Briste's Diary of a Madman

[Briste]

17 hours ago, Arcesius said:

But if the game is that much fun, and doesn't even take that long (you did it in a little over 3 weeks, and I know you don't have a lot of gaming time), I might start it sooner than I was expecting to  

It is really fun. I did cheat a little and play during work hours a bit...shhhhhh. My PS4 is setup right next to my workstation, so if I have some downtime it is really easy to play for 15-20 minutes. Gungeon comes with that problem of 'just one more' run and I also stayed up too late some nights as well. I'd say it took me about 50-60 hours overall.

 

8 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

That was quick. Sounds like a good game, except the 45 minutes per run bit. That's a bit much for a rogue-lite (or rogue-like? Wgat's the difference?). Or does it save inbetween runs?

You can actually save at the end of every floor so if you only have 10 minutes to spare you could do a level quickly. This is also how the game is able to be cheesed if you were so inclined. You can save after a good level and quit. Upload your save to the cloud or USB and try the next level....if you have no luck, you can reload the save and try again. I tried not to do that but am guilty of doing it on my Daisuke trial run. That was a really hard run as it puts you in 'challenge' mode where each room gives you an extra challenge (reloading your weapon causes fire to start at your feet; lights are out; that kind of stuff). It's really time consuming if you are committed to save scumming so I only used it a few times.

 

 

[Briste]

Platinum #121

Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered

We started the bounty Halloween Event and I'm on Team Ghostbusters so it only seemed fitting to start the event off with a Ghostbusters video game. I had bought this a few months ago during one of the big sales. I didn't really know anything about it, but I had read on the forums a lot of people seemed to love it on the PS3 and were excited to see it remastered. I absolutely love the movies and actually saw Ghostbusters II in the theater when I was a kid. Some great quotes in the movies and if the trophy images were better...Spores, Molds and Fungus would have been a milestone trophy 100%. They aren't bad, but they aren't great either...I also have quite a ways to go before my next trophy milestone.

 

Having said all that...this game is the very definition of mediocre lol. I think it was awesome that the original cast were signed on to voice their characters. That was unexpected for me to see and was honestly my favorite part of the game. Even with the presence of the original cast however, the voice acting wasn't great. I thought Aykroyd and Ramis did a pretty good job, but if felt like Murray mailed it in a bit...the script wasn't great, but there didn't seem to be a lot of enthusiasm or any kind of inflection with a lot of the acting. It felt like they were sitting at a table doing a read-through for most of it. Having been written by Aykroyd and Ramis, it would make sense that they might be a little more invested...plus Murray and Ramis hadn't spoken in about 20 years prior to doing this so there may have been some lingering effects from that.

 

On a game play level...it wasn't terrible. Shooting the proton pack was pretty fluid and responded well to controls and moving around wasn't bad either. Getting knocked down though just looked so robotic and awkward. The puzzles were generally very easy and the collectibles were pretty easy too. From a trophy hunting standpoint, this is a really easy game. There are numerous check points in each chapter that make going back for things you missed very easy. It also makes beating it on Professional a lot easier as well. The only really annoying trophy is the Nice Shootin' ,Tex! trophy for beating the game with causing $100k damage or less. It wasn't hard to do actually, you just have to make sure you are aiming towards the ceiling or the floor when you're wrangling a ghost...but some of the things are very expensive if you blow them up. My original plan was to try and go through without doing much damage the first game, and I hit a bus with my proton stream in chapter 2 while firing at a ghost and my bill shot up like $130k lol needless to say, that one errant shot blew the trophy on that playthrough. Restarting the checkpoint doesn't seem to wipe out the damage done. It wasn't that big a deal since a lot of the other trophies involve breaking shit. Fortunately, each chapter is only about 30 minutes long if you skip the cut scenes, so running through it one time quickly wasn't too bad. I had read some people recommended save scumming if you did a checkpoint well, however I found I didn't really need it. I got through the whole game with only $20k in damage on that run.

 

The game was inexpensive and had a few laughs. It wasn't good, but wasn't terrible either. Nothing I would say go out of your way to play, but if it's on sale for $5 you could do worse.

 

I have one week to try and finish two games for the Gaming By Numbers Event. I should probably be able to get one more done for sure...not sure about the second one but we'll give it the old college try!

 

[AJ_Radio]

It's too early for Halloween. Great job on getting Ghostbusters done nonetheless.

 

Bill Murray was THE GUY back in the day, even if I was too young to remember a lot of his old movies.

[Briste]

1 minute ago, Spaz said:

Bill Murray was THE GUY back in the day, even if I was too young to remember a lot of his old movies.

He's one of my all-time favorite actors. The Life Aquatic is one of my favorite movies and he is awesome in that. I like most of the stuff he's been in actually. He seemed like he was playing a caricature of himself though in the game and it came across weird. 

[AJ_Radio]

1 minute ago, Briste said:

He's one of my all-time favorite actors. The Life Aquatic is one of my favorite movies and he is awesome in that. I like most of the stuff he's been in actually. He seemed like he was playing a caricature of himself though in the game and it came across weird. 

 

Groundhog Day is my personal favorite. He played a small part in Space Jam, helping Michael Jordan against the Monstars.

 

I love the old guys.

[Briste]

Platinum #122

Erica

This game is not something I had ever heard of until it was given as a free game on PS+ a month or two ago. It was also nothing that was on my radar until I needed a shorter '2' game for the Gaming By Numbers Event...turns out I could have done something different, however I generally have liked these 'Choose your own adventure' type games, and this was no different so do not regret the choice. This review won't be terribly long since it is all story driven and there isn't anything as far as game play....not even QTE's. You have to do some actions, but you can't die so there is no penalty for doing nothing. Several times the game/movie will not go on unless you do do something, however a lot of the game will just move on if you do nothing.

 

The biggest wrinkle in the game is the ability to use your phone to play it. I didn't love it at first, but the actions you need to take are either swiping or tapping the screen and the motion pad on the controller is pretty small. The app was quick to download and didn't drain my battery thankfully so it wasn't too bad. I wasn't a huge fan of using my phone at first, however it ended up making it extremely easy to play while I was working. I had the game up on my TV with my phone next to my keyboard. The game went on like a movie and when I needed to make a choice, I could just swipe/tap on the phone and continue on. 

 

The story is ok. Seems strongly influenced by the movie Shutter Island and the story really leaves a lot up for your own interpretations. The biggest drawback of the game is no chapter select...meaning you need to play through it fully about six times (seven for me since I f'd up on my last run). The good news is the game is pretty short...maybe an hour and fifteen minutes to an hour and a half. The bad news is it is like watching the same movie back to back to back to back to back to back with only a few deleted scenes during each playthrough to change it up. I mean, it's not terrible since each path/ending shows you a bit more information to make up your mind about the story...but a lot of it is truly the same bit again and again.

 

As I mentioned, I f'd up my last run...the very last f'n decision in the game too lol You have to make a choice whether to do something or not...I needed to not do something. Normally the screen will tell you your options and give you the direction you have to swipe to make that choice...for some reason my game glitched or something and the dialogue was missing. I thought my game locked up or something and I was swiping on my phone to try and clear it...turns out I swiped in the direction to do the something and the game ended....I was soooo pissed lol It was literally the last decision in the game. But as I said, the game is short and it wasn't a big deal to let it play again until I got to the end. The girl who played Erica was a pretty good actress. She showed quite a bit of emotional range. 

 

For a free game, I got my money's worth and it was worth the playthrough. If you don't care about the platinum, it's definitely worth a playing and it really wasn't too bad to do for the platinum either.

[AJ_Radio]

Life is Strange is what soured my experience with interactive movies, which I'm sure David Cage has said numerous times over the years because his games (Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls, Detroit: Become Human) are almost purely story driven.

 

There's a bunch of games over the past few years that you can compare with Erica, but at the end of the day they're just not my cup of tea.

 

Glad you enjoyed the game though, but from your statement it just sounds like the platinum journey was a short version of Heavy Rain, where you have to do multiple playthroughs. Getting all the endings in Heavy Rain just soured the game for me by the time I was done. It's one of the reasons why I still haven't started Beyond Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human, which I got for free when it was offered on PS Plus.

[Briste]

On 9/14/2020 at 1:32 AM, Spaz said:

Glad you enjoyed the game though, but from your statement it just sounds like the platinum journey was a short version of Heavy Rain, where you have to do multiple playthroughs. Getting all the endings in Heavy Rain just soured the game for me by the time I was done. It's one of the reasons why I still haven't started Beyond Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human, which I got for free when it was offered on PS Plus.

I don't love platinuming these games, but generally enjoy the first playthrough or two so it is worth the monotony of the replays. My overall opinion of these games is lower only because I am a completionist, however I can recognize that most people aren't and try to keep that in mind when playing these games. I choose to take on the extra effort to get the platinum and know what I'm getting into generally. I have really enjoyed all of the stories so far in every one of these interactive drama type games. I agree with your take on Heavy Rain and it was a lot of the same for Beyond: Two Souls. The benefit those games had at least was chapter select, however in Beyond you have to replay the last level like 6 times.

 

I think people who don't care about getting the plat will enjoy these games quite a bit (if they enjoy story driven games anyway). I'll be playing Detroit pretty soon and then I think I'm out of these games for a while. I think I have The Walking Dead full series in my backlog...but not sure when I'll get to that. I swear I plan on playing Mass Effect before I turn 40 lol

 

I think I'm going to take some time off from events for a few months to take my time with some longer games. I enjoy the events to support people who are trying to make the community a better place, but it is not always conducive to playing longer games if you wish to complete the events. I want to play the ME series and the Witcher 3 sometime soon. Witcher will probably take a couple months, but it's something I've wanted to play a long time.

[AJ_Radio]

You're only 1 percent higher than me in completion rate and you got a lot less games finished, but even so there are games we've finished that we didn't particularly enjoy at all. Most people just play a game until the story is over and move on to another game. With the amount of money that I have spent in the past 5 - 6 years I like to experience much of what the games have to offer, which means going after the trophies and seeing bonus content that a lot of people just overlook.

 

Heavy Rain was revolutionary for it's time because I remember many people saying great things about it. Unfortunately I did not have a PS3 until around 2012 and I only had a few games, Red Dead Redemption and LA Noire among them. Funny enough I felt the Origami Killer was my favorite character in Heavy Rain. Wasn't a huge fan of Ethan. The female journalist would probably be my second favorite.

[Grotz99]

2 hours ago, Spaz said:

You're only 1 percent higher than me in completion rate and you got a lot less games finished, but even so there are games we've finished that we didn't particularly enjoy at all. Most people just play a game until the story is over and move on to another game. With the amount of money that I have spent in the past 5 - 6 years I like to experience much of what the games have to offer, which means going after the trophies and seeing bonus content that a lot of people just overlook.

 

Heavy Rain was revolutionary for it's time because I remember many people saying great things about it. Unfortunately I did not have a PS3 until around 2012 and I only had a few games, Red Dead Redemption and LA Noire among them. Funny enough I felt the Origami Killer was my favorite character in Heavy Rain. Wasn't a huge fan of Ethan. The female journalist would probably be my second favorite.

When I played Heavy Rain on PS3, I had no problem going through it multiple times, but that was a time when there wasn't as much content on PS3 yet and sales weren't really a thing to pick up a lot of cheap games, so I would play the games to completion or close to it usually. I think the difference is now that you can go on the store during a sale and get 4-5 40 hr+ games for the same price as a brand new AAA title, so we get pickier about what to complete in how much time. It's been a long time and I don't remember having trouble going through Heavy Rain that many times.

 

When I got Detroit and played it through once, I was pretty much satisfied, although there is slight changes in the story depending on some choices you make, I didn't think they were worth another play through. I ended up getting the platinum because the time to complete the rest of the trophies wasn't that bad. 

 

Games that require multiple long play throughs sometimes get me. Yakuza is a big one I hit recently where the first play through was really awesome and there was so much to do, but I didn't feel like trekking back through the whole story again in almost a rushing fashion. Those are the kind of games that I will run through again for that last couple trophies later on, especially Yakuza when I finish all the games and then start from the beginning again playing them on the hard difficulty(which doesnt unlock until you beat it). Playing through Outer Worlds on the other hand (which I'm playing currently), I keep thinking of the choices I'm making and keep wondering about what would happen if I made the other choice, so I will play through that the 2nd time right away on the hardest difficulty.

Edited September 16, 2020 by Grotz99

[AJ_Radio]

8 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

snip

Heavy Rain came out in early 2010, and for the most part it was innovative because it really brought real looking characters into a video game. 
 

Uncharted: Drakes Fortune I feel started the era of realistic looking characters taking the forefront in video games. In the past you had a smartie like lombax and quirky little robot a la Ratchet and Clank, a man wielding two deadly weapons that no regular human being could possibly use a la God of War, and a guy with crystal white hair wielding a majestic sword a la Devil May Cry. 
 

I’m getting tired of realism taking the forefront in AAA games. I have Detroit: Become Human on PS Plus, but I don’t know if I want to sit myself through a interactive movie like that.
 

Stuff like Life is Strange 2 and The Last of Us Part II help paint a picture of what is going on the world today. Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong in this era. 
 

Heavy Rain was the exception but nowadays I feel that kind of story telling and interactive movie experience is very much common today. The PS5 generation is pretty much cinematics and presentation taking the place of good satisfying gameplay. The new Spider Man game with Miles just looks like a bunch of flashy cinematics and gorgeous 4K visuals. 

 

The Sopranos, The Wire and Six Feet Under set the standard for television shows becoming more realistic and cinematic. Over 20 years later, video games have caught on using the same effects. 
 

I can go back and play Rogue Legacy, Velocity 2X, and other indie games and still have lots of fun with them. With a number of today’s AAA games, once I finish with them I have no desire to touch them again. 
 

Add to the fact that companies today feel compelled to make them 50 - 100 hour vistas, and yeah. Not really excited to sit down and put that much time into them.

[Briste]

On 9/16/2020 at 10:45 AM, Spaz said:

You're only 1 percent higher than me in completion rate and you got a lot less games finished, but even so there are games we've finished that we didn't particularly enjoy at all. Most people just play a game until the story is over and move on to another game.

I didn't mean anything particular about completion rates...I just meant that because completing games is important to me with trophy hunting, I can acknowledge that sometimes games are better than I give them credit for because I give more weight to the trophy list than most. Objectively, I think games like Heavy Rain and the like are pretty good games. When I write a review of my experience with a game, I try to do a part objectively on the game and then make a mention of how the trophies influences my impression. Sometimes the trophies have no weight as they come more naturally and sometimes they have quite a bit.

 

On 9/16/2020 at 1:02 PM, Grotz99 said:

Games that require multiple long play throughs sometimes get me.

I can relate to this a lot...I have two really long DLC's to finish in the near future...and I'm not necessarily in a rush to do them. While I thought KH3 was fine (not great but fine) I'm not looking forward to that DLC at all for a couple reasons. One, it seems like a lot of work for one trophy in particular and two...when I 100% it, it will move out of order with the rest of the series in my log. I had thought about (but 99% won't happen) redoing them all on the PS3 version of the games and maintaining the order...but I don't think I liked them enough to do all that. TLOU2 is another that I'm not in a rush to do just yet. I had just got the plat and deleted it from my PS4 to make room for other games when the DLC was announced. I'm not quite ready to pick that one back up again right away...but I'll get there.

 

Platinum #123

Tearaway

 

I had never heard of this game before last week. I needed a game that ended in 9 for the Gaming By Numbers event and (at the time) only had a few days left to try and finish something. I checked the spreadsheet to see what games others had played and this was on the list. I checked several of the games on the list and many were way too short and some were way too long. I don't mind a short platinum if I feel like I'm not just buying trophies and this seemed to fit the bill. I bought the game and it turned out to be pretty fun. It's a platformer that utilizes all of the functions of the vita, which was pretty cool if not a little frustrating a times.

 

My least favorite thing about the vita is how the back of it is a 'button'. I mean, I assume most people hold the vita similar to how I do and it means I'm almost constantly touching the back. Most of the time it is no big deal, but in this game, touching the back of the vita will bang on a drum (if you're standing on one) that will bounce you. On more than one occasion, I adjusted my grip or moved my fingers slightly and the game registered it as pressing the button, mistiming the jump. It wasn't that big of a deal, but was annoying when it happened. Generally, dying is no big deal in this game except for three trophies where you have to complete the level without dying. Most of the time you just reappear really close to where you were.

 

The game is a story about a letter/envelope who is trying to deliver a message in a world made from construction paper. The world is influenced by the 'Yous' (you playing) and your face appears in a hole in the sun. I'll be honest, I didn't realize the Vita had a camera to take a real picture and it was a little surprising to see my face in the game lol The 'Yous' have the ability to manipulate the world and create things from construction paper to customize the letter and some of the characters he/she meets. You can move structures and extend bridges...it really is quite a creative game. The controls were pretty solid, however the game suffers from some pretty poor camera angles. Sometimes you can move the camera around and sometimes you cannot. I found that if I was struggling to see something, it helped to take out the in game camera, as it gives you a first person perspective to look around.

 

I'm still not entirely sure what the hell happened in the story, but the game was quite a bit of fun Having said that, I feel like I overpaid a bit at $19.99. It would be a good deal around $10. But, it finished my GBN event card and also was good for the Halloween Bounty list as there are Wendigos in it, so I won't complain.

 

I started Hollow Knight the other day, however I think I'm going to play Mad Max next. I got it for free a couple years ago and it's something I've wanted to play at some point, now that I see the servers are closing at the end of October, I'd rather play it now before the plat becomes unobtainable. I'll get back to Hollow Knight in a few weeks. Thankfully I haven't gotten that far yet.

[AJ_Radio]

51 minutes ago, Briste said:

I didn't mean anything particular about completion rates...I just meant that because completing games is important to me with trophy hunting, I can acknowledge that sometimes games are better than I give them credit for because I give more weight to the trophy list than most. Objectively, I think games like Heavy Rain and the like are pretty good games. When I write a review of my experience with a game, I try to do a part objectively on the game and then make a mention of how the trophies influences my impression. Sometimes the trophies have no weight as they come more naturally and sometimes they have quite a bit.

 

I will agree Heavy Rain is pretty good on the first playthrough. You can sympathize with the struggles Ethan is going through in finding his lost child, and seeing that the Origami Killer is a man with an abusive past and childhood.

 

Doing multiple playthroughs for all those endings gets rather tiring, because you just get different cutscenes at the end. I feel Beyond Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human have the same sort of setup. A good first playthrough, but rather boring for the platinum trophies.

 

The Kamikaze trophy and Twins trophy gave me a bit of frustration as well.

 

54 minutes ago, Briste said:

I started Hollow Knight the other day, however I think I'm going to play Mad Max next. I got it for free a couple years ago and it's something I've wanted to play at some point, now that I see the servers are closing at the end of October, I'd rather play it now before the plat becomes unobtainable. I'll get back to Hollow Knight in a few weeks. Thankfully I haven't gotten that far yet.

 

Definitely focus on setting up the scrap crew giving you scrap when the game is turned off, because that is required for the Up to the Task trophy for completing all the challenges. I cannot stress enough how it must feel to be near the very end of the game, complete over 200 scavenging locations, get the trophy for doing them all and find out you're one scavenging location off from getting the challenge complete. It took me around 45 - 55 hours to get the platinum trophy, and having to redo all that again is just terrible.

 

Back up your saves, make sure the scavenging locations on both the statistics page and the challenges page match, and you should be okay. If you start right now you got plenty of time to get the platinum trophy before the servers for Mad Max shut down on Oct 31st.

 

I got very lucky with my playthrough of the game and I kept track of the scavenging locations like a hawk.

 

====

 

Good job on the Tearaway platinum. I must say that this is the game that has utilized the Vita features the best. The camera, front and rear touchpad were all used to great effect. A number of games I have played on the Vita just sort of threw in the touchpad feature just because it's there, and the games don't play all that great (Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank).

 

Thinking of doing Tearaway Unfolded, which is basically on the PS4 and there is more you have to do.

[Briste]

Was a big night last night....reached platinum number 125! Before I hit that though, I also hit 124

 

Platinum #124

Mad Max

I got this game free a couple of years ago on PS+ and it looked like something I might enjoy. When I looked on the gaming page however, I saw that there seemed to be glitches galore and that the Plat might be unobtainable. I was disappointed and put it out of mind since I wasn't interested in starting a glitchfest that I may never be able to plat...flash forward to a few weeks ago when I randomly saw a thread that said the server was closing at the end of October. I thought, well I guess I can cross this game off my list for good...but then I happened to look on the gaming page again and saw that they had fixed the racing glitch and that, so long as I paid attention to my statistics when doing scrap missions, the game should be good to play. I decided to join the mass of people to get this game done before it becomes unobtainable for real.

 

I really didn't know what to expect from this game and didn't go into it with terribly high expectations and I was very pleasantly surprised. The story isn't much and there are definitely some glitchy things that happen, but overall I had a lot of fun with this game. It isn't hard at all...only one story mission had me stuck for about twenty minutes...and that was mostly because when my car touched a wall it would bounce off like a pinball instead of just scrape on by...but overall the game is pretty easy. The most fun part of the game for me was driving around the open world, blasting enemy cars. The fighting was mostly fun, however it was pretty frustrating at times with regards to some of the combat challenges. Fighting is generally the same as it is for the Batman games...only easier. Square punches, X does the special move and Triangle counters...however the timing seemed off for some reason. I couldn't tell if it was because it would pop in and out of slow motion at times...but the buttons didn't seem very responsive. In Batman, you tap Triangle and you counter pretty seamlessly. In Max, I felt like half the time I pressed triangle, it didn't register and I lost soooo many combos due to my counter not doing anything when I'd press Triangle. It felt like I needed to hold down or tap triangle several times before it would work. The same could be said for doing the special moves pressing X. It just felt very delayed and wasn't nearly as smooth as I was hoping. Fortunately, the combat challenges are pretty basic and I finished them all well before the end of the game...it was just a tad frustrating.

 

Gravity was a little weird in this game as well. I actually got the trophy for being airborne in a vehicle for four seconds with out dying on a glitch. I was driving pretty fast and hit a boulder or something and it launched me into the air and I was spinning like a top. I think I was in the air for about fifteen seconds, only about twenty feet off the ground. Needless to say, I got the trophy then. I also think a few of the challenges glitched. I got the combat challenge for killing eight guys in one fury mode during a boss fight where there was only four guys and one boss...it was to my benefit though so I didn't mind. I had zero issues with the infamous 'scrap location' glitch and all of that stuff popped no problem. The cool thing about the game, was the collectibles and cleanup stuff didn't even feel that grindy to me. It was mostly just fun. I got all of the challenges done by the time I went to pop the platinum so had no issues with trying to find enemies to get them to pop. I was pretty cognizant of what I needed to do and tried to focus on a few challenges at a time so i wouldn't be stuck with a ton at the end.

 

My biggest complaint about the game was the lack of variety in the bosses. They are all exactly the same, except for the color of their outfit. An over-sized dude, carrying an over-sized mace-like weapon who charges at you and swings. You dodge roll out of the way, then run over and punch him until he's about to swing again, then dodge roll away. Rinse repeat. Every. Single. Boss. There were maybe only two unique fights in the whole game...other than that they were pretty much all the same. Even still...it had been a while since I had played an open world game and it was pretty fun to slide back into it again. I definitely can't complain too much considering I paid nothing for it and probably got about 50 hours of enjoyment from it. If you're interested in the game, now is the time to play it!

 

Platinum #125

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

I pre-ordered this game back in 2015 or 2016 when they first became available. The Original Final Fantasy 7 was the reason I bought a PS One and probably the game I've put the second most hours into in my life (after FFXI). I loved the original and I don't know if anything will top the first time I played through it and got to the infamous Aerith scene. I had never played a game before with a twist like that and it was so emotionally impactful, that I still remember my horror when I first saw it happen. Never, had I played a game where a main character died like that. To make things worse, I had played to that point with Aerith as Cloud's love interest. I was also at the age where I changed the main Character's name to my own and made the love interest the name of whoever my crush was at the time. Aerith was my strongest character, my love interest and I was devastated when it happened. I remember resetting to my prior save to see if there was a way I could save her. When I saw there wasn't, I kept a separate save file of that scene so I could replay it every so often. I did the same for the Opera scene in FF6 as well lol Anyways....to say this game had a lot to live up to is an understatement. I did not play the demo since I wanted to be able to play the whole thing once I got it. Due to Covid, I got this game several days after it came out. The anticipation was killing me and I tried my best to stay off the forums for a while so I could play the game without spoilers. The only reason it took this long to plat, is I wanted it to be a milestone.

 

I'll keep this pretty spoiler free. It had a lot to live up to and even with my disappointment with FFXV, I still had high hopes for this game. In all honesty, it had a far greater chance of being a letdown than it did of being something I loved....well bravo SE...I loved this game. I loved the updated combat, I loved the expanded story, I loved the music, the voice acting was top notch...it was all great. It hit enough nostalgic notes to hit me in the feels while being fresh enough to keep the story interesting. I'll start with the combat. I think they did an absolutely amazing job of taking live-action style fighting and turn it into something that could be turn based. The pause like state you can put the game into when selecting actions gave it that turn based feel and it happens in a way that doesn't make combat feel disjointed. I also liked how seamlessly you could switch between characters and/or use their abilities while playing as someone else as a main character. The game was challenging (not terribly challenging...but not a cake walk either) and requires you to develop strategies and utilize all of your characters to truly succeed. I wasn't sure how I would like this after I heard some complaints when the demo was released, but I found it to be a truly fun experience.

 

I really liked the expanded story. I like how they made the peripheral characters have more depth and meaning to the plot. It ends up making more sense how Cloud gets invested in the cause since he establishes relationships. In the OG, I didn't even realize Jessie was female and now I cared more about her fate. They took some liberties with the story and made some interesting/questionable additions, however I'm going to reserve judgement until I see how it plays out in the later installments. Overall, I felt like the Remake has stayed true to the original story. They may have taken a huge left hand turn towards the end...but at this point it is all speculation and could just be a talking point/cliff hanger and mean nothing...or it could mean a lot lol Either way, I can't wait for part 2 to come out...speaking of parts...I know a lot of people are not playing this game as a slight protest towards being episodic. I get that having to spend possibly something north of $200 to play a story we've already played seems like a cash grab, but after playing the game, I have no gripes about what I spent to play this game. If they put the same energy and care into the later installments....it'll be well worth it.

 

While I loved this game...it wasn't perfect. I didn't like how many times the game forces you to walk slowly. I understand that it is a mechanic used instead of long loading screens, but it was still pretty frustrating at times when there didn't seem to be any reason to be walking. Hopefully the PS5 makes it so those walking scenes don't need to happen as frequently. The other thing i didn't like was that it felt like a wasted opportunity with the side quests. Most of them felt like your typical MMO fetch quests or something close to that and they really didn't add anything to the story. I would have loved to see them make them seem more relevant. As it stands, they feel more like filler to extend the game than anything of substance. Other than those two things though, this game was a home run for me. I really have to applaud them for how they did Wall Market. I really enjoyed that part of the game.

 

Part of me wanted to wait and have this game be a double milestone for me...I really like the Hardened Veteran trophy image...plus I feel like at my age I'm kind of a hardened veteran of gaming lol...but I couldn't wait 250 more trophies to pop this plat...once Max was done...I popped FF7R in and finished chapter 2 for the milestone. The good news is I have something else I see that I'll also like as #6000. Always have a backup plan boys and girls!

[Rally-Vincent---]

18 hours ago, Briste said:

Was a big night last night....reached platinum number 125! Before I hit that though, I also hit 124

 

Four centuries ago, you'd been burned at the stake for that level of math.

 

18 hours ago, Briste said:

Part of me wanted to wait and have this game be a double milestone for me...I really like the Hardened Veteran trophy image...plus I feel like at my age I'm kind of a hardened veteran of gaming lol...but I couldn't wait 250 more trophies to pop this plat...once Max was done...I popped FF7R in and finished chapter 2 for the milestone. The good news is I have something else I see that I'll also like as #6000. Always have a backup plan boys and girls!

 

Wouldn't a double milestone be wasted at that sort of level? Would have taken quite a while for the next ones to show.

[AJ_Radio]

Mad Max, despite the recent activity, I still think is under appreciated. 
 

Avalanche Studios isn’t the best in optimizing their games. Just Cause 3 gave me serious issues with framerate and everything slowing to a crawl. Just Cause 4 I’m sort of looking forward to, it’ll be good to get another series complete. 
 

Glad you did Mad Max before the server shutdown. I guess we’re at the point now where PS4 games are going to get the server shutdown treatment. 
 

If you’re a completionist like me, always get the online done first. You’ll thank yourself later. 

[Briste]

On 10/8/2020 at 5:58 PM, Rally-Vincent--- said:

Four centuries ago, you'd been burned at the stake for that level of math.

 

lol some people are just born with a gift I suppose

 

On 10/8/2020 at 5:58 PM, Rally-Vincent--- said:

Wouldn't a double milestone be wasted at that sort of level? Would have taken quite a while for the next ones to show.

I generally agree with that. I don't like to have multiple milestones from the same game since it lacks variety...however FF7 is a special game to me so I wouldn't have minded. I actually prefer the Hardened Veteran trophy over the Platinum...but I've been waiting 5 months to pop that platinum and I just got hasty lol I was going to wait anyways, but I found a suitable substitute that will keep the variety.

 

45 minutes ago, Spaz said:

Mad Max, despite the recent activity, I still think is under appreciated. 
 

Avalanche Studios isn’t the best in optimizing their games. Just Cause 3 gave me serious issues with framerate and everything slowing to a crawl. Just Cause 4 I’m sort of looking forward to, it’ll be good to get another series complete. 
 

Glad you did Mad Max before the server shutdown. I guess we’re at the point now where PS4 games are going to get the server shutdown treatment. 
 

If you’re a completionist like me, always get the online done first. You’ll thank yourself later. 

I agree with that. As I mentioned, I wasn't expecting much because I saw a ton of complaining threads and not a lot of praise threads. I still wanted to get it done so wasn't going to let that sway me and I really did enjoy it. Max is pretty overpowered so the game is easy enough and sometimes it's just fun to kick ass and take names....speaking of names...Scrotus has to be one of the worst bad guy names ever lol My juvenile mind can't not think of a ball sack every time his name was mentioned. Didn't strike a ton of fear into me.

 

I've started to check PS4 games for server shutdowns/unobtainables more diligently than I used to. I don't want any of the games I have to be unobtainable...so if I have the time to finish a game with notice, I'll do my best to get it done.

 

I started Vampyr the other day. I had thought of buying it at one point and passed. Figured I'd give it a shot for the Halloween season....only about 45 minutes in...but the controls seem kind of choppy so far. I don't have very high expectations for this one either, so hopefully I'm pleasantly surprised again.

[Rally-Vincent---]

11 hours ago, Briste said:

but I found a suitable substitute that will keep the variety.

 

So which childhood nostalgia game is it going to be? Or will it finally be Mass Effect?

Edited October 10, 2020 by Rally-Vincent---

[Briste]

3 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

 

Sow which childhood nostalgia game is it going to be? Or will it finally be Mass Effect?

I'm going to be trying to target the Pure Completion trophy in Hollow Knight. I haven't looked yet to see if other things pop with it, but it looks like something I can setup. After the Halloween event, I'm going to stop events for a little while. I keep pushing back ME so I can finish shorter games for events. Since I want to play them consecutively, I wouldn't finish much else. 

Edited October 10, 2020 by Briste

[Briste]

Platinum #126

LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes

 

While playing Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, I learned a very important thing that all fathers look forward to with their children...my son was now old enough to actually play video games instead of just holding an unplugged controller. My son proved much more adept at that game than I could have ever imagined and I decided to let him pick a game to play. He said he wanted to play a Batman game. This made my choice of game to play with him quite easy. He loves LEGO and he loves to 'kick butt bad guys', so this was tailor made for a boys first video game. I had played LEGO The Hobbit a few years ago, and while the game was fine...it was nothing I needed to jump back into right away. I assumed they all follow the same formula and for a kid starting out, it was perfect.

 

Now there was a steeper learning curve for him than I had anticipated. Castlevania was a 2D side scroller and was much easier for him to learn how to move around. I never thought about how challenging the third dimension could be for him. I don't think I tried my first 3D game until Mario 64, so was much older. After some growing pains, he got a pretty good handle of it though. Repositioning the camera is still a bit of a challenge for him, but this is an incredibly forgiving game and he had a blast playing it. It was also a great tool for getting some good behavior out of him as well lol If he was not being a good listener or *gasp* caught lying about something...he would lose playing Batman for that day. It was a pretty good motivational tool lol You can kind of see when he was having some rough stretches behaving based on the gaps in the trophies...not always since we didn't get a trophy every time we played...but you can still kind of tell lol I only played this game with my son except for the bonus level. We did it once together and he found it very boring since there are no enemy butts to kick in that level. He had fun riding the lion and gorilla around for a bit, but we didn't beat it the time we tried it (ran out of time before dinner) so I did it myself the other night to get ready for the platinum.

 

There's really not much to say about the game itself. It does follow the same pattern as the other LEGO game I played. I didn't realize it was based on a movie and I ended up buying it without knowing for my son lol We were scrolling through the Prime movies one day and he saw a LEGO Batman movie and I got it for like $10. I had no idea until we were watching it and I got that 'have I already seen this before' feeling when I realized it was from the game. 

 

It took us almost three months to beat, but it is our first Platinum trophy together. I did most of the heavy lifting of getting the collectibles, but he did find a few on his own. He actually got pretty decent at solving some of the puzzles by the end as well. It's kind of funny that my first ever platinum was a Batman game and then my first ever platinum with my son was also a Batman game. He has decided he wants his next game to be LEGO Batman 3 lol I have a feeling my profile will be littered with LEGO's...much like my living room floor... Something tells me these LEGO games won't be nearly as painful as the experience of stepping on a real LEGO on the floor.

 

[AJ_Radio]

It's good that you're getting your kid to play those old games. I was one of the last kids to experience that 16 bit generation firsthand, before we had the tech boom of the mid - late 1990s and everything went 3-D. I was still playing Sega Genesis/Super Nintendo up until 1996 - 1997. In early 1998 I get Super Mario 64 and Goldeneye 007 as a present along with the Nintendo 64, and the rest is history.

 

Your kid reminds me of my niece and nephew. Unlike your son however, my sister keeps an extremely strict policy, no real gaming. The only games they're allowed to play is what my sister and brother in law have available on their iPhone and iPad devices. My brother in law who is 40 years old works for Microsoft and he let me play some Xbox One games, even though I have no interest in getting that console and it doesn't look like I'll be buying the new Xbox console either.

 

Your son might also be older than my niece, who turned 7 years old early this year.

 

It's interesting that back in the day our parents basically just treated video games as merely toys, parental supervision wasn't anything what it's like today. Now as a kid I wasn't allowed to watch rated R movies and I had to go to bed by 9 - 10 pm at night. I was allowed only a couple hours or so on the Nintendo 64, but I had a friend back in the late 90s and early 2000s who would come over and we'd be allowed sleepovers, which meant playing Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye 007 all night. By then we were 12 - 14 years old so were were allowed to stay up a bit longer, but we both had to be asleep by 11 pm - 12 am.

 

I however have no intention of having kids. Having a niece and nephew just a hour's drive away from me is enough, because I've had to do babysitting duties with them numerous times and of course, do some tasks many parents perform on a daily basis. I don't like kids enough to have my own, which some may argue is a generation thing because my generation has a sort of indifferent opinion on children compared to my parents generation.

[Arcesius]

3 hours ago, Briste said:

While playing Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, I learned a very important thing that all fathers look forward to with their children...my son was now old enough to actually play video games instead of just holding an unplugged controller. My son proved much more adept at that game than I could have ever imagined and I decided to let him pick a game to play. He said he wanted to play a Batman game. This made my choice of game to play with him quite easy. He loves LEGO and he loves to 'kick butt bad guys', so this was tailor made for a boys first video game. I had played LEGO The Hobbit a few years ago, and while the game was fine...it was nothing I needed to jump back into right away. I assumed they all follow the same formula and for a kid starting out, it was perfect.

 

I'm so looking forward to that moment, man... ? Currently I don't even swith on a screen whenever my son is awake, but time passes so fast... How old is your one kid you played this game with? Must have been great realising he can actually play himself now   

 

 

I also wanted to write earlier, but you know how busy things can be... Fantastic FFVIIR review! I still haven't picked it up.. somehow my "passion" for Final Fantasy isn't as strong as it used to be... Even the recently announced FF XVI had me stare at the screen with a "meh, whatever" attitude. A couple of years back I would have skimmed the internet for hours for any kind of info I could find ?

Still, I will pick it up eventually, especially because of players like yourself, who not only enjoyed the original but for whom it is a special game in their heart, seem to enjoy the Remake as well. So I will give it a go... eventually   

[Briste]

21 hours ago, Spaz said:

Your son might also be older than my niece, who turned 7 years old early this year.

 

19 hours ago, Arcesius said:

How old is your one kid you played this game with? Must have been great realising he can actually play himself now   

He turned 6 in April. We started Batman 3 tonight and it is much more challenging than 2 was. The controls are slightly different so he struggled a bit tonight trying to figure out why his guy wasn't acting like he was used to. He'll get it. It was a real 'whoa!?' kind of moment when I saw him figure some puzzles out on his own. I figured he could run around and have fun, but to see him work out which character he needed to use to get past specific obstacles was pretty cool. He'd get super excited when he figured something out and point it out to me. He also liked to see what I was doing and try and guess what I needed to do in certain parts. It was legitimately a lot of fun to play with him. It takes a lot of patience too while he figures certain things out and you're waiting to move past a puzzle...but it's worth it

 

21 hours ago, Spaz said:

Unlike your son however, my sister keeps an extremely strict policy, no real gaming. The only games they're allowed to play is what my sister and brother in law have available on their iPhone and iPad devices. My brother in law who is 40 years old works for Microsoft and he let me play some Xbox One games, even though I have no interest in getting that console and it doesn't look like I'll be buying the new Xbox console either.

 

21 hours ago, Spaz said:

I was allowed only a couple hours or so on the Nintendo 64, but I had a friend back in the late 90s and early 2000s who would come over and we'd be allowed sleepovers, which meant playing Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye 007 all night. By then we were 12 - 14 years old so were were allowed to stay up a bit longer, but we both had to be asleep by 11 pm - 12 am.

For me, it was because our lives weren't consumed by screens. We played with toys and went outside a lot more. I'd say 2-3 hours of my day could involve a screen if you include TV time...today I feel like that is up to probably 8-12 hours in a day considering the distanced learning going on as well. I think 'limiting screen time' is more a thing now than it used to be. My kids get more screen time than we'd like...but we do our best to keep it in check. Playing games is a reward for good behavior generally. A typical day for my kid is, he wakes up around 6:30 and goes downstairs and turns on the TV. He usually picks an educational show like the Wild Kratts however last week he found Avatar: The Last Airbender and seemed to like it. I have no idea what that show is about (shame on me lol) but it seemed ok. Usually, he'll watch TV for 30 minutes or so until I make his breakfast (my wife is usually making their lunch while I get breakfast ready), then we get ready for school and he'll play with his LEGO's or dinosaur toys until it is time to either go to school on the days he goes in person, or he has to log into his 'morning message' Zoom meeting. When he's doing the remote days at school, he's on the iPad for about 3-4 hours during the school day...which is a lot for a 6 year old. After school, he'll play with his toys or LEGO's until my wife gets home from work. She let's him play a game if he reads her a book first. If I'm done with work, he'll come play Batman with me...if I'm not done with work he'll play some PBS game for about 20-30 minutes while my wife is making dinner. If he does something that requires discipline during the day, playing a game is the first thing to go. Then it is tubby time and dinner time. Most nights, my wife and I are pretty tired so we have about 45 minutes of 'family tv time' before we do books and bed time. So on a good day, he'll get between 45 minutes to an hour and a half of TV, 30 minutes of gaming and 3-4 hours of iPad distanced learning. Overall, I think we do a decent job limiting screen time but it is really easy to let that 45 minutes to an hour and 30 minutes turn into 2-3 hours if we're not paying attention.

 

21 hours ago, Spaz said:

 

I however have no intention of having kids.

I'm honestly shocked how humans have survived at all lol. Raising kids is hard lol It's exhausting and they seem prone to doing things that would kill them some how. I don't have any idea how we survived the stone age or medieval times. Having said all that...it's hard to explain what having kids is like because it truly isn't something you can understand until you have one. It is 100% cliche, but for a lot of people (at least those that would be good parents) some sort of switch gets flipped inside you and things are just different. I won't get preachy or anything and I completely understand not wanting them lol

 

19 hours ago, Arcesius said:

I also wanted to write earlier, but you know how busy things can be... Fantastic FFVIIR review! I still haven't picked it up.. somehow my "passion" for Final Fantasy isn't as strong as it used to be... Even the recently announced FF XVI had me stare at the screen with a "meh, whatever" attitude. A couple of years back I would have skimmed the internet for hours for any kind of info I could find 

Still, I will pick it up eventually, especially because of players like yourself, who not only enjoyed the original but for whom it is a special game in their heart, seem to enjoy the Remake as well. So I will give it a go... eventually   

Thanks! I could write a lot more, but in the interest of keeping it spoiler free, I feel I did the game justice. I completely understand what you mean about your 'passion' for Final Fantasy not being as strong as it was. I enjoyed the XIII trilogy more than most probably and had a lot of fun with Paradigms, but I was kind of disappointed by XII since I didn't enjoy the Gambit system as much. I liked XIV fine, but I don't really consider that a FF game. XV was a pretty huge disappointment considering how long I waited and I thought WoFF was pretty garbage as well. It had been a really long time since FF had put something out that made me feel 'WOW'. If FF7R failed to deliver...I was no longer going to be a day 1 buyer of whatever they put out so I was very pleasantly surprised with how much I liked it. I can completely understand where some people are critical...however I choose to remain hopeful and optimistic that this will be an enjoyable ride. I also saw the trailer for XVI and was kind of meh about it. I'll still play it when it comes out, but I'm way more hyped for FF7R pt II whenever that gets done. Based on how hard a lot of the games you play are, I would say this would be a good game for you to play when you want to relax lol I actually found Hard Mode easier than my first play through since I figured out how to play the game properly...but it can be challenging at parts. I never died more than three times to any boss though so it really wasn't that bad.

Edited October 17, 2020 by Briste

[AJ_Radio]

59 minutes ago, Briste said:

For me, it was because our lives weren't consumed by screens. We played with toys and went outside a lot more. I'd say 2-3 hours of my day could involve a screen if you include TV time...today I feel like that is up to probably 8-12 hours in a day considering the distanced learning going on as well. I think 'limiting screen time' is more a thing now than it used to be. My kids get more screen time than we'd like...but we do our best to keep it in check. Playing games is a reward for good behavior generally. A typical day for my kid is, he wakes up around 6:30 and goes downstairs and turns on the TV. He usually picks an educational show like the Wild Kratts however last week he found Avatar: The Last Airbender and seemed to like it. I have no idea what that show is about (shame on me lol) but it seemed ok. Usually, he'll watch TV for 30 minutes or so until I make his breakfast (my wife is usually making their lunch while I get breakfast ready), then we get ready for school and he'll play with his LEGO's or dinosaur toys until it is time to either go to school on the days he goes in person, or he has to log into his 'morning message' Zoom meeting. When he's doing the remote days at school, he's on the iPad for about 3-4 hours during the school day...which is a lot for a 6 year old. After school, he'll play with his toys or LEGO's until my wife gets home from work. She let's him play a game if he reads her a book first. If I'm done with work, he'll come play Batman with me...if I'm not done with work he'll play some PBS game for about 20-30 minutes while my wife is making dinner. If he does something that requires discipline during the day, playing a game is the first thing to go. Then it is tubby time and dinner time. Most nights, my wife and I are pretty tired so we have about 45 minutes of 'family tv time' before we do books and bed time. So on a good day, he'll get between 45 minutes to an hour and a half of TV, 30 minutes of gaming and 3-4 hours of iPad distanced learning. Overall, I think we do a decent job limiting screen time but it is really easy to let that 45 minutes to an hour and 30 minutes turn into 2-3 hours if we're not paying attention.

When I was your son’s age, many parents felt spending too much time on the screen would hurt our brains and development. You still only had the VHS, standard cable television and maybe a few video games if you were lucky. I used to rent Sonic the Hedgehog 3 at my local video store (which is long gone), and I’d spend the weekend with my older sister trying to beat it. We almost never had enough time to beat it, and our skills as gamers sucked. Then we both had to return the game the following week. 
 

I watched a good amount of television, but nothing at the level we watch today, especially our kids. I was allowed to watch Seinfeld, Family Matters and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, then I had to be in bed by 9 - 10 pm. If it was before Friday I had to get up at 6 in the morning and be at school by 8 am. 
 

Sometimes I just miss those days. Everything was slower, information was more difficult to come by but we didn’t have as many people being paranoid as they are now. We have information readily available with a few simple button clicks, so much we can ever want from Steam, Amazon and Netflix. Yet I feel more miserable and depressed than I did 15 - 20 years ago. Is it because I have everyday adult duties? Probably, but it hurts me when I recall how I could go “explore” in the outside world. No smartphones with apps to track you, no stupid news apps reporting on Trump’s stupidity, none of your real friends constantly posting shit on their social media feeds. Too many people today are fake.

 

There was stuff I did back then that many parents today wouldn’t even consider accepting to their kids.

[Briste]

Platinum #127

Vampyr

 

This was another game that I had thought about buying on various sales over the past couple of years, but never pulled the trigger. Not that I knew anything about it, but I like Vampire movies and thought this might be something that could be interesting. I had no idea what the game play was like or anything and I was pretty happy to see it being offered for PS+ last month. I wasn't in a rush to play it necessarily, however there was a mini-event for plat'ing this game on Halloween and I was looking for a holiday themed game, so figured why not?

 

While I didn't know what to expect, it was not really what I was expecting at the same time. The game is extremely dialogue/story driven that is split up by some hack and slash-y kind of combat. The story takes place around 1920 in London during the Spanish Flu epidemic and you play as a recently turned vampire who is a renowned doctor and a war veteran. It's a cool time period for the story to take place and you spend the majority of the time talking with the citizens, trying to learn about your newfound immortality while also trying to end the epidemic. I thought the story was decent enough, however I felt that the game didn't really do a great job of explaining the Vampire's ability to 'mesmerize' people. As you learn clues, new dialogue options open and your character is not very subtle when asking about these discoveries. For example, you may learn that a citizen has committed murder....you will just meet the dude and be like 'You murdered so-and-so, why did you do it and shame on you as well' and the dude you are accusing, who you just met, will just spill the beans and then continue to talk to you after. I mean, a weird sound happens when you select the option and the screen kind of goes wavy for a second to imply you're imposing your will on them to get the answer...but it's never explained really (unless I just missed it) and felt kind of weird. 

 

Outside of all the time you spend talking...there is some combat. You get some vampire skills, a ranged weapon (if you choose a one handed weapon) and a melee weapon. I tended to use the two-handed clubs and only broke out the guns during some boss fights. I was very unimpressed with the game at the beginning. I found the combat to very clunky and was very frustrated. This is a game that has a stamina bar that depletes as you attack and it seemed to run out too quickly and I died quite a bit at the beginning while figuring things out. The other challenge at the start is there is a trophy for not embracing (feeding) on any citizens, however you get a ton of experience points for doing so. You level quite slowly and there isn't really any other great source of experience points. Killing enemies gets you about 10xp at a time while embracing someone will get you 1000-6000xp (you get more the healthier they are and the more 'clues' you uncover about them). You get a decent amount of xp from completing quests and uncovering citizen clues....but nothing comes close to embracing a citizen. You really need to get some of the side quests done early if you want to stand a chance against the enemies. I tended to try and finish every side quest I could in each district before moving on with the main story line. This helped quite a bit and once I got a few skills upgraded and got used to the combat a bit....I didn't die for a long time.  I ended up being level 30 when I beat the game. I had done all of the side quests when I beat the game, and I don't see how you could be any higher really without embracing. As a comparison, when I reloaded my last save from the cloud for trophy cleanup, I 'embraced' every character except for four and was level 50 when the Platinum popped.

 

Overall, I ended up enjoying the game a lot more than I thought I would after the rough start. I got about 30-35 hours out of the game (I read about 1/2 of the notes/lore and listened to every conversation and watched every cutscene), so I can't really complain about a 'free' game that provided that much entertainment. I was able to pop it successfully on Halloween for the event and was able to get into the spirit of the season, so all in all a win in my book. I would say the game is worth about $10 if you didn't get it for free and wanted to try it out. It has flaws, but overall was pretty solid.

 

In other news on the gaming front....I have finally started Mass Effect. I wasn't going to start it since I want to clean up some of the outstanding games on my profile (DriveClub VR, Last of Us 2, KH3, etc) but figured I could keep coming up with reasons to put off play it or just finally start the game and play. I have chosen the latter  Sooooooo, my game cleanup will occur after I have finished the series. I will be playing the Mass Effect series while I work gradually on Hollow Knight to prepare for my upcoming milestone. I will also sprinkle in some LEGO Batman 3 with my son....but that'll be it! I'm about six hours in so far and I'm pretty impressed. I had heard that the first one in the series was by far the worst, which has me excited for what's to come since this game is pretty good considering how old it is. I'm hoping to be able to play a lot over next week. I'm having my tonsils removed on Friday (apparently I'm entering the 2nd grade) and will have several days off of work to recover by eating ice cream and playing video games. I've heard getting your tonsils out as and adult kind of sucks, so we'll see what I'm actually in the mood to do...but it'll be the first time in quite a while I'll have some day time freedom to play.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Briste