Geekly Review #148

I’m back after celebrating my birthday last week. Didn’t go anywhere, but didn’t really do anything Geeky so gave it a miss. So first week back after turning 30.

Birthday Pressies = Games

So I did pretty well for my birthday from friends and family and ended up with a few vouchers and cash. I did a bit of responsible shopping with it and purchased new clothes and work wear, but then I also did use the rest on buffering up the PS4 collection.

I picked up Uncharted 4, Bloodborne, This War of Mine: The Little ones and Tearaway Unfolded. There is a disclaimer to this list though, that within a few hours of playing Bloodborne it was very apparent that this game was not for me. I tried, and was fully expecting to die a lot in this game. But wow I died a heck of a lot. I wasn’t rushing through, I wasn’t playing like a dick, it just was not clicking. So I ended up cutting my losses and traded it back in for Just Cause 3.

Since the swap I’ve only been playing JC3 and it is a blast (pun kind of intended?). The open world is absolutely massive and my god it’s such a pretty game. The water looks incredible and each town that you liberate or new island you come to is busy and has a sense of real life taking place on it. Very good attention to detail in this game. It is however starting to remind me of Far Cry in that there are so many different things to do to clear an area like bringing down a guard area, liberating an oppressed town and destroying a power station run by the enemies.

I’ve not made much progress story-line wise in complete honesty as I’ve been fully enjoying liberating the provinces in each island. It’s going to take a long time to do them all though based on how fucking huge the world is for this game. Very happy with the trade in for this, although I have experienced a few game crashes on it unfortunately.

Battlefield 1 Beta

There really isn’t much I can say about this other than “Wow”. Visually it’s stunning, it is just stunning. Sounds as you’d expect from a Battlefield game are equally amazing. This Beta is overall an impressive feat. A few downsides were that PlayStation 4 version experienced a lot of server down time, and it’s apparently due to servers being hacked, which did frustrate me a lot. The Beta has done a very good job on selling the game to me and I’ll be sure to add this to the winter games pick up. I managed to pick it up and jump straight in with some pretty competitive and flattering scorecards. Perhaps beginners luck as there were the occasions I felt like I let the whole team down with my performance. Win some lose some. Basically though, you should seriously consider picking this game up at release if the Beta is anything to go by. It is simply outstanding.

Sony to move to Mobile Gaming

Quite a large bit of news. “Sony is set to push “aggressively” into mobile gaming, having watched from the sidelines as its console rival Nintendo enjoyed meteoric success with the Pokémon Go augmented reality (AR) game.”

“[Mobile gaming] is something we are aggressively getting into,” Sony chief executive Kaz Hirai told the Financial Times at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. “It’s quite a shift from being just a console-based business to being on mobile phones as well,” he said.

“Pokémon Go is a real game-changer. I’m very interested in the fact that it has the potential to really change the way people move, literally.”

So wonder what does this mean for any potential future Vita? Handheld console gaming for Sony officially done as they pursue the mobile market?

Nintendo 3DS Direct

Last week Nintendo hosted a Direct exclusively for the 3DS. A lot of announcements were made with some new games making an appearance. Check out our re-cap of events here.

– Murr

Battlefield 1 Beta

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but I’ve also been playing a lot of the Battlefield 1 Beta but on PC. I’ve clocked in around 15 hours in game so far and like Murr I also love it. I’ve summed up my thoughts in this video.

Overwatch Season 2

Season 2 for Overwatch released last week – I’m pretty sure it was meant to be this week, but I’m not complaining. I’ve jumped straight in to the new competitive season and have played 5 of my 10 placement matches so far – all solo queue, and I’ve managed to win 4 which I’m super happy about. The ranks have changed a lot from season 1, but I’m not sure I entirely understand them all just yet, so I’ve no idea where I will place and whether it will be good or not… But I’m guessing with 4 wins already I’d probably pick up another 2 so should end up with a good rank!

Along with season 2 came the new map Eichenwalde. It’s set in Germany and has a real Gothic Medieval feel to it. It looks fantastic and is a really fun map to play as well. It features a lot more flanking routes than the other maps so you can really mix up your strategies on it. You have to fight your way through the town escorting the battering ram payload up to the castle to break in and take the throne room!

Overwatch just keeps on getting better!

-Will