Games I’ve Played Recently and Why

It’s been a while since I’ve updated the site, so I thought I’d quickly run through the games I’ve been playing since I last touched base with my (two or three) readers!

Obviously, with Christmas, my first big time-consuming effort came on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. I didn’t do a review of Valhalla because I was too busy deciding whether I liked it or not. Look, I love the Assassins’ Creed games, and this is as beautiful as they come, but deep down I have a fundamental problem with it – it isn’t an Assassin’s Creed game.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

AC Valhalla is like unwrapping a Christmas present to find a box with Adidas branding on it. You’re excited, because you think you have Adidas trainers, but when you open it up, your Mum has used an old box to package for new PlayStation 4 games in. You’re happy, because it’ a decent present, but you really wanted Adidas trainers. That’s AC Valhalla. It says AC on the box, the branding is all AC, but it just isn’t. It’s a hack ‘n’ slash RPG, a fun Nordic romp through medieval England. It is as far removed from AC Syndicate and all that came before it as any of the other games on my list, and I’ve played a game set in New York featuring a man who dresses up as a red spider.

Eivor Wolf-Kissed’s story is deep, it is engrossing and beautiful to look at, but an assault on a castle cannot go one of two ways. Even with Odyssey and Origins, there was elements of stealth that meant you could be in and out of an outpost before anyone knew you’d drawn your weapon. That just isn’t the case with Valhalla, the only way is full on assault, usually with all your pals backing you up. It takes away the essence of Assassin’s Creed for me, which is a little disappointing.

If you forget it is branded as an instalment of the popular franchise, then it is a very good game. I would draw a little short of saying it is a great game, it lacks some of the elements and depth of Odyssey and as I understand it, Ubisoft entrust each game to a different studio. This is a more refined, narrative-driven adventure, where the only real rewards for straying off course are the views. For me it takes away some of the beauty of the previous two games, the free-roam ability and levelling up. It didn’t matter where you went in the last game, enemies were at your level, so the challenge was consistent. I wandered into Nottinghamshire (or whatever they have changed it to) and instantly got my ass handed to me but trained warriors. When I first loaded up, I was desperate to go to Lincolnshire, but couldn’t because it was above my station.

I could forgive the last two games for leaving the core principles of the franchise behind, because they let me play how I wanted, but for a game about colonisation and creating a new free England, there was an awful lot of rather linear pathways to take. At present, I have still ploughed 70 hours into the game, but I haven’t picked it up since Christmas Eve. I will do, but I got an unexpected gem from Santa (actually, it was a belated birthday present that came with my Xmas stuff) which changed my gaming patterns immediately.

Marvel’s Spider-Man

Hilarious, isn’t it. I have a football podcast on which I regularly take the Michael out of my co-host for liking superhero films and games. Ever since they were branded ‘not real films’ by Martin Scorsese, I have been ribbing Ben about his obsession with bright colours and explosions. Then, just before Christmas, I got the original Spider-Man to play.

I got it because I researched ‘great games you might have missed’ and it kept popping up. I’ve never fallen foul of licensed games, ever since playing Dick Tracey on the Commodore 64. An official license used to mean lots of sparkle and no substance, and frankly there have been better things to play. Enter Peter Parker.

Spider-Man has a bit of everything. The story is good, structured and direct, but you don’t feel restricted. New York is teeming with fun things to do, usually assaulting a base, fighting baddies committing a crime or scaling buildings to find collectibles. The latter sounds boring, until you get to use Spidey’s range of toys – it is the mechanics which make this game great. Once you grasp the fundamentals of traversing the city, it makes fats travel null and void. Never have I enjoyed travelling from one end of a map to another, and I’m not sure I will find anything quite as pleasurable again.

I thrashed the arse out of this game, from Christmas Day until I completed it a fortnight later. The boss battles were fun, challenging enough for me to die a couple of times, not so challenging that the disc went out of the window and my controller immediately after it. At one part (and I won’t say which in case you haven’t played it) I genuinely had a tear in my eye. I always say that a game can look and sound great, it can be original and packed with depth and options, but if it isn’t fun to play, it may as well be a doggy back of mess hung from a hedge at a popular beauty spot. That described Watchdogs Legion, but not this. Spider-Man might be an old game (you can get it dead cheap here if you haven’t played yet) but it is almost essential gaming for last-gen console owners.

Just Cause 4

Just Cause 4 came about for two reasons. Firstly, I was so taken aback by how fun Spider-man was, I wanted to play a game that let me swing about like Tarzan. Secondly, it was free on PS Plus, so it seemed a bit of a no-brainer. Also, my brother got into it and I hoped we might play together, although there is no multiplayer which is a shame.

I can go on about the good things in Just Cause – it is fun to play again, which is essential, and it looks bright and bold. Blowing stuff up is always fun and this is a game which allows you to attach a rocket to a goat and send it flying up a mountain. It is fun, wacky and imaginative, but after fewer than ten hours I didn’t just rage quit, I deleted it in anger.

There are a couple of things which made me angry here. Firstly, I didn’t really know what the hell was going on. The tutorials were unclear, and I had less idea about the purpose of the game after five hours than I did after the intro. I found myself playing for hours at a time just trying to beat my brothers record for using a parachute and grapple hook to climb a mountain, rather than doing anything constructive. I did one mission marked on my map where I had to hijack a car. It seemed easy until suddenly, the mission objective disappeared, and to track the car I had to keep pressing R3 – even then it would just appear as ‘vehicle’, rather than an objective. Eventually, after about five uncertain minutes tracking the vehicle, I hijacked it and got told to crash and kill the occupant. I did that, driving into some exploding barrels, and I failed the mission. No idea why.

I thought I’d try to crack on and do the missions as my brother was enjoying it hugely. He had been on a mission called ‘Zona Tres Upload’ for a while, so I thought I’d give that ago. Look, I know games must be challenging, but this was utterly ridiculous to a point where I would scream at the TV. The point is to defend some equipment which hoards of enemies try to down it, but it just seemed utterly impossible. You fight off a load of guys, but then three or four more show up in different locations with rocket launchers. You take them out, then two helicopters show up too, and they must be dealt with. It is possible, Paul (my bro) proved it after three nights, but one slip of the finger, one misplaced bullet, and you’re back to the beginning. Paul isn’t known for his patience and he took three nights. On the second night, I was done.

I didn’t finish playing there, I chose another mission which involved having to turn off four consoles on an enemy base within 90 seconds, which again proved to be virtually impossible. I know t isn’t, others have completed it, but I couldn’t and the more I failed, the angrier I got. Eventually, I just turned it off and deleted the game in rage. End of story.

Just Cause 3

I know, right? I find Just Cause 4 too hard and too confusing, so I buy Just Cause 3. Well, I did some research and it seems fans of the series prefer the first game, released on Xbox 360 and PS3, more than the fourth. Its structure is clearer, it is more fun to play and despite still being difficult, it came highly recommended. Thus far, I have put six or seven hours in, and am already quite pleased. It seems much more obvious where you should go (everywhere) and what you should blow up (everything). I turned it on last night for a quick session at 9pm, and was still blowing up full tanks at midnight. You see, I want a game which grabs me by the balls and tells me to love it, a game which I feel I can beat, but don’t simply walk through it. I also quite like a game which costs less than a McDonalds, rather than forking out £50 for something so utterly awful I’d rather have burned a £50 note because at least I would have got five seconds decent visuals out of it. That’s Just Cause (the other was Watchdogs Legion, in case you wondered).

That’s where I am right now. Saving for a PS5 but ardently trawling the back catalogue of PS4 games for a hit release I may have missed. After Spider-Man, I am convinced there are enough gams out there to keep me happy until Sony get the PS5 into shops, and maybe even drop the price. As for right now, I am literally going to upload this, then go and pick up my rocket launcher on a game released in 2015, and enjoy it as much as something that dropped last weekend.

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