Topic: What PS5 Games Are You Currently Playing?

Feeling a little worse for wear today due to overdoing the work Xmas do yesterday I felt I lacked the mental facilities for anything taxing today so was gonna avoid gaming. Decided to boot up the new (free) PS5 upgrade of Gris and so glad I did.

A puzzle platformer that is fairly light on gameplay but blimey this thing is still stunning and the perfect serene experience I needed. Graphics and soundtrack combine to create a wonderfully emotive journey which doesn't really explain itself but leads you to explore with little hand holding. Played a couple of hours and think I'm probably about half way through.

I only bother to write this in the hope that one or two people who may be unaware of its existence read my words and go check out some reviews or vids. It is one of those games that makes me question whether or not it can actually be considered as art, it is just beautiful.

@Dusk_Actual
Yeah Spider-Man was awesome but you should definitely get to MM as well. It's a MUCH shorter, streamlined experience and I really appreciated the fact they had removed the stealth bits.

Looking forward to whenever the sequel turns up.

@MaulTsir Yeah, the grenade one is a pain, particularly as you need to do it with a revolver which was a weapon I wasn’t using regularly.

Again, it’s way easier with an augment to slow time. Just find a group on a scanner mission, whittle it down to one or two and keep as much distance from them.

It feels like no one throws grenades when you’re actively trying to get the trophy and then they’ll be relentless once you’ve got it

Wreckfest for my racing fix and Inscryption for my non-racing fix. The latter took me awhile to get into it and a lot of it is in the luck of the draw, but I like how you can almost break the game with making a super card. Lots of twists which subverts expectations, and anyone that in interested in the game I really do urge going in as blind as possible.

The former is fun racing game with added destruction. Nothing spectacular, but is what I needed at the mo.

@MaulTsir I really hope there’s a Carnage/Morbius dlc for Halloween for the next Spidey game. Love that stuff!

@sorteddan I downloaded Miles Morales earlier today, will probably get down with it this next week. I keep trying to get in the mood to play a new game but I’m feeling compelled to unlock all the stuff in SpiderMan and maybe do the dlc. Is the dlc good?

@Dusk_Actual
I found the DLC for the main Spider-Man game to be more of a challenge than anything in the main campaign! I think they introduced some new enemy types which took me a while to adapt to. But if you enjoyed trying to 100% everything as much as I did then I would say you should definitely complete them as well, just so you know that you have and that there was nothing remaining you could have done.

@Dusk_Actual I found the DLC a bit unnecessary and a bit of a grind going straight into it from the main game.

Miles Morales is great though! A much tighter narrative, some new combat abilities, and a cool cast make it feel really fresh.

Think it is really unfair to call Miles Morales dlc and a bit lazy tbh. I enjoyed it more than the first game, with a shorter and tighter experience, with the new powers introduced more fun to use too.

I was very much enjoying slowly chipping my way through Horizon Forbidden West but put it on ice to mainline Ragnarok as I wanted to enjoy its story as fresh as possible. It might be my schedule as of late but I’ve been having a tough time getting back into HFW. Rather than pounding a square peg through a round hole, I decided to temporarily ice it again and, after perusing the backlog I’ve accrued over the year, fired up Steelrising.

It’s been pretty darn good thus far. I’d say a souls-like done right. I’m only so far into it but I’ve been particularly impressed by its level design, boss fights, and unique vibe. I’d like to specifically tag @colonelkilgore here. It’s not as polished as a souls game or even Ashen, but is much more mechanically consistent than say, Darksiders III. If you’re looking to scratch that Bloodborne itch, I’d highly recommend giving it a whirl as it reminds me a lot of it.

@Jimmer-jammer appreciate the tags, cheers buddy 👍. Glad you’re enjoying Steel Rising… and yeah it’s definitely one that I have on my radar. I’ve been monitoring amazon pretty much daily since it released hoping to catch it on a daily reduction but it never seems to go on sale sadly. I’m in no rush though, I have my souls-likes planned for 2023 (The Surge 2 and Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin… though the latter might not be a souls-like in the strictest sense) but will be even more inclined to pull the trigger on Steel Rising off of the back of your recommendation.

@colonelkilgore The Surge 2 looks like something I should really have played by now. Never played the first one either but I’ve heard good things. It’s one of those series that always looks interesting to me when it’s in front of me but I keep forgetting it exists when it’s not. I’ll mark this as my final reminder and hopefully remember to add it to the library in the near future!

@Jimmer-jammer The Surge was definitely one for the purists. Slow methodical combat, in much the same way the early From Soft souls games played. Build diversity is as good as any souls-likes for me as there is an interchangeable chip system that is very mix-and-match as per personal preference. And while boss diversity was fairly average, mob combat was very good. From what I gather The Surge 2 improves on all fronts, so really excited to finally try it.

As far as Steel Rising is concerned, I love the setting from what I’ve seen. That baroque/belle epoque world is very appealing to me. Also, as you mentioned in regards to level design, I’ve heard that aspect is very good… with the metroidvania inspired aspects especially well implemented. Out of interest, does it run at 60fps on PS5?

@colonelkilgore Yes it does (or thereabouts). I’ve found it to be a very smooth experience anyway. It’s all a little janky but I’ve figured out it’s rhythm’s and it functions well. The setting and level design are the standouts here. I don’t want to talk it up too much but so far it’s a rock solid addition to the souls-like genre and most importantly has an excellent ‘pick up and play’ quality to it. It would be a stellar entry point for folks who are souls shy, much like Ashen, though I find this is both more forgiving yet also deeper than Ashen.

I wanted to play something festive, but the thought of embracing Batman: Arkham Origins so soon after finishing Gotham Knights (which I'll need to return to at some point soon, in order to earn those DLC trophies) held too much risk, so I'm doing a full replay of Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Seems I'm not alone in this endeavour, and hope that @Dusk_Actual enjoys themselves as much as I do!

On the note of the first Spidey's DLC, I'd recommend it. There's some major story content in there, which feels like it'll be important to the series going forward. It'd be preferable to play it before Miles Morales, so that you see everything in chronological order, but the connective tissue is slight.

Currently making my way through Death Stranding Director’s Cut. I find it weird how enjoyable the game is, considering that you just spend most of the time walking from A to B.

@Bentleyma Yeah, it’s a great game. I played it about a year ago and thought it was incredible.

It gets even better once you get to the “main” map too but the first area is gorgeous.

@Bentleyma yeah, time has been real kind to Death Stranding with many of the gamers who were originally put off by the ‘parcel-delivery’ gameplay-loop actually really enjoying it once they give it a go. Such a haunting and atmospheric game… I often reflect on my time with it, even though it’s been about 3 years since I played it.

Internet went down yesterday, so had a look at Death's Door and ended up playing about 3 hours of it! It really pulled me in. I'll be back at Cyberpunk later tonight but I'll definitely be jumping on to this game after I've finished Cyberpunk and then Ragnarok, it will definitely break up my big rpg games I've been playing lately

I started Midnight Suns today, after waffling about whether to mop up some trophies in Spiderman or begin Miles Morales. I’m no trophy hunter, unless it’s easy trophies.
Midnight Suns is pretty good thus far. I’ve not read much of the comics, almost all my marvel experience is via the movies and ComicsXplain on YouTube, so I don’t know how much the characters resemble their comic book counterparts. Iron Man seems pretty close to the Downey Jr Iron Man from the movies though.