Recently completed video games

[JonCole]

I beat Singularity. Now I'm working on Dead Space and Crackdown 2.

[syntheticgerbil]

Monkey Island 2 remake completely done. I even somehow got in 7th place on the speedrun score on PSN. Didn't expect that at all. I guess I still know the game like the back of my hand.

Loved the remake for the most part. Some bad art in a few places still, but at least 80% great, which is good enough for me. The 3D characters were a bit stilted but no complaints on people just looking hideous like the first SE. I think someone else did the character redesigns this time around. I at least noticed the game had a completely different art director, so this could be a factor. Most characters looked almost exactly like the originals, except maybe with bigger noses, which I find cute, I suppose. Funny that to me, Guybrush was still the weakest looking character.

Biggest annoyances were just the lack of a complete working classic mode and missing intro (and things to try list), as well as Rapp Scallion corpse appearing missing tons of inbetween frames that would have made it look as great as the original had they went the extra effort. Also the Bone song was crap. I heard of all of this before but I was guessing the thing would have a plethora of even more problems besides the standard complaints (like with the first SE). It wasn't so. Good on them.

[Chris]

Still not done with Assassin's Creed 2, somehow. after 30 hours. How the hell is this game so goddamn long. I'm pretty much enjoying it but their systems really can't support the sheer volume of geographical area and insane number of total missions they have here. No new gameplay situations are occurring any more at this point. No matter what happens, it's something I've already done.

EDIT: So it looks like I've actually "completed" the game as it was originally released on consoles. For the PC release I guess they just incorporated the DLC seamlessly. I never would have realized that on my own, because it's a direct continuation of the game's storyline. I guess I may as well finish these chapters at this point, considering how far along I am.

Edited July 12, 2010 by Chris

[Randall Theil]

Still not done with Assassin's Creed 2, somehow. after 30 hours. How the hell is this game so goddamn long. I'm pretty much enjoying it but their systems really can't support the sheer volume of geographical area and insane number of total missions they have here. No new gameplay situations are occurring any more at this point. No matter what happens, it's something I've already done.

EDIT: So it looks like I've actually "completed" the game as it was originally released on consoles. For the PC release I guess they just incorporated the DLC seamlessly. I never would have realized that on my own, because it's a direct continuation of the game's storyline. I guess I may as well finish these chapters at this point, considering how far along I am.

Wait, you beat the game without noticing? What does that say about the ending in the console version?

[Sombre]

Still not done with Assassin's Creed 2, somehow. after 30 hours. How the hell is this game so goddamn long. I'm pretty much enjoying it but their systems really can't support the sheer volume of geographical area and insane number of total missions they have here. No new gameplay situations are occurring any more at this point. No matter what happens, it's something I've already done.

EDIT: So it looks like I've actually "completed" the game as it was originally released on consoles. For the PC release I guess they just incorporated the DLC seamlessly. I never would have realized that on my own, because it's a direct continuation of the game's storyline. I guess I may as well finish these chapters at this point, considering how far along I am.

I got that kind of apathy towards the gamea fter a very short period of time. After about 6/7 hours, I just couldn't be bothered to play it anymore. It felt like just too much running and gunning, fancy pants arsing about. While I know a lot of people really liked AC2, I think it follows the modern gaming model of "Here's a big open sandbox and a way to make things happen, please go and do it. And here's a flying machine, sometimes".

I guess my problem with AC and AC2 was that I didn't really FEEL like an assassin. I felt like a clumsy idiot trying to make assassinations, but really fucking it up, much akin to Blood Money. I'd try and set up these really elaborate ideas, then I'd accidentally get into the enemies peripheral, and it just derives into clangy clangy sword fighting.

[Nappi]

Two "missing" chapters before the final act were released as DLC on consoles. I guess/hope they put them in their correct place for the PC version. That is why Chris probably didn't notice beating the game (because he didn't). Assassin's Creed 2 without the DLC didn't feel too long to me, but the two chapters add several hours to the gameplay so I understand why you might feel tired.

I guess my problem with AC and AC2 was that I didn't really FEEL like an assassin. I felt like a clumsy idiot trying to make assassinations, but really fucking it up, much akin to Blood Money. I'd try and set up these really elaborate ideas, then I'd accidentally get into the enemies peripheral, and it just derives into clangy clangy sword fighting.

That was something I was really hoping to do in Assassin's Creed 2 and was really disappointed when I realized I couldn't. Some E3 gameplay walkthrough I watched seemed to suggest that there will be even heavier focus on combat in the next game. The sneaking in AS2 was still very enjoyable to me even if I couldn't drop grand pianos on my enemies, and it would be a pity if there was even less of that in the next game.

[Chris]

I agree with that general complaint. Almost everything about AC1/2 is almost awesome to me, but not quite.

The historical settings are awesome--except that they sabotage it with painfully stupid sci-fi conspiracy bullshit instead of just going for actual historical fiction.

Running around from rooftop to rooftop is awesome--except that almost every time you fuck it up, it's not because you did something explicitly wrong but rather that the game's heavily context-sensitive mechanics misinterpreted your action.

Being a historical assassin might be awesome--except that it's almost impossible to act in the way the game tries to make you seem like you should, because most of the time situations just devolve into hacking through a bunch of guards.

The pseudo-recreation of sprawling historical metropolises is awesome--except that the game's relatively limited number of systems can't possibly support such a vast geographical area, and more importantly they don't work together enough in interesting systemic ways to allow for enough emergent behavior to make up for the lack of content variety.

[toblix]

They should probably've stuck to just one city, like Venice, and made it denser with various awesome stuff. Geographically, there's plenty of room for a great game and a good story in just that one map.

[Chris]

They should probably've stuck to just one city, like Venice, and made it denser with various awesome stuff. Geographically, there's plenty of room for a great game and a good story in just that one map.

For sure. The tedium REALLY started to sink in when I realized there was yet another city left after Florence, Tuscany, and Romagni/Forli, and then even more when I realized Venice is the biggest of them all. God.

[Orv]

For sure. The tedium REALLY started to sink in when I realized there was yet another city left after Florence, Tuscany, and Romagni/Forli, and then even more when I realized Venice is the biggest of them all. God.

I still have yet to finish AC2. I love the Assassin's Crypts (Big fan of the old PoP games, haven't yet tried the new one), but I hate the free-running in this one. I can't quite quantify the idea either. Something about it just feels off to me. Then again, the first one was flawed as well.

I would say that at. . .8/9? hours into AC2 (I have 17) I think you've basically 'finished' the game. You've experienced the width and breadth of combat ideas, free-running ideals (like the new water escape system, and the light guards that chase you) and more or less the core game.

Now, at 8/9 hours in, unless you're bullrushing the main storyline, you don't have things like Leonardo's flying machine, or the gun, or that sort of nonsense. I don't think those are necessary to enjoy AC (1 or 2) in the context of it's core mechanics. I think they are nice bits of fluff that have only appeared for the second game, and therefore are not needed for enjoyment of it. If you liked the first, you'll like the second, but possibly up to a point.

It stares at me from my Steam window every day, taunting me. I want to finish it, I want to uninstall it, but I can't bring myself to do either.

Edits: Hell, at 8/9 hours, I don't think I was even to a new city yet. I still felt slightly bored of the whole thing.

[SoulChicken]

Finished Red Dead Redemption on Saturday, my favorite game in a long time. In the main missions I liked the dialogue very much actually. Its a simple tale and I guess a lot of the charm is seeing tropes from a real variety of westerns, even dipping into the supernatural tones of High Plains Drifter. All of that had me continually kiddy. Everything about the last couple of hours of the game I thought was excellent.

Afterwards, switched over to play Lost and Damned but winced at the first mention of Hells Angels running a train on a prostitute and turned it off. Maybe another time. Had got a little used to having a character I sympathised with.

Then turned back to Uncharted 2. Finished it but found it exhausting. I couln't care less about the story or characters, there was a bit when Drake was going to quit because he didn't really give a shit anymore and I was agreeing. Seriously man, just go home. Huge crashy bangy bits were fun but I'd already been harassed by a more annoying helicopter in Half Life 2! The gameplay mechanics of combat were kind of fun but the third person just made me feel detached, where I hadnt been in Red Dead. I even preferred the combat in Gears of War 2, which this game to me felt very much like. It kind of played itself.

Then switched back to Assassin's Creed 2 for a couple of hours. Entertaining enough but I don't think its going to get finished (about 12 hours in.)

Its hard finishing a game you loved playing and want to continue that sweet video game playing feeling.

[dpp]

I'm a little bit LTTP, but I recently beat Bioshock 2 on the PC. There are definitely some technical issues regarding mouse sensitivity, I was waiting for them to patch it but it never came so I finished the game anyway.

I thought it was entertaining, but not a watershed moment like the first game. While the level design was fine, I thought the enemies became dull after you had enough tonics and research to kill everything with a couple of well-placed shots. More aggravating was the structure of the Adam collection, it was the same thing over and over. I had a sigh of relief when I got the achievement saying that I harvested all the bodies in the game.

Some spolerific remarks:

There's no final boss. I don't know if it happened because of the complaints of the first game, but it's kinda underwhelming to finish a game on a "horde mode", rather than a significant battle. I ALMOST died, only because I was fighting the brutes and alphas for 10 minutes, until I ran out of heath packs and decided to look at the objective and only then realized that I had to shoot 2 pipes and the game was over.

But it wasn't all that bad, I especially liked the part where you took the view of the little sister, that was A-MA-ZING. Seriously, after that it made all the sense in the world why the they behaved like they did. Kudos to the person responsible for the design of that part of the game

[Garden Ninja]

I beat Singularity last night. I posted some thoughts in that thread. Short version is that has some problems, but is mostly good.

[Chris]

Well, I completed Assassin's Creed II, for some reason.

[Orv]

Well, I completed Assassin's Creed II, for some reason.

Was it worth the extra couple hours?

[Chris]

Was it worth the extra couple hours?

The ending was monumentally idiotic, and I didn't really have fun in the hours leading up to it, but I think in the end I prefer having completed another game instead of putting yet another onto the massive pile of unfinished ones.

[toblix]

The ending was monumentally idiotic, and I didn't really have fun in the hours leading up to it, but I think in the end I prefer having completed another game instead of putting yet another onto the massive pile of unfinished ones.

The reason I finish most video games.

[Thompson]

Cryostasis, go here for a ridiculous topic on the matter.

[DanJW]

I finished Killzone 2. The game is shit and I hated it.

Resistance 2: was surprisingly fun and much improved on the mediocre first game.

Red Dead Redemption, excellent of course.

[Nappi]

Just completed Red Dead Redemption. The ending was somewhat satisfactory; reminded me of

Mafia

.

Okay, so I actually completed Red Dead Redemption today.

What a weird design decision.

[elmuerte]

Finished Flower. What a awesome game. Don't have 100% completion yet, it's difficult to finish that one level without getting hit.

[Twilo]

The ending was monumentally idiotic, and I didn't really have fun in the hours leading up to it.

A big issue with the premise is that they are trapping themselves by trying to have cake + eat cake by running two plots in parallel: the in-Animus stuff and the framing story. It's difficult to get properly engaged in either one.

• From the IRL perspective the Ezio material only has significance on the same sort of level as the books on the shelves in Oblivion or whatever, providing context for the IRL story. Despite comprising the majority of the game, Ezio's stuff is historical and the Animus is not a time machine.
  
• From the "Ezio" perspective, if you want to pretend the framing story isn't there (not a bad idea), then
  you're left hanging because all that stuff is just abandoned to do a bit of progession on the framing story in the ending; a framing story which is never really given a chance to grab you and has SFA to do with the Ezio plot until the last 2 minutes.

I also hated having to collect all those codex pieces in order to get to the final part, what is it with Ubisoft games and making me do exploration/collection shit to progress the plot (bastarding Prince of Persia light orbs gyaah)

[Sombre]

Just finished Valkyria Chronicles. I don't know much of what to say about it, apart from that it was a really really quality title, through and through.

[JonCole]

Just beat Crackdown 2, propelling me over the 30,000 gamerscore milestone. Beating games is fun and superficially rewarding, yay.

Back on topic, though, I had a pretty good time with Crackdown 2, but it seems like a lot of the things they improved from the first game were traded for a whole new set of small problems that make the endgame especially obnoxious. Either way, I'd still recommend it to people who enjoyed the first one and kind of want to revisit a more relevant version.

[Orv]

The ending was monumentally idiotic, and I didn't really have fun in the hours leading up to it, but I think in the end I prefer having completed another game instead of putting yet another onto the massive pile of unfinished ones.

To be perfectly honest, the Assassin's Creed premise (Animus) makes the writer in me want to punch babies. With flaming train cars. (Yes, I'm the Hulk on weekends.)

I don't really expect a whole lot from the 'story'.

(Though to be even more honest, all I needed to read in reviews/previews was ". . .fistfight with the pope. . .goddess sends you a message" [or something like that] to completely destroy any and all interest in the story.)