This summer is awesome, so much heat. Granted it has resulted in less video gaming for me, but I have had a few sessions on some new games as of late. Here’s what we’ve both been up to.
Constructor
Years ago I was hooked to an awesome game on the PlayStation 1 called Constructor. It was Sim City, but more in depth with regards to tenants and rival city planners. It’s one of those games that I figured wouldn’t see the light of day years later, but here we are in 2018 and Constructor has been remastered for current gen consoles. So for the bargain price of £6 from CEX, I picked up the remastered version for PS4.
Firstly, I cannot remember the game being this difficulty, and had certainly forgot how much depth there is to the game. On the beginning tutorial memories came flooding back of building the really dark and horrible houses for the lower class citizens that you could choose to move in that would go on to reproduce like rabbits giving you more workers in the future. Then the likes of the rival city planners getting involved and sending hit men and squads to our part of the map to disrupt the building and neighbourhood.
So with the tutorial complete I opted to just try a free game mode with no other AI players, so It should have been easier in that regard. No competition to worry about or rivals to come and destroy my work. What I had forgotten is that the tenants that you pick for your accommodation will eventually start to have complaints that you need to rectify in a time limit set by them, it’s usually years, but the game speed is so fast that the time comes around quicker than anticipated. I ended up getting a game over about 45 minutes into my free play as I didn’t resolve a complaint of cockroach infestation in the neighbourhood.
I’ve yet to go back to the game after that little spell, but will be diving back in once I’ve had enough of this sunshine we’ve been blessed with and also once I’ve finished with the next game I’ve picked up and been playing…
Retro City Rampage
A game that I bought a physical copy of because they are of a limited print, and worth a few bob. I however open my limited print games and actually play them, and only tend to buy games that I actually want for playing, not collecting. So Retro City Rampage is one of those occasions from Vblank. I’d been keen to play this game due to the similarities that it shares with Grand Theft Auto 1. The good old top down view drive and crime spree game we all now know and love as one of the most successful video game franchises of all time. What I didn’t expect when playing Retro City Rampage was just how funny it was and how many nods there are to plenty of other famous and familiar properties in both the video game world and movies and TV Shows.
Within the first 30 minutes I’d killed the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and ‘The B Team’. There were references made about Dr Who & Back to the Future. In one mission a card board box with legs is moving around a military base paying homage to Solid Snake and the Metal Gear series. I’ve beaten Robocop, I’ve met Luigi, I’ve stolen the mystery machine from Shaggy. Seriously this game is hilarious and full of so many pop culture references. The opening mission is recreating the bank robbery from the Dark Knight, even to the part where you escape the bank in a school bus and blend into a fleet of other school bus exactly like in the film (well almost exactly, with it’s own take and humour added to it). Incredibly surprised with this game and how fun it is. It’s my go to game at the moment. As the summer keeps delivering day after day of heat I find I’m trying to make the most of it while it lasts with small blasts now and again on the PS4. Retro City Rampage allows me to do this.
Oh well, August is almost upon us, which means the first game of the Autumn / Winter season that I buy yearly is nearly here, Madden 19.
– Murr
Vigor
First we had the survival genre boom, now we’re in the battle royale genre boom, but there is another hybrid genre starting to pop up a little more. It sits kind of in the middle of both survival and BR. Escape from Tarkov and Hunt: Showdown are probably the two most popular games like it at the moment. Now we Vigor looking to muscle its way in.
Quietly announced at E3 this year during the Inside Xbox show Vigor is a 3rd person shooter where you enter instanced ‘matches’ with I think 16 other players and have to scavenge for loot and try to escape. You can then use the loot you’ve taken to craft new gear and better weapons to then try again, there are also airdrops you can track down to loot, but they will obviously bring the other players too. The Dark Zone in the Division is also a similar kind of vibe to this. The difference between this and a BR game is that you can extract at any point via one of the many exits on the map.
You have your own safe house that no one else can access and this is where you will do your crafting or try out your new weapons in the shooting range etc…
I’ve only had a short amount of time in Vigor but it does seem fairly promising. The maps seem fairly varied, and look pretty nice for the most part. The biggest issue I have at the moment is the gunplay, it all feels a bit sloppy, but I don’t know whether that’s just because I haven’t played anything on consoles for a long time and I’m not used to it, but it just doesn’t feel that great.
I’m not entirely sure what they have planned for the game in the future, but I think it’s worth keeping an eye! I’m hoping it comes to PC though, but at the moment it’s just exclusive to Xbox One.
Destiny 2
I jumped back in to Destiny 2 this week after not playing it for a couple of weeks. Mainly because I thought the solstice event went live last week, but it turns out that is happening next week.
Anyway, I’ve been slowly plugging away and grinding for a higher level. But this weekend a secret event popped up one that sent the Destiny fans a little crazy and it was a mission that you could access that if you completed it would give you an exotic weapon ‘Whisper of the Worm’ – only available through this mission. We’ve had these types of missions before in Destiny 1 and they were honestly great, having something pop up out of nowhere was great and seeing the community come together to solve it is always really fun to watch and be a part of.
I haven’t actually completed it yet, mainly because it’s tough and you need to be a pretty high level for it and have a fire team to help you through. But I did attempt it, and it’s basically a huge jumping puzzle, with a fight at the end – which I didn’t get to. It will likely be some time before I’m able to complete it but I don’t care. I love that Bungie have started adding these kinds of secrets back in to the game and honestly I’d love for them to be so many more. I’d much rather have secret stuff popping up than events that we know everything about.
Bounties have been added back in to the game now as well with the latest patch and whilst they don’t change this drastically they do add another thing for you to work towards if you want to play daily. Plus they’re pretty handy for helping to level up your various vendors. More bounties will be coming with the Forsaken DLC in September as well as obviously a lot of other stuff and quite frankly I’m pretty excited. Destiny 2 continues to be a great game for and I can see it still being great in a years time if it continues in this way.
-Will
