Recently completed video games

[Dewar]

I beat State of Decay on PC. It's a game with a lot of really good mechanics, that start to get a bit old and show their lack of depth toward the end. Thankfully, it wrapped up pretty quick before I got really bored. I'm looking forward to seeing how their multiplayer game turns out.

[N1njaSquirrel]

I hear that he's recently released more dlc for it too. And maybe for free?

Edit: in relation to Thomas was alone

[tegan]

I beat Pokémon Y! I don't normally beat both versions of a given Pokémon game, so this is a first. I did it pretty much entirely to get an Yveltal.

[Bjorn]

I hear that he's recently released more dlc for it too. And maybe for free?

Edit: in relation to Thomas was alone

 

Yeah, the dev added one more set of levels.  I've downloaded them, but haven't fired it up to try them out yet. 

[Spenny]

I beat Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

 

Plot is dumb so it is good that it is all skippable. The combat is sublime, although the final boss is all the jokes. I got so stuck  on it that I had to replay half the game to have enough health power-ups to take him on.

 

The parrying system is different and a little more convoluted than Bayonetta.

 

Still, it was a hell of a lot of fun and pretty short but sweet.

 

I'm making my way through this, I feel like the game is dumb and knows it, and actually makes the cut scenes worth watching. I am however finding a lot of friction in the combat system, can't really grok the parrying, mostly feel like I'm fudging my way through the combat. Of the handful of these spectacle fighter - beat em ups I've played this has probably been my least favourite combat system. 

[eot]

I found my Far Cry 2 save from back in 2008, about half way through the game and decided to finish it. I don't have it in me to like this game, when I'm playing those memorable battles where everything is crazy never happen. The main story missions are fun when you're at the scene and actually playing them, but getting around is just too frustrating. I know this complaint is as old as the game, but you can't drive for a minute without either running into a guard outpost or another vehicle, and if you're in a vehicle yourself that means combat is unavoidable. You can sneak around, but travelling on food is tedious as shit because you can only sprint for about five seconds. Not to mention that the game is set in one of the hardest to navigate worlds in video game history, it's like the environment itself wants to impede your progress as much as the rebel armies. This game feels like GTA with a five star wanted level, the aggressiveness of the enemies is off the damn chart.

 

The malaria and gun jamming stuff I don't mind, if it weren't for the fact that it just encourages you to fetch new weapons after each mission. That adds nothing but tedium, I hate punitive design like that. The buddy system is cool, but I almost don't want to hear them out because again, it's more travel and travel is the worst thing in this game. I found a hang glider and it took me about 15 seconds to get shot down. It's not that I'd rather burn down a marijuana plantation while listening to dubstep, I like that the game (in its writing anyway) depicts a horrible conflict for what it is, but the way in which the game feels oppressive in its mechanics is too gamey. The game design doesn't depict a war torn country with several clashing sides and civilians caught in the middle, it depicts an alternate universe version of Sir You Are Being Hunted. There's no down time or quiet moment, no change of pace, when you step out of a safe zone it's a constant assault and it's simply exhausting to play. Part of the problem is how artificial it all comes off as, the game doesn't create the sense that cars are actually patrolling, you can practically feel them spawn in around you.

[mikemariano]

travelling on food is tedious as shit

 

[N1njaSquirrel]

I finished Killer is Dead. Which actually wasn't bad. Despite the negative criticism that's been leveled towards it's treatment of women in the game. (Which I don't feel like I'm well versed enough on the subject to discuss)

 

The combat is good fun, despite the parry/block system being a bit skewiff (or maybe I'm just too used to Bayonetta's push the stick towards the enemy parry system to be able to get used to another one XD) and the story whilst bananas is engaging and amusing.

 

Part of me wishes he'd stop making games and just direct anime, but the other part of me is looking forward to a potential Killer is Dead 2.

 

This is probably my favorite Suda 51 game to date, although I hear El Shaddai is really good.

[miffy495]

Is El Shaddai a Suda game? Huh.

 

I have spent some time with my Vita the past two weeks, partially because Tearaway was cheap for PS+ and I needed to free up some space on my memory card. I beat Gravity Rush and Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Gravity Rush was a really entertaining little game. The combat was super simple. I feel like there was a lot more to it, but I beat the game without ever having to get into it. I find that really deep combat systems only matter if the game actually has a point where you need to step up and use them, and GR never hit that. Still, fun.

 

Uncharted was pretty good too. I am a huge fan of the series (including the first one, which combined with LittleBigPlanet to convince me to buy a PS3), so make of that what you will. I really enjoyed it right up until the final 3 chapters. What the hell is it with the Uncharted series being completely unable to make a good ending for any of their games? On top of the design issues, the scripting broke on me 4 times during this sequence, which had not happened once up to that point in the game. Blugh. Also, to every single fucking developer making a game for a platform that has a motion sensor in it: If you can already see that I'm using the stick to aim, don't add in motion aiming. I've seen that shit way too many times with 3DS games, and having it pop up on the Vita too is infuriating. Your platform has a right stick. I am aiming with it. If I shift in my chair while doing this, please don't fuck up my headshot because you think I want to aim a foot to the right of where I put the stick. Really, I enjoyed Uncharted a lot. If you have a Vita, it's worth a shot. But goddamn does the end of the game leave a bad taste in your mouth. Chapters 1 - 28, good. Chapters 29 - 33, not good.

[Bjorn]

Finished Radman: Legends tonight, did the whole thing in co-op.  It was rad, as is to be expected.

 

Castle Rock is one of my favorite things ever in a game.  Although Gloo Gloo is having the annoying habit of just popping into my head randomly now.  The Livid Dead levels were incredible.  Kinda frustrating as we were going through them, but in hindsight, truly wonderful. 

[N1njaSquirrel]

Is El Shaddai a Suda game? Huh.

 

After a quick google - no, it's not. My bad XD

 

I really love the retro 8 bit levels in Rayman Legends. They're ace.

[twmac]

El Shaddai is rubbish. Really pretty and interesting but it is an absolute chore to play. I finished it last year and I do not recommend playing it past the first three or four levels.

 

http://www.arcadianrhythms.com/2013/01/nyr-01-el-shaddai-ascension-of-the-metatron/

 

Spennny - Go watch a tutorial or read this (sorry for the IGN link):

 

http://uk.ign.com/wikis/metal-gear-rising-revengeance/Parrying

 

Parrying is really poorly explained in the game.

[Trip Hazard]

I found my Far Cry 2 save from back in 2008, about half way through the game and decided to finish it. I don't have it in me to like this game...

 

Snap! Nicely articulated argument, really describes how I feel about FC2 as well. If I could just find a mod that made checkpoints respawn less frequently, I think I could finish it, but I don't think one exists.

[Justin Leego]

Snap! Nicely articulated argument, really describes how I feel about FC2 as well. If I could just find a mod that made checkpoints respawn less frequently, I think I could finish it, but I don't think one exists.

 

Not a precise solution but Dylan's Realism Mod downgrades the likelihood that guards will pursue you to a 60% chance instead of making it a dead cert.

[syntheticgerbil]

I finished Tomb Raider Anniversary and doing the time trials now. It was okay I guess. It was really difficult to me and I hated how so many mistakes would not lead to insta-death but instead doing the same damn thing over and over again. I didn't expect it to be way more difficult than Prince of Persia and the like. I guess on one end of the spectrum there's Enslaved, which doesn't even want you to try, and then there's this Tomb Raider. I hope Legends and Underworld aren't so punishing on the platforming.

 

My wife seemed pretty annoyed with Lara Croft being in the house, but I've always kind of wanted to play all of the Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raiders.

Finished Radman: Legends tonight, did the whole thing in co-op.  It was rad, as is to be expected.

You have become my least favorite forum member.

[Bjorn]

You have become my least favorite forum member.

 

[eot]

I finished Tomb Raider Anniversary and doing the time trials now. It was okay I guess. It was really difficult to me and I hated how so many mistakes would not lead to insta-death but instead doing the same damn thing over and over again. I didn't expect it to be way more difficult than Prince of Persia and the like. I guess on one end of the spectrum there's Enslaved, which doesn't even want you to try, and then there's this Tomb Raider. I hope Legends and Underworld aren't so punishing on the platforming.

Legend is the opposite of Anniversary in almost every way and Underworld falls somewhere in between, neither of them are ever as unforgiving as Anniversary. I think that's a bit of a shame, but clearly it's not for everyone (Atlantis was probably too hard). In my mind it's the best Tomb Raider game, I love the long, uninterrupted levels and the challenge that comes with figuring them out. Legend (and to some degree Underworld) seems afraid that you'll lose interest if it doesn't throw in a cutscene, vehicle section, combat vs other humans or some random set piece. When you get to the end of an area it feels like you were just getting started and you never get that feeling of isolation or those daunting puzzle rooms.

 

I'll be curious to hear what you think of them, I suspect you'll like Underworld, although it can be a bit buggy at times.

[syntheticgerbil]

Well, I'll give it that, because in turn I did enjoy the sense of accomplishment when finishing some of the more complicated Anniversary levels. It was kind of like climbing the final tower in Sands of Time, but nearly every level felt like that. I cheated maybe twice and instead failed over and over on most parts. The big tower in Greece was insane and clever, but it did feel like I was stretched thin to the point of exhaustion. Funny you and others on the internet traditionally find Atlantis hard, as I didn't seem to have a major problem there. It was all pretty much Greece and Egypt that were troubling for me. There wasn't a ton of breathing room between one challenge to the next outside of bosses, which is odd because bosses aren't really supposed to be breathing room.

 

It's also been a while since I've had as many jump scares in a video game. Those meaty guys trotted so silently and there always tended to be some angry thing flying around every corner. Took me about three fourths of the game to finally catch on and keep my weapons drawn upon entering any corridor or entering a new area.

[Badfinger]

I finally finished Far Cry 3! I was about halfway through it already (16 hours played when I jumped back in, said Steam) and aside from the towers and outposts MOSTLY mainlined it to the end. The things that were great about it were still great- freedom of movement and weaponry, choice of stealth or action, stabbing bears. The story to finish it was mediocre at best. I will say I liked Sam. I never really heard anyone bring him up when the game was in more discussions. I'm glad I picked the ending I did, because I watched the other ending and holy shit is it laughably bad.

 

Made me boot up FC2. After about 20 minutes I was motion sick and couldn't play it any more.

 

I also bought and beat SHOVEL KNIGHT! Really good. Even enjoyed the story parts. Music was phenomenal. Platforming was surprisingly difficult in parts. Would recommend! I was not a huge platformer player back in the 8/16 bit era. Never owned or beat Mega Man, ducktales, etc. I think the platformers I played the most were Sonic 1 and Aladdin, and I found a love of Castlevania and Metroid later on. But I loved Rogue Legacy and I really liked Shovel Knight. I think there's about one about every year or 18 months that really puts it together for me where I get all the nostalgia about having nostalgia but also get good platforming and systems.

[Tanukitsune]

I beat some games from the recent "Eye Candy" Humble Bundle:

 

-140: It's a simple and short rhythm platform. You find some sort of keys that add a beat to the level, the music affects how the world reacts and for example the music from one sound channel might be connected to the spikes, while the other is connected to a platform. Considering how terrible I am at rhythm game, I'm surprised I beat it, I guess it didn't demand that much rhythm after all?

 

-Secrets of Rætikon: Wasn't this the game mentioned in the last Idle Thumbs podcasts? You play as a weird bird man who must collect some shards to power up artifacts to get core for the main artifact which is the main goal of the game. Some animals are harmless... but they will steal your core, you can't kill them directly, so you can either try to dodge them or get another predator to deal with them or even drop them on spikes.

 

-Cinders: A Cinderella Visual Novel, except you choose your own path, you can try to get your stepsisters or stepmother on your side... you can choose not to marry the prince, there are many variations to the endings of the game, like, depending on how you act in the game, if you choose the Prince path, you might be a great Queen or a sucky one.

[Bjorn]

-Secrets of Rætikon: Wasn't this the game mentioned in the last Idle Thumbs podcasts? You play as a weird bird man who must collect some shards to power up artifacts to get core for the main artifact which is the main goal of the game. Some animals are harmless... but they will steal your core, you can't kill them directly, so you can either try to dodge them or get another predator to deal with them or even drop them on spikes.

 

Did you enjoy this?  It's the most attractive thing to me about the bundle, but I don't know a lot about it.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Finished Transistor. It was surprisingly even more complicated to follow than I expected, even though the basic plot was a pretty simple concept. It was just like they wrote a normal story, then cut out all the flashbacks and some worldbuilding, then ran with that. I liked it, but I could tell I'd enjoy the gamplay a lot more if I'd actually been good at the game and not taken a few hours to realise that things i do during turn will move around the enemies and affect my attacks in ways the plan wont show me.

 

 

(end game spoilers ho)

I was also

rather disappointed there was a love story. Perhaps there's some deeper meaning I'm missing, maybe my interpretation is way off and the 'correct' reading makes it fit a lot more, but basically it came off as just the way that they could end it. Have the self sacrifice for love and it's done.

 

Now I can look forward to reading the spoilers from the thread and seeing how everyone else responded.

[eot]

I beat F.E.A.R. for the first time. Not sure if this how other people play the game, but if I was shooting something that means I was in bullet time. There was never a choice between using it or not, so it basically became a game about clicking on heads. Maybe it's just that the contrast between slow-mo and real time is so great that it's hard to shoot without it, but even things like the kick on the guns and the fact that you take damage so fast seems to encourage slow-mo spam. It's weird, to me the game felt fairly challenging for a game on Normal, but I was at 10 medkits and max hp/ap for most of the game. Something compelled me to replay an encounter if I took more than chip damage, probably because it feels like if I stopped doing that I would run out of medkits. I wonder if it's more fun to drop the difficulty and mow through guys on Easy. I barely got to use the awesome kick move since I just headshot everyone from afar.

 

A few other things:

The three weapon limitation doesn't belong, especially since you can't keep ammo for dropped guns between level loads. It also exacerbates "too good to use"-syndrome. The game gives me tons of high end weapons and ammo, I read that as a boss coming up and drop the awesome shotgun because it has the least utility. Boss never comes, but my weapons get taken away. Not only did I miss out on using the cool weapon, but I also missed out on the weapon I had to drop! Ugh. Also, the environments. This game does not have a single memorable level, I think the first 9 levels all use the same textures and props. The combat is fun enough to justify seeing it through to the end, but in some ways it might've been better as a challenge room game or something. Except for the story I suppose, which was surprisingly good, I think. I like that the phone messages were recorded during the events of the game. My problem with audio logs is that they tend to tell a different story than the one you're playing through, but F.E.A.R. doesn't fall into that trap.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Now finished episode 5 of The Wolf Among Us.

It was good, I did like the art style, the world and the writing... sometimes.

But I think it's convinced me not to play Tell Tale's Game of Thrones episode by episode. My interest for the game dropped episode by episode and I suspect at least part of that was the 1-2 month gap between episodes.

[maxwellyoung]

so far this year i have completed...

 

- lifeless planet

- ether one

- fez

- the walking dead: season one

- full throttle

- bioshock 2 + minervas den

- jazzpunk

- la. noire

- mafia 2

- the yawhg

- deus ex: human revolution

- transistor

- brutal legend

- elder scrolls lll: morrowind

- thinking with portals

- always sometimes monsters