Anyone here play video games?
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@Tago-Mago ha!
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I didn't but my brother just gifted me a PS4!, what's a couple of great games to get started?
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@jiminstitches If you're new to PlayStation I'd definitely pick up a subscription to the PS+ Extra service. There are tonnes of really good games on there for people who didn't play them when they were new.
Highlights of the PS4 generation for me (with a focus on PlayStation exclusives):
The Last of Us Remastered Set a new benchmark for videogame narrative storytelling, and looks fantastic, but is perhaps a bit mechanically stale.
The Last of Us 2 Sequel to the above, took the story in a direction that was very divisive, but I enjoyed it with a few caveats. Looks incredible, but again, very narrative-driven.
Marvel's Spider-Man A somewhat original take on Spider-Man. Open world traversal at its very best with all the swinging. Story is good, some of the side missions felt a bit like busy-work towards the end but most had a good enough payoff.
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales Sort of an expansion to the above. A shorter game and a way for the developers to re-use many of the assets they'd developed for S-M1, but if you liked the first one this is more of the same, if anything elevated for being a bit tighter.
God of War (2018) Taking the titular God of War in a new direction. He's older, wiser, and a dad now, and has to wrestle with his past as a new pantheon of gods comes knocking on his door.
Hades Probably the best rogue-like I've ever played. The way the narrative is interwoven with your successes and failures is masterful.
Persona 5 Royal A fantastic JRPG. Go to high-school and hang out with your friends by day, and delve into the psyches of villains by night, to battle their demons and cure them of their wicked ways.
Journey A short and sweet game. Quite hard to describe. It's best just to play it and then speak about it afterwards.
Uncharted Collection A remastered collection of Uncharted 1, 2 and 3 from the PS3 era. Swashbuckling Indian Jones-esque adventures and treasure hunting. Some of the best set pieces moments in video gaming.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End Fourth entry in the series, and more of the same. Climb around, shoot baddies, travel to exotic locations, and more phenomenal action set pieces.
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy A smaller expansion to the above series, focussing on some of the side-characters. Well worth the price of entry, and has the single best set piece in the series, in my view.
Bloodborne Very difficult Japanese action game. Set in a gothic city and its surrounds, Lovecraftian horrors try to tear you to shreds, while you battle to end your hunt and wake from the dream.
Sekiro: Shadow's Die Twice Similar to the above, but a much tighter and more comprehensible story based around a Japanese ninja trying to rescue his royal ward from corrupt usurpers. Again, very, very difficult gameplay. But whereas Bloodborne requires you to master the environments and enemies but gives you a number of options to do so, Sekiro requires you to master a single weapon, your sword. By then end, you'll be in a flow-state of parrying enemy attacks with precision timing. -
@EdH wow that’s an extensive list! I’ll check those out for sure, thanks dude that’s kind of you
I shall report back!
The last video game I owned was shadow of the beast on the Amiga 500 which I got for Christmas when I was a kid and it was amazing
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@jiminstitches Oh dude... you are in for a treat then - gaming has come a long, long way...
If you haven't gamed since the Amiga days, you might find dual-stick controls in 3D games take a bit of getting used to. You might like to take a gander at gameplay footage of the above on YouTube.
If you think you'd get on better with 2D games while you get used to the controller, then I'd recommend Hades from the above list (though fast reactions are required for that one), and anything else from Supergiant Games, such as Bastion, Transistor or Pyre. The latter is probably my favourite of this trio - in it you control a group of spirits trying to escape limbo by playing in a ritual competition sort of like a cross between basketball and American football. It's hard to describe but its very, very good.
Resogun was a PS4 launch game but is very arcadey and invokes a lot of the old-school energy that you'd have gotten from something like Space Invaders but with modern game design twists. It looks great too.
You might get on well with 3D puzzle games that don't feature the pressure of combat while you get used to controlling a camera and character movement at the same time. I'd recommend you check out The Witness and The Return of the Obra Dinn.
The former is a mind-bending game based on simple line-puzzles that slowly introduce more and more mechanics to the puzzles. What's really amazing about the game is the way it barely gives you any explicit instruction, and trusts you to work out how each new mechanic works and what to do to progress the game. If you like "ah ha" moments, The Witness is absolutely full of them. (I got a bit obsessed with this one and couldn't put it down for a couple of weeks when I played it - ask my Mrs.
I wish I could erase what I know about the game to start it again from scratch though, as it was an awesome time.)
The Return of the Obra Dinn on the other hand tasks you with investigating a ship that has returned to port with all of the crew either dead or missing. You have a magic pocket-watch which allows you to see and examine still scenes from each corpse's death. You have to make deductions based on these scenes and documents you find to complete a copy of the ship's manifest for the insurance claim, identifying each corpse, the manner in which they died, who killed them, etc. Again, lots of "ah ha" moments and very good puzzling gameplay.
You might also like Stardew Valley, a so-called "cosy game" where you inherit your grandpa's farm and quit the rat-race to go tend to it. You start by tending to simple veggies, but after you've re-invested your profits a few times you'll be managing an efficient farming operation, befriending the local townsfolk, and undertaking other activities once the farming is done for the day. What's really cool is how each activity gives you rewards that can be used to make you better at the other activities, e.g. going mining for minerals and metals allows you to craft better irrigation equipment, which allows you to farm more stuff more quickly, giving you more money to invest in a better fishing rod to catch rarer fish, allowing you to... and on and on.
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@EdH Thanks again, I think ill check out The Return of the Obra Dinner, that sounds awesome!
So are most of these free with a subscription?
Im almost a bit scared to get started as I've got so many hobbies / obsessions as it Is!
I never thought to look on YouTube, im guessing they release trailers these days too?!
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Is anyone else here itching for the proper next iteration of Fallout? I bought starfield hoping it would scratch the itch, but it did not.
Hope to explore the wasteland again some day in the near future.
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@jiminstitches you’ll have to check out what’s available on PS+ Extra (I think PlayStation call it “the collection” or something) and see what is on there. I’d be surprised if nothing I recommended was. I’m not a subscriber myself. I’d be willing to bet that you’d find something that took your fancy on the list though and it’s probably the cheapest way to try out a number of things.
It seems there’s a list here. https://www.pushsquare.com/guides/all-ps-plus-games
Most people say the middle tier (ps+ extra) is the best one if you don’t already have a good collection of games to play.
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@EdH thank you mate
I’ll check this out
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Just wanted to take a minute to gush over one of my favourite series', The Talos Principal.
I came to the first one pretty late, and it became my obsession during the first wave of COVID lockdowns.
At its core, its a puzzle game, akin to Portal and the likes. What made this game special to me though, were its existential and philosophical themes of consciousness, and the sentience of artificial intelligence.
As an android protagonist, you're guided through 100s of puzzles by a seemingly benevolent voice in the sky, whilst the lore of the world and various philosophical concept are presented in text for through various information terminals.
The whole things really captivated me, but after 100s of hours, completing everything the game had to offer, I moved on and kind of forgot about it it...
Recently realised a sequel had been released a few months ago, exclusively on PS5, so I took this as a reason to finally splash the cash on a new console (IH drops had got in the way of that previously...)
Without making this post any longer than it needs to be, I just want to say the sequel is so perfect, and is everything a follow up should be!
Despite the originally feeling like a fully fledged story/experience in its own right, within the context of its successor, it serves as a mere prologue to the world and lore that has been masterfully crafted here. The puzzles too, have been elevated to a whole new level of develishness, much to my joy and dismay... I'm only like 4 hours into the game, but know for a fact it will become one of my favourites of all time.
If you have interest in the themes I've mentioned, or puzzle games in general, this is an absolutely must play!
Playing the first isn't exactly necessary to enjoy the second, but it can be picked for just a few pounds nowadays, could be a good way to see if you enjoy the puzzle mechanics before throwing yourself in the behemoth that is the sequel...
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@T4920 Did you ever play The Witness? If you liked The Talos Principle you’ll get a real kick out of it.
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