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Yeah very similar to my experience! I liked it, it's a very neat game. A lot like Zelda except you actually don't know what you're gonna get and there's some fun mysteries and surprises. What a cute game.

 

 

I ran through Metal Gear Rising recently. I'm a big fat beat-em-up dork so I came into this with a critical eye. It was alright! The slow-motion precision cuts was a novel idea, and I'm surprised it lasted the whole game. Didn't get boring! Congrats, wow.

I enjoyed slicing off secret collectible hands, and regular limbs, and I wish they would've gone a bit deeper into enemy designs but I understand that development for this game was pretty hectic.

They give you other weapons in the game but I did not check any of them out for even a second. The X,X,Y beat-em-up button-mashing part of this game is just a way to keep your heart rate up between sneaking and slicing, it's not actually the star of the show, so the regular sword was fine.

Codec chatter was a bit disappointing. At the start of the game there's a lot of "How was your vacation?" and "What kind of movies do you like?" and characters just being themselves- which I LOVE!! but then they leaned back into intense plot stuff and that's all just dumb.

 

Overall a cool ride, explores a neat twist on the genre, doesn't outstay it's welcome. Neato  :tup:

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War For Cybertron is only 20. But Fall of Cybertron I watched for a while before I picked up on sale. Add to your steam wishlist and they let you know when it is on sale.

 

Good to know! Just checked on Cheap Shark and War for Cybertron has been as low as $5, while Fall of Cybertron was as low as $15 just this past winter.

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Guacamelee! is done!

 

I wasn't super excited about it.  I didn't think I was in the mood for a metroidvania (can we use that as a noun? like rougelike? Weird that Metroid gets its full name but Castlevania just gets half its name.  And young whipper-snappers in the future might just think vania was just a crazy misspelling of "mania" much like "teh", etc.  Metrovania is much easier to say...).

 

I loved it!  Played it on a keyboard of all places.  I had thought I was playing it on easy, as the combat wasn't much of a challenge, but at the end it let me know I completed it on Normal.  Cool!  Took 5.5 hours.  Felt really well paced.

 

One thing that sold me on the game was the scope of the world.  It just felt right.  Not too big, not too little.  The level design was... fine.  If the art design wasn't so spot on, I think I'd have more to complain about the way the levels were laid out.  I was happy they didn't do too much of the realm swapping for puzzle/platforming ala Outland, as I found that kind of micro-twitchy-ness to get old fast.  Some of the platforming was tough, but the fact that there wasn't a penalty for failing and restarting was instantaneous meant I never got too frustrated.  Plus something about being about to command-tab out of the game helped quell any annoying difficulty spikes.

 

I was ready for the references to overwhelm me, as I remember a lot of the reviews and chatter around the game brought up an (annoying) overabundance of memes.  They never bothered me, and I honestly didn't pick up on most of them.  Guess I'm a dummy! :D

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Evoland. Interesting to juxtapose this one against Costume Quest. Both games boil down RPG mechanics to make the game move relatively fast. I noted in my criticism for Costume Quest that I would've liked either less fights or deeper mechanics. Evoland takes a third option by switching the mechanics between at least three type of genre styles: action RPG, Zelda-style action game, turn-based JRPG. It keeps everything pretty fresh.

 

I won't spoil anymore, but I will say that while it doesn't have as much charm as Costume Quest, it's a nice, little game with some neat gimmicks. Also, very short! No more than 5 hours. Enjoyed it all around.

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Shadow Warrior (2013) :tmeh:

I actually completed this one a while ago, but never reported it. The game is loosely based the 3D Realms Shadow Warrior, but quite different. It's not a straight up FPS game. In fact, you will probably use your katana a lot in combination with some powers you have. During the game you get upgrade your powers, upgrade your weapons and acquire some perks. You won't be able to get everything, unless you play an almost perfect game I guess.

The game became quite tedious at some point, fighting again through some dark corridors. A bit more variation in level design would be nice. The boss battles are quite boring, it's pretty much the same battle every time, and it's just running around shooting at the guy until he's dead.

The powers you've got are pretty much unlimited. So you can keep using the shield while slashing away with your katana, and sometimes heal yourself. The shield doesn't stop 100% of the attacks, and you can't heal yourself to 100%. So despite these powers you can still get into a really tough spot.

The humor is worse than in the original game. The original game had terrible humor, which made it funny. This one simply had bad puns and jokes which aren't really funny due to its terribleness. So that's a shame.

 

Castle of Illusion (2013) :tmeh:

Another remake of a classic game. But unlike Ducktales: Remastered this does it not completely true to the original, it's based upon the original. So the levels have the same style and the bosses are similar. But it's all different layouts and battles. It's quite ok. Except for the final boss level it was quite easy. The final boss level was really annoying, it was made more annoying by the fact that every time you die you had to sit through the 1 minute unskippable intro. Stopping the game meant that you also had to do the climbing of the tower before the battle.

The game is quite gorgeous and the controls are great. Between Ducktales and this, Ducktales is the better remake.

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Metroid Fusion

 

I'm not usually a fan of the Metroid games. In fact, this is the first one I've actually finished. And there's a very simple reason why: I get lost in games fairly easily, so without some kind of clear direction on where to go next, I have no idea what to do and lose interest fast. Fusion, on the other hand, had you constantly checking in with a computer that told you where you were heading next, which alleviated basically all of that problem for me.

 

I had a ton of fun with this game. Definitely recommended. :tup:

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Metroid Fusion

 

I'm not usually a fan of the Metroid games. In fact, this is the first one I've actually finished. And there's a very simple reason why: I get lost in games fairly easily, so without some kind of clear direction on where to go next, I have no idea what to do and lose interest fast. Fusion, on the other hand, had you constantly checking in with a computer that told you where you were heading next, which alleviated basically all of that problem for me.

 

I had a ton of fun with this game. Definitely recommended. :tup:

 

Ha!  Your opinion is heterodoxy to many "true" Metroid fans, but I really enjoyed Fusion as well and never thought the heavy direction from the computer got in the way of what I found fun about Metroid.

 

I wonder if it would be weird to replay this game after knowing how weird Other M got with this story...

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The thing is, the backtracking and exploration portions of Metroid games are probably my least favourite part, so the computer's directions really helped me enjoy the game a lot more than I have with other Metroid games. ...which is probably why I'm not a big Metroid fan in the first place. :P

 

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Goat Simulator :tmeh:

This game is just stupid :tup: It's basically a physics sandbox where you control a goat. There's a few special things in the world. There are some goals to complete. It's a bit like a 3D version of "Achievement Unlocked". It's only rather short, there's only 1 level where you can mess around. And after 2 hours I more or less have seen it all. Sure, I didn't find all hidden items, and completed every cheevo.

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Type:Rider :tup:

I think it's best described as Limbo meets type faces. It's a platform game where the different levels are created using and in style of different type faces. It's a journey through the development of fonts. In the levels you can unlock pages which tells the history. It's a fun platform game, and informative. The later levels get more challenging obstacles which can be quite frustrating because you keep missing that one jump or timing.

It's like Limbo, because at the end of the game you will unlock the Comic Sans level.

If you are interested in this game you should pick up the current Humble Bundle while it lasts.

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I'm glad to see the Cybertron games getting some props here, i really enjoyed what Highmoon did with those. I'd second them probably being very appealing to anybody who enjoyed Space Marine. (FoC straight up lifts a few mechanics from Space Marine.)

 

Ha!  Your opinion is heterodoxy to many "true" Metroid fans, but I really enjoyed Fusion as well and never thought the heavy direction from the computer got in the way of what I found fun about Metroid.

 

I wonder if it would be weird to replay this game after knowing how weird Other M got with this story...


True to what's being said here, i'd count Metroid Fusion probably just slightly ahead of Other M. I hate the slow, unskippable dialogue scenes and the linearity, it makes it incredibly boring to replay, unfortunate when counted as part of a series known for opening up in surprising ways on replays.

Fusion is up for debate though, Other M is just a bizarre train wreck of a game. Some neat gameplay ideas, still way too linear, but then that story, holy shit.

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Goat Simulator :tmeh:

This game is just stupid :tup: It's basically a physics sandbox where you control a goat. There's a few special things in the world. There are some goals to complete. It's a bit like a 3D version of "Achievement Unlocked". It's only rather short, there's only 1 level where you can mess around. And after 2 hours I more or less have seen it all. Sure, I didn't find all hidden items, and completed every cheevo.

 

When Noby Noby Boy came out, I heard somebody on a podcast say that it wasn't a good game, but it was an amazing toy. That's kind of how I ended up feeling about Goat Simulator. I had fun with it for a couple of hours (one running around myself and another watching my wife do the same) and I'll probably come back later on to check out what new levels people make for it. I'm happy with it overall.

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Ha!  Your opinion is heterodoxy to many "true" Metroid fans, but I really enjoyed Fusion as well and never thought the heavy direction from the computer got in the way of what I found fun about Metroid.

 

I wonder if it would be weird to replay this game after knowing how weird Other M got with this story...

 

I'm definitely in the 'ugh Metroid Fusion' camp, but it does have some things to recommend it: specifically, when they stripped out all the exploration gameplay, they realised they still had to have the surprise and discovery Metroid specialises in, and so added a whole bunch of things that unexpectedly trigger while you're just moving from place to place. When they tried a more traditional Metroid in Zero Mission, they brought all the ideas from Fusion along with them. Zero Mission doesn't quite hit the highs of Prime or Super, but it does extremely well under its heavy constraints.

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I just finished DooM3 for the first time. It still looks and plays great, tons of atmosphere and meaty shooting. The only problem is it's far too long and repetitive, with a load of boring voice recordings and data logs to get through and lots of back-tracking with keycards etc. Basically, this game needs to be at least halved in length and it would be amazing.

 

It's very similar to Rage - the data logs and NPCs which precede Rage's RPG-lite stuff, the walky robot turret friends, the Half-Lifey walking round the base at the start, the imps clambering along walls and jumping at you. If either of those games got a mod that lineared them out and cut all the bullshit and padding, they'd be fantastic.

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I really love Doom 3, and i still actually do, but when it was new i always felt like i had to be the apologist for it. People turned on that game so hard.

I really enjoyed the flow of wandering into a room and scanning all the corners with the flashlight and then swapping out to your gun with only the muzzle flashes to light the room, i still think it lends well to some very tense encounters. (I think one of the causes of a lot of the backlash back when the game came out was lower graphics settings actually discreetly disabling a lot of the dynamic lighting effects, actually making the game even darker than it would have been on a better PC.)

You can see some of what coalesced in Rage present all the way back in Doom 3, but i think the shooting and level design in Doom 3 was so much better than anything in Rage. Rage is a very loose feeling game with incredibly narrow and linear stages. (Being able to say that opposite Doom 3 is incredibly less than flattering, Rage has so many invisible walls.)

You know, and then there was all the other stuff that kind of sucked about Rage, like the rubber banding AI in races and the non-ending.

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Yeah, it was very immersive, I really enjoyed the flashlight mechanic. I think I agree with you on it being superior to Rage in those respects too, although I never really experienced the racing as it was so irritating I only did the bare minimum to complete the main quest line.

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 (I think one of the causes of a lot of the backlash back when the game came out was lower graphics settings actually discreetly disabling a lot of the dynamic lighting effects, actually making the game even darker than it would have been on a better PC.)

 

Huh, I wonder if this is one of the problems I had with it.  I just found it atrocious to play because of the dark/flashlight mechanics.  Never got past the first hour or so of it.

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In Doom 3, if you're fighting an Imp, when it winds up with its fireball, there's supposed to be a very bright light being cast out into the environment, right? With the fireball still in its hand, you can see the shadows of its fingers traced out across the walls, threads of the intense light scattering out everywhere. It looks awesome, and it makes a fight that might have occured in pitch black appear kind of bright and dazzling.

On anything less than the highest graphics setting, that kind of stuff is just completely missing from the game, it makes it so much less playable. (If you had a flimsy PC, you could use the console to force the game to show those lighting effects even with lower graphics settings, but there was no individual toggle in the game settings for them. It was an incredibly bizarre choice on Id's part to hide that setting.)

 

(Edit: I was curious to see if i could find a video to illustrate this difference, but all i'm finding is videos of Doom 3 purportedly showing off low settings, but still with all the lighting effects in place. I'm positive i'm not misremembering things though, i remember clearly having to go into the console to manually enable the lighting effects for the game on my way-back-then mid-range PC.)


Also, the BFG edition of Doom 3 restricted settings even more, and even has noticeably lower resolution texture assets than the original game! I believe it might even be missing some of the aformentioned dynamic lighting effects too. It's completely bizarre, don't play that version of the game. (They also brightened up the game a bunch and stuck flashlights on a few weapons, which i'm going to argue completely misses the point.)

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I edited the config file to get everything on super-high settings with widescreen, high resolution etc, and it generally looked great.

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Playing the expansion pack (I miss that term) now, and the gravity gun and bullet-time make this much more fun (although once again it's starting to get repetitive, of course). Whoever makes that fan mod I'm daydreaming about should definitely stick some of this in there too.

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I beat Earth Defense Force 2025 and while I enjoyed it a lot, I'm not sure I like all the changed they did to the game.

 

85 missions?! Are they crazy? The last was "just" 60 and while it wasn't a slog, it did feel longer than necessary, they added a few more classes and a few enemies, maybe an actual new map with more detail, but if you play as a character you know, if felt like the exact same game, I don't think I a got a single new weapon and playing as anything that isn't a Pale Wing seems like pain movement-wise.

 

I know this is cheesy "cheap" game in the same camp as Dynasty Warriors, but even a new DW game feels more different than this and they are literally retelling the same story with each game. 

 

At the same time, I don't know what I would have wanted from this game. Definitely not 30% missions and I definitely don't like that they took the Godzilla like monster and replaced it with plain old dragons, which kinda break the whole alien bug menace theme, maybe the kaiju did a bit too, but it was just one giant monster, not a swarm of tiny ones.

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I finished the original FTL: Faster than Light at release, but this newest free expansion content dragged me back into the wormhole. I finally got my first win against the Flagship on Normal with the new content installed today. The boss' mind control really does a number on you. 

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I went and finished Tomb Raider I. I got into the series with the second game and never played the first one. If I'm not mistaken TR1 was actually ported to Mac after the second game, so that's probably why. A game I did play though was Tomb Raider Anniversary, which I think is fantastic. Instead of replaying that I figured I'd try the original. People like to hate on the tank controls, but I got used to them pretty fast and as far as the platforming go I think they work pretty well. That part of the game actually holds up, it's fun to explore the levels, solve the puzzles and find the secrets. Where the controls break down is when you need to stand just in the right spot to pick up an item, or grab a ledge above you etc. It can get pretty frustrating.

 

Something I wasn't quite expecting was how much combat there is. Anniversary had some, but it felt more relaxed. Here they throw stuff at you in almost every room (at least later in the game) and the combat is atrocious. Most enemies take too many bullets to kill. Also, I think there's a dip in quality for a while after St. Francis Folly. I put the game down and had to force my way through the rest of Greece, but once you get to Egypt the level design gets way better. Even at its best it still makes me impressed to see what they did with the remake, it made the bad parts good while making the good parts amazing.

 

Anyway, I ended up liking the game on the whole. I love the feeling of isolation, exploring these abandoned environments on your own. There's really not much else like it, even in the same series. I'm also pretty impressed with what they did with some of the level design considering that this was one of the first proper 3D games. I actually started replaying TR2, even more combat in that one so not sure if I'll stick with it.

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Been meaning to post this, I finished my first playthrough of Dark Souls 2.  Of the 3 souls games, I feel that it is the best and most balanced/diverse in terms of mechanics, though ultimately the world and characters fall short of either DeS or DS1.  So that's a bit of a mixed bag, it should be great for multiplayer, speedruns and challenge runs for a long time, but won't spawn the obsessiveness that people had for lore and characters in DS1. 

 

All told though, a fantastic experience and still better (for me) than most other games made in the last few years. 

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Tropico 4 :tmeh:

Finally finished the standard campaign. The last mission was a real meat circus. So here you are trying to get your island running again after minimum wage is so permanently to $20, finished a bunch of more missions, and then finally... build 3 things of 2x60k+40k before the end of 2012.... It was already 2018 at that point.... great.

It's an ok strategy game, but so much is left to random chance. There are like 3 formulas which work very good, but only if you get enough workers or tourists that spend money. Nothing you can control.

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