Gaming What was the last videogame you beat?

Took me a little over 20 hours but I finally managed to complete a run of Dead Cells. My favourite thing about the game is the sense of progression where you start off with very basic weapons and stats but towards the end you feel like an absolute badass taking down every enemy in sight. Combat is great and the music is fantastic (The Castle being my favourite track). Like many roguelites the game is difficult and you will die a lot so if that's not your jam then stay far away from this one. The Steam page description sums it up nicely: "Kill, die, learn, repeat."

I'd say my biggest complaint is all the things the game doesn't explain properly or simply doesn't tell you. There were so many things I didn't realize until I visited the Dead Cells subreddit and Gamepedia page. I really shouldn't have to go online to learn somewhat basic things about a game like how stats works and stuff. So if you're going dive into it don't be afraid to check out guides or videos.

Highly recommended.

 

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015)

If I could only play one game for the rest of my life, it would either be this or Grand Theft Auto V. I just finished my second playthrough today, and it's still the masterpiece that I remember it being. With nearly 100 hours of play time, there was honestly not even one minute of it that I didn't enjoy, even thought I've seen it all before. Every single element in this game was done to such a high quality, that it's nearly impossible to find a single fault. CD Projekt Red are an amazing company that keep delivering time after time. They have a crew with a lot of passion for what their doing, and they care about their fans. I've yet to play both of the expansions - 'Hearts of Stone' and 'Blood and Wine', but I'll definitely be doing them sometime in the near future.

Well... where do I start? This is a really, really long game, yet the storytelling is incredibly strong from the very start to the very end. It's so engaging that you feel like you've been brought into the game world yourself. It completely takes over your life. You don't get that feeling with many games these days. There's shocking moments, disturbing moments, beautiful moments, naughty moments and even moments that make you laugh. Everything is perfectly balanced, while keeping the same tone throughout. The game does wonders at making you care for everything that's happening on Geralt's journey, so every decision you make actually feels important. And at the end of the day, a lot of the decisions are important, as they can end up having major effects on the outcome of the game. No matter how small the decisions may seem, they could still end up being incredibly important. Having all of these decisions gives every single player a different experience, and even yourself a different experience if you play it more than once. On my second playthrough, I had really notable differences from my first, and I even played most of the game the same way, so I can only imagine how different the game would feel had I gone at it with a completely different approach. There are 36 different possible end game states after all. The effort this company goes through... my goodness.

The story itself follows Geralt, a witcher, who is looking for his lost adopted daughter Ciri. Seems simple right? Nope. The main story wouldn't take you 50 hours to finish if it were simple. Geralt and Yennefer practically know nothing about her whereabouts, so you have to start your search from scratch. You then go on an epic journey through three different major areas in the Witcher world - Velen, Novigrad and Skellige, which each have their own lifestyles and atmospheres - in search for clues or anything that would help you track her down. Once you do eventually track her down, then the game picks up the pace a bit more and you're given battle after battle. Then there are three possible finales, where Ciri either becomes a witcher, becomes Empress, or dies. Luckily I got the ending where she becomes a witcher both times. Along the way you're reunited with old friends and foes, such as Triss, Dandelion, Zoltan, Kiera and Djikstra, while meeting new ones as well. Your journey never gets boring, thanks to the different locations and wide variety of characters. The romance options in this game are so well done that I embarrassingly have a huge real life crush on Triss. She's literally a game character made out of pixels. How did you do this to me CD Projekt Red?! But in all seriousness, the romance stories were done beautifully. Unless you told both Triss and Yen that you loved them, like I did in my first playthrough, then yeah... whoops.

That's just the main story. The side quests are sometimes just as good, or even better, as the main story quests. In fact, some of the side quests have major outcomes on the end game as well. So if anyone hasn't played this game yet, make sure you do everything. It's worth it. On top of the main story and side quests, there's also witcher contracts, treasure hunts, Gwent games, and a whole lots of other stuff too. Sometimes I went a whole day without even doing anything in the main storyline, as the rest of the game offers so much. Talk about getting you money's worth! So Gwent... Because CD Projekt Red are crazy and want to give us the content of ten games for the price of one, they also added a game inside of a game. Gwent is a card game made especially for The Witcher 3. You can collect cards along your journey, verse other NPC Gwent players, and then eventually compete in a big tournament and be crowned the Gwent champion. The Gwent tournament was honestly one of my favourite missions in the entire game.

This game definitely has one of the best selections of characters. Each of them have completely different personalities and ways of going about situations, making it exciting each time you meet a new character or get to spend some time with them in quests. Ciri is my favourite character in the game. Yes, even more than Geralt, who takes second place. Besides having the biggest gaming crush of all time on her, I love her personality and think she's a total badass. She's more to play as than Geralt as well, thanks to her awesome powers. Apart from Ciri and Geralt, I loved Triss, Yen, Cerys, Zoltan, Vesemir, Dendelion, Kiera and Djikstra, etc. There were even plenty of characters from side quests that I loved, like Rosa and Sukrus. Honestly, if someone asked me to name 30 characters I liked from this game, I could do it easily. Whereas I'd usually struggle to name ten characters I liked from a game. Also, all of the voice actors did an incredible job. They all managed to capture every emotion really, really well.

If I had to choose the weakest part of this game, it would be the gameplay. I'm not saying it's anything less than fantastic, but everything else is perfect, so it becomes the default weakest part for me. I like that you can use the experience points you gain to unlock different abilities and powers. That keeps the gameplay fresh and exciting, especially when you unlock the spin attack... Damn! You get five different signs to use whenever you want thoughout the game, which you can upgrade. Each of these signs have completely different uses, plus different enemies are vulnerable to different signs, so you'll have to find out what works best on who and what, and then you'll be ready to fight anyone and anything. The swordplay is pretty fast paced, and you sometimes get some really cool brutal finishing moves, but again, it's not the game's strongest point. But, I haven't mentioned Ciri yet. Ciri's gameplay on the otherhand is amazing. Her powers are so damn awesome to use. I'd absolutely love a Witcher game where you play as Ciri. The gameplay really stood out during boss battles. Imlerith, Caranthir and Eredin - Holy moly! Now they were epic fights. Imlerith is my favourite boss battle, as the other two are similar, but he's the first time you experience this power, so it comes as a huge surprise. He's also my favourite villain in the game. The horse riding and racing is good, but can be a bit glitchy at times. *Whistles to Roach* *Roach appears on top of a mountain on the other side of a canyon*

I love the way you deal with your weapons and armour. It's always exciting to find new awesome stuff from different quests, treasure hunts, or just hidden away somewhere like on the top of a mountain. Then you can go ahead and put different runes in your swords and armour to give them extra power. One thing I hardly used was alchemy. I honestly didn't see the point to use this all the time. The default potions are all you really need if you're struggling in battle. But if you've got good weapons and armour, then you don't need any potions at all. I guess each player if different and has different approaches to everything.

I wish I had this much enthusiasm when writing essays at school. Anyway, the soundtrack. This game has an absolutely beautiful soundtrack. I will go ahead and say it's the best gaming soundtrack of all time without hesitation. Sometimes while playing the game, I'd turn the volume up just so I could hear the music. In fact, as I'm writing this, I'm listening to the soundtrack on YouTube, and I'm not joking when I say I do that pretty much every day. When I'm using the computer, on the bus, or just relaxing on my break time at work, I'll listen to it. There's such a big variety of music to match any feeling. I'll put some of my favourites below. The first one is called 'Back on the Path', and I'd call it the main soundtrack of the game. It's used quite a lot, during quests, Gwent games, and in taverns. Some of the quests it was used in were some of my favourite moments - Going to the gala with Triss, getting drunk with my witcher pals, and Ciri becoming a witcher at the very end. So it really captures my personal experience with the game. The second one is played as you roam around the streets of Novigrad, which is my favourite location in the game.





Continuing on with Novigrad, honestly, one of the most memorable things in the game for me, was walking around Novigrad doing little missions here and there, some with Triss, some by myself. But I just find it a really interesting place with a great atmosphere. And this is another reason why this is one of the greatest games of recent times, because it pays a lot of attention to detail. The streets aren't just filled with NPC's walking up and down or bumping into walls, they're all doing stuff. Novigrad actually feels like a real city. You've got bands performing on the street, merchants selling goods, smiths making swords, kids playing and singing, etc. And this is the same for every location in the game. Every NPC has an agenda. But then the NPC's change to suit which ever location you're in, so you really feel like you're in that place. E.g. Everyone on Skellige will have a completely different accent to those in Velen and Novigrad. The NPC's reminded me a lot of Grand Theft Auto V, with the amount of detail that was put into them. Sometimes the small details matter. Would I say this is the best open world I've ever played in? No, but it's definitely up there. That title would go to Assassin's Creed: Origins.

I could go on and on forever about how much I love this game, but I'll end with this: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an absolute masterpiece, and might even be the greatest game of all time. This game gives you one of the greatest stories ever told, with lots of memorable moments and a wide range of fantastic characters, all set in a highly detailed open world, with a beautiful soundtrack playing throughout your entire journey. If you haven't played this game yet, please go and do it now!

Scores

Narrative - 10/10
Gameplay - 9/10
Soundtrack - 10/10
Characters - 10/10
Performances - 10/10
Graphics - 9/10
Art direction - 9/10
Open world - 9/10

Overall - 10/10

 

I hope so, because it was so long that I didn’t even read back over it to check for mistakes. Lol.

 

Just finished Skyward Sword

The pros:
+ Groose

+ The combat and controls (anyone who hates the game b/c of this is just bad at it. I thought it was fun, intuitive, and felt involved in the game)

+ The graphics (the game does NOT have bad graphics, just a different style then what most people want. I thought it was beautiful to look at, and it shined in some parts. Don't get me wrong tho, I would've loved the style from the tech demo

+ The environments. We've seen volcanos, deserts, and forests in the Zelda series before. But SS still managed to make them fun exploring

+ lot of new gameplay mechanics that go beyond the controls, like the Run meter


The negatives:
- Small dungeons. The volcano dungeon was literally 3 rooms.

- The linearity. While I don't mind this in the over-world necessarily, it's annoying in the dungeons

- Most of the bosses were forgettable


There's areas where I like it better then Twilight Princess, and areas where I think Twilight Princess is better. Combine the pros of both games and you'd have a definitive 3D Zelda game.

My favorites in the series are Twilight Princess, SS, and Zelda II (criminally underrated).

 

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2

 

Red Dead Redemption.

All the hype around the sequel got me interested enough to finally pick up the first game. Overall it was fine. Not amazing, but enjoyable enough. It was kind of underwhelming after all this time, the story wasn't that effective, and the gameplay loop was surprisingly limited.

I felt that story ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. After finally rounding up all the dangerous gang members, and getting his freedom, the protagonist then spends the next few missions awkwardly reuniting with his family, and dong repetitive, boring farm missions. There's a nice gunfight near the end, but then a really anticlimactic final confrontation after which the game ends.

 

GTA 4.

Even though I wouldn't call it "Grand Theft Auto 4" but rather "Made In America" due to how different the game feels in comparison to prior games & also 5, upon giving it a second chance, I found it to be a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

 

GTA V wasn't made in America?

 

Yes but it went back to what GTA was about by being over-the-top & funny. The plot of GTA 4 was largely serious & gritty which made it feel like its own standalone game instead of being the next installment of the GTA franchise; the plot was also largely a criticism of the idea that is the American Dream hence, "Made in America" as a far more preferable title. Also, since Niko was a former soldier, although it was not a part of the plot, who's to say that it couldn't have been included that he temporarily went M.I.A. during the Yugoslav wars, thus a double entendre for the initials M.I.A. as standing in for the title & for Niko during the war.

 

I wouldn't know since I never even played GTA 4. I played 3, then when 5 came out I went out and bought it; especially for the online mode.

 

Red Dead Redemption II. I was gonna write an extensive review of it, but for some stupid reason, the Xbox One deletes any screenshots you take after a while if you don't upload them to OneDrive or Xbox Live. And I took some great ones, so I'm feeling pretty discouraged about the whole thing.

To make a long story short, RDR2 is a phenomenal wildlife simulator where it's extremely satisfying to meander and do nothing. The graphics on an Xbox One X and a 4K television are nothing short of astounding. The story is great, the characters are compelling and well realized, and the writing is top notch.

The gameplay, on the other hand, takes an odd step back. The controls are sluggish and the response time is extremely slow, I'm guessing because of how meticulously animated everything is. Mission design is mostly bland, with almost every one involving you riding your horse somewhere and talking to an accompanying character on the way, followed by a shootout. Hence why the game is more fun when you're not doing tailored missions, and instead hunting or fishing.

RDR is my favorite game of all time, but RDR2 isn't even my favorite game of this year. It's tough to call it a disappointment because of how incredible it can be, but its glaring shortcomings on the gameplay side are tough to ignore.

 

Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith

 

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. I love the Assassin’s Creed series, but it’s struggled for years to recapture the strength of II and Brotherhood, with Black Flag the only really complete entry since. This doesn’t break that pattern.

Its Greece is absolutely gorgeous and immersive, a beautiful setting to wander through. The story is awesome in parts but major plotlines sort of peter out and it feels like it needed another draft or two. Characters are solid, but don’t feel as robust or lively as the series at its best. All this is typical of the weaker entries in the series.

As for the gameplay, it’s a continuation of Origins’ revamp, and I’m not a big fan. The previous system was working great, but combat now is button-mashy and annoying, while freerunning feels decreasingly important and stealth has undergone a shift in emphasis. Moreover, the game’s overall style has shifted from the open world assassination and parkour AC did so well to a much more generic “map game” playstyle in which the player is encouraged to waste endless amounts of time running around an unnecessarily huge map repeating the same raids on camps and caves over and over again not to advance the story or explore the world so much as just for the sake of having more more more in the game, sucking up time. I don’t really like this style of play. The one major innovation beyond Origins is to add the RPG element, which I think weakens the series. The choice element fits poorly with the series’ style of storytelling and isn’t robust enough for a real RPG; it just ends up weakening the game’s ability to tell a strongly-written story with deep, coherent characterization, which is the strength of the series.

I ended up with a game that looked great and was a lot of fun to play, but felt bloated and mostly just made me nostalgic for Assassin’s Creed’s golden age.

 

Yakuza Kiwami 2

The final chapters saw a boss fight with two Tigers that was less epic than it should have been, though the finale image of Kiryu, smacking a tiger right in the face was pretty cool. After that it was max acceleration to the end. The “invasion” of Kamurcho was strangely restrained, but the final level did live up expectations - which is to say it is Kazzy storming through hordes of enemies and bosses and just generally kicking a vast amount of arse.

It is, however, a Yakuza game and that means twist upon twist to the extent that the plot itself must have been getting dizzy by the end! Did it work? Yeah, because the game does nothing without conviction, even if it is an over-the-top cheesy bollocks of a plot.

The only real flaws of Yakuza Kiwami 2 is that, like its predecessor and Yakuza Zero, it links some ability upgrades to minigames success and I’ve never been a fan of those. (I know many are. The Haruka miniquest ends up making you despise her and that just shouldn’t happen) On the other hand, it’s been great to play these missing epics - Yakuza 3 was the first to get a western release on PS3. It gives a lot more context to that game’s plot, knowing the full backstory to it and the various characters.

Some things the earlier games had, which both of the Kiwami games didn’t have, is the before and after fight conversations. This is where your enemies would mouth off, you hand them your arse and then you get an apology and cash or item. Similarly if you bumped into the wrong person, a fight would kick off. Moving instead to always visible enemies removes that aspect entirely and I kind of miss of it. I do love the food power-up system that this and Yakuza 6 used. Yakuza 3 is getting a HD remake so more people will be able to experience the earlier style too.

Having now played this, I do think it is quite a rarity the series has pulled off. The seven games span about 30 years, with Kiryu aging as the plot moves on. This particular installment gives new meaning to one of the final game’s adversaries too.

Graphically the game hasn’t looked better, though I think the pre-Yakuza 6 fighting styles had more to them in terms of how you did some moves. Still, variety is no bad thing and the series is an excellent of how to make a 3D beat 'em up work.

Oh, the final tally of enemies downed in this one? 3,143.

 

Titanfall 2

Played this because it was on offer for £3.99 on the ps store, which seemed reasonable. I am glad I did buy it, very fun game and I live being able to play the game inside a robot! If I had bought this at full price, I might have been a bit dissatisfied as he story was a bit short, but overall, was a fun game and reminded me of Destiny a little bit

 

Infamous: First Light
This is a standalone expansion of Infamous: Second Son. It can be played by itself without the main game, or as a prologue to it. However, even though it takes place before the main game chronologically, you should play the main game first if you're going to play both. The main game introduces the character of "Fetch" with a bit of exposition that might be tiresome if you've already spent this game playing her story. My thoughts on how it compares with Second Son can be found here.

 

Burly Men of the Sea

This was a free game on ps+, and overall it was good...enough. The graphics style was very cute and it was fun, unfortunately, it was jutlst incredibly short! I was able to platinum this game in probably less than 2 hours on total, so it is a very easy one to get, if you don't mind having to repeat loads of parts of the, very short, story.

I am glad I got it on ps+ and had the chance to play it, I probably would not have actively bought the game, but it may be worth it if it is selling for around the 79p mark.

 

The Unfinished Swan and Tacoma.

Unfinished Swan (same creators as the later What Remains of Edith Finch) was a very abstract game, that was shorter that I was expecting. The visuals were great, but the story ended a bit too quickly, and was kinda obvious.

Tacoma (same creators as the earlier Gone Home) was a much more interesting game, a mystery set on a space station. It had an interesting 'memory' mechanic, where you have to rewind events to properly follow the flow of conversations that took place in the past. The characters and plot were really interesting, with a couple of great twists (one of which was similar to a twist in the 2017 Doctor Who episode Oxygen).

 

Super Mario Bros on the 3DS virtual console.

 

gris.

 

Metroid: Samus Returns



So I love the idea of Metroidvanias an awful lot on paper, but it seems like for every good one I play, there are ten others that I hate. So I always go into them cautiously, no matter how much praise I've heard about it.

Samus Returns might be the best one I've played yet.

I played Zero Mission earlier this year and found it to be mostly enjoyable, but somewhat forgettable. It certainly didn't come close to my favorite game in the genre, Ori and the Blind Forest. Samus Returns, on the other hand, is so damn close to perfect that it gives Ori a run for its money, and I'm fine letting them coexist at the top of my list for now. It's a gorgeous game that shows that the 3DS is still a capable little system, and the 3D effects really enhance the style and atmosphere. I only occasionally had to turn it off during a tough boss fight or two when I wasn't always able to keep it at a perfect viewing angle.

The sidescrolling gameplay just feels great to experience, from the way Samus controls and animates to the upgrades she receives along the way that always make a great time even better. This style of game is old hat at this point, but it never gets old when it's done right, and Samus Returns gets it oh so right. The world design, the shooting, the enemies, it's all great. I absolutely love this game.

 

Luigi's Mansion (3DS). Fun little game, nothing to write home about but a nice palette cleanser between big games that doesn't take long at all to finish.

 

Any Hearthstone players here?

Jesus Christ, finally....

 

Florence. Nice little mobile game. Costs a few bucks, takes around 45 minutes to complete. Needed to kill some time and I'm glad I played it.