Another week disappears. They’re going so fast now, but we’re managing to fit alot of Geek into them. Here’s what we’ve been up to.
Monopoly, Lots of Monopoly and other board games.
As you might see on our front-page we’ve got a review up of Doctor Panic. We’ve had the game a while, but it’s been difficult getting a gathering to play it. But we manged to on Monday evening. As-well as Doctor Panic we also got in a few games of LooneyQuest which Will covered in a review. 2 very fun party-esque type games.
On the weekend I finally got to open and play my Star Wars version of monopoly. It plays very differently from the standard Monopoly rules. You buy planets which is the same as buying properties, but you don’t need to rush to build properties on them. The aim of the game is to own as many properties as possible. Once all planets are purchased that’s game over and who ever owns the most is the winner. It’s also a team based game for the most part as it’s the Empire vs the Rebels. We played 3 players, and I ended up on my own. So there are a few advantages to being on your own in that you get given 6 “Chance” or “Community Chest” cards. These also play differently to normal as they are again only helpful dependent on what team you’re on. It’s also tough playing solo as your opponents can clear the board a lot quicker as they get more goes at buying planets. Still it was fun as it was a different spin on the classic.
And speaking of the classic monopoly we also had a 6 player game of this late on Saturday night accompanied by plenty of alcohol and snacks. Playing with so many players was brutal as you ended up negotiating with other players for properties a lot more. I was first to be wiped out.
Xbox One / Windows 10
At the start of 2016, I bought a new PC for gaming. It’s been a bit of a dud as I’m not overly keen on PC gaming anymore and the PS4 is always my go to for gaming at the moment. I’ve been reading more and more on the XboxOne games that’ll be playable on Windows 10. As my PC is pretty decent I now have an opportunity to play XboxOne games now without owning the console. I did some research and saw that there was a free to play version of Forza and Killer Instinct is on Windows 10 now too. So I downloaded both. I found it a bit cheeky that to unlock achievements in Killer Instinct you need to make a purchase of some kind first. Whereas Forza that wasn’t the case. Perhaps I’m in the wrong for thinking it’s a bit off to have to buy something to unlock achievements. But other F2P games such as Loadout, Paragon, Warframe you can earn trophies without needing to buy anything. I enjoyed Forza from the brief play of it I did have though. Even better as I was playing with the the DualShock 4 controller. Felt pretty naughty.
7 Days To Die Consoles
Along with Prison Architect I also bought 7 Days to Die for PS4 last week. However I neglected to play it for a while as I was enjoying Prison Architect and other games from PSN such as Gone Home. But I eventually started a single player play through of this. I have read a lot of negative reviews of this game, and people seem to be moaning that they shouldn’t release a game that’s in Alpha on consoles as a full physical release. I get that, but surely any updates for the game will be made available to download via game updates which seem standard on console gaming now a days? I don’t get the hate against it? It’s been fully enjoyable experience for me so far both on my single player save and the private server I’ve been playing with friends. We had a few minor hitches last night in that one player kept appearing to be at the end of the game world so would need to leave the game and come back. But it settled down and we all had a good blast building up our base, collecting supplies and doing a pretty good job of scavenging items.
I know this type of game is a perfect example of a game to play on PC, but I just really prefer sitting on the sofa using a controller and playing that way, than being sat at a desk and playing.
Our server was going very well and I can’t wait to get us all back on again for some more preparation for our first horde on day 7.
Gone Home
And another game that has had my attention over the course of the week was last months free PS+ game Gone Home. It’s a game I’ve heard plenty about for quite a while, and another game I suppose I could have grabbed on PC a lot sooner. But being the stubborn console gamer I am I waited for the console release and lucked out as it was a PS+ game in June.
I completed the game after having to get a few hints from walk through’s of the game. It’s not overly easy as there are plenty of secrets in the house. Once completed I then took the time to mess around with the extra options you can apply like all the lights on and all the doors unlocked. I saw that there is a trophy for completing the game in under 1 minute. Try as I might I could not get that trophy even when I was confident I was doing it in under a minute as per the timer I had running on my iPhone.
I ended up feeling pretty motion sick from playing the game too. It actually wiped me out one evening after playing it for so long. I felt horrible and the only thing I could manage to do was collapse in bed and watch a film. Really weird that it made me feel so dizzy and generally sick.
Pokemon GO Taking over Facebook Feeds…and the world.
It seemed that during the week when browsing through my Facebook feed, Pokemon GO had taken over everyone’s spare time. It’s not actually out in the UK yet. So these players acquired the game in some ways that will probably see the game stop working for them eventually. But still, It’s made me pretty jealous and I was surprised at the number of people playing it. It seems to have taken off incredibly in the countries it’s legitimately released in too. Plenty of news throughout the week of Nintendo’s fortunes on the up from this one mobile app release. Their stock reportedly increased by 33%. It’s a good sign for Nintendo. There was one negative story to come out of this, and it was nothing to do with Pokemon GO technically. A girl who was playing and hunting for a Pokemon came across a body in America. But as said that’s not got anything to do with the app causing the death. Just unfortunate place to be searching for a Pokemon.
– Murr
