The Backlog Check-in Vol. 31: 8/4/18: We Happy Few Edition

[Phaseknox]

Played: Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

Finished: Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

Playing: ?

I had a good time playing through all of the Uncharted games, yes even Uncharted and Uncharted 3. I was harder on those two than I should have been, but of course the highlights for me were Uncharted 2, Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy. They're some of the best games that I've played.

I don't know what I'm going to play now.

We Happy Few comes out next week.

[canedaddy]

No edition???? Madden, We Happy Few, Overcooked 2?

Played last week: Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask, Destiny 2

Finished: Layton

Added to backlog: Siralim 2, Mount & Blade: Warband

Current backlog: 35 (14 PS4, 11 Vita, 5 3DS/2DS, 5 PS2)

I finished Miracle Mask... another great Layton game. Are they still making those for Switch or is the series dead?

Also got in a little time with Destiny 2. I'm enjoying it, great shooting in cool environments, but the loot system and currency stuff are still an issue like in the last one. I never have what I need to buy anything. I don't even have a Sparrow yet, and I've been to all of the planets and done most of the side stuff.

[jfissel]

Finished: Nothing

Now Playing: Assassin's Creed: Syndicate

Added to Backlog: Nothing

Current Backlog: 29 games

Still enjoying Ass Creed: Syndicate - I've gotten access to some good weapons and skills now, so my life is a little easier when dealing with enemies.

Cane, after Miracle Mask is Azran Legacy for 3DS and then Layton's Mystery Journey for 3DS/Mobile (and Switch this year, unsure if it's already out).

[Phaseknox]

No edition???? Madden, We Happy Few, Overcooked 2?

Fixed.

[canedaddy]

Thanks, Phase.

j, did you play all of those?

[jfissel]

Azran Legacy and Layton's Mystery Journey are in my backlog, but I may try to squeeze in Azran Legacy before Dragon Quest XI comes out. We'll see.

[canedaddy]

Glad to hear it's still alive.

I'm still unsure of whether to get DQXI on release day and start playing it, knowing I won't finish before RDR2, or to wait until after I finish Red Dead. Leaning toward the latter (which sounds crazy given how much I love DQ).

[Phaseknox]

I started playing Batman: Arkham Knight, and it's been kind of meh so far. It doesn't look much better than the previous gen Batman Arkham games, and just playing Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy isn't doing it any favors either. They managed to once again come up with a reason why there's no people in the city except for criminals, and cops. Yawn.

What I've played so far doesn't really seem much different from Arkham City and Arkham Origins before it. You free roam in a somewhat small and empty open city at night fighting the criminal element. This was great the first time in Arkham City which was an excellent game from start to finish, but Arkham Origins was a rehash cash grab that was completely unnecessary and just reused the same exact city and assets from Arkham City making it feel more like an expansion than a new standalone game in the series.

Arkham Knight so far feels like Arkham City 1.5 by basically being more of the same that was offered in that game. Sure you can drive the Batmobile/tank now, but it doesn't add THAT much to the experience IMO. In fact, I've heard that it hinders the experience since apparently there's a lot of repetitive missions where you have to do battle in the tank.

I'm going to give it more of a chance to see if it starts to appeal to me, but I think that this series might have peaked with Arkham City.

Edit: I'm done with Batman: Arkham Knight, there's way too much of a focus on vehicle combat. They couldn't just give you the Batmobile to drive around... nope. They had to also make it transform into a tank, and then pack the game with tank combat. No thanks, I bought a Batman game to play as Batman not to play a tank combat game.

[canedaddy]

That was fast.

I finished Destiny 2 this afternoon. Like I said earlier, great combat and movement, cool worlds... crappy gameplay flow/structure/currency/leveling/loot systems. Also I'm totally over the Bungie storytelling. I was rolling my eyes down the stretch... "The Traveler, The Almighty, The Cabal," yada yada yada. I can't bring myself to stick around doing strikes and whatnot.

So I fired up... No Man's Sky. Not sure what to make of that one. First try I was on an ice planet... soon froze to death. :p I restarted and next time I was on a fire planet. This time I read up on what you need to do to survive. Got my ship fixed and moved on to a cool blue/rain planet. Harvested rocks/plants, jumped around, scanned a big turtle thing, built a shack....

I like the exploration concept a lot, though the fact the planets are littered with stuff from previous visitors/civilizations is a turnoff. I really thought it would make you feel like you're the first person landing there. Ah well. Not sure how long I'll stick with it... we'll see.

[Phaseknox]

I decided to play Everybody's Golf because I wanted to play something fun, and that's exactly what it is. It's almost like a golf RPG... almost. I like the additions that make it a deeper and more content rich experience compared to the previous Hot Shots Golf games, but so far it seems to somewhat lack the character/course personality of those games perhaps because there's a big focus on online play.