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Is it playable solo or just co-op?

 

I just beat Tales From the Borderlands and man, I can pretty much say I liked it more than the normal games, you all the good and funny writing, but without having to shoot thing for 20 hours between each funny line.

 

I actually made a choice by mistake, thinking it was a horrible idea, but decided to just stick with it and.... it payed out in the end!  :tup:

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Is it playable solo or just co-op?

 

I just beat Tales From the Borderlands and man, I can pretty much say I liked it more than the normal games, you all the good and funny writing, but without having to shoot thing for 20 hours between each funny line.

 

I actually made a choice by mistake, thinking it was a horrible idea, but decided to just stick with it and.... it payed out in the end!  :tup:

 

Tales from the Borderlands is close to being my favourite Tales game.

 

You can play LiaDST in single player and you command an AI player around. It is playable, more or less, but having a Co-Op partner feels almost essential to get the most out of it.

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Broken Age, it's good. Decent characters and writing and sweet art, not sure I liked the setting but might be interested in seeing more, maybe a game set in Laruna but that'll never happen. I was a bit bored by it near the end but overall I'd recommend it.

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I recently beat The Firemen 2: Pete & Danny, a game about firemen putting out the fire in an amusement park of sorts, which gives the game a wide variety of areas to visit, including... a dino park where you fight a robo-T-Rex that's out of control?

 

The game might be too boring with normal fire, so this fire is somehow intelligent? Bigger fires spawn smaller ones that may bounce around or track you, making them your top priority.

 

I spent most of the game gawking at the lovely pixel art and trying to understand the Japanese.

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Oh my god I actually beat Xenoblade Chronicles X. It took me 85 hours to beat the final chapter, but this actually opens up more affinity missions (important character-based story quests)...so I guess I'm not actually done. 

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After 210 hours I finally completed Fallout 4 :tup:. I think I've done almost everything there is to do, or at least did all major missions I know of, saw the end of all storylines. I just have to get 1 cheevo for the 100% happiness in a town.

The first 130 (I think) hours I did not use fast travel, walked everywhere. After that I only would fast travel to settlements in need, and only fast traveled back to where I came from. I think around 170 hours or so I explored pretty much everything on the map, so I started to fast travel to everything.

I've really enjoyed exploring the wasteland.

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After not playing it since August, I beat The Magic Circle tonight!

 

I assumed the game would end after completing its only real objective, but the way it mixed things up was very clever.  I chucked some spoilers into the main thread.

 

And hearing James Urbaniak and Stephen Russell together!  A symphony of voice!

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I just finished Tales From the Borderlands. I played episodes 1-3 pretty much when they released but for some reason or other only played 4 and 5 this week. This is easily my favourite Telltale game, and it might be the best too (that or Season 1 of The Walking Dead). I quite liked Bordelands 2, and finished it, but I think anyone could enjoy Tales; rather than being the super awesome fighter, you have to weasel, con, and blunder your way through and the emphasis is firmly on character rather than action.

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I just beat Titan Souls and I really like it, it's the only game from this Humble Monthly bundle that I didn't own and enjoyed.

 

I've always whined about how some games artificially make games longer and harder by making enemies for ever to die, so I'm delighted to say the bosses in Titan Souls die in one hit, the thing is, you only have ONE ARROW which is soul bound to you and will fly back to you with the press of a button.

 

The "summon arrow" action plays a lot in boss battles, not only because you only have this arrow, but sometimes you must position the arrow in the right place and get the enemy from behind. You are completely immobile and defenseless while summoning it, adding to the challenge.

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I started and finished Wolfenstein: The New Order yesterday because I'm horribly indulgent/wasteful with time management.

I liked it a lot! it's certainly not the best singleplayer shooter I've played but it's the best I have since Half Life 2 or F.E.A.R..

It did have some problems from grindy encounters, weirdly paced checkpoints, odd hubworld fetch quests, or weirdly on for too long/too sadistic executions/torture scenes. But I felt like what the game was trying to serve ended up being more satisfying than it's pitfalls. 

Though I did think it was stupidly excessive to have moments where you execute a Nazi in a toilet by first giving him a swirly, then stabbing him in the head repeatedly, before finishing off with more toilet dunking.
A few of the other killings had that kind of "come on, for real?" vibe to them which didn't quite fit with Big Hulking Meat Machine PC's world weary 'another bunch of boys with futures lost" outlook.

 

Still I think it goes near the top of my very fun SP shooter list.

 

I think it's about time to replay HL2, some of the F.E.A.R.'s, WH:Space marine, and E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy.

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I just finished Black Mesa over the weekend, and I am extremely conflicted.  I adored Half-Life 1 when it came out despite its problems, but I acknowledge that the game has aesthetically aged like butt.  So, I loaded up BM and yes, it's a facelift.  The work that the team did was loving and dedicated, and I acknowledge and respect that.

 

The problems come in with the areas that the team changed to modernize.  It's not just a new skin - some areas are completely revamped, which is messing with my head.  I can't tell what I do remember from the original HL, what I don't remember, and what the developers changed themselves.  It's like going back to your childhood home, only to realize that the new owners have torn down half of the house and rebuilt it.  

 

There were some interesting decision in the game.  You can't fight the Gargantua enemies directly; you need to engage in a specific sequence of events to defeat them, but there's nothing in the game to tell you that this is the case.  I wasted a lot of time and ammunition on the first Gargantua in Power Up, only to discover that you have to run right past it the first chance you get, and then you defeat it in a completely new sequence.  I found that this section wasn't communicated properly, considering it's such a fundamental change from the first one.  By the time you reach the second Gargantua, you at least remember that you can't fight them directly.

 

To that end, the Security Checkpoint sequence from the original HL has been removed.  You no longer need to retrieve the security guard and have him unlock the door to the parking garage (apparently in the original, if this guard died, the game put you into an unwinnable state because you couldn't proceed past the door.  I never knew this).  The "alien trampolines" are also gone.  So is the sequence where a Grunt throws a soldier through the brick wall, which I always liked.

 

All in all, BM is a good, faithful reimagining of Half-Life, but if you have strong memories of HL, it will absolutely mess with those memories.  I found it got disconcerting and disorienting at times.  It was a good experience, but I probably won't pick it up again anytime soon.

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I'm finding some issues with half life 2.

I haven't always been a fan of it's pacing and coming back to it I'm finding the boat sections kinda tedious in places.

But the biggest problem I have with it is the shooting. I'm finding that the pistol and first smg just feel so limp against everything the game throws at you for the first hours.

I get power curves but one dude easily takes most of your 18 bullet pistol clip and the smg actually seems to add more time to kill with an extra 20 bullets needed. Even the head crabs feel spongey. It feels like they went too far in making sure the player felt weak especially when you get the one shot kill magnum halfway through the boat section.

They could have kept the guns powerful but severely limited the ammo count; as it is I have pea shooters with hundreds of bullets to spare for them.

I just realised that I'm playing on hard so maybe that's the issue? They could have screwed up the play experience on hard?

I'll come back to the game on normal and see for myself.

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Just finished Firewatch :tup: and I liked it. I like exploring beautiful scenery with things going on. The game felt much longer than I actually played.

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Re: hl2 guns

I might be misremembering but I though I ended up using the pistol and smg throughout most of the game. They aren't as strong as the other weapons but not so much so that I ever found it annoying. They're pe entry much the only weapons that have plentiful ammo so I usually tried to save my good guns for the hard fights. Plus you always have the gravity gun. I feel like I need to play it again to see if my memory matches reality at all.

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Re: hl2 guns

I might be misremembering but I though I ended up using the pistol and smg throughout most of the game. They aren't as strong as the other weapons but not so much so that I ever found it annoying. They're pe entry much the only weapons that have plentiful ammo so I usually tried to save my good guns for the hard fights. Plus you always have the gravity gun. I feel like I need to play it again to see if my memory matches reality at all.

Yeah I think I remember doing the same patterns so maybe it's the way they balanced hard mode + my aim in that game or something else. 

 

Wolfenstein was for me a pure pleasure to play and I think when it was hectic combat it really called back to what I liked most from the Killzone series. That said I played most of the game stealthily creeping through corridors and laughing at how the thrown knives could 1 hit all but the heaviest armoured enemies.

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I just completed Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode Three, the first of two Zeboyd Games Rainslick games and the only one available on the Mac.

 

I am eagerly anticipating Zeboyd's Cosmic Star Heroine, so I decided to give this earlier effort a try.  It was decent, and Zeboyd made a good effort to try and mix up the way you battle (at no point is spamming the Attack button a good option), but it did get just a little repetitive.  The Interrupt system (where some of your abilities decrease your opponent's ATB bar so they don't get to attack as often) wasn't as dramatic as I thought it would be, and there were no real combos, either across characters or with the job/class system.

 

It's good that Zeboyd was thinking about all these systems, though, and I look forward to seeing what they come up with for Cosmic Star Heroine.

 

It was also interesting to see the Penny Arcade characters look and act consistently and be given real character arcs.  The strip never aimed for that, but Krahulik's art has become frighteningly grotesque over the past half-decade.  Constraining his art-style to SNES dimensions makes it much easier to look at.

 

Does anybody have any 16-bit-style RPG recommendations for a cranky old guy who doesn't really like anything except for Chrono Trigger?

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I always thought Terranigma was decent, after a bit of a slow start. Real-time combat in that one though

 

I fucking love Terranigma.  It has one of my favorite soundtracks, I really like the setting, story, and concept, and I think it's just fun.  It and another Quintet game, Illusion of Gaia, are among my favorite SNES games.

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The first Breath of Fire games are pretty good, I can't think many of the classics that aren't at least worth playing, if not a must play. The FF series, Dragon Quest, etc, etc... The older 8-bit ones can be rough, but the 16-bit are just right.

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I always thought Terranigma was decent, after a bit of a slow start. Real-time combat in that one though

 

Wild; I'll have to check that out.  Apparently it was never released on my continent.  And I'll have to do this:

 

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Last night I wrapped up Ori and the Blind Forest, and my god that game was beautiful from top to bottom. It inspired me to write a Steam review:
 

When I first saw this in passing at E3, it really left a strong impression with its art style and animation. "What a pretty game, I wanna see more of it." That was my only motivation for picking it up. I hadn't looked into nor asked anyone for details of how the game plays, how long it is, any of that mess. If that's your one curiosity for the game, that alone makes the game worthwhile.

 

But there's way more to it. As a video game - a thing you interact with - Ori is legit. It is a deceptively challenging platformer, but in a learnable way. No confusing "where to go" or nonsense randomly-generated-death moments. The danger is clear, and observable. Allowing placement of your own save states as you progress is a great helping hand if it's needed, with enough limitation to make it hard to abuse.

 

The game delivers on the tone of the story (which is concise and enjoyable, not bashing you over the head with narrative), with the music being the biggest driving factor. It really keeps pace with the adventurous nature, and sets the mood right for all occasions. Major kudos to the makers for crediting everyone involved in the music production in such detail. Those people deserve a standing ovation and certainly got one from me. Pick up Ori. It'll make you smile, it'll make you cry, it'll have you on the edge of your seat.

 Aside from that I'll add here that it is tense as fuck when the game requires it to be. I really got more than I had hoped for with that game.

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Super Hot :tup:

Well... I just completed the story. I'm not finished with it yet, going to do some challenges.

I'm not sure if I think the game is long enough, or if it should be longer. The problem with games like this is that you could make it either tedious by adding more of the same, or really difficult and stuff create a wall which you cannot get over. So the 2 hours you need to complete the story might be good for everybody to finish. And the challenges which you unlock are for the added difficulty. I do think they could have introduced some new scenarios. For example, the could have explored the jumping a bit more. And the moving elements could have been used a bit more.

But the game is fun, especially when you get through the main story and then try to perfect a level in your own vision. It really feels like you are the director of a fast paced action segment with some bad ass guy kicking everybody's butt.

 

Just Cause 3 :tup:

After 52 hours I'm done with the game. I did everything, unlocked it all. But I did not perfect the challenges to get to 100%. The game was exactly what I expected and hoped for. Having played a lot of JC1 and JC2 I did not get the feeling that JC3 was rather stale. Sure, it's more of the same. But that same stuff was what I enjoyed. A thing that I did find lacking in JC3 was a huge city. The largest city was still rather small.

I really hope they are going to add a challenge editor to JC3 at some point. Sort of like in GTA5. There is really a lot of opportunity in the world for air/land/wingsuit races.

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Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - Now that the game was released on steam, I finally got chance to play it (before I did had watched the anime), and it is really good - the story, character and the whole system of investigation and trail is amazing, I can´t wait for Danganronpa 2 (which also will come to Steam). My only issue is that sometimes there is so many rules in trails that I forget a few of them and needed to redo whole parts of the trail.

 

Hyperdimension Neptunia: Re;Birth 1 - Very solid rpg with good pace and a fun story.

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I recently completed Nihilumbra on PS Vita. Quite nice platformer, short enough so that even I managed to get through it. It had some really nice and clever puzzles.

I suppose I would need to complete the "New Game+" Void mode still to really 100% complete the game.

Next I hope to be tackling Firewatch, The Witness and the rest of around 1500 games in my backlog...

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