The Backlog Check-in Vol. 169: 3/27/21: Outriders Edition

[Phaseknox]

Played: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Finished: Nothing

Playing: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Added: Nothing

I’m still playing Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and really enjoying it. I’m over 40 hours into it, and haven’t even uncovered half of the map yet. It’s massive packed with content, there’s tons of quests and more keep popping up. There’s good variety to most of them, and I like how there’s both serious and humorous ones. I even like the ship combat ones once in a while. The game in general is impressive looking, and fun to play.

Games releasing this week
Auto Chess
The Binding of Isaac: Repentance
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
Dungeon and Puzzles
Escape From Life Inc
Evil Genius 2
I Saw Black Clouds
Mittelborg: City of Mages
My Time At Sandrock
Narita Boy
Neptunia Virtual Stars
Outriders
UnderMine

[argyle]

Games added: Marvel's Avengers, Kingdom Majestic, Iris.Fall, Monkey Barrels, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, Captain Tsubasa

Last week: Finished nothing, played Roundguard, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Super Mario 3D World, a little Avengers, a little Fallout '76

This week: More of those, just playing whatever catches my fancy right now.

Avengers hit my price point to try it out - $12 after a sale + coupon I had. It's not bad so far, it's just that the budget versions of the characters take a little getting used to. Honestly, I wish they had just gone full comic book style if they couldn't get the rights to the actual actors' likenesses instead of doing these weird body double versions.

Age of Calamity is a blast, really enjoying that one. Will probably finish off the story mode this week. And I realized I played way, way less of Super Mario 3D World on the Wii U than I thought I did.

[canedaddy]

Played recently: Need for Speed Payback

Finished: nothing

Added to backlog: nothing

Current backlog: 11 (7 PS4, 1 Vita, 3 Switch)


I'm still rolling with NFS, despite its flaws, some of which are magnified deeper into the game... such as the extremely uneven difficulty. There are some races I seemingly can't win even if I make a clean run with a car rated much higher than the competition, and others where I leave everyone in the dust and never see them again on the map. Neither of those is fun. It's also crashed a half-dozen times in the last week. I've come far enough where I'll probably finish it up if I can, but it's a sloppy product.

[jfissel]

Finished: Maquette PS5 (story)

Now Playing: Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Maquette PS5

Added to Backlog: Nothing

Current Backlog: 43 games

129 hours into Valhalla, I think I can finish up in under 150!

And then I've been playing the free PS+ game Maquette over the last 2 weeks - finished up all levels and may get the other trophies before moving on (speed runs, etc). It's a puzzle game set in a recursive world, which leads to interesting solutions (and occasional frustration, lol). Overall, decent puzzle game.

[Phaseknox]

I’ve played Assassin’s Creed Odyssey for 60 hours now, and I’m still really enjoying it. I’ve primarily been playing as a mercenary for hire not focusing on the main story too much, there’s so much side stuff to do including assassinations, bounties, clearing bandit/soldier camps/forts, exploring caves and tombs for loot, etc.. It’s been a fun gameplay loop.

However, I have a few complaints with the game such as its extremely long load times, not a lot of fast travel spots and somewhat cut and pasted game world. It takes forever to initially load the game and start playing, fast travel is actually slow travel since the load times are so long and they’re long for starting cutscenes and when you die and restart as well. And for such a big game world there’s an overall lack of fast travel spots, I’m constantly having to travel long distances on foot or horseback. And while the world is detailed and pretty, a lot of it looks the same. It’s somewhat difficult to distinguish some of the different areas since things are so same-y looking.

But even with the few complaints that I have, I’m still having a good time. Kassandra is a great main character that’s fun to play as, the combat is exciting and visceral with a nice variety of weapons and a lot of the side quests have entertaining little stories to them. There’s a good mix of seriousness and humor as well. There’s an addictiveness to it that makes me want to keep playing.

[canedaddy]

Well, I finished NFS Payback last night. The last few races were super annoying and stupid, driving up and down curvy hills with oncoming traffic that the AI racers magically avoid. They're also able to ram you and send your car flying, while you have very little impact on them. After that happened at the end of one 7-minute race, I dropped the difficulty down to easy just to finish up. Some good stuff in there but plenty of bad too.

So it looks like Days Gone is free on PS+ next month. What did you all think of it?

[argyle]

So it looks like Days Gone is free on PS+ next month. What did you all think of it?

Loved it. Very fun, and an incredible story with some very fleshed-out characters. A little slow up front, but that didn't bother me personally.

[crimson_tide]

Bruh. Any of y'all been house hunting? Of course you have! It blows. I have the most paltry stats to report back this week because of this new endeavor:

Played: Yakuza 3 (imma finish it...it's comfort food. Also, the bad guys all suck and need to beaten in the face repeatedly by Kazuma (who doesn't kill. EVER). Again. Except for the one that does the thing at the end and then shows up again in 5. You know who I mean...), the tournament thing in DQ11S (I kinda...ok, I really dislike this tournament themed city, it is not clicking after a long break but I think I'm done soon), Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (my go to for absolute dead tired and still want to play something...)

Bought: Something. I can't remember. It was cheap.

This week: Was hoping for more DQ11S and Yakuza 3 but it's Wednesday and I've barely played anything except a couple boss fights in Sonic Generations...I'm in a serious comfort food gaming funk at the moment bruh....

Fam. HELP! I have given up this whole spring break already. I can't keep this comfort food gaming thing going. But I am so tired and unfocused because of domestics lately by the time I can game...ugh...I guess it's a good problem and I should stop complaining ...

[Phaseknox]

So it looks like Days Gone is free on PS+ next month. What did you all think of it?

It was the second best game that I played in 2019:

https://www.ps2backlog.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=131

[canedaddy]

Thanks for the word on Days Gone, argyle and Phase! I think I'll fire that up next.

Bruh. Any of y'all been house hunting? Of course you have! It blows.

Yes it does. My daughter and son-in-law are living with us and have been looking for months. They've put in offers on a bunch of houses, but this market is bonkers and people are paying wayyyy over asking price. Good luck on that.