Topic: Push Square Game Club Spooktacular: Resident Evil 4

@ralphdibny You'll encounter a lot of the genie moments before having the tools to complete them. I just took screenshots on my map of their locations and went on my way, and am now cleaning them up in the post-game.

Performance didn't really bother me early on (to be honest, it didn't bother me at all, since I'm very tolerant of unstable framerates that don't interfere with gameplay), but it becomes pretty noticeable later on in more demanding cutscenes.

I do love that art-style, though. I kinda hope they stick with it for whatever their next project is. And while it's not an amazing game, Concrete Genie is such an improvement over whatever the hell Entwined was supposed to be. If their next game is similarly improved over this, it'll be a real treat.

@Ralizah ah fair enough cheers for the heads up! I'll wait until the endgame to go back for them then!

I'm a bit weird with frame rates, ever since trying PSVR I have been hyper aware of them and they can make me feel a bit sick in a similar way but not nearly as bad as the VR does. I wonder if it's partially just my PS4 showing its age though. I was playing Spyro 3 a few weeks ago and the frame rate just tanked during the later skateboarding levels. I only leave it in Rest mode when I'm not sure how the auto save works in a game but turning the PS4 off properly seems to return games to normal.

I like the art style too, it's not quite Pixar and not quite Tim Burton, it's somewhere in between. I want to say something like Coraline or Kubo but having looked up those two films, they are not that similar. I guess it reminds me a lot of Into the Spider-Verse in that it's a specific art style that comes across as stop motion because of the way it looks and the way it's animated.

But yeah, I quite enjoy games that kind of revel in the animation. Stuff like Knack and the Spyro remakes. I even booted up a game on game pass recently for a Microsoft reward called Max The Curse of the Brotherhood and the art and animation just clicked immediately so I'll try and make a point to return to that some time!

@nessisonett It’s interesting to get the perspective of someone who actually paints. I can see how it might be frustrating to have the limitations of using the controller and not having full access to freely paint what you want. Creatively, things will open up for you gradually so you’ll probably enjoy the options a lot more pretty soon.

@Th3solution It’s just little things that get me, like the Aurora being slightly too thick for the size of canvases, stars needing to be painted using death by a thousand brushstrokes and grass being pointless when flowers come with their own grass!

I managed to connect both my joy cons and a Wii remote and nunchuck to the PS4 and you can use the normal buttons and sticks but unfortunately neither support motion controls! I'll go back to trying the DS4 later!

It's probably not worth setting up the camera and trying one handed DS4 and a Move controller is it? I imagine the move controllers only work in the VR mode

Just started Chapter 5 and skating is awesome!

That is me finished! Fantastic little game, really enjoyed my time with it. Will defo continue playing and possibly go for the platinum.

I’m onto the Waterways now. Really really don’t know what to make of it. The bullies’ whole tragic backstory is one aspect I don’t care for at all as I’ve known plenty people from disadvantaged backgrounds who rise above it and plenty people from stable backgrounds who act like t**ts. It’s too coincidental for every single one of them to have some sort of sob story that justifies how they act.

@nessisonett My take on it is that its more like a kids TV show. You play as a kid who's paintings come to life, not in a realistic drama about modern day bullies. Sure there is a serious message in there as well, but you have to give it some suspension of disbelief too.

And that is the platinum done. Straight forward enough but I did use a guide for the last couple of collectables after going through the map after finishing the story.

I only used a guide to find one page myself (it was in a trash can that I was sure I already checked) - somehow I managed to do everything else myself. No shame if using guides for trophies though, IMO - I definitely did it in other games.

@RogerRoger Thanks! I only had about half a dozen or so of the pages and a couple of the moments left when I had finished the story, after scouring the mapmfor them I only had 3 pages left.

@JohnnyShoulder well done on beating the game! I also use guides to mop up collectibles on some games. Probably depends on the game though but if the collectibles are just there for the sake of it and not locked behind a puzzle or something, well you've seen the game already so why not?

If it is a puzzle collectible, I might use a map to find it but work out the puzzle on my own. I printed off a Korok Seed map for Breath of the Wild after I'd finished it and went around looking for them and crossing them off as I went. Quite hard to work out which ones I had already got though! It was fun doing it that way and I felt like it was in keeping with the spirit of the game, I felt like an adventurer going around and checking my physical map to orientate my self.

One of my favourite guides I have ever found is one for certain sections of The Talos Principle, the person who wrote it put so much care into it in order to not spoil the puzzles. It was like a series of vague clues behind spoiler tags so you could get maybe a clue of where to go, then a clue on what to focus on and so forth until the final spoiler tag would just outright solved the puzzle. It was very well done in my opinion.

I also use the contents page of guides to see where I am in game as I'm playing sometimes. I don't look at the guide itself but just having the contents page open can show me how far in I am and how much I have left which can motivate me to get through the longer or slower paced games.

So who’s all still playing the game? Do we think a week will be enough to finish playing and we can start thinking about the next game? If so, Hitman 2016 is 6 chapters long, meaning we could see how it goes with a week dedicated to each level and earning as many challenges as possible. It’s the way the game was originally designed a sit was released episodically and it would take us through to the end of April.

@ralphdibny Cheers! Yeah i would always have a good go on my own before resorting to looking at a guide. The PS5 tip cards are good for this kind of thing, and the ones I've used have struck the right balance of prodding you in the right direction without flat out telling waht to do next.

@nessisonett I’m still playing, but I’m near the end. I already installed Hitman, so I’m in for some assassination 😎

@nessisonett for some reason I've had trouble making time to play concrete genie. I'll definitely get on it and finish it this week though.

Hitman is good for me. I have it installed and I need to tick it off my ps plus games list! Cheers again for doing all the organisation for this group, I think we all appreciate it!

@nessisonett I might struggle this time around, I've just started demon souls, which I'm enjoying so far but have no idea whether I can/will finish. How long do hitman levels typically take to play? I have 2016 from plus and from memory, you can upgrade to 2's visuals from the demo of 2.

@R1spam Hitman levels are open-ended, they can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to an hour depending on how you assassinate your target. The way we’re doing it is trying to encourage multiple playthroughs of the same levels as that’s how the game is designed to be played as well. The challenge system tells you essentially what sort of methods of assassination you should be pursuing but because the game is meant to be played in short bursts, you should be able to get some time in here and there!

Count me in for Hitman! Locked and loaded.