Tag: ps4

Spyro The Dragon – Small but Mighty:

Posted on by in Gaming

As I’ve mentioned before on the site, I was a PlayStation kid. When I was small, my parents were trying to find what it was that interested me, that brought me joy. They wanted something that they could bond with me over, which was hard to find considering how solitary some of my hobbies were. After seeing my excitement over a tiny basketball game themed around Shadow the Hedgehog that came with a kid’s meal at McDonalds, they decided to take a stab in the dark and see how I liked video games. So, we got a PS1 for the family. We picked up a few games such as Crash Bandicoot, Croc, James Pond and of course, Spyro.

For those of you who have done the maths and realised that the PS1 actually came out before I was even born, you’ll have realised that by the time I had got a PlayStation, the entire original trilogy of Spyro The Dragon had already been released for a good few years. I didn’t care. So many of my childhood memories are intrinsically connected with the adventures of the famous purple lizard, that I still revisit the series to this day. Heck, my mum, and I regularly 100% the games whenever I’m home for the holidays. It’s become a tradition, a chance to bond and catch up (and plot the murder of that goddamn bear).

Will Spyro ever get a holiday? No. He won’t.

Amusingly, I haven’t played the remastered editions of the original trilogy. My parents still have the original disks and a PS2 that is clinging on to life, so I’ve not seen the point of purchasing the remaster just yet. The same goes for the Crash Bandicoot games, not that I’ve ever finished the first one… Though now that I have moved out of home and am off living the adult life, maybe I’ll pick them up, as a little reminder of home. Having little things to remind you of home are important. Whether your home is with your biological family or the family you chose, being able to bring those people to mind when your thoughts get a bit too loud, is a comfort.

From the moment we are born, we build associations between our experiences and our reactions to said experiences. For example, when you touch a hot plate as a kid, you very quickly learn not to repeat that behaviour. That’s because your brain quickly makes the connection between that feeling of pain and the action that caused it – a technique called negative reinforcement. There’s been many a psychological study on the different types of reinforcement and their effectiveness but that’d take up more words in this article than there are grains of sand in a beach towel. Naturally, my mental health conditions have caused a lot of negative associations to be built in my mind, otherwise known as “triggers”. To combat that, I’ve tried to build positive ones. Spyro, has been one of these for as long as I can remember.

Some of these lizards still give me trouble now…

Whether it was a way to keep six year old me still whilst she checked my hair for nits, or a way to calm me down the night before my exam results, Spyro has become a lot more than just a game series to me. It has been the background to so many important conversations in my life – be that coming out as gender-neutral, discussing how I’m really feeling or coping with the loss of my grandfather, these games have become such an integral part of my life. As a military brat, I’ve lived in a lot of different homes. The main constants have always been my mum, my dad, my sister, and Spyro the Dragon. Whether it was sitting on moving boxes at age eleven right before starting secondary school or lounging on a beanbag the night before moving out of home, it’s something that I will carry with me forever.

Replayability of games is a big problem in the industry. After all, what’s the point of paying £40 or more for a game that you will only play once? Especially in more stressful financial times such as lockdown, deciding whether you can afford an expense such as a new game is a troubling one. Yet, the adventures of the pint-sized purple dragon retain the same level of excitement and comedic value regardless of how many times you’ve completed the games. It’s got to a point where we remember every single hidden nook and cranny, any secret areas, and shortcuts, as well as which areas we can assault Moneybags in. I hate that bear. So much.

I hope you fall in the piranha filled swamp.

There’s something about collectable based games that are very satisfying. The more popular AAA games tend to be harder to 100%, as there tend to be ten million odd bits to find. Take Assassins Creed 2 – with its endless supply of feathers to find, or the pigeons from GTA IV. Sure, you’d come across some of them across the course of the game but nowhere near enough to justify taking the time to hunt down the final few. Plus, the rewards are rarely worth it. Heck, catching all the Pokemon in the more recent games has become ridiculously difficult (due to trading requirements and version restrictions) yet all you get is a digital achievement. However, with the Spyro games, you get rewarded for picking up everything and anything you can find.

As much as I despise Moneybags and his constant appearances in the trilogy, as well as the later games, he does serve a valuable purpose. To unlock certain abilities, levels, and areas, you need to pay this money grubbing bear a specific fee. He acts as a barrier to ensure that you are collecting the treasure that is scattered all around the worlds in the Dragon Realms. As you progress through the game, his prices increase, actively encouraging you to be a completionist to reduce the time you’d have to spend backtracking. Plus, at the end of Year of the Dragon (the third game), you get to chase him around and torch his bottom until he surrenders all the gems, he stole from you.

My favourite of the original trilogy. Getting to try other characters, Sparx levels, new mechanics and approaches? Beautiful.

Although the original trilogy did have its problems (looking at you wonky flying mechanics and the Hunter minigames in the Spyro 2’s speedways), it always rewarded it’s players. Be it unlocking a permanent fireball upgrade, a treasure horde, or a series of fun minigames, your hard work pays off. Also, there’s something incredibly satisfying in opening the progress menu and seeing those golden 100% markers next to every level.

Regardless of my emotional ramblings, the Spyro trilogy is still good fun so give it a shot. As of this article being published, I’ll be off celebrating my 21st birthday with my family so I hope you all have a fabulous day and are staying safe!

Remember to like, comment, and follow the site both on WordPress and over on our twitter @OurMindGames. Till next week,

CaitlinRC.

PREY – This Article Is A Mimic:

Posted on by in Gaming

In the eternal time-vortex that is the COVID-19 lockdown and pandemic, I realised that I had never finished my playthrough of the game PREY. Considering I’d had a tonne of ideas for articles about the spooky space adventure, I decided it was time to remedy that. However, when loading up my save, I realised that I had left my Morgan Yu in a corridor with a Nightmare and no real way out. So, like any normal person, I decided to watch an in-depth lets-play and scream quietly into my pillow at every jumpscare. I’ll go back and officially finish the game myself one day, maybe as a Halloween stream if that is something that you’d be interested in.

One of the main features of PREY is the enemy type called the Mimic. As its name suggests, it mimics objects in its surroundings and blends in, until you get too close, at which point it tries to eat your face. Personally, my coffee cup becoming sentient and trying to consume the flesh from my bones is on my list of “Things I Never Want to Happen to Me Ever on The Face of The Planet”. Then again, that list isn’t particularly long (yet). Mimic’s can take on the form of nearly any object, forcing you to constantly scan your surroundings for anything that is out of place. That additional coffee cup? Mimic. That oddly angled chair? Mimic. That person trying to kill you? Not a mimic, just a jerk.

…I love my coffee but am not a fan of getting my face consumed.

You are Morgan Yu, a tester of devices known as “Neuromods”, which allow the user to gain new abilities and skills instantly, though it does involve inserting a needle into your eye which is scarier than most of the game’s monsters.  These abilities fall under two categories – Human, such as improved medicine, attack power and hacking ability, or Alien – which gives you access to the Typhon’s abilities like telekinesis, morphing and telepathy. This wide skillset allows the player to choose how they wish to approach each scenario they face, be it with stealth or an overpowered shotgun. My default approach is to try and be as stealthy as possible, then get discovered and panic until the enemies are all dead or I am dead.

Despite the outer-space surroundings and endless swarm of jerks, mimics, and phantoms, it is the atmosphere that makes PREY such a fascinating game. From the moment you start it up, you are consistently shown not to believe your eyes. Your apartment is a simulated environment, that you have been living in for three years, following the same daily routine (a la Groundhog Day). Three years of your memories have been wiped out from the use of Neuromods, and the entirety of Talos One has been overrun with the Typhoon menace. Every shadow seems to contain another monstrosity and you can’t trust what you see or hear.

You’ve heard of tall, dark and handsome. Welcome to massive, horrifying and demonic.

This look into what it’s like to not trust your own senses, gives us all a slightly glimpse into what people with Psychosis deal with every single day. Every individual’s experience with the mental illness is different but there are three main symptoms associated with a psychotic episode:

  1. Hallucinations
  2. Delusions
  3. Confused and Disturbed Thoughts

The mimic’s ability to imitate the world around you, forces you to distrust everyone and everything in sight. Your senses are heightened, every shadow is an enemy lying in wait and every unexplored corridor seems too dangerous to risk exploring. You are surrounded by death and chaos, followed by long stretches of eerie silence where every clang of metal or hiss of air causes you to jump ten feet in the air out of panic. It’s a remarkable combination of panic, distrust, and paranoia, lumped in with a healthy dose of genuine fear.

Nope, nope, nope, nope nope, nope nope NOPE

When the Nightmare shows up for the first time after entering the Arboretum, you catch a glimpse of your greatest threat yet. Sure, the mimics and phantoms all want to kill you, but their existence doesn’t revolve around it. The Nightmare, however, only has one sole purpose in life – to hunt you down and tear you limb from limb. It really should get a better hobby, I’m just saying. Try fishing or something.

These things are fast, strong, and capable of swiping your head off with one hit. No matter how powered up you are, these things are more than able to take you out. Those Neuromods I mentioned earlier? Yeah, the more of the “Alien” ones that you use, the more the Nightmare will show up. It’s not worth fighting these guys. It’s a waste of ammo for a one-time reward, with a high mortality rate.

GET BACK SATAN

Encountering your first nightmare, you’d probably assume that it’s just a set-piece and that the abomination will probably turn up as a boss fight near the end of the game. A logical assumption but an incorrect one. These things will stalk you across Talos One, destroying everything and everyone that is in their way. To quote the in-game description – “If all else fails, run.”

Another aspect of PREY that I absolutely MUST mention, is it’s ending. The grand finale of the game has you facing down an enormous Typhon called an Apex, which is threatening to consume the entirety of Talos One. You have the choice of trying to escape, neutralising the Typhon, or setting off the station’s self-destruct sequence and sacrificing yourself. Your actions earlier on in the game, will dictate whether you survive your stay on Talos One.

…Please don’t eat me

Throughout the game, when you encounter other humans, you don’t have to kill them. You are provided with plenty of non-lethal options to deal with your non-supernatural foes. After all, everyone on Talos One is also fighting back against the Typhons. They just don’t want their coffee cup to eat them, is that too much to ask? Each person you spare or kill, whether you choose to free or rescue those in danger, as well as the ending you choose – will be laid out in front of you in a post-credit scene.

The whole game was an experiment. Morgan Yu, your player character, is a captured Typhon entity with Morgan’s memories implanted into it. Every part of the storyline that you played through, was a memory and a test to see whether Typhon’s were capable of developing empathy and human emotions. Dependent on your choices throughout the game, the experiment is either deemed a success or a failure. If you fail, then you die.

Is anyone else getting a James Bond villain from Alex?

However, if you succeed, then Alex (Morgan’s brother) reveals something to you. The Typhons have already invaded Earth. The efforts you went through to contain the Typhon threat, were for nothing. However, by showing that you as a Typhon can develop empathy and emotions, proves that peace could be brokered between the remaining members of humanity and the invading Typhons. It is up to you to choose whether you want to be that bridge between the groups as a hybrid of the two.

We all know that I love games that have consequences for your actions. It forces you to care a bit more about the world you are exploring and the character’s you interact with. That fear and paranoia that you experience throughout the game becomes tenfold when you realise that your anxious trigger finger could be the end of a genuinely good person’s life.

Anyways, apologies that this article took so bloody long! I made it a bit longer to make up for the delay, so hopefully it was all that you were hoping for. If you have other games that you’d like to see my take on (eventually), leave them in the comments or message me on Twitter (@OurMindGames).

CaitlinRC.

MINIT – This Article Will Self Destruct in 60 Seconds:

Posted on by in Gaming

When a game pops up with a time limit, that aggressively counts down in the corner of my screen, I tend to panic. Any of that calm, methodical logic, goes straight out the window and is replaced with utter panic and chaos. Even the most experienced gamers can be caught off guard by a ticking clock, switching from calm professionalism to flailing back and forth, interacting with every possible object to stop the countdown. In hindsight, it is quite funny. In the moment however, it is utterly terrifying.

So, a game based entirely around a timer mechanic? It was intriguing and anxiety inducing to say the least. MINIT is a small, indie game made by Devolver Digital. An entirely black and white, goofy adventure game that requires you to find elegant solutions to puzzles within the 60 second time limit of each “run”. You have three functions in the game – MOVE, USE OBJECT and DIE. Yes, you read that correctly. The “DIE” option acts as an instant reset button. If you mess up the required items for a puzzle or realise that you are going to run out of time, then you do not need to reload a save file or lose an hour of progress.

Slightly ominous, standing behind a old bloke with a big old sword.

MINIT reminds me of the earlier Zelda games like Link’s Awakening and A Link Between Worlds. It focuses more on the top-down puzzle solving parts of similar adventure games, filtering it down to the core essentials. You have the key mechanic – the 60 second timer, triggered by picking up a cursed sword that was lying around (as they normally do). Your end goal is to go to the factory where the cursed swords are being manufactured and to shut it down. Naturally, that involves entering a haunted house, travelling to a desert island, exploring a temple, and trying not to get murdered by snakes. All in the span of 60 seconds.

What I find most fascinating about this game, is that I felt calm throughout it. Even when I failed at a puzzle, or ran out of time, I felt that I knew enough to improve on my next run. There was no creeping anxiety or shaking hands that normally accompany those timed situations. In hindsight, that is a rather sad thought to have. Regardless, we all know how impactful time restrictions and deadlines can be. Just look at the education system in most countries.

A good, pixelated doggo, to calm all your worries.

The exams that you sit in the UK, tend to be about two or three hours long, depending on the topic. Some subjects have multiple papers, like Maths, whilst others only have one or two papers, like Psychology. The dozens of hours that you have put into studying, the hundred odd hours that your teachers put into delivering the content, all come down to those precious minutes in the exam hall. Especially when some subjects do not use coursework to assess their students, your entire qualifications depend on how you perform over the course of a few weeks.

Academic exams were my nightmare. Even at university, they still are. No matter how much preparation I do, be that past papers, lab questions, aggressively staring at the content and hoping it will absorb into my skull, I always struggle. Often, I walk into the exam room, sit down and immediately panic and forget everything. My breathing grows rapid, my heart races and my hands and legs wont stop shaking. I take my exams in a smaller room due to anxiety and I do receive extra time, but these provisions only came when I was at university. During secondary school, I refused to admit that I had a problem. So, I would sit in that exam hall filled with over a hundred other students and suffer through, rarely achieving what I was capable of.

Spooky temple is spooky.

More often that not, it would stump my teachers. My performance in class and in my various homework assignments were always of high quality but whenever exam season came around, my grades would fall flat. We tried different revision strategies and calming techniques, but nothing seemed to work. Now that I am on medication and am working through my issues, my exams are not as bad to deal with, but they still are not great. I do not cope well in big action games that give me a countdown or I receive an instant game over. The number of times I have hurled a controller across the room due to failing a countdown scenario, is more than I would care to admit to on the internet.

MINIT provides the player with a list of achievements that they can aim for in the course of a initial playthrough, as well as challenges for those seeking a bit more difficulty in their gaming experiences. Some of them are goofy ones, like watering your dog with a watering can or talking to a mysterious ghost called Mary. It is a fascinating game for speed runners as well, considering the number of spawns you take has an impact on how “well” your run goes. The “Second Run” mode, only gives you 40 seconds on your timer, forcing you to think about your actions clearly.

I wonder what their rates are for an overnight stay.

As far as I am aware, MINIT is still on Game Pass for Xbox/PC so, give it a go if you are interested! It is a game that you can pick up easily and have a good time with, regardless of how much spare time you can dedicate to it! Ten minutes or an hour, I hope you will have a blast with it either way.

I hope you are all staying safe in these scary times and if you ever need anyone to talk to, reach out to me. Be that in the comments, through the contact page on the site or on Twitter @OurMindGames.

Wash your dang hands,

CaitlinRC.

The Blackout Club – What Is It You Think You See:

Posted on by in Gaming

We have always feared the dark. Even now, as adults, we still flinch at the shadows. It’s not the fear of the darkness or the blackness, it’s what lurks within it. When we know what we are afraid of, when we can examine it from all sides and judge it accordingly, we can begin to combat that fear. We are afraid of the unknown. A lot of horror games focus on this concept, by having creatures lurk in the shadows or force you to fumble along a corridor towards a monster, that you can’t see until you’re pressed up against it. In our fear, we appreciate every second of light and visibility that we can get, clinging to the hope that our flashlight batteries will last just a few seconds longer. Not that our fervent praying impacts it, but we can believe that it does.

What a lot of horror games don’t do, is force you to cut off one of those senses. During a tense moment, we are on alert, our senses working overtime to take in every minute bit of information that they can, no matter how pointless or odd it may seem. So, when The Blackout Club instructed me to close my eyes, my first thought was “There is no way on this planet that I am going to do that.” Obviously, curiosity got the better of me and I did as I was told, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this article! The point of closing your eyes is so you can see “The Shape”. Invisible to the naked eye, it prowls its way around the levels, seeking out the player characters to force them to do it’s bidding.

The Blackout Club is a multiplayer horror game that follows a group of teenagers living in the town of Redacre, who have banded together to investigate the strange events occurring in their hometown. The kids have been experiencing blackouts, where they wake up in strange locations that they don’t remember going to (like students who drink too much). The various adults in the town have started to sleepwalk and during the game’s prologue, one of the club’s members, Bells, is kidnapped. This spurs the club to start collecting evidence and build an understanding of what on earth is happening beneath their feet.

The Maze is not for the fainthearted.

Ignoring the frustrating amount of grinding you need to do in order to level up, I honestly love this game. It can keep you on edge throughout the missions you complete, using the sins system. During a mission, a kid may break into a house or knock out an enemy. Although necessary, if discovered, these sins will be reported. If your group of teens is too sinful, then The Shape comes into play. It targets the most sinful player and is relentless in its pursuit. Every time you close your eyes to see where it is, it’s that much closer to you. If caught by the Shape, you lose control of your mind. Powerless to do anything, you are forced to watch as your character wanders around the map, hoping that one of your friends can manage to save you. If you get caught too many times, the Shape no longer wants you to be one of them. Instead of controlling you, you are slaughtered.

Taking a lead from the Outlast games, you don’t get a gun or the ability to kill your pursuers. Sure, you have a few non-lethal weapons that you can use to distract or temporarily take an enemy out of the equation, but you cannot kill. These people wandering around and trying to get you? They’re your neighbours, your community, even your parents or your best friends. These people, although not in control of their own minds, aren’t entirely innocent either. Beneath the town is a labyrinth of rooms and corridors, called “The Maze”. It seems endless, growing and adding new locations as you explore it. Entering this place is not something a player should do lightly as you are not alone in there. During the game’s prologue, you get a glimpse of the cult like activities happening beneath your town and how outnumbered your group of teens truly is.

One optional element of the game that really intrigues me is the addition of Stalkers. The Stalker is a former member of The Blackout Club, who has betrayed the cause and is now working for the Voices – the god like entities that whisper to the residents of the town during their blackouts. The Voices promised that the Stalker’s family would be safe if they assisted with reporting the Blackout Club’s sins to the Shape. As a regular player, you are not told whether there is a Stalker amongst you. Unless you directly encounter them or they record you committing sins, you may never know exactly where they are. Traitors in game’s storylines can be a bit… dramatic in their motivations but in this case, I get it. Sure, maybe reading this you question what kind of person would betray their friends to an entity that is clearly causing harm to their town? However, I ask you this – how far would you go to protect those you love? I know for a fact; I’d go damn far.

You can’t run forever.

There is something about the Blackout Club that I want to highlight from a mental health perspective. It’s called the Enhanced Horror system. If you’d like to experience this for yourself, then go try it out and then come back to read this bit, as I’m going to go into detail about it.

Everyone ready? Let’s chat.

The Enhanced Horror system is an opt-in feature within the game that allows the game to listen to and record the player’s voices as they play. If you are lucky, or unlucky depending on how you look at things, someone will be listening. The Voices will respond to you. A voice that is not your friends will respond to your questions, give cryptic statements and encourage you to do their bidding – anything from being selfless, to taunting enemies. These Voices may reward you with story information or gameplay items in return for your services, with the interaction being shared with the greater community – so you can all try to decipher exactly what is going on within the town of Redacre. Whether this voice is actually real or just a creation of your mind, who can tell? Those with psychosis can attest to this, it seems real. That’s the problem.

How you choose to engage with this is up to you, but I think the more curious amongst you will be keen to collect as much information as possible. After all, how often do you get to talk to a deity like creature and have it respond? Anyways, I think The Blackout Club is a game that people should check out, especially if you aren’t great with solo horror! Why not terrify your friends at the same time, so you can all suffer together!

Don’t look back. If we look back we are lost.

So, I am at EGX this week (Wednesday to Sunday) meeting with various lovely developers about their games, so there will be a lot of content coming out over the next few weeks. If you’d like to keep up to date with all I’m doing at EGX, then go follow my Twitter – https://twitter.com/OurMindGames . I’ll be posting updates and pictures from the show as much as I can! Remember to follow, like and comment on the site.

Also, I just wanted to say this on here as well. As of a few days ago, we hit over 1,000 views on the site. We also hit our six-month anniversary. I am beyond humbled and amazed at the kindness of all of you, my marvellous readers. Your comments, suggestions and feedback on everything I do is why I keep writing and exploring these sometimes-heavy topics with you. Here’s to even more milestones.

Thanks,

CaitlinRC.