15 months is a long time…

Has it really been that long since  last posted here? Apparently so but this just reflects that I have got, not a new interest, but a deepening one – in photography. So more of my spare time has been taken up with that than gaming. That’s not to say I haven’t been gaming because I’ve done a little bit but just not as much as I would have done otherwise.
So, what has been happening? In terms of recently, I’ve completed Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune the first instalment of the Uncharted franchise. Can’t remember when I started playing it but I finished it yesterday. It was set to normal difficulty and there were some battles that were difficult but I managed to get through them after replaying them many times. Just your usual amount of frustration and hand wringing involved.
I’ve stopped playing FIFA, was playing the 2016 management carer but got a bit behind with it and never kept up. It was a second season as a manager, I did manage a complete season before giving up. I had got quite far through The Division, the first game. Then I picked up The Division 2 and played that for a bit but haven’t returned to either. I will return to the original game, whether I go back The Division 2 I don’t know, I probably will as I like the environments.
I have not really progressed my Fallout 4 career or Fallout 3 careers. I probably should. Dishonoured 2 is a good game, I’m some way through that. Not so far through the first game since I started playing that after starting the second.
I bought Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Wildlands. Played through some of that, takes a long time to play as the map is huge. I have enjoyed it but it is quite repetitive.
I haven’t progressed through Far Cry 4 much in the last year. I did buy Far Cry 5 but I’ve yet to install it.
I’ve got Mass Effect 2, 3 and Andromeda but haven’t got far with ME2 so haven’t started the others.
Gears of War 3 I have started but not got far with.
I don’t know if I mentioned Watchdogs 2, I am a fair way through but not finished by any means.
The lockdown has made me go back to Grand Theft Auto, I have been playing GTA4 and GTA5. Enjoyed them for what they’re worth. Having the freedom to roam in a city is a luxury that they can afford without leaving the house!
I’ve played a fair amount of rally games, mainly the WRC and Dirt Rally games.
The last game I bought was The Outer Worlds. It’s a bit like Fallout, an RPG set in the future. Haven’t got far with it at all yet but I thought it was entertaining.
I did play some of The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt. It is good but I’m pretty bad at those type of RPGs usually. I have started playing Skyrim recently.
I also have Dark Souls on the go, I do have Dark Souls 2 as well but haven’t started that yet.
After completing Tomb Raider, I bought Rise of the Tomb Raider and have started it and want to play more. I also have Shadow of the Tomb Raider but haven’t really started that.
As you can tell, I have a lot of games I have started and not many completed, which is pretty usual I have to confess.
Before buying The Outer Worlds I think the last game I bought was Everspace, bought digitally in a sale on the PS Store. Prior to that it was Red Faction Guerilla.

WRC7 Update (Monte Carlo)

It’s my second season in the WRC2 Championship and today I took to the roads of the tarmac, snow and ice of the famous Monte Carlo rally. This involved a very long 18km stage on the second day, I think. For much of this rally I was doing quite well in 4th place, however due to a few small errors I lost one place overall and finished in 5th place. Still, I think that is a great achievement and the 10 points are very useful. My team mate ended up one position higher meaning that my team are in 2nd place in the Championship as a whole.

WRC Update: Germany, Spain and Wales

This is a combined post to cover the last three rallies of my first season in the WRC2 class.

My finishing position in the German rally was 12th. Overall that left me in 14th place (out of 21) on 25 points. I think Germany is quite a difficult rally, with lots of fast tarmac roads, so I was quite pleased with my finishing position.

In Spain things went really well for me and I finished the rally in 6th place, which I think has to be my best finishing position. It did not have a dramatic effect on my overall position however, it did raise me one place to 13th.

Wales is a hard rally, with difficult sections and poor weather conditions. Similar to Germany, I finished in 12th place for the rally. So at the end of the season I had 33 points and a finishing position of 14th place.

 

WRC7: Update (Portugal)

This weekend’s rally was in Portugal. It is an attractive destination with gravel and ledges over narrow roads that fall off gently down into the hills. There are some elevations over and around a wind farm with large wind turbines.

I finished 9th overall in the rally. This translates to 2 points towards my season total overall. It could have gone better if I’m honest. I made two or three silly errors when the rear of my car slid off the road and pulled me down a bank, leading to 9 second penalties whilst my car was auto-reset on the road. That obviously detracted from the total time.

I did take decent car of my car though and was complimented on a smooth driving style.

Overall I am in 14th position of 21. I’d like to move up the table but there are only 3 rallies left in this WRC2 season: Germany, Spain and GB.

 

Completed: Call of Duty Infinite Warfare

This evening I completed the campaign for this game. I have had the game for about two years now but I haven’t played it very much during that time. I picked it up again recently and have felt that the campaign in this game was better than the last two games I have played.

I recently bought World War II and started the campaign for this game, so this will be my next CoD game. WWII came out last year, so I’m running about a year behind. There is a new CoD Black Ops game ou now.

The Division update

I played some more of The Division this week. I’m trying to play a mission with harder enemies and the difficulty has really ramped up. I have completed quite a lot of the game but there are plenty of missions left, there does seem to be a gap between easier missions and the harder missions so maybe I’m missing some that will be revealed soon when I complete more missions at my level? I am level 12.

WRC7 Update (Corsica)

This weekend I played the Corsica round of my WRC2 career. It’s an all-tarmac rally but has a lot twists and turns and elevation changes. I am not the best on twisty tarmac tracks and my times suffered. You can see from the screenshot that I’m 9th overall but that is out of 21 drivers, so my team are still happy.

Tom Clancy’s The Division

I haven’t spoken much about this game, other than mentioning it a few times in updates of what I have been playing. I believe it is a great game. I love walking around the environment of New York with the snow and day and night cycle. The game is very deep and has multiplayer parts if you are into that, which I am not, even so there is enough to do and with enough variety that I love the campaign. In addition to Missions there are Encounters, which are like very short missions. You can visit safe houses, build your base by completing missions and just walk around helping civilians and shooting looters and gangs trying to control the city. I love my visits to this world and was there this morning completing a difficult mission but did it in the end.

WRC7 update

Not sure I’ve ever mentioned this but my driver alter ego is called Jad Clyro, not sure why – it’s just a name that I thought I would conjur up one day. I guess I’ve alway thought Biffy Clyro was a silly name for a band and I wanted a silly name for a driver so I chose Clyro. That might have been the reason or it might not! It sounds somewhat plausible anyway.

So, since I bought WRC7 whenever it was my career has progressed from WRC Junior into WRC2. I’ve compete in 2 rallies so far I think, Monte Carlo and Sweden. I am third in the standings, which I think I pretty reasonable going. Here is the overall rally scorecard…

Call of Duty

I have bought most of the CoD titles over the years. My interest has been waning though. The last CoD title I purchased was WWII, it came out in 2017 but I only bought it a few weeks ago. I still think haven’t finished the campaign of CoD Infinite Warfare and the campaigns are traditionally short, which gives you some idea.

I didn’t purchase any of the handheld titles in the series. I do have most of the console games in the series.

There is a new CoD game out now, called Black Ops 4 it is a continuation of the Black Ops tilts in the series. However, it is the first game in the series not to feature a campaign mode – instead concentrating on the multiplayer game. It features a traditional multiplayer and a new mode called Blackout, which I think is a mode similar to the Fortnite game.