Recently completed video games

[Griddlelol]

Fuck, I always forget to go back and grab a tanooki suit. When I get home from work I'm gonna try again. 

[prettyunsmart]

I finished Deus Ex for the first time since I was a teenager, which was pretty neat. In the early game, I thought I had every corner of the game memorized. I was able to skip some areas because I just remembered key codes that I wouldn't have found until later, but I'd occasionally come across a secret room or another way of completing an objective that I hadn't seen before. Up until Hong Kong, the game was pretty much exactly how I remembered, but I soon realized that I've been re-playing the first third of the game every year or so, and never actually finishing it. Later levels like Vandenberg and Paris were sort of blurry in my memory, and I completely forgot that the Ocean Base existed. Still, it remains a cool, cool, cool game, and I'm glad I played through it again.

[Spenny]

Since you mention Deus Ex, if anyone would have some advice to give to someone who has never played it before about the best way to play it, and what kind of BS to expect from a 14 year old game and how to get around it, I would appreciate it.

[Jutranjo]

Since you mention Deus Ex, if anyone would have some advice to give to someone who has never played it before about the best way to play it, and what kind of BS to expect from a 14 year old game and how to get around it, I would appreciate it.

 

I haven't played it recently but it's honestly not that bad. The engine is Unreal so you can scale the resolution to whatever, you might want to find a mod to make the UI/text larger if it feels too small.

 

Biggest issue is that your guns/crossbow at start don't calm down to shoot decently until JC has half a minute to calm his nerves. Don't even bother shooting while moving at the start unless whatever you're shooting at fills half the screen. Also I think it 

incentivises you to not kill people at the start.

[Professor Video Games]

The beginning can be a little intimidating because they just throw you on this huge island with little guidance and your skills are all shit so it's relatively hard to kill people (or easily sneak around), but don't worry, you'll be an insane killing and/or sneaking machine soon enough. The only real BS that comes to mind is that the enemy AI is a bit terrible so it can take time to figure out. And at least for a first playthrough, the best weapon class to put points into is rifles, but really there's no wrong way to play it. That's the magic of it.

 

Aaaaand now I want to replay it too...great.

[prettyunsmart]

Since you mention Deus Ex, if anyone would have some advice to give to someone who has never played it before about the best way to play it, and what kind of BS to expect from a 14 year old game and how to get around it, I would appreciate it.

 

I played through it with the New Vision Mod, which sorts out the resolution problem I was having and adds fancy looking HD textures. They're well done for the most part, but I suppose if you want to experience it as it originally was, you might want to pass on it.

 

Like video games said above, there really isn't a wrong way to play it. I'd suggest using the first level to try out a few different play-styles to see what you want to put points into. You can quicksave if you want to avoid making any really bad decisions, and that way you'll know if you want to focus on rifles, pistols, hacking, sneaking, or whatever.

 

Personally, on this last run, I felt like melee weapons are super powerful if you upgrade your skills and focus on stealth early on. 

 

Then when you get the Dragon's Tooth, you can just walk up to the green MJ12 guys at your leisure and take them out in one hit. Come to think of it, I did the same to Walton Simons.

[Dewar]

I finished Uncharted 2 during my vacation week. While I have the same problems with it as it's predecessor (poor signposting during climbing bits and so much killing) it was much smoother than the first. I was going to start into Uncharted 3, but I needed a break so I started Last of Us instead... which really isn't much of a break since it was made by the same company *shrug*

 

You can't really beat it, but I finally made it through winter in Don't Starve as well. I never really got into it much when I first played, but I've really been sucked in now. I can't wait until Don't Starve Together comes out.

 

Finally, I beat 80 Days when I was at PAX. I talked about it a little in the iOS thread, so I'll just say this is exactly what I want out of an iOS game.

[Tanukitsune]

I beat a few games lately:

-Spate: It's a "steam-punk noir" platform game with "absinthe mechanics", except the Noir part is just a length "gruff" monologue between tedious generic levels with little to none steam-punk in it.

The "absinthe gimmick" is kinda interesting, but gets old fast, it stops time for some items and makes you jump a little more and you hallucinate a little? 

 

-Pokémon Rumble U: I never played the previous game in this series, but it looked like simple fun and something I could play with my five year old nephew. It was pretty simple, almost too simplistic since you only have one or two attacks, but the chaos and traps made it more than fun enough for me.

 

-Fist Puncher: I expected an "8-bit brawler" that would bore me make me quit it, but it kinda surprised me, despite it's almost ugly graphics, it was kinda fun, you can find secret areas, secret characters and as I played as the beekeeper character I just destroyed everyone with my swarm of bees. Actually I think I only liked the game because I could just use the swarm of bees and nothing else to win. 

[JonCole]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut - this game is still super good and holds up quite well! There are a few places where it shows signs of age, mostly including pre-rendered cutscenes and some mediocre facial modeling stuff. I started out the game non-lethal stealth, but they really didn't do much to make that very fun considering there are still a lack of non-lethal weapons and only the tranquilizer is upgradeable. As a result of switching to lethal stealth, I ended up beating the bosses the old-fashioned way and didn't get to see the changes they made to the boss battles to make them supposedly beatable without combat. I did like the addition of an item that automatically hacks any terminal/panel in no time flat. I ended up fully leveling my hacking, but it was still nice in a pinch when I didn't have much time to hack. I imagine it's even better if you choose to skip hacking stuff for the most part.

 

Only major complaint is the Missing Link DLC - it feels super clunky as part of the main game. Wiping you clean made a lot of sense when it was a standalone campaign, but as part of the main campaign they had to add some contrivances to make it fit that really just felt sloppy. I played The Missing Link about a year ago and it was really good on its own, but this integration or lack thereof was poor.

 

Anyways, it's still a super fun game. Probably one of my favorite this generation, so I was happy to have another excuse to play it. Square-Enix damn well better create a sequel this generation.

[prettyunsmart]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut - this game is still super good and holds up quite well! There are a few places where it shows signs of age, mostly including pre-rendered cutscenes and some mediocre facial modeling stuff. I started out the game non-lethal stealth, but they really didn't do much to make that very fun considering there are still a lack of non-lethal weapons and only the tranquilizer is upgradeable. As a result of switching to lethal stealth, I ended up beating the bosses the old-fashioned way and didn't get to see the changes they made to the boss battles to make them supposedly beatable without combat. I did like the addition of an item that automatically hacks any terminal/panel in no time flat. I ended up fully leveling my hacking, but it was still nice in a pinch when I didn't have much time to hack. I imagine it's even better if you choose to skip hacking stuff for the most part.

 

Only major complaint is the Missing Link DLC - it feels super clunky as part of the main game. Wiping you clean made a lot of sense when it was a standalone campaign, but as part of the main campaign they had to add some contrivances to make it fit that really just felt sloppy. I played The Missing Link about a year ago and it was really good on its own, but this integration or lack thereof was poor.

 

Anyways, it's still a super fun game. Probably one of my favorite this generation, so I was happy to have another excuse to play it. Square-Enix damn well better create a sequel this generation.

 

I'm playing this right now too, and I'm finding the character animations during dialog to be super distracting. It's amazing to me how quickly that part of the game has aged for me, as even the original Deus Ex didn't seem that egregiously badly animated during conversations. Everyone seems so twitchy. The gameplay is still fun, and I'm enjoying my time with it, but for a game that's only a couple of years old, it's showing its age way more than I expected it to.

[mikemariano]

Those animations were always poor; Malik's flapping was especially distracting when I first played the game.

 

The animators were too busy creating awesome kills, I guess.

[JonCole]

So many awesome kills. The double-melee knockouts/kills are so satisfying and I do them at literally every opportunity.

[BadHat]

I finally got around to playing Fez and "finished" it with the 32 cubes ending. Holyyyy crap. I think that's my favourite game ending now (I don't know if I even had one before). If the 64 cubes ending is anywhere near as cool as that I'll be pretty stoked. Too bad these anti-cube puzzles are kicking my ass.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Maybe I need to rewatch that ending on YouTube, I finished it a while back and don't remember it at all, apart from being glad I expected little from the story.

[eot]

I'm playing this right now too, and I'm finding the character animations during dialog to be super distracting. It's amazing to me how quickly that part of the game has aged for me, as even the original Deus Ex didn't seem that egregiously badly animated during conversations. Everyone seems so twitchy. The gameplay is still fun, and I'm enjoying my time with it, but for a game that's only a couple of years old, it's showing its age way more than I expected it to.

It was distracting when the game first came out too. The body proportions are all off too, it always bugged me.

[JonCole]

I think Kietner and Kavanaugh from the DLC look particularly odd in the facial modeling/body proportion sense. I dunno, it didn't bother me all that much but it is definitely something that ages the game.

[twmac]

Finished 'Stick to the Man' a couple of days ago - loved it.

 

The gameplay is pretty simple and there is nothing that can't be solved by going round the whole world and trying to apply everything you picked up in every situation. It doesn't really matter because the art style is charming and so is the story - although it falls into 'the clutzy man has awesome girlfriend' trope but that is a minor gripe because the team play with it a lot.

 

It is out on PS4 and the Bone, I imagine it is out for the PC too, well worth the 6 pounds I paid for it.

[Tanukitsune]

I just finished LocoCycle, Twisted Pixel latest game.... I didn't even know it was out on PC!

 

This is not only my favorite Twisted Pixel game, but the most fun I had since well, not that long ago, because Super Mario 3D World was amazing, but this is the most fun I've had on PC for a while!

 

This game is a love letter to old arcade games, it looks like it might be like Road Rash, but it's really more of a brawler... it's definitely not a racing game that's for sure, you only have to fast for bonus missions. And if you upgrade enough, you can just ram into everything and not care.

 

What they really nailed was the arcade pacing each section is practically the same length as arcade level and play just as fast as it should, there is no AAA slog, no grinding... I guess the only reason nobody cared about this game is that it was a XBone launch title... And people getting upset it's not a racer? Who cares, I got to see a bike beat up a helicopter! 

[Bjorn]

I just finished LocoCycle, Twisted Pixel latest game.... I didn't even know it was out on PC!

 

Wat?!  Had to look, I had no idea.  I've enjoyed the TP games I've played quite a bit, the initial negative reviews of it on Xbox turned me off from checking it out when it eventually released on the 360.   But I may have to check it out after your thoughts on it. 

[Tanukitsune]

Most of the negative reviews I've seen are people hating it because it wasn't a racer, or to be exact, because it doesn't play like a racer.

[JonCole]

Most of the negative reviews I've seen are people that say the humor and writing is fairly tasteless and hard to bear over the course of the game.

[chummer]

Most of the negative reviews I've seen are people that say the humor and writing is fairly tasteless and hard to bear over the course of the game.

Oh, so it's a Twisted Pixel game?

[JonCole]

Oh, so it's a Twisted Pixel game?

 

Well, some of the aforementioned negative reviews even came from some who thought some of Twisted Pixel's earlier work more charming. Which makes me think it's particularly egregious.

[Bjorn]

Oh, so it's a Twisted Pixel game?

 

That's an interesting comment.  I've played The Maw, 'Splosion Man and Gunstringer, and can't remember anything particularly tasteless.  I will say I don't have the strongest memories of any of those games, but do remember enjoying each of them when they came out.  I never actually finished the Gunstringer, but it and Dance Central were the only two Kinect games that I ever thought were good enough to play more than once. 

[Tanukitsune]

Frankly, I'd say most of the other Twisted Pixel games are more tasteless than LocoCycle. I didn't really find the guy stuck to the bike funny, but the bikes themselves were hilarious to me. *shrugs*