Games Completed 2018

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ColinAlonso
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by ColinAlonso »

Spoiler: show
Jan 7 - Bleed (PC)
Jan 19 - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)
Feb 11 - Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)
Feb 28 - Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition (PC)
Mar 8- Final Fantasy III (PSVita - PSP version)
Mar 21 - Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch) Three stars on all 150cc cups.
Mar 24 - Golf Story (Switch)
Apr 2 - Nier: Automata (PS4) Endings A to E ... and K. :lol:
I was getting annoyed at the combat at the start but a combination of the plot ramping up and the combat becoming easier (auto-heal chips, additional pod parts and pods etc. rendering combat on normal difficulty a formality) meant that this game really grew on me and by the end I was quite sad to finish it.

It will be an interesting podcast when (not if ;) ) it happens, hearing the C&R team discuss the game's themes.
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Flabyo
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by Flabyo »

Flabyo wrote: March 12th, 2018, 10:45 pm 7th Jan - Mafia 3 (XBO)
29th Jan - Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun (XBO)
31st Jan - The Room: Old Sins (iOS)
20th Feb - Celeste (XBO)
12th Mar - Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (PS4)
2nd Apr - Prey (2017) (XBO)

I’d seen a bunch of reviews saying this wasn’t all that, but for me it’s a great game very much in the System Shock 2 vein.

There are some clever ideas in here, both in terms of story delivery and mechanics, but I think if you’re not someone who enjoys these so called ‘immersive sims’ this probably isn’t the game to change your mind.
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AndrewBrown
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by AndrewBrown »

Flabyo wrote: April 2nd, 2018, 9:49 pmThere are some clever ideas in here, both in terms of story delivery and mechanics, but I think if you’re not someone who enjoys these so called ‘immersive sims’ this probably isn’t the game to change your mind.
I tried to get someone to explain to me what an immersive sim is once and I was just like, "that's a videogame. You just described a videogame."
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Flabyo
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by Flabyo »

Basically anything that descends from Theif or System Shock. It’s a terrible name for a particular puzzle and mechanics design style.

They’re a subset of the more broad ‘systemic game’ design methodology (which is one where you design systems and the rules those systems have for interacting, and then build up your puzzles from there. Breath of the Wild is a systemic game design, Link to the Past is not)

One that probably doesn’t matter much if the mechanical side of game design isn’t your thing.
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AndrewBrown
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by AndrewBrown »

Flabyo wrote: April 2nd, 2018, 10:16 pm Basically anything that descends from Theif or System Shock. It’s a terrible name for a particular puzzle and mechanics design style.

They’re a subset of the more broad ‘systemic game’ design methodology (which is one where you design systems and the rules those systems have for interacting, and then build up your puzzles from there. Breath of the Wild is a systemic game design, Link to the Past is not)

One that probably doesn’t matter much if the mechanical side of game design isn’t your thing.
That actually makes more sense to me.
AndrewBrown wrote: April 2nd, 2018, 6:17 am 02/01: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past [SNES Classic]
04/01: Oxenfree [Switch]
13/01: Axiom Verge: Multiverse Edition [Switch]
14/01: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim [Switch]
15/01: Super Mario World [SNES Classic]
20/01: BioShock Infinite [360]
23/01: The Fall [PSN]
26/01: Celeste [Switch]
31/01: Super One More Jump [Switch]
05/02: Night in the Woods [Switch]
08/02: Dandara [Switch]
14/02: Dragon Quest Builders [Switch]
20/02: Bayonetta [Switch]
21/02: Puzzle Puppers [Switch]
23/02: Fe [Switch]
24/02: Old Man's Journey [Switch]
26/02: Portal Knights [Switch]
28/02: Bayonetta 2 [Switch]
07/03: Subsurface Circular [Switch]
14/03: Coffin Dodgers [Switch]
15/03: OPUS: The Day We Found Earth [Switch]
18/03: Tesla vs. Lovecraft [Switch]
22/03: Fear Effect Sedna [Switch]
23/03: Destiny 2 [PS4]
31/03: Devious Dungeon [Switch]
31/03: Warp Shift [Switch]
01/04: Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap [Switch]
02/04: Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder Devastated [Switch]

Paper Wars is a point-defense turret game where you try to stop an army advancing from the right side of the screen to the left side of the screen. There are three different campaigns included, and after slogging through the first campaign I was tempted to stop right then and there. It's rigorously unimaginative; missions labor under a delusion of being different by offering different unit types and obstacles they must maneuver around, but in the end you're just bombarding units with a single devastating shot over and over. But I decided to check out the second and third campaigns, and here they offered some much-needed variety: A Winter campaign that limits your ammunition, and a Zombie campaign where only certain types of missiles will kill certain types of enemies. Powerups can also pop up to increase your already more-than-adequate killing ability; accidentally destroying one disables your cannon for a moment, and yes, Paper Wars just loves to spawn one of these powerups underneath a missile right as it lands. I didn't lose any maps while playing through each of the campaigns, but the few times I came close was because my turret was constantly on lockdown from powerups spawning underneath my explosions. Banal, at times frustrating, but with an occasional wink towards a fun strategy/resource management concept.
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ThirdDrawing
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by ThirdDrawing »

Finished Batman the Telltale Game tonight.

Probably the best game of theirs since Wolf Among Us and Tales From the Borderlands.

I'm glad if they're going to do Batman, they decided to do something completely different from the Arkham games.

Looking forward to the sequel coming to the Switch.
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seansthomas
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by seansthomas »

February 4th - DOOM (Switch)
February 7th - Oxenfree (Switch)
February 17th - Steamworld Dig 2 (Switch)
February 25th - The Fall Part 2: Unbound (Switch)
February 28th - Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment (Switch)
March 4th - Subsurface Circular (Switch)
March 28th - Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Switch)

April 4th - Floor kids (Switch)

Delightful little rhythm game where you break dance to hip hop tracks by Kid Koala. Pretty short, sweet and easy. Reckon I beat it in 3 hours but that didn't bother me as I loved every minute and can see myself going back to 5-star the latter levels. Brilliant hand drawn art style too.

The soundtrack is the main draw. Some brilliant tunes and even the menus are musically interactive. Some good Sound of Play material in fact.

On sale right now so if you love hip hop, beats, charming art or games like Parappa the Rapper, it's one worth supporting.
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ThirdDrawing
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by ThirdDrawing »

Also finished GTA V on PS4 tonight. I chose to keep both Michael and Trevor alive. I like that ending.
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MajorGamer
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by MajorGamer »

Spoiler: show
Jan 1 - Neon Chrome (PC)
Jan 2 - Dispersio (PC)
Jan 9 - Numbus (PC)
Jan 11 - Hero Siege (PC)
Jan 14 - Castle of no Escape 2 (PC)
Jan 20 - Toy Odyssey (PC)
Jan 23 - 20XX (PC)
Jan 25 - Battle Chef Brigade (Switch)
Jan 29 - Kamiko (Switch)
Feb 1 - Guild of Dungeoneering (PC)
Feb 3 - KByte (PC)
Feb 7 - Cat Quest (Switch)
Feb 11 - DYE (PC)
Mar 7 - The End is Nigh (Switch)
Mar 10 - Shadow Warrior 2 (PC)
Mar 16 - The Keep (PC)
Mar 17 - The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd (PC)
Mar 18 - Hue (PC)
Mar 22 - Song of the Deep (PC)
Mar 28 - Metro: 2033 Redux (PC)
Apr 2 - Dishonored 2 (PC)

The stealth and stabbings are back from the first and remain solid though there were a few times I seriously question how an enemy saw a body on the other side of a wall. If you enjoyed the first, you'll enjoy this one too.

It does have a bit of a sequel problem, though. The antagonist is the same antagonist that was already dealt with in the DLC of the first game making it seem like they didn't have any other ideas. The high/low chaos is back but you never return to the same areas like in the first game so the effect isn't as pronounced, if noticed at all, for the differences in the blood fly swarms.
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Re: Games Completed 2018

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Alex79uk wrote: March 17th, 2018, 10:29 amJAN - Dear Esther (PS4)
JAN - Lumino City (Android)
MAR - Dark Souls 3 (PS4)
MAR - What Remains Of Edith Finch (PS4)
MAR - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS4) MAR - Infamous: Second Son (PS4)
APR - Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception (PS4)

Finished of my replay of the original trilogy with this last night. On release, I was fairly down on this game and gave it a bit of a panning. On reflection, several years later, I think I was a little unfair. I really enjoyed coming back to Uncharted 3. Sure, it has a few pacing issues and the firey demon section is still ultra annoying, but the story is really strong, and despite a few peaks and troughs the gameplay is just as good as the other games. It helps that this is the only game in the series I've only played through once, so it did feel a little fresher than when I returned to the previous games, but yeah I had a great time with it. It struck me how short it was though. I listened to the C&R episode on it on the way to work this morning and hearing you guys mention it was a fairly long game surprised me - I clocked just under seven hours! Glad I played it again, and looking forward to Lost Legacy now!
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by Bakers_12 »

2/1 Battlefront 2 single player
2/1 Battlefront 2 Resurrection
5/1 inside iOS
26/1 Dishonored 2 Low chaos Emily play though
9/2 The Room : old sins
24/2Wolfenstin 2
March Love you to bits iOS
21/3/18 Rime

5/4 Batman the telltale game Season 2

Follows on from the brilliant season 1 , has a genuinely interesting new take on the joker that was hinted at. Was worried the the inclusion of lots of new characters would make the story suffer like how some of the Batman films have when too many villains spoil the plot, but this is not the case. Look forward to more.
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by ratsoalbion »

06 Jan: Resident Evil: Director's Cut (PAL PS1 on PS3)
09 Feb: Final Fantasy II (GBA)
16 Feb: Resident Evil 2 (NTSC PS1 on PS3)
26 Feb: Yoshi's Woolly World (WU)
09 Mar: BioShock Infinite (PC)
10 Mar: BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode One (PC)
12 Mar: BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode Two (PC)
18 Mar: Shadow Complex Remastered (PC)
19 Mar: Splatoon (WU)
29 Mar: Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (NTSC PS1 on PS3)
06 Apr: Actual Sunlight (Vita)
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Alex79
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Re: Games Completed 2018

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Alex79uk wrote: March 17th, 2018, 10:29 amJAN - Dear Esther (PS4)
JAN - Lumino City (Android)
MAR - Dark Souls 3 (PS4)
MAR - What Remains Of Edith Finch (PS4)
MAR - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS4) MAR - Infamous: Second Son (PS4)
APR - Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception (PS4)
APR - Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (PS4)

It may be a bit of a cheat putting a game prologue on here, but it was a stand alone release, so on it goes!

Honestly, I didn't enjoy this. I didn't think it was a particularly strong MGS mission, and once you'd rescued Paz it seemed pretty impossible to escape without gunning down a load of enemies. I know, of course, that this is completely wrong, and with a bit of practice, patience and knowledge of the map it is perfectly possible to do a flawless run. Despite my not so great experience with this mini game, I'm looking forward to the main course very much!
Todinho

Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by Todinho »

Yeah Ground Zeroes is abit odd because it's essentially the Tanker section of MGS2 but cut from the main game and delivered one year earlier, in someways it kinda feels like a beta because stuff like marking is so much smoother and easier in Phatom Pain and you can use dumpsters to hide which you cant do in GZ,etc.

One thing though even if you dont wanna play more of GZ I highly recommend going to youtube at least find and listen to all the tapes you can find in GZ because alot of them are really important especially the one about Skullface that is vital to understand that character.
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AndrewBrown
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by AndrewBrown »

I liked Ground Zeroes quite a bit better than The Phantom Pain, in hindsight. It had everything that makes The Phantom Pain incredible but none of the Empty Sandbox Syndrome that plagued its "full version."
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by deacon05oc »

Second game of the year completed with Life is Strange: Before the Storm. I loved the first game quite a bit. Yet I didn’t feel as strongly about this one. Although I felt this one didn’t have the technical issues of the first, the story didn’t seem to hit me as much as the first. The angsty teenage drama didn’t bother me in the first and it didn’t here either, but for some reason I just didn’t feel the relationship between Chole and Rachel the same way I did between Max and Chole. I do have the bonus episode Farewell still to play before I close out the stories in Arcadia Bay.
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by MajorGamer »

Spoiler: show
Jan 1 - Neon Chrome (PC)
Jan 2 - Dispersio (PC)
Jan 9 - Numbus (PC)
Jan 11 - Hero Siege (PC)
Jan 14 - Castle of no Escape 2 (PC)
Jan 20 - Toy Odyssey (PC)
Jan 23 - 20XX (PC)
Jan 25 - Battle Chef Brigade (Switch)
Jan 29 - Kamiko (Switch)
Feb 1 - Guild of Dungeoneering (PC)
Feb 3 - KByte (PC)
Feb 7 - Cat Quest (Switch)
Feb 11 - DYE (PC)
Mar 7 - The End is Nigh (Switch)
Mar 10 - Shadow Warrior 2 (PC)
Mar 16 - The Keep (PC)
Mar 17 - The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd (PC)
Mar 18 - Hue (PC)
Mar 22 - Song of the Deep (PC)
Mar 28 - Metro: 2033 Redux (PC)
Apr 4 - Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King (Switch)

This game is very Zelda but without the polish of that series. Puzzles are fairly limited to sokobon, "walk over every tile once", and simon says. Combat gets very enemy spammy. I've read there are a couple rooms that are massive difficulty spikes but I'm honestly not sure which rooms they are supposed to be. Really don't have much more to say about this one. Zelda fan-game is a good summary of it with all the good and bad that implies. At least something like Axiom Verge, being very Metroid, was its own thing.
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by Todinho »

AndrewBrown wrote: April 7th, 2018, 8:50 am I liked Ground Zeroes quite a bit better than The Phantom Pain, in hindsight. It had everything that makes The Phantom Pain incredible but none of the Empty Sandbox Syndrome that plagued its "full version."
That's a statement that I just cant wrap my head around , people complaining about the "empty open world" what did people want? side quests in the desert of afeganistan?Characters to talk to in the middle of the warzone? I dont get it.

MGSV is better then most open world games because it doesnt have any of that clutter, the game is focused on its core of infiltration and that`s what the open world is there for to interconnect all these major infiltration areas and all the missions take advantage of that for example by making you tackle areas from different angles, the open world is just the tissue that connects all these areas but it`s not the point of it, sure you have a few distractions here and there with outposts,resources and animals but the important part of the Open world is to provide you with more tactical oportunities, way more then if the maps were set like in previous games where you had 1 way in and one way out of nearly every area not only that but the level design of the open world to both funnel you into areas and provide you with multiple approaches and exits is kinda of mind blowing, no rock is placed on a whim on phantom pain you might pass and not even notice the terrain while you're roaming the open world but when you're in a mission you realize how important it is and why every piece of terrain was designed like it was, this would be irrelevant in most open world games but it's vital here and the devs nailed it.

So yeah I dont understand what people wanted out of the open world in V I mean get the complaints about Mother Base being empty but regarding the open world I always found this complaint bizarre, and you're far from the only person to have said it but over the years I still dont understand.
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Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by KSubzero1000 »

Spoiler: show
Todinho wrote: April 8th, 2018, 4:33 pm That's a statement that I just cant wrap my head around , people complaining about the "empty open world" what did people want? side quests in the desert of afeganistan?Characters to talk to in the middle of the warzone? I dont get it.

I dont understand what people wanted out of the open world in V I mean get the complaints about Mother Base being empty but regarding the open world I always found this complaint bizarre, and you're far from the only person to have said it but over the years I still dont understand.
My ideal version of TPP would have been based on a dozen of smaller areas that would all have had the same polish, individual visual identity, level design quality and replayability as Camp Omega in Ground Zeroes. Ground Zeroes has side quests and hardly any empty space. I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting that MGSV should have been more like The Witcher 3 with hundreds of NPCs and dialogue-based side quests.

There are a handful of bases in TPP that stand out in terms of quality, but I'll go on record and claim that none of them can hold a candle to Camp Omega, and that's a damn shame considering how long the development cycle was.

If the game didn't benefit from the open world structure (and I would certainly argue it didn't), then it shouldn't have been open world in the first place. Or at least not interpret the concept so literally.

Even to this day, I'm more likely to revisit Ground Zeroes than to want to deal with all the empty space, helicopter travel time and disappointing mission and level design of TPP. That type of condensed and detailed environment and overall structure is what I would have wanted.

Basically, Quality > Quantity. Does this make sense to you? :)
EDIT: Now safely hidden so we can breathe more easily.
Todinho

Re: Games Completed 2018

Post by Todinho »

It would if what you said didnt sound like complete nonsense to me XD sorry, as I already stated the level design in Phantom pain is stellar not only in each individual area but in the open world structure that link each and every area, I dont find any of them to be badly designed and if you go back and look at each individual area( as I have recently) you will see that each of them is distintc in both look and how you have to approach it, in fact looking at the afeganistan map im really impressed by the visual variety they managed to cram into a map, there are desert dunes, rocky mountains, plains with plenty of vegetation and ruins. Are some areas better then others sure, but is every area of previous metal gear games winners?No, and I think MGSV has all of them beat not only in quantity but in quality as well

Camp Omega is a great map for sure one of the best in MGSV, it had to be of course it was cut off from the main game and sold as a stand alone so obviously alot of work would've gone into it but I certainly dont think it`s so above all the others in fact I think there are plenty of areas in phantom pain proper that surpass: The soviet base in afeganistan,OKB 0(probably my favorite area out of all MGS games) Smasei Laman where you have the entire approach through the mountains and then inside the caves,Lufwa valley and of course the trickest area to sneakthrough of them all Mother base.

Also the mission design is pretty great overall are there some poor missions? Sure, but most of them make excelent use of the levels and take full advantage of the open world structure. and it's at this point that you really understand and appreciatte how the open world was designed to accomodate these missions not the other way around, most missions also have a twist like a tailing mission that you dont need to tail any one, freeing a prisoner that freed himself. Not only that but most missions are very dynamic, one might ask you to stop a convoy but you can stop it before it even starts moving, another has prisioners about to be executed that you have run against time to get to, what Im trying to get at is that most missions are living and breathing you can sit around and the wheels of the game will continue to spin and things will change even in the more obvious aspects as night turning into day.

Still not satisfied all missions have tons of side objectives that add extra challenge, make you explore the enviroment and encourage experimentation, speaking of which the game here activelly encourages you to experiment by enemies developing counter measures to your tactics: Hold up enemies too much and they will start reacting when you try, big fan of tranqulizing enemies in the head from afar enemies will start using helmets and then full body armor, they will start deploying mines, using night vision if you infiltrate too much at night,etc. You can stop some of those counter measures for a while but you spend both time and resources to do it, in all the previous metal gear games I pretty much played the same way but phantaom pain made me try out all sort of different approaches and it gives you all the tools and means to do it.

I think may have got way from the main topic we were talking but I could gush about Phantom pain for hours, which is why I get so worked up that so many people dislike it, which is why I still cant understand the complaints about the open world( the chopper stuff sure and the travel time between areas, I mean fine I cant see that as a major problem but ok) overall. It's like you and other people played a different game then I did, because what I played was the best stealth game ever made and I still stand by that.
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