Gamin' Away

I’m back bitches, and this time I’m actually planning on sticking around!

This weekend just gone I went to the #LeedXmasMeet with Chloe and I genuinely enjoyed myself much more than I thought I would – especially once I’d gotten over the fact that I made up a third of the testosterone in the room! The event has definitely inspired me to blog more so here I am, blogging more.

You see, I didn’t realise this before but the point of blogging is to write about what you want to, not what you think might get read by the people that follow you on Twitter. In keeping with this new motto, here’s a nerdy twist on the “What I’m watching on Netflix” type post:

What I’m Playing

On Black Friday, my delightful girlfriend bought me a PS4 to waste my evenings on, and waste them I have! Here’s what I’ve been playing in all of my spare time.

LittleBigPlanet 3

Ok so while I, like most other 20-something year old males, will always enjoying shooting people in the face over the Internet with a sub-machine gun and the power of the respawn, this cutesy 2D platformer is probably my favourite PS4 game so far. In it, you play as Sackboy, a loveable knitted creature that doesn’t have a lot to say as you leap and bound around the lovingly handcrafted levels. A big draw to the game for me is how everything looks like it’s been cut, stitched and glued together in order to create what you see on screen, and you can interact with the materials exactly as you would if they were real (so you can grab onto the sponge dangling from a rope to swing across chasms, or slide down slippery glass ramps).

It's so colourful and fun! (Image Credit: The Independent)

The game has a big focus on customisation, so you can dress up Sackboy as anything from Iron Man to a ballerina, or leave stickers everywhere you go as you saunter through each stage. The best part of this though is the fact that you can create your own levels using exactly the same tools and objects that the developers do and share them online without needing a degree in Computer Science or any kind of coding knowledge at all. Personally, I suck at this part, but because the world wide web is so wonderful, you can go online and play through some truly astonishing user-created gems that no normal person will ever understand how it works; honestly, when I see people make fully realised versions of Fallout 4 as a 2D platformer using the exact same tools that are available to me, I have to wonder why I struggle to stick a wheel onto something and make a basic car.

I was a big fan of the previous two instalments of the series but the new features in the third one (such as the three new characters with unique abilities or the sweet new powerups) are not so much a step as a clear stride forward. I will definitely be playing this for a while! (PS it's narrated by Stephen Fry and stars Hugh Laurie, just sayin').

Star Wars Battlefront

With the new film just around the corner (10 days, but who’s counting eh?), EA has absolutely capitalised on my childhood nostalgia by pumping out a Star Wars shoot-em-up. It’s pretty fun running around as a member of the rebel alliance or tossing people around as Darth Vader, but if I’m honest, this game’s not a patch on the PS2 versions that I used to play back in the day. There’s nowhere near as much variety in this one. For example, the PS4 game ignores the Prequel Trilogy, which most Star Wars fans would normally be happy about, but for this game it means you don’t get the option to leap around the maps as Darth Maul and man oh man was that fun. Switching between character types is also a lot more cumbersome than it used to be, which means there is a lot less variety in the troop composition of the competing armies and subsequently much less of a need for teamwork.

Ah shite... (Image Credit: Forbes)

The game modes on offer, whilst I haven’t played all of them yet, don’t offer the classic Battlefront thrills or the strategy that was involved in trying to beat the enemy off the field through capturing the command posts. As well as this, I’m really not a fan of the lack of a story mode, or rather the fact that most of the game is relatively soulless online multiplayer. Some of my fondest memories from my childhood are playing through the campaign or galactic conquest modes in marathon split screen sessions with a buddy, and the lack of that capability in this version makes me sad.

That being said however, Star Wars is Star Wars, so I’m still having fun playing the game. It’s not as good as the classic PS2 titles, but I think that kind of experience from the developers of multiplayer shooter specialists DICE was never going to materialise.

FIFA 16

This is essentially a must-have for me and my group of friends as we absolutely love taking each other on on the virtual pitch. This latest edition has some really interesting new features – famously the inclusion of the Women’s International Teams but my favourite new feature is the addition of individual training drills for your players in Manager Career mode as I love taking a promising young player and turning him into a Ballon D’Or winner. I also like to create a dream team and cement Liverpool’s place as the absolutely undisputed best team in the world, which I am busying myself with each night.

Rocket League

If you’ve not played Rocket League and own a PS4 then frankly you’re doing it wrong because it’s ridiculously entertaining and ever so silly. The basic premise is that you play up to 4v4 football with rocket powered cars and a giant ball, but the speed with which the game is played leads to some frantic goal line clearances and absolutely phenomenal goals; which only adds to the fun!

No-one in this picture knows what the fuck is going on (Image credit: PushSquare)

So there you have it, the games that I’m playing at the moment. Do you have any recommendations for what I should get next?