Games Completed 2014

[Todinho]

Ni Nu Kuni:Wrath of the White Witch(ps3)- I guess I could sum up my 35 hours with Ni Nu Kuni in the following manner:
1-5 hours-Wow things looks just like a Ghibli film this is so cool,the character designs are cool,we have familiar Ghibli archetypes adn the music is so good!
5-18 hours-this is getting really boring,I dont understand this pseudo-pokemon and when are we gonna stop introducing gameplay mechanics!?
18-30-Wow this is great I can explore the world freely now, we have all this new different places to go and some cool characters on screen,I finnaly got a handle on the combat and it's actually during challenging fights cant wait to play more.
30-35-Guys you're trying too hard and this game should have ended at least 2 hours ago c'mon,oh that was the final boss ok we saved the world I guess.

A bit of mixed bag I liked it fine but I probably wouldnt play it again,it tries to capture many of the things that make a Ghibli film special but the story and gameplay just work against it most of the time,so of the times it can be great and you cant help but smile but at others it's a slog.

[PressEscToExit]

Ni Nu Kuni:Wrath of the White Witch(ps3)- I guess I could sum up my 35 hours with Ni Nu Kuni in the following manner:
1-5 hours-Wow things looks just like a Ghibli film this is so cool,the character designs are cool,we have familiar Ghibli archetypes adn the music is so good!
5-18 hours-this is getting really boring,I dont understand this pseudo-pokemon and when are we gonna stop introducing gameplay mechanics!?
18-30-Wow this is great I can explore the world freely now, we have all this new different places to go and some cool characters on screen,I finnaly got a handle on the combat and it's actually during challenging fights cant wait to play more.
30-35-Guys you're trying too hard and this game should have ended at least 2 hours ago c'mon,oh that was the final boss ok we saved the world I guess.

A bit of mixed bag I liked it fine but I probably wouldnt play it again,it tries to capture many of the things that make a Ghibli film special but the story and gameplay just work against it most of the time,so of the times it can be great and you cant help but smile but at others it's a slog.

That's roughly how I felt about it. The Ghibli magic is only there in fits and starts, and while the rest of the game is as well put together and lovingly crafted as you'd expect from Level 5, it doesn't come anywhere close to matching their best. It's a well-above average JRPG though, which we don't see all that often anymore. I really hope there's more to come from that partnership, they're a great fit for each other even if the two elements didn't quite gel perfectly first time around.

[Dante Fireseed]

January 12: Metal Gear Rising Revengeance (Normal) (PS3)
January 15: Gunpoint (PC)
January 18: Metal Gear Rising Revengeance (Hard) (PS3)
January 25: Guacamelee (PS3)
February 4: Need for Speed Rivals (PS4) (Cop Career)
February 8: Need for Speed Rivals (PS4) (Racer Career)

[DomsBeard]

The Wolf Among Us Episode 2. Cliffhangerlicious.

[Todinho]

That's roughly how I felt about it. The Ghibli magic is only there in fits and starts, and while the rest of the game is as well put together and lovingly crafted as you'd expect from Level 5, it doesn't come anywhere close to matching their best. It's a well-above average JRPG though, which we don't see all that often anymore. I really hope there's more to come from that partnership, they're a great fit for each other even if the two elements didn't quite gel perfectly first time around.

Yeah it would be great if studio Ghibli did more work in videogames one of the reasons Ni nu Kuni didnt quite work for me is how big and epic the story tries to be while married to the Ghibli style if you think about it all Ghibli films are small stories about characters and not great tales that involve saving the world even stuff like Princess Mononoke and Nausica that kinda of go that way feel pretty contained.

[DomsBeard]

Far Cry 3, Blood Dragon.

Absolutely loved it. As a fan of cliché ridden 80's action movies it had me grinning like an idiot from start to finish. Going to get Far Cry 3 now.

[arry_g]

02/01 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
06/01 - Final Fantasy XIII-2
07/01 - Super Mario 3D Land
08/02 - Persona 3: Portable
09/02 - Final Fantasy XIII-2: Requiem of the Goddess (DLC)

[Pitwar]

10th Jan - Call Of Duty Ghosts (PS4)
2nd Feb - Assassins Creed 4 Black Flag (PS4)
3rd Feb - Killzone Shadow Fall (PS4)
7th Feb - Tomb Raider Definitive Edition (PS4)
8th Feb - Battlefield 4 (PS4)
9th Feb - Resogun (PS4)

Another weekend with very little to do meant me sitting down and playing some games.

The first game I finished was the definitive edition of Tomb Raider on the PS4. I'd played this last year on the PS3 and loved every minute so thought I'd play through it again on the PS4. Enjoyed it just as much and although the visuals were improved it wasn't staggering due to how great the last gen version looked. Really excited for a true next gen Tomb Raider game.

After several attempts to finish Battlefield 4 failing due to me constantly losing my save file I decided to get through the game in one sitting. By no means an exciting or genre pushing experience but it looked lovely from start to finish. Obviously you don't buy Batters for the single player experience but it's good to know I've finally done that part of the game.

Lastly I gave a lot of time to Resogun and played through all the levels on the rookie difficulty. Now trying it on the harder settings but I'm not quite good enough yet, practice makes perfect however.

[Dante Fireseed]

January 12: Metal Gear Rising Revengeance (Normal) (PS3)
January 15: Gunpoint (PC)
January 18: Metal Gear Rising Revengeance (Hard) (PS3)
January 25: Guacamelee (PS3)
February 4: Need for Speed Rivals (PS4) (Cop Career)
February 8: Need for Speed Rivals (PS4) (Racer Career)
Fabruary 9: Resogun (PS4)

[Bakers_12]

6/1 The Walking Dead S2 Ep1
8/1 Child of Eden
20/1 Lego : Marvel Superheros
10/2 Zelda:LBW

A top slice of neo-retro Zelda cake only down side was it finished too soon for me!

[ratsoalbion]

04 Feb: Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS)
10 Feb: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Ultimate Edition (PC)

[Todinho]

Demon's Souls(PS3)-

After 4 years,5 separate rage quits and who knows how many deaths I've finnaly beaten Demons souls.I blitzed through most of the game yesterday and finnaly finnished now,my ol' nemesis valley of defilement was the thoughest part to get through especially after dying twice just before unlocking a shorcut in that god forsaken swamp but I managed,I gotta say even though I already knew what the Astrea fight was it kinda of affected me a little,the music there is just perfect and it's probably the best in the whole game.Other than that it was smooth sailing all the way through Maneater gave me some problems but that was expected other than that even the Penetrator that had given me so much trouble before was easy,I didnt fight the dragon since I figured you needed to have arrows and I had like 5 so i went straight for Allant and even though I knew very little about him I was able to do it in my first try,he got me once with that souls level drain attack though, and that was that.The weird thing though is that im just kinda of sad now XD this is probably a game I wont go back to especially with DS2 coming out and it's a real shame.

I think this apropriate the occasion:

[dezm0nd]

Spoiler: show

Jan 1: God of War Ascension - £6.30.
Jan 3: Uncharted Golden Abyss - £0.00*
Jan 7: The Room & Epilogue - £1.49
Jan 7: Bioshock Infinite: BaS Ep1. - £0.00**
Jan 8: To The Moon - 0.63p from Humble Bundle X
Jan 9: Alan Wake American Nightmare - £0.00**
Jan 11: Influx - Free**
Jan 15: Broken Age Act 1 - £0.00**
Jan 15: Nidhogg - £8
Jan 16: Estranged: Act 1 - Free
Jan 19: Max Payne 3 (Hard) - £0.00**
Jan 21: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Jan 22: Parappa the Rapper 2 - £0.00**
Jan 23: OlliOlli (Amateur levels) - £5.38
Jan 28: Super Mario 64 (70 stars) - £0.00**

Total in January: £21.80

Feb 2: Batman: Arkham Origins - £6.88
Feb 3: Super Mario 64 (remaining 50 stars)
Feb 7: Super Mario Sunshine (51 shines)
Feb 10: The Wolf Among Us Episode 2- £0.00**

* - PS Plus "Free"
** - Already paid for before 2014.

All prices listed are monies spent in 2014.

Finished the latest Wolf Among Us episode! Pretty short this one but it doesn't stop being one of the most exciting point and click style games around for me. Both story and aesthetic have me completely pulled in. NEXT EPISODE PLZ!

[arry_g]

02/01 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
06/01 - Final Fantasy XIII-2
07/01 - Super Mario 3D Land
08/02 - Persona 3: Portable
09/02 - Final Fantasy XIII-2: Requiem of the Goddess (DLC)
10/02 - The Wolf Among Us - Episode 1: Faith

As a fan of Fables, the ending to the first episode of TWAU has my head buzzing with questions and theories. I'm keen to play the second episode but feel I should pace it a bit more considering the length between the first and second.

[Roy42]

01/01 - Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
01/01 - Super Monkey Ball (Easy Levels)
01/01 - Super Monkey Ball (Advanced Levels)
02/01 - TRAUMA
03/01 - Machinarium
06/01 - Uplink
17/01 - Lyne
21/01 - Botanicula
23/01 - Cave Story+
28/01 - Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit
31/01 - Gunpoint
01/02 - Blocks That Matter
02/02 - Broken Age Act 1
11/02 - Analogue: A Hate Story

I wanted to not really enjoy myself with Analogue when I saw the presentation. One of the reasons that Digital was so amazing, to me, was that it wasn't a visual novel in the traditional sense. There were no anime girls with five expressions that you had to choose from a preset list of responses to either make them fall in love with you or not, there were no multiple endings, and from all of that, plus the consistent interface of a computer in the 80s running a DOS, the romance that you actually enter into with the love interest of the game is made infinitely more real. Seeing all of the things about visual novels that make them feel so stilted employed in full force here made me want to not find it good on principle.

And yet the story of the Kim family and the story of the Smith family, the amazing depth that each character you can only read about post-mortem has, every single log engrossed me in this dystopian future, and every individual character's troubles emotionally resonated with me in a way I wasn't expecting; and the revelation of the Pale Bride…it left my blood boiling and me feeling sick in the stomach.

Despite how good the story ended up being, I still don't think it's as good of a game or as good of a story as Digital, and it slightly bums me out that Analogue is the one that seemed to get really popular. Again, the visual novel tropes just feel out of place; you're given the choice of two girls to romance, which immediately makes neither feel real whatsoever, offering me the choice of what to say and then limiting it to a binary choice that they have created, especially when I want to say both of the options presented, makes the dialogue between me and the anime girls feel really stilted, and not like anything that a romance would blossom from, as does the inability to actually have a conversation with them unless you've got a log shoved in their face, having multiple endings cheapens the impact of all of them and the story as a whole, and the less said about the ability to change the outfits of one of the anime girls the better.

Everything that happened before the game starts, the events involving the Smith family and the Kim family, that's all fantastic. It's the visual novel wrapper around them that feels really forced and makes it hard to tell what the focus of the game is supposed to be. It's "A Hate Story" that tries to constantly force love on you. I would have preferred just the history lesson on dynasties.

[dezm0nd]

Spoiler: show

Jan 1: God of War Ascension - £6.30.
Jan 3: Uncharted Golden Abyss - £0.00*
Jan 7: The Room & Epilogue - £1.49
Jan 7: Bioshock Infinite: BaS Ep1. - £0.00**
Jan 8: To The Moon - 0.63p from Humble Bundle X
Jan 9: Alan Wake American Nightmare - £0.00**
Jan 11: Influx - Free**
Jan 15: Broken Age Act 1 - £0.00**
Jan 15: Nidhogg - £8
Jan 16: Estranged: Act 1 - Free
Jan 19: Max Payne 3 (Hard) - £0.00**
Jan 21: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Jan 22: Parappa the Rapper 2 - £0.00**
Jan 23: OlliOlli (Amateur levels) - £5.38
Jan 28: Super Mario 64 (70 stars) - £0.00**

Total in January: £21.80

Feb 2: Batman: Arkham Origins - £6.88
Feb 3: Super Mario 64 (remaining 50 stars)
Feb 7: Super Mario Sunshine (51 shines)
Feb 10: The Wolf Among Us Episode 2- £0.00**
Feb 12: Spelunky, Ironman, Olmec. - £0.00
* - PS Plus "Free"
** - Already paid for before 2014.

All prices listed are monies spent in 2014.

Finished Spelunky for the third time ever despite putting in about 50 hours (25 on both PC and Xbox) and it's still such a satisfying if also infuriating game.

I'm trying to get to Yamma but that really ain't happening anytime soon.

[Bakers_12]

6/1 The Walking Dead S2 Ep1
8/1 Child of Eden
20/1 Lego : Marvel Superheros
10/2 Zelda:LBW
12/2 Tomb Raider 2013

[Combine Hunter]

Jan 26: Super Mario World (Wii U)
Jan 29: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (emu)
Feb 07: Ratchet & Clank: Nexus (PS3)

Feb 13: Super Mario 3D World (Wii U)

I'm sure there is a lot more content to go through, but I've completed the main campaign and will come back to that stuff later. Loved this game, but I think I slightly prefer Super Mario 3D Land.

[Electric Crocosaurus]

Spoiler: show

03/01 - The Last of Us
13/02 - Brothers

Just put my thoughts up on Brothers in the dedicated thread, but in short it's fantastic. Still chugging through Ni No Kuni, but needed a break so a few hours of indie magic were just the ticket.

[arry_g]

02/01 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
06/01 - Final Fantasy XIII-2
07/01 - Super Mario 3D Land
08/02 - Persona 3: Portable
09/02 - Final Fantasy XIII-2: Requiem of the Goddess (DLC)
10/02 - The Wolf Among Us - Episode 1: Faith
11/02 - Telltale's The Walking Dead: All That Remains
12/02 - The Wolf Among Us - Episode 2: Smoke and Mirrors