Reviews Rate the game you finished/retired

[bobnowhere]

65. Transformers: War for Cybertron - Pretty good 3D shootfest. You play half the game as each faction though both sections barely differ, enemies are red or blue depending on your faction, no real enemy variation, characters are just carbon copies each side... Some fun spectacular moments and good variation in boss fights. ★★★ 1/2


Don't think you can get it on PC anymore unless you go to grey market sites, still available for Ps3/360 though prices are going up and up.

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Void Bastards



This is definitely one of the best rogue-likes I've ever played. The shooting mechanics are excellent, there are lots of weapons, perks and upgrades and the concept with the oxygen, generators and security works really well. Very recommended!

Score: 9.0/10

 

[Mivey]

Death Stranding

Finished this yesterday, it took me 50 hours overall.

I went into this expecting nothing, and without really knowing anything about the game beforehand and it's easily one of the most interesting games I have ever played. I can see why Kojima wanted to do other games than Metal Gear Solid for so long (to the point of always saying it's going to be his final title in the series). Death Stranding has some really interesting ideas on how to challenge the player, other than giving you a gun and expecting to shoot people or sneak through an area without getting shot. It's incredible how the very idea of delivering packages becomes this super interesting interactive experience. The actual terrain and weather are you real enemies in Death Stranding, and all other dangers feel like extensions of a very twisted nature.

Another thing I ended up liking in Death Stranding is the story telling. Mostly because it tells the story without explicitly telling you what's going on. Sure, you get tons of info drops on the world and how the post- Death Stranding world has changed, but that's just the backdrop, that's not the plot. The plot is about Sam Porter Bridges, and how his effort to reconnect humanity is really his own effort to reconnect with other people himself. There's a ton of the typical Kojima silliness , but it's impressive how prescient and relevant the core message of Death Stranding -- building bridges and connections inside a divided and isolated country - - is in post-Covid 2020.

My only real criticism of Death Stranding is that perhaps it's a bit too long. The second area could have been reduced in size by quite a bit, or at least most of it should have been optional, allowing the critical path to proceed faster.

I rate this game 6 out of 10 BBs (via random number generator)

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Vampyr



This is a tough one to review. The storytelling, game world and characters are absolutely amazing. On the other hand, the combat is one of the worst I've played in the past few years. Be prepared to take damage without enemy weapons actually hitting you, and you'll often be butchered while being stunned by enemies outside the camera view. The terrible lock-on system doesn't help either.

What's even more frustrating: when you die, all enemies and undefeated bosses are revived at full health, but the potions and ammo you used are gone forever. This means when you used all your potions during a boss fight and you die, you have to backtrack to the nearest resting point to craft new potions, and if you don't have enough materials you need to grind them by attacking random enemies as well. This is a terrible design decision that has no place in modern gaming.

Tldr: the game is recommended for the story telling, but be sure to play on easiest difficulty to prevent LOTS of frustration.

Score: 5.9/10

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Finished Amnesia: Rebirth (PC., EGS)

I summed up my feelings in the main thread earlier but my impressions are the same.

It's disappointing to see that Frictional have only really moved backwards after Soma, as this is just another straight up no frills Amnesia title; nothing that they learned from Soma is brought here to expand the experience. And tbh at this point the Amnesia experience as is from more than 10 years ago now (if you count from Penumbra) is a bit trite.
The novelty of the premise behind it is a bit thin now; we've seen it before.

It can still be very tense in places from an atmospheric pov, but tbh fumbling around in the dark trying to figure out what to do with no light is just a bit frustrating now.

Finished Dark Pictures: Little Hope (PC, Steam)



Ok I seem to be in a minority but I quite liked Man of Medan, and coming from that this is disappointing.
For one main reason really more than anything is that the plot is really quite slow so it kills a lot of the tension.
As an additional point though, the ending is straight up weak. I won't spoil it but it really gives off a feeling of "well nothing you did actually mattered"

 

[bobnowhere]

Ge0force Agree with you on Void Bastards and Vampyr. Loved VB, I can still hear that woooooo sound Juve's make. Game had such an intelligent use of visual and aural cues. Was my GOTY that year.

I eventually just downloaded a trainer for Vampyr, set it to invincible and powered through. The punishment for playing good was really really annoying.

Watch Dogs: Legion on PC, PS4, and Xbox One | Ubisoft (UK)

Official Website. Watch Dogs: Legion delivers a never-before-seen gameplay innovation that allows you to recruit and play as anyone you see in the iconic city of London.

www.ubisoft.com

66. Watch Dogs: Legion - Not sure if removing set characters and replacing them with generated ones really worked. The idea is fantastic but in the end the game gave you so many ways to play that aren't needed. It was so easy on normal I just played two characters, a sassy Indian woman who could summon cargo drones and an Italian spy with the worst accent of all time. The writing of the characters was also atrocious, not sure if any of the writers had even been to London. City building wise, the last two WDs are unparalleled yet they still struggle to fill them with interesting content. Collectables? Really? Probably the most enjoyable of the franchise but still generic. ★★★ 1/2

Probably wouldn't have paid for the month of uplay+ for this alone, Valhalla sealed the deal.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

So I've really been enjoying reading and occasionally posting in this thread - congrats to Geoforce for starting a success

In fact, I've been finding it so useful, I took the time to add every review in the thread to a Google Doc! So if you want to look up if / when / how a game was reviewed here, you can do it a tad more quickly and reliably than using the board's search function. Also use the little filter icon, switch to "Default Filter" and sort the "Game Title" column alphabetically for easy browsing. The default order is the order in which the reviews were posted.

A fun stat, because everybody loves a fun stat: The most reviewed game thus far was: Death Stranding. Okay, that wasn't so much fun, but then it's a three column table, not a character generator telemetry database.

Have fun and keep posting. I'll be updating the sheet at least once a week.

 

[lashman]

In fact, I've been finding it so useful, I took the time to add every review in the thread to a Google Doc! So if you want to look up if / when / how a game was reviewed here, you can do it a tad more quickly and reliably than using the board's search function. Also use the little filter icon, switch to "Default Filter" and sort the "Game Title" column alphabetically for easy browsing. The default order is the order in which the reviews were posted.

paging Ge0force

also - you can embed google docs

 

[Bonfires Down]

I enjoy this thread a lot. It’s the primary reason I keep checking back here regularly.

 

[C-Dub]

I've thoroughly enjoyed writing little mini-reviews for this thread. I don't have the time to commit to fully-editing a proper review like I used to 7-10 years ago, because writing is hard, but being able to share my thoughts with some people has been nice. Really great work in putting together that document, Virtual Ruminant.

 

[Ge0force]

In fact, I've been finding it so useful, I took the time to add every review in the thread to a Google Doc!

What a great idea! Thanks for making this thread even better m8!

 

[sk2k]

Amnesia: Rebirth
5/10

Uhh, what happened with Frictional Games? SOMA was sooo good. Amnesia: Rebirth is a confusing mess of ideas.
They rubbed non-stop the story in my face. Memory flashbacks, more memory flashbacks, notes, journals, and the not ending babbling of the player character.

Also:

• boring levels
• annoying monsters instead scary monsters
• easy puzzles

...
EDIT: I forgot another bad thing. The fear effect set in too quickly. This was done MUCH BETTER in Amnesia: TDD.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Completed The Last Campfire (Hello Games, 2020)

This is a glowing (eh? eh!?) little gem of a game, and despite it being somewhat unique, it's really easy to explain, too: Imagine a DS/3DS Zelda game, but with just the puzzles instead of combat and also about half the size / length (my relaxed 100% run took me 10 hours). And that's The Last Campfire. The similarities with Zelda aren't just superficial either, there even is the Zelda staple of a magical prop that's part of the main game mechanic (manipulating/moving certain objects in the puzzle levels), and it's a musical instrument, too.

Pro:

• It's the classic action-adventure formula of explore map, have short conversations with NPCs, find and solve puzzles, unlock progress to different parts of the map, find collectibles - minus swinging a sword at things and, consequently, minus the peril of dying. What's not to love?
• Lovely art direction, voice-over, music and tight level design. If anybody needed proof that Hello Games, now famous (and previously infamous) for creating No Man's Sky, can actually design a game and not just interconnect various generative systems, here it is.
• In contrast to the classic Hero's journey plot of most action adventures including the Zelda games, this game is much more poetic - everything is a metaphor, everything is symbolic, it elegantly ends where it begins, not with you beating up Ganon.

Con:

• The EGS version, which I played, is a little more tightly bound to the EG launcher than most games and as such was a bit of a pain to add and launch from Steam. And even after I managed to, it's one of those games that will always escape the Steam overlay, and therefore Steam Link, Steam streaming etc. If any of these are important for you, wait for release on Steam or look at other platforms.
• Minor quibbles:
  • The aforementioned magical prop lets you move the camera in ways that occasionally let you look inside level geometry, a flaw that seems odd, given how super tight and neat the level design is otherwise. It doesn't break anything or let you cheat, it just looks funny when it happens.​
  • There are HUD elements the game never bothers to point out or explain, but are in fact super-useful for finding the collectibles. Common flaw in games these days, this sort of information used to be in the printed manuals tucked away in boxes and jewel cases and now that those usually don't even exist in PDF form anymore and game designers bristle at every minute spent on tutorials that could possibly be cut, discovering and understanding them is often left as an exercise (or another puzzle) for the player.​

5/5

Previously reviewed in this thread here and here.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Completed The Last Campfire (Hello Games, 2020)

This is a glowing (eh? eh!?) little gem of a game, and despite it being somewhat unique, it's really easy to explain, too: Imagine a DS/3DS Zelda game, but with just the puzzles instead of combat and also about half the size / length (my relaxed 100% run took me 10 hours). And that's The Last Campfire. The similarities with Zelda aren't just superficial either, there even is the Zelda staple of a magical prop that's part of the main game mechanic (manipulating/moving certain objects in the puzzle levels), and it's a musical instrument, too.

If you haven't played Ittle Dew and want more of this then see if that scratches the same itch. It's very much just 2D Zelda style puzzles for the entire game as you get a small handful of items that have different uses. Very well designed if you really dig into things as pretty much every puzzle has a designed way of breaking it that's far from obvious.

 

[sk2k]

4/10
Playtime: 4.5 hours

It's a short psycho horror walking sim which could have been shorter. There are so much filler scenes in this game... Price is too high.
Graphics are good, animations are bad. Runs good on my potato (i5 6500, GTX1070, 16GB RAM).

The game wants to deliver a serious message about drug abuse, anxiety and depression and it fails with that. Some scenes (like certain chase scenes) feel like bad comedy or something.

 

[bobnowhere]

67. Close to the Sun - Really quite good but completely forgotten about. Beautiful design, vast areas as good as anything AAA games can produce. The moment you walk into the theatre, you realise they went all out here. Fun characters and a setting cribbing hard from Bioshock. You play the sister of one of the researchers on a boat responding to a call for help and once you arrive on this bastion of free thought and research you realise, predictably, it's all gone to hell in a hand basket. The controller could use a bit of work though, the contextual stuff was too precise making it hard to do things quickly. A little more leeway in where you were pointing could have helped especially in the chase scenes. ★★★★ 1/2

 

[Joe Spangle]

I finished Deliver us the Moon.




Enjoyable walking sim with some very nice graphics. Took around 4.5 hours to complete so can be done in a weekend. Decent story about a future earth that gets its power sent from the moon where something has gone wrong and you are sent to investigate. Had enough variety in puzzles to keep me interested. Only a few frustrating little bits but overall i liked it. Looked really good with RTX on.
I had to edit the ini file to get it into 4k as the game has some weird issues but one quick check on the Steam forum told me what to do (forums are trash right!)

8/10

 

[Ge0force]

Finished* Battle Chasers Nightwars



Excellent RPG with exciting turn-based combat and randomized dungeons. You can pick 3 fighters out of 6 available characters, each with unique perks and abilities. You unlock more buffs and attacks by leveling up, which kept the combat interesting for me until the very end. There's also a unique overcharge mechanic, allowing you to extend your mana supply to make your attacks and buffs more powerful. This works really well and makes the combat even more tactical than other games in this genre.

There are a few issues tho:

- only the characters in your party gain experience. So unless you're willing to do hours of grinding, experimenting with different characters isn't an option

- when your party dies, you respawn at full health and mana, but all potions you used during the failed battle are lost. You need materials to craft new ones, which means you'll have to grind to continue. Seriously devs, stop doing this!

- the final boss is a huge leap in difficulty after the last dungeon. I wasn't able to get it's health under 50% before all my lvl28 characters were 1-hit killed. I gave up after a dozen of tries and watched the ending on YouTube.

Still, this game is very recommended because of the amazing combat and beautiful graphics.

Score: 8.1/1o

 

[gabbo]

Catherine Classic
From a gameplay standpoint, each level/floor is fantastic, learning the new strategies from the sheep and trying to work them around whatever random new mechanic obstacle that floor throws at you is a lot of fun. This is the kind of game I can 'get gud' at.

The story, cheesy as all hell and I loved it (and I hate anime and anime games generally). Vincent was a lovable naive oaf who gets a decent arc and progression even if said arc is as far grounded as can be in the end. You can still feel for the guy (especially when he's so shocked he goes cross-eyed) That being said, the story was implemented in the worst way.. I really enjoyed the voice acting and cutscenes, but they always felt like they could have been implemented better so at o not get in the way of the actual gameplay. I would skip anything that wasn't Vincent talking at the bar or the strategy sheep, because it literally didnt add anything. The confessional, unless the different endings reveal more is just a waste of time. Drop the confessional scenes altogether and integrate those into the bar bits. It also dragged on too long at the end. As great as I felt climbing that last set of blocks, the entire last level felt like it was added to justify the story and not the other way around.

The gameplay is a solid 9/10. The story, also a goofy 9/10. but together like a 7.5 because as good as everything is in isolation, the story gets in the way of the gameplay too much for its own good.., I'd recommend it wholeheartedly, just maybe keep the skip button handy at all times.

 

[fantomena]

Finished Watch Dogs: Legion (PC - Ubisoft Connect +)

Just enjoyable enough to finish it with a HP and Stealth cheat from WeMod trainer. The game is currently really badly unoptimized with techincal flaws all over the place, like how I got numerous times stuck in the menu and couldn't do anything. I did not like how you are not playing as one chosen protagonist all the time, so the Legion system (recruiting more people to DedSec, if you die you start playing as the next member on the list) didn't work well for me. The story lacked focus and was overall just completely uninteresting, only finished because the game still was somewhat fun to play. The main missions are very short and often felt like side missions on steroids. London was not nice looking enough to demands the hardware it demands (played it without raytracing, but everything else maxed out). I tried a bit of both Valhalla and Godfall yesterday and both looks better to me and had much better performance.

The game is also shorter than the previous games. Time tracking got bugged the first 2 days of playing, so it says 6..5 hours, but I can add 4-5 hours more I think. Shorter game and the size of the game feels smaller too. I liked Watch Dogs 2 more and even the first game I found more interesting.

I kinda feel sorry for anyone who pays full price for this game, especially on console since they don't have Ubisoft + there (the subscription service).

Score: 6.5/10.

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Yakuza Kiwami



[UWSL]This the 2nd Yakuza game I played (zero was the first) and I enjoyed it a lot. It's basically an open world game with melee combat, and the extensive moveset and 4 different fighting styles make the combat lots of fun. The s[/UWSL][UWSL]tory, characters and dialogs are also much better than other open world games I've played. The random encounters can be annoying and some of the side quests aren't very original, but all in all this game is very recommendable! [/UWSL]

[UWSL]Score: 8.9/10[/UWSL]

 

[Mivey]

I played Paratopic yesterday.


It's a really short game, meant to be completed in a single setting.

I really like how it tells its story via these sudden jump cuts. You hear from AAA games often how they strive for something to be "cinematic", but it's rare that actual movie techniques, how something is presented or cut, is used in games. There's no real point to discussing the story here, it's really something you need to experience yourself. It's also interesting how the game doesn't spend any time at all tutorialising: No hints what to press, where to look, where to go. You are just let go in the world, and need to react intuitively. It would be interesting to see how someone who isn't familiar with games would react to this. I suspect they would still be able to handle it quite well, showing that games are overly concerned with not letting someone get confused and lost, even for a few seconds.
I also got major KRZ vibes from this game, but that might have been just me.

Can recommend to anyone who is in for a weird ride.[/B]

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Got myself the Oculus Quest 2, so I've been playing a few VR games

Finished Superhot VR (Oculus Quest)



It's Superhot in VR, little more needs to be said, but with the body movement tracking and so how you'll be dodging bullets this is the best matrix simulator you'll ever play. That said one thing I found quite surprising is that the game is surprisingly hard due to the checkpoint system. It'll also give you a good workout, as I was sweating a number of times!

Finished Rick and Morty VR (SteamVR)



Ok this was just annoying, the controls are a pain and many times its just not clear what you're supposed to be doing.

Finished Arizona Sunshine + 2 DLC (SteamVR)



This one is a bit of a mixed bag. It's just plain gratifying and fun to shoot zombies in VR, simple as. BUT that's all the game has, it's just plain simple and shallow.
As such it can get repetitive very quickly. It's the sort of thing I'd recommend to play with a podcast on in the background. Would definitely not recommend at full price.

 

[DesolationStone]

Ultima™ 4: Quest of the Avatar

Prepare yourself for a grand adventure! Ultima™ IV, sixteen times larger than Ultima™

www.gog.com

Ultima IV: Quest of The Avatar (1985)
My new favourite game of all time (the last was System Shock). A very and true masterpiece, a game changer and a revolutionary title for all the industry. After 35 years it's still so damn funny and exciting. God Bless Lord British
Vote: 10/10

METAL GEAR SOLID V: The Definitive Experience on Steam

Includes 14 items: METAL GEAR ONLINE "BASIC APPEAL PACK", METAL GEAR ONLINE "BATTLE APPEAL PACK", METAL GEAR ONLINE "DANCE APPEAL PACK", METAL GEAR ONLINE "HERO APPEAL PACK", METAL GEAR ONLINE EXPANSION PACK "CLOAKED IN SILENCE", METAL GEAR SOLID V: GROUND ZEROES, METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM...

store.steampowered.com

Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitve Experience (2015)
Alright: it's incomplete, but damn, what an incomplete game! A lot of contents and the most funnie gameplay of all saga. Luckyly there are very few cut-scenes and the focus it's only on the game. I disagree the A.I and the ripetitive of some missions, but i have over 60+ hours, so a liked all.
Vote: 8/10

 

[fantomena]

Finished



Great puzzle game, great art style, great music and cute characters and story. Negatives are that the camera can be a bit annoying to control, almost like the joystiqs are drifting and some of the puzzles are too much the same making it a bit monotonous. There are "main levels" and "side quests" and I happily managed to finish all the levels.

Score: 8.5/10

 

[Linkark07]

Finished Doom Eternal and Ancient Gods Part I

So yeah, after finishing Ultimate Doom in UV I went to Doom 2 in UV too. Coincidentally, Steam had their Halloween Sale so I just had to buy Doom Eternal. And I did.

Let me tell you something: the difficulty of this game is overrated. People claiming Doom Eternal is so hard that I convinced myself before playing it that the game was hard. Started in Hurt Me Plenty, thinking the game would give me a moderate challenge. Nah, that was too easy. So I went with Ultra-Violence. Now we are talking.

Anyways, Doom Eternal improves in almost every regard after what ID did with Doom 2016. More enemies in arenas, more variety too; limited ammo pickups... And yes, the game is harder compared to Doom 2016, but it is a fair challenge if you learn the gameplay loop. And that loop is awesome. Shoot. Flame Gulch to regain armor. Glory kills to regain health. Chainsaw fodder or, if you have enough fuel, heavy demons for recharge health and ammo. Blood punch. Frag grenade. Dash. Continue killing. The game is, in some ways, like Quake 3: you need to keep moving while dashing and jumping through the arena to kill your enemies and taking care of your ammo. Slayer Gates, arenas where you have to fight horde of enemies, and sometimes new enemies before they are properly introduced, are one of the best challenges this game gives.

Doom has always been about fast gameplay and I'm glad that's something ID hasn't forgotten. Well, kind of in Doom 3, but I digress. There is a bigger emphasis in story, but personally, that's something I didn't care too much. Graphically, it looks well and even runs great in my 970. Sometimes FPS went down, but that happened rarely. And the soundtrack was superb. Menu is a remix of Icon of Sin theme in Doom 2. Mick Gordon did an awesome job. This is also my favorite Super Shotgun; that 'meat' hook is quite useful.

Now, if I have a complaint about Doom Eternal is the platforming sections. While it might help to spice the gameplay, the platforming sections sometimes were tedious.

But, despite the platforming sections, I give this game a 10/10. My GOTY. And for all those people who complain about the Marauders, lol. They are a threat, for sure, but they are quite a fun enemy.

Now, let's go to Ancient Gods Part I.

I have read that people compare the DLC to Plutonia. Can't comment too much about Plutonia because I haven't played it without cheats, but this DLC wasn't that hard. There are three new enemies and more nasty fights like smaller arenas with more heavy demons ready to kill you, but despite that, they are still a fair challenge. One of the most memorable fights is a buffed Marauder with a totem you couldn't destroy. If you didn't learn how to handle them in the base game, good luck because you will need it. It is more Doom Eternal, but more challenging than ever. Sadly, it is only three levels, and while they are quite large and big, the DLC doesn't last long. Unless you are being constantly killed by the demons. As for me, only time I faced problems was in the first arena of the third level. That was one of the most nasty arenas in the game.

Again, biggest complain are the platforming sections. Some of them are even worst than in the base game.

My final score is 8/10. Wished this DLC was longer and had less platforming sections. Hopefully the second part delivers it with a longer campaign.

Doom Eternal is so good that I'm going to replay this again, but in Nightmare. So far have finished the first level without being killed once. Amusingly, I learned that the Shotgun grenades can stun Cacodemons. Was like, omg, how I didn't learn this before?

 

[didamangi]

Linkark07 Hey, what a coincidence. Just finished The Ancient Gods myself on Nightmare. Having last played the main campaign on UV back when it was released, I thought why not try nightmare mode for the DLC since I remember I haven't had to much trouble on UV.

Well, the difference is pretty big, at least for me. Made me looked up how to fast weapon switch and it made the difference. Died a bunch of time throughout the DLC but never felt it was unfair. Except for the last boss. Forcing player to use the microwave lockdown thing is the only thing that makes that fight hard IMO. Because movement is key in Nightmare, forcing you to slowdown is a pretty dick move. But yeah, I love Doom Eternal's gameplay so much. Can't wait for the 2nd part of the DLC.

Watching skilled players finished that on Ultra Nightmare is gonna be a fun watch.

Oh, the rating.: 9/10. Just give me more please.

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (first game in The Nonary Games collection)



I've played Virtue’s Last Reward on the DS, but this game was new for me. It took me a while to get in to, but I ended up enjoying it very, very much. It's a combination of a choice-based visual novel and "escape room" puzzles, with a remarkable well written story and great characters. Nine people awaken on an abandoned ship and need to escape before the ship sinks. To do so, they are required to play the "nonary" game, which soon turns out to be a game of life and death.

The majority of the puzzles are well designed, not too easy but not too hard either (I had to use a guide only once). The game also has 6 different endings based on the choice you made. It's not easy to discover the true ending without a guide, but there a built-in flowchart that helps a lot and I already made the right dialog choices during my first playthrough. The true ending was a bit too open to my taste, but that's what the sequels are for I guess. Very recommended!

Score: 9.0/10

 

[Linkark07]

Linkark07 Hey, what a coincidence. Just finished The Ancient Gods myself on Nightmare. Having last played the main campaign on UV back when it was released, I thought why not try nightmare mode for the DLC since I remember I haven't had to much trouble on UV.

Well, the difference is pretty big, at least for me. Made me looked up how to fast weapon switch and it made the difference. Died a bunch of time throughout the DLC but never felt it was unfair. Except for the last boss. Forcing player to use the microwave lockdown thing is the only thing that makes that fight hard IMO. Because movement is key in Nightmare, forcing you to slowdown is a pretty dick move. But yeah, I love Doom Eternal's gameplay so much. Can't wait for the 2nd part of the DLC.

Watching skilled players finished that on Ultra Nightmare is gonna be a fun watch.

Oh, the rating.: 9/10. Just give me more please.

Yeah, that's why I don't like that enemy so much. They completely break the flow of the battle. And if you try to ignore them, you are in a world of pain.

See more

Only time I did that was the fight with the 2 Cyberdemons Tyrants (one of them possessed by a Spirit) before the final boss. I still don't know how I wasn't killed.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished The Ball (Teotl, 2010)

This game began as an Unreal Tournament 3 mod, gained much community acclaim and came second in the $1 Million Intel Make Something Unreal Contest, a modding contest for Unreal Tournament 3. For reference: 5th place went to a mod called Hazard: The Journey of Life, which eventually became Antichamber. Epic Games segued the attention from the contest into the release of the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), the first free-to-download edition of Unreal Engine. The Ball (in its final mod release form) was subsequently published as a UDK-powered, standalone download on the UDK website, arguably the start of Epic Games' penchant for entering new markets through big giveaways. One year later, the game, expanded with additional content, was published for commercial release on Steam and GamersGate through Tripwire Interactive, which is the version I played.

It's a physics-heavy first person puzzle game, where you push and pull a big old ball around with a sort of magnetic jackhammer device that you carry around like a gun. The first-person puzzle bits are what you'd expect, but it's a kind of co-op between you and the titular ball - you use it to weigh down pressure plates, push through doors, pull vehicles, interact with various contraptions and even splatter enemies.

Pro:

• A pretty rare and interesting variant of the physics-heavy first person puzzle genre, and it mostly works. The controls are tight and intuitive and throwing that ball around the maps is good fun.
• Art style and level design are charmingly retro - the hommage is more to Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 than UT 3, with environment textures being very low res, lots of bulky, low-poly level geometry, which are in stark contrast to the highly detailed ball and its pretty accurate rolling physics and state-of-the-art (of 2007) enemies.
• Good campaign that really nailed the total runtime (around 10 hours) and individual level size for me. No quick-saving, but reasonable checkpoints.
• Another bit of playable history: The game was also part of the Potato Sack promotion in the run-up to the release of Portal 2 and received a one-hour long, Portal themed add-on that is available in the current game under "Survival" in the main menu. It features a crazy mash-up of Portal's and The Ball's game and level design and really should not be missed.

Con:

• If you don't appreciate the game's history and reverence to its Unreal Tournament roots, the strangely lo-fi level design and art direction could be grating. The contrast becomes especially sharp in the Portal add on, where you will sometimes literally walk out from a test chamber that looks like straight out of Portal into the very UT2k4-like environment of the main game. Good if you love your 00's gaming, not so great if you don't (or weren't around for it at all).
• Towards the end the game tries to conjure up some boss fights with puzzly winning strats, but the encounters are easy to cheese and thus not very exciting. A bit more explicitly scripted action and less reliance on the physics engine and enemy AI systems would have gone a long way here.
• Music is barely existent and what little is there is quite basic. The soundscape is passable spooky-mood ambient, but you'll notice it looping pretty quickly.

All in all I had a good time with this game and it really tickled the gaming-tech-nerd in me. It's also a piece of 00's gaming history that I had missed for various reasons and I enjoyed filling that gap. Your mileage may vary if you're just looking for a fun physics-ish first person puzzler to play - in this case, make sure to take advantage of the playable demo (available on Steam) first.

3.75/5

 

[MegaApple]

Finished: Transformers Fall of Cybertron

This is the reason why I still crave for good linear action game. But this one is more than that. It solves lot of issues of the genre (that persists even today) and is clearly made by devs who were PASSIONATE ABOUT TRANSFORMERS.

• Great setpieces
• Great roster of characters, each feeling different to play
• Good writing (smartly made quips and stuff)
• 10/10 Voice Action and direction
• One of the few games whose 2nd half is even better than the first.
• Passion for Transformers franchise.

8.5/10
Easily the best Transformers game and one of the best licenced game.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Murdered: Soul Suspect (Airtight / Square Enix, 2014)

A third-person perspective exploration / investigation game with occasional stealth sections and QTE-based combat.

Pro:

• Interesting original setup. Quote game designer Yosuke Shiokawa: "[...] it was when I watched the movie Die Hard that I thought ‘what if John McClane died? What if John McClane was killed? Is he going to give up? No, even as a ghost he’s going to try and save the people in Nakatomi Plaza, including his wife.’ That was my concept.”
• Despite not being much of an action game it controls like one, so the controls are nice, tight and intuitive.
• You can possess cats and sometimes even control them while you do for some mild platforming.

Con:

• Read that quote again. If you think that that's a little too goofy to actually work, you'd be correct. The game tries to be a horror mystery and a hard-boiled detective story at the same time and fails to pull off either.
• Due to the game taking place at night and featuring a shimmering, half-transparent, blue-ish ghost-realm overlay of objects only visible to the ghostly player character, the color-scheme ends up being almost monochrome, so the game isn't much of a looker, despite pretty nicely modelled environments and really well done character animation, particularly for an Unreal Engine 3 game.
• The soundtrack has way too too little variation, I ended up muting the music halfway into my playthrough because I couldn't take yet another loop of it.
• The PS4 version which I played has lots of problems - it doesn't save game options like controller axis inversion, subtitles or volume settings between launches and has plenty of dips below 60 FPS. The latter wouldn't be so bad since it isn't an action game where FPS actually would matter, but it also for some reason doesn't enable Vsync, so every time you enter a slow patch, you'll get ugly screen tearing.

My reaction while playing this went from "uh oh, this isn't very good at all" to "this is goofy as shit, I need to keep playing" pretty quickly, so I did have fun, but very much despite the game rather than because of it. I also bought this on a Halloween PSN sale for EUR 1.99, so there was pretty much nothing the game could have done to seriously disappoint me. If you're thinking about getting it ... that price point is appropriate.

3/5

 

[fantomena]

Finished



Fantastic design, a lot of great puzzles, some of them got a bit "samey" and tiring towards the end, but I liked them overall. The gravity and perspective changes were really great, the music was also pretty good.

Score: 8.5/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (Superbrothers / Jim Guthrie / Capybara, 2012)

A tap-and-swipe (it was originally released for iPhone and iPad in 2011) adventure game with simple combat segments. It was also ported to Android, PC and, most recently, Nintendo Switch. I played the PC version.

Pro:

• An - at the time - hyper-modern (made for iOS, using touch controls, Twitter integration (optional, not present in the PC version)) and at the same time fashionably retro (low-res pixelart) take on point and click adventures, with a lot of wink/nudging towards classic RPG tropes and also some of the Twitter lingo of the early 2010s
• Very usable translation of the touch controls to mouse - a lot of point,-hold-left-button-and-drag rather than point-and-click, but it works perfectly
• Nice pixelart
• Great prog-rock-inspired soundtrack
• Episodic gameplay done well (the game has more or less four distinct chapters)
• Even though the story isn't much of one (see below), it is quite original and unpredictable, even to veteran adventure game players

Con:

• Even though I really think the mouse controls work well, they are a translation from touch controls rather than a redesign for a mouse, which would have been entirely possible
• The tone of the game's writing is primarily concerned with juxtaposing and subverting tropes rather than with telling a story, to a degree that cannot be ignored.
  
  Here's a quote from a random Steam review: "The whole story seems to just be making fun of people who play role playing games. It just mocks you the whole time, and is lazy writing since they can't think of a good story so they just mock the whole concept of the game. It's supposed to a game for hipsters that don't like RPG's but then why make it in the first place? Those people aren't going to play a game like this to begin with, so whats the whole point".
  
  Now that person apparently identifies so strongly with stereotypical RPG writing that they took the poking and prodding by the game personally, which is hilarious, but the essence of their observation is correct: This game is all about reference. References made in late 2000s Canadian hipster lingo nonetheless.

This was another bit of gaming history that I had missed at the time and enjoyed catching up on. From today's perspective, it's a lot less unique and weird than it was back then, but in my opinion still makes for a good 4.5 hours of fun. That said - I played the EGS freebie and for free, it's really easy to recommend. But the undiscounted price on Steam seems a little high and the undiscounted price on Switch even more so.

4/5

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Deliver Us the Moon (KeokeN Interactive / Wired Productions, 2019)

Technically an action-adventure, but the relatively slow pacing and story delivery through notes, audiologs and hologram recordings also give it a bit of a walking-sim vibe, similar to one of its two obvious inspirations, Tacoma. There are both first-person and third-person sections, about 1/4 the former and 3/4 the latter.

Pro:

• The game markets itself as a "SciFi thriller" and although "thriller" might be overstating things just a little, it does a good job of keeping you hooked from start to finish.
• Good mix of exploration, puzzle-solving, action sequences with time limits (like seemingly all video game space suits, the player character's is notoriously low on Oxygen), a bit of platforming here and there and even a small stealth section.
• Very effective soundtrack.
• Great voice acting that really punches above the weight-class of a kickstarted indie game like this.
• Good graphics with a few stand-out scenes that really shine, again especially considering what budget this game was developed on.

Con:

• While the story is effective and engaging enough, it's not really a thriller - it lacks exciting twists and real suspense. The game instead has to resort to the aforementioned space suit with the flawed O2-capacity to generate all the thrills. The SciFi part is also pretty weak, both in the realism (those lunar vehicles sure have a lot of grip in Moon gravity) as well as in the conceptual department.
• Do not expect this game's RTX-support to blow you away - yes, you get raytraced reflections in various windows, but they lack any wow-factor, since it's almost always just a reflection of the player character and a few other assorted objects rather than the whole environment.
• The game uses Tacoma's design trick with the hologram recordings and the player character never takes off their space suit helmet, resulting in bigtime savings on character and facial animation. Fair, but you can't help notice.

I have a thing for space-station disaster investigation video games (this one's mostly about a moon-base, but there's a space elevator in orbit above it, close enough), and after playing this, I think Adr1ft is still my favorite, with all its flaws. The developers of this game seemed to have liked Adr1ft, too, given that the space elevator portion is heavily inspired by it. But it's not a bad game. Also I got it at a quarter of its regular price, thanks to a nice member of this forum who pointed out a sale to me and if you see a similar deal, I'd recommend looking into it. Not so much for the regular retail price though.

Previously reviewed in this thread here.

3/5

 

[MegaApple]

Finished : Mad Max

Fuck me, that was a whole lot of nothing. Aside from being a very impressive techincal showcase (Cool screenshots) + cool car combat, it's mediocre stuff.
The Ubisoft like grinding bring this game down significantly. It's a good 15 hour game stretched to 45 hours.

Though it makes for a good podcast game.

6.5/10 (or 7/10 if you put on a podcast)

 

[C-Dub]

Tell Me Why (PC, GamePass)

Oh man, I've missed Dontnod games. I still haven't got past the first episode of Life is Strange 2 because I really wasn't feeling it compared to the first game, but Tell Me Why captured more of the things I loved about the original Life is Strange. The sense of place and intimacy, and the fact that the power the characters have is more interesting.

While obviously a bit more budget constrained than their Life is Strange series, Tell Me Why feels like a LiS short. It has some puzzles, a mystery, great cliffhangers at the end of each episode and handles complex issues with the sensitivity and understanding that they deserve.

There are some flaws. I felt some plot points were unjustly rushed, and the twist at the end could've hit its landing a bit better if we'd had a slightly bigger world, some more characters to get to know, and a few more episodes to really flesh things out. Alas, it felt a bit predictable and that's because the game is so small. I feel a better twist could've been used, given the circumstances of the game's scope, and it just leaves me feeling like Dontnod wanted to do more.

All that said, I really enjoyed my brief time with Alyson and Tyler, uncovering the mysteries of their childhood home and dredging up unhappy memories from their past. It's a shame we don't get more games like this on a regular basis, but with Telltale gone the area feels very much unloved right now. Despite its flaws, Tell Me Why was really enjoyable, and I'd like to see Microsoft putting a bit more cash into this kind of game.

8/10

Catherine: Full Body (Switch)

I had Full Body on PS4, but felt the introduction of Rin at the beginning of the game was more slammed in than intricately woven into the plot, and dropped the game in disappointment. However, there was an offer on the Nintendo eShop so I decided to jump back in.

And I'm glad I did.

It's still Catherine, but with some quality of life improvements in the gameplay. I like the Remixed style blocks that shake things up and force you to rethink otherwise common strategies, and I feel the difficulty is better balanced in this version. Normal feels like a robust challenge rather than being impossibly difficult, while Easy is definitely easy. I haven't tried Hard because, well, I struggled in the original!

But I should probably address the two elephants in the room: the first being the story.

Rin is definitely not handled well in the beginning. Their character just kind of lands in the original story very un-subtly, but they slowly begin to feel more and more welcome into the narrative and events happening. I really enjoyed pursuing their ending and playing some extra levels as a result, and their silly twist at their ending is fun and actually fits rather well with the Freedom ending of the original Catherine. So yeah, I kinda dig it actually.

However, and here comes the second elephant: representation and transphobia.

Let's not pretend this game isn't transphobic. It is. And it's reprehensible. I hadn't read anything about the transphobia before as I was avoiding all Full Body spoilers before playing the game, but now I'm done the flaws stick out like a sore thumb. On the one hand the game is telling you it's okay to be whoever you want to be, and love whoever you want to love, but the transphobic shaming of a certain character takes a really appalling turn with one of the new endings in the game, where said character's entire transition is, well, erased from history in a "perfect world". I feel it's an ending borne out of ignorance and could've been handled better. I can see why it caused a lot of hurt to trans people.

With that in mind, I'm finding it hard to rate this game. The gameplay is certainly improved, but that cannot excuse the ignorance. The original Catherine already treaded in some transphobic areas, but you could argue that was shitty characters treating someone who has transitioned in a shitty way, and that it was more tone deaf and poorly-researched. That the people who made the original then decided to double down on the ignorance and go further, makes it hard for me to recommend this game.

From a pure gameplay perspective, Full Body is an improvement on the original. A solid 8/10. But as George Orwell argued in 'Why I Write', art is also political, and this game's politics are trash. As a result, I highly suggest people play the original game. It's available on Xbox and PC and honestly, it's the best way to play Catherine.

1/10

 

[Ge0force]

Abandoned Blackhole



Blackhole looked like a promising platformer with gravity-based puzzles and lots of humor. But I didn't have fun with it at all. The humor and story are really bad imo, and the game has separate levels tied together by an overworld. In each level you have to collect some kind of orbs to unlock new paths in the overworld. To do so, you need to touch a certain type of walls, which changes the gravity towards that wall.

The problem is that the levels are rather big, and there's no way to zoom out or scroll to see what's offscreen. So when you change gravity and fall down, there's no way to see where you'll land unless you've memorized the level. Plenty of times I ended up in spikes or lava, which is a one-hit-kill and makes you do the level all over again. Combined with the extremely high difficulty, this made me uninstall the game out of frustration after two hours. This game obviously isn't for me.

Score: 3.5/10



Finished Mushroom Cats



A "game" I probably (and hopefully) got for free, where you have to click on hats and click again on a cat to place the hat on the cat. Doing this for 20 different cats gives you 20 achievements, and that's it. I do have to mention that I never finished a game within 3 minutes before.

Score: 5/10


Finished Pikuniku



Finally a good game this weekend! Don't let the title or graphics mislead you: Pikuniku is an incredible charming game where you're playing as a weird Wuppo-like creature to save an island from an evil corporation that wants to replace all inhabitants by robots. The platforming, quests and boss fights are rather easy, but the dialogs and characters are extremely funny and the animations are very well done. Go play this game guys and girls!

Score: 8.8/10

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Halo 2 Anniversary



I've enjoyed Halo 2 a lot more than the first Halo, which was extremely boring and repetitive imo. Halo 2 has so much better level design and vehicle sections! Especially the first few levels are a rollercoaster of exciting events, that are so many years later still a blast to play.

Some of the later levels aren't as good tho, and there's still a decent amount of backtracking and copy-paste corridors. Even worse is that [UWSL]the boss fights are utter crap, especially the floating one with his two (fake) companions. I also disliked how enemies are able to throw a grenade right at your feet from a huge distance. Still, Halo 2 has significantly less frustrating sections than the first Halo, so I have high hopes for Halo 3. [/UWSL]

[UWSL]Score: 7.9/10[/UWSL]

 

[fantomena]

Finished Assassin's Creed: Valhalla (PC)

My feelings towards this game are cofused. First and foremost the game is decent fun. It's not a bad game, not a mediocre game, not a great game, just a good decent game. I played through it with some cheats from WeMod which made it more fun because the game often got very uninteresting and tedious.

Im not gonna say the game was dissapointing, I didn't really have any expectations for it, I just knew that I didn't find the Viking setting any interesting nor did I find the map or most of the environments any interesting compared to Origins and especially Odyssey (loved the map, world and environments in Odyssey.

I found Eivor to be far less compelling and interesting than Kassandra and Bayek. The story during most of the game where I had to pledge alliances to a bunch of places was uninteresting and lacked focus, the story didn't get interesting until after all the alliances were pledges and I was at the end.

I did not like that I could not dismantle or sell my weapons and items, I get that each item and weapon is unique, but jesus let me sell the stuff I know Im not gonna use, it just packs my inventory up. The skill tree was just stupid, overwhelming and annoying.

The combat system was quite fun, some of the characters were pretty nicely written and the relationships between them was nice. The graphics were nice, but not nice enough to demand the amount of hardware it demands.

I finished the game with 91% completion.

Score: 7.5/10

In comparison I give Origins 8/10 and Odyssey 8.5/10.

 

[sk2k]

Perilous Warp (PC)

3/10

Short (2 hours) lame ass "retro" FPS. Do not be fooled by the screenshots. It's no Quake.

 

[Alextended]

Just finished Yakuza: Like a Dragon, it took me ~68 hours while doing much of but not all of the side stuff and after the final ordeals the party came out at lvl ~59. What a ride. I won't be going back too much, there's stuff to do but not as much incentive when the story's all told, but yeah, this is the GOTY everyone, 9/10

 

[fantomena]

Finished the campaign in Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War (PC)

The shortest CoD campaign yet I feel, like 4-6 hours or something, also very confusing story with a really abrupt and confusing ending. Otherwise the graphics and environments were gorgeous, some nice set pieces and good sound. Good gunplay and animations to. There were some side "missions" to do, but didn't do them as they were pretty much just "find and capture this suspect before deadline".

Score: 7.5/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Rise of the Tomb Raider (20 Year Celebration) (Crystal Dynamics / Nixxes / Square Enix, 2015-2016)

The second of the reboot trilogy of Tomb Raider games. Third person action-adventure with light puzzle elements and a lot of collectibles. I had played and finished the original release of the game years ago, but only completed all the story DLC now, after getting the 20 Year Celebration release for very cheap on sale. I only played the single player campaign and story add-ons, none of the silly stuff like the zombie mode, score-attack expeditions etc. Also didn't play the multiplayer.

Pro:

• It's exactly the great looking and smoothly controlled action-adventure you would expect. Nothing but good things to say about every core mechanic of this game. The different difficulty settings even translate to a slightly bigger challenge in the puzzle tombs by taking away clues, not just tougher enemies in the action parts.
• If you stay away from certain game modes like I did, you will never encounter any microtransaction bullshit. Rise was also the last game in the series where Square-Enix even tried to put them in.
• Soundtrack, ambient soundscapes and FX are also consistently top-notch.
• The "Blood Ties" story includes a Gone-Home-like exploration (in third person view) of Croft Manor and one of the main recurring themes of the story throughout the reboot. Very relaxing to play and well-made.

Con:

• The writing of the whole reboot is a little hit-and-miss and Rise is no exception. The story is perfectly serviceable as a throughline for an action game, but had so much potential for more. The writers also really struggle to produce natural sounding dialogue and internal monologue throughout the game.
• The voice-acting is also strangely up-and-down in quality - there are voice actors in this game who manage to make pedestrian flavor text on collectibles come to life and shine, but the main character Lara Croft herself is a consistently weak performance, sounding inauthentic and rather detached from what is happening on screen most of the time. It's bad enough to take you out of the moment frequently, especially in combination with the already mentioned stiff dialogue.

Easy to pick up and hard to put down, like a Tomb Raider game should be. Square Enix has been very generous with literally giving away and putting Tomb Raider reboot games on sale this year and I encourage anyone to take advantage of those deals and have fun with this and the other two games of this reboot series.


4/5

 

[gabbo]

Wages of SIn

In my effort to clear more old titles from my backlog this year, I finally cleared through the expansion pack for the original SIn. Wreaking of late 90s shooter, its fun if kind of repetitive shooter. Level design was more open ended than say your modern CoD game, but youre still running around enclosed arenas essentially blasting away until the baddies are dead. Fun, but not fantastic
6/10

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Brukel



Brukel is a short narrative game, based on a story that the developers grandmother told about her experiences during the war. The game starts with an exploration of the grandmothers house, showing a great illustration of how people lived back then. But after a while, the war begins and you're witnessing events that the grandmother remembers.

A nice surprise for me is that the events took place in Geel, a small city in Belgium not far from where I live. The grandmother also speaks in my language and I recognized several things that I only know from history lessons or local museums.

Brukel is only €0.99 at the moment, and is definitely very recommended for this price.

Score: 8.0/10

 

[curi0usBystander]

This took me longer than I expected.)
After having finished nearly any quest in the game except some twilight missions (since they rotate) and three(?) post third DLC quest I can say that I'm done (yes there''s more NG+ modes but I had my fill).

A way to describe Nioh is what if we make a Souls-like game mixed with Diablo (Loot based game) with an in-depth combat system set in the sengoku jidai.

It's a souls like in the sense that you go from shrine (bonfire) to shrine collecting amrita (souls), to level up, and if you lose it and have to take it back BUT here is where the similarities end the first big difference is that if you die again while trying to take it back not only do you lose that you also lose every soul you collected in the way.

Now the game doesn't have an interconnected world where you can go from point A to B it's just a collection of small (well crafted) levels. That is a strength but also a weakness of the game since each main-story takes place in it's own well crafted level, what do we do with side quest ? Well a lot of parts of other levels are reused.

The combat is really great, each type of weapon has its own skillset and as a consequence there is more variety of how you can play and allowing you more variety on how you want to approach the game (that said towards the end I was using the same couple of few skills).

As for the bosses, most of them (except the earlier ones, and some dual battles) didn't seem that hard (that said approaching the game as a souls game bite me a few times) until I reached the DLCs.

As I said earlier this game is heavy on loot, the level of your equipment is really important (it took me a while to realize how leveling up weapons was more important than your level). If you like loot-based games you're gonna love this game.

As a side note I like how they took the Tekken approach (you have characters speaking their own language) having a couple of characters speaking in english, the rest in japanese and a couple of lines in broken spanish.

Although I liked the game I don't expect I'd jump to Nioh 2 in February, that be too soon for such a long game.

8/10 (mostly because I've never been heavy into loot games).

 

[bobnowhere]

68. Assassin's Creed Valhalla - It's pretty much the same as the last two with a different skin. More ancillary boring crap but better story for the most part. Game gives you all these weapons and tools but is stupidly easy on normal, I was still using the same two axes and outfit I first got in Norway at the end of the game. The town you create is fun, hearkens back to ACIII. The story... well... it's both consequential and inconsequential at the same time. Outside of the animus important stuff happens but inside your influence is pretty minor and in no way do you feel the story is unique to you. ★★★★

69. Ratchet & Clank Tools of Destruction - Good silly fun, travel the galaxy reducing enemies to their component parts. I did kinda zone out on the story after a while, it's more convoluted than the Matrix sequels. Can't spam Mr. Zurkon like in the PS4 remake, so you just spam the laser turret instead. The final boss was a decent challenge as well though I thought at times health pickups were very limited with the long long breaks between save points. ★★★ 1/2

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Shadows Awakening



Shadows Awakening is an aRPG, but unlike Diablo or Grim Dawn, the focus is on tactical combat instead of fighting huge waves of enemies. The tactical aspect is achieved by the ability to switch between 4 different characters on the fly. Each character has unique weapons and special abilities, and these abilities stay active if you switch to another character. For example you can summon a golum with one character, and if you switch to a ranged character for arrow attacks, the golum is still there.

This is a very interesting concept, but it isn't very exciting in this game. Like most aRPG's, the difficulty is a joke, which means you can win any battle with a mage/blunt/sharp combination of characters. The abilities of one character also don't have an impact on the abilities of other characters, which strongly limits the tactical options. Character development is rather limited, each character only has 7 skills and you can only have 3 of them active.

The levels are generally well designed, but don't really stand out compared to other games in this genre. There are barely any surprises and the puzzles are even more annoying than fun. Same goes for the story: it's not bad, but not very good either.

Tldr: Shadows Awakening is a decent aRPG, but nothing more than that. I suggest aRPG fans go play Grim Dawn or Chronicon instead.

Score: 6.1/10

 

[Alextended]

Just finished Yakuza 0. It's shorter than I expected what with having the two protagonists/areas and all. There's little of note outside the (pretty cool) main story and I found myself only using one fighting style (despite upgrading equally), Beast for Kiryu and Slugger for Majima as they seemed the most effective. 8/10 Wondering if I should skip Kiwami which most people seem to think is the lesser game and I also did play the original on PS2 and go for Kiwami 2 next or not.