Switch Games 'n' Stuff

Finally started Breath of the Wild! One hour in and it is meeting my sky-high expectations so far. It's interesting to come at it so late having already played other games that it influenced, most obviously Elden Ring. Though I can see some of this game's influences too, the world and art style are giving me massive Fumito Ueda vibes. Looks like this is gonna live up to the hype after all. And I have a week off work! \o/

Aye, it is brilliant. Been playing it recently myself. I hadn't really played it properly since the Wii U version came out and even then I played for about dozen hours and did one divine beast. I liked it at the time, but drifted away for some reason.

Now playing it again on my Switch and I'm loving it a lot. Even things like the weapon degradation are bothering me much less then I remember. The world is constantly offering up new things to poke around in, with every minor landmark normally offering a Korak Seed, tucked away shrine or some kind of item.

Quests and minor objectives emerge really organically too, with very little being forced on you. If you want to just go off and do your own thing for hours on end, there isn't any nagging prompts or map markers to constantly tell you what you should be doing. When you are looking to do some of the main objectives, you are gently guided towards completion rather than pushed through it.

It perhaps could do with larger dungeons, but I do enjoy the mini challenges offered by the shrines. They are fun little puzzles that are normally satisfying, albeit often a tad on the easy side.

I've just managed to claim the Master Sword. Have another 2 divine beasts to deal with, with one that I'm basically right next to. Still have a couple of towers to climb, but think both are in an extreme heat area that I don't have the necessary gear to pass through. Not sure where to get the gear to do that either.

Ah, it was the first one. Thanks. I likely wouldn't have thought to check the stables, so could have been wondering around for a while.

Been through the desert and picked up the heat resistant gear from the secret club. Expected that to be enough to avoid bursting into flames, but nope.

I'm playing BotW again at the moment also and although I've completed it previously (launch week) I'm impressed all over again at how good it is, and especially how the different systems work beneath the surface.
I can't think of another game, and certainly haven't played one, that has all the different physics and chemistry at it's core, but is still so simple to understand and play.

Yeah, it's definitely one of the best games of all time for me. I've got a save going at the moment - all divine beasts down, shit load of shrines and I could fairly easily wrap up this run but there's still a few bits and pieces I want to do.

Though it doesn't actually matter if I finish it - it's possibly the only game where I could finish it, watch credits, and then start a new game immediately and it just feels like a constant continuation of the game.

I even relish starting again and making a crazy run all the way to Impa and the upgrades for the abilities immediately after getting the parachute.

Ever done that? Just start a new game, and just leg it all the way? You've got a rusty sword and 3 hearts and no upgraded skills at this stage, but it's still ace fun taking it on

That's a lot of shrines straight away to get the sword.

It's the abilities that I want upgrading immediately that makes me go oop north straight away. I simply *must* have the upgraded bombs straight away. I often take a breather from doing main stuff and find a hill and just have fun rolling bombs everywhere into enemies

Re the Geruda trick - hah, nice one. That's another thing to love - there's so many things to find. Still finding stuff now, years on.

Picked up Doom II and Quake.
Not had much more than a dabble with either, but they seem pretty slick. Aiming with the switch mini-sticks is a bit of a pain though, as I'm not used to it from any other games either.

I knew quake included the expansion packs, but I didn't know both included online access to a limited number of fan levels. That's kinda cool.

Quake II now!

I assume its some kind of Sony licencing issue? A bit like this Nintendo/Goldeneye thing. A shame though, as it would be perfectly suited.

The odd thing here is that it's out on android and ios, so it doesn't seem like there's that huge of hurdle to overcome.

I tried quake on the ps. It is very slick and fast like the original, but I just can't play it how I want to. I put years into quake on the pc and I can't shake the kb/m. I can for most games, but not quake. Or Doom(s) either for that matter. There's something about those two.

Aye, Doom never clicked with mouse movement for me. Quake was the first shooter that converted me to M+K.
I think I even played stuff like Duke 3D and Descent on keyboard only, which seems very wrong in hindsight.

Not sure about Descent (I'm not sure if I ever played them, maybe a demo of one of them,) but wasn't the default control scheme for Duke 3D keyboard only? Think I probably played it originally with just keyboard, same with Dark Forces, Doom and the like.

Arrow keys for movement (left and right arrows would turn), Pg up and down for looking up and down, ctrl for shooting, comma and period for strafing. Recently played Heretic with that kind of scheme and it still worked well, once I got used to it.

I downloaded Doom 3 for my Easter holiday gaming fix and, for £3, it's ace. Never had the pc hardware to run in when it was new and I think it holds up really well in portable mode- even got used to aiming OK. The atmosphere is great, it's linear to a fault so zero getting lost, and the audio is brilliant with headphones on. I'd unfairly tagged it as 'the shit Doom' and so far I reckon it's better than Eternal.