Cloud Monday - Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus - Controls Take Time To Adjust To, Go Slow

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS2 version of Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus on PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

PlayStation 2 games have recently come to the service as games you can download or stream from the cloud. so far, whilst the emulation software has been a good match-up for the service allowing us to save when ever we want, perfect for a service that only gives us a 20 second warning before disconnection, one of the main issues has been whether or not the gameplay is worth it.

Resistance: Retribution, https://youtu.be/jEs97ouESk8, was interesting as it's the only game i've played that had in-game tweaks to the analogue sticks. for G-Police, https://youtu.be/P9QIJwNAhGs, not being able to tweak them made the game near impossible to play. so i was very curious how a more recent title would handle.

There are two things i noticed right away, the camera and the jumping. both took time to adjust to. there were no in-game options to change how the camera works. but i've played games like this so it go easier. the jumping and character movement in general took a little more time. it felt like, and i tried to show in-game this, that there was a little lag between what i pressed on the controller and what happened in-game. 

This is such a rare thing with games being played from the cloud that i can't say for sure if it is a cloud streaming issue, or if it's an issue with the original PS2 game or an issue with the emulation software. it wasn't game breaking, but it did take me a few minutes before i was able to jump out of the initial starting area. it can't be denied that when i tried to test the lag, i could press the button and there was a short delay before Sly jumped.

There was only a second or two of video artefacts during this, so like many of the PS1 and PSP games emulated they seem to stream well as video. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus looks great upscaled to 1080p on PS4. the one thing i thought that didn't upscale as well was the audio. out of everything i played, it came across as the weakest part of this release.

Switch Funday - Pokémon Unite - Battling Cynthia's Team In Solo Mode

For this Pokémon Unite video i wanted to try out the Solo Mode. at present, it's against Cynthia, from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. there are a set of challenges you're tasked with completing and in doing so you earn points. these points earn you in-game items. i show off these challenges after the first match and then again after the fifth match.  

Online Saturday - Star Wars: Hunters - My Second Hour

For this weekend's Online Saturday video i wanted to continue playing the recently released StarWars: Hunters on Switch, from developers NaturalMotion Games and Zynga Network , as at the end of the previous video, https://youtu.be/648VolmhSuA, we started actually playing against real people.

In this video i start with a couple of Casual Games, but once Ranked Games were unlocked i played 3 of them, even tho i said i played 5 in the video!. before having a break with another Casual Game and ending by checking out the Matchup Mixup Game Mode than i unlocked. i intially thought that was going to be similar to Killzone Zone 2/3 in that the game modes would switch during gameplay. ultimately it meant that we played a random game mode with a random character for a single match, there were no changes during gameplay.

Waiting times between games weren't a problem and it continued to run smoothly. the only issues that emerged were AFK players and in the Matchup Mixup  Trophy Chase games the respawns seemed to always be in the same place and the teams all seemed to do the same play, hide in the corner and defend. so that mode wasn't that fun.

Demo Play Thursday - Scars of Mars On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Scars of Mars, from Acquire Games.

At the time of recording, this demo had recently come out on the Switch and the game itself is coming out next week, June 20th on the UK eShop. before seeing the game on the eShop, i had never heard of or seen this game before. but i was interested after reading that it's a real time RPG.

Unfortunately, other than having a small "Demo" logo, there's nothing else highlighting the fact. so, for example, even tho it appears to have an auto save whilst i was playing i never got a message saying if that save will carry over to the final game. there's no link to the eShop either. When there's this little effort put into the demo, it's difficult to know if this demo is from the final game, an earlier version of the game, or if it's bespoke.

Which is a shame because i don't think it's a good demo and i have to assume it's representative of gameplay, meaning i don't think it's a good game. other than the music, there was very little praise-worthy from my time with the demo. 

The tutorial is more bare bones than some mobile phone games i play, with wasted space, and no call back to anything previously mentioned. i had a lot of trouble making sense of the upgrade menus. then we had the game changing the rules on inventory out of the blue. did this mean the tutorial was wrong? 

So with the tutorial being as bad as it was, it meant my first introduction to actual gameplay was a nightmare. it's a real time RPG, this meant there's little to no time to think before either an enemy attacks you or the timer at the top of the screen counts down. this was at Normal difficulty and it was overwhelming. One of the stranger control decisions was that "B" wasn't cancel. i had to press "A" to select and then "A" again to deselect.

But the controls are compounded by the fact every interaction i do in combat is slow. i couldn't move my cursor fast enough to manage my team mates and keep them out of harms way or to get them to attack. as soon as we got 2 or more enemies on screen, i couldn't keep on top of it until i was down to one or two characters and with the slow speed i was able to barely manage the situation. 

There's more i could say, but ultimately this demo paints such a negative picture of this game that i get the feeling it's nothing more than shovelware. I also suspect that there's been a heavy use of A.I throughout as the English was a little off, the pictures were a little off, and the backgrounds very repetitive. I don't think you should play this demo, nor do i think from this experience that you should buy Scars of Mars.

Backlog Conquering - Tearaway: Unfolded On #PS4 - Part 6 – Chased By Wendigos

At the end of Part 5, https://youtu.be/_GQCkMCw7Ug, we had arrived at Coggage Cove so for the beginning of this video we explore the town a little before heading to the Tavern to continue the quest of looking for our companion friend.

Things got interesting once we left the town as the area between the town and where we needed to get to was full of Wendigos. This section was fun as it combine several controller gameplay mechanics with the action on screen in a way that felt natural as we had already done many of the techniques separately else where in the game. we were never on the attack so it was a mix of different styles of platforming and running away. 

This part ends at The Lab and before we meet with The Head Scientist. 

Stories on Tuesday - When the Past Was Around - Part 3

Hello and welcome to Stories on Tuesday. It's part 3 of playing When the Past Was Around from developers Mojiken Studio.

After getting stuck in Part 2, https://youtu.be/BV3uaGfp1M8, i looked online before playing this part to find the solution to making the Pinwheel. i'm a little salty about it, it felt like a jump up in difficulty and that the game did a poor job of signalling what we were meant to do.

One question i had was where would the auto save put me. turns out, right at the start of the whole section. so i spent the first 10 minutes re-doing everything and then i got to solve the Pinwheel puzzle. i managed to get to the next story section and once again i have gotten stuck. so for Part 4, i will have looked up the solution. i can only hope i don't have to redo everything in that section again.

Cloud Monday - G-Police - Part 2 - Emulation Software Needs Analogue Stick Settings

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the #PS1 version of G-Police on #PS4 via the #PlayStationPlus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model #PlayStation4.

After Part 1, https://youtu.be/P9QIJwNAhGs, it was clear that the controls were terrible. in the week since playing the game, no update came to fix them. so going into today, it was always just a case of doing my best with what i've got.

It feels like the emulation software being used needs the ability to adjust analogue stick stuff. i played Resistance: Retribution, https://youtu.be/jEs97ouESk8, and the game itself had options to change the sticks, but so far it's the only one of these emulated games i've come across that has such options. it needs to be a fundamental part of the software, like being able to save at any point by pressing "Options" is. i wonder if it's something like the polling rate on the PS1 controller was different to the PS4 controller.

As for today's gameplay, i managed to beat the stage i got stuck on at the end of Part 1. Stage 3 was tricky as i had to tail someone, defend the police, and defeat enemy craft. it was a lot to do and there was a moment i kept failing towards the end of the mission. But overall, it's hard to say i actually enjoyed playing G-Police today. from a nostalgia point of view, sure it was nice. but i didn't get much enjoyment from the experience. 

These emulated games on PS4 and PS5 are great games to stream from the cloud. but i don't recommend G-Police for anyone whilst it's controls are as bad as they are.