Games Completed 2022

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
Post Reply
User avatar
Alex79
Member
Posts: 8422
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 12:36 pm
Location: Walsall, UK.
Contact:

Games Completed 2022

Post by Alex79 »

JAN - Universal Paperclips (Android)

It's a clicker game for mobile (and I think PC) which tasks you with producing as many paperclips as possible. It's strangely addictive, and I deleted it in an impulsive moment when I suddenly realised I'd spent about 4 days just looking at numbers go up on my phone screen. There are enough surprises not to want to spoil it here, so I'll save my thoughts for the show thread. But it was fun, in an odd sort of way, whilst it lasted. The game is 'completable', and I did three full loops and a bit more before deleting...
User avatar
chase210
Member
Posts: 1075
Joined: June 3rd, 2013, 11:22 am

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by chase210 »

Halo Combat Evolved - 7.5/10 - still very fun, but it definitely drops off once the flood are introduced.
Pokemon Shining Pearl - 8/10 - I liked pearl on the DS, and I like it jazzed up on the switch.
User avatar
Simonsloth
Member
Posts: 1639
Joined: November 22nd, 2017, 7:17 am
Location: London
Contact:

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Simonsloth »

Alex79 wrote: January 1st, 2022, 8:24 am JAN - Universal Paperclips (Android)

It's a clicker game for mobile (and I think PC) which tasks you with producing as many paperclips as possible. It's strangely addictive, and I deleted it in an impulsive moment when I suddenly realised I'd spent about 4 days just looking at numbers go up on my phone screen. There are enough surprises not to want to spoil it here, so I'll save my thoughts for the show thread. But it was fun, in an odd sort of way, whilst it lasted. The game is 'completable', and I did three full loops and a bit more before deleting...
I finished this too. Im glad it was so short because I had a sleepless night last night as it became a 1 day obsession. I played on mobile without any clicking software and managed to finish it in a 24 hour period wearing away at the patience of my wife and children whilst I was transfixed!
Spoiler: show
there are two endings and I chose the one that shut down my Paperclip making for good which was strangely cathartic. I’m glad I didn’t chose the other and start again in a new world
User avatar
Scrustle
Member
Posts: 2425
Joined: November 18th, 2012, 6:02 pm

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Scrustle »

03/01 - Halo 3: ODST (Master Chief Collection)

For the next step on this spontaneous Halo marathon, I decided to shake things up a bit and go for this different flavour, to break up all the games playing as the Chief. Considering I played Reach first a while back last year before I fully started this marathon, that means I've ended up playing these games chronologically without really trying to.

I quite like how this game took the series in a different direction, and playing it through this time I think I even appreciate it more than before. The dark mood and more sombre tone is excellent. It's really atmospheric to be roaming around the city streets at night, trying to find the clues to what happened leading up to that moment. The game really commits to the darkness as well, sometimes it's really hard to see anything at all. It kind of makes it a bit too easy to rely on your night vision, which kind of ruins the visuals. I think that's a trap I fell in to playing the first time, so this run I made a point to not use it unless I really needed to. It definitely made for a more aesthetically pleasing experience. This game has such a great use of the limited light it does have too, at least when it comes to the non-flashback sequences. The pitch black night dotted with neon signs and orange flames of the city in ruins, eventually breaking in to a golden sunrise in the finale is just so well done.

The soundtrack is great too. It's another example of how this game takes the parts of previous Halo games and rearranges them in to something that feels fresh and unique. It still feels very Halo-like, with the sweeping strings and such. But the added saxophone and more melancholy tone makes it stand out in a distinctive way, but one that doesn't feel jarring against what came before. I'd like it so use the music a little more than it does though. There are long periods of time when you're walking around the open city area where there's no music at all. While that can feel appropriate in one sense, as this is a more lonely and less bombastic experience than other Halo games, it would be good to have a bit more of that soundtrack sprinkled in there too. The music supports those emotions anyway, so it's not like it would disrupt anything.

It also does a similar thing in how it makes you feel small. Usually Halo does that with huge mysterious alien structures, and so when the games don't feature those much I tend to find their environments are a little dull. But here scaling down the character you play as brings that back somewhat. It makes your enemies feel like much more of a threat than they are against Chief, supported by how they can do much more damage to you in this game as well. And while the Earth cityscape isn't the most interesting in terms of basic design, the use of darkness and lighting helps give it that looming feeling to a degree as well.

The daytime flashback levels are in general okay, but for most of them I'm not particularly excited by. They are fine, perfectly serviceable Halo levels, but most of them are pretty unmemorable and are often very short. It has some cool set pieces towards the end, once the flashback story catches up to the currently ongoing events, but for most of the game before that, there isn't a huge amount to say about them.

The story writing isn't great either. This was the first time Halo really tried to have a game narrative that was more character driven than plot and set piece driven. Much like later attempts, it doesn't do a great job. All the characters are very bland and one-note. They're also all very hard to tell apart. They all have pretty much the same boring persona, and since they all wear almost identical armour, it's usually impossible to tell who is who. The only exception being some of the exchanges between Buck and Dare hinting at their previous involvement with one another. It's still pretty shallow and unoriginal stuff, but it at least got a few moments worthy of a smirk. I used to really dislike Buck in this game actually. It's Nathan Fillion, doing the thing he always does. Something I've never cared for, and is imitated too much in games anyway. But given how little else there is to go on here, I guess a little hint of that isn't too bad after all.

It's a fun game though, and I do enjoy what it was going for in trying to create this more understated noire experience. It seems like this game tends to get overlooked in the series as one that isn't as important as the others, and not worth giving attention to. I'm not sure how true that really is, or if perception has changed over time, but I think it's one that shouldn't be missed.
User avatar
ThirdDrawing
Member
Posts: 571
Joined: October 13th, 2016, 2:33 pm
Location: Poverty Stricken StudentLand

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by ThirdDrawing »

#1 - Star Wars Republic Commando.

Fun, intense and brutally difficult in a few places. A weak ending though that could have been fleshed out a bit, too abrupt for my taste.
User avatar
Jon Cheetham
Member
Posts: 524
Joined: October 29th, 2019, 12:49 pm
Location: Singapore
Contact:

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Jon Cheetham »

1. Dark Souls Remastered (Switch) - 3rd Jan

Inspired by some other folks doing likewise in the Modern Escapism Discord, I decided to try for the SL1 run! This is one of if not the most fun playthroughs I've done. Learned loads of new things about the game mechanics, bosses, maps, found and used really useful weapons and items I never knew about before (hello, Ring of Fog and Giant Blacksmith Hammer). Having a single rule to base a playthrough around (not being able to level up) introduces so many interesting questions and challenges as you go through.

Surprisingly, I died much less than for example my first time playing the game. The best weapon in Dark Souls really is knowledge (and preparation).
User avatar
BrianEdwards
Member
Posts: 43
Joined: September 7th, 2018, 11:34 am
Location: Buffalo-ish, NY, USA
Contact:

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by BrianEdwards »

1. Punch Out (Wii)

Title defense mode is still such a pain in the ass, but in the best way possible. It's amazing, I love this game, but have played it so much less than the other two. I'm now dipping back in to improve my times as much as possible and finding new shortcuts and counters is a blast. I just dig it so much.
User avatar
Rhaegyr
Member
Posts: 258
Joined: July 29th, 2019, 2:47 pm

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Rhaegyr »

It Takes Two

Loved it. One of the best co-op games I've played in a long time and in a decent length game full of wonder there was only the odd dull moment. No guff, no collectibles, no grind, no fetch quests and no barrier to entry. More of this please!
User avatar
Scrustle
Member
Posts: 2425
Joined: November 18th, 2012, 6:02 pm

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Scrustle »

Spoiler: show
03/01 - Halo 3: ODST (Master Chief Collection)
06/01 - Halo 3 (Master Chief Collection)

A fun campaign that improves on the gameplay in 2 in some ways, but feels a bit lacking on the narrative side. Aiming feels tighter, especially with certain weapons like the Carbine, which is way better to use than in 2. Yet I noticed the Energy Sword works differently here. Previously you could skip the ignition animation right in to a stab, but it makes you wait in this one. Makes it less satisfying to use, and more clumsy when getting in to close quarters when it's most needed. Levels are wider this time around, which is a welcome return. Halo is supposed to be characterised by having more open layouts where it's more than just a corridor. 2 scaled that back a bit compared to the first game. Or at least the levels people like in that one. In 3 they are expanded again, with lots of vehicle use, and it gives fights less of a restricted, scripted feel as 2 could have sometimes.

The story falls a bit short though. It's perfectly serviceable as a big action-packed finale, but it doesn't live up to a lot of what 2 set up. It doesn't delve in to the interesting themes that 2 explored, and instead focuses on wrapping up the plot. They don't do anything interesting with the Arbiter, or the Gravemind, or even Cortana. It's basically just solely focused on dealing the final blow to the big bad guy and saving the galaxy. It's entertaining as that, a bombastic thrill ride, but it could have been much more. The quality of dialogue takes a big step down too. As mentioned the Arbiter is just sort of there, but also the Prophet of Truth has turned from a silver-tongued and erudite manipulator in to a stock cartoon villain. The Gravemind's dialogue is also much less interesting to listen to. The rhymes are much simpler and more obvious, and again has lost that sense of a formidable scheming mind.

The campaign pacing is a bit strange. It's just as much of a breezy, swiftly paced experience as 2, but breaking it down to what it actually consists of, it shouldn't be. Hardly anything actually happens in the first half of the game. After the introduction level in the jungle, you basically just drive along a road and then take out an AA gun at the end. Nothing of major plot significance happens until the second half of the game. Yet it doesn't drag, probably thanks to having a lot of really great set pieces along the way. There's a lot of great moments throughout. Scarab fights in particular are always great fun. They're a lot more dynamic than I remember from last playing too, you actually have quite a few ways to approach them, and their ability to climb around the level can make unexpected stuff happen too. The level Cortana is awful though. Really hard to see the way forward despite being really linear and claustrophobic, with enemies that have too much health and respawn seemingly infinitely.

I was also pretty impressed with the presentation in a lot of moments too. The cutscenes in particular show a good sense of cinematography and framing, and have some great shots with nice use of lighting. They actually look pretty good, despite the rough character models they have to work with. The wider level design also helped that sense of scale that Halo does so well. The skyboxes in later parts of the game stuck out to me more than I remember too. I don't recall them having that turn to more sunset lighting before. There's also a lot going on up there in the last level, which can be easy to miss since you're trying to avoid all those grey panels exploding all around you driving the Warthog.

Honestly all that is kind of a rambling mess. I would have liked to be able to get my thoughts out more cleanly on it. I generally rate this game fairly high in my rankings of the series, but even though I enjoyed this run I might knock it down a bit. I tend to put it high because of its place in the series, and I suppose the level of excitement around release. But playing through the whole series again this time, maybe I'm not so sure. I still like it, but if I really try to separate it from the rose tinted nostalgia, maybe something like Infinite could give it a run for its money.

When I was first thinking about doing this marathon, I was considering finishing it here. But with all the discussion about the series that has been going around lately, part of me is interested in giving 4 another go. Especially while I have access to the PC version. And if I do that, then whey not 5 as well? Given how much fun Infinite turned out to be, maybe I was too hard on it before... Then again I think the fatigue is starting to set in, so I'll let it sit before I make my mind up.
User avatar
Alex79
Member
Posts: 8422
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 12:36 pm
Location: Walsall, UK.
Contact:

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Alex79 »

Alex79 wrote: January 1st, 2022, 8:24 am JAN - Universal Paperclips (Android)
JAN - Halo 5: Guardians (Xbox)

I really enjoyed this. Yes, I can see why people may have been disappointed with it as a Halo game, but as a sci-fi FPS, I think it had a brilliant single player campaign. And, I know people might think this is crazy, I think it might be my second favourite campaign of the series.

I've finished seven Halo games in six weeks and I might do a post tomorrow ranking them, but I've had the best time with Master Chief Collection and Halo 5. I was going to go straight on to Halo Infinite but I think I need a little break from space opera shooting, so I'm going to (re)play Mass Effect first... :lol:

But anyway, Halo. What a fantastic series. I don't think any of the games are bad; quite the opposite. I think they're all at least good, and aside from 4 probably being my least favourite campaign, truly excellent games. Can't believe I slept on the series for so long, but glad I finally got round to playing them. I'm not even bored of them - I could happily play Infinite right now, but I really do want to get back in to the ME world for a bit.
User avatar
Feirsteax
Member
Posts: 280
Joined: September 11th, 2013, 4:18 pm
Location: Belfast

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Feirsteax »

Fair play Alex, I also really enjoyed Halo 5, it gets a bit of a hard time but there's some cool stuff in there.
It's wild you never played them before now, great to hear you enjoyed it so much!
User avatar
Alex79
Member
Posts: 8422
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 12:36 pm
Location: Walsall, UK.
Contact:

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Alex79 »

Feirsteax wrote: January 7th, 2022, 8:25 am Fair play Alex, I also really enjoyed Halo 5, it gets a bit of a hard time but there's some cool stuff in there.
It's wild you never played them before now, great to hear you enjoyed it so much!
I think that if I had been waiting years for a 'Halo' game I can see why it doesn't really fit that mould, but I think I've played them in quite an unconventional fashion and ended up seeing the whole lot of them as one long story. So, I didn't really end up missing the wide open play areas in 5 because I'd had loads of them in 1, 3 and Reach, which in my mind were just earlier parts of the same story, or game. I honestly think as a straight up FPS game, I've not played many more fun than Halo 5.
User avatar
markfm007
Member
Posts: 193
Joined: September 18th, 2016, 9:35 pm

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by markfm007 »

Jan 7th - Little Nightmares 2

Great sequel overall. Still hampered by unreliable controls and a camera that struggles to convey depth perception. Far too many frustrating deaths can deflate the experience.

It's a shame as everything else is so good. Enemies are brilliant, an unnerving mix of creepy and comical. Each level sells you on their character, and creates a tense mixture of stealth, puzzle solving, and adrenaline fueled chases.

The lighting and sound play a huge part in this too, creating beautiful and unnerving spaces that force you to look into the dimly lit dark corners, listen to the strange and dangerous far away noises. I also love the way it tells stories and creates unforgettable moments without dialogue, characters purely defined by their actions in this weird, abstract space.

Hard one to summarize in the end. It's a great game and improves on its predecessor, a brilliantly paced campaign of immersive and creative horror, but man is it frustrating at times.
User avatar
Scrustle
Member
Posts: 2425
Joined: November 18th, 2012, 6:02 pm

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

Finished every single player GP on all three difficulties with a gold medal. It's a very fun arcade racer that is a pretty good example of a genre that we see very rarely these days, but not without some rough edges.

My positive thoughts on it are pretty much the same as I've said before. It has a really nice visual style that is really clean and colourful. It evokes the low poly style of early 3D racers, mostly inspired by the output of Sega of that time. Sometimes I find when games try to do a style like this, they end up with something that doesn't look very nice, as they don't put much attention in to the exact topography of the 3D mesh. Here that isn't a problem, and they pulled it off in a way that feels natural and pleasing to look at, while still retaining that minimalist, angular look. The characters you can choose from all come across like very era appropriate national caricatures, but in a way that is amusing and light hearted, but not lazy stereotypes. I also get a kick out of seeing them drive modern cars that are presented in this era of graphics that they should be decades separated from. But there's a good range of stuff, with a lot of them showing an obvious appreciation for cars that would be era appropriate.

The feel of driving the cars is mostly great as well. Very fast and grippy, intuitive and natural in the hands. Easy to pick up and play, but can get deceptively tricky on the more challenging tracks. Especially on higher difficulties. It nails the feeling of tapping the brakes to go in to a wide and controllable slide, and it scratches that itch that the likes of Burnout did so well. Contrary to what I thought before, it does seem like the cars do get faster on the higher difficulties, which requires more disciplined use of drifting, and requires a decent amount of focus as things can go wrong pretty quickly. But that does lead on to some of the issues that reared their head later on. I still never had an issue with the rubber banding, at least not in the sense of opponents catching up out of nowhere. What was an issue however was that when opponents to catch up, there's a strong possibility that they will knock in to you and send you careening off in to a wall. They can very easily throw you off your line or completely ruin your race in a second, through no fault of your own. It can be pretty frustrating. A lot of success also seems to come down to what car you drive too. As I mentioned before, there's actually a lot of difference in how cars drive, and while I did try to spread out and try a decent number of them, in the end I just stuck with the first one I drove. The Toyota Supra looking car, which has a nice balance to everything, decent speed, and a nicely controllable drift. While I spent a good amount of time getting annoyed at having to restart GPs at the highest level with cars I wasn't clicking with, once I went back to this one I cleaned up everything I had left with little issue.

The game is rather short overall, but I still don't feel bad about it. It's nice to have a short game like this that focuses on polish and replayability. Although I discovered that this version of the game I've been playing is a little longer than people would have played on release. This game got some free DLC a while back which added an extra GP to the career mode. That still only bumps the total up to five though, and I ended up finishing the whole thing in less than four and a half hours. I'm sure I could have cut that down a bit too if I wasn't restarting a bunch of GPs because of doomed attempts. Looking at Steam reviews, it also seems like the multiplayer servers for this game have stopped functioning recently. That's not something that bothers me personally, but I can see how that could be a big driver of longevity for this game, that has now seemingly just been abandoned. There are a bunch of different game modes to it, that you can also play in Quick Race. None of them seem particularly appealing to me, but maybe they were something people got some fun out of in multiplayer.

Anyway, it's a fun little game that I'm glad I finally got to. I've been curious about this one for a while, as I'm generally pretty jaded about racing games. Especially when it comes to games like this almost never getting released. So I'm happy to experience one that was a good bit of fun.
User avatar
Jon Cheetham
Member
Posts: 524
Joined: October 29th, 2019, 12:49 pm
Location: Singapore
Contact:

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Jon Cheetham »

Jon Cheetham wrote: January 4th, 2022, 9:54 am 1. Dark Souls Remastered (Switch) - 3rd Jan
2. Pyre (Steam) - 10th Jan

I started this around a year ago and decided to get it finished over the last few evenings. If you got the BLM donation bundle from itch.io then you own this and you really should check it out. Hades is one of the all-time GOAT games and the best thing Supergiant have done, but I actually think my favourite story and cast of characters they've come out with is Pyre.

The riotously colourful and endlessly original art design really helps sell this high fantasy world. Like Morrowind did 20 years ago, this makes me wonder why everyone defaults to the same old palettes for fantasy, when as a genre it can be a canvas for such striking concepts for places, peoples and cultures. Truly original stuff here. Basically Jen Zee is a genius and everything she draws should be cherished.

Logan Cunningham is on absolutely top form as The Voice and I think again this might be my favourite performance by him. His sneering and browbeating as you conduct the rites is always so funny and just gets better and better as he becomes more angry with you. I love the idea of a sports commentator committed to providing such withering barbs as you play. There's one point where he's so disgusted by what he deems the ludicrous nature of who is facing off against who in one match, that he refuses to commentate at all and sure enough isn't heard of again until the next rite.

The music by Darren Korb is incredible and in fact I have been listening to it ever since starting the game a year ago so I am very familiar with it now, but it does work superbly in context as you're engaged in solemn, funny or soul-searching chats with your band of misfits or kicking off the next rite, there's some brilliant theme songs for opposing teams particularly 'Knights of the Sea' for the Wyrm-knights. If you listen to that song you will want to try this game, honestly.

I became really invested in a lot of the characters I encountered, which is sometimes rare for me in a game. These are just so well written and they seldom collapse into stereotypes. Often they subvert archetypes like the broad shouldered hero, the heroic knight, the traitor, in clever ways. It is more of a visual novel than a caravan manager, and you are mostly making A/B choices about which character you agree with, so you get to play favourites and spend more time with those you most enjoy hearing about. My favourite was Pamitha, because she was such a handy inclusion in the squad with her flying abilities but also because of her sad backstory and the way she kept finding reasons to carry on. And at the end I really felt that what happened to each character fit perfectly for the story I had ended up with.

The rites themselves are quite fun, a mix of real-time action that's a sort of sorcerous basketball and plenty of RPG twiddling and team management to get your squad the advantage. You can think your way to victory, setting your team up with a buffed pyre (goal) that takes more hits to douse (the win condition) and strategically placing characters in positions to protect the pyre, or make a beeline for the orb (ball) and try to jink your way to scoring a point. With my controller, I found the rites really great and was usually doing pretty good - with mkb it is a bit less intuitive especially for movement, and sadly Pyre didn't seem to get along with my pad so this was how I played most of them.

Overall I loved it though. I've now beaten all the Supergiant games so far and they're all fab.
User avatar
Indiana747
Member
Posts: 1009
Joined: September 3rd, 2012, 5:17 pm

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Indiana747 »

(Jan) Terminator Resistance(platinum) - PS5.
User avatar
DeadpoolNegative
Member
Posts: 183
Joined: April 16th, 2015, 5:00 am

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by DeadpoolNegative »

Batman: Return to Arkham- Arkham Asylum- XBox One, 1/8

So the Return to Arkham games are on the "Last Chance" sale for only $4.99 for the next week or so and I finally took the plunge, after playing the original on both the 360 and the PS3. I tore through this third playthrough in a matter of days, it's just that addicting and exciting.

Some may scoff at this comparison, but Arkham Asylum in my mind was as big a deal in my gaming history as Metal Gear Solid was in 1998, it felt like a bomb going off the first time I played it in 2010. The refinement of several gaming styles into one seamless adventure game whole, paired with a genuinely heartfelt, compelling script that made me want to see what happened next as much as I wanted to break thugs' arms. Obviously, though, MGS has a much better, deeper story than Paul Dini and Sefton Hill's edgelord reimagining of the animated series. But the first game's script is tighter than Arkham City, which is an incredible mess (But I'll get to that later), and then Arkham Knight, asks City to hold its beer and then some. Voice acting is solid, and hearing Arleen Sorkin again after a decade plus of Tara Strong as Harley Quinn, well, It's pretty damn great.

But let's get back to Asylum. I found myself trying harder for the Riddler challenges this time, and I unlocked the 55% achievement which marks as the furthest I've ever gotten. I think maybe in a while i'll block out a Saturday afternoon to go hunting for Riddler Trophies, maybe 100%ing it at last.

--Dan
User avatar
Truk_Kurt
Member
Posts: 691
Joined: July 9th, 2015, 10:00 pm

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Truk_Kurt »

DeadpoolNegative wrote: January 11th, 2022, 3:56 am Batman: Return to Arkham- Arkham Asylum- XBox One, 1/8

So the Return to Arkham games are on the "Last Chance" sale for only $4.99 for the next week or so and I finally took the plunge, after playing the original on both the 360 and the PS3. I tore through this third playthrough in a matter of days, it's just that addicting and exciting.

Some may scoff at this comparison, but Arkham Asylum in my mind was as big a deal in my gaming history as Metal Gear Solid was in 1998, it felt like a bomb going off the first time I played it in 2010. The refinement of several gaming styles into one seamless adventure game whole, paired with a genuinely heartfelt, compelling script that made me want to see what happened next as much as I wanted to break thugs' arms. Obviously, though, MGS has a much better, deeper story than Paul Dini and Sefton Hill's edgelord reimagining of the animated series. But the first game's script is tighter than Arkham City, which is an incredible mess (But I'll get to that later), and then Arkham Knight, asks City to hold its beer and then some. Voice acting is solid, and hearing Arleen Sorkin again after a decade plus of Tara Strong as Harley Quinn, well, It's pretty damn great.

But let's get back to Asylum. I found myself trying harder for the Riddler challenges this time, and I unlocked the 55% achievement which marks as the furthest I've ever gotten. I think maybe in a while i'll block out a Saturday afternoon to go hunting for Riddler Trophies, maybe 100%ing it at last.

--Dan
Arkham Asylum was the first game I ever got a platinum trophy in and would recommend going for it as it is one of the better platinum trophies to pursue. In my opinion the Riddler challenges/trophies are the best collectibles of any open world game as the majority of them are some kind of puzzle rather than something you just pick up and move on.
User avatar
Magical_Isopod
Member
Posts: 993
Joined: May 29th, 2018, 11:57 pm
Location: London, ON, Canada

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by Magical_Isopod »

#1 - Control (2019, PS4)

So bit of a story with this one - I actually rented this about a year after it came out, died repeatedly to the Tomassi fight early in the game, and then bounced on it, thinking, "Why was everyone raving about this game?" I remember thinking it was just another third person shooter with like an X-Com coat of paint.

It went free on PS+ last year, and I claimed it. It sat there for a while. Then it was announced for Cane and Rinse Volume 11. Then my brother DM'd me on like New Years Eve being like, "Dude, this game is amazing." Then in the first few days of January, a streamer I watch sang its praises as an "SCP game"; SCP referring to the "SCP Foundation" creative writing project, from which Control draws a lot of inspiration.

So I was like, "Screw it, I'll give it another try."

Guys, I LOVED this game. It's not perfect - most games I like aren't. But if there's one thing I value above all else in games, it's creativity - especially in terms of art design and general theming. That connection to the SCP stuff was vital in hooking me in the early game though, because the game IS a bit of a slow starter. Since renting it, I've become much more familiar with SCP Foundation as an internet oddity, having many of the stories discussed or referred to in my general gaming space quite often in the last year or so. But knowing how those stories roll, how they deliberately use dry, bureaucratic language to tell very interesting stories, it was enough for me to say, "Oh okay, I see what this is trying to do."

But Control is very much its own thing. While the core ideas are pulled from SCP, it definitely hits its own stride and finds its own identity fairly early on, once the world is established and you have a general idea what's going on. Because that's actually just it - nothing in this world is established, and you never fully know what's going on. And that's very much deliberate. It sets an ethereal, otherworldly tone, and to dedicates to it. Everything in this game, and in its world, makes just enough sense to be understandable, but leaves enough nebulous to keep you thinking about it. And it succeeds in a big way.

It's very difficult to talk about Control, because it's difficult to explain what it is. It's... What happens when some incredibly creative and talented minds and artists make whatever the hell they want. To the degree I don't understand how it even got made. Seeing 505 Games as a publisher definitely raised an eyebrow too - they don't exactly put out top-tier content. So I feel like this was a passion project that only 505 was willing to gamble on.

Okay, I'm rambling. The whole narrative rambles - you'll see. So I'll simplify things:
Pros:
- Your abilities and general locomotion.
- The art design.
- The incredible use of colour and lighting.
- The connection to SCP, with all these mundane objects that are more than they appear.
- The bosses, hard as most of the optional ones may be.
- Ahti.
- Sidequests that are (mostly) fantastic, and only add to the narrative rather than subtract from it.
- Files and notes acting as compelling, well-written stories instead of lore drops and set dressing.
- How the world shifts and changes as it feels like; this game messes with geometry in really cool ways.
- A narrative that invokes the likes of Franz Kafka and David Lynch in how it more or less makes sense, but is also super disorienting and dreamlike (yes, this is a pro).
- Some of the setpiece levels are just... Woah. Anyone who's played this game knows what I mean.
Cons:
- You'll often get hit with massive damage from sources you often can't see.
- Further to that point, the game is so in love with its smoke and particle physics that you sometimes can't see anything, and it can make tense encounters an exercise in frustration.
- The small handful of sidequests (maybe 3 max) that are just "find X number of thing without much signposting".
- I felt like the main story was far less interesting than the world it takes place in... I'm completely okay with this, but I often hesitated to advance the main story because of this. :P

There's simply nothing else like Control, and that alone is enough for me to recommend everyone at least try this one. As a broad generality, I'd say the difficulty is a bit higher than I'd normally prefer, and I think that'll keep some of the more casual and less-experienced gamers away. While probably not like, one of the all-time greatest games I've ever played, it's definitely made my Top 100, and playing two fantastic games in a row - the other being The Alliance Alive HD - has got me absolutely buzzing in excitement for gaming, which I haven't felt much this past year.

And man... Does this one ever make me want to revisit Alan Wake.

&iso2022
User avatar
OneCreditBen
Member
Posts: 234
Joined: August 15th, 2017, 10:03 am

Re: Games Completed 2022

Post by OneCreditBen »



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ajwxtLu7GU

I know I've done this a lot under different stipulations.
But this was No Death, and this was live on a stream.

Ghouls N Ghosts - World Rom - Arcade - No Death

It's always magic. I always feel like I'm flying for a few brief seconds when I get a clear like this.
Incredible.
Post Reply