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Knack – Assisted Co-Op gaming

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The plan was to play co-op with my son but my daughter likes the cartoonish look of the game so I have given up my slot.

Occasionally she will get to a difficult section & this is when I jump in for some assisted co-op gaming.

Co-op play is odd in that Knack controls everything, the camera moves with him leaving the second player off screen, a countdown timer will then re-spawn the other player next to knack. If knack dies the game returns back to the last checkpoint, I think the second player implementation must have been an afterthought. Where is the split screen camera like the Lego games when the players split up? Why can't the second player continue playing the level & Knack re-spawn?

Putting these gameplay mechanics to one side it's a simple colourful game with the minimum of controls, X button for jump, Square for attack, Circle for special attack using sun crystal power & triangle for interaction. My daughter can just about manage the controls but to the annoyance of my son Knack keeps dying too often even with the difficulty set to easy.

Anyhow with my assisted help they have managed to make it to the goblin castle. Let's see what awaits inside.

Assassin’s Creed 4 – Ahoy !!

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I am sailing across the Bahamas with the crew singing “Drunken Sailor”, looking through my spyglass I see a Spanish Brig in the distance which is carrying some Metal. Full speed ahead to chase it down, I fire off the chase cannons to grab it’s attention & launch a few chain shots at the mast. Pull up alongside & pummel it with two shots from the broadside cannons. Time to board but before I do a quick use of the swivel gun to take out some soldiers, then swing across for some sword based combat. Defeating the crew I send the Brig to join my fleet & return to the Jackdaw.

Ubisoft have jam packed this game with side missions, collectibles, assassin contracts, hunting & treasure maps that I have not progressed much in the main story. I have spent the majority of my time just looking at the map picking a location & sailing to that destination whilst getting distracted along the way by many ship battles to loot materials required for upgrading the Jackdaw or getting another ship to join my fleet. Kenways Fleet is a mini game which has you controlling a fleet of ships to send to various locations across the oceans. You mainly sell goods to gain money but you will also discover various items like treasure maps, ornaments & new routes The companion app that comes with this game you can use to control your fleet, check your treasure map & whilst playing the game doubles up nicely with a game world map.

Through the main mission the game slowly introduces tutorials explaining a new distraction for you, I have not yet taken on any of the various forts on the world map or any harpooning. I also do not know what else the game has hidden to surprise me with but for now I am just happy being a pirate. The Jolly Roger is waving in the wind, time to drink back some rum & set sail for my next adventure.

Killzone Shadow Fall – Multi-player

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I have decided to leave Dishonored for now & concentrate on playing something on the PS4 (guilt trip), my first attempt at Killzone multi-player was awful because I did not know what I was doing or the controls. I always seem to play better in FPS games when I am a support class. Helping to revive downed team-mates & focus on playing a more careful role with getting kill assists. Our team won & I managed to get 3rd in the scoreboard.

Will look at starting the single player campaign & hopefully getting more practice on the on-line modes with huricanepilot.

Playstation 4 – Greatness Awaits

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Next to the television I have a small blue bag, inside this bag you will find a PSOne (baby white) with Metal Gear Solid & Front Mission 3. This bag also has a second larger pocket which has a PS2 Slim and a collection of games including Simpsons Hit & Run. Under the TV I have three shelves & on the bottom shelf you will find my one & only Playstation 3 console (original edition) & the only retail game you will find on my shelf is Metal Gear Solid 4 everything else is installed on the hard drive.

I sold my US Super Nintendo console with 18 to 20 games inc lots of RPGs to CEX in London to purchase an import Jap Playstation 1 with Ridge Racer & Tekken on release. The PS1 was my only console that I purchased on release & introduced me to some of my best gaming years with the likes of Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy 7, Front Mission 2, Parasite Eve, Tomb Raider, Xenogears, Suikoden, Final Fantasy Tactics, Castlevania - Symphony of the night, Gran Turisimo & I could go on for ever. It was for me one of the greatest consoles ever made (only pipped by the GBA Micro & the US SNES I owned).

I am not sure if it is Sony's excellent E3 showing or the recent games I have completed on the PS3 (Journey, Last of Us) but somewhere in the last six months I have found my love again for the Playstation brand. The PS3 was totally neglected because the 360 became the default console for gaming in the last five years, thanks mainly to it's controller & live experience. I was wavering quite a bit about my PS4 pre-order but finally decided to stick & Martin delivered my PS4 on Friday at 17:03.

After plugging the console in and upgrading the system firmware to 1.51 it was time to play the games. I purchased Killzone, AC4, & digital downloads of Resogun, Contrast & Flower.

The controller is lovely, the triggers are much better which was my biggest gripe with the PS3 controller. The battery life however is poor, I managed about four hours, hopefully in a future firmware update an option to turn off the controller light will improve the battery life. The touchscreen section of the controller is nice & on Killzone you use it to control your robot companion.

I tried the camera with the Playroom software, the kids enjoyed flicking robots around & drawing items on the phone to flick to the tv screen. The camera is really useful when using twitch to stream gaming you can use the inbuilt microphone to talk to you followers which is much better than the rubbish ear-set supplied (I have ordered an over the head set).

The games then, Killzone is the obvious graphical showcase & does look amazing, it is a generic shooter like so many but at least it looks lovely. Resogun is the main game I have been spending time with, it is the PS4's answer to Geometry Wars & is amazingly good fun. I love the various special effect, explosions & all at a blistering fast pace. Abbas played the Fifa 14 demo & is currently playing AC4 which uses the touch pad to control the game map.

Remote play works very well on the Vita, I tested Killzone & Resogun with no slowdown that I noticed. On-line gameplay of Resogun with HurricanePilot, I created a chat party which he joined & then he sent me an invite from the game, all of which worked well but with the occasional slowdown not sure if that was due to the PSN servers, internet connection or the game?

At £350+ (inc cost of the games) it is an expensive purchase which I mainly made because I wanted to play the multi-platform games like AC4, Watch_Dogs & Destiny on the most powerful console. This time next year we will start to see more games being released only on PS4/XB1 hopefully in the next few days news of a new Fallout 4 would be awesome.

For me however Greatness Awaits in playing Assassins Creed 4 over xmas in 1080p.