Earthbound and Dune 23.10.17

With a little bit of spare time over the past week I played some Horizon Zero Dawn (PS4), I was dubious about starting another long, open world game and initially glad I'd had a decent break between Breath of the Wild and this game. It starts out very traditionally, given a limited area to play in with not many tools it provides an environment to learn the basics, explain why the main character inherits a bluetooth headset and show of how beautiful the game looks. At the same time I was really impressed with the character work, straight away I felt invested in the main character and her father figure. Things moved along pretty briskly over the first four hours or so, introducing robot dinosaurs, at the moment the game hasn't really explained them beyond they look cool, I'm looking forward to reasoning behind the grazing forms of these machines. The plot aimed toward a proving, or test for my character and once that had happened things got a lot more serious. I'm in two minds about how the game actually plays, combat is good, a lot of use of a bow and the melee attack takes some getting used too. Running about is good and its fun once I gained the ability to ride about on robot dinosaurs. Climbings a massive pain in the ass, especially as Breath of the Wild (Its slightly unfair to use such a fantastic game as a comparison) was so strong on the go anywhere/climb anything philosophy. In Horizon its not really clear what can be climbed, so I spend a lot of time awkwardly jumping up the sides of rock faces, it just looks odd. I say its not clear, but then it is in places, some rock faces and structures have been coloured yellow and these are signs that I can jump up. This leads to my main issue with the game so far, its giving the illusion of being an open world game in the vein of Metal Gear Solid V (another amazing game) but actually so far its been restricting what I can do and where I can go. I'll preserver for now, I'm about 6 hours in, but I'm still awaiting the game really clicking for me. That I'm accepting of spending a good chunk of time with a game to really start enjoying it isn't a great thing. 

The other main issue I have with this game is the menus on top of menus, upgrades and perks are continually being offered to me and thats cool, but it all got overly complex. I've mentioned another game which was quite restrictive on how much you can carry but Horizon takes it to a whole new level by requiring crafting of individual pouches for medicines, ammo, perks and materials. I found it all quite overwhelming and not that intuitive. I'm going to carry on with it because the game looks beautiful, the characters are interesting and there has been a few moments that in action the game plays really well, especially an early assault on an enemy camp. It's a game thats got a lot going for it but i'm not sure how much of thats for me.

I finished Golf Story (Switch) in quite a hefty seventeen hours. This came as quite a shock to me as I don't really know where the time went, it was a joyous experience throughout full of funny moments and different ways of interpreting the actions of a golf game into an RPG. It got glitchy in places, I froze up in conversations a few times and had Birdie Chance burnt into the screen for a section of the game strangely. Nothing game breaking but rather annoying. The final "boss" of the game was much harder than anything I'd played leading up to it and took me a number of attempts, at first I couldn't imagine completing it but then with a little bit of strategy, the wind in my favour and a glorious Eagle at the last I did it and the game wrapped up. It was strange that two of the main early story beats weren't really mentioned, one I thought would have been addressed (unless I missed some side quest). On the whole I really enjoyed the game, it was engaging and well written throughout. Well worth the price for entry. 

Earthbound and Dune 10.10.17

Where to start? After a long break from writing any kind of update, for no particular reason either.

The summer has been spent playing some great games, Life is Strange: Before the Storm, Sonic Mania and Mario X  Rabbids: Kingdom Rush to name a few. Whereas the summer tends to be a wasteland for decent things to play and more to catch up on earlier in the year. This year it’s really felt like the quality of games over the has improved and made a year when personally I’ve been struggling to be inspired to play a lot of video games seem a lot better. Sonic Mania was an absolute joy to play, apart from the last two levels. The first chapter of the new Life is Strange was a fantastic story and one I wasn’t expecting to like as much as I did, and real surprise! Finally in terms of surprises Mario X Rabbids is a wonderfully addictive strategy game where the biggest surprise is how some of the Rabbid humour has stuck and actually made me laugh.

So onto what I’ve actually been playing recently and the last week or so I’ve played a ton of Golf Story (Switch). An RPG which is built around a more traditional three click way of playing golf, neither the depth of the golf or the RPG is enough to make a great game but by combining the two it finds a sweet spot where the game is funny, charming and addictive. The writing is very amusing, the sense of humour is very self depreciating both to the sport of golf and the characters. Every achievement made in the game is downplayed by the supporting cast, from your drive being too short to when you finally win a tournament. The early hours of the game are all perfectly fine but the game really hits its stride when it builds a relationship between the character being played, the coach, your rival and her coach. There is a particularly memorable dinner scene between the four. 

The game itself beyond the story isn’t as much golf as I was expecting, playing a few rounds here and there, interspersed with less traditional tasks like hunting for treasure and hitting targets. That being said the golf in the game is perfectly serviceable and when I was playing rounds in tournaments and against other characters it was exciting and fun, more so because the sport is used so sparingly. It also introduces disk golf, which was at first infuriating as the game has a whole new system of mechanics for it. Once I picked it up though it was a nice respite from other tasks. 

The game is nothing special to look at, suffering slightly from an oversaturated market on 16bit style games, but still has a certain charm. The courses themselves have a nice variety on traditional grass courses. The music is the worst part of an otherwise great game, the looping of the music on some levels can sound a bit like a child practicing an instrument. Sound effects are great though and the HD rumble is used to great effect!

By the looks of it I’d say at around 6 hours in Im half way through the game and it’s only getting better as I go. 

Posted by Pip