Recently completed video games

[JonCole]

Rage

Just finished the game. I think it took me about 18 hours to do almost everything. (Steam says 20, but there were times I left rage running while getting lunch at stuff). So it's not a short game. The main part of the game doesn't get boring. The optional racing does get boring. I finished 1st for all races in the 1st hub world. But I didn't bother to do that for the next races. Specially not because those races where mostly rallys instead of races. In a rally you have to collect 50 points by being first at certain checkpoints. That race type is worked out quite terrible. The normal races are much better, although the difficulty is way too low, it's quite easy finishing first when you have the correct upgrades for your rides. Other than getting tokens for car upgrades there is no real need to do those races. So if everything is updated you can stop bothering with them. The side missions of the game come in a few forms: give sniper cover; racing from checkpoint to checkpoint; and in some cases go to X and press a button or kill people. I think some "main" missions are also optional. Every mission/level is very linear, and you pretty much always end about a few meters away from the place where you entered, but now that door is open. AI is terrible, just take cover and take out the enemies that run/walk into your fire. The most difficult part is actually when imps (ok, "mutants") run to you and clobber you to death.

Yes, this game is pretty much DOOM with an added driving element and hubs. There is no RPG like elements, no dialogue trees, no leveling, etc. The inventory is utter shit, designed for consoles and not fixed for the PC. You have 4 weapon slots (even thought there are only about 10 weapons in total that you carry with you all the time) and 4 consumable slots. Switching weapons and ammo is a real PITA, it's easier to go into the inventory menu to switch weapon than it is to select it in-game.

A lot has been said about the graphical quality of the game, but I'll say a little bit. Just like DNF the quality of textures and models is very inconsistent. A lot of things are of high details (weapons/NPCs/mountains) but a lot of other stuff (even stuff you have to get close to like switches) have very low quality models and textures. It's often an eyesore. Rage should be viewed from a distance, but most missions take place in tight corridors.

The world you live in is also almost completely static. There is no segments where a building collapses or something. The best you would get is an explosion and then there's a hole in a wall.

Audio quality isn't that great either. Apparently positional audio wasn't on the checklist. Music appears to be linked to positions in the world rather than actual activity. I didn't like the soundtrack, it did not contribute anything to the atmosphere, and sounds like the usual "epic movie music".

I'm quite disappointed on the lack of "eye for detail" and "polishing". I really get the feeling that they spend a lot of time to create great looking pictures at some places, and ignoring the rest. And maybe they spend too much time on the various easter eggs (like the DOOM1 and Quake levels).

So my final verdict about this game is:

But if I would rate this game as a standard ID Software FPS game:

ps, They don't try to hide the fact that Rage is Doom. The final weapon you get uses "BFG ammo". Also the "dead city" level is pretty much straight out of doom. The mutants are imps, there's even a hell daemon.

I agree with... most of what you had to say about this. I would argue that the minute-to-minute is typically pretty boring, especially within a modern context where DOOM simply isn't enough to compete with superior AI and level design in games like Halo. Also, I liked the racing a bit more than you, but I agree that the Rally race type wasn't anything to write home about. I just found myself enjoying the races more than the regular combat.

That said, I finished the game in 10 hours completing almost every sidequest (sans one or two mail delivery quests) and skipping about half of the minigames. I completed all of the races, as well. I don't really know what you were doing in those extra 8 hours, because I was honestly taking my time with an occasional Bash TV run or hunting after achievements.

[elmuerte]

In game counter said 17 hours. Not sure why it took me 7 hours more. Maybe I wasted a lot of time trying to find stuff that wasn't there. I did play a bunch of minigames though. Except for the card game all the minigames sucked. Specially the dice game is dumb. It could be my play style, most of the time I was sneaking around rather than rambo-ing.

[JonCole]

In game counter said 17 hours. Not sure why it took me 7 hours more. Maybe I wasted a lot of time trying to find stuff that wasn't there. I did play a bunch of minigames though. Except for the card game all the minigames sucked. Specially the dice game is dumb. It could be my play style, most of the time I was sneaking around rather than rambo-ing.

Ah, that could be it. I did a lot of "complete 5 sidequests, buy 240 buckshot, craft 100 pop rockets, obliterate everything in one hit". Also, that dice game sucks ass. The achievement associated with it sucks too, basically just had me hitting X every two seconds while watching TV, checking back every so often to see if the achievement popped.

[mikemariano]

Just beat Deus Ex: Human Revulsion. Man, what a terrible endgame.

SPOILER:

I think it's hilarious that the game ends with a scene that is essentially

. The dialogue makes just as much sense.

[Tanukitsune]

I somehow beat the Binding of Isaac... It was a VERY CLOSE call!

I still have lots of things to unlock, but I beat it non the less!

[Sal Limones]

I'm Adam Jensen, and I've got a metal leg,

beat me up and win 15 silver points!

[elmuerte]

Fable 3

Unless you're bored and it's on sale and you have a few bucks to waste, don't buy it. Fable 1 was quite nice "light RPG" game. But Fable 3 (the only other Fable to be released on the PC) is everything except that. It's barely an RPG. The game is terrible to bad on so many levels, I don't want to waste bytes to mention them all. Just read what I already posted in the [thread=7794]Fable 3 thread[/thread]. One thing I didn't mention before was money.

This game has probably the worst implementation of money/economics. As soon as possible I started buying property, eventually I received a shit load of money every few minutes. So no money worries at all. Then, money became really significant for the game. The kingdom needed 6,500,000. Well... that's peanuts, I just donate that money out of my pocket. All choices I had to make as a king became irrelevant, because I was still raking in money buy the minute.

The only good thing about this game is that the quests are somewhat diverse and worked out quite ok. My favorite quest was probably the one when you became a character in a pen&paper RPG game, played in the game.

[JonCole]

Fable 3

Unless you're bored and it's on sale and you have a few bucks to waste, don't buy it. Fable 1 was quite nice "light RPG" game. But Fable 3 (the only other Fable to be released on the PC) is everything except that. It's barely an RPG. The game is terrible to bad on so many levels, I don't want to waste bytes to mention them all. Just read what I already posted in the [thread=7794]Fable 3 thread[/thread]. One thing I didn't mention before was money.

This game has probably the worst implementation of money/economics. As soon as possible I started buying property, eventually I received a shit load of money every few minutes. So no money worries at all. Then, money became really significant for the game. The kingdom needed 6,500,000. Well... that's peanuts, I just donate that money out of my pocket. All choices I had to make as a king became irrelevant, because I was still raking in money buy the minute.

The only good thing about this game is that the quests are somewhat diverse and worked out quite ok. My favorite quest was probably the one when you became a character in a pen&paper RPG game, played in the game.

I'm not nearly done with this game, but I'm feeling myself agreeing with pretty much everything you're saying. I definitely agree with the quality of the sidequests (and that they're pretty much the only enjoyable thing in the game), as it seems that the writing is about 10x better in these quests and are basically one-off cool ideas throughout. Well, with exception to the weird escort/fetch quests.

[Tanukitsune]

I beat the Riddick games and they are great when it's a stealth game, but the action starts it's pretty standard and I hated the final boss battle for boss games...

And the second seems to solve all the issues the first game had, mostly story-wise. it keep making you think you've won when you haven't.

And I finally finished Amnesia, it's scarier when you don't see the monster chasing you instead of when you see the monster and have to run and hide from it.

I hated most of the non physics puzzles, it had too many lever pulling and valve turning, but loved the physics ones, so it evens out.

[Thyroid]

Batman: Arkham Asylum was rather fun. If I wasn't feeling so tired, I'd explain why but since I'm both tired and lazy, I'll just say it's an A-, or an A if you're a big Batman fan, and get on with my life.

[Noyb]

Save-stated my way through Zelda 2. Man, that was a frustrating game. Poorly telegraphed puzzles to get items required to progress through the main dungeon. (

Exactly one chimney lets you drop down it to find a swordsman! Find a hidden town by methodically destroying all forest tiles with your hammer! Duck and press action under a random table that looks the same as all other tables in the game to find a mirror!

) Insanely difficult combat. Crueler level design than a Mega Man game, made even worse by frequent repetition of room elements and a total lack of the maps from every other zelda iteration. I can see why it gets a bad rap.

What's odd is that when playing it, I kept remembering aspects of Demon's Souls/Dark Souls reviews, at least in regards to punishing difficulty, losing progress (getting a game over resets your unbanked experience points), and a relatively small world made to seem so much larger via incremental progress. Haven't played them. I'm curious how they actually compare.

[Sno]

I also played and finished Rage, i didn't really like it. It was a reasonably well made game, i just found it really dull.

What's odd is that when playing it, I kept remembering aspects of Demon's Souls/Dark Souls reviews, at least in regards to punishing difficulty, losing progress (getting a game over resets your unbanked experience points), and a relatively small world made to seem so much larger via incremental progress. Haven't played them. I'm curious how they actually compare.

You're not actually the first person i've seen comparing Dark Souls to Zelda 2.

[syntheticgerbil]

I remember Zelda 2 being that bad, but I do remember it being made easier by having a large Overworld map gif and an FAQ. Just getting through the regular enemies and palaces are hard enough, I can't sit around with those old games and try to break every wall tile or burn every tree. That's non design.

But I do feel Zelda 2 had some good ideas, especially the magic part and sidescrolling stuff, which could have been tweaked to work much better.

[toblix]

I remember Zelda 2 being that bad, but I do remember it being made easier by having a large Overworld map gif

Did it have "Deal with it" glasses being lowered onto the map every thirty seconds?

[Orv]

I just finished Fallout 3. I played through the main quest when it came out, and was obviously dismayed at the ending being literal. Unfortunately, about the time Mothership Zeta came out, my original GFWL account got banned for being hacked, losing my original FO3 saves. So I picked up the GOTY version a while back, but didn't get very far into it, I just couldn't muster the want to play it again.

Then someone on SA mentioned that, well, unarmed is a little overpowered. By which I mean, it one-shots a lot of things. Mix this with 10 Endurance, and either of the armors from Operation Anchorage (one being the second best Power Armor in the game, the other giving you a permanent Stealth Boy) and you're basically good to go. I was level 14 from doing the DLC before I even began the main quest (wooo, level scaling!) and sped through the Main Quest.

I used the console command to unlock all map markers after I finished Broken Steel and visited the seven or so places I hadn't yet seen extensively.

I really enjoyed it, to be honest. I kind of wish I had waited to play it the first time until all the DLC was out, but it'll still be one of the better RPGs I've ever played.

Off to see if I can beat New Vegas' main quest with unarmed before Skyrim comes out.

[ThunderPeel2001]

That's cool. I wish I'd known Unarmed was overpowered... But none of the guides I consulted mentioned it.

[Orv]

That's cool. I wish I'd known Unarmed was overpowered... But none of the guides I consulted mentioned it.

Funnily enough on that note, I just purchased the hardcover Skyrim strategy guide from Amazon, because one, I love having my coffee table stacked high with hardcover game goodies, and two, the Morrowind guide is the funniest strategy guide I've ever read and I love that thing to death.

[syntheticgerbil]

Did it have "Deal with it" glasses being lowered onto the map every thirty seconds?

Where do I purchase these? I need image examples!

[Erkki]

I beat the Riddick games ... And the second seems to solve all the issues the first game had, mostly story-wise. it keep making you think you've won when you haven't.

I'm a bit confused with the Riddick series. Dark Athena is the second game right, and at the same time a remake of the original?

[Patters]

I'm a bit confused with the Riddick series. Dark Athena is the second game right, and at the same time a remake of the original?

Dark Athena contains both a sequel and a remake of Butcher's Bay.

[JonCole]

I'm a bit confused with the Riddick series. Dark Athena is the second game right, and at the same time a remake of the original?

Dark Athena had a pack-in HD remake of the first game included with the purchase. The actual new content is set after the campaign of Butcher Bay.

[ThunderPeel2001]

So I finished Psychonauts last night. Great game, as I'd remembered. The Meat Circus was actually more annoying that I remembered, even though this was the "easy" version... Maybe I'm not the games player I once was. (It wasn't THAT difficult, though.)

In the credits I noticed thanks to: Marek Bromstring, Jake Rodkin, and James Spafford.

[Roderick]

When I replayed Psychonauts last year, I found Meat Circus decidedly less hard than I remembered it. Maybe it's the difference between PC and console? First time I played it on PC, then on Xbox 360. Could be.

[Sno]

Dark Athena had a pack-in HD remake of the first game included with the purchase. The actual new content is set after the campaign of Butcher Bay.

The Butcher Bay remake also retains some of the additions from the game's PC version. (A couple extra levels and a developer commentary.)

I think the remade Butcher Bay is actually better than the new Dark Athena campaign, but they're both really good. Butcher Bay holds up really incredibly well though, super dense and ambitious game that did lots of things that were quite ahead of their time.

[ThunderPeel2001]

When I replayed Psychonauts last year, I found Meat Circus decidedly less hard than I remembered it. Maybe it's the difference between PC and console? First time I played it on PC, then on Xbox 360. Could be.

Yeah, I think it's always been easier with a good controller. And thinking back, it really wasn't THAT hard. I died more times because I was collecting figments, than any other reason.

Also I really noticed similarities to Inception this time around. Psychonauts was the Inception of its day!