A day later this week, but here is the round up of what we’ve been playing recently!
Destiny 2 Forsaken
Forsaken has arrived, and the hunt for Uldren Sov is on…. Well it’s over for me because I’ve completed the story side of the new expansion and I have to say that I think it has been some of the best story telling in Destiny to date along with some great missions and a whole bunch of cool new stuff to discover.
In Forsaken, Prince Uldren – who you might remember as the emo dude who used to hang out with the Queen at the Reef – he’s her brother. Well he has sprung a load of bad dudes free from the Prison of Elders and the new bad dudes are the Scorn and they’re led by eight barons. It’s our job to hunt them down and kill them and then finally kill Uldren for what he did to Cayde 6. Each baron is quite different and when fighting them you will be faced with a nice amount of variety in the battles from sniper fights, to vehicle combat. Personally I loved fighting them all, it was great to see a bit a variety in a boss fight instead of the usual bullet sponge that skulks around – it’s not anything ground breaking but its a nice change.
With the new expansion we get access to two new areas to explore, The Tangled Shore and once you complete the campaign you can gain access to the Dreaming City which is an entire end game zone full of secrets and high level enemies – it’s also probably the most amazing looking location to date. There are also new supers, and a whole new roster of weapons and armour to unlock, new strikes, a new raid, new multiplayer modes and maps, it’s all good stuff!
Whilst I’ve only had time to play for a handful of hours or so with the new update I have to say I’m mighty impressed, there feels like there is always something to do when I log on. There is so much new stuff that to go through it all I’d have to probably dedicate a full review to it all. Personally I think that now is the best time to be playing Destiny 2, it has never been a better game than it is right now and I actually think it’s on par with Destiny 1 which for me was one of my favourite games of the last generation. Now I just wish my friends would come back…
Two Point Hospital
The original Theme Hospital came out over 20 years ago, I used to love playing it and have always thought it would be a fun game to see in the modern day. Two Point Hospital is the spiritual successor to that game and I have to say that they’ve nailed the look and feel of Theme Hospital but have made enough enhancements and changes to make it not feel like some cheap cash grab.
In Two Point Hospital the aim of the game is simple, build and run a successful hospital, once you’ve met a certain number of goals you can either stay with that hospital to strive for perfection and those sweet three star ratings, or move on to a new plot to start again.
There is a great charm about TPH with a nice sprinkling of comedy, and whilst at times it can feel corny, it’s still good fun and will provide you with a nice little chuckle every now and then. There’s a whole wealth of silly illnesses and diseases to diagnose and treat and they all have the original Bullfrog charm and humour to them.
You have quite a lot of freedom when creating your hospital with you being able to lay out rooms how you see fit and add in additional extras like paintings, book shelves and a lot more in order to keep your patients occupied and happy – I like to keep my hospitals looking as symmetrical as possible… As you might expect you’ll also need to hire staff to work in your hospital and you’ll have access to wide range of people with varying degrees of skill, obviously the more skilled they are the more they will cost you, so it’s a fine balancing act between competent staff and managing your budgets.
It’s a really fun game, but it also has some good depth to the management side of the game, with a lot of different areas being tweak-able from the price of almost anything, to the heating in your buildings, to staffs wages. Considering the style of the game I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so in depth but it’s a pleasant surprise that it is.
-Will
Spider-Man
Why can’t I hold all these games? Only 1 week after getting Formula 1 2018 and Zelda breath of the wild, Spider-Man arrived on PS4, and you bet I picked it up on launch day. Although I have not had as much time as I’d liked on it over the weekend due to other commitments which were focused more on our arrival due on 24th October. That said though from what I have played it’s been great.
The web swinging is so fluid, it’s easy to pick up and feels sensational sweeping through the high rise buildings of Manhattan at speed on occasion narrowly missing traffic on the road. The views from the top of the skyscrapers are stunning and make the city look huge. When down on ground level Insomniac have done and incredible job at making this city hustle and bustle much like real life Manhattan would be. On the ground level it’s another look at just how big this playground is as you look up and see the backdrop of buildings at your disposal to climb and swing from. I have a gripe, and believe me it’s a pathetic gripe at that. I’ve been to New York and would hands down say it’s the best place I’ve ever been to. Friends of mine know my fascination with all things New York so the prospect of just exploring this rendition of New York had me excited, this is the closest replica of the stunning city that’s ever been created. And while it is a valiant effort at replicating it, I still found myself a tad disappointed that some buildings weren’t where they’re meant to be. Biggest case being the World Trade 1 or Freedom Tower. That lower Manhattan and Financial District is not at all what I remember it as. Can’t win em all, and the most part it is incredible, but I was keen to retrace steps taken in real life in this replicated city. If anyone has found Katz Deli in Spider-Man take some screenshots.
As mentioned I’ve not had the longest amount of time to get my hands dirty with the game. The longest spell I had was yesterday and instead of focusing on progressing the story, I went about sweeping through New York unlocking the radio towers and collecting all the backpacks scattered around. It was the least tedious collectathon I’ve ever had to do thanks to the incredible backdrop and environment around you.
Fighting mechanics are simple enough to pick up, with different style enemies needing different approaches to beat them, and when you aren’t playing as Spider-Man but back to Peter Parker, there are some cool puzzles to solve in his work which start of simple, but gradually increase in difficulty resulting in more thinking. I can’t comment on the upgrades for the suits and such yet as I’ve yet to make a splash in that department, Just been unlocking areas and taking my time.
It is going to be a heck of a fun game though from the parts played so far, and another absolutely gorgeous looking game to continue the trend of Sony’s stellar first party outings this year.
Formula 1 2018
As mentioned last week, I had been finding the difficulty in career some what easier than anticipated and decided to start again as I was early days into the season. I did a few solo Grand Prix initially testing the difficulty slider and settled with 45% that had me at medium difficulty. While racing I was attacked more from opposition and had a tougher time of qualifying. I opted to stay with Mclaren again in my new save. awkwardly however It appears the practice I took part in before starting the career again gave me an edge as I found myself easily out qualifying opponents again and winning the race once again by a comfortable margin while in career mode. Looks like I need to go back to the free Grand Prix mode and experiment with the difficulty again. That aside though, I’m still thouroughly enjoying this game, but now to try juggle this, Spider-Man and Breath of the Wild all before Red Dead Redemption 2 arrives.
– Murr
