So we’re now half way through the year and the games are coming thick and fast! Let’s take a look at what we’ve been playing recently.
Overwatch
I played the Overwatch Beta on Xbox One and I wasn’t exactly sold on it. I did enjoy it, but there was just something about it that didn’t quite grab me. I was going to pass on getting it, that was until all of my PC gaming friends got it. Needless to say I’m glad I U turned on it because it’s fantastic.
I’m still only around level 12 with around 4 or 5 hours played and I’ve still got a few characters to try out but I’m really impressed with it and have already grown attached to using a few of the characters.
Hanzo and Genji who are brothers are some of my favourites to use. Snagging headshots with Hanzo’s bow is extremely satisfying and using Genji’s ultimate ability – the Katana, allows for some awesome moments.
What I love about the game is its reliance on team play. If you try and gung-ho it on your own chances are you’re going to die, or lose. Working as a team and balancing your teams players is pretty essential towards gaining some success. On the flip side of this it can be very frustrating when playing with randoms and they don’t bother trying to pick a team that it balanced and all pick similar classes.
I feel like I’ve also started to do pretty well with Mercy as Support. She has the ability to heal other players with her staff, she also has the ability to glide towards players – helping you either get out of a sticky situation fast, or getting to player to heal them quickly. I had one really good game with her where we were trying to capture a zone and were losing 99% – 0%. I managed to keep my team alive for a long time which allowed us to gain a foothold on the objective whilst the opposing team kept having to respawn and travel to it. It was really satisfying to have such an impact as a support player and I ended up with over 15 kill assists and involved in 60% of the teams kills – which for support and not actually using my gun, I thought was pretty awesome.
The game just generally feels really rewarding and punishing at the same time. Rewarding you for good team play by being able to steamroll games sometimes, but if you don’t play as a team you’re the ones getting steamrolled. It also feels pretty well balanced for the most part. You can counter pretty much any hero in some way. I’m sure a few of them will get tweaks here and there over the first few months, but no one feels to OP to the point of broken – although I’m sure some will say McCree is pretty OP.
It’s great to hear it doing so well too with recent news saying over 7 million people have played it! I think Blizzard will be very happy with how Overwatch is doing right now.
Oh, also, there have been a number of animated shorts made for Overwatch and I seriously suggest you watch them as they’re awesome! Dragons is an awesome one!
The Final Station
I randomly got sent an email about The Final Station from Do My Best games last week and decided to give the game a go. It’s essentially a survival game, but you have to try around by train, going station to station to gather supplies and find survivors. Each station you visit is full of infected zombie like people that you will have to try and eliminate as you search the area for supplies.
I haven’t played it for too long, but from what I’ve tried to say I have to say it seems really promising! I like the style of the game, I like the twist on the survival genre – having to travel by train. I’m really keen to play some more of it over the next week or so. Check it out on steam here.
– Will
Board Games!!
On Friday night we had a night of board games over a friends house. We started the evening off with WWE Superstar Showdown. Well, we were going to, but none of us had played it before, or even looked at the rules prior to playing. What we thought would be a simple game, actually looked kind of complicated so we decided to put it on hold till we’d watched some play-through’s and read the rule book thoroughly. So we moved onto Ticket To Ride.
This was my first time playing it, So I was annoyingly asking the other player who’d played it multiple times annoying questions quite a lot. Justified though as I finished 2nd even after dropping my long route card at the beginning. A bold strategy that almost paid off, but beginners luck was evident around the table as my wife who was also playing for the first time eventually won. Expect a review of Ticket To Ride soon. We then finished the night off with Takenoko which we’ve already reviewed, you can find it here.
Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception
So I’ve had the Uncharted Collection since January. And I’d played 1 and 2 within the first week of owning the game, but was a bit burnt out by back to back games so waited to play 3 at a later date. With all the hype with Uncharted 4 around, I figure before I buy it, I’d play the 3rd game from the collection in preparation. Now, one thing I’ve complained about in previous Geekly Reviews about Uncharted 1 and 2 were the supernatural enemies. I felt that they made a somewhat realistic series of games a right pain to complete. Well with Uncharted 3 I was surprised to reach 90% of the game without any massive supernatural enemies (other than the spiders earlier in the game, but they weren’t nearly as annoying as the first 2 supernatural enemies).
It wasn’t just the enemies with their heads on fire though that annoyed me, but it was also the difficulty spike on pure number of enemies that appeared in the middle of the desert which is literally in the middle of fucking nowhere. And the increase in the rank of enemies. While there are still plenty of standard cannon fodder puny enemies, the armored up shotgun or mini gun wielding units increased 10 fold and presented a final 10% of pure rage. I replayed certain parts so many times and each time got more and more frustrated. But eventually I got through the game and finished it. The Uncharted trilogy is actually incredible, it really is, but they all had their moments of frustration. I’m now ready to pick up Nate’s first full official PS4 adventure though.
Beyond: Two Souls
Another reason I was keen to finish the Uncharted Collection was because I had the Beyond: Two Souls & Heavy Rain PS4 double waiting to play too. I’d completed Heavy Rain on PS3, but never picked up Beyond at launch as it was close to the PS4 launch and I’d always had a hunch it’d eventually come to PS4.
I had some idea of what the game was about, but didn’t realize just how terrifying some of the chapters could be. The mechanics to the game play are actually brilliant. Taking over Aiden and using him to frustrate or spook characters is brilliant. The story certainly does a good job of making you mis-use Aiden’s power though. That chapter at the party I definitely got revenge and felt no remorse for it.
But coming back to my previous point, terrifying. As spoiler-free as I can be, one chapter where you’re controlling a young Jodie in your home, and your mum tells you to entertain yourself while waiting for food to get prepared. Playing up in her room and Aiden decides to get involved in which you see a doll walk over to you in a twisted manner. Wow. And then when you’re called to go to the garage to get some olive oil. Tense does not describe it.
Funnily enough that night when asleep I had a nightmare about entities that genuinely woke me up in a panic, obviously still had the game in my mind subconsciously.
All in all a good weekend arriving very late to the party on some of PS3’s finest moments beautifully remastered for PS4.
– Murr
