Gaming What was the last videogame you beat?

Fallen Order

At the start this game was very glitchy with a lot of frame rate drops, however, once the forth patch was released the experience improved ten fold. I really enjoyed the beautiful scenery of each of the planets, as well as the music which fitted the game very well. Personally, my favourite planet was Dathomir, that was when the story started to really pick up, but Kashyyyk is a close second, that was visually stunning. Overall a very enjoyable game, despite there being some issues to start with and some of the mechanics being fiddly, with a strong story, definitely one of the better Star Wars games I have played.

Graphics: 7/10 (Still slightly glitchy)
Story: 9/10
Music: 10/10
Mechanics: 7/10 (improved after patch 4)
Enjoy ability: 7/10

Overall: 8/10

 

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (2017)

They’ve taken his soul. To these gods, you cannot pray. They can break you, but not your promise. Even death won’t keep you apart. Through this darkness, you will find him. In your sword still beats a heart.

I actually finished this game a while back, but I never got around to posting my thoughts in any organized way. In a way, I’m kind of glad, because the months that have passed since I finished the game have confirmed my suspicions at the time, namely that the impact Hellblade had on me was going to be a lasting one. Months on down the road, I’ve still got three Hellblade wallpapers in rotation on my laptop and my work computer; I’m still listening to the soundtrack; and I still think about Senua and her journey/struggle every day.

You might think she’s brave to go on this journey alone. But it isn’t bravery that drives her. Bravery only means something to those afraid of death. Senua’s fear runs far, far deeper.

Anybody who knows about this game is already up on the main talking point about it, which is that the main character spends the game dealing with her psychosis, even as she undertakes a harrowing quest. At this late date, I don’t know what to say that hasn’t been said as far as this element goes. It’s absolutely stunning the way this game deals with mental illness and I basically sign off on any positive thing that’s ever been said about this element of the game. The representation of the voices in Senua’s head is immersive and brilliant and, while there’s no contest that Senua is the best character in the game, I found The Darkness, the terrifying personification of her illness or perhaps her grief, to be a wonderfully realized creation.

Have you died before? It’s a serious question.

Some people quibbled with some of the mechanical issues on the game, but I have to say that my experience was that they enriched the experience of the game. Most of the puzzles revolve around doors that are locked with runes; in order to open the doors, the player as to locate those runes hidden in the environment around her. I thought this played really well into the mental disorder theme, since one aspect of that is often seeing patterns where others don’t. And I really found them to be some of the most organic and natural puzzles I’ve ever done in a video game; they really do just rise out of the environment and they don’t feel forced at all. Likewise, I really enjoyed the combat. Apparently, the game was reworked at one point by bringing in new people to redo a lot of the combat motion capture and, in my opinion, it really shows. Senua’s moves were always really satisfying and the way the enemies move, attack and react to being hit just looked really real. The characters just seemed to have weight and they used momentum in a way that looks real. There’s one move Senua makes that would involve her sort of flinging herself into a spin in order to add force to her blow that looked great and the enemies that had wooden shields actually used shields as weapons of offense as well as defense and that’s something almost nobody gets right when depicting shielded combat. And, at a certain point, I found little in the game as satisfying as seeing enemies approaching and just sending Senua sprinting at them, leaping into the air and landing a mid-air hit on one of them. There was something really compelling both mechanically and thematically about that, about these demonic enemies slowly approaching and Senua just choosing to take the fight right to them.

The Darkness is coming. It yearns for life, hungers for it. Like a pack of wolves on a hunt. But she’s not stopping. Not this time.

I’ve definitely found Senua to be one of the most compelling and evocative characters I’ve encountered in any media really, right up there with Jean Valjean and Charlie Brown, if you get me. She’s kind of the definitive badass in my mind at the moment. The game is unflinching in depicting the depth of her suffering; she’s been through all sorts of hell and her psychosis is far from the worst torture she’s faced. She’s weak, in incredible pain, suffering profoundly and existentially and yet she just won’t stop. It’s the extreme trauma that makes her the true badass she is as much as the swordplay and the action. Her ability to just keep going despite all that she’s been through was deeply and profoundly moving to me and when I think about her now, as I do a lot, it’s about her strength to run right at her worst fears even while suffering deep brokenness and sorrow. Melina Jurgens' preternatural performance is absolutely key here, of course; it's the best video game performance I've ever seen, bar none. The game is incredibly dark and disturbing; it’s certainly a story-based game and also a hack-and-slash, but I think it really fits most comfortably in the horror genre if we have to assign it a genre.

I should also talk a bit about the way the game references & subverts the whole notion of it being a game. I’ll get briefly into spoilers here, so beware if you haven’t played it, because you really should play it and play it without any big spoilers.

Turn your back on death and you only see the shadow that it casts.

Spoiler

The game is ostensibly about Senua attempting to bring her lover back to life after he’s brutally killed (in a harrowing sequence) by invading Vikings. She’s on a quest to carry his head, the seat of the soul in Celtic spirituality, into Helheim and bring his soul back from the afterlife. You buy this as a player because, well, because it’s a video game and we’ve all played a hundred video games with some variation of this premise. But the twist at the end of the game is that the game has really been about Senua learning to let go; turns out there is no great heroic quest, at least not of the kind we’ve been thinking there was. Because, of course, this is real life. And when people die, they’re dead; they’re gone and there’s no bringing them back. You can’t go to hell and rescue them; when people die, they don’t come back. And the journey those of us who are left have to take isn’t a rescue mission; it’s a journey to letting go and finding peace. That the game nails this while also refusing to “cure” Senua of her illness in any way at all is really just perfectly executed.

Anyway, yes, this is now one of my favorite games of all time. It’s a monumental achievement and a step forward for the art form. Play it. It’s amazing.



Run to them.



Fight on.

 

Graaaah fine, remind me that I still haven't played that game in spite of owning it and wanting to for a couple years. Jerk

What did you play it on? I'm playing it on PS4 Pro and so I had the option of turning on performance mode. This dropped the resolution a little bit, but not too much. Just for the sake of a steadier higher framerate, I think it helped.

 

I remain ambivalent on Hellblade. Not because it won't be good but that it will be so very good at executing its story! I think it might get in my head a bit too much.

 

PS4 - Just the ordinary one

Just finished ABC Murders on PS4, it was basically a point and click game with a quirky style. I really enjoy the Poirot tv series and books, so this was very enjoyable. Just wish more of the stories had been adapted as sequels, using the same style.

Graphics: 5/10 (Quirky but basic)
Story: 8/10
Music: 6/10 (Good but repetitive)
Mechanics: 4/10 (The controls were not natural)
Enjoyable: 7/10
Overall: 6/10

 

That is definitely an issue I can see some people having with it. I mean, it's hard to watch at times for sure. Like two scenes in particular are coming to mind that could definitely be triggering for people. And then you have the voices in your head the whole game basically and I could see that being too intense for some people as well. The voice of The Darkness is mixed right up front so it just seems to really be coming from right in your ear when he shows up. I'd recommend giving the game a try and see how it works for you. Or even watch the first parts of a walkthrough without commentary on YouTube. That'll probably give you some idea of whether you'd be able to handle it or not.

 

See and here's me thinking, "I should play Hellblade with my PSVR headset on so it's totally immersive!"

 

Well, if you want to properly terrify yerself - RE7: VR.

 

Noooooope

 

So about the last fight to end the game

Spoiler

Just how long did it take you to realize that it was literally never going to end until you let yourself die? I think it took me about 20 minutes to a half hour when I just got fed up and died.

 

Wise.

 

I've watched a no commentary playthrough, and that was enjoyable. I love horror... I just am not much for playing horror games.

 

Detroit: Become Human
@Jordan1Kenobi

Wow. That was one heck of an intense game. So I got through 1 of (looked up online) 40 possible endings. It's really unlike any game I've ever played before. The choices you make seriously effect the outcomes of the three characters as the story continues to progress. It really tugs at the heartstrings.

Spoiler: ONLY FOR THOSE WHO'VE PLAYED THE GAME

So my ending through the first playthrough had Marcus and the army of Deviants successfully overcome the camp to rescue the androids to lead to the rebellion. Marcus killed Connor. Most disappointing was my outcome with Kara and Alice. Tbh, they were the only ones I really cared about. If Marcus and/or Connor didn't complete their missions and get a "good" ending, I'd have still been happy if Kara and Alice did. The scenes early in the game where the deadbeat drunk was abusing little Alice wanted me to jump into the screen and strangle him. She was so little and innocent. Unfortunately when I got to the bus stop I gave the dropped tickets back to the family with the baby and the next thing I know I was stopped by the cops; who checked the papers, scanned us, and you probably know what happened next.

I'm not sure how replaying the chapters works; if you can make different choices and then play through the game with alternate outcomes - or if it's better just to replay the game fresh. The game certainly has high replay value for sure.

 

Awesome. I knew you’d enjoy it.

Spoiler

I think Kara was also my favourite. I also gave the tickets back to the random family, but that family who’s house we hid in came and took me to the border. Sadly when I was crossing the river Alice got shot and died in Kara’s arms. Kara continued on by herself. It was really sad.

My Marcus and Connor endings were really good though. Marcus convinced the public that androids are good so the humans accepted them. Connor became a deviant, and him and Hank survived and became good pals.

 

Yeah, see, I don't know if I would be able to handle that. I feel like that's probably the "definitive" experience the devs would want a player to have. But, yeah, that would be really intense.

Well, I'm not what you'd call "good" at games.

Spoiler

So I actually just died without even realizing that was what I had to do in order to progress. I feel like I knew the fight was getting long, but even though I had the super-powered sword at that point, I still just took some hits and died before it went on long enough for me to figure out that the game was up to something.

I've heard people talk about being really frustrated at that point and I could definitely see that. I guess the voices in your head eventually starting telling you to give up and the game has laid a groundwork that the voices will help you sometimes, so maybe they thought that was enough. But the game also laid a groundwork that you couldn't always trust the voices, so, yeah, I can definitely see a player just ignoring that or just not even picking up on it, because the game has also taught you to just tune the voices out sometimes too. That does seem like a place where maybe the devs didn't quite think through how frustrating that could get for people. They probably should have signposted that a bit better where it would be easier and quicker for people to realize what they needed to do there. I would call that a mechanical flaw in the game. Just happened to be one I dodged by virtue of just, you know, not being good.

 

Yeah I've really gotta replay the game to witness the other endings. I'm just wondering if it lets you replay an individual chapter while choosing a completely different path - and then have those new choices unlocked for another chapter. I know in Life is Strange (the original one at least), you can replay chapters and select different choices, but it doesn't really effect the path from one chapter to the next. But then again, I don't recall if any choices in an early chapter in LIS effected the outcome of later ones; much less the ending itself.

Edit: Actually this page gives a pretty thorough description of what happens when you replay chapters. The game actually overwrites your save; so whatever choices you have in any given chapter effect the progress moving forward. I wonder if the story path (choices you made previously) are still shown or if they're hidden as if you've never made them.

https://twinfinite.net/2018/05/detroit-become-human-replay-chapters-missions-how/

 

That's reminding me I should definitely play Detroit soon. I was waiting for that game when it came out but wound up being super busy and now I just haven't gotten to it. I would go ahead and play it now, but I need to pick up Yakuza 0 again and get going on that one. That game is fun but having to read all the translations is tiring. It's sacrilege, but I wish it had an English dub option to be honest...

The game I just finished this weekend is Jedi: Fallen Order.

The game is definitely harder than most AAA games, especially for one from an established IP and world like this that has to appeal to many people. So I give them props for sticking to their guns. That being said, after 45 minutes of trying to beat a boss near the end, I did pop it down to Story Mode so I could just kick his ass quickly without having to even use any health items.

Now, I loved the story and characters of this world. That's the highlight of this game for sure. The exploration was also fun. I would love love love to see a sequel exploring more about what happens with these characters going forward. And also, it's just a lot of fun to be a Jedi, isn't it? They nailed that aspect.

My one complaint is that I felt the parry system didn't actually work very well. Yeah yeah, I go the trophy for having over 100 perfect parries in the game, but I felt like I should have had ten times that many. I never did really figure out what the parry timing was supposed to be. This wasn't helped by the fact that you'd get frame drops with many enemies around, and that was playing on PS4 Pro in performance mode. So if/when there's a sequel, I do hope they tighten up the controls a bit.

But overall, I highly recommend this game. I just wish it were a bit longer to be honest, because I wanted more. The tombs were fun but there ought to have been a few more of them. And I wanna go back and now be a fully-fledged Jedi Knight!

A-

 

Star Fox 2 on normal difficulty.

 

The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit

Just wanted to play through this hour or so long puzzle story game before playing Life is Strange 2. This is the intro to that. Definitely introduces an interesting character and world so I will be excited to see more.

 

I played that a while ago, it was quite good and the boy was very sweet. I did not know it was an intro to LiS2, that is very cool. I am yet to play LiS 2

 

I haven't gotten to LIS2, but I will say Captain Spirit was certainly a nice introduction. From what I understand it's sort of a spin-off story to the primary game; which was a different approach to what Dontnod did with the first LIS game. They actually released the first episode for free within months after the full game was made available. That's how I got into it.

 

Got Uncharted 4 on Black Friday and finished it last night. Not sure how else to summarize it other than to say it's an Uncharted game. You climb things, solve some puzzles, shoot people, play an awesome set piece once in a while (I might be wrong but there seemed to be less in this one compared to the past games), rinse and repeat. They did add some new things like the grappling hook and stealth elements but for the most part it sticks to the formula that Naughty Dog have crafted pretty well and I can't blame them for sticking with what has worked in the past. It's over-the-top and the story is utterly preposterous....but I wouldn't want it any other way. I did really like how everything wraps up in the end, especially with the epilogue.

 

Jedi FO.

 

I wasn’t sure which thread to put this in; it’s not really a game you BEAT per se, but I suppose it is one I’ve “finished,” by which I only mean that I’m not going to be playing it for a while, though I can’t rule out another visit to the sweet world of this game sometime down the line.



Kind Words (lo fi chill beats to write to) (2019)

It feels a little bit strange to call Kind Words (lo fi chill beats to write to) a game. There’s no way to “win” or “lose.” There are, I suppose, collectables, but the search for them is as low-pressure as any hunt for collectibles in history. What it is . . . is really just an online experience. It’s currently for sale on Steam for about 5 dollars (actually, as of right now today, on sale for $4.24) and I have to say I recommend it strongly. It may not be a game you play for a long time, but even a brief time spent in the world of Kind Words (lo fi chill beats to write to) is valuable. And, yes, I’ll stop using the full title now.

Essentially, you download the game and it creates an account for you, an account where you are identified only by the first letter of your first name. Then you’re placed in digital room, a tiny writing space. Other people, just like you, have logged into the game and they’ve left “requests,” which are short letters talking about their problems and struggles. Sometimes, they’re really short and vague, other times, they go into more detail. Your job as the player is to respond to those letters with short letters of your own. Kind Words, you know. You can, of course, also post your own original “requests” in hopes that others will write to you to offer words of encouragement and hope. And they will.

I downloaded this game after it was nominated for the Games for Impact award at the 2019 Game Awards. It’s definitely a very worthy nominee. I was afraid, however, given that the game had actually first come out very early in 2019 that it might not be, shall we say, fully functional at this time. This is a game where basically all content is user-generated, right? If the community dries up, this game just isn’t anything. When I first logged in, I found a large number of requests, but they’re not even dated or anything, so they could have been old. I responded to some requests and then I wrote my first letter, talking about some recent anxiety attacks and the stress that had brought them on. When I logged back on right before bed, only four or five hours later, I’d already received several responses as well as getting “Thank Yous” on the responses I’d written. Barring some kind of incredibly sophisticated AI, the community is still functional and so is the game.

For some people, the idea of connecting with strangers online and spreading emotional support in that way is probably entirely foreign. As someone who’s been coming to this particular forum for almost two decades now, it’s not strange at all. But I like the way Kind Words makes the connections even more ephemeral than, for instance, the connections on this website are. Once you respond to someone’s request with a letter, both your letter and the original request are gone; you can’t look at either of them again. And when you get a thank you back from someone, it doesn’t allow that person to write anything to you; it’s just a generic, “You just got a Thank You from someone,” and it doesn’t even tell you which of the responses you sent out you’re even getting the thank you for. So I might write seven or eight letters one evening and then logon the next morning to find that I’d received four Thank Yous. I don’t even know which of my letters were responsible for those, which of them were read and which weren’t. It really is totally ephemeral in that way.



When people write to you, however, you do get to keep those letters so you can return to the encouraging words whenever you want. That’s nice. And, as people send you letters and thank yous, you’ll slowly start to assemble a collection of stickers, of which there are a set number, all of which correspond to a set of decorations you can put in your digital room. So, when someone responds to your request, they’ll probably attach a sticker to the bottom of their letter; if it’s one you don’t have, you can then add the corresponding toy to your room. Even more adorable is the Mail Deer, who shows up every time you send a letter or get a thanks. I mean, he’s not my favorite video game character of the year (I did play Hellblade this year), but he’s pretty awesome. And, of course, he is the one who provides the titular lo-fi chill beats.



The soundtrack is by Clark Aboud and it’s a series of seventeen different instrumental tracks in the lo-fi chill beats genre (I didn’t know that was a genre); the game starts you off with four or five, as I recall and then the deer introduces a new one every so often which is a smart way to motivate the player to keep coming back. Your digital room has a radio and if you click on it, you can skip tracks if there are some you don’t like as well or just pick one to put on loop if you particularly love one of them more than the others. They’re all pretty good. The above, Mid Century, is one of my favorites.

But, just to wrap up, I really loved this game. It’s a true experience in empathy building and I’m pretty impressed with the ways in which I think this game could be genuinely emotionally helpful. There’s something cleansing about getting your thoughts and feelings out there and this is as genuinely anonymous a way as I’ve found to do that. You really can write your feelings in total honesty and get a genuine human being writing back to you with empathy and encouragement and I think a game like this is going to be the first step a lot of people need toward getting help. The first time you tell a secret you’ve been hiding is always the scariest and Kind Words gives you a safe place to do that. Playing the game always evoked a sense of peace in me; I would pour out my negative emotions and feel cleansed and then go and use that freeing feeling of peace to speak peace and hope to others who were in need. The music helped a lot, I think, and I would always end up spending more time in Kind Words than I’d meant to, and I’d always feel better when I exited the game. Kind Words is a quiet, sweet masterpiece.

I’ll leave you with something akin to the way the game made me feel. A piece of fanart from the Steam Community by a user named Badger and one of my favorite tracks from the soundtrack, Lavender. Those two things put together really capture the way this game makes me feel. And the way I hope it will make you feel.

Take a moment for kindness.