Cloud Monday - Elite Dangerous - Part 2 - A Game Well Designed For Being Played Via The Cloud

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing Elite: Dangerous. I streamed this game, developed by Frontier Developments, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my launch model PS4. 

Part 1, https://youtu.be/0tB-9Q96zZgl, went really well and surprised me with how accurate and responsive the motion controls were. This video carries on where part 1 finished. the goal, in game, was to do as the game suggested, take on some trials. This section continued on with the game not really giving enough information on how best to do things. there were a lot of labels so it wasn't too bad, but these small accessibility issues do add up.

Something worthy of praise is how the game has automated certain things. As this is somewhat accurate, the distances between planets and solar systems is vast. so to help with navigation, the game has a system where it locks-on to the planet, takes control of our ship, and gets us there. this has been used to help us dock at stations, too. Having such an accessible feature also becomes useful if the internet connection isn't good. if we lose it, we know what we were doing. if the connection stabilises, then we've probably arrived at our destination.

Whilst the game itself may not be fore everyone, it is well designed to be streamed from PlayStation Plus to us. So much so that i would recommend it. 

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - Getting November's Salmon Run Item

This month's Splatoon 3 Salmon Run item is the Brinestone Boots and like the other Salmon Run items, my goal is to get the item twice and pick the best of the two to keep. This went better than last weeks Eggstra Work Event, https://youtu.be/fohHFUg29QU, not just in that my teams and i were able to complete all waves but also in that it was much quicker getting into a game and there was better rotation of the weapons, too. What was also nice was how the weapon selection today went from good to great. often in Salmon Run there's a weapon i really don't want to use. but today, there were a couple of "OK" and some i had a lot of fun with. 

It only took 6 games to get the item twice, but as the video was short in comparison to my other Splatoon 3 videos, i did an extra video to get to 1,000 points. we also had a game where we went up against the King Salmonid but we were only able to do about half damage. There were many games today where there was great team work and i try to call it out when i see it. these games weren't just fun to play because we did all waves, they were fun because of the teamwork. 

Switch Funday - Tetris 99 - 36th Maximus Cup - Super Mario RPG

This weekend there is the 36th Maximus cup in Tetris 99. the prize this cup is a Super Mario RPG theme. I haven't played the game since the last cup, https://youtu.be/5t4uTf9zjAg, and i definitely felt rusty this time. it felt a lot more difficult and it felt like there were more mistakes. some of those are mine as i have a cold and was coughing. some were down the the poor d-pad on my #Switch Pro Controller. but it also felt like some of it is down to the game and it not registering my button presses. it's an odd sensation.

Demo Play Thursday - South of the Circle On iOS

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played South of the Circle on my iPhone 14 Pro. This game came out on the iOS App Store in October and it downloads as this trial of the game. once the trial is finished, there's an option to purchase the rest of the game. 

It's an interesting trial as on one hand it feels maybe too short but on the other hand it ends at just the right place in the story that i want to know what happens next. so i'm a little conflicted about that. I feel that the game could do a better job at promoting the full version of the game. the trial finished and i don't have any sense how big the story is or how much is left. the trailer that plays in the App Store would've been a nice addition at the end of the trial to give a sense of scale of what's ahead.

Another weird choice is that the game starts without subtitles, almost requiring the game be played with sound or headphones. at the very least i would've appreciated having a choice. The game also doesn't highlight the options either. when you make your first choice in the game, i didn't expect there to be a circle that fills up. it caught me off guard a bit and i forgot the start of the story. i feel the game needs to do a better job at introducing these things so when the story starts, that's the sole focus. for example, just before the story starts, a white screen and in the top corner the option button appears. there's text saying what it is and something like an OK button. so when you hit the OK button, you see how the game uses circles as conformations. 

The game appears to make smart use of the iPhone's screen. not once did i feel like the Dynamic Island got in the way of gameplay. the game also looks really good. the art style they've gone with works very well. it's distinctively different but, in this trial, everything was clear. in a way, this game could be one to show off the graphical capabilities of your phone. 

So it's not the best demo i've played, but in the end it did succeed because once it was finished i was still interested in playing more of it.

Version 1.0.1 Played.

Backlog Conquering - Abzû On PS4 - Part 3 - The Final Part

This is the final part of my play through of Abzu on PlayStation 4. Whilst i may not fully understand the story the developers were trying to tell, i did enjoy being in the world. the swimming, the interactions, and the world they had created was really nice to explore. And of course the fantastic Soundtrack by @awintory  not only adds to the gameplay and what you do in the game, but it also helps give more life to the world and just being in it.

Other than the story and how it is told, i don't really have much to complain about. i really enjoyed my time in the game and i'm glad i finally played it. It's definitely up there as one of the better games on the PS4.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Sanada Yukimura Cup Revival - 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 Sanada Yukimura Cup Revival! ( 2023/11/6 9:00～2023/11/13 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.

This week is the  Sanada Yukimura Cup Revival. i have played this cup before, https://youtu.be/YvXiZ8M86Y0. Back then, it took a long time to get all the achievements. i got unlucky with where the color swapper was located and i found it difficult to make the correct matches to get full powered attacks.

Even tho i only played against a few other human players, it was very competitive. so, in a way, it was exciting and challenging. i was keeping an eye on what stage the other players had reached. As i played more games. i got better and better so in the final game i was able to beat the boss for the first time. But i admit that for the most part i was lucky in that the orb changing location wasn't really in the way. in comparison to the first time i played this cup, i understood what was needed for dealing the most damage fairly quickly and focused on trying to do it.

This week i played against:

ジャンプ - Rank 44

☆REI☆ - Rank 72

ゆうま - Rank 56

どっへ - Rank 49

Cloud Monday - Elite Dangerous - No Lag With Motion Controls And The Save Peace Of Mind A MMO Brings

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing Elite: Dangerous. I streamed this game, developed by Frontier Developments, via the #PlayStationPlus Cloud Streaming Service on my launch model Japanese #PS4.

When i was streaming Cloudpunk, the big issue in that game was that it wasn't clear if or when the game was saving. When i saw that a MMO was on PlayStation Plus i knew i wanted to play it because like Cloudpunk it won't always be clear that it's saving, but because it's a MMO it's easier to accept that the game is keeping track of what i'm doing and where i am.

But for someone unfamiliar with MMOs, this isn't ideal and it's why i mention it in the video title, so it could help someone. I think that the game's PlayStation Store page could have a sentence or two added to help explain how the game handles saves.

I was a little surprised by how rough the streaming experience was at times, we had the connection warning a few times. But i was even more surprised how well the game held up. Stream Tearing was somewhat frequent and obvious against the black of space. But other than that, nothing really stood out as being off due to streaming. I wonder if the game, being a MMO that is streamed, has some tech built in that helped keep image quality as high as it was.

The only issues i had with the game were the game's own faults. the two that stick out the most was the training ship that kept running away out of bounds, so that part took a long time, and having to que to enter a station. Other than that, i felt it was a decent first hour and a good tutorial that was open about not telling the player everything but there is a book that i could read to learn more. the game does kind of let us go a bit abruptly. i think i would've liked a little more hand holding for the next mission, but that'll be in part 2 when i select a mission to try.

A big positive from streaming the game was how good the motion controls where for looking around the cockpit. i felt no lag from using them. the controls in general felt responsive and suffering from no lag. they do take a bit to get used to tho, i was getting shoot and thrust mixed up a few times.

I do have a couple of concerns with Elite: Dangerous as a game that's being streamed to us. none of them were tested in this video, but there's always part 2. probably the biggest concern is how small the text is. i found it legible all throughout this video. But i worry what would happen if the resolution or bit-rate dropped. But for now, it's a good game to stream.