What games did you complete? 2020 Edition

[Mogster]

23/05/2020 - Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age

 

Well this was a long time coming. I bought this for the PS2 back when it came out, but I didn't get very far into it. I already had a 360 at that point along with a snazzy new "Technosonic" 720p TV, and it was tough going back to 576p fuzzovision, or less as it turned out in widescreen mode. It also failed to grab me like the earlier games in the series, for reasons that still apply today as it turns out.

 

This time I played the Zodiac Age remaster on the Switch, so that sorted the fuzzyness issue. The opening made for a promising start, presenting a distinctive world blending high fantasy with something out of the Star Wars prequels. The switch from fixed cameras in FFX to full 3D environments was impressive at the time, and still look cool today, but there's a weird blockyness to the world that make it less distinctive as a result.

 

The story was intriguing to start with, and seemed to be going for a very different tone to most games in the series. Vaan is introduced like a leading man, but turns out to just be along for the ride in a properly ensemble cast. If anything Ashe is the closest thing to a lead, and she didn't join my party for quite a while. A lot of the story focussed on the politics of two warring nations, with the more fantastical elements being mostly a means to an end. I liked the idea of it, but felt it was quite underplayed and not helped by the overly flowery dialogue. The actual voice acting was pretty good though, in spite of the awful encoding quality.

 

Most of the game is spent traversing the environment and fighting stuff anyway, and it's here where I had the most issues. In a brave move, FFXII threw out random battles entirely in favour of something reminiscent of a WoW (or I guess FFXI) style MMO. Mobs wander around the world minding their own business until you agro them, at which point you trigger actions which fire after a short timer. What makes it really interesting is the gambit system, where you can automate your party with situational actions, which is particularly useful for your healers. It's really smart, but after a while I found that my party was so automated that there was nothing left for me to do. Traversing the world was reduced to holding the left stick, waiting for my party to autokill everything, then move some more and repeat. Bosses tended to require more interaction, especially later in the game, but there was still an awful lot of downtime regardless. I've never used a speed toggle more in a game than I did in this.

 

On top of the mindless world combat, the world itself just wasn't an interesting place to explore. Environments looked nice enough, but had little in the way of distinctive landmarks and required a lot of map reading. I probably ended looking at the map more than the world! 

 

I wanted to talk a bit about the License Board system, which governs what skills are available to the characters, what weapons and armour they can equip and even what certain items do. Every character has access to any two boards, effectively multiclassing, which offers a huge amount of freedom in how you construct your party. This was a little paralysing to me to start with and spent a lot of the game wondering if I'd made some bad choices. You can reset any of these decisions for free in this version of the game, which is cool, but you still potentially need to spend a lot of gil to buy new equipment if you do. 

 

Anyway it's done now. I've criticised a lot in this writeup, but in reality I found my opinion wavering many times as I played it. Sometimes I quite enjoyed the laid back adventuring, but at others I found myself very bored. I do wonder if I've just been missing something, as many people rate this as the best in the series, but for me it's my least favourite so far out of the ones I've actually finished. I'm definitely going to check out a Let's Play at some point to see someone playing it who loves it.

 

Spoiler

January

07/01/2020 - Control (Xbox One)

26/01/2020 - Final Fantasy X (Switch)

February

10/02/2020 - Disco Elysium

22/02/2020 - Frostpunk

March

10/03/2020 - Darksiders: Warmastered Edition

29/03/2020 - Ori and the Will of the Wisps

April

07/04/2020 - Yakuza Kiwami

May

04/05/2020 - Final Fantasy VII Remake
09/05/2020 - Streets of Rage 4
23/05/2020 - Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age

 

[Soulstar]

@Mogster personally I feel this sums up how I felt. I did grow to like it and it was enjoyable taking on and beating some of the harder bosses by working out strategies which meant you couldn’t just waltz in and spam it with the speed and auto battle gambit system. There was a sense of hugeness and empty space in the world as a whole though. I also used the x4 speed thing despite initially trying to avoid it, and yet I still managed to spend around 145 hours going through it and doing most of the stuff available. That makes me wonder how ridiculously long it would have taken to do the original ps2 version had I played it the same way. 

[Yasawas]

I also finished Final Fantasy XII this week and loved it yet can't really disagree with anything @Mogster has put above or in the main thread. I think it's just what I wanted - the right mix of choice and freedom (the licence board, classes and hunts mainly) and brainless linear adventuring to distract me while I power through the miles on an exercise bike (the game). I did like the setting and characters waaaay more than any other FF bar VI though, although that's entirely subjective.

 

Anyway - Mega Man X4! My late blooming as a Mega Man fan continues with my second X game down in a month. Not as good as X or X2, nor anywhere near as pretty, and with a difficulty sine rather than a curve but a lot of fun regardless. Unfortunately I'm one of those people who immediately loses interest in a game as soon as the credits roll and moves on to the next thing which puts me in a strange quandary here as I'm half-tempted to start a playthrough as Zero, but I know if I do that I'll feel compelled to complete it and I have so many other X, Classic Series and ZX games I want to experience too. I'm just excited to finally get into this series which I've tried so many times over decades now and never quite gelled with. And all along the key thing for me was to stop relying on save states and learn to actually play them rather than just travel through them, who'd have thought?

[Unofficial Who]

May

 

30/05 Tales from Off Peak City:Vol 1 (PC) From the mind that bought us the two weirdest walking sims out there Off Peak and The Norwood Suite comes Tales From Off Peak City:Vol 1. A simple mission on the surface, scope out the local pizza joint and lift the sax from the cellar turns into a small mystery game crossed with pizza making and delivery. As with earlier titles all the people are somewhat ugly in a way that grew on me. The architecture is striking, dense with sculptures and street art but it's the music and sound effects that really lift this. According to my achievements even though I completed the game within two hours there is still plenty of me to find.

 

 

27/05 30 Miles to Barnard Castle (PS4/Dreams) Short game about suffering from vision loss. So you do the obvious thing and test your eyes by bunging your kid in the car and driving to a nearby landmark.

 

 

24/05 Super Bit Blaster XL (PC) Fantastic little pixel arena shooter that isn't a twin stick shooter. You control a little space ship in an arena where asteroids and ships spawn from the borders. If you get hit without a shield you die. If you hit the border you die. You have a turning circle (tight or wide depends on which ship you use.) It took me three hours to unlock all the ships, get all of the achievements and take down the boss a couple of times but I loved it. If you have the original Bit Blaster on Steam you already have this. It starts off slow but after a few minutes looks like this.

 

 

Earlier this month

 

22/05 When the Past was Around:Prologue (PC) 

15/05 Mushroom Cats (PC) 

09/05 deltarune:Chapter 1 (Switch) 

 

Earlier this year

 

 

 

30. 21/04 Donkey Kong Jr (NES/Switch) 
29. 21/04 Donkey Kong (NES/Switch)
28. 21/04 Super Mario 2 (NES/Switch)
27. 13/04 Black Mesa (PC) 
26. 11/04 Arcade Moonlander Plus (PC)
25. 10/04 There is No Game (Jam Edition 2015) (PC)
24. 10/04 The Adventure Pals (PC)
23. 30/03 Bioshock Infinite:Burial at Sea (PS4)
22. 23/03 Bioshock Infinite (PS4)
21. 15/03 Bioshock 2 (PS4)
20. 11/03 The Supper (PC)
19. 08/03 Devil's Kiss (PC)
18. 07/03 Time Gentlemen, Please! (PC)
17. 04/03 Bioshock 2:Minerva's Den (PS4)
16. 01/03 Bioshock (PS4)
15. 27/02 Ben There, Dan That : Special Edition (PC) 
14. 21/02 You've to to be Kitten Me! (PS4/Dreams) 
13. 17/02 Art Therapy (PS4/Dreams) 
12. 16/02 Art's Dream (PS4/Dreams) 
11. 12/02 Juanito Arcade Mayhem (PC) 
10. 08/02 Wolfenstein 2:the New Colossus (PC) (plus The Freedom Chronicles DLC) 
9. 03/02 The Outer Worlds (PS4) 
8. 27/01 Quest of Dungeons (PC) 
7. 21/01 Feather (PC)
6. 20/01 Paperbark (PC)
5. 09/01 The Cat and the Coup (PC) 
4. 09/01 1979 Revolution:Black Friday (PC) 
3. 08/01 Wolfenstein:the Old Blood (PC) 
2. 03/01 Wolfenstein:the New Order (PC) 
1. 01/01 Detroit:Become Human (PS4)

 

[Jamie John]

8. Gears 5 (PC)

 

 

This was a really enjoyable AAA action game that surprised me with its pseudo-open world design and well-told, engaging story, even for someone like me who hasn't played a Gears game since the third one, years ago and had to watch the catch-up videos. The fundamental cover-snapping, pop and shoot gameplay is as meaty and as satisfying as it ever was, and the weapon, enemy and set piece variation meant that I was never bored. I played on the default difficulty ('Intermediate') which offered just the right amount of challenge without being frustrating. It took me 11hrs from start to end and finished just as I was beginning to think it was going to outstay its welcome. Playing on PC in 1440p at a pretty solid 70-80 FPS, it looks fantastic and ran smooth as silk on Ultra settings, too.

 

A solid third-person shooter that doesn't really put a foot wrong. I'm looking forward to the inevitable Gears 6.

 

8/10

 

---

 

9. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch)

 

 

Yes, obviously I haven't really finished it, but after 210 hours, I'm at the point now where I've filled up my island with various locations and am only really turning this on every now and again to check what the Nooks are touting. Needless to say, any game that can keep a player coming back for that amount of time must have something special about it, and I'd probably class  this as the first 'Games as a service' game that I've ever been interested in playing. It is a special game, for sure, but I've definitely had enough of it for the time being. I'll be back with the next major update, though. Hopefully Nintendo will listen to the fans and fix some of the baffling design decisions, but I won't hold my breath.

 

9/10

 

Previous:

 

Spoiler

1. Death Stranding (PS4) - 8/10

2. Mark of the Ninja Remastered (Switch) - 7/10

3. Firewatch (PS4) - 7/10

4. Dishonored 2 (PS4) - 7/10

5. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) (PS4) - 6/10

6. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (PC) - 8/10

7. Half-Life 2 (PC) - 9/10

 

[Gabe]

23/05/2020 - Stories Untold (PC)

 

I've seen this described as a horror-themed anthology and it being quite good. And it was short, which is a blessing as I am currently going through some other big games, so as a palette-cleanser this was ideal.

 

It's...ok. The central conceit is that four different spins on adventure games are tied together by a central story, which only reveals itself at the end (though there are plenty of hints dropped throughout). A nice idea then, and it nails the Stranger Things vibe in many ways (not least because the designer of the title card for that series did this - not that it's particularly elaborate), with the music sounding similar enough and each episode being presented as a little mini-tv show. It's nicely done.

 

The actual episodes themselves have some interesting puzzles in them; a couple in the third one are pretty obscure though, however most are fairly straightforward and logical to work out, to the point that I feel this was more aimed at being an interactive story than straight adventure game.

 

That, then leaves us with the story itself: Is it any good?

 

Well, most comments say it peaks at the first episode in terms of the underlying narrative and the atmosphere it sets up, and I'd say that's probably fair. Sadly, the other episodes aren't as engaging (the second is really rather dull, the third actually has a bit of a 'The Thing' vibe going on briefly, but is let down by some rather average voice acting) and the final episode was very underwhelming (a lot/most? people seem to hate the ending with a passion).

 

Taken as a whole, it certainly didn't live up to its promise. The first episode sets up a tone that is completely abandoned for the rest of the game and it stretches massively the definition of 'horror'. Instead it is actually a rather dull affair with, like I say, a pretty threadbare adventure experience underpinning it.

 

A wasted opportunity.

 

25/05/2020 - Demon Stone (PC)

 

For the same reason as above, I wanted to a) play something fairly short and b) finally wanted to start looking at my GoG games collection, so I went for some retro hack-and-slash in a D&D setting.

 

Demon Stone is essentially a D&D skinned Lord of the Rings third-person action RPG from 2004. I'd played it many years ago on Xbox and remembered it was pretty short, plus I fancied smashing things in the face so I figured I'd give it a go.

 

It probably wasn't much of a looker back in 2004 so I wasn't expecting much graphically, but it wasn't actually too bad. It had that rather angular look to everything (as many 3D titles did back then). In terms of the mechanics, it was standard fare; light attack, heavy attack, combos, upgrades and skill trees, fairly fluff story. The game was centred around a party of three, with the AI controlling the other two, but you could swap between them at will.

 

In the pros corner, the AI for your companions was actually pretty good - they contributed to the fight, would collect health potions when low, would come and help you in a bind (or keep enemies off you when you took control of the wizard and used his range attack) and generally helped without making you feel redundant. I was actually really surprised, given how bad AI partners often are. It zipped along at a fair old pace too and each level was long enough to get your teeth into, but short enough to make you feel you made progress with every session. The voice acting was decent and overall it played quite nicely, with each character feeling different enough - despite essentially all having the same combos - that they all got a chance to shine throughout.

 

The cons were that the check-pointing was poor and cutscenes were unskippable. For most of the game that wasn't an issue, but in the last 2 mission there are some fights that are very annoying (the penultimate boss is much, much harder than the final boss), throwing masses of enemies at you whilst you have to do something very specific with only one character. That caused some frustration in the early hours of this morning when I got the boss down to the last slither of health, only to be lost in a crowd of enemies and fall to an unblockable attack I couldn't see.

 

In the main though, the pros won the day and I did enjoy my little trip down memory lane, having played it originally back on the Xbox many, many years ago. Were it not for some late-game restarts, it would've clocked-in around 5 hours or so, which again was just right for my break between slogging back through FF XV.

 

Of course, I'm now looking at some other stuff in my GoG library (particularly Clive Barker's Undying and Realms of the Haunting) and thinking maybe I should just go with them. Might be more fun than FF XV, at least. Decisions, decisions!

 

 

Previously completed:

Spoiler

03/05/2020 - Streets of Rage (PC)

29/04/2020 - Inside (PC)

21/04/2020 - Call of Duty WW2 (PC)

19/04/2020 - Wheels of Aurelia (PC)

15/04/2020 - Sword Omen: Legacy (PC)

02/04/2020 - Mother Russia Bleeds (PC)

29/03/2020 - Operencia - The Stolen Sun (PC)

20/02/2020 - Ruzar: The Life Stone (PC)

20/02/2020 - Alder's Blood: Prologue (PC)

17/02/2020 - Universal Paperclips (PC)

15/02/2020 - Gris (PC)

21/01/2020 - Gears of War 5 (Xbox One X)

19/01/2020 - Diablo 3 - Reaper of Souls (Xbox One X)

05/01/2020 - Night Call (PC)

02/01/2020 - Remember Me (PC)

 

[Nick R]

Last night I finally finished...

 

DARK

BLOODY

BASTARDING

FLIPPING

GODDAMN

BULLSHIT

I HATE YOU

I LOVE YOU

PRAISE THE SUN

D'YA LIKE DAGS

PERNICIOUS CAITIFF

...heh heh heh...

AMAZING CHEST AHEAD

GOOD DOGGO :,(

SUN BRO

ONION BRO

I TRUST YOU, PATCHES, YOU LITTLE RASCAL

RAVELORD NITO

TITANITE FARMING

WELCOME TO SEN'S HOUSE OF FUN

DRAGON BUTTS 'N' EYE-SEARING LAVA

SEATH HAS GREAT TASTE IN EXPERIMENTAL AVANT-GARDE AMBIENT NOISE ROCK

BELIEVE IT OR NOT I GOT PAST THE ANOR LONDO ARCHERS FIRST TRY, SOMEHOW

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE'S STILL TWO SEQUELS PLUS BLOODBORNE TO GO

YOU DIED

GIT GUD

THE REAL DARK SOULS BEGINS HERE

SOULS

 

That's the original Xbox 360 version, the vanilla game, without the DLC. (I'm saving that for playthrough #2...)

 

Final stats:

• 120h 03m 29s (plus 3 hours and 27 hours on two previous playthough attempts)
• 496 deaths (plus God knows how many on those earlier unfinished attempts)
• Level 99 (Vit 34 / Att 12 / End 34 / Str 32 / Dex 40 / Res 12 / Int 10 / Fai 8)
• Equipment on last boss: Iaito+15, Pyromancy+15,  Longbow+6, Dragon Crest Shield, 6-Eyed Helm of the Channellers, Robe of Channellers, Shadow Gauntlets, Gold-Hemmed Black Skirt, Havel's Ring, Wolf Ring

All done on Easy Mode (aka Pyromancer class). Or maybe you could call it Hard Mode, since - being a stubborn fool - I insisted on doing it all solo, without summoning any NPC or player allies to engage in jolly co-operation.

 

I was unadventurous in my weapon choices, sticking mainly to the Longsword, Balder Side Sword (I ended the game with at least 3 BSSs!), Silver Knight Straight Sword, and Iaito, mainly because of their simplicity and predictability (the clear footing of an R2 poke was very helpful in Blighttown). I didn't experiment much with greatswords: once I had the strength stats, the timing of the lighter weapons was too ingrained in me to change.

 

What took me so long?

 

This game has been hanging over my head for a long time. I've participated in Dark Souls threads here, and even put it high in my games of the decade list because of how much I respect its design, but never actually finished it. I bought it in December 2013, got about 3 hours in then restarted because I accidentally aggro'd the Burg Merchant - and I think I took the Master Key on that first try too, so it was a good thing I restarted. On second try, whenever I played it, I enjoyed it - but I often went months between play sessions because I found it daunting not knowing how much progress I'd be able to make. Especially since I got really into Street Fighter IV in 2014-15, whose bite-sized chunks represented the exact opposite of Dark Souls sessions.

 

For a long time, I left the game at the Gaping Dragon - one of those bosses that everyone insists is easy, but which gave me more trouble than it should. When I resumed and defeated it in 2017, I opened the gates of Blighttown, with a play time of about 27 hours... and then before my next session, my Xbox 360's HDD died. I got a new replacement, but it wasn't until January 2019 that I started again. (I think it was seeing TB Skyen's Boss Designs of Dark Souls YouTube series, which followed his first blind playthrough from May 2018 to summer 2019, that prompted me to give it another go.)

 

 

To give you an idea of how spread out my play sessions were, I've checked my notes and achievement dates:

 

Spoiler

• 16.12.2013 - Started game, got the first few basic achievements
• 10.01.2014 - Ring 1st bell (Undead Church)
• July 2014 - Reached Gaping Dragon

Surely I must have played it at some point in these three years?

• 02.11.2017 - Killed Gaping Dragon; HDD died
• 14.01.2019 - Started again
• 12.02.2019 - Ring 2nd bell (Quelaag's Domain)
• 24.02.2019 - Arrived in Anor Londo
• 04.05.2019 - Place Lordvessel
• 07.05.2019 - Art of Abysswalking
• 20.06.2019 - Defeat Seath
• 04.07.2019 - Defeat Nito
• 05.07.2019 - Covenant: Path of the Dragon
• 02.09.2019 - Defeat Four Kings
• 06.01.2020 - Defeat Gwyndolin
• 07.03.2020 - Defeat Bed of Chaos; upgrade Strongest Weapon
• 25.05.2020 - Defeat Gwyn; Link the Fire

 

 

For context, April 2014 was when the first Dumbshits Guide to Dark Souls video came out. I've been watching those after finishing areas in this playthrough. At least I can say I finished it before WildPie101 finished that video series!

Because I dragged it out so long, there were a lot of things that I had spoiled for me in advance. For example, I accidentally found out where The Great Hollow was by watching a bit too far into a YouTube video that I thought would stay well behind my own progress up to at that point, and I also knew about how to get to The Painted World. But there were still surprises throughout the game: I'd heard the names "Quelaag", "Ash Lake", "The Painted World", "Crystal Caves" and "The Duke's Archives", but I knew almost nothing about what they looked like until I got to those points. But towards the end of the game I was reading wikis and watching speedruns and Illusory Wall's Dark Souls Dissected Videos like there was no tomorrow. 

 

A lot of that 120:03:29 in-game time was spent aimlessly hopping around the world, especially when the game opens up into several possible boss options; if I'd stuck to one route at a time, it might have been shorter. And the time taken up writing progress notes as I went along surely added up too. (I used those notes to post updates in the original Dark Souls thread - my last one was a year ago, at 67 hours.) And there were a few times when I waited by a bonfire while I looked up some advice online.

 

So 120 hours is not quite as bad as it sounds. That's my excuse anyway! 

 

The final boss

Last night's session was all about pushing through the final boss. I'd half-heartedly tackled Gwyn in my last play session back in March, but I ummed and ahhed about seriously going for it because I wasn't sure I'd done everything I should before finishing the game. (I hadn't used any boss souls to make weapons, for example.) Last night I sat down, determined to finish it. I expected it to take about an hour... but it ended up taking me four hours, with 43 deaths against Gwyn, plus a few to the knights in the Kiln along the way.

 

Spoiler

My early attempts were spent learning to dodge his long range attacks, and trying to get a feel for when it was safe to use Estus. (It took a few deaths before I realised that a stalagmite needed to be in the way if I wanted to have much chance of fitting in an Estus swig without taking a hit.) Then I tried recognising his close-range grab and kick attacks, so I could safely exploit his whiffs by fitting in a single attack. But it was in trying to learn to recognise his longer attack combos that I hit a brick wall. So I accepted that I was going to have to do what I'd seen recommended elsewhere, and learn to parry his strikes.

 

Reading up on the fight afterwards, I find it hard to believe players who say "I learned to parry earlier in the game, so I found Gwyn a pushover." His attack telegraphing and timing is unique, so I don't see how what you learn on any other enemy can apply to him? And his slash combos are of variable lengths but all look very similar, so it's really difficult to learn to recognise them. So many times he went into a lightning-quick forward thrust when I thought he was going for another swing!

 

Even when I'd begun recognising his patterns, my attempts were still really inconsistent: some attempts would involve me parrying several consecutive attacks, getting him down to ~10% HP; other tries I'd be killed right at the start of the fight. Sometimes I was able to block his first swing without being staggered and parry his second; other times those same attacks wouls stagger me. (Really hard to tell what was happening with my stamina bar at the same time!) Sometimes my parry would deflect the attack and I wouldn't take damage - but it wouldn't leave him open for a riposte. Sometimes he'd behave and I could manoeuvre him behind a stalagmite so I could take a swig of Estus; other times he just wouldn't.

 

I swapped weapons and equipment a few times: I mostly used the Iaito+15, but I spent a while using the Silver Knight Straight Sword+5 because I wasn't sure if the Iaito's bleed damage was beneficial. Should I wear clothing with hight Physical DEF, or lighter stuff with high Fire DEF? Which ring to use: physical DEF boost, fire DEF boost, Wolf Ring for poise? Should I use pine resin for a lightning buff before the fight (looking at the wiki afterwards, it turns out the answer is no), or the Green Blossom for a stamina boost?

 

When my total deaths started racking up into the high 400s, I set myself a goal of finishing the game in under 500... then the deaths continued and I got worried I wouldn't be able to meet it. Fortunately my final total was 496! (But I've probably miscounted somewhere in my notes. Of course that tally excludes all the uncounted deaths on those first two abandoned attempts years ago...)

 

And now... what next? Do I buy the DLC and start again, focusing on Sorcery and Miracles? (Cleric Knight?) Or do I go for New Game Plus? Or do I start Dark Souls II? Whichever I choose, hopefully it won't take me another 6.5 years...

[Pob]

Streets of Rage 4

 

The side-scrolling beat 'em up was the genre that made me really fall in love with games. Renegade on the Speccy and Double Dragon in the arcade were two formative games for me. Then came Final Fight and, of course, the Streets Of Rage series on the Mega Drive before the world, including me, turned its attention to 1v1 fighting games with the arrival of Street Fighter 2.

 

Afters Streets 2, I played a bit of SOR3 and the occasional Capcom side-scroller like Punisher and AVP but for me it was always about those urban, Warriors-inspired environments - lead pipes, graffitid subway trains, denim jackets with torn-off sleeves and end-of-game bosses who brought a gun to a knife fight. A genre that shone brightly between 1986 and 1991 before gamers moved on.

 

Streets of Rage 4 brings back everything I loved about the side-scrolling beat 'em up, bringing a modern game design sensibility without succumbing to any of the cruft that could potentially distract from the sheer kinetic fun of stun-locking five goons in place with a combo of unblockable punches and kicks. No XP, no skill-trees, no parrying. Just deal as much damage as you can before turning to face the next threat, mixing things up for the sheer fun of it.

 

But SOR4 is more tactical than I ever remember the genre being. I guess it was always about crowd-management, I just never realised how much skill was involved in knowing when to abandon a combo, or when to finish up a grapple by throwing your victim into his colleagues. I finished the game on the toughest setting at the weekend, and it felt like a 2D Dead Rising. Every split-second counts as you try to clear a path to the chicken-shaped health re-up, desperately manoeuvring yourself closer as you try to prevent your life-bar from reaching zero. Mania difficulty level brought back memories of Halo on Legendary. Very tough, but intensely rewarding. Bite-sized sections that play out differently with every attempt.

 

SOR4 introduces some new features that add significant depth and immediacy, most notably the ability to use the edge of the screen to bounce and juggle enemies, racking up obscene damage and keeping the game flowing. Weapons are a lifesaver in some instances and a bind in others. They're not always the best choice for dealing with crowds, but you sure as hell better stop the black-shirted Barney cop from picking up his taser and using it against you, and if you see Galcia pick up a knife, the next few seconds become about disarming him before he rushes you.

 

Every game mode works in its own way. There's the standard Story mode for working through the 12 stages one at a time with the allotted lives, and Arcade mode for trying a '1 credit' run. Even Boss Rush is fun. This works better than the traditional setup of having to do the whole game in one go with an arbitrary number of continues, as was the custom in the SNES and MD era. SOR4 is balanced around being played and replayed at home, rather than trying to guzzle coins via cheap bosses and a steep difficulty curve. The whole thing is tough but fair. Even the original SOR games, a series that started on home console but was closely modelled on the Final Fight arcade game, didn't get the balance right in my opinion.

 

The whole thing is just so smooth, responsive and satisfying. I'll be firing it up for a quick blast for a while to come. It's another success for Game Pass - I've no doubt this would've passed me by otherwise. I didn't know how much I missed the genre until I played this.

 

Previous

Spoiler

 

1. Jedi Fallen Order

2. COD Modern Warfare

3. Outer Wilds

4. Dishonored 2

5. Trials HD

6. Trials Rising

7. Streets of Rage 4

 

 

[moosegrinder]

26th may 2020

 

Void Bastards - Xbox One. Prolly 20 hours or something.

 

As rogue like dungeon crawlers go this was right up my street. The 2000AD aesthetic, enemy design and clunky humour entertained me no end (although absolutely would get on some people's nerves), and it had sufficient looting and shooting and tech trees and all that good stuff. Now I'm going to move onto Immortal Redneck as I need to fill that gap.

[dreamylittledream]

8. Mirrors Edge: Catalyst (PC)

 

So the year of catching up very slowly with the backlog continues (have I played anything released this year, this year yet - checks notes - looks like a no - oh wait The Division 2 expansion counts right?  Otherwise its a no) - so 7 down, 800 odd to go according to my GOG library....don't know what's more worrying really - the fact that I have 855 games in my library and I've never even booted over 800 of them, or the fact that I only got a PC capable of playing games 15 months ago...

 

Anyway we digress, lots of those entries in my library are down to my membership of a variety of subscription services which whilst I am undoubtedly not getting value for money from, give me a lovely warm feeling that I will never be short of something to play; well until they remove that game I was always intending to play just before I actually get to it.

 

Which leads us to the Mirrors Edge reboot.  I'm not entirely clear why it has taken me 4 years to get around to playing this game.  I adored the original; the stark white red and blue clinical futuristic asthetic, the hi octane first person platforming and kinetic campaign.  I also recall getting severely frustrated in several places, largely due to the god awful combat and successive deaths when I misread how a sequence was meant to play out but it captured a moment in time for me and I still carry warm memories of the game.

 

So at the dawn of this now dying generation I was tantalised by the prospect of a reboot/prequel/sequel.  But some 3 years later when it finally released I failed to pick it up. In retrospect I wondered whether this was due to fact I was late to the PS4/Xbone gen and only joined two years after release, but no turns out ME:Catalyst came out in May 2016, and I had owned a PS4 by that point for about 7 months.

 

So I must just have been distracted at the time.  And then after buying an Xbox One maybe a year or so later I picked up  an EA access sub, and it was high on my must play list...but I well didn't (now that was a waste of money,  a years sub to the service and I don't think I played a single title on it).

 

So yeah, a few years later and I get a gaming PC and take that £20 Origin Basic subscription because look lots of cool games I've never played - including the Mirrors Edge sequel that for some reason I never got around to.

 

And well here we are a year or so on and I decide that finally now is the time to bloody play the thing; you know the one I've been interested in now for maybe 8 years since it was first teased and only 12 years since the first game was released.

 

First person platforming is not a well trod genre, mainly because well its kind of hard to play a game where its vital to know where your feet are at any given time when the camera is not showing you your feet.  Its been successful on maybe three occasions I can think of: that Jumping Flash rabbit game on Psone; because crazy idea that's never really been done before and the world was fresh and polygonal new at that point (I seem to remember it being one of the first games ever to give me motion sickness but anyway it was different).  Mirrors Edge because it looked so stunning and gave a whole new perspective to the parkour previously only seen in third person in the like of Prince of Persia and um...Titanfall 2 is the only other game that springs to mind that stole all of ME's good idea and managed to string some excellent shooting mechanics and add giant robots to boot.  Otherwise 1st person platforming tended to be a really bad idea, like Turok: Dinosaur Hunter platforming sections bad (hmmm maybe I should replay those two given I now have the remastered PC versions - maybe I'm being unfair in retrospect).

 

Anyway ME despite its flaws was a thrilling game.  But the reboot was not well received.  For one it being a reboot failed to connect (its very clearly not even vaguely the same characters as the original game  despite the names being the same - not that they were terribly memorable in the first place).  And then it decided to be open world and that apparently didn't work.

 

As it turns out this seems to be more than a little unfair.  So plus point one; this game has not aged.  No doubt I benefit for playing it on what is now middling PC hardware but in 2016 was fairly high end; but this is a seriously pretty game and one that literally belts along at 60fps with a near future cyber punk stark vibe.  It still looks phenomenal and can be safely be played on Ultra with a mere Nvidia 1060.

 

But secondly the fact that they went for open world turned out to be almost completely irrelevant.  Yes we have an Ubisoft load of points of interest, pickups and collectables and pointless side activities but they can be safely ignored in favour of a campaign that is in almost every respect the equal of the original and a second set of side quests that occasionally are even better (a whole game made up of those Grid overload tower climbs might be the best game ever).  I actually liked the open world format with side quests to take in as you progressed through the campaign and throughout the game just like all the most successful open world games navigating through the city to the next way point was always fun.  So yes, the collectables are forgettable but fun to grab if you seem them (hello grid leaks), and the dashes and deliveries a little pointless but fun to sample; but the actual main line game and the full on side quests were almost uniformly great and occasionally truly memorable (the Shard level will live on for me for quite a while I can assure you).

 

So take it as what it is - a linear game with some open world elements and its a great first person platformer.  And there are few games that can say that.  Yes I did die needless times when I misjudged where my feet were, but when you string move after to move together and travel through the stunning environment effortlessly the thrill of Mirrors Edge has not lost its appeal.

 

There are of course a couple of silly missteps that really shouldn't have been made.  I have no truck with a levelling system; but it was rather silly to place vital traversal actions like the double wall run, recovery roll and quick turn on the skill tree and not make it clear you won't be getting very far without them.  They don't take long to unlock if you focus on them but given you literally can't complete the latter half of the game without them at least release them through the story.  And the combat - oops.  Whilst it was a decent decision to eschew guns; replacing it with the most janky first person melee system I've played in some time, which literally frequently leads to Benny Hill style chases so you can wall run and the do a flying kick was an ill-advised move.  The game works far better where you run rather than fight and should have been structured as such, rather than having half a dozen moments where you can not help but try and fight badly.

 

But when the game works it really works well.  I kept the runner vision on as it made navigating the open world city far more fun, but the game was at its best during missions where it turns itself off and challenges you to find the path; reminiscent of the best navigation based platformers.  And dashing through a hail of bullets, across futuristic skyscrapers never really got old.

 

Taking just the main quest and side content I got a decent 20 hours of playtime and had my fill of the concept; maybe the open world execution was a little half baked but there is more than enough linear well designed level design here to be more than worth the price of admission.

 

TLDR: @Wiper was right (and you won't hear me say that often I can tell you) this was one of the best games of 2016 and deserves to be revisited...

 

Adrenaline / 10 

 

 

Spoiler

January

 

1. Darksiders Genesis (PC)

 

So mystery of the week.  Why is no one talking about this game (seriously the thread has about a dozen posts (two of them by me before I even bought it).  I guess that's because no one is playing it.  And why is no one playing it?  Well fcuk'd if I know because its absolutely fantastic.

 

Okay I will admit a modicum of bias here.  I adore the Darksiders series.  Its the mix of beautiful mid 90s Imagine comics style art with the po faced but at times hilarious story beats and the way it the series realises that basically any genre is improved if you mix a bit of Zelda in there.  Here comes a history lesson:

 

Darksiders I - basically God of War meets Zelda, during and after the apocalypse.  Run around dungeons, hit things with a comically over powered sword, get items and solve clever but never terribly tricky environmental puzzles.  All with a chunky gorgeous art style.  And Vulgrum - everyone loves Vulgrum. 

 

Darksiders II - basically the above with a more mobile lead, and lashes of Prince of Persia style platforming,  an open world to join the dungeons and a dash of Diablo style loot.  Its undoubtedly one of my favourite games of the last decade, even though its oh so terribly clear how the budget gradually ran dry as the game moves towards its conclusion (massive impressive first open world area with loads of side dungeons, much more linear second map, by the third we're down to a single path).  It has its weaknesses (the plot never really goes anywhere, Death is as far less interesting character than War, its obsessed with 3 McGuffins being the key to move forwards and as a prequel it fails miserably to deliver on the best ending to a game ever (No, not alone...)).  But its great really.

 

Darksiders III - as above, but with about a 10th of the budget and no horses, less platforming, a rather shoe horned in Dark Souls vibe  but a quite nicely executed Metroidvania level design.  Its the weakest of the trilogy for sure but I still love it.

 

So yeah the Darksiders series has had a bit of a rough ride.  The first game managed to be something of a sleeper hit for THQ, surprising everyone who expected another God of War/DMC/Dante's Inferno knock off with basically the best non Nintendo version of a 3D Zelda.  It sold far better than expected.

 

Slightly desperate at this point, THQ basically threw all their money at the sequel hoping for a mega hit (they even bought all the advertising space on Time Square on release).  This was never likely for a niche title like Darksiders.  The sequel did good business despite everything but it wasn't enough.  THQ went bust.  Tragically no one saved Virgil Games but Nordic bought the IP.

 

Virgil dissolved and about half the company drifted off to form Gunfire Games whilst the other half became Airship Syndicate who made the also rather wonderful Battle Chasers.

 

A couple of HD remasters and the now THQ Nordic (because when you've bough most if the IP of a defunct company why not also take their name?) released Darksiders III from the Virgil off shoot Gunfire.  Teeny tiny budget was evident and it is comfortably the weakest of the trilogy, but it was still more Darksiders and therefore great by default.  Suggesting that AA games do have a future, despite modest sales it turns a healthy profit.

 

Which leads us to back to Darksiders Genesis.  As noted earlier half of Virgil (or so) ended up as Gunfire, but the other half of the senior team founded Airship Syndicate.  And made the really rather great SRPG Battle Chasers (basically a modern Vandal Hearts if you've not played it).

 

So we have half the creative team who made Darksiders, they are making games for THQ Nordic, they have a overhead isometric engine, they have the lead artist from Darksiders.  Why not make a Darksiders Diablo game?  You could even introduce the 4th horseman we've barely met (Strife)?

 

I'll admit I was a wee bit sceptical when this was announced at E3.  Darksiders has always been about genre mix, but I was far from convinced that Diablo dungeon crawling was a good fit.

 

I was wrong.

 

Mainly because this is not a Diablo style dungeon crawler.  Its a Darksiders game.  A proper Darksiders game.  More of a Darksiders game than the threequel in fact. It basically plays like a mix of 1 and 2 from an isometric perspective.  Or a 2D Zelda game with more hitting things and platforming.

 

Its bloody brilliant.  The combat feels great - War is just as he was from the original and despite the change of perspective the combat feels just as visceral  Strife meanwhile adds a dash of twin stick shooter to the proceedings.  The campaign is 16 levels long and meaty.  There are a shit load of secrets to find in the maps.  You get to ride you're horse(s).  The puzzles are never really full on Zelda head scratchers but keep you on your toes.  There's a surprisingly complex levelling system with the creature cores which has loads of potential for messing about with builds..  Oh and an arena mode for pure combat chaos.  And War is back and is still the best horseman by a mile.  And Vulgrim.  And Samael too.

 

If you even got a smidgeon of enjoyment out of the three preceding games you owe yourself to get this.  Its about £17 from CDkeys right now on PC.  Its out on console (would be great on the Switch) in February.  If you never played them the first 2 are free from Epic Games store until tomorrow evening so off you go.

 

Its my game of (last) year - hey I played most of it over Xmas - by a country mile.  After 33 hours and managing to get almost all the items from the maps and clocking all of the arena levels aside from the endless final one I saw the credits last night. Loved it.

 

Of course its not perfect.  Its another prequel (really, a 3rd one, after that ending?).  War rather overshadows Strife despite this being the latter's debut.  The plot doesn't really go anywhere (as its a prequel) and the MacGuffins are all present and correct.  But its just so much damned fun.

 

Phenomenal / 10

 

2. Jedi: Fallen Order  (PC)

 

So onto game number two and a game I have waited a very long time to play.  Its no secret that I am a big Star Wars fan and its also no secret that I love the Uncharted games.  So I have long waited for a Star Wars X Uncharted game where I could live out my Jedi role playing fantasies.  No really I have...

 

And it has been a long old wait full of disappointment.  Fist there was Star Wars 13:13 which looked amazing but was cancelled along with Lucasfilm games.  Then Visceral, the developer behind another favourite series of mine were entrusted to deliver a single player Star Wars game with design by Uncharted creator Amy Hennig.  Very exciting - no wait that's cancelled too.

 

So when Fallen Order was first teased from Respawn (another favoured studio of mine) my expectations were tempered - its never coming out is it?  And there hasn't ever been a decent single player Star Wars game has there?

 

Well actually that last point is patently untrue - leaving aside KOTR 1 and 2, we had Dark Forces and the Jedi Knight series, the Rogue Squadron games, Super Star Wars, Star Wars Arcade, the original wire frame Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, The Force Unleashed and its sequel (well loved them).  Me personally I even enjoyed Star Wars: Bounty Hunter but I'll admit that last one was probably was just me.

 

But it would be fair to say that since EA has had the licence there hasn't been a good single player Star Wars game.  And my dream of a Uncharted style 3rd person Jedi platform adventure looked lost to the wilds of time.

 

But no Jedi:Fallen Order is pretty much exactly the game I was looking for and is about a million times better than anyone could have expected.

 

There is no huge amount of reinventing the wheel here.  Respawn basically took what they were good at, constructing a well designed and written campaign with lots of wall running (c/f Titanfall 2); added a hugely authentic Star Wars aesthetic (say whatever else you want about this game, it looks like Star Wars) and dropped in everyone's personal Jedi  power play fantasy and et voila; you have one of the most entertaining titles of the last 12 months.

 

This is to all intent and purposes Star Wars X Uncharted; if you had any doubts then the opening level that has you scaling a massive tower before plunging you into a train chase where you end up dangling precariously from destroyed sections of the vehicle should leave you in no doubt.  It goes further however and mixes in lots of other games DNA into the gloriously tasty gaming soup.  There's more than a touch of the rebooted Tomb Raiders in the well um, Tomb sequences, complete with environmental puzzles, we get a whole dollop of Metroidvania with unlocking abilities allowing you to access previously inaccessible parts of the map.  The attempt to work in some Dark Souls both in the combat and the meditating (camp fire) mechanic is perhaps the most ill fitting addition (narratively it makes no sense whatsoever) but the combat is fast, fluid and once you are fully powered up dazzlingly entertaining.

 

Its not perfect of course; the games momentum is a little jerky moving from the on rails but striking intro level to the rather ponderous first planet but it soon gets a grip on the pace.  The absence of fast travel is inexplicable and hurts the pre end game where you want to mop up missed secrets.  The unlocking of force powers too is a bit slow, granting you only force slow for the first few hours of the game was an odd move - surely would have been best to lead with push.  Technically it generally looks fabulous (admittedly I am playing no doubt post a couple of patches and with a decent PC) but the odd sinking into the environment on occasions on Dathomir feels out of place and which idiot forgot to have BD1 move off your shoulder when you are swimming but still kept the animation of the chests  suggesting he had jumped in?).

 

But all of this is relative nitpicking.  The game is a long, well designed campaign full of fun set pieces, snappy combat and free running platforming.  Its surprisingly well written and acted, probably telling a better story than well the last two Star Wars films for one.  And the Star Wars fan service is second to none.  Despite warning of a Dark Souls vibe, on the moderate difficulty level  the game is never more than slightly challenging (the bosses all have blatant tells and weaknesses and the hardest moments tend to come when you are mobbed or forget your force powers).  I had an absolute blast.

 

May the force be with you / 10

 

3. Halo: Reach (Master Chief Collection) PC

 

So the journey is over, I have finally completed all the main line (i.e the FPS ones) Halo games.  Dare I say it, it ended with a little bit of a whimper rather than a bang.

 

So I was late to the party with the Halo series.  I did have CE on the original Xbox, but I (whisper it) wasn't really that keen.  I got as far as driving the Warthog , found it near impossible and gave up.  As far as Halo 2 goes, for some reason I never played the campaign, although I did spend many hilarious hours playing couch VS with @Gordzilla

 

And I may have bought Halo 3, Reach and indeed 4; but I never actually managed to play them.  You know just because.  And I developed a distinctive 'obviously' correct opinion that the Halo games were well a bit meh really.   Despite never really actually y'know playing them

 

So when I got a Xbone I bought the MCC collection - mainly because it was like £6 and I had a shiny new console.  But I was actually keen to give the games another go, because well all that noise about Halo.

 

And well I was wrong 18 years ago or whatever it was.  Halo is a fabulous game.

 

Anyway I have gradually made my way through the series from CE onwards and played the entire series available of the MCC (and 5 too, although the less said about 5 is probably the better).

 

I've had half an eye on playing Reach (for which I still have a 360 disc on my gameshelf) through BCC - but once the game was confirmed for the MCC collection and y'know remastered and all that jazz I decided to wait.  And as these days I have an all singing all dancing gaming laptop the PC version beckoned.

 

Not sure on balance whether that was the correct option.

 

So yeah Reach.  Its well okay.  But turns out a little anaemic.   Some this may well be down to the gimped sound; its still not fixed as far as I can tell and everything sounds well a bit tinny.  And I know the soundtrack for this is much admired; but I badly missed the actual Halo theme - it nearly appears on a couple of occasions and well its kind of frustrating.

 

Which ultimately fits with the way the game presents.  Its all a bit clinical and well lacking something. As you may be aware Reach is a tragic war movie prequel as presented through a video game, or basically Rogue One the videogame.  I may have played all of the preceding and succeeding games but I still failed to care much about Noble squadron.  I knew they were all going to die and it had very little impact when they did.  Your character, Mr proto Master chief is an ambivalent cipher (oh and look Cortana chooses him and he was second only to the Chief in various war games) but he fails to develop any personality of his own.

 

And its a pretty short campaign, definetly shorter than the numbered titles; and whilst I've heard comment that it has some of the best set pieces in the series, I wasn't quite feeling it.  I mean yes it has the Halo dynamic, it doesn't feel divorced from its predecessors like say 5 does.  But there were far more memorable moments in well, Halo 4 for example.  It feels like Halo, I was enjoying myself but I never had that feeling of wow what I am I playing like I got from say Halo 3.

 

So yeah DLD Halo rankings: Halo 3 > Halo 4 (its really good no really it is) > ODST > CE > Reach > Halo 2 > Halo 5 / 10

 

4. Shadow Warrior 2 (PC)

 

And now for something completely brainless and explosive.

 

I loved SW1, whilst I played it later, turns out it was the original prototype for the Doom reboot.  Nineties FPS game design meets 2010s graphics.

 

This wasn't as good.  Mixing Shadow Warriors vibe with the looter shooter genre ends up being slightly more miss than hit.  By having procedurally generated levels some of the fun of exploring the maps of the first game was lost.  The game also badly misses the lovely anime seriousness of the originals plot and cut scenes ; this time it goes straight for silly cock jokes with little or no messing about.  Hoji is much missed.

 

But it does have guns, lots of guns.  And the swords are still phenomenal.  Some reasonable improvements with the controls makes the special moves a lot more intuitive to pull off too.

 

It never even tries to rise above, go here, kill some demons, go over here and kill some more as far as level design goes, but it still manages to be entertaining as you blast and slash from A to B.

 

And my word it does look very pretty in places.

 

Meh I had fun but the first game was better / 10

 

5. Assassin's Creed Origins + The Hidden Ones + The Curse of the Pharaohs (PC)

 

Well that's one way to slow down my completion rate for the year, play a game that literally feels like it will never end.  In a good way mind, although after 95 hours of it I'm very ready to play something else.

 

So literally two months it has taken me to get through this, and that's with a weeks annual leave in lockdown not doing a great deal more than play it.  This is, if you let it be of course, a ridiculously long game.

 

I've only a passing acquaintance with the AC series, still harbouring a slight resentment for the fact it killed off my beloved Prince of Persia games.  I did play the original at the time of release and was not wildly impressed.  Looked stunning but not a huge amount to do.  I also plated the sequel on release but found it took an inordinate amount of time to get going, too long in fact so I got bored and gave up.

 

Fast forward 10 years or maybe more, late to the party with the PS4 my new console came with a copy of Syndicate.  And I finally completed my first AC game, and really enjoyed it too.

 

Anyway, I've had a thing for classical and ancient history (and a degree to show for it) since I was a kid, so had been meaning to play this for a long time.  I was attracted by the the RPG stylings and the reports of many of the irritants or past AC games were a thing of the past (tailing etc - although some of the sub Benny Hill chase sequences that I experienced in Syndicate were probably worth the price of admission in their own right).

 

Anyway, this is all largely true.  This doesn't feel an awful lot like the earlier games at all.  In fact it comes across more like a third person version of Far Cry (endless enemy camp infiltrations), with some incredibly expansive exploration in a fascinating and incredibly realised period of history.

 

Playing on a pretty decent PC, its hard to underestimate how pretty this game looks.  It captures Ptolemaic Egypt perfectly and the extent of the world map is just stunning.  The plot does rather stumble along, rather lost in the fun you have from uncovering question mark after question mark, exploring long forgotten tombs in the wilderness, skating down Pyramids, climbing temples and dealing silent death from above to the guards.

 

The game is neatly simplified and tweaked to make the core gameplay; get to area, scope out with your bird, silently dispatch the guards being sneaky a la Batman Arkham or with some carefully placed arrows and then killing your quarry and then go explore some more endlessly inviting. 

 

One can not stress just how huge the map is; even after finishing the main quest line I still had a third of the map to explore.  The plot is  slow moving for the majority of the game and then suddenly accelerates in a slightly odd tangent but this ultimately matters little given the engaging nature of the game loop.  The two leads however are unusually well developed, even if I didn't see the eventual twist in their relationship coming.

 

And even more surprisingly the DLC is almost equally as well done as the main game.  The Hidden Ones is a nice little expansion to the main game but clearly more of the same but Curse of the Pharaohs' is arguably the best content of the entire game - Thebes, and what they did with the tombs of the kings being a massive highlight.

 

Perhaps playing it all through was a little too much of a good thing, I have Odyssey all lined up but I need a break for now, but this was cracking stuff.

 

Hidden Blade / 10

 

May

 

6. The Division 2: Warlords of New York (PC)

 

So after my two month epic run though of AC:Origins, what better way to pallet cleanse than with erm another Ubisoft open world game.  To be fair, The Division plays pretty differently from the AC series in basic gameplay loop and well I'm a sucker for Ubi's open world formula anyway so I like the familiar whistles and bells.

 

Anyway The Division 2 was one of my highlights of last year, it basically it took what the first game did and basically did everything (from a PvE single player sense anyway) significantly better.  It is probably the best 3rd person cover shooter I've ever played, with crunchy gunplay, a real emphasis on battlefield placement and of course guns lot of guns.  I spent 80 happy hours in the game and played every piece of single player content all the way to World Tier 5, all 3 episodes and even the Kenley College stuff; and loved pretty much every minute of it.  The Division 2 is a curious game in that it wants to be an endless loot/MMO shooter but it packs so much genuine new single player content that even those who have little interest in grinding get far more than their money's worth.

 

So after the year 1 content (which was generously largely free, the season pass only granting some extra side mission (pretty decent ones) and a bit of exclusive high end gear; its paid expansion time.  As I have Uplay+ this was all available for me day one on release day along with the season pass, but 25 notes if you are purchasing; which is not cheap for an expansion pack.

 

However, this is a fairly generous expansion.  We get the setting moved back to the superior environment of |New York (the base games biggest weakness being Washington DC is not quite the iconic city NY is) and exploring a new section of the map in lower Manhattan that the original didn't cover (spoilers yes you do get to visit a certain statue, although no gun fights in the torch which seems a missed opportunity).

 

This is a decent slab of new content - we get 4 new areas which is about a 3rd of the base games map, and each with their own control points, SHD caches and bounties to complete.  The new campaign takes in 6 new main missions, all of them taking an hour or so to complete and another 7 side missions which are somewhat shorter.  They are almost all good and the new main mission are perhaps the best content in the game to date, taking in an oil refinery, an underground park and the previously mentioned statue as eye candy for the battles.  In a slightly surprising turn, this time we get some actual boss battles with personality and unique game play mechanics (although rogue agent numero uno Keener is a flipping irritating battle).

 

Its very much more Division 2, and this was absolutely fine with me.  We get the fun of starting again with the loot grind as you level from 30-40 (definitely the best bit of the original), the new map is an impressive post apocalyptic environment (this time in the Summer but following a hurricane) and all the mission are great fun to play through.  As a devoutly solo player, I happily progressed through without significant difficulty (which is just as well as only a month after release matchmaking for the campaign on story wasn't really happening); the SHD caches have developed significantly from the base game with almost all of them presenting a slight environmental puzzle to solve.

 

And so 20 or so happy hours were spent - perhaps slightly annoyingly its fairly easy to reach level 40 before reaching the climax of the campaign but the new levelling system doesn't kick in until you finish...there's a story reason for this but yeah, meh.  The plot such as it is serves its purpose but the conclusion feels rather empty given the shadow Keener has cast to date and the new big bad really comes out of nowhere but lets face it no one plays The Division for the story.

 

Perhaps most disappointingly the  post game gives little reason to play on; I was all ready to give the new season content manhunt a go but it basically consists of replaying content I've just done or did previously with no alterations....yeah nah.  There is sadly no equivalent of the WT levels of the base game or the remixed missions that offered.

 

But I did thoroughly enjoy this return to New York and the rock solid foundations of the series - I will be back but only when there is something new to play.

 

Lots of fun but maybe not £25 worth of content / 10

 

7. Metro Exodus (PC)

 

So back to getting my monies worth out of Xbox Game Pass, this was a game I was quite excited about on release, but didn't quite get around to it at time, and then being very pleased it appeared on Game Pass, before the slightly desperate realisation it might get removed before I get around to play it.  Its the new subscription service stress, will I play this before it vanishes?

 

But anyway I managed to get to it.  I have a soft spot for the Metro games and their oppressive atmosphere; I get a real Half Life 2 vibe from them somehow, along with shades of the Resi games and say Dead Space.  I've never played the Stalker games but apparently they owe a lot too (I do actually own these too but lets face it these are games on are on the Steam pile of never never).

 

Anyway both the previous Metro games were classy, pretty, story heavy and very stressful corridor shooters.  The shooting wasn't great but the atmosphere was second to none.  I enjoyed them both immensely.  This makes an attempt to break for the horizon and take the stabilisers off, although interestingly the game is most successful when it sticks to the previous formula.

 

Ultimately this is more of the same but with better and more varied environments, with an occasional side order of some open world busy work. We get a very scripted opening sequence that may ways irritate many, particularly when it leads into an infuriating stealth sequence with a sequence of seemingly unavoidable deaths. But the suddenly it all opens up once you reach the Volga and it suddenly all goes all Far Cry.  Which is fun and all that but the game plays its best hand in its heavily sequenced story sequences, we get some wonderful claustrophobic slices of game where you navigate your way through an underground substation  and a train terminal.

 

And then it goes all Rage with updated graphics and again we have some  open world navigation where we can explore, but its the scripted sections that lead the game play off.

 

In some ways I enjoyed the latter half of the game better where it abandons the freedom of the earlier sections (which is some what frustrated by some god awful vehicle navigation).  The incredibly beautiful forest section and then finally a return to the Metro in another city which was probably my favourite section of the game.

 

I got the good ending I think (my character lived) but the mechanics for this seemed a little forced.  I am not a stealth player and made extensive use of lethal weapons for taking out enemies without being seen.  I never killed an NPC who surrendered and I rescued everyone I met who needed it.  But I only managed to save 2 out of 3 member of my crew playing in exactly the same fashion. Stealth got just too frustrating during the forest sequence, so I gleefully murdered people, despite feeling bad as they were kids who didn't know much better but still saved my crew member by not killing one critical character and saving some people but during the previous  level I just killed a couple of slaves (who were trying to kill me at the time) and got the adverse outcome.  Dunno the stealth stuff doesn't quite fit with the way the game plays best, Artyom is clearly not a pacifist.

 

At its best this was fantastic, tense, beautiful and well scripted - at its worse it pisses about without going anywhere.

 

Performance wise, a year after release its still a bit broken on PC.  Despite running this on a 1060 and an i5 8 series processor I could only get a decent frame rate on medium setting (still looks amazing mind) and the game was minded to crash within 15 minutes of running before it offered to run in safe mode and then behaved itself perfectly fine - bizarrely couldn't tell the difference once I changed the resolution to 1920 x 1280...

 

great post apocalyptic zombies / 10

 

 

 

[Unofficial Who]

Hang on, Catalyst is a reboot not a sequel? I'm putting that on my to play list this year then.

[dreamylittledream]

5 minutes ago, Unofficial Who said:

Hang on, Catalyst is a reboot not a sequel? I'm putting that on my to play list this year then.

 

Yeah aside from the fact the lead character is called Faith and is an mixed race Asian American with a sister (who plays a completely different role) and its set in a sunlight lit neon future it has almost nothing to do with the original plot wise.

 

It also kind of explains why the vibe of the city (Glass) is quite different from the slightly brutalist architecture of the original.

[Wiper]

Welcome to the fold, dreamylittledream

 

Mirror's Edge Catalyst has some notable flaws, but it's still one of my favourite games of the past decade, and I stand by everything I said about it in my video:

 

 

 

[dreamylittledream]

20 minutes ago, Wiper said:

Welcome to the fold, dreamylittledream

 

Mirror's Edge Catalyst has some notable flaws, but it's still one of my favourite games of the past decade, and I stand by everything I said about it in my video:

 

 

 

 

 

Hmm so @Wiper turns up and manages to post a video being far more articulate than me why this is such a good game.

 

Can't believe I didn't mention the soundtrack that is both so incredible in ambient aesthetic and even manages to feature one of Chvrches best songs (none album track too fact fans).

 

But anyway stuck clocks and all that - please continue to disregard his views on say; the Uncharted series, Tomb Raider reboots and of course most importantly all the main line Zelda games excepting BotW.  But here he's damned right

 

(PS @Wipershould resurrect this video series - even when I disagree vehemently they were very good)

[FiveFootNinja]

15 hours ago, dreamylittledream said:

... even manages to feature one of Chvrches best songs (none album track too fact fans).

 

Their Death Stranding one is great too if you haven't heard it (also non-album) and one of my faves.

[Gabe]

26/05/2020 - Astrologaster (PC)

 

A curious little title that, thanks to Game Pass, I decided to give a whirl.

 

It's a sort of choose-your-own-adventure, following the true story (with liberal amounts of artistic license) of the Simon Forman in his attempt to get 8 letters of recommendation from his querents so he can get a medical license. In order to treat people, he consults the stars and listens to their stories (not all of which relate to medical issues.) 

Each little vignette  - of which there are between 5 & 7 per character - usually gives you two decision points and, because the games uses real people that lived in that time, you can use real-world knowledge appropriately (i.e. like being able to say whether Queen Elizabeth is about to pop her clogs). It's a nice touch and it's pretty funny at times to boot. There's also something quite serene about the simple, 3D book-like presentation and sparse animation of the Elizabethan times in which the tale is told.

 

As with many games where you can makes choices however, all too often the outcomes feel rather arbitrary. The idea is that you build up a relationship with these people through your interactions and get a feel for their personalities, such that you are able to make informed choices when those decision points arise (especially when the questions are of a more personal nature). It doesn't quite work in practice, however, both due to the (deliberate) obtuseness of the readings of the stars but because the cast don't act in quite the way you feel they should. With the progress towards getting a letter of recommendation from people being on a score which can rise and fall (depending on how satisfied they are with your advice) it can feel all a bit of a lucky dip whether you do well or not. It's not as if it is built for multiple playthroughs, either, as I saw a comment from the developer that whilst you can change some of the characters' end states, there isn't a wealth of alternative dialogue and such.

 

The game therefore almost pushes obtaining a letter to the back-seat at the expense of hearing all the stories, as you still have to complete each character's journey even if you got the letter from them halfway through. I managed to get the 8th and final letter of recommendation with my last conversation with the last character, but I wasn't too bothered at that point anyway.

 

It's very much a narrative experience, then, that can be enjoyed without caring too much about the outcome - and that's no bad thing. With the smatterings of humour, the pleasant aesthetic and some delightfully hammy voice-acting, this is a nice little departure from the real world that is worth a go.

 

Previously completed:

Spoiler

25/05/2020 - Demon Stone (PC)

23/05/2020 - Stories Untold (PC)

03/05/2020 - Streets of Rage (PC)

29/04/2020 - Inside (PC)

21/04/2020 - Call of Duty WW2 (PC)

19/04/2020 - Wheels of Aurelia (PC)

15/04/2020 - Sword Omen: Legacy (PC)

02/04/2020 - Mother Russia Bleeds (PC)

29/03/2020 - Operencia - The Stolen Sun (PC)

20/02/2020 - Ruzar: The Life Stone (PC)

20/02/2020 - Alder's Blood: Prologue (PC)

17/02/2020 - Universal Paperclips (PC)

15/02/2020 - Gris (PC)

21/01/2020 - Gears of War 5 (Xbox One X)

19/01/2020 - Diablo 3 - Reaper of Souls (Xbox One X)

05/01/2020 - Night Call (PC)

02/01/2020 - Remember Me (PC)

 

[FiveFootNinja]

14. The Last Guardian (PS4) - A very Ueda game. Enigmatic, epic, creative, beautiful, full of character and soul, and fundamentally flawed in places. The first half in particular I really clicked with, and it felt like a real connection was building between me and my big fluffy clumsy pal. Trico was genuinely fascinating to get to know and the character AI/animation is something very special. However, exactly like a Ueda game, I wish it had more mechanical polish and better QA testing. I would argue an hour or two shorter would be better too (and please never do a barrel physics based puzzle again). - 8/10 (would have been a 9 for large portions of it)

 

 

 

On 20/05/2020 at 18:31, FiveFootNinja said:

1. Jedi: Fallen Order (XB1) - 10/10

2. Untitled Goose Game (XB1) - 8/10

3. Gorogoa (iPad) - 9/10

4. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (XB1) - 8/10

5. Abzû (PS4) - 6/10

6. Braid (XB1/360) - 10/10

7. A Plague Tale: Innocence (XB1) - 8/10

8. Quantum Break (XB1) - 6/10

9. Oxenfree (Mac OS) - 7/10

10. Monument Valley 2 (iPad) -  7/10

11. Sniper Elite 4 (XB1) - 8/10

12. Marvel's Spider-Man (PS4) - 10/10

13. Fractured Minds (XB1) - 5/10

[SpagMasterSwift]

Started playing Ghost Recon Wildlands as a hang with some friends thinking we’d do maybe a few of the missions, but just mess about. Pandemic hits and look at this lockdown insanity!

 

Spoiler

Got to say I’ve had an absolute blast with it tho!

 

 

 

[FiveFootNinja]

Wildlands got a very mixed reception but co-op it can be genuinely brilliant. Definitely the way to play it.

[Jamie John]

10. A Plague Tale: Innocence (PC)

 

 

This started off well but got a bit tiresome towards the end. It’s definitely a handsome game (most of the time) with some striking (not to mention grisly) imagery, and I thought the medieval score was excellent throughout, swelling and lulling at the right times and generally contributing to the tone of the scenes very well. The voice acting, once I switched the language from John Cleese-style French-accented English to just plain French, also sounded authentic, even if keeping track of the subtitles as well as the action on screen was tricky in some of the more hectic moments. The central relationship between the protagonists, Amicia and her younger brother, Hugo, was also well-realised and quite touching at times, putting me in mind of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, as well as the God of War reboot.

 

The biggest problem I had with it, however, was that the narrative often got in the way of the gameplay, which for the most part is quite thin and doesn’t give the player much agency: levels are extremely linear, combat is simplistic and repetitive, and the infrequent puzzles are ruined by the characters telling you what to do and how to do it if you can’t figure it out for yourself within 10 seconds, something I abhorred in the recent Tomb Raider games, but which you could at least turn off, whereas here you don’t get the option. In truth, most of the time I felt like I was playing a walking simulator with some stealth and scripted set pieces tacked on; I got the impression that the developers were much more interested in the story they were trying to tell and had added the ‘gamey’ bits only reluctantly. As for the story itself, I thought it was engaging but it definitely suffered from some pacing issues in the second half. The way that the developers took a historical setting and event (the Black Plague of the 14th century) and added fantasy elements to it was interesting, but certain bits, such as the

Spoiler

rat tornadoes,

felt very out of place and quite jarring. All the same, I think it’s good that the developers have tried something different, especially when you consider that their past credits consist mainly of various Disney Pixar adaptations, as well as The Crew games. (They’re also developing the upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator, oddly, so they certainly don’t seem to be afraid to mix up their genres.)

 

Overall, I’d say it’s definitely worth playing if you’re after a somewhat clunky but nonetheless interesting not-quite-indie game to while away 8 hours or so. Plus, it’s currently free on Game Pass.

 

7/10

 

Previous:

 

Spoiler

1. Death Stranding (PS4) - 8/10

2. Mark of the Ninja Remastered (Switch) - 7/10

3. Firewatch (PS4) - 7/10

4. Dishonored 2 (PS4) - 7/10

5. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) (PS4) - 6/10

6. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (PC) - 8/10

7. Half-Life 2 (PC) - 9/10

8. Gears 5 (PC) - 8/10

9. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch) - 9/10

 

[Jamie John]

11. Half Life 2: Episode 1 (PC)

 

 

I think this was about my third time through this, but I'd forgotten enough of it for it to be fresh again. It's more Half Life 2, so that's never going to be a bad thing, but playing it so soon after the main game, the reused settings and assets did make it feel a little bit like a remix of 2's third act. Apart from the 'Zombine' enemies, there's nothing here that you haven't seen before already, and the bigger focus on frenetic action over quiet exploration makes it feel like a string of set pieces instead of being a more cohesive experience.

 

It's still great to blast through in a few hours, however. I'm looking forward to replaying Episode 2 now, which I remember being properly fantastic.

 

7/10

 

Previous:

 

Spoiler

1. Death Stranding (PS4) - 8/10

2. Mark of the Ninja Remastered (Switch) - 7/10

3. Firewatch (PS4) - 7/10

4. Dishonored 2 (PS4) - 7/10

5. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) (PS4) - 6/10

6. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (PC) - 8/10

7. Half-Life 2 (PC) - 9/10

8. Gears 5 (PC) - 8/10

9. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch) - 9/10

10. A Plague Tale: Innocence (PC) - 7/10

 

[moosegrinder]

May 31st 2020

 

Minecraft Dungeons.

 

Short, but very good. I dunno if I'll go through the upper difficulties but I'll probably buy the season pass and play the new areas. It's basically My First Diablo but with extreme difficulty spikes which I expect them to balance at some point. Definitely worth downloading on Game Pass. I wouldn't have felt ripped of had I aid 17 quid out for it either, tbh.

[Sprite Machine]

Previously...

 

1) AM2R - PC - 2016 (1991)
2) Ecco The Dolphin - Mega CD - 1992/3
3) Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - 3DS - 2012/14
4) Mega Man X - SNES - 1993
5) Super Metroid - SNES - 1994
6) Donkey Kong Country - SNES - 1994
7) Chrono Trigger - SNES - 1995
8) Star Fox 2 - SNES - 2017 (1995)
9) Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island - SNES - 1995
10) Xenogears - PS1 - 1998
11) Sonic the Hedgehog - Megadrive - 1991
12) Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - SNES - 1996
13) Kirby Super Star - SNES - 1996
14) Earthbound - SNES - 1995
15) R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 - PS1 - 1998/9
16) Tomb Raider III - PC - 1998
17) Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation - PC - 1999
18) Tomb Raider Chronicles - PC - 2000
19) Shenmue HD - PC - 2018 (1999/2000)

 

 

20) Shenmue II HD - PC - 2018 (2001)

 

This was a lovely trip down memory lane. One of the Dreamcast's last games (in Europe) and something of a technical marvel at the time. I was very surprised to find that the Dreamcast version didn't have the English dub. Coming from Shenmue 1, a game set in Japan, in which everyone spoke English, and going into Shenmue II, a game set in Hong Kong, in which everyone spoke Japanese, was more than a bit confusing.

 

When I first played Shenmue, I confess I was a little disappointed by it. It was one of the games I bought a Dreamcast for but it didn't offer the freedom or scale that I was expecting based on the hype surrounding it. The sequel, however, was everything I hoped the original would be, a bigger, grander adventure with the freedom to play it your own way. Nowadays, it is showing its age and it's missing the intimate feel of the first Shenmue, but I still think it's a marvellous achievement and great fun to play today.

 

Away from home, Ryo's priorities change. You have to make money, you have to make alliances and infiltrate dangerous places. The investigate > battle > QTE gameplay of the original is still there, but everything is just on a bigger scale. The environments are massive, but there's still a surprising amount of detail inside shops, buildings, etc. Some changes from the first game are weird, like switching some of the action buttons around. Zooming in to look at objects is more fiddly, and larger crowds make walking around more awkward. Some cutscenes are now letterboxed (and, if you're playing in widescreen, also pillarboxed - postcard cutscenes!). There's also multi-button QTEs, which I didn't really enjoy. I did get better at the combat, though, and quite liked it by the end. Then there's graphics filters and a photo-mode, which you can use at any time (I think only the 2003 Xbox port had this).

 

The finalé, what was originally "Disc 4" when the game came on multiple discs, is truly memorable and something that has stuck with me all these years as a beautiful and poignant way to end a big adventure game. You spend the previous section in increasingly action-packed situations, fighting harder and harder enemies, so ending the game in relative tranquility just seems right. The Guilin region, and meeting Shenhua, almost feels like the start of a new game. In a way, it's a like playing a little chunk of Shenmue III (on much older technology!). It's kinda surreal that it now exists, hearing all about Bailu village from Shenhua like it's just around the corner. That was nearly 20 years ago! And I was so frustratingly eager to see Shenmue III released when I was met with that whopper of a cliffhanger.

 

It's been very pleasant to revisit both Shenmue and Shenmue II. They are still slightly odd games, but there's something very pure about them.

[BabelRich]

Battle Chasers: Nightwar - 29/05

I've been wanting to play this one since it was released but never really got round to it. Thanks to the never ending ambrosia that is GamePass it was finally time to check it out. Very enjoyable but with some really annoying niggles that prevented greatness being achieved.

First off the battle system was brilliant; each party member basically has two builds and you can focus on either changing at any time. Perks are not locked in and can be changed whenever you feel like it and there's loot for all types of strategy. In battle each character ends up with 4 basic attacks that are instant and build mana to enact abilities which take time and drop the action down the battle order stack. It's great fun and very flexible. Dungeons are also great fun; isometric (You can see that Darksiders Genesis spawned from this engine) and full of light puzzling, battles and choose-your-own-adventure style event.

 

Story is... decent. Stand Joe Mad comic book demons and stuff, but it does the job and there's loads of lore to seek out should you wish.

 

Now the bad stuff. Once your party hits 4 (there are 6 party members total) it becomes such a massive ball ache to change characters that I ended up just sticking with a party of 3 for my entire playthrough. You can only change in the main town or at the start of a dungeon which is ten followed by a ridiculously long load for this type of action. Whats worse is that you can't see any perks or equipment for those not in your current party making something as simple as checking the affect of some loot a gigantic pain in the arse.

 

Then there's the loot itself. There's so much of it and it's 95% random. This is fine when you're just a single character (ala Darksiders 2) but when you have loot dropping for 6 party members with 2 distinct builds each you rarely get anything you can use and progressing this means a decent bit of crafting.

 

Even with these issues it's still a really good game and totally worth playing.

 

Spoiler

01/01 – Lego Builder’s Journey
28/01 – The Outer Worlds
01/02 – Untitled Goose Game
04/02 – Wandersong
11/02 – Ghostbusters

28/02 – Darksiders Genesis

04/03 – Slay the Spire

27/03 - GTA V

03/04 - Tomb Raider Go & Monument Valley 2

10/04 - Journey to the Savage Planet

24/04 - Ori and the Blind Forest

28/04 - Murder by Numbers

 

[instasis]

On 14/05/2020 at 17:47, Pelekophoros said:

01/01: Superhot (XBone)

03/01: Old Man's Journey (XBone)

05/01: The Turing Project (XBone)

19/01: Halo: CE Anniversary (XBone)

01/04: Quantum Break (XBone)

02/04: Halo 2 (Xbone)

04/04: Call Of Duty MW (2019) (XBone)

13/05: Control (PS4)

 

02/06: Call Of Duty WWII (PS4)

 

Very brief, very lightweight, didn't like the ammo/health/spotter mechanics, most levels felt teeny tiny. Not particularly good, which surprised me. Hey ho, thanks PS+

[DukeOfEarlsfield]

Nice write up, BabelRich, I had a lot of fun with Battle Chasers but agree with your criticisms.

 

However, there is a hill I need to die on…

 

On 01/06/2020 at 09:30, BabelRich said:

Dungeons are also great fun; isometric

They’re not isometric. It’s framed from point of view that is normally associated with isometric but it’s not.

 

There, I have defended my hill and can die a noble death and sleep a just sleep.

[BabelRich]

Yeah, fair point about the dungeons. I  mistakenly used isometric but it is just where the camera is really. 

[Sprite Machine]

Previously...

 

1) AM2R - PC - 2016 (1991)
2) Ecco The Dolphin - Mega CD - 1992/3
3) Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - 3DS - 2012/14
4) Mega Man X - SNES - 1993
5) Super Metroid - SNES - 1994
6) Donkey Kong Country - SNES - 1994
7) Chrono Trigger - SNES - 1995
8) Star Fox 2 - SNES - 2017 (1995)
9) Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island - SNES - 1995
10) Xenogears - PS1 - 1998
11) Sonic the Hedgehog - Megadrive - 1991
12) Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - SNES - 1996
13) Kirby Super Star - SNES - 1996
14) Earthbound - SNES - 1995
15) R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 - PS1 - 1998/9
16) Tomb Raider III - PC - 1998
17) Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation - PC - 1999
18) Tomb Raider Chronicles - PC - 2000
19) Shenmue HD - PC - 2018 (1999/2000)
20) Shenmue II HD - PC - 2018 (2001)

 

 

21) Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy - PS3 - 2012 (2001)

I completed this 100%, so that's all 101 power cells and 2000 precursor orbs, which is something I never did on the PS2. I don't know how long it took, but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. 

 

I had forgotten how 'Crash Bandicoot-y' the first game is. Everything from the tribal beats of the soundtrack to the wooden boxes, killer fish, spin attack, broken rope bridges, and of course the outstanding bouncy animation. Naughty Dog were the masters of bringing bendy life to their cartoony characters on PS1, and their first PS2 outing takes that up several notches and outputs the whole thing at 60fps, which is kind of incredible a year into the console's life. Despite other aspects of the game looking a little dated in places, that silky smooth framerate and lush colourful environments make this a pleasure for the eyes, even in 2020.

 

But is it still good to play? Well, smoothness aside, I don't think it excels as a platformer. Jak doesn't have the momentum or weight of some of the genre's more joyful examples. He's a very leaden character, whose jumps don't take him nearly far enough to feel satisfying, and the slippery surfaces that surround many mountable platforms make for a lot of hair-pulling frustration and repetition. The core mechanics are servicable, but it's when the game lets loose and gives you a fast vehicle or some other trick to play with that it feels at its best.

 

This was never the Mario-beater that the official mags hailed it as, but it's a good solid game in its own right with a compelling structure and a single navigable world without loading breaks. It's also the only one of the three I played back in the day, so I'm looking forward to trying the 'gritty' sequels.

[Yasawas]

I’m not dying but I have finished two bucket list titles this last week.

 

Mega Man 2 (NES). It’s taken me a long time to get into this series, I always felt like I should like it but previous entry points of the original game and Mega Man X didn’t really work for me even though I played both to completion. Something’s clicked recentlt though and having gone through X2 and X4 in May and loved them both, I took a trip back to the one frequently cited as the highlight of the classic series. Hey, everyone was right! Looks good, sounds good and as long as you play the Western version it’s never hard enough to get frustrating. Looking forward to playing the rest of them now and coming back in a while bemoaning that while they got consistently slicker they also became more tired and predictable like some proper series vet. Yaasss.

 

Seiken Densetsu 3 aka Secret of Mana 2 aka Trials of Mana (SNES). Secret of Mana was one of the great disappointments of the SNES Classic for me. Having heard it lauded for years I was surprised to find it as bland as I did – utterly gorgeous but I didn’t like the combat much and the way magic levelled up in particular I remember as being responsible for some really tedious grinding. I finished it but that was only because I wanted to complete everything on that machine and of the four RPGs that came with it it was easily my least favourite. And yet for some reason the sequel remained intriguing. This despite the fact I think it looks worse (to be fair I played on Switch which lacks any scanline filters, this is maybe the only game I’ve ever played which is absolutely crying out for them), doesn’t have a great soundtrack by mid-90s Squaresoft standards imo and after 25 years still comes with a translation that you could only call rudimentary. A lot isn’t explained and I could’ve really used a manual several times. Fortunately it’s redeemed by being fucking brilliant.

 

Combat is way more intuitive (the rings system is still present and works well), magic no longer gets levelled up through use, there are multiple storylines/characters/routes and no areas really drag on long enough to outstay their welcome. It fair zips along. It might well be the only JRPG not to feature at least one gimmicky dungeon to test your patience, even most of my favourites had one of those. I’ve played a lot of good RPGs in recent years from the last few decades and this is well up there – probably top 10 material. Loved it. (And yes, I will be buying the remake now. I played 5 minutes of the demo, thoroughly enjoyed myself but decided I needed to play this first for best effect.)

 

Old games woo!

[loathsomeleopard]

Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja.

 

I’m not even sure why. I mean, memes aside it’s an eminently bland coin-gobbling beat em up with few redeeming features. But at long last, I can declare myself a bad enough dude to rescue the US president...

 

Although hopefully not the current US president. If my reward is going for burgers with him, then the dragon ninja clan can keep him.