Cloud Monday - Zack Zero - Part 2 - An Hour With No Cloud Streaming Issues

Today's Cloud Monday is part 2 of playing the PS3 game Zack Zero on the PlayStation Plus Streaming Service.

Last week's Part 1, https://youtu.be/mhPphtnB2To, was over an hour where i experienced maybe a 5 minute period of poor streaming quality over the PlayStation Plus Premium service. in today's video, i had no issues streaming the game. 

The playing experience did have some rough moments, but they were from the game itself rather than from streaming the game from the cloud. the most common issue i experienced was screen tearing. this mostly happened at the, or near the, top of the screen. there were some stutters and what felt like framerate dips. a couple of times the game's own mechanics got in the way, namely that the game has control over the camera but twice i got ahead of it and it caused me to lose some health.

Aside from the game's own issues, it's not a bad experience. if you're looking for something to play on PlayStation Plus Premium, it does offer something unique. i can't think of many games that are sidescrollers that play quite like this. most games tend to follow a Mega-Man style. but this game has a more dynamic camera and plays with perspective more. it can be difficult in places and in this video i felt things weren't as clear as they should, but it should be fine content wise for younger people to play.

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - April's Splatfest - An Hour Of Tricolor - 12 Matches But Only 3 Wins!

Welcome to Switch Funday.

As it's a Splatfest weekend, today i wanted to focus on the Sunday exclusive game mode called Tricolor. In the previous Chocolate Splatfest, https://youtu.be/f_IoorNHNJE, the Sunday Tricolor day was the first time the mode had worked perfectly since the game launched. It was mostly fine today, i got to play 12 games, but there were some disconnections, some games took a minute or more to match, and there were a couple of instances where no games could be found.

Yesterday, https://youtu.be/3u3lbMkhguM, i was able to play 12 matches but in all of them i was never up against the BIgfoot Team. between my Aliens teams and Nessie Teams, it was tied at 6 wins and 6 losses. However, today my Alien teams could only manage 3 wins! Tricolor is always difficult, but today felt far more competitive.

I was trying out a couple of new weapons i bought after yesterday's hour. i enjoyed the N-Zap '89 but found the Splatana Stamper more difficult. it'd be great if you could recommend a weapon i should try out. I'm normally a fan of the umbrellas, but i went more attacking this weekend and it was fun.

Online Saturday - Splatoon 3 - April's Splatfest - 1 Hour, 12 Matches, 6 Wins, But No Bigfoot Teams!

Welcome to Online Saturday.

As it's a Splatfest this weekend, today's Online Saturday focuses on Splatoon 3. this Splatfest is a fight between those who believe Nessie is real, that Aliens are real, or that Bigfoot is real. Myself, i chose the Aliens team as i really do believe that aliens are real.

It was one of me better Saturdays, too. i played 12 games and won half of them. the strange thing from today is that all 12 games were against Nessie teams. it could be that here in Japan/Asia, Nessie and Aliens were the top two and that Bigfoot has a bigger representation across America and Europe.

The sneak peak results had Aliens narrowly leading Nessie with Bigfoot a little bit behind. after today's games, it's hard to say who'll win the Splatfest out of Aliens or Nessie. there were some real close games and there were some really big losses. If you play against a Bigfoot team, let me know how good or bad they are.

Mobile Friday - Puzzle Quest 3 - What A Mess! The First 45 Minutes

Mobile Friday is back and the first game i tried outside of Apple Arcade was Puzzle Quest 3. i was a huge fan of the original two games, but i can't say i enjoyed this sequel.

From the beginning you can see how long it took to actually start the game. the point of this series is to see what happens when you launch it for the first time. and for me, it crashed. ultimately i ended up closing it and launching it again. but then it went vertical as well as taking a long time to get to the main screen. 

Another reason for this series is to see if there's a long tutorial or additional downloads needed. The tutorial is seriously lacking. throughout the whole experience i ended up asking again and again what things are, why are things where they are. So much is left unexplained and what is explained is done by text boxes, some of which seem to have been in the wrong place. As for the additional download, well there seem to be two options. let the game download what it needs when it needs it, or download nearly 2 GB all at once. As i'm on Wifi, i downloaded all it needed. but neither seem like a great solution for someone starting the game for the first time on a mobile network.

There were other menu options but, like many parts of the game, there were poorly explained or used different terminology to the menu items themselves. This game seems to want "hardcore" gamers who are familiar with games and know how options work. it's not welcoming to casual players. It's worth saying that this game made my phone hot. i've played many mobile games and often my phone gets warm. nearly in all videos i take time to mention how hot my phone is. but i can say that this game made my phone the hottest out of any of them. and know where does it say that by changing the options it'll make my phone hot.

Graphically, it looks great. it has a pleasant colorful style, too. The story is a mess, the biggest example is you start as one character and do some story before having to go to the character select and seemingly continue the story using this new character with no mention of the change. It also felt like the character you picked was getting the same text as any other character would get. this is strange in my case as i picked the lizard man, and yet people used words i'd associate with humans. there are a couple of moments of picking your own response, but this early on in the game it felt like it it didn't matter what you picked as the game was going to keep on going.

So ultimately, this is a game you should start at home first. get everything downloaded. so the next time you play it, you'll be all set and won't have to worry about using up data caps.

Backlog Conquering - Outland - Part 1 - The First 45 Minutes

Welcome to Backlog Conquering.

Today's video is the first video with a new PS3 game. for the video i played through the first 45 minutes, or so, of Outland. It's a game from Ubisoft and Housemarque. 

I've had this game for a long time. i speculated early in the video that i probably got it as a PlayStation Plus game. i didn't really think about it until i used it in my PS3 XMB Game Preview Series, https://youtu.be/WIh3ZkDSCLY. Going in, i didn't really know anything about it other than it's a Housemarque game.

This was an interesting first 45 minutes. the first thing i noticed was how gorgeous it looked. My capture device said it was 720p, but it looked so crisp, vibrant, and detailed that it could easily have been 1080p. technologically speaking, it's also run really smooth and i haven't noticed any issues with it, unlike Papo & Yo which i just finished as that game had all sorts of issues like screen tearing and framerate dips.

But it's story hasn't grabbed me. so much else of this game has, but the story we've had so far is very brief. there's not really been a great answer to "Why?" and the world we're playing in sure looks great, but again there's no reason why it looks the way it does. there'll be a part two and i look forward to seeing where it goes.

Backlog Conquering - Papo & Yo - Part 5 - The Final Part

Welcome to Backlog Conquering.

Today's video is part 5, and the final part, of playing Papo & Yo on PlayStation 3.

in part 4, https://youtu.be/2AmtDoudYak, i got stuck on a puzzle and said i would look up the answer. turns out i was doing it right but i was having terrible luck. so the video starts with me continuing with that puzzle. the only thing i did differently was where i put the frogs and starting with the house closest to where i had to go, then doing the middle one, and skipping the third one by walking across a wall.

From then on, i didn't have any issues completing the remaining puzzles and the game itself. the game had some technical issues in places with screen tearing, stuttering, and what felt like the frame rate decreasing.

But overall, i enjoyed my time playing the game. it's not the best, nor is it the most technically proficient, but it does something very important. it doesn't let difficulty get in the way. all but one of the puzzles were easy to solve and all but that same one came with a very useful help "box". if the monster got you, it never killed you. and if you fell, it wasn't to your death. the game would  very quickly restart you close to where you fell. the game's goal was never difficulty, the puzzles were never meant to stump you, you weren't punished by death. the goal was simply telling the story. and that it did very well. 

in the video, i gave the game a 7.5 assuming that a 5 would be average. i'd recommend giving this a go if you have it.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Vishnu Cup - Achievement Run

Welcome to Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday! Sit back and either watch me play through, with no commentary, the cup or leave it running in the background as BGM!

I play and earn all the achievements from The Vishnu Cup! (2023/3/27 9:00～2023/4/3 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.

This week was much easier than the previous few. i did get a few wins and many top 3's, but there weren't too many others playing when i did. the gimmick  of making an "L" as well as the "+" that my set always runs was quite easy to make. using the power-ups actually made things more difficult as they changed far too many pieces into one color, this made it near impossible to make the power shapes to the point where i often didn't due to the time it would take.

This week i played against:

Winstein - Lvl 71

マイクらみつけた！ - Lvl 51

モブトラ[オルタ] - Lvl 63