Topic: Push Square Game Club Spooktacular: Resident Evil 4

@Keith_Zissou one last tip is that the goons on the bridge, you can just run past them dark souls style and they won't follow you once you drop down to the boss arena 👍

Sorry I been out of this for a while because I've been moving house. Finally got the Megatron set up (12 HDMI devices on one TV woop! - all neatly cable managed and labelled in a TV unit I modified with official and not so official modifications...) So hopefully will get a chance to carry on with Control this week. Going to polish of Halo Infinite first I think.

Had a good sit down today and played some more of this game, I think I'm a bit over half way through it.

It is a bit confusing still, ive done all the side stuff I can do. I got a fungal lady making something that I'm waiting on, I've got a training area behind a red door that hasn't passed yet and I've just got the flight ability so I can go and do that object of power. There's a guy looking at something too so I might go try and relieve him if I can do that now.

My Launch ability is maxed out, not sure why I went that way with the skill tree but it seems to make fights easier.

Still a bit unsure about the graphics. It regularly looks a lot worse than Quantum Break and I'm really not sure if that's because I'm playing on weaker hardware or not. Textures take ages to load which kinda sucks when there are a lot of quick edits during the in engine cutscenes.

@Keith_Zissou did you do the Salvador bit in the end? I was "seizing" the other guards by holding Square on them when they had low health. Took the edge off the fight a bit. I found the mould retrieval side quest a bit harder than Salvador to be honest. Lots of weird difficulty spikes in this game all over the place.

@Keith_Zissou yeah I'll stick with it, for a few reasons. One is that it's a PS Plus game and I want to tick it off my list (I have a mental OCD about at least trying each PS Plus game and playing through all of the better ones). Two is that I played through the other Remedy games, Alan Wake, American Nightmare and Quantum Break so is the last one unless I go back to play Max Payne too. Three is that I'm more than halfway through so it would be a shame to give up now!

Its not a bad game by any means, i'm just playing it at a weird time in my life where I'm moving to a new apartment so my time is limited but also my ability to engage and get invested in the game is distracted by real world projects.

That and the already voiced opinion that I am playing it on Base PS4 instead of the One X that I own or the PS5/Series X that I don't own so I feel like I'm not getting the "best" experience technically. Textures are soft, if they load at all. Frame rate isn't great but at least it's not giving me a headache. It's hard to tell if it's hardware or if the game is too ambitious in scope but limited technically. Quantum Break was fairly similar but seemed more polished than Control. But then again, it's trying to do less things than Control is.

Hopefully will finish the game and the DLCs in the next few days anyway. I'm nearly there, I just wish I had more time to devote to it really. I'm going to do the side missions but it seems like there's a lot of stuff that could be quite addictive and fun like the Bureau Alerts (which I haven't done any of) and the gun upgrades/crafting and skill tree. As it stands though, I probably won't get much time to invest in that barring what I have to do to complete the game and DLC.

I used to love Duke 3D when I was a kid! I actually own the new version on all the main consoles now but I haven't had much time to put into it. Would be good to actually beat it without putting in the DNGOD cheat that I used to use when I was little 😂. I think that was the invincibility, I can't remember what the infinite guns/ammo cheat was. I remember one cheat was DNCLIP and it would allow you to clip through walls and go anywhere in the level. Awesome game though!

@ralphdibny After playing Quantum Break not that long ago of course and Control twice on both PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, I can safely say Control is better graphically. Quantum Break looks good for an early last gen game, but it was obvious every time I saw Courtney Hope's character that the textures and detail weren't close since she's also the main character in Control and obviously saw her quite a bit in that. That is not taking into account the fact that I've also tested the new gen versions of it just to see what it looked like (I plan on finally playing through the new gen version sometime this year).

@KilloWertz must be the hardware then I guess! I should've sprung for control Ultimate on Xbox and played it on the One X. Problem is, that I'm going to feel like this any time I play a graphically intensive game on base PS4 now.

@Keith_Zissou cheers bud, had some more time with it over the last couple of days. I think I'm a couple missions away from the end of the main story. Only got a couple non-story trophies left for doing bureau alerts so I'll probably do them just to mop up the platinum too. Every time I've tried one though, I just die lol

I did a side mission which was quite hard, bearing Tomassi for good. Tomassi himself isn't too bad but one of those things that drains a whole life bar by vomiting red stuff on you spawns during the fight. I ended up just getting the high ground and finishing Tomassi away from the vomiter.

There are moments where the game clicks for me, stuff like finding hidden areas or bits where the upgrades I choose add up to my exact amount of available ability points. But then I end up trying to look for pulsating mould balls to shoot in a side quest and the click goes away 😅

I've unlocked the Alan Wake DLC but everything I've read says to wait until I'm fully upgraded. Having done the first tier jukebox token and some other hairy fights, I think I'll take that advice and wait until after I've finished the game!

Just watched the credits roll....

I think it was a good game in the end and worth a play.

I especially liked the Ashtray Maze.

Going to crack on with the DLC over the next day or two...

I just got the platinum in the base game of Control. My last trophy was doing some shield burst stuff. I'm most of the way through the foundation DLC now, just gota do the final confrontation or whatever it's going to be. It's actually a good bit of DLC, quite lengthy and self contained so it's quite rewarding to see the fruits of your effort so soon after making the effort.

Just gota finish that then I'm onto the Alan wake DLC! Not sure if I'll go for all the trophies in the DLC, some seem quite grindy. Maybe I'll use a guide for some of the trophies once I've finished the game completely, maybe not!

@ralphdibny congrats on the platinum and agree with the ashtray maze, its cracking level! Hope your settling in post move, you must have really flown through this game when you got settled down to it 👍. I still haven't finished the alan wake dlc, I must get back to it as I suspect when Alan wake 2 comes out, there may be some call backs to it.

@ralphdibny Well done on the plat!! I collected all the DLC trophies as well and I'm pretty sure that they were all straight forward bar one - Vending Spree. That one glitched on me and I had to reset my save to the endgame to fix it. If you are bagging them all then hopefully yours won't do the same but there's the solution if you need it.

@ralphdibny It’s a shame you left that DLC to last as the multi-launch ability is one of the most useful in the game and the weapon you get is also ridiculously useful!

The vending machine trophy @render mentions is a faff but not too tricky and you get some pretty good items from them too.

@R1spam @Keith_Zissou @render cheers peeps! I've finished foundation now, still on the fence about going for trophies. It's like hidden locations/collectibles/deployed ranger actually kill 5 things and a hidden trophy for finding maneki nekos

Gona start AWE in a minute. I still have to finish Halo Infinite. I got Mirrors Edge and possibly it's sequel lined up for the Pure Xbox Game Club. Then I can finally get on to Yakuza 4 and subsequently Dead Souls which I've been meaning to play for months!

@Thrillho it's cool, the DLC skill tree abilities incorporate into the main game. I actually got multi launch really early as I maxed out my Launch branch real quick because it was easily the most useful power!

I guess that's the surge weapon you are talking about, there's a trophy for getting kills with it. I'm sure I'll see it soon enough!

@Keith_Zissou ahh that's brilliant. Seize is actually a really good move but it was one of the last really useful things I fully upgraded. (The actual things I've left to last and haven't fully upgraded are the melee attacks and the ground slam as I barely use either).

When you can seize large enemies, you can actually seize one of those red health regenerating circles and it will heal you instead!

@Keith_Zissou Great work, it’s good to hear you found a combination that worked for you. Boss fights are always harder where there are additional enemies thrown into the mix, it’s just the overhead of splitting your attention between them and the boss itself.

I think you are doing quite well in terms of overall progress too 👍

@Keith_Zissou Nice! Good job! That boss fight was tough. I expect things should be a little smoother for the remainder. There is another couple tough bosses coming up, especially the DLC bosses, but Salvador was one that I struggled with a fair bit too.

@Keith_Zissou nice!! I remember being taken aback by the difficulty spike at that boss! Progress should be a bit more even now.

@ralphdibny did you play and like Alan Wake? I really enjoyed it, playing it on 360 only a couple of years ago. I kinda fell of both dlc but have a sneaky feeling it might be something you need to know about for Alan wake 2. Let me know if you enjoy the AWE dlc as it's something I keep meaning to come back to.

@Kidfried I'm a sucker for that cinematic quality in a game but its the Stephen King vibes which are rare in games that grabbed me. I agree about the gameplay, hell it probably didn't even stand out for that when it released! I started the AWE dlc but the foundation stuff just grabbed me more. How do you feel about the alan wake sequel being a survival horror game? A remedy take on survival horror could be really interesting!

@Keith_Zissou shield toggle eh? I'll have to check that out. I literally never used the shield until I realised near the end of the game there were trophies for killing enemies with it 😅. I just ran around and jumped a lot to avoid fire!!

@R1spam I played Alan Wake as part of the Pure Xbox GC back in like May I think? I'd echo @Kidfried 's comments and say that the gameplay was a bit off for me. But overall, I enjoyed it and loved the Stephen King aspect of it. It's most similar to the book The Dark Half, but I seem to remember there being lots of other Stephen King tropes peppered through it, though I struggle to remember what. I'll have to look over what I wrote on the PX forums back then to remind myself!

I actually didn't mind the light/shoot combo, the thing I really hated was how slow Alan Wake was and the stamina for the "run" (more like a slightly faster jog) running out so quick. I know it fits the world of the game but it really discouraged exploration which I did quite a bit of and unfortunately just made the pacing of the story too glacial in nature. What was more annoying was the lack of stuff in corners. You kind of explore a bit and find stuff, then you drag Alan's slow body across half the map and there's nothing there 😅.

I actually did a lot less exploring in Quantum Break because of that, I kind of "learned" that maybe Remedy makes the sort of game you should just play and only go off the beaten path if you fancy it instead of scouring every level methodically. Funnily enough, the main character in QB runs a bit faster than Alan Wake. The main character in Control is way faster than that too so exploring is bearable again! With that statistical curve, I'd say Remedy will probably be making a new Sonic the Hedgehog game next!! 😅

I did play both AW DLCs but I am really struggling to remember them now. I think I remember them being good though. American Nightmare was pretty good too, I played that much more recently so I can remember it a lot better.

Great soundtrack in all of Remedy's games too!

I've made a start on the AWE DLC, it's good so far. There's one particular returning character who I really can't remember from Alan Wake at all so it's a bit lost on me 😂. Maybe I'll read a recap of the story on Wikipedia or something before I fire it up again on Monday!