The last few games you beat and rate them III

[Frankie Spankie]

The Messenger - 9.5/10

Some minor spoilers here, not story-line, but gameplay wise.

This may just end up being my game of the year for this year. The Messenger is a retro style ninja platformer, similar to Ninja Gaiden that switches from 8-bit to 16-bit, later on giving you the power to go back and forth. The worlds change and some of the pathways do as well when you swap worlds, forcing you to do some puzzle solving by being in the current generation to progress through a zone. The platforming is top notch. Everything feels great and there's a double jump ability that you can unlock by attacking an enemy, an object, or assuming you have the ability, an enemy projectile. There are power tokens hidden around the world which you have to test your platforming skills to reach and it feels great. There were only a couple that felt a little too punishing and just required a lot of spamming to unlock double jumps but most of them felt great, fair, and challenging. You also get a gliding ability later on which makes jumping and earning double jumps that much more fun and satisfying.

After a few hours, you learn that you can start to go back and forth in time by entering teleporters. At this point, the game goes from straight action platformer to a metroidvania where you'll spend a lot of time revisiting levels in different time lines. This will allow you to unlock new items for new power ups that will allow you to reach areas that you previously could not enter. The fact that the game introduces you into a straight action platformer for pretty much the first 2-3 hours and then throws you into a metroidvania was great pacing. You get a great feel for the enemies you will run into, most of the abilities, and the gameplay before tossing you into a whole new spin on the game by throwing in some puzzle solving aspects. The puzzles are never difficult in the slightest if you're not really into puzzles but it's just enough to add to the gameplay to keep things interesting. The boss battles were great and a provided a tough challenge while you learn boss patterns. My only complaint about the bosses were the last couple were surprisingly underwhelming. Some of the bosses are rather tough on your first playthrough and the last two I beat on my first try. It might be because I was getting the hang of the game since I did replay a bit of the game for achievements and the bosses were a lot easier on that run too but I still think the last couple of bosses could have been better designed. That's really my only minor complaint about this otherwise stellar game.

Finally, I'll sum up with the amazing aesthetic. Both 8-bit and 16-bit worlds are beautifully drawn. I miss games that took this much time into the artwork like this. The sound is exactly what you'd expect and the music is absolutely top notch. It's some of the best 8-bit and 16-bit music I've heard. Speaking of music, the slightest of details that I absolutely loved was that the music volume gets lower and deeper when you go underwater. I knew the devs really cared about making a great game when I saw such a small detail like that programmed into the game. There are shops with some upgrades to purchase, money isn't really an issue in the game and you should be able to unlock everything well before you reach the end. The shop keeper also adds a great level of humor. He'll have different dialogues in every level and protect his closet. If you're persistent with opening the closet, he'll go on and tell you a long story you can't skip but it's all great.

Overall, absolutely a must buy. It's incredible that I don't hear this game talked about anywhere. One of the best indie games I've played in a long time.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

A Druid's Duel - 4/10

I didn't beat this but I'm done playing it. A Druid's Duel is a neat little strategy/board game where you control different druid characters that have their own abilities to take control of the board. You can kill other characters and gain more mana by stepping on more spaces. You could spawn other druids with mana or use their abilities for mana. The concept is pretty unique and fun but the difficulty ramp is insane. After the first world, which is only an hour and a half or so, you end up fighting two independent teams at a time and this is where the team loses a lot of appeal. The other two teams play to win for themselves but seem to like to target you even when it's to their own disadvantage. The game grows more and more frustrating for the player as you're literally being outnumbered 2 vs 1. You can't do anything and the game just seems impossible. If you use your mana to use the few druids' abilities that you have, you won't be able to spawn more characters to take more control. If you spawn more characters, they just get focus fired by both opposing teams while they seem to work together.

I admittedly did not try multiplayer and don't have any plans to. It's not a popular game at all and I figured the only people even in queue to play multiplayer must be people who love the game and will dominate you way more than the AI is even programmed to. Regardless, the game starts off pretty fun and reels you in a bit with a fun aesthetic and unique game design but it just becomes stupidly challenging way too quickly.

 

[BaileyMacTavish]

Spyro Reignited Trilogy

9.0/10

As a long time Spyro fan since 2000, this collection was beautifully made and Toys for Bob has done a very good job remaking the game from the ground up. If you played the original OG trilogy on the PS1, they pretty much play the same with some minor changes in controls. The art direction for the game is fantastic and it's noticeable in the first game since all of the dragons you were tasked to save all have their own redesigns and aren't palette swaps of each other anymore. Aside from that, all three games are gorgeous to look, character designs for all the characters have been redone and are more animated in the cut scenes (and in game). Stewart Copeland returns to help out with the music and all the music has been remixed with the option of adding dynamic soundtracks to the game. The tracks are quite faithful to the PS1 originals and you have the option to switch between the original tracks and the remixed tracks.

Gameplay wise, it's seemingly identical to the controls of the originals. You control Spyro in many different vast worlds you can explore via jumping, gliding, flaming, and charging to collect gems and other collectibles. It is a collect-a-thon. If you like that style of game, you will love these games. Controls differ slightly and I find myself sticking to the Dpad instead of the control stick to better control Spyro in the games. Being able to freely control the camera with the Right stick makes the game a lot more fun to play and the ability to have Sparx point towards gems is a very nice QOL change.

Minor nitpicks include: Water controls are bad and possibly worse than the original games. This makes controlling him underwater a chore as you can sorta drift while charging underwater making some challenges harder than needed. The camera in the Bentley stages in Spyro 3 sticks over his shoulder making some minigames harder than usual. Skateboarding physics in 3 are wonky making landing tricks difficult. The 3rd game being outsourced to Sanzaru games suggests that the trilogy was rushed; and it shows. The 3rd game is the buggiest of the collection. I personally didn't encounter any game breaking bugs, but YMMV.

If you didn't like Spyro before, this game won't change your mind. But if you loved the Spyro games, pick this up. It's only $40 and I spent at least 30 hours completing the game 337% (117 in Spyro 3, 100 in Spyro 2, and 120 in Spyro 1). My favorite of the series is still 3, but I find myself replaying 1 a lot because it's so simple. Anywho, that's what I thought of it at least.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Life is Strange - 8/10

This is my first time I played Life is Strange and I suspect many of you have already. For those of you that haven't, you play a girl that finds out she cant reverse time to change your decisions and actions while you figure out a missing person case. Without going into any spoilers, I will just pretty much do a pros and cons:

Pro:

The characters and story was well written.
The ending was top notch

Con:

Pacing feels a little too slow early in the game
Some cutscenes are capped at 30FPS, it's not even all of them, gameplay is always and easy 100+ for me and many cutscenes are also 100+ but there's a few that cap at 30 and it really threw me off and took out some enjoyment out of those moments.

Overall, I do recommend the game. Gameplay felt a lot like Telltale games which I find kind of silly because I saw a lot of people saying Telltale needed to update their engine like Life is Strange, they literally felt the same with just different aesthetics to me. But what do I know now that Telltale is dead.

The one thing I really liked about the ending is:

Spoiler

I love games that make you question everything that you've done. When you think you made all the right choices and especially this where you can go back to change your decisions, they still make you question everything you've done. It's philosophical and makes you think about how you live your own life. Talos Principle did this incredibly well too (better than Life is Strange IMO.) I'm referring specifically to the scene where you're talking to yourself in the diner.

 

[Son Goku]

Demons Soul's

9.5/10

Definitely a game I would recommend. If you're looking for a decent challenge this game is for you. Not to mention its the OG of the dark souls games. The cons for me are how easily exploitable the game is and how outdated the fighting is. Bosses are rarely a challenge unless you're playing new game plus I find the grinding through the areas of the game are more challenging than most bosses in the game. The game has a plethora of different weapons, armor, and shields to use. Not to mention you can use magic and "maricles" which is basically just a different type of magic. Spending time on this game and exploring instead of bullrushing through the areas is definitely in your best interest, lots of cool items and weapons, keys, and shards to be found.

I think next I'll play the dark souls trilogy and then work myself up to BloodBourne!

 

[Ceremony]

Burly Men at Sea (PS4, 2017)

Burly Men at Sea is a... well, it's not a game really. You play it on a games console and use a controller to progress the things on screen but really, short interactive multi-directional story is probably a better way of putting it. There are three men with large beards who live in one of the paintings from a show bedroom in an Ikea. An indistinguishable map washes up on shore, and the Burly Men eventually decide to go exploring in search of where it came from.

I can't really go into the story in much detail without giving all of it away. Shortly after going out to sea the Burly Men are eaten by a whale, and from there you can embark upon a range of options to see the story through. There are various references to classic lost at sea stories, and from what I can gather from a bit of googling, some nods to Norse mythology as well. The different story branches vary quite well, even if you go through and explore all of them there's a pretty distinct way of getting to the end. I did find that some of them were slightly absurd, but you're that quick to going back and trying another that they don't detract from the experience too much.

Graphically, there's a simple, distinctive art style you can see in the picture. The slight sense of fairytale with the mythological references is a positive here, as although the different stories are all short the visuals and sound are effective enough to hold your attention. The music in particular is extremely good in the closing stages of the story, lending an ethereal air to what you realise is a profound experience, even after you see the same thing multiple times. The closing scenes were definitely my favourite, and what will stand out the most.

Again, it's hard to really do this without describing the entire game, but once you've finished you can go to the game's website and actually order a book depicting the scenes from whichever path you took through the story. I think the last game I played that had this charming, childlike imagery was The Unfinished Swan, and the obvious care and love that went into Burly Men at Sea's creation is quite similar. Even taking in all of the different story paths this game is not a long or arduous process, but what there is strives to be memorable and mostly succeeds.

I won't say it's a hugely challenging game or the best example of an interactive story, or that it will take more than three hours to see everything there is to see. That wouldn't be true. But it's nice. It's charming. It's something to fill an evening.

 

[Ceremony]

Tales from the Borderlands (PS4, 2014)

Telltale games are something that have been around for quite a few years now which I have almost completely ignored for that entire time. I say almost because I viewed the recent announcement of the closure of the studio with the same surprise anyone would have given their popularity and success, and because I played the demo of the first Walking Dead game when it first came out. I wasn't hooked.

I've been so uninterested in the concept that I ignored the Batman game when it was on PlayStation Plus some time back. Some time before that however Tales from the Borderlands was offered on PS+, and I enjoyed the games that inspired it. As I soon discovered however I played those several years ago and pretty much anything about them I remembered was superficial at best. Plus, as procedural as the games could be it's not like they just involved watching videos them picking a response every now and then for ~twelve hours.

Tales follows two characters (two you control, at least), Rhys and Fiona as the former tries to advance himself in the Hyperion Corporation which is the Borderlands universe's great antagonist, and as the latter makes her living as a con artist with her adopted sister. At least they do for about five minutes each as their paths are thrown together and their story sort of... goes where it goes.

The game was released, following the usual Telltale pattern, in five instalments. Coming to it several years later I naturally played all of them, and the need for each chapter to be both a continuation of the story and a reasonable stand-alone narrative in its own right is obvious. This isn't necessarily a good or a bad thing, but there are times when you feel as if the story is padding itself out. It can also be jarring from chapter to chapter if there's a significant pace or location change. This prevents the game from really getting into a consistent rhythm throughout. Thinking about it now it's almost as if the nature of the episodic format is contradictory. It's supposed to allow for smaller segments of the game to be released regularly and maintain interest over an extended period of time, but the actual result is the pacing all thrown off and jarring.

One aspect which sustains the game in the face of this is the characters. They're good, and written well. It's slightly confusing in the first episode when you have a bunch of people introduced who, in true Borderlands fashion, are all double-crossing and with ulterior motives that aren't revealed until later on. Couple this with the feeling that you're making profound, important choices with your dialogue and actions and the game can be quite off-putting in the early stages. You feel as if you're going to be punished for making a decision when you don't really know what the decision is.

This isn't helped by the timing of some of the dialogue choices. The character you're in control of will be listening to someone talk, then you're able to respond. Except you're only ever given a few seconds to consider the options on screen and it can be overwhelming when you're trying to decide which to pick. I don't know if this is down to my lack of experience with the format of the game but it's something I only began to feel comfortable with by around the last episode. I suppose it's one way of giving the game replayability, but then the experience I got from the game the first time would be undermined, and I wouldn't have as vivid a memory of the story as I do now.

I remember playing Heavy Rain when it came out, another game where you perform quick time events and make dialogue choices as a means of advancing the story through different potential paths. About 2/3 of the way in something happened and my save file became unplayable. I had to start again, but because I wanted to see the version of the story I'd been playing I had to make all of the same decisions I'd made before, as best as I could remember. In that case, this meant deliberately failing at things I had only learned how to do after failing them the first time. Despite playing the game multiple times since and seeing all the endings that first story line is the one which stands out to me as being what that game is about.

That's probably what I'd take away from games like this. Heavy Rain was the first kind I experienced, and the story I got from my first playthrough is what I remember. Tales from the Borderlands is similar in that there are multiple possibilities for where your story ends up, but a lot of the time I didn't feel as if I was moving through them with any confidence. Reacting instinctively to the command prompts was my only action and I guess is sort of the point, but it leaves me feeling as if I'm not doing something right, or I'm missing out on the purpose of the game somehow.

I'm not sure if I'll play another Telltale Game in the future, but from what I've read about them I'd say my experience here is a good representation of the experience. Memorable, well-written characters and story, faithful to the universe which inspired it, but with a nagging sense that the core gameplay mechanic is undermining me throughout.

 

[Ceremony]

Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, 2008)

Knowing that I wrote about Grand Theft Auto IV semi-recently (three years ago) and attempted a retrospective review of it then, I'm not sure where to start having played it again. I can't really bring up the fact it was my first Grand Theft Auto. I can't really bring up how much of a nostalgia trip it was because it still felt familiar enough that it didn't feel... well, old. So, here goes nothing.

GTA IV is the story of Niko Bellic, a Serbian who flees some sort of civil war to go and live with his cousin, Roman, in Liberty City. Liberty City is an almost completely accurate replica of New York City, and as Niko's story progresses the development of his character as an immigrant to late 2000's America is played off against his surroundings in a way which is distinctly of its time yet, as I discovered, worryingly prescient a decade later.

Hey! Ten year retrospective! There's my angle.

Anyway, Niko arrives in Liberty City having been promised every possible aspect of the American Dream by Roman. Endless women, sports cars, luxury apartments, exclusive nightclubs, you name it, Roman said he had it. Niko gets off the boat to be greeted by an angular sedan which is also one of the taxi cabs in Roman's business, which operates out of a small warehouse next to the docks. He has a fold-down bed in Roman's cockroach-ridden apartment. And, as he learns about his business, Niko finds that Roman is besotted with his receptionist, who is in turn taken at will by a Russian guy called Vlad in his fifties, in between threatening Roman for money.

So, the American Dream isn't off to a good start. It doesn't get any better in the short-term as Niko does an assortment of oddjobs for Roman and the few friends he's managed to cultivate – a Jamaican pothead who speaks in illegible patois and a manic steroid abuser – for a few hundred dollars at a time. Eventually though after a combination of good fortune and a complete lack of any moral substance Niko has it all – fancy apartments in the rich part of town, hundreds of thousands of dollars and all the clothes he can buy. The system works.

It took me around thirty hours to complete the story on this occasion and while that includes some messing around, the story is extensive and detailed enough to still account for at least twenty-five hours of gameplay for most. The list of characters is long, varied and mostly engaging, as various aspects of modern American life in a metropolitan city like New York are explored. This helps impart a sense of progression as you play through the game, as characters come and go you get a greater sense of Niko is actually achieving something.

For the most part, IV does well to centre this around a small group of central antagonists. Niko struggles against an assortment of people from his homeland who try to blackmail him and sell him out. The only real problem with such a vast range of characters is that it can get lost at times with a sandbox game, never mind one as deep and with as many things to do as IV. You could go hours and multiple missions between one part of the storyline and the next. Then by the time you reach the closing stages of the game and the story is concluded it feels sudden, even though you've been building towards it for a relatively long time.

When IV was first released and reviewed and played by millions, one of the common complaints was the repetitiveness of the missions. Lots of them amount to little more than 'drive to location, shoot people in location,' with the most variation in that being the layout of the location you're shooting in. I realised on this play that this wasn't the complaint I had, however. Rather it's the way these missions don't change, but the motivation for them does. You can turn up at a building early on in the game and have to kill a bunch of people for some local two-bit hard man, and get 500 dollars for it. But later on in the story you're doing the same thing for the Mafia, with no or little material difference in actual gameplay, and you're getting thousands for it. The money itself isn't the problem, it's the implied significance of it. There is some mild variation in some of the later missions – my favourite being the one where you chase a car to a dealership and launch an RPG at it, as hilarity ensues – and the apparent consequences of them are much higher, but what you, the player, do doesn't change. I think this is probably my biggest complaint after playing IV again. There's little sense of achievement when you do the same thing all the time and progress anyway.

Of all the aspects of the game, gameplay is probably the one which has aged the most poorly. Cover-based shooting works best when the controls and the controlled character are responsive. This is rarely the case in IV. In one of the first missions you get an introduction to the shooting mechanics. The game tells you to move the right stick to switch targets when locked on and in cover. This does not work. Or rather, it works one time out of every ten, and only if you pull the stick as sharply as you can. So maybe you stop locking on and move to target a different enemy manually, but this also doesn't work some of the time. This is just about something you can live with if you're in an open arena with a reasonable distance between you and the people shooting you. If you get rushed from different directions by guys with automatic weapons, though? You've no chance.

The weapons are somewhat limited too. They're quite basic, there's two different models of each type – two pistols, two SMG's, two shotguns, etc – with no real difference aside from magazine size. Any automatic weapon is useless if you use it as an automatic weapon. You can get around this most of the time by staying in cover and aiming for headshots, but the level of precision required to do it effectively seems at odds with the pace of the game. You can also use grenades or molotov cocktails, but trying to aim these without blowing yourself up is a complete nightmare.

The vehicle physics are long criticised but honestly, after about ten minutes it feels normal to me. Cars are heavy, but they're easy to control. Sportier cars are more agile, boxes and vans aren't. Nothing unusual. Every motorbike is a disaster, the slightest touch of a kerb or car or lamppost or pedestrian or misplaced pixel will launch you twenty feet in the air, but they're not very common.

In past playthroughs of this I've felt as if the different neighbourhoods and islands of Liberty City are rich and distinctive, serving to make the map feel like a sprawling metropolis with genuinely unique areas. On this occasion, sadly, this isn't the case. Broker and Dukes are great to start with, a more obviously working class area where most of the immigration goes to. As Niko works his way up the crime ladder you see the glitz of Algonquin and then the more industrialised Alderney, so at least the setting mirrors the story's progress even if the gameplay doesn't. The problem is that after you get to Algonquin there's not really much to interact with to make it feel like a dynamic, engaging map. Once you reach Alderney there's barely anything, even the story hardly bothers using this final third of the map. A sandbox is generally as much of a location as the player makes it but with very little incentive to explore a large part of the map it feels hollow.

This isn't to say that Liberty City is boring or forgettable. I'm not sure but I think I've completed it at least five times. If I didn't enjoy driving around, I wouldn't. If you spend time just driving or travelling around you get a real sense of both how deep the city is but also how limited it is by the time of release. If you try and drive to the rules of the road, the NPC cars try and drive through you. I'm not talking about when you're trying to blast over a bridge and they start veering wildly, try stopping at a red light. Cars behind will try to mount you. I realise GTA games aren't really judged by people who drive legally, but I think some of the complaints about driving physics are exacerbated by the roads being an obstacle course. On the other hand, the train/subway actually works and makes the game feel both like a real, immersive environment and a true to life simulation of the world it's trying to replicate. I know the public transport in GTA V wasn't really a thing but here, with trains and taxi cabs, it feels like a living city.

Speaking of V, comparing the graphics of two games released ~five years apart is quite the eye opener. IV's graphics aren't bad, but playing it ten years later the best way I can describe the visual experience is restrained. Like the graphics are the bare minimum to look passable on an HD console while still being functional. Seeing the progress that technology was able to make over that time is really quite breathtaking, and shows you that progress is genuine in a world with increasingly high costs and warped graphical focuses. I suppose if you wait ten years to play everything you won't resent the cost, but that's another argument. One thing the game really gets right is the lighting. I was playing it a few days ago and there was a great sunset as I was looking across the Algonquin bridge at the city. The sky was a deep pink giving way to infinite shades of orange and yellow and for a second I thought of all the enjoyment I'd got over the years travelling around, and it all made sense.

In terms of things the game gets completely wrong, everyone knows what's coming. Random phonecalls – NEEKO EET EEZ YOUR CUZZAN! LET US GO BOWLING! - no. The various characters you end up befriending are pretty much all insufferable. Why it was ever considered a good idea to have them phone you, bug you and make you feel guilty for rejecting them is beyond me. This doesn't increase the immersion, it makes you resent the game. Big problem. It's not really helped by the lack of stuff to do either. You can go bowling, which can be fun. You can play pool, which is impossible and will glitch. You can play darts, which is easy. You can go for food, which is an extension of the 'drive somewhere' mission format. You can go to a strip club or a show, which you can do once and then becomes pointless. The stuff with friends calling you to do stuff is something that feels like it was a great idea when someone came up with it early on in development, only for it to become less and less practical as more stuff went into the game. Sandbox games are what the player makes of them, trying to effectively incite them to do some crap activities isn't a good idea.

An extension of the sense of IV's story progressing despite repetitive missions is found in the characters themselves. There are some occasions where you can make a choice in missions. In fact off the top of my head it's usually giving you a choice to kill one person or someone else. Having played through it a few times I know that there's very little material difference in the outcomes. Like a few areas of the game these aspects feel like a good idea which wasn't, or couldn't, be implemented properly.

The thing about IV which stood out most to me on this occasion was the social commentary. The radio stations play a key role in world building, whether you listen to music or talk stations. By the way, 1979, Goodbye Horses, Cry, Dominion, Edge of Seventeen, they never get old. Listening to talk radio stations however I was amazed at how relevant the aspects of American media being parodied still are today. Although in 2008 the main focus surrounding the US and New York was terrorism, exhibited mainly in the bridges initially being closed and through various references to immigration, a lot of the hysteria and intra-ethnic discrimination holds up. There's a lot of content in this game, and when I say this I mean everything – the missions themselves, the radio stations, the TV shows, the cutscenes, the incidental dialogue you hear from people passing you on the street. If there's one thing Rockstar seem to have been good at in the 7th generation it was creating an entirely immersive world which is a comprehensive facsimile of the time it's attempting to replicate.

Although it doesn't have any direct effect on the game or the story there's also an ongoing election for Governor of the state and hearing references to that on the news is especially pertinent. I suppose it's just sad that what was an exaggeration of contemporary society doesn't feel like it's an exaggeration now. But I feel it's a true testament to the game's main strength that it was actually accurate. Of course, it's always hilarious.

The last time I played this game it was the oldest GTA I'd played. I've since played San Andreas on the PS3 and from what I remember there were a lot of similarities to IV in terms of the world the game took place in. Distinctive from area to area, a story centred around a genuine issue of social sensitivity, lots of things to do officially and in terms of exploration and finding your own fun. Considering IV now, I think I can just about separate my nostalgia-ridden memories and an objective, serious analysis of the things going on. The game is a supreme technical achievement of its time, with a near unparalleled sense of environmental immersion owing to a whole host of reasons. While you can find some shallowness in areas, it would take upwards of fifty hours to truly get sick of the game, which is again well beyond near enough anything else you could play. Playing it in 2018, it makes me excited about what open world games now and in the future can bring, mainly because I haven't really explored my PS4 yet. Either way, I'm confident in saying it still holds up.

 

[Ceremony]

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned (PS3, 2010)

Following on from Grand Theft Auto IV's tale of a Serbian immigrant arriving in the land of opportunity and killing more minorities than his army unit ever did in the civil war, surely, is The Lost and Damned, the story of motorcycle gang The Lost as their former leader is released from prison, returns to leader, leads badly, and ends up back in prison.

If you had played IV without knowing anything about its DLC, the last thing you would have expected or wanted was one centred around a character who rides a motorbike everywhere. Fortunately the riding physics have been improved greatly, so as you play a character who's driven motorbikes his whole life you feel as if he knows what he's supposed to do.

I don't think it's really possible to review a DLC like this without repeating a lot of the basic stuff from the main game, so I'll keep it short. Gameplay is pretty much the same, although there are some new activities to take part in. The main improvement is in races around the city you can enter. Blasting around the streets while able to knock people off with a baseball bat is great entertainment. There are some new weapons too. The grenade launcher was sorely needed in IV, and the sawn-off shotgun is very satisfying. There are some new songs on most of the radio stations and although even now they still feel 'different', they don't feel out of place.

The biggest positive I got from playing TLaD is one I remembered from the last time I played. My complaint in IV about Alderney feeling underused is addressed, to an extent. The Lost's clubhouse is there, so part of the island acts as a focal point for missions and activities. There aren't really that many missions which take place in the industrial areas and even then it's just shootouts, there's no real involvement. Still, the change in location immediately helps TLaD feel distinct and separate from the main game, so mission accomplished.

The other main way TLaD separates itself from IV is through the graphics. In IV the graphics can vary, from relatively dull and gritty in the poorer urban areas to bright and sometimes spectacular in downtown Algonquin or in some sky settings, depending on the time. In TLaD, to reflect I assume the apparent manliness and grittiness of the motorbike men, the graphics are worse. The colours are duller, there's a strange grainy filter over everything and more than anything it feels like a parody of futuristic military shooters from the time with their fascination with brown and grey. This results in pretty much none of what you do actually standing out in the mind, because it all looks the same.

Sadly, the graphics are quite fitting for the game because the story doesn't really stand out either. Maybe it's a side-effect of IV being so huge and immersive, but TLaD sort of rushes along with a level of implied empathy with the characters which I never felt. You play as Johnny, acting leader of the gang who has tried to keep all of its members happy while bringing their operation forward into the 21st century. The former leader, Billy, gets out of prison looking vaguely like Charles Manson, assumes his old position and immediately sets about killing dozens of members of a rival gang and trying to set up drug deals with the Triads. The problem here arises in the contradiction between what you do in missions and what you see in cutscenes. You see lots of internal politics and arguments, then your missions involve going out and killing lots of people regardless.

Despite the few welcome gameplay distractions, I find it very hard to care about any of the characters here. Similar to one of Niko's mission arcs, Johnny does some shady stuff for a politician, but there's very little connection between this and anything else Johnny does. It doesn't seem like a logical progression, that a struggling biker gang member is suddenly a hitman for hire. There's some reference to one of the storylines in IV regarding a bag of diamonds several people were trying to buy and steal, and it's good that the DLC story is connected to the main game, but it's nowhere near as immersive as the original.

Even the appearances of some minor antagonists from IV don't have what I'd call a positive effect, they just feel out of place. As Niko we see some two-bit Italian types who dabble in some organised crime and run a restaurant, that's fine. Then as Johnny, we find out the same guy is having sex with Johnny and Billy's old girlfriend, a constantly relapsing drug addict? Nah. I'm not buying it.

TLaD is unquestionably something different to IV, and it's a mark of the depth and creativity of the game's universe that Rockstar were able to create a substantial add-on which retains IV's best qualities while adding unique elements to make it feel different. While the feeling of being in a motorbike gang and playing as a character with different motivations to Niko is definitely enjoyable, there are too many niggling faults which stop the episode from really being on IV's level. The graphics and the story are both poorer, the characterisation weaker, and missions for the most part don't deviate from the standard pattern. It's absolutely worth playing, but you won't spend as much time enjoying the world even if it's your first introduction to the IV universe.

 

[Ceremony]

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony (PS3, 2010)

The Ballad of Gay Tony is the second Episode From Liberty City released as a Grand Theft Auto IV add-on. You play Luis Lopez, Dominican ne'er-do-well and personal lackey to Tony Prince, nightclub owner and man about town. Much like The Lost and Damned there are new characters, activities, vehicles and weapons to expand on the original game world. Unlike TLaD however, nearly all of them are fun and memorable.

Ironically given my criticisms of the two previous narratives in this universe, TBoGT's main strength seems to come from its lack of focus on a story. Tony's nightclubs are in perpetual financial trouble and he does a consistently terrible job of trying to run them, that's fair enough. The diamonds from the previous two stories make an appearance as do some shady Russians, but that's pretty much it. The story provides a platform for the gameplay rather than the other way round, as you use the assortment of new weapons and vehicles to try and keep things sane. Sticky bombs, explosive shotgun shells, supercars that actually handle and police-issue tanks, they're all what open world gameplay is supposed to be.

I'm not sure how to describe the fun without listing every mission, but I'll try and pick out the highlights. While IV suffered from missions not really deviating from a small amount of basic structures, TBoGT uses the range of new objects to complement the objectives in a way which makes the game world seem larger while still retaining the same basic gameplay and charm that you're familiar with. Whether it's stealing a police tank from mid-air and crushing every patrol car in sight, doing a stunt run in a supercar along the docks, sky diving or running around the city trying to blow stuff up with sticky bombs against the clock, so many of the missions stand out in a way the base game just doesn't manage.

The characterisation is really strong too, although I think the comparative shortness of the episode compared to IV works in its favour here. There are strong characters in IV who can get a bit wearing over the ~90 missions, but at around a quarter of the length TBoGT strikes the right balance between outright wacky and down to earth relatability. You see Luis' home life, his friends, but also how his life developed and he was able to effectively move up in the world. The characters are all much stronger than TLaD, and the episode remains more engaging as a result.

I can't really overstate how much fun the gameplay is, so I'll go for it a bit more. First I should mention the graphics though, which look much cleaner and in keeping with the aesthetic of the episode's general tone. Like TLaD it's clearly setting out to be distinct from the base game, but it's generally just better at it. The graphical improvements almost make it look like a new game, as the buildings and textures don't look so grainy when you drive at speed. Couple this with the range of weapons being much more satisfying and efficient, and it's hard to really find any kind of fault at all.

The extra activities are the best of the three IV stories too. Sky diving on to a range of targets makes use of the sky in a way IV didn't. You can now play on the driving range, which is much more fun than pool, bowling and darts combined. The random encounter missions in IV are still there and because of the episode's shorter length you really feel as if you're getting a complete story of one person. While IV's story could drag out in a way which seemed unnecessary at times and while TLaD's was a bit shallow, TBoGT hits the right balance. It's consistent, still fairly lengthy and never repetitive.

Essentially, TBoGT is all the best elements of the IV universe coupled with what seems to be the classic sense of past GTA games, an irreverent sense of contemporary culture reflected sincerely as a result of how over the top it is. It captures a certain period of time almost perfectly, and best of all you get to blast through it (literally) in a way which makes you feel like you have an advantage over everyone else but not so much that it becomes ridiculous. The characters are pretty much all an improvement, and the gameplay has enough additions to paper over any faults you might have found before.

Now that I think about it, I honestly don't think I have a bad word to say about The Ballad of Gay Tony. As far as DLC goes it's as substantial as anything I've ever bought and in terms of content, the two episodes are probably the best value you could ever hope for. While I thought IV still holds up on its own merits, it's absolutely still worth your time when you consider these two editions. Just make sure you've got enough money to keep buying exploding shotgun shells.

 

[Warden of the North]

God of War

10/10

Enoughs been said about it. I agree with all of it. Its perfect.

 

[CutOnDime97]

Super Mario Odyssey: 7.5/10

Fun game overall, maybe just a bit too easy.

 

[Shareefruck]

Into the Breach - 4.5 (Brilliant)

I just finished this, and man, it's fantastic. I haven't been this interested in a strategy game in a very long time. The mechanics are really inspired, simple, and beautiful in kind of the same way that chess is (and in a way that I've always felt strategy games have lacked).

My only minor reservation was that the campaign feels a bit anti-climactic. There's not really a focus on story and it doesn't really progressively ramp up to a satisfying end (although there's color, charm, context, and detail within the world). Instead, the mechanics of each individual battle itself is really engaging/addictive, and they just kind of find a reason to throw them at you until you've played a good amount. I definitely wouldn't call it a game that's jam-packed with "stuff", although that doesn't mean it isn't endlessly replayable (it uses random generation WAY more effectively than Dead Cells does-- keeps things feeling fresh rather than impersonal/soulless). More an expectation thing than a flaw, I suppose.

Celeste and Into the Breach are easily the only two games this year that I feel really strongly about.

General impressions of 2018:

1. 30th Anniversary: Super Street Fighter II Turbo - 5.0 (Masterpiece)
2. Celeste - 5.0 (Masterpiece)
3. 30th Anniversary: Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - 4.5 (Brilliant)
4. Into the Breach - 4.5 (Brilliant)
5. 30th Anniversary: Street Fighter Alpha 3 - 3.0 (Very Good)
6. 30th Anniversary: Street Fighter Alpha 2 - 3.0 (Very Good)
7. Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology - 3.0 (Very Good)
8. Tetris Effect - 2.5 (Good)
---
9. Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition - 2.0 (Positive)
10. Sonic Mania Plus - 2.0 (Positive)
11. Shadow of the Colossus (Remake) - 2.0 (Positive)
12. The Messenger - 1.5 (Neutral)
---
13. Gris - 1.0 (Negative)
14. Dragonball FighterZ - 1.0 (Negative)
15. Deltarune - 1.0 (Negative)
16. Octopath Traveler - 1.0 (Negative)
17. Megaman 11 - 1.0 (Negative)
18. Dead Cells - 1.0 (Negative)
19. Spiderman - 1.0 (Negative)

 

[Nalens Oga]

Need some advice on modding a console

Have: Gamecube, PSOne slim, PS3 (not modding that PS3 anytime soon)

I was thinking of doing a Gamecube soft-mod by buying an Action Replay disc + SD Adapter + other supplies which would cost around $40 CAD. Then I thought I'd just buy a PS2 then get a modchip and someone to solder it which would cost around $60. What I was thinking of doing then was to buy a Wii and soft-mod it since it can play both Gamecube + Wii games.

Any advice though on what I should look out for or be aware of if doing this? For example, I didn't know that PS2s and PS1s have fickle CD drives that can give out if playing burnt optical media. I've never modded a console before.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Into the Breach - 4.0 or 4.5 (Flawless/Brilliant)

I just finished this, and man, it's fantastic. I haven't been this interested in a strategy game in a very long time. The mechanics are really inspired, simple, and beautiful in kind of the same way that chess is (and in a way that I've always felt strategy games have lacked).

My only minor reservation was that the campaign feels a bit anti-climactic. There's not really a focus on story and it doesn't really progressively ramp up to a satisfying end (although there's color, charm, context, and detail within the world). Instead, the mechanics of each individual battle itself is really engaging/addictive, and they just kind of find a reason to throw them at you until you've played a good amount. I definitely wouldn't call it a game that's jam-packed with "stuff", although that doesn't mean it isn't replayable (it uses random generation WAY more effectively than Dead Cells does-- keeps things feeling fresh rather than impersonal/soulless). More an expectation thing than a flaw, I suppose.

Celeste and Into the Breach are easily the only two games this year that I feel really strongly about.

General impressions of 2018:
1. Celeste - 5.0 (Masterpiece)
2. Into the Breach - 4.0 or 4.5 (Flawless/Brilliant)
3. Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology - 3.5 (Great)
4. Tetris Effect - 3.0 (Very Good)
5. The Messenger - 2.5 (Good)
6. Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition - 2.5 (Good)
---
7. Sonic Mania Plus - 2.0 (Positive)
8. Shadow of the Colossus (Remake) - 2.0 (Positive)
9. Deltarune - 1.5 (Neutral)
---
10. Dragonball FighterZ - 1.0 (Negative)
11. Spiderman - 1.0 (Negative)
12. Octopath Traveler - 1.0 (Negative)
13. Megaman 11 - 1.0 (Negative)
14. Dead Cells - 1.0 (Negative)

Maybe I'm nitpicking, but how can something be flawless (i.e. perfect) and receive a 4-4.5/5.0? Just found that amusing.

 

[Shareefruck]

Maybe I'm nitpicking, but how can something be flawless (i.e. perfect) and receive a 4-4.5/5.0? Just found that amusing.

I think that something can be devoid of flaws and technically pristine yet still not necessarily be an absolutely transcendent, awe-inspiring or magical experience, personally.

Into the Breach is perfectly executed for what it sets out to do, and its mechanics are addictive and brilliant, but I'm hesitant to call it one of the ideal peak experiences that a video-game can achieve.

That said, they're just loose generic rating labels that won't always pertain to the game I assign it to. For example, something can be a bit flawed but make up for it by feeling awe-inspiring/magical to me and I'll still label it that.

 

[member 157595]

I think that something can be devoid of flaws and technically pristine yet still not necessarily be an absolutely transcendent, awe-inspiring or magical experience, personally.

That said, it's just the tiers I use when rating things... it might not be the best adjective to describe Into the Breach.

Agreed.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Definitely agree Sharee. I've personally started enjoying games that do one thing perfectly rather than a whole bunch of things mediocrely. There are plenty of games in that category that are flawless in what they set out to do but I wouldn't rate incredibly highly ie Race the Sun or Cluster Truck.

 

[mmalady]

finished ME Andromeda....the advice i recieved prior to playing was bang on....definite step down from the first 3...i found the jump mechanics buggy and often got stuck somewhere and had to reload ...ran into several glitches and screen stutters...anyway story was meh...and I felt the main story was extremely short but being a completionist i managed to stretch it out significantly...the crafting , for me, was useless once i found the 2 guns i wanted to roll with and ended up feeling over powered once i was at "the point of no return"...anyway , glad i played and wasn't as disappointed as i would have been without having managed my expections prior
6.5/10

 

[Commander Clueless]

God of War (PS4) - 10/10

Finally finished this one off.

My only complaint with this game ended up being that combat felt slow and sluggish at the beginning, outside of the boss fights. It took me a good while to get through it. To me, this criticism isn't enough to drop a point off the score of an otherwise masterpiece game.


Once the combat picked up, I got REALLY into it, and it just snowballed from there.


Fantastic adventure, incredible visuals, amazingly fun (albeit somewhat repetitive) badass combat, and great character interaction. If you have a PS4, this is a must play IMO.


In a last minute upset, this game swooped in to take my Game of the Year vote away from RDR2.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - 3/10

Hold on, let me get my fire-proof suit on. I'm going to preface this by outright saying I'm not really a Star Wars fan, I don't hate it, but I'm not a fan either. This is also my first ever playthrough of KOTOR.

OK, I'm going to just get the one big positive in there, the story was great. I only know the basics of the Star Wars world and even playing through this, I've seen a lot of alien races for the first time. The story does start kind of slow and outside of your main party which takes a little while to build out, there aren't many memorable, deep characters. The story doesn't even start to get really interesting until the final third of the game. The first third was a cool introduction of the game and had some good flow but the middle of the game felt like a huge grind of a fetch quest. The story even felt kind of cookie cutter being either huge asshole or goodie-two-shoes in dialogue options. I appreciate the fact that you can choose either alignment but there's really no moral gray area in the game which makes me think there's no reason to play the game more than twice, not that I'm going to play a second time.

Now with the one positive out of the way, on to my list of negatives. First off, this game did not age well at all. Anyone who hasn't played the game yet, don't waste your time. I don't even think I'd recommend replaying it if you enjoyed it at the time of launch assuming you've played any games in the past 15 years as the controls and mechanics are just so badly dated. The controls are just flat out bad. I don't remember how many times I lost control of my character and had to reload the game to regain control of my character. Furthermore, I had myself or party members get stuck in doors a little too often that it grew annoying. And the last annoying thing about movement was that the characters move so slowly, the zones are pretty small and limited, but with the slow movement it takes forever to run across a zone. The worst is sometimes a party memeber would get stuck on a corner or an NPC behind you, you won't realize it until you try to leave the zone to be shown a screen saying you can't proceed without your whole party present. Then when you find that, you switch to the other character and find that s/he's stuck on an NPC running in circles at the start of the zone, forcing you to run across it again.

The combat system is literally a dice rolling game. You can pause and pick who to attack in what order but it's literally just click on a target and tell your character what attack to do. It's almost like a mix of turn-based vs real time but more on the real-time side. All of your attacks pretty much take the same amount of time as your enemies' attacks. There's some neat abilities but I quickly found that there's some that feel OP and after trying others briefly, I found myself just using the same couple of abilities. I know this is kind of an issue for every game really between powerful and weak attacks but the combat is so bland, it makes the issue really stick out.

Overall, I'm sure people praise this highly because they're wearing their nostalgia glasses or they're a Star Wars fan or a mixture of both, but in late 2018, this is a bad game. I don't even care about the dated graphics, I've played plenty of games that have looked worse that I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm sure it felt like a good game in 2003, I can't argue against how people perceived the game when it was first released but looking at this game at face value in 2018, it is not worth a playthrough. If you're interested in a neat Star Wars story, you can probably just read the synopsis on Wikipedia and get more enjoyment over spending 30 hours of your time playing through this mess.

 

[Osprey]

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - 3/10

Hold on, let me get my fire-proof suit on. I'm going to preface this by outright saying I'm not really a Star Wars fan, I don't hate it, but I'm not a fan either. This is also my first ever playthrough of KOTOR.

I tried playing it for the first time a year or so ago and didn't get far for some of the same reasons that you didn't like it. The controls are so dated and clunky, as you said. I can get used to dated graphics, but dated controls are another matter. I'll probably give the game another chance eventually, but I wasn't at all impressed the first time.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

KotOR 2 is where it was at.

That game must have aged terribly though.

 

[Commander Clueless]

I'm as big a fan of the KOTOR games as you can likely find, but even I will admit they haven't aged well on the technical side of things.

I mean, they weren't fantastic on the technical side at release. The original KOTOR melted GPUs at the time.

I don't blame anyone for not liking them (especially nowadays), but they blew me away back in the day.

KotOR 2 is where it was at.

That game must have aged terribly though.

KOTOR 2 is a little more playable these days thanks to the surprisingly recent update.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

How much better could KOTOR 2 even be? 2 was released less than 1.5 years later. I feel like there's no way they could have made major improvements in that little time considering all the other work between story and level design is needed.