. But I honed my timing to such a razor sharp edge that I managed six grabs and killed it seconds before the timer expired.

OMG what a nightmare.

@Ralizah success against adversity… my favourite. Well done 🥲!

@Ralizah Awesome, I’m impressed at your persistence and glad to hear it paid off. What have you got left to do?

@RogerRoger I should have known whining about it would make it where I could finally do it. I still don't understand why I'm given so much less time and inflict so much less damage than everyone else online who has posted a video of this Hard time attack challenge. It's really frustrating doing a fraction of the damage to the thing when I see myself doing the exact same thing (I even positioned myself identically to how one guy did in a video to compare damage output, and I was doing... maybe half damage per stab? Sometimes less. It was insane).

Maybe I should have given up, but a part of me would have been immensely unsatisfied if I had. And, in fairness, I was really close to doing so. I even deleted the game last night and then, a few minutes later, sighed and started re-downloading it so I could try again the next day.

@colonelkilgore Honestly, that wasn't even satisfying. I'm just glad it's done.

@render Normal time attack trials (4 deep into that atm; beat the stupid 12th colossus on my second try on that, even with him still not giving me more than two stabs per grab, because I've pretty thoroughly memorized the routines for that nightmarish fight). A hard mode speedrun (should be fairly simple with the powerful gear one unlocks by completing the time trials). A grindy trophy that wants you to max out your health and stamina (shouldn't be too hard after the speedrun, since your health and stamina increase naturally after killing colossi anyway). And then a mess of smaller trophies that I'll need to clean up. Currently trying to figure out how to take out the third one without making him break his wrist armor, which is another trophy.

@Ralizah I love Shadow of the Colossus but the trophy list is awful.

@Ralizah After reinstalling I can see that I’ve done time attack on normal for all but got 2 into hard+ and left it there. I’d have been tempted to continue that at some point but after hearing your troubles I’m now not so sure. It’s such a great looking game now I’m looking at it again and I love the emptiness of it all, something that actually works for it.

@render I don't regret getting the platinum trophy, but a few of the trophies are annoying as hell. That one hard time attack was the major hurdle for me, though. Everything else was pretty simple, if profoundly repetitive.

It's a flawed game, but there's nothing else out there that's really like it. I liked it on the PS2, and I definitely like it more on the PS4 with the (mostly) gorgeous visuals and stable framerate.

@Keith_Zissou Thanks. Yeah, I was profoundly relieved when I finally got over that particular hurdle.

@Th3solution It's kinda like Rayman Legends, where 98% of the trophy list is fine, but one, in particular, turns the game into a grueling grind.

Not a huge deal, though. Most of my playtime with SotC ended up being on mute as I listened to podcasts while grinding colossi over and over.

@RogerRoger It's weird, because none of the other colossi on the hard time attacks were having issues with their animation timing or damage multipliers.

That's probably far higher praise they I deserve, but I appreciate the sentiment regardless.

Just started Rise of the Tomb Raider (thanks for the nudge @JohnnyShoulder) and it’s rare that I click with a game instantly… but I have with this. I remember quite enjoying the previous game but something about this one seems pretty special.

@Keith_Zissou hmm that's worth knowing... I'll do a little research but I assume that you did some yourself. Cheers buddy, what are you playing post Control?

@colonelkilgore No worries dude, hope you continue to enjoy it as much as you have done at the start.