Mobile Friday - Geo Gods - Minor Issues Don’t Distract From Solid Card Gameplay

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Geo Gods, another game developed by Arnold Rauers as i had previously checked out Miracle Merchant https://youtu.be/kpCxEvBWk4w, with art by Alba Ballesta González and sound and music by Marie Havemann. I played this on iOS but it's out on Android, too.

Geo Gods is an interesting card game in that it doesn't matter if you win as your score is an average taken from 6 games. each card is a god and the gods are placed onto a garden. each god has an ability that affects the field or the gods in your deck and each god has an elemental type. by the side of the field are 6 elemental power crystals, each with a power target. the goal is to get enough of each type of god on the field to activate a power crystal with bonus points awarded for getting all 6 in a round.

That was the first hint that it may be difficult to get all 6, and in the 6 games i played in this video i never got all 6 crystals. It's an interesting challenge as each god card has an ability that can have a positive or negative effect on either the garden field, your deck, or mana that's needed to put down the god cards. each spot in the garden also has a cost needed to put a card on it, but also a reward that it earns for activating a power crystal. 

This sounds difficult, and in-game the lengthy wordy tutorial does make it seem that way. but the game is still very playable. i may not have got all 6 crystals when i played and i may not have fully understood it, but as i played and tried again i did feel like i was learning and getting better. so it's very playable.

For me tho, some of the wording made things unclear. like after a game it says quit or restart. i feel that both words are wrong as quit sounds like the 6 games are ended and restart sounds like you start the 6 again from the beginning. i also felt that some of the card abilities didn't work as i expected them to from their description. maybe in trying to get the description to fit on the card, their choice of English was perhaps not clear enough.

But those are fairly minor and don't get in the way of some good card playing. what did frustrate me was learning on the home screen that i don't have all the cards because i haven't bought the game. this also meant that  mode, clearly labeled on the home screen, was also unplayable. it left me wondering if i actually can't finish the game because i don't have all the cards, whether those locked cards are more powerful. essentially, it was a bad user experience. 

But as the game has no intrusive adverts, or any adverts, nor does it have an additional download once started, i would say it's a great game to pick up and play. it's a little rough around the edges and that can be patched later. thankfully the core card game experience makes it a game that you can play one match of quickly or sit down and play 6 like i did in this video.

Backlog Conquering - RiME - Part 4 - Bird and Windmill Finished, Game Broken, Robot Awoken!

In part 3 of playing RiME , i didn't finish the section with the windmills and bird, https://youtu.be/lmlH4yN_1r8. I had released the storm from 2 of the 3 windmills, but still had the third and final one. So in today's Part 4, that was my first objective. Once both were done, the next area resumed underwater traversal and it wasn't too bad. there's plenty of oxygen so it wasn't too tense. 

When i emerged in the "Tree" area, then things got weird. corridors seemed to go on forever in one direction and straight ahead could also mean up! i don't know if it was luck or not, but i seemed to navigate it right the first time. this also means that i didn't do any exploration either. But the thing that annoyed me the most was getting stuck on a tree. I needed to walk up it to dive into water. i fell off the first time and on the second attempt i slid on the spot. non of the face buttons or analogue sticks did anything. all my character did was slide on the spot. i had to restart and spend time getting back to this room.

Thankfully it didn't happen again and i ended the video after restarting a robot that seemed to tease a part of the game with more of them. so far i had found other robots, but none of them worked. so i was surprised to find one that did and it was useful. there will be a part 5 as i'm curious how robots fit into this world that seemed devoid of anything technological. 

Backlog Conquering - RiME - Part 3 - 2 Windmills, A Bird, And Lot’s Of Water

In part 3 of playing RiME on PS4, i feel like i continue to make good progress, but i still don't have much of a clue what's going on. Plus, in this video, i'm a little confused about the giant bird and what we're doing to subdue it. surely, if this bird has always been an issue, the fact it still exists should be worrying. especially when we're seeming painting the sky with storms. Is this a permanent thing? is this a "weapon" that was made and never used before? it brings a weird tone to the story of the game.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Summer Vacation Cup 1 - 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 Summer Vacation Cup 1! (2023/7/31 9:00～2023/8/7 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.

This Summer Vacation Cup 1 turned out to be a lot of fun. in each game i was up against some strong competition from other players. so much so that i only got 1 win! i managed to beat the boss more times than winning! as i played i managed to get better and better, which isn't always the case, but i didn't seem to have as much luck when it came to the bonus points at the end as i managed to loose out a few times.

This week i played against:

Ikh - Rank 61

Ciel - Rank 66

からす - Rank 56

Matt - Rank 58

mikey - Rank 80

りょう - Rank 62

Cloud Monday - The Ascent - Part 1 - A Near Perfect Streaming Experience From PlayStation Plus

Today's Cloud Monday is part 1 of playing The Ascent from Neon Giant and Curve Digital Publishing. I'm playing this on a launch model Japanese PS4.

Apart from a little hiccup near the end of the video, it was a great streaming experience. if anything, it was the game itself that was causing gameplay issues than it being streamed from the PlayStation Plus Premium service.

The game looks stunning, there's soo much detail in the densely packed environments. even on a PS4.But, the in-game text is simply tiny. there was a moment i had to get out of my chair, go to the screen to try and read it. even right up close, i was guessing what it said rather than knowing. the other noticeable issues with the game were screen tearing, stuttering, and pop-in. but those are minor issues that don't really get in the way of gameplay. the small text got in the way so when i play it again for part 2, i will check to see if there's an in-game menu to make the text bigger.

Playing the game was fun. with the world being so dense, it was easy to get feel a part of it. especially with the UI off in the corners not getting in the way. it's the first game i've played where i've actually felt like i wanted a bigger TV, i currently have a 32 inch, and a PS5 because i wanted to be more immersed in a game world. this first hour was enjoyable and the game's story began to be revealed too. this makes me excited to play it for part 2, and who knows maybe i'll play it more!

Switch Funday - Pokémon Unite - Trying The 2nd Anniversary Stuff

For Switch Funday, i played Pokémon Unite. i've played a little bit over the last couple of years. often logging in to get some item or to check out an event. so whilst i do some complaining in this video, these aren't surprises to me as i've been complaining about them, not on video for this site but personally, since the game came out.

The second anniversary began on the 21st July and the main thing i wanted to check out was the new game mode. in this new Panic Parade! mode, your team of 5 Pokemon have to face wave after wave of "enemy" Pokémon whilst also protecting a Tinkaton. i wasn't able to beat this mode, getting stuck at Wave 10 a couple of times, as it's genuinely quite difficult. But it's also refreshing different from the game's main 5-on-5 Unite Battle Mode whilst also sticking to familiar rules.

As for my complaints with the game, i'll say that Unite and Panic Parade are fun and i don't have issues with them. i would like me favourite Pokémon, Jumpluff, in the game but i imagine many others would also like theirs. Even after 2 years, it's a little surprising and annoying that the game's main home screen is awash of buttons and icons and in my case lot's of little red dots. and these menus are often just a little slow to load to be annoying, too. i would like to load into the game and be given the choice to deal with all the red dots or just play. i wonder if i can link my Switch account with the game version on phones just so that it maybe easier to deal with all that stuff on phones.

But it was nice coming back. i didn't realise that Panic Parade is a limited time thing that ends in, at the time or writing, a day or so. but i may continue to play Pokémon Unite more than before as i had fun. and who knows, maybe i'll eventually begin to understand the whole Energy Rewards thing!

Online Saturday - Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - My First Time

Today's Online Saturday game is from this month's PlayStation Plus selection. Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War was added as a free game to download for PlayStation Plus subscribers and i was curious as to whether the online was still popular considering this is an older Call of Duty game.

The last Black Ops game i played was Call of Duty: Black Ops III but i only played the single player story mode, in the video i thought i played it on PS3 but i think i was wrong and i played it on PS4.

When i played Warzone 2.0, https://youtu.be/-F5LygJiO2U, i had such a bad experience that i actually deleted the game after making that video. So i came into this a little cautious with low expectations. The main menu has 3 options, and as i wanted multiplayer i selected that. i wasn't expecting there to be a video for it tho, i have no context for it so it came across as unnecessary fluff.

But after that, when i got to the multiplayer menu, i was pleasantly surprised how accessible it all was. each mode had an option to see what it actually was. it wasn't cluttered either, nor were there many messages. to me, it was clear what my options were. pressing L1 or R1 would change the menus and i felt that these could've done with the same treatment as i didn't really know what any of it meant. but at least it was simple enough to explore them and i was mostly able to work it out for myself.

It did take longer to find games than i expected. but, seeing as i didn't play this at launch i have no context as to how long it used to take. so if you have that information, please let me know in the comments. thankfully i was able to use the time to explore the menus more, unlike Gundam Evolution.

I'm playing this on a launch model Japanese PS4 so loading did seem to take a little while and even when it got into a game textures took extra time to load. that coupled with the waiting time did give this game a slower feel to it. But i went into it assuming that maybe the case as no game i've played as matched up to Splatoon 3.

with so much loading, i would've liked the loading screens to have provided some more information about abilities and classes. But i won't hold it against the game as it does have a bot mode where i could learn all that stuff. I also don't take multiplayer too seriously so i didn't mind learning as i played in each game. one nice thing about the maps i played was that they weren't too small. there was enough room so that i didn't die as quickly as i spawned in. there was time to explore the map, time to try out stuff, and time to beat other players. i didn't feel like i didn't have a chance, i felt like i could contribute even tho it was my first time playing it.

Overall, i found Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War a very accessible game. it may not have as many people still playing it as when it did at launch, but there's enough so that waiting isn't too long. i had fun and even tho it takes up a lot of space and i think 6 downloads, i won't be deleting it. i may not do a video on it, but i may play the single player mode as well as some more multiplayer. but probably not zombies, they're too scary for me!