Another week bites the dust, we move closer to E3, yet once again more news has already started filtering out via both official means and leaks, Here’s a roundup of our week and news
What we’ve been up to…
Shadow of the Colossus
So as mentioned last week, I’ve been plugging through the back catalogue of my PS4 collection and made a start on this stunner of a game. Well from last week I’ve since gone on to tackle all 16 Colossi and finish the game.
The inspiration that was taken from this game for Fumito Ueda’s magical Last Guardian is clear to see. I completed The Last Guardian a while back and eventually ended up getting Shadow of the Colossus almost a year after release. The climbing mechanic used to scale the epic Colossi is the first thing I noticed that was familiar from TLG, while it’s a mechanic that works, as is somewhat a tradition sadly with Ueda’s games, the controls and camera angles can at times be tough. I found this to be the case with TLG and also it was prevalent in SotC. But that aside I still thoroughly enjoyed the epic scaling of some of these magnificently designed beasts.
Another area I found familiar from TLG was the use of pointing the sword in the air and sunlight guiding you to your next Colossi. While TLG this wasn’t exactly the same, using the mirror to guide Trico across some of the levels felt very similar usage in SoTC.
The very final Colossi was an absolute unit, I did have to take multiple attempts at this one and had to call it a night on one occasion due to sheer frustration of being 1 hit remaining to take him out, only to be flung off his head to the firing line of his fire ball attacks. It was over the moment I hit the floor, I was already turning the PS4 off. There are some incredibly designed Colossi though, all very unique in their attacks and weak points. Discovering some of the weak points and how to get them to be revealed was really clever. It’s hard to say which Colossi battle I enjoyed the most. I tended to prefer battles with Colossi that were humanoid in form rather than any based on 4 legged (or no legged in some cases) animals.
A reasonably short game, that I could probably best a lot quicker on a 2nd time round now knowing the enemies points and controls being more familiar, but a rather brilliant game none the less.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Yup, I’m moving on from one shadow of, to another. Another game I got for Christmas just gone, that’s been sat neglected. I really enjoyed the rebooted series of Tomb Raider and had great fun in playing the first two games in this trilogy. See Lara go from a scared innocent Lara to brutal “let’s be having you then” throughout the series has been good fun. Not far into this game yet, have just been wandering around a city in Mexico during the Day of the Dead festival. Some really lovely visuals from around this city, so photo mode has been used rather a lot already.
Looking forward to getting further into this game, if it’s to do with the Mayan tribes of old and their treasures. Having been to Mexico and visited the site of Chichen Itza I’m hoping to see more of the culture and history in this game. It does seem that we’re off to Peru next on our travels, so perhaps the time in Mexico is only as brief as I’ve had thus far.
-Murr
A Plague Tale: Innocence
I’ve been waiting to play this for quite a while and it seems that it was totally worth the wait as the first few hours have a been really good.
A Plague Tale: Innocence is a game more focused on stealth and sneaking than it is combat where you play as Amica and have to save your little brother Hugo as you’re hunted by the Inquisition. But this isn’t a quest for you to rescue your brother, he is with you the while time and you will have to guide him and yourself to safety.
Oh did I mention that there’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of rats lurking in the shadows waiting to eat anyone’s flesh who strays too far from the light.
I won’t go in to any details on how you find yourself in this situation as this is for you to discover. But it is a really intriguing game so far with very good voice acting, good gameplay, sound track and a lovely visual style too. I’ve been really, really impressed with the game from the first few hours.
We all know there have been a lot of successful story driven games where you and a companion – usually a child or younger character travel together, and A Plague Tale seems to be tapping in to that, so far it seems to be working too as the relationship between them both is really engaging. I’m excited to play more and see where it goes.
Recommendations & Reviews
Just a trial for now, but while we talk about the games we’ve played in the week in our Geekly Reviews, we do other geeky related things such as watching films, tv, playing board games etc etc. Some of the times it might be old news, but sometimes we might stumble across something under the radar that our readers might enjoy, so here’s a very small section on some recommendations and reviews we’ve had over the last week.
Chernobyl
Chernobyl is a 5 part series from HBO currently airing on Sky One. It’s a dramatisation of the Chernoby disaster from 1986. It does an amazing job at displaying the naivety of the old Soviet Union in the first instances of the disaster to demonstrating how catastrophic the accident could have been should some events not have occurred in time. Scenes in the first 2 episodes have gone on to recreate ever lasting images that we’ve seen in real life today. The haunting emptiness of towns and cities that were evacuated. It’s an incredibly tense and very much infuriating watch at times but I highly recommend catching up with it and giving it a go.
Anno 1800 & Fallout Wasteland Warfare Reviews
In the last week, we’ve managed to get a new video game and board game review out with Anno 1800 & Fallout Wasteland Warfare. Be sure to check them out:
In the news…
Call of Duty: Black Ops V Confirmed for 2020.. It might be F2P?
Apparently Activision have informed developers this week that Call of Duty 2020 will no longer be led by Sledgehammer and Raven, Instead it’ll be a new Black Ops led by Treyarch.
“Internally, Activision executives have started to talk about embracing free-to-play as a revenue model. Three sources say are looking into offering free-to-play component for this years new Modern Warfare”
Source(s): Kotaku & Jason Schreier
Sony & Microsoft go into business together
In a rather huge story for console fan boys, Sony & Microsoft this past week agreed to a partnership to collaborate on new cloud-based solutions for gaming experiences and AI solutions.
“Under the memorandum of understanding signed by the parties, the two companies will explore joint development of future cloud solutions in Microsoft Azure to support their respective game and content-streaming services. In addition, the two companies will explore the use of current Microsoft Azure datacenter-based solutions for Sony’s game and content-streaming services. By working together, the companies aim to deliver more enhanced entertainment experiences for their worldwide customers. These efforts will also include building better development platforms for the content creator community.”
In other news, dogs and cats are now living together peacefully?
Source – Microsoft
Splinter Cell confirmed thanks to a booze up?
It’s 22:24 in Lyon, France, you’re clearly enjoying your company and the wine. So why not put out a tweet about how much of a good time you’re having and what you’re doing…
Crap, no wait, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea…
