Recently completed video games

[Tanukitsune]

When I bought Age of Empires II HD, I thought I had made a mistake.... The closest thing in strategy I like are the Civ games and yet... I saw what was similar to it in this game and enjoyed it! 

 

Sure, I like Civ better since I can take my people from the "almost stone age" to modern times, while Age of Empires is only from Dark Ages to... less Dark Ages? I just built my town and only cared about upgrading it, I put it on easy since I'm not here to fight and was delighted to find out that in the end, I didn't even have to fight if I built a Wonder.

 

I wonder if I should bother to try the actual campaign, but I don't think they'll be much "upgrading" in those scenarios.

 

Anyway, I still like Civ better, but I did really enjoy the "skirmish" I had. I wonder if there are other game like these two were I can just play on easy and be left alone to create and nurture my people?

[JonCole]

When I bought Age of Empires II HD, I thought I had made a mistake.... The closest thing in strategy I like are the Civ games and yet... I saw what was similar to it in this game and enjoyed it! 

 

Sure, I like Civ better since I can take my people from the "almost stone age" to modern times, while Age of Empires is only from Dark Ages to... less Dark Ages? I just built my town and only cared about upgrading it, I put it on easy since I'm not here to fight and was delighted to find out that in the end, I didn't even have to fight if I built a Wonder.

 

I wonder if I should bother to try the actual campaign, but I don't think they'll be much "upgrading" in those scenarios.

 

Anyway, I still like Civ better, but I did really enjoy the "skirmish" I had. I wonder if there are other game like these two were I can just play on easy and be left alone to create and nurture my people?

 

There are a handful of missions where you basically just defend an area or build a wonder or something, but much of the campaign is a general "kill everything" type deal or "take this small number of units and prevail in directed, scripted scenes" missions. The balance of mission types is pretty similar to something like Starcraft or something.

 

That said, I did enjoy most of the campaigns for that game. The setup is that the original game (Age of Kings) and the expansion (Conquerors) each have four or five separate campaigns following the historical battles relating to a certain civilization or historical figure over time. I'd recommend the fourth campaign in the expansion over the rest, called "Battles of the Conquerors" because it contains a handful of one-off missions that let you try out a range of civs in a variety of mission types. If you wanted to try one story-based campaign, I'd recommend Saladin, Montezuma, or El Cid.

[Tanukitsune]

If they can be played on easy too I might give at least one of the campaigns a go. 

[TheLastBaron]

I finished a game for the first time in a long while. I played through Attack of the Friday Monsters yesterday and I liked it. I think the story itself might work better in a movie (not to say it didn't work in the game, but it really felt like something that would make a good Ghibli type film). What I liked most about the game was just walking around and taking in the ambience, which makes me really wish that any of the Boku no Natsuyasumi would get localized.

[Sno]

How is that AOE2HD? Is it a good version of the game?

[JonCole]

How is that AOE2HD? Is it a good version of the game?

 

It's indiscernibly HD, more like the HD remakes on consoles with no new textures but things rendered at HD quality. That said, it's a heck of a lot easier to run than the disc-based old version on my current PC and the additions they made are fairly conservative and good. There's also that expansion they recently released, with bigger map sizes and some new races and junk, which may warrant a repurchase. I just know I loved AOE2 back in the day and sucked up that nostalgia like it was the tastiest treat.

[Frenetic Pony]

Brothers

 

I don't get all the love. The story isn't especially interesting. It's cleverly presented, and not something you'd get away with in Hollywood, but the entirety of it could be a one or two page short story, and I guess it didn't really connect with me that much. And beyond the story there's not much there, it looks nice enough. Really well "put together" but except for the ending sequence isn't really that imaginative. The puzzles are a cute distraction and nothing more, though I did like the glider sequence just for the fun of it. I was much more impressed with Gone Home. Because while that had some issues of being railroaded and the foreshadowing just leaping out at me (she's an angsty teenage lesbian! I said to myself in the first 2 minutes), I still connected with the story and enjoyed the ending a lot more than I did with Brothers.

 

Going through The Swapper now, and will be playing Saints Row 4 as well. I already kind of like The Swapper more, but I'm sorry I listened to the Giantbombcast stuff about it. Because really I think the air of mystery is a huge part, and having it spoiled for me might be detracting from that already.

[Tanukitsune]

I just played a quick game of Age of Empires III, it had the perfect "difficulty setting" for me... sandbox mode, where people would leave me alone unless I attacked them first.

 

I couldn't figure out where to build cannons, but I just created a bunch of my best cavalry unit and they worked like a charm!  It's just like II but in colonial America and you barely evolve that much...

 

I'm not sure which version I like best, I think II HD was easier to understand, but III has "missions" instead of relics, which are more interesting.

[toblix]

The entirety of [brothers] could be a one or two page short story

I disagree with extreme power but I'm on my phone so.

[elmuerte]

depends on the font size I guess

[TychoCelchuuu]

You can sum up basically any game, movie, or book in one or two pages. Star Wars is about a farm boy who finds out his father was a warrior, joins up with an old warrior and a rogue to rebel against the evil empire, rescues the princess from the giant space station, then blows up the space station. That was just a sentence. Imagine if I had two pages! I could've gone into detail about basically every scene. So just because a game can be described in a short stretch doesn't mean that it's bad. You could CERTAINLY sum up the story of Gone Home in two pages.

[Tanukitsune]

Almost every game ever in two words: You win.

 

Anyway, I know I said I "beat" Age of Empires III, but now I've actually done the campaign. All I did was use cheats to summed a giant busts of "George Crushington" and lay waste to everything... I'm not ashamed, it was was fun and glorious! "Check in your wallet. That's me on the dollar bill."

 

I'm sorry, but if any strategy game has a broken unit like this that can only be accessed through cheats and is this gloriously silly... Screw the gameplay, that's ALL I'll use! 

 

The plot was so-so, it touches on some important historical moments but it's mostly about the fountain of youth. I certainly didn't expect to help Simon Bolivar, that's for sure.

[toblix]

I found a keyboard! My point was that while you could certainly sum up the plot of Brothers in a couple of pages, that wouldn't include any of the truly good parts of that game, such as the visual design and the whole clever thing with the controls.

[elmuerte]

Dishonored Witches Of Something

Just in time before getting dishonored tired. The best thing about the 2 DLC for Dishonored is that it comes full circle with the main game.

This DLC is just like the other DLC more of the same of Dishonored, just a few more missions. And right now, I'm tired of the dishonored gameplay, so it's great that everything is wrapped up. Sadly I wasn't able to ghost the DLC, apparently I alarmed someone somewhere. Also, in the prison I received credit for a prisoner being killed because I opened his door. That's rather lame.

In the prison I also sprang some guy who got out unharmed. But he never returned a favor as far as I know, which is rather lame.

[Frenetic Pony]

You can sum up basically any game, movie, or book in one or two pages. Star Wars is about a farm boy who finds out his father was a warrior, joins up with an old warrior and a rogue to rebel against the evil empire, rescues the princess from the giant space station, then blows up the space station. That was just a sentence. Imagine if I had two pages! I could've gone into detail about basically every scene. So just because a game can be described in a short stretch doesn't mean that it's bad. You could CERTAINLY sum up the story of Gone Home in two pages.

 

No I mean, there is literally almost nothing that happens in Brothers, and yes I noticed the environmental storytelling and I'm including that. I grant you, it probably can affect others way more than it did me, but you can't honestly call it a hugely in depth or lengthy experience. What it made you FEEL, ok sure write about that all you want. What it actually presented is a different matter.

 

And for a game taking several hours with it's story being about the only thing to hinge on, well that just wasn't enough for me.

[darthbator]

I finished the new DmC : Devil May Cry (which is my new favorite abbreviation! DmC : DMC). All in all I thought it was a pretty fun beat em up. It's been a while since I've played a DmC game but I was pretty impressed by what Ninja Theory did in their level and scenario design. Some of the boss encounters and watching the levels contort and warp around you is extremely impressive. The story is largely forgettable nonsense but actually manages an interestingly presented emotional moment around the half way mark (although it mitigates it's impact shortly thereafter). All in all I would recommend it if you can find it at a discount, it's a fun 6-7 hour romp. 

[Sno]

I just finished playing "The Swapper" and i think that is just a tremendous game. I love the quiet existential horror vibe, I wasn't expecting such a moody sci-fi setting.

They get a lot of mileage out of their gimmick, the game comes across as particularly Portal-like at times, it very much has that sort of progression that leads you through learning to use your one trick in new ways. However, i think some of the puzzles near the end of the game get away from the strengths of the game by occuring in very confined and rigidly controlled environments.

 

Wasn't at all what i expected it to be though, i feel bad for having largely ignored it up until now.

It's a really bad title for the game.

I'm going to blame the title.

[Bjorn]

XCOM: Enemy Within:  Finished my first playthrough of the new content on Normal/Ironman.  It's one of the most impressive expansions I've ever seen.  Everything feels like it fits naturally, freshens up the game and makes another playthrough or two totally worth it.  Mecs and gene mods make some pretty awesome changes in how you approach each encounter.  There are multiple new "scripted" story missions, all of which are a ton of fun.  And the map variety is much, much, much better.  I wasn't dreading shooting down UFOs the way that I had in previous vanilla games. 

 

My only complaints would be that the expansion doesn't address two of the flaws of the original.  The satellite rush needed for success at the beginning still feels poorly thought out.  And the endgame on Normal was laughably easy with the new super-soldiers.  I was just going through the motions to finish it to unlock the other Second Wave options, as I had never finished a game on PC (originally played it on 360). 

 

Next up, looking forward to turning on a ton of Second Wave options (particularly Training Roulette that randomizes all classes skills) to see what that's like.  Hoping for a Sniper with Bulletstorm and DoubleTap

[Stuart]

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

 

The fact that this happens to be the game that I first post about in here says a lot about how fucking amazing it is. It's one of the few games this year I finished, and am super glad I did. It's just a monstrous marvel of a game, one that embraces its medium so perfectly that the experience cannot, I repeat, CANNOT be replicated in any other medium. I am so floored, moved, and astounded by this game that it makes me nuts. Never have I played a game so confident, so resounding, so extraordinarily human in such a long time.

 

Nothing feels like filler, nothing is out of place. THIS is what I want games to be. Games that express themselves from how you interact with its systems and create thematic meaning from them. Hopefully, years from now, this game will be taught as an exemplar piece of ludonarrative. I am anxious when that day comes. I'm nearly in tears right now thinking back on my experience that just ended. Oh, how I wish I'd forget just relive it again. But, I will remember it. I shall never, ever forget it. And I'm glad I will. Such a masterpiece.

 

Goddamn, this game, DIS GAME.

[BadHat]

Also Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

 

I guess this is my first post here too! About time I finished a game, figured it should be this one since I gifted it to a couple people and they already beat it before me.

 

I could talk about some of the quibbles I had with this game, or the oddities that occurred to me as I moved through its picturesque world, but instead I'll just say this: tonight I was feeling depressed. Some things were weighing pretty heavily on me and sleep wasn't cooperating, so I decided I'd play a game to distract myself instead. I finished this in one sitting (with a cat asleep on my lap for most of it) and now I feel like a million bucks. There are certainly criticisms to be made of it, but I was so utterly enamored with it that I'm inclined not to care. It's beautiful, and touching, and sometimes downright inspired. That's enough for me.

 

I give it

 

[Tanukitsune]

Lilly Looking Through: This is a KS game that I don't regret skipping the funding part and waiting for it to appear on Steam... on sale.

 

While it's not bad, it has charm and "whimsy", the puzzles are trials and error.... ALL OF THEM! And even with a walkthrough they are almost painfully time consuming, which is weird since it's such a short game. And I don't to "spoil it" but the ending has such a sequel bait "this is just the beginning" vibe to it.

 

At the very first screen it's almost Samorost-y and the game kinda give you clues, "See how this reacts to this? Remember that", but after the first screen NOTHING is explained. It's either pull levers until you can access the next screen.

 

And the moon logic is pretty high here... apparently icicles MELT ice? 

[Frenetic Pony]

Ok, I'm not going to beat it, but I'm still playing Saints Row 4 and will continue to play it for quite a while. Because god damn is it awesome. It's not even Saints Row in anything but a superficial sense.

 

The first... forty minutes? Of the game are awesome in an abstractly ludicrous way. You start out by taking out terrorists and saving the world in a grinning mockery of Call of Duty, which "unlocks" "the adoration of the American public" as well as "Presidency of the United States." Then you make your character, which includes 3 ridiculous male voices, 3 ridiculous female voices and an option that's just "Nolan North" and yes it is Nolan North. Then Keith David comes in, playing Keith David, even though he played a character that looked like Keith David in Saints Row 1 and 2. And then aliens invade, and stick you into the Matrix, at which point you get Super Powers.

 

It's by far the funnest Saints Row since 1. The clear jabs at everything, including itself, other games, movies, anything and everything are pretty funny. I burst out laughing at the clear bitch slap to the "writing" and "romancing" of Mass Effect 2 and 3. And it's just plain fun, in a mindless and stupid sort of way. Definitely

[SecretAsianMan]

Guacamelee: Fun Metroidvania game with a luchadore theme and style, but with some really unexpectedly difficult and frustrating platforming.  The worst sections are optional but it's the only thing keeping me from getting 100%, which most likely means I never will.  A bit short too but I'd still recommend it.

[Griddlelol]

Gone Home

 

It's why I love the medium so much. If you haven't played it; do it as soon as possible. I regret waiting this long since the release. 

 

Portal 2

 

Good day, two great games finished. I really liked it, and obviously everyone on here knows why the Portal games are good, but it's too long! The original left me wanting more, which I got from user created maps etc. I was bored of 2 by chapter 7, so 8 felt like a slog that I dragged on for months. It's not even a particularly long game, but I wish it had been an hour or two shorter, and I'd have loved it rather than just liked it.

[Yasawas]

Super Mario 3D World done! Pure magic from start to finish and very possibly my favourite 3D Mario game.