ugvm

the site of uk.games.video.misc

Starlink: Battle for Atlas (Switch): COMPLETED!

Posted on Written by

You know what? It’s actually pretty good. I assumed, due to the dismal sales and very little game news fanfare, that Starlink was rubbish, but in fact it was a lot of fun.

Coming out just after the death of Plastic Game Tat (Lego Dimensions, Disney Infinity, Skylanders) was a bad first impression, but I picked up the Switch starter kit with physical Star Fox ship (which is obviously Switch exclusive and adds a bit to the story) for just over a tenner a while back and decided to give it a go this week. If they’d not bothered with all the figures and ships – as I didn’t – this probably would have sold much better.

The gameplay is pretty simple. Jet from planet to planet clearing out the bad guys (get rid of spires first to make the “boss” easier), all the while making friends, building outposts, and basically gaining territory from the enemy. Once you’ve done enough, you can build special towers, build one in each region of the solar system and you gain access to the final boss area, then go in and shoot him.

The core mechanics of gaining ground and allies, while fending off the attacks, are almost real-time strategy-like, and the combat is simple but fun. It’s not a fantastic game but it’s sadly overlooked and deserves a play. It’s a bit Star Fox, a bit No Man’s Sky, and a bit musou, but it works well.

The post Starlink: Battle for Atlas (Switch): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Assassin’s Creed Origins: The Hidden Ones (PS4): COMPLETED!

Posted on Written by

After a little time away playing other stuff, I went back to The Most Impressive Game this week to do some of the DLC. I’d previously put maybe an hour or two into The Hidden Ones, but now I’ve finished it off.

It’s more of the same, really. That’s not a complaint, just a fact. And it’s all I wanted, actually. It feels a bit rougher, with less impressive terrain and a lot more places where they seem to have forgotten about the rock formation geometry (translation: some of the cliffs have holes in them), but it was just as fun as the rest of the game.

The post Assassin’s Creed Origins: The Hidden Ones (PS4): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Yakuza Kiwami (PS4): COMPLETED!

Posted on Written by

All the Yakuza games are, effectively, the same. Sure, they have different stories (although they’re not really that different), and some have different characters, but ultimately, they’re the same. And actually, that’s just fine.

Kiwami is a remake of the first Yakuza game, which I’ve never played. I knew some of the plot as there’s a brief catchup video before Yakuza 3 (my first Yakuza) and the others I’ve played reference it, but I was looking forward to doing it “properly”. Turns out it’s the usual backstabbing, betrayal, plot twists and punching everyone in the face. This time with added bikini girls dressed up as insects. No, really.

I won’t go into the plot as it isn’t that important, but it was a bit of a shock how Nishiki changed since Yakuza 0. There’s also a “feature” called “Majima Everywhere”, which is pretty self explanatory – Majima pops up constantly in the game and you have to fight him. Doing so lets you relearn all your forgotten Dragon stance moves, but in reality it’s just padding the game out and I rarely used Dragon stance anyway.

So I completed it (although actually completion percentage is just 26%!), and then wanted to start Kiwami 2 straight afterwards. Only I couldn’t because I hadn’t bought it in the PSN sale last month when I thought I had. Tch.

The post Yakuza Kiwami (PS4): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Hyper Sentinel (Switch): COMPLETED!

Posted on Written by

I’ll be honest, shooters are not really my bag, and I was never a fan of Uridium, which this is clearly a modern(ish) update of. Sure, there are shooters I do like, and I’m a fairly recent convert to the Church of Fantasy Zone, but I’m just making my stance clear.

I bought Hyper Sentinel because it code me about three pence. And that’s not even an exaggeration – it was 9 cents on the US eShop, and I had some Gold Points to bring it down even lower. The first few attempts at playing it were foiled by a crash-to-black screen, but eventually, I managed to get past that.

Each level is one screen high and several screens wide, with a sort of space ship or something that you fly over. The aim is to shoot all the targets on the ship, which triggers a boss fight. Beat that, and you do the next level. Do all 13 levels, and that’s it. And that was it – it wasn’t hard at all.

I think the point is, well, points. It’s an arcade game so you play it like a score attack, which isn’t really for me. I’d have preferred more levels instead, but what is there was fun enough.

The post Hyper Sentinel (Switch): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.