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Recently completed video games

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Yeah, that's about as fast as I went.

 

I just beat the Cat Lady, I heard so many great things about this game how it was a masterpiece of how to make a truly mature game, and while it does deal with an issue that is sensitive, it's so forced and badly written that the game became almost painful before becoming hilarious.

 

Yes, half the game is talking about suicide, mental illness and depression, but everything else is handled so poorly I can't help but to laugh. I'm more of an anxiety guy, but I know a few people with depression and this seemed more "emo" than anything. The worst is the other half of the game, which tries to be Silent Hill, but feels like a hilarious creepy pasta, the heavy metal that plays during the gory scenes don't help much either.

 

And since it's an adventure game, it has the "Obligatory Lucasarts Reference", which is the biggest one I've seen so far, 

a whole bloody chapter takes place in the "Maniac Mansion"

, and they also have the characters from the creator's first game play a minor role in the game.

 

The dialogue is mostly "FEEEEELINGS!" that go on for too long and seem so forced and you'll think I'm horrible but I nearly died laughing when 

a baby died in the game, the whole scenario was so contrived! The argument the main character with their husband was just so silly, and we have to believe they couldn't hear the storm that "blew" the pollen to the baby who had a "rare but deadly allergy" to pollen they didn't know of... Um, the pollen would have gotten to the baby anyway, you didn't have to make up this dumb argument... The most hilarious part is that he couldn't think of anything better than a terrorist attack to ignite it.

 

I'm going to have find a new name for a new category of games, the "Mind Bloorp" (I probably need , which is when I game tries to blow you mind so hard, but the great reveal just makes the whole story makes no sense. In this case the main character 

is somehow immortal, the gift was given by the Queen of Maggots, who we think is Death, but in the end... she was out regrets and guilt? Then how did she have these powers? Not to mention then all she said before about herself was a lie or just doesn't make sense.

 

And the bad guys are ridiculous too, 

for starters one of them is BLOODY NURSE EDNA! You kill her with a bloody shotgun! She's a cannibal for some reason, because drama and shock? One doctor is killing his patients and turning them into works of arts. You know how some do that right? Well this one literally takes a dead woman, dresses them up and posses them just like the Mona Lisa. One of the bad guys just breaks into your home and wants you play piano while he bashes your skull in, probably because the author was too lazy to think of a scenario where they had to find him... oh and he gets eaten alive by bad pixel art cats...

 

I would say the "FEELINGS!" parts would have been better off in a different game without the goofy gore parts, but they are both equally goofy to me.

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Finally, after a couple of years playing it on and off on steam, I have beaten the original Deus Ex. Once I relaxed and gave up my non-lethal play through and instead went for minimally-lethal, I had a ton of fun. It's one of those classics that's as good as everyone says, and with non of the control clunkiness of going back to play a game like XCOM.

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And now I also beat Dust: An Elysian Tale. I'm not a huge fan of that style of combat in a 2d game, but I still enjoyed this quite a bit. A warning to anyone else who's playing, the last boss is grueling, buy every health item you can. 

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I beat Kane and Lynch 2:Dog Days campaign. Basically, I'm old enough now that I can only play one 3rd person game, one FPS, and one driving game concurrently, because I just can't carry across control schemes between games of a type - my brain won't do it, and I become 5 years old again. Having slogged through AC: Brotherhood, I decided to give K & L a spin as I'd heard it was short and ascetically interesting. It is both those things, and I really enjoyed it - especially the horrible cheap digital handheld camera effect that pixilates when people shoot at you. Looking forward to playing the campaign co-op with a friend at some point.

 

My current FPS is FC:2 - just subverted all missions on map 2, so end game is imminent, but I'm off it again at the moment.

 

Clocked Driver: San Francisco and bloody loved it, because the loopy narrative completely served the very fun game mechanics. Still dipping into this from time to time to try and complete more challenges/races etc.

 

New 3rd person is Arkham Asylum (did I mention I'm about 4 years behind in my gaming?). Loving it so far. Feels like a Batman simulator. Very clever.

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3 games in 4 days! Today I beat Batman: Arkham City. I've still got a couple side quests I want to do before I put the game aside for good, but I'm pretty happy with the Batman experience. Unfortunately, I wasn't so happy with the Catwoman stuff. I realize that it was a tack-on for pre-orders and whatnot, but I found pretty much every moment with her super frustrating and clunky.

 

Overall, still a great game, but not quite as good as Arkham Asylum was.

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A couple of wee belters.

 

Ghost Trick (DS) - Lovely-looking puzzley adventurey game where bad things happen, so you rewind time and then manipulate objects in very minor ways to change the outcome. It's very trial-and-error but because it's all about rewinding time, and the puzzles themselves never last more than a few minutes with only a limited number of things you can interact with, that isn't as tedious as it sounds. Press a switch, move a hat, light a candle - see what happens and figure out how you can use it to stop a truck ploughing through the window of a restaurant and killing three people. It's also got a far better story than it has any need to, is genuinely funny, and has tons of great graphical touches and animations. The first time you meet Cabanela is an experience to remember forever.

 

Cabanela_dance.gif

 

Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS) - Never really fancied this but bought it off the back of universal praise and it was in a "buy 3, get 1 free" promotion Nintendo ran in Europe a few months ago. I don't know what I thought this was now but if someone had just told me it's the Advance Wars guys doing a game that's a bit like Advance Wars but also an RPG then I'd have got in there a bit sooner. Starts off really simply then continually introduces new mechanics to eventually become quite a deep (for me, anyway) strategy game, and the story stuff, while not great, is strong enough to have you caring about the wee guys you're moving around on the map, especially if you have permadeath on like I did. Later levels get a bit too reliant on the enemy calling in reinforcements for my liking and after 30 hours I was ready for the end but I'm still pleased to see just how much optional side-content is in there as I imagine I'll come back to it at some point, maybe doing a casual playthrough to see how it would have turned out differently had I not let certain units die. And I let a lot of those boys die.

 

 

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Fine I will participate in this thread again. In the last few months I have beaten Conker's Bad Fur Day, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (again), Enslaved and DLC, Ratchet and Clank Going Commando, Up Your Arsenal and Deadlocked HD, Jak 2 HD, 3 HD, and X as well as Daxter, Tales of Monkey Island, Mario 64 DS, Mario RPG, Virtual Boy Wario Land, Teleroboxer, Mario Clash, Lollipop Chainsaw, Liberation Maiden, and Professor Layton and the Unwound Future.

 

I don't even know what to say about most of those except that they were games I all enjoyed to some extent but don't feel like making a thread about them. Half of those were done because I am jobless, egh.

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Fine I will participate in this thread again. In the last few months I have beaten Conker's Bad Fur Day, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (again), Enslaved and DLC, Ratchet and Clank Going Commando, Up Your Arsenal and Deadlocked HD, Jak 2 HD, 3 HD, and X as well as Daxter, Tales of Monkey Island, Mario 64 DS, Mario RPG, Virtual Boy Wario Land, Teleroboxer, Mario Clash, Lollipop Chainsaw, Liberation Maiden, and Professor Layton and the Unwound Future.

 

I don't even know what to say about most of those except that they were games I all enjoyed to some extent but don't feel like making a thread about them. Half of those were done because I am jobless, egh.

 

I really liked seeing Conker's Bad Fur Day in that list. Was it the original N64 version or the Xbox remake?

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Nah I played the Xbox remake. I was loving the first half but then the second half started to get really boring and tedious and it stopped being so funny, although not all the time. It was about a 10 hour game so it didn't really wear out it's welcome. I still enjoyed it overall though and I have no issues with a bunch of sick jokes and potty humor even if it's hit or miss. Also the Xbox version is absolutely gorgeous.

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Nah I played the Xbox remake. I was loving the first half but then the second half started to get really boring and tedious and it stopped being so funny, although not all the time. It was about a 10 hour game so it didn't really wear out it's welcome. I still enjoyed it overall though and I have no issues with a bunch of sick jokes and potty humor even if it's hit or miss. Also the Xbox version is absolutely gorgeous.

 

Yeah, I have and played both versions and I thought they did a great job with the graphical update, especially with the fur. I remember not being the biggest fan of the Dracula and WWII sections but the rest of the game hit some pretty good notes. It stands out to me as my favorite parody game and I really liked all of the different fucked up stuff they did and places they went (The Matrix bit and the opera singing shit monster were my favorites). Obviously, this game was perfectly built to resonate with my sense of humor.

 

I also put a couple hundred hours into the multiplayer since it was one of the earlier Xbox live games. It probably doesn't stand up too well but I have some very fond memories of the multiplayer in this game. I wonder if anyone still plays it.

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Haha, I wanted to roll my eyes at the Matrix bit because it's so outdated, but I enjoyed how it played. Definitely the Dracula part is where I'm feeling it dragged. The WWII stuff was great until I had to drive that tank around and tediously try not to fall off the cliff.

 

Haven't touched the multiplayer parts, but I know all original Xbox online services no longer work.

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Haven't touched the multiplayer parts, but I know all original Xbox online services no longer work.

 

Damn, that is tragic. I should have known but I still had some naive hope that at least some of the more popular Live games from original Xbox were still supported.

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Tomb Raider :tup:

I just finished it. It's pretty much a Uncharted, but with Lara Croft. It also has the same bad elements like the part where you have to run, and when you fuck up just once you have to retry it. And enemies popping up in closed off and clear areas. It also has a bunch of annoying QTEs. The shooting part wasn't as annoying as with Uncharted, because I used a mouse and keyboard. It was pretty much >50% head shots. The game didn't had a lot of puzzles, which is a shame. Most puzzles were confined to optional tombs. And besides the optional tombs, there was not a lot of tomb raiding going on. I was just murdering a whole island and emptying their pockets.

As usual the level design was rather spoiling, it was always clear that a fight was coming up because of the chest high walls and ammo.

I think it's best to ignore the whole character development of Lara, it's just plain weird. Suddenly you're a weapon smith, and mass murderer. Ah well...

Just like with the Uncharted games, I wish there was more exploring, puzzles and archeology.

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This was so nearly a Quitters Club entry.

Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D (3DS) - I wanted a basic, old-school 2D platformer and that's exactly what you get here. Despite the obvious lack of Rare involvement this does a hell of a job of recreating what I loved about the series back in the 90s with just the same mix of collecting things, varied and inventive level design and mercilessly difficult platforming action. I thought it was just me being out of practice at first but I'm pretty sure this game is really hard in places, to unlock everything including the bonus extra world at the end would easily take me longer than the Demon's Souls platinum did so I'll sate myself for now by having seen the credit roll and maybe dip back into it another time. It's almost a perfect example of the genre, the only complaint I have with it is the controls, specifically the roll button which you need to evade sometimes which is not always as responsive as you need it to be. Better than waggling a Wiimote to be sure but a bit too fussy at times which led to some infuriating deaths, particularly on the last boss. Those aside, this was a whole lot better than I expected.

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And now I also beat Dust: An Elysian Tale. I'm not a huge fan of that style of combat in a 2d game, but I still enjoyed this quite a bit. A warning to anyone else who's playing, the last boss is grueling, buy every health item you can. 

 

I recently also beat this game, and the last boss was a complete push-over. It goes to show how much of a difference it makes which level you are. Mind you, I didn't grind for experience at all, I just 100% the whole thing before finishing up. At that point, everything was a cinch.

 

I just beat Deponia. Cute game. I laughed out loud a couple of times, but Rufus can be a real jerk. I seriously considered stopping when I had to

eject Goal's memory disk to trick her into leaving with me. Despite Rufus making it up immediately after, it felt like such a low thing to do. The only way I could bring myself to it was to imagine I was roleplaying as a totally desperate, lost soul. The ending afterwards was fun though, looking forward to the second game.

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Put away Arkham Asylum over the weekend (on a PS3 catch-up). Best Batman simulator ever. Also my new favourite combat system - one I can actually play for once (Bayonetta, Yakuza 3, Darksiders I'm looking at you). My reactions are not terrible, but I just can’t do traditional multi-button combat. And yet, AA was a breeze, and I even managed to score well in some of the challenge modes. So gratifying.

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I recently also beat this game, and the last boss was a complete push-over. It goes to show how much of a difference it makes which level you are. Mind you, I didn't grind for experience at all, I just 100% the whole thing before finishing up. At that point, everything was a cinch.

 

I just beat Deponia. Cute game. I laughed out loud a couple of times, but Rufus can be a real jerk. I seriously considered stopping when I had to

eject Goal's memory disk to trick her into leaving with me. Despite Rufus making it up immediately after, it felt like such a low thing to do. The only way I could bring myself to it was to imagine I was roleplaying as a totally desperate, lost soul. The ending afterwards was fun though, looking forward to the second game.

 

I think I was at 60% or so when I made the run. Right around level 30 when I started. The whole run up at the end felt like it took forever since everyone there seems to block your sword swings so I was just doing the fidget lightning combo over and over again while trying not to get hurt. What surprised me was simply the amount of combat between save points, but I only ever died once so it didn't end up setting me back too far. I just had the tension of not wanting to be set back 10 minutes of continuous combat. I did, however, use almost every healing item I had during my winning run.

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Put away Arkham Asylum over the weekend (on a PS3 catch-up). Best Batman simulator ever. Also my new favourite combat system - one I can actually play for once (Bayonetta, Yakuza 3, Darksiders I'm looking at you). My reactions are not terrible, but I just can’t do traditional multi-button combat. And yet, AA was a breeze, and I even managed to score well in some of the challenge modes. So gratifying.

 

That was my game of the year when it came out. Arkham City is good too, but the open world bits and increase in the number of gadgets hurt it in some ways.

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After several starts that have piddled out, I finally beat a game Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes. Since it's a Civilizations type game, I'll never really be done with it, especially because I actually had a really good time playing it. The beginning starts off a lot like the first few Elemental games, but there's a lot more strategic depth when you get to the end game that I was really thrilled with. $40 might be a bit steep to pay for it, but if it's ever on sale I'd recommend any Civ fan looking for something a bit different pick it up.

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Papo & Yo :tmeh:

A short "game", although it's more of a interactive story. I think it's a story about a kid and his abusive/drunk father, and it plays in the imaginative world of the kid.

It's a platform game with platformy puzzles. The puzzles are usually quite simple and involve nothing more than hitting some switches. At some point there are a bunch of levels/puzzles that involve timing and running away from the monster. This is extremely annoying because the monster is blocking your view. There's one puzzle which complete resets itself when the monster gets you, I had to retry that a bunch of times.

The way the world geometry changes by the puzzles is quite cool (think of inception like changes).

I picked it up during the Steam sale, so I had about 1 euro per hour of fun (takes about 3 hours to complete the game).

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beat Dragons Crown (on normal)!  Fantastic game, though a flawed gem. The touch aspects designed for vita went unchanged into the ps3 version and are unsurprisingly really clunky. I'm also convinced some classes are more fun then others. It might equalize later on as you expand their skills, but starting out I found mana management on both witch+wizard slowed the pace of the game down to a crawl. Whirling around and learning the quirks of invincibly frames on dwarf+amazon is a lot more intense, and my buddy liked the game a lot more after swapping witch for elf

 

its a real shame this game got absolutely dogpiled for its character design, and the idlethumbs thread - like all the others - dissolved into an embarrassing mess of sexism anecdotes. This game has more depth the deeper I go, and a gorgeous 2d game that isn't spritework is such a rarity these days; let alone a gorgeous 2d multiplayer loot-driven ~cooking-sim~ brawler

 

onward to Hard difficulty >:-O

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Just got around to finishing the latest chapter of Kentucky Route Zero. Surprise! It's still the best game ever made. If you like Kafka or Brazil you will like this chapter.

 

Also, I like how the game lets you figure out what the major, overarching plot is without banging you over the head with it. I am fairly certain I have it figured out, but it's exciting to see the premise explored through further chapters.

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Stealth Bastard Deluxe :tup:

Reach the exit without getting killed, seams easy enough. There are quite some different hazards that can kill you, lasers, crushing walls, drones. As the name suggests, stealth is an important factor in completing the levels.

In general the game's difficulty was good, it was challenging, but never impossible. There were a couple of quite difficult levels which involved good timing. But luckily, when you're killed you don't always have to restart the whole level. Levels, or segments therefor, either have to be completed by a bit of puzzling, or timing (only a few cases when you had timed puzzles). Each set of levels is ended by a "boss battle", the difficulty of these are usually the same as the previous levels, and don't require you to apply new techniques.

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The Swapper :tup:

Just finished it. The lack of game progress chievos was quite nice as I had no idea about my progress. Just a little after the puzzles became tedious I finished the game. So, the length was quite good. I finished it in more or less one sitting, so about 3 hours of gameplay. The game mechanic of cloning etc. is worked out quite well, and the puzzles are quite ok, some of them really require some thinking.

The lack of a boss challenge was also great.

I really dig the graphical style of the game, the RGB distortion is quite nice. I don't think I can name anything I would have done differently, or things I thought simply sucked. So, if you like platform based puzzle games, this is a really good one.

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