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Rise of the Tomb Raider: completed!

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I decided to play on. Ammo was a little depleted, but I had plenty of materials to craft arrows, and I was sure that soldiers would provide me with plenty of bullets. In fact, as I arrived atop the tower, I saw multiple ammo drops in any case, and started to run towards them.

I didn’t get there before the cutscene started. I am not averse to big end battles, as they can set the end of a game nicely. I don’t like huge difficulty spikes, and I don’t like when the skills required for the boss are completely different to those in the game as a whole. To a minor extent, these both applied here. Konstantin appeared in a helicopter, guns blazing, trying to get rid of Lara. Luckily Sofia was still at the trebuchet; unluckily she was unable to hit the moving helicopter. Instead, in a massive nod to realism, after she fired a blazing barrel towards the helicopter, I had to shoot that barrel when it was nearby, causing an explosion that rocked the flying menace. And I had to do that three times, because we all know that helicopters can survive two explosions. And between the helicopter’s appearances, the Deathless Dumbos and Trinity Tosspots all swarmed around the structure trying to kill me.

Luckily I soon found ways to avoid them – running away to an outer ledge, shooting the burning trays over the tops of their heads, and using poison and exploding arrows. It was intense, though, and I was glad to see the helicopter finally on fire and about to crash.

Into me. Into the tower. Oh dear.

So I end up in a burning room with Konstantin, who has obviously survived the crash, taking all my weapons. I have to avoid his machine gun fire and grenades, while running around finding tin cans to craft into explosives and then hitting him with my ice pick. Luckily there were some clear instructions on what I needed to do.

Eventually he submitted to multiple stab wounds, and I took my stuff back from him. And then he begged me to not leave him to die. I had a choice – there was the symbol over his head indicating a kill, but instead I just walked away.

And then the building collapsed on him anyway. Oh well.

Off to the Chamber of Souls to find the Divine Source, and there I find Ana who is desperate not to die. She has the Source, there is a fair amount of back-and-forth, the Deathless Dimwits appear in force and everything is going to be awful. Until Lara lifts up the Source over her head and smashes it. The Deathless become Dead, but so does Jacob, and everything is a bit sad. Game complete.

All being completed, I travel back to the geothermal springs valley to tidy up some loose ends, and hear some interesting post-game conversations. I may return at some point to find the secrets I missed, and complete the side missions left over, but this feels like a good time to stop.

Beglitched (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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Someone recommended this game over on Mastodon and it looked interesting. Then it turned out I already owned it and could play it on my Steam Deck. Result, eh?

It’s a match-3 puzzle game, but one that messes with the rules a bit. The idea isn’t just to match-3 (or more), as it matter which icons you match. For example, you only have so many moves, but matching certain symbols gives you more moves. Additionally, there’s a digital creature on the board, usually hidden, and you have to use symbols to track it down (such as arrows to point at it) and then blow it up. Triggering arrows and bombs use power, though, and you need to match other symbols in order to replenish it.

Furthermore, some of these digital creatures affect the board, or need blowing up more than once, or can’t be blown up. Or shouldn’t be blown up. It’s a lot more complex than your average matching game.

The surrounding motif of Beglitched is that it’s all set in a computer system. You’re a user of a sort of message board, and one of the prominent figures of the board has vanished and everyone else there now thinks you’re them – and most are out to stop you doing whatever it is that you need to do. It plays out as a series of small grids of levels, where the grid itself often contains puzzles and enemies. Progressing in the game opens up new folders on the computer, each acting as a sort of world with, generally, a specific change to the basic game rules.

It’s a good concept, and changing up the rules stops the core gameplay from getting stale. It certainly has a lot more depth than similar games, but it’s also somewhat shorter. Definitely worth playing if you like a good match game.

Sküljagger (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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Sküljagger (no, I’d never heard of it either) is a Bad Game. Originally a SNES game which seemed to have been completely ignored at the time, it’s yet another 16-bit platform with literally nothing going for it. It seems to have a pirate theme or maybe a viking theme or who actually knows, or cares? You have a sword and have platforms to navigate. Wow. Even at the time this can’t have been more than a 5/10 title.

It’s janky and the collision detection is rubbish, the levels are dull and repetitive, enemies appear out of nowhere to kill you, there are several power-ups all of which are useless, and the walls of text between levels are badly written. Or translated? Or both.

So why did I play it to the end? Because I don’t know. Don’t judge me.

Gal Guardians: Demon Purge (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Why yes, this is another Metroidvania style game! And yes, it’s another one based on a different game, this time Gal*Gun by Inti Creates. Inti Creates, who have made some of my favourite platformers (including some other Metroidvanias) like Azure Striker Gunvolt and Blaster Master Zero. Of course I’m going to buy it.

The ‘hing with Demon Purge, which differentiates it from all the other “explore a castle” games is that you control two characters at once, each with different skills and abilities. The two main differences are that one has a gun, and so can attack from a distance, and the other wields ningyogami (or something similar) in a way that essentially works like a sword. Also, one has half the health of the other.

The story takes the characters from Gal*Gun (which I don’t know), sticks them in a school, and then in that usual Japanese way the school itself becomes a portal into some other world full of demons and monsters. Same old story. You have to rescue your classmates, unlocking new abilities like a hover, an air dash, and a grappling hook as you progress and using them to reach new areas and secrets. Like all the other Metroidvanias.

If you’re a fan of the genre, like me, this is great. It’s fun, a bit unusual, and even has references to Castlevania (like the clock tower and the long external staircase to the final boss). There’s also a secret ending if you do certain side quests, which I managed to do.

May 2024 Update – Sushi Diving

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Playing NOW

Dave The Diver (PS5)

This was on my Playing Future list last month & perfect timing that it was added to PS+ this month. 

What starts off as a simple collect fish make sushi game very rapidly develops to introduce lots of story content and additional systems to manage. The enjoyable three stage day cycle loops perfectly to allow you to enjoy fishing in the morning & afternoon or tackle one of the many side quests before getting ready to manage the sushi restaurant in the evening ensuring you focus on keeping your customers happy while maximizing profits so you can upgrade either the restaurant, your gear or shop for items.


Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 2 (PS5)

Firstly to start off with some disappointing news, in that Epic has gotten rid of the XP gains with the ranked mode for Rocket Racing. You can now only gain a small amount of XP with the daily quests. Unfortunately this has stopped me playing and I'm just enjoying Zero Build. The advantage with the first season was I could enjoy Rocket Racing but also level up the battle pass in the process.

An Avatar mini pass was added to add an Aang skin & Appa Glider, this was very easy to complete even if some of the quests were reliant on you getting lucky to arrive at a temple early enough to collect the bending scroll.


Playing Complete

Final Fantasy 7 Remake (PS5)

There is far too much side content in the game and I took the decision in Chapter 8 to ignore it all and only enjoy the main quest. There are section of the main quest that force you to use certain characters and their abilities, some of these can be frustrating & I was glad when I got back to playing as Cloud. It culminates in a "epic finale" and now the long wait begins for the last game in the trilogy. Final Fantasy 7 Reunion.


Playing Next

My aim is to focus on games released this year first before looking at my backlog. Hopefully I will get lucky and 2024 releases will keep getting added to PS+ or GamePass like Dave the Diver this month.

Looking through my last month post, other potential 2024 releases I'm interested in playing are Rise of Ronin, Open Roads, The Plucky Squire, Banishers Ghosts of New Eden, Death Stranding 2, Metal Gear Solid Delta, Star Wars Outlaws, Balatro & Sandland. I expect some of these may well get delayed to 2025.

I have many games in my backlog but looking forward to playing Spiderman2, Judgement, Lost Judgement, Outer Wilds, Shadow Tactics, Like A Dragon Ishin & Sea of Stars.

Midnight Suns has been added to PS+ & Star Wars Jedi Survivor to GamePass. I also need to at least give Starfield an attempt to see if it clicks.

That leaves Baldurs Gate 3,Cyberpunk 2077 & Shadow Gambit Cursed Crew on my shopping list.

Enjoy your gaming & remember you are never too old to play video games.