Endless gaming options
I was lucky enough to get my PS5 on launch day back in November. One thing has remained glaringly true since switching to next-gen gaming, the fact that I have not had a shortage of games to play at any point. As soon as I make some progress on a game that I am really enjoying, another one releases, goes on sale, or is given to me for free.
It is difficult to juggle going to work, having a girlfriend, creating content on Hive, getting decent sleep, and the many other things I have going on daily. Try to add in playing video games and there just isn't much time left. I had been doing a pretty good job of sticking with one or two games at a time, that way I could fully complete them. Over the last month, I have gotten overwhelmed with so many awesome games and have started playing several at once.
At the moment I am in the process of playing five games. Each one offers something totally different than the others. I can say for sure that all five games are worth playing. Lets further discuss my thoughts on each of the games.
1. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
I haven’t been able to enjoy Assassin’s Creed games for years. I was so hyped about Origin’s Egypt setting, but it only held me for about 30 hours. I didn’t get anywhere near completing that one.
I was able to claim AC Valhalla for free since my brother purchased it on sale, we do game share now that he is also on PS5. I was initially so excited to play this, I love anything to do with Norse.
I was a bit sad about the fact that the PS5 version doesn’t have much support for the DualSense controller. There are no fancy adaptive triggers or haptic feedback. The controller works with the game of course, it just isn’t taken advantage of fully. No worries, I wasn’t going to let that ruin the game. I still gave it my attention.
There is a pretty long intro before the game gives you the full open world. I’m not joking when I say the map is gigantic. That’s one thing about AC that I have grown tired of. The game is just too big and filled with too many different objectives. It’s just far too much for me, it makes me feel as though I’m never really making much progress. Add that in with a ton of dialogue choices, then I’m bored rather quickly.
I played Valhalla for just under 10 hours and then just gave up. It’s a gorgeous game, but there are some things that made it not very fun for me. The feeling of the game being near infinite, plus the gameplay itself. It just wasn’t as fun as something like Ghost of Tsushima. Instead of wanting to try again whenever I died, I was getting annoyed.
It’s possible I may play this game some more in the future, but I sort of find that a bit unlikely. I am willing to bet that I’m missing out on an amazing story and much more once advancing further into the game, but I just have way too many other options outside of this game.
2. Final Fantasy VII Remake
This was my first ever experience with a Final Fantasy game, besides a few demos in the past. I was never huge on JRPGs growing up. I enjoyed Nintendo of course, but that’s an entirely different beast.
I am aware that FF is widely popular throughout the world, but I never really knew why. I am starting to get a better idea as to why, now that I’ve had some time with arguably the greatest FF game of all time.
The Final Fantasy VII Remake is such a well crafted masterpiece. The look and feel of the game just works so well. I was a bit surprised at just how much the game focuses on the story. I was enjoying it a lot, even more so since I didn’t have to pick what my character was going to say. It all just sort of kept happening like an over the top movie scene.
I’m nearing 50% completion on this game and have really been liking it. I feel like I’m constantly unlocking and learning something new. It keeps getting harder too, without being unbeatable. I like that, it hasn’t gotten boring to me yet.
One thing I was not happy about was the fact that although I got the PS4 version of this game for free with PS Plus, I will not able to play the PS5 version without paying for it. They are locking photo mode, dlc, and more to the PS5 version. Kind of lame if you ask me, but I’d say it’s probably worth paying for once it releases. I won’t be buying it, but that’s just me.
3. Agents of Mayhem
I have to give credit to @derangedvisions for making me aware of Agents of Mayhem. He was playing through some Saints Row games recently and we were messaging about whether or not Agents of Mayhem was made by the same people. I looked it up and they indeed are both made by Deep Silver. Not only that, but there is even some Saints Row characters in Agents of Mayhem (Kingpin & Gat).
I wasn’t aware that this game was even a thing, so I immediately went on the PS Store to see how much it was. I was about to buy the game for $20, but then I saw the Total Mayhem Bundle was on sale for $6. So I got the game and all of its DLC for about 25% of the cost of the regular game by itself. What a deal I was able to secure.
I was excited to start this because it reminded me of Crackdown mixed with Saints Row and Overwatch, although it is totally single player. The different agents all have their own unique skills and backstory, each one is drastically different than the rest; all of them are extremely fun to play as.
One thing that isn’t so diverse is the gameplay loop. It’s a whole lot of fun shooting up baddies, but the environments seem copy and pasted often. The city is colorful and gorgeous to look at, but when it comes to doing missions it gets stale.
Luckily the character progression adds variety consistently, but I can’t get over the fact that it feels like I keep going into the same bases a lot of the time. Exploring the world is still fun, don’t get me wrong. Driving is arcade-style with lots of drifting. It also feels really good getting upgrades to your agency’s secret headquarters.
For the price I got this one for, it’s a 10/10. If it were full retail price I’d adjust that rating down to about a 7. I still plan to get back into this, it feels like one of those games I’ll actually be able to get 100% on.
4. It Takes Two
This couch cooperative game wasn’t something that was on my radar initially. Then a few days before it came out I became excited about it all of a sudden. It was only $40 on day one, so I thought might as well get it.
It came with the PS4 and PS5 version. One thing that annoyed me is that you have to have two DualSense controllers to play the PS5 version in coop. So since I only have one, @flowerbaby and I have been playing the PS4 version. I hope to play through the PS5 version online with my brother at some point. I hope we we can link up and make that happen, schedules are hard to manage.
So far, what @flowerbaby and I have played has been amazing. I really love the idea of being shrunken down and playing in a gigantic world. Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, and Hunny I Shrunk The Kids made this concept so enamoring to me as a child. This world is interesting and beautiful. I seriously cannot wait to play more of this game.
There is no option to play this one in single player, so the only time I can progress is when @flowerbaby is in the mood to play. I’m sure we will finish this game eventually, but it most likely will take a lot longer than usual.
5. Spider-Man Remastered
Don’t ask me how, but I never played Spider-Man on PS4. Lucky for me, they remastered it for PS5 and bundled it with the new Miles Morales game. Now that I am finally getting to play Spider-Man, I have the best version of it.
My goodness does this game look, sound, and feel good. It makes impressive use of the DualSense’s features. Just leveling up Spider-Man makes your hands feel like you are an actual superhero. Swinging from webs feels satisfying as well. The combat is explosive and you can truly feel each action.
This is my favorite game out of everything on this list so far. I am dead set on achieving 100% completion for this one. I have a ton of dlc to conquer after I finish the main game. After all of that I get to move on to the brand new Miles Morales experience. That interests me because it introduced more gameplay elements, snowy NYC, and new music that is slanted towards Hip Hop.
I’m so happy to finally have my hands on this Spider-Man game. If you are ever going to play it, I highly recommend you go for the PS5 version like I did.
So many great games
I’m sure I will continue to struggle to find the time to play all five of these games. It would be an amazing feat if I actually managed to complete all of them.
As of right now my main goal is to complete Spider-Man Remastered so that I can start Spider-Man Miles Morales afterwards. I also hope to complete It Takes Two with @flowerbaby. That will take quite some time I’m sure, since she doesn’t like to go on gaming binges like I do. It would also be cool to finish Agents of Mayhem and maybe get back into FFVII & AC Valhalla. I guess we will see how it all unfolds.
What makes all of this even more difficult is that new games aren’t coming to a standstill. Every single month more great games are releasing. My wish list grows longer all of the time. Perhaps I’ll soon do a post about the games I’m most excited about that have yet to release.
Stay tuned for more.
Thanks for checking out my blog 😎🤝
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