The last few games you beat and rate them IV

[Ceremony]

​

Redout (PS4, 2016)

A redout occurs when the body experiences a negative g-force sufficient to cause a blood flow from the lower parts of the body to the head. It is the inverse effect of a greyout, where blood flows away from the head to the lower parts of the body. Usually, a redout will only ever be experienced by pilots, as planes are the most common devices that allow such negative g-forces to be exerted. Redouts are potentially dangerous and can cause retinal damage and hemorrhagic stroke.

I'm glad I looked this up on Wikipedia, because I didn't know that. Redout is also a video game where you race anti-gravity ships round vast, sweeping tracks in exotic, futuristic locations. It's not WipEout so you don't have weapons, or as much detail in any of the graphics, but you have a range of upgradeable ships with different handling characteristics, a range of game modes and eventually you'll regularly exceed speeds of 1,000 miles per hour.

There's really only two things to judge Redout on - how it plays and how it looks. Unlike various WipEouts or other similar futuristic racers, you really need to use both sticks to properly control your ship. Left stick is steering but with the right stick you can strafe and control the pitch of your craft. If you're going into a loop or over a crest you'll need to lift your ship's nose otherwise it will scrape along the ground, slowing you down and causing damage. The result is a cornering style which relies more on anticipation than anything else. It's a bit strange to get used to at first, but as you work your way up through faster ship classes you should be familiar enough when it really becomes necessary.

The career mode in Redout is huge. In the base game there are five different locations with multiple tracks in each. There are even more game modes - race, race without powerups, time trial, speed, tournaments, "Boss" which combines every track in a single location for a massive lap, and others. If you just work your way through all of them it will take you a long time and you'll never be bored. The best tactic to win races is often to jump into an early lead and just focus on flying as smoothly as possible, but the sheer volume of events and tracks means there's always variety. As you win races and earn money you can buy and upgrade the different ships, and add two powerups at a time which affect your ship's handling. You'll add Magnetic Stabilisers which make the biggest difference to your handling, but the active powerup which you have to activate contextually offers a bit more strategy. I mostly stuck to the starting team's ships and had little problem winning the career events, but the variety is there if you want it.

One other thing to mention about the AI is that the collision physics aren't very good. By that I mean if you're flying and someone touches you, you're going to get spun out and come to a complete stop almost instantly. Restarting a race is easy enough but it's still frustrating playing a racing game where you have to actively avoid the things you're racing against. There are three difficulty settings you can switch between to try and avoid this, but that's never a satisfying way to win.

Like WipEout, there's a decent bit of lore you can find if you go looking. It's some time in the 2550s. Earth isn't doing very well and people live on Mars, or the moons of Jupiter, and Earth is mostly a playground for this anti-gravity racing, which itself is a byproduct of the research and technology that took humanity into the solar system. The tracks go through spectacular locations like Cairo, space, what's left of Italy, and there are three DLC packs (each costing what the base game cost me, I don't know how that works) which add even more. If you go through the menus you can find quite a bit of information about how the racing developed and the teams and the tracks and I love that stuff, it's all very interesting.

Sadly, also like WipEout, not enough is made of this lore. When I played the Omega Collection a few years ago I remember lamenting that WipEout games have always been just... interesting. The teams, the tracks, the drivers, the world that the racing takes place in. Yet it's all just sort of there, and you feel like you actively have to work to feel involved in it. Redout is very similar, only if anything there's less detail. The circuits are complex and varied to race on, but the surrounding environments look quite cartoony compared to the ships and tracks themselves. I'm not expecting photo-realism from a small game made by a small developer, but the environments should be more than they are. If I'm flying through a volcano or going between land and underwater on a space moon, I should be more impressed. It's just that outside of the racing there's little to properly immerse you in a world which is unquestionably very interesting. It feels like a missed opportunity to me.

I had hesitated about buying Redout for a while. I decided to just go for it in a recent sale and was surprised by how much there was, and how much I enjoyed it. From what I gather the sequel is more and better, so I'll get around to that eventually. Give it a try if you can.

 

[Unholy Diver]

High on Life - 8/10

From the Rick & Morty team, a sci-fi shooter where you play as a young adult human with a cache of talking alien guns trying to save humanity by assassinating members of an alien drug cartel that wants to use the human race as drugs, as to be expected there is quite a bit of humor, and it is very crass. Much more polished game than Roiland's previous offering Trover saves the Universe. If you are a fan of Rick & Morty and that style of humor, you will very likely enjoy the game.

 

[Ceremony]

​

Jak II: Renegade (PS4, 2017 - originally PS2, 2003)

When I last played Rayman 2 I completed the game 100% in about six hours. That was finishing the story and collecting all 800 Lums. When I first played that in my younger years I remember it taking weeks and feeling like a massive, sprawling odyssey of levels and difficulty and it being the largest, hardest, greatest thing in the world. Taking turns with my friend to try and beat levels, and the nervous release of excitement when I finally realised I was going to beat the final boss.

Jak II is a similar tale, although slightly embarrassing. I think this is the first open world sandbox game I ever played, and I didn't know how it worked. After escaping prison at the start you have to go to the icon on the map to find your first mission and I didn't know how that worked. I spent a lot of time flying about the opening area of the map and I don't remember what pushed me into the right alleyway to actually start the game. I also remember getting stuck a few missions in, where you had to jump through an obstacle course while being shot at with an awkward camera. I'm not sure if all of this happened before or after I had the strategy guide for the game, but I'll save myself any further embarrassment here and say before.

What did the Jak and Daxter franchise need after the first game - a colourful, humorous, action adventure platformer? It needed the playable character to hit puberty, get a gun and be set in a world which shows the political and social downsides to letting a city's ruler live in a giant palace on the top of a tower in the middle of it. Jak, Daxter, Keira and Samos start the game by going through the big gate they found at the end of The Precursor Legacy. As they do a big head pops out and promises them a very miserable time. Jak and Daxter are promptly captured by some armoured lads with guns, Jak goes to prison and gets pumped full of chemicals. Two years later Daxter breaks him out, hilarity ensues.

Jak II is still, at its heart, a platformer. The jumping and physical combat controls are just the same. Only now, he has a gun with four eventual different types of ammo, vehicles to fly around Haven City where the game is set and a lots of different types of Metal Heads, the creatures who try and capture the city every now and then, fighting its leader Baron Praxis and his forces over Dark Eco, the energy source they all need. Sometimes missions take you to other locations inside and outside of the city so there's still lots of variety, even though some of your trips outside are surprisingly brief (or briefer than I remember them being when I was younger).

The amount of variety from mission to mission is actually surprisingly high. Even if it probably was inspired heavily by the 3D Grand Theft Autos of the time, the missions aren't all escorts, chases or go into a building and shoot everyone. Actually several of them involve just shooting stuff and often with irritatingly awkward time limits or settings, but you jump from one place to another and one goal to another so often it never feels repetitive. One drawback of playing a game that's twenty years old is its interesting approach to checkpoints which can make certain parts of missions very annoying. Even given its age there's not any defending this. You just need to hope you can get through some places which will definitely annoy you. My total play time was twelve hours so it's not like you're going to be there forever, but it does show its age in places.

Was this Naughty Dog's first game with guns in it? It might have been. Either way, this is a large part of the game's annoyance. You have four different weapon types. The scatter gun is basically a shotgun which does a wide area blast in front of you. Since you often face multiple enemies at a time, this is good. The blaster is a single shot weapon which does as much damage as a scatter blast, and which you can't aim. The game sort of aims for you. I say sort of, sometimes it does and sometimes you'll need to fiddle about with the left stick and hope it hits what you need it to. Eventually you'll just spam jumping, spinning and shooting which fires bullets out in all directions, but this is out of frustration rather than strategy and even though ammo is plentiful, you might end up running out. The vulcan rifle (or something) is up next and this is an automatic version of the blaster which needs time to spool up, and in a game where enemies have four health at most. The gun is a nice idea, but I think some refinement was required. The final weapon type comes too near the end of the game to be worth mentioning, which is a shame because a long range electrified rocket launcher just sounds great.

New to the series is Dark Jak, a result of Jak's time in prison. You can collect Dark Eco from defeated enemies and unleash an extra strong version of Jak with improved physical attacks when you get enough. There are also finishing moves you can unlock which take out all the enemies in an area. It's pretty pointless in all honesty. There are one or two missions where it might be useful, but regular attacks and the guns are always enough. You might need one of the finishing moves if you're really overwhelmed, but that's about it. It's a nice change and has some thematic purpose, but it's not game-defining.

I complained about the health system when I played The Precursor Legacy and at first glance it looks better in Jak II, but it's not. Your health display has eight green bars in it. Virtually every attack you take will take away two of these, so you can still only take four hits before you die and take your chances with the terrible checkpoints. Health pickups aren't consistent either so there will be times you're swimming in them, and times where you're frantically dodge rolling and trying to avoid enemies getting near you. The lack of consistency in stuff like this just feels baffling playing it now. How could someone play this game before it was released and not think this was terrible and needed changed? The dodgy checkpoints were probably the worst part of the game, and they were much worse than I ever remember them being before.

Why I loved this game then, now and probably still will in another twenty years is the atmosphere. Haven City is a dark, bleak hellscape which is advanced enough to have flying cars but still have slums. You can interact with very little of the buildings or... any of the city at all, really, but it still feels vast and expansive because of the different areas. It might be lingering awe from it being the first sandbox I'd seen but I just enjoy moving about the city, hearing the sounds, music and dodging in and out of traffic. The ambience is outstanding, and it's something that not many games do this well.

What I love most about theses games is the Precursors. It's why I loved the first game so much too. This bronze stuff everywhere with strange markings on it that makes otherworldly metallic noises when you touch or interact with it. What is it? Who put it there? Why aren't they there now? Why is it so valuable? Why don't I have a Precursor Orb on my desk? Both Jak games strike the perfect balance of this stuff being ubiquitous but never actually active or explained. You feel familiar with it because you're spending so much time with it, but nobody's actually telling you anything. In Jak II the actual Orbs and artefacts are less significant and frequent but this just increases their sense of intrigue. Once the story really starts focusing on the city's founder, Mar, and his relationship to the Metal Heads, the Precursors and Jak, it's just fantastic stuff.

There are more and more complex characters than in the first game. I probably know all of them too well to analyse them objectively but in addition to the range of missions and gameplay, the characters you meet are are all deep and interesting enough for you to be invested in them. The voice acting is great for all of them too. Daxter maintains his role as the true strength of the game for the same reasons - he's funny, he's wacky, but he's also adult and realistic and somehow not over the top no matter how obnoxiously he shouts. Given my issues with terrible games like The Last of Us and the Uncharteds, it's good to know that yes, once, Naughty Dog could write good characters.

It's just been announced that Uncharted is getting a reboot. Where is my Jak and Daxter reboot? Surely there's room in the world of video games for an action adventure platformer with a bit of mystery and actual good characters that's going to let a bunch of people relive their childhoods? Give me a fully realised version of Haven City and I'll die happy.

 

[Andrei79]

Wasteland 3 - 9/10.

This was way better than I expected it to be. It's a cRPG with tactical gun based combat. While the combat is relatively simple compared to games like DOS2 or Pathfinder, it never got redundant. What I didn't expected was how much I would like the writing and the music. Some of the soundtracks had no business being this good. When I heard Hymn to the republic (fully recommend anyone to listen to their rendition), I thought I was in a Tarantino movie and lo and behold, Mary Ramos was the music supervisor. It's now one of my favorite RPGs.

I dont have much time left on my game pass trial, so next up will probably be Expeditions:Rome and if I have time, Tunic.

 

[Section337]

Been a long time since I did this:

God of War (2018): 7 out of 10

Well made, mostly looked good, campaign and limited side quests were ok, but I had no desire to perform the side fights. Usually I drag out finishing a game; however, I finished one night and then never desired to sign on again. Maybe because I didn't think the studio completely believed in the game (they do now), found it very limited for a AAA.

Also this is one of the games where outside forces played a bigger role than normal, for me. One, I went in expecting more than was delivered. And I also was super frustrated with the idea that a guy being angry makes him right. Only had about 10 minutes of GoW before this game, so Kratos never felt particularly worthy to me. Honestly, anti-heroes have been wearing on me for a long time.

Skyrim: 9.5 out of 10

Had played originally, this was the 2nd time with all the expansions. Honestly, this is my type of game, which allows lots of explorations and, with lots of things to do do, it triggers my completionist tendencies. Honestly, I do not need amazing all the time, sometimes I just want to spend some time wandering around a fake world building my house.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider: 6.5 out of 10 and Rise of the Tomb Raider: 6 out of 10

Actually think these bracketed the above two games. Always considered them filler and neither lived up to much more. Lara is another one of those characters that I think is only right because the game makes someone worse. Bit of an ego driven world destroyer.

Elden Ring: 8 out of 10

I suspect it may be higher when I play it again in a few years. However, despite mostly liking big open worlds and Souls type of games, I don't think Elden Ring was near the top of the class in either aspect. At least for me. With the Souls aspect, it was too easy to skip the pound your head against a wall until you succeed by going and exploring and then coming back somewhere whenever. Meanwhile, the Open World provided exploration with rewards like tools and mechanics, when I prefer story or achievements. Honestly, even from grinding experience, it was the farms I found which leveled me, while I could spend multiple nights opening an area with barely a level.

Still played the crap out of it, which is why it is an 8. Climbed high up the mountain but did not reach the peak.

What Remains of Edith Finch: 2.5 out of 4

An afternoon game. Few creative parts but a bit more of a pop up book than a game. Enjoyed my afternoon, game tugged at some easily tugged emotions but so different from the other games that it belongs on another scale.

Assassins Creed: Valhalla: 8 out of 10

Same as Elden Creed, despite it being a poorer game, because I enjoyed playing it more. One of the big ass, kind of repetitive AssAss games where you play a mass murderer doing whatever it wants. I have never taken this world as seriously as the makers. Similar to the prior two, though the one I liked the least (environment, story and characters),

Think it is time to return to a city and a true assassin, though that is basically how I played the character (even on raids I killed the town before calling in the dudes to help me open chests). That said, the assassins in cities had also been getting old, so the foray in to open world was a bit of a welcome diversion.

 

[Andrei79]

Tunic 9/10.

I'm isolated in the basement with COVID (wife and son are negative), so I've had nothing much to do except game the last 2 days. So, I've finished this one in just a few days. This felt like playing a Link to the Past for the first time, but with Souls-like combat and mechanics. The game gives you very little information to go on and doesn't hold your hand. A lot of the mechanics will already be there at the start, but you have to figure it out, with the help of an instruction booklet that you gather piece by piece throughout the adventure. The soundtrack is excellent. The story you kind of have to guess with the bits of information you're given and while the lore isn't really deep in this one, there's definitely a coherent "feel" to the different vistas where you can make up your own interpretation. I think I fought 4 bosses and they were challenging. I really have to mention again how much the combat is Souls-like, make a mistake and a normal mob will beat you. Try to fight too many of them and you'll get swarmed, etc. The only things I didn't enjoy quite as much were the Holy Cross/Fairy puzzles with the d-pad. I get not holding your hand, but those were just ridiculous. The one to get the cover page was unnecessarily complicated and downright idiotic and I would bet less than 5% (if not less) figured it out by themselves. That was poor design, but the only nitpick I can find about the game. Any old school Zelda and Souls fan should try this one.

 

[Shareefruck]

Tunic 9/10.

I'm isolated in the basement with COVID (wife and son are negative), so I've had nothing much to do except game the last 2 days. So, I've finished this one in just a few days. This felt like playing a Link to the Past for the first time, but with Souls-like combat and mechanics. The game gives you very little information to go on and doesn't hold your hand. A lot of the mechanics will already be there at the start, but you have to figure it out, with the help of an instruction booklet that you gather piece by piece throughout the adventure. The soundtrack is excellent. The story you kind of have to guess with the bits of information you're given and while the lore isn't really deep in this one, there's definitely a coherent "feel" to the different vistas where you can make up your own interpretation. I think I fought 4 bosses and they were challenging. I really have to mention again how much the combat is Souls-like, make a mistake and a normal mob will beat you. Try to fight too many of them and you'll get swarmed, etc. The only things I didn't enjoy quite as much were the Holy Cross/Fairy puzzles with the d-pad. I get not holding your hand, but those were just ridiculous. The one to get the cover page was unnecessarily complicated and downright idiotic and I would bet less than 5% (if not less) figured it out by themselves. That was poor design, but the only nitpick I can find about the game. Any old school Zelda and Souls fan should try this one.

Nice! Personally, I do appreciate when games have some obtuse secret that requires an entire community to band together to figure out (I think it can add an appreciated dimension of living breathing mystery to a game's environment), but I can probably agree that making something that obtuse part of what's required to get a satisfying ending to be a questionable design choice.

Ideally, I like when there are tiers of secrets that increase in obtuseness as they become more optional (something like Celeste does that beautifully, for example).

 

[Andrei79]

Nice! Personally, I do appreciate when games have some obtuse secret that requires an entire community to band together to figure out (I think it can add an appreciated dimension of living breathing mystery to a game's environment), but I can probably agree that making something that obtuse part of what's required to get a satisfying ending to be a questionable design choice.

Ideally, I like when there are tiers of secrets that increase in obtuseness as they become more optional (something like Celeste does that beautifully, for example).

Yeah, this is the nuance I should have added in my review. I don't mind the over the top secrets, but in this case it was needed to get the "good" ending, which was disappointing. If they were there for optional parts of the game, I actually feel it would have been fun. But, I'm nitpicking here, the game is fantastic.

 

[flyersnorth]

The Outer Worlds - 7/10

I usually enjoy these types of games. Found the writing a bit too obvious and agreeable. Didn’t use a single consumable other than adreno because I simply didn’t need it (Did not play in survival mode). Never felt I needed to swap out weapons because, again, didn’t need to. Got loot fatigue about halfway through, just completely stopped picking up anything that wasn’t ammo.

I enjoyed the lore, companions and their stories, most of the main and side missions. By late game, I was rushing through what were essentially fetch quests and pointless backtracking.

Interested in the upcoming sequel, but would also be ok not playing it. The main drawback, for me, is that the gameplay/gunplay simply wasn’t all that fun.

 

[PeterSidorkiewicz]

The Outer Worlds - 7/10

I usually enjoy these types of games. Found the writing a bit too obvious and agreeable. Didn’t use a single consumable other than adreno because I simply didn’t need it (Did not play in survival mode). Never felt I needed to swap out weapons because, again, didn’t need to. Got loot fatigue about halfway through, just completely stopped picking up anything that wasn’t ammo.

I enjoyed the lore, companions and their stories, most of the main and side missions. By late game, I was rushing through what were essentially fetch quests and pointless backtracking.

Interested in the upcoming sequel, but would also be ok not playing it. The main drawback, for me, is that the gameplay/gunplay simply wasn’t all that fun.

I’m doing a second play through right now as I haven’t played since launch and wanted to do the DLCs I never played. I pretty much agree with everything. I do love the writing though and yeah it’s agreeable I just still find it pretty funny and interesting. Really like all the characters too. I only play on normal mode but the game is easy, like super super easy. If I think a game is easy then it really really is because I’m not some amazing person at video games. I think that adds to the rushing through eventually and I’m kinda just there for the writing. Like you said, don’t even really care about loot or anything whatsoever at a certain point.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Played Yoshi's Island for the 8th billionth time. Still love it as much as i did when i played it for the first time as a four year old.

While i still love a good majority of the games i grew up with as a kid, there's just something about Yoshi's Island that puts it on a pedestal far above the rest.

Outstanding art design that honestly still looks good to this day. Those pastel colors still pop even on modern TVs. Great level design that puts a focus more on exploration rather than difficulty, something expanded on after Super Mario World was the first Mario game to go that route. Surprisingly cleverly designed boss fights. Something a buddy of mine pointed out; you already have the knowledge you need to kill the boss because they're just bigger versions of things you've already come across.

Not to mention for my money, what is by far the best soundtrack in any Mario/Mario related game ever.

Was even a bit more fresh for me since this is the first time i went for full on 100% completion and got to see a couple of the bonus levels i never got to when i was younger.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Just Beat For The Gazillionth Time:

8.5/10

 

[Frankie Spankie]

High on Life - 6/10

High on Life is a comedy shooter to the comedy stylings of Justin Roiland. If you don't like his comedy, you will not like this game. If you do like his humor, you may enjoy it. I personally do enjoy his humor but I felt the humor within the game was spread out too much. The combat isn't very fun. The game is all about the humor and there's just not enough of it there. Some of the humor was hilarious and I really was laughing out loud but there was a lot of moments where there's just not a single joke and you have to go fight waves of the same boring enemies over and over. It's a shame, I was pretty hyped for this and could have easily overlooked the poor game play but at the end of the day, I didn't have enough to overlook it with. I find it hard to recommend the game to be honest.

 

[aleshemsky83]

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Redout (PS4, 2016)

A redout occurs when the body experiences a negative g-force sufficient to cause a blood flow from the lower parts of the body to the head. It is the inverse effect of a greyout, where blood flows away from the head to the lower parts of the body. Usually, a redout will only ever be experienced by pilots, as planes are the most common devices that allow such negative g-forces to be exerted. Redouts are potentially dangerous and can cause retinal damage and hemorrhagic stroke.

I'm glad I looked this up on Wikipedia, because I didn't know that. Redout is also a video game where you race anti-gravity ships round vast, sweeping tracks in exotic, futuristic locations. It's not WipEout so you don't have weapons, or as much detail in any of the graphics, but you have a range of upgradeable ships with different handling characteristics, a range of game modes and eventually you'll regularly exceed speeds of 1,000 miles per hour.

There's really only two things to judge Redout on - how it plays and how it looks. Unlike various WipEouts or other similar futuristic racers, you really need to use both sticks to properly control your ship. Left stick is steering but with the right stick you can strafe and control the pitch of your craft. If you're going into a loop or over a crest you'll need to lift your ship's nose otherwise it will scrape along the ground, slowing you down and causing damage. The result is a cornering style which relies more on anticipation than anything else. It's a bit strange to get used to at first, but as you work your way up through faster ship classes you should be familiar enough when it really becomes necessary.

The career mode in Redout is huge. In the base game there are five different locations with multiple tracks in each. There are even more game modes - race, race without powerups, time trial, speed, tournaments, "Boss" which combines every track in a single location for a massive lap, and others. If you just work your way through all of them it will take you a long time and you'll never be bored. The best tactic to win races is often to jump into an early lead and just focus on flying as smoothly as possible, but the sheer volume of events and tracks means there's always variety. As you win races and earn money you can buy and upgrade the different ships, and add two powerups at a time which affect your ship's handling. You'll add Magnetic Stabilisers which make the biggest difference to your handling, but the active powerup which you have to activate contextually offers a bit more strategy. I mostly stuck to the starting team's ships and had little problem winning the career events, but the variety is there if you want it.

One other thing to mention about the AI is that the collision physics aren't very good. By that I mean if you're flying and someone touches you, you're going to get spun out and come to a complete stop almost instantly. Restarting a race is easy enough but it's still frustrating playing a racing game where you have to actively avoid the things you're racing against. There are three difficulty settings you can switch between to try and avoid this, but that's never a satisfying way to win.

Like WipEout, there's a decent bit of lore you can find if you go looking. It's some time in the 2550s. Earth isn't doing very well and people live on Mars, or the moons of Jupiter, and Earth is mostly a playground for this anti-gravity racing, which itself is a byproduct of the research and technology that took humanity into the solar system. The tracks go through spectacular locations like Cairo, space, what's left of Italy, and there are three DLC packs (each costing what the base game cost me, I don't know how that works) which add even more. If you go through the menus you can find quite a bit of information about how the racing developed and the teams and the tracks and I love that stuff, it's all very interesting.

Sadly, also like WipEout, not enough is made of this lore. When I played the Omega Collection a few years ago I remember lamenting that WipEout games have always been just... interesting. The teams, the tracks, the drivers, the world that the racing takes place in. Yet it's all just sort of there, and you feel like you actively have to work to feel involved in it. Redout is very similar, only if anything there's less detail. The circuits are complex and varied to race on, but the surrounding environments look quite cartoony compared to the ships and tracks themselves. I'm not expecting photo-realism from a small game made by a small developer, but the environments should be more than they are. If I'm flying through a volcano or going between land and underwater on a space moon, I should be more impressed. It's just that outside of the racing there's little to properly immerse you in a world which is unquestionably very interesting. It feels like a missed opportunity to me.

I had hesitated about buying Redout for a while. I decided to just go for it in a recent sale and was surprised by how much there was, and how much I enjoyed it. From what I gather the sequel is more and better, so I'll get around to that eventually. Give it a try if you can.

This game sucks so bad. The controls are horrible and the graphics effects are overdone.

 

[Ceremony]

This game sucks so bad. The controls are horrible and the graphics effects are overdone.

The controls seem counter-intuitive and at faster classes it can be tricky, but I think they work. When you have WipEout though you see why a racer like this needs really sharp, clear visuals though.

 

[Soedy]

Jedi: Fallen Order - 8/10

Had a lot of fun once I got the hang of the combat which isn't pure Hack n Slash. Didn't like the first two planets but after that it started to be a lot of fun.

 

[The Merchant]

Been a long time since I did this:

God of War (2018): 7 out of 10

Well made, mostly looked good, campaign and limited side quests were ok, but I had no desire to perform the side fights. Usually I drag out finishing a game; however, I finished one night and then never desired to sign on again. Maybe because I didn't think the studio completely believed in the game (they do now), found it very limited for a AAA.

Also this is one of the games where outside forces played a bigger role than normal, for me. One, I went in expecting more than was delivered. And I also was super frustrated with the idea that a guy being angry makes him right. Only had about 10 minutes of GoW before this game, so Kratos never felt particularly worthy to me. Honestly, anti-heroes have been wearing on me for a long time.

Skyrim: 9.5 out of 10

Had played originally, this was the 2nd time with all the expansions. Honestly, this is my type of game, which allows lots of explorations and, with lots of things to do do, it triggers my completionist tendencies. Honestly, I do not need amazing all the time, sometimes I just want to spend some time wandering around a fake world building my house.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider: 6.5 out of 10 and Rise of the Tomb Raider: 6 out of 10

Actually think these bracketed the above two games. Always considered them filler and neither lived up to much more. Lara is another one of those characters that I think is only right because the game makes someone worse. Bit of an ego driven world destroyer.

Elden Ring: 8 out of 10

I suspect it may be higher when I play it again in a few years. However, despite mostly liking big open worlds and Souls type of games, I don't think Elden Ring was near the top of the class in either aspect. At least for me. With the Souls aspect, it was too easy to skip the pound your head against a wall until you succeed by going and exploring and then coming back somewhere whenever. Meanwhile, the Open World provided exploration with rewards like tools and mechanics, when I prefer story or achievements. Honestly, even from grinding experience, it was the farms I found which leveled me, while I could spend multiple nights opening an area with barely a level.

Still played the crap out of it, which is why it is an 8. Climbed high up the mountain but did not reach the peak.

What Remains of Edith Finch: 2.5 out of 4

An afternoon game. Few creative parts but a bit more of a pop up book than a game. Enjoyed my afternoon, game tugged at some easily tugged emotions but so different from the other games that it belongs on another scale.

Assassins Creed: Valhalla: 8 out of 10

Same as Elden Creed, despite it being a poorer game, because I enjoyed playing it more. One of the big ass, kind of repetitive AssAss games where you play a mass murderer doing whatever it wants. I have never taken this world as seriously as the makers. Similar to the prior two, though the one I liked the least (environment, story and characters),

Think it is time to return to a city and a true assassin, though that is basically how I played the character (even on raids I killed the town before calling in the dudes to help me open chests). That said, the assassins in cities had also been getting old, so the foray in to open world was a bit of a welcome diversion.

I will never understand why people ruin their Elden Ring experiences with XP farming. The entire concept of the game is to create a more accessible Soulsborne experience by offering the option to "just keep exploring until you find a spot that doesn't beat your ass" and not skillgating any players. It was truly brilliant design, one that I never remotely felt the need to farm or grind and it ended up being one of the greatest gaming experiences of my life. Like, of course you're going to have an unfavorable view of a game that you choose to turn into a mindless slog. That's literally the entire antithesis of the design philosophy.

 

[x Tame Impala]

I will never understand why people ruin their Elden Ring experiences with XP farming. The entire concept of the game is to create a more accessible Soulsborne experience by offering the option to "just keep exploring until you find a spot that doesn't beat your ass" and not skillgating any players. It was truly brilliant design, one that I never remotely felt the need to farm or grind and it ended up being one of the greatest gaming experiences of my life. Like, of course you're going to have an unfavorable view of a game that you choose to turn into a mindless slog. That's literally the entire antithesis of the design philosophy.

Your level doesn’t mean much anyway. I got to level 200+ and it’s not like I was able to stomp Malenia any better than I did when I was a level 120 the first time I beat her.

I started an NG+ game and it was fun but I was mowing through every non-boss enemy. I ended up just starting a brand new game without rune farming and it’s a lot more fun

 

[Ceremony]

​

Jak 3 (PS4, 2017 - originally PS2, 2004)

I think I've probably posted about trilogies and the way they're structured before. How they're perceived by the player, how worlds and mechanics evolve over time, how and ultimately how successful this ends up being. Think of a trilogy. How many of them peak with the third instalment?

The first thing I need to point out is that Jak 3 was released a year after Jak II. One year! One year was all it took to ditch the Roman numerals. Enough to add two entirely new open world areas and completely transform the layout of the original.

After saving the world in Jak II, Jak and Daxter... actually didn't save the world at all. Or Haven City. Or the Metal Heads, despite killing their leader. The city got destroyed and they got the blame and got thrown out into the desert to die. Luckily Haven City has a habit of doing this and there are so many Wastelanders out there that there's an entire city for our boys to discover and end up running. Since the existential threat of the Metal Heads isn't really there any more we also end up facing the Dark Makers, big stringy purple guys who come from space and are somehow even greater mortal enemies of the Precursors than the Metal Heads were.

You know how Jak II was clearly inspired by the open worlds of 3D GTA games? Jak 3 has three distinct areas to explore. Can't imagine San Andreas being released a month earlier was influential in any way. Unlike Jak II though where Haven City felt like something profound, the areas in 3 don't to the same extent. The desert city of Spargus is small and a bit bare. The Wasteland outside is large and there's a lot to uncover when you're driving around, but there's nothing to interact with. There are some abandoned looking buildings and statues, that's it. Haven City is half-destroyed and filled with three separate warring factions, and this is probably the biggest disappointment of the game.

The strangest thing about the locations is that Jak 3 isn't really a typical open world game in terms of moving around and completing missions. It's oddly linear. The story takes you largely from one area to another in a set order, so there's not always a sense of feeling embedded in a location. The pacing of the story suffers as a result, because you always feel as if just completing this next mission in a weird place will take you to one of the sandbox areas and let you establish yourself, but it doesn't. Once you leave Spargus and the desert the game moves around too much, never letting you feel settled in a location.

Weapons and combat are improved from Jak II. In addition to your gun's four ammo types, each ammo has three different modes you unlock as you progress. They're all wildly overpowered, which is the best kind of weapon. Want a gun where bullets automatically seek out targets? Done. Want one where the bullets ricochet everywhere until they hit an enemy? Done. Grenade launcher? Done. Fallout-esque tactical nuke launcher? You get one of those eventually if you want to completely clear a room, or the entire planet. The sheer volume of variety is brilliant and you'll just enjoy using one until you run out of ammo, then on to the next and repeating this cycle as needed.

Platforming is broadly the same as before and it's fine. In addition to the Dark Eco powers of Jak II, there's now Light Eco which turns you into the powerful being who's going to save the world. Your Dark Eco powers are especially useless given the improved guns, so it's good that they added some more variety to the physical gameplay. You can slow down time to get past certain types of platforming and you can also sprout wings to get you to other ledges that are far away. Most of the opportunities to use these are circumstantial, so it can feel like you get to take turns at the assorted gameplay mechanics whenever the game decides. Similar to the guns though, the variety is so frequent you almost don't notice.

With all of this in mind, the game is surprisingly short. I think my final playtime this go round was under ten hours. Is this a symptom of modern game design, with padding and side missions to create the belief that busywork dragging out the playtime makes a game better? Or more involving, somehow? I'm playing a game where there's objectively lots of stuff, but the final experience ends up feeling brief and somehow less than the sum of its parts. There's no denying it was brief either. There are various Orbs and races dotted around the city areas if you really want to extend your time with the game, but they don't really serve a purpose and the cities are surprisingly awkward to travel around, especially at speed.

The biggest strength of all the Jak and Daxter games as always been the characterisation. This was at its peak in Jak II with lots of varied, well developed and interesting characters. Sadly, Jak 3's characters suffer from the same problems as the rest of the game. Established characters we know and like pop up for a couple of missions and are gone forever afterwards. I think this contributes to the lacking sense of location. Our heroes manage to save things - just - by being as strong as ever, but it's a shame they get so little help along the way. This also makes the story feel less profound and important than before, because it's just sort of... there. You're saving the world from being destroyed and finally finding out the truth about the Precursors, but none of it feels like it matters.

Despite what I've said I do like this game From a narrative perspective it's a fitting end to the Jak and Daxter trilogy. It's fun, controls well and is brimming with content and imagination. Playing it now though, for the first time in years and many further years since I first played it, I just wish it did more with what it has. All the more reason for Naughty Dog to get off their arse and get their focus back in the right place.

 

[pistolpete11]

Deathloop - 7/10

I was in the mood for a shooter and it was free on PS+, so gave it a shot. Overall, I had more fun than I thought I would, but there were some things that really held it back.

The shooting and parkouring all felt pretty good which is what I came for, so that's good... Even though there were only 4 of them, I thought the maps were pretty good. Enemy placement and certain doors open depending on time of the day and whether you've found codes. Kept it just fresh enough.... The enemy AI is intentionally stupid which was surprisingly fun. You take a lot of damage, though, so groups of them can mow you down pretty quickly. You can use stealth or certain slabs (special abilities) to help manage groups....The slabs and trinkets (weapon/character modifiers) were fun to mess around with. Each felt like they had a tangible effect on the game.... You get 4 runs within each day (morning, noon, afternoon, evening). Leaving an area advances the day. You've got to infuse your weapons, slabs, or trinkets before the day runs out or else you lose it. You do so with residuum (game currency) that you found in random objects throughout each level and for killing the Visionaries (main bad guys). Had some tough decisions early on what to infuse, so I spent a lot of time exploring trying to find more residuum. At least until I zeroed in on what build I liked.

The sound design drove me up the f***ing wall. I'd hear someone moving around, but that person could be above me, below me, to the left, to the right, right behind me, across the building...who knows. I don't know if it's been a while since I've played a game where that matters and without 3D audio or something, but it was really, really annoying to me....The premise was figuring out how to kill 7 Visionaries all within 1 day. But there really wasn't anything to figure out. You select a mission and follow the map markers until they piece everything together for you. There's no puzzle. There's no creativity. There's 1 path you have to follow. I don't have anything against that per se, but I feel like it kind of promised something different at the beginning. Turns out, it's just like most video games...Something was off with the difficulty. You can die 3 times within each run. There was health EVERYWHERE. If you get in trouble, it's typically no problem to just run away until they stop looking for you. Once I got the gist of the game, there was very little tension. No stakes...I had multiple bugs where a Visionary got stuck running in place. It might have happened with regular enemies, too, but the Visionaries are the ones that are most difficult and fun to kill. They reset after each loop, but still. Took some fun away....The writing was funny at first, but grew tiresome for me.

It was a fine video game. IMO, it's a case of trying to give mass amounts of people moderate amounts of fun. With a few changes, it might have drove some people away, but the people that it landed with would have had a lot more fun. It's a business, I get it.

 

[Dolemite]

Jedi: Fallen Order - 8/10

Had a lot of fun once I got the hang of the combat which isn't pure Hack n Slash. Didn't like the first two planets but after that it started to be a lot of fun.

Right on the money.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Jedi: Fallen Order - 8/10

Had a lot of fun once I got the hang of the combat which isn't pure Hack n Slash. Didn't like the first two planets but after that it started to be a lot of fun.

I’ll give this one another shot. When I tried playing on my Xbox 1 the load times in between deaths were 50 seconds long every time. No exaggeration, I timed it.

Which in a soul’s lite game ruined the experience for me. The game seemed really fun otherwise so now that I’m on a Series X hopefully the load times won’t be so egregious

 

[pistolpete11]

Shadow of the Colossus - 5/10

I had high hopes for this one. Words like 'masterpiece' and 'classic' get thrown around when people talk about this game. I am relatively new to video games, so I don't know if it is just dated or what, but I did not enjoy this.

The only part of it I liked was trying to figure out how to beat each Colossus. Even then, once that was figured out, trying to then actually do it was at best tedious and at worst incredibly frustrating. Not frustrating in a fun way either. I've hit my head against a wall trying to beat many FromSoft bosses and had a blast and had a huge rush when I finally beat them. In Shadow of the Colossus it was more "thank God that's over".

In the other column, pretty much everything else...The camera. Why even let me control the camera if you are just going to try to force it somewhere else? I don't want to keep going on the camera. I'll just say the single worst aspect of any video game I've ever played....I almost put the world in the pro column, but there were too many issues with it. The art direction was cool, but getting around the world was terrible. Again, the stupid f***ing camera and controlling the horse was janky as all hell. The pop in was unbelievable. I'm not even a performance/graphics nerd, but it was almost constant when traveling on the horse over grass and I noticed it quite a bit with shadows and stuff, too. Pretty disappointing for a remake/remaster. The world was also almost completely empty outside of some birds and some lizards (which I didn't even know until near the end that you could kill and use to upgrade your health or stamina or something). Maybe it was a thematic choice, but it got old after a while....Making you fight the colossus in order was lame. If I stumble across 1 of them, I should be able to try to fight them. Instead, there was no sense of discovery. Just go to where the sword light tells you to.....The story might have been alright if it was told differently. For most of the game, there is no story. There's a premise, there's a like 15second cut scene at one point 75% through that lets you know there's something else going on, and then there's a 10min cut scene after you beat the game where the story actually takes place....I died maybe 10 times? And a couple of those were just getting around the world. It never felt like anything was at stake in the fights. It was just a matter of time until I figured out what I had to do and then go do it. You take very little damage and your health regenerates....I guess this is more my fault, but I didn't know there was a progression system. Probably not a good sign that someone as bad at video games as me can beat the game without upgrading anything, though.

Close to the beginning, I thought this game is as frustrating as The Last Guardian, which I quit like an hour in. Sure enough, same developer. I kept playing because it's such a 'classic'. I am probably only giving it a 5/10 because it's a 'classic', too. I wish i would have quit playing an hour in.

 

[Ceremony]

Shadow of the Colossus - 5/10

I had high hopes for this one. Words like 'masterpiece' and 'classic' get thrown around when people talk about this game. I am relatively new to video games, so I don't know if it is just dated or what, but I did not enjoy this.

The only part of it I liked was trying to figure out how to beat each Colossus. Even then, once that was figured out, trying to then actually do it was at best tedious and at worst incredibly frustrating. Not frustrating in a fun way either. I've hit my head against a wall trying to beat many FromSoft bosses and had a blast and had a huge rush when I finally beat them. In Shadow of the Colossus it was more "thank God that's over".

In the other column, pretty much everything else...The camera. Why even let me control the camera if you are just going to try to force it somewhere else? I don't want to keep going on the camera. I'll just say the single worst aspect of any video game I've ever played....I almost put the world in the pro column, but there were too many issues with it. The art direction was cool, but getting around the world was terrible. Again, the stupid f***ing camera and controlling the horse was janky as all hell. The pop in was unbelievable. I'm not even a performance/graphics nerd, but it was almost constant when traveling on the horse over grass and I noticed it quite a bit with shadows and stuff, too. Pretty disappointing for a remake/remaster. The world was also almost completely empty outside of some birds and some lizards (which I didn't even know until near the end that you could kill and use to upgrade your health or stamina or something). Maybe it was a thematic choice, but it got old after a while....Making you fight the colossus in order was lame. If I stumble across 1 of them, I should be able to try to fight them. Instead, there was no sense of discovery. Just go to where the sword light tells you to.....The story might have been alright if it was told differently. For most of the game, there is no story. There's a premise, there's a like 15second cut scene at one point 75% through that lets you know there's something else going on, and then there's a 10min cut scene after you beat the game where the story actually takes place....I died maybe 10 times? And a couple of those were just getting around the world. It never felt like anything was at stake in the fights. It was just a matter of time until I figured out what I had to do and then go do it. You take very little damage and your health regenerates....I guess this is more my fault, but I didn't know there was a progression system. Probably not a good sign that someone as bad at video games as me can beat the game without upgrading anything, though.

Close to the beginning, I thought this game is as frustrating as The Last Guardian, which I quit like an hour in. Sure enough, same developer. I kept playing because it's such a 'classic'. I am probably only giving it a 5/10 because it's a 'classic', too. I wish i would have quit playing an hour in.

I've not played the PS4 remake yet, but it's good. In a world of Soulsborne games I can see why SOTC would seem lacking, but it was never about the sense of challenge in the same way. The sense of scale and emptiness in the world is the point, and the intrigue about why/what the world is is part of the appeal. The ZP review covers some of your points, but I'll be honest and say when I went to look it up I could have sworn it was more recent and longer:



The Last Guardian is development hell nonsense which was actually what I posted about in the first post in this thread.

 

[Shareefruck]

I see it as a game where you tolerate the gameplay jank for the rare artistic value it has, a feeling which still very rarely if ever gets replicated by newer artsy games, IMO (although even in that regard I'm not sure it's without flaws-- and I have some additional story presentation gripes about the remaster, too).