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Uncharted: The Lost Legacy - 7ish hours normal difficulty

 

I have mixed feelings but mostly positive. I thought Chloe and Nadine were a good pairing, nice back and forth between them, and some nice call backs to previous Uncharted games  / moments. I love the visuals - graphics, background art and the views are awesome its super impressive on my base PS4. Music is great as always. 

 

I am kind of mixed with the open world thing, on one hand its new to Uncharted and makes a change from linear keep moving forward gameplay. On the other hand it felt a little lazy at times... open area 4 or 5 enemy camps / zones to clear out. I guess its nice to explore and do things at your own leisure though. I did feel the game had less combat than previous games which I prefer. Some of the puzzles were very simple and others were pretty tough so a good balance.

 

I liked the fact it wasn't just waves of bad guys thrown at you, I hate that in games especially Uncharted.. just makes the game artificially difficult.  I am disappointed that this game  

follows the formula of go to an area, solve the puzzle then "oh no ambush!!" ... "haha good timing thanks for solving this for me" it happens too much in Uncharted, not as much in this game but and its just annoying. Nadine given has a line of dialogue describing this exact thing.

 

Overall I enjoyed playing it, for the price its definitely worth checking out.

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I like lost legacy a lot. I think the open area was a good change of pace and the silenced pistol is super OP, but fun regardless.

The sequence on the

train

ran a bit long, but otherwise the game as a whole did a good job of not overstaying its welcome.

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I just beat Phantom Brave: Hermuda Triangle, It's from NIS so you can grind until you're lvl 9999 and find tricks that will make you gain 100 levels in a row and has secret cameos from the other NiS games. You know, the usual stuff.

 

The combat isn't grid based and you summon characters by tethering to an item, getting stats boost (or stat loses) depending on what item you tether to and most importantly the time your phantom can stay in the level.

 

The story is about a girl with the power to summon phantoms, for which everybody hates and fears her, despite being the nicest sweetest child ever. 

 

Since the combat is not grid based, they added things like slippery floors and most importantly you can be tossed out of bounds, which changes things A LOT since if you toss an enemy out of bounds, the enemies gain XP and worse of all, some enemies will just steal your weapons and throw them out of bounds, some will even toss you out of bounds.

 

But the most interest thing to be about the games are the items in the battle area, not only do you need them to summon your allies, but you or the enemies can use them as weapons and even the simplest bush can have hidden powers, a trunk can shoot lasers, a vase can heal... It was rather satisfying to defeat enemies by slapping them with a fish. :tup:

 

 

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Sonic Mania. Oh man. Stupidly pre-ordered on impulse, having seen pretty much nothing of it and not having really played a Sonic game since Sonic & Knuckles. I think it was just the sheer contrast of all the lovely primary colours standing out against the rest of the items on PSN but what a package it is. Quite a substantial length with a well designed trophy set that kept me busy for most of the weekend, still got a couple of the blue spere related ones to get so that will be my go to game for unwinding with a podcast after work for the next couple of weeks. Wonderful. So much so that I'm going to dig out my PS3 to play Sonic CD having bought it ages ago in a sale and never bothering to try it.

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I finally beat Tales of Phantasia, the first game in the "Tales of" series and I'm kinda surprised how much the series has stayed the same, the useless cooking system, the gels, the titles... apparently even the skits existed, but were cut out of the GBA port I played?

 

It's weird to see the combat system in 2D and the AI of the partner was a bit lacking, but at the same time, giving them commands directly made thing almost too easy? Not to mention getting an accessory to reduce spell casting meant I always casted first and interrupted the enemies' spell, breaking the game further.

 

The plot has time travel, ancient civilizations, lava towers, the obligatory flying apparatus to open up the world... you know, the same tropes but with their own personal touch, like most JRPGS?

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Uncharted: The Lost Legacy :tmeh:

I was fairly underwhelmed with this. It wasn't bad, but it didn't get me excited much at all. I don't think it ever really goes beyond being some good DLC for Uncharted 4, and it's kinda on Naughty Dog for bigging it up a bit more than they should have. It takes the highlight features of Uncharted 4(free roaming vehicle section, grapple hook, climbing spike) and incorporates them without adding anything or much to them. The vehicle section is probably the stand out part for me, but much of it is a retread of what we did in Uncharted 4 and like the game in general it starts to drag. Once you get past that part it's a very du jour affair as far as Uncharted goes and it's not long until you're in combat arenas and linear action set pieces which are probably awesome when they play out perfectly but come off a bit silly when you're rubbish and crashing your jeep into trees as you try to pursue the bad guys. 

 

The story is fine but it's Uncharted on autopilot and it follows the typical beats so much that at this stage it just feels incredibly lazy. I do think that the game jumped the shark a bit when

Spoiler

you're going after the train to stop the bad guy setting off a bomb that will kill thousands of people.

 

Still absolutely strikingly beautiful though, I'm still constantly in awe of how good the world looks from a technical and creative point of view.

 

Alan Wake's American Nightmare :tup:

I'm a bit late on this one, I would have been less late only for last year the game stopped launching when I was mid way through it. I decided to see if it was working after trying desperately one more to like Quantum Break(still not very good) and it works now! Hurrah!  Anyway, the pastiche is what puts this from OK to good for me, the gameplay is nothing interesting and while this add-on does improve a lot on what Alan Wake set out it's still nothing to write home about. It's looking a bit dated now but all the details in the game make me enjoy it so much more, the radios to listen to and Mr. Scratch taunting you on TVs. It's also so Americana and I'm a sucker for that stuff. It's very short, I finished it in under 4 hours but it's a fun 4 hours.

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I beat Horizon Zero Dawn! I liked it a lot, although I felt like there was probably a little too much game there spread a little too thinly. I liked how I could turn off all the UI guff and just look around at the world, except I got frustrated with how few secret ruins there actually were to be discovered in the open world (there are two, and they're right at the start, and every other one is a story objective) so I sort of cheated.

 

But still! The writing was reasonable, the world-building is very nice, it's beautiful as heck and the game is solid enough systemically that they can just drop a Stormbird or a Thunderjaw down and it's probably going to be an interesting boss battle even if you've fought it five times before. It's fun to just tool around and explore because it's pretty and the game's pretty good at generating emergent scenarios that become stories.

 

It is not my favourite game this year (that will almost certainly be Hollow Knight, I can't imagine Zelda's going to top it) but it is a game I thoroughly recommend, especially if, like me, you've steered clear of the vast majority of Ubisoft's output.

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Have I mentioned Hollow Knight?

 

It is the best Metroidvania ever made.

 

That it does this with a fairly rote moveset for your main character tells you that what's doing the heavy lifting here is the world and system design. Friends, it performs admirably. The world is enormous and filled with things to see and experience, and it's a game filled with collectibles where every single one feels hard-won and valuable and memorable. There are areas of the game that are legitimately unnerving. I could not tell you what the critical path is outside of a few key events, and there's several critical events the game seemed to make no effort whatsoever to steer me towards, so everything I found I felt like I had earned. There are entire areas that aren't on the critical path, and as a result they're only filled with boss fights, and beautiful, unique rooms, and surprises. Its main upgrade system are 'charms', which are basically badges from the Paper Mario series, except each badge comes from a specific place with its own backstory, so your inventory of charms are memories of the things you've seen and done.

 

These aren't connected thoughts, really: what they've made is a metroidvania that puts exploration of a space and a culture front and centre, and builds a game where that is exciting and tricky and rewarding.

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17 hours ago, Merus said:

[Horizon Zero Dawn] is a game I thoroughly recommend, especially if, like me, you've steered clear of the vast majority of Ubisoft's output.

 

Yeah I think that's an important qualifier. I haven't steered clear of Ubisoft(or WB's) open-world actiongames, so HZD is feeling very "been there, done that". Started playing it in June but haven't bothered finishing it.

 

Actually I stalled on Hollow Knight as well. Was a lot of fun for the first 15 hours, but I've since run out of steam. Gotta get back to it eventually, because when I was into it it did feel like a GOTY-contender.

 

So, what have I actually finished? Human: Fall Flat! I was expecting a kinda wonky physics-platformer, but it's actually a very polished experience, with a lot of clever obstacles and puzzles and every level has a different theme. Mostly it reminds me of Grow Home and Tiny & Big. It's good! :tup:

 

 

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I just couldn't get into Hollow Knight, I wasn't enjoying the combat early in the game and felt like I had to fight a lot of enemies to farm energy. I read that it improves when you get the dodge mechanic, but I just refunded before the 2 hour mark as a game that didn't clock with me. A shame as I usually enjoy Metroidvanias.

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There's an upgrade early on that gives you better energy regen that's extremely helpful when you're getting a handle on the combat. But it's a game that has an expectation; it's not as demanding, or as unfair, as Dark Souls is, but like Dark Souls if you don't rise to the challenge you're going to get nowhere. It gives exploration a pleasing tension, and does encourage you to try elsewhere if an area is unnerving, but I can respect that it's not for everyone.

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Photo%2021-09-2017,%2020.20.50.png?dl=0

 

Freeways, by Desert Golfing-dev Justin Smith. I picked up the iPad version when it came out earlier this week and blazed through it in a few days. It's all about designing intersections. Your score is calculated by measuring average car speed divided by concrete used. Perhaps the most addictive game I've played this year, it's got a real "just one more intersection!" quality to it. It's a mere 3 bucks and available for Windows or Android/iOS tablets. Highly recommended! :tup:

 

https://captaingames.itch.io/freeways

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Dishonored: Death of the Outsider - Medium Difficulty - 8/9 Hours

I really enjoyed playing this game and I hope its not the end of the franchise. These Dishonored games along with the likes of Deus Ex are easily some of the most fun games for me. I really love the gameplay and mechanics of playing your way. Will have to play through this again later (new game+ where you can play with Dishonored 2 powers). Alot of value here for the price - at £15.

 

Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure - Easy Difficulty - 12 Hours

I have never played a Tex Murphy game, or any with live action cut scenes, so no nostalgia effect on me here. I thought it was pretty great. Really cheesy and had this old school feeling. I loved how bad it looked during the live action scenes. Some of the puzzles were pretty easy but others were real head scratchers. Would definitely play a sequel. 

 

Game only cost 750k to make which is very impressive to me.

 

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I beat Cel Damage HD, which is nothing but cartoon racing mayhem and it's glorious! The characters are kinda weird, like a constructor that's an Elvis fan on a giant bulldozer or a black and white gangster duck. You can either race, get point by attacking people (the best mode) or do a flag rally.

Even the levels are cartoony, like the desert level full of Wil. E Coyote style traps! :tup:

 

And I just beat Yomawari: Night Alone, a horror game about a tiny girl looking for her sister in a city full of spirits at night. It's kinda forgiving since it has Jizo statues as warp points to get close to where you were if you die, which you will... a lot.

 

You can hide in bushes, but there is usually none around when I need to hide, so I just run until I run out of stamina or I'm caught. 

 

Each night you explore a different part of the city, either looking for your sis, or just trying to survive a specific monster encounter and I think it has the perfect length for a horror game since each night is relatively short. I really recommend this for Octoberween! :devil::tup:

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Splatoon 2. I enjoyed the first but the campaign did feel like a glorified multiplayer tutorial, this time I feel I go my money's worth already and I've yet to touch online. Reminded me of Galaxy in places. Wonderful stuff.

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Finished The Fall after hearing people getting hyped for the new one. It wasn't bad, and would serve as a nice gentle intro into adventure-y games, but the story didn't really wow me and the combat could definitely have been left out. Overall dialogue writing was good and the world-building too. Going to wait for reviews on the sequel I think.

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To continue the Hollow Knight conversation, here's what I had to say about it on the Idle Thumbs Slack:

so I've been playing Hollow Knight


[2:24] 
first the good: on a macro level the level design is incredible - it does the thing that everyone falls over themselves to swoon at Dark Souls over but which is actually just what a good metroidvania does
[2:25] 
which is to have a huge, densely interconnected world with areas that hook up to each other in surprising and satisfying ways, and a gameplay loop that makes you constantly but briefly revisit chunks of it on your way to new objectives
[2:26] 
BUT
[2:26] 
I'm becoming increasingly fed up with the game's downright sloppy combat
[2:30] 
enemies that can potentially spawn or teleport directly on top of you, attacks that can be unavoidable depending on the circumstances leading up to them, randomized attack sequences that can lead to forced damage depending on how they combine, attacks that require you to do very awkward things in order to avoid them
[2:33] 
and just all around questionable decisions, like contact damage in a game where almost every enemy already has at least one attack animation (and more importantly, bosses that can jump around arbitrarily with more mobility than you have), or that 2 out of the 3 sword moves you can learn are useless/redundant, meanwhile there are gaping holes in your moveset
[2:35] 
the game is very lenient for the most part, and lets you get up to some cheesy bullshit of your own, so 99% of the time you can just clunk your way through it and it's no big deal
[2:36] 
but in that 1% where they try to push the combat to the limit (namely the optional boss re-fights and the true final boss), it becomes extremely obnoxious
lork [3:01 PM] 
I guess the reason why it bothers me so much is that it seems like overconfidence on the part of the devs, expecting you to play perfectly when the system they have doesn't support that
[3:03] 
like the combat in Super Metroid is maybe not the tightest thing the world, but they never push the difficulty to the point where it becomes a problem, so it's fine
lork [5:10 PM] 
there, it's done
[5:11] 
great game overall (it does the metroidvania level design thing better than anything else I've ever played), but that last boss left a bad taste in my mouth

 

Merus' comment above doesn't make sense to me - the game is blatantly unfair compared to something like Dark Souls.  It's just that the punishment for taking an unfair hit is almost nonexistent most of the time.  This lenience prevents the combat from being a problem in the vast majority of circumstances, but it does mean that fighting things is never really satisfying for its own sake the way it is in say, Dark Souls or Castlevania. 

 

That's OK though, because the joy of exploration more than makes up for it.  The experience of picking a direction and setting off to explore, constantly being surprised and delighted by what you find is just sublime, and no other game does it as well, or keeps it doing it for as long as this one does.  I'd easily call this my GOTY.cx if it weren't for BOTW.  Holy hell what a ridiculously stacked year this has been.

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I recently finished Cuphead and went back for all the assorted achievements. It took 17 hours according to Steam, which feels about right. The side-scrolling/platforming sections were the only parts of the game I didn't end up enjoying much, and I think everything else was really well executed. The art gets a lot of praise, but the music's really good too, the controls are solid, and there's a lot of variety in bosses. It's kind of a shame that reviews of the game immediately spiraled into a culture war over content locking based on difficulty in games, since I think pretty much all media about it really overstated the actual difficulty of the game. It would be a shame if a lot of people didn't play it just because they assumed it was going to be too hard for them.

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On 9/21/2017 at 10:37 AM, Henke said:

Freeways, by Desert Golfing-dev Justin Smith. I picked up the iPad version when it came out earlier this week and blazed through it in a few days. It's all about designing intersections. Your score is calculated by measuring average car speed divided by concrete used. Perhaps the most addictive game I've played this year, it's got a real "just one more intersection!" quality to it. It's a mere 3 bucks and available for Windows or Android/iOS tablets. Highly recommended! :tup:

 

https://captaingames.itch.io/freeways

 

I've been enjoying this game based on this recommendation. It has all the joy of "cities: skylines" without the pesky budget or city to build. Just the puzzle of traffic management. I've been rushing to finish my world so I can compare it to yours, Henke. Because if I do look at your solutions, I'll never be able to un-see them. One thing I realize is that I'm wont to replicate the highways of New Jersey, which involves a lot of jug-handles and overpasses. My rush-jobs often devolve into a lot of terrible noodle solutions, or fractured tangle of intersections. Which is pretty realistic for New Jersey. Good game.

 

I also recently completed Steam World Dig 2, which pretty good. I swear I also finished the first game but I don't recall the Vectron sequence at all. Strange. I still think "Miner: Dig Deep" has the most pure 2D mining mini game experience, if only because there's no fast travel to the surface beside building a network of elevators. Escaping your own Blight Town is the whole fun of the mining gameplay loop. Edit, oh whoops, it does have some fast travels.

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Absolver: Well I haven't finished the end boss yet, but I got there so I consider that finished enough. Cool game, slightly Soul Caliber style fighting meets Dark Souls exploration.  The skill acquiring system is interesting. Making combo decks is sort of obtuse and took some stumbling around to understand. Interesting punchy stuff.

 

Spoiler-like caveats:

Spoiler

World map, while dense and very able to get lost in, which is very cool. Is about the size of 2 areas in a Dark Souls game.  I got to the end boss and wondered, "what will be next?" But that was the end. That's OK. It keeps the PVP in a dense area. I do wish the plus shaped 1v1 arena was in the world somewhere. 

 

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On 2017-10-16 at 10:06 PM, plasticflesh said:

 

I've been enjoying this game based on this recommendation.

 

Yay! Yes, it's a very good game. I liked the roadbuilding in Cities Skylines too, but not much else about it, which is why I only played about half an hour of it, so I'm glad Freeways came along and just gave me a lot of what I want and none of what I don't want.

 

Anyway, I just finished Road Redemption.

 

Here is a Kotaku man, hear his tale:

 

 

Then hear my tale: I played this game and I liked it. The End

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I just beat A Rose In Twilight and Uncanny Valley, A Rose In Twilight is a puzzle plataformer that is from the same people who made The Firefly Diary and is about a small girl called Rose with a rose stuck to her body waking up in a cursed castle stuck in time and covered in thorns, her only power is the ability to suck up the color red, the only color in the castle, which is on the only items that aren't stuck in time.

 

One of the first thing she "awakens" is a golem that is immune to the thorns and is the only character that can lift and throw items. The puzzles involve combining their powers, for example, the golem can throw something and then Rose can freeze it, jump on and unfreeze to catch a ride. I simply adored the puzzles and each area is just the right size to feel unique and not feel too long. :tup:

 

Uncanny Valley is a pixel horror game reminiscent of Home and Lone Survivor, and about a night guard in an abandoned building where choices matter, but not that much? You'll end up with variations on the same ending no matter what you. Even if you just guard the place and don't snoop around the game with just take you to the area you're supposed to stay out of.

 

I kinda feel cheated, the story isn't that strong and falls apart if you think about it enough, 

Spoiler

if the name doesn't give it away, the story is about androids and the only other person you meet that isn't the day guard is an android called Eve that falls in love with you after a few lines of dialogue.

The thing is, she lives in the forbidden area, which you can only access with two hidden keycards that she doesn't have. The game never explains how she does move around without the day guard even seeing her and she also lives next door to you, but the day guard who lives upstairs never notices?

The reason you're working in the middle of nowhere is because you're running away from the mafia, the game doesn't say why, you just have nightmares about being chased by shadow people. Well guess what? If you just do your job and don't snoop, the mafia finds you and takes you into the forbidden area... the one you can't enter unless you have two keycards? The place that is full of killer androids?

The story is full of plotholes that ruin the little suspense the story has, if you listen to the tapes and read emails, which you have to solve the one puzzle in the game, the game just tells you that this places deals with AI and I figures out Eve was an android.


Most endings have you escape, the only things that can change are the day guard staying alive (somehow he dies if you break into Eve's apartment?

He just appears dead in the forbidden zone, you know, the one he doesn't have access to?) and whether Eve likes you or not.

 

 

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I beat Golf Story. The weakest point for me was the adventure game style item hunts. Wandering around the bourgie mansion looking for item combinations or dashing around the beach area wasnt great. The regular golfing was fun, not too hard and I was consistently surprised at how the game added or constrained the rules for challenges. The birds and gophers were an obvious wacky choice for the former and making you putt all the way to the hole the latter. I loved the variety. I hope they make a sequel where the putting greens are made a bit more complicated and the story more than throwaway. 

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Kathy Rain - Four Hours

 

Won this on Reddit. Not super into point and click games but would like to play more. I enjoyed the Twin Peaksness and the setting of the game. Found Kathy a little too edgy for my tastes though.

 

Had fun playing through it though.

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