Earthbound and Dune 05.01.16

While the Playstation Network was down for some maintenance this week I took the opportunity to play a bit more of Grow Home (PS4) and while the first time I picked it up I nothing really grabbed me about it, this time I really liked it. At first glance it looks like a modern 3D platformer but in terms of gameplay the only things it seems to have taken from the likes of Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie is an occasionally erratic camera and some item collecting. The robot I was in control of is purposely loose in his movement, even on the rare occasion you find yourself on stable footing he wobbles about, it looks really charming. The big concept in the game is climbing, the shoulder buttons relating to which hand grips to the surface to ascend higher (I’m making it sound way more complicated than it is) and pretty much at the start I was given a large plant to get up (like a beanstalk) with the aim of getting back to the robots spaceship. It wasn’t long before I was at daunting heights and a mistake with my grip saw me tumbling back to the bottom. Checkpoints appear at different heights in the form of pads you can teleport too. The placement of these seem well balanced, neither too easy or hard. Soon other concepts are layered on, like growing parts of the plant to get to other platforms (and grow the main stalk of the plant), a flower which acts a consumable parachute and a jetpack, the game doesn’t seem intimidating at any point because you can always see where your aiming to get to high up in the sky. There have been some delightful touches scattered through the game so far, like finding a dodo running about in a cave. The humour has been good so far too, apart from one joke about making a .GIF of me falling, which seemed out of place. 

Once my Playstation was back online I had a chance to play a bit of the Destiny (PS4) expansions, getting through the Dark Below missions in a sitting and I’ve moved onto the House of Wolves levels. Its been interesting playing through it after all the dust as has settled, the first expansion seems really short, especially for the original price, good to have more to play of it. The second seems to be reacting to the fact that its predecessor is so limited, its much harder, with some more inventive touches. The whole package seems like good value now it comes with the third expansion as well (and it certainly seems like good value if bought with the base game) and now everything in the game seems much clearer in terms of how to level up and follow quests the proposition of a sequel or further expansions this year is really exciting.