Topic: What PS5 Games Are You Currently Playing?

@Th3solution About a few hours into Stray now and while I'm still enjoying it, some of the early magic has worn off a bit. I will say it's a bit too easy to get lost, as when I was in the Slums the first time, I lost track of how many times I ended up going around in circles. Even after that, it is easy to end up going around in circles.

So... I finally managed to beat the Wo Long demo - and have now done so several times (different weapons/builds).

Turns out I owe WL an apology, and it is actually a pretty decent game! Turns out I was completely misunderstanding the new 'spirit' system, and therefore inadvertently making my initial playthrough as punishing as possible due to poor decision making.

I was using the heavy attack option (triangle) far too often... which actually pushes your spirit meter into the orange/negative, consequently making it much easier for enemies to stagger me. Apparently, your spirit meter status also has implications for the parry window (!) so by being pretty much constantly in orange it was making my deflects near impossible.

Regular attacking (square) and aggressive play via such means builds the spirit meter into the blue/positive. This helps massively with blocking potential, and makes it pretty viable to actually block most attacks without damage being taken (especially if you choose spear/earth build). The only un-blockable attacks are signified by the enemy 'red dot' - but these are parry-able, which again has a much more generous deflect window when the spirit meter is blue/positive.

By then parrying the 'red dot' attacks, the enemy is then available to punish.... and at this point it is worth using a heavy/triangle attack to stagger them and lower their own spirit.

The final boss battle is actually pretty good, with the 2nd boss phase being a nice challenge ceiling... not too difficult, but still a few deaths needed to learn patterns.

I'd give the demo a solid 8/10 (now I actually 'understand' the game!!) and think there is much room for improvement. However, I still think that the Nioh series (and associated mechanics) have the edge.

I'm probably more excited for 'Rise of the Ronin' from Team Ninja, especially as this will be next-gen exclusive. Keen to see what they can achieve without last-gen/PS4 tech potentially holding them back.

On the fence about whether I'll buy Wu Long, depends on what else I'm playing... and also conscious that the release date of March is not too far from BOTW2, and may not give me enough time to playthrough in entirety.

@MaccaMUFC I replayed HZD earlier this year (and played the DLC for the first time) and thought it held up really well. It’s a really cool story that does suffer slightly from relying on a few moments of huge exposition dumps but it’s still a really cool premise. And I thought the DLC had a really strong story to it too.

My big criticism though was that it felt like the vast majority of weapons kind of became superfluous towards the end as you could just rely on one or two favourites (I probably used up the entire planet’s supply of blaze canisters though from all the explosive slingshot ammo I used).

I finally picked up the sequel in a sale recently and might finally get around to it in a month or so!

Only got to play the first three levels of Prodeus before having to go to work but what a fun throwback shooter. No shortage of those coming out on PS4 and 5 these last couple years.

i think imma buy and play ds1 remastered. i miss that game

@MaccaMUFC You're smart to take a break between the two Horizon games. As great as Forbidden West is (and it really, really is) it's more of an expansion and refinement of what came before, rather than a reinvention. Hope you enjoy Ratchet & Clank (great choice!) but I'd line up one or two other, very different games before considering getting back to Aloy, just to be safe.

I've been in one of those funny moods today where I can't decide what to do. After finishing Yakuza 6 last night I've decided to jump into Trails of cold steel 2.

@RogerRoger The thing is I got a PS5 just for the exclusives and the majority of them are open-world games. I’m eventually going to want to play Days Gone, both Spider-Man Remastered and Miles Morales, Death Stranding, Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Forbidden West.

After Ratchet and Clank I think I’ll play through The Last of Us: Part I & II. Then R&C Rift Apart before taking on the bigger games. There is of course GoW Ragnarok out in November as well, so many games but not enough hours in the day. All those games will probably take me about a year to get through when I’m also using the Series X as my main console for Game Pass, third party games and several online games that I keep going back to now and again.

@MaccaMUFC It’s a great list. If you’re looking for some non-open world type exclusives, don’t forget Returnal, Demon’s Souls, the Uncharted series, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and Gran Turismo 7. Also Kena Bridge of Spirits, which is slightly open world-ish, but smaller in scope so it doesn’t seem daunting like the others on your list. Of course there’s a bunch of others on PS4, but those are some that have PS5 versions or are exclusive to PS5, in the case of Returnal and Demon’s Souls.

Well, I did it. I started playing Marvel’s Avengers.

After seeing Yuffie’s FF7R expansion to its conclusion (nothing too much to add there, it’s really good and I look forward to having Yuffie in the main party in FF7Rebirth) I figured I’d go back to the well of titles available to me through PS+ Extra. I had already downloaded Avengers and it was weighing heavily (100+ GB!) on my hard drive. So at this point I thought I should boot it up for a try; I’ve nothing to lose, other than my dignity.

My first impression upon launching the game was just as I expected — I was greeting with a barrage of pop ups on the main menu, informing me of all the recent added content, ongoing events, and latest updates. All roads seemed to lead to the “marketplace”, i.e. the in game store where you can spend your real world money on all manner of content from outfits, emotes, quests, combat moves, and so on. All sorts of packages littered the storefront and I scrolled through, out of curiosity. There were things like retro Hawkeye outfits and his Ronin outfit from the movies, or Hulk’s gladiator outfit from Thor Ragnarok, or a bunch of Mighty Thor skins, etc. Every imaginable iteration of appearance and personalization seemed ready to buy, ranging $5 and up.

After rummaging over the microtransaction-ridden potholes, I tried to find out where in tarnation the actual game could be found… and finally made it to a menu selection labeled “Play”, which had two options: “Play Now — All Heroes Available” and “Operations — Reassemble”
Stupid me thought, well the option that says “Play Now” is probably the one we’re supposed to start with for the single player campaign to learn the ropes of this game. I clicked on it and after a 5 minute confusing intro of cutscenes, I realized that I was in the post-game multi-player extra challenges and missions section. But not before the intro to the mode spoiled a lot of the main campaign story beats for me, thank you very much. 😒

After way too much messing around, I finally found the actual game. All I can say is that the single player campaign, the origin story of Kamala Khan who becomes Ms. Marvel, is pretty good, actually. The main Avengers are of course represented and each enjoyable to play as. Although it does kinda feel like you’re playing the off-brand versions of Earth’s mightiest heroes since they all look and sound like cheap knock-off’s of the MCU renditions. Just close enough to be representative, but different enough to feel discomfiting.

Regardless, I’m invested in Kamala’s plight now. She’s fun to play as with her stretchy arms, even if it is a strange, physics-defying superpower.

And I’m not sure how I feel about MODOK. He kinda freaks me out.

Only a few hours in so far, so I’ll withhold final judgment on the whole package, but I don’t see myself getting involved in the live-service elements. I find the microtransactions to be really unsavory. It seems like the add-ons and cosmetics for purchase are things that are free unlocks in other games. I look at how many suits you unlock throughout a normal playthrough of Insomniac’s Spider-Man games and then charging $15 for one Hulk outfit feels egregious.

Tagging @RogerRoger since you’d wondered about how I might react to the game.

@Th3solution what a shame , the game had a lot of potential huh ?

@Th3solution I have had a very similar experience. I enjoyed the single player, especially black panther story. The multiplayer was disappointing. I only did 2 missions. I could already see the grind and very dull missions. I never returned.

@Th3solution I agree with you completely and most people who played the avengers do as well it seems. The single player part is totally fine, if they just made like a bigger single player the game would have been received a lot better. But as you say the multiplayer part is absolutely horrible, very repetitive and simply not fun at all. To bad because the game had a lot of potential but oh well.

@Elodin @Lavalera @nomither
Yeah, there was a lot of squandered potential. I’m a few hours into the SP campaign and it’s quite good but I can tell it lacks the polish of recent Spider-Man and Batman Arkham and Injustice games, the easiest games to compare it to.

The combat is just not as tight and the narrative flow is not optimally paced. The voice acting is decent, but I think it’s the script that is not quite good enough. Some of the lines come off as slightly corny when Kamala’s talking to herself. Kinda reminds me of the dialogue we’ve seen in Forspoken trailers. I’ve been spoiled by Sony first party, but I think the bigger problem is that Square and Crystal Dynamics tried to do too much with the game. In general it’s just a bit chaotic — the combat, the story, the menus, and the lack of focus because of the multiplayer and live-service elements.

The campaign is definitely good enough to see through to the end, though. I know it’s not very long, so I from what I’ve seen in the opening 2-3 hours it’s going to be worthwhile.

@Th3solution I’ve downloaded all the games I’ve listed from PS Plus Extra which I subscribed to yesterday. I’m currently dabbling in each game (Death Stranding right now) by playing the openings before I settle into one game that I’ll play to completion.

As for the Uncharted games I’ve finished all them a few times so I’m done with that series. Demon’s Souls as surprised me though as I wouldn’t of normally touched it due to me not getting on with other games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring but Demon’s Souls is less frustrating and the level of detail Bluepoint Games has put in is jaw-dropping, the game world looks amazing and it’s fun to keep going back to where I’ve failed to try something different to progress.

Final Fantasy is not my kind of game, I’m just not into JRPG games at all but I understand it’s massive and it has a huge following. I’ve got Returnal downloaded I’ll play that after Death Stranding. Gran Turismo 7 I’ll rent sometime. Kena I’ll wait and see if that ends up on PS Plus Extra or goes to Xbox one day.

@MaccaMUFC Sounds like a good plan. I’m glad you’ve found some titles to try. I realize not every game or genre is for everyone, for sure.

It’s just a small passion project of mine to increase awareness of the diversity of first and second party PS exclusives. There is a feeling out there that all Sony has are third-person story-driven open-world action games. And while that is definitely their strength (HZD, GoW, Spider-Man, Infamous, Days Gone, Death Stranding, GoT, etc, etc), they do have some other types of games that people forget about.
Especially looking back into PS4 there’s games like Until Dawn, Detroit Become Human, Dreams, Bound, the team Ico games, R&C, LBP, BB, Killzone, Gravity Rush, Concrete Genie, etc, etc, not to mention the VR stuff.

Definitely their third person action games tend to be the big sellers, but I believe they do try to fund some innovative projects. It looks like you’ve got some great ones you’ve already played and are trying out.

I'm finally recovering from my gaming rut again. I already mentioned finishing Tsushima, and Toem, and now I'm playing through the Toem DLC. I remember being not overly positive about the game, but I am enjoying my time with it, because it's just my kind of game: funny, silly and a few interesting ideas packed in a short game.

The DLC is exactly what you'd expect from it: more Toem. It's free, relatively big and the quality is on par with the rest of the game. And I'm enjoying my time too. The DLC like the main game follows the "cutesy indie game" to the letter, so it's not close to being a memorable as it's inspirations, like Short Hike and Chicory.

Final verdict? If you haven't played A Short Hike yet, play that game. If that game wasn't one of your GOTY contenders, don't play Toem. But if it was and you wish there was more like it, play Toem.

That being said, the game has a few amazing things going for it. The music is quite good, everything is very carefully crafted (smooth, no bugs), searching animals remains fun, and of course: the gorgeous art style!

Just finished the story for Yakuza 0, so dramatic and heartwrenching. Now I'm going to try my hand at Death Loop. But with no new Assassin's Creed this fall and only God of War that I am really looking forward to I am hoping for a great PS+ month for October. I do have Yakuza 1 and 2 in my queue to play just in case and I still need to finish Lost Judgment. I was at one point looking forward to Skull and Bones but I wanted Assassin's Creed IV without the assassin stuff and all I got was World of Tanks in the ocean.

So finished with Stray all in all a pretty decent game, tagging @Th3solution as you were interested in how things went.

It's just a chill game about 6 hours to complete it and then another 2 for the speed run. Games pretty easy a few chase scenarios and stealth parts being a cat an all but nothing to drastic.

Definitely worth checking out on ps plus in between games. Story's not bad either. Not really much to say that hasn't been said to be honest has a few little "puzzle" sections but nothing mind bending.

Next up in starting Returnal.....

@MaulTsir Thanks for the impressions on Stray. I’ve got a lot to play, but it will definitely be on the list of ones to maybe try if/when the mood strikes. I’ve got to finish [the also surprisingly decent but not mind-blowing and certainly worthwhile game to play for free on PS+ Extra] Avengers single player campaign and maybe go back to complete Immortals and then maybe Dark Souls Remastered will be next. Maybe. I’ve loaded it onto my hard drive so that’s usually a sign that it’s on the short list to be played soon. 😄

I’m really excited for you to play Returnal! I’d still be up for co-op if you fancy some help if the stars align again on free time. I have a feeling you’re going to thoroughly enjoy it.