Strewth, I’ve been playing a lot this week! I beat Assassin’s
Creed 2, you can read about that here, but I’ve talked enough about that game
so here are some others:
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| Yeah, mine doesn't look that good. |
On one of the nights in the week I had a go with Cities:
Skylines, a city building game on the PC. It’s been out for a few years now and
has been talked up quite positively as an alternative to SimCity. From what I’ve
been hearing about the most recent iteration of SimCity, an alternative was
needed, as many people weren’t happy with the always-online DRM (Digital Rights
Management,) and the fact that it almost forced a multiplayer mode on what has
been traditionally a single-player experience. Having not played a SimCity game
since SimCity 3000, however, I went into Cities: Skylines without much prejudice;
games like this have moved on since I last played one and I was willing to see
what has changed since then.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised thus far! The zoning is much
the same as I remember, but the roads can bend (not that I’ve been able to make
it happen yet!) and while there are a certain set of utilities you need to make
happen straight away like power and water, other public services – police,
fire, healthcare – don’t actually come in to it until your town is big enough
to give rise to the need for them. If I have any issues with it, I would say
that once the game starts moving, it moves a little fast for my liking. This is
arguably because I’m still trying to learn the mechanics, I can’t see the
veterans of the game saying the same, and I know you can pause it, but I couldn’t
help the feeling that the game was running away with me somewhat.
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| Absolute chaos for most of this! |
I charged my Nintendo Switch and played a couple of games on
that as well, namely Super Smash Bros: Ultimate. I bought this game a couple of
months ago, and knowing the scale of the game, didn’t touch it for weeks. I’ve
had a go with it now and I’ve quite enjoyed it; I’m not sure about the controls
(Combining platforming with two-finger fighting is an odd one!) but they can be
re-bound, so that’s ok. Fighting in arena battles with characters from major gaming
franchises is fun, and with a lot to unlock it’s the kind of game I can dip in
and out of and continue to make progress as I’m going along. I’m still getting
used to the mechanics; getting your opponent’s damage to a certain point then
knocking them off the edge of the stage is unlike any fighting game I’ve played
before, but it’s an interesting challenge which I’m enjoying so far. If I get
enough games to justify it, I might consider buying a subscription to the Nintendo
live service – I haven’t yet, but I think with Smash I may always have the fact
that I haven’t got a hope of unlocking any of the online achievements at the
back of my mind…
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| Better get used to seeing this load screen... |
Finally, I’ve had a go with Fortnite, the Battle Royale game
that everyone’s been talking about, for better or worse. I had a go with it on
the Switch; I don’t know how well that version stacks up to everyone else but
that’s what I’ve chosen to play it on. It’s alright. Again, I’m finding the controls
a little off, and I’m not sure how mapping some of the game’s key controls to
the face buttons lends itself well to such a compact machine as the Switch. But
as a shooter, it’s fine, I’ve played it for long enough to have an idea of its
addictive qualities and have fallen into the trap of the “Just one more go”
mentality. It is worth the hype? I don’t think so, but then again I haven’t
bought the battle pass (and until I’ve earned enough, what was it again, “V-Bucks”
in game to buy it, I won’t,) so I probably haven’t had much of the core
experience yet. I don’t know how frequently I’ll come back to this, but it’s not
like I’ve spent any money on the game, so...
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