Mobile Friday - F1 Clash - I Don’t Recommend it!

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out F1 Clash from Hutch, it was formally known as F1 Manager when it was originally released in 2019. i played it for around 50 minutes on my iPhone 14 Pro, but it is also out on Android.                                                                                                            

I'm a big fan of F1 and have watched it since the 90's. so going into this game i did have a certain level of expectations. I know the rules of F1 and how things tend to go. From the very beginning of this game i had issues with it. F1 Clash starts with a "Tour" and i fully expected that to be the tutorial, for it to take me round each of the menus (maybe calling them facilities) and to somewhat hold my hand through my first interactions with the team. Nope, the first thing on the "Tour" was for me to design the car's livery. 

things don't improve when you do the first "Race". your two drivers are Daniel Ricciardo and Mick Schumacher, and then they're not your drivers anymore. it almost feels disrespectful how abruptly their participation with your team ends. Race is in " " because i totally misunderstood what kind of game this is from that first tutorial race. in the tutorial, you're racing against a full field of other drivers and teams. But actually, that's not the point of the game. and even now, writing this, i'm annoyed that i was made to do a tutorial that totally misrepresented what the game actually is. because what you're actually doing is racing other people.

But are they real people? i don't know. i wasn't signed into Facebook or Apple, so where did these other "online" people come from. when it was choosing them, the same backgrounds kept appearing. and the first two opponents had the same driver line-up. at no point did it ask me about playing online or say that was what we're doing, and yet it tried to give the impression that was what we're doing. this isn't the only time something like this happened as i pressed a "Free Rewards" button assuming it was a free reward, it said collect now. but as soon as i pressed it it started playing an advert. it never asked for permission. and it wasn't a short advert either. i cut about 1 minute 15 seconds from this video. as the game did that to me, later when i see another "Free Crate" in the shop i'm genuinely apprehensive about clicking it as i assume it's just going to be another video.

At least clicking on that did something. in the Race section, a new option appears alongside "Duel" and "Spinners" but i don't know it's name. it had the name of this weekends Race at Barcelona in Spain, but what it is actually called i don't know. i clicked it and it told me the rules and then took me to a screen that had many options but they were all locked. even now i don't know why. nothing in the rules explains this. the locked button never tells me why it's locked. it's never explained what i need to do to unlock it, even tho the game had no issues with letting me get to this screen. even now i have no idea what the point of that was.

That's not the only time where the game locks stuff off, or has a lack of information. right at the beginning when you're designing your car's livery, there are locked liveries with no explanation on how to unlock them. In the shop there are drinks you can buy with no information as to what any of them do. later on i find another screen else where that details what each drink does, but it should've been in the shop. When it comes to assigning drivers, every driver is listed. at the time they were listed by series and i had no idea what that meant. i later learned that it was do to with what "race" i had unlocked, but at this point in the game it was needless confusing.

And then there's the Formula One stuff of the game, but even that is not realistic. If you're a fan of F1, it's really difficult to recommend this game. the tyre rules are not respected, the Ai is a mess, the racing is unrealistic, there are soo many crashes it makes a series like Formula E look tame. i even had a moment when, in the pits, i had a car being worked on and it got rear-ended by it's teammate. there's zero consequence for crashes and yet when tyre life hits zero the cars crawl to snail pace, and who knows how long a tyre will last as there's zero information being given to you. there's no help, you have to guess all the way.

I could go on, but ultimately i just wasn't having fun. it's an old game that feels even older. the developers should've made something new in a modern style. i just can't recommend it.

Backlog Conquering - Foul Play - Part 1 - The First 50 Minutes

Welcome to Backlog Conquering.

This is part 1 of playing Foul Play on PlayStation 4.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Pixel Hera 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 Pixel Hera Cup! (2023/5/29 9:00～2023/6/5 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.

Cloud Monday - Humanity - Part 2 - “Your streaming game closed”

Today's Cloud Monday is part 2 of playing Humanity on PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Streaming Service.

 It finally happened. After 31 videos, hours of playing games that were being streamed to me via PlayStation Plus Premium, a game closed on me. There have been times when the game being streamed to me has looked rough and had issues. More than once, i've had a warning appear on the screen to say the game could close. But this video is the first time where it actually happened.

throughout most of this video you'll see all the usual issues i have with streaming from PlayStation Plus Premium, apart from zebra striping but that is a very rare issue in itself. in some ways it's surprising that the game kept going for as long as it did as there were some very rough times before it did close. Macroblocking was a big issue and this video was the first time that it actually got in the way of gameplay because it made parts of text almost unreadable. 

I was beginning to be done with the game anyway. for me, the prologue was all i needed to play to know that this isn't quite the game for me. the prologue would make an excellent demo and i do recommend people play at least that much of the game. but it was the water stages that showed me i was done. streaming the game also affected things because it reduced the spectacle of the game. whether it was the macroblocking or the resolution drops, or whatever, the key moments when a stage is completed and there are hundreds of people moving around kinda didn't have much of an impact on me. i could tell what they were aiming for, but it fell flat because at times it looked like a PS3 game or even worse.

Switch Funday - Puzzle & Dragon: Nintendo Switch Edition - Oceanus Falls and Kronos Forest

For Switch Funday, i decided to play Puzzle & Dragon: Nintendo Switch Edition. I already play this game for Tuesday's Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday, https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyEBkNKW1vyrmZICkMDUAK4PIqkPjfxr2, but that series focuses on the online cups. But there are other game modes to play.

So today i focused on completing the Oceanus Falls and Kronos Forest dungeons, the 8th and 9th ones, in the quest mode. there were some real close moments and overall i would say it was more difficult than playing the online cups. the biggest difference is that the monsters in the quest mode can kill you, whereas playing in the cups it's more you're up against other players and want to have the highest score.

Online Saturday - Gundam Evolution - 4 Games, 3 Losses!

It's been a little while since i last played Gundam Evolution. since i last played there have been a few game updates and a new season has started, too. Whilst this game session wasn't any more successful than normal, i still had fun.

My goal for today was to try out a new Gundam in each game. for the most part it worked out well, but i didn't have fun with the Gundam that uses a mace. it's a melee focused Gundam that doesn't work too well in a game which has a far greater number of mid to long range Gundams that use guns.

Mobile Friday - Animal Restaurant - The First Hour

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Animal Restaurant from DH Games. i played it for an hour on my iPhone 14 Pro, but it is also out on Android.                                                                                              

Going into this, i had some assumptions as to how this was going to play. not too long ago i did a video on Cat Snack Bar, https://youtu.be/hhqyaTmhXw4, and going back further i did a couple of videos on Cats & Soup, https://youtu.be/B5_zo0ov4IM and https://youtu.be/hCvATMGu-9g. both of these are idle games and both suffered with grind. those videos were all shorter than this one because i ran out of things to do much sooner than with Animal Restaurant. 

From the beginning, it was clear that Animal Restaurant was a little different than other idle restaurant games i've played. it started with a story! it's not an in-depth one, nor is it long. but it does help set the scene and give a reason why we're doing what we're doing. the game also feels like it takes it's time. i didn't feel rushed into progressing, into ads and the store, nor did i feel like i was going to run out things to do right up till the end of the video.

What became more apparent as i played was just how much content is in the game. even tho the title has "Restaurant" in it, in that first hour i learned that there's more to unlock and interact with. the game mostly focuses on a center location, the floor of the restaurant. to the right is the kitchen. at this point in the game, i didn't do too much there. but by the end of the video i had explored the buffet and takeout sections, but not unlocked them as i didn't have enough money, but i had unlocked the courtyard.

because of the how idle games work, it's difficult to say how long it would take to unlock those extra areas. it could be that the grind starts just as i was ending my video. there was one downside, tho not a particularly big one but it's something worth mentioning. the game does an extra download when you start it, in my case for the first time but it could happen after a patch or when an event happens. for anyone with data caps on their phone, this could be annoying as there was no choice about it happening nor was there any mention of how much data was being downloaded.

I do recommend people give this game a go. i feel there's a lot of content to unlock as you play, but if you only play the once i feel that it's a pleasant experience. it's not a game you can play one handed so it may limit a little where and when people can play it.