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Fairly chilled out month for games and I even turned down a couple of reviews because I wanted to chew thing some things that've been on my backlog for a while. Otherwise not much to report. Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139… (PS4, 2021) - I was a big cheerleader of Nier back in 2010, but had some reservations about the remake because they ditched grumpy Dad Nier. But after playing this Bro Nier is actually the better character and this is an incredible remake that adds a bunch of excellent stuff. Played up to Ending E and loved every minute of it.  Monster Hunter: World (PS4, 2018) - Was convinced to try it by my Monster Hunter-lovin' girlfriend as it was free in the PlayStation Collection. I can see why people like it, but the core of the gameplay being grinding the same monsters for parts rubbed me up the wrong way. Shame because it's a gorgeous game and the monsters themselves are amazing. Not going to bother with Iceborne.  The Darkness (Xbox 360, 2007) - Very surprised how well this has aged. The Starbreeze devs who made this went on to form MachineGames and make the new Wolfenstein games, and you can see the similarities. Basically the best Venom game we never had.  Penguin Adventure (MSX, 1986) - Hideo Kojima's (sort of) first game. An incredibly difficult running and dodging MSX game with a load of weird added stuff. I hosed up and got the penguin princess killed though.  The Return of the Obra Dinn (PC, 2018) - Was so glad to have finally played this without being spoiled about it. It's so satisfying slowly putting the pieces together and learning about 19th century boats and their crews. Wish there were more games using this as a template.  Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown (PS4, 2021) - Been pouring in hours to this after it was on PS Plus. I've been playing as Pai since VF1 and it's super fun dismantling people online as her.  Moose Life (PSVR, 2021) - It took me ages to get the hang of this shooter, to the point where I almost considered giving up. But eventually it clicked and I rocketed through it. Jeff Minter is a genius.  Tender Loving Care (PC, 1998) - Bonkers late 90s FMV adventure starring John Hurt that combines very softcore porn with psychological questions directed at the player. It's ridiculous but very fun if you like weird poo poo.  MCastlevania: Bloodlines (Mega Drive, 1994) - Finally beat the Castlevania Anniversary Collection! This was a great game to round it out with and for me much better than Super Castlevania IV. Really feels like the Mega Drive is being put through its paces.  This month I'm reviewing The Ascent and Road 96 as well as writing a retrospective on the Game Gear Sonic the Hedgehog. Am also playing Horizon Chase Turbo, the first Assassin's Creed Odyssey DLC and Resident Evil Village. Am slowly inching through Twilight Princess too, so hopefully I'll clear that before the end of the month.
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Aug 4, 2021 10:15
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So I barely had time to play games during the summer mainly due to work. Beaten : God Of War 2018 Playing this on the ps5 with the 60fps 4k patch was an amazing first time experience. The best God of War world, story and combat. And I am someone who has played the trilogy multiple times and love those games. The semi open world, the relationship between Atreus/Kratos and the side characters like Freya/Brok/Mimir. This is probably the most well rounded God of War game. I think the only complaint I have about this game is the insanely repetitive boss fights. The first boss is the last boss of the game and the 2nd boss is copy pasted for so many battles. God Of War was known for its bloody action but also it's epic set piece boss fights. Unfortunately the sequel doesn't deliver on that. I hope Ragnarok does a better job. It's crazy that you don't even get a tease for Thor or Odin. There is also lots of side content like the Valkyries but even that is repetitive. All in all it's a great game with very few flaws. Feels like they built a incredible core combat, world, engine, hopefully the 2nd game delivers on more unique content. Beaten: FF7R Intermission Great dlc, 7hourish if you do the fort condor minigame. The fort condor minigame is really fun. Yuffie/Sonon combat has even more potential to play as an action combat. Story was interesting to give some background/character to Yuffie. Replayed the dlc on hard and man you really learn how to play Yuffie then. Her kit is so deep, she is a literal one man army, can cc, can air juggle, can heal/elemental, can burst. Again the best part of the combat are the secret vr bosses. Yuffie/Sonnon was easier than the main game just because how broken Yuffie is once you get a hang of her. The Weiss boss fight for the main game is a great addition and that feels literally like an action game boss with how fast he is. Probably the best boss fight in the game, even better than Hell House and Nero was also fun as the intermission boss. Beaten: Demon Souls Remake Amazing looking remake, really sells you on the PS5's capabilities, looks as good as pc games on a rtx 3090. The original DeS was the reason I bought a ps3 back when it came out. Since then I been hooked to Soulslikes. I always rated Demon Souls quite highly because of it's uniqueness and amazing envrionments. That being said, this game reminds you how better From have gotten at level design, boss design, core combat. I went with a mage build which is always broken in PVE but even moreso in DeS. The game was a breeze except for 4-2, the area before the Old Hero, that boss run almost made me uninstall the game. Until I figured out the Thief's Ring to make the run easier. Mage build takes 0 skill and makes everything trivial but it still was fun. Old Hero and King Allant were some challenge. I think every other boss I first timed even Maneaters. Usually I rerun the Souls game on ng+ but I feel like it's not worth playing ng+ as mage, would have to start over in another build. Dropped: Ac Syndicate Quite shocked I got tired of this one so quick. I have been playing the AC games in order and this is the first one I could not get myself to play at all. The formula is really getting tiring at this point, I'll try out Origins to see if the changes are interesting. Dropped: Man Of Medan Was really hyped for this after Until Dawn which is one of the best horror games of the decade. The story set up was not as good but still interesting. Had to drop this because the qte timing was literally broken, I am pretty sure no normal human could react to any of the qtes. I even turned qte for accessibility and it still was unplayable. Maybe it's a bug on the pc version? I was playing this on PC game pass. Not sure what the issue was but I could react to the qte's just fine in Until Dawn. I have been playing Ys 7 on my PC here and there when I get time. I bought a bunch of games before summer and haven't gotten to any of them. Maybe I'll start Scarlet Nexus as well.
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Aug 6, 2021 03:58
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Beat - Minit: A fun, short adventure game where the main idea is that you only have 60 seconds to do anything before you die and have to "start over." I really liked Half-Minute Hero, and this scratched the same itch. Beat - New Pokemon Snap (Switch): I was eager for this 20-years-of-anticipation sequel, and was mostly okay with it. It's cool to see how the different Pokemon react to the different actions you can take, and discovering various interactions is a nice little puzzle. The unexpected update that just came out was a nice addition, too. The course research levels, star ranks, and request system add a bunch of completionist triggers to me, and I had to remind myself that I wasn't having fun doing them and to put the game down. Beat - Tiny Robots Recharged (Android): A mediocre, escape room game. Nothing to rave about. Completed - Witcheye (Android): I played this on Android, but I see it's been ported to Steam (though, I can't imagine it'd be too fun to play on a PC since the control mechanism is swipe-based). You play as a floating eyeball, and you swipe the screen to change its direction. All while trying to avoid obstacles, defeat enemies, and find hidden treasure. Pretty fun, short, and not-too-frustrating game. My daughter's corner: Beat - Lego Batman: We beat the hero side. I'll see if she wants to play the villain side at all. The platforming can get challenging for a 5 year old, and there were times where I could tell she was very frustrated with it. But I'm trying to teach her perseverance and not giving up at the first sign of difficulty (as an aside, video games are a pretty great way to teach this). In the spirit of two-way learning, the Lego games always trigger the completionist in me, but playing with her is helping me learn to manage that because she doesn't give a poo poo about seeing a "100%" on the game save screen. Good-Natured Filth fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 19:23
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Good-Natured Filth posted:
I'm playing this with a seven year old at the moment and it's kinda fiddly and doesn't signpost what you need to do very well. I'm more used to the newer Lego games and this early one feels a bit rough l.
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Aug 19, 2021 07:36
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Necrothatcher posted:I'm playing this with a seven year old at the moment and it's kinda fiddly and doesn't signpost what you need to do very well. I'm more used to the newer Lego games and this early one feels a bit rough l. My brother said something similar. I have some of the newer ones, too, so maybe I'll steer her that way if she wants to play more Lego games. Edit: Since I'm still the last post. Completed - A Short Hike: A fun exploration game with no time limits, enemies, or consequences. I really enjoyed taking my time to explore the island, talk to the people there, and find all the items you can find. Good-Natured Filth fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Sep 3, 2021 |
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Aug 19, 2021 14:14
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Was off work on vacation for most of last month, so had a decent amount of time to play in between writing sessions. I also went on a 400 mile round trip to the 'biggest arcade in Europe' on the basis that they had a Metal Gear Arcade machine (one of the few outside Japan). Despite checking that it was there before I left I arrived to find it had been put into storage "because nobody ever played it". So that was a bit of an anticlimax. I might have to get in touch with the arcade owner and see if I can visit their warehouse just to get a game... though that'll probably involve another day-long trip across the UK. Oh well, I got to play a bunch of classic arcade games like Tempest, Space Invaders, SF2, Sega Rally and Out Run (hydraulic cabinet n' all). Also got a go on Cho Chabudai Gaeshi 2, in which you play the ghost of a dead man at his own funeral who has to dramatically overturn his coffin with his own body inside to freak out his horrible relatives. Didn't have enough time there to beat any games but I may go back when I get some more free time, it'd be fun to play through the entirety of rare cabs like Star Wars Battle Pod. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Gamecube/Wii, 2006 / Wii U, 2016) - The only home console mainline Zelda I'd never beaten. Played a bit on release in 2006 and lost interest fast. In 2021 it went down a lot better as despite being a teeny bit uninspired, the dungeon design is some of the best in the series.  Metal Gear Acid (PSP, 2005) - Credit to the designers for managing to figure out how to make a card-based Metal Gear game, but there's a bunch of flaws that get annoying fast. I guess it was rushed to be out for the PSP launch. Love the loopy story though.  Twelve Minutes (PC, 2021) - Starts strong then proceeds to nosedive HARD in the final act. One of the dumbest story endings I've seen in a game in ages. Hard avoid.  Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PC Engine CD, 1993) - Really enjoyed playing it as Richter, but then I unlocked Maria and basically didn't look back. Turns out the special sauce to take a Castlevania from great to incredible is playing as a cute girl who throws cats and birds at monsters.  The Walking Dead: Onslaught (PSVR, 2020) - VR zombie smashing game with the depth of a puddle and very easy to boot. Even so, sprnting around the apocalypse and dismantling zombies in VR is very cool, especially when you unlock the katana and can go full Kill Bill on them.  Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: Legacy of the First Blade DLC (PS4, 2018) - Played more out of a sense of obligation than actually wanting to. Turns out this DLC's crappy reputation is richly deserved. Not only is the storyline famously bad, but the missions are the same bland AC sludge they seem to be able to poo poo out on autopilot. Am hoping The Fate of Atlantis is better.  Road 96 (PC, 2021) - Interesting teenage refugee hitch-hiker-em-up. Ambitious and neat design with fairly decent writing. Also one of my friends sings a song on the soundtrack, so that's nice.  The Ascent (PC, 2021) - Looks fantastic, plays a bit repetitively but it's over just at the point where you start getting annoyed. Really fun in local multiplayer too.  Sonic the Hedgehog (Game Gear, 1991) - Got asked to participate in a Sonic the Hedgehog writing group and picked the first GG entry as it was the first game I ever owned and beat. Was very pleased that after all this time I remembered where the Chaos Emeralds are.  Already beaten Resident Evil Village and No Longer Home and have a bunch else on. Plan to play ZOE2 on PS4, Doom Eternal, and Spirit of the North, which have all been sat unplayed under my TV for about a year. I'm also getting some original Xbox games out of the way - want to beat Jet Set Radio Future and Panzer Dragoon Orta before the month's out. I also rewatched the Matrix sequels and enjoyed them more than I thought, so keeping an eye out for a cheap copy of Enter the Matrix as I remember it being janky but fun.
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Sep 4, 2021 17:21
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August: #128: Octopath Traveler (44hr for main game) - A competent B-grade JRPG from veteran designers trying to marry the SaGa story design with Bravely combat. It's fine, although it doesn't lean hard enough on the SaGa side and feels too linear. #129: Omno (3.5hr) [2021] - Enjoyable enough 3D platformer with some light puzzling, although it is outclassed by other entries this year. #130: Dodgeball Academia (8.5hr) [2021] - Very fun action sports RPG about grabbing dodgeballs and beating the poo poo out of the other team with them. A lot of Saturday morning cartoon storytelling, great art, feels good to play. It's got the whole package! #131: Haven Park (3hr) [2021] - Chill out campsite building game that could maybe be compared slightly to A Short Hike. Go around collecting resources and build camp areas as well as repair lights and fences as you navigate across a small island. #132: Fantasian (55hr) [2021] - Frustrating. So frustrating. A first half with some promise ruined by a second half full of ridiculously difficult bosses (paired with stupidly easy random encounters) and an interminable grind. Only for masochists. #133: 12 Minutes (3hr) [2021] - I would say there's about half of a good game here, and then the illusion of flexibility vanishes as you become confined to rigid order-based instruction. And that's not even getting into the story. I didn't hate it, and I actually don't hate the end story twists, as stupid as they are (although the game's forcing you to do psychopath things to progress is, well, bad). But it's a major disappointment alongside Genesis Noir. #134: Recompile (4hr) [2021] - Oh I quite enjoyed this 3D Metroidvania platformer. Clean pristine Tron-like abstract areas, tough but well-handling precision platforming, and just enough combat to keep things from getting stale. Also doesn't wear out its welcome at just 4 hours. #135: Garden Story (8.5hr) [2021] - A combination of ARPG and light life sim where you build back up communities one town at a time, go into their dungeons and defeat the bosses who are ruining their lives. Despite the title, farming/gardening is only a very very minor part of the game in the back half, as your general chores involve delivering goods, repairing structures and fighting enemies that get into the towns. A cute and charming game. #136: Psychonauts 2 (12hr) [2021] - Possibly my GOTY, at least for now. It's absolutely unbelievable how Double Fine managed to make a game this good, even better than the original, given their track record of being VERY hit or miss. Well this hit, big time. Wonderful hubs to explore, an endless amount of variety to each level, collecting is fun and optional rather than a chore, and the story stays interesting the whole way through. Probably my favorite Western AAA game in the last decade.
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Sep 4, 2021 19:02
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Beat - A Hat in Time: A game that tries to bring you back to the days of the collectathon. It does an okay job, but the overall controls are wonky and the story isn't too great. Each world has a gimmick that is mostly okay (except the one level that turns into a horror game out of nowhere). Not a terrible game, but not stellar.
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Sep 26, 2021 03:34
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Jeez, I haven't posted here since the Summer Steam Sale. Nulled: Clutter 1000 I love this kind of hidden object/"clean up the screen" game, but unfortunately this game acted in the same way as the last Clutter game did: After about an hour of playing it, it started to stutter and slow down to a level so it became unplayable. I tried uninstalling, deleting all local files, then reinstalling. I also tried changing between fullscreen and windowed mode and what ever tip I could find, but nothing worked. Nulled: Valheim It was my first survival game and it was quite fun at the beginning. Kragger and I had a ton of fun, but when the grinding set it, the lack of stamina so you kept running slowly, the lack of fast travel until you could build portals etc. it completely killed the mood. Finished: Assassin's Creed: Valhalla + DLCs So I guess this is the only game I've been playing in the last couple of months (except for a few podcast friendly puzzle games). It ended up being almost an obsession to clear the maps, do the quests and tasks, and just when I was about done the Paris DLC was available and new raiding missions showed up. Some pretty good story and side missions, an awesome selection of weapons and how you could combine them made this a great game for me, and I certainly got my moneys worth. Only at then end did I really notice the special abilities, since a some DLC thing added missions where you were forced to use them. It's a bit weird, because except for the exploding arrow, I honestly didn't care to use any of them, where I had used them intensively in Odyssey and Origins.
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Oct 3, 2021 21:43
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Not a huge September, but I played some pretty long games. #137: Bravely Default (55hr) - Similar to Fantasian, has a great first half, and absolutely collapses in the second half. #138: Kitaria Fables [2021] (16.5hr) - A farming game where the primary farming isn't the crop cultivation kind. Pretty mediocre. #139: Flynn: Son of Crimson [2021] (4.5hr) - Pretty great linear platformer with fun combat and secrets to find. In my 2021 top 10. #140: TOEM [2021] (4hr) - Lovely, charming photography adventure that also is currently in my 2021 top 10. #141: Blue Fire [2021] (5.5hr) - Just misses out on the top 10, but a fun 3D platformer take on the Zelda genre. #142: Subnautica: Below Zero [2021] (18hr) - More of the same as the first game, but just misses out on my top 10 because the novelty at this point is gone and I felt the sea map and progression was not as strong this time. (I had no issue with the on-foot stuff, just the way the sea was designed and how you progressed through the biomes.) #143: Kaze & the Wild Masks [2021] (4hr) - Fantastic DKC clone, with Nintendo-quality variety on display and colorful PS1/Saturn style visuals. In my 2021 top 5. 4hr for main game, then I spent another hour 100%ing it. In addition I've been playing Atelier Sophie so that's been another 15+ hours, I just didn't finish it in September. And I started Sable. ..and I played a bunch of game demos in the Next Fest. I've still been playing a lot of video games!
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Oct 5, 2021 21:55
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Now have a full-time writing job so my time to play games is getting gradually hoovered up. Having more money is nice though. Got through a couple of games I've wanted to play for a while and was very happy to finally be able to put Assassin's Creed Odyssey behind me. Figure I'll get to Valhalla next year and then I'll probably quit Assassin's Creed if they go live service. Other than that a relatively chill month. Resident Evil Village (PlayStation 5, 2021) - A very episodic game that feels a bit uneven. The chapters involving Lady D are awesome and the others somewhat less so. Does have a completely bonkers story though, which I appreciate. Also looks great on PS5.  The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo DS, 2007) - The Zelda I genuinely didn't like. Didn't get on with the touch-only controls and solving the Ocean King's temple six times is ridiculous. Hoping Spirit Tracks is better.  Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: The Fate of Atlantis DLC (PS4, 2019) - Very bored with AC:O after the last DLC but this ended on a high note. The gameplay is the same but the fantastical scenery is completely lovely - Atlantis in particular is an incredible video game city.  Jet Set Radio Future (Xbox, 2002) - I don't think JSRF is a particularly good game, but it's so drat stylish and sounds so amazing that I can't help but love it. Really needs a modern port, but I'm glad Bomb Rush Cyberpunk is going to fill the gap.  Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner M∀RS (PS4, 2018) - Didn't age as well as I'd hoped. The large-scale stuff I'd remembered from playing it on PS2 was now much less impressive and the story is garbage. Also, the VR mode they shoehorned in doesn't really work.  Enter the Matrix (Xbox, 2003) - Got some Matrix fever after the new trailer so revisited this. It's still crap, but I like the effort they put into tying it in with the movies.  Spirit of the North: Enhanced Edition (PlayStation 5, 2020) - Arty indie game that's fine, but nothing special. Bit bland all round.  No Longer Home (PC, 2021) - Indie game that takes major cues from Kentucky Route Zero to the point of ripping it off... but at least they acknowledge it.  Have played Deltarune Chapter 2, am about to finish Ghostrunner, and working through The Matrix: Path of Neo at the moment. Would quite like to knock off Panzer Dragoon Orta so I can sell it. Also have Hitman 3 to get through. This month's Kojima joint is going to be the Death Stranding Director's Cut content... but balancing all this and hours of writing is tough. I am also trying to convince my girlfriend to continue to play through Half-Life: Decay with me, but she hates it so so so much.
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Oct 7, 2021 14:26
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Beat - WarioWare: Get It Together! (Switch): I just want Mega Microgames again. Is that too much to ask? The gimmick with this one is that while there are microgames, you can play each one with 17 different control schemes. And what if I told you that it switched between every microgame*. And that only about 3 of the control schemes are worthwhile. It's an interesting idea, but very frustrating in execution. I didn't play co-op, so maybe it'd be better with someone else. My daughter doesn't quite have the gaming capacity to switch contexts that quickly, and I don't want to risk my marriage by inadvertently screaming at my wife to "git gud" - so I went solo. All-in-all, I like Wario and his cast of characters, but disappointed by the gimmick in this one. *You can choose what control schemes you want to switch between for the most part, so you can stick with the ones you like. My daughter's corner: Beat - Lego Batman: We beat the villain side. I think the platforming here is more challenging because a number of the villains have a double-jump that you have to use, but it's very finnicky. Continued with the lessons in perseverance, but there were 2 times I had to do the jumping for her because the perspective + camera + controls were too much to deal with. Edit (since I'm still the most recent post): Completed - Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin: I wanted to start playing Psychonauts 2 but heard that you should play this first for the story. I just so happened to own it, so I put my Vive on and played through. Pretty short game with fun, stationary gameplay. It was quick and easy enough to get the 12 achievements, and I had a good time. Ready to start Psychonauts 2 now. Good-Natured Filth fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Oct 31, 2021 |
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Oct 9, 2021 03:05
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what's up 4 other posters in this thread?? It's that time of month again! #144: Atelier Sophie (25hr) - Sophie kicks off the Mysterious Trilogy DX on Switch with an OK entry in the series. It's fine, it doesn't change the playbook much, and some things are not my favorite, but it's alright. I am not a huge fan of the characters in this, Sophie is not as unique a protagonist as any of the protagonists in the Dusk trilogy. The Tetramino alchemy is cool, but losing some of the structure of the Dusk games was not to my taste (still no game has matched the fun of the E&L bingo board). #145: Root Film [2021] (11hr) - Murder mystery VN which is a not-really sequel to Root Letter (as the cast is completely different). The art is a noticeable step up, although the budget is still very low and characters will often smile regardless of what they're saying which leads to some unfortunate comedy. I liked the different mysteries in this one, although I was not a fan of the ending twist (a general theme this month I guess, see my Knights & Bikes review) with the actress. #146: Violet (if) (2hr) - Legendary interactive fiction from the 2000s that took the common second-person narration of IFs and flipped it on its head. A couple of puzzles were a bit annoying to figure out, but still a unique work to examine. #147: Death's Door [2021] (8hr) - Really fun isometric ARPG Zelda-like that would be a nice companion to Blue Fire's 3D Platforming take on Zelda. Both draw inspiration from.... look do I even have to say the name of it? It's a FROM franchise, it's very popular. But they take from Zelda first and foremost. The FROM comparison really has more to do with how the worlds are designed in an interconnected way. Death's Door in particular has really nice maps with a lot of paths to take that will always lead to SOMETHING. The dungeon design is not quite as great as the overworld areas, but it's still a game that hits the right notes at most of the right times. (I would say that the secret ending is not necessarily worth getting, personally) #148: The Forgotten City [2021] (5hr) - A first person time loop investigation into a lost Roman city held captive under an ominous rule that is on the verge of being broken and leading to total disaster. Your goal is to avert that disaster by helping the people in the town with their problems and getting as much information as you can. In that sense, it's not dissimilar to The Outer Wilds' information gathering loop, although this game is far more constrained by its roots as a Skyrim mod. The quests, as a result, are more simple affairs of talking to people, making certain dialog choices, or snooping in people's rooms and looting what you're allowed to loot, and taking those items and information with you into a new run. It's a cool game, that hits the ceiling of its budget pretty quickly, but if you were thinking of playing 12 Minutes, play this instead. #149: Atelier Firis (16hr) - The second game in the Mysterious trilogy is a step up and step down at the same time from Sophie. I actually side with Cheetah in the chat thread that the open world concept is kind of cool. There are copious fast travel points on each map, you have plenty of time to get to your final destination, and you're no longer hampered by having to go back to your home city after gathering for a while like in other Atelier games. It could still have been better... keeping the vehicles locked off until the post-credits part of the game is just a really lovely decision IMO, as is the quest that lets you fast travel between areas (you can only fast travel within the map you're in for most of the game). I also felt the alchemy was a step down, and so was the combat. So like I said, it's a bit uneven. Firis is a more interesting protagonist though, as a total wimp with an over-protective big sister joining her. So it was more interesting to see their story play out, even if some of the other new characters fell a bit into the typical Atelier archetypes (your alchemical rival felt a bit too similar to Rorona's friend in Atelier Rorona for example). Also Escha is a child for some reason?? I don't understand Gust's need to do child versions of popular characters because they just become... well, generic high-energy child characters. It was dumb with Rorona and it's dumb with Escha. #150: Ys 9 [2021] (30hr) - Disappointing new game in the Ys franchise, and one that, for me personally, could end my interest in the Ys series as a whole, if the next game isn't a serious return to the root of the series. You don't get the blazing pinball action of just carving through mobs of enemies as gobs of stat buff items explode out of them and you chain them and keep your combo going... it's just an even less fun version of Ys Seven's combat. They've had several games to improve on Seven's combat and haven't. In addition to that, the whole world the game takes place in is bland as gently caress because it's a prison city. While it is neat to slowly unlock more of the town, what's not neat is that it's just going to look a lot like every other part of the town... and every time you infiltrate the prison it's going to look like the other parts of the prison you've been in... and then on top of that, the way you unlock the boroughs is painful. You are basically forced to do all sidequests unless you want to endlessly grind random encounters, and then you have to do a tower defense minigame in order to dispel a barrier.. and these minigames take way too long every single time. There is only one variation on this (where instead of defending a device, you are just destroying a bunch of crystals littered around) and every chapter is the same structure.. do sidequests, do tower defense, gain a new member of the team, infiltrate the prison, fight two bosses, then play a chapter epilogue as The Prisoner. Every time, from chapters 1 through 6. It's monotonous and... honestly the last thing I ever want to call an Ys game is boring, but this game definitely got near that point a lot. It had just enough to its gameplay loop with the Dandelion allies that it wasn't a snoozefest, but I just can't recommend this one to anyone. #151: Mighty Goose [2021] (2.5hr) - A Metal Slug clone that is.. decent. It's not amazing, it's fine. My main issue is the lack of weapon variety and the game doesn't really vary things up all that much. #152: Echo Generation [2021] (8hr) - A decent hybrid of point n click adventure and JRPG, with a gorgeous voxel style. Normally voxels call to mind Minecraft or 3D Dot Game Heroes, but they went for HD voxels on this (outside of the characters who are still a little blocky) and the result is this cool "3D pixel art" look with really great palette work and detail. The actual JRPG part plays out a lot like Paper Mario, with single digit damage numbers and low HP, and choosing one stat to upgrade at level up. The opening is a bit rough as you need to grind a bit to get where the game needs you to be to actually start fighting the bosses, but once you do, the game gets into a nice groove as you fight a ton of bosses, get items from them that you need to use in places or deliver to people to make further progress, and rinse and repeat. The bosses in this game are not of the puzzle variety, just pure "they've got attacks, and you've got attacks, now get to it" combat. You have a pool of skill points that are added to by whatever characters and companion are currently in your party (and not on the bench). So you can't neglect that stat on anyone, as 2-4 point skills do the meat of the damage in this game, so you'll need a large pool of skill points for boss encounters. Each skill involves a different Paper Mario-esque mechanic, some timing-based, some aiming-based, some memory-based, and some of them can also inflict bleed, poison, or stun. So there's a decent bit of strategy in deciding when to use certain character's skills, and also how confident you feel about being able to ace the skill mechanic. The damage is entirely fixed so you always know how much damage you'll do, and the turn order is always shown, along with enemy HP. So you have all the information at your disposal. There are just a couple of things I did not like about the game that keep it from being a new cult classic: #1 is the writing being a little bit.. stiff... it leans on nostalgia as a lot of games do nowadays (without directly referencing IPs), but it's still trying to be 'funny', and in my opinion the dialog needs punching up. #2 is the game has a flat-out bad design decision for failure states. When you lose in battle you respawn on the same screen at half health. There is no fast travel in the game, so you have to run all the way to the nearest place with a bed to sleep and regain your health, which for most of the game is just your house. And it can be several screens away from where you currently are. Healing items are too valuable to use outside of combat, to the point that they're almost too valuable to use IN combat for certain situations... I think this could be adjusted with some tweaking to healing items' values at vendors. But there are also a couple of story items you need to buy with money too, so you have to hoard money... it's just not ideal. I think the next game from this dev could be something really special if they take what they've learned from this game and apply it. #153: Mario: Bowser's Fury [2021] (4hr) - It's-a-new Mario! And it's.. fine. I personally rank it 5 out of 8 on my 3D Mario list (which includes 3D Land and 3D World because I do not care about the pedantic definitions Mario nerds want to get into with those games). Aesthetically it's the oddest game in the whole 3D franchise, not all that pretty and with a map that feels a little too sparse, like the COVID pandemic hampered how much content they could get into this game. It takes the sort of "plop a 3D World level just in the world" design of the behind-door/pipe areas of Mario Odyssey and applies that to one big open world... so there are 12 levels in the game, but, again, they're the size of the pipe world levels in Odyssey, so they're a couple of minutes long at most to get from start to finish. It's sort of like if every level was sized like Whomp's Fortress in Mario 64, rather than there also being bigger stages like Shifting Sand Land or Hazy Maze Cave. Unlike 3D World, these levels are Shine-based, five per level, and there are also a lot of Shines just out around the world either hiding or part of challenges. Kind of like 64, there's a lot of design repetition in the Shines rather than there being a ton of uniqueness to each stage. All of them have a 5 shard shine (taking the place of a red coin challenge), all of them have a Shine hidden behind "Fury Blocks" that can only be destroyed by Bowser during his occasional attack phases (which occur every 6 minutes), and a lot of them will have Caged Shines that you grab a key and bring back to unlock. A good number of them have a shadow Luigi you have to chase down, a good number have Blue Coin shines where you have to run through the level collecting blue coins before time runs out, and and then the first Shine of every stage is just to reach the end of the stage. So... as far as variety goes, this game is pretty lacking compared to a bigger Mario adventure. Again, it's possible that COVID prevented this from being a more intricately designed game, but I don't want to make excuses for the game either. It's just stuff like this that has me pushing it down on the list compared to some of my favorites in the series. The length of it doesn't bother me, as more levels wouldn't alleviate the issues I have with the game; rather, I'd prefer if they were to design more interesting and unique challenges for each level instead, and not rely on so much re-use across stages (and across the world itself, as there's multiple "catch the rabbit" shines, "ride Plessie up some ramps" shines, etc). In the end, you're getting 3D World -AND- Bowser's Fury, and it's a great little companion to the main game on the cartridge. I get why it wasn't sold on its own. Still, I count it as its own game and I think it's.. OK. #154: Knights & Bikes (8hr) - I come away from this one with mixed feelings. First, it's obviously not a game for adults so I'm not going to get into criticizing the more repetitive aspects of the gameplay, as kids are not likely to play a game for 6-8 hours straight from start to finish (well, co-op anyway. weekend gaming for kids is obviously a marathon but not so much with co-op). My main issues lie with the story itself. The game is about a kid (Demelza) who lives on a tourist trap island that has had its worst season yet... the places you go to are run-down, shut-down, and ghost towns. Demelza encounters a new face on the island, an older kid (Nessa) who stowed away on the latest ferry and seems to have no home or family. The two become fast friends, get bikes, and try to find a lost ancient treasure on the island to try and save it. Spoiler territory for the ending from this point on: Nessa is revealed at the end to likely have been a figment of Demelza's imagination, as most people in the story do not address Nessa even when you interact with them while controlling Nessa, and she disappears at the end of the game. Then, while on a rescue helicopter in the epilogue, the pilot mentions having a daughter similar to Nessa, leading to the question, is she real or not?? Okay so I have problems with this for a few reasons. This is a hodgepodge of various tropes, notably in coming-of-age fiction where a kid uses an imaginary friend as a way to work out their inner feelings. But it's not really WRITTEN that way. See, Nessa is clearly a few years older than Demelza, and Demelza is noticeably running on child logic rather than "pre-teen not willing to grow up" logic. Nessa is constantly humoring Demelza's flights of fancy in a way a big sister would, and she also develops a crush on the record store clerk, and it goes unspoken between the two with 0 lines of dialog about it. Also, there are parts in the game where Demelza is asleep or somewhere else entirely while you're controlling Nessa. It's just odd. But then at the end Nessa says things like, essentially, "you don't need me anymore" before disappearing, to put a lot of weight into being imaginary. I dunno. Maybe Demelza is trying to figure some stuff out but it in no way is reflected in the dialog; she is mostly just a kid who has already been through some rough times and has come out the other side of it alright. It's not like she's shedding her childhood/innocence or what the gently caress ever, she's still going on about all her magical adventures to her dad at the end. It's just weird. I also am confused on Nessa either being homeless or a runaway. Yes, the pilot says he has a daughter like Nessa, but, again, that's not how Nessa is written in-game. If she was a runaway, there would be SOME dialog about the problems she is having with her family, but she just talks about not having a home and how good Demelza has it. I feel like I had a better grasp on the story until the ending and then the ending felt kind of... like an ending from a different story entirely. In the end, at least to me, Nessa doesn't represent anything about Demelza, or her mom, and her role feels like it's been crammed into the wrong-shaped mold. It makes less sense the more I think about it so I need to just stop typing, lol. The spinoff Knights & Bikes books seem to treat Nessa as real as they have continued adventures beyond the game, which is good, because OH RIGHT THE OTHER THING THAT'S WEIRD ABOUT IT!! It's a co-op game! So one of the players is supposed to find out the person they were playing as wasn't real?? It's such a weird choice. How about you don't need a clever twist and it can just be a story about unlikely friends forming a bond and having an adventure, where one gets closure with her mother and the other discovers found family (a trope I actually DO like!!). The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Nov 2, 2021 |
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Nov 2, 2021 03:38
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Forgotten City is a stand-alone version of a Skyrim mod. The mod had an uncomfortable sub plot where a guy was being abusive to an openly gay man because he was secretly gay. Does the stand-alone version have that also?
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Nov 2, 2021 15:45
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Skwirl posted:Forgotten City is a stand-alone version of a Skyrim mod. The mod had an uncomfortable sub plot where a guy was being abusive to an openly gay man because he was secretly gay. Does the stand-alone version have that also?
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Nov 5, 2021 04:04
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Pretty pleased that I managed to squeeze in all this around writing, other work, and training. Am getting increasingly tempted by a Quest... really itching to play RE4 in VR. Maybe I'll wait until the January sales and see if I can get a discount. Full reviews after the link! Hitman 3 (PlayStation 5, 2021) - Incredible game and the best of the trilogy. The Berlin nightclub level alone would make it an all-timer, but everything is rad. Only regrets are that I don't have the time to master everything in it and I only dabbled in the VR mode. But I'm going back when I get a chance.  The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes (PlayStation 4, 2021) - A massive improvement on the crappy Little Hope and the most fun Dark Pictures game so far. Way more ambitious than they've done before and with a great ending.  The Matrix: Path of Neo (PlayStation 2, 2005) - Much weirder than I remembered. Lots of bizarre sequences breaking the fourth wall, Neo fighting man-sized ants, all kinds of Escher stuff. Very janky by modern standards, but it gets very close to Arkham-style combat a few years early.  Uncharted: Golden Abyss (PlayStation Vita, 2011) - Basically what you'd expect from an Uncharted game, but kinda makes me sad that the Vita would never top this graphically. Filled with extraneous touch and motion elements though.  Death Stranding Director’s Cut (PlayStation 5, 2021) - Amazing to revisit after two years away. Looks fantastic on PS5, though the new additions in the Director's Cut don't really add up to much and the new mission is incredibly short.  Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (Xbox 360, 2010) - Figured I'd never get to play this so was pleased when it popped up as the 360 title on Games with Gold. Still not many people playing it, and the reused assets feel cheap, but multiplayer 2D Castlevania is still a bunch of fun (so long as you get a good team).  Deltarune Chapter 2 (PC, 2021) - I'm glad I'm able to ignore the weird fanbase and enjoy Toby Fox's games on their own. This one's funny, has some very fun RPG battles and a kickass soundtrack.  When the Past Was Around (PlayStation 4, 2021) - Melancholy indie puzzler about a woman mourning her half-owl boyfriend. Very chilled out and short, made for a good Sunday afternoon game.  Ghostrunner (PlayStation 5, 2021) - Ultralethal 3D cyberninja combat that plays a bit like an amped up Hotline Miami. Hard as balls, but extremely satisfying to nail difficult sections after dying hundreds of times. Glad I saw the credits.  Tried to get my girlfriend to play Half-Life: Decay with me, but it sucks and she hated it, so that was a no-go. Will try and wriggle through it in single-player instead just to get it out of the way. Am away from home for two weeks without my PS5, so am living like a pauper with just a PS4 Pro, Vita, 3DS and laptop. Currently playing the RE2 Remake and MGS3 3D. Good times on both.
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Nov 9, 2021 14:55
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Droppped: Ys 7 I think I am like 50% through and combat is fine but didn't enjoy it as much as Ys Origin and the music wasn't as good either. Beat: Scarlet Nexus Don't know why I played this honestly. I thought for some reason it would surprise me like Code Vein but this had one of the most obtuse trope filled stories ever even for an anime game. Combat was really good in the last 3 hours of the game where you have like 8 party members, 3 on screen and others in back up but you can use their abilities. The gameplay is like a budget DMC but every other mechanic is what you would expect from a more traditional jrpg. There is two different main characters, I just played as the guy and was not willing to go through the game another time. Also not really impressed by this game on any technical level despite it being pushed heavily on next gen. It's a ok fun game if you don't mind anime and maybe want 3D action game like DMC but have played all the Capcom/Team Ninja/Platinum ones. Beat: Ghost of Ikishima This is basically more GoT, in a slightly different local, small new mechanics but largely the same. The backstory into Jin's father is interesting. There aren't really any new memorable characters, the best character is Kenji whom was on the main game. They added some new mechanics to the horse, I am guessing we will see even more mounted combat in the sequel. Just playing this game in 60fps 4k was a treat though. Beat: Ac Origins Finally got to the modern AC games in my AC series playthrough. Absolutely loved this game. I think the big environment change to Egypt was super refreshing, the combat changes are great, it's not a parry simulator anymore. I think I did every side quest which is crazy because the previous AC games had no side quest and the ones that were there were copy pasted. Pretty much 100% the map, got all the rare weapons. That being said it's quite a long game and after finishing the main game I have no intention to play the DLC even though I know there is some interesting stuff there. I think the RPG mechanics are great at least for now but maybe by the time I get to Odssey/Valhalla Ubisoft will run them to the ground and nothing will feel new. Beat:Total War: Empire Don't really know how you beat these type of games but I won a grand campaign and that was around 30 hours which is more than most single player games. I was a massive Medieval 2 fan, had like 200+ hours on that but never got into the other TW games because I had a poo poo PC until just 3 years ago. I been playing some Total Warhammer 2 and man that is the perfect evolution of the Total war games. I am not gonna post it here but it's one of my most played games in the last few months. Unlike the historical total war games, every faction feels massively different in Warhammer and I actually got into Warhammer lore through the game which I never thought would be possible. Massively recommend Warhammer 2 to anyone who has played Total War games but not played those. Beat: Tales of Arise I beat Tales of Vesparia just a few months ago and didn't enjoy the combat much but really liked the sense of adventure and the huge party. That was my first and only Tales game up until then. And this entry in the series looked like a huge set up. It definitely was, I think the unreal engine makes the combat feel much weighter and less floaty than the previous games. The controls in the combat are also much more intuitive, the Tales series had locked in camera control that was really really annoying. I recently became a big fan of action combat in jrpgs after playing Final Fantasy 7 Remake. This is another game with very good combat. I think FF7R has better design in terms of combat/monsters. In Arise you either stomp the monsters or they don't let you play the game. Once I learned to just dodge and properly use teammate boost this game was a cake in the walk on normal difficulty. I was 10 levels down on the last boss but I got through it very quickly and easily. The character Law was so fun to play as, reminded me of Tifa in FF7R. I basically never played as the main character after I got him. The story is interesting at the start but its a JRPG so we have to keep upping the stakes until we kill god so it became very predictable and uninteresting toward the end. Also one thing I hate in JRPGs is the final dungeons can kill your will to finish the game. The final dungeon just didn't end. Then the final boss has way too many phases. Reminded me of FFX final boss where you have to beat all your summons then Yu Yevon and before that there was few other bosses. As with most JRPGs there is some grinding required even though I was 10 levels down for final boss, I did grind at certain earlier bosses. I think it's one of the better jrpg games out there especially if you like real time combat. Not sure what I will play next, Tales of Arise, AC Origins were enjoyable but super long games(50h+ for both) that turned into slogs by the last third. I really want to play something shorter. I got Deathloop on PS5 and Detroit Become Human on PC, those seem like a respectable length. Might play those. Gonna keep playing Warhammer 2, that's like my main game right now and Beat Saber whenever I feel like jamming in VR. Looking forward to Elden Ring, Warhammer 3. I want to pick up SMT 5 on Switch but I also got SMT Nocturne which I haven't touched yet. Maybe gonna play that after, just don't feel like jumping on another huge game. Ulio fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Nov 11, 2021 |
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Nov 11, 2021 06:04
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In between playing larger games like Far Cry6 and Necromunda: Hired Gun, I've worked a bit on the backlog as well as taken a look at all the bundle fodder I've gotten through the last few years. Many of these games, I'm simply just moving to my Nulled category, as they are nothing more than a recompile of game engine demo projects with bad programmer art. Others are games I have no plan on ever playing as they are not genres I generally enjoy, and where I do have better alternatives to try out, made by better developers. With that said, here a bunch of mainly nulled games: Finished: ABZŰ Really good chillout game. Great art style, perfect to play in one sitting, but can be revisited when you realize that you miss a few secrets. Nulled: Bomb The Monsters! Ported mobile game in the vein of Angry Birds. Nulled: Coin Crypt Roguelike deckbuilder thingy. Fun graphics style, and could be good if you are into deck building and roguelikes. I'm not. Nulled: Colortone First person chill puzzler, where you have to dip your balls in paint to progress. I've never been a fan of dipping my balls in paint. Nulled: Combat Racers Only after installing it, did I realize it was a LAN-only multiplayer game. Nulled: Copy Kitty 2D platformer that had some really lovely KB+M controls. Shouldn't stop fans of this genre to check it out if you already have it in your library. It stopped me though. Finished: Dark Arcana: The Carnival A HOG Finished: Dark Arcana: The Exiled Prince Another HOG Nulled: Dashy Square A rhythm based platformer. Moving on... Nulled: !"DEPLOYMENT"! A top-down arena shooter. The lovely name was enough to intrigue me. The gameplay itself was enough to drop it. Nulled: Drip Drip One of those games that doesn't exist on Steam anymore, and with good reason. Nulled: Dungeon of the ENDLESSTM It was OK for a few levels until I got swarmed, died, and reminded that this was a roguelike and is supposed to be like this. Nulled: Eron Pretty stylish platformer, but I'm just not quick enough to do the jumping and warping in and out of different realities. Nulled: EvilMorph Oh hey, another platformer where you keep dying all the time and restarting the same place. It's sooo much fun to try and move past that one place you been stuck at for 10-15 minutes. Finished: Family Mysteries: Poisonous Promises A HOG Nulled: Ghost of a Tale Beautiful stealth game with a few bad things, at least enough to make me quit. The number one was respawning after getting caught, and enemies you have previously moved past, are suddenly there in front of you where you respawned. If you are into stealth games, definitely check it out - if nothing else then for the art. Finished: Hero of the Kingdom: The Lost Tales 2 Just got released and I finished it on one sitting. It's just such a chill game and a great follow up to Lost Tales 1. Nulled: Mondrian - Abstract in Beauty It's a weird and a bit avant-garde/artsy Break Out clone. Music is great. it has several game modes and modifiers you can "buy" by picking up gems ingame. Nulled: Psychonauts Game wouldn't let me proceed from the tutorial level. There's probably some setting or fan patch that could fix this, but I honestly couldn't be bothered, as the game felt really old by today's standard. Also, the genre isn't really me anyway. Nulled: Romopolis A weird mix between a city builder and a time management game, probably made for handhelds. Nulled: !"We Are The Dwarves"! What is up with this lovely naming. Do they expect to be listed first in search results and the library? Anyway the game itself was actually half decent as an ARPG, but the title annoyed me enough that it had to go.
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Nov 28, 2021 18:29
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My november was slammin'! It helps that I juiced the numbers a little by playing some more Dread X anthology games, but I'm now closing in on 200 again. #155: Vomitoreum [2021] (3hr) - First person zDoom metroidvania with grotesque stylized art. It was kind of neat, but it also lacked a content warning for rape that is discussed in the backstory #156: Backbone [2021] (4hr) - A cool noir body horror story about the 'undesirables' that society neglects and tries to sweep under the rug. A lot of people hated the back half, I liked it and thought it fit well into the story and themes. #157: Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot: The First Cases [2021] (6hr) - After a pretty decent Poirot jaunt in The ABC Murders, Microids switched developers, to the creators of Murder Mystery Machine, a game with mixed reviews. It adopts some of the mechanics from that game, and I think does an OK job of making it work in the Poirot flavor. I didn't hate my time playing it. It just has a bit too much trial and error in the deduction board (the same problem Mystery Machine had) and bars you off from locations too often. A step up though, so maybe they'll keep improving. #158: Dum-Dum [2021] (5.5hr) - Puzzle story game involving diving into a 1985 Windows 1.0 style operating system and trying to help the programmers escape the building. It's neat, doesn't overstay its welcome; does overuse the titular phrase though. #159: Unpacking [2021] (4hr) - Charming little zen game about unpacking boxes and learning about the life of the person who is constantly moving from place to place, and the ups and downs of that life. #160: Inscryption [2021] (9.5hr) - Fun horror card experience from the creator of Pony Island & The Hex. Nowhere near as twisting or ever-changing as those games, Inscryption functions as three distinct flavors of card game, from roguelite (esque) to classic TCG to RPG, while also allowing you to get up and explore the room and solve some minor escape room-y puzzles. It's neat, and I liked the second arc of the game the most. A little TOO conventional though. #161: Dark Fall: Ghost Vigil (7.5hr) - The latest game in the Dark Fall series is really spinning its wheels. The charm of the low-budget voice acting and spookiness has dried up, and honestly the game should just be rendered in full 3D at this point as the node pathing adds nothing. If the next game keeps this up I will probably be done with the series. #162: Ocean's Heart [2021] (6.5hr) - Adequately decent Zelda clone with a lot of quests to undertake and a somewhat open world. You'll sometimes just get a vague direction from an NPC and have to do your own exploring to find the secrets. A little bit janky but it has heart, gently caress that's in the title, oh well. #163: Dungeon Encounters [2021] (33hr) - Turns out you don't need a large budget to make a decent little dungeon crawler. That said, boy do I wish the music had ANY percussive instruments at all, I think that would've helped a lot. There's definitely things I'd do differently if I was the lead. #164: DreadX: Mr. Bucket Told Me To (45min) - A spin on survival games that goes vaguely spooky but is ultimately too silly to take seriously. #165: DreadX: Rotgut (30min) - Bad, honestly. You just go down a long subway tunnel and nothing really happens. #166: DreadX: Outsiders (1hr) - An escape roomy game that is I guess meant to be a teaser for an eventual larger game. It was OK but the spookiness didn't really add anything other than frustration. #167: DreadX: Carthanc (1hr) - Archeology on a planet with Egyptian style hieroglyphics... the problem with this one is that enemies just chase you relentlessly and they're too fast. Another frustrating one. #168: Skyward Sword HD (27hr) - Going against the grain of modern discussion on this game to say that it's actually good! I liked it a lot, and the changes made for the Switch version help. Being able to quick flick on the right stick to swing the sword completely changes the flow of combat for the better and makes it more manageable and quicker. Maybe the fastest any Zelda combat's ever been? You can swing really fast and they'll just take each hit. Hell yeah. I enjoyed the dungeony overworld and the temples within those dungeons have great design and unique mechanics. Not an explorer's type of Zelda but a great puzzler Zelda. #169: DreadX: Summer Night (20min) - A spooky riff on Tiger Electronic hand-held games by the FAITH developer, it works ok but it's a little too 'creepypasta' for me. #170: Boyfriend Dungeon (5hr) [2021] - This was fine.. it was ok as far as being a Hades ripoff but obviously it massively pales in comparison. I was happy playing the dungeon diving once I got a weapon that felt good to use (the dagger, also the brass knuckles), but it was still just serviceable. It doesn't really excel at any one thing honestly, except at depicting different kinds of relationships and toxicity and how to deal with it. #171: Asha in Monster World HD (3.5hr) [2021] - A just OK remake of Monster World IV that needed more time in the oven and could've used more modernization. #172: Ynglet [2021] (1hr) - Beautiful game from Nifflas, might be the best game from him since Knytt Stories, flows really well and has very solid sound design and graphic design. #173: Last Stop [2021] (6hr) - Better than I was expecting! I played through this as roommates watched and it was actually highly entertaining. The comic beats in Paper Dolls drew actual laughs and worked well. Stranger Danger was very compelling (though treading on thin ice as far as being potentially problematic, it manages to skate through okay). I loved Domestic Affairs and actually getting to play a female character that was a total cheating and conniving rear end in a top hat but still sympathetic. Way better game than Virginia, this dev's stock is going up in my book. #174: Behind the Frame [2021] (1hr) - Another charming game that would fall into the same category of game as recent Artifex Mundi titles that have ditched the hidden object mechanics and gone for more lite-adventure feel. This is similar, with well painted panoramas to scroll around and solve some light puzzles in, and some nice hand-animated cutscenes. Short but sweet. #175: Star Seeker (1hr) - Another short one, this is a little detective game with a magic-user trying to solve a wizard crime. It does what I enjoy about smaller indie adventures where it'll let you use anything on everything and get a unique response. In this case, it's pairing the cop's questions with any clue that you have, and Star Seeker will try to come up with a crazy theory involving whatever clue you picked, no matter how silly/irrelevant. Probably could get another hour of gameplay from just doing that, if I'm being honest. Outriders JUST missed the gun and will be in December's wrap-up. I am also currently playing Undernauts. I've picked out the games I'm going to try to cram into this last month of 2021 so I can have a solid Top 2021 list AND redo my 2020 list as well. I'm already two games away from having a Top 50 for 2021 as it is, so those two games will hit that mark. But there's still so much to play!!
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Dec 1, 2021 07:20
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MASTERED: A Mortician's Tale. This isometric walking sim was intended by its creators to show that death is just another part of life. Where this game fails is that it's too short and insubstantial to show much of anything. The game equivalent of a pie with no filling, just air inside. PLAYED: Shuyan Saga. A visual novel / fighting game, this game's primary failure is its' storyline. I alternated between bored of the generic intrigue and annoyed by the plot holes. To give one example, there's a scene early in the game where characters at the king's court discuss the military build-up of a neighboring state, and decide to send the protagonist to go there as part of a diplomatic/fact-finding mission. In the very next scene, that neighboring state is besieging the protagonist's home city, which was explicitly stated as being dozens of miles from the border. It's bad. Did not finish, will not finish. MASTERED: 12 Labours of Hercules III: Girl Power. In previous 12 Labours games, every 10th level was a boss fight. This game cut the boss fights, and they are replaced with levels that play the same as the previous 9. Were the developers getting lazy, or just tired of making these games? PLAYED: Crusader Kings III. Sadly, this game really isn't as good right now as Crusader Kings II with all its DLC. It's a better foundation; I can tell CK III will be vastly superior to CK II someday, but that day is not today. I will come back to it after a few expansions have been released. MASTERED: PC Building Simulator. Exactly what you'd expect from the title. It leaves out some of the more annoying parts of building PCs (e.g. I would have preferred it if the game didn't automatically handle cable management), but I liked it enough to get every achievement. Recommended, but only to those who actually enjoy building PCs. MASTERED: PC Building Simulator: Esports Expansion. Better than the main game, it's smaller and more focused, with an actual ending to the story campaign. I got all achievements for this too. MASTERED: Tibetan Quest: Beyond the World's End. Hidden Object Game. The plot isn't revolutionary, but it's interesting enough. One thing I really liked about this one: Most HOGs have a bonus chapter that gets unlocked after you finish the main game. This usually stars a side-character, or sometimes the main antagonist. Tibetan Quest's bonus chapter is more of a mini-sequel, tying up loose ends from the main plot. I thought that was better than HOG average. MASTERED: Dark Souls I. Excellent game. Most of what you'll be doing is combat, and the combat is superb. I do have to say that New Game+ and beyond weren't as much fun as that first playthrough, but the fact it's good enough that I played it more than once kinda mutes that particular criticism. I loved it enough to go to 100% and beyond; I have a save file with one of every unique item in the game. I now know why this is such a landmark title in the history of gaming. I'm almost certainly going to grab a copy of Dark Souls II at some point, but there's no way I'll be shooting for 100% completion on that one. MASTERED: Faces of Illusion: The Twin Phantoms. HOG. The first Artifex Mundi HOG I've played with noticeable translation errors, it also has terrible writing, and it's the first AM HOG I've played that doesn't have a second chapter. One of the lowlights of the HOG genre.  Next up: I've got two games installed and ready to go: Beholder I and Immortals: Fenyx Rising.
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Dec 6, 2021 03:25
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Skwirl posted:Forgotten City is a stand-alone version of a Skyrim mod. The mod had an uncomfortable sub plot where a guy was being abusive to an openly gay man because he was secretly gay. Does the stand-alone version have that also? The 7th Guest posted:Yeah it's in the full version as well so if you're not comfortable with that quest then you might want to avoid the game. I didn't play the original mod, but I don't remember that character in the stand-alone version being homophobic due to him being secretly gay himself. It's explained as his religion (old school Christianity, if I remember right) is homophobic and he's suffering from rheumatism, and thus is lashing out at the easiest target to distract from the pain. Actually, it looks like the true ending does say that they end up living together and there's mention of "helping [him] come to terms with himself", so I guess you're right! I wonder if the mod was more blatant about it.
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Dec 6, 2021 17:29
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EightDeer posted:MASTERED: 12 Labours of Hercules III: Girl Power. In previous 12 Labours games, every 10th level was a boss fight. This game cut the boss fights, and they are replaced with levels that play the same as the previous 9. Were the developers getting lazy, or just tired of making these games?
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Dec 7, 2021 00:14
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Fart of Presto posted:I think they just found the formula that worked for them and their main audience, considering they have now released 12 games in that series + a new in January, along with spin-offs like two Adventures of Megara, Kids of Hellas: Back to Olympus, Alexis Almighty: Daughter of Hercules and Invincible Cleopatra: Caesar's Dreams I wish you dodn't tell me this.  Edit: Bro went to space wtf?
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Dec 7, 2021 02:53
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Completed - There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension: An indie, 4th wall breaking, point-and-click anti-game. It's well put together for a few-person dev studio. The main character's voice acting really grated on me, personally, but there was nothing terribly wrong with it. The game takes some unexpected twists and has a compelling gameplay loop. I played the Android port, but it seems slightly more suited to using a mouse. Beat - Psychonauts 2: More of what made Psychonauts great to me. The writing, voice acting, level design, art, etc. - it's all just awesome and hits me perfectly. The concepts of the various brains you explore are outstanding (Except the boss fight in Compton's Cookoff. The vomiting bosses really put me off.). I really loved the levels which had M.C. Escher-esque design, and the ones that had nooks and crannies through "portals" hidden in plain sight blew me away. I'm in the midst of collecting everything because I want to go back through all the levels and explore it all. A wonderful game for me. Beat - Catlateral Damage: Remeowstered: I bought this for my daughter but ended up playing through it myself. A cute game where you're a cat and have to knock things off shelves to meet your goals of being a nuisance. Very short if you don't want to collect everything or complete all the goals, and no storyline to speak of. My daughter's corner: Nulled - Hidden Through Time: She likes Where's Waldo and Look & Find books, and this is a Hidden Folks clone, so it seemed like a good thing to buy when I saw it on sale. She was having fun with it, but got frustrated when the levels started getting harder and the clues started being obtuse to the point of useless. Nulled - Hidden Lands: A free-to-play spot-the-difference game. She liked this one, too, but started getting bored after she realized all the levels were pretty much the same thing over-and-over. Good-Natured Filth fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Dec 8, 2021 |
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Dec 8, 2021 23:23
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Didn't get a chance to play much this month as I was unexpectedly called away from home to go deal with a trio of professional killers in another city. Plus my OLED TV has broken down and LG are dragging their heels on fixing it. Plus plus I've taken on a tonne of new writing work that's gobbling up more of my free time. Anyhows, here's what I played in November (full reviews linked). Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PlayStation, 1997) - Not much needs to be said other that it's a stone-cold classic that's unlikely to ever age. An all-timer.  The Rub Rabbits! (Nintendo DS, 2006) - Second instalment of Sonic Team's mostly forgotten WarioWario romance franchise. Pretty fun, though playing it in public is quite humiliating and the parts where you have to blow into a DS aren't good during COVID.  Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D (Nintendo 3DS, 2012) - A bad port of an excellent game. Awful controls, shonky frame-rate and no new stuff to write home about. I guess the Photo-camo is quite fun (see pic).  Resident Evil 2 (PlayStation 4, 2019) - Been putting this off for far too long. Pretty much the epitome of what I want survival horror to be. Loved every minute of it/  Half-Life: Decay (PlayStation 2, 2001) - This co-op campaign was way harder than anticipated and my girlfriend bailed after three levels. Finished the rest on my own and... yeah, not great stuff tbh. There are player-made mods for HL much much better than this.  This month I'm playing Mario 3D World on Switch, Castlevania Judgment on Game Boy and whatever else comes my way. Hopefully things will slack off over Xmas and I can put some time into another biggie. Necrothatcher fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Jan 13, 2022 |
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Dec 10, 2021 13:13
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Gosh. I haven't posted in months. Let's see, where was it? Oh yeah, still playing old Genesis games. BEATEN: Golden Axe II. Probably the best of the trilogy on Genesis; there's enough added to the formula to make it feel more interesting to play, but it isn't drowning in its own mechanics yet. BEATEN: Golden Axe III. Multiple paths, a weird "character rescue" mechanic, and making the characters large enough on the screen that they wouldn't be out of place in a fighting game. Overall I didn't feel like any of these were improvements, alas. After that I put the Genesis down for a bit... BEATEN: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Good platformer, but it took me months to actually sit down and play all the way through it. I didn't start really enjoying it until about halfway through. BEATEN: Slap City. What if Smash Brothers, but starring the characters from Ittle Dew and that company's surrounding freeware and game jam releases? I was a big fan of Card City Nights (same company, same general character set), so I was definitely here for this. I beat its Totally Not Subspace Emissary mode with Ittle Dew and Princess Remedy and I'm calling it beaten. As a fan of Iji I really wish I was better at playing Asha, though, so I might come back to this. BEATEN: The Forgotten City. The 2021 remake, not the Skyrim mod. A really good adventure game, and one that's so cagey about its plot that it asks people to spoiler-mark everything that happens after the introduction. So I won't say much about this other than that it was a lot of fun. IN PROGRESS: SkateBIRD. This is really cute, but I'm incredibly bad at it. It's not clear how much of it is me not being good at this genre, and how much is the game still needing some polish. IN PROGRESS: Metroid Prime 2. I've unlocked the final major region now, but the game feels like a slog and I'm not sure I'll be able to stick it out.[/b] IN PROGRESS: Mega Man X6. For completeness, mainly, but some players I respect really like this game of the PSX-era Mega Man games, so I'm willing to give it a second shot. Now, as for why I haven't been around so much... BEATEN/IN PROGRESS: Slay the Spire. I'm not very good at this, but I've pulled out (3-act) wins with the Ironclad and the Defect. I'm still working on the other two characters; I'm having trouble with the Silent and I haven't even tried Watcher yet. "BEATEN"/IN PROGRESS: Satisfactory. This is the first game like this that's ever grabbed me and it's grabbed me hard. It's already the most-played game in my Steam library now and it's not remotely close. I've just wrapped up its holiday expansion, and will probably be shelving it again soon.
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Dec 28, 2021 04:55
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Wrapped up the month hitting 200 on the dot: #176: Outriders (15hr) [2021] #177: FRAMED (1hr) #178: DEATHLOOP (15hr) [2021] #179: Undernauts (35hr) [2021] #180: Turnip Boy (2hr) [2021] #181: Tohu (3.5hr) [2021] #182: The Big Con (3.5hr) [2021] #183: Deep Rune (3hr) [2021] #184: Superliminal #185: BPM (3.5hr) #186: Lacuna (5hr) [2021] #187: The Gunk (4.5hr) [2021] #188: Foreclosed (3hr) [2021] #189: Industria (2.5hr) [2021] #190: Beautiful Desolation (8.5hr) #191: Axiom Verge 2 (5hr) [2021] #192: Timelie (4.5hr) #193: Kena Bridge of Spirits (7hr) [2021] #194: In the Shadows (3hr) #195: Cthulhu Saves Christmas (7.5hr) #196: Halo Infinite [2021] #197: Foregone (6.5hr) #198: Picross S (25hr) #199: Unsighted (5hr) [2021] #200: If on a Winter's Night, Four Travelers (1.5hr) [2021] You can see most of my writeups in the GOTY thread where I had a Top 69 for 2021 releases. As for the others... well.. I've already typed too much this past week. I'm now going to spend January finishing some of the games I started this past week. So it should be a decent month. As with past years, I'll set a target for 150 and see how the first half of the year goes.
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Jan 1, 2022 07:05
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The 7th Guest posted:Wrapped up the month hitting 200 on the dot: How did you find BPM? I basically couldn't get past the first level 
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Jan 1, 2022 10:37
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Going through a Null phase. Nulled - Pictoquest: Standard picross game wrapped in a bad adventure storyline. Has powerups and varying limits to make things easier / more challenging. I got to the 20x20 grids and felt bored (which is about how far I get in most picross games. I think 20x20's are too much thinking for me.). Nulled - Etherborn: I think I backed this on Fig when Fig was a new thing, and I was still stupidly backing video games on crowdfunding platforms. It's a 3D puzzle-platformer that focuses on having to travel across the different planes of 3D space to collect objects that unlock new paths. The art style is okay. The pretentious story is what you'd expect from a crowdfunded game with its head up its own rear end. I got bored with it quickly. Nulled - Awesome Pea: I would have stuck with this Gameboy retro platformer if they had checkpoints. It was fun, but I can't be bothered to replay an entire level because of a frustrating part towards the end. My daughter's corner I'm so close to forcing her to Null - Lego Worlds. It was fun for a bit, but we're just doing the same thing over-and-over in this Lego-based procedurally-generated response to Minecraft. I think I'll help her collect 100 gold bricks, which makes her a "Master Builder," and then suggest a different story-based Lego game.
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Jan 5, 2022 23:12
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Necrothatcher posted:How did you find BPM? I basically couldn't get past the first level
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Jan 7, 2022 06:52
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The 7th Guest posted:just okay. I don't really care for the level design of FPS roguelites because they all take place in boring boxes with little verticality. Ultrakill is the least worst because you have crazy movement and there are at least a couple of bigger rooms. But man is it an afterthought for most of 'em and BPM is no different. BPMs mechanics sorted that for me. Yeah its still some boxy rooms but at least the mechanics are dope and the gameplay is fast/fluid.
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Jan 7, 2022 22:53
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Got through a pleasing amount of games over Christmas. Omicron meant I spent most of it at my girlfriend's place killing time, so I got to get through a bunch of stuff that's been on the 2021 to-do list for a while. Sadly it also meant I was away from my PS5 for most of it, but I'm making up for that now. Have also been doing a tonne of good writing lately and have a couple of good leads to being a staff writer at some of the top UK-based game sites. Dunno if it'll go anywhere but we'll see. Anyhow, full articles behind the links. Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel (PlayStation Portable, 2006) - Odd software/game experiment that retells the story of MGS1 in motion comic form. It's fun to see the extra scenes not from Snake's POV.  Castlevania Legends (Game Boy, 1997) - Lives up to its trashy reputation. Manages to be somehow technically inferior to Belmont's Revenge six years earlier.  Life is Strange: True Colors (PlayStation 4, 2021) - Probably the best LiS since the first. The tech upgrade is great and I basically fell in love with Alex Chen immediately. Also contains a very fun fictional arcade game I got addicted to.  Life is Strange: True Colors – Wavelengths DLC (PlayStation 4, 2021) - The gaming equivalent of a sitcom bottle episode, but expands on Steph's character a lot, features a great soundtrack and some nice callbacks to the original LiS. Pretty much a must buy for anyone that liked True Colors.  Halo Infinite (Xbox Game Pass, 2021) - Had high hopes after the delay and positive reviews, but the story is nonsensical garbage and the gameplay/environments are very repetitive.  Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: Those Who Are Treasured DLC (PlayStation 4, 2021) - Unexpected free Odyssey DLC that ends Kassandra's Greek story. Pretty fun, and nice that this game finally has the credits roll.  The Beatles: Rock Band Custom DLC (PlayStation 3, 2021) - After watching Get Back I went on a Beatles binge and discovered there's incredible fan DLC for Beatles Rock Band (inc full Revolver and Magical Mystery Tour albums). It was a pain to get working but the quality is as good as Harmonix's stuff.  Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury (Nintendo Switch, 2021) - Rock solid stuff from Nintendo. Bowser's Fury is an interesting experiment but is really open world in name only - they're discreet levels in an open world.  The Matrix Awakens (PlayStation 5, 2021) - First time in a long time that I've been genuinely blown away by graphics. Insane.  Kid A Mnesia: Exhibition (PC, 2021) - A crazily detailed and impressive virtual exhibition. not sure what someone who doesn't care about Radiohead would make of it, but I thought it was great.  Already been busy this month and have a fat stack of games to write about. Playing Deathloop, The Outer Wilds and Policenauts for fun, and have Retired Men's Nude Beach Volleyball League, Shinurobi, and Insomnis to review. Have also started playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla, but am going to take my time with it so I don't get burnt out. Seems alright so far. Necrothatcher fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Jan 13, 2022 |
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Jan 13, 2022 16:26
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Didn't get to play much in November/December but with Omicron coming and lockdowns following, I managed to finish 2 games. Hitman 2016 Blood Money was one of my favorite games ever but I didn't like Absolution as much. I heard good things about this one when it came out but it was a episodic format intiailly so I never was interested then I just forgot about the franchise for a while. This is Blood Money levels of interactive murder simulator. So many interesting maps with so many stories. It's goofy while at the same time making you feel like a expert hitman. Tons of replayability which is always a plus. Judgment This is by the Yakuza devs and is basically a Yakuza game where you don't play as a Yakuza or Kiryu. Instead you play on the other side as a detective and the game has some investigation elements in it although they aren't done properly imo. That being said the Yakuza devs have some of the best story telling in gaming right now and their gameplay has been improving with every game. Yagami probably has the most wild and fun combat style. The story is great, these devs have the best stories imo in all of gaming. This reminds me of LA Confidential or the Nice Guys. Few devs can have this type of capitvating story + good gameplay. I
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Jan 18, 2022 00:09
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Beat - Escape Simulator: A co-op escape room game. The puzzles are mostly clever, and it's fun to work together to escape in the time limit. There's a level editor, and the community has made many maps (some of them seemingly very  ). We tried one, and it was pretty good but likely won't delve any further.Beat - Inked: A Tale of Love (Android): I played on Android, but it's available on Steam. The graphics are gorgeous and intended to resemble hand-drawn pictures with ink on paper. The puzzles are fine, but I wish you could move the camera around and the touchboxes were sometimes off on the elements you had to interact with. The story is akin to the classic Duck Amuck Looney Tunes short, but it wasn't all that great. Very short as well. Not worth the full price tag on Steam. Beat - Knights of San Francisco (Android): A Gamebook / Choose Your Own Adventure lite. The world being built was interesting, and the story was mildly compelling. The choices never felt like they'd change the end result all that much, and there didn't seem to be that many endings to find. Not bad for a couple bucks, but I'm sure there are better versions of this out there. My daughter's corner: Beat - Lego Worlds: We earned 100 gold bricks and have become Master Builders. Let's quickly remove it from the hard drive and never speak of it again, please. Beat - The Lego Ninjago Movie: She had been playing this with my wife, and I'm very jealous because I had to deal with the aforementioned Lego Worlds. Good-Natured Filth fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Jan 25, 2022 |
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Jan 25, 2022 03:10
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My January got off to a slow start but it picked up near the end. #1: Metroid Dread (7.5hr) - Fantastic entry in the series and probably the best any-Metroid game since Zero Mission. #2: Castlevania III (4hr) - I ended up playing the US version and that was a mistake, the difficulty changes to combat rentals really ruin the balance and design vision of the game. A shame. #3: Kid Dracula (1.5hr) - Just kind of a fluff game that was real silly, although dang the last stage with the vertical auto-scroller gave me Shinobi 3 nightmare flashbacks. #4: Chernobylite (13hr) - Average FPS in the exclusion zone built around doing missions in various areas to gain intel and supply your growing squad with food and supplies. Everyone is really aggro in the voice acting, it's so bad and so enjoyable at the same time. They're just so angry!! Will probably get my Average Game of the Year award. #5: Etrian Odyssey V (45hr) - Solid entry in the Etrian series, although I still think 3 is the best. 5 offers a lot more interesting party configurations with the multiple new classes, but the subclasses I thought were a bit... eh. A couple of boss encounters also are clearly tailored for specific party configuations which was a disappointment. But I liked it on the whole. #6: Nobody Saves the World (14.5hr) [2022] - Drinkbox just doesn't miss. Another solid game from them, with a lot of character build synergy fun and a decent progression path and addictive gameplay loop. The only real issue is those repetitive randomized dungeons. Very little variety in design and the reskinning is EXTREMELY obvious. #7: Jedi Fallen Order (14hr) - It... hm. Only a couple of fights in the game felt like an actual FROM game, so I really think this is more of an Uncharted Star Wars than Star-k Souls. Most combat is really easy to get through if not tedious, there's very little enemy variety, and the game puts a lot of moves behind a skill tree. Devs: STOP DOING THIS. #8: Super Castlevania 4 (3hr) - Far more enjoyable than Castlevania 3 by virtue of the fact that it was not designed to antagonist renters and therefore all players. The boss rush at the end is a bit wack, throwing two brand new bosses at you before you fight Death and Dracula, but other than that, I thought it was fairly designed and fun. poo poo music though. Super wompy. #9: Pupperazzi (1.5hr) [2022] - It's another memey game, this one hoping you will be sucked in by the photography. And... I mean yeah, I do like taking photographs, and photos of dogs, sure. The dogs are cute yes. But this is an incredibly shallow game compared to even other indie photography games like Umurangi and TOEM. I had no desire to 100% it after I reached the moon level and saw credits. #10: Cyber Shadow (5hr) - Here's one from last year that I didn't get a chance to finish off until now. A solid Ninja Gaiden style experience published by Yacht Club, so you know that it has tight controls and good music. The game has you go back through the main city which makes you think it's gonna take a Messenger-style turn into Metroidvania, but it thankfully stays in its lane and mostly just has you go right to the next area. I'd say its like how God of War is TECHNICALLY open world but in execution it's a neverending forward march. So no repetitive replaying of levels, hooray! #11: No Straight Roads (5hr) - Cute and interesting music combat game where an indie rock duo tries to liberate a music-powered city from its EDM overlords. Obviously it's not serious as the devs love EDM and that's primarily what the soundtrack is. I love the art style and design of the characters... the voice acting though is a trainwreck and needed a better director to either find better takes or keep working with the VAs, particularly Mayday's. The rap battles... a bit cringey. The end lesson of "actually if we overthrow the fascists we're no better than them" is a bit uhhh whatever. But the game is fine. It kind of mixes the 'each level is themed after a character' feel of Psychonauts with a hack and slash boss rush game that just so happens to attack you on the beat. Not worth full price but worth looking into at sale time. With my PS5 here, my February will be a bit more tailored to catching up on my Sony backlog, though it will also of course cover the pack-in game Astro's Playroom which I've already finished and enjoyed. I am going through God of War now, and I've marked a couple other games as ones I will get into later this month. I will finally get around to playing Get Even which I've had forever, and Ghost of a Tale which I've always been curious about.
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Feb 3, 2022 09:52
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Writing has suddenly picked up a lot (for the first time I ever I got paid a lot more writing about games online than my actual job) so I've had less time to actually play them. This list doesn't really the whole story though. Played a lot of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, though am playing it slowly so I don't get burnt out and also played about 3/4 of Spirit Tracks. Also got myself a Quest 2 this month, so have been enjoying Resident Evil 4 VR and some Virtual Boy games. Reviews after the links Policenauts (PlayStation, 1996) - the fan translation is excellent, though Policenauts is bottom tier Kojima. The constant creepy perv poo poo really drags it down for me.  Deathloop (PlayStation 5, 2021) - It's a fantastic bit of design and all seems to stem from Arkane getting annoyed at people ignoring all their fun toys to no-kill ghost Dishonored. The opening is a bit rough, but once you get the loop mechanics down it's so much fun.  Insomnis (PlayStation 4, 2021) - Godawful budget horror puzzle title that's not remotely scary and whose story makes no sense. Crap.  SHINORUBI (PC, 2022) - Bullet hell shooter in 16:9, so felt really cramped. Also the levels are very samey and the bosses are dull. Am willing to cut it some slack because it's early access though.  Retired Men's Nude Beach Volleyball League (PC, 2021) - Surprisingly touching game about old naked guys emotionally connecting with one another. Has a really fun twist.  This month I've finally started Cyberpunk after getting it for Christmas in 2020, as well as clocking DOOM Eternal and a few other things. Somewhere around this I've got to play Elden Ring too... Wish I had more time.
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Feb 18, 2022 15:57
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Necrothatcher posted:Wish I had more time. You and me both. Also, new thread title.
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Feb 18, 2022 23:43
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Good-Natured Filth posted:You and me both. Also, new thread title. Can't deny how good it feels to actually make some money out of my ridiculously intricate knowledge of Kojima games though.
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Feb 19, 2022 11:54
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Didn't play much at all this month as I tried to focus on writing rather than playing. Was planning to leave Elden Ring for a month until after a few patches were in, but after the reviews I picked it up day one and have been completely obsessed with it ever since. Have put down everything else I was playing and focused on that - am currently about halfway through and hoping to finish some time in March. It's so drat good. Plus I've managed to successfully pitch a bunch of Elden Ring articles so I'm at least making money out of it. Doom Eternal (PlayStation 5, 2021) - Wish I hadn't waited so long as this was fabulous. Loved the increased complexity and general intensity of the thing. Even got a kick out of the much-maligned Marauders.  ‘Metal Gear Online 3’ (PC, 2015) - A big let down after MGO and MGO2. Barely any of the classic Metal Gear personality, only a handful of maps and modes, and the tiny online PC community is infested with cheaters.  ‘The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks’ (Nintendo DS, 2009) - The first Zelda I've actively disliked. The train mechanics are boring and there's a tonne of just waiting around for stuff to happen. Also I never really clicked with the stylus controls.  35mm (PlayStation 4, 2022) - 2016 Russian horror game that's getting ported to PS4 now for some reason. A bit crap all round, but there's at least some spooky moments. 
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Mar 9, 2022 14:05
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Oh I forgot to post my February I guess woops: #12: Astro's Playroom (3hr) #13: God of War (13hr) #14: Ghost of a Tale (6.5hr) #15: Momonga Pinball Adventures (45min) #16: Mortal Kombat X (5.5hr) #17: Get Even (7.5hr) #18: Knack (10.5hr) #19: Infernax (6.5hr) [2022] <- pretty good! #20: The Swindle (8.5hr) #21: Adr1ft (3hr) #22: The Signifier (5hr) #23: Diorama Builder (5hr) #24: Sonic Forces (4hr)
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Mar 9, 2022 20:54
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