Weekly Round-Up Wednesday - 6th July 2022

Winning! Don't mind the scratches...

The following post is part of a series of posts that are published every Wednesday to update readers on what I've been playing during the week (this also includes games on my "Pile of Shame"). The games to target are picked by Choicest Games contributors Choona, Luke and myself. As I'll be talking about my progress through these games, there may be spoilers ahead, especially for games containing a narrative. Consider yourself warned.

The Oil Blue

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 96%

Continuing to grind through the Achievements. I've unlocked the penultimate Achievement so only one more to go now!

Battlefield 2042

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 100%

I've been having good fun with the new season of Battlefield 2042. It's definitely given it a new lease on life in my opinion. I even unlocked Falck's Offizier skin (which unlocks at Mastery Level 4). I've also unlocked the stealth helicopters but not quite sure how to use them properly. They apparently have stealth mode where you can't use any weapons except bombs (which is still kind of handy) and I noticed you can't lock on them with SOFLAMs.

Need for Speed Heat

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 8%

I added another game to my Pile of Shame! Need for Speed Heat was on sale and I've been meaning to try this one out for a long time. Originally, the game was recommended to me by a Whirlpool Forums user when it originally came out a few years back but a recent recommendation by my mate Luke meant I finally bit the bullet, and I'm not regretting the decision so far. I have experienced some framerate issues occasionally, but the game is running off the Frostbite engine which I believe is a bit CPU hungry and I already know my CPU is the bottleneck for the most recent iteration of the engine (i.e. the one used for Battlefield 2042). Otherwise, the game is alright.

I like the fact the game is set in an alternate Miami called "Palm City" and how you can shortcut the day/night cycles which unlocks different parts of the game: daytime is for legal racing which earns you money and nighttime is for illegal street racing which earns you reputation points. Reputation points are used to unlock new cars and parts. Also, when racing at night, you'll attract attention of the police and as is the case with many Need for Speed games before it, you'll have to evade capture and make it to a safe house.

The game does have a similar vibe to Need for Speed: Underground 2 and it's probably the closest game yet to capture the same feel. The game has a huge number of options to not only customise your car but your avatar too (at least with respect to hair styles and clothes). In fact, there can sometimes be hundreds of options to choose from. However, despite the many cosmetic options, you don't need to be a total gearhead to understand how everything works as upgrades are generally self-explanatory or they'll at least show you what effect adding them will do to your car's stats.

LINK: [ The Pile of Shame ]