Games Completed 2018
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kintaris
Re: Games Completed 2018
I feel very similar Andrew, though I can't for the life of me think *which* game has surpassed SotC specifically in the intervening years... it just seems sort of generically "surpassed" by many things I suppose. It's odd for me because there aren't many other all-timers which have this issue in my book - I can still play them all at a remove from the games that have come since. Yet SotC just feels like a product of its time, where I was looking for something different and it scratched all the right itches.
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Simonsloth
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Re: Games Completed 2018
- Spoiler: show
Played the whole game in VR. It’s taken me ages but was one hell of a ride. Not sure whether to dive right into all the DLC or give it a break.
Anyone played it?
Re: Games Completed 2018
Wow, someone else who has played this game! I remember liking it, but not exactly loving it. It had some pretty interesting puzzle ideas with its central conceit, and a cool atmosphere, but I agree, the combat was pretty awkward and not that enjoyable. Some of the enemies were kind of interesting though, just in terms of how strange they were. Like those weird zombie gorillas that looked like their skin was falling off. Those were creepy.MajorGamer wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2018, 3:31 am
May 7 - The Ball (PC)
This is a first person puzzle game with a gun that came out around the same time as Portal. There is a reason why you don't hear about this one. The puzzles are fairly basic and requires bringing the proverbial ball with you the entire game. The ball is larger than your character. The most bizarre parts of the game involve combat. It is mostly just slamming the ball into enemies. I think it would have been better if the combat was removed so more focus could be put into improving the puzzles.
Re: Games Completed 2018
I was going to play it last year, as I got it in a double pack with The Solus Project (it's set in the same 'game universe' apparently). But I looked up some gameplay videos and there seemed to be an awful lot of retrieving the ball from where it fell through holes in the floor, and stuff like that, so I decided against it.Scrustle wrote: ↑May 24th, 2018, 11:09 amWow, someone else who has played this game! I remember liking it, but not exactly loving it. It had some pretty interesting puzzle ideas with its central conceit, and a cool atmosphere, but I agree, the combat was pretty awkward and not that enjoyable. Some of the enemies were kind of interesting though, just in terms of how strange they were. Like those weird zombie gorillas that looked like their skin was falling off. Those were creepy.MajorGamer wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2018, 3:31 am
May 7 - The Ball (PC)
This is a first person puzzle game with a gun that came out around the same time as Portal. There is a reason why you don't hear about this one. The puzzles are fairly basic and requires bringing the proverbial ball with you the entire game. The ball is larger than your character. The most bizarre parts of the game involve combat. It is mostly just slamming the ball into enemies. I think it would have been better if the combat was removed so more focus could be put into improving the puzzles.
The Solus Project is an interesting game. I played it on PC and then it came out for PSVR. I haven't tried the latter yet.
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MajorGamer
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Re: Games Completed 2018
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The quickest comparison this game has is to Dragon Age Origins except not good.
When it comes to the gameplay itself, I found it pretty boring. Your characters move kinda slow for how large the areas are. The exploration would be fine if there was something interesting to find. Almost all loot found is random sellable items that do nothing along with a few crafting components that end up being largely useless. Any NPCs you speak to don't have much to say about the plot but they will regularly dump paragraphs of text at you for world building that has no bearing on what is going on. You can find trainers for new skills but they only teach you the basics until 3/4 through the game when they will be able to teach you everything.
The combat isn't any more exciting. It is mostly focus fire auto attacking the swarms of enemies the game sends at you. Just about every encounters is 4+ enemies where a single special attack from each of your party can kill one. Your special skills take a lot of energy to use so you can really only use 1-2 on each character before waiting to regain energy (or using a potion). Spellcasters get to bypass this a bit since they get energy and mana as two seperate resources. You will also regularly take debuffs you need to cure, the worst of which are wounds. Take four and that character is down until combat is over. Healing wounds during combat takes a bit of time, long enough for the enemy to get in a couple more hits, potentially making the wounds worse. I found it to be a very obnoxious mechanic, especially when certain attacks could cause two wounds by itself.
The story is there, I guess. You start off going to meet a friend who is in a town having a murderer problem. Shocking no one, your friend is murdered and off you go completely ignoring the murder. Seriously. Solving his murder is a side quest as the main quest is following a prophecy step by step. Even the side quest for it feels like you just bumble into who done it instead of going around figuring it out for yourself. There is even a point where you run into an NPC you already know isn't the murderer and your only dialogue options are to accuse him of being the murderer. There is absolutely no player agency here.
I've extensively used Steam's Discovery queue (approaching 19k) so I've glanced at just about everything. Most get about 2 seconds before being passed on. Sometimes gems are discovered. The Ball did have interesting puzzle ideas which is what got it on my list and vaguely remembering it from when it was released.Scrustle wrote: ↑May 24th, 2018, 11:09 am Wow, someone else who has played this game! I remember liking it, but not exactly loving it. It had some pretty interesting puzzle ideas with its central conceit, and a cool atmosphere, but I agree, the combat was pretty awkward and not that enjoyable. Some of the enemies were kind of interesting though, just in terms of how strange they were. Like those weird zombie gorillas that looked like their skin was falling off. Those were creepy.
Re: Games Completed 2018
Yes, it held up pretty well in VR, eh? The first couple of hours in particular were great in VR, and I enjoyed the FPS-y bit at the end also. I can't say how it holds up as a RE game, opinions were divided here...Simonsloth wrote: ↑May 23rd, 2018, 9:04 pm 23/05 Resident Evil 7
Played the whole game in VR. It’s taken me ages but was one hell of a ride. Not sure whether to dive right into all the DLC or give it a break.
Anyone played it?
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KSubzero1000
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Re: Games Completed 2018
I wouldn't say "opinions are divided" so much as there's that one weirdo who keeps hating on it for no reason. Everybody else is having fun, so screw him! 
Re: Games Completed 2018
I didn't want to say 
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hazeredmist
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Re: Games Completed 2018
Last night I completed Golf Story on the Switch.
I don’t finish games as often as I’d like and given that this is a lengthy one (my playtime was over 30 hours) it feels satisfying. So much fun and relaxing to play, recommended if you’re into 16-bit RPGs and / or old golf games like Mario Golf!
I don’t finish games as often as I’d like and given that this is a lengthy one (my playtime was over 30 hours) it feels satisfying. So much fun and relaxing to play, recommended if you’re into 16-bit RPGs and / or old golf games like Mario Golf!
Re: Games Completed 2018
Man, I like both of those genres and got about 10/15 hours in and then suddenly lost all sort of motivation for it.hazeredmist wrote: ↑May 25th, 2018, 9:44 am Last night I completed Golf Story on the Switch.
I don’t finish games as often as I’d like and given that this is a lengthy one (my playtime was over 30 hours) it feels satisfying. So much fun and relaxing to play, recommended if you’re into 16-bit RPGs and / or old golf games like Mario Golf!
Odd, as a lot of people had very positive things to say about this game - it just ran dry on me after that point.
Glad to hear you enjoyed it though.
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AndrewBrown
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Re: Games Completed 2018
- Spoiler: show
After positive experiences with Super One More Jump and the musical levels in Rayman Legends, my interest levels in Runner3 rose as I wanted to check out the latest entry in what is, by all accounts, the seminal series in the rhythm-platformer genre. I find myself coming away a bit disappointed. I enjoyed Runner3, but I found its finer details obtuse and its scope lacking.
Loading screen tips allude to many game mechanics and features—retro levels, puppet shows, hero quests that unlock characters—but offer no explanation on how these mechanics work or where to interact with them (turns out they're all hidden in the levels). There are thirty core levels, with bonus unlockable levels as well as harder variations on the thirty core levels, but they're spread across just three different worlds. The visuals in these levels, while wild, are constrained by the specific themes each world is set after. The songs in each world are so similar to their neighbors that I am still unsure if they were different songs at all. CommanderVideo is a wraith, his movement through each level offering minimal visual and tactile feedback and often obscured by objects flying at the screen. I am intended to time my actions with the music, but the bass is mixed so low that I sometimes found this difficult in particularly hectic sections. Certain sequences in several levels put CommanderVideo in a vehicle and give him full range of motion on the screen. These sequences are difficult to control and are clearly limited by the game's availability on certain keyboard-based platforms.
But the game is challenging, and offers a lot for people who want to return to plumb its depths. There are 100 basic collectibles to be earned in each standard level, but more advanced configurations offer more collectibles on trickier paths that can be used to buy cosmetics. Other levels hide VHS tapes, puppets, and imprisoned NPCs, which unlock still-more collectibles in each world that may be assembled into new player characters. My difficulty is I am unsure if I'm going to return to collect these at all, as these mechanics are so poorly explained and are unlocked at such a drip feed pace (you literally cannot unlock most things until beating the basic configuration of the level) that I feel no excitement for them, let alone being drawn into collect them.
This was my first Runner, and indeed, my first Bit.Trip entry, and I'm a bit let down by it.
Re: Games Completed 2018
- Spoiler: show
I've been meaning to finish this off for ages. First played it back when it was one of the earliest games they offered with the Games with Gold thing way back on the 360. Dropped off after playing through most of it though, and only recently picked it up again on PC. Decided it was so long since I played it that I might as well start fresh. And honestly, I have to admit that it really wasn't worth the effort.
Despite not really liking it that much, I think my feelings on it are actually kind of contradictory to pretty much everything else I've heard people say about this game. I got the impression before that it did badly in reviews because it didn't have much content in it, making the open world kind of pointless, which is partially true. There's basically just the central story, and pretty much nothing else to do outside of that. The other side of it being the cult following it gained in later years for having a tight and well written story. I was up for the idea of a GTA-like game that focused just on that, which had something to say, instead of just filling the game up with junk content. The period setting was pretty appealing too. But I have to say, that's not the experience I got.
Biggest problem being the story. Tight and well written it was not. It's a confusing slog of meaningless events. Probably why I gave up playing it before. The story comes across as if it's written in that style of "this happened, and then this happened, and then..." etc. Just a bunch of events that don't really have significance or real consequence. I never got a clear view of any of the drama that was supposedly happening between all the competing factions, making each big plot point pretty uninteresting, since I wasn't invested in anything that was going on. I guess you could argue that's kind of the point, with it being a more realistic take on the unglamorous life of organised crime that stories about it usually try to dress up and pretend isn't real. But I think if that was what they were really trying to do, then they failed really badly on the characters themselves. If that's the picture they were trying to paint, then it needed to be more of a character study to be engaging. Taking a more intimate look at Vito himself and the people he interacts with. That doesn't really happen. All the characters feel pretty shallow, adding yet more to the feeling of just not being invested in anything going on. It failed to make me interested in why anything was happening, or who it was happening to.
The ending is a total wet fart of a non-event too. You're sent on a big mission to kill a rival family boss, to make up for messing things up earlier in the story. This event had zero buildup. The first time you get any indication that this is how the story ends is in the cutscene right before you are sent on the mission. So it's a big shoot-out climax against some guy I didn't really know or care about. Vito's friend shows up in the final scene too. He's been your closest ally for the whole game, but here he betrays you, for like two seconds. They get over it instantly, and get picked up by the guy who hired Vito to do the job, where they put the guys in different cars. The car carrying Vito's friend turns down another street, end. Credits roll. No post-credits scene or anything. No consequences shown for anything that just happened at all. I'm fine with an ambiguous or even a downer ending to a story. This wasn't that. There just wasn't an ending.
Gameplay is also kind of lacking, but I don't have as big a problem with it, since that was obviously not what the game was trying to focus on. It still contributed to a lot of boredom and irritation though. There's only really two types of gameplay here; driving and shooting. You drive to and from missions, sometimes during, and also sometimes shoot in missions too. The driving is fine I guess. Cars are slow, slide and roll around, and don't brake well either. As one would expect from the time period. It's not exactly an unenjoyable system, but this is hardly Burnout or Forza. It's just fine. Does the job. Shooting on the other hand is pretty miserable. It's a very bare bones 3rd-person cover system. Guns are also pretty inaccurate due to the period setting, which is something I can deal with. But what really annoyed me was how damn slow combat is, and how bad it is at conveying things to the player. It's one of those shooters where you spend most of your time stuck behind a chest high wall waiting for enemies to poke their heads out. There's next to no movement, and it's just super dull. On top of that, it's often really hard to tell where you're even being shot from. It's really hard to pick out enemies from the environment sometimes, when most of the time they're hiding from you, and everything is in muted colours. You die extremely quickly too, even on Easy. Not a massive problem on its own, but when you mix that with everything else the combat fails with, it becomes a point of contention for sure. So for me it's not what the game doesn't do that I dislike, it's how it does the little it does do.
By the end of it, I have to admit I was mostly forcing myself to finish this one out of a sense of obligation, rather than enjoying it. At first I didn't realise quite how far I had gotten through the 360 version before quitting, and it seems I was only a few chapters from the end. There was no way after so many years of meaning to finish this, I would only ever almost finish it twice. Had to get it off my backlog. I was also intending on going on to Mafia 3 after this. Don't much feel like it now, to be frank.
Re: Games Completed 2018
Mafia 3 is a much better game. But you probably should play something else in between at least.
Re: Games Completed 2018
Really? I thought Mafia 2 (and 1, incidentally) was brilliant. I've not been back to it since release, and I don't imagine it's aged fantastically, but most reports I read suggested 3 was a bit of a back step from 2?
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ratsoalbion
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Re: Games Completed 2018
Flabyo is the first person I’ve heard say that they felt three was superior to two.
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duskvstweak
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Re: Games Completed 2018
Finished Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon! Can I count it on my list of Castlevania's beaten?
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ratsoalbion
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Re: Games Completed 2018
You can count it on the list of your Castlevania *clones* beaten!
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ratsoalbion
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Re: Games Completed 2018
Or ‘homages’ if you prefer..!
Re: Games Completed 2018
I was tempted to get Bloodstained but I’ve heard reports of it being rather short.
Not short in a good way either.
Not short in a good way either.
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ratsoalbion
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Re: Games Completed 2018
It’s about two to three hours I believe but it’s only £8 or something.
Only full review I’ve seen for it so far is an 8/10, but I also saw a YouTube guy raving about it.
Only full review I’ve seen for it so far is an 8/10, but I also saw a YouTube guy raving about it.