The last few games you beat and rate them IV

[Ceremony]

​

Need for Speed Heat (PS4, 2019)

Two years ago (!) when I wrote a review of Need for Speed Payback, I wrote this:

The main problem with the characterisation, the writing and the world building in Payback is how generic it is. At the start when the story and characters were being introduced they all felt so bland and uninteresting it was almost uncanny. The whole game feels like it was designed by committee to be as bland and inoffensive as possible. Weirdly though, there are times where it feels as if it tries to mock that kind of media. There are some 'characters' that talk like stereotypical online streamers/influencers and I'm clearly supposed to feel like I'm in on the joke with the game. It's like parents in a bad American sitcom trying show how down with the kids they are, breaking your spine with cringe in the process.

I'm not even sure why I'm picking out one paragraph to compare it to Heat. I could take that review and re-post it, changing the odd word and saying there was less to do I went back to that review to see what I thought of it and realised that just about everything I said stood out as relevant to Heat. I guess I should actually try writing something original now, although that's more effort than you get in this game.

There's a semblance of a story, but since the game barely bothers to impart it on the player, I'm not going to bother either. Somewhat hilariously the game gives you a large selection of characters to play as. They all have the same lines (although different voices) and none of them have any names. And you can change them at any time you want during the game with no changes. In a way I almost admire the brazenness of making something so lacking in personality. It's like it's gone so far bad it's looped around and earned my grudging respect. I chose the skinny Asian girl as an homage to the original Midnight Club.

If the window-dressing of Heat doesn't matter, what of the driving? It's an open world Need for Speed game so you can make a decent guess at what you're going to get. Heat is centred around a central mechanic which is actually quite interesting and has a decent amount of potential. There are sanctioned races in Palm City during the day. These take place on closed circuits on the streets. You earn money from these, allowing you to buy cars and upgrades. You then switch to night and there are still plenty of races available, only these take place on the streets illegally and the cops are out to chase after you while they're happening. Participating in these races improves your reputation, allowing you access to bigger and more important events. You also have to deal with the police during and in between races, trying to avoid having your car destroyed or stopped by them and losing all the points you've built up.

On the face of it, this is a solid foundation to base a game around. There's lots of potential for different kinds of events, a significant difference in gameplay and to even make the corrupt police storyline actually matter. This doesn't happen though. The day races are boring, the night races are annoying slaloms. Palm City is lifeless and unremarkable with no atmosphere or just... anything at all. But the police, oh no. Playing an arcade open world game with unrealistic depictions of speed like this I'm reminded of Burnout Paradise. There you can take out rival cars in a way which is deliberate yet simple. When you start out in Heat, the police will catch you and stop you or destroy you. Your early cars, no matter what the upgrades, will not be a match for them. You'll get stopped, you'll lose everything you've built up in the night, you'll get frustrated and you'll put the game off. By the time you build a decent car you'll be too fast for the police and never see them at all, and the challenge will be gone.

I need to say more about Palm City. I was very critical of every part of Payback but thinking about it now, I can remember bits of the city. That was based on Las Vegas and there are distinct areas. The urban areas in the centre, the offroad sections up in hills and mountains, the long straight roads out in the desert where you can get up to speed. Heat doesn't have that. Palm City is loosely based on Miami and Florida and it should have a distinct profile. We've all seen what highly exaggerated Miami looks like in a video game. Here though, there's nothing. There's no colour, no life, very little variety, and this is exacerbated when you see the switch from day to night happen with very little effect on your surroundings. It feels like one of those mats you had when you were young for driving cars around on. There might be roads and buildings, but they're all two dimensional and now you're old and withered and your imagination isn't compensating enough.

I don't think I like the driving physics. It's really weird how slow the cars feel. I mainly drove and upgraded an R32 Skyline (in classic Calsonic #12 colours obviously) throughout the game and whether it topped out at 150 or 240 miles per hour, it handled the same and just looked the same getting there. I don't really know how to describe the sensation but it felt like I was driving with some unseen electronic shackles applied to the car, just holding it back from what I'm expecting. You know those dreams you have where you're trying to run but can't move your legs properly? It felt like that, in game form.

I don't know who this game is supposed to appeal to. I have more than a passing interest in racing games and I found it, at its best, forgettable. If you like putting weird engines in cars and creating or downloading all manner of hideous liveries for them, there's something here. There are lots of cars and a seemingly endless array of customisation options. Like Payback there are different kinds of driving you can tune a car for, but this actual interesting feature of that game doesn't matter anywhere near as much here. The driving itself just feels stale, easy to pick up and not really requiring much more than that not only to finish the game, but to explore the world or do anything else. That probably sums up my problems really, it's something which is focused on the superficial at the expense of literally everything else. And it can't even do the superficial right.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

I got NFS Heat because it was $3.50 on Steam. It was so bad I still refunded it because I wanted my $3.50 back. The driving phyics are absolutely awful... The story is laughably bad. I actually kind of wanted to see the story just to see how bad it was but couldn't muscle through the terrible physics.

This cutscene timestamped in this video was amazing though (1:43) :

You crash your car, somehow end up outside of the car on the ground, then the cop watches it fall into the water. "Why did you do that to your sweet-ass ride?!" The cop is more mad about the car going into the water than the main character is! Then they want to kill you for some reason? So much is going on that doesn't make any sense that you can't help but laugh throughout the whole cutscene.

 

[Ceremony]

I got NFS Heat because it was $3.50 on Steam. It was so bad I still refunded it because I wanted my $3.50 back. The driving phyics are absolutely awful... The story is laughably bad. I actually kind of wanted to see the story just to see how bad it was but couldn't muscle through the terrible physics.

This cutscene timestamped in this video was amazing though (1:43) :

You crash your car, somehow end up outside of the car on the ground, then the cop watches it fall into the water. "Why did you do that to your sweet-ass ride?!" The cop is more mad about the car going into the water than the main character is! Then they want to kill you for some reason? So much is going on that doesn't make any sense that you can't help but laugh throughout the whole cutscene.

What few cutscenes there were beyond that were often worse.

Like I said, the premise and the day/night mechanic is interesting and viable if you want to bother creating an actual story with actual characters. Kids who just want to race, man, against the corrupt cops. It's great. It's easy. Yet, you end up with this.

All street racing games should try their hardest to be an exact copy of the original Midnight Club, the genre's peak.

 

[Unholy Diver]

Kirby and the Forgotten Land - 8.5/10

Fun little game, first Kirby game for me in about 30 yrs. some good platforming action, and a fun take on a post apocalyptic world.

 

[pistolpete11]

DOOM - 7.5/10

Delivers exactly what you expect it to and doesn't overstay its welcome.

It's a little too fast paced, frantic, and arcade-y for my tastes, but I knew that going in. Just wanted to play something different than all the 3rd person hack-and-slash games I've played (and will be playing once again when Nioh 2 comes to PS+ in November).

The only thing that kind of surprised me was that there was some exploration involved. At first, it was like "Who cares? I just want to kill some demons!" But after a while, it was a nice break from all the action. Still didn't really care enough about it to replay any levels or anything, but would give each level a quick once over.

 

[SimGrindcore]

Terminator: Resistance. 7.5/10

It's a pretty decent game, especially for the fans on the first 2 films. Semi-open world, fluid gun play, crafting system, lite RPG mechanics.

 

[flyersnorth]

Disco Elysium - 9.5/10.

Brilliant RPG. Probably the best I've played since Divinity: Original Sin 2. It's one of best games I've ever played actually. The writing is on another level compared to other games and RPGs. Every character is fleshed out. I'm not even sure how I would describe the experience, but it's something in between a cRPG with D&D mechanics and a point and click adventure. I fully recommend it to anyone who likes a great story and RPGs.

The only thing I'm disapointed in is that I didn't want to give ZA/UM any money. They fired basically the three most important people that created the game, included the lead writer and developer. They disagreed with the suits who wanted to monetize the franchise further, which is not surprising considering the themes that are brought up in DE.

In any case, they clearly put a lot of care in their work.

Honestly, the best characters are the ones inside your head. The constant battle between different parts of your being is, for me, the high point of the game.

One of the best RPGs I've ever played.

Kind of a bummer about the three developers who left. I was hoping for a sequel / new title from that crew.

 

[flyersnorth]

A few recents that I've finished (I've been on a turn-based kick) -

XCOM 2 War of the Chosen (9.5/10) - Just finished two runs (Veteran and Commander... Legendary Ironman is next). The absolute best turn-based game I've ever played, and one of the best games period.

Everything in the game is high-value production and execution. Soundtrack still gives me chills after 250+ hours. Voice acting is superb. Combat is so effing satisfying. I love Divinity Original Sin 2, but I would say that I never felt vulnerable in that game (finished on highest difficulty). My soldiers always feel vulnerable in XCOM until late game. Adds to the tension and high stakes. Every move counts.

Wasteland 3 (8/10) - Really fun game that is kind of a mix between XCOM above and Divinity Original Sin 2, but in an American West post-apocalyptic setting.

I enjoyed the story and the combat. The different "classes" were fun to level up and find better gear and skills. Traveling around the world was a bit tedious when you have to double back to places you've been - there is a fast travel, but you still have to walk to them. Just adds a lot of downtime in the mid to late game.

If you enjoy turn-based, this one is a no-brainer, especially when it's on sale. I picked it up for like $14 or something.



Currently working my way through Mutant Year Zero, and considering picking up Hard West II. Has anyone played that one? Thoughts?

 

[Frankie Spankie]

A Plague Tale: Requiem - 8/10

A Plague Tale: Requiem is a great sequel to A Plague Tale: Innocence. The gameplay is mostly the same, they don't really introduce new mechanics there. It's strictly a new story and improved visuals. If you enjoyed the original, you should play this one as well. It looks great but it could use some better optimization. At the lowest settings with a 2080Ti and at 1440p, I would often drop into the 30fps range when there was a lot going on with rats and enemies. You may want to wait a bit for better optimization but the story is still top notch if you like narrative titles like this one.

 

[Shareefruck]

Honestly, the best characters are the ones inside your head. The constant battle between different parts of your being is, for me, the high point of the game.

One of the best RPGs I've ever played.

Kind of a bummer about the three developers who left. I was hoping for a sequel / new title from that crew.

New titles are still very possible, I think. It doesn't sound as though the three have a rift or parted ways or anything-- they just won't be able to do more with Disco Elysium.

One thing it reminds me of (since I've been completely obsessed with the development team behind Tactics Ogre/Final Fantasy Tactics lately) is when Square Enix fired the powerhouse creative trio of Matsuno (writer), Sakimoto (composer), and Yoshida (artist) in a very similar slimy business practices eats artistic integrity dispute, and they still more or less stick together and continue to collaborate (though not nearly on as big of a platform/backing).

The difference here is that Disco Elysium was a lot more financially successful and less niche, so there's probably a better chance that another company will be interested in backing them.

It also kind of sounds like Disco Elysium 2 (which was already into development at the time of the firing) might end up being in a similar situation to Final Fantasy XII (with previously mentioned creative trio), where it still gets released, but is half messed with by meddling, half still preserving original creator's intent.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Joe Danger 2: The Movie - 7.5/10

Joe Danger is a fun mix between the Trials series and Excite Bike. Each level only takes about a minute but they throw a ton of hazards in your way so aside from the first few levels, you likely won't finish another on your first try. That being said, while it requires memorization to do right, it feels very fair and a ton of fun! The aesthetic is really colorful and fun to play through. I didn't 100% it but I finished the main campaign in about two and a half hours but it was a lot of fun all the way through. I wouldn't be surprised if 100%ing it would make you want to pull your hair out because it's basically a minute plus of absolute perfection every run but just the base game never got my frustrated, it was a joy to play from beginning to end!

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Forza Horizon 4 - 7.5/10

Forza Horizon 4 is a great racing game that I feel ends up leaving you overwhelmed. While mechanically speaking, it is a great game, it's beautiful, and it runs well, there's a lot thrown at you that left me uninterested in the end. I'm kind of on the fence about reviewing this game because I feel so conflicted about it. Would I recommend it? Yes, while it's on sale.

First, let's go with the good. The driving mechanics are phenomenal. All the cars feel great. Whether you're driving a dirt track or a road track, it all feels awesome. You could potentially spend hundreds of hours in this game playing with all sorts of cars. In fact, the game scales to whatever car you want. Want classic cars? All the cars in the field will be the same class as you and also be classic cars. Want to race the fastest exotic cars? The race will change to have all exotic cars so everyone is on a level playing field. You can race exotic cars in dirt races, rally cars on road races, however you want to do it. Obviously exotic cars will feel slippery on dirt tracks but all the cars still have that great balance between arcade-y and sim racers.

The game is also gorgeous. It runs buttery smooth. I never noticed an issue with frame rates or graphical bugs. The game simply runs and looks great. I see a lot of reviews for crashing but I personally never had the game crash. The one strange bug is probably very unique and won't even affect most of you. If I played a game in SteamVR, closed SteamVR, and then eventually launched Forza Horizon 4, my controller wouldn't register. I always had to restart my PC after finishing a VR session. Very strange and very unique. If you don't even play VR, it obviously won't be an issue for you.

My issue with the game however is the progression and the fact that they just throw so much at you at all times. When you finish a race, listen to the AI talk to you about new events in the map! Oh, you don't care? Too bad, sit here throughout the conversation until we tell you you can play again. Every event you finish seems to trigger 3 or 4 more new events that the game wants to tell you about. The game is also open world. So when you unlock a new event, you can't just jump into it. You have to drive to the destination to start it. It seems like unnecessary busy work. I just want to race, not drive to a place in order to race.

The progression also seems strange. I got the game at a steep discount and ended up going with the Ultimate Edition to get the DLCs. I'm glad I did because it also came with a bunch of free cars. The cars you buy with in game currency is so expensive you'll be racing a ton of races in the same car just to afford a new one. With the Ultimate Edition, I had access to a lot of free cars which didn't really hurt me but I shouldn't have to pay for the Ultimate Edition to feel like I can progress at a proper pace.

There's a lot of down time in Forza Horizon. Whether it's listening to the AI talk to you or driving from race to race, between the actual races. Racing games are a genre where I always try to 100% them, finishing first in every event, but I just couldn't be bothered with this one since it's so overwhelming with how much there is to do and how much downtime there is between each event.

Did I enjoy playing the game? Yes. Mechanically and visually, the game is amazing. But there are a lot of strange design choices to try to keep you playing when it ended up pushing me away from more. Would I recommend it? Yes, but at a discount. I had fun for the time I did put into the game but I ended up putting it away earlier than I would have thought I would going in.

 

[Osprey]

I, too, got rather annoyed at waiting after every race for the game to point out to me every new race, stunt event and barn on the map. They may've done it because it takes a little time to load the open world map again, but seemed like it was still too long and I would've liked to have been able to skip it, see "Loading map..." and know that the game wasn't wasting my time. Speaking of barns, I wish that I could've turned them off entirely, especially later in the game when I already had more cars than I needed. I wasn't as annoyed with driving just to get to races because I honestly enjoyed open driving more than races and I unlocked fast travel as soon as I could (and didn't hesitate to pay for it because I played the Ultimate Edition, too, and didn't need the money for cars). I also 100%ed it so that, in the later stages of the game, I could fast travel for free. The idea of having to unlock it and then grind to make it cheaper until it's free isn't the best gameplay mechanic, though, I agree. Also, I wasn't a fan of the game sometimes forcing me to do non-race events in order to unlock new races. That was especially true in the two DLC, which had me hunting around the map to find things when I preferred to be racing. Despite all of those annoyances, I still really enjoyed the game and will play FH5 eventually. It's not a perfect series, but it's still a lot of fun for what it does really well.

 

[pistolpete11]

Celeste - 8/10

Might have been an 8.5 or 9 before Chapter 9 kicked my ass . I don't even know if I can say I beat Celeste since I only got to the first checkpoint in Chapter 9.

Going in, I knew the game dealt with mental health issues and that people spoke highly of the story. I was pretty skeptical, though. I mean, how good of a story could you get with a few dialogue boxes? Turns out, it ends up drawing you in pretty quickly and is worthy of the praise it has gotten. There's a bunch of touching moments throughout like when one of the characters talks you out of a panic attack and messages of encouragement that come in forms of postcards after beating a chapter. They also have a couple of antagonizing characters that also push you on to prove them wrong ...…Their little gibberish voices are cute and change whether they are sad, excited, angry...…The platforming is precise. It feels a little more grounded than others I've played. It feels like there is some weight there and there's limited endurance until you land safely on a flat surface. You're of course dashing in mid air and stuff so it still feels like a video game, but it does make it a little more human which given the subject matter, is a good thing.....The load times after dying are almost instantaneous which is good because I died a f***ton. After playing so many Soulslike games, it was kind of nice to not really have any consequences for dying other than going back to the start of the screen, too...…Each level has strawberries you can collect that don't really do anything other than saying you collected them, but nice little challenges in between progressing through the level. Often times they are in hidden rooms, so it's fun to try to find them as well. Each level also has a B-side tape to collect which unlocks a shorter, alternative version of that level. Apparently there are also C-sides. I started off trying to collect all the strawberries and do the B-sides, but I felt like I was going to burn myself out, so I ended up doing a once over and left the strawberries that were too hard for me to get.

Other than not being good at platformers, the only thing that I didn't particularly like was the pixelated art direction. Maybe it was a necessity, but I just don't like the way it looks. There were a couple of times where the obstacles kind of got muddled in with the platforms, too. I think that was to do with the pixilation. I also think the contrast between the pixelated levels and the more cartoonish level select was weird.......oh and Chapter 9 . Just partially kidding. There were a few screens that I felt were bordering on unfair. I'm sure some speedrunner is able to do it first time every time, but it was too much for me. One screen in particular where you have to time everything to be able to catch the side of a tiny cube multiple times across the screen that also has a spring on top of it. I must've died 100 times, finally looked up how to do it, realized 1 tiny thing that bought me a split second, and then proceeded to die 100 more times just because it was so difficult.

Lastly, I don't know if it's a negative or positive or if it's considered a spoiler, but the last 2 chapters felt tacked on. You go on this journey to climb the mountain, finally do, and then there's 2 more chapters. I imagine these were indeed tacked on after the original game was released. On one hand, I appreciate the additional content. On the other, the story would have been more impactful if it just ended.

I don't have much of a desire to jump into any other game at the moment. Might mess around with the strawberries and B-sides for a little while longer since I should (hopefully) be better at the game now. Watching some people play Chapter 9, though, that's about as far as I can go.

 

[Gardner McKay]

Star Ocean: Divine Force - 8/10

This game could be rated a 15/10 compared to its predecessor, Integrity and Faithlessness. It was a triumphant return to form for the Star Ocean Franchise. The formula, story, characters, etc. were all familiar and that isn't a bad thing. It is a formula that can be successful when done well and this is an example of the Star Ocean franchise doing it better than in the previous two games. The most important thing about this game... it was an extremely FUN experience. Without getting into any spoilers, going to give the positives and negatives of this game...

Positives
- Dual Protagonist system returns (and character recruiting exclusives). It gives the game replay value.
- The story was captivating. Was it anything earth shattering? No. But it was good.
- Item creation/crafting makes a triumphant return and was very straightforward.
- The game was linear-ish but allowed for exploration in towns.
- Es'owa board game was really fun.
- Better post-game than previous entries.
- Game play was really fun.

Negatives
- Minimal NPC interactions. To me, NPC's help give depth to a game/world/town. There were enough to drive the story but not enough to get a sense of what it was like in each area.
- Some character models were a bit iffy.
- The world, despite being nice and big, was a bit empty. Felt like there could have been more chests, harvest points, etc.
- The skill points system, while a nice change, it needed some work along with the skill tree.

 

[Shareefruck]

Celeste - 8/10

Might have been an 8.5 or 9 before Chapter 9 kicked my ass . I don't even know if I can say I beat Celeste since I only got to the first checkpoint in Chapter 9.

Going in, I knew the game dealt with mental health issues and that people spoke highly of the story. I was pretty skeptical, though. I mean, how good of a story could you get with a few dialogue boxes? Turns out, it ends up drawing you in pretty quickly and is worthy of the praise it has gotten. There's a bunch of touching moments throughout like when one of the characters talks you out of a panic attack and messages of encouragement that come in forms of postcards after beating a chapter. They also have a couple of antagonizing characters that also push you on to prove them wrong ...…Their little gibberish voices are cute and change whether they are sad, excited, angry...…The platforming is precise. It feels a little more grounded than others I've played. It feels like there is some weight there and there's limited endurance until you land safely on a flat surface. You're of course dashing in mid air and stuff so it still feels like a video game, but it does make it a little more human which given the subject matter, is a good thing.....The load times after dying are almost instantaneous which is good because I died a f***ton. After playing so many Soulslike games, it was kind of nice to not really have any consequences for dying other than going back to the start of the screen, too...…Each level has strawberries you can collect that don't really do anything other than saying you collected them, but nice little challenges in between progressing through the level. Often times they are in hidden rooms, so it's fun to try to find them as well. Each level also has a B-side tape to collect which unlocks a shorter, alternative version of that level. Apparently there are also C-sides. I started off trying to collect all the strawberries and do the B-sides, but I felt like I was going to burn myself out, so I ended up doing a once over and left the strawberries that were too hard for me to get.

Other than not being good at platformers, the only thing that I didn't particularly like was the pixelated art direction. Maybe it was a necessity, but I just don't like the way it looks. There were a couple of times where the obstacles kind of got muddled in with the platforms, too. I think that was to do with the pixilation. I also think the contrast between the pixelated levels and the more cartoonish level select was weird.......oh and Chapter 9 . Just partially kidding. There were a few screens that I felt were bordering on unfair. I'm sure some speedrunner is able to do it first time every time, but it was too much for me. One screen in particular where you have to time everything to be able to catch the side of a tiny cube multiple times across the screen that also has a spring on top of it. I must've died 100 times, finally looked up how to do it, realized 1 tiny thing that bought me a split second, and then proceeded to die 100 more times just because it was so difficult.

Lastly, I don't know if it's a negative or positive or if it's considered a spoiler, but the last 2 chapters felt tacked on. You go on this journey to climb the mountain, finally do, and then there's 2 more chapters. I imagine these were indeed tacked on after the original game was released. On one hand, I appreciate the additional content. On the other, the story would have been more impactful if it just ended.

I don't have much of a desire to jump into any other game at the moment. Might mess around with the strawberries and B-sides for a little while longer since I should (hopefully) be better at the game now. Watching some people play Chapter 9, though, that's about as far as I can go.

I'd considering finishing Chapter 7 to be beating the game, personally-- the actual story is complete and you get credits.

Chapters 8 and 9 are free DLC. I agree that they're non-essential and don't add anything to the story, really-- just added challenges. I kind of wish they weren't called Chapters 8 and 9 and SOUNDED more like DLCs, so as not to mislead people. I also felt that the visuals took a hit in Chapter 9 for some reason (though I haven't heard many others criticize that)-- almost like the developer/gameplay guy made them without consulting the visual designer or something.

Personally, I found the pixel aesthetic of it perfect (though I kind of agree that I don't like when games mix pixel art with non-pixel art, and I think the chapter completion art is a bit weak-- I wish the whole thing was just similar pixel art to the sprites). I also had some issues with the storytelling being a little too on the nose with the depression stuff (although the broader premise/analogy is kind of perfect).

 

[Osprey]

I just finished A Plague Tale: Innocence. It felt like Adventures in Babysitting because I spent most of it literally holding a little boy's hand while the game figuratively held mine.

It was too linear and restrictive for my taste. Every level is a corridor to make your way through and the moments when you can choose a path are few and far between. There are some interesting mechanics with the variety of ammunition types for your sling, but, generally, areas make only a few useful. Advancing typically comes down to recognizing exactly what the level designers expect you to do, which usually doesn't take long because they make it fairly obvious with visual cues (interactable objects either blink or show a button prompt) and vocal cues (telling me to run, hide, put out the light, etc.). The game's challenge mostly comes down to just being observant and performing actions within small windows (often before bad things reach you), almost like quick time events. To borrow a couple of phrases from Shareefruck's description of God of War, there are tons of "spot a thing and break it" and "mindlessly-press-button-to-feel-like-you're-contributing" sequences. The game world and other characters often feel paused while they wait for you to interact with the thing that you're supposed to in order to initiate the next scripted sequence and move onto the next area. Also, the game routinely limits how fast you can move (sometimes to a really slow walking speed; occasionally, you're permitted to run), as well as when and where you can move and where you can look, all of which was very annoying. You control your character only when and how the game wants you to. Overall, the lack of freedom and challenge didn't make for a very fun game for me.

I did really like the historical setting and graphics. There are few games set in the 14th century or with visuals this impressive. Those are the two reasons that I started and kept playing (and may still play the sequel). Also, I have no complaints about performance because it maxed out my high refresh rate monitor even with all graphics settings on Ultra and I don't think that I encountered a single bug or technical issue. I also did sort of like the looting and crafting, because I can't help being addicted to that sort of thing, though it didn't have a noticeable effect on my character's abilities or the game's difficulty and seemed like it was there mostly to give the illusion of RPG-like depth. So, it wasn't all bad, but this kind of "narrative adventure" in which the storytelling is more important than the gameplay and everyone's experience is the same isn't my cup of tea.

 

[PeteWorrell]

I have no idea how a game like The Order: 1886 was absolutely shredded while A Plague Tale gets a pass. I find games that focus on graphics and trying so hard to be a movie at the cost of almost everything that makes video games a distinct medium to be missing the point.

 

[pistolpete11]

A Plague Tale: Innocence no doubt had limited (to put it kindly) gameplay and was overly linear, but there was a lot there to like IMO. Setting, characters, story (although it does get out there towards the end), and graphics were all well above average IMO. While the gameplay was limited and nothing special, both avoiding the rats and using the rats to your advantage at least put a unique spin on things. It also didn't overstay it's welcome given how limited it was. More than enough there for me to check out Requiem at some point.

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

Deathloop - 9/10

When I started the game, I wasn’t quite sure how it got such high scored from reviewers. Now I understand. I thought it was one of the more unique and innovative first person shooters I’ve ever played. Unraveling the story was great, and especially by the end, you can play it however you really want too.

I didn’t have a ton of interest in Redfall before this but now I do.

 

[93LEAFS]

Just beat the story of Sunset Overdrive. This was the first game I played on the new PC I built (haven't played on PC in over 15 years), so I saw all the benefits of having a game run 1440p at my max refresh rate (144hz in my case). This may cloud my judgment a bit, as I'm benchmarking it against my history of playing at best 60fps on checkerboard 4k on PS5. As someone who really liked Insomniac's previous work, you could see the games clear influence on the Spiderman games when it came to traversal, and how much of the unique guns and levelling them up was from Ratchet and Clank was influential in combat. It's more adult than Ratchet and Clank has ever aimed to be. I'd say it was like an 8 to an 8.5. The story is a relatively short playthough if you ignore side stuff, I believe I beat it in like 9 hours but I was looking for something short before God of War: Ragnorak comes out tomorrow before getting into beefier titles like Cyber Punk 2077. If you have access to it, and loved Spiderman and Ratchet and Clank, I'd absolutely recommend it, and it sucks the game sort of got overlooked on release due to the dismal start of the X-Box One era. Just a heads up though, I've heard there is an issue with this game on Steam, so I'd look into that before buying it there, I played it through PC gamepass.

 

[Ceremony]

​

Sayonara Wild Hearts (PS4, 2019)

In the Annapurna Interactive Deluxe Limited Edition, Sayonara Wild Hearts is introduced with a word from its creator:

I'm glad it does, because trying to explain what happens in Sayonara Wild Hearts, even to an audience which is familiar with video games, is quite difficult. A "distilled videogame" which speaks to the heart is, fittingly, about the most focused way of describing it. I'll start the way I normally do with games and see if it makes sense.

Sayonara Wild Hearts is a video game in which you play a girl who has a broken heart. One day in an alternate universe some Tarot cards go rogue and try to steal harmony from the world and hide it in pieces of a broken heart. The three divine arcana of the Tarot take these broken heart pieces, turn them into a butterfly and send it through a portal to meet our heroine who is lying on her bed. She tries to catch the butterfly, falls through the window on her ceiling and ends up on a skateboard, running down a track which is unfolding in front of her, with hearts on it to collect while a remix of Debussy's Clair de Lune plays in the background.

Got all that?

Gameplay is equally difficult to describe, with various mechanical influences obvious but the result being relatively unique. It's part rhythm game, part rail shooter, part endless runner, part QTE-laden boss fight. The basic objective of each level is to collect the hearts which appear on your path which contribute to your score and end of level rank. The hearts increase in value as you collect them without failing. Small hearts are worth 1 point, then 2, then 3 and so on, with large hearts worth 25, 50 and so on. The scoring system doesn't really change the impact of what you're playing, but performing actions to receive a score at the end of a level is about as distilled an experience you can have in video games, so it's worth mentioning. The top rank on each level will require you to complete it without failing (you don't 'die', you're just reset at a checkpoint and have to start a fresh combo) and being able to do this adds greatly to the sense of satisfaction you get from completing the game. Once you finish each level there's a permadeath game mode you can unlock too if you really want a challenge.

The levels themselves vary in terms of speed, complexity and atmosphere. The game is centred around its soundtrack, a selection of dreamy pop songs centred thematically around the girl with the broken heart and the Tarot magic trying to restore her balance and the balance in their original universe. Some levels/songs are short, frantic instrumental interludes which require quick reflexes to move around and collect enough hearts. Some are full, proper songs which have the same basic framework but much more going on, whether it's chasing/fighting other characters while riding a motorbike, or a stag, or chasing a giant three headed mechanical wolf. Some of the shorter levels can feel like an afterthought compared to the more fleshed out versions, but I think this is the complaint of someone who's played through them all several times and has been listening to the soundtrack constantly since I finished playing it. The game and levels were designed to work as a continuous narrative as well as being able to play each level individually in any order without them feeling out of place, and I think this is largely successful.

In terms of art style, the character and world design is bold and distinctive. Although there isn't actually much variety in colours per level (some are pink, some are purple, some are green and there's a bit of yellow) the backgrounds and objects themselves are all designed well enough to make the game feel like a trippy, immersive and complex world even if you're only interacting with a rigid, linear path. You can tell the style works because the only things that really change throughout the game are the colours, but it never looks repetitive. The movements of the human characters are nice too. It's a very fluid game where movement is an important part of the experience, and even though it's a bold, blocky aesthetic the human figures look natural.

I think what I like best about the "distilled videogame" approach is how although most of the levels take in the pure genres I've described, and although the apparent intention from the game's creators was to make this as accessible as possible regardless of the player's experience, there are still nods to gaming history that pulled out some long-forgotten, aching nostalgia from somewhere in my brain. There's one level which evokes various things including Tetris, Asteroids, Bubble Ghost and the original Game Boy, but it marries this with a VR headset and Sayonara Wild Hearts' own core gameplay loop in a way which is worthy and appropriate. This is only my own knowledge of video games here, Wikipedia tells me there are many more influences besides this, and I'm sure these are just as keenly felt if you're able to recognise them. If you're going to put references to something like Tetris in your video game you have to earn it, and this absolutely does. The Heartbreak Passage interlude levels borrow a lot from the Disco Trip sections of Rayman 3 which is an automatic exemption from criticism in my book. Back when the Game Boy Colour was one of my main consoles I had a 92 in 1 cartridge from a local shop (which had several repeats and scrambled versions of Pokemon Gold and Silver so it wasn't 92 at all). I had these games and I played them despite not understanding them so when I'm playing this game now and chasing after a character who's putting a cartridge in their headset to make the games appear while a voice dripping with longing croons "I'm too young to remember/When the world was alive/I'm too old to start changing/And too tired to remind" the experience is simply heartbreaking.

Which leads me nicely into the music. As I said earlier, the shorter, instrumental interludes are nice on their own merits but can feel a bit throwaway. Some of them might only last a minute or two and you're so focused on trying to pick up hearts and not run into a wall you don't feel as attuned to the music. When you're more familiar with the game and have played all of the levels several times this is just exacerbated. I wanted these to be more, and I ended up increasingly conscious that they weren't. The full songs are something else though. It's not my usual genre, but I've enjoyed listening to these on their own since I've played the game. While reading about the game's creation I discovered the demos of these songs and how they were originally written/intentioned to be a lo-fi surf rock kind of affair, and that just wouldn't have worked at all. The modern, energetic female vocal pop style works better on its own merits, but also complements the art style well. The whole thing feels like it could be a dream, and this sense fits together well with the overarching story and the point of the story. If you read this far, even if you don't play the game or even watch the game, listen to some of the songs. Musically, lyrically, they're perfect for what's happening onscreen.

While the levels were designed to be one continuous narrative as well as playable individually, where the game does lack is in bringing them all together. I mentioned the Tarot cards earlier. I don't know anything about Tarot or arcana. Each level features one of the cards which comes up on screen either at the start or end and they correspond to something which is part of the level, either in how you play or how the level is designed. The card flashes up onscreen and it's so brief you barely have a chance to see it or figure out what it is. I feel like this is an important aspect of the game's message (there's even a special pack of themed cards you can buy from the Annapurna website which I'm very tempted by) but it's really hard to see what the relevance is when they're this fleeting. I think even if you had prior knowledge of the cards you would struggle to understand their significance here. It's not that there's a lack of context for what you're doing, but that the context is provided but not really explained or given any time for the player to explore it themselves. I like the game, I want to know more about this, but I feel like I'm not able to. This also extends to the player character, who we only really interact with visually. We see her go through a change over the course of the game but she's mostly along for the ride during levels. We don't know much about her outside of the framing narration which is quite superficial in this respect.

I think my problem here is that everything I've described is largely an emotional response to the game. The gameplay is refined enough to be instinctive for me, someone who's spent the best part of the last twenty five years playing games. It's simple and accessible enough that I just know what I'm doing. The simple art style and prompts add to this as well. As much as this is all very effective, it does mean the game can feel slightly superficial. It starts with the girl being broken hearted and ends with her being restored by her experiences, but throughout there's virtually no exploration of her or what she's doing. I've seen some theories in YouTube comments and they make sense but it's not an exaggeration to say that the game offers nothing, other than maybe saying love is a way to overcome your obstacles. It's probably a nitpick from me having run through the game so many times over the past few weeks, but I want to be more invested in the player character than I feel I am. Is it a positive if the game affects me so much that while I recognise it's brilliant, I want even more of it? I think so.

I went into Sayonara Wild Hearts not knowing what I was going to play. Even in my first playthrough I didn't quite know what was happening. If you play the whole thing and watch all the cutscenes it will take around an hour to complete. After the time I've spent with it, I don't think I can imagine my life without it. Make of that what you will.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

A Plague Tale: Innocence no doubt had limited (to put it kindly) gameplay and was overly linear, but there was a lot there to like IMO. Setting, characters, story (although it does get out there towards the end), and graphics were all well above average IMO. While the gameplay was limited and nothing special, both avoiding the rats and using the rats to your advantage at least put a unique spin on things. It also didn't overstay it's welcome given how limited it was. More than enough there for me to check out Requiem at some point.

I don't really care if a game wants to be a very linear story based experience but it has to have an amazing story. When you think about rating games, you can run into games that do a lot of things and some things may suck but it'll get outshined by other mechanics that make it worth it. If it's a linear story based game, there's nothing to outshine a story since that's the only focus. I think the A Plague Tale series does a great job in that regard. I loved the story, setting, and especially the characters. Telltales games like The Walking Dead or A Wolf Among Us do too.

I never played The Order 1866 so I can't compare to that. I do remember when it came out that there were lazy technical things in that game though like two boss fight cutscenes were exactly the same with different backgrounds to them. I wouldn't be surprised with it being a Playstation exclusive if it also was going to take more heat from XBox fanboys too.

 

[Osprey]

I just finished the recently remastered version of Chasm: The Rift, a Quake clone that flew so under the radar in 1997 that even I never played it. It was OK. It's not hard to see why it was dismissed and forgotten. The level design is, frankly, bad. Everything is on one plane, making it play more like DOOM than Quake, which had already been out for a year (which was an eternity in the mid 90s). To matters worse, the levels consist mainly of corridors connected to square rooms, so there's little variety of scenery and the levels aren't memorable. There is a nice variety of weapons, but they lack the punch of id's weaponry. The game does have one really cool defining feature, though, and that's enemy dismemberment. If an enemy comes at you with a gun in its hand, you can shoot the arm off and he'll no longer be able to fire it. It's amusing when you blow off both arms and they still come after you, presumably to bite you. You can also blow off their heads. This must've been mind blowing (no pun intended) in 1997 and it's still fun 25 years later. So, the gunplay is decent, but it doesn't overcome the uninspired level design. The whole is also fairly short. I beat it in a little over 3 hours... and the trick to beat its final boss ended up the same as Quake's. Talk about taking "Quake clone" a bit too literally. Anyways, I can't say that I enjoyed it, but it's nice that a forgotten 90s shooter was remastered and that I got to play it finally.
Steam: Chasm: The Rift

 

[Spawn]

Outlast 6/10 - These first person survival horror games always start out strong and then peter out midway through the game once you get the loop. Hide from villain. Run down hallway. Find key. Repeat. and repeat. and repeat.

But the beginning had some good scares and I played it with a couple friends taking turns (which helped with some of the monotony of the game). Overall a fun time. Not sure I'll play the 2nd one though.