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I just not only beat Bioshock 2 but its DLC, Minerva's Den, as well, and I had a wonderful time. Considering I didn't even beat Bioshock 1 back in the day (got to the big twist then interest faded), I think that tells you all you need to know. Seriously, I'm smacking myself for missing out on this back then, and I urge other people to give it a shot as well if you skipped it too: it's so dang fun and they improved on it so much from the first. The combat is fantastic and I love dual-wielding weapons and plasmids: kinda reminds me of Doom Eternal a bit in how you're this crazy swiss-army knife of guns, gadgets, ammo types, plasmids, and so on. Now, that's not to say its perfect. I played the classic PC version and it was pretty wonky: kept resetting my mouse sensitivity on load, the sound was too aggressively directional on speakers so I had to use headphones, and the sound also would glitch out constantly if there were too many sounds going on. I heard the remaster was worse, though, so whaddaya gonna do? Also, I'll admit that, if you just came off of playing Bioshock 1, you probably wouldn't be in a rush to play Bioshock 2 as while it is greatly different, it is also incredibly similar to the first and thus would largely feel as a communist-themed rehash and just more of the same. Also while I enjoyed Minerva's Den, I didn't necessarily think it was mind-blowing or anything: maybe it was people hyping it up too much, but while I thought the ending was perfectly fine, it didn't live up to the lofty expectations I had hoped for.
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Dec 4, 2023 01:16
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Just beat SPRAWL: pretty decent movement-focused cyberpunk boomer shooter. PROS Pretty cool cyberpunk world with some gorgeous vistas Great music (very Ghost in the Shell chanting style) Fun Titanfall/Ghostrunner-esque movement: lots of platforming and I love dodging enemy fire by wall-running and stylishly flipping around like a ninja Cool slow-mo powers and lots of fun guns Fun Doom Eternal-esque feedback loop: shoot enemy weakpoints highlighted with slow-mo or execute them with melee to get more slow-mo/health/ammo, repeat step 1 CONS Short (4 hrs) Story is pretty basic and had no big twist or impact, just bare minimum revenge prompt to keep us going World is a bit too dark and confusing at times where it's difficult to find way forward or spot enemies Enemies are kind of boring, and their AI is easily exploitable where you can run circles around them Slow-mo feels unnecessary: enemies already shoot slow projectiles so the game might've actually been better without it and played in real time? Or enemies should be deadlier with faster bullets to necessitate its use Only really felt challenged around the last few levels where they throw a bunch at you, but its quantity over quality Basically, a very flashy and fun game, but a bit flawed and kind of falls apart on closer examination. But it's short, so you might just beat it before you even notice its flaws and just think of it as fun cyberpunk ninja action.
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Dec 12, 2023 07:22
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Speaking of Shock games, I just beat Bioshock Infinite, both because I had recently played Bioshock 2 and loved it and was in the mood for more of that universe, and because I was morbidly curious about the mixed impression legacy it had. It was...well, quite the mixed impression! ------------------ PROS Game certainly has a lot of razzle-dazzle to its presentation and story, with a lot of crazy events, gorgeous vistas, and highfalutin quantum shenanigans. Basically, it's quite the rollercoaster if you just sit back and let it take you (as long as you don't think about it too hard). Combat can be quite fun and strategic, what with casting all manner of cool plasmids about, riding skylines to reposition and dive down on enemies, improvising with whatever guns you can find and bringing in all sorts of stuff from tears to flip the odds in your favor, catching supplies from Elizabeth, building an ideal gear set for whatever you want to focus on: it's pretty cool at times and can make you feel like quite the magical swashbuckler. A lot of companion AI revolving around Elizabeth was pretty neat, with the way she chimes in, explores and interacts with the environment, helps you out in combat, and so on. CONS Absolutely not a proper Shock game as it is just an incredibly linear experience mostly revolving around spectacle with some token lore and items tucked away in corners here and there: much more akin to something like Call of Duty, FEAR, Spec Ops The Line, etc. Combat was severely compromised by the annoying two weapon limit, very limited salt amounts, spongy hitscan enemies, unnecessary execution mechanic, and some just unfair/annoying scenarios like the ghost battle and airship defense (I did play on hard mode, though, so many some of this is my fault). Story just felt really dumb: moved too fast to let anything breathe or develop naturally and just got overly up its rear end with all sorts of dumb twists and this quantum mumbo-jumbo. ------------ Definitely looking forward to trying out the System Shock remake for some proper Shock gameplay eventually.
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Dec 30, 2023 07:27
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Cross-posting from Steam thread:FutureCop posted:Quik review on Steel Assault:
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Jan 5, 2024 19:57
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Just beat Blood West, posting my steam review here: As a fan of exploration imm sims with lite RPG elements like Thief, System Shock, Weird West, and STALKER, and as a fan of antique wild west weaponry as seen in Hunt Showdown, I had a nice time with this! If you're a fan of these properties below, then I think you'll have a good time too: 1) Sneaking around and exploring big, hostile environments and hoovering up all the cool and unique loot that has been finely crafted by the designers to be hidden down every path, nook and cranny in secret caches for you to find. 2) Deadly and intense combat that, while possible to deal with, you'll want to avoid with stealth and caution due to aggressive, high-damage enemies and your weapons being antique wild west implements that are slow to fire and reload. 3) Hardcore mechanics that punish you for sloppy play by progressively cursing your character for every death, which can only be recovered from through quests or expensive items (can't reload your save since it's all autosave-only). 4) RPG-ish build customization through a lot of interesting trinkets, weapons and skills with very unique properties beyond just simple statistical changes that allow you to change up your playstyle. That's not to say it's all sunshine and rainbows though. Some rough aspects: 1) Only having two weapon slots, one for something big and another for something small, can feel quite annoyingly limiting. For example, your instinct might be to have a shotgun for trouble, a pistol for general use, and a knife for stealth, but that's three, and you can only have two at a time. Therefore you either need to get good at awkwardly switching weapons quickly in your inventory, or just make some hard choices to limit yourself. 2) Don't come to this for the story. Yes, there are some fun characters and events, but for the most part the story is non-existent, with the worst being the ending, which felt incredibly unsatisfying (and that's coming from someone who's perfectly fine with doom and gloom endings). 3) As much as you can build your character in all sorts of ways, I don't think it would be significant enough for replayability beyond self-imposed challenge runs: the way its balanced feels like you're always gonna play somewhat the same as a jack of all trades. In particular the skill tree felt awkwardly skewed, with the bulk of them going towards melee. 4) As the game went on, it did start to drag for me a bit. It tries its best to keep changing things up which is nice but it wasn't as much as I'd like. Furthermore, some events that should've been great, like the final boss and some other dungeons, felt a bit lackluster.
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Jan 13, 2024 22:09
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Recently beat Gravity Circuit!  Here's my steam review: What else can I say that isn't patently obvious from just looking at this? Obviously, if you're a fan of Mega Man Z/X games or action platformers in general, then this game will be right up your alley and well-worth the purchase. Game looks great, movement is smooth, feedback is juicy, levels and bosses are varied and fantastic, combat is fun to flex on enemies with your varied arsenal of moves and satisfying grapple-throw mechanic, and so on. Even when I beat the game around 6 hours, I was still jonsing for more and would easily consider a replay just for the fun of it, if not to also unlock achievements or challenge myself on harder difficulties. If I were to have any gripes about the game to be wary of, they'd be mostly auxiliary concerns: *The story wasn't much to sneeze at and felt a bit unsatisfying. It's kind of stuck in that awkward middle-ground where it doesn't do a classic 'beat the bad guys' nothing story, and it doesn't go crazy with a wild complex story either with all sorts of twists and turns: it just starts to dip into complex stuff late in the game but didn't feel like it built upon it enough to make it worth it or have some sort of satisfying meaning or ending. It's fine, but it's almost a case where less might've been more? *The various directional moves and burst techniques Gravity Circuit has and can unlock makes you think it'd be a really fun and stylish action game where you're going all DMC on enemies with cuhrazy combos, but it all feels very token and unnecessary. Some moves like your upwards kick will just get you into trouble since if you don't kill with it, you'll end up ramming yourself into an enemy and taking contact damage. Furthermore, enemies will generally die in a few hits meaning there's no chance for big combos, and bosses aren't a candidate for combos either since the game will force constant invuln states to prevent you from comboing them too long. *Similar to above, the various chips you can unlock feel very token as well. You're almost guaranteed to have one slot reserved for double jump because of course you will, and you're also guaranteed to have another one of your slots reserved for the attack length extension because it's way too dangerous and annoying to get so close to enemies that have contact damage with your stubby fists otherwise. That means you just have one chip slot free, meaning there isn't that much freedom for customization (not that the remaining choices are that great). Basically, it's a great game overall, but a lot of the auxillary systems that I thought would be really neato like burst/chip customization are just there to look cool for trailers instead of serving important design purposes, so don't expect this to push the envelope. FutureCop fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Jan 16, 2024 |
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Jan 16, 2024 07:45
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Recently finished up CULTIC and I'm posting my Steam review here: A great boomer-shooter that combines elements from Blood and Resident Evil 4: from Blood it takes the horror/occult themes, ridiculous gibby gore and the tactical yet fast-paced combat of using cover, peeking, and clearing rooms with dynamite before entry to deal with deadly hitscanners, and from RE4 it takes the weapon upgrading system and campaign pacing where every level is something fresh and provides so much spectacle. Even after beating it, I was raring to get right back to replaying it on Extreme difficulty: the game's just that satisfying to play in general. Speaking of, the game's also ridiculously cheap for the amount of content you get: the campaign already would've been enough, but with a bonus interlude level and a survival arena, it's a steal! If I had to find something bad, I will say that my first impression of it wasn't the greatest: for example, the choppy animation for enemies can make it awkward to anticipate their movements and aim precisely, and in particular, dealing with hitscanners at extreme long ranges in open areas who react to you immediately made the game feel like such a pixel-hunt snipefest. However, once you get used to the combat design (which can be awkward if you have come from more run-n-gun shooters, as I did) and get better tools to deal with engagements, it grabbed me and wouldn't let go.
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Jan 21, 2024 06:03
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I just beat Lucah Born of a Dream, this time for realsies with the true NG+ ending. Really cool game that combines stylish spectacle fighting with a surreal, dream-like narrative filled with weird and interesting vibes. The artstyle is very unique without compromising clarity of combat, and while the story is very cryptic and confusing at times, the emotional beats are clear and powerful. If you're a fan of weird, stylish games like Nier Automata, I highly consider checking this out as it hits very similar beats: it even has the multiple endings and the poetic visual novel segments! https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256726485/movie480.webm?t=1684299758
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Feb 5, 2024 01:39
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Recently beat Azure Striker Gunvolt! Steam review below: A pretty neat Megaman-ish experience with all the usual parts you'd expect like great boss fights and dashing/walljumping around great levels, but with an innovative twist to its typical straightforward run-n-gun combat with the tagging system, where you can tag multiple enemies with darts and then shock them with homing electricity while being able to move around and dodge as you like during! While I enjoyed myself, I'll admit that I had a bit of a rough first impression with this: *The visual noise and clutter is high in this game, which makes it difficult to parse and can lead to what feels like a lot of cheap deaths. You've got a camera so zoomed-in you can barely see a few steps ahead of you, an appropriately named "flash"field which covers so much of the screen with flashy electricity sparks, and you've got constant dialogue on the bottom of the screen which not only covers part of the screen but splits you attention as you want to learn what's going on. *The difficulty can be wildly different depending on how you approach the game. If you just play it for the story, the game gives you too many tools that allow you to just brute force past all enemy and boss mechanics, which can easily make you unsatisfied since the combat doesn't get a chance to show its unique appeal. If you try to embrace the scoring system, you'll get to see the full extents of the combat system and its appeal, but at the same time it can be rather frustrating and require so much trial-and-error and memorization of stage/enemy layouts to dodge what feels like cheap traps due to the aforementioned issues above. *The localization is rather strange. I played it on English (Japanese Voice Mode) at first and found it good, and I'd recommend you stick with that. But, I was wondering if there was an English Voice Mode instead, so I switched to just English, where I was disappointed to find that not only was there no english voices, meaning I'd have to split my attention to read the characters dialogue during gameplay no matter what, but the script was completely different, filled with totally wacky words and phrases, like some sort of joke script you'd unlock as a bonus, not something most people will mistakenly treat as the intended experience. *Story felt like a bit of a downer and unsatisfying, even after getting the True Ending. I don't need everything to be sunshine and rainbows, but man, it just felt like it left too much hanging and nothing got accomplished. Maybe the sequel will resolve it? In spite of the rough stuff above, I still enjoyed my experience very much and grew addicted to rerunning stages to go for higher ranks. Looking forward to playing the rest of the series!
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Feb 18, 2024 05:32
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I agree that the best part of Death Stranding is delivering stuff and all the logistics that come with it, but I did end up enjoying the combat more when I embraced the perhaps-not-obvious-enough art of box-fu, aka beating the crap out of people by throwing boxes at them. Once you learn of it, you realize the game is secretly built for it since every MULE you beat is carrying dummy boxes which means more ammunition to throw: beat up a MULE with your fists which makes their box drop, catch it during the slow mo and throw it at them, catch the rebound, throw it at someone else, and so on. It ends up as a endlessly flowing combo of fists and boxes being hurled at faces: no guns required. Here are some examples of the depth of combat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daNWgBCt0Yw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ1doqdZvnE FutureCop fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Feb 22, 2024 |
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Feb 22, 2024 06:06
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Perestroika posted:Just beat Ace Combat 7 again on a replay. It's quite remarkable how despite being a flight sim, usually a fairly impersonal genre, it manages to have a surprisingly fun and engaging story and presentation. That moment in the second to last mission when the boss' shields drop and the soundtrack's vocals kick in is one of my top 10 moments in any game ever. Ace Combat is the number one series that I have to thank my friend for suggesting it to me: I thought it was totally out of left field and not gonna gel with me at all, just like you say, but lo and behold, the story and combat scenarios you go through are just incredible. Nothing beats the missions where you need to fly through a tunnel or a trench: hell, even if the objective ain't there, I need to fly through any tunnel I see for the kicks.
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Feb 28, 2024 00:52
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abraham linksys posted:I have completed Star Ocean The Second Story R, last year's HD2D remake of Star Ocean 2. Man, I hated this game. I definitely hear you on this as it echoes my experience. As much as I wanted to like Star Ocean 2, multiple times I needed to 'sanity check' with other people as to whether what was happening to me was normal. Like you say, there was loads of crazy difficulty spikes that were difficult to get past with the terribly dumb and suicidal party AI, and the game was flooded with superfluous systems that were very unorthodox. Some of it, like the mashy combat, could be explained just due to its age, but other things were very odd. A strange beast, to be sure. Didn't help that the story was a little awkward as well. However, I will say that, once I threw my usual preconceptions behind, the game started to grow on me. I was able to wrangle my party through what seemed like impossible fights by 1) forgoing the usual general-use equipment and instead crafting all manner of hard-counter accessories that I'd swap to on a per-fight basis to make them impervious to whatever element the enemies were abusing 2) swapping characters, picking formations and issuing commands to the party a lot more to keep them alive, such as forcing them to run away if they get aggro instead of leaving them on the dumb suicidal default 3) having them be such high-leveled in the first place by utilizing Training and other leveling boosts, 4) abusing the unbalanced super moves and assault actions such as to keep enemies locked down instead of using whatever is new or that I like, and so on and so forth. Yes, it felt incredibly cheesy and awkward, but in a way it was quite liberating to have an RPG really ask me to master all of its systems to win, instead of the typical RPG where you breeze through the game, never need to grind, and end with 99 elixirs that you were never pressed to use. Whether the above makes it good or bad, I don't know, but it certainly was a unique and memorable experience, and many others seem to like the whole aspect of 'breaking' the game with intentionality.
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Mar 8, 2024 07:18
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H13 posted:This is what I thought was going on. That I was too far removed from when it came out to be able to appreciate it for it's time. As another late-comer to Halo, I had a very similar experience where, importance to history aside and all that yadda yadda, I was really bored and confused as to why it was such a hit. The first level really didn't make a great impression with its endless copy-paste corridors, and lord don't get me started on the The Library. I haven't had a game serve as such a powerful sleep-aid since questing in Tera. I could've sworn that there was a minority that felt similar at the time, though, not just in retrospect, and voila, here's some evidence from a 2001 Penny Arcade: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/11/28/the-rest-of-the-story So yeah, you're not as nuts as you might think. And goddamn I really wanna play NOLF as well. Dunno how you got lucky enough to find it, and I wish there was a remaster of it but from what I understand it is stuck in hell and can't get out.
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Mar 8, 2024 23:59
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Just finished Atomic Heart! For the most part, I quite enjoyed myself with this 'Russian Bioshock' experience despite some issues here and there, which was a bit of a surprise considering that I had a rough first impression and a lot of the reviewers that I watch and my roommate didn't enjoy themselves (not trying to be negative, but it does feel like a lot of reviewers just refuse to be critical of anything ambitious, especially if it's very pretty, from a small team, so to see it here was shocking). PROS Gorgeous, highly-detailed and fascinating world Story is kinda goofy and dumb in a fun way at times, with a lot of twists Cool combat where you juggle guns in one hand and glove abilities in another like Bioshock 2, and fight loads of interesting enemies and bosses Allows you to respec weapons and abilities at any time, so it's fun to experiment Fun to vacuum up items Large variety keeps things interesting: starts out survival horror, eventually becomes doom eternal, there's combat, puzzles, exploration, lore, big open-world segments with driving and bonus dungeons Lots of crazy spectacle and cool music CONS Bad first impression from initial gameplay forcing you to use a very slow and awkward melee weapon, no gun or plentiful bullets until later Dumb story that ends with an unsatisfying cliffhanger ending, with the actual ending being held hostage in paid DLC (c'mon, what is this, Asura's Wrath?) Dumb main character with goofy English voice acting and horny fridge (I mostly avoided this by playing in Russian) Game feels unpolished in some aspects despite looking so beautiful: janky movement, awkward collisions, confusing navigation, weird glitches, desynced/mistimed events, etc (reminds me of Jedi Fallen Order) Game is overwrought and unfocused with so many systems which feel unnecessary: open-world, crafting, upgrades, etc Open-world segments can feel annoying with the way enemies constantly respawn Most of the challenging puzzles and interesting weapon upgrades are only within the open world bonus dungeons Combat feels like it only starts to be challenging and requiring to use all of your tools in the very late game Feels like it could get very repetitive: I mostly dodged it by mainly sticking to the story instead of side activities FutureCop fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Mar 15, 2024 |
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Mar 15, 2024 07:08
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yigh posted:Beat 'Picayune Dreams'. shadowzero313 posted:this week I beat Pizza Tower and Nier Automata , and you should, too. Now when y'all say you beat these games, did you 'beat' them (aka get the true ultimate ending)? Not trying to invalidate your claim or gatekeep or anything, I'm just genuinely curious since these games have some hidden endings that aren't obvious. Er, I'm mostly talking about Picayune Dreams and Nier Automata, I'm not sure about Pizza Tower...does that have a hidden ending too? Well, apart from going for a high percentage judgment and saving Pillar John. I guess there's also the Noise update? Ok, maybe this is just silly that I brought it up.
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Apr 1, 2024 02:41
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Yeah, the Nier Automata one is a bit obvious since you get a message from the developer to let you know that there is more , but I've heard of plenty people that just end it at ending A before even getting a chance to see that message, because the credits are rolling and they figure welp, close it down. Also a lot of people might not want to go through the B run since it does retread a lot of similar ground. Congrats on making it all the way through! The Picayune Dreams one is a bit less obvious, being that you need to beat all four of the bosses without getting hit in a run FutureCop fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Apr 1, 2024 |
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Apr 1, 2024 05:41
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Nucular Carmul posted:I have beaten Gravity Rush for the first time. It's very obviously a former PS Vita game, but the gameplay is extremely fun. Looking forward to the second game and its huge glow up since it was released on the PS4! It seems like everyone who plays this is instantly recruited into its army, and I'm no different, I'm already ready for a second remaster and three more sequels, please. How the hell did it completely miss me that Gravity Rush got a PS4 remaster? I thought it was one of those weird cult games that I'll never get a chance to play like Lost Odyssey, but now it looks like I have a chance! And it's even 50% off right now! Guess I'll add it to my PS4 backlog along Odin Sphere, 13 Sentinels, and so on.
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Apr 9, 2024 21:04
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Just recently beat Hi-Fi RUSH and, as you'd expect, it was GOTY-material and an absolute blast. I had some minor quibbles with it here and there, but they barely even feel worth mention considering the overall experience. It's so good, I almost feel like a bastard for playing it on GamePass: will likely buy it again or just gift it to someone to make up for it. I still have to do the hidden doors, but I have to admit, after doing the first one and being let-down for how incredibly insubstantial it was, I'm not really feeling that pressed to do them. Didn't help either that I played the game on Very Hard already, and Rhythm Master didn't feel that different (in fact, felt really annoying considering the first boss) and the game still has a lot of unskippable stuff, so not sure if I want a replay. Will likely visit the Rhythm Tower and other arcade stuff though!
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Apr 14, 2024 01:15
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Just beat Half-Life Alyx: as you might expect, it was an incredible experience filled with a large variety of combat, puzzles, exploration, interactions, emotions and so on, all with a great level of polish and subtle depth and intricacies it brings through VR. Constantly surprised me at the level of interactions I was able to do that other VR games don't have enough chops to simulate. Definitely THE VR game to get if you own a VR device, and certainly if you're a fan of Half-Life (and who isn't). Certainly a wild story that people without a VR headset are missing out on: I thought it was going to be an optional sidestory but no, it may as well be called Episode 3! I feel a bit bad because I've never dove deeply into Half-Life lore: I do love the games and I've recently played Episode 1 and 2 so I was able to understand the general emotional and story beats, but I probably miss on some of the more subtle implications and lore. Like I still don't quite understand things like the Seven Hour War and the combine besides them being an 'event' and them being the 'bad guys' and such. I suppose I could always go on a wiki dive. I feel really lucky that I never let a headcrab latch onto me: I probably would've freaked out, destroyed my visor and died of a heart attack! As careful and cautious as I can be with ammo typically, I spared no expense when it came to headcrabs. Wonder what VR game I'll play next...it is certainly a hard act to follow. One that I am looking forward to is something called The Burst: had a great Next Fest demo and gave me Half-Life adventure vibes. If anyone has some great shooters or adventures to recommend, feel free.
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Apr 19, 2024 00:45
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Just recently beat Jusant and it twas a very beautiful and captivating climbing game set in this Mad Max-esque desert world, minus the crazy paint-huffing bandits and all that. As a rock climber myself I loved a lot of what this game did, and overall the gameplay was very reminiscent of something like Journey, so for fans of games like that, it's a big recommend from me. Apart from the obvious gorgeous presentation and vibes the game gives off, I think the best part of the game to me was how deep and interesting the climbing mechanics got and how it kept introducing new elements at a steady pace to keep things interesting. Typically with these types of, shall we say, 'art' games, I get worried as the game practically plays itself from me just holding forward and feels like all style over substance, and I'm glad to see that this thrashed that expectation. No, it isn't Celeste or Getting Over It levels of challenge, but it did enough to hit that sweet spot of being an engaging experience with some moments that make me ponder or work out a solution while still technically being a smooth trip without many actual failures or trial-and-error. I feel a bit bad because I played this on GamePass, and if I were to be honest, that's probably the only way I would've played this game in the first place. Yes, I do think this game is lovely and worth the money, and I'm trying to be more open nowadays to purchasing games like this, but very short and artistic games like this can be a hard sell when stupid brain worms make you think you can comparatively get more bang for your buck by getting an infinitely replayable action roguelike or huge RPG. Just something to think about in this new world of subscriptions and such: I suppose it's a blessing that games like this have more of a chance to get played through GamePass, but I also wish they could be loved more directly without GamePass.
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Apr 26, 2024 05:40
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