Bugs, terrors and underground nasties
Last month was a little quiet from me in the upload stakes - picked up a rather nasty cold bug mid May that continued to linger well into June, with some sick days taken as a result. This in turn has shot my sleeping patterns to all hell. Combine that with a particularly busy stretch at the day job and I've not had much time, and not much energy.
The busy season is easing off though at work - the cold bug has departed (though I think I may have just replaced it with a summer flu instead ...) and my internet connection remains a known qaundary (there will be no twitch recordings any time soon.
Back to the games.
Largely this month when I have reached a console, it's needed to be a child-friendly title. As generally has been the case this last year, Lego steps quite handily into the breach. And currently Lego Indiana Jones 2 has been the choice. As Telltale always seem to do, it's moved to a different set-up from previous games - a pseudo open world mini version of the episodes locations (1 for each of the original films; with the fourth film split into 3). It took a bit of time to realise that the story missions are not available from the world maps - rather these are available from the menu leading to them. From the world maps then are a number of sometimes hidden sub missions. There is now no 'free play' as there used to be - it's some attempt to go to an open world without becoming too unwieldy. At least the sub missions will tell you what special skills you need right from the off (and most give you quick access to an exit) rather than getting into them and finding out the hard way.
I think Lego Marvel Super Heroes had a better approach, though.
The other choice has actually been on a console I haven't mentioned for a while - yep the old Wii got a dusting off and the terror's have their own coloured controllers. We started with Carnival Games - that game is just a little clunky and some of the mini games don't seem to be properly calibrated - very much more about luck than skill. So we switch on Mario Party 8 and that seems to be working fine - the biggest issues by far are explaining to a 3 year old how to aim at the screen and both terror's insistance on always having to win ... I checked gamefaqs but there wasn't a guide for that ;-)
When they have gone to bed and I'm not scanning around Youtube or Twitch though, I keep dipping into The Division.
As predicted when talking about the beta, I was losing interest. My normal fireteam weren't always available (between real life, and Destiny...), and I wasn't interested in solo'ing the Dark Zone. Mostly I was just doing runs to get intel and get those achievements ticket off. High Value Targets could have been interesting but without a regular fire team, I've found that missions with randoms have got to a point where we weren't communicating as we all knew what needed to be done
The Underground Expansion has surfaced and this has breathed new life into game. With my gear score at around the 170 mark, the Incursions are all out of reach and the HVT always end up with me running around a bus to avoid the boss heavy.
With the underground missions, I'm actually getting different scenery and layouts and I can run a normal level mission in 20 mins or so. Within the first 3 missions, I've gone up to 183 GS (that rate of increase has dipped in the few I've done since).
I do need to get back into the First Time Plays (I've claimed the free PSN and Gold games but just not played them in June), and there are some play lists that I have the video's done and just need to upload.
Ah yes, the upload issue again ...
Bye for now.
The busy season is easing off though at work - the cold bug has departed (though I think I may have just replaced it with a summer flu instead ...) and my internet connection remains a known qaundary (there will be no twitch recordings any time soon.
Back to the games.
Largely this month when I have reached a console, it's needed to be a child-friendly title. As generally has been the case this last year, Lego steps quite handily into the breach. And currently Lego Indiana Jones 2 has been the choice. As Telltale always seem to do, it's moved to a different set-up from previous games - a pseudo open world mini version of the episodes locations (1 for each of the original films; with the fourth film split into 3). It took a bit of time to realise that the story missions are not available from the world maps - rather these are available from the menu leading to them. From the world maps then are a number of sometimes hidden sub missions. There is now no 'free play' as there used to be - it's some attempt to go to an open world without becoming too unwieldy. At least the sub missions will tell you what special skills you need right from the off (and most give you quick access to an exit) rather than getting into them and finding out the hard way.
I think Lego Marvel Super Heroes had a better approach, though.
The other choice has actually been on a console I haven't mentioned for a while - yep the old Wii got a dusting off and the terror's have their own coloured controllers. We started with Carnival Games - that game is just a little clunky and some of the mini games don't seem to be properly calibrated - very much more about luck than skill. So we switch on Mario Party 8 and that seems to be working fine - the biggest issues by far are explaining to a 3 year old how to aim at the screen and both terror's insistance on always having to win ... I checked gamefaqs but there wasn't a guide for that ;-)
When they have gone to bed and I'm not scanning around Youtube or Twitch though, I keep dipping into The Division.
As predicted when talking about the beta, I was losing interest. My normal fireteam weren't always available (between real life, and Destiny...), and I wasn't interested in solo'ing the Dark Zone. Mostly I was just doing runs to get intel and get those achievements ticket off. High Value Targets could have been interesting but without a regular fire team, I've found that missions with randoms have got to a point where we weren't communicating as we all knew what needed to be done
The Underground Expansion has surfaced and this has breathed new life into game. With my gear score at around the 170 mark, the Incursions are all out of reach and the HVT always end up with me running around a bus to avoid the boss heavy.
With the underground missions, I'm actually getting different scenery and layouts and I can run a normal level mission in 20 mins or so. Within the first 3 missions, I've gone up to 183 GS (that rate of increase has dipped in the few I've done since).
I do need to get back into the First Time Plays (I've claimed the free PSN and Gold games but just not played them in June), and there are some play lists that I have the video's done and just need to upload.
Ah yes, the upload issue again ...
Bye for now.
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