Gaming What was the last videogame you beat?

Outriders: Worldslayer

Meh.

That's this game in a nutshell. It's not outstanding at anything, not horrible at anything. It had so much potential but especially in the story it just doesn't measure up to that potential.

A lot of the problem stems from it being a single player/co op game that for some reason has a GaaS endgame series of modes. Just why. This could have been so good as a single player or just co op game.

I did have some fun playing it with my brother, so I appreciate the co op. But still. It just doesn't know what it wants to be.

C+

 

If you want to see what the same team can really do, play the ludicrously fun Bulletstorm.

Freedom Planet

In aesthetic terms, this is a good looking game with an excellent sense of style. So where does it go wrong? It succumbs to the game malady of designicus bullcrapicus.

The later levels suffer particularly from this. Unclear level design, with some looping and lacking signposting. You have no projectile attacks, all your enemies will have them. Ability to dodge? Very, very compromised. Dodge boss atracks? Some are exceedingly difficult to do so.

Other times it'll require you to do a move from a particular position to get elsewhere but your ability to judge it is impaired by the game. A door unlock puzzle in stage 7 was an especially bad case of this but not an isolated case.

For a game influenced by Sonic it has a very weird approach to momentum that never feels entirely right. You'll get some speed up, expect to loop a loop and come to a screeching halt instead.

If the game could get out of its own way, it could be spectacular but as it is? It's a retro homage with all the bad habits of retro games reincarnated into it. I don't think those are wanted by anyone yet every retro game designer seems unable to resist adding them. And I was playing on Casual, with health regen! Without it I would have gotten nowhere completing it.

The other two playable characters? Add little beyond much harder to control and, in one case, half the life bar. Lilac is by far the best character to play.

It starts off great but then from about the halfway point it undermines itself with difficulty for the sake of it. It's just about all right if you buy it cheap but paying £25? I would feel ripped off. The sequel? After the second half of this one, including a far too long Final Dreadnaught quartet of levels, I really don't know if I'd go for it when it arrives later this year.

 

Isn't Bulletstorm a bullet hell type game? Because I can't do those.

 

From the name alone it sounds like that but no. It's FPS with a focus on fun.

It has a fantastic skill shot system where, the more fantastic and creative your kills are, the more points you get.

E.g. wrap a pair of bolas grenades around an enemy, boot him into his friends and detonate. Cue a "Gang Bang" points bonus.

Or....Shoot guy in the balls, as he's screaming, headshot him "Mercy" bonus results.

Others are environmental like booting someone onto a lethal cactus or feeding someone to a giant venus flytrap.

Not that hard either, got a good set of difficulty settings too.

 

Ah that's interesting. I am not, in spite of playing Destiny all the time, much for FPS though.

 

I'd still say to give it a go because it does play rather differently to most FPS games and you can often get it really, really cheap.

It's not a big game, say 8-10 hours but very fun ones.

 

River City Girls

Actually finished this.

The flaws of the game are uneven difficulty, especially boss fights, with 3 and 5 being much harder than the others, including the final one. Cheap and frequently intangible enemies don't help. The game could do with health bars for enemies, as they tend to have a lot.

The pluses are with the way the stats boosts from food work with the levelling you can get the characters powered up and see a difference over time. Your characters will get faster, hit harder, acquire new moves and combining those new moves is very fun.

Its boosted by the game's sense of style, in both its visuals, audio, but also its manga cut scenes.

For all that a couple of boss fights inflict a lot of damage on it, this ended up being pretty good. If the sequel was on sake cheap, I'd now be inclined to give it a look.

Mayhem Brawler

Should a game try to do something new with its genre? Generally yes, but it has to do so successfully, which is where this one is more mixed.

It does integrate a block move into its gameplay better than both Asterix & Obelix: Slap Them All, as frequently you couldn't see clearly enough to use it, and River City Girls, where it only works some of the time. Seeing an attack coming, blocking and then countering is quite smart.

Enemies have health regen and an unblockable grab move, the only way to escape it is to do special move. Having a separate energy bar for special moves is good but this is still a very cheap feature.

The status symbols are an interesting idea but the execution is flawed. The payback one works OK, but the counter after a couple of hits is very irritating.

On your first play, even on Cadet setting, it will seem very, very cheap. Enemies do a lot of damage, regen health and there's ranged attacks that annoy. You can die very, very fast.

Then you work out that the solution is to play very, very aggressively. So juggle enemies to get them either killed or near to it. Use every weapon you can get, there's no shortage.

The levels are short but intense. They are, however, uneven. Level five deserves its reputation as an unfair difficulty spike. Both boss fights on the following levels were easier. The branching idea is pretty good, played 12 of 13 levels.

Graphically, has a good sense of style and soundtrack is OK.

Overall, if bought cheap, this can be an OK game that tries some new things in the beat 'em up genre. It'll be interesting to see how the sequel builds on this mixed first effort.

 

Mafia II: Definitive Edition. If the definitive edition of Mafia was something on the order of a remake, this feels like a simpler remaster. The graphics aren't as good and the game feels less polished. Its is an odd hybrid even for its time, an "open world" city that you can only explore around the margins, since there's no free roam. You get a rigid mission structure like before, but each usually ends with you coming or going from your apartment, leaving you the opportunity to mess around before or after missions. But there's nothing in the open world. You can make cash by stealing cars (or, apparently, robbing stores, a mechanic the game never even introduces), and you can spend that cash on . . . clothes and guns and upgrading the few cars you're allowed to keep. There just isn't any substance there, and while it's fun enough to ride around the city enjoying the (almost entirely anachronistic, just like the game's weird smutty Playboy collectibles) fifties music and cars, the graphics aren't good enough to make it quite the pleasure it could be. There's DLC that leans into an "arcade" style of play, which is code for "zero developer effort" and which simply isn't fun, so it doesn't add anything. The base gameplay of cover-based shooting and driving is okay -- though the inability to shoot from your car makes car chases frequently nightmarish -- but it's not the attraction of the game.

It all comes down to the story, which with Mafia's cinematic, gangster-movie-style approach, is the real attraction anyway. There's good news and bad news there. Mafia sometimes worked too hard to try to make its protagonist sympathetic, a "decent" family man who worked for the nicer one of the warring dons, while also telling a story with a central theme of the corruption and destructiveness of mob life. Mafia II doesn't go in for that; its protagonist is a petty criminal who is eager to join the mafia and doesn't bat an eye at killing. He doesn't have romance, he doesn't have second thoughts, just a turbulent series of adventures with his best friend, another crook striving to hit the big time. The story emphasizes the backstabbing and throat-cutting nature of the mob, ending with a devastating final revelation of the cost and hollowness of success. It's a cynical, unromantic depiction. But if the game is strong on themes, it's weak on plot. It spends too much time meandering around on mission after another without developing a sense of overarching narrative. Its three crime families plot and feud, but the game spends little effort on keeping its narrative clear or distinguishing the families. If it had the narrative focus to complement its thematic strength, the story would be worth the clunkier elements of the game, but without it I found it an overall disappointment compared to Mafia.

 

Hogwarts Legacy. I got really hooked on this early on, but as the hour count ticked higher, my appreciation for it waned. It’s too big, too bloated, and the story is hardly anything to write home about. I was ready for it to be over when it finally ended. It’s like a 7/10 open world RPG if you’re into that kinda thing.

 

Just finished my playthrough of Infamous: Second Son. It's a fun and entertaining game, with a somewhat memorable story. As I've said previously, I haven't played the original Infamous games; I've just played the First Light DLC (of which I've restarted a new game after finishing Second Son). I don't know much about the original game and its main character, but in the newer game, Devin gains the abilities of several conduits over time. I was actually looking forward to the moment when he meets with Fetch (the main character from First Light). She herself has a decent role in the main game; her game is actually a prequel. From what I remember, the DLC game is only about four hours long or so. But I like her Neon powers the best, and during Second Son, I found myself using those same Neon powers with Devin.

 

After having completed Infamous: Second Son, I re-started the DLC First Light for my second playthrough and just completed it. Obviously it's a much shorter game (considering I started just this past weekend and completed it this Tuesday night; playing at most maybe an hour or so per night). Like the primary game, it's a fun game that isn't too difficult for the most part from beginning to end. You gain upgrades to your powers and that certainly helps as the enemies don't necessarily get tougher; just more of them. Obviously during my first playthrough of the DLC (which was several years ago and well before I had played the main game), there were ties that I didn't understand completely, especially the ending. This definitely bridges both together. And just like the main game, you get to play Free Roam after the main story to gain more upgrades and complete tasks.

 

Replayed The Last of Us Part II once again, this time on Grounded. It wasn't actually as big a difficulty hike from Survivor as I'd feared. The primary new threats are pinpoint accuracy with enemies, who can spot you across any open space and are much more likely to reveal the player's location. There's no hud either, so you can't check the status of your melee weapons or whether your guns are loaded. The latter of these wasn't so much of an issue for me, since I'm a compulsive reloader anyway. The game was still a challenge, but the stealth gameplay is so fluid and engaging that even parts that had me banging my head against the wall were satisfying to overcome.

 

Destiny 2: Ligthfall

Sure the exposition in the story is a mess. That might be cleared up in the next year of content.

BUT .. Strand is really fun. The gameplay aspect is really good.

B-

 

I beat a rabbit version of Sim City in 2010 when I got my new Windows 7 computer.

 

How do you "beat" Sim City? I thought it just goes on forever.

 

Skip the arcade ones and play "Joe's Adventures", which not only opens up the map but after the prologue goes to a more open world than the main game. Plus, Joe is a much more fun protagonist.

 

I did Joe’s Adventures after getting fed up with the first Jimmy one probably three-quarters of the way through. They’re much better, but still subject to the same arcade-style halfassery, where most of the missions aren’t really designed and don’t include real narrative, they just plunk some guys on the map. I liked having the bigger garage; not sure why they didn’t implement that in the main game.

Joe’s fun because you can clearly tell that the first and second games are directly aping Godfather/Goodfellas-style mob movies, and both Tommy and Vito feel like attempts to write a character Robert De Niro would play. But Joe is clearly the Joe Pesci character, which gives him a great dynamic.

 

True. I remember getting to high levels and the game slowing down due to too many rabbits filling the screen.

It wasn't a sim city release.
Knock off.

 

Yeah, it reminded me of GTA IV - having a dour, depressing lead (if you check the dates, he's back from the war for like, a month, before he's off to jail for five or so years, and he's only 'on top' with his suburban home for a few months before he loses everything), and then the DLC has a fun character ("The Ballad of Gay Tony" in GTA, especially with that awesome gold-painted 'stealth' helicopter)
I get it, "crime doesn't pay" and other cliches, but I'm playing a ****ing crime game, can I have some fun?

 

My niece and I finished the main campaign of Lego Movie 2 videogame, it certainly felt lazy as it just sort of stops halfway through and then has a bunch of still images of the last half hour of the movie and voiceover. Feels like they rushed it out to match with the movie's release date. But Lego games are really about all the side questing stuff which can go on forever anyway with unlockable worlds still to go, the main campaign in this just felt like an afterthought. but that's only like 26% of everything unlocked so can go on for awhile

 

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
This was a replay for me, and I enjoyed it a lot more this time round. Don't get me wrong, this game is far from perfect, and is pretty buggy, but the story and gameplay overall is fantastic. I love Cal, he is a fun and interesting character, as well as great supporting characters who reside in the Mantis. BD-1 is adorable and such a good companion, love that he just sits on Cal's shoulder beeping away I am all ready for when Survivor comes out now. Greez is the hilarious grump, but also incredibly likable, and one of my favourite parts was getting the terrarium all grown for him. I do think having played Dark Souls for the first time (this year) really made me appreciate this game more, the first time I played, I wasn't all too keen on the meditation and resetting of the world, but Dark Souls ignited a love for this set up within me, and was one of the best games I have ever played.

A couple of things that I hope to see in Survivor is, first and foremost, fast travel! Getting that platinum trophy was painful with alll the collectibles and no fast travel. Not sure what they were thinking there, as traversing Dathomir was a nightmare, it was a maze! I would also hope that there are not any bugs which result in me falling through the world. On a number of occassions the world did not load, mainly at the Temple of Miktrull, where I would just fall and once Cal eventually died, I would be reloaded in a world that was all black and only some small elements to walk on. Other than those issues, the game was awesome.

 

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

I could've sworn I played through this game at least once; most likely around the time it was first released in 2013, but it's nowhere in my PS library. I actually have the sequels Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider in my PS library of games; probably having played them on my PS4. So I just decided to get the original game of this trilogy to play through once again and have in my save files. The game certainly has its pros and cons. The controls are somewhat quirky; and given that it has quick time events with precise button-pushing it could cause some frustrating during gameplay. The enemies can get very cheap; even on the easiest mode they'll constantly toss fire bombs directly at you - no matter where you want to hide for cover. The puzzles for the most part are fairly simple, I looked up and watched one YouTube video just as I was stuck at a certain point but overall I didn't need anything else. The story was compelling, and the Definitive Edition includes a digital comic that serves as a sort of prologue story. As a Tomb Raider game, it's certainly not among the best; I found myself just defending against enemies more often than solving puzzles to get to the next area. You'd say it was linear, but most of these games are - it does feature a "fast travel" mode where you could revisit previous spots to pick up collectibles and optional tombs that don't have anything to do with the main story but offer special weapons mods. I finished the game with about a 65% completion; obviously that involves the optional tombs and collectibles that I could play through at any time without having to replay the whole game.

 

Mafia III: Definitive Edition. Best of the series. And not just because of the world-class soundtrack, though boy, it doesn’t hurt when the game is packed this deep with absolute bangers. The series gets away from Goodfellas/Godfather knockoffs to tell its own story about revenge and its bloody toll, as a black Vietnam vet takes over faux-New Orleans to avenge a betrayal of his adoptive father. The storytelling is fantastic and the characters are outstandingly written. The Catholic priest who serves as the protagonist’s much-neglected conscience brings an exhausted weight to the game, while the chemistry with his hilarious CIA buddy is top-notch. The only limitation to the story is the formulaic structure introduced by the open-world-style design. It’s finally a real open world, but that also means it’s structured so that you take over district after district by damaging two rackets until you can take over them, then killing the district boss, and so on and so forth. It’s a repetitive and formulaic structure compared to the series’s traditional mission structure. But at least it’s fun, and the open world works. It looks great, it’s full of amazing cars to drive, and the gameplay is fun. I would have liked fast travel, but that’s one of the few knocks on a gameplay level. Overall, it’s a great game. I’m kind of surprised there’s no sign of further development in the series.

 

@Havac. Did you play the story DLCs? Highly recommend them.

 

Yes. The one with John Donovan is the cream of the crop, because Donovan is the game’s best character, and the whole Cold War nuclear thriller plotline was fantastically atmospheric. I would happily play a whole game in that vein.