Games Completed 2022

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Jon Cheetham
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Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Jon Cheetham »

Alex79 wrote: February 14th, 2022, 3:02 pm Damnit I'm going to have to play this. Had it downloaded for ages.
Yeah it's fabulous. Easily worth the two or three sittings to go through and I can tell it will stick with me.
seansthomas wrote: February 15th, 2022, 12:42 am Loved Forgotten City too. My game of 2021...
I can definitely see why it won all those awards!
Jon Cheetham wrote: January 18th, 2022, 2:23 am 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) - 13 Feb
6. The Solitaire Conspiracy (Switch) - 14 Feb

Had this on Steam since it came out and barely touched it, got it in the Eshop sale and finally played through it. I've played a lot of Bithell's games at this point and I think this might be my favourite. Basically a way to play Solitaire with beautiful visuals and a couple more tactical wrinkles.

The card artwork is fantastic, all the characters look amazing and have loads of personality. Each deck is a joy to pore over. In gameplay terms the King, Queen and Jack can be "charged" to have a special impact on a deck like extracting a particular card or reshuffling them. If anything I think it could have gone a bit further with ideas like this, as the impact on my approach to each round was ultimately quite minimal most of the time - with one exception that had a pretty overpowered ability in the late game. I also thought the acting in the FMV interludes was really poor quality, very amateurish and grating and I just skipped it. Some voiceover with just still images in that same art style would have been far better.

That aside definitely worth having on a handheld as beating the campaign seems to have unlocked various endless modes and it's a great little "one more go" game.
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ThirdDrawing
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Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by ThirdDrawing »

#2 - Ghost of Tsushima

I didn't play much in January because I moved house and then moved halfway around the world for a job.

But then I had to quarantine, and I had time to sit down and finish this. Out of quarantine tomorrow! :D
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Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by seansthomas »

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)

16th Feb - Superliminal (Xbox Series S)

Really interesting little puzzler, which plays brilliantly with perception and reality. Alter your surroundings by manipulating objects; create ways out of rooms by playing with their scale. No way out of a room? Make one.

Huge echoes of Portal in tone and structure. Not obviously as amazing as that game, largely due to polish and slickness. And a couple of the things the game throws at you aren't introduced very well, so leave you just randomly hoping to stumble on the answer; and a couple seemed pretty reliant on you noticing a tiny, tiny detail you had to be stood exactly in the right spot for. But I only resorted to a guide once or twice tbf.

And it shouldn't detract from what is a brilliantly original idea. I had a few proper 'Eureka!' and big grin on my face moments, as I did with Outer Wilds. I have no idea how some people's brains work in the way they seemingly function... but I'm glad they do. Would even be tempted to replay it one day with the commentary on, such is the smartness of some of the puzzles.

Had it on my radar for ages and if you like a head scratcher, it's perfect. Can be beaten in a half dozen hours and it all wraps up neatly.
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OneCreditBen
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Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by OneCreditBen »



Bare Knuckle 3
MD
One Credit Clear
Best Ending

Really enjoyed playing this, had an absolute blast.
I can see me coming back to this a lot, especially live and trying to get clears with all the characters.
Loads of fun!
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Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Seph »

Great work. While I (my mum) paid a lot of money (at the time) for this when I was a kid, I don't really remember playing it as much as the second. I'm curious in seeing as Blaze playthrough. Since the release of 4 she's become my go-to character for this series.
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Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by seansthomas »

OneCreditBen wrote: February 16th, 2022, 2:09 pm

Bare Knuckle 3
MD
One Credit Clear
Best Ending

Really enjoyed playing this, had an absolute blast.
I can see me coming back to this a lot, especially live and trying to get clears with all the characters.
Loads of fun!
I've seen a fair few people talking about Bare Knuckle 3 vs Streets of Rage 3 of late.

Are they different games? Or very different ports?
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ratsoalbion
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Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by ratsoalbion »

Streets of Rage 3 is a much altered (and widely regarded as inferior) port/localisation of BK3.

If you play the excellent SEGA Vintage Collection trilogy on Xbox 360/One/Series you have the choice of ROMs.

The EU/PAL version is based on the US version, only it runs 15% slower too.

https://caneandrinse.com/streets-of-rage/
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Alex79
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Re: Games Completed 2022

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Alex79 wrote: January 1st, 2022, 8:24 am 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)
FEB - Max Payne 2 (Xbox)

The Max Payne trilogy was recently in the sale on Xbox, and I considered picking up all three games, but after thinking about it I decided that 1 and 2 were so similar I may as well just buy the second one. I'd played 1 and 2 back on PC when they were new and really loved them. I was interested to see whether they have stood the test of time.

The answer is... not really. Whilst still enjoyable in places, the gameplay in Max Payne 2 is very much of its time. Very loose aiming, dodgy platforming sections and a very early 2000s look about the game. The second game in the series has much less of a noir feel than the first game, and very frequent quick saving is highly advised, especially during the annoying platforming parts.

I really only played this as a lead up to what I really wanted to replay though: Max Payne 3. This was an interesting experience to come back to, but it's hard to recommended playing through these original two games now.
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Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by seansthomas »

ratsoalbion wrote: February 16th, 2022, 7:22 pm Streets of Rage 3 is a much altered (and widely regarded as inferior) port/localisation of BK3.

If you play the excellent SEGA Vintage Collection trilogy on Xbox 360/One/Series you have the choice of ROMs.

The EU/PAL version is based on the US version, only it runs 15% slower too.

https://caneandrinse.com/streets-of-rage/
That's good to know. I have the Mega Drive collection on Switch and those games as part of the Online service, but I'm guessing they're the inferior ports. Because... well, aren't they always?
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ratsoalbion
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Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by ratsoalbion »

Streets of Rage 2 on the online service is fine. It's the US NTSC version, virtually no different to Bare Knuckle 2.

D3t's SEGA Mega Drive Classics compilation allows you to choose the region of ROM but the emulation is sub-par compared to the SVC version, with noticeable audio lag.
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Alex79
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Re: Games Completed 2022

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Alex79 wrote: February 16th, 2022, 7:37 pmJAN - 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)
FEB - Max Payne 2 (Xbox)
FEB - The Walking Dead: 400 Days (Xbox)

The shorter bonus episode tacked on to the end of the first Telltale season - don't really have anything to say other than it was an enjoyable hour.
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Re: Games Completed 2022

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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
20/02 - ICO

Ever since the 20th anniversary of this game came around late last year I've been mulling over playing through it again, and finally got to it. Still a really great game that stands up today. Very atmospheric and emotive.

To be honest it's hard to come up with something to say about this game that doesn't feel played out and obvious at this point. It's a beautiful game that confidently nails the minimalist design philosophy to produce an experience that absorbs you in its haunting and ethereal world. A place that feels alien and distant, but also very tangible and full of a sense of sublime yet understated natural beauty. The simplistic mechanics do a great job of making you feel connected to the world and its characters, as you bond with Yorda and guide her around. Holding hands with the R1 button is a great touch that lends a sense of diegetic connection between you and the game. The strange floppy controls and animations work well as they don't ever ask you to do anything particularly mechanically complex with them, but at the same time conveys a sense of powerlessness that feels appropriate for the character you are playing. They can be a little jerky at times, but that isn't hard to get used to. Yorda's pathfinding also isn't great, but that also feels like it makes sense. She comes across as if she's not quite human. She's like some strange ghostly entity who isn't well versed in even simply walking around, so your helping hand is needed. Although I have to say, even though this game does a good job of building the relationship between Ico and Yorda, in retrospect I feel like The Last Guardian did it better. In that game the relationship of the main duo felt like it had a more progressively emphasised evolution, and that it was more reciprocal too. Yorda doesn't really do much in this game up until the ending cutscene. It is a nice bittersweet ending though that I like a lot. It has some great music too.

As I was thinking about whether to play this again, one thing that crossed my mind was which version would be best to play. So I did some looking back at how the PS3 remaster compares to the PS2 original, and I was surprised to find that the PS3 version actually looks significantly different. It's generally quite a bit darker, putting dimmer areas in to deep shadow and reducing the blinding hazy light of the outdoor areas. So because of that I decided to emulate the original PS2 version, as that seems to be how the game is meant to be presented. Definitely seems more in line with the what the aesthetic is trying to evoke too, with a more misty and mysterious feel. It also has an effect on gameplay too. When I played this on PS3, I remember getting really stuck at various points because I simply couldn't see the way forward, as important things were just totally obscured in darkness. So I looked out on this run to see if the brighter lighting helped out in that. Honestly I don't think it made much difference. It helped a bit in that stuff that was literally invisible before I could actually see now, but only just. It could still very easily be missed by someone who didn't know what they were looking for.

There's also the topic of which region version to go for, as this game is a bit of an unusual case with that. Usually when it comes to revisiting old games like this, the NTSC version is the way to go for that 60Hz mode. But the NTSC version of Ico is actually inferior as it was apparently pushed out unfinished before the others. The PAL version actually has a little extra content and rebalanced enemies, so it's more of the definitive version. It also happens to have a 60Hz mode, so it's a win-win.
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ColinAlonso
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Re: Games Completed 2022

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seansthomas wrote: February 15th, 2022, 12:42 am14th Feb - Sunset Overdrive (Xbox Series S)
I've wanted to play this for years, and bought a copy on Steam years ago for about €5. Sadly my only PC is a laptop from the time of Sunset Overdrive's original release, so no luck playing it there. I will get to it eventually.

Onto my completions
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)
Feb 13 - 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (PS5)
Its a story with some kinda real time SRPG battles sprinkled on top. If you're interested in the story but the idea of the battles puts you off, don't worry about it much, I found the battles easy on the normal difficulty and there is a lower one.

I always aimed for an S rank and the special condition in battles and having got most of those during my playthrough it only took be another 15 minutes or so to get the platinum trophy after finishing the game. I possibly should have stuck on the harder difficulty as I actually enjoyed taking on the hordes of kaiju. and the weapon options for my sentinels

The story involves quite the mish-mash of sci-fi concepts. I liked it, and the game overall, but with a few caveats (which would be spoilers of course).
Spoiler: show
Indeed, someone may have tried to use as many sci-fi ideas as possible as a bet. Somehow this mesh of concepts, of which some are red herrings (time-travel, alien invasion), work and work well to create this story and is its strongest part.

As an aside, when anything vaguely Metal Gear Soild appears, does anyone else repeat the word as a question to amuse themselves. Nanomachines? was my particular go to in this game.

I'm not sure if I was realising things quicker than the developers planned or not. There seemed to be big reveal moments for things I already had decided on. For example, I ruled out time-travel, even time-travel resulting in alternate realities very early. Shortly after the first 2188 clips, I settled on either a Phantasy Star 3 style interstellar ship with separate sealed off areas and over generations the populace forget they're on the ship or otherwise a virtual reality. Maybe this feeling of trying to figure out what's happening affected my enjoyment of it and I should have sat back, switched off and enjoyed the reveals when they came. But its structure, seeing things from 13 characters different events, encourages linking it all together. There are still manyreveals that work, more so on details than big concepts.

I still enjoyed the story a lot, though not as much as some other people it seems. I think one of the biggest issues is that I just do not like some of the 13 (Juro, Iori, Megumi, Ryoko though I'll admit her story was more interesting at least). So every time I felt I had to do one of their sections, it just dragged me down.

The game also tries to pair off some of its protagonists but it seems so half hearted. I thought the best handled one was Nenji and Tomi, and that one is just not a big deal. The Juro/Megumi love story, which is apparently important enough for the game to end with before the credits by the way, is a joke from Juro's side. He goes from being annoyed at and avoiding her to 'I love you' with precisely no development. Ei and Iori isn't much better.
Feb 19 - Bravely Default II (Switch)

I played this in between other games for the last couple of months. Its competently made but doesn't do anything interesting. It sticks with the idea of being a throwback JRPG too much to its determent. One odd deviation from the old-school JRPG formula is that often the structure in these games is town - dungeon - travel to next town - town - dungeon and so on. BD2 goes with town - 2-4 dungeons - travel to next town. I guess this was to make each town have a fleshed out story but with as slight and standard as the whole thing is this just turns it into a slog.

It could do with being a bit shorter too.

It does have a job system though, and I like those enough to have seen this game through. Some of the music is great.

Also the Welsh accented town is run by a dragon-worshipping cult. :lol:
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ThirdDrawing
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Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by ThirdDrawing »

I guess this counts?

#3 - Death Smiles. I finished a playthrough of Death Smiles over the weekend, as I just picked up the collection. I used continues, because I suck at shmups(!), but I do feel like I got better by the end. Going to try different characters to see what they're like.
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Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Jon Cheetham »

Jon Cheetham wrote: January 18th, 2022, 2:23 am 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) - 13 Feb
6. The Solitaire Conspiracy (Switch) - 14 Feb
7. Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (PS4) - 19 Feb

Never played this before. Never played any Metal Gear Solid game before! Thought I would sneak this in as a taster for The Phantom Pain which I'll come round to maybe after Elden Ring.

Love the way this controls and looks. Maybe lens flares have already had their moment, but I like the exaggerated drama this has with all these lights and flares on-screen and these deep shadows. Amazing movement and stealth, quite immersive sim-y as has been observed in the past, lots of ways to get round situations. Particularly enjoyed one encounter where I was defending a lookout tower, managed to sprint to safety... then noticed about five guards looking for me right near an explosive barrel and couldn't help myself.

Definitely looking forward to the "main game" now. I also unlocked some side ops for this which I may come back to as well.

8. A Short Hike (Switch) - 22 Feb

I've posted about this game at least once before here. I just love it, it's one of my GOATs. Whenever things get intense or stressful, I gravitate towards this now. This tiny world with its friendly locals, unassumingly pretty aesthetic, soothing music and deceptively extensive exploration possibilities... it's perfect. I did a non-thorough playthrough this time, about half an hour it took I think, but in the past I've spent 2-3 hours just roaming the little island and seeing everything.
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Re: Games Completed 2022

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Alex79 wrote: February 16th, 2022, 7:37 pmJAN - 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)
FEB - Max Payne 2 (Xbox)
FEB - The Walking Dead: 400 Days (Xbox)
FEB - Hyper Sentinel (Switch)

Basically a remake of 80s 8-bit shmup, Uridium, this is a fantastic little game I picked up for under a quid almost three years ago, but only just played it properly. Scroll left and right destroying these huge space dreadnaughts and a boss at the end of each level. 12 levels and you're done, but plenty of replayability chasing scores with a decent combo multiplier mechanic. Looks and sounds great, and some nice CRT/C64/Speccy filter options for the graphics if you want them. Looks very simple to play, but it's a lot of fun.
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Scrustle
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Re: Games Completed 2022

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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
20/02 - ICO
24/02 - Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD

I'm kind of conflicted on this one. There were some parts I liked, others I didn't. That's been true for basically every game in this series, but this one feels like something of a shift in a different direction that I didn't really click with that much. Some things that I didn't like the idea of at first ended up working better than I thought, while other things that I found intriguing earlier on I ran out of patience for before the end.

I liked the story quite a bit, especially towards the end. It was kind of a hard sell nearer the start. With this being back in the prequel era it again isn't really looking forward to the hypothetical development of society. It also doesn't really have a particularly compelling villain either. It had me starting to question whether this story needed to be told. But later on it actually gets in to some more serious discussions about the nature of nuclear deterrence that I thought was done really well. It also brings up topics of human responsibility and the errors of trying to dodge that by shifting responsibility on to machines, when those machines are just an extension of human reasoning and assumptions too. So it's fitting that you also get to see the birth of the first true Metal Gear in this game too. It's kind of surprising really that it took this long for the series to really delve in to these topics, given how core they are to the thing these games are named after. I was unsure what to make of how much it reminisces about The Boss, worried it was leaning too hard on that story instead of its own. But it makes it work, by turning that in to Snake and others trying to work out what to make of her legacy. The piano cover of the Snake Eater theme is also a nice touch.

There did seem to be a bit of a retcon with this that I'm not sure I'm on board with. Snake spends a lot of the game trying to work out what The Boss' true motivations were for her actions in MGS3, but I swear he was told in that game's ending through that audio tape that he listens to. I went back to check that ending, and it's kind of ambiguous whether he was supposed to have heard that bit or not, but I'm leaning more towards that he was in fact meant to know. Maybe he just didn't want to believe it.

I didn't care much for the gameplay in general. While it definitely plays much better than Portable Ops, and benefits from the streamlined MGS4-like controls, it still wasn't free from a lot of its own aggravations. I really disliked most of the boss fights. Especially the ones where you need to take out an armoured vehicle and its escort squad. The later AI mech battles at least don't have the problem of having to deal with loads of repeatedly respawning enemies shooting you from all sides. But they have their own issues, usually down to specific annoying attacks they each have. I'm definitely not a fan of switching items/weapons not pausing the game, or not having the ability to carry more than two firearms at a time.

All the mechanics to do with building up Mother Base and doing all the tech and weapons research got pretty tiring after a while too. I can see that it's supposed to be getting across the idea of what it's like to run a PMC like this, but as it went on it started feeling pretty tedious, and like I was just doing a bunch of busywork to watch an arbitrary number go up. It also starts feeling pretty grindy with how it pushes you in to doing the mostly boring side content, or even repeating stuff, in order to fulfil certain requirements. This ended up being the longest I've played any game in the series by quite a margin, but not because I wanted to. Felt like a lot of that time wasn't really necessary or enjoyable.

So far I've only done the normal ending. I figured that's enough to call it complete. I am intending on at least trying to go for the secret one though. I think I have some of the requirements for it already, and I'm thinking of it more as bonus content anyway. It feels like everything meaningful this game was trying to go for has been covered already. I also doubt I'm getting to MGSV any time soon either, as I don't have access to it right now. I'm also somewhat unsure if it's even worth it. It seems like that game doubles down on a lot of the things I didn't care for here, and is a huge time sink on top of that. Not to mention how supposedly unfinished the story is. So this may be the end of my journey in to the MGS series. At least for the foreseeable future. I have been thinking about revisiting Metal Gear Rising for a while now though...

---

28/02 Edit: Finished secret ending

Had some extra thoughts on this section, and the game in general. I didn't really like this part mostly, but it wasn't as bad as I expected in some ways. It does require a significant amount of grinding, and a lot of the main missions feel like a waste of time. But it at least doesn't require much from your base building, and when it does require you to grind missions it counts already completed missions too, so you aren't forced in to anything in particular. A couple of the side missions it unlocks at this stage were kind of fun, like one where you need to hold up enemy guards with a banana. It makes sense in the story why the main missions feel like a time wasting wild goose chase too. The twist at the very end was pretty interesting, and it helps connect MGS4 to this game a bit, but it also comes with a tedious boss fight and some unnecessary objectification of Paz. You can at least make the boss a bit easier for yourself in a way that I appreciated was possible. This whole section feels like the post-credit twists from previous games, except it's playable, and extremely drawn out.

I had some more thoughts on the point about whether Snake should have known the stuff brought up in the MGS3 ending. I discovered in this game the tapes that play at the ending of 3 are actually in here as well, and you can listen to the whole thing through again. I'm not sure exactly when these were unlocked, probably at the main ending, but it shows that Snake had access to all of these tapes probably since they were first seen in the MGS3 ending. He definitely must have heard what they said before the events of this game. So I guess the only explanation is that he just couldn't bring himself to believe it.

I was also thinking about the changing design trends of this series again, and how it's not really true that this is where the shift happens. As I already knew before playing this, Portable Ops was the first to introduce this resource management stuff. So much of PW is extremely similar to PO concept, just executed much better. While it's still not something I'm crazy about, it at least beats the awful implementation PO had. It's rather strange actually, that this direction that the series went so hard with in later entries originally came from a largely maligned and neglected spin-off. One that is questionable in the canon and that Kojima had little to do with and later try to almost disown. Although even in light of that, small mentions of the events of PO show up in PW, so it's not like it's totally stricken from the record. It's in an odd position.
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Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Alex79 »

For what it's worth, I played Metal Gear Rising last year and had an absolute blast with it. Would recommend.

(I'd also recommend MGSV, but given what you didn't like about PW, that's a harder sell...)
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Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by 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
20/02 - ICO
24/02 - Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD
25/02 - Halo 5: Guardians

After all this time, after the dust has settled and this series has veered away from this direction, coming back to this game for reappraisal is a little strange. This time around my reaction to it was definitely very different. I admit I was too harsh initially. But at the same time I still think this game has a lot of problems, and it was for the best that they did a soft reboot with Infinite.

As ever the combat is still fun. That was never much of an issue originally. It feels good in the hands and has a decent weapon variety and such. But at the same time, much like 4, it does feel like it lacks dynamism. While fights are enjoyable, nothing really particularly surprising happens, and there isn't a sense that you can approach a single encounter from multiple angles like you can in Infinite or the more open areas of the Bungie games. They add in a single new enemy type in the Promethean footsoldiers, who are pretty boring and don't have much going on. They do at least mean the Knights can now fill a more specialised role as a more tanky enemy. I made a point to try to make use of the new mobility mechanics they have in this game, and the ADS system that I had such an aversion to initially. Honestly the ADS is fine, although it does feel perhaps not as necessary as it does in Infinite since arenas are smaller. The mobility stuff feels rather tacked-on and like the game doesn't have a good idea of how to implement those abilities naturally. So while to actually play it's fun enough, it feels like it's struggling to come up with an identity for itself that actually works.

I still don't like the story. While again coming at it knowing what to expect helped me come at it with a more level head, it's still a mess of strange pacing, missed opportunities, and poorly conceived ideas. It makes a pretty bad first impression, having you go through a bunch of dull grey looking levels where not much happens. But the game seems to be desperate to make you think this is the coolest thing in the world, and it has a particularly ecstatic reverence for the Spartans themselves, despite of course them all being rather dull. During this first third of the game there are cutscene moments that feel like they really should have been gameplay, and the death of the head of the Covenant in a literal "blink and you'll miss it" cutscene in the very first level. It makes these moments fall a lot flatter than they otherwise could have, and the priorities feel really misaligned.

After that things do pick up a bit though, as you go to more interesting looking environments and the plot actually goes somewhere. I do actually really like going to the Elite homeworld and seeing their civil war alongside the Arbiter. The visual design of that area is really impressive, and they did a good job of making it something that could have conceivably inspired the style of the Covenant aesthetic, but is something older and more specific. But the character of the Arbiter is underused, and this whole sequence feels like it should be treated with way more importance than it is. Instead it's just background events to what you're really there for.

Then things go off the rails somewhat towards the end when Cortana starts coming back in to the story more. While once again the aesthetic of the Forerunner world you visit here is really cool and unique, turning Cortana in to a megalomaniac just feels to contrived and strange. The Warden is also a very forgettable villain, and while the repeated fights against him aren't so bad overall, the last one is really a pain. How you have to fight multiple copies at once, when he can one-hit kill you, and there are turrets shooting you at the same time. Then the story ends very abruptly on a massive cliffhanger where Cortana is set to take over the galaxy. It's very anticlimactic and awkward. At that point it feels like the story has gotten completely out of control and is going down a very strange road that doesn't make any thematic sense and no one wanted to see.

I think the aesthetics are a point worth emphasising, especially given how controversial they were in this period. While I definitely agree that the look of the Forerunner tech 4 and 5 went for is bad and uninteresting, and I partially agree with those who don't like the over-complicated look of the human and Covenant tech, I think the stuff outside of that is worthy of praise. The more natural looking areas of these games are actually really good. The alien foliage and geology of the artificial Forerunner worlds in these games are so lush, and show a great sense of imagination to them as well. In a way they actually stand above Infinite, with its very singular style. Although on a technical level, 5 isn't especially impressive now that 60fps is the standard for the series. Textures are rather blurry too. It's kind of funny that 4 on PC now looks better than this.

But to give a general conclusion, while I do have to give it credit of being much better than I originally thought, I still don't rate this game very highly. It's around the Halo 4 level of just being fine. Combat is fun, but not impressive. The aesthetic is a mixed bag of highs and lows. The story is a strange confused mess. It definitely does feel like a game that is struggling to find its identity. Following instead of leading in some areas, and not really knowing how to handle the stuff it does try to experiment with.
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stvnorman
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Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by stvnorman »

6 February: Steel Empire (Mega Drive)
8 February: Commando (Arcade)
14 February: Taiko no Tatsujin: The Drum Master! (Xbox Series X)
26 February: Batsugun Special Version (Arcade)

Another beginner-friendly schmup down, although a couple of weeks on Steel Empire was more educational than inspiring. Taiko no Tatsujin is always inspiring though, making it two game of the year contenders in its first two months (after Windjammers 2 last month), and while I’ve done everything on easy and normal difficulty (and a bit of hard), and spent my coins on everything I wanted for my little drum guy, I’ll still be back! The schmup journey continued with bullet-hell for beginners (relatively speaking) Batsugun Special Version, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so serious about putting the time in to really learn a game - I’ve properly obsessed over it for the whole month, and it’s beautiful in every respect! I’ll never one-credit it, but I can do most, and the rest is now a handful more, and I’m happy with that. Always happy with a run around Commando too, but that doesn’t really count anymore!
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