Geekly Review #211

As we’re into the festive season now, we’re preparing for the occasion. Shopping, wrapping presents, decorating the house, but still have time for some Geeky activities. Here’s what we’ve been up to this week.

That’s You!

So one of the free games with PSN last month was an offering from Sony trying to push their latest innovative way to play games from their PlayLink method that they revealed at E3. PlayLink requires users to download a specific app relating to the PS4 game they’ll be playing. In this instance, the game being “That’s You”. The players then use their smartphone or tablet to play the game. I guess it’s an attempt to introduce families into gaming, trying to find a way to capture that audience that the Wii created those years back. Given that this was the case, I have neglected playing That’s You, plus I’ve been hooked on COD, and it’s rare that there’s enough of us available to hang out and play games at one persons house now a days. Well Saturday evening I had the company of 2 friends. Initially the idea being to play COD & WWE 2k18, but as the evening was wrapping up (at around 2am) I persuaded them to stay a little longer to give this game a try. Before I go on to explain how much fun we had, let me show you the messages I read when I eventually woke up (feeling pretty hungover).

These were from the 2 chaps that played the game. So good start. As mentioned we were for all intents and purposes hammered. The game had us laughing incredibly loud, so much so that we woke my wife up who had been flat out in bed for some hours before we started playing this game. I think we enjoyed the game because we played it with a lot more innuendo than I imagine it should be played with. Some of the questions were pretty hilarious though and the fact that we all seemed to be on the same brain-wave with our answers for the most part picking the same individual for questions that should be taken lightly, but no doubt could probably offend some people in the world.

And then the real fun began, when we were given a picture of one of the other players, and then tasked with turning them into something else that we were told to do. For example I was told to turn one of the guys into a ‘Jester’, someone had to turn me into an ‘Elf’ and the final player was tasked of turning someone into a ‘Genie’. Pardon the swearing, but fucking hell this was the tipping point for us and the laughter volume increased dramatically at the reveal of the Genie. I still can’t help but break into laughing fits seeing the screengrabs of the picture now. Sensational stuff, perhaps more of a “had to be there” kind of moment, but that’s the great thing about this game is that I get a sense that this game can create a lot of those type of moments based on the questions that are asked, and who you could play the game with. There’s different levels of humour for different people, but this game I think could reach all levels of people and create mass fun all round, regardless of being dirty minded or prefer innocent jokes.

A game I was unsure If I even wanted to claim as part of my PSN catalogue has suddenly become a game I want to play more and anticipate gathering friends round to play again very soon. It’s also done a sound job of selling the idea of PlayLink to me, and genuinely has me interested in the other PlayLink titles on offer (perhaps with the exception of Singstar as no one would want to hear me sing).

Call of Duty WW2

Oh what a surprise I hear you say, as yes, I’m still very much addicted to Call of Duty WW2. Well the multiplayer I certainly am. It appears Activision have sorted out the server issues and have now opened up the Headquarters officially so now you are dropped into the headquarters with dozens of random players who are opening drop boxes and challenging each other at the target range. It’s funny in that there are some funny things taking place in the headquarters like throwing a football at people, and seeing the hilarious sit down and slide around glitch, but I think I preferred the Headquarters when it was only invite only and I could have just my party of 4 or 5 other players being stupid in there. Like the revelation of entering the prestige area for the first time, telling my fellow squad members to follow me, then laughing hard when they can’t enter asking me how I got in there. Or playing hide and seek in the Headquarters with just us in there. I get it’s better to be full of people when playing solo, but when a party of 5 or 6 is together then the HQ should be for just those guys.

Onto how we’re getting on, well Saturday night was probably one of the more fun sessions we’ve had as we were all in one house, with multiple TV’s and PS4’s. And we all did pretty damn brilliantly finally as we’re all now getting to grips with the maps and working out the best places to be for the events that unfold. We’ve definitely cracked Gibraltar, Point Du Hoc and Ardennes Forest. And USS Texas always goes down well. I wouldn’t be sad if Gustav Cannon was removed though.

And we’re also making good progress in The Final Reich, the Zombies mode of COD. A rather hilarious session saw myself and one squad member who had a little more experience with the game introduce 2 of our squad to the mode for the first time. For the most part it went well and we worked well as a squad, but the temptation was always there for one individual (who knows who he is if he’s reading this) to wander off and end up needing assistance and being revived more than the rest of us. We had a good approach though of myself and the other player more familiar with the game to split up and take one of the less experienced players with us. It was working well and we’ve now got to the point where we can get one part of the ‘tesla’ gun. But it’s then trying to escort the device to the other side of the level to get the 2nd part of the gun we seem to fall apart. And rightly so it’s not easy by any means. But we’ve made a good go of it and can get pretty damn far with only 9 waves passing by. I’m actually enjoying the Zombie mode a lot more this year than I have previous years. And I’m glad that the guys that picked the game up after much persistent pushing from me still actively play every night or as often as they can when they have free time due to other way more important priorities (Kids, all about the kids) coming first.

And to finish off, a picture of one of our squad members getting the Bronze star award on Saturday night for his heroics in Pointe Du Hoc.

– Murr

Gloomhaven

So a couple of weeks ago I told you about my first experience with Kickstarter and that I’d backed Gloomhaven. Well early last week the usual update came along and it basically said that there were still some boxes being sorted in Germany and that people might still be waiting a couple of weeks for their delivery notice. After this news I kind of wrote getting it any time before Christmas, but I then got home that evening to a delivery card from UPS and it said the package was 10kg, roughly the same as Gloomhavens weight. Needles to say I got a little excited! But my excitement was short lived as I quickly found out the next day that it was in fact another package I was waiting on. Oh well, back to thinking I wouldn’t get it before Christmas.

Fast forward a couple more days and it happened, I finally got notice that my parcel was on it’s way from Germany! Yay! Now, I figured it would take another week to arrive, but imagine my surprise when I get home, literally this morning from being away for the weekend to it waiting with my neighbour!

So pretty much an hour ago I got it and I’ve been marveling at it since. Christmas has come early for me! Enough talk, here’s some pictures of it.

It’s glorious!

-Will