Games Completed 2022

[Alex79]

I'd love it if this game found a way to escape it's PS3 shackles. Would be nice to be able to play the whole series* on current gen (even as straight up ports).

*I know MGS1 isn't on current gen, but I can play that on Vita easy enough.

[Simonsloth]

MGS4 is on PS Now so it is possible to play on PC and PS4/5 that way.

[Alex79]

JAN - Universal Paperclips (Android)
JAN - Halo 5: Guardians (Xbox)
JAN - Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons (Switch)
JAN - Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (Xbox)
JAN - Forza Horizon 5 (Xbox)
JAN - Halo Infinite (Xbox)

JAN - Hitman (Xbox)

Well it's taken me the best part of five years, but I finally got the hang of Hitman and finished it! I've tried a few times since release, bought and played the first two stages on PS4 when they were released and tried again when the full game was given away on PS+ ages back, but always felt like I was missing something.

Determined to give it a proper shake this time I sought some advice and actually followed the story opportunities in the levels, and had much more fun than wandering aimlessly, trying to find my own way through. Played each stage like that then went back in to some of them to mess around a bit. I feel like I wish I'd been really in to it as it released episodically, because although the option is there if I want it now, I know I won't spend countless hours combing each level for every detail, but I enjoyed this game playing it now, regardless.

Intending to play the trilogy, might even jump straight in to 2 next.

Oh...and I liked the Colorado level.

[Indiana747]

(Jan) Terminator Resistance(platinum) - PS5.
(Jan) Call of Duty: Cold War - Series X.
(Jan) Dishonored 2 - PS5.
(Jan) Aliens: Fireteam Elite - Series X.

[Rhaegyr]

JAN - Universal Paperclips (Android)
JAN - Halo 5: Guardians (Xbox)
JAN - Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons (Switch)
JAN - Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (Xbox)
JAN - Forza Horizon 5 (Xbox)
JAN - Halo Infinite (Xbox)

JAN - Hitman (Xbox)

Well it's taken me the best part of five years, but I finally got the hang of Hitman and finished it! I've tried a few times since release, bought and played the first two stages on PS4 when they were released and tried again when the full game was given away on PS+ ages back, but always felt like I was missing something.

Determined to give it a proper shake this time I sought some advice and actually followed the story opportunities in the levels, and had much more fun than wandering aimlessly, trying to find my own way through. Played each stage like that then went back in to some of them to mess around a bit. I feel like I wish I'd been really in to it as it released episodically, because although the option is there if I want it now, I know I won't spend countless hours combing each level for every detail, but I enjoyed this game playing it now, regardless.

Intending to play the trilogy, might even jump straight in to 2 next.

Oh...and I liked the Colorado level.

Ban request please!

In all seriousness the map itself actually isn't too bad; I think it's spreading the opportunities (which aren't as fun as some of the other levels) over four targets that causes the level to drag, for me anyway.

[Alex79]

I've gone back and listened to the Cane and Rinse show on the game and Josh made a good point in that it felt more like a MGS level rather than Hitman, design wise. I really agreed with that. It was probably the level I spent the most time on though in all honesty, but that might just be because there were twice as many targets as the other stages. I've read the criticisms of the level (no verticality, less interesting story opportunities etc) and can't really disagree with any of them, but for whatever reason I seemed to really enjoy the stage. Having said that, I can't disagree with the statement that it's the weakest stage in the game either, but that's more a comment on the quality of the other levels if anything.

[Scrustle]

Spoiler: show

03/01 - Halo 3: ODST (Master Chief Collection)
06/01 - Halo 3 (Master Chief Collection)
09/01 - Hotshot Racing
25/01 - Halo 4 (Master Chief Collection)
29/01 – Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

03/02 - Heavenly Sword

Honestly by the end of this I have to come to the conclusion that this is a pretty bad game, with very few redeeming qualities. It's a sloppily designed, technically awful, and tonally incoherent mess. What few good elements it does have a largely overshadowed by these problems.

The combat mechanics are pretty poor. Controls are sluggish and unresponsive, animations are stiff, and there is very little sense of flow to it. It seems like the game has no input buffer at all, or one that is very badly implemented. Dodging feels stodgy and unreliable, blocking and parrying are inconsistent. Visual readability is lacking thanks to poor contrast, poor camera placement, and enemy animations that are not clear at all. Getting stun-locked it common, and the terrible frame rate makes it impossible to get a decent grasp of timing anything. The game is also littered with the worst type of QTEs. The input window is tiny, so you have to focus on keeping up with that rather than watching the scene play out in the background. The final boss is also makes the baffling design decision of putting the fight in the middle of a battlefield where hundreds of NPCs run in front of the camera obscuring your vision, tanking the frame rate in the process. The game also has a lot of shooter segments that control terribly and utterly kill the pacing. These sections also use motion controls to let you control your projectile in flight. Thankfully that can be turned off, but it doesn't help much in the grand scheme of things.

But there are elements here that show a glimpse of something better. When it actually works, the parry mechanic can be somewhat satisfying. Swapping between weapons on the fly mid-combo is a good idea in theory, and some of that does come out with the aerial combos, where you have to launch with one weapon and then follow up with something else. But these things are dragged down by all the other issues, and the game doesn't give itself enough room to let these mechanics flourish. There's also a downside to these aerial combos in that they feel very scripted. When you do one it pulls in to a cinematic cutaway to do it. It looks stylish, but it feels kind of rigid and automated, and it brings the combat to a halt when it happens, killing the flow. It's one of the brighter spots of the gameplay, but it doesn't feel like a natural part of it.

The story is pretty terrible. Not much goes on, just being a fairly standard tale of defeating the bad guys. None of the protagonist characters are interesting or compelling in any way, and there isn't any interesting worldbuilding or larger themes. The antagonists are pretty entertaining though, or at least their mocap performances are. They are hamming things up massively, and it seems like they are having a lot of fun with it. Andy Serkis in particular is chewing the scenery so hard that it's hard to not enjoy it. But the tone of the narrative is completely deranged. Sometimes it seems like it's trying to be a standard and straightforward fantasy adventure, other times a silly and campy romp that revels in the absurd. But then it will occasionally take a swerve in to incredibly dark and cruel subject matter out of nowhere in a split second. The sorts of things that you would need to work very hard building up a story around to justify being included at all, and would still be pretty divisive. It's staggering to me how some of this stuff made it past an editor and didn't see how absurdly inappropriate some of this was. And in addition to that, I can't honestly say enjoying the campy villains comes without caveat. I'm not entirely confident in levelling this criticism, but I feel like it's something that can't be ignored. Some of those characters come across as being potentially extremely racially insensitive. There's a deeper discussion to be had there, one that I think that could come to some very damning conclusions, but it's one I don't feel qualified to have.

So sadly I have to say this game is simply pretty terrible for the most part. It's a bad time for the vast majority of the experience. The parts that are potentially good feel like grasping at straws, and are undermined by everything that surrounds them. Giving this game a second chance, I'm actually coming away with a more negative view than I had before. Ninja Theory sure have come a long way since this game. There are actually a few elements from this that you can see showing up in their later work too. But the level of improvement seen in the likes of DmC and Hellblade over this is monumental.

[markfm007]

Jan 7th - Little Nightmares 2
Jan 15th - Final Fantasy IX
Feb 3rd - Deathloop

I was gifted this for Christmas, thought I'd dive into it straight away, and I had a fun time overall. This game feels less like a timeloop and more like a response to criticism of Dishonored's chaos system being too rigid. This one is all about replayability and guilt free murdering.

If you lean into that, it's a lot of fun. Zipping around, turning invisible, knifing and blasting, alternating between master assassin and utter chaos, is an absolute blast. The levels have that Dishonored quality of being perfectly crafted to give you tons of ways to get around and feel like a genius, without feeling artificial. The enemies and setting have an amusing absurdity a bit like a Rockstar game, almost encouraging you to boot them off cliffs and blast them into oblivion, and I had a good laugh at some of the mission set ups and banter between the characters.

The downside to all this silliness is that the story felt a bit flat for me, leaving me with questions I didn't have much interest in answering. The game lacks a sense of progression, both in its narrative and gameplay. After a few loops I felt like the end was all but a formality, and getting there was a good time, but not particularly satisfying. The repetition is fun, but as a structure for a campaign, it does eventually start to grind. God help me if I ever have to power another generator.

Overall I had a great time though, and I can see myself jumping back into it in the future to tick off some of the trophies and have fun, as I think that's what it's best designed to do. Colt and Julianna are great, and it's nice to play a new IP from Arkane.

[Scrustle]

Spoiler: show

03/01 - Halo 3: ODST (Master Chief Collection)
06/01 - Halo 3 (Master Chief Collection)
09/01 - Hotshot Racing
25/01 - Halo 4 (Master Chief Collection)
29/01 - Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
03/02 - Heavenly Sword

05/02 - Need for Speed: Carbon (Battle Royale)

This is an interesting alternate take on the game. It's a significantly different experience than the unmodded version, and I enjoyed it for that. But it was definitely far from perfect, and I wouldn't say it's necessarily better. It takes a really heavy handed approach to remedying some of the issues of the original game, but in the end overcooks it.

The biggest thing that is obviously different here is the sheer amount of content to the originally rather sparse career mode. Way more races, with the city split in to way more districts. Even areas not usually included as part of the main game are used here. There's so much more to do, and a much wider variety as well. There are totally new tracks, event types on tracks that they usually never are, and even brand new event types. It definitely makes the game feel way more fleshed out and like it's exploring the possibilities of its content much more. But honestly, there's too much. There are so many races that they don't even all fit on the world map, and you have to go in to the manual event list to even see a good chunk of them. It extends the game length massively too, to the point that I was ready for the game to be over quite a while before it actually was. To actually finish the game and see the credits, the game forces you to complete 100% of the career as well. Some of the new event types don't really work that well either, so the actual experience of playing them is hit-or-miss. I do like what this mod tries to do in this area, and it was a good time for the most part, but it outstayed its welcome a bit.

Another thing that stands out is that there is a shift in what the career mode considers the big important moments. In the normal game, when you go up against one of the big crew bosses, you race against them in one of the touge-style canyon battles. Some of the best moments of the game. Those battles still exist here, but they are just treated like any other event on the world map. Instead the big boss level events are the Race Wars, which are basically long endurance races that fill up the grid with as many opponents as was technically possible for a game that came out in 2006 on the PS2. It seems like it's trying to emphasise the idea that this conceptualisation of the game considers the war between different race teams as being the core part of the career, rather than your own personal journey to go after these particular bosses. It's an interesting idea, and certainly fits with the way the city is split up much more. But it does result in these bosses being de-emphasised as characters, which extends to cutscenes featuring them being cut as well. It's a shame, that hammy live action stuff has always been a fun part of this game. But this feels like the mod trying to give the game a different flavour, so I don't necessarily dislike it.

Then there's the cars and difficulty balancing. While this mod started off somewhat easily, the challenge does gradually get harder as it goes on, with a particular jump around the last quarter or so. While it never becomes unreasonable (at least on the "easy" mod setting I picked), it does become rather difficult towards the end, in a rather uneven way. I think a lot of this has to do with car choice. This game splits cars in to three types, and while this mod names them differently, they are still the same. Tuners, that have low top speed but great cornering; muscle, which have high acceleration but low grip; and exotic, which have high top speed but a very wide turning radius. This has never been a particularly well balanced system, and this mod tries to make the choice more important by upping the difficulty, but that doesn't really help things. Add to that the inclusion of mod cars that already break this system somewhat and it makes things even messier. I ended up gravitating towards exotics, since it seems like their speed was really needed here, also tweaking upgrade settings to help them compete with muscles on acceleration. My usual choice of tuner just couldn't keep up. But because of the wide turning of exotics, that made proper racing lines really important. That can actually be really fun and rewarding, but it gets really annoying when you have to deal with random traffic getting in your way and ruining your race. They have an uncanny ability to appear exactly at the worst spots when it's too late to avoid them. So it felt like when I did lose time, it was usually thanks to randomness that I could do nothing about.

Those are the things that stand out as the biggest differences in the base game, as most other things are unchanged. Originally I thought this mod had an additional little epilogue too, but turns out it does not. Kind of a shame, as supposedly this was another cut feature that I would have liked to see restored. Although by the time I did get to the end of this, I was happy enough to just not have yet more to get through.

Although one more thing perhaps worth mentioning is that this mod is really unstable. Not that I'm surprised that a fan made mod isn't as well polished as a professional product. This thing is supposedly still in beta too, but with it not having had an update in years, I bet this is as finished as it'll ever be. But I got constant crashes, and repeated soft locks. At least the game boots up quickly so it's not a huge loss of time, and aside from that everything seemed to function properly.

So yeah, generally a good time. Entertaining as a remixed version of this game that explores some interesting aspects. But one that is rather bloated, a bit unbalanced, and not particularly reliable on a technical level.

[Angry_Kurt]

It’s cool modders have created an experience like that for an old racer

[Magical_Isopod]

#3 - Pokemon Omega Ruby (2014 - 3DS)

I've been working on a "Living Dex" for a few years now, where I have 1 on every Pokemon stored in boxes on Pokemon Home. I'm now at 852 of 905(?) Pokemon, although that includes Hisui Pokemon that aren't presently available to import to Home.

Anyway. Omega Ruby contained a huge chunk of the Pokemon I was missing, and so I decided to do a full playthrough.

Pokemon Gen 3... Kinda sucks. I'm not gonna lie. Overall, I like the ORAS remakes, but that's mostly due to what they added to the remakes, rather than the original source material. The map design and pathfinding is downright awful - it frequently paces you back and forth around the map, but not like in BW2 where it's actually fun. I frequently had to consult a guide to figure out where the hell I was supposed to go next.

That being said, the additional "Delta Episode" epilogue chapter is fantastic. Game Freak are clearly capable of making interesting, well-presented campaigns... They just don't. And it's eminently frustrating. But the Delta Episode is well-paced, has decent writing, has some really great cinematics, and some of the best music tracks in the series. I think of this, and Ultra Space in USUM, and the Distortion World in Platinum, and I'm just like, "Who made this? Let them make a whole-ass game!"

I also really enjoy some of the other postgame content, like Mirage Spots and DexNav.

Speaking of music though, the music in this game contains both some of the best music in the series (Zinnia's battle theme, and Wally's final battle theme - both of these are new to ORAS) and some of the most ear-piercing garbage I've ever heard (Slateport City and that droning theme that plays when Groupon goes Beast Mode). Largely though, the original music from RSE is bad, with a heavy reliance of really annoying samples like bells and trumpets. I had to turn off the music more than once, and I can't recall ever doing that in a game before.

I'll also say in regards to the Gen 3 Pokemon designs... They're pretty lousy too. There's some designs I really like (Breloom, Tropius, Aggron, Groudon...), but most Pokemon in this game have a decidedly "round" design that makes them look rotund, and goofy, and soft more often than not. Really not a fan.

Overall though, I enjoyed my time with this one, but I think without the motivation of a checklist (yes, I have a spreadsheet ), I would have had a really miserable time here. Gen 3 is probably the worst single-player campaign outside of Gen 8, and I strongly doubt I'll revisit this one. If the cart is ever turned on again, it will be to catch a specific Mon unobtainable in a newer game...

&iso2022

[Scrustle]

Spoiler: show

03/01 - Halo 3: ODST (Master Chief Collection)
06/01 - Halo 3 (Master Chief Collection)
09/01 - Hotshot Racing
25/01 - Halo 4 (Master Chief Collection)
29/01 - Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
03/02 - Heavenly Sword
05/02 - Need for Speed: Carbon (Battle Royale)

09/02 - Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

I've had this sitting in my Steam library for a while, and figured since I recently played through Heavenly Sword, now would be a good time to play through this one again as well. I've played it twice before on console, but this was the first time with the PC version. I still like it, and it's definitely a big step up from Ninja Theory's previous game, but I don't think it's anything especially amazing either to be honest.

One thing that is impressive about the game though is the aesthetic. The visuals really stand up well. The lush overgrown ruined cityscape is fantastic, but the thing that really makes it stand out is the colour choices. The exact shade of green it uses both manages to look really vibrant and intense, but still natural and not oversaturated. Then to compliment that it has hints of striking reds with some of the other plants, and the bright blue sky that has a subtle gradient to it that adds a sense of atmosphere and scale to the world. Unfortunately this doesn't keep up for the whole game as you journey across to different areas. There's still strong visual design through most of it though, as you later move to a dramatic mountaintop village that has some great views of the surrounding peaks, and even the mechanical junkyard area later on has its moments with strong colours and interesting scenery made up of the towering corpses of colossal robots. But the opening hours are easily the most impressive from an artistic perspective.

The gameplay is generally okay. It has positive elements, and it's easily far more competent and functional than Heavenly Sword, but it doesn't go for anything particularly ambitious. The melee combat system is much simpler than HS, but that is to the game's benefit. You only have a minimal number of attacks with your staff, and you don't really have any room to be creative with it. But everything you do have is useful, and it mostly feels good to use as well. The sound design of your staff bonking on metallic enemies is pretty satisfying, and it has a different audio character than the usual slashes or thumps you tend to hear in games. Then you have the platforming system, that is of the very simplistic style like Uncharted. It's not very interesting. All you have to do is point your character vaguely in the direction of the very few obvious interactable climbing points while mashing the A button, and it does it all automatically. While Monkey's climbing animations are well done and appropriately wild and animalistic, there's zero thought or skill involved at all. It can sometimes be a bit clunky too, refusing to perform a jump when you clearly should be able to, or getting stuck on something for no reason. I used to think this game had a big problem with input lag. I don't think that's really true after all, but the controls do feel rather clunky and a bit slow at times.

The story isn't great either. For most of the game it tries to be a very narrowly focused, character centric story, building the relationship between Monkey and Trip. But neither of them are particularly interesting. They don't have much personality, and there isn't a sense that these two are bonding over the game. Later on when Pigsy is introduced, he at least brings a bit more interest to the story by having a personality, and some conflict with Monkey. He's not a particularly nice person, but some of the back-and-forth he instigates can be pretty amusing at times. And then there's the ending, which is rather infamous for being terrible. It definitely is. The finale feels rather anticlimactic, with some character moments that are supposed to be big and dramatic, but fall flat because said characters haven't done enough to earn that weight. Then right at the end there's a huge twist that comes out of nowhere, and is then instantly negated. The aftermath of this would also have a massive impact on the world of the game, but the game ends abruptly there and you never get to see any consequences. The whole ending of the game feels rather rushed, both from a story and gameplay perspective. It feels like something else was planned, but they had to hastily put this existing finale together instead. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot was cut.

But honestly none of the problems with the game are huge issues. Nothing threatens to ruin the game. It doesn't have any especially low lows, but it doesn't reach any extremely high highs either. I have heard some people talk about this game like it's some hidden gem that was unjustly ignored for the brilliance it possesses, but I've never agreed with that. At the same time though I think the game is generally good. A much better game than Heavenly Sword. Some very nice environments, and some decent combat. Just runs out of steam towards the end though.

[ColinAlonso]

Spoiler: show

Jan 10 - Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS5)
Jan 16 - Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intermission (PS5)

Feb 3 - SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters Clash - SNK version (Switch)

Fun, old collectible card game. Simple enough but it works.

[Alex79]

JAN - Universal Paperclips (Android)
JAN - Halo 5: Guardians (Xbox)
JAN - Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons (Switch)
JAN - Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (Xbox)
JAN - Forza Horizon 5 (Xbox)
JAN - Halo Infinite (Xbox)
JAN - Hitman (Xbox)

FEB - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Nintendo DS)

First played this a while back around the time it was covered on Cane and Rinse and absolutely hated it. Thought it was boring and annoying. I thought I'd try it again though after The Back Page pod did a show on the series and for whatever reason ended up really enjoying it this time round. Yes, I still think it's overly wordy in places, especially when you want to move on to the next topic, the characters have a tendency to go on and on and on, but that aside, the story and the characters were great. I'll definitely be playing more of these games.

[seansthomas]

23rd Jan - God of War (PS4)

10th Feb - Forza Horizon 5 (Xbox Series S)

Not sure you ever complete a game like this these days, but I've beaten all the story missions, unlocked all bar one of the barns and got to the Hall of fame, so that'll do for me.

Funny old game. Can't figure it out. For the first few days, I adored it. Easy to pick up. Unlocks came thick and fast. Terrain variety was amazing. And it felt a joy to just hang out in this world and drive.

But then I fell off a cliff. Lost interest in the rubbish cars. All the races outside the main events felt repetitive. The music bugged me. It infuriated me I couldn't skip cut scenes. The Mexican clichés and acting started to feel problematic. And I could not decipher the map or figure out what to do next.

Eventually I gave up for a couple of months, and when I returned I turned the radio off, cranked up several Spotify playlists and just took things as they came. And I had way more fun.

Doing the Goliath and Juggernaut events holding your concentration whilst REM and Idlewild blasted out was awesome. I found a few cars I loved. And I found some great areas off the beaten track.

I'm still a bit unsure on it. I won races too easy on one setting, but if I cranked it up one barely placed. The rubber banding can be shocking. And it's a bit soulless.

But equally, at times it was thrilling, gorgeous and - if the races fell right - pretty varied. I reckon if a ton of superfluous shit was stripped away it'd be so much better.

Anyhow... yeah. Weird one. Can see why it gets a lot of love. And also why some people find it pretty tedious.

[seansthomas]

23rd Jan - God of War (PS4)
10th Feb - Forza Horizon 5 (Xbox Series S)

11th Feb - Starfox 64 (Nintendo Switch)

With every subsequent generation, I become more and more convinced that this is the game on N64 that holds up best. I loved it at the time. I loved it when I bought it on Wii U. And I love it now. The peak of a winning formula complete with a shameless rip off of the finale of Star Wars. Zelda and Mario were more important, but they're not as joyful or fulfilling to return to now.

You can blast through the game and see the titles in 40 minutes (especially if you use Suspend points, hi!) yet there is huge replay value to be had and alternate paths to find.

And it does enough to make you do more than simply shoot everything, like flying through narrow gaps, brake and navigate 3D areas in all range mode.

The controls are pretty ok too compared to how badly they've been mapped on some of these N64 games.

One of the Nintendo greats for me. And a really freaky final boss.

[Jobobonobo]

Spoiler: show

Jan 23: Yakuza 3

Feb 12: Wonderful 101 Remastered

Will do a proper write up on this for the upcoming C&R episode later on but overall, had a lot of fun with this. Very tongue in cheek and over the top that it really gives the game a lot of personality. While I would imagine the Wii U version would probably have been the ideal version to play in terms of controls and interface, the remastered version is worth a look if you do not have a Wii U at hand.

[Jon Cheetham]

1. Dark Souls Remastered (Switch) - 3rd Jan
2. Pyre (Steam) - 10th Jan
3. Disco Elysium (Switch) - 17th Jan
4. Deathloop (Steam) - 24 Jan

5. The Forgotten City (Steam)

Decided to play this after seeing Kurt talk about it, and I'm so glad I did. It's an old Skyrim mod that got turned into a full game by the modders. A 5-6 hour narrative experience in an underground Roman city repeating the same day over and over.

Yep, it's another time loop game but if you're tired of those I really think this uses the idea perfectly. It is not a rogue, you can quick save and all your progress is meaningful with you carrying over knowledge and items to the next loop that majorly change what you can accomplish.

The excitement and the feeling of being a sleuth piecing together what was going on and how to line things up so I could dig deeper into the mystery was amazingly rewarding. Add to that some plot twists and reveals that left me absolutely thunderstruck, and the game not being afraid to give you some unexpectedly creepy and disturbing moments, and this was a truly memorable experience. Do not get spoiled on this game before playing it! Even if you normally don't mind spoilers or watch let's plays, THIS you should experience for yourself. The story IS the game.

I got what is apparently ending 2 of 4, and (uncharacteristically for me) immediately rolled back to see another ending and tie up some loose ends before the final confrontation.

[Alex79]

Damnit I'm going to have to play this. Had it downloaded for ages.

[seansthomas]

Loved Forgotten City too. My game of 2021...

23rd Jan - God of War (PS4)
10th Feb - Forza Horizon 5 (Xbox Series S)
11th Feb - Starfox 64 (Nintendo Switch)

14th Feb - Sunset Overdrive (Xbox Series S)

I have all of Gamepass at my disposal and 3 generations of Xbox to delve into, so OBVIOUSLY this is what I decide to play...

Honestly got no idea why. I guess it looked colourful and not too serious? But I'm so glad I did. What a blast!

I had no idea Insomniac made it, but you can see it's got their stamp on it and why Sony bought them to make Spiderman: self aware humour, great traversal, varied missions, brilliantly managed upgrades vs enemy types and incredible animation.

I can see why the game may have grated on some players, as the tone is so excessive and in your face. At times I wondered if it overstepped the mark or was grating. But for me, the jury is out on the former and - due to just mainlining the story and finding the comedy deliberately self-depreciating - I even avoided the latter occuring.

It was all too fun to spend time hating it. You can tell the team are having a blast with the oddball characters, the screwed up scenario and the madcap weaponry. The music also feels like someone living out their wildest dreams, especially when The Melvin's make an appearance.

But it's that traversal that's king. Like Spiderman, it is at the core of the game. The shooting is fine and the moveset / weapons find ways to keep it interesting for the 15-20 or so hours it took me to beat it. But the real joy here is that movement.

Stringing together a few jumps, grinding some rails and linking your combos to raise your style meters is an absolute joy. What I imagine Jet Set Radio was like from seeing videos on Youtube. In my head, anyway.

Sunset Overdrive has that same joy of movement that Tony Hawk's has. The world is so well designed that as you're finishing one move, your brain is thinking through 3 or 4 options in a nanosecond to link up another. How they constantly placed so many varied objects at exactly the right distance to link these combos and find ways to have you fight giant towering vertical bosses without constantly dropping to your death is insanely clever. There is fast travel, but movement here is so good, that I only used it twice.

And lastly, a special note on the animations when you respawn after death. Superb stuff.

One of the freshest new IPs in a good many years. Shame we'll probably never get another, in some ways. But then, maybe it's best off as a time capsule of a fascinating, brash era in videogames.