Be Excellent To Each Other

Currently playing through a selection of games on PS+ and Control seems to be the one that’s settled in. Largely streaming this to my PS Portal

I have vague recollections that this was a really well reviewed title a few years ago. Anyway, it’s good. Brutally fucking hard on a joypad to start with, so I tweaked some of the settings to make it a little easier for me, but still challenging. YMMV
Looks good, it’s set in a brutalist style massive concrete and wood edifice circa 1960s. Shady government back plot involving some dodgy supernatural phenomena having over run this building. No idea what’s going on, I just do what I’m told. It isn’t too hand holdy or too “wtf am I supposed to do now”, either
Plays well, looks good

Fallout 4 (Steamdeck) this has turned into my “20 mins to kill” game. And y’know what, I might actually finish this bloody game one day. It’s been installed on my deck since I bought one and the real tangible beauty of this device is the near instant “on” and playing functionality of it. It’s transformative to have a device that you can pick up and be playing again within 5-10 secs when a lot of the consoles can and do take minutes at best.
Anyway. I’m level 57 and a wasteland badass, just perambulating about mopping side quests up while pondering which faction to side with for the first run at an ending.

There are many more games I’m nibbling at, such as Avowed, Dragon’s Age, Returnal, metaphor rephantasia or whatever it’s called

Control seemed to have a lot of potential but it didn't stick with me in the end. I think I did a few hours on it. Probably one that I need to restart if I go back to it (which I probably should).

How are you finding the PS Portal?

It nails the feel for sure but it's arguably ten hours too long.

There's some DLC coming for it that's a rogue-like thing based in the OCP tower. So that might be more shooty, less talky. You play as the non-Robo Murphy at some point in it too.

Control had me until the first "boss" fight. The difficulty spike stopped it being fun for me and I never went back

Yeah, an annoying boss battle and a poorly timed checkpoint is all it takes for me to fuck games off. Life’s too short for that shite.

I’m liking the Portal. It seems to work as intended, particularly for streaming games from the PS+ catalogue.
I’ve used it while away for the weekend and this function appears to work better than streaming an actual game from your PS5. The problem with that is there’s little or nothing you can do if it decides it can’t connect to your PS5

So. It’s a little niche, tbh, but I like it

Oh, I definitely tweaked the settings as it’s very hard otherwise. It’s made the game far more enjoyable. The map system isn’t great. But then, a lot of games have shit maps
Anyway, I’m only a few hours in and nailed that first boss fight second time. The thing is, there is a lot of secondary info you pick up, so slowing down and reading the stuff you find basically tells you what to do

Still stuck with the two boss fights in the Elden Ring DLC. But I’m pootling around and mopping up other bits I’ve missed, including grabbing some oddball gear.

I really dug Control, the setting and the story took a few beats to click for me, but once it did I was really into it. Super atmosphere, that unsettling feeling of creeping dread and the sinister undercurrent were very well done.

Very atmospheric and a few of the set pieces were incredible. Once the player starts getting new skills and items it really opens up gameplay-wise. There were a few tough bits and a few I ended up really cheesing my way through.

I really like how the companions chat and fill in some of the back story and respond. It was cool when I went wandering off and one of them went 'hey, the objective is over here' and the other said 'oh it's ok, he loves looting and will come back'

Another time, a companion said 'hey you don't miss anything do ya' as I was busy hunting for chests. It was really cool and immersive - a simple touch but impactful.

Yeah, I've just finished the main story and thoroughly enjoyed the whole game. There's a section of map that opens in vanaheim after a certain point, the level design is amazing, I just love wandering around doing all the side missions and trying to figure out all the paths.

As I finished gow, I am playing jedi survivor, the fighting feels so woolly after gow, and maybe even compared to the previous game, but blimey, the graphics are amazing. It's like being in Star wars.

It was too unsettling for me. I’ve become less resilient to that kind of thing (or realised if I’m not enjoying it, why bother).

RoboCop Rogue City is in the PS Monthly games for April, so I downloaded it and had a go.

It's really atmospheric and the presentation and design are great, it looks, sounds and feels like a shabby run down city. The voice acting is quite well done, I thought. The devs clearly had love for the project but a relatively low budget.

But the graphics are a bit glitchy and the character models seem janky and inconsistent, especially the cutscenes which do seem pretty glitchy and jarring. In some cutscenes Robo looks undersized, like basically the size and stature of the other police just with some tin foil trays taped to his legs and chest, but in other cutscenes he looks like a proper hulking giant.

It doesn't seem like a hard game but you do have to keep an eye out to manage health and repair kits a bit. I'm really considering putting it on easy mode so that I can blast through it without worrying much, so that I can feel like RoboCop blowing away the bad guys and mowing through the baddies.