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Recently completed video games

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Psychonauts (PC)

 

Boy this was a long time coming. I remember purchasing this the day it released on Steam - must've been 2011. I played the first 15 minutes a few times but because I only had a MacBook it didn't run very well. Jump ahead 5 years I finally built a gaming PC and decided to play it.

 

Boy what a game, aside from a few minor things mostly down to the 3D platformer game genre with controls / camera stuff the game was awesome. The game still visually looks great (apart from low texture cut scenes), the levels are so creative and fun. Shame you enter a point of no return state towards the end of the game. I would've liked to run around camp post game. 

 

Took me around 12/13 hours and I will most definitely go back into some of the levels in the future. 

 

Two thumbs up for me! I am all in for Psychonauts 2 -- now the long wait!

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Thenexus, did you use a controller?

 

Yeah I used a Playstation 4 controller and DS4windows program.

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Excited to report that, over the weekend, I managed to complete A Link to the Past. 

 

I say that I completed it; really it was a collaborative effort with several friends of mine, but I want to hog the limelight for myself. It has probably been about five years since I last played ALttP, so I had forgotten how to tackle most of the dungeons (oh, how grateful I was that they're shown on the map in the order you should approach them!) and my friends were no more clued-up. The game plays, looks and sounds beautiful though, really a class act in almost every respect. 

 

We were only truly stumped in one dungeon, the Ice Palace. Dwarfing almost every other dungeon in the game in size, the Ice Palace is a bit of a grueling challenge. After a few false starts, we managed to progress far enough to get the both the boss key and the key item, and presumed the boss would be a short jog from there. Well, not quite! In a devious twist, the player has to progress towards the boss in order to hit a switch lowering some blocks in a room they'd been through previously, in order to dislodge a brick which would hold down a switch, and finally allow access to the boss. Unfortunately, that block is only accessible after the player has backtracked through at least half of the dungeon again, with, in our case, dwindling health and magic reserves.

 

By the time we'd actually gotten to the boss room, we had no fairies left for revival, and very little magic left to use the fire rod, which was absolutely necessary to start the fight proper. So, it's out of the dungeon, grinding for fairies and magic in the overworld, then delicately descend through the whole dungeon again! Argh! 

 

Apart from that admittedly quite hair-pulling experience, the game is splendid and much fun was had by all. It was only when we finally got to the last fight against Ganon that I realised I'd actually never made it this far before; that this monolith of gaming had been unscaled until now.

 

I'm going to continue to hold gaming days at my house, and we've already voted to play Chrono Trigger next. Forthwith I will slay Magus and restore honor!

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Sounds frustrating. Did you find that playing with other people helped you soldier on to the end?

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I don't know where to put this as I haven't quit this beautiful game, nor have I beaten it. I just really wanted to talk about it but don't think I could make my own thread.

 

10 second Ninja is a piece of masterful glory. It plays a lot like a platformer version Trials HD, in that beating a level is not that important (you only have 10 seconds to do it) but mastering it and shaving fractions of a second off your play time is what will keep you coming back.

 

I've already started to develop a blister on my left thumb but I am absolutely in love with this game.

 

Please, everyone, go try it.

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Like some others, I also just finished the new DOOM. Honestly it took me some time to get into it. Early on I was just lost for absurdly long periods of time and all the talk about secrets on various podcasts coerced me into spending too much time trying to find them. I eventually got used to the more open level design and just kind of gave up on the secrets and enjoyed it a lot more. Once I got into it I loved it. All the weapons, and their alt fires, were all really fun to use and it was fun figuring out what's best for each situation. I also didn't really care for the boss fights at all and there was a point during the final boss where I was considering just quitting the game but I stuck through it. By the time I reached the last level I felt the game maybe lasted just an hour or two too long but overall I really enjoyed it. 

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Rollers of the Realm :tdown:

Not the greatest pinball game. The last level was a real pain and tedious has hell. Hand to grind the hell out of it in order to buy enough upgrades in order to beat the last level.

 

Clock Simulator :tmeh:

I'm a clock now! Become a clock by being the clock's second hand. It's a tiny game, but sort of fun.

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Psychonauts (PC)

Boy this was a long time coming. I remember purchasing this the day it released on Steam - must've been 2011. I played the first 15 minutes a few times but because I only had a MacBook it didn't run very well. Jump ahead 5 years I finally built a gaming PC and decided to play it.

I think it was much earlier than that (2006/7). I bring it up only because I have a distinct memory of it being the very first game I actually purchased on Steam. The game never clicked with me but it's been ages now so maybe I should go back to it.

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I think it was much earlier than that (2006/7). I bring it up only because I have a distinct memory of it being the very first game I actually purchased on Steam. The game never clicked with me but it's been ages now so maybe I should go back to it.

 True, but the OS X version was released in 2011 which is what I bought

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I just finished Samorost 3 :tup:

It's really good, even better than the previous games. There's a lot of fun stuff with music, and the music is excellent. Really enjoyed playing this one.

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 True, but the OS X version was released in 2011 which is what I bought

Ah, fair enough :)

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I finished up Satellite Reign this evening.  A pretty good game that ultimately falls short of being a great game.  I think the opening half to two-thirds was much stronger than the end.  The difficulty just doesn't scale well.  You pass a point where you have enough guns, toys, skills and options that every mission is a cakewalk, whereas in the early game you have to put some thought and care into each mission based on the skills and gear available to your squad. 

 

I'd recommend it if it looks at all interesting to you though.  It's the kind of game that really makes me curious what the team who made it can do next. 

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Ok, I finally managed to complete something.

 

Furi on PS4. It's basically a space/future Samurai boss fighting game. Lots of bullet hell sections, dodging tons of attacks, and parrying melee attacks. Pretty cool sound track and an odd, but appealing design.

It was free on PS+, and something I'd never have bought, but I'm glad it was there, I thoroughly enjoyed the game.

 

My only criticism, is that some bosses had easy early phases, then a practically impossible last phase. You die and have to repeat from the beginning. There were only a couple of serious offenders out of 10 bosses. 

 

Well worth playing if you like fast paced action games.  :tup:

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I really really really enjoyed Furi.

 

At some point I intend to go back and play on Furier difficulty, but I doubt I'll ever get the elusive S-rank trophy haha.

 

That boss that's just entirely parries (The Edge, I think) was so so fucking satisfying. GOSH.

 

I almost ragequit at The Burst, though. Not because of the difficulty, but because of the tedium of the first few phases. I eventually figured out the trick, though, haha.

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I was offline for a few weeks and beat a bunch of games:

 

-Nano Assault EX: I got this from the Nintendo Humble Bundle and it's pretty fun shmup.

-Earth Defense Force 2: This game is such campy fun, I love it! It has a new class that I'm not sure I want to try since playing as anything but the Pale Wing makes moving around the levels very annoying.

-Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth3: Huh, I got the True Ending without trying that hard, the game has many improvements over the previous one, my favorite one being a search function that tells you where to get items for a quest or a plan. It also seems that items are less rare since some rare bosses appear more than once, making it easy to get their rare drops.

-ONE PIECE Unlimited World Red: This game was so good I want to start watching the show again, oddly enough this game lets you play as more One Piece characters than the recent Musou game and I get to play as Chopper so I'm happy.

-Skullgirls 2nd Encore: I love the new Eliza character, her move set is so beautiful to behold and fun to play is... if only Annie had won the vote and was among the playable characters, I like Lab Zero wanted her to be in the game too since she practically takes over Beowulf's story.

-AQUA KITTY Milk Mine Defender DX: I finally beat this Defender clone, it got pretty bullet hellish near the end, but I somehow made it!

-Everybody's Stress Buster: This a collection of mini-games that apparently nobody knew about.

 

It's biggest problem is that in it's digital version, it sells the mini-games in packs of three and they don't "merge" if you buy the full set.

 

The games might be set for people with OCD since one of the mini-games is just... organizing books... which I found SO SATISFYING! There is also a vacuuming mini-game which I also loved, I loved all the mini-games, even the soccer one, which was almost like Arkanoid/Breakout.

 

Two mini-games are the same in a way, both being based on whack-a-mole. Since it's about "stress busting", the mini-games are either relaxing or well... destructive? You can throw pies at your "boss", wreck stuff in a tractor derby, etc, etc..

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I really really really enjoyed Furi.

 

At some point I intend to go back and play on Furier difficulty, but I doubt I'll ever get the elusive S-rank trophy haha.

 

That boss that's just entirely parries (The Edge, I think) was so so fucking satisfying. GOSH.

 

I almost ragequit at The Burst, though. Not because of the difficulty, but because of the tedium of the first few phases. I eventually figured out the trick, though, haha.

 

 

Pretty much describes my interaction with the game. The Burst had great initial phases, but the last one was grossly difficult!

 

I'd also like to try again, but I don't think I will touch it for a while, I have so much in my back log, and for some reason, I've gotten into Rocket League. I hated it when it first came out, but now I play a couple of matches every night, and I'm really enjoying it.

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Just finished Quadrilateral Cowboy :tup:

Great game, cool concept. There will probably be some awesome mods in the future. Would be a cool if a larger studio can create an "HD" version of this, or even a Quadrilateral Hitman.

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If you can, you should grab Link Between Worlds.

 

Ah, yes. I borrowed it from a friend, to play on my stepdaughter's 2DS. You know, from screenshots, I expected to be quite repelled by the graphics, but it actually looks lovely. I was having a lot of fun with it, enjoying the various quality-of-life improvements and just how well crafted it was in general, but then Alice took her 2DS back and I haven't played it since (that was maybe 5 months ago?) I do definitely want to go back and finish it though - based on what I played, it may well end up being one of my fave Zelda games.

 

Sounds frustrating. Did you find that playing with other people helped you soldier on to the end?

 

Yeah, totally! I'd played it as a kid on a real SNES, and gotten I think to the Ice Palace before quitting, but attempts on emulators since then always stalled out just after reaching the dark world. Also, I have a rubbish attention span, even for games I really like, and can rarely play for more than a couple of hours at a time. With my friends, I was putting in 6-8 hour gaming sessions, and just getting completely absorbed. 

 

By the way, Mark Brown did a great video dissecting the dungeon design of A Link to the Past (and some other vids about other Zelda games). Here it is:

 

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Spec Ops: The Line

 

Just picked this up in the latest Humble Bundle. Never really had any intention on playing it, but for that price I had to buy it.

 

I'd seen some gameplay for this game, and already knew about the whole

white phosphorus and civilian killing stuff so that had less impact on me compared to if I went in completely blind

 

I finished it in around five hours on normal difficultly. It was pretty good I guess, not the completely typical story and tried some cool things.

 

The gunplay was fun, quite a satisfying feel when shooting and the game has a good variety of weapons to use. The gameplay however got a little annoying - the sprinting and the going in / out of cover mechanics I found pretty frustrating at times. Why do some first / third person shooters use "A" or "X" to sprint? You can't use the right stick to look around when running.. Add that to the same button used for cover (like Gears of War) and you're in for a frustrating time getting stuck on walls. I died plenty of times because of this.

 

The voice acting and music were pretty good. Captain Nathan Drake Walker was great! I really liked some of the environments and back drops too. 

 

I tried some round of multiplayer. It was pretty average, plus hardly no one is playing it.

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There's some pretty good game design touches there, which I either didn't notice or totally missed. If nothing else I'm impressed with the thought they put in, even if it fell a bit flat for me.

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I think I'm done The Witness? At least, I'm done the main game. I'll be ducking back in to wrap up the 90-ish puzzles that I did not do and spend some more time looking around the environment. Don't think I'll ever get a second +, having looked into how you get them. I'm at 456 +56 now, and I think I'm mostly satisfied with what I've done. That was a fucking GAME.

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Head Lander has been completed :tup:

It's about 7 hours long (9 to do every thing). It's a fun game, in general not really challenging. So it plays away nicely. The style is simply great, especially the living quarters have so much nice details. The stuff on the moon and the power plant on the main base are mostly too contrived. It still looks good though.

Gameplay wise there isn't much detail to head play. It's mostly getting the right body for security clearance. And besides that there are 3 other special head cases. It's not like you have to find a firefighter body to put out a fire to be able to get to the next room, and get an electrician to fix an elevator.

Btw, if you're on steam the 32nd achievement is not reachable. It was left in by mistake.

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