Basara

They've definitely embraced a more light hearted approach to the game. The ship A.I on Neesus is my new favourite Destiny character. I'm really not seeing an issue with game length. It took us about 15 hours to do the story mode, with some messing about on the first 2 planets. The fact that me and my friend blew through the story in 2 days is entirely on us. Any other game that had a 15+ hour story to complete would take me a week or 2 to get through. On top of the story I've still got probably 20 or so adventures to do and I've not finished any of the planets quests yet. You're always going to get a minority of people with this games that put in 10 hours a day every day when the game drops, hit max light in week one and complain there's nothing left. Didn't get on much yesterday, i did take a look at the gear the vendors sell and decided that the Warlock armour from Io is my favourite and the set i'm going to grind for. So of course Io is the smallest planet in the game, with the least amount of loot caves and the worse public evens to do solo. Why me? Shader issues aside, they've not really affected me but i can see why people are pissed about it, my biggest problem with the game is there doesn't seem to be an easy way to re-play missions or select specific strikes and crucible game modes. Hopefully that's something Bungie patch in at some point

What issues did you have? The only real problem i found with RoI was if a Ghost or Artifact where holding you back since they were the hardest pieces of gear to find. If that's the case then Destiny 2 makes it even easier. Ghosts no longer have light levels and so far there are no artifacts. Of course there's always the chance of shitty rng and just not having a piece of gear that you need drop. I don't know what the recommended light for the raid is this time, i'm guessing 275 or 280. You can get to 270 just by playing the game and doing public events and strikes which would be more than enough for a 280 raid. Nightfall aside due to the modifies, we were doing quests a good 20+ levels lower than the recommended light and didn't feel under powered at all.

Something to remember before you get infusion trigger happy. Hold onto 5 rare scout rifles. They are needed for a quest. I deleted a bunch before i started doing this and now i need them the bastards wont drop for me. It's hand cannons all round for me at the moment.

I thought the Rise of Iron grind was where they finally started getting it right. It basically rewarded you for playing the game and there were a bunch of ways to get to max light. It looks like a similar situation this time. Except there's a lot more you can do. The real grind at the moment seems to be 270+ until things like the raid/trials/iron banner begin again since the only way to get there i think is exotics. And with no Xur yet for Three of Coins (assuming they are still a thing?) it's not exactly raining exotics. Rares go up to 260 so you can easily get there just playing any activity you want. Legendaries go up to 265 but some come with a +5 mod making them essentially 270 for infusion purposes. And there are a bunch of weekly tasks that guarantee legendaries classed as 'Powerful Gear' which i'm not sure if they go above the 270 cap or not. Along with levelling up vendors. They are always going to limit how far you can go pre-raid because at the moment the raid is end game. You shouldn't be getting end game drops for doing a patrol or hanging out in the crucible getting your ass kicked. Again like Rise of Iron, i'm sure once the raid is out there will be a bunch of ways to get there again.

There's some information about Xur out there. He will return next Friday (15th) and will be accepting Legendary Shards as currency. No word on how much anything will cost as far as i can tell. I've been hoarding all sorts of things until i knew what he would be taking. Unfortunately I've hardly got any shards. If anyone's been doing any sort of crazy power levelling it seems you can pretty much buy legendary shards once you hit 280. It's a way to spend all that glimmer that's just sitting around doing nothing at the moment. The gunsmith sells rare mods for glimmer and once you hit 280 he will convert 3 rare mods into one legendary mod. Dismantling the legendary mod will give you shards. So even if you're not 280 yet start stocking up on rare mods instead of letting all that shiny glimmer go to waste. I'm at 250 and it seems the real grind begins around 265-270 so i don't think i'll be hitting 280 before next Friday but at least i know what i need to be stocking up on now.

The mission layout is definitely a huge improvement. Not having to go to orbit in between doing everything saves so much time. Various fast travel points across the worlds is a great addition too. Only thing i'd like to see added is the ability to set a waypoint anywhere, not just on a mission or event, and that other people in your team can see it. The new weapons system is taking some getting used to. I don't like that snipers and shotguns are now the equivalent of a heavy weapon. It feels like a change they have been forced to make due to the balance in the crucible in the original Destiny and to a lesser extent that they somewhat encouraged us to use snipers and the gjallarhorn to burn down bosses. I do like that burn weapons are a lot more common. And that you can now have two primaries. Being able to switch between a close range weapon like a hand cannon and a long range scout rifle. Grenade Launchers are fun but seem somewhat under powered. They have a good rate of fire but i'd rather they be used for crowd control instead of single target damage. I've probably used fusion rifles more in the past two days as a power weapon than i ever used them as a secondary in the original. Submachine guns are the only guns i really find useless at the moment. It's like they took all the bad auto rifles and just changed their class name and kept the good ones as auto rifles. There is actually a glimmer cap it seems, 100,000. But for some reason it says 99,999+. If you've hit that and spend, say 5k, it will drop to 95,000. But i'm thinking things like shaders etc are the only thing to spend it on after the campaign? I was using it to buy green gear that was better than my drops during the missions but once you hit level 20 it's not been needed for anything else so far, at least for me.

While i'd prefer permanent shaders it's not really a big deal for me. I've not even used one yet since i'm still progressing and haven't found any sort of semi permanent gear i'd want to use. Like you say, it rains shaders on you and the ones complaining the loudest will be the ones who burnt through theirs as soon as they got them. To be fair, if this is the biggest complaint people have with the game, Bungies done alright this time. The same with the microtransactions complaints. Once you hit level 20 you get an eververse engram for each time you would have levelled up. Unless i'm missing something you literally get the same thing that people pay for for free for every couple of strikes you do. If people are impatient and want stuff now, let them spend money on it. I'll just keep collecting them as i play. I've already had emotes, sparrows, and ships from mine as well as ghosts and light level 10 gear that needs infusing. So we tried the Nightfall. Holy shit! We didn't get it done as a two man team yet. You have 12 mins to complete it but get an extra 2 seconds for each enemy you kill. But with the new burn modifier it makes it incredibly hard without a varied load out. Which we don't have. It's also recommended at level 240 and we tried it at 230 at first. Under manned and out gunned it went very badly. We did a lot better when we came back at 240+ but without a selection of burn weapons it takes forever to drop a shield. We played around with a few ways of increasing light and getting better gear. Strikes and Crucible takes too long now. Not a complaint, just not the fastest way to grind gear anymore. The best way we found was the loot caves on each of the planets. You just rush in, kill the yellow bar, loot the chest then fast travel to the next one. You get a guaranteed rare item and a maps token for each one with a chance at a legendary. So even if the gear you get is no good you can still use it towards levelling up rank with vendors or breaking down the rares for the gunsmith and getting legendary gear that way. We went from around 220 to 250 this afternoon. While i haven't had an exotic engram drop yet I had a legendary engram upscale to an exotic warlock helm. I am finding it hard to shard legendary gear. It's early days and i don't want to accidentally delete something that might turn out to be the next big thing and then have to spend hours grinding for it. I really think my only complaint with the game so far is you cant choose a strike or crucible game mode. I'm assuming it's done so as not to dilute the player base for an individual activities but i'm sure there's more than enough people playing that it wouldn't be a problem.

We finished the main story yesterday. We've played for around 15 hours total. Despite that, all the maps are still covered with things to do. Adventures, quests and I've still not started any patrols. It's so much better than the original. It's the same addictive gameplay, only with actual things to do. It looks great and the music is amazing. I'm curious as to where they go with the raid. By the time we'd done the story I'd unlocked all 3 subclasses, hit level 20 and sitting on 208 light. I've since powered up to 220. The goal is to crack 230 to give the Nightfall a try. Is it just me or is there no way of selecting strikes? They only seem available in a random playlist. Unless I'm missing something, hopefully that changes in an update. I don't know if it was just luck but I'm guessing it's because the game is flooded with new players but I cleaned up in the crucible. We only played a few games but my ratio never dropped below 2.0 and in one game we mercyed them before I even died. Time to pad those records before everyone realises how to play!

Quick thoughts that others may have posted but i skimmed over to avoid spoilers. We dropped about 5 hours into it last night after work. The game is still just an amazing time sink. We didn't really achieve much. Only the first 4 missions and a crap ton of adventures in the EDZ. But it's so much fun doing it. The new public event system is great. Having an ingame timer so you know when and where they are popping up, we just bounced from one to another collecting loot. Getting excited over green freakin engrams dropping and then ending the night on a blue! a blue engram! The missions are so much more involving than before and the world seems a lot more dynamic. It's fun playing this game again when enemies actually hurt you and regular levels have some sort of threat instead of feeling near unkillable and just dicking around in nightfalls and raids like we were towards the end of the original. Ended up level 10 at around 100 power. Unless it all falls apart mid to late game there certainly feels like there is a hell of a lot of content in here. I was a little concerned when it was announced at how many missions there were but they are a lot bigger than the original Destiny and the way it's set out gives you so much more to do. I like that it's more of an open world for each area where you just pick and choose if you want to do missions, patrols, adventures etc rather than just jumping from one quick 5min level to the next. I think there was more story and cut scenes in the first hour of playing than in the entire first game. Loved the nostalgia at the start, going over all your achievements from the first 3 years and who you completed them with.

I have beaten Nioh. I've got a few sub missions to polish off but i'm done with the main story. Overall it's the best non FomSoftware take on the Dark Souls style of game. But i'ts no Dark Souls or Bloodborne. I found it quite a bit easier than the DS/BB too. It might be a bit unfair to judge it against DS but it borrows so much from it that it's hard not to compare the two. One of the biggest things Dark Souls has going for it is the world, how it's all connected and the various shortcuts you can unlock along the way. With Nioh being mission based instead of open world there's no real exploring to do. Sure each mission has it's shortcuts to find but it's all very self contained. It just feels smaller. The other thing is the lack of different enemies. After about half way through the game you've seen everything it will throw at you and it even starts to reuse bosses. And lastly it just doesn't 'feel' as good. The controls aren't as tight, the combat isn't as smooth and it i always get the impression it's trying to make you play the game the way it wants you too. Where as Dark Souls and so much more variety in the gameplay. That all sounds harsher than intended because it's a damn good game. It's just not the game i wanted it to be. Anyway, my gaming schedule is all cleared up for Destiny 2 now! I might try and sneak the first episode of Life is Strange: Before the Storm in between now and Wednesday though.

I think that's around the same mission count as the Destiny base game. I was kind of hoping for more than that but if the beta is anything to go by, the missions and strikes will be a lot bigger than the original. If the 80 or so activities are correct then that means they'll be a lot of quests and other things to do after beating the main game. I'm guessing a bunch of exotics will be tied to quests since that seemed to work for them towards the end of the originals run. Is there any word on when reset day will be? It was always a Tuesday before but with the game coming out on a Wednesday I'm woundering of they've moved it forward a day.

The UK and European Playstation Plus list is quite different for September: inFamous: Second Son PS4 Child of Light PS4 Truck Racer PS3 Handball 2016 PS3 We are Doomed PS Vita (Cross Buy) Hatoful Boyfriend PS Vita (Cross Buy) RIGS PSVR I'm happy we get Child of Light. I've almost brought that game a bunch of times when it's gone on sale and always convinced myself not too since i was playing something else at the time and would never get around to it.

I've stayed away from most of the in game footage just to go in at least somewhat blind and not get caught up in the hype. Gotta admit though, the excitement is starting to creep in. Weirdly i don't remember seeing any Hive in anything I've watched so far. I get that this is the Cabals dance but Fallen and Vex are all over the trailers and beta. I saw the other day that the trophy list had been released and there's only 14 to get. I didn't read any specifics but either the list is missing some, there are some incredibly gindy ones, or the raid will be ridiculously hard. Just seems a very small number compared to the original Destiny. I think it had like 50?

The King's Fall raid on heroic used to be super glitchy. Ogres teleporting all over the place and damage not counting on Oryx for no apparent reason other than 'fuck you'. It's probably my least favourite raid. I think i only ever bothered to finish that raid on hard mode once just to get the challenge mode done. Considering the ungodly amount of time i spent in Destiny, and that we'd still run VoG and Crota long into The Taken King expansion, says how much i disliked that final encounter. I can only image what sweet hell it must be playing with some randoms since your team has to be super coordinated. The reddit Fireteams sub always used to be good for teams. I'm not sure how many people are still playing King's Fall at this point but whenever we had to fill in a gap with a random we almost always got someone at least decent. I'm burning through Nioh trying to get it beat by the 6th. I've got 5 levels left it seems according to the stats screen, and however many sub missions it decides to throw at me. I've still not really struggled with anything like i did with Bloodborne and Dark Souls (i'm looking at you Orphan and Midir), if i get stuck on a boss i usually get it figured out fairly quick. It's really only the super quick bosses i get my ass kicked by. I still expect to just hit a wall at some point and be stuck for hours. These games seem to traumatise you into that thinking. It's a good game but i'm not enjoying it as much as i thought i would towards the end. And i think it's my fault. I want to play this like Bloodborne and Dark Souls, and while it borrows heavily from them, it's combat isn't the same once you get into it. The one thing i have noticed is the massive level jump now i'm getting towards the end. I've never really felt under levelled but each time i unlock a new level they seem to be 5-15 levels above what i currently am. That, coupled with the fact that it's a random loot based game makes it almost feel like they want you to have to grind.

My journey through Japan and Nioh continues. I've cleared 7 levels, 8 bosses and maybe 10 side missions so far. Looking at the stats screen i'm about 1/3 of the way through. I'm back at work on Monday though so my progress will slow down to a crawl, and then take a massive hit in a few weeks when Destiny 2 comes out. I'm not sure if i'm just under levelled in terms of health and gear but an awful lot of shit one shots me at the moment. Whether it's a random enemy in the level or a bosses attack. I need to learn how to block. I play the game like it's Bloodborne and dodge everything. Which worked fine up until today. I've come up against enemies with combinations so long i just cant dodge through them all and i get hit. I'm guessing that is the games way of reminding me there is a block button. Weirdly 2 of the side mission mini bosses have given me far more trouble than any of the main game bosses so far.

So i'm enjoying Nioh. It's not on the level of the Dark Souls games or Bloodborne overall but it's still a great attempt at a 'Souls' style game from a different developer. It feels a lot more actiony than DS/BB. It has missions rather than one big open world so there isn't as much exploring to be done but it also feels like you are making progress faster by clearing areas and side missions. I don't wont to use the term easy with these games, because at any moment you could get stuck on a boss for hours, but the slower combat makes encounters lot more manageable. In fact the hardest part so far was the 3rd boss, who was a lot faster than anything else in the game. It's more loot based too, you get a nice lootsplosion for killing a boss and there are countless ways to customise your load out and stats. Too many maybe, it's all very confusing at first deciding what i should be levelling and learning. Overall though, good so far, i'll be sticking with it.

It's a shame these bundle PS deals are never available in the UK. Even the Nintendo deal from last year was available here. Sort it out Sony!

Finally got around to beating Horizon: Zero Dawn. It's taken about 45 hours over the course of 2 months but it was definitely worth it. I thought i was quite thorough but the statistics tell me i only did around 75% of the game. I'm sure there are a bunch of collectables sitting in the dirt out there somewhere but i think i probably got most of the side quests and errands. And while i did all the hunting trials I didn't go out of my way to get top marks on them all. I was missing 2 upgrade points at the end of the game so there's definitely something in there i didn't find. I also spent a lot of time just running around hunting dinosaurs because its damn fun, rather than actually progressing the game. Holly crap are the credits long! Worth it for the post credit scene though (when did everything start getting post credit scenes anyway?) There aren't many games i'd consider picking up the DLC for but if it's more of the same i'll be grabbing it when it comes out in November. I see a lot of people calling it their game of the year or even the best game on the PS4. I'm not sure how i would compare it to Nier: Automata, the only other major title I've played this year. Horizon edges it out on the combat and while they both have great stories and worlds i'd have to give Nier the nod for the story. Best PS4 game still goes to Bloodborne for me. But Horizon is a top 5 for sure. Next up on the 2017 catch up is Nioh. I love me some Bloodborne and Dark Souls but i haven't found another game to scratch that itch yet.

I guess this is the best place for it. As of August 31st PS+ is increasing in price in Europe (and anywhere else that falls under SIEE). The pound price will increase from £39.99 to £49.99 a year and the euro price will go to 59.99. Anyone falling under those areas might want to grab a years subscription under the old price while it's still available. Some places that had it discounted have already put there prices up a bit. It's the second increase we've had in 2 years although the last one just affected the monthly prices not the yearly price. To be fair the past 3 months of games has been a huge improvement over what we've had in the past. It will be curios to see if they keep that up now Europe have had two increases, and one in the US, all in the past couple of years.

Had my last go around on the beta tonight since i wont get on there tomorrow. Knocked out the Hunter mission just to try out the new staff and exotic hand cannon then we jumped into the Crucible to finish the night off. We tried competitive. It's very competitive. We couldn't compete. Back into control for some mixed success but i'm happy with the game with retired on. Close all the way, all tied up at 75-75 with 3 seconds left. Timer hits zero and we await the draw screen. Turns out Destiny 2 has sudden death overtime. I got the final kill and between me and my friend we got 51 of the 76 kills. I'm happy to call it a night there and await the full thing in September.

The beta has been extended until Tuesday 6PMish PDT. I didn't get on at all today so that will give me time to knock out the opening mission and strike on the Hunter. Not that there is anything to be achieved from doing it on all 3 characters, i think Bungie said nothing carries over but it'll be nice to test it out. Anyone take a look at The Farm? It was only open for an hour today but i was away so i couldn't play around.

Knocked out a good few hours of Crucible tonight. I was inconsistent at best. We'd either absolutely murder them, or get our asses kicked. A few things i picked up on while player: When Hand Cannons were the meta back in Destiny i hardly ever used them, just couldn't get on with them (outside of Thorn). Now no one seems to be using them in the beta i am wrecking with them. I think maybe it's because of the smaller map. They do a ton of damage up close, and there are a lot of close range engagements at the moment. I don't have the consistency with an auto rifle that most people seem to be using but i was doing just fine once i settled on a hand cannon. Heavy seems next to useless at the moment. I can probably count on one hand how many times I've actually been killed by a heavy weapon. My biggest problem is shotguns falling under that class. I was never the guy to basically use one as a primary but they were my go to weapon for close range, especially in something like control. It's taking some getting used to now they are gone. Even in PVE i'm noticing it's not there anymore. Melee attacks in the Crucible are useless. Completely useless now. In other news, the beta may have inadvertently saved my PS account. I was playing in offline mode and at the end of the night as i was about to turn the console off i noticed it had a message under my status saying i couldn't appear offline as i was logged into another account. I don't own any other Sony products and were't logged in on my phone or anything on the PC. So i changed my password, set up 2 step verification and had it kick every device logged in just in case.

I could be wrong but i think they mentioned you'd be able to access the new social space over the weekend once the open beta starts.

I could see that. There's also no Titan hammers or Warlock lighting supers in the beta but on a map the size of the one they picked for control, a single roaming super like those could probably wipe out the enemy team 3 or 4 times over and drop enough orbs to keep the super killing chain going forever under Destiny 1 rules.

In regards to the ability and super cool down times. I noticed the same thing, even during the mission and strike it was taking forever to charge. But now that i think about it, it's probably to be expected. We are technically massively under levelled compared to Destiny 1. D1 light level was 400, the beta is capped at 200. Your ability and super cooldown time was always linked to your gears attributes, the higher your intellect the faster your super charged. I'm guessing that's the reason for the huge timers at the moment, we are essentially wearing starter gear with crap stats. The biggest thing i noticed about the curcible was how much of a beating you can take now and how much more damage you have to do to kill someone. I could 3 burst someone with a pulse rifle in D1 but doing that in the beta just seemed to piss them off enough to notice you were there and retaliate. Again this could be down to the gear but with level advantages disabled in the crucible, and everyone being 200, it really feels like you have more health in there. Maybe that's what they are going for? Control felt a lot faster than D1 since the maps where smaller, but now it's only 4v4 instead of 6v6. The faster game along with the smaller map and higher health could be there to force you to work together more and get team kills rather than just going off by yourself. Me and my friend stuck together for one game and went 19-1 and 17-5 between us. Going off alone in the next game we got our asses kicked.