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It Takes Two (PS5): COMPLETED!

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Seems these days that games I’m interested in playing end up free somewhere if I just wait a while. It Takes Two is one of those titles, as there it is, on PS+++++ (I forget how many +).

It’s a two player co-op title, with players each taking control of a heading-for-divorce couple who, because of magic or something prompted by their young child being upset with Mummy and Daddy arguing, have been turned into toys. You know, standard stuff. Each level they’re individually given different abilities, and you use these together to navigate a very Honey I Shrunk The Kids world, from a garden shed to a greenhouse and a tree.

Guiding you (and, clearly, hindering your progress) is a sentient Book of Love who explains that the obstacles and challenges you face are allegories for the relationship issues you’re having and overcoming them will bring you closer together again. There’s platforming, puzzling, spider-riding, shooting, and a wide variety of situations to deal with along the way, and none of the gimmicks last long enough to become stale. Despite the happy colours and generally upbeat and humorous events, there are some pretty dark places the game goes to, with a level where your “mission” is to set out and “kill” your daughter’s favourite stuffed toy (trigger warning: you cut off a limb and horribly maim a cute elephant who is screaming pleas for you to stop) just to make your girl cry. Horrible.

It’s a very pretty game, but I did find some issues in with the audio. Cut scenes suffered from silence (but only the voices), or sound and video went out of sync. Reading up, some others with the same problems suggested changing the PS5’s audio format from (or to) PCM or other possible options, but no matter the setting it made no difference. Seems it affects other platforms too. Jarring, but I have subtitles on so that helped a bit.

Other than that, it was a great, varied, and sometimes clever game, which works really well as a co-op title.

Lego Horizon Adventures (PS5): COMPLETED!

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Had some time off ill (yay crippling Covid!) with my daughter so found this cheap to play through together whilst exhaustion drained my life force. It’s a Lego reimagining of the PlayStation Horizon Zero Dawn game, only isn’t really like all the many other Lego games by TT Games perhaps because it isn’t by TT Games. You still go through levels, smashing some Lego stuff and sometimes building Lego stuff, but really it’s more about the combat sections and story.

There’s none of the thing from the other games where you gradually unlock characters that in turn allow you to access new areas or collect things or whatever. You get four characters which can all access everything but have a different weapon each. There’s really no reason to play it through more than once, and we managed to complete it in under 4 hours and then mop up all the achievements and challenges and 100% everything in under 8 in total, so it’s really, really short for a Lego game – even the shortest of the others are over 15 and most are over 30. Still, it was cheap and fun. And now I want to play the Big Boy Horizon Zero Dawn game. Hmm.

Lies of P (PS5)

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It isn’t often that I play a game and decide to just put it down never to go back. Especially after playing it for a few hours. There’s something in me that makes that time seem like a waste, if I don’t submit to more time with the game in order to finish it off. But here we are.

On paper, there was no way I was going to enjoy Lies of P. It’s ostensibly a Soulslike, and I have never enjoyed any of that genre. A combination of the grimdark settings and rock-hard gameplay and trying to beat the same area or baddie over and over and over again with slow combat and precision blocking and parrying just doesn’t feel fun. I’m a little jealous of all those people who do find it fun, and yes, I understand the satisfaction they must get for completing sections of the game or taking down an impossible boss. After all, I find the same in 2D Castlevania games, which are, in many ways, also soulslikes.

Lies of P made me want to try this sort of game again. Toby off of the ugvm Podcast (yes, that’s still going, somehow) mentioned he also hadn’t been a fan of soulslikes in the past but Lies turned him. I was also intrigued by the premise – you’re Pinocchio and all the other puppets have gone mad and you have to fight them. It definitely sounded a lot less grimdark and dirty and rainy and miserable.

Sadly, it is just as grimdark and dirty and miserable.

That in itself isn’t the end of the world (unlike other games in the genre which are the end of the world, ah ho ho), but the gameplay feels just like Demon’s Souls does only with marionettes instead of skellingtons and undead soldiers and stuff. Perhaps if this were more like Toy Story or Clockwork Knight or Pikmin instead I could pretend it was something different but it isn’t.

A few hours in, after meeting Geppetto and beating a boss and progressing through a few areas, I just wasn’t enjoying it. I hate how all the baddies respawn when you save the game and how there are loads of baddies that spring out of nowhere meaning you die and have to remember them next time. The world doesn’t have enough landmarks to stop me getting lost and going round in circles, and the slow (albeit quicker than Demon’s Souls) combat just isn’t for me. On the plus side, it isn’t as punishingly hard as other games like this I’ve played, and the plot is really interesting, but no – I’m out.

Mario Kart 7: back online

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With the help of the Pretendo network, I’ve managed to have a few games of this online over the past week or so, as well as doing some more time trials. The lobbies aren’t full, but any stretch, but even when there’s only three people in a race the catch up algorithms mean that it’s fun to compete. On a couple of occasions there was one player who knew glitches on levels which meant they won easily, but they never stayed online for long. I won only a couple of races, but my ranking has slightly improved from 1000 so the game thinks I’m doing OK.

Coming from Mario Kart World, the 3DS isn’t that comfortable to hold, and I keep forgetting that I need to hold the shoulder button down in order to train a shell or banana behind me. There were a couple of times I wished I could have a feather to jump a gap, and I got very confused in Shy Guy Bazaar where the World version of the track is just a little bit different. Still, this is a great game.

In 150cc the game still feels pretty unfair, but in time trial it’s amazingly tense

Wreckfest: this isn’t a PC game

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So why is it crashing as if is one?

Unfortunately the debug menu option doesn’t work, and instead it just quits the game. I’ve tried deleting and redownloading, and I get the same error, which means it might be an issue with a locally stored save file or update file or something. Pretty frustrating.