What games did you complete? 2023 Edition

[shirubagan]

So far:

 

Spoiler

1. Kena: Bridge of Spirits (PS5)

2. Somerville (Game Pass)

 

 

 

Warning: The fight in the disco will likely trigger photosensitive seizures.

 

3. The Eternal Castle (Steam)

Had my eye on this for ages. Think Flashback through a Synthwave lens. Really stylish, great music, very retro gameplay and cheap as chips. I won't spoil anything, but I will say I thought this was fantastic.

[RubberJohnny]

High on Life - This looks like a shooter, but is actually a parody of a Bioware or Obsidian style RPG, the shifting between guns down hubs and linear action levels, the dialogue choices where every outcome ends up being the same, the ability to tackle worlds in any order, even the ending being the sort of "where are they now" photo montage of the results of your choices, all lovingly sent up, with plenty of nice little touches, although you can also see it straining its budget in a couple of places.

 

 

It's also pretty good! It's arguably a bit too slow in opening up the new abilities, taking 4-5 hours to give you a couple of weapons and your full mobility, but once they do you're jetpacking around and sliding on your knees like in Vanquish. There's also some jank, I actually managed to miss a critical path upgrade completely by accidentally getting out of the area you're supposed to acquire and use it, but was still able to make it through the game through some janky platforming - looking online I'm not the only one.

 

The humour is hit and miss, but extrapolating Mark Kermodes standard for a good comedy film to the extra running length of the game, I think this comes in recommended, there's some really great bits I'll try not to spoil among all the scatological humour, including some surprising celebrity cameos. 8/10

[Popo]

Damn, didn’t make it on the first page! I can see it’s going to be a busy year. 
 

…

 

Resident Evil Village: Shadow of Rose (2022)

Picked up over Christmas - the 3 hour story mode of the Winters Expansion sees the player assume the role of Ethan’s daughter, now a teen, and imbued with supernatural powers in her fight against some new enemies in familiar locations from the main game. This is a short and streamlined experience, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I enjoyed my time with it and was left hungry for more - you don’t actually visit the village itself, for example. It’s split into three sections, and the second has to be one of, if not the scariest scenarios in any Resident Evil game, even giving chillers like silent Hill or Project Zero a run for their money. Some very inventive and fun reuses of old locations, a very fine addition to a very fine game indeed. 
 

Spoiler

05/01/2023 - Resident Evil Village: Shadow of Rose

 

[ImmaculateClump]

Cotton Rock n Roll -Superlative Night Dreams- - normal 1cc, cotton

[Gabe]

3. 07/01/2023 - Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising (XSS)

 

This so-called action RPG is a strange game, born from the ongoing development of Eiyunden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes (which is a spiritual successor to Suidoken) and as a consequence of (probably) sharing the same dev resources it is half-baked, incredibly basic and yet full of filler that has no respect for your time.

 

It started quite brightly - it sort of leans into that 2.5DHD look that Squeenix have been using, albeit it only operates on the 2D plane here, but it looks very nice and clean. There is a town which operates as the hub, and your actions can help improve this (by introducing new services like armour and tool shops, an inn or a farm etc). There are lots of quests to complement the main questline and the areas you discover are all fairly small and self-contained. There is some rudimentary combat, but the promise of various upgrades to improve things.

 

But then, once you've got beyond the first hour or so, you realise it's all very paper thin. The script, for starters, is awful - definitely embracing the Suikoden spirit, then. It's full of juvenile and painfully unfunny dialogue and full of some of the most videogame speak I've come across in quite some time. The combat is very lightweight and whilst the upgrades do provide some tools to assist with your butchering of everything you come across, the controls are nowhere near tight enough for it to make it any better, which inputs feeling sluggish and some of the precise jumps you need to make can lead to frustration.

 

The biggest problem though is the filler. Now remember this title was not (so far as I am aware) originally planned - I think it came about to help provide some extra funding for the main game but also to help bridge the gap over the long development period. As such, I think fans would've been fine with a 5-7 hour experience - but this is at least double that. There are 31 main quests and 130 sidequests (plus another 30 I think in the post-game). And you will need to do a lot of these in order to a) firstly upgrade the shops in town and then b) to get the cash you need to spruce-up your gear.

 

Perhaps this would be easier to stomach if the quests were quite inventive and mixed things up, but alas they are not. Everything is incredibly lazy and simplistic, broadly requiring you to either farm/find something in one of the exploration areas you've visited, or literally just talking to person A in town, then talking to person B (who might only be on the next screen) but then having to report back to person A for no good reason. If there were 20-30 of these you'd probably be a bit bored after the first few but live with it - but the number of them is just relentless and they never extend to actually doing anything interesting, adding hours onto an already pretty thin game.

 

The actual story is okay and I think elements of this title will carry forward in some way into the main game, but on its own merits this is really poor and I wish I had abandoned it once I'd completed the first 30 quests (each quest gets you a stamp on a card, with only 30 stamps initially available) only to be given a fresh 50-stamp card to fill (and you get another 50-stamp card after that.)

 

In the end, this felt like the afterthought/hastily put together project it (probably) was, with no one facet being anything other than mediocre at best and certainly in terms of the writing does not act as a great showcase for what the main game will be like.

 

Shame.

 

Previously completed:

Spoiler

1. 01/01/2023 - Bladed Fury (XSS)

2. 01/01/2023 - Routemania (PC)

 

[Arctic Feather]

1. 07/01/2023 Mega Man Zero (Mega Man Zero Collection) - DS

 

 

I bought this back in the day for the GBA and while I still have the original cart, I haven't played it for many years.

 

I picked up the collection on DS as I don't have a copy of the fourth game and thought it would be a good way to revisit the earlier games too.

 

It was shorter and not as difficult as I remembered, but I still remembered some of the boss patterns to this day, so I must have spent a fair bit of time playing it back in the day.

 

I also have copies of Zero 2 and 3 on GBA, but I've hardly played them and don't remember anything about them. So I think I'll be jumping straight into Zero 2 on the collection next.

[James Lyon]

Games completed in 2023 Number 2:

 

Pupperazi: You're a camera on legs who takes photos of adorable dogs doing doggy things in a series of locations. It's a charming concept, made slightly surreal by the wooden animations of the dogs as they wobble about their business. You're given a list of photos to take (dogs holding certain items or performing a particular action, etc.) which leads to unlocking new locations and various film types and lenses.

 

I found it enjoyable at first, although it soon gets a bit repetitive. The quality of photos aren't really an issue during missions so they can be as terrible as you like and still pass. Good for a casual playthrough and the 'ending' comes by pretty quick. After that you're left with a whole load of new tasks to do, revisiting the same locations at different times of day, but it's all variations on the photo theme with a pretty flat challenge in figuring out what's required aside from one or two very mildly cryptic puzzles. There's not even much of a reward for 100%-ing everything beyond a mild satisfaction. Achievement are also a bit disappointing with most of them being take multiple photos in a certain way to unlock it.

 

Overall, good for a couple of hours of initial canine cuteness - and it knows it - but not one that escalates after that.

[strawdonkey]

Another year eh?

 

01 - Tiny Rogues

 

Tiny Rogues is a brilliant little twin-stick-ish Roguelike that sees you picking a class from 11 options and then trying to defeat Death at the end of ten floors of semi-randomly generated rooms. It starts off relatively sedate - you pick your class, which has a special ability (Clerics recover some health after defeating a boss, for instance) and some basic stats, but after that you're free to level up in whatever fashion you see fit. So for a Cleric, you start with a little STR and a bit more INT, but at the start of the game if you decide you want to use throwing knives or longbows with your Cleric then you can focus on picking up DEX items and just abaondon the Cleric weapon set entirely.

 

Each five times you level up you gain a static ability - some of them are straightforward, like gaining extra hit points or additional damage scaling, and some of them have potential to get very silly if picked early on (such as making weapon enhancements or potions last forever, instead of for the standard next ten rooms).

 

By the end of the game you're either struggling and scrabbling for the right items, or you are melting everything in sight in seconds. I've been finding the INT-based classes generally have the highest ceiling but that might just be luck that the two times I've put everything together have both been with the Sorcerer, just raining down lightning indiscriminately on everything in sight with the benefit of multiple stacking damage bonuses.

 

Cleared the game with all 11 characters and defeated the secret boss; going to give this a bit of a break now and come back to it when it is out of Early Access, as there is a ton more content planned thanks to the game being a huge success and the developer being able to now work on it full-time. Can't wait for further updates as it superb.

[partious]

Combination of time off work over the new year and games that I'd started in 2022 going on for these first few.

 

1) Spider-man: Miles Morales (PS5)

 

I haven't played the main Spider-Man game, but I enjoyed this. Nice graphics and decent enough gameplay as far as open world games go. It really benefitted from being rather short, as that meant the gameplay and kids TV show quality story didn't outstay their welcome. 

The open world itself was fairly hollow and I just flew above it between missions (I tried walking around to see if I was missing anything interesting, but I didn't seem to be).

 

2) Ghost of Tsushima (PS5)

I flip flopped on my opinion of this a couple of times during my playthrough. Started off being impressed with the graphics and environment etc, about 10 hours in I felt burned out on the repetitive loop and considered abandoning it, but then after taking a break for a day I went back to it and something about it clicked and I really enjoyed going through the rest of the missions. I found it quite relaxing, and the environments are quite beautiful. I fast traveled a lot towards the end though.

 

3) GTA5 (PC)

I'd played most of this in 2022 (having never played more than the first few hours before that), but burned out at some stage like I have with so many other open world games over the years. Decided to go back to it between other games during my time off work over the new year. Turns out I had about 12 hours left but it felt longer.

Some of the stuff this game makes you do even in main missions is just utterly boring.

Hated Trevor and most of the plot, although some of the dialogue between characters was enjoyable. Hate the massively restricted missions where you instadie if you deviate slightly from what the designers want you to do. Was all worth it for the satisfaction of finishing the game and uninstalling it from my PC.

 

4) FF7 Remake (PS5)

I made a post in the game's thread talking about the shallow game design. It's basically walk down a corridor for 30 hours solving trivial environmental puzzles and fighting enemies it would be impossible to lose against. The boss battles are the only part of the gameplay that doesn't feel like total filler content or a stalling tactic.

Most of what happens as you walk along the corridor from one cutscene to the next just feels like uninspired nothing content that only exists to make the game at least twice as long as it should be.

Still though, I think I enjoyed it overall even though I don't respect the unambitious approach to gameplay design that they settled on. I doubt I'll be back for future installments (until they come to psplus anyway..).

 

 

[bradigor]

On 01/01/2023 at 17:17, bradigor said:

Right time to get this ready. 

 

Current Playing 

Crisis Core Reunion 

 

Side Games 

Against the Storm 

RXC 

Hades 

Dead Cells

 

Completed

Lil Gator Game (08/01)

 

Parked 

 

 

Abandoned 

 

Lil Gator Game 

 

This came out of nowhere. Got a code to cover it for the podcast. Played and completed it over the weekend. A lovely adventure game that is about growing up too fast. Take a lot of inspiration from the likes of Breath of the Wild and other Zelda games. 

 

Only takes around five hours but it is so adorable.

 

[RubberJohnny]

Sonic Frontiers - Finishing off the last games that I started last year. This has probably one of the biggest post honeymoon-period falloffs I've seen since Halo Infinite, and the reasons are the same - you've seen everything it does in the first couple of hours, oh, and the new format that is supposedly bringing freshness to the franchise with this new iteration is actually just a bunch of borrowed (even outright plagiarised) ideas you've seen before, so it doesn't feel that fresh once the initial high wears off.

 

 

At the 4/5ths mark you go back to an area cut from the starting island and this section is interesting because it was clearly the original vision for the game, slow contemplative shadow-of-the-colossus exploration, followed by battles with the Titans that are over the top anime bullshit fights with 2000s buttrock screaming over them - the sheer tonal whiplash there almost seems like deliberate parody, but I don't think it is. I always thought Sega's arcade lineage left them unable really to do anything that focused on atmosphere because the casino sound effects, big flashing text and shouting announcers that draw punters in are basically anathema to maintaining any sort of subtle mood or vibe, and wanting to be Team ICO but then playing 'Rules of Nature' and sticking a combo meter onscreen when a Colossus appears is a pretty good example of that.

 

Anyway, they seem to have realised the original game was only 2 hours long, so added a bunch of BotW shrine puzzles to the open world, as well as cyberspace levels and a fishing minigame and an Ikaruga clone, and created different currencies to gate the Titans and story. And none of this stuff is bad, like much of the enjoyment of the opening hours came from running around wondering how I get up there, or running the time trials until you get an S-rank, but it is just a bunch of loose content that doesn't really fit together cohesively, and you've seen them all done better elsewhere.

 

Overall, kind of a missed opportunity. It's a shame that with an open world the exploration and movement is still so rigid and on-rails, like it's always been odd so much of Sonics traversal is through environmental objects like boost pads and springs rather than his innate abilities - it's like a Spiderman game where he can't web-sling but can only swing off convenient hanging cables in the environment - but in an open environment you also realise all those things just move him at 90 degree angles because they were from 2D games originally. If Frontiers is going to be their template going forwards, the series needs to be unafraid of ditching more elements from the past that have hung around unexamined for 30 years. 5/10

[skondo]

Gears of War 3.

 

Never played before and it was an absolute blast. Cover shooting is superb, writing is better than previous games and the plot is actually okay. If anything, when playing on normal the game is a little too easy. There was one section when fighting some lambent humans and Locust, where I felt slightly overwhelmed, particularly when three or four lambent stalks sprouted and started spitting out more lambent. At this point there was genuinely too much going on, but it was the build up to a key scripted moment that cleared the battlefield.

 

Any grief/loss in the game is handled a little clumsily, which is a little disappointing, but the worst element is having to play as Cole as he's just so damned annoying.

 

The game built to the finale well and it wasn't disappointing. I really enjoyed the whole game so have to give it a 10/10. Brilliant stuff.

 

The one thing lacking when compared to Gears 2 is a sense of tension and I missed that. Scariest part was probably Marcus removing his head scarf, what the fuck is up with his hair?

 

Now on to Judgment, which apparently is a prequel. I hadn't realised that.

[Unofficial Who]

Jan

 

09/01 Nobody Saves the World (PC) I had started playing this with a friend but was prompted to return to it this week as it's about to leave GamePass. It's a dungeon crawler, a little slower paced, in some ways it reminded me of Druid on the 8 bits. But it has this fantastic twist where you use a wand to change forms. At first you can only turn into a rat with a poisonous bite but levelling up by fulfilling certain tasks opens up new forms. They're all visible from near the beginning but you can only unlock them by meeting certain conditions. They range from the boring usual archer and warrior classes but also include the weird like mermaid to the really weird like the body builder class. All of them have unique abilities and later you can even mix and match some of them. I was almost over this near the end after I'd unlocked all the forms but the first two thirds of the game is brilliant with the draw of opening up a new class and finding out what they can do being a big part of the appeal along with the Metroidvania style design. Highly recommended and even better in co-op.

 

 

Earlier this month

 

04/01 Marvel Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5)

[thesnwmn]

Previously...

Spoiler

1 - 04/01 - Stacklands - Steam Deck/PC

2 - 05/01 - Patrick's Parabox - Steam Deck/PC

 

3 - 09/01 - FixFox - Steam Deck/PC

 

A wholesome sci-fi exploration game where you explore sections of a planet, collect tools and fix machines whilst following through a linear and occasionally heavy handed plot about differences between people, prejudice, friendship and memory I guess.

 

Pretty pixel art, nice music, some fun character dialog and a very easy going difficulty make this a very chilled experience. Exploring and following the story in a top down world you are tasked with fixing odd machines both as part of the narrative and extra-curriculars (which are entirely optional and completely pointless). The fixing screens offer what I guess one might refer to as puzzles but in reality it's not much more than making sure you've collected the right tools from the world as you travel around and using them on the right parts of the broken machine. It's definitely not much of challenge and I don't think it's supposed to be.

 

For a few hours it's a charming experience. You see a few new environments. You get introduced to a few different tools. You follow along with the little mystery at the game's heart, interacting with the robot locals and eating the odd meal with them. After a while though it's a pretty repetitive game of fetching things, fixing things and solving little environmental puzzles. It's structure is laid too bare. It never even tries to disguise that in each section of the game you'll end up doing the same thing.

 

The game is even clearly embarrassed by itself in some ways, or at least how long it goes on and how many times it makes you fix things. At some point in the story they give you a mechanism to stop having to search for tools so much and another to stop having to fix things entirely. Literally "press Y to fix". The developer understands it's not actually fun at some point and basically pushes aside it's primary gameplay feature for the final section of the game.

 

I'm torn on my overall opinion. As the 10 hour game it is this is too long. It either needed to find a more engaging set of puzzle mechanics and game structure or at least halve it's runtime. As a 5 hour game I'd probably give it more leeway. Having said that, I did finish it. Whether it's because of this thread and not wanting yet another incomplete game in my Steam library, or because I actually enjoyed it I'm not sure. Probably the former because I was glad it was over in the end.

 

Maybe one to pick up for £1 in the future and play and drop after a couple of hours.

 

 

 

 

 

Bonus banana for scale...

Spoiler

 

 

[Sprite Machine]

And we're off!

 

1.) Lego Marvel's Avengers - PC - 2016

Completed everything 100% (31 hours).

 

It's almost exactly like Lego Marvel Superheroes, except with fewer heroes, and scenes taken from several of the films. It's got the entire Manhatten to explore again, PLUS like five or six additional mini-hubs. And I didn't even get the DLC. The game's fucking massive.

 

I keep telling myself I won't do it again, 100%-ing Lego games is tedious bullshit, and yet I keep doing it. It's got this weirdly compelling pull on me. I get to a point where I think "well, I've put 20 hours into this, might as well put another 10 - 15!") and then I get obsessive and play all night until it's finished and I'm tired and drained. "Maybe next time it'll be worth it?" No! It's not worth it. It's never worth it.

 

The most fun part of these games is flying around the open world city as your superhero of choice, following markers to gold bricks, side quests, checkpoint races, or rescuing Stan Lee. The joy of actually moving around is really well captured, particularly in the air, and the streaming cityscapes, from street level all the way up to the helicarrier above the clouds, is quite impressive tech for the little Lego engine that could.

 

The actual story levels themselves (and the repeats in free-play) are not that great. I don't know what it is they've done, maybe it was always like this, but the combat feels more hands-off -- like I'm spending more time watching 'finishing moves' or team-up moves, than I am actually controlling things. With all the on-screen button prompts, context-sensitive controls, cramped environments and bits of Lego flying all over the place, it's a clumsy game that's hard to read and tough to enjoy. There's some co-op fun to be had, the humour is good, and it's clearly made with affection for the source, but... nnnyeehh.

[RubberJohnny]

Pentiment - I was a little cautious about the idea of Obsidian doing a Disco Elysium style game, I've never really gotten on with New Vegas or Pillars, and Obsidians writing is usually praised in comparison with Bethesda, which is the lowest bar imaginable considering Bethesda's writing is just a hundred different ways to tell you to go do a dungeon, no one has any sort of character arc or development and the only memorable characters are the one-note joke ones.

 

But I needn't have worried, you can tell this is from someone whose worked in the industry a while and honed their craft, it manages to introduce and juggle dozens of characters while making them all feel unique, and it's able to establish this characterisation quickly and efficiently.

 

I'd heard the conceit was a murder mystery where you'd never have it confirmed whether you 'got it right', but what I didn't know was that was only the first act - there's a timeskip, and this introduces the games real theme - history and what we take from it. Events in the past have an impact in the future, but they're not clean-cut, people can take different lessons from the same event based on where they stood. Because you, the player, have seen these events first hand, you can see things get distorted over time through peoples perspectives, and the lessons they want to pass on, it's all very clever.

 

 

For the first two acts this absolutely gripped me and I had a proper late night, I did fall off a bit with the third, although it does wrap things up and offer a nice sentimental ending. If I did have an issue with it, it's that often I felt there wasn't a dialogue option that did what I wanted to do [Spoilers for the ending below]:

 

Spoiler

There's no option to offer any money to a poor family I had a close relationship with even though I had loads of money, I had multiple conversations where I connected someone's motive and then could only say it was unknown later on during the trial, and during the last act I had two big decisions about what to do with a business and a potential partner, despite making all the dialogue choices that implied I was coming around to settling down in Tassing and running the business with a partner, the ending then showed me selling up and leaving town without them.

 

Generally that's been a bit of a problem in the other Obsidian RPGs I've played, but I run into much less often from other developers, their games feel a little written out in advance and could do with being tweaked a little more once they let testers play through.

 

We've seen a few Disco Elysium-alikes recently with Citizen Sleeper and so on and I guess it's unknown whether this is just a short lived fad like the rash of Portal clones that then died for a decade or actually keeps going as its own sustainable little subgenre - I hope for the latter, I really enjoy this style of games and this one is heartily recommended 'if you like this kind of thing'. 8/10

[thesnwmn]

Spoiler

1 - 04/01 - Stacklands - Steam Deck/PC

2 - 05/01 - Patrick's Parabox - Steam Deck/PC

3 - 09/01 - FixFox - Steam Deck/PC

 

4 - 10/01 - Lego Builder's Journey - Steam Deck/PC

 

A relaxing little game where, presented with a small Lego scene you place blocks to guide your man to an exit or solve little mechanical puzzles.

 

Started this when I first got my Deck but didn't finish it. Polished it off today. It's only s couple of hours total.

 

It's a reasonably good looking game. Lots of very nice lighting effects along with shiny blocks. Inoffensive music ditties to listen to.

 

It's an easy game for the most part. And when it's not it's more because I didn't get what I was trying to do.

 

Its controls are shit. So much frustration just trying to pick up pieces or place them. It was originally a mobile/tablet game and it tells. I'm sure it works a little better with a touch screen but with mouse or controller it's just complete dog shit.

 

So it's a short toy more than a game. But it plugged a hole whilst I wait for Lego Bricktales to drop in price.

 

 

 

[df0]

First one of the year: Star Wars Jedi the Fallen Order. High production value wasted on a sub mediocre action game that's worse in every conceivable way than its numerous inspirations.

[Unofficial Who]

2 hours ago, df0 said:

First one of the year: Star Wars Jedi the Fallen Order. High production value wasted on a sub mediocre action game that's worse in every conceivable way than its numerous inspirations.

 

What platform did you play it on? Because I bounced off it on the PS4 but loved it in performance mode on the PS5. It's one of those games that feels completely different at 60fps.

[AlexM]

Half-Life 2:EP2
I felt like this was just getting going when it.. ended. Enjoyed it more than EP1 but definitely left me wanting more - now I know how everyone else feels!

[Mawdlin]

Biomutant (PS5)

 

This game got a lot of stick but it must've done something right because I sunk 25 hours into it and got to the end (a rarity for me having only completed 6 games last year).

 

I loved the surreal post-apocalyptic setting and rough and tumble combat. Exploring was always a real pleasure. But there was so much thrown at this that it became disjointed and rough. Side quests galore, most of which resulted in no discernible reward, not even an extra percentage point on the completion target, served to deflate rather than bolster the main story.

 

A weird moment on the final leg sums this game up. I'm asked to collect some pyrotechnic device from a tunnel and the only way to escape is to ride some thermals, pressing x or o to fly or descend. Yet another mini game with fresh animation and a time sink for the developers, but a mini game that won't be needed elsewhere and isn't much of anything anyway.

 

Similarly, mounts and vehicles are found and required for one mission and then never really used again.

 

The development team (apparently numbering around 20) have tried to match Ubisoft's grand bloatathon ambitions but with a fraction of the resources and budget.

 

I have to admire the gusto if not the execution.

 

But weirdly I enjoyed this more than most Ubisoft titles if only because it has a quirky Rare-like charm and (just about) doesn't outstay its welcome.

 

7/10

[Gabe]

3 hours ago, thesnwmn said:

  Reveal hidden contents

1 - 04/01 - Stacklands - Steam Deck/PC

2 - 05/01 - Patrick's Parabox - Steam Deck/PC

3 - 09/01 - FixFox - Steam Deck/PC

 

4 - 10/01 - Lego Builder's Journey - Steam Deck/PC

 

A relaxing little game where, presented with a small Lego scene you place blocks to guide your man to an exit or solve little mechanical puzzles.

 

Started this when I first got my Deck but didn't finish it. Polished it off today. It's only s couple of hours total.

 

It's a reasonably good looking game. Lots of very nice lighting effects along with shiny blocks. Inoffensive music ditties to listen to.

 

It's an easy game for the most part. And when it's not it's more because I didn't get what I was trying to do.

 

Its controls are shit. So much frustration just trying to pick up pieces or place them. It was originally a mobile/tablet game and it tells. I'm sure it works a little better with a touch screen but with mouse or controller it's just complete dog shit.

 

So it's a short toy more than a game. But it plugged a hole whilst I wait for Lego Bricktales to drop in price.

 

 

 

If you don't mind messing with VPNs and key re-seller sites, then you can get Bricktales for about £6. I know because I had it in my basket last night but have decided to play  Builder's Journey first (to see if I enjoy the idea).

[thesnwmn]

3 minutes ago, Gabe said:

If you don't mind messing with VPNs and key re-seller sites, then you can get Bricktales for about £6. I know because I had it in my basket last night but have decided to play  Builder's Journey first (to see if I enjoy the idea).

 

Having played this one and the demo of Bricktales on Steam they've very very different games.

 

Journey is a a time passing relaxed (but infuriating) puzzle experience where I think Bricktales is more of a proper adventure puzzler with a more fully formed building system. Not that I suggest it will be hard at any point but definitely much more of a game and more to explore.

 

And my god it doesn't control terribly. This is really Builder's Journeys big failing, particularly on a pad. Imprecisely selecting bricks to pick up is bad enough most of the time but a nightmare on levels with moving bricks to interact with. Placement that has fiddly snap-on (and requires it) is infuriating when the brick you place just drops down rather than clicking into place. And having to hold to place a piece the same button as you tap to rotate it is just plain fucking evil. The result of it being s touch game ported with minimal effort.

 

So I'd say skip to the demo of Bricktales.

 

I'll be looking forward to a sale, cannot be bothered with all the VPN stuff.

[Boothjan]

First game done this year!

 

1. Star Wars: Jedi - Fallen Order

 

I needed to play this through again ready for the sequel (I completed it originally on release) and basically, I found the good bits better than before, and the negatives more annoying!

 

Straight off the bat - the settings, the locations, the ships, the character designs (who aren't wookies) are superb.  Also - I love the story, and where the protagonist Cal Kestis fits into the timeline.

 

One big difference between this playthrough and the last one was the order in which I did the different worlds.  Advice: don't do Dathomir until after you've done Kashyyk.  Difficulty spike avoided!

 

As for gameplay - it's a mixture of good and bad.  Although you start off with a feeble set of basic skills, by the end you're capable of some spectacular, fun Jedi skillz, with a ton of customisable lightsaber options, against a very impressive range of different enemies.  I always chose the option of respawning enemies at meditation points so I could have another go at fighting them.  Great fun.

 

But it's not all great - that bloody map seemed to annoy me a lot more than it did previously, as I was trying to find every collectable.  I gave up on doing that eventually to concentrate on the the story.  The lack of fast travel after missions is also a bit annoying as you have to navigate all the way back to your objective.  Pretty much every time you do this, it's a chore and impacts the pace of the game.  Similarly, I hate some of the platforming aspects.  No issue with some hard to reach bonus items, but the sliding mechanic is the pits, and there's often tedium involved with exploration.

 

I'll be playing the sequel as soon as it's out as I'm a sucker for anything Star Wars - the story and the combat make this good Star Wars, even with the shitty map and beige platforming sections which get in the way of the good stuff.  This would be a better than average game with no Star Wars polish, but as it has it in abundance, it makes this a good game.

 

7.5/10

[ImmaculateClump]

Cotton Rock n Roll -Superlative Night Dreams- - normal 1cc, appli, tacoot, luffee

 

Spoiler

Cotton Rock n Roll -Superlative Night Dreams- - normal 1cc, cotton, appli, tacoot, luffee

 

[Vorgot]

2. Final Fantasy 7 Remake - PS5

 

I must be one of the few of my age who played this and has not played the original. Tried it many times, only ever got a few hours in.

 

Enjoyed it, I think. Though it has some huge flaws. Characters are so horribly one dimensional, particularly the villains. Tina, and maybe eventually Aerith are the only 'real' people in it, and they have their moments. For newcomers who only know the long haired boy through cultural osmosis, his appearance all the way through is baffling. Serves no purpose other than to appease fanboys as I hear he is not in the game at this point originally. Some of the fights are ridiculous, but that's JRPGs for you in general.

 

The big problem as a newcomer is how small it all feels. My JRPGS are usually expansive and huge in scope. At the end you can look down at where you started. Thats fine, we know its one in a series but it still feels very limited.

 

I'll do the DLC at some point, but not in any rush to jump back in, and will wait fro a drop in price when the next one comes out I suspect unless it reviews really well.

 

Previously

Spoiler

1 - Captain Toad Treasure Tracker- Switch

 

[Popo]

Ridge Racer 3D (2011)

Having completed all the Grand Prix races, I feel like I’ve completely rinsed this. It’s my favourite Ridge Racer - the 3D effect works extremely well, as you move at high speed into the screen, the feeling of speed is enhanced by the stereoscopy. It’s got a huge number of courses and cars, as well as classic music - it’s pushing fewer polygons than the older PSP games, at lower resolution too, but the handling is simply perfect

 

With more nitrous than Clapham High Street on a Saturday night, it’s fast - even if slowdown does kick in on when the screen gets busy. An essential 3DS title. 
 

Spoiler

05/01/2023 - Resident Evil Village: Shadow of Rose

11/01/2023 - Ridge Racer 3D

 

[HarryBizzle]

1. ElecHead (Steam)

 

Bought this having seen it recommended in the 2022 version of this thread. It's pretty good, but the otherwise clever mechanics which do well due to the game's short length are spoiled by it being needlessly obtuse in places and the map (there is no in game map view) being really quite confusing. A nice diversion for a couple of hours.

 

7/10.

[HarryBizzle]

On a roll here. 
 

2. Aperture Desk Job (Steam Deck)

 

What a great little game/demo. The voice acting is brilliant. Such a shame that Valve don’t seem interested in making games in the HL universe anymore. 
 

Looks superb on Steam Deck, too. Performance is a bit wobbly, though, which is a bit odd given it’s Valve and they could presumably tune it to run flawlessly on Deck. 

[Jamie John]

55 minutes ago, HarryBizzle said:

On a roll here. 
 

2. Aperture Desk Job (Steam Deck)

 

What a great little game/demo. The voice acting is brilliant. Such a shame that Valve don’t seem interested in making games in the HL universe anymore. 
 

Looks superb on Steam Deck, too. Performance is a bit wobbly, though, which is a bit odd given it’s Valve and they could presumably tune it to run flawlessly on Deck. 

 

How do you actually access this? Was it pre-installed on your Deck? I haven't seen anything about it on mine.