Gaming Respawn Plays (November 2024)

We’re back with the latest Gaming Respawn Plays. We’ve been doing our usual thing here: Playing new games that have graced our systems in recent months and going back to older games for a taste of that good ole’ gaming nostalgia. Check out our latest gaming journeys below:

 

Tasha Quinn

Metaphor: ReFantazio, Fable Anniversary, and Civilization VI

I’ve spent a lot of time playing Atlus games this year. After completing Persona 4 Golden, I jumped almost immediately into Persona 3 Reload. Most recently, I’ve been playing Metaphor: ReFantazio.

I knew when it was released that it would be a hefty time investment – Atlus games usually are – and Metaphor has a runtime to rival Persona 5, which is probably the longest game I’ve ever played.
Sometimes long games drag, but I’ve been enjoying Metaphor a lot. It includes all the best elements of the Persona series but is set in a more traditional fantasy setting. It’s still as outlandish as you’d expect from an Atlus game but perhaps leans more into the classic fantasy RPG formula, making it appealing to a wider audience.

Metaphor has everything you’d want from a fantasy game: a mythical kingdom rife with conflict, a charming band of heroes on a quest, monsters, dungeons, and even sim mechanics with follower bonds and royal virtues.

Simply put, I’ve been having a lot of fun with Metaphor: ReFantazio, but if you want a more in-depth analysis, check out my review.

Outside of Metaphor and the occasional Civilization VI game with friends, I’ve also been replaying Fable Anniversary, which I think still holds its own as an impressive fantasy RPG. There’s something nostalgic and almost magical about the first Fable game. It doesn’t take itself too seriously – I mean, you can run around being called “Arseface” and fart at people, for starters – but at the same time, the narrative remains impactful, even though I already know all the twists and turns.

It’s one of those games that, in my opinion, never grows old, and I’m looking forward to the new Fable when it releases next year.

 

Peter Keen

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Grand Mountain Adventure

Please, help me! I picked up Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 instead of Undisputed and have been stuck like a lemming on the game’s multiplayer ever since. I’m too old for this, but damn nab it, like Winnie the Pooh and pots of honey, I’m being suckered in every night.

I didn’t get last year’s COD but was reading that people were complaining that this year’s COD MP maps were too small. That sounded like music to my ears as being brought up with COD and the COD4 map “Shipment”, isn’t that what makes COD fun? The small lunatic maps?

Black Ops 6 hasn’t disappointed on that front. It also is awesome because, although I never hope to get one of the game’s better killstreaks, unlike previous CODs, I don’t have to worry too much about what’s trying to kill me from above with this game. They seem to have gotten the balance with this just right.
Black Ops 6 has a small map called Stakeout, and when the game was first released, it had a small map mosh pit game mod, that featured Stakeout. Then, a couple of weeks later, a standalone Stakeout playlist all but itself. Throw in that they have just launched the Nuketown map (again), and this is where you’ll find me most of my evenings now!

The thing is, I’ll have a couple of awful game sessions, and then just when I’ve started swearing, I’ll have a session where I dominate and feel like a total badass. It’s such an intoxicating, stupid loop.

So, to calm down, I’ve discovered the skiing game of my dreams: Grand Mountain Adventure on the Switch. This game is a mini version of what I like to do on the real ski slopes, that being pick a lift, have no idea where it’s going, get lost, find a cafe for a hot chocolate, and admire the view while I figure out where I am. Blast the next slope like I’m racing in a Super G Alpine race back down to the bottom. Find another lift going a different direction, get lost, find a cafe for a hot chocolate, admire the view while I figure out where I am, rinse, repeat all day long until it’s beer time! The game even has a “zen” mode where it takes out all of the HUD, and you can just cruise…..ahhhh, I can’t wait until my next real holiday in February now.

I’ve just unlocked everything in this game though, so I will be moving on. I’m in the mood for something PlayStation-exclusive. Something that’s perfect for long winter nights at home. A grand adventure full of action and parental advice. I’m in a God of War 2018 mood….BOY!

 

Daniel Garcia-Montes

Red Dead Redemption

After having finally finished the supremely bloated but still generally fun Rise of the Ronin, one would think I’d do the sensible thing and play a shorter, more linear game for a nice change of pace. Instead, I started a playthrough of Red Dead Redemption on PS4. This is only my second time playing this game, the first time being somewhere around nine or ten years ago on the PS3. I still haven’t played Red Dead Redemption II (for shame), so I wanted to make it a full experience by replaying the original RDR before jumping into the sequel. I’m enjoying my time with RDR. Although there’s a lot to do in the open world, it’s not bloated with the same repetitive stuff that Rise of the Ronin and the average open-world Ubisoft game tends to have.

RDR has many challenges that revolve around collecting animal hides, flowers, and outfits, but I don’t feel driven to complete them all since you don’t really miss anything story-wise for skipping them, and it’s not like they provide any real advantages for John Marston like upgrades or skills, you just get achievements/trophies and outfits. Rise of the Ronin had countless optional boss battles, collectibles, and more, and skipping all of that went against my completionist tendencies since completing those things provided experience points, weapons, armor, and so on. That’s why it sucked that there was so damn much of that stuff in Rise of the Ronin. With RDR, I feel like I can stick to the main missions and side missions and skip most of the other stuff without really missing out on anything. And I like the mini-games as well, so there’s that. Getting lost in the great story and excellent atmosphere of RDR is just the type of open-world goodness I need now, and I look forward to finishing this game and moving on to its sequel at long friggin’ last.

 

Will Worrall

Minecraft

It’s November, which means we’re pretty close to Christmas season. Normally, that would see me playing a genre that is played by millions of middle-aged women each year: Christmas Hidden-Object-Games. But this year, I’ve mostly been stuck on Minecraft…again.

It’s been a while since I enjoyed Minecraft, with my last major time investment predating a lot of the added features, so I decided to find a seed with a snowy biome and set myself up in (mostly) vanilla Minecraft to have a grand old Minecraft Christmas, like the song but hopefully with less snowman death.

I’ve been having a cracking time, though it still has this ability to make time stop working properly. I swear I start playing, and before I’ve done one or two of the tasks I’ve set for myself, eight hours have passed.
I’ve learned a lot about the new version of the game too. There’s bee-keeping, new underground biomes, and even mountain goats (yay?), and I’ve not even managed to reach the Nether yet (though I am not far off thanks to a recent diamond acquisition). I’ve kept things pretty basic too. Cheats are turned off, so there is no spawning in items or going creative mode, and I’ve only installed a basic inventory sorting mod and a mini-map.

It’s been great throwing together my pastel pink Christmas-decorated home in the lead-up to the season, and if I invest as much time over December to the game as I did over November, this place is going to be more Christmassy than Father Christmas’ House. Now, if only I could get my terribly designed mob farm finished.

 

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