Cleggworth

Platinum #417 - Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts

I'd never played a Sniper game before. For some reason I expected it to be a more traditional FPS over a sniping game 🤷‍♂️🤣 but yeah its mostly sniping which I found to be very satisfying. Checking distance, wind direction, ammo type just felt 👌 when the shot animation kicked off and you obliterated some poor guys face. It's on a much smaller scale but it's a bit like the Sniper levels on Hitman 2. You can move and shoot traditionally in this though but you can't dress as a waiter and kill someone with a swordfish. Swings and roundabouts. I enjoyed it. I can definitely see me picking up the second one at some point.

I decided on Dead Space for my next game, it'll take a few days to be delivered so I'm playing Bugsnax in the mean time. Nice to play something that was 'free' with plus, it's alright so far. My daughter will like it. I'm looking forward to Dead Space though as I love the original. The Aldi version, the Calisto Protocol just didn't do it for me

Well my gaming January didn't go quite to plan, I was supposed to start The Witcher on PS5 but had to stick it on the back burner for now🤦‍♂️

I picked up Plat #414 in Xing The Land Beyond which I played to be the X in my alphabet of plats. A milestone of sorts as I now have the full set which is nice. As it goes it was actually a decent 1st person puzzler. I'd recommend it if puzzle games are your thing. It's VR compatible as well if you have one

#415 went to God of War Ragnarok which actually was in my plans for January. I wasn't big on GoW 2018. It was fine but I wasn't one of those gushing with praise for it. It frustrated me immensely tbh. Ragnarok had its moments still but it was an incredible improvement over its predecessor. My one negative was that its such an achievement dramatically that its gamey aspects became incredibly noticeable to the point of distraction and annoyance. Playstation have clearly gone all in on videogames as art etc which I'm behind for the most part but it can cause its problems. All the chests just dropped in corridors just to give you an upgrade material with seemingly no actual world purpose to them being there started to really get to me for some reason. Similarly it began to annoy me that the 9 realms all have their distinctive architectural styles and whatnot but all have the same chest design... just me then? 🤣 At one point when leaving Nidavellir Mimir essentially says "main quest that way, side quests this way" there are more examples, and most of the time I don't care but it's really noticeable when it's in contrast to scenes that are comparable to watching a TV series. Despite this its my early leader for best game of my year and not just because it doesn't have any competition yet.

#416 went to Spyro 3. I never played the originals so had no nostalgia to fall back on so they were simply okay to me. Truth be told I only played them because I bought it for my daughter and when she got the Plat on the 1st one I had to too. Classic collectathon mascot platformer, i prefer Ratchet. This is probably better than Jak and Sly... it filled a few hours and was a welcome change of pace from Ragnarok. It did its Job well

Not really sure what to play next. Too many options, nothing particularly jumping out. I could pick up Dead Space or start Dark Souls 2 which was pencilled in on the schedule? Most likely something else entirely. For now I'm just plugging away with my secondary game of the moment Ghost Warrior Contracts. Its not quite what I was expecting but its actually pretty good

Picked up two more plats since Lost Ember. #412 - A Tale of Paper and #413 - Solo: Islands of the Heart.

A Tale of Paper was short but sweet. I finished it one sitting. There wasn't a lot to it but what there was was done well. A classic case of an evenings entertainment for a decent price which Mr and Mrs Cleggworth enjoy during the many, many school holidays. The roomba interactions are pretty dark...

Solo : Islands of the Heart was another of those games although this took us two evenings. The latest in a long line of indie games and their favourite themes, love and death. Not bad. It reminded me of Toem which I played a while back. A lot more colourful obviously but the world was similar. You can take pictures in it although it's nowhere near the main focus like it is in Toem. Little fetch quests and animals to feed etc. The meat of the game was using various types of blocks to navigate Islands, cross gaps, climb cliffs and reunite star-crossed loving cats dressed in Bee outfits. I was surprised at how often I had to think about a solution tbh. Its not the faceroll it first appears. Dirt cheap too. Think I got it for £1.50? Worth a shot if you like this kind of thing at that price.

I have a few days left before my daughter gets back to school which means I can slip in at least one more mini game before Ragnarok. I played Qube and Qube 2 over the summer and the plat in the latter reminded me of the A-Z club. I only have the letter X left. Fortunately we've moved on from the options being either X-Com or X-men Destiny so I'm going for.... Xing the Land Beyond!

No I've never heard of it either 🤣

Platinum #411 - Lost Ember. Got in early this year with my first plat of the year on New Years Day. Not done that since Into the Nexus in 2017.

Didn't pay much attention to the story in all honesty, brain is a bit fried from the festive period but it served me well as a mindless collectathon to just calm the brain down of an evening. That was the plan anyway but the collectible guide I used was hands down the worst I've ever used for anything ever. 

Ragnarok can wait as I'm sticking to the more chilled out end of the gaming spectrum for the time being and starting A Tale of Paper this evening

Happy New Year everyone 

There's a week to go so I'm a touch early but I'm unlikely to add to it so here's my round up for the year.

55 plats in total which is slightly up on last year, mainly due to my annual summer showcase of "easier" games extending a week or 2 into the school year.

Hit 2 major milestones this year, the Hitman 3 Platinum had the honour of trophy #20,000 and The Last of Us Pt1 earned the title of Platinum #400. Both well deserving. Its been debated to death if TLOU Remake was even necessary which I won't get in to but I loved replaying it regardless. Hitman 3 was the thrilling finale to one of the greatest trilogies of recent times. Utterly spectacular and hands down the defacto winner of my game of the year. Until i played Demon's Souls 🤣 I hadn't played a Souls game until this point and it dragged me out of a funk gaming wise. Its opened up an entirely new genre to me so I'm genuinely torn between the two. It's a dead heat, I can't choose between them.

The worst game of my gaming year was Last Stop. I had no idea what was going on in all honesty and then at the end it just totally shit the bed and made even less sense.

A few honorable mentions, I finally finished Red Dead Redemption 2 this year. The game with greatest disparity between game quality and trophies I've ever come across. Wins the Frodo Baggins "It's done" award for the year, possibly all time.

My biggest surprise of the year goes to.... Life is Strange True Colours. I hated the first game, truly hated it. Its my most unpopular gaming opinion. I played before the storm because I had left over credit on my NA account and hated that as well. I played Life is Strange 2 this year because it was cheap and I'd heard it wasn't very good. The hated sequel to a game I hated must be good right?? No, it was shit as well. Naturally the next step was to subject myself to another steaming pile of crap so I bought this. I didn't just not hate it but actually enjoyed it 😳

Another surprise, this year was the first year EVER I got a Platinum on Christmas Day. The Ascent, a cyberpunk twin stick shooter. My wife is a sucker for these games so we played co-op. It's not bad. The actual gameplay is as satisfying as they always are but the mission structure is borked. You spend a lot of time just walking across the map, or sitting through fast travel loading screens. We've got DLC to finish but the overriding memory of this game will be "Can you imagine Dead Nation got a PS5 port 🤤"

So that was '22. I've not had the best IRL year tbh so I've not been as active here as I'd usually be. I don't think I've commented on a Plat since Demon's Souls in July? Don't see '23 being any better unfortunately but the games are looking strong to start so I'm gonna try to post a little more. GoW Ragnarok, The Witcher PS5 and Dark Souls 2 should all be got to before the end of January.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas and see you all next year

Cleggworth 

For those in the UK, there's a deal of sorts going on Argos which is presumably unintentional on their part. Put a dualsense and Horizon Forbidden West on PS5 in your basket and for whatever reason Horizon changes to being 4.99... saw it on twitter and it actually worked.

I've got to drive 10miles to a town I've never been to before to get it but good stuff. I was actually looking to get a dualsense but I guess you could return it if you don't want it 👍