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Recently completed video games

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I recently beat the boss in Downwell. Really enjoyed the game as a whole, especially since it was so easy to fit bits in with my obnoxious grad school game. It just feels so good to play and I honestly miss it as part of my day. 

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After hundreds of hours in Civilization of which 175 in Civ V, I finished a Civ V game at Prince (~standard) difficulty for the first time the other day. That counts as finishing the game, right? 

 

It's an odd thing. You hear stories about people hurrying through the God Emperor of Dune difficulty a few days after launch, so this seems like a small thing, but at the same time I'm terrible at anything that requires the sort of slightly messy optimization Civ asks for. I guess as long as I enjoy my time it's cool.

 

Next, maybe I'll get back to Frozen Cortex. The short-term tactical stuff is way more up my alley, and games not taking five hours also helps. Still haven't finished that campaign, although I've had a few good shots.

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Just finished Tearaway on the PS Vita. Thoroughly charming little game that was light on challenge (rightly so) but big on using the Vita's features.

 

Am about halfway through Danganronpa and I am very mixed on this - I guess I am enjoying it but I hate the trial mini games as the touchscreen doesn't seem to do what I want it to half the time. Also, it can be anime as fuck, people repeating the same lines over and over. People having flashbacks of people repeating the same lines over and over.

 

At least the logic behind each of the murders is sound, well except for the second one that just left me rolling my eyes.

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I guess I "finished" Stardew Valley? Like most Harvest Moon-ish games, you get an evaluation, but can play all you want after.

 

Fortunately, Stardew Valley tests you at the end of year 2, which is nice, because in many HM games I just give up on year 3 out of boredom since I've done everything.

 

In most sense, I'd say this is like Undertale or Read Only Memories in the sense that it surpasses the game that inspired it, but it does have one thing that really irked me...

 

The cooking is dreadful, since the game has quests where you need specific crops it does not let you buy the most basic ingredients to make the dishes apart from stuff like flour or sugar, you have to grow everything. You have to befriend every damn person in the village to get recipes and most of them have a favorite recipe that you only get once you befriend someone else.

 

It's funny, because the community quests are a good way to keep you busy and make the game less tedious, but they ruin the cooking. Not to mention that with the thousands of upgrades and crafting recipes, you kitchen stays the same FOREVER!

 

 

I must say that this is the "best" I've done at this kind of game, I even managed to have a kid before the "test" and my museum was almost complete. Everything was "almost" complete, but the collection part is taken from Animal Crossing and you can do is hope that the suspicious patch of dirt you dig has one of the missing artifacts...  

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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.

You're right that you can kill the Gargantua with your weapons in HL1, but you're not meant to in either encounter. Luring it into the tesla coils is in HL1, and so is killing it with the airstrike in Forget About Freeman. As for the guard, apparently the person working on that part of Surface Tension quit the team or something, but someone independently filled in those parts. Too late for you now I guess, but it exists. He ended up joining the team too, but it's unclear if they will include that stuff in the final release.

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My girlfriend and I finished Broken Age last night. We played it couch co-op style on PS4, swapping the controller back and forth. It was mostly a lovely and enjoyable thing. On paper, it’s hard to fault: the art is beautiful, it’s funny, the voice acting and music are great. I would even say it’s one of the best-looking 2D games I’ve seen on the PS4, and it runs flawlessly on that platform. 

 

But oh my gosh, the second act felt like such a slog compared to the first. I know this is old news now, but those puzzles are something else. To be fair, some of them I really enjoyed. Untying the knot, guiding the service robot, and even fixing the wiring the first time — all of that stuff was quite fun and satisfying in isolation. But getting to the point where I understood how I should even get started was constantly infuriating. And there was very rarely any significant reward for completing a puzzle: the whole second act is founded on both characters getting the story moving again, and by the time they do, it’s pretty much over. There’s nothing which builds upon the themes of the first act, which were so memorably and wittily expressed.

 

And I know, I know — the puzzles are supposed to be hard and obscure because that’s what point and click games in the 90s were like. I know! I love(d) those games too! But isn’t it bizarre that I should have to come to Broken Age with this outside knowledge in order to appreciate what it’s trying to do? It’s almost as though the meta-experience of what it is, who made it and how it got made has to be taken alongside the game itself to get a complete picture of it. All of which is kind of a fascinating idea even if I don’t feel in my heart of hearts that it is actually a good thing.

 

Anyway now I have to convince my gf that we need to play the remastered Day of the Tentacle next. Or perhaps we'll play something less stressful...I've still got Until Dawn waiting around somewhere...

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I just beat DoTT and I have to warn you, it's filled with "cartoon logic" puzzles... Although they do give hints for everything if you explore enough.

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I just beat DoTT and I have to warn you, it's filled with "cartoon logic" puzzles... Although they do give hints for everything if you explore enough.

 

I keep trying point & click adventures because i want to like them. I like puzzles, and I like narrative stories, but cartoon logic really gets to me. i thought Dropsy the Clown did a beautiful job of avoiding it, but that might be one of the only point and clicks I actually truly loved? I'm really hoping that playing DotT with someone else will help alleviate this. I felt largely the same about Broken Age as marginalgloss did. I didn't love Grim Fandango nearly as much as everyone else I encounter did, and played that one alone.

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It’s almost as though the meta-experience of what it is, who made it and how it got made has to be taken alongside the game itself to get a complete picture of it.

 

I had that feeling, too, but less about Schafer and the history of adventure games and more about the saga of getting Broken Age made.

 

Act I contains all the Kickstarter promise of a Double Fine Adventure!  Act II contains the delays, the frustration, etc.

 

Just started Day of the Tentacle Remastered!  I haven't even solved any puzzles yet.  I've just walked around talking to Founding Fathers.  I am laughing hard at all the lines I remember and harder at the lines I forgot.

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I'm really glad I paid for the Kickstarter, if for no other reason to see the videos and support DF. I didn't enjoy the second half of the game either *shrug* but I got my money's worth from the other content.

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I watched the first three or four episodes of the DF documentary after they started posting them on YouTube. I’m glad the backers felt it was a worthwhile project – I thought it was really interesting and well produced, though I don’t think I’ll ever get the time to finish it.

 

The fact that you sort of need the context it provides to understand Broken Age made me think of certain postmodern novels where the reader needs to delve into the footnotes or an accompanying commentary in order to get the most out of the work itself. I’ve nothing against that approach – I mean, Pale Fire is one of my favourite novels of all time – but I can see why some people wouldn’t be into it if you believe a work of art should stand or fail entirely alone on its own merits. Maybe the logical end point of this would be to create a 'critical edition' of Broken Age which somehow integrates clips of the documentary seamlessly into the game itself, so the player can call them up at appropriate moments – a bit like an interactive footnote. 

 

Something like that would certainly help for posterity. Imagine explaining to a young person in twenty years’ time that in order to understand this old video game, they should first watch twenty episodes of a documentary and perhaps play one or two ancient Lucasarts games on the side. They might think you’re crazy – or alternatively, by then they’ll be so used to everything being a meta-thing derived from every other thing that they’ll understand all these connections even before the words have left your mouth.

 

Anyway, I can’t wait to get fired back into Day of the Tentacle. It’s a game which left such a strong impression on me as a youngster, and I’m curious to see how much of it I can remember. Something about fake barf, a hamster, a bottle of wine and a cherry tree...?

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So, I finished Danganronpa a couple of days ago and I am really unhappy with the game now.

 

My main complaint is the utterly illogical final trial. The best murders you figured out most of it on your own and so the trial where you have to present evidence felt fairly natural and it is you going through the paces of convincing everyone else of your point of view.

 

The last trial makes no sense and the game actively does not present you with enough information before the trial to be able to figure out what is going on. So, it came down to me selecting evidence with no context for why I was doing this and why this was the 'right' evidence just so the game can explain to me afterwards what it all meant. This made the whole thing a series of tedious clicks and button presses with each new reveal not really being exciting at all.

 

Also this game has some of the worst Anime tropes ever. I have no tolerance for it at the best of times and in this game there are just too many moments that feel like bad Anime filler where the main character will have a flashback of a flashback and allow the game to re-use the same portions of art and dialogue. It makes the final 3 hours of the game drag on for way too long and I was so happy the game was finally over.

 

The weird student management mini-game that unlocks  after the full game is finished is kind of fun.

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Finished Grim Fandango Remastered with my partner. I've completed it many times before, and so let her ponder as much as she wanted on the puzzles, throwing in a hint if she wanted one. It's a good game, one which I think will always hold a special place in the engorged nostalgia centre of my brain, but the cracks are starting to show. It's pretty inconsistent, some of the puzzles are just ludicrous, and I think there aren't enough opportunities to get stuck into snarky conversations. More Domino and Nick, please!

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I just finished Republique :tmeh:

I played the first 3 episodes when they initially came out on PC... a long time ago. And just recently continues with parts 4 and 5. Part 4 was, weird. It was quite out of place of the other parts, and like part 5 felt much much shorter than the other parts. Like they were rushing the game to an end. There wasn't much story development going on in parts 4 and 5, more like trying to wrap everything up.

The game mechanic seems fun at the beginning, but because rather tedious after a while. Especially when the girl didn't move as fast or proper as you wanted, resulting in redoing parts.

As this game was initially a mobile game I guess it's quite a good one. On PC, must less so.

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Completed the main quest line for Grim Dawn :tup:

I could play on for a bunch as there are some challenging areas I could visit. But I feel like I have to grid too much for that. Anyway, this game does feel a lot like Titan Quest (previous game of these guys) except that I do not get the feeling I've undergone a huge quest. I'm quite confident that I traveled a similar distance through the world as in Titan Quest, but it doesn't feel like that at all. The story I couldn't care much about, it was ok I guess. The gameplay is quite good, really polished, there are a lot of ways to develop your character which also feels well worked out. You can tell that they spend 6+ years on developing this game. My main negative comment would be that they game is too dark, both lighting as atmosphere, The world completely lacks happiness, or even a sense of safety in some places. As for the light, the outside world does have a day/night cycle. But in most areas day feels still quite dark. So the overall mood of the game is rather depressive.

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I beat ShütShïmï, a shmup with a very interesting twist. For starters, it's divided in very shorts waves with a "store" between waves.

 

The store mechanic is what makes the game interesting, you HAVE to choose one one and it not always clear what they do and many actually make the game harder. While at the first waves the store will be very obvious, the description will change over time and you have a very short time limit. Even if you memorize what each power up does, since it's random what you'll get you might just have to choose the lesser of three evils some times. You might have to play a level without friction or floating constantly upwards, but if you're lucky you'll get double fire power.

 

The game also has hat power ups, some will make certain weapons more powerful, while some will make certain enemies ignore you.

 

It was a pretty fun and intense game as the game become more frantic and difficulty. I got it with this month PS+ and it was quite the delightful surprise!

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I finished The Banner Saga. I wasn't expecting a lot, but I was really impressed. The narrative was just lovely, the turn based strategy was fun with a decent amount of depth and the art style was just sublime. 

 

I beat it in two days I was so engrossed. I really wish I hadn't waited so long to play it. Conflicted about how it ends though:

 

The story just sort of stops leaving a bunch of loose ends and no resolution to anything.

I like that they had the balls to do that, sometimes it works, and in this case I think mystery is great, but I want to know what happens without having to buy another game. Seems like a bit of a gouge, unless The Banner Saga 2 is more than just the same game again with a continued story. 

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I finished The Banner Saga. I wasn't expecting a lot, but I was really impressed. The narrative was just lovely, the turn based strategy was fun with a decent amount of depth and the art style was just sublime. 

 

I beat it in two days I was so engrossed. I really wish I hadn't waited so long to play it. Conflicted about how it ends though:

 

The story just sort of stops leaving a bunch of loose ends and no resolution to anything.

I like that they had the balls to do that, sometimes it works, and in this case I think mystery is great, but I want to know what happens without having to buy another game. Seems like a bit of a gouge, unless The Banner Saga 2 is more than just the same game again with a continued story. 

 

BS2 is right up your alley!

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I liked that they were setting stuff up for the future in this game, hinting at story and lore stuff that didn't quite fit yet.  It felt appropriate to the context to, where a band of refugees fleeing a war aren't going to end up with all the loose ends tied up.

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Cool, I'll probably end up getting it when it goes on sale. I have Invisible inc. to play now, which I've been excited about for a while!

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I finished Yoshi's Woolly World. It's an absolute delight, just as Kirby's Epic Yarn was before. Beautiful and inventive presentation, catchy tunes and plenty to keep you coming back if you challenge yourself to discover every little thing in it. In fact, it makes me want to try Yoshi's Island again, although the baby mechanic really put me off.

 

I also finished AladdinSimon's Quest and Bare Knuckle III. Aladdin has an impressive first half but the goes a little stale towards the end. Simon's Quest (with the aid of a guide) reminded me of Zelda II - an interesting and admirable sequel that actually tries something different, to varying degrees of success. Great music, regardless. And Bare Knuckle III (JP with an English patch) really is like Streets of Rage 2 on steroids. And the music really grows on you.

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WORLD END ECONOMiCA episode 01 and 02 - Very good visual novel and that caught me off guard and is really worth checking out, both of them, there is a third episode, which at some point Sekai Project is likely to translate too.

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I finished Until Dawn with my girlfriend, playing together in time-honoured 'pass the pad' fashion. We had a great time with it! It's very much a modern 3D adventure in the vein of David Cage's games or the recent Telltale productions, so if you like that kind of thing and you have a PS4, I'd highly recommend it. Probably the best thing I can say about it is that my gf (who normally hates violent horror movies and jump scares) ended up being totally enthralled, to the extent that she kept asking me if we could go back to it even while she was often too nervous to take the controls herself. 

 

The writing is exactly where you want it to be for this kind of genre piece, and the characters are just the right side of annoying. It really does throw jump scares at you like rice at a wedding early on, but they're the kind of thing you can easily chuckle about afterwards. It's horror as fun teen party time rather than the brooding existential dread I usually prefer, but that's fine with me. It's also a very good looking game on PS4, though there's very little about it which is genuinely dependent on that graphical fidelity; it could have been a great lost FMV game from the nineties, or a 2D side-scroller, or a fast-paced text adventure. But my goodness, Peter Stormare's face really is quite uncanny.

 

It does cleave very closely, and deliberately, to the idea of imitating cinema. I've read some critics describing it as casting the player as the director of a movie, rather than as an actor within it, and I think that's quite accurate. The interactive elements are sparse; often you are given the chance to wander freely around small, restricted environments, but there are no puzzles to be solved, and there's not much to *do* other than inspect clues, make A/B choices through conversations, and pass or fail a great many QTE sequences.

 

Like Life is Strange, the game leans heavily on the whole 'butterfly effect' thing, but here the actual outcome of your decisions is often unclear until long after the fact. Some might find this frustrating but I thought it was often quite cleverly implemented. There's one or two odd systems to help you make decisions: collectibles sometimes give you a glimpse of what might happen if you do a particular thing, for example, and each character even has a set of stat bars showing how they feel about every other character. The fact that both of these are divorced from any context is what makes them intriguing, and there was at least one time where I totally misinterpreted what those future glimpses were telling me, and the result was disastrous (and very funny).

 

The only real bum note is that about three quarters of the way through, the plot takes a couple of sharp and predictable turns; this changes the pace, but it also somewhat spoils the tension. It's a little like the problem that was talked about on Idle Weekend a few weeks ago where once you know something about the antagonist in a horror game, it starts to seem a lot less scary. Still, despite a few tedious and over-long sequences in the final chapters, I think we both really enjoyed our time with this. I'm even considering a replay - if only to correct that one disastrous error I made in the final moments... 

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Ploughed through Apotheon, having heard it was a fairly short game, on the easier side, and I just need to actually play things to completion goddammit

 

It was really quite good. Not top-tier metroidvania (it doesn't even really qualify, tbh) but generally a fun time with some interesting design choices. Obviously, the visuals make the game stand out really strongly, but I was quite surprised at how much the mythical, god-bothering story grabbed me. It's super cool to be able to go and fight Poseidon on a storm tossed sea, and descend into Hades where tormented souls lunge at you, desperate to steal your vitality for themselves. These elements helped pull me through areas where the map design was a bit convoluted, or where an overabundance of trash enemies kept hindering progress. Combat is more involved than it seems at first blush, with different weapons being better for certain purposed (clubs to break guard, daggers to backstab etc.) and where yours and the enemies' body will react differently if struck in a certain place, but it did still sometimes feel like a bit of a clusterfuck 'cos you're almost always outnumbered but can muddle through by just lashing out wherever.

 

Took me 12 hours to complete, with most of the achievements. Nothing about the game stands out as being particularly bad, and several elements are very good, so... :tup:   

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I'm glad someone else liked Apotheon. It's not an amazing game, but it is weirdly fun. The combat is absolutely hilarious - sending people flying across the screen so incredibly satisfying. The way enemies crumple when you kill them is also just great.

 

I "finished" Invisible Inc. I was shocked at how short the beginner campaign was, but it was crazy fun. I'm having a hard time trying to play experienced, mainly because of a lack of narrative. It's still really fun though, and I'll hopefully play through the campaign again a couple more times. I think I've had my fill of rogue-likes for now though, having played like 3 intently for a few months. I am just looking for an engaging narrative, hence why The Banner Saga really pulled me in. 

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