Finished No Mans sky this weekend (for the 3rd time)
Having this day 1 on PS4, then on Xbox via xCloud and now on PC via GeForce now i think i can firmly say this is a solid game now.
Its been very interesting seeing this redemption arc evolving through the years,
Definitely one of the best top-down action games I've ever played! Using both melee weapons and guns in combination with the multi-dodge works really well, and there's bullet-time to help you survive when things are going too fast for you. Graphics are good for a game made by such a small team, and the soundtrack is one of the best I've heard in a game. The level design is very good as well, although there's way too much repetition in the final part of the game. Very, very recommended, this is a game that everyone should play!
Overall a pretty good shooter, even if it's singular gimmick wears a bit thin as the game nears its end. You can use sort of laser leash to fling enemies at you, and kick them around the level for various kinds of deaths, called "skillshots". Those get you points, and you use points to get ammo and upgrade weapons.
There's not enough variety in enemies or encounters., so a lot of the fights over the 10 hour campaign feel very similar, you finding some dangerous thing in the environment and flinging enemies at it.
The story and characters are so paper thin it's not even worth talking about here. It's trying to make it seem more complex by having us play as former assassins (who didn't know they were aiding a bloodthirsty out of control general), but the villain is just so cartoonish it's hard to take any of it serious. The banter between the characters also gets tiring very fast. It's not funny that they swear all the time, it's just dumb. Your dumb writing doesn't get better because you say fuck a lot, or call someone a girl (in various ways).
It only took me about 3 years!
Such a truly fantastic game. The story was great, the graphics impressive and all the different minigames were really well made and diverse.
The Real Estate and Cabaret minigames were both great in different ways and sufficiently challenging.
If I were to complain about something, it's the endless "filler" fights with henchmen, the lack of proper quicksave (or save anywhere) and the long cutscenes that make the "problem" with saving that much worse.
I remember having to replay a large story chunk because the game glitched out at one moment, and I cannot understand why some cutscenes are skippable, while some are not. It does not seem to follow any discernable pattern!
All in all, an excellent game!
And I already have Kiwami 1 and 2 ready in my Steam library!
Retiring Murder By Numbers. Played up to completion of the first case just to get a better overview of it, but it just wasn't working for me. I didn't enjoy the writing very much, the constant flashing and screen shaking got on my nerves, I don't think the nonogram interludes work well, and the game seems to be kind of poorly adapted for PC with its various bugs, UI issues and lack of key remapping to make up for the baffling absence of a neutral mark shortcut on MMB. Think I'd rather read a more interesting mystery novel and play a better nonogram game in the time it'd take me to play Murder By Numbers.
I did finish The Lion's Song the other day. That was okay, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you've already got it and are curious. I think the third episode was the most interesting one, if you'd play just one of them. Its saving grace is its length. Over and done with in like 4 hours. If it'd have dragged on much longer I'd have retired it.
Ok, so my issue here is that MTG is my gold standard for card games, which has like 10x the depth and variety of the card game in Inscryption. Obviously, I'm not expecting any indie game to match MTG in that arena. But I am expecting them to play to their strengths or I would simply play MTG instead. Their strength in this case would be the meta-game elements. And those elements are pretty cool, though I definitely have some complaints about them too. But the fact remains that 90% of the time is spent playing a card game which is only "ok" compared to MTG. Also, please don't force me to build a deck that will only be used for a handful of games. Just give me the option of a pre-built deck. Especially when the cards are low res pixel art and hard to identify at a glance.
Still, the card game is not bad. It's fine. I like the aesthetics and the roguelike nature of the first act. The game does a pretty good job of throwing curveballs at you regularly. The video clips were surprisingly enjoyable to me, if brief. And the meta-story was pretty fun, if a bit confusing.
I helped fund this on Kickstarter a couple years back, and the final game never really lived up to its promise for me. Part of it is the writing that just never manages to hook me. Not sure if this would be more entertaining in the original Polish the developers are likely writing all this. Part of it is that the setting of this metaverse world just really doesn't strike me as interesting. I'd much rather explore the futuristic real world of this time then hang about in their really boring attempts at virtual worlds. I get they are trying to make fun about lots of other types of games, but it just ends up feeling tedious. It doesn't help that your character barely has any real presence in the game. Why am I a Gamedec? How does this plot connect to my character?
As it stands, the just feels incredibly boring to me.
Finished Batman: Arkham Origins (Splash Damage, WB Games Montreal / Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, 2013)
Featuring an expanded Gotham City, this game tells an original prequel storyline set several years before the events of Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City. Taking place before the rise of Gotham City’s most dangerous criminals, the game showcases a young and unrefined Batman as he faces a defining moment in his early career as a crime fighter that sets his path to becoming the Dark Knight.
Pro:
Just like Arkham City before it, this game does not look outdated at all when played on PC with maxed out settings today, despite originally targeting 7th generation consoles such as the PS3, Xbox 360 and the WiiU.
Again just like in Arkham City, the presentation is flawless. The main story takes place on Christmas and Gotham is decorated accordingly, making this an ideal holiday (re-)play. And, again just as in Arkham City, I ended up turning the music off because it just was too over the top.
The story is up a notch from Arkham City thanks to the prequel scenario. The Joker character is particularly well done and interesting and the game gives you some real insight into his relationship with Batman.
The game pares back the side-mission-, combo- and upgrade-overload of Arkham City just enough so that I never felt overwhelmed by it like I did there. There's still plenty of all of that however.
Con:
No Catwoman.
Just as in Arkham City, config file editing is required to turn off frame rate smoothing and thereby enabling the game to fully take advantage of the power of modern GPUs. It's in fact that exact same option that needs to be changed (ref. my post about Arkham City).
Had an excellent time with this game over Christmas, will play the DLC (which is set on New Year's Eve) next year.
A story DLC campaign for Batman: Arkham Origins. One of the rare cases where a short DLC campaign is of the exact same quality as the main game, and I enjoyed it just as much. Played on New Year's Eve for maximum immersion (the story takes place on New Year's Eve as well).
Really weird, fun and cool game. There isn't much to say than that I really liked it and you should jumpst straight into it. Anything else written in this review would most likely be spoilers.
I got it for 6 eurobucks on EGS (yeah I know, but hey at least Epic actually lost money on this transaction) and I gotta say, eventhough I am not a schlooter fan, I enjoyed this one quite a bit. The campaign took me 40 hours, doing literally every sidequests incl. hunts and bounties, and I enjoyed the story and the lore, as well as the general no-fucks-given attitude of my main protagonist. For a schlooter this goes to some heavy theme territory by the end, kinda unexpected.
As for gameplay, yes it is super repetitive in structure (it is all small combat arenas all the time), but the mechanics are so well tuned that it is fun. I enjoyed it more than Anthem, Division or Borderlands.
Also pretty well optimized, in 4K with DLSS and ultra preset, it never dropped below 60.
However by the end I was really wanting it to end, so from the endgame "Expeditions", I only did one to test it out. It is a cool endgame stuff (they seem to take place in new locations and have some extra dialogue) but I am done for now.
An interactive thriller about a man trapped in a time loop.
Pro:
Injects a fresh breath of air into what would otherwise be a pretty standard point-and-click affair by rolling up the usual linear and event-driven progression of time in games of the genre into a loop that is actually happening in real time.
Con:
The voice acting is surprisingly average considering the star actors.
The story is a hodgepodge of genre tropes and references, with barely any original ideas. Players will need to be quite sheltered (from fictional works with similar scenarios) to have their mind blown by this game's story.
The game is relentless in its insistence to give you the full looping experience. Unlike in movies, there are no convenient cuts to skip over repeated actions here. No, you will have to do the same things again, and again, and again, and take real care to stick to the correct order and timing. Due to the tight time frame (12 minutes, and actually for story-related reasons just 10 minutes most of the time), a few misclicks here and there are in fact enough to fail whatever goal you had for a given loop. The fascination of this novelty mechanic (for a point-and-click) turned into annoyance and tedium after about 2.5 hours for me ...
While it's not quite as bad as right after release now, the game still has problems with keeping the player character and the NPCs out of each other's way, and when it fails to do so, you get all sorts of funny glitches like people phasing through each other or characters getting stuck in an animation.
Setting the game to fullscreen in the graphics options makes the game unplayable due to a crash on startup on a large number of PCs - a bug still unfixed after more than six months after release. The only fix is manually reversing the setting in a well-hidden configuration file. Never change the default setting of borderless window!
Don't even try to play this game on Xbox with a controller. It's clearly made for mouse control, and on Xbox your controller just moves a mouse pointer, which makes the game about 100x more annoying (and very difficult in parts with tight timing).
Played this on my current 3-month Game Pass for PC trial and as an effective EUR 1 rental, it's okay. If I had bought it for anywhere near the MSRP, I would have returned it. I have a feeling this game might come to be remembered as the-game-that-blazed-the-trail-for-some-future-timeloop-style-adventure-game-that's-actually-good.
Well colour me impressed.
Come for the anime style, and stay for what is a darn solid example of the soulslike genre at its most accessible, without diluting the core experience.
If you are someone that finds these too hard then this is one I would recommend. I'll say that there are a couple of bosses that are some tough difficulty spikes, but that's all really.
Even as a Souls veteran I appreciated a game like this that isn't as intense.
Also a special mention to the really impressive character creator tool.
I'll say it doesn't really give off a good first impression (lots of ineffective tutorialising, and its braindead simple) but this dissipates by the time you get to the second boss.
Biggest complaint I have is fairly minor on the whole really but the story is complete pants on head gibberish.
I'm not someone that actually particularly likes the From Souls storytelling, but it's at least easily avoided. Unfortunately that's not quite the case here given the frequent cutscenes and forced sequences.
All in I'm rather shocked this got the middling reception that it did frankly.
Very unique game where you play a police chief, and have manage your officers and detectives, send them to (possible) crimes and solve some mysteries yourself. The concept and story are really good, but there are two major problems with this game:
1) The game is WAY too long! There are too many days where nothing interesting happens
2) It's impossible to recognize some of the false calls without using a guide
Despite these problems, I had lots of fun with this game and I'm looking forward to play the sequel.
Fun take of pinball genre. It has a main story, characters (balls) to recruit with own stats, and equipment for purchase.
Surprising interesting story. There is a nice twist midway.
Board designs are generally pretty good.
Tough but fair final battles. Easily the highlight of the game. Final boss took me a few tries to defeat.
Negative:
Unbalanced characters. Close-combat balls are relatively underused, whereas there is one ball that is broken in every single way
Some chests are pretty difficult to get. May not be a negative to people with good patience (lol).
Buying every equipment needs considerable amount of grinding through replaying stages. Get dull really fast.
7.5 / 10 I had fun playing this game. There is a direct sequel coming this year. The developer mixes it up with platformer elements. I would say this looks like a huge upgrade from the first game. Can't wait.
Edit: Gamespot gave it a 4 out of 10. Haha, sure man.
I don't know what to say about this really just beyond that I really really enjoyed this story.
It was wholesome, sweet and inspirational, with a killer realised 80's Asian aesthetic throughout
One of the best (but also one of the hardest) platformers I've ever played. You defeat enemies with both your gun and melee weapons, and by doing so without getting hit your combo meter rises. The higher your combo, the more perks you get to help you to beat the game. This works surprisingly well, and the game offers a huge variety in weapons, enemies and bosses to keep you hooked for many hours.
The default (hard) difficulty is very hard imo and requires a lot of practice (and luck). I've never managed to finish the final boss of the second comic at this difficulty setting. Luckily there's an easy difficulty available, where you can tweak all settings to your own liking. This is really great to prevent frustration, more games should offer this.
Finished The Gunk (Image & Form / Thunderful, 2021)
The struggling space-hauler couple of Rani and Becks picks up a strange signal from an untouched planet and find more on the surface than they bargained for when they decide to touch down. As they uncover the dormant secrets of a shattered civilization, they must battle the curse of a toxic gunk parasite.
I'll be foregoing the pro and con bullet points for this one since this game, in my opinion, clearly is a game made for young kids. It's a my-first-action-adventure and a my-first-physics-based-puzzle-game combination targeted an age group that has just graduated from playing Minecraft on a tablet to a restricted account on the parents' game console (or gaming PC).
And it does the job very well: 90% of the game is a very extended tutorial on a bunch of common contemporary concepts in action-adventures and puzzle games. Only the last 30 minutes leading up to the game's first (and final) boss fight demand any creative application of the concepts learned beforehand. Story, setting, characters and dialogue are similarly basic: Inoffensive and largely predictable for anybody over the age of 6 years old.
If you aren't a parent, guardian, or family friend looking to give someone in that age group a video gaming present and wanting to take a look first whether it's appropriate or not, there is no reason whatsoever to play this game. But by the time the young recipient of this game will be finished with it, you will probably have gathered some useful feedback from them on whether they're more of a runny-jumpy, shooty-looty or brainy-puzzly type of gamer.
Top-down zombie shooter with tower defense elements featuring up to 4 players local and online co-op. Build your base by day, defend it by night, put your skills to the test to stay alive as long as possible! Darkness is coming. How long can YOU survive?
store.steampowered.com
Very decent top-down shooter where you need to kill hordes of zombies to survive. With the money they drop, you can buy turrets, weapons, ammo and defense structures to increase your chance of survival. There's 4 player co-op as well and there are people to play with at any time of the day.
The game is far from perfect tho: you can't see any stats of the structures and turrets, so you can only guess how good they are by looking at the price. The sniper tower also seems to be very overpowered compared to other towers.
But despite these issues, YAZD is still lots of fun for a few hours. Recommended for the €0.39 that it costs today.
Score: 7.9/10
Note: the game is actually endless, so with "finished" I meant that I got the highest (1.000.000) score achievement.
Decided to retire Anodyne 2. Interesting game with an aesthetic I like a lot. Unfortunately it's also incredibly monotonous. I kept expecting some twist where the gameplay flips on its head, because I was surprised that even several hours in it doesn't ever expand its ideas beyond what you did in the first 15 minutes. I'm not entirely sure where the narrative was building toward, but its writing generally wasn't really grabbing me either. So yeah, I can't make myself play any more of it. Disappointing. Maybe I'd be more into it if it got to the point it wanted to make quicker or just fully cut all the vacuous play.
Finished EXO ONE (Exbleative / Future Friends Games, 2021)
What if you could amplify gravitational potential energy to end up with a temporary surplus? What if you could build a spacecraft that could change its shape to make the most effective use of that neat trick? This game imagines it and sends the player on a journey through space and time.
Pro:
Incredible visuals and a soundscape to match. This game breaks free from all the schlocky visual conventions of contemporary TV and movie SciFi and throws it right back to the photorealistic surreal styles of 1970s space art, combined with the radiant colors of narrowband-imaging astrophotography from modern-day optical telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope.
The individual levels (planets) somehow manage to seem both huge and small. The game can be played very quickly (and features achievements for beating it in less than 90 or even 60 minutes), but this is all due to the very high speeds that the player-controlled spacecraft is moving at. The maps extend over hundreds of kilometers in every direction so that even while traveling at hypersonic speeds, the amazing sense of vastness never dissipates.
A great Post-Rock-styled original soundtrack, entirely made from layered sounds of electric guitars plus effects that delivers a final otherworldly touch to this extraordinary game.
Con:
There is a story, told in subtitles over pseudo-voiceovers and in occasional flashback images during gameplay. It's vague enough to inject just a bit of purpose and direction into the gameplay, without getting in the way or distracting from the moment-to-moment experience, but it never quite managed to capture my imagination.
Too short. Achievements provide some replay value, but replaying with achievements in mind diminishes the pure experience of the first playthrough significantly. I wish there had been more worlds to explore.
Controls could be a bit more intuitive, particularly since the game doesn't give the player a great amount of time to learn them.
Any Game Pass subscribers absolutely need to check this one out while it's on there. Everyone else, keep an eye out for deals on this game starting with 50% off or better. You might not necessarily be as amazed as I was, but it's definitely enough of a unique experience to justify a spot in almost anybody's game library.
Very good. Very fun little game. Much like the first. Its basically more of the same. Cute graphics, RGP lite type game. Had some real head scratching puzzles for me, got stuck once or twice and went to look at a guide but couldn't find any! so had to persevere and made it to the end. Feels great when you finally work out a solution after being stuck. Combat is still rubbish, didnt like it at all, dont feel like the game needs combat. Other than that though its a good 10 ish hours of fun.
Very fun physics-based game. You can play solo (I did) or coop (remote play together is supported). There are 7 levels/chapters where there are a few objectives (puzzle-like objectives) you have to solve + some challenges. The music is nice, graphics is really nice and gameplay is fun (physics based gameplay in space), a few frustrating moments at times, but otherwise a really fun good game. Took me 5 hours to finish (didn't do any challenges).
Game's been on my radar ever since I first saw footage from it and I wanted it on PC for the longest time. The only thing that really fascinated me about it was its visuals. And I still think the game looks incredible. Playing it on a 1440p screen, downsampled from 4K using the new Nvidia AI downsampling thing is incredible.
The problem is essentially everything about this game that's not just visuals. It's an incredibly boring game, where you just walk along corridors. The music gets old pretty fast, there's only really one track in the beginning that I really liked, a lot of the rest just fades into each other. It's not particularly bad, just not very interesting to listen to.
What really annoyed me about it, and caused me to quit is the combat though. It wants to make the combat into a clever puzzle, where you shouldn't just attack, but block enemies, perform counters and so forth. And yet the game has incredibly high latency in its animations, where you mostly just fight with the controls to get your character where you want them to be on time. What took the cake though is the first boss fight, where the game clearly wants you to do something clever, instead of just beating and evading the enemies. And I have no clue what it is. For a game with lots of tutorials, it's silly how the developers think dying over and over and trying to figure out by random tries what the goal is supposed to constitute a good game. Complete non sense.
Combat: It's not great. It's kind of clumsy and janky. Lack of hit reactions feels jarring. But it's not terrible either. As long as it's mixed up with other stuff I didn't mind it.
Mako combat: Pretty much pointless. But there's not a lot of it so it's not a big deal.
Indoors environments: These seriously look like someone bought Sci-Fi Pack 101 on the Unreal Store and copypasted stuff together. The planets aren't very interesting either but hey, they are mostly uninhabited planets so it makes sense.
Choices: Often I have like three dialogue choices but they are really the same choice. And while I did get to make some important choices, I also felt like some of the most important choices were not up to me. Makes some sense though as implementing every possible choice could get cost prohibitive.
Companions don't talk much: A missed opportunity as there is plenty of downtime on missions where the lore and background of characters could be expanded on. At first they actually talked in the elevators but then it stopped which makes me think Bioware ran out of time/money.
Performance: I was surprised at how bad the performance was at times considering that I've read this was a good remake. We're talking sub 10 fps at times. Seems like my CPU spiked a lot and admittedly my CPU is getting pretty old but come on, this a 15 year old game with a coat of paint. I certainly don't get performance this bad in modern games.
Bugs: I ran into quite a few actually. More than in any AAA game I remember. At least they weren't game breaking but just stuff like the camera getting stuck or the Mako getting stuck.
Overall though, even though there are a lot of problems, none of them are all that serious to me. But if the game was released today I reckon it would have gotten slaughtered by both both critics and players.
But, the game has some good elements too:
It has that 90s, early 2000s free reigns feeling. It's simply exciting to see what that distress signal is about or what will happen next and this makes up for a lot of the problems.
Story, dialogue and voice acting is not amazing, but is mostly good and engaging.
I liked Wrex and Garrus. The other companions felt a bit thin though.
I did like using my force powers to lift fools into the air or throw them.
Now, despite my complaints I did enjoy most of the game and without the final parts I would have given it a somewhat better rating. The final sections did sour me a bit as there was too much mediocre combat and a bunch of storytelling clichés.
Imagine an RPG with 15 different characters (classes), each with a unique play style, attacks and perks. But instead of having to start a new run with each character, you unlock other characters by doing quests and leveling up. Once unlocked, you can switch to a certain character at any moment, depending on the situation and your favorite playstyle. When a certain character gets enough experience, you can assign it's attacks and perks to other characters, resulting in one of the most diverse game I've ever played!
The game world is very well designed and filled with random generated (but unique) dungeons, diverse challenges and plenty of different enemies and bosses. You'll also encounter a few neutral factions, which you can join for extra quests. It took me more than 30 hours to complete the game, but I enjoyed every minute of it.
The game also looks great with it's sharp colorful graphics and the catchy soundtrack is excellent. I can't recommend this game enough!
A new step for the franchise that is a breath of fresh air in a number of ways while still retaining the satisfying Halo style combat at its core.
The wider open world-esque design certainly does add to the combat given the scale of these encounters can really get overwhelming at times.
On the other hand I will say it is full of the modern open world tropes that I am not a fan of but at least you can mostly mainline the campaign and ignore it if you're not interested.
I will say given this game is being seen as a platform and so campaign updates are surely likely, I think more options for traversal would be welcome. If you don't have a fast travel point near by or a vehicle then you can be trudging a long way.
Other thing I want to point out is the story, it's not so much a mixed bad, in fact I am positive on it but it is interestingly messy.
Feint praise but this is easily 343's best Halo campaign story so far, providing an intriguing narrative that finally doesn't require knowledge of extra non-game canon to understand.
As for the "messy" element, i'll dive in to spoilers
ok it's very clear that 343 tried to wipe the slate clean with Infinite's story for a number of assumed reasons.
The story starts with a year long gap from Halo 5 and then another 6 month gap again with the Chief having no knowledge of what has transpired during that time. It keeps things fresh and interesting as MC and the Weapon are also finding everything out as the player is.
That being said it is nevertheless bloody weird that hugely significant story moments are essentially relegated to moments off screen and flashbacks. Cortana's defeat and death? Well it's never really quite shown, even the ending moment that fills that in is itself really an incomplete flashback.
The Chief fighting Cortana's forces and deploying the Weapon? Not shown. All the flashbacks basically focus on Cortana and Atriox.
It's interesting that 343 have now 3 games in felt the need to wipe the slate clean on their stories twice now (remember the Didact in Halo 4? Yeah that whole thing was resolved in comics apparently) but like I say, praise where it's due the story is a big step up from 4 and 5, and the combat is still great.
8/10
Finished The Forgotten City (Series X, Game Pass)
Ok I fear I'm not going to be able to do this justice with my writing skills.
Long and short of it, you are best experiencing this game knowing little going in. It's essentially like the time looping town stuff from Majora's Mask as a full adventure game.
Ok that being said now, I will try to sell it a bit more. This is one of very few games I can point to and feel like I can truly call it clever.
The quest design is very tightly integrated. You have many concurrent leads you can tackle in any order, some quests can be handled in more than one way, and all of it is very logical, all of it driven by your exploration of the environment and in dialogue with the citizens. There's nothing really obtuse to any of the puzzles here, and so there is a nice sense of progression throughout that feels like peeling an onion or fitting jigsaw pieces together, as you take on each lead with them coming together towards discovering the end game.
Ok some vague allusions on the story
there are 2 big twists involved that I didn't see coming and the second will ultimately reframe everything you've experienced; the onion you've been peeling is now all of a sudden an orange which you'll next be pulling segments from
With the themes its working with at the late game, it's clear the team involved done a lot of research on the subject matters used. It's all handled deftly and every question I could have hoped to ask about what was going on was answered.
Only other thing I can say is to me this game is a 10, it's something that to me will become a reference point for its genre. And I admit I feel I'm rather harsh and can't recall the last time I gave any game a 10 personally, not since Umineko and Steins Gate anyway. This would definitely have been my 2021 GOTY had I played it last year.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a mixed bag for me: I didn't like the story and most of the characters, including the "highschool teen" version of Lara. There are also way too many boring climbing sections and most of the tombs are extremely linear.
On the other hand, the game does many things right: the combat is amazing, and offers a great combination between stealth and action. The escape sequences during the earthquakes are fantastic. I really enjoyed most of the challenge tombs, the one with the Spanish Galleon is my all time favorite. And the level design is very good, especially in the last part of the game.
But what surprised me most is how this game succeeds in offering a highly customizable gameplay experience. It's very difficult to develop a game that please both the casual crowd and the hardcore fans of the original games, but this game is the best effort I've ever seen. There are many options to tweak the gameplay to your own liking, including various difficulty settings and several options to disable hints and visual aids like the white paint where you can climb or instinct vision that reveals all enemies and usable objects. My sincere respect for the devs for doing this, and I wished more devs would follow this example.
A man shipwrecked, then trapped in the mysterious country of Terraphage, armed with a legendary harpoon, must free and gather his fellow castaways and then try to leave this hostile country to return to his homeland. While on this quest, he meets the mysterious Princess Olija - and her nemesis.
Pro:
Even though this game is not much of a looker - in fact, the pixel art is intentionally muddy and slightly askew-looking - already after the first 30 minutes it managed to distinguish itself from pretty much any other platformer I have played - pixel-art or not - in a long time. The game often pauses the gameplay to put in little interludes that are presented completely in-level and those do a great job of heightening immersion.
Very effective - if minimal - voice-acting.
Interesting and unpredictable story.
Good mix of hack'n'slash and puzzle platforming.
Con:
The main gimmick is the harpoon, which is not just a weapon, but also a teleporting device, and throughout the game, I kept confusing the teleport-towards-the-harpoon and the teleport-the-harpoon-back-to-me controls. Not ideal.
Final boss fight is a tad too difficult compared to the rest of the game (though still manageable).
This game caught my attention when I played a demo a couple Steam Next Fests ago, and I would never have even thought to try it based on screenshots or trailers alone. The free demo is still available on Steam and I can only recommend checking that out. Right now the full game is on Game Pass as well (which is where I played it). A rough, little gem.
Long game, took me 30 hours to finish with a few hours away from the game. Really good game, really fun, gorgeus looking in most places, quite big "mass effect" like scale in a lot of the level design. The story is great, really interesting, the banter, dialogue and story between the characters is great and interesting. A lot of fun dialogue, I really got to care for the characters, especially the guardians. Also some colelctibles you can find in the environment like skins for the guardians and money you use to upgrade stuff with.
The biggest con is really the combat, you only controll Quill while you can give orders to the other guardians to use their abilities. The combat is okay, but quill only really using his blasters, which are not all that powerful, made the combat quite repetive and uninteresting in many parts. Still, buying new awbilities and upgrading your character gives it at least some variation to the combat. Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot all have decent abilities, but since you can only give them orders, combat is not all that great, wich I also could play as them.
Overall, I really enjoyed the game, it was fun, addictive, enjoyable and interesting despite the somewhat repetive and bland combat.
Such a fantastic game! Interesting characters, good story and that fantastic real-time-tactics gameplay from yesteryear (Commandos etc).
Some of the later levels were hard as nails even on the easiest difficulty. The final mission took me over 3 hours of in game time! That's not counting all the reloads if I understand it correctly!
This is an easy recommend from me, that left me wanting more.
Aragami is a third person stealth game that casts you as an undead assassin with the power to control the shadows. Teleport to any shadow, become invisible, materialize weapons or even summon a shadow dragon to infiltrate the enemy ranks and dispose of your targets.
Pro:
Slick cel-shaded graphics style and good character designs.
Good co-op mode.
Con:
Sub-par cutscene animations.
Bad performance, especially on consoles, and there especially in co-op (often dips to less than 30 FPS). Try to play this on a beefy PC if at all possible.
Enemy NPC AI is dumb as bricks.
The biggest challenge comes from the finicky controls, particularly from the teleport mechanic (which couldn't be more of a blatant Dishonored-ripoff either).
Played through this game (and the Nightfall expansion) in co-op on PS4 and had fun while doing it, but you can have fun with almost any game in co-op, so don't read much praise into that. For single player, this is for hardcore stealth-action fans only, and only recommendable on a PC that can compensate for the really poor optimization of this game.
Really unique game. It's part FMV, part simulation.
You play as a broadcaster who's in charge of managing the live news feed. If someone swears, you have to censor it. You're constantly moving between different camera angles to capture who's talking. You can also decide which commercials you want to run. The acting is surprisingly good and the songs are extremely catchy. The game has around 14 different endings, so there's lots of replayability here.
This is one of those story-driven indie games while the gameplay consists mostly of moving around and finding objects to interact to continue the plot.
So whether you are going to enjoy it or not depends solely if the story will resonate with you. For me, it really did. Yes, it is predictable and somewhat “simple”, but I found this tale of an afterlife restaurant very charming and heartfelt.
It took me 2.8 hours hours to finish, including the epilogue and it really is an experience that will stay with me. I’m only not using the word “enjoyed” here because the whole thing also included a lot of crying.
Since really all there is to talk about it’s the story, I can't say a lot more. I’m not going to rate it because 1) it’s way too subjective and 2) some things happening today may have really “amplified” it's impact on me.
I recently completed CrossCode, it took me 65 hours or so while doing most, but not quite all, of the content.
It's a 2D action RPG with (high-end) 16 bit aesthetics (though with a lot more sprites and effects than what would have been possible in that era). I really liked the presentation throughout.
The controls are tight and responsive, and the battle system has a good balance of complexity and flow. Jumping is automatic, and this takes some getting used to given the sheer amount of exploration/jumping puzzles in the game.
"Sheer amount" really applies to everything here. As the completion time indicates it's a very large game, especially compared to what I'd generally expect from an indie game of this type. I feel like it might have been better in terms of pacing if it was a bit smaller, but it's inoffensive since at least there is substantial content.
Regarding the story, you can tell that they invested quite some time into it. Some beats hit, but the contrast between the setting and the emotional weight they were going for with the main story doesn't fully work out.
Still, a great game if you want a lengthy ARPG in this style.
You’re a lonely lil’ bird, and your Big Friend has hung up their board for good. Their job sucks, and lately, they’re barely ever home to play with you. You’re gonna fix all that with the power of being a chill little skateboarding bird. You may be tiny, but the more you skate, the more friends you’ll make. Birds will come check out your park, help you find more parks, and together you’ll (somehow) fix Big Friend’s life!
Pro:
Customizable player character and NPCs are as perfectly whimsical and cute as you could hope for.
Surprisingly large soundtrack with a selection of original music and indie skate punk / ska tracks (the latter are unlocked from collectibles in-game).
Wonderfully silly story.
Lots and lots of accessibility options that should really allow anybody to play this game.
Con:
Even after a lot of updates in the five months since release, still quite buggy and glitchy.
Skate park design ranges from uninspired to actively hostile. A skating game should have at least one dedicated fun map where an experienced player can just flow from trick to trick and chill out - and this game hasn't one.
Controls are clunky and undertutorialized.
Unfortunately more of a novelty title that mimicks classic skating games than an actual proper skating game with a cute twist. A couple of reviewers on Steam call it "The Goat Simulator of skating games", which I think it a bit harsh. But not entirely wrong. Real pity. I still Onehundredpercentbirb'd it. OKIES.
Wasteland 3 is definitely the best turn-based RPG I've ever played! This game has everything that I expect in a good game: a great story and characters, intense combat WITHOUT RNG, detailed and colorful graphics, excellent music and voice acting, limited handholding and many secrets and interesting quests to discover. I've enjoyed this game so much that I'm planning to replay the entire Wasteland trilogy later this year!
My only point of critique is that I've encountered way too many bugs: NPC's suddenly gone MIA, the framerate dropping to 2fps after closing a shopping window, the interface disappeared, AI-turn taking forever in combat, not being able to assign new team members (forcing me to play the final battle with only 4 team members), conversations starting in the middle of combat etc etc etc. I had to restart or reload the game way too many times because of bugs, which is unacceptable for a game 1.5 years after release.
Conclusion: everyone should play this game, but perhaps wait until more of the bugs are fixed by the devs.
Score: 9.1/10 (and you can add another 0.4 once the bugs are fixed)
I haven't finished it yet (hence why I'm putting my thoughts here and not the review thread) but I imagine my impressions won't change at this point; playing Guardians of the Galaxy and I've a very positive but nevertheless mixed feeling.
On the one hand it's basically a Marvel take on the Uncharted formula of cinematic 3rd person action adventure, I think a lot of reviews out there were overselling it as something it's not.
My only impression of GotG before this game is the MCU movies, but I'm sure many others are the same, and with that said I think it's a really good adaptation.
Gamora and Star-Lord are different but still enjoyable in their own ways (I think I actually prefer this Gamora!), whereas Drax, Groot and Rocket are pitch perfect impersonations to their movie counterparts and the team dynamics that come with it.
I think the reason the game is getting such aplomb is simply that it's a really good GotG adventure, the story is the main appeal here; it's a good comic book/tv series style story and if you're a fan of the characters then it's worth a play for this.
That said, I can't get it out of my head at this point (I'm at chapter 13) that the game, given it's surprisingly lengthy, is quite repetitive.
It's mostly either exploring environments in a pseudo Uncharted kind of fashion, which is all fairly inconsequential really. Or it's the combat, which while satisfactory, and there are plenty of options to play with, every encounter plays out basically the same, which over a game that's pushing the 15-20 hrs mark is just too much.
I think game needs to be either shorter or the combat had to be ultimately more complex. That said it's still wroth a playthrough for the story as its really strong.
To add to this what I will say is the story is really good, since when I wrote that I felt the game's ending was handled very well and was very satisfying.
If this were a little shorter I think the repetition wouldn't set in so much, but if you're a Marvel fan it is worth a look.
Decided to jump back into Dying Light what with DL2 releasing (which ill get once its patched a bit and isn't £55). Great zombie game. This DLC is a new map, out in the countryside a bit. Its kind of more of the same as the base game, meet the locals, get some tasks to complete to earn their trust and progress the story (which is ok). Same parkour running plus a variety of weapons to fight off the zombies. This time you get a dune buggy to drive around in. Kind of fun. Overall this game has had a lot of developer support over the years which is good. It looks nice, runs well. Has some upgrade your stuff mechanics which allows for lots of different ways to fight of the evil undead. Basically a fun game.
Very boring and uninterresting gameplay, it was fun playing as each hero for the first 30 min-1 hour, then it got stale and boring. Mission objectives are like side quest stuff, level design is mediocre, just all around boring, repetive, grindy game that lost my interrest quickly. Finished the main campaign and the expansions. The positive things are nice graphics most of the time, I do feel some sort of quality from the game and the story is quite interesting.
Heaven's Vault really is something special. You have to learn an ancient language to pinpoint new locations, which you can visit to find artifacts and inscriptions that teach you even more words. Most of the locations are beautiful but also mysterious, making them very exciting to discover. The story is very good as well and kept me playing until the end.
The game is not without some serious flaws though. Your character walks painfully slow, making larger locations rather boring to explore. Even worse is that you can't actually see the artifacs or inscriptions in the game world. You'll just have to walk around, hoping that a marker appears when you're close to the right spot. But these markers don't appear when you're in a dialog with your robot, and these dialogs automatically happen all the time. Travelling (sailing) between the locations is also rather boring.
But after all, I don't regret playing Heaven's Vault. The great concept, story and amazing soundtrack make it worth it. But replaying the game to discover other events and endings isn't gonna happen because of the slow pacing.
Very decent roguelike FPS where you have to shoot on the rhythm of the soundtrack. The movement and shooting are spot-on, but the rhythm shooting doesn't add that much to the gameplay experience. Like many roguelikes, your chance of survival depends heavily on the weapons and power-ups you can buy. Stuff like exploding bullets and self-regenerating shields make the game a lot easier, while it's very hard to reach the final boss without these perks. Another issue is that the enemies are sometimes hard to see because of the monochrome color palette. Worth playing for a few hours, but not more than that for me.
I had a lot more fun with Mortal Kombat 11 than I expected. Even better: I didn't have so much fun with a fighting game since Mortal Kombat 2! While my fingers aren't fast enough to execute complex combo's, there are still plenty of different attacks and special moves that anyone can use. And the tutorials are by far the best I've seen in any fighting game.
I was also surprised with the quality of the story mode. It actually feels like a Mortal Kombat movie from the 90's, with surprisingly well-made action scenes. And there are SO many other things to do, thanks to the timed towers, the crypt and a huge amount of different fighters.
My only complaint is the always online mode for singleplayer towers; I've lost connection several times, and I had to start the whole tower again from the beginning. This is extremely annoying, always online shouldn't be a thing for singleplayer content!
This said, the game itself is great for both beginners and advanced players, and I can't recommend it enough!
Simply a very mediocre for me. Didn't feel anything from playing it. I found it just really bland, genering, uninteresting and boring. The gameplay is decent, the graphics is decent, just that it's yet another generic open world RPG. Most of the open world is also empty with most places looking the same.
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this day 1 on PS4, then on Xbox via xCloud and now on PC via GeForce now i think i can firmly say this is a solid game now.
