Games Completed 2020

[Scrustle]

With 5, I feel like I'm having the stuff I'd usually ignore forced upon me. I got a little way into the Saejima chapter in the snow and I just can't bring myself to go back to it. The game feels incredibly bloated to me, it could seriously have done with a heavy edit!

A real shame as I've loved my time with Yakuza since the PS2 era, playing one every few years or so. I had a similar experience with Judgement last year too, I guess maybe the more modern entries just aren't for me.

5 is very bloated, but I do like most of the side stuff that game provides, which is actually unusual for me. I also don't tend to find most of the side content of these games very compelling, outside of the sidestories. The only times when I found much more than that interesting was in 5 and 0. I can see why Saejima's part is a drag though. Starting off with that extended prison sequence, then getting forced in to the hunting thing. If it's any consolation, you don't have to go all the way through with that sequence. At a certain point they do let you just move on if you want. I rather enjoyed that bit myself though. The bit I didn't like was Haruka's sequence. So much that I actually quit the game for a few months before picking it back up again. By the end of it I was really glad I came back though. It has some of the highest moments of the series, especially near the end. So I would say it's worth sticking it through the tough bits, but don't be afraid to give it a rest for a bit if it feels like it's getting too much.

Judgment is a bit of an odd one too. It starts off poorly. It tries to push a lot of those detective minigames on you to make you think it's a different game, but it's not. After the first few chapters that stuff all but disappears, and the story starts picking up much more. So it's another one I'd say is worth sticking with. I'd also suggest actually going for the English dub. Personally I found the protagonist to be pretty dull in the Japanese dub, but then when I switched over out of curiosity, he suddenly became way more entertaining.

[OldBailey]

Good to know. I'm sure I'll go back to 5 at some point, mainly because my terrible brain won't let me play zero until I've completed it!

My problems with Judgement were more or less as you've described above. It felt to me like a budget Yakuza, without the heart. The detective minigames were all rubbish and the story was plodding, without the Yakuza series' trademark flamboyance. I wasn't keen on Yagami's fighting style either, which felt very over animated.

Not too bothered about going back to it but interesting that you recommend the dub. If I ever get the urge I'll give it a go

[rob25X]

Just finished about 40 hours with Project Cars 2 (XB1 version currently on GwG).

Overall I was very impressed with it. I didn't think it would be up there with the likes of Forza and Gran Turismo but for me it really was a high quality racing game with a lot of depth. The game is hugely customizable with a massive number of tracks, weather settings, event types, and more. Although the game remains very fixed on simulation even after tweaking settings as much as possible it can still be enjoyed by less hardcore racers.

Overall a great game for me, I enjoyed it a lot and can't to check out the first game now. 8/10.

[Hunter30]

April - Fallout 1 (PC)

It's taken me until 15 April to complete my first game of the year. 15 April. This is what the introduction of a baby (she arrived in December) to the household does, although admittedly it has its upsides too.

I've never played any of the Fallout games and am planning to go through the whole series, so went back and started with the first. Story - good. Gameplay - meh. UI (especially the inventory system) - bleurgh. Can see why this would have been held in such high regard 23 years ago though.

Still eager to play the second, but will take a breather from the post-apocalyptic wasteland and play a couple of different games before then. So I might get round to it some time next year...

[DomsBeard]

Resident Evil 3 Remake Xbox One x

A frustrating mess of a game. I had to restart my hardcore playthrough after 7 hours after running out of ammo and being left in a dead end situation literally 3 rooms from the final boss. It was

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The room with the two hunters you get locked in with on your way back with the vaccine base

Even after rolling back a save or two it was pretty obvious I could not proceed so I restarted on assisted and finished in just under 3 hours.

I'll get the good stuff out of the way. Soundtrack is good as well as the sound design. Graphically great too. It also has two of my favourite sections in any Resident Evil game

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Hospital with Carlos and the Underground Facilty

, the former nearly ruined by an awful horde section. But those two sections are so old school haunted house resident evil

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and a great throwback to the hunter into from the original

. I also liked the new Claire and Carlos.

I started on Hardcore as I thought that Nemesis would be akin to the Alien in Alien Isolation otherwise I would have picked normal as per. I could not have been more wrong.

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Apart from one section early on every meeting with him is scripted and I feel like he was more reigned in than Mr X was in 2. After the train he basically turns into a b tier Gears Of War boss at every point. Having him run around like a dog for no reason in two boss fights seemed stupid. He did not feel like a constant threat at any point and that was supposed to be the whole point of him. The final boss fight was ok though.

Also a major annoyance was when the game basically pardon the phrase just sh*thouses you for no reason by adding enemies that should not be there to make it more difficult for you. There are three or four points where

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The creatures created by nemesis with the head crabs on exist even though he has not been anywhere near that area

one example is

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When you have the 3 fuses the 3 normal bodies that you have seen laid there for ages suddenly wake up with the head crabs on?. If Nemesis could access that room to infect them then surely he would be in the room chasing Claire at that point. Also same section one hunter turns up but I guess that could've been Nikolia letting him out

.

My overall feeling is that they made some kind of Resident Evil Speed Run game to stop people selling it on after completing it. I'm not one for speed running. I wish they would've gone for Code Veronica first over this. Also final moan that it is a crime that

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Nemesis didn't get the chance to storm around RPD

.

So yeah one of my favourite games of all time remade and leaving me a little deflated sure hope that doesn't happen again any time soon.

Right back to Final Fantasy VII remake it is.....

[duskvstweak]

I beat Super Meat Boy's Light World last night. I don't know if it's clear in the pic, but I think you can tell I'm right handed.

[Scrustle]

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03/01 - Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005)
08/01 - Need for Speed: Carbon
12/01 - Devil May Cry (Normal)
15/01 - Devil May Cry 2 (Normal/Dante)
26/01 - Monster Hunter World: Iceborne
08/02 - Dishonored
18/02 - Deus Ex: The Fall
23/02 - Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition (Normal/Dante/Free Style)
26/02 - Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition (Normal/Vergil)
28/02 - Horizon Chase Turbo
28/02 - EQQO
02/03 - Yakuza 3 Remastered
03/03 - Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition (Hard/Dante/Free Style)
10/03 - Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition (Very Hard/Dante/Free Style)
13/03 - Mirror's Edge Catalyst
19/03 - A Short Hike
01/04 - Doom Eternal
02/04 - Lucah: Born of a Dream (NG+, Bad Ending)
14/04 - Yakuza 4 Remastered

17/04 - Fable Anniversary

The original version is an old favourite of mine, so I was glad to find that this still holds up pretty well after all the years. I really like the tone the game goes for, with its sort of dark fairy tale feel. It's got just the right balance of seriousness and silliness to give each of them weight by contrasting it against the other. I like how approachable it is too, but again knowing where the sweet spot is. The combat is fun with a nice sense of chunkiness to it, even if it's pretty basic. It is a bit stiff, yet still responsive. I never felt like I was struggling to get the game to do what I wanted it to. The range of magical abilities is still very impressive, although they are pretty overpowered. But I like that it encourages you to use it because of that. The story is fine, but there isn't much going on in it. Again it's clearly meant to be approachable and archetypal, a simple story of good vs. evil. A fable, one might call it. But the voice acting is good enough to keep it charming enough to see through, as well as seeing where it will take you through the sights of this magical world. Soundtrack is brilliant as well, especially when it comes to the more peaceful themes that are full of character.

As for this particular remake version, I'm in two minds about it. It doesn't really feel like a particularly well polished production. Even playing the PC version that smooths out the frame rate and at least improves on other technical shortcomings that the 360 version had, there's still a lot to pick holes in. Both on a tech side and art side. Shadows are still kind of ugly, texture pop-in can be pretty obvious at times, faces look awful, and the game has generally a darker and less vibrant look than the original. Yet at the same time, I can't deny that the added amount of detail in general isn't an improvement in some areas. Some of the lush forested zones do look genuinely impressive, and arguably an improvement on the original. But it isn't anywhere close to universal. A lot of areas look like they could still be from the original, yet lacking the same level of character. But I do appreciate some of the added effects like the god rays. Most of the time it does the job well enough to recreate the same kind of atmosphere as the original. But it does feel noticeably drab at times, and for a game that's supposedly a generation more advanced, it doesn't really look like it. It's an odd comparison between one of the best looking original Xbox games ever, to a middling looking 360 game that has its moments.

[Suits]

I beat Super Meat Boy's Light World last night. I don't know if it's clear in the pic, but I think you can tell I'm right handed.

I'm more impressed at how you managed to take a photo of both of your thumbs !!

[OldBailey]

It's an odd comparison between one of the best looking original Xbox games ever, to a middling looking 360 game that has its moments.

Interesting you should say that. I remember fable looking beautiful on the og Xbox too! When I went back to it myself relatively recently, in comparison with other titles on the system it's actually pretty rough.
The art style is charming but technically it's a bit of a mess and the overabundance of bloom lighting is eye scorchingly bad.

Other Xbox games with a sort of stylised fantasy aesthetic, Panzer Dragoon, Jade Empire, Stranger's Wrath, Beyond Good and Evil, Otogi, Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy to name just a few all hold up much better and still look amazing.

The game is still fun and fairly unique thankfully but it's almost off-puttingly ugly, to my eyes at least. They definitely had their work cut out with Anniversary.

[Scrustle]

Interesting you should say that. I remember fable looking beautiful on the og Xbox too! When I went back to it myself relatively recently, in comparison with other titles on the system it's actually pretty rough.
The art style is charming but technically it's a bit of a mess and the overabundance of bloom lighting is eye scorchingly bad.

Other Xbox games with a sort of stylised fantasy aesthetic, Panzer Dragoon, Jade Empire, Stranger's Wrath, Beyond Good and Evil, Otogi, Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy to name just a few all hold up much better and still look amazing.

As I was playing and thinking about how it compared to the original, I did spent some time looking through a bunch of screenshots, to make sure I was being fair and not just looking through nostalgia goggles. And it definitely looks as good as I remember from that. I unfortunately don't own the original on PC, and my 360 refuses to play my Xbox version as well, so I can't compare that way. But since you brought it up, I just now went looking at screenshots again, and had a quick scan of a Let's Play, and yeah, still looks pretty great to me. I don't remember the bloom ever being a problem before, and from what I'm seeing now it doesn't seem like a noticeable issue in the vast majority of cases either. Something I might not even have thought about if I wasn't looking for it.

Interesting you bring up those other games though. Particularly Jade Empire. That's another I do remember liking the look of originally, but was a bit disappointed when I went back to. It still generally a good looking game, but I found it was pretty inconsistent. Some areas look great, while others are very bland, full of blocky and angular geometry and not much else. And maybe this is a bit controversial, but I've always thought Beyond Good and Evil looked sort of bad. I didn't play it when it originally came out, but the first time I did was pretty long ago. I've got it on PS2, 360, and PC and all of them have always been somewhat unimpressive to me. I guess I can appreciate the art style it's going for, but it always seemed like it just didn't have detail to get across what it was going for. Almost like it was a game that came out early in the console generation that wasn't yet able to tap in to the power of the platform, despite it actually coming out later.

[OldBailey]

As with all things it could purely be down to personal preference of course. Bit I STILL think you'd be surprised how rough this game looks in motion on an original Xbox. Even hooked up to a CRT as I have it, that usually helps to mask visual flaws, I think it still looks bad.
Side by side with any one of those other titles and it's noticeably inferior, if nothing else in terms of pure image quality and level of detail.
Completely unimportant though so feel free to ignore my ramblings. I just found it interesting that the fable in my mind (visually) was not at all what I found when I went back to it, even as someone who mainly plays older games.

[Simonsloth]

I beat Super Meat Boy's Light World last night. I don't know if it's clear in the pic, but I think you can tell I'm right handed.

I'm more impressed at how you managed to take a photo of both of your thumbs !!

Haha I was thinking the same thing!!

[Flabyo]

One thing you might not be aware of with Fable Anniversary was that Lionhead didn’t do much of the work on it, it was mostly outsourced, especially on the art remastering.

I think the only in house engineering work was adding the achievements to it.

We were all making Fable the Journey and Fable Legends at the time.

[OldBailey]

One thing you might not be aware of with Fable Anniversary was that Lionhead didn’t do much of the work on it, it was mostly outsourced, especially on the art remastering.

I think the only in house engineering work was adding the achievements to it.

We were all making Fable the Journey and Fable Legends at the time.

That's interesting. I've not played it but looking at footage, it seems to have lost the soft, hazy post processing of the original which was key to the dreamlike, fairy tale atmosphere. Something I do like about the look of the original release.

[Scrustle]

One thing you might not be aware of with Fable Anniversary was that Lionhead didn’t do much of the work on it, it was mostly outsourced, especially on the art remastering.

I think the only in house engineering work was adding the achievements to it.

We were all making Fable the Journey and Fable Legends at the time.

Interesting. I was wondering if something like that was going on. Although I was thinking maybe Anniversary was used as a trial run getting used to Unreal Engine before using it for the potential next big thing.

[Michiel K]

17-4 Gradius (NES)

It only took me, what, 30 years of on and off play to finally get this done without cheats. Also, after watching it back I can confirm it was a no death clear!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/594948798

[OldBailey]

17-4 Gradius (NES)

It only took me, what, 30 years of on and off play to finally get this done without cheats. Also, after watching it back I can confirm it was a no death clear!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/594948798

Congrats man! Sorry I missed it. I've gone back to Gradius 3 a little this week (3&4 collection on PS2) and it still kicks my arse. I'll watch the vid for some inspiration!

[Michiel K]

Thanks!

Don't drive yourself mad trying to clear Gradius III, by the way. The arcade version is famously unbalanced.

[Cass]

18/04/20 - Bioshock 1

I forgot how deeply silly the end sequence of this game is.

Otherwise this experience totally holds up. I've also recently replayed Infinite, and this game makes Infinite look like the unauthorised fan fiction sequel that knew it loved the original but didn't understand why. Rapture is gorgeous and demented and just fundamentally makes sense in a way that Columbia never did.

[OldBailey]

Thanks!

Don't drive yourself mad trying to clear Gradius III, by the way. The arcade version is famously unbalanced.

Oh it's absolutely nuts...but I like it. Never played the SNES version but I do come back to this one every now and again before inevitably losing the will to continue! The stage select does take the sting out of it somewhat though.