This week I played some things which people who know me might not expect me to play at all.
Play
Assassin’s Creed Unity (PS4)
I completed it this week, timing it so that I didn’t beat it just before bedtime then have to wait an hour while the credits scrolled, only to find that you can fast forward the credits. They still took ages, mind. After finishing the story I jumped straight back in and started mopping up icons on the map, which means the game must be doing something right or I wouldn’t bother.
Battlefield 4 (PS4)
Look, combined with Battlefield Hardline and some cheap PSN credit, this game set me back just £2.96. Why I actually started playing it though, I don’t know. It took a few hours to download and a few days to install (the wrong way round, surely), but I’m enjoying it enough to continue through it. Apparently the multiplayer mode is great. I don’t care: I won’t be playing it.
Table Top Racing: World Tour (PS4)
Meh. I’m playing through it but I don’t know why. It’s soulless, slow and not a patch on Micro Machines or Trackmania or Revolt.
HYRULE WARRIORS LEGENDS (3DS)
Still so good. I’ve a couple more characters to unlock on the first Adventure Mode map and then I can get back to the Wind Waker one to finish that off.
Kirby: Planet Robobot (3DS)
A surprise Father’s Day present. It’s a lot of fun – proper Dreamland level Kirbying, and the mech suit actually works well. It’s so colourful, and so Nintendo. It’s hard to stop playing but I had to before my battery died.
Doom Demo (PS4)
Fast! Fun! Good! Unexpected!
Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens Demo (PS4)
It’s Lego and Star Wars. The new feature seems to be building more than one object from the same set of bricks, which is novel if a little confusing. The flying section wasn’t great, though. Still, Lego innit.
Want
Is No Man’s Sky (PS4) out yet? No? Boo. What about Lego Marvel Avengers (PS4)? It is? Should probably get round to buying that then.
Also, thanks to E3, I want The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But do I want it for the Wii U, or should I wait for the NX? Hmm.
Bin
Still ill.
Expense
Battlefield 4 (PS4) £2.96
Battlefield Hardline (PS4) £2.96
Kirby: Planet Robobot (3DS) £free
“then have to wait an hour while the credits scrolled”
I’ve never understood this. I scroll back and forth through long text files at will all day (I’m doing it right now… wheeeee!). Computers are really good at that. So why do I have to sit patiently while a list of everyone even remotely involved with a game crawls up the screen – even if it does have a “fast forward” – simply because developers want to pretend they’ve made a movie? You don’t see the actors in films stepping out in front of a fake curtain to take a bow, expecting the audience to applaud. Movies aren’t theatre, and games aren’t movies.
And then, the only bit you really want to see – the voice acting – always comes forty minutes in, after the legal team, the Swahili localisaion team, the intern who made the tea, and the office cleaners’ cat. Just knock it off, devs. Give us a scrollable text file. Or code up a menu system instead of lumping everything together. Anything but the fake movie credits.
Anyway…
“the game must be doing something right or I wouldn’t bother.”
I always feel that Assassin’s Creed games are like pizza (as Woody Allen said of sex, but that’s all a bit creepy now so let’s pretend he didn’t): even when they’re bad, they’re still pretty good.
UbiSoft are the absolute worst when it comes to lengthy credits. One of the Assassin’s Creed games is over an hour. I swear they were making names up by the end.