The last few games you beat and rate them III

[Frankie Spankie]

I've tried to do it to save knives and grenades but for me it just killed me. I was green health. My guess if it didn't kill you is the same as earlier in that complaint that the amount of damage you take per hit seems to be random.

 

[syz]

Never heard of a zombie one shotting anybody. Even on hardcore they tend to take you from green to red.

If it was an Ivy those are guaranteed 1 hit kills every time if you don't have a sub-weapon.

 

[PK Cronin]

I've tried to do it to save knives and grenades but for me it just killed me. I was green health. My guess if it didn't kill you is the same as earlier in that complaint that the amount of damage you take per hit seems to be random.

So weird, I'll give it a try again later tonight. I've defaulted to just not carrying the items in the police station because I accidentally click hit the button out of habit/natural reaction. I'm playing on standard at the moment.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

It might have been an ivy, I don't remember what it was. I only tried it once, early on I instinctively hit space bar because I'm used to QTEs at this point.

 

[Commander Clueless]

On the making the game less frustrating (especially for those new to the game) side of the argument, though, I don't think giving the player an assist mode option that allows you to re-attempt the most recent battle if you get a game over rather than being forced to start the campaign all over again from the beginning would be the absolute WORST thing in the world. I like the way the challenge is currently set up, personally, but as long as it isn't the default setting, it would probably help those frustrated with it a great deal.

I actually think this would be a nice option to have.

Also, have any of you Into the Breachers found a good combination of mechs? I've only unlocked a few sets so far and played around with the configuration, but keep going back to the starter set.

 

[Shareefruck]

I actually think this would be a nice option to have.

Also, have any of you Into the Breachers found a good combination of mechs? I've only unlocked a few sets so far and played around with the configuration, but keep going back to the starter set.

I'm in the same boat.

 

[Commander Clueless]

I'm in the same boat.

Good to know it's not just me!

I played around with the lightning mech and had some fun, but that's a double edged sword if ever there was one.

 

[Osprey]

I think that I've played with all of the mech sets and, unfortunately, none of the rest are as good as the starter set. I think that it's just because the starter set has mechs that are most familiar to gamers, so it's easily the most comfortable to play with. One mech is just a punching mech, another is a rather ordinary artillery and another is a rather ordinary tank. Also, there aren't really any drawbacks to their abilities, whereas many of the mechs in the other sets do. As you said, CC, some of the mech abilities are a double-edged sword. That doesn't mean that other mech sets can't be a lot of fun. It's just that it's hard to get as comfortable playing with them as with the starter set.

I played around with the lightning mech and had some fun, but that's a double edged sword if ever there was one.

That's one of the more unique sets and can be a lot of fun. You absolutely need to put a core into the upgrade to chain lightning through buildings without damaging them, though. Once you don't have to worry about damaging your buildings, that set becomes a lot easier and more fun. It also helps to really beef up the HP of your mechs, because you often need to position them to get a good chain going (through them).

 

[Shareefruck]

Finally beat the B Sides and C Sides of Celeste. They're so ****ing well designed, perfectly considered, and tough as nails, while oddly within reach. I love how C Sides are not the same length as B Sides, which would have been completely grueling and tedious, and were instead one single giant (but short in terms of time to attempt) challenge that feels like conquering the world to finally beat. Bonus content is NEVER this ****ing good-- Adds a whole new dimension to the game. Actually took me way longer to beat the B Sides than the C Sides. Also, personal best for Any% is now 46 minutes.

Windjammers - 3.5 (Great)
Grew on me some more. This is an easy game to dismiss and write-off-- its ideas are so dorky and simple, but it's an inspired and beat-perfect 1v1 game that is immensely satisfying, well designed, and addictive in its simplicity, IMO. Probably the only really interesting iteration on a Pong/Tennis-style game I can think of.

Favorite Games:
1. Earthbound
2. Super Metroid
3. Super Street Fighter II Turbo
4. Celeste
5. Inside
6. Super Mario World
7. Tetris (GB)
---
8. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
9. Into the Breach
10. Super Mario Bros. 3
11. Chrono Trigger
12. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
13. Megaman X
---
14. Portal
15. Garou: Mark of the Wolves
16. Mother 3
17. Final Fantasy VI
18. Shadow of the Colossus
19. Windjammers
20. Vampire Savior
21. Final Fantasy Tactics
22. Tetris Attack
23. Ikaruga
24. Limbo
25. Journey

Also, I had my eye on Wargroove, but after reading everyone's impressions about it, I'm a lot less enthusiastic and will probably skip it unless the praise gets more overwhelming. Despite beautiful sprite-work, I don't know that the art direction actually looks that strong, and it sounds like a carbon copy of Advance Wars (which I haven't played but have been procrastinating despite heavy interest) that isn't necessarily an improvement in gameplay, but with a lot less charm, personality, and soul (which appears to be the case to me from looking at it as well). I think I'm just going to play the first two Advance Wars games (which looks more appealing to me) and not worry about this one.

 

[PK Cronin]

It might have been an ivy, I don't remember what it was. I only tried it once, early on I instinctively hit space bar because I'm used to QTEs at this point.

Just wanted to let you and anyone who might've been interested know that I've confirmed that it is not an instant death if a zombie grabs you and you refuse to use your weapon to escape. It gets rough in the late game though because the monsters do so much more damage than the zombies.

 

[Unholy Diver]

We Happy Few 7/10

It has it's flaws but it was an enjoyable experience for the most part, I enjoyed the intertwining of the three chapters/stories

 

[Gardner McKay]

Finally beat KH II in preparation to play KH III.

7/10. Overall, pretty disappointing and highly inferior to the original KH. While the original was less complex, it did a lot of things well whereas I feel that the more complex KH II does few things well.

The good:
Pirates of the Caribbean
Halloween Town
The fact that Scrooge McDuck makes an appearance
I like the addition of forms

The bad:
Hallow Bastion fees like a cluttered mess this time around
The Underworld in Olympus Coliseum was disappointing
The Pride Lands were bland and boring

The ugly:
Atlantica was the dumbest f***ing thing ever
The Keyblades were a massive disappointment
The game relied far too heavily on reaction commands. Half the time I felt like big battles were just me mashing triangle over and over
The final boss

Spoiler

was an absolute joke. 4-5 stupidly easy battles followed by a battle that is hands down the hardest in the game? Not that I have a problem with a challenge but the game keeps saying "used what you have learned to beat the final boss" when yet again all I have to do is mash triangle for the reversal reaction command to win.

I felt like the game as half assed and the developers added a lot of things in to create artificial difficulty
Overall, the words felt barren and bland
While aesthetically pleasing, they offered little substance

Now I remember why I have played the original 5 or 6 times since its release and why this is only the second time I have ever played KH II. If KH III is anything like KH II I don't know if I will even finish it.

 

[God King Fudge]

The Council (PC) - 7/10

Full of lots of jank, particularly in graphics and (with a few notable exceptions) voice acting...but a very interesting story if you enjoy the choose-your-own adventure style with light RPG elements.

A recommend from me.

I started this but just find it super confusing with all the systems it kind of threw at you early. I need to give it another shot because it seemed real interesting.

I finished Donut County recently. Thought it was cute, but I'd heard how great it was and it was definitely not that. Some decent humor, but I feel like it's incredibly overrated.

6/10

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Shadow of the Tomb Raider - 7.5/10

I wasn't originally planning on buying this game, not until it got cheaper anyway, but I just got a 2080Ti and wanted to test it out. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is probably the most beautiful game I've ever played. Many cutscenes felt like just real life. The graphics were top notch and Lara's character model is one of the best I've ever seen. It's incredibly well optimized too, outside of cities, which isn't really action based, I was pretty much always 90 FPS at ultra settings at 1440p. Cities would sometimes drop to about 70. Everything looked gorgeous and silky smooth which definitely made the experience that much better.

The gameplay was about average, nothing fancy for an action/adventure game and everything works. The story was enjoyable for sure. I didn't like this one as much as the reboot from 2013 but I definitely liked this one more than Rise of the Tomb Raider. There wasn't that much action in Shadow of the Tomb Raider but I liked that since the combat isn't all that great anyway. I remember not really enjoying quite of bit of Rise of the Tomb Raider because there was so much forced combat and it felt so repetitive, that wasn't the case with this one. There is a lot of climbing in this one though and not enough puzzle solving IMO.

Overall, if you like the Tomb Raider games, this is another solid addition to the franchise but on the face of it, it's not a must play game. Definitely good and if you want to see a beautiful game to test out your rig, go for it, but I wouldn't drop everything you have to play it. Pick it up if you're in the mood but don't feel too bad about missing it.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Anthem (PC) - 5/10

I put a more thorough thoughts post in the Anthem thread, but suffice it to say:

It's not bad, but it's not good. The good is balanced out by bad design choices. Tedious and repetitive by the end.

Basically, they copied the original Destiny, slapped some flying and a mediocre RPG on top, and called it a day.

 

[Nickmo82]

Yakuza 0 - Great fun, a little overlong, some boss fights were a little frustrating (though not over-hard). Solid game. 7.5/10.

 

[Jovavic]

Spyro 1 - PS4

Never played the originals, not my type of game back then. The wife wanted to play this so I picked it up and ended playing the majority while she watched. It's....ok, I guess? She made me go through and 100% every level, which is lame, I'm not a completionist at all, but I powered through. Some of the levels were designed well but the boss fights were dumb. I'd give this a 6 out of 10 and hope the other two games are better.

 

[Ceremony]

Knack (PS4, 2013)

The past three generations of consoles have seen me be a later and later adopter of each new offering. I got a PS2 for Christmas the year it came out. I got a PS3 in May 2008, two years after it was out. I got a PS4 Pro in November 2017, four years after the original was released. Going by predictions and projection then I'll probably get the PS5 when the PS6 is due to launch.

I say this because as someone who's never really been new to a console I don't know what it's like. The first games I played on my PS3 were GTA IV and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. I didn't have to sit playing Haze, justifying my £400 outlay on something bigger, uglier and with a much poorer library than the thing I'd played consistently for seven years. I'm in a similar place now with the PS4, where GT Sport and Rocket League were what I played regularly until I was satisfied with my PS3 backlog and ready to start the vast and varied assortment of other 8th gen games I had to choose from.
The third of these games was Knack, which was released as one of the PS4's launch titles. f***ing woof.

I enjoy platformers. I enjoy linear games, or at least ones where there are clear objectives and not a lot of scope for getting lost or distracted on the way to completing them. Thinking about how I want to write about Knack though and it's honestly hard to say there's a single thing it does well. Doing well would be something the game aspires to, rather than the range of outright boring and infuriating it actually manages.

You play Knack, an assortment of 'Relics' with an upturned plant pot for a head. Relics are a thing in the world left behind by a previous civilisation which are hugely powerful - flying cars and stuff. Knack is some sort of golem made from these by a guy. Knack can also harness the power of things called Sunstones for special attacks, which are bright yellow crystals dotted around the world which are... different from Relics. Somehow.

That's pretty much it. You make your way through the levels as they're presented, killing stuff. I've played through the whole game at least five times because of the trophies and collectibles and I've got no idea what the story is about. The human civilisation is attacked by goblins. Goblins apparently used to be the dominant peoples and are now unhappy about it. A few chapters in one of the humans just disappears from any pretence of character development and joins forces with them, adding robots to the mix. Even if I'd watched every cutscene every time I honestly don't think I could describe the story to you. The characters are all dull, the events of the story have no relation to the gameplay and the world doesn't exist as anything other than a vehicle for you to walk through, killing stuff.

The gameplay doesn't compensate for this either. Knack is very vulnerable, pretty much all of the time. Even playing on easy, if you get hit once or twice you'll probably die. As you progress through each chapter you can collect Relics which make Knack bigger and stronger, but all of the enemies scale at the exact same rate. So a bug or a bird that can kill you in one hit at the start is the same sort of threat as a huge robot that fires green lasers at you. The main downside to this is that there's no sense of achievement anywhere in the gameplay, because aside from one or two sections there's never any sense of development on Knack's part. The Sunstone powers offer a bit of variation, but they're so powerful they're basically a get out of jail free card if you're swamped. Also, if you keep dying at a section you can just farm whatever Sunstones are located at that part of the level, meaning you could basically avoid all combat if you wanted to.

Good news! You will want to. Probably the most important part of a platformer is having the player character be easy and fun to control. Knack isn't. He's slow, his jumps are pitiful and he has a dash move which shifts him about a single step to the side and features an irritatingly long pause afterwards each time. If you're facing more than one enemy and you dodge one, you just set yourself up to get whacked by the other. The combat is so clunky I honestly don't know how the game ever made it through QA. I wouldn't expect this level of movement from a PS1 game. The original Crash Bandicoot is more intuitive than this. That said, there's a decent range of enemies in terms of their attack types, but they quickly repeat and the annoying controls can make it frustrating to face different types at the same time.

One other thing I should add about platforming is that the cutscenes manage to feature more interesting moves than the game itself. You can double jump and occasionally you might have to go up a moving ledge or two, but in the cutscenes between areas in levels Knack is much more agile, climbing up pipes and stuff. There are two brief sections where you control him as he hovers above some fans. These threaten to become interesting, but they're over so quickly you feel as if they were thrown into the game as an idea someone had three weeks before it went on sale. At the other end of this spectrum you have the brief wall-scaling sections. Once you finally managed to attach yourself to what you're supposed to be climbing you end up moving like King Kong, if Kong had been experiencing a severe stroke while scaling the Empire State Building.

There's some attempt at variation of the gameplay with time attack sections and coliseum battles where you fight waves of enemies, but there's little challenge here. If you pick up some of the main game collectibles you can unlock different versions of Knack with altered stats - higher defence, attack, etc. You unlock Diamond Knack with all his stats maxed out and smash your way through everything. At least that's satisfying. The rest of the in-game collectibles don't offer much, some Sunstone boosts and a combo meter which makes your attacks more powerful if you land consecutive hits without taking damage, but there's very little material difference to gameplay.

The most common criticism of the PS3's early years was how difficult it was to make games for. With a game as simple and featureless as Knack I'm honestly amazed it's as badly made as it is, technologically. If I played for more than five minutes my PS4 started making a noise like a jet engine. I've never heard a fan like it. Then the cutscenes came in and it was immediately silent. Did they really try so hard to show off the particle physics that each individual element of Knack was rendered individually? When you start up the game there's an option to choose between better graphics or framerate and I didn't notice any difference.

I'm trying to imagine the mindset of someone buying a PS4 at launch and having this to play. In a year where BioShock Infinite, The Last of Us and Grand Theft Auto V were released, you could pay a premium for this. Progress is some price.

 

[Unholy Diver]

Horizon Zero Dawn 9.5/10

A wonderful game, still looks great 2 years after release. Great story, great gameplay, a masterpiece

 

[Shareefruck]

Been routinely doing Into the Breach runs periodically, and I've finally managed to get a pretty optimal run on Hard mode. Only absorbing Mech damage, all four islands completed, no dead pilots, no damaged buildings/civilians lost, no failed mission objectives.

My updated strategy with the base squad:

* Never waste a turn picking up a time pod. They are literally NEVER in danger unless you forget and blow it up yourself (or if the mission has environmental effects). In fact, they become a useful strategic spot that you can step on, but the enemy can't.
* Prioritize missions with as many rewards as possible, NOT avoiding the ones with high Vek threat detected --> reactor cores first, then reputation points (the ones with two reputation points and one reactor core are jackpots)-- if you reap the other rewards and play reasonably smart, the power bar kind of takes care of itself
* Always take the missions where they give you an overpowered insta-kill ally, like the Terraformer or the Mountain destroying thing (they're really easy, satisfying, and give tons of rewards)
* After finishing an island with no failed objectives, always take the pilot as the bonus (who can be sold for two reputation points)
* This will usually result in 9 reputation points + 1 or 2 donated pilots/equipment = 12 reputation points per island
* Always spend rewards on reactor cores first (including Time-pods, that's usually around 5 cores per island)
* Always spend reactor cores on buildings immune first, then power increases (obviously the best bang for your buck ones first), then health (which again, tends to take care of itself)
* Always lead with the pilot who can move again after attacking on a combat mech. Makes things way easier to hit someone and either block a spawning Vek or cover an ally on every turn.
* Only buy an additional weapon if it can be upgraded to do more damage than your base weapon's max for two turns, and only spend reputation on these upgrades AFTER your base weapon is fully upgraded. Best case scenario, using them on the cannon/artillery mechs, resulting in all three guys being able to do 4-5 damage for multiple turns.

All of that can cause a snowball effect that turns the whole thing into a really smooth ride.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

REmake 2 on PC.

Did a Leon and Claire 2nd run. I had a blast.

Solid 8/10

 

[Ceremony]

inFamous: Second Son (PS4, 2014)

After playing this I had a look back at the Zero Punctuation reviews for it and the first two infamous games. Yahtzee writes (speaks?) of the first game's plot 'taking a turn at fifth and bananas, where you go from fighting gangs to trash robots and wizards'. On a similar note, the above image is where I officially checked out of caring about what was going on in Second Son.

You play as Delsin Rowe, a waster with a heart of gold who, as is the way with these games, ends up with powers. A bus carrying some Conduits to a prison crashes and Delsin has a run in with one who can manipulate smoke. The bad guy is introduced shortly after, and then the story moves to its actual setting of Seattle, where you have to set about putting the bad guy (or indeed bad woman), Augustine, to rights.

Here's the thing. I'm not quite sure how to go about writing this because the structure of the game is a complete disaster. With that in mind I'm going to do something slightly different and go through it as bet as I can in chronological order, and pick the holes in it that way.

Delsin in fact lives somewhere just outside of Seattle, on a reservation of some sort for Native Americans. His particular tribe is called the Akomish, and there's a woman called Betty who acts as an overbearing grandmother and occasionally reminds him about his background. I say occasionally because this comes up on exactly four occasions - the start, and two phonecalls mid-mission which are quickly ended via hang-up. I played through the game twice and it was genuinely only at the end of the first playthrough before I realised his ethnicity was supposed to be a thing. The entire premise of the game is so badly explained and developed that it's largely a waste of time. Certainly anything interesting that could have developed from a narrative perspective - a comparison between the rights of Natives and of people with powers - just doesn't.

What is Delsin's purpose? Well, he has powers. There's a pseudo-military taskforce called the D.U.P. (topical!) that's put Seattle under martial law because there are Conduits running around. Delsin wades into this trying to get the power of concrete from head honcho Augustine, because she tortured people with it to try and find out where he was. That's his only motivation. He wants to be able to use concrete to get it out of Betty's legs.

It's been a while since I played the first inFamous, and I wasn't a big fan. I do vaguely remember the premise of the story though - delivery boy Cole MacGrath has a parcel explode on him one day. The parcel had some sort of experimental weapon in it that was supposed to create a super soldier that could manipulate the elements. This worked, as Cole could shoot lighting from his hands and gained power by sucking the electricity of whatever he was standing next to. (I just checked and I missed some details, but the basic premise is the same). Not now, though. In this inFamous world, people just... get powers. Delsin can absorb them from other Conduits he touches. Two other Conduits that come into the story seem to have got theirs via being a drug addict and a bully victim. How is this supposed to work. 'Oh, people just get powers and have to live with them. And people hate them for it! They're bio-terrorists! Lock them up!' If nothing else the first inFamous at least tried to create a plausible and immersive world. Second Son seems to be halfway between assuming you know and understand the world and making a bunch of other stuff up as they go along. The result is not effective, as the world and the concept of it just seem silly.

Speaking of which, the powers themselves. Delsin ends up with four in total. Smoke, which lets him shoot, er, smoke, and move around via vents on the sides of buildings. Then there's neon, where he sucks the gas out of neon lights and starts firing lasers and running really fast. Fair enough. Then there's... sigh, video, in which he channels the power of a bully victim who plays computer games all day and starts shooting... video. He can use satellite dishes to launch himself into the air and can fly too, because the guy that gives him video powers created angels and demons to do his bidding. The fourth power is concrete, which lets him fire concrete. And float. inFamous 2 had an assortment of powers besides electricity too (there was ice, and I think something else), but I don't remember them being as disparate as this. That's not to talk of the ridiculous premise in Delsin getting these powers, but it just feels like an assortment of badly fleshed out ideas thrown together with no thought or cohesion.

Another thing, in the first inFamous you can collect blast shards which are dotted around the city. You get more powers from them. They were put there by the package Cole was carrying that exploded, so it makes sense. In Second Son, it's the same thing. Shards power a bunch of stuff the DUP use. Where did they come from? And why are there core relays, big generator-type things that Delsin can absorb to get more powers, dotted everywhere? It feels like someone tried to use the assets and concepts from the first games into a new idea and did a really bad job of fitting them in.

The way you use these powers makes the game shift from feeling disjointed to outright irritating. As you fire your base projectiles your energy depletes, and has to be charged up. To do this you need to find a source of whatever power you're using. On several occasions - and it's a very short game - you can be in a fight with several types of enemies at once in a crowded, hard to navigate locations and you won't be able to recharge. Or you'll have to switch to a different power. Each power has different abilities, so you can be forced to use different types of attack mid fight because of the game's bad design.

This is exacerbated by the camera and lighting of the game. No matter the time of day it seems to constantly be at the later end of dusk. It's always dull. If you look in the wrong direction the light will completely blind you, and make it very difficult to see where anything is. When you're fighting several enemies at once, some on ground, some on rooftops, some able to launch from place to place, with no indicator of where they are on the minimap, it's a disaster. The game isn't difficult even on the highest difficulty setting, but there are various stylistic and mechanical design choices which make the game a consistently frustrating experience to play.

The overwhelming feeling I remember having as I played the first inFamous was that it was generic. Here is a city. Here are some buildings. Here is a means of travelling around it. Second Son blows that clean out of the water though. Seattle is an interesting location, as it's a famous American city with a distinctive skyline (maybe I watch Frasier too much) and it's not really featured in a lot of media like this. So what do we have here? Nothing, pretty much. Give it another week and I won't remember a thing about it. The Space Needle features in the second mission and is never mentioned or used again. Everything else in the city is just completely forgettable. It also has the added bonus of being difficult to actually move around, because if you try to use any of the powers to move around quickly you'll probably get stuck on stuff. The controls, along with the combat I mentioned earlier, make the game feel like it was rushed and never tested.

And another thing, in the first games Cole had a Sly Cooper logo on the bag he wore. This was a nod to the developer Sucker Punch's previous games, with much more enjoyable characters, storylines and platforming. Here, there are Cooper logos everywhere. There are Cole MacG's Electronics stores everywhere. There's a Cooper and MacGrath law firm building. Look! Look at these other things we made that you enjoyed a lot more than this!

The story doesn't compensate for any of this. None of the characters are really developed. Augustine is the only halfway interesting one, but she's only ever framed in the way Delsin sees her. The original inFamous was one of the first games to really use the moral choice system, where you can change how the story goes by doing good or bad things at certain plot points and incidentally as you play. In 2009 it felt clunky, playing it now just feels contrived. The good choices are fair enough, but the evil path feels completely unnatural. In previous games there was an added incentive to be bad or good as you could unlock unique, all-powerful abilities but there's only token differences in this case.

I think the best example I could give to sum up this game is in the final boss fight. After absorbing various powers and (optionally) driving the DUP out of parts of the city to get stronger, you face off against Augustine at the top of a skyscraper. You fight her using concrete powers that you get from her at the start of the fight. No smoke, no neon, no video. You may as well just skip straight to the final boss fight.

Yeah, I've got nothing else to add. I didn't like inFamous, and Second Son makes me miss it dearly. Make of that what you will.

 

[Unholy Diver]

Rise of the Tomb Raider - 8/10 - working thru the backlog - Nice followup to the 2013 TR reboot, nothing earth shattering, more of the same stuff though I found the QTE's to be less of a pain this time around

 

[SniperHF]

inFamous: Second Son (PS4, 2014)

Have you ever played either Riddick games, Assault on Dark Athena or Escape from Butcher Bay?

 

[Ceremony]

Have you ever played either Riddick games, Assault on Dark Athena or Escape from Butcher Bay?

Nope.