Topic: What (Non-PS4) game are you playing??

@Jimmer-jammer sound advice 😉

@colonelkilgore so I finally properly started Demon’s Souls remake and rather predictably, I’m absolutely loving it. On an audio/visual front, it’s a truly next-gen experience for me. Playing with headphones, the audio is some of the best I think I’ve heard and the visuals are just spectacular. Just dealing with the Tower Knight at the moment…Hopefully you’re 100% settled in and comfortable for Elden Ring’s arrival.
Edit: sorry I just realized I’m in the wrong thread…

Finally made some more progress in Tomb Raider. Beat St Francis Folly which is apparently in Greece despite the somewhat oddly inconsistent naming conventions of the gods. Then beat the Colosseum which again… I guess there were some in Greece?? I don’t think I’m in Rome. Two slightly irritating levels due to the very spread out one-time saves. I hope the trilogy’s save system gets better. I quite liked the concepts of both levels and the way the maps used every inch of the space but yeah, I hope levels don’t get any more labyrinthine and punishing.

@Keith_Zissou cheers mate, I’m already stressed so god knows what I’ll be like tomorrow 😅.

Out of interest did you try any of the VR/Alternate missions when you played it previously… they’re really good?

@colonelkilgore Congrats on the new place. So new furniture but not a new TV? Would be nice to get a whole new system or is your current one already cutting edge?

Speaking of, as I mentioned earlier I feel like maybe staring up MGS2 soon and I actually have it on Vita. Having played it recently ad nauseum do you think it will translate well onto the portable?

@Th3solution thanks buddy, so we picked up a couple of new TV’s on sale during the recent Amazon Day. I haven’t taken them out of the boxes yet as they were specifically for the new house. I don’t think they’re ‘cutting-edge’ but they’re both 60hz 4K and 65Inches. One is for the lounge and the other is for my gaming room… that sucker is gonna take up the whole wall 🤣.

I’m trying to get the missus to agree to having our current tv (4K 50inch) put on the wall of the kitchen-diner but she’s having none of it so far. If not, I guess it’ll go in the bedroom.

So about MGS2 I’d definitely suggest anyone play it, it’s fantastic… I do think it’s probably better suited to playing on a TV if I’m honest but I’m sure it’s still fine on the handheld. Be sure to let me know how you’re getting on with it.

@colonelkilgore Cool. Sounds like you’ve got a good set-up plan. But I’m disappointed there’s no 85 in. 8K 120hz TV yet, huh? Ah well, gotta have something to look forward to. 😜
S’alright — Mine is a smaller set than yours (43 in.) and I still have the PS4 hooked up to my 1080p 40 inch set, and it actually looks great still.
(I just realized — I guess you all have to deal with the quirky American stubborn reluctance to give up on the old English measurement system. I’ve always thought it was ironic that even the English don’t use the system anymore but we do. Inches, feet, yards, miles, etc. I guess these tech companies keep their monitor and TV sizes standard across the world?)

As for MGS2, I’ve almost booted it up a few times this past week on the go and I think I’ll like utilizing the Vita. I’m sure it won’t be as epic as being on the big screen but the MGS HD collection is one of the few Vita games I have left in the backlog that I actually want to play. If it goes well then I might replay Snake Eater and I think maybe it has Peace Walker on it too (I have the actual physical game card), but I’m not sure. I know it has MGS2/3.

@Th3solution yeah measurements are a funny old thing here in the UK. We kinda use a hybrid of the metric and imperial systems. Money is purely metric, as are home furnishings (as I’ve recently reacquainted myself with…) probably a load of other things too. Then people’s height & weight, automobile speed, TV sizes etc are all imperial. It’s probably confusing to outsiders but you get used to what you’re brought up using I guess.

If the vita MGS HD Collection is the same as the PS3 one it will have Peace Walker… it’s good too, though you’ll have to find a dance partner if you want that plat. It requires that you clock up a helluva lot of ours in co-op… and if you want s-ranks on all missions, some would be almost impossible on your own. Plat aside though, it’s still a worthy part of the series imho.

@colonelkilgore Yeah, I actually played Peace Walker on PSP and liked it quite a bit. It would be a replay for me, and I don’t know if I want to experience it again that badly, given my other looming backlog games. It is one that I played through really quickly though and only experienced the base story and didn’t really delve too deeply. It probably should have had a proper remaster for PS4 to release alongside Ground Zeroes since it was pretty essential to the whole MGS5 saga and a lot of people missed it since it was on portable.

@Th3solution it would’ve been awesome using the fox engine tbh… well pretty much every old MGS would be phenomenal in the Fox engine in fairness.

@nessisonett Congratulations on clearing St. Francis' Folly back there! It is a bit of an odd location, and reminds me of when Nate and Sully found a thick jungle in France.

The save system throughout the five PSone games is all over the map. The original game got a lot of flack for its save crystals, so you can save anywhere, any time, as many times as you like in Tomb Raider II, but then everybody complained that A: this made the game too easy, and B: you could easily wreck your progress by saving in a bottomless pit or other dead end. So then, in Tomb Raider III, there's this weird hybrid where save crystals become collectible items, and you activate them whenever and wherever you wanna save. The problem is, because Tomb Raider III is a cruel mistress, extra save crystals are often hidden away in perilous secret areas, meaning you have to weigh up your progress since your last save against the chance of earning another one.

Mercifully, nobody was happy with that "compromise" and so, in both The Last Revelation and Chronicles, they went back to unlimited saves, anywhere and at any time. Phew!

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@colonelkilgore @Th3solution Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, for the sake of Sol's backlog) the PS Vita version of the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection doesn't include Peace Walker, mostly because the PSP original is downloadable and playable on the system already.

@RogerRoger ahh fair enough, it's probably my least favourite of the series tbh but I still really liked it. The co-op was particularly good.

@RogerRoger Merciful indeed. Thanks for the clarification. I was wondering what kind of black magic they had used to get 3 full length games onto that little Vita game card. 😄

@LtSarge How have you been getting on with Xillia? The older Tales games do have a tendency to get bogged down in really strange lore and terminology. I spent half of Vesperia trying to work out exactly what an entelexeia was, but that’s nothing compared to Tales of Abyss! The Lillium Orb system reminded me a little of the Sphere Grid in Final Fantasy X, though not as deep. It’s a nice way to customise the character though.

I’ve been meaning to do a replay of Xillia for a while now, so would play as Milla next time. I really enjoyed the banter and comedy between the characters, but also appreciated the surprisingly dark moments in the story. Jude’s personal growth and progression is an important part of the story, so was nice to see unfold: even if he can be a bit naïve at times (particularly when it comes to the antics of a certain character).

@mookysam I haven't played much of it this week due to The Evil Within taking up most of my time. I did play a couple of more hours since my latest post and got to that small town where you meet the fourth member (the girl with the weird doll). Really enjoying the game so far, I can't wait to play more of it once my gaming schedule frees up a bit.

@colonelkilgore I need to replay it. I remember being confused by how different it was (as I played it through for the first time during a release-order run of the entire Metal Gear saga) but I also remember getting caught up in some of its more exciting moments, and I love its soundtrack, too. I have a feeling that nowadays, whether I like it or not, I'd at least end up respecting it.

@Th3solution Yeah, there's enough black magic involved in getting two vast games on there!

So, almost two years after @Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy wrote the review which convinced me to try it, I've gotten underway with Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver as a PSone Classic on PS3. It became one of my "up next" choices a while back, but its story and themes seemed apt for this time of year, with Halloween looming. Anyway, there's some quality presentation which makes a very strong first impression, but I'm finding the clunky combat a struggle to enjoy, to the point where I'm just running past enemies wherever possible. I'm curious to explore more of its massive, interconnected map, though.

@RogerRoger Legacy of Kain is a cult classic, for sure, and me that I remember enjoying. It’s commonly endorsed as a good candidate for a remake, so I’ll be curious to see if you agree by the end.

@Th3solution Heck, I agree now! The controls need some serious modernisation. It'll take me a while to re-wire my brain after I was strongly reminded of the era's Tomb Raider games (that classic Eidos logo, and then seeing Lara's future custodians Crystal Dynamics pop up as the developers, activated a certain muscle memory, I guess). I'm crying out for a better camera; the lack of a free-look button is criminal, inverted panning with L2 and R2 is making my teeth itch, and the fact that I can't look up or down would be driving me up the walls, if only I could tilt the camera to see which walls to drive up.

Had I played it back in the day, I'd have been a lot more patient with it, I suppose. The story is interesting, the voice acting is superb and the setting is palpable, and I love the whole dimensional shifting mechanic, even if I haven't had to use it much yet.

The Medium

I only got to play it for an hour or so today on my Series X as it took me longer than I expected to finish up Scarlet Nexus today, but so far I'm enjoying it. I put it off even though I was really looking forward to it due to the mediocre reviews, but it made sense to finally give it a shot since it's October.