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!
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!
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!
For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Tower of God: NEW WORLD by netmarble on my iPhone Pro 14.
This game came out this week and it's not often i play a brand new game. especially one that's highly anticipated as this game is based on the Webtoon Tower of God, and it's subsequent anime. I've not seen either, tho i think i've seen a trailer or two for the anime.
on the iOS App Store, there are a couple of images, but they don't really get across what this game is, and honestly i didn't read the description. so starting the game, i didn't quite know what to expect. i liked that the game asks if i wanted to download all the voice data. so this means that the game is playable but it either downloads the voices as and when it needs them or is silent. i chose to download them all and it's a download, 2.62GB! But after playing the game, it's something i would recommend doing. i'm on Wifi so i wasn't worried about data caps, and if you're on Wifi i think you should go ahead and download it as i found the voices to be well done and in such a story heavy game i do think it adds to the experience. Plus, there's a cool video that plays whilst it downloads the data and when the video finishes there's information on a bunch of the games characters with cool art.
There is a lot of story in this game and for some, that's not what they want in a mobile game. the game is designed as a mobile game first. a great example is how battles work as i didn't control them. i have an option to use special moves or i can let the game use them automatically. meaning, as a mobile gamer we have the option to watch the action which can be useful when commuting. Another impressive way the game is designed with mobile in mind are the graphic options. i accidently started the video with low settings and around half way changed them to highest. but low the low settings actually looked quite good, plus my phone didn't heat up and it would help with battery life. once i changed to the highest settings i quickly felt my phone getting hotter and by the end of the video my battery was lower than expected, too. so if you're far from a battery pack or charger, you can set the graphics to low and still enjoy it. but if you're at home or plugged in, you can set it to the max your phone can do and enjoy the graphics.
The game has a unique graphically presentation because it isn't limited to the phones screen. the characters are big, everything is big and fills the screen. but there are often times they go beyond the screen, almost as if the game was designed for bigger screens like iPads. with everything being so big and the graphics and artstyles working so well, it's easy to get lost and be absorbed into the world. i wasn't distracted by anything, it was incredibly effective in grabbing my focus. it's kinda cinematic in that respect.
Something else that's unique about the game is what kind of game it is. it would be difficult to say it's simply an RPG. what we play as "ourself" is more RPG than what we play when we're Ban. His side of the game is more like a story based game. it's interesting that these two stories are split. "Our" story is the Adventure Mode and Ban's story is the Story Mode. it looks like both need to be played to get the full story. as i've not watched the Webtoon or Anime, i don't know how accurate either is, but if i was to guess Ban's story would be closer to the Webtoon/Anime and "Our" story is probably new. I put "our" in quotes because i don't know who i am in the game. we have a name that we create, but other than that there's not been any physical representation of us in the game. so i'm playing it, but i don't know who "i" am.
The game isn't perfect. i feel like the tutorial could be better incorporated into the story and spaced out a bit more. i feel like the shop is available too early and not explained as we have no sense of worth/value in this game and yet the game expects us to be able to make a purchase decision. And by the time the video ends, i felt like the game could've chimed in with a reminder to level up as the battles were beginning to take longer. but in the grand scheme of the game as a whole, this are minor quibbles.
Tower of God: NEW WORLD is a game that i recommend. it's one you could play straight from download, but i would download the voice pack first and then go out and play the game. i played for an hour and barely scratched the surface of this game. there were many other modes and menus locked. so for a free to play game, it offers a lot and doesn't throw endless adverts at you either.
After getting stuck at the end of the first video for RiME, https://youtu.be/dEA0laV7RbA, i had a quick look at a YouTube video for the solution and found out i was soo close to the answer. so i started this video, part 2 of playing RiME as part of my Backlog Conquering series, by solving the puzzle.
After the puzzle, i didn't know what to expect. i stopped watching the video as soon as it showed the solution, so once more i was off exploring and solving the puzzles as they came. Part 2 feels a little different to the part 1 video as i didn't find any pedestals with glyphs on them this time and the puzzles seemed to be a little more complicated, or that i didn't solve them too quickly.
The game continues to look stunning and it continues to push my PS4 so hard the fans are actually really loud, so loud i tried to edit them out of my audio. But the game's story hasn't really grabbed me. i don't know if i've missed something or i'm not quite understanding what's been shown to me, but the drive for me is exploring the world in the game. so there will be a part 3, but my enthusiasm for the game has dropped a little and getting messed about by the autosave system didn't help.
at the end of the first video, i quit after an auto save as there's no way to manually save. but when i started RiME for part 2, it was immediately clear that things weren't as i left them. it almost felt like the area i was trying to solve reset. it was frustrating having to do stuff that i had already done to get to the puzzle i was stuck at and because i was unhappy with it i didn't go back to do the side areas that i also did in part 1. i can only hope that things will go smoother at the start of part 3.
RiME is the new Backlog Conquering game. i'm playing this on my launch model Japanese PS4 and it's a PSN download, i think there was a disc version of this game in some markets.
I've had this game for a while and i don't really know why i never played it. i think that it maybe wasn't as good as people had hoped for tho i don't really remember. i do remember there being some hype around this game.
It quickly became clear that this is a game that leaves it to the player to work it out. it does offer some hints as to what you need to do. for the first part, there were pillars of light and there was fruit strategically placed next to animals. but as i moved to the second area, i felt like there were fewer hints and that did lead me to stopping the game because i had been stuck for 5 to 10 minutes.
I did have fun exploring. there was no sense of urgency nor anything that seemed out to kill me. so it was nice to do it at my own pace. But it did feel a little dated in that your character is unable to climb and seems not able to jump high at all. i can understand why this character can't jump, it's to confine you to an area. the game may look like an open world but it's actually several gated areas. i have done the first area and i'm in the second, and yet i don't really know if i've finished the first area. there are many collectibles in the game but there doesn't seem to be any record of how many you need to find in area. maybe this'll be something that'll unlock at the end of the game or maybe i'll get a in-game map later.
There will be a part 2, but getting as stuck as i did at the end of part 1 has taken the wind out of my sails, so to speak, and completely halted any momentum i had up to that point.
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 Ilmina Cup! (2023/7/24 9:00～2023/7/31 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.
I wasn't able to play this on Monday when the new cup started, playing on Tuesday usually means there are fewer players online. but it was still competitive and i never managed to beat any of the other human players. when it was just me versus the computer, i did manage to get a couple of wins. But ultimately, i was never able to defeat the boss even tho i got there a few times. i feel like i understood what i needed to do, but was either unlucky or not quite right. This cup was also the first time in a while where i felt held back by using a controller as everything felt slower, and less accurate, than what i wanted to do.
