A_Tennis_Giraffe's Blog - Jul to Sep 16 (16 followers)

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Hey everyone, hope you're all doing ok?

*PLINK* Wait, what was that?? What the? Oh wow, it seems I've just had a trophy pop early for me. Totally unexpected! And, well, kind of annoying actually too - I was kind of saving it for next week Oh well, too late now! LOL.

So, due to popular demand (Ok, not really popular demand - Due to Atsuma demand ), I thought I'd do a bit of an update as to where I'm currently at with some of the various games I've had on the go for a while. As the title suggests, I've been spending a fair amount of time over the last couple of weeks grinding away at, well, grindy trophies. And honestly I've not had a great deal of fun doing so Now, before any of you say, "Well then why are you doing it then?", the answer to that question is because...well...actually...actually I don't really know. I guess because I want the trophies? Is that a good reason? I don't know What I do know though is that, when they're done, it will definitely all feel worth it. But I don't really know why it will. But it will!

So, which game shall I begin with? I'm thinking...Gran Turismo 6. Again, due to Atsuma demand :P
So the last trophy I need for Platinum is

I finished the rest of the game months ago and I think by then I was at about 4,500km. Not even halfway Gran Turismo 5 had this very same trophy, but due to the amount of content and also the B-Spec mode that was also required for certain trophies (B-Spec for those who don't know is where you instruct an AI driver during a race, rather than you actually doing the racing yourself), I got the trophy long before I'd finished with the rest of the game. Not so in GT6. Not even close. So, I've been left with the long, long grind of driving aimlessly until I rack up enough Kms to unlock the shiny Plat. Honestly, I don't really have the DRIVE to do it But on the other hand I DO really want the Platinum for this one, so I have no choice but to force myself to sit down and actually DO it. I'd been putting it on the backburner but Atsuma keeps asking how my progress is going which keeps reminding me I really need to get back to it. Which is kind of a good thing really since procrastinating is not going to get me anywhere!
Anyway, so as of today I currently sit at 11,994km out of the 12,718km that is required. 724km remaining I can finally see the end in sight! I'm going to try and do a race or two a day from now on. I WILL get there!!!

Now onto Gems Of War...
I completed the base game of this back in June, but only a few days later the devs dropped an update which added in 3 new trophies. One of them is a right pain in the butt
This -

I guess you COULD, make this much quicker if you're prepared to throw money at it, but if you're like me and don't want to pay for it then you'd better get yourself into a good guild and start saving up those gems and glory! Thankfully I hadn't been too wasteful with my resources throughout my time playing the base game, so I already had a bit saved up. But it's taken me another 3 months of logging in every day and saving up my guild rewards so that I can finally afford to "buy" this trophy. I can actually (I believe anyway) unlock this one at any given stage now, BUT I've decided I'm going to sit on it for a bit and unlock it later on down the track. I'll also continue to log in every day and claim my rewards, just in case they ever decide to add any more trophies which may need lots of loot. Gotta be prepared, right?!

Project Cars is another one I've been chipping away at in the background. I finished all of the multiplayer trophies back in May (WOOHOO!), but the one I've been working on since I started the game is this -

Now it would be so bad if these events were somewhat regular. However, unless you own much of the DLC packs then you're going to be in for the long haul. Months. Maybe even a couple of years. I don't own any of the DLC for this game, but I'd bought Mr Funder the Limited Edition last year when it released. This came with I think 5 bonus cars and it turns out that those cars must give you access to some of the "On Demand" (as they call it) events. We didn't realise this until Mr Funder told me there was a new Community Event up and I went to play it on my console while he was playing it on his and I found I couldn't enter due to it being "On Demand". So we doubled checked and compared events and yes, sure enough, he could enter this particular event and I definitely could not. Since then there's been a few of these that he is able to enter which I can't from my console, so I've been hijacking his PS4 so I can take advantage of these as well There's another one coming up in a few days time which will bring me to 10/20, so this one looks like it won't take me nearly as long as I'd originally thought.
As for the rest of the game, I haven't started any of that just yet. The CAREER tab is still locked actually, because I haven't even created my driver yet! Not sure when I'll get to that yet though.

LittleBigPlanet 2 has kind of fallen by the wayside as of late. I did manage to finish the online component of it though, which was the main reason I started the game in the first place. So I'm very pleased with that I really didn't enjoy it too much, and the Dive In trophy was just plain irritating. You had to "Dive In" with other people 25 times and not leave right away. Now this wouldn't have been a problem if the Dive In feature actually worked
Problem 1 - 95% of people won't allow you to join, which then results in the game timing out and often even locking up completely on you.
Problem 2 - When you finally find someone who allows you to join you'll almost ALWAYS get dumped into their Pod rather than into an actual level (which the trophy requires - joining them in their Pod does NOT count).
Problem 3 - Once in their Pod you'll usually find they'll do one of 4 things -
1. Stop whatever they were doing so they can come over and slap you
2. Stand around in their Pod just chat texting about garbage such as who did
what at school today, and who doesn't like who, etc...
3. Wave at you and then proceed to show you all their costumes or plaster stickers
all over the place
4. Kick you back to your own Pod
Awesome. Very rare that you actually find someone who will, you know, actually PLAY A LEVEL
Anyways, I'm glad that is all over with now. It's about 7 hours of my life I can never get back now.
As for the rest of the game, I really enjoyed it! The story was a lot of fun and I think I might have liked it just slightly better than the first one. It seemed to have more variety and the controls felt a little better than in the first, although I'm not sure if that's purely because I'd played so much of number 1 that I just got used to them. I do intend to get back to this one at some stage and try to ace all of the levels and collects all the prize bubbles. I've just lost a bit of desire at the moment, but hopefully it'll come back soon! So far I've aced I think 19 out of the 30 levels, but the ones I have left are of course the harder ones to ace. Oh joy!

Prominence Poker has been coming along quite nicely I've been working on several of the trophies -



I should have at least a couple of these sometime next week. For the most part I've been enjoying it but I will admit it is a bit of a grind to keep levelling up. I'm not sure if I'll go for the one which requires you to be level 110... Maybe over time I'll get there but I don't know yet if I'll actually go out of my way to do it. We'll see.

In other gaming news I've been spending a bit of time helping Mr Funder with Resident Evil 6. We have been playing split screen which has made it probably more difficult than it should be, but honestly it's not really a "Me" game so I'd never look to buy it or put it on my own profile. But I'm having a lot of fun co-oping it with Funder, although sometimes I think I'm more of a hindrance than a help Ah well, nevermind! We're both having a blast! I think? We are aren't we Mr Funder??

Moving away from gaming now and I guess some of you are wondering what on Earth I'm talking about Cheer, Cheering the Red & the White. All my Aussie friends will know what it means, but for those from across the seas, my beloved AFL (Aussie Rules Football) team has made the 2016 Grand Final My team is the Sydney Swans and our colours are red and white. Our Club song starts with the line, Cheer, Cheer the Red and the White, hence the reference in my blog title! The big game is tomorrow (unfortunately I'm not going to it ), so I'll be watching it on TV instead. And I'll be barracking hard for them! It should be a good match and I expect it to be pretty close. Hopefully we can come out on top though Time will tell!

Anyway, hope you all have a great weekend and CHEER, CHEER THE RED & THE WHITE!!!

You know, I still LOVE that song!

So it's Friday afternoon and I thought I'd do a little blog. No, actually, that's a lie - it won't be a little blog. Anyone who's known me here or on TA for a while knows I'm not capable of short blogs However, today I will try!

So what's been happening lately? What have I been playing?

Well, I've been playing quite a lot of a game called Prominence Poker, HENCE the title of this very blog. Prominence Poker for those who don't know is a FREE game that came out recently on the PS4. And it's actually a pretty decent poker game!
Having PS+ gives you a nice bonus of about 70,000 chips to start off with, and there's also a daily login bonus which awards you a small amount of chips so that you can keep playing if you ever go completely bust.
The game reminds me a lot of WSOP which was free on the 360. I played a lot of that when it came out as well. It's a pretty standard poker affair I guess - there IS a single player (although the game does require an internet connection to play even the "offline" portion), but most of your play time will be spent battling it out in the online tournaments or ring play. Many of the trophies are multiplayer ones, but it also has it's fair share of trophies that can be done in the single player if you like.
You can also create your own "avatar", which I always appreciate, and there's all sorts of customisation options you can choose from (although many you'll have to first UNLOCK, and then PAY for out of your bankroll ).
Overall, if you enjoy digital poker then you'll find a lot to love about this game. I suggest you all at least check it out anyway, being completely free and all! Like all poker though, you'll win some and you'll lose some. Myself and Mr. Funder have had some awesome victories, but then we've also had some really bad beats too. Three of a kinds getting screwed on the river by a straight, a straight getting pipped by a flush... You get the idea
Yesterday was a classic though - I got dealt a couple of spades in the form of a King and a Queen. "Not bad" I thought to myself. After the flop I had 4 spades and I'm looking pretty good. I stayed in the betting in the hope of one more spade. The turn card is revealed and it is a spade. I have a King high flush. HOORAY!!! By then I'm feeling like I've all but won the hand. Hopefully another spade doesn't show up on the table... Bugger. The river card is also a spade And it's not an ace. I needed it to be an ace. It's an 8. There's now a 4, 6, 7 and 8 of spades on the table. Dangerous. But then again, really, how many straight flushes do you ever see in poker? By then it's just me and one other guy left. Only an Ace or 5 of spades can beat me. This guy hadn't been betting during the hand. I decide the likelihood he had either of those cards was extremely slim, so I push all-in. Let's see what he's made of. Will he follow me in? It turns out he does. By this point I'm pretty sure he's got a flush, but I don't think he's got a better one than mine. It's showdown time. My cards are revealed...King high flush. Solid hand. His cards are revealed... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 5 OF @#$%&!? SPADES Straight. Flush. AWESOME!!! Off the river card. Even better
Well I guess that's poker for you. I can feel the rage building just thinking about it!
Let's just move on shall we? Yes. Moving along...

Onto a little PS+ game we got last month that I'd initially scoffed at, which then turned out to be an awesome little gem - ULTRATRON! The only reason I decided to give this one a look was because I discovered it was made by the same crew who made Titan Attacks! Generally these aren't my kind of games, but for some reason these ones just took my fancy. Ok, maybe the somewhat low ratios enticed me as well Although admittedly the only reason for that is the way you can abuse the save system. And thank god you can, because without that then I would NEVER have bothered with these games. Because basically I SUCK at them! LOL. I genuinely had a lot of fun playing Ultratron though - so much so that during the time I was playing it, it went on sale on the X1 for a few dollars and I actually decided to buy it so I can play it again for achievements! It certainly wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but as I said, I really ended up having a great time with it and I'm glad I've expanded my horizons a bit by playing some of these PS+ games I ordinarily wouldn't have even considered

In preparation for the third instalment of The Walking Dead I recently (FINALLY!) played through Season 2 of it on the Vita. It was my first ever playthrough so it was all new to me. I'd been pretty lucky and managed to avoid most spoilers over the last how ever many months/years it's been out for. I can't really say anything because obviously I don't want to spoil anything for anyone else, but honestly, not much of it really went down too well AT ALL.
Now, if any of you haven't played the game or don't want to know how other choices may have panned out, PLEASE DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING SPOILER!!! And I DO mean it. You've been warned.

So now I'm really keen for Season 3, but I still have to do Season 2 on the 360 as well as the PS4 at some stage too. I'm interested to see how different choices will pan out!

Well, I said I'd try to keep this one short. Not sure if I accomplished that or not though?! Oh well! I'll try to do another update in the near future. Until then, I hope you're all enjoying your games as much as me Congrats to everyone on their various milestones lately as well!

Happy Gaming! Giraffe out

So I guess, like many of you, I've been spending a bit of time watching the Olympics these last 2 weeks But of course I've also been doing my fair share of gaming too! If it wasn't for gaming I'd actually be watching a whole lot more Olympics to be honest. Since it only comes around every 4 years I always try to watch what I can of it, as I enjoy getting to see such a wide range of sports and especially the ones that we don't normally get to see. And, naturally, the tennis of course! Although truth be told I don't think tennis should have ever been included in the first place. It's just not an Olympic sport IMO. One day probably every sport you can think of will be included though, including eSports. Wouldn't surprise me anyway!

In recognition of the Olympics and our Australian team, one of our supermarket franchises has been doing commemorative $2 coins. Apparently they are only being released through Woolworths stores, although eventually I guess they will filter into general circulation (as they are proper $2 coins and legal tender in Australia). There are 5 of them and they feature on the back a ring of different sporting poses, with a coloured ring in the middle and our Coat Of Arms in the centre of that. So basically all 5 are the same except for the colour of the ring, of which represent the colours of the Olympic rings. I have been trying to collect them all, and at the moment I have managed to get 4 out of the 5 (so black, red, yellow and green). So now it's just the blue one I need, which is proving difficult to get. I was told yesterday by the cashier who served me that she didn't have any blue ones and that she thinks they may not come back in for another couple of weeks. So I must've missed the boat on the first batch released I'm making sure I check my change from everywhere now though, just in case I'm lucky enough to pick one up from elsewhere that someone has spent. No such luck yet though - the only ones I've got have been from Woolies so far. I'm also actually after another black one as I'm trying to collect a set for my Mum as well since she is also a coin collector. They'll probably get sick of me constantly asking for my change in $2 coins!

So now to gaming...
What have I been playing since last time. Hmm let's see...

Let's start with Reality Fighters, a free PS+ game for the Vita we got earlier in the year. I'd been tossing up for a while on whether or not to bother with it. From all accounts I'd heard it wasn't really very good. Add that to the fact I'm not very good at fighting games, nor do I particularly overly like that genre. I tossed up for ages over it and in the end decided to play it so I could then delete it and stop constantly worrying about it! It ended up being pretty much what I'd expected - a pretty average, very repetitive, but mildly entertaining game that I really couldn't recommend to anyone who didn't get it for free. For free though, I'd say it was worth the 20 or so hours I spent on it. I don't regret playing it. I guess the thing that appealed to me most about the game was that you could put your own face on your fighter, and also the AR aspect of it (although I actually didn't end up bothering with that, mainly because it was just too inconvenient to set up my AR cards to play it that way, so I just used the backgrounds already provided).
As I said before, I'm not very good at fighting games, but this one was very "n00b" friendly. Rather than using buttons I was able to use touch controls which were MUCH easier, and also the varying levels of difficulty made sure they accommodated everyone. So once I got used to it I didn't find it too difficult overall at all.
There was one PITA trophy though, and that was a single online one which required you to beat 5 DIFFERENT people online within the space of 1hr. Now, usually the hard part for me would be the actual WINNING against other people, but as it turned out the hardest part was being able to find people playing the game online, and THEN being actually able to CONNECT to them
And as we've talked about before, boosting wasn't an option for me. So basically that meant I had to sit in the lobby for hours and hours (while playing on my PS4 of course!), waiting for someone to join and then trying to connect to them. And then waiting for another person, etc, etc, since it had to be DIFFERENT people. Now, as I said before this had to be done within the space of an hour, but fortunately you could alter the clock on your Vita and the trophy will still pop. I know it's cheating a bit, but you just didn't ever get 5 people in the space of an hour so it was impossible. I think it took me about a week to finally get the wins, and my final one was when I was getting ready to run out the door to tennis. So, deciding that I had to take the very rare opportunity that was presented to me, I put my bag back down and completed the match, making me late for tennis, but popping the Platinum trophy! It was well worth it though!

Next on my hit-list was Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse, which I think I mentioned I was very keen to play in my last blog. I'd already played it on the Vita last year, so I knew what to do and how the story goes, but that didn't mean I didn't enjoy it just as much as the first time
And as an added bonus, the PS4 version has a Plat, so I was able to add another to the (small) collection I have. This is a game I highly recommend for anyone who hasn't already played it. Excellent story, and really unique and quirky characters, and the gameplay and puzzles are also fun too!

After that it was onto Firewatch. Now, I actually wasn't going to play this one - I had zero interest in it when I first saw it at E3 last year. But Mr. Funder eventually talked me into it (although I did try it out on an alt account first though, lol). And I'm glad he did. This game was a lot better than I'd expected it to be. It's very story driven and it's the dialog that makes it, not the gameplay. The constant banter between Hank (you) and Delilah keeps you from ever getting bored of constantly walking here, there, and everywhere. Without it, this would have been a much more boring game. One of its biggest downfalls though IMO, was the way it ended. For me it was actually quite a disappointment after what had been a compelling and intriguing story. It just really fell flat for me towards the end. Still worth a play, but I just feel that it could have been/done so much more. Pick it up only when it's very cheap though.

Back to the Vita now for some JJJJJJJOOOOOEE DDDDDDDAAAAANGERRRRR! Another Plus game we got a while ago that I'd been tossing up forever on whether or not to play it. Truth be told I probably only decided to play it because I'd watched Mr. Funder recently play it. Hmm well what started out as fun soon turned into frustration and constant rage quits The game is fun, but dammit, it's HARD! I'd originally had some crazy thought I could 100% this, but eventually came to the realisation that the task is beyond my capabilities. Again, I'm not good at these kinds of games and I quickly lose patience with retrying 100 times and STILL not getting anywhere. I've stopped playing for now, and I don't think I'll end up going back, but I've left it on my Vita just in case the mood strikes me down the track to put myself through more punishment than I already have with it Fun and addictive for the first half or so, but quickly turns into impossible and rage inducing after that

LittleBigPlanet on the PS3 has been taking up a lot of time this month too. The LittleBigPlanet series is a lot of fun, although to get the Platinum is not the easiest and will probably take upwards of 50 hours. I'm now well on my way though, although I have put it aside for the time being as I needed a break and want to play something new. The main reason I did this one was because I'm concerned about potential server shut downs after them having announced the LBP Karting servers will be closing at the end of the month. Also, the Japanese servers on LBP 1&2 I believe are also getting the chop at the end of the month. So it's got to be only a matter of time before the rest will go too, right? So because of this I shall be starting LBP2 next month as well. I just wanted a bit of a break seeing as I've dumped some serious hours into this one recently. The good news is I'm almost done with the online and I'm a large chunk of the way through collecting all the prize bubbles and acing all the levels.

Because of all the time I'd spent on LBP, I decided I needed something simple and straightforward, as well as relatively quick, so I knocked out a little game on PS3 called Toybox Turbos, along with The Wolf Among Us on the Vita.

Toybox Turbos I believe is similar to Micro Machines (or for those unfamiliar with that one it's kind of like Table Top Racing). Basically you're racing on desktops, kitchen sinks, etc. Quite fun but rather short, so definitely not worth the $22 asking price. I got it for about $6, which is about all it was worth really. I enjoyed it though.

The Wolf Among Us...well I can't say too much due to spoilers (although probably everyone else on the planet has already played it by now), but again this was a case of "starts strong, finishes disappointingly". At least for me anyway. I still don't really know how I feel about it actually. I think I liked it? But just not as much as I expected to? I don't know. I'll have to play it again as I'm sure I missed some key pieces of information along the way which is maybe why I didn't really even get it properly at the end. Ah well, at the very least it's another game I can cross off my crazy backlog of games!

And now onto my current game of choice! Outlast! Now this one's been on the "maybe" backlog list ever since we got it free on Plus back at the start of the PS4's life cycle. I have always been interested in it, but after having tried it a couple of times on an alt account I just wasn't sure I could sit through an entire game where I cannot defend myself and my only options are run an hide. Another thing that bugged me was how dark some of the areas are. I HATE not being able to see where I'm going and I always play my games with the brightness bumped to the max. But even with the brightness cranked, there are places in this game which are pitch black. You do have night vision on your video cam, but using that uses batteries which you have to scavenge for, otherwise you're buggered. So, having deliberated several times over the last 3 years on whether to play it or just delete it and forget it, I finally decided to force myself to play it because I'm absolutely desperate now for the HDD on my PS4. Funnily enough, having geared myself up to start it, I click on the game to boot it up and I get greeted with an error that says something along the lines of "Cannot start the application". I tried a few times and on different profiles and kept getting the same error. So I actually started wondering if it was a sign that I should just delete it and NOT play it But alas, I ended up redownloading and getting started.

And WOW, am I glad I did! I am loving this game! Even though I am spending most of the time crapping my pants (I knew I changed my avatar recently to a poop for a reason! HAHA!). This thing is CREEPY *insert monkey covering its eyes emoticon here*. Really, REALLY creepy. I've lost count of how many times I've jumped through the roof. Jumps scares aplenty! The story has me hooked as well, which surprised me considering I went in thinking there wasn't going to really be much of a story. And the gameplay doesn't feel repetitive at all to me, despite the fact you're pretty much doing the same thing over and over again. Also, I thought I'd get quite lost in the place and would end up not knowing where I had to go, but in actual fact it's quite linear in its design so you can't really lose your way, even though you have no waypoint marker or map or anything. I'm over halfway now and I only wish I'd play this much sooner! What I expected to be mediocre at best has turned out to (so far) be an awesome experience. I can't wait to finish it off over the weekend and see what happens! I don't think I'll be 100%ing this one though, however. I don't really have the drive to beat it on insane, where there's no checkpoints and if you die you die. I've been trying to collect all the notes and recordings though, but if I get that trophy I get it, but if I don't I don't. Collectibles don't carry over and you cannot chapter select to get them either, so again, I don't have the drive to try and get them all again if I miss one on this playthrough.

So there you have it - that's what I've been up to of late - what about all of you? What are you playing and have you discovered any hidden gems like I have? I hope you've been enjoying all of your games!

Happy gaming, Giraffe out!