Last Week's Games: Wordscape, Rayman, Spelunky and Persona 5.

This week’s been an interesting one. Probably the most notable thing that’s happened is that I had to have my laptop reset to factory settings. It was time for its yearly tune-up and there had been some things going wrong with it; I was told that the best thing to do would be to go for a factory reset. I backed up all the important information; anything that couldn’t be re-downloaded at some stage in the future. I had some faff when I got it back because some of the C++ redistributable files were missing and that got in the way of installing and running, among other things, GOG Galaxy, but I got that sorted and now I’m back up and running. Sort of.

Can you work out the third word?

I now have a blank slate, so to speak. I’ve bought more games for the PC then I’m ever going to fit on one hard disc, and I’ve recently been roughly 30% away from capacity and didn’t feel like pushing my luck by adding to the number of games I’d had installed. At this point, none of them are installed and I can start again from scratch. But like a child with too many toys on Christmas Morning, I don’t know which to play first! Maybe I’ll use this opportunity to play some games I bought but never installed, maybe I won’t. But it’s an interesting experience!

I have found time to play some other bits and pieces as I’ve been going along, though. I’ve made a discovery on my mobile, Wordscapes. If you haven’t played this then you’ve seen an advert for it; it’s the word game where you make several words out of six letters. I’ve been having a surprising amount of fun with this, as the answers are always there in front of you – you just need to know where to look. It’s also nice being able to ask my girlfriend for help, which she’s always happy to provide if she knows the answer too.

I’ve also been playing Rayman Legends on my Switch, when I’ve had the time. As I spent the first part of the week in London, I was thankful for the Switch’s portability! Apart from that there’s not much else to say; it’s one of those games where you can easily do a few levels at a time and leave it at that.

All the characters handle the same, but this one's got
a particularly impressive set of whiskers.

On a similar pick-up-and-play theme, I had a go at Spelunky on the Xbox 360. I’ve had this game for a while, but I haven’t played it much because I enjoyed Rogue Legacy more. But having played neither game for a while I found myself strangely engaged. I’m no better at it now, and only got as far as the Jungle (for the first time!) before something killed me straight away. But I’m glad I’m enjoying it!

Couldn't tell you what's going on here...

Finally, on the PS4, I played a game that I’ve owned for nearly a year and (mainly because I knew it was a long-form RPG that would need some time investment,) hadn’t got around to playing yet: Persona 5. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I wasn’t, in fact, going to have to wait ages for the game to install before I could play it, and was able to get started straight away. I played the first couple of hours of it and spent most of that time wondering what it was all about! It’s very Japanese in style, and there is nothing wrong with that, but it can be a little alienating if you’re not familiar with the culture. You play as a high-school student who, on going to his new school, finds himself between two worlds and must find a way to escape while dealing with the problems the alternative worlds present. That’s all I can say at this point as I didn’t get very far. The actual gameplay consists mainly of exploration and combat so far, and the combat is turn-based with certain enemies weak to certain kinds of attacks. But with the game free from the constraints of western RPGs, some of the combinations aren’t so obvious, and I have a feeling that this will be a lot of trial and error for me!