What games are you all playing at the moment?

[Demon Cleaner]

I liked Black Flag but in the end the sailing got to tiresome for me, plus I missed a bit the parcour part as the towns and cities were not really built for that.

In Odyssey you will have the ship part again, as there's a lot of islands and you need to sail around. And you get it very early on and can upgrade it with a lot of stuff.

[Harrison]

Sounds good. Really need to complete some of the others though.

[Demon Cleaner]

I started playing Star Wars Squadrons yesterday, I think it's ok, played only 3 missions but got already the feeling that the game will get repetitive after some time.

[Harrison]

It's really designed for multiplayer like XWing vs TieFigher used to be. The singke player missions are great, but to give the game any length of play the multiplayer is the focus. Working as a team in a squadron of 5 taking on the other side.

But even if just playing through the singke player there is a variety of missions.

[J T]

'Space flying/Shooting' is a type of game I always think that I am going to really like but in reality never quite get into and I'm never quite sure exactly why. Maybe because I go into them all thinking they will be like Rogue Squadron, but aren't.

I eagerly tried Star Wars Squadrons about a year ago but it just really didn't click for me and was quickly put away, just like Elite Dangerous, and Project Sylpheed, and other games I thought would be neat but just..... weren't.

[Harrison]

Elite Dangerous is great, but it's a game that requires a time investment. It's a full flight sim in space. Far more realistic in terms of physics and control and takes effort to learn and get to grips with. So I can fully understand why many just give up fairly quickly due to the learning curve. And I suppose Frontier: Elite 2 was exactly the same on the Amiga for its time. But the new version just bumps it up a whole level.

When it came out in beta I couldn't wait. But I first started trying to play it with a Keyboard and mouse, like we used to with Elite 2, but that was just impossible. I then tried with an Xbox controller and that was actually not too bad, as the analogue sticks and the shoulder buttons do a fairly good job at flight control, but it still wasn't great, as so many controls are mapped to the keyboard so you had to keep letting go of the flight controls to do things.

That's when I took the plunge and full HOTAS controller. Not cheap but it was like night and day. If never owned a full fligh sim joystick and throttle setup. If looked but was never that into flight sims to make the investment. But after a couple of hours getting used to it there was no going back. The level of control is brilliant, and it's only with such a controller that it all clicked into place and Elite makes sense and feels great. It's still good with a PS or Xbox controller, but you are still fighting the controls. I did try the PS4 version some time ago and they did a good job of reworking the controls for the Playstation, but it wasn't a good.

Star Wars Squadrons is a weird one. Having been a huge fan of the X-wing and Tie Fighter games I'd been hoping for a new SW flight sim for decades. But this turned out being a bit of a half way house. It's not a space flight sim on the level of the old Xwing games, and I would say it's closer to Wing Commander in dog fighting style and the way levels are introduced with a mission briefing, waypoints, and actual gameplay. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't quite what I had hoped for. There was too much hand holding and parts where the game takes over control of your ship. Plus some sections where it feels more like a Descent style corridor shooter.

I played it on PC when my flight sim controller and that did improve the experience, but I tended to play it more on PS4 so I could run it in VR. But it doesn't have enough single player content. I wanted a game just like Tie-Fighter where you are playing though a full Stat Wars Saga. In those original games you were a part of a military story and felt like you were part of one of the films. You had cut scenes and mission debriefs that asvanced the story and events. Squadrons was really just a remake of XWing vs Tie-Figher, designed mainly for multiplayer dog fighting atena style battles between 2 teams of 5 players. Great for what it is for a quick game, but no longevity. I want a game like the originals. I was disappointed.

[Harrison]

Omno

https://store.steampowered.com/app/969760/Omno/



This game was given away as part of November 2022 Humble Choice. It's a lovely little Puzzle Adventure. The graphics have that stylised cute look, which I always love.

It feels a lot like a favourite game of mine, The Last Campfire. Similar to that game you enter areas that contain puzzles. You have to work out what to do to make areas accessible to obtain an object or unlock the next areas. No lives. If you fall off something you just appear at the last checkpoint to try again. And it has a nice simple map of thy area you are Curbridge in pinpointing everything of interest, plus percentage completed, so you never miss anything.

It's a fairky relaxed game that's only meant to be a few hours long. I'm only about 2 hours in so far. The puzzles are not that complicated, sliding a block or turning something, and some platforming using extra noved that build with the levels.

Avsilable for PC, PS4 and Xbox. And available for Switch soon.

[Demon Cleaner]

I have Omno, not played yet though.

Played The Division 2 once again last week, tested the upgrade on the PS5, oh man is that game tough as nails. I played one side mission same level than myself and I got killed many many times, almost gave up.

[Harrison]

Yeah, Division 2 is hard but I do like the game. Never played it that far. Really need to. But are you soloing it?

[Demon Cleaner]

Last time I was playing solo, played only for 1 hour, usually I join some people or just call for help. But then it gets even more difficult, I remember in the first Division game I played one level with 3 other players loads of time, but never managed to beat the end battle, always when we thought now it's over there came another wave and another and all more brutal, so basically you were only reviving others and not really shooting.