Whatcha Been Playing?

[Scrustle]

Played a bit of Hard Reset: Redux recently. I've been curious about this game since playing the Shadow Warrior reboot games, since this what that studio did before those. Unfortunately I wasn't very impressed with this one. While it does have a somewhat similar feel to the Shadow Warrior games, it feels a lot more primitive and rough to play, and so struggles to be particularly compelling in any way. The environments are pretty drab, all a dull grey industrial cyberpunk look, but without any distinguishing character to it, and the audio design is pretty bland and unexceptional. Voice acting is poor, although that could be somewhat excused by this being from a small non-English language studio. But the story is not well conveyed either, where there's no clear plot or goal at any given time, aside from the very immediate gameplay objective. There's usually little sense of why said objective is worth caring about however.

The gameplay is pretty mediocre too. The shooting lacks impact, and enemy design is uninspired, with some of them having way too much health. Your arsenal is pretty small, although it's not as bad as it first appears. You have only two main weapons, a machine gun and a plasma gun, but each of them has four forms. But there's quite a lot of overlap between them in terms of their role in combat, so they can feel somewhat redundant. You also get a katana later on, which I think was added in to this Redux version since it came out after their first Shadow Warrior game. But the moveset is massively reduced from that game, and also has way less feeling of impact. The game also doesn't feel very good on a controller. The aiming acceleration feels off, very awkward and like it doesn't have a smooth curve to it in a way that feels natural. The aim assist is pretty strong, so it feels very obvious when playing, but also feels like you're fighting against it at times when you're trying to adjust your aim slightly.

I got to a boss fight that I later found out was about a third of the way through the game, against a giant statue that had come to life through nanomachines or something, and that is when I quit. Really tedious fight that I had to repeat a few times, that didn't have many interesting attacks to speak of. That was the point where I decided to give up on the game. So while this game sort of has the fast movement and strafe-heavy gameplay that I appreciate in the Shadow Warrior games, here it isn't done particularly well. As if they had to learn from the mistakes this game made to iron out the problems and refine these systems much more for their later releases. As well as all the stuff outside the core combat mechanics too.

[Sinclair Gregstrum]

I've been playing Snake Pass. I was going to do Death Stranding, but my stress levels have been high so I decided on a cute platformer with a David Wise soundtrack. The music is great. The game is harder than I thought it would be but it's interesting, those snake physics. Plus, even the scary volcano levels are pretty.

I loved Snake Pass! Really intricately designed level structures, and the control and physics of the snake was like nothing I'd ever played before. Deserves to be played by more people, but it can be tricky so maybe not for everyone!

[Sinclair Gregstrum]

I can't stop playing!

I've just finished the...

Spoiler: show

Flashback to Ellie's birthday, going round the natural history museum.

TLOU2 is just such an incredible game. Some of the reaction to it online I just found so bizarre. A lot of people really seemed to take issue with it, calling the game and Naughty Dog all sorts of obscenities to vocalise their hatred for it and how apparently bad it turned out to be.

I can understand people not agreeing with certain narrative choices they made, and the game certainly isn't completely without fault in a number of areas. But it is a shame so many folks couldn't be grown-ups and recognise TLOU2 for the singular and rare example of the medium that it is.

Easy game of the year for me!

[Feirsteax]

Played a bit of Hard Reset: Redux recently. I've been curious about this game since playing the Shadow Warrior reboot games, since this what that studio did before those. Unfortunately I wasn't very impressed with this one. While it does have a somewhat similar feel to the Shadow Warrior games, it feels a lot more primitive and rough to play, and so struggles to be particularly compelling in any way. The environments are pretty drab, all a dull grey industrial cyberpunk look, but without any distinguishing character to it, and the audio design is pretty bland and unexceptional. Voice acting is poor, although that could be somewhat excused by this being from a small non-English language studio. But the story is not well conveyed either, where there's no clear plot or goal at any given time, aside from the very immediate gameplay objective. There's usually little sense of why said objective is worth caring about however.

...

I tried to pick up this game a few times along the years, and this is the exact same experience I had. You definitely stuck with it longer than I ever did, I don't think I ever managed more than a few hours of it.

Quite disappointed because I'd heard lots of good things about it "on paper", but when it got down to it I was left feeling quite underwhelmed!

Interesting that the Shadow Warriors games are much better in your opinion, that's a franchise I've had my eye on but never dipped in to try... Maybe that will change some time soon.

[Marlew]

I can't stop playing!

I've just finished the...

Spoiler: show

Flashback to Ellie's birthday, going round the natural history museum.

I may have shed a tear or two at that bit. I kind of knew what might be coming but the execution was marvellous. Cinematic gaming at its finest, for me.

[ThirdDrawing]

I started Ghost of Tsushima on Thursday with the intention of just getting a feel for it.

12 (maybe 15?) hours later and I can't stop but I have to because of school deadlines. But I am chomping at the bit to get back into it. Love the combat, and there's a visceral thrill from the standoffs.

It's my game of the year from what I've played so far.

[stvnorman]

Finished Secret of Mana on SNES Classic Mini, and that’s about it for the whole week! Apart from a couple of soul-destroying moments near the end where you realise you need really powerful stuff that you haven’t even looked at in the menus yet, let alone levelled up enough, it’s still a great-looking, classic action-RPG. The hours of grinding turned out to be pretty cathartic of an evening too!
 
I have started Resident Evil 4 on GameCube. First time playing the last game in the series I’ve never played! Only a couple of hours in, and much of that was spent trying to tame the creaking controls, but wow! Also dabbled with a couple of dirt cheap PS2 eBay pickups. Out Run 2006 Coast to Coast is just like the game I love on the PSP but on a big screen with a proper controller, and Steel Dragon is a fantastic vertical shooter that I’d never even heard of until last week!

[Alex79uk]

The Last Of Us: Part II - This is a very good game, but my god, it's just so relentlessly bleak and brutal. I've gone to bed with a headache every night. The first game had funny, touching and warm moments, but this is just like leading a young girl from one horrific scenario to another. Everything about the game just oozes top-tier Naughty Dog, who are one of, if not the, world's best cinematic story telling action game developers at this moment, but it's like a non stop nightmare. The downtime is brief and far between, it's a real tour de force.

Story-wise, I've just...

Spoiler: show

Taken out Nora, at the hospital.

The new zombies are horrible, those stalkers give me the creeps, in fact I almost dread each and every encounter with the zombies, or whatever they call them in this game. But not in such a bad way, just I suppose feeling how Ellie would be feeling.

Some of the locations are incredibly atmospheric, too. People might think I'm exaggerating here, but when I'm really engrossed in a game it can activate all my senses. When I was playing Days Gone I could literally smell the zombie dens, I mean literally. I could smell that musty, unchanged rabbit hutch type smell, and when it rained on one occasion I actually felt droplets of water hit my arm. I honestly looked up at the ceiling to check it wasn't leaking. In Uncharted 4, exploring the old mansion I could taste the piles of old newspaper in my mouth, and I'm getting exactly the same in this game. The forest in the rain, the dark, damp hidey holes, the zombie nests, I can smell and taste it all. I know it sounds mad, but it's true.

[Marlew]

I totally get you. It's incredibly thick and physical, the lighting is unbelievable. Looking forward to your updates in due course. A magnificent achievement but very emotionally draining, too!

[Alex79uk]

The Last Of Us: Part II - Well, I guess I must have hit around the halfway point, because...

Spoiler: show

I suddenly appear to be playing the same days again as Abby. Eh, I don't want to be her, let me be Ellie again! OK, I get Naughty Dog want you to empathise with Abby "Oooh who's the bad one really? Eh? Eh? Reframe your thinking!! Etc.", but I got that from the cut scenes replaying the end of the first game from her point of view, I don't need a big long campaign with her.

My fear at the moment is that I basically replay the entire 3 days again as Abby, leading up to the games ending as the stand off between the two girls in the cinema.

Please don't be that predicable, Naughty Dog. You're way better than this.

Fingers crossed!

Booooooo! Hissssssssss!!

[DomsBeard]

The Last Of Us: Part II - Well, I guess I must have hit around the halfway point, because...

Spoiler: show

I suddenly appear to be playing the same days again as Abby. Eh, I don't want to be her, let me be Ellie again! OK, I get Naughty Dog want you to empathise with Abby "Oooh who's the bad one really? Eh? Eh? Reframe your thinking!! Etc.", but I got that from the cut scenes replaying the end of the first game from her point of view, I don't need a big long campaign with her.

My fear at the moment is that I basically replay the entire 3 days again as Abby, leading up to the games ending as the stand off between the two girls in the cinema.

Please don't be that predicable, Naughty Dog. You're way better than this.

Fingers crossed!

Booooooo! Hissssssssss!!

I look forward to you reading my spoilered bits in the thread Alex

[Marlew]

Go with it, Alex. This is where it moves up a gear.

[DomsBeard]

I started Ghost of Tsushima on Thursday with the intention of just getting a feel for it.

12 (maybe 15?) hours later and I can't stop but I have to because of school deadlines. But I am chomping at the bit to get back into it. Love the combat, and there's a visceral thrill from the standoffs.

It's my game of the year from what I've played so far.

I'm still on with Ghost Of Tsushima and not since Skyrim have I felt the need to do every side quest and do all the other little bits here and there. Story-wise

Spoiler: show

Taka has just been killed

which really got to me.

I must've done over 100 stand offs and still love them every time.

Would've been on course for my GOTY if not for FFVII remake. Interested to see how it ends.

With Christmas coming up I have dusted off Animal Crossing as I want to set up a winter wonderland. Was funny to get either shouted at or told they want to leave by all the islanders YOU'VE NOT BEEN HERE FOR THREE MONTHS.

[Hawksley Workman]

That is WoW at the moment it was the 1st game with serious graphics I had ever played in my life thus it made an indelible impression on me then even now after years of almost daily playing I can ask pro gamers to help when I lack some skills. As a rule, when it comes to dungeons I get everything I need here as I have never seen lower prices on the whole market.

[shadowless_kick]

reading the initial impressions of players new to Tetris Effect via Connected/GamePass on another forum has inspired me to fire it up again after a while. I've since learned that The Zone isn't only to be used as a desperation tactic—it's actually a powerful scoring tool. before, I would just save it for when things got sticky in the ramped-up sections. using it more liberally has resulted in my first 'A' scores ever. feeling silly for never realizing that before :facepalm:

[duskvstweak]

I've been playing Snake Pass. I was going to do Death Stranding, but my stress levels have been high so I decided on a cute platformer with a David Wise soundtrack. The music is great. The game is harder than I thought it would be but it's interesting, those snake physics. Plus, even the scary volcano levels are pretty.

I loved Snake Pass! Really intricately designed level structures, and the control and physics of the snake was like nothing I'd ever played before. Deserves to be played by more people, but it can be tricky so maybe not for everyone!

I'm on the last wind-based levels. Just what I needed to lower my stress in that game...wind.
Seriously, the game's cuteness belies the great rage inducing platforming that is waiting. I enjoy it, but wouldn't have imagined the amount of sweat on my hands and frantic heartbeats this game would cause.

[Feirsteax]

After finishing DOOM Eternal I decided to blast through Quantum Break as it happened to be free on Gamepass and I was up for a more relaxed narrative experience, after the full throttle action of DOOM.

Finished it in a bit under 10 hours and got a fair amount of the collectibles. It was quite good! It felt a bit like a playable series of Fringe, pretty cheesy but good fun nonetheless.

The playable chapter / live-action interludes structure was quite novel as was the fact that you could manipulate certain aspects of the TV show part by choosing different actions in-game. It was kind of cool but I did feel as if the narrative was still very much on-rails, it just had a few different flavours.

Timebending combat abilities were surprisingly good fun actually and made the combat sections fairly exciting, but I did play the whole thing on easy mode because I didn't want to let any gameplay difficulties impede the momentum of the narrative. Unfortunately though, that's exactly what happened on the very last mission, which inexplicably has a frigging multi-stage BOSS BATTLE! It was not fun, in fact I hated it quite a lot, and when I beat it (after many frustrating, confused deaths and barely any hints from the game as to what I was doing wrong) I felt it had really soured the conclusion to the story.

Up until that point I'd fairly enjoyed working my way through the game, it really felt like a half-game half-TV-show sci-fi romp, and that was pretty much all I wanted out of it, so well done Remedy.

It has kind of got me interested in playing Alan Wake now, though. It's also free on Gamepass, so I might just grab it and see. A friend of mine did warn me that it really dragged on for him, though, and that's not really what I want to hear...

[duskvstweak]

It has kind of got me interested in playing Alan Wake now, though. It's also free on Gamepass, so I might just grab it and see. A friend of mine did warn me that it really dragged on for him, though, and that's not really what I want to hear...

Well, I loved Alan Wake. It became a favorite of mine a few years ago. It's very unique and probably a bit rough around the edges, but I loved the setting and atmosphere and thought it was very cool. I wouldn't mind more games like it. The game is separated into paced chapters, so don't feel like you have to rush through it, even though it's not too long. Anyway, you know how to play video games, you don't need my advice.

[Feirsteax]

That's good to know though, I'm a massive fan of Kentucky Route Zero which was also split into multiple acts and was dripping with atmosphere so I'm sure I'll find something to enjoy in Alan Wake. Thanks!

[Angry_Kurt]

I was also a big fan of Alan Wake and didn't feel as though it dragged. It is a bit clunky but the atmosphere is great and had some nice set pieces.

I have started playing Tetris Effect through Game Pass and really love it. I can see the Mizuguchi influence as it reminds me a LOT of Child of Eden which the only other game of his I have played. I am finding it pretty tough even on normal difficulty but I think that's because I have hardly played much Tetris ever, but I am enjoying the puzzle element too.