Currently playing...

[Deckard]

Never really played Twilight Princess on the Cube as apparently it has some of the best Zelda dungeons so now playing through in 4k and 60fps + (before the OOT remake lands) using Dusklight on my Mac and its incredible especially with the 4k texture packs and other associated home-brew tweaks -

[MattyP]

Jumping between Gears of War - E-Day and Hellraiser: Revival on Series X.

Gears is just fantastic - especially with a few mates. The Campaign lacks the sort of set pieces present in the earlier games (great Prologue, though..) but taking part in Gears history (as a fan of the books) is paradoxically nostalgic!

Horde Siege is where the co-op fun really happens, though. Grinding levels is in no way a chore like some games because it's co-op Gears!

And Hellraiser? Well feck me. A love letter (y'know - "love" with hooks, guns, boxes, dildos, etc.) to Barker's magnus. Pretty linear with a spammable save/load mechanic but so far pretty excellent. Gore with t 'n a. Never really frightening but satisfying combat and simple resource management and crafting so it's never a chore.

Currently playing through the original Gears (again!). This time on the PS5 which is a novelty. Kind of like playing Sonic on a Nintendo machine for the first time! Still as fun as ever - like how the radio comms comes out of the speaker on the DualSense (when I've not got the headphones on!). Currently just found the first Bezerker... No longer have an Xbox or GamePass sub so don't have access to E-Day. Looks great though from what I've seen!

Other than that booted up Cruisin' Blast on the Switch which I've had for a while (picked up in a sale) but not put much time into it. It's immense fun and has simple arcade mechanics with lots of eye candy and sounds. Entertaining and a great pick up and play game.

I did pick up Silent Hill Townfall as I liked the idea of the setting (Scotland) however just can't get into it. Had a couple of hours or so when I launched. Feels very dated to play and its FPS which doesn't really work for Silent Hill games for me. So that was a waste of money and from the feedback I've been reading it doesn't get better with torturous stealth sections. Ah well. Live and learn. I may go back again at some point but it's not pulling me in.

TBH suffering a bit from game fatigue again at the moment.. well new releases. Finding them too long and although they have lovely visuals etc - old game designs. May get my mojo back but enjoying playing games that require less time and are fun in short bursts with simple controls. Anything more involved when I come back to play I have to relearn the controls and where I was at in the story!

[Misfit]

I'm actually playing something, which is always a surprise.

Over the hill, a new off roading game with very little purpose other than to drive around. It's actually very relaxing and quite compelling (and only £11 if you get the key from Loaded)



Plays beautifully on the Machine, Deck and....

Ayn Odin 3!

(Anyone want an OLED Deck in perfect condition, I now have the main TV back as my son has gone to uni, so the Machine/Odin have me covered now).

[Misfit]

Not currently playing, but keep hovering over the buy button for Star Wars Galactic Racer.

The fact it has rouge lite elements troubles me, but a lot of people seem to have gotten over it who were troubled too...

[SuperMappy]

I just bought Tempest X3 for the PS1. It was dirt cheap on Ebay. How is this generally received? I sold my Jaguar years ago and Tempest 2000 went with it.

[MattyP]

I'm actually playing something, which is always a surprise.

Over the hill, a new off roading game with very little purpose other than to drive around. It's actually very relaxing and quite compelling (and only £11 if you get the key from Loaded)



Plays beautifully on the Machine, Deck and....

Ayn Odin 3!

(Anyone want an OLED Deck in perfect condition, I now have the main TV back as my son has gone to uni, so the Machine/Odin have me covered now).

Looks interesting saw this a bit back but have a fairly substantial backlog of games I've not played ATM... It's on the list!

[MattyP]

I just bought Tempest X3 for the PS1. It was dirt cheap on Ebay. How is this generally received? I sold my Jaguar years ago and Tempest 2000 went with it.

From Wiki:-

Tempest X3
Tempest X3, the Sony PlayStation version, was released in 1996, with updated graphics and sound, although the following gameplay differences from the original version were identified by Jeff Minter in a Usenet post:[33]

The "AI Droid" only follows the player, instead of acting autonomously. A new, "Mega Droid" powerup rectifies this somewhat, but it takes a very long time within a level to acquire it.
Pulsars now move slowly around the top of the Web if they reach it (rather than electrifying the whole top edge the moment they arrive).
The Particle Laser is no more effective than the normal laser against Spikes (in the original, it destroys them very quickly).
Some of the harder, "sticking point" webs have been removed from the game entirely.
Entering the name "YIFF!" or "H_V_S" on the top highscore position activates a secret mode, allowing the user to play the original Tempest 2000 game.[34] Any high scores made in this mode are not saved, the music (wave-captured from the original modules) is muffled and the effectiveness of the Particle Laser against spikes is not restored.

The PlayStation version of Tempest X3 supports the PlayStation Mouse, Nyko Trackball and Namco's rotary neGcon analog controller.[35]

Never played the PS version of T2K - although I did the Saturn version which was pretty faithull.

The Jag version was always the best though IMHO - its on the Atari 50th Anniversary pack if you have access to hardware that can run that - nice little collection. It seems to be on sale pretty regularly too. Have it on Switch and it runs great.

[Misfit]

Spent a lot of time on the Odin 3 last night and was up late enough to place a preorder for the Odin 3 portal and I'll decide which size I prefer.

This thing is freaking awesome! Seriously one of the best bits of kit I've played with in ages.

Using DroidDeck (probably easiest way to run Steam on Android, but new and developing fast) played a few things perfectly (Over the hill, Terminator 2D, the new Castlevania demo). Sure it's not going to be awesome for AAA, but that's not why I want it (or why I wanted a Deck)

Had a quick blast with Amazon Luna streaming as it has Galactic Racer and a recent Sonic game for 'free' if you have Prime, seemed to perform really well.

Then spent about 2 hours messing with Vita3k with Gemini advising trying to get TxK to run, but it kept crashing at the end of the first level, then notice a fork called Vita3k+ which worked instantly and prefectly.

TxK is just so good (much better than 4K in my opinon, and took the crown from T2K for me) and to having it running on another glorious OLED was just a dream.

Is TxK a little easier? I actually got quite far, maybe that's why I like it!

[MattyP]

Spent a lot of time on the Odin 3 last night and was up late enough to place a preorder for the Odin 3 portal and I'll decide which size I prefer.

This thing is freaking awesome! Seriously one of the best bits of kit I've played with in ages.

Using DroidDeck (probably easiest way to run Steam on Android, but new and developing fast) played a few things perfectly (Over the hill, Terminator 2D, the new Castlevania demo). Sure it's not going to be awesome for AAA, but that's not why I want it (or why I wanted a Deck)

Had a quick blast with Amazon Luna streaming as it has Galactic Racer and a recent Sonic game for 'free' if you have Prime, seemed to perform really well.

Then spent about 2 hours messing with Vita3k with Gemini advising trying to get TxK to run, but it kept crashing at the end of the first level, then notice a fork called Vita3k+ which worked instantly and prefectly.

TxK is just so good (much better than 4K in my opinon, and took the crown from T2K for me) and to having it running on another glorious OLED was just a dream.

Is TxK a little easier? I actually got quite far, maybe that's why I like it!

Tempest 4K with PSVR2 is quite nice - the OLED panels in that help too!

[MattyP]

Just to add if anyone is looking for some T4K action on their Switchss currently at the insane price of £2.40 on eStore until the 26th October!

https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Ni ... 77160.html

[grue]

The Drifter

Point and click adventures are my favourite genre and this is probably one of the best ever made. Beautiful art and animation, perfect voice acting, the most original pacing of its kind and a David Lynch like story (still haven't finished it so put and asterisk here). Good stuff!

[VNVObit]

Splitting my time between Starfield which I picked up during a sale. Enjoying it so far (only 21 hours in)
The quick travel feature is helpful particularly avoiding traipsing back to the ship after trekking along planet surfaces.


And Diablo 4 which my PS5 tells me I have spent 788 hours playing so really got my money's worth out of the game. Picked up the latest expansion pack (on sale) and enjoying some of new mechanics. have found the various seasons fun as I work my way through all the various classes (Necromancer still a favourite). Currently playing a paladin which I'm finding fun now as it's an amazing tank (have been cycling through Necromance, Rogue and Sorcerer ). Will give the warlock a whirl next season

[MattyP]

Stuck the 360 on today and played some things on there - mainly Midway Arcade Treasures (Roboton, Defender and Smash TV). Then a few other games - quick to download and less noise to get to the games and simple controls. Something to be said about keeping things simple!

Probably end up mostly playing Switch 2 and the 360 TBH not interested in GTA 6. Really not sure at times why I have a PS5 spend most of my time playing old games…

[NorthWay]

I am not playing anything at the moment.
I _am_ arguing with myself whether to jump on the "WoW Forever" bandwagon. So far I am lucky enough that the need to buy a new gfx card is putting a strong dampener on the desire...

[grue]

Queen's Domain

Tribute to the King's Field games, which I've never played. Hard but satisfying with PS1 graphics' style. Good stuff!