Recently completed video games

[elmuerte]

Finished LEGO Marvel Super Heroes

This game is a mess. The story is all over the place, and in all missions you are constantly switching between characters to alternate the super powers they have. It looks like this game was all about the large hub world which has tons of small fetch quest and other tedious activities.

[Tanukitsune]

It's that what LEGO games are all about?

 

I just beat Tales of Symphonia, which in plot points is so formulaic it's staggering and yet... the characters personalities and the way the approach the tropes does make it feel fresh. And yet again, another JRPG that is more respectful of my time than an "AAA" game, I never really had to stop to grind and the 40 hours it took to beat the game was mostly a good plot and well designed dungeon.

[JonCole]

Dead Island     

 

Guh, I don't really know why I beat this. It literally just ticked all the boxes of games that I theoretically enjoy, but it also just doesn't do anything particularly interesting and all the mechanics really just grew tiring in the first 5 or 6 hours of this 30-something (good god) hour game. The story is complete nonsense and the game ends with a boss battle that's disproportionately difficult and dumb.

 

So yeah, do yourself a favor and if you want to play this game just go through the first act or so and then put it down. The mechanics are worth checking out and the basic structure of the game is decent, but man is it poorly paced, buggy, and stupid. I mostly played it because I thought I wasn't going to get to play Dying Light for a while, and then Gamefly decided to send it to me against all odds and now I fully regret my decision to get as far into Dead Island as I did.

[N1njaSquirrel]

Cool, I'll definitely play it through again. I feel like I need a break from it though, I find the game play to be stressful and I can't play for more than an hour at a time.

I'm incredibly busy with metroid prime right now (which is rapidly becoming one of my favourite games I've played in a while) and I'd like to finish xenoblade and persona 4 before their respective sequels come out.

 

I'm still struggling with Prime's motion controls. I did do all the suggestions you said to make the gameplay better, and it did make it better, but it's still awkward as heck. I think another hour or two and maybe the controls will feel less awkward. This is making me want to play it now...

[Griddlelol]

It does take a little getting use to, but I feel like it becomes really intuitive once you get a grip on it. The only things I still struggle with are:

 

1) Switching between enemies. If an enemy moves out of range, or I want to freeze multiple enemies for CC, I find it awkward to select the one I want just by lock->shoot->unlock. There might be a target swap button, but if it's on the D-pad I haven't found it (mainly because using the D-pad is awkward with your thumb on A for jump).

 

2) Grappling in a sequence. I can grapple, but I always fall between multiple grapple points.

 

I had a super good session on Sunday where I got 4 upgrades in the space of about an hour. I'm kinda sad now, I think I have all the upgrades. I really don't want Prime to finish. 

[Sno]

1) Switching between enemies. If an enemy moves out of range, or I want to freeze multiple enemies for CC, I find it awkward to select the one I want just by lock->shoot->unlock. There might be a target swap button, but if it's on the D-pad I haven't found it (mainly because using the D-pad is awkward with your thumb on A for jump).

 

So weird thing about that is that Prime and Echoes actually did both have a button to swap lock-on targets seamlessly, but that button was the hard click on the GC controller's left trigger, with the analog press of that same trigger being the lock-on itself. That hard click has no existing equivalent on the wii-remote and nunchuk, and so the easy target swapping is lost in Trilogy.

[Griddlelol]

That's dumb, but I suppose unavoidable. 

[N1njaSquirrel]

I played on Prime last night, and it turned out I had my sensor bar configured wrong! (It was on top of the TV, and in the settings I set it so that it was under the TV). Correcting that made it a lot easier. The other problem I have I think is unsolvable. I'm left handed, which means that the wiimote is in my left hand. Samus' arm cannon is in her right hand, meaning that I'm aiming with my left hand, which is samus' right hand, which messes with my brain more than it really should. It kinda feels like driving with the steering wheel on the left, or sitting in the passenger seat after months of driving. If that makes sense.

[Trip Hazard]

I just beat Tales of Symphonia, which in plot points is so formulaic it's staggering and yet... the characters personalities and the way the approach the tropes does make it feel fresh. And yet again, another JRPG that is more respectful of my time than an "AAA" game, I never really had to stop to grind and the 40 hours it took to beat the game was mostly a good plot and well designed dungeon.

 

I have a bit of a soft spot for this game, even though there are way more block pushing puzzles than there should be and the plot is, as you say, formulaic as heck. The combat feels really good, I appreciate that it doesn't have random battles, and I thought there were some lovely, fun bits of character development. Did they call them skits? Some of those were great. Not all.

 

Did you get that sword which increases in power as you kill more enemies? It's nifty.

[Griddlelol]

I played on Prime last night, and it turned out I had my sensor bar configured wrong! (It was on top of the TV, and in the settings I set it so that it was under the TV). Correcting that made it a lot easier. The other problem I have I think is unsolvable. I'm left handed, which means that the wiimote is in my left hand. Samus' arm cannon is in her right hand, meaning that I'm aiming with my left hand, which is samus' right hand, which messes with my brain more than it really should. It kinda feels like driving with the steering wheel on the left, or sitting in the passenger seat after months of driving. If that makes sense.

 

Play with your right hand. I'm left handed too, and that's the only way to solve it. It's part of the reason I never picked up the Wii, because after trying everything (especially Twilight Princess) it felt awkward as hell.

 

Curious: Do you use a mouse in your left or right hand? For about 17 years I used the mouse in my left, then I picked up WoW, and it was impossible to play like that (keyboard turning with my right, and hitting keybinds with my left), so I had to learn to use my right. Never looked back, feels incredibly natural now. 

[Trip Hazard]

Technially, I just completed Grow Home, but I won't be satisfied until I've found all the secrets, collected all the wotsits, and chucked a meep out of the spacecraft. I love Grow Home, I really hope the Ubisoft Reflections team make more for me to play.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I completed the Yawhg over the weekend... About twenty times. Me and my girlfriend got very into it. The sense of tone in the world is bang on. A mesh of darkness and silly humour goes so well with Carroll's illustration and the way stories weave together is great, you can see your thread impact other players even though you never directly meet them.

My main issues with the game are that it doesn't deal well with repeating content. If you see an event you've previously seen, then you know exactly how it goes. There's only ever two options that slightly branch based on which you choose and a simple skill check. Speaking of which, your character has a basic RPG set of stats to work from that make it feel oddly gamey and do end up encouraging min maxing behaviour since you want to see the resolution to stories that are gated by a skill check.

Both of these things are probably not a big deal if you only play a bit at a party and we did play it a bunch in a short period. But it's a bit of a disappointment when you start speed clicking through text because you got these exact 4 endings already and not a word is different.

[N1njaSquirrel]

Play with your right hand. I'm left handed too, and that's the only way to solve it. It's part of the reason I never picked up the Wii, because after trying everything (especially Twilight Princess) it felt awkward as hell.

 

Curious: Do you use a mouse in your left or right hand? For about 17 years I used the mouse in my left, then I picked up WoW, and it was impossible to play like that (keyboard turning with my right, and hitting keybinds with my left), so I had to learn to use my right. Never looked back, feels incredibly natural now. 

 

I'll try my best. I did think to do that last time I played and just fell right off a cliff and into poison. I'll give it a go now. As for the mouse, I've always used my right hand. I sadly don't have any real reason as to why, I guess it's just how i've grown up using it. I never had the wherewithal to swap them.

[Dr Wookie]

I just finished Brothers- A Tale of Two Sons today, in one sitting. I wasn't intending to go through it in one go, but just had to keep going, despite getting more and more hungry ! Steam says it took 3.3 hours. This is one of those games that is short, but still feels a good length... the gameplay is centred on using the left hand to control the older brother, and the right hand to control the younger brother, and a longer game could have been tiresome. Instead, there was a good variety of puzzles, even if they sometimes ignored the laws of physics. I found the story very moving, despite having one of the most poignant parts spoiled in a game of the year discussion podcast. Also, I appreciate the fact that none of the game's achievements are anything to do with the story, but instead are awarded for messing around with the game world.

 

Some areas are a kinda bland to look at, but others are spectacular... and the game thoughfully provides benches so you can admire the views. 

[miffy495]

Metroid Prime complete! 100% Log Book, 84% items. Not bad for playing without a guide. When I was 13 I beat it going for 100% using IGN's faq, so this time I swore to do it all myself. I didn't get 100%, but it was way more rewarding. 14 years has apparently made a big difference in me, but this game is still fucking unimpeachable.

[syntheticgerbil]

Man I need to get on some more Metroid at some point. I'm trying to get through all my games that need online and co-op crap, but pretty soon on my list is getting into my SNES and on (I have only finished Metroid Zero Mission, NES, and II).

[Tanukitsune]

I just beat Teslagrad a "Metroidvania" with a magnet polarity gimmick. It's a pretty fine game with increasingly infuriating bosses, where you die with ohit and there are no checkpoints. it also forces you to collect meaningless collectables to open a final gate... I still enjoyed it. :\

[Donk]

Wolfenstein: The New Order.  Recommended, they came up with fresh ideas within an FPS like nice set pieces, musical choices, the inner monologue, good characters, meaty story, good stealth. Great production all round. However it's still an FPS, I burnt out on FPS games years ago I got the same old feeling of progressing through the levels being a chore.

[Tanukitsune]

I just beat two visual novels that were actually non-interactive, so it's almost like two books? 

 

Shan Gui is a Chinese visual novel about a girl travelling down memory visiting a mountain she visited a lot as a child, she makes a new friend, and well, it's a short but delightful story. 

 

World End Economica Episode 1 is a visual novel from the author of Spice and Wolf (which I haven't read or watched, but I might watch now?), it's about a kid that has run away from home, in a futuristic Moon, trying to fulfil his dream to be the first to set foot a land untouched by humans, and for that... he deals with the stock exchange market.

 

As a runaway, he ends up living in a church with a another runaway who teaches math to other kids.

 

Frankly, the plot is rather long, it was 15 hours of nothing but text, and I even skipped a bit when it nothing but talk about the stock market, but the store engrossed me until the end... I really want to read the next episode! 

[tegan]

I beat Cave Story after eleven years.

 

That's something.

[tegan]

I beat Sakura Samurai! Yay!

[Gottfrid]

I beat The Order 1886 earlier today and uuh... I liked it. I'm quite surprised actually. The shootouts tended to be quite dull but I liked the flow of the game. It was a nice and pretty action adventure to consume lazily and then forget about. And I don't think that's a bad thing per se (even though there are of course more worthwhile stuff to put your time into).

[Merus]

Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze is pretty good. It gets a lot of points for being ridiculously thorough in the art, with lots of little touches they didn't have to do but did. Also it's balls-hard in places.

[SecretAsianMan]

I beat Saints Row IV.  I've never played a Saints Row game before so I didn't understand what was happening most of the time (although I suspect that would have been the case even if I did play them all).  I completed every side mission, though I didn't get a gold in them all.  I doubt I'm going to go back and try, some of them are really dumb and I didn't have fun doing them.  Overall it was fun and wacky but it also suffered from the main issue I have with most open world games which is the repetitive side missions used to pad out the game.

[elmuerte]

Just finished Murdered: Soul Suspect

The game could have been if it:

• Did not have tedious "challenges" where you have to "stealthy" kill daemons. Towards the end you have more encounters, and they are annoying as hell
• Put some more effort in being a detective. It's just plain easy, and in cases where you can be wrong, there is not really any consequence (not even failing to get a cheevo).

The story is quite compelling, the mechanics are quite ok. The collectable hunting is boring as usual, except that collecting stuff provides additional story content, which is nice. I did not managed to complete 4 collectable types because I did not fancy running around the world to find them. The ghost story collectables are the most interesting, and complete separate from the main story.

All in all, I had a fun 9 hours of entertainment.