Recently completed video games

[BusbyBerkeley]

I finished this ages back and really didn't like that

your handler gets in such shit for killing the mafia dude and being manipulative... but your dude went around killing a bunch of people, other characters even remark on you being brutal.

And why? Because of a deep seated need for revenge that never really gets resolved, just absolved.

I just needed to vent that out cause my friends never played it.

Absolutely! I was actually laughing by the time the credits rolled. Its like it was written by Homer Simpson after watching McGarnagal. "Take THAT you stupid chief. Wei When gets results!" Even though you disobey orders and kill SO MANY PEOPLE throighout the game. And the late game mission where you have to bug what's her faces apartment was really gross and u pleasant. Also that whole torture sequence felt really rushed. So you get scalpeled, hammered, and drilled then when you regain consciousness you fight the mob out of a skyscraper? Alright. It really reeked of the worst kind of wish fulfillment male power fantasy games are known for.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Absolutely! I was actually laughing by the time the credits rolled. Its like it was written by Homer Simpson after watching McGarnagal. "Take THAT you stupid chief. Wei When gets results!" Even though you disobey orders and kill SO MANY PEOPLE throighout the game. And the late game mission where you have to bug what's her faces apartment was really gross and u pleasant. Also that whole torture sequence felt really rushed. So you get scalpeled, hammered, and drilled then when you regain consciousness you fight the mob out of a skyscraper? Alright. It really reeked of the worst kind of wish fulfillment male power fantasy games are known for.

 

Yup. It started out sorta interesting with ideas that I thought maybe could come out well, but as the game went on it just put itself back onto the "protagonist kills everyone and saves the day" track.

Which is how a lot of AAA games seem to operate actually, starting with interesting nuance that they slowly pull away to leave the basic power fantasy plot. I wonder if there's some industry wisdom that players want the illusion of seriousness in a story, but deep down will enjoy it most when it's a power fantasy romp.

[JonCole]

I beat The Room. I have nothing to add to the symphony of people who have said stuff about this good but slightly flawed in a couple ways game.

 

Also, I beat it on my new Samsung Galaxy Note which has convinced me that probably the biggest impediment to me playing games on my phone was a small screen. This hideously huge phone is perfect for playing dumb mobile games.

[Griddlelol]

I beat A Link Between Worlds over the weekend.

I would have liked to have seen more dungeons have puzzles that rely on using a variety of items together. 

 

Good game! I agree on this point, but also struggle to think of a way to do that. If they allowed you to rent items for practically no money, then getting enough rupees would be trivial and renting, pointless. The other way, with expensive items would  cause dying and losing everything to be far too much of a punishment.

A lot of people found the game to be too easy, which it probably was - I think I only died 6 times, 5 of which were to the same boss (and 6 is on the larger side of the number of deaths people had). 

 

I think the most interesting thing about ALBW is that Nintendo tried something new with the usual Zelda formula, and pretty much ditched tutorialisation, which brings me a lot of hope for Zelda WiiU. 

[eot]

I beat Volgarr the Viking. It's a very well designed game in my opinion. The mechanics are simple enough that you learn them in the first 20 seconds, yet there's still significant depth and nuance to them. I love elegant design like that. Many of the challenges are built around deliberate limitations in your moveset instead of empowering you to you crazier and crazier things. It's like Veni Vidi Vinci in VVVVVV, where jumping over a single block (the most basic action in a platformer) becomes the hardest challenge in the game. I like that sort of thing because it shows a complete understanding of the mechanics on the part of the designer.

 

I'm not sure I'd recommend the game to everyone though, because it's so unforgiving. The bosses in particular can be a little much. On one hand it's good that they make you play through the stage in a close to perfect manner, since it's a game that is about being mastered, but that's more or less just the price of admission for the boss fight. Taken on their own I think the bosses are fine, but you can't react or adapt to them in real time. Most of them are about positioning, so if you're in the wrong spot you will take damage and you die in one or two hits. In Dark Souls I don't mind the run up to a boss because a failed attempt on a boss often takes 3-5+ minutes, but in Volgarr you'll spend 95% of the time going through a level and 5% dying to the boss. It's mostly the boss of the 2nd world that's an issue, but I think they could've implemented them better overall. Maybe give you 2-3 attempts for each runthrough of the level or something, just to let you iterate a bit faster, because they're not super challenging in terms of raw exectution. You just have to learn what to do.

[Twig]

I died forty times in the first two minutes of the first level (past the tutorial?) of Volgarr and quit in shame. Not permanently, but man I need to devote myself to getting better at that kind of game. I'm bad at it.

[Professor Video Games]

Good game! I agree on this point, but also struggle to think of a way to do that. If they allowed you to rent items for practically no money, then getting enough rupees would be trivial and renting, pointless. The other way, with expensive items would  cause dying and losing everything to be far too much of a punishment.

A lot of people found the game to be too easy, which it probably was - I think I only died 6 times, 5 of which were to the same boss (and 6 is on the larger side of the number of deaths people had). 

 

I think the most interesting thing about ALBW is that Nintendo tried something new with the usual Zelda formula, and pretty much ditched tutorialisation, which brings me a lot of hope for Zelda WiiU. 

 

Yeah it wasn't too hard. I never died though I did need to tap into my bottled fairy stockpile several times. Still, it was more challenging than some of the past Zelda games I've played. Next time I'm on the road I'll probably go back to it to try out Hero Mode.

[Zeusthecat]

Since I completely cleared my backlog on all other systems I own (not counting some of the older systems from a few gens ago), I finally decided to start getting serious about my Steam backlog. I am fortunate that I stopped myself from buying anything else once I reached a certain point so with the two games below completed, I am down to 17 games left to complete. And I forget, do we have a thread related to backlog discussions on this forum? I can't seem to find one.

 

First, I finally played through The Walking Dead Season One. It was a really good game with a really good story. This was my first time experiencing a game with a timer on dialog choices and I thought it was really effective in encouraging me to make more natural gut decisions. I found each episode thoroughly entertaining and I really think the fairly limited interaction made for a much more engaging experience. I'm kind of tempted to play through again and make different choices to see what happens but at the same time I feel like I had "my" experience and I might just want to keep it that way. We shall see.

 

I also just finished Hotline Miami. Man, it takes a bit to really get the hang of it but once everything clicks, it feels really good to harness the chaos and effortlessly string together a bunch of kills. I remember a distinct point where in a matter of a few minutes, the game went from "fairly difficult and slightly frustrating" to "I know how all this shit works now and I know exactly what I need to do to wreck these dudes". After finishing the bonus missions and whatnot, I played through the first few levels again and was amazed at how much better I had gotten. I think originally it took me about 2 hours to get through the first five missions but going through them a second time, I probably knocked them all out in about 20-30 minutes and got a much better score on each one. Also, it probably helped that I switched to using a 360 controller at one point.

 

Now on to Cart Life...

[JonCole]

And I forget, do we have a thread related to backlog discussions on this forum? I can't seem to find one.

 

I made this one a long time ago, but it's been quite out of use - https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/6812-backlog-busters/

 

(also lol I only beat one of the games I mentioned in the OP)

[Zeusthecat]

Thanks Jon. If I can muster up the motivation, I'll jump in there and post my list.

[Twig]

For steam specific backlog bustin', I actually like this website: http://www.steamcompletionist.net/

[cyrix]

that's a neat site, much slicker than backloggery but of course steam only, also it's listing games i'm certain i don't own so maybe F2P stuff and free weekend games are messing with it.

[Twig]

AFAIK it only lists f2p games you've actually played. I have no games on my list that I don't own or (if free) haven't played.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I had a quick gander and it does include stuff that Steam separates in your library from the main game like Betas or multiplayer versions of a game that are launched separately from the main game.

[Twig]

Easy enough to blacklist anyway.

[Tanukitsune]

Since it looks like I'd still need backloggery.com for non Steam games I think I'd rather stick with it.

 

Speaking of which, I just beat an adventure game on Steam I didn't even know that existed called "Haunted", a name I find hard to believe hasn't been used yet. I got when an indie bundle and expected it to be an "IHOG" game, only to find out it was an adventure and then... I found it was a Deck 13 game, you know the people who the very boring Ankh and Jack Keane games?

 

The writing is bland and the characters are wooden, but it does have interesting moments (the cathedral) and I really REALLY enjoyed the puzzles, many of them pull off the "cartoon logic" puzzle very well, but the most interesting thing about the game is the ghost mechanic. 

 

The main character can see and talk to ghost and uses their powers to help her in her adventure, Oscar the pirate can touch things that would harm the protagonist, William is giant Scotsman that has slain many Englishmen but can only touch thing that have been "touched by Death", you mean someone who claims to be Confucius and since water was involved in his death, he was water powers. You also have a ghost wolf that can sniff things out and dig and the ghost of a goldfish that is somehow a mermaid that is only ghost that can fly.

 

The game even has a bonus chapter, where they dump ALL the Lucasarts references at once and perhaps even to Simon the Sorcerer?

 

Frankly, it's far from game of the year material, but it's in a super cheap bundle and I'm just happy to see Deck 13 do a good job for once! 

[dartmonkey]

Just finished Mario Galaxy 2 with all 242 stars. I did 120 a few years ago but after finishing Sunshine I thought I'd finish up the rest before my Wii U arrives. It was an absolute pleasure going back to it and giving Luigi a chance for the limelight. I won't miss the Grandmaster Galaxy perfect run though - I spent about 4 hours just attempting that!

 

I also finished Device 6 a while back ago after upgrading from a Stone Age iphone 1 to a Medieval iphone 4. An interesting little experience with a great ending.

 

 

You're in for a real treat with Super Castlevania IV. It's tricky, sure, but never too hard imo, and has one of the best soundtracks ever, to boot. A real feast for the senses. I don't know if you like "AVGN" (that handle put me off his videos for ages until I actually watched a few for myself) but he recently did a two parter about it, where he played with a friend. Not spitting fury over it because he loves it, and it's a bit of a nostalgia trip. Worth a look.

 

You know, I've never really watched videos, except if I need help getting obscure secret collectables or things like that, but perhaps they'd be a good way to dip in to these old games and get a feel for them beforehand.

[Tanukitsune]

I've been playing more "Halloweeny" games:

 

-Splatter Blood Red Edition: It's a game from the Zombie Shooter series with Max Payne styled cutscenes. It's one of the "dumb" shooters where shooting zombies is fun and not a chore, the only noteworthy thing else I can say it that the game has side mission and despite the whole "Max Payne" vibe it has, it's more upbeat than most zombie games.

 

-Dead Nation: Another twin stick zombie shooter, nothing much to say about it expect that cooler weapon has so little ammo it's almost funny.

 

-Resident Evil 6: Was did people hate this game again? People it's too long, but the game is divided in campaigns which you can beat in 5-6 hours. Sure it's more like RE5 and is not really a survival horror game but an action game, but I found the plot as cheesy as a normal RE game, which was a plus. It's a goofy action game with ridiculous bosses that are like flesh Transformers, how can anybody hate this adorable goofball of a game?

[kaputt]

Finished Uncharted 3 (again) recently, and in this second (or third, can't remember) playthrough I just realized that I love this game even with it's flaws. It's visuals are amazing, truly unmatched on last gen, and playing it on a TV instead of a PC Monitor (like I used to) really helped with it. You can see the limitations, but some stuff on it are just incredible, like the per object motion blur, which really improves the animation quality.

I love some stuff that they do to make the game more "cinematic", but one of their big mistakes with this title was going too far with that. For example, the melee sequences are a bit weird because the camera angle changes a lot, it feels inconsistent with the "imersion" they try to achieve.

Anyway, really loved this game this time, even with the pretty unremarkable and shallow story.

[Bjorn]

I've been playing more "Halloweeny" games:

 

-Resident Evil 6: Was did people hate this game again? People it's too long, but the game is divided in campaigns which you can beat in 5-6 hours. Sure it's more like RE5 and is not really a survival horror game but an action game, but I found the plot as cheesy as a normal RE game, which was a plus. It's a goofy action game with ridiculous bosses that are like flesh Transformers, how can anybody hate this adorable goofball of a game?

 

It is the only core/numbered RE game I haven't been able to finish, not even in co-op. I can't say I hate it, I just found it to be disappointing and it didn't do anything that made me want to play it more.

[Zeusthecat]

I recently finished Cart Life. Going into it, there was so much about this game that I liked and I was almost sure I was going to love it. Unfortunately, it didn't quite pan out and in the end I didn't really enjoy it at all.

 

The first issue I had was with overall stability. The game either crashed or froze on me multiple times and each time I had to restart from the beginning of whatever day I was on. In a weird way, this turned out to be a good thing in some cases because of the second issue I had with the game: time moved too goddamn fast. I actually had to restart about 4 times because of all the trial and error that went into finding out where I needed to go to get to whatever store/building/person I needed to get to. Even after multiple restarts I wasn't able to start actually selling anything until day 3 or 4 because of all the time it took to take my daughter to school, pick her up every day, and travel between all the places I needed to go to get the various things I needed (which was incredibly vague until I had played through enough times to pick up on everything I would need). The more I played it, the more frustrated I got with the shitty time scaling. If this is supposed to be a retail simulator it would be nice if time actually ran at a pace where it was actually only taking 30 minutes of in game time to do something that might take me 30 minutes in real life (instead of the 3 hours that pass while I do nothing more than ask a character a few questions and buy a couple of items). I seriously cannot stress enough how much this aspect of the game soured my experience.

 

The most glaring issue, however, was the overall length of the game. Even with the other issues I mentioned, I felt like I was almost to a point where everything was going to start falling into place and I would really be able to start 'living' in this world. I finally got the ingredients I needed to have a good variety of items, I had had a couple days of successful sales and was really digging the mechanics behind getting to know the customers and getting their shit prepared in a timely manner, and I had more or less figured out what routine I needed to follow to pick my daughter up every day and make whatever other stops I needed. And then it just fucking ended on day 7. I never would have even gotten close to being able to upgrade my cart, I had barely talked to like 4 people because it ate up so much of my already limited time, and I barely made maybe $150 dollars. I am still utterly confused as to why this game was designed to give the impression that there would be all these great systems and people and different products and equipment to experiment with only to give me a giant middle finger in the end. I am honestly still wondering if I played the same game that got so much critical praise because I can't imagine anyone going through this and feeling like they had anything resembling a complete experience.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I had a similar feeling with Cart Life that put me off trying to play it proper. I figured time being your enemy was a big part of the point but it seems like time is so vindictively screwing you over with unrealistic timeframes. And also when I was playing, everyone kept saying how important it was I get a cart. And I could not figure out where to get one for dayyyyys. And no progress was made either, except by process of elimination, determining where I could not get a cart. It's a shame because I wanted to try it with all the praise but the way it was structured it made it so time pushed aggressively instead of just being a looming benevolent force.

[Zeusthecat]

I had a similar feeling with Cart Life that put me off trying to play it proper. I figured time being your enemy was a big part of the point but it seems like time is so vindictively screwing you over with unrealistic timeframes. And also when I was playing, everyone kept saying how important it was I get a cart. And I could not figure out where to get one for dayyyyys. And no progress was made either, except by process of elimination, determining where I could not get a cart. It's a shame because I wanted to try it with all the praise but the way it was structured it made it so time pushed aggressively instead of just being a looming benevolent force.

 

For me, the worst offender was the courthouse. It took me forever to figure out that there was another screen if you walked all the way to the right-hand side of the Downtown district and that that was where the courthouse was. Most other areas seemed to just be one screen that took you back to the map if you walked past either edge of the screen.

 

One thing I will give the game credit for though is how awesomely I got scolded when I neglected to pick my daughter up on the first day (again because of how stupidly fast time runs). I tried to just play it off to my sister like it was no big deal and her response made me feel like such a horrible parent. Man, if only the game went on long enough to give more experiences like that...

[SuperBiasedMan]

For me, the worst offender was the courthouse. It took me forever to figure out that there was another screen if you walked all the way to the right-hand side of the Downtown district and that that was where the courthouse was. Most other areas seemed to just be one screen that took you back to the map if you walked past either edge of the screen.

 

One thing I will give the game credit for though is how awesomely I got scolded when I neglected to pick my daughter up on the first day (again because of how stupidly fast time runs). I tried to just play it off to my sister like it was no big deal and her response made me feel like such a horrible parent. Man, if only the game went on long enough to give more experiences like that...

 

I had trouble when I spent way too long trying to find a room in the courthouse one day only to realise I had the wrong day... and I had wasted a whole day on it.

I thought it was really great at making you feel like you screwed with that, and when I went to meet my ex in the courthouse and he was there on time with the judge. They were both super accommodating assholes and I was a mess with lofty ambitions of a cart when I didn't even know where to buy a cart and I was just lugging around a shopping bag full of ground coffee, sugar and milk.

 

It was really good at making you feel shit and lost in those moments, it just didn't manage to do it without having to cheat you on how it structures time.

[elmuerte]

Finished Uncharted 3 (again) recently, and in this second (or third, can't remember) playthrough I just realized that I love this game even with it's flaws. It's visuals are amazing, truly unmatched on last gen, and playing it on a TV instead of a PC Monitor (like I used to) really helped with it. You can see the limitations, but some stuff on it are just incredible, like the per object motion blur, which really improves the animation quality.

I love some stuff that they do to make the game more "cinematic", but one of their big mistakes with this title was going too far with that. For example, the melee sequences are a bit weird because the camera angle changes a lot, it feels inconsistent with the "imersion" they try to achieve.

Anyway, really loved this game this time, even with the pretty unremarkable and shallow story.

 

I would love to replay all the Uncharted games, but I'm really not looking forward to the various dumb fights, especially nearing the end.