Playing AC: Odyssey on UPlay+ discounted. Pretty good so far.

I am nearly done with HZD main campaign. All that I have missed is the Hunting Lodge related side quests/errands and whatever that depends on those, plus a couple of cauldrons. Just headed off to the Frozen Wilds now and will finish those quests before steaming through the remainder in the main game. @networkn was wondering why I am relatively negative towards Ubi's open world and my experience through HZD has given me some insight into why and fortified my thinking that, IMO, Ubi's open worlds tend to be failures.

Apart from a very deliberate attempt at following a certain quest to get a very over-powered armour and locate one side quest, I have managed (just checked via Google) to get all the main game's quests side quests and errand (with the provisos above and the choice to not get into the hunting lodge stuff was my own). This is something that I have rarely managed in Ubi's games. The flow is terrific. More importantly, Guerrilla Games understands game pacing -- I don't constantly have to fight things, be harassed by enemies, or just feel generally overwhelmed all the time as I go about the world. Solutions and methods reveal themselves to you by osmosis, rather than through very deliberate tutorials/tutorial-like mechanics.

But what's made this game stunning in my eyes is the story, lore and the general sense of the world. Unlike Ubi's typically paper thin stories, HZD's is genuinely interesting and goes into themes like the consequence of ignorance, hubris, and importance of emotions/sense of wonder. Aloy is also a strong yet emotionally fragile but realistic character, given her experiences. Sure, most of the side characters aside from your late game ally is a bit paper thin but the true baddie playing a cult into achieving its own aims was a great little twist and juxtaposes perfectly with how the plan to re-birth the earth went awry.

All up, it's just a stunning visual, musical, gameplay, and emotional experience. The fighting mechanics and skills tree are a bit basic but truly perfect games are rare. This has been a stunning ride and I still have a long way to go - it's easily the best game that I have played in many years.  

Ultrawings on the Switch. Mostly enjoying it so far, but finding flying a rocket powered glider pretty hard.

Have been enjoying dead by daylight on xbox one. Fairly shallow type game, avoid a killer, repair generators and open door to escape. Have had some good games with solid teamwork (4 survivors vs 1 killer) and others where everyone does their own thing. Good graphics and sound

Also Golf Club 19. Only a small number of official PGA courses in the career mode, but lots more available in casual mode (Bethpage black, Pebble Beach, Congresional, but they seem to have removed Augusta). Pretty solid golf game if thats your thing

networkn:

Take a look on YT at Railroads, it's so much fun.

 

Handle9:

I started playing Railroads with Miss 8 this afternoon. All of a sudden Mrs Handle takes a look then ends up playing.

6 hours later she's got her own Steam account so we can both play at the same time. I think I've created a monster...

 

Awesome :) It's a great game.

I'm giving The Witcher 3 another go for about the 5th time.  If it doesn't take hold this time, I'm letting it go for good.  I'm about up to the point in the game where I always seem to lose interest, but this time I feel a bit more motivated.  Maybe having just come from FF7. 

After a Decade of playing only Tetris via an NES emulator and AoM, I'm back into Simracing with almost exclusively iRacing. Built my own triple screen mount out of heavy steel and am building a set of loadcell pedals from a lasercut pattern I found online. Am trying to order a good steering wheel to go with it but there's a huge global shortage of Simracing gear at the moment and in any case, some of the good brands don't allow sales into NZ (Hence building my own pedals)

Cheers - N

I just finished Horizon Zero Dawn + The Frozen Wilds expansion. Warning for anyone who doesn't read to see (limited) spoilers for this game, skip my thoughts for now other than the TL:DR next - sensational story, wonderful lead character, well-written lore, amazing little juxtaposition of contrasting themes (e.g. how one person tried to make up for the suffering caused by his hubris by destroying knowledge of how the world turned to custard, thus leaving "new" humans in utter ignorance) that is mixed up with gameplay that basically didn't expand much from mid-game.

What a ride. I mentioned before that I found HZD's storytelling to me miles ahead of Ubi's typical open world efforts and I hold to that view. Undoubtedly this is one of the best games that I have ever played and I can see how it's objectively one of the most ambitious and finest games of this generation/decade. Set against all that, some of the very obvious and simple failings of the gameplay is a bit jarring. IMO:

 

1. The skill tree is pretty hopeless. A lot of skills don't make that much difference
2. Stealth just doesn't work. I have to agree with a reviewer who said that from mid game onwards it frequently just becomes "How can I bash up all the enemies or avoid triggering them whilst I complete my objectives"?
3. Some of the level curving of the machines and side quests/errands don't work. I have on occasions found quests that are 10 - 15+ levels below my Aloy's level to be difficult due to (2) - I played on hard. And plenty of side quests got considerably more difficult than main quests.
4. They didn't really make the machines in the expansion smarter -- instead they just started spamming more of them.
5. (4) would have been very problematic if one didn't get the way OP armour from the Ancient Armoury quest line

I am a bit concerned to hear rumours that Guerilla Games are focusing on making the sequel's game world bigger. IMO, they need to make the gameplay tighter. Were it not for the wonderful story, lore, world and HZD's sensitive yet mature handling of complex themes like rejection and the importance of reason, I don't think its gameplay had enough behind it to warrant anyone putting in 78 hours as I did.

Overall, 10/10 for story, 10/10 for technical achievement, 11/10 for artistic achievement (oh how I love the sound track), and 7/10 for the gameplay.

@dejadeadnz "Stealth just doesn't work. I have to agree with a reviewer who said that from mid game onwards it frequently just becomes "How can I bash up all the enemies or avoid triggering them whilst I complete my objectives"?"

IIRC you can stay invisible and get close to a machine by darting between the clumps of red flowers and attract its attention by whistling or throwing a rock. When it comes over to investigate, you can quietly corrupt it to nullify it and this doesn't alert its mates.

CS:GO - Used to play CS 20 odd years ago, was not too bad at it either.

So installed CS:GO recently - and yeah well, the fast twitch/reaction/aim skills are somewhat diminished i.e. am old and slow now - but is still fun as long as I can kill a few :)

eracode:

 

@dejadeadnz "Stealth just doesn't work. I have to agree with a reviewer who said that from mid game onwards it frequently just becomes "How can I bash up all the enemies or avoid triggering them whilst I complete my objectives"?"

 

IIRC you can stay invisible and get close to a machine by darting between the clumps of red flowers and attract its attention by whistling or throwing a rock. When it comes over to investigate, you can quietly corrupt it to nullify it and this doesn't alert its mates.

 

You're not wrong. The problem I had was that I found the placement of the red vegetation to be quite gimmicky. More importantly, as soon as stealth got broken through player choice, negligence or whatever, the machines just swamp you. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the gameplay still but it just wasn't that interesting nor sophisticated compared with the rest of the game.

I've made it past the Bloody Baron storyline in Witcher 3 and things have really opened up nicely now.  I have a lot more freedom to explore.  The previous times I've tried to play I always get bored around the Botchling part of the storyline and give up.  I don't know why, it was never a skill or frustration thing.  And the game is still gorgeous for its age.  Guess some games you just have to be in the right mindset. 

Still in Unturned with mates..... just started the "Hopeless" map which is labelled as "Insane size" - so we prob wont run into one another for a while :D