Once again I’m a little late with my Weekend Whammy, but that’s what happens when both nieces come to stay for the entire weekend. It. Was. Chaos. I love them both dearly but by Odin’s hairy arse they are a handful, especially together. Argument after argument between them drives everyone else crazy. And to make it worse the youngest one decided to leap off a chair, grab me round the neck and dig her fingers into all the muscles and tendons. Who the hell knew small children could be so dangerous?

Of course, this week has been all about E3. There’s a lot to cover, so I’m going to do a Patch Notes talking about the things that I found most interesting.

So this week I reviewed the rather excellent Blood & Truth for PS VR. I never knew I wanted to be in a cockney crime thriller so much, but Blood & Truth makes it heaps of fun. The action set-pieces always make you feel like you’re a badass, the acting is great and the story is some light, fun fluff. Sony continue to kill it with strong exclusive titles.

The other review from this week was Draugen, an interesting first-person mystery game set in 1920s Norway. While I felt the story ultimately held Draugen back the characters of Edward and Lissie were good enough that I’m looking forward to their continuing adventures, assuming we get them.

The inherent problem with a game like Draugen is that you can’t talk about it. That makes reviewing somewhat tricky. You see, dear reader, Draugen is one of them there fancy pants walking simulators, all artistic and such like. The story of Druagen is the game, but I can’t talk about the story in detail without ruining the game. You see the problem?
*Downs a shot of whiskey* But I got this. I got it. Right. Here we go.

DrauGen Review

Outside of stuff for review I’ve been playing some VR games, including Blade and Sorcery which is basically a John Wick simulator with swords instead of guns. The level of killing mastery that you can develop is amazing. Even in just a few hours of play I was starting to see the myriad ways I could pull of cool stuff. A quick search of Youtube reveals that a lot of people have become killing machines.

I suppose in many ways Blade and Sorcery is essentially a game that lets you vent your more…psychopathic tendencies. Turns out I’m a raving mass murderer with a penchant for big axes. Who would have guessed!?

Anyway, Blade and Sorcery is still in Early Access and is lacking in terms of raw content and polish, but the premise is great and even in this basic form its a lot of fun to parry an attack then ram someone through with a spear.

I also dragged my old joystick out of the cupboard to try out with DCS World, which is a “free” flight sim. I say “free” because you can download the base game with two aircraft for nothing, but after that the various campaign and plane modules cost cash. The graphical fidelity of the game is just amazing in VR. I spent the first 5-minutes just staring at all the controls in the cockpit.

Playing DCS, though, is more of a lifestyle choice, really. The sheer depth of the game’s dedication to being authentic is breath-taking. There are options to simplify everything, but to enjoy DCS properly means investing a crap-load of time into learning the basics, and then you have to learn the ins and outs of individual planes, too. Just the control layout alone requires a lot of studying.

I’m planning on letting my dad strap on the Oculus and give DCS a shot. He used to spend hours upon hours playing F-22 Lighting 3, a game he introduced me too. I think getting to fly in VR will blow his mind.

For upcoming reviews I’ll still be covering Void Bastards, I just need to get started on writing it. I’m considering trying to review Mordhau, but the old piggy bank is running low on money so I don’t know if that will be possible.

I may also review Assetto Corsa Competizione, which should have been an amazing racing game in VR but is actually a royal pain in the arse to get working. Right now every time I go into the game it automatically places me so that I’m sitting underneath the chair. It’s rather weird. Meanwhile, the menu keeps appearing above the car roof, so to see it I’ve got to switch to third-person.

In terms of books I read The Murdstone Trilogy, written by Mal Peet. At around 300-pages it’s a light read that follows Philip Murdstone, a man who writes about sensitive boys. He’s had one big success, but otherwise his books don’t tend to sell. His career is failing, and so his agent tells him he needs to swap genres and write fantasy, which he despises. Fortunately for Philip he suddenly seems capable of writing an entire fantasy epic from out of nowhere. Things get stranger when a Greme called Pocket Wellfair turns up.

It’s a fun book that enjoys playing with he typical fantasy tropes. The book is full of interesting characters, genuinely funny writing and builds a world I would have loved to have seen more of. Sadly Mal passed away a few years back.

My only real criticism of the book is how it wraps up. The ending takes a brave route, certainly, but one that will likely leave a lot of people with a sour taste in their food holes. I’m still not sure I even fully understand what happened, so I’ll probably re-read the last chunk of the book to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

I wouldn’t say The Murdstone Trilogy is something you should rush out and read, but if you’re after a short read with some nice humour and some clever twists it may be worth grabbing from your local library.

I also wrapped up watching Good Omens over on Amazon Prime. Ultimately the ending fizzled out, but the show as a whole was a lot of fun. The MVP was easily David Tenant who seemed to be having the time of his life playing the demon Crowley. He puts his all into the role and wound up being the best part of the whole show, to my mind.

Right, that’s it for another week. As always thank you so much for reading and if you feel like supporting the site click on the PayPal link below!

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