What games did you complete? 2020 Edition

[strawdonkey]

On 16/03/2020 at 20:16, strawdonkey said:

01: Shovel Knight

02: Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment

03: Racedierun

04: Super Mario Maker 2

05: Muv-Luv Extra

06. Untitled Goose Game

07. Glass Masquerade

08. Pokémon Sword

09. OneShot

10. Gorogoa

11. Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

12. Hylics

13. LiEat

14. Sonic Robo Blast 2

15. Hustle Cat

 

So I haven't posted in here for a little while because Animal Crossing is life. Play Animal Crossing YOU WILL NEVER LEAVE

 

Recently I went through my Humble Bundle keys and put them all up for grabs in the Steam thread. One of them was Hustle Cat - a visual novel about working in a cat cafe that has been very well received. My kids love cats so I figured I'd give it a crack. Turns out it is Definitely Not Suitable For Them.

 

So you play as Avery Gray, who is a bit hopeless and very much jobless. They stumble across a local cat cafe, meet the eccentric owner and (hopefully) get offered the job there, and then I will spoiler the rest - if there's any danger of you playing this Decent Enough Visual Novel then definitely avoid reading any further.

 

Spoiler

[I've done one playthrough of Hustle Cat and completed the Finley route. Doing every single route may offer more backstory on some of the below but I'm not about to play through the game five more times just to get to the hidden ending] 

 

The big twist in this game is that your co-workers at the cafe are cursed - after they leave the premises, they turn into cats. Apparently this is in the contract, but naturally you don't read it. There is a weird black magic thread woven throughout the entire game that is never fully explained but is fascinating throughout - you start off going "oh I have a job with cats" and then within an hour things have taken a completely unexpected turn - the owner is eccentric but until things start getting strange you don't think it anything beyond someone with a... throwback aesthetic.

 

The other thing that isn't immediately apparent is that Hustle Cat is a dating sim - there doesn't seem to be a way through the story without dating someone, which is a bit of a shame as a "I just work here" route would have been totally fine. As it stands the dating stuff is really cute but Finley's route goes from low-stakes interesting to misplaced and cringeworthy towards the end, which is a shame as there are so many low-key funny bits leading up to it that it felt like an extra let-down.

 

The witchcraft stuff isn't fully explained which is a shame (though I get the feeling that if you play the game six fucking times it might be) - there's so many unanswered questions after one play but no obvious route to finding out more. Might give it one more go in case there's more exposition in further playthroughs that I'm not accounting for!

 

If you can overlook the very small bits that are bad (and think cats are cute) then it's a fun few hours.

 

[gossi the dog]

07/04 - Resident Evil 3 (Xbox One) - Resident Evil 3 gets the remake treatment. This is far more open and action oriented than the Resident Evil 2 remake, with fewer claustrophobic areas, minimal puzzles and no Mr X stalking you when you just want to explore. The downside is that it is short in length (there's an obvious area/section that could have been expanded upon) and a few more puzzles wouldn't have gone amiss. Still it's a great game.

 

Previously:

 

01. 01/01 - Persona 4: Dancing All Night (PS4)
02. 03/01 - Sayonara Wild Hearts (PS4)
03. 11/01 - Yakuza 3 (PS4)
04. 11/01 - Dead or Alive 5 Last Round (PS4)
05. 12/01 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan (PS4)
06. 21/01 - Forza Horizon 4 (Xbox One)
07. 24/01 - Storm Boy (Xbox One)
08. 10/02 - One Piece World Seeker (Xbox One)
09. 10/03 - GRID (Xbox One)
10. 01/04 - Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F (PS3)

 

[Mogster]

07/04/2020 - Yakuza Kiwami

 

This is the third time I've played the original Yakuza, the first two times being the dubbed PS2 release. I remember loving that at the time, but it's been so long now that I'd forgotten almost everything about it.

 

I finished Kiwami yesterday after playing Zero last year, and it felt quite familiar after that. Despite the leap forward in time, Kamurocho still looked largely the same and there wasn't a huge difference in how the game played either. Somehow it managed to not feel like a glorified expansion though, and instead it almost felt a bit nostalgic to be returning to the setting of the last game.

 

Otherwise it was more of the same though, if more restrained in scope due to being a remake of a much earlier game. I felt that the combat was a little weaker, although that might have been down to me not really knowing how to handle certain situations. Some of the later fights against multiple gun wielding opponents became small wars of attrition, but then some of the more straightforward battles were amazing. The last boss in particular was great fun, albeit not as spectacular as that of Zero.

 

I'm looking forward to Kiwami 2 now as I understand it's supposed to be quite a step up.

 

 

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

 

[HarryBizzle]

1. Metro Exodus

2. QUBE 2

3. Darksiders 3

4. What Remains of Edith Finch

5. Ori and the Will of the Wisps

6. Doom Eternal

 

7. Journey to the Savage Planet

 

This now being on Game Pass means the only game I've finished this year that's not on the service is Doom Eternal. Anyway, this game is a stormer. Metroid Prime with some No Man's Sky thrown in.

 

9/10. Every other game I've completed has been an 8/10, so I guess this is my GOTY so far.

[Unofficial Who]

Apr

 

13/04 Black Mesa (PC) So I completed the earlier free version a while back getting on it as quickly as possible before lawyers stomped on it. And it was a really neat remake. But then the unimaginable happened. Instead of Valve squashing the project like a bug they instead approached the team and offered them a licence. The first two thirds of the game is pretty much I remembered Half Life being, in my head that is. This remake does a excellent job in bringing the Black Mesa up to current standards. It's Xen though where the new work shines. Completely rebuilt from the ground up it looks nothing short of stunning with much better world building than was afforded in the original. There are some headaches, a lot of the design is very faithful to 90's game design which means a lot of using tiny bits of geometry to progress, narrow ledges and insta-death falls (although the new auto jet boots save you from fatal falls later in the game.)  If you're a Half Life fan this is essential. If you're new to Half Life this is what you want to play rather than the original.

 

11/04 Arcade Moonlander Plus (PC) You might think this sounds like some sort of Lunar Lander clone and you'd be right. It loses the vectors for a more classic Mac look with Amiga style music, the whole game feels like a public domain game from the 90's. But a great one. It's not too taxing with 20 levels in arcade mode and one large level in adventure mode. I finished this in just over half an hour but it was an enjoyable half hour. And it's free to keep on Steam if you grab it before the 14th.

 

10/04 There is No Game (Jam Edition 2015) (PC) It's short. Funny and meta. It's free and takes 10 minutes to play. Very much in the vein of the classic children's book "There's a Monster at the End of the Book." What are you waiting for? Download now!

 

10/04 The Adventure Pals (PC) A nice and not super hard platform fighting game with an art style and plot that felt very much inspired by Adventure Time (but not as smart.) This really felt like a pleasant Amiga platformer, a nice way to kill some hours during a stressful time.

 

Previously

 

 

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)
 

 

[DarkCrisis]

1. Resident Evil 7(XB1) 8/10

2. Batman Arkham Asylum(XB1) 7.5/10

3. Halo: CE Anniversary(XB1) 5/10

4. Life is Strange(XB1) 8/10

5. Luigi Mansion 3(Switch) 8/10

6. New Super Lucky’s Tale(Switch) 7/10

7. Catherine: Full Body(PS4) 8.5/10

8. Untitled Goose Game(Switch) 6/10   

9. Sleeping Dogs(PS4) 9/10

10. Doom 2016(PS4) 9/10

11. Peggle 2(PS4) 7/10

12. Spider-Man(PS4) 9/10

13. Crash Bandicoot(PS4) 7.5/10
14. Resident Evil 3 Remake(PS4) 8/10
 

15. Spyro the Dragon(PS4) - My second platinum of year which took roughly 12hrs to complete. The game on the whole was pretty easy except for some frustrating moments which I put down to how the controls are laid out with run and jump mapped to two buttons next to each other. Overall the game was fine but nothing special, I have no desire to jump straight into the second game that’s for sure. 6.5/10

[glb]

January

Injustice 2 (story)

 

February

Don’t Die, Mr Robot

Untitled Goose Game

Titanfall 2 (campaign)

March

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Middle Earth: Shadow of War

 

April
Rogue Aces

Burly Men At Sea

COD: Modern Warfare 2 Remastered

 

Rory McIlroy PGA Tour

 

How do you complete a golf game?

 

Using the glb technique you stick it on while watching films on your iPad, enjoying the relaxing action for several days of mindless escapism.

 

You decide to go for the platinum because isolation reasons. Then, after about 20 hours and 87% of trophies nabbed, your game corrupts and all your in-game progression is lost like tears in the rain, or golf balls in a lake.

 

You delete the game from your hard drive and stare wistfully out the window, wishing Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 had been remastered, then go and play COD: Modern Warfare 2 Remastered for a bit.

[DarkCrisis]

1. Resident Evil 7(XB1) 8/10

2. Batman Arkham Asylum(XB1) 7.5/10

3. Halo: CE Anniversary(XB1) 5/10

4. Life is Strange(XB1) 8/10

5. Luigi Mansion 3(Switch) 8/10

6. New Super Lucky’s Tale(Switch) 7/10

7. Catherine: Full Body(PS4) 8.5/10

8. Untitled Goose Game(Switch) 6/10   

9. Sleeping Dogs(PS4) 9/10

10. Doom 2016(PS4) 9/10

11. Peggle 2(PS4) 7/10

12. Spider-Man(PS4) 9/10

13. Crash Bandicoot(PS4) 7.5/10
14. Resident Evil 3 Remake(PS4) 8/10

15. Spyro the Dragon(PS4) - 6.5/10

 

16. The Order 1886(PS4) - Finished in around 8hrs and overall it was okay, it had some interesting ideas and the graphics were still pretty good even after 5 years but it felt a bit flat with so many other games with a similar style that I much prefer. Based on my impressions if they did a sequel I would probably wait until it had gone on sale before buying it  6.5/10

[Don Wiskerando]

01: The Witcher 2

02: The Witcher 3 (no dlc) 

[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

I've not played many of the Kirby games so I don't really know how this one compares. Calling it "eight games in one" is a bit of a stretch, though. It's more like five level packs and some mini-games, with re-used bosses. It took me four hours to play through all scenarios and see the credits, though I abandoned the 'colosseum' boss rush thingy that unlocks afterwards.

I quite enjoyed it. It's got colourful, bouncy graphics, lovely animation and sound. The two-player drop-in mode is a nice addition. What I tend to find with Kirby games, however, is the frustration that comes with context-sensitive controls. Things like your ability to float being determined by whether you've just inhaled something, or your moves determined by what you've just swallowed, or your attack changing to a puff of air if you pressed jump twice instead of once, or moving between floating blocks of water and air, and so on. When it gets busy, the game becomes a bit of a clusterfuck, which is just as well that it's otherwise quite easy or it'd be tremendously frustrating. I still had fun, but I'm in no rush to play any more Kirby now, and that just about wraps up my SNES mini collection.

[FiveFootNinja]

On 07/04/2020 at 09:27, 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) - My first Sniper Elite game and it was totally as expected. At it's best you feel like an unstoppable sneaky sniper god, brutally killing Nazis in slow-mo. At it's worst you feel like you are playing a perfectly acceptable shooter, brutally killing Nazis in slow-mo. Luckily for me I like killing Nazis in slow-mo. - 8/10

[gossi the dog]

11/04 - Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (Xbox 360) - Inspired by all the positivity in the game's own thread, I thought I'd give this another go. I initially bought this at launch, got half way through the World Tour mode and then got sidetracked. When this was given away as a Games with Gold I was annoyed that my save hadn't been carried over, so did a few races and promptly deleted it. So I started over and it is a really great love letter to Sega up to the Gamecube era. Nowadays I strongly associate Sega with Yakuza and to a lesser extent Hatsune Miku, so 8 years later it seems strange that they're not included. I don't think the actual racing is that great, if you're stuck in the middle you'll get assaulted by the other characters, and the balance of the weapons isn't there - if you're not near the front going into the final lap you may as well start over. The non racing challenges in World Tour mode are a welcome change of pace. The real star of the show are the tracks with each one being a loving homage to a classic Sega game (with the exception of the Burning Rangers track which can do one) and the way they transform over the course of the race. Anyhow this is very good. I saw the end credits and then the game requires you to grind for which I no longer have the patience, so called it a day after failing a tank challenge on expert for the third time. 

 

12/04 - Duck Tales Remastered (Xbox 360) - I adored the TV programme as a child, so I may be slightly biased here, but this was a lovely dollop of nostalgia. It's not the longest of games and the controls are a bit iffy at times, but this simply captures the spirit of the TV programme. Scrooge is very much the star of the show. Very good.

 

Previously:

 

01. 01/01 - Persona 4: Dancing All Night (PS4)

02. 03/01 - Sayonara Wild Hearts (PS4)
03. 11/01 - Yakuza 3 (PS4)
04. 11/01 - Dead or Alive 5 Last Round (PS4)
05. 12/01 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan (PS4)
06. 21/01 - Forza Horizon 4 (Xbox One)
07. 24/01 - Storm Boy (Xbox One)
08. 10/02 - One Piece World Seeker (Xbox One)
09. 10/03 - GRID (Xbox One)
10. 01/04 - Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F (PS3)
11. 07/04 - Resident Evil 3 (Xbox One)

[Vorgot]

On 09/04/2020 at 13:44, HarryBizzle said:

 

 

7. Journey to the Savage Planet

 

This now being on Game Pass means the only game I've finished this year that's not on the service is Doom Eternal. Anyway, this game is a stormer. Metroid Prime with some No Man's Sky thrown in.

 

9/10. Every other game I've completed has been an 8/10, so I guess this is my GOTY so far.

 

This had completely passed me by but grabbed it on the PSN sale after seeing this and checking other reviews, so thanks for the heads up!

[gossi the dog]

14/04 - Song of the Deep (Xbox One) - underwater levels are always the worst. Take any 2D platformer be it Mario, Sonic, Donkey Kong etc and the worst levels are always the underwater ones. You can invariably be attacked from all angles and developers always seem keen to create inertia in your movement, which simply serves to frustrate. They're rubbish. So an entire game based underwater and things get worse. Yes Ecco the Dolphin is rubbish. However, I generally like Metroidvania's and bought this in a sale a couple of years ago. It's incredibly well presented with a voiceover from an Irish girl which suits the game well. However, the usual frustrations of being attacked from all angles and the inertia in your movement are present.

 

For some reason I thought this was a very short game that wouldn't take more than 4 or so hours to complete. It drags on, sending you on countless fetch quests where by the end the total time played was closer to 10 hours. Had I known it would drag on I'd have abandoned it. Special mention for it being the first Metroidvania I've ever played where I had no compulsion to explore every corner and fully colour in the map. There are some really badly designed sections - there's a chase where you have to run away from enemies that insta-kill you that should never have been included and I came across a couple of bugs that messed up puzzles so I couldn't continue, although thankfully a restart fixed these issues. This at it's best is nothing more than mediocre, at it's worst I wanted to throw my controller across the room. Avoid, there are far better games in the genre.

 

Previously:

 

01. 01/01 - Persona 4: Dancing All Night (PS4)

02. 03/01 - Sayonara Wild Hearts (PS4)
03. 11/01 - Yakuza 3 (PS4)
04. 11/01 - Dead or Alive 5 Last Round (PS4)
05. 12/01 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan (PS4)
06. 21/01 - Forza Horizon 4 (Xbox One)
07. 24/01 - Storm Boy (Xbox One)
08. 10/02 - One Piece World Seeker (Xbox One)
09. 10/03 - GRID (Xbox One)
10. 01/04 - Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F (PS3)
11. 07/04 - Resident Evil 3 (Xbox One)
12. 11/04 - Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (Xbox 360)
13. 12/04 - Duck Tales Remastered (Xbox 360)

 

[Gabe]

15/04/2020 - Sword Omen: Legacy (PC)

 

Play your part in Arthurian legends and hang out with Merlin for a bit in this turn-based SRPG. Move around the map of broken Britannia as you look to rescue the damsel in distress, building a rag-tag team to default all in the field of battle.

SO:L is a fairly light-touch SRPG; there's not a great deal of character development (you can unlock skills with the XP equivalent, renown, which is a single pool shared amongst the team) and time is spent between exploration and fighting - though the exploration really only consists of looking for the next fight, the levels are not big and there are few juicy treasures to find off the beaten track.

 

The actual fights are good, though. Because everybody has very low health pools (most have around 8-10 hp) it means your characters are very squishy and you actually have to think about when to attack and when to find a safe-ish position, as well as not leaving your back exposed (as you'll take extra damage).This is compounded by the fact that there is only 1 healer (who can only heal 3 hp every 4 turns) and cash for potions is tight. You can camp between missions (and risk an ambush) but that again costs money, though those fights are easier than 'normal' encounters. With no automatic healing between missions, it does mean you have to decide whether to sacrifice firepower for a bit of security which I felt restricted things somewhat, but I suppose that's the point. Incidentally, I didn't bother with him for the final mission and scraped through with all the potions I'd saved-up.

 

Your gang covers the usual tropes - tank, DPS, magic but some are definitely better-equipped than others, with the rogue, Gwen, being probably having the most well-rounded set of skills - her best move being one that continually attacks until the victim blocks or she misses - but set her up for a back attack and watch them fall. I beat the hardest boss in the game (which comes about 2/3rds of the way through) mainly because of that attack, which took nearly 40 hp (from a 90 hp boss) from two strikes. Other characters are a bit more of a mixed bag; Merlin is not as bad-ass as you would hope for a wizard (in a game with no very little magic), Uther (the main protagonist) is more a defensive tank without actually having great defensive stats and the archer is both the squishiest of the lot and lacks damage output. Whilst you'll find a favourite team, the game does force you to use certain people at times, so you can't neglect their equipment and skills - which is frustrating if you are all out of renown and have to use a peripheral character.

 

With that said, combat is generally enjoyable. There are environmental hazards (barrels) which confer various penalties and enemies will usually stand near enough them for you to take advantage and, as noted, positioning is important, which lends you to thinking more strategically about where to end your turn, to attempt to mitigate the enemies range and skills. Fights are also generally quite brief, which is handy as you can only save at a certain point about halfway through each mission - so failure doesn't cost you too much progress.

 

All in all - especially as this has been as low as 95p historically - this was a fun SRPG based on an infrequently used theme that, despite some niggles, is an entertaining romp through Britain of yore (or, depending on what the 'new normal' looks like - the Britain of the near future!)

 

Previously completed:

Spoiler

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)

 

[ScouserInExile]

Yoku's Island Express

 

Another one I've been playing through with the kids and mostly enjoyed. It's a metroidvania with pinball mechanics to get around. Mostly simple enough for kids to play, with a couple of tricky bits and done good puzzles.

 

However, about 3/4 of the way through, it introduces a new mechanic that is just an exercise in frustration. And it's vital for progression. The kids had literally no chance of using it correctly and I really struggled. A bit annoying, but the game was great otherwise.

[Yasawas]

Literally just finished Tokyo Mirage Sessions on Switch. Really enjoyed it overall despite some caveats (quite traditional and wooden by Nintendo's recent high localisation standards, ludicrous and embarrassing anime breasts, bizarre obsession with the biracial character who is marvellously exotic, biracial and mixed race due to having parents of different races. IMAGINE!). The combat system is a lot fun, ost of the plot of it is enjoyably dumb and I was still unlocking new and viable abilities after 50+ hours which is a rarity. Reminiscent of Persona 5 in a lot of ways but half the length and about twice as enjoyable.

 

Now I have the difficult choice of Final Fantasy XII, Ni No Kuni or Tales of Vesperia. Leaning toward the former but I'll decide in the morning.

[Goemon]

11 hours ago, gossi the dog said:

14/04 - Song of the Deep (Xbox One) - underwater levels are always the worst. Take any 2D platformer be it Mario, Sonic, Donkey Kong etc and the worst levels are always the underwater ones. You can invariably be attacked from all angles and developers always seem keen to create inertia in your movement, which simply serves to frustrate. They're rubbish. So an entire game based underwater and things get worse. Yes Ecco the Dolphin is rubbish. However, I generally like Metroidvania's and bought this in a sale a couple of years ago. It's incredibly well presented with a voiceover from an Irish girl which suits the game well. However, the usual frustrations of being attacked from all angles and the inertia in your movement are present.

 

For some reason I thought this was a very short game that wouldn't take more than 4 or so hours to complete. It drags on, sending you on countless fetch quests where by the end the total time played was closer to 10 hours. Had I known it would drag on I'd have abandoned it. Special mention for it being the first Metroidvania I've ever played where I had no compulsion to explore every corner and fully colour in the map. There are some really badly designed sections - there's a chase where you have to run away from enemies that insta-kill you that should never have been included and I came across a couple of bugs that messed up puzzles so I couldn't continue, although thankfully a restart fixed these issues. This at it's best is nothing more than mediocre, at it's worst I wanted to throw my controller across the room. Avoid, there are far better games in the genre.

 

Previously:

  Reveal hidden contents

01. 01/01 - Persona 4: Dancing All Night (PS4)

02. 03/01 - Sayonara Wild Hearts (PS4)
03. 11/01 - Yakuza 3 (PS4)
04. 11/01 - Dead or Alive 5 Last Round (PS4)
05. 12/01 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan (PS4)
06. 21/01 - Forza Horizon 4 (Xbox One)
07. 24/01 - Storm Boy (Xbox One)
08. 10/02 - One Piece World Seeker (Xbox One)
09. 10/03 - GRID (Xbox One)
10. 01/04 - Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F (PS3)
11. 07/04 - Resident Evil 3 (Xbox One)
12. 11/04 - Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (Xbox 360)
13. 12/04 - Duck Tales Remastered (Xbox 360)

 

Wow, you did well. I think I lasted half an hour before bailing on this tosh.

[gossi the dog]

15/04 - Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F 2nd (PS3) - I only recently bashed my way through this game's prequel, and this in all honesty is more of the same. It's slightly more polished, there's a greater variety of songs and to me seemed a lot harder, with several songs varying the tempo and a number having insanely fast sections. The final song took me over 20 (probably closer to 30) attempts before I finally nailed the Chance time and scraped through with a score of 80.4. I ran around the room in elation. Very good.

 

Previously:

 

01. 01/01 - Persona 4: Dancing All Night (PS4)

02. 03/01 - Sayonara Wild Hearts (PS4)
03. 11/01 - Yakuza 3 (PS4)
04. 11/01 - Dead or Alive 5 Last Round (PS4)
05. 12/01 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan (PS4)
06. 21/01 - Forza Horizon 4 (Xbox One)
07. 24/01 - Storm Boy (Xbox One)
08. 10/02 - One Piece World Seeker (Xbox One)
09. 10/03 - GRID (Xbox One)
10. 01/04 - Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F (PS3)
11. 07/04 - Resident Evil 3 (Xbox One)
12. 11/04 - Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (Xbox 360)
13. 12/04 - Duck Tales Remastered (Xbox 360)
14. 14/04 - Song of the Deep (Xbox One)

 

[matt0]

Max Payne 3 (PC):

 

Bought and finished this at launch (8 years ago now...) but always meant to replay it on better hardware. It remains a decent shooting gallery but not much else. It had such high production values for the time that there's brief moments where it could pass for a current gen game but overall time has not been kind. Hilariously there's almost no facial animation and it looks like characters just have different heads with different expressions on them in different scenes.

 

I remember there was an outcry at the early publicity shots about Max's bald fat guy look, and I posted on here about how disappointed I was and how it wasn't really Max Payne, but it's such a disposable game that came out and then was quickly forgotten that it's hard to imagine why I was bothered. The camera cut aways, montages and split screen effects are still stylish, but they're in the service of a ridiculous story. At one point Max speculates about the involvement of the Brazilian army ("How far up does this thing go?"), but never addresses the fact that maybe the army might be involved because he's killed 500 people in a 24 hour period.

 

For all the calculated graphic violence the most upsetting thing that happened was when I was reduced to a sliver of health, blind fired my pistol from cover at an enemy, first shots hit him in the leg spinning him around and dropping him to the floor, and the final shot in slow motion bullet cam flew straight up his arsehole.

 

Harrowing.

 

Shovel Knight: King of Cards (Wii U):

 

Shovel Knight was an exercise in revisiting NES era control schemes. The DLC campaigns Plague of Shadows and Spectre of Torment were about deriving analogue movement from digital controls and bringing modern acrobatic 3D control schemes in to a 2D space respectively. King Of Cards is about desperately cobbling together a contrived control scheme because you've set one to many kickstarter goals, and it's been 8 years now and you're very, very, very tired.

 

The King has a dash attack, that can be done on the ground or in the air. When the dash hits something the King does a Mario style spin jump, which can bounce, after the first bounce you can dash again. Or maybe it's the second bounce... or.... BLAGGH. I did get used to it, but even at the end of the game there were still moments when I was sure I could do the second dash but it didn't come out.

 

So first impressions weren't great.

 

But then everything else - the level design, pacing of the campaign, NPC interactions, details and secrets and low key world building - is perfect. Refining and building on the already superb foundation built by the original and full of nods and winks to Shovel Knight veterans. The boss fights (like in Plague and Torment) are brilliantly conceived, but slightly too easy. If it wasn't for the slightly clunky controls this would be a better game than the original in my eyes, but it's difficult for me to imagine anyone enjoying the original and not loving this once they've got to grips with it. It's a game that drips affection for it's influences and it's audience.

 

It was also nice to have something new to play on the Wii U in 2020.

 

Monument Valley 2 (Android):

 

Slide panel to the right. Walk to the left. Slide panel to the left. Walk to the right. Spin wheel clockwise. Walk to the left. Spin wheel anti-clockwise. Walk to the right. Repeat for about an hour and a half. Ending Credits.

 

It looks and sounds beautiful, is as intricately and cleverly constructed as the original, but has no real puzzles and asks nothing of the player. It's a glorified music box where you turn the handle and walk the little people around the little castles without ever having to think too much. Something to admire more than actually play. It's would make more sense if this had been the first game and Monument Valley 1 was the sequel that made good on all the fascinating ideas.

 

A pleasant but ultimately hollow sequel.

 

Vanquish (Xbox One):

 

Played through the remastered version on normal and it remains my benchmark for a top tier shooter. In a parallel dimension there's a late 90s arcade version of Vanquish that runs on the same hardware as Dynamite Cop and controls with a digital arcade stick and three buttons. In our dimension we got a 360/PS3 era dual analogue stick cover shooter but that arcade chunkiness still remains.

 

2020 so far:

Spoiler

 

January:

 

Jedi Fallen Order (Xbox One)

Untitled Goose Game (Xbox One)

 

February:

 

Innocence: A Plague Tale (Xbox One)

Outer Worlds (Xbox One)

Empire of Steel (Megadrive)

 

March:

 

XCOM: Enemy Unknown (PC)

Indivisible (Xbox One)

Max Payne 3 (PC)

 

April:

 

Shovel Knight: King of Cards (Wii U)

Vanquish (Xbox One)

Monument Valley 2 (Android)

 

 

[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

I've been playing this for a while (it's quite long) but finally finished it. It wasn't what I expected (a cutesy JRPG set in the real world) and it surprised me at every corner with its quirky sense of humour, sharp writing, subversions and tense atmosphere. I can't even put into words quite how weird and wonderful this game is - particularly its sound design, use of stereo ambience, mixing music with effects in ever-changing genres. Sometimes it's quite twee and catchy, and at other times sounds like a Japanese B-movie directed by David Lynch.

 

It's certainly not a game for everyone and it can be difficult to get into it. For some reason, the game it reminds me of the most is Maniac Mansion, which isn't even the same genre! I'm not sure why, I think it's a combination of the art style, strange sense of humour, your inventory and real world objects/setting, the fact that you're playing as kids in a world full of corrupted adults and monsters, and how people and things just seem to approach you or happen to you as you explore. Yeah, definite LucasArts small-town America / Spielbergian coming-of-age vibes from this, albiet via a Japanese lens. Hats off to the localisation team.

 

The game's battles are largely text-based, taking their cues from old first-person dungeon-crawlers. It's a pretty tough game, especially at the beginning when you're battling alone, your attacks keep missing and your limited inventory keeps getting filled up with trinkets. The randomisation, especially with enemies that call in reinforcements, means you can go from an assumed easy win to an agonisingly drawn-out slog - just due to luck of the draw. It can be frustrating and I spent a lot of time going back and forth between hotels, shops, save points and using the delivery/pick-up service to juggle my inventory, and this drawn-out process threatened to get tedious.

 

But that aside, it's an incredible game. It has weird and wonderful humour but, beyond that, the way it tells its story is so sincere and honest and heartfelt and pure. And now that I've finished it, I feel empty and sad that it's over. I wouldn't want to play it again, I just want to be left with the memory of it, to let it sink in while those haunting melodies trickle through my head. One of the absolute highlights of the SNES.

[Yasawas]

Blazing Chrome.

 

Utterly exceptional. I was lucky enough to snag the Switch cart version a couple of months back and although it made a good impression it had been sat in the pile as I worked through some other titles. Putting more time into it and getting to the harder later sections really brought it into its own though and I've become somewhat obsessed with it in a way I don't usually. I don't especially enjoy hard games either but every so often an Ikaruga, Demon's Souls or Cuphead comes along and grabs me for some reason. Had I played this more at the time of release I'd have it in my top 5 of last year for sure - absolutely loved it.

 

It's given me an impetus to play Gunstar Heroes finally too since I'm great at run and gun games now.

[Unofficial Who]

On 15/04/2020 at 17:15, gossi the dog said:

14/04 - Song of the Deep (Xbox One) - underwater levels are always the worst. Take any 2D platformer be it Mario, Sonic, Donkey Kong etc and the worst levels are always the underwater ones. You can invariably be attacked from all angles and developers always seem keen to create inertia in your movement, which simply serves to frustrate. They're rubbish. So an entire game based underwater and things get worse. Yes Ecco the Dolphin is rubbish. However, I generally like Metroidvania's and bought this in a sale a couple of years ago. It's incredibly well presented with a voiceover from an Irish girl which suits the game well. However, the usual frustrations of being attacked from all angles and the inertia in your movement are present.

 

For some reason I thought this was a very short game that wouldn't take more than 4 or so hours to complete. It drags on, sending you on countless fetch quests where by the end the total time played was closer to 10 hours. Had I known it would drag on I'd have abandoned it. Special mention for it being the first Metroidvania I've ever played where I had no compulsion to explore every corner and fully colour in the map. There are some really badly designed sections - there's a chase where you have to run away from enemies that insta-kill you that should never have been included and I came across a couple of bugs that messed up puzzles so I couldn't continue, although thankfully a restart fixed these issues. This at it's best is nothing more than mediocre, at it's worst I wanted to throw my controller across the room. Avoid, there are far better games in the genre.

 

Previously:

  Reveal hidden contents

01. 01/01 - Persona 4: Dancing All Night (PS4)

02. 03/01 - Sayonara Wild Hearts (PS4)
03. 11/01 - Yakuza 3 (PS4)
04. 11/01 - Dead or Alive 5 Last Round (PS4)
05. 12/01 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan (PS4)
06. 21/01 - Forza Horizon 4 (Xbox One)
07. 24/01 - Storm Boy (Xbox One)
08. 10/02 - One Piece World Seeker (Xbox One)
09. 10/03 - GRID (Xbox One)
10. 01/04 - Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F (PS3)
11. 07/04 - Resident Evil 3 (Xbox One)
12. 11/04 - Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (Xbox 360)
13. 12/04 - Duck Tales Remastered (Xbox 360)

 

 

On 16/04/2020 at 04:36, Goemon said:

Wow, you did well. I think I lasted half an hour before bailing on this tosh.

 

I really enjoyed it when I played it last year

 

Wot I thought last year

Overlooked relaxing metroidvania set under the sea. It has a real Child of Light vibe with its gentle music and story of a girl setting forth to rescue her missing father. The sub is a joy to control and apart from a couple of sections it's a pretty chill game. It's difficult to design a metroidvania style game that doesn't involve jumping as gate keeping but they've succeeded here.

[dreamylittledream]

April

 

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

 

 

 

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 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 isoometricc 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

 

 

 

 

[strawdonkey]

On 07/04/2020 at 22:58, strawdonkey said:

01: Shovel Knight

02: Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment

03: Racedierun

04: Super Mario Maker 2

05: Muv-Luv Extra

06. Untitled Goose Game

07. Glass Masquerade

08. Pokémon Sword

09. OneShot

10. Gorogoa

11. Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

12. Hylics

13. LiEat

14. Sonic Robo Blast 2

15. Hustle Cat

16. Universal Paperclips

 

It is a clicker. I am wasting my life.

 

Pretty amusing in places and I did manage to get a couple of drafts in on Magic Arena while I was waiting for stuff.

[Quest]

04/06 - Superhot (XB1X)

01/05- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (360)

25/05 - Daytona USA (360)

15/04 - Gears 5 (XB1X)

18/04 - Quantum Break (XB1X) - What an absolute mess. A story that could have engaged were it not so poorly delivered that, even with two hours of live-action to help tell it, they still had to leave integral details in nondescript emails on computer terminals scattered around the maps. Apparently you're expected to wade through interminable corporate waffle for twenty minutes between each of the increasingly sporadic combat sequences.

Speaking of which, you're granted powers that feel somewhat satisfying in and of themselves, but they never cohere into an actual move-set that elevates the combat. I'd expected the game to start challenging me to use them in increasingly creative ways, pitting me against tougher enemies, but there are about three types and you can beat them all with the same approach. All the time stuttering and refracting, prism-like effects are cool and all, particularly the train that crashes back and forth through the station during one of the fights, but it's all just window dressing, really. 

A misguided, bland and boring failure. I hope Control is better.

 

Spoiler

04/06 - Superhot (XB1X)

01/05- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (360)

25/05 - Daytona USA (360)

15/04 - Gears 5 (XB1X)

18/04 - Quantum Break (XB1X)

16/04 - Animal Crossing New Horizons (Switch) - Obviously not actually finished, because Animal Crossing is eternal.

20/03 - Panzer Dragoon (Saturn) - Well I didn't waste any time getting a few runs of this done. It's still great. Onwards to Zwei.

20/03 - Panzer Dragoon Orta (XB1X) - I was absolutely overjoyed to find this hidden away on Game Pass, as I've wanted to play it for almost twenty years now. It didn't disappoint at all. Looks absolutely blinding on the One X as well, and proves that games of that generation can really shine with a bit of polish in the right places. Need to get around to playing through all the extra scenarios at some point, but I also want to re-play the Saturn games before the remake is out.

16/03 - A Short Hike (PC) - 

16/03 - Art Sqool (PC) - Vaporwave Passpartout: The Starving Artist. Nowt special but a light distraction for an hour.

15/03 - Gears of War 4 (XB1X) - It's more Gears. I does nothing to evolve the series but it does avoid the complete overkill of throwing seven million monsters at you that plagued Gears 3, and is probably the best straightforward campaign since the first game.

20/02 - Guardian Heroes (360)

20/02 - NiGHTS into Dreams (360)

18/02 - Snake Pass (XB1X) - I'd been turned off this around the time of release by people suggesting it was an exercise in frustration, but as it's about to leave Game Pass I thought I'd give it a whirl, and I'm glad I did. For one, it's a lovely looking thing in those vivid Viva Pinata colours, but in the slithering and coiling of Noodle it does that rare thing of feeling like nothing else. They nailed it to the extent that I'm not all that disappointed it doesn't look like getting a sequel. Sumo done good (again).

14/02 - Blazing Chrome (XB1X) - This is so faithful to the Contra of old that it's difficult to find fault with it and not feel I'm being unfair in some way. It's just that while it's great fun, immaculately presented and knows exactly what it needs to be, it lacks a certain spark of innovation that gave the OG titles their edge. There were few moments of genuine surprise, unfortunately.

12/02 - Luigi's Mansion 3 (Switch) - One of the best Switch games of the last year, and almost certainly one of the best Western-developed games Nintendo have ever published. NLG have absolutely mastered the character of Luigi, and this is the strongest game in the series by some margin. I think there's room for improvement in terms of collectibles, and finding better use for all that money you hoover up, but this is vindication for Nintendo's continued support of these guys. 

11/02 - Demon's Tilt (XB1X) - The old Naxat Soft games are pretty much the only pinball games I've ever got into, so I was somewhat sceptical about this having the same allure, but I think they've nailed it by dialing up the occult intensity to ridiculous levels. It's aesthetically pitch-perfect, really, but more importantly plays a mean, addictive game of pinball. I'm still shit at it, mind.

11/02 - Metro Exodus (XB1X) - Much as the characters in the game struggle with life outside the metro, as do the developers in many ways. This strikes an odd balance of scripted sequences, mid-sized open-worlds and wide-linear-corridors to various degrees of success, but the atmosphere and attention to detail remains. 4A really need to work on their voice-work, though, or just make better accessibility options available for those who want to keep the original Russian dialogue. 

07/02 - Ori and the Blind Forest (XB1X) - Really enjoyed this. It wasn't as difficult as I'd been lead to believe, and was lighter on the Metroidvania side than I'd imagined, but I'm all for different takes on the genre. Appreciated the brisk pacing, as I pretty much ran through this in about two sittings. Bring on the sequel.

10/02 - Sea of Thieves (XB1X) - A combo of network issues and time means I'm putting this aside, and I suppose the GaaS things are never finished anyway, but I enjoyed my time with this, sailing the highseas with random Australians. Found everything on the ocean captivating and full of adventure, but everything on land very tedious and pedestrian. 

07/02 - Ori and the Blind Forest (XB1X) - Really enjoyed this. It wasn't as difficult as I'd been lead to believe, and was lighter on the Metroidvania side than I'd imagined, but I'm all for different takes on the genre. Appreciated the brisk pacing, as I pretty much ran through this in about two sittings. Bring on the sequel.

05/02 - Shadow of the Tomb Raider (XB1X) - Selfish, murderous psychopath Lara Croft kills a few hundred civilians in the opening act through her own ignorance, sulks when her friend tells her off and then spends the rest of the game thieving from villagers and patronising actual researchers and archaeologists, having learned nothing.

These are rotten, miserable games that assume the people of these lands are too simple to discover and appreciate the wonders surrounding them without Lara there to explain everything. I honestly wanted the villain to win, which I'm sure some more generous folk might interpret as a deliberate move on the part of the writers, but I'm not buying it. 

I suppose the tombs are fine, though.

03/02 - The Outer Worlds (XB1X) - I went into this wanting to play as a mostly pacifist, sarcastic space arsehole. That the game accommodated this throughout the  play-through is massively to its credit. Visually it's wildly inconsistent (some of the interiors look fantastic - outside, less so) and there's not much to be gained from exploration, but the flexibility of so many of the quests drew me in, after Fallout 4 proved to be such a huge disappointment.

29/01 - A Plague Tale (XB1X) - Essentially The Last of Us with rats, as you stealthily escort someone through a bleak environment occasional engage in some brutal stoning. Even shares some of the same story beats. It's well executed, though. The soundtrack is of particular note, with it's scraping, scratching strings and rough percussion, and it's one of the prettiest games I can recall playing. The rudimentary combat doesn't really support the greater emphasis on combat in the final hour or so, and it became a little frustrating there, but it's amazing to me that this comes from the studio behind  a bunch of licensed games and Fuel (which I fucking loathed).

24/01 - Sunset Overdrive (XB1X) - Enjoyed this about as much as Spider-Man, which surprised me. The humour is, well, a bit zaaaaany, which usually puts me off, but it has its heart in the right place and the core grindin', bouncin' and shootin' is really satisfying. Some tasty boss-battles in there, too.

24/01 - Lonely Mountains - Downhill (XB1X) - A nice little game, this. They got the feeling of slinging the bike around corners just right, and avoided the temptation to fill the later levels with novelty shite as a way to add variety. It's a neatly pure experience.

19/01 - Afterparty (XB1X) - A disappointment after Oxenfree. The same neat little dialogue system is there, and the voice acting is great, but the central characters are unappealing, the game itself is riddled with bugs and there's some rough stuttering between areas. Mostly it just lacked the compelling mystery of Oxenfree, though, and I was bored long before the end.

14/01 - Untitled Goose Game (XB1X) - It's slight, but my daughter laughed like a loon throughout the whole thing, so it's a winner in my book.

 

 

Ongoing: Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise (PS4) Phoenix Wright: Justice for All (Switch) Persona 5 (PS4) Forza Horizon 4 (XB1X) Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion (Switch) Streets of Rage 4 (XB1X) Eliza (Switch) Heave Ho (Switch)

[glb]

January

Injustice 2 (story)

 

February

Don’t Die, Mr Robot

Untitled Goose Game

Titanfall 2 (campaign)

March

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Middle Earth: Shadow of War

 

April
Rogue Aces

Burly Men At Sea

COD: Modern Warfare 2 Remastered

Rory McIlroy PGA Tour

 

Prey (2017)

Initially my intrigue with the story and the frustration at how challenging even the simplest combat is were pretty even. But as the game unfolds and I adapted into the game’s rhythm, a really wonderful experience unfolded.

 

The frustrations mostly subside (mostly) and Prey becomes a really enjoyable exploration around a wonderfully crafted environment. Some lovely work in the details too, with the story being told not just in the main narrative but also by the surroundings and hints at life before, well, the thing that happens happened.
 

Really glad I went in cold as there are some really good rug pulls with the plot too, and the post-credits ending really made me grin at the reveal, it’s really well done. Great game, thoroughly recommend.

 

Now to tackle the DLC...

[Talvalin]

6 hours ago, Nequests said:

A misguided, bland and boring failure. I hope Control is better.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

16/04 - Animal Crossing New Horizons (Switch) - Obviously not actually finished, because Animal Crossing is eternal.

20/03 - Panzer Dragoon (Saturn) - Well I didn't waste any time getting a few runs of this done. It's still great. Onwards to Zwei.

20/03 - Panzer Dragoon Orta (XB1X) - I was absolutely overjoyed to find this hidden away on Game Pass, as I've wanted to play it for almost twenty years now. It didn't disappoint at all. Looks absolutely blinding on the One X as well, and proves that games of that generation can really shine with a bit of polish in the right places. Need to get around to playing through all the extra scenarios at some point, but I also want to re-play the Saturn games before the remake is out.

16/03 - A Short Hike (PC) - 

16/03 - Art Sqool (PC) - Vaporwave Passpartout: The Starving Artist. Nowt special but a light distraction for an hour.

15/03 - Gears of War 4 (XB1X) - It's more Gears. I does nothing to evolve the series but it does avoid the complete overkill of throwing seven million monsters at you that plagued Gears 3, and is probably the best straightforward campaign since the first game.

20/02 - Guardian Heroes (360)

20/02 - NiGHTS into Dreams (360)

18/02 - Snake Pass (XB1X) - I'd been turned off this around the time of release by people suggesting it was an exercise in frustration, but as it's about to leave Game Pass I thought I'd give it a whirl, and I'm glad I did. For one, it's a lovely looking thing in those vivid Viva Pinata colours, but in the slithering and coiling of Noodle it does that rare thing of feeling like nothing else. They nailed it to the extent that I'm not all that disappointed it doesn't look like getting a sequel. Sumo done good (again).

14/02 - Blazing Chrome (XB1X) - This is so faithful to the Contra of old that it's difficult to find fault with it and not feel I'm being unfair in some way. It's just that while it's great fun, immaculately presented and knows exactly what it needs to be, it lacks a certain spark of innovation that gave the OG titles their edge. There were few moments of genuine surprise, unfortunately.

12/02 - Luigi's Mansion 3 (Switch) - One of the best Switch games of the last year, and almost certainly one of the best Western-developed games Nintendo have ever published. NLG have absolutely mastered the character of Luigi, and this is the strongest game in the series by some margin. I think there's room for improvement in terms of collectibles, and finding better use for all that money you hoover up, but this is vindication for Nintendo's continued support of these guys. 

11/02 - Demon's Tilt (XB1X) - The old Naxat Soft games are pretty much the only pinball games I've ever got into, so I was somewhat sceptical about this having the same allure, but I think they've nailed it by dialing up the occult intensity to ridiculous levels. It's aesthetically pitch-perfect, really, but more importantly plays a mean, addictive game of pinball. I'm still shit at it, mind.

11/02 - Metro Exodus (XB1X) - Much as the characters in the game struggle with life outside the metro, as do the developers in many ways. This strikes an odd balance of scripted sequences, mid-sized open-worlds and wide-linear-corridors to various degrees of success, but the atmosphere and attention to detail remains. 4A really need to work on their voice-work, though, or just make better accessibility options available for those who want to keep the original Russian dialogue. 

07/02 - Ori and the Blind Forest (XB1X) - Really enjoyed this. It wasn't as difficult as I'd been lead to believe, and was lighter on the Metroidvania side than I'd imagined, but I'm all for different takes on the genre. Appreciated the brisk pacing, as I pretty much ran through this in about two sittings. Bring on the sequel.

10/02 - Sea of Thieves (XB1X) - A combo of network issues and time means I'm putting this aside, and I suppose the GaaS things are never finished anyway, but I enjoyed my time with this, sailing the highseas with random Australians. Found everything on the ocean captivating and full of adventure, but everything on land very tedious and pedestrian. 

07/02 - Ori and the Blind Forest (XB1X) - Really enjoyed this. It wasn't as difficult as I'd been lead to believe, and was lighter on the Metroidvania side than I'd imagined, but I'm all for different takes on the genre. Appreciated the brisk pacing, as I pretty much ran through this in about two sittings. Bring on the sequel.

05/02 - Shadow of the Tomb Raider (XB1X) - Selfish, murderous psychopath Lara Croft kills a few hundred civilians in the opening act through her own ignorance, sulks when her friend tells her off and then spends the rest of the game thieving from villagers and patronising actual researchers and archaeologists, having learned nothing.

These are rotten, miserable games that assume the people of these lands are too simple to discover and appreciate the wonders surrounding them without Lara there to explain everything. I honestly wanted the villain to win, which I'm sure some more generous folk might interpret as a deliberate move on the part of the writers, but I'm not buying it. 

I suppose the tombs are fine, though.

03/02 - The Outer Worlds (XB1X) - I went into this wanting to play as a mostly pacifist, sarcastic space arsehole. That the game accommodated this throughout the  play-through is massively to its credit. Visually it's wildly inconsistent (some of the interiors look fantastic - outside, less so) and there's not much to be gained from exploration, but the flexibility of so many of the quests drew me in, after Fallout 4 proved to be such a huge disappointment.

29/01 - A Plague Tale (XB1X) - Essentially The Last of Us with rats, as you stealthily escort someone through a bleak environment occasional engage in some brutal stoning. Even shares some of the same story beats. It's well executed, though. The soundtrack is of particular note, with it's scraping, scratching strings and rough percussion, and it's one of the prettiest games I can recall playing. The rudimentary combat doesn't really support the greater emphasis on combat in the final hour or so, and it became a little frustrating there, but it's amazing to me that this comes from the studio behind  a bunch of licensed games and Fuel (which I fucking loathed).

24/01 - Sunset Overdrive (XB1X) - Enjoyed this about as much as Spider-Man, which surprised me. The humour is, well, a bit zaaaaany, which usually puts me off, but it has its heart in the right place and the core grindin', bouncin' and shootin' is really satisfying. Some tasty boss-battles in there, too.

24/01 - Lonely Mountains - Downhill (XB1X) - A nice little game, this. They got the feeling of slinging the bike around corners just right, and avoided the temptation to fill the later levels with novelty shite as a way to add variety. It's a neatly pure experience.

19/01 - Afterparty (XB1X) - A disappointment after Oxenfree. The same neat little dialogue system is there, and the voice acting is great, but the central characters are unappealing, the game itself is riddled with bugs and there's some rough stuttering between areas. Mostly it just lacked the compelling mystery of Oxenfree, though, and I was bored long before the end.

14/01 - Untitled Goose Game (XB1X) - It's slight, but my daughter laughed like a loon throughout the whole thing, so it's a winner in my book.

 

 

 

YMMV, but having played through both (Control was my most recent completion and I'm at the final fight of QB), Control is much much better. You can get a decent sense of what is going on without having to read through all the multimedia, but it does flesh out the story nicely with the added bonus of each document being a fraction of the length of the ones in Quantum Break.

[Quest]

Yeah, I think that's the problem, really. I'm not averse to reading supplemental text logs in principal, it's just that those in Quantum Break are excruciatingly long and there are far too many of them.

 

Also this actress in the live action stuff is genuinely awful:

 

[Soulstar]

I kinda felt that way later into Horizon Zero Dawn where there were so many audio logs and text documents to help flesh things out. It did help flesh things out but even audio one's which I don't mind were beginning to annoy me as I remember I'd enter an area and find about 5 that I had to stop and listen to in order other wise the next one would override the previous and then I'd never find it again in the inventory as it puts a tick on the one's you haven't listened to, even if you have but just haven't gone separately into the menu to click it a second time in order to update the (checked already/not checked yet) status. There were bloody loads. But it was annoying because I also loved the story and felt the need to listen or read.

 

Finding the odd one out in the wild was always more exciting, but throwing tonnes at you all together wasn't.