What Was The Last Game You Played?

[Homer Thompson]

For no particular reason, I fired up Fallout New Vegas last week. I think this is the third time I've started it and I'm really enjoying it and getting into it. 

Still not getting the "it's the best one" thing but still very good. 

If you play one fallout game this year, make it this one 

[Stellaboz]

1 hour ago, Homer Thompson said:

For no particular reason, I fired up Fallout New Vegas last week. I think this is the third time I've started it and I'm really enjoying it and getting into it. 

Still not getting the "it's the best one" thing but still very good. 

If you play one fallout game this year, make it this one 

I also started this last week. Not too far into it but enjoying so far. 

I'm guessing that getting to NV itself will be a big moment. 

[BFTD]

11 minutes ago, Stellaboz said:

I also started this last week. Not too far into it but enjoying so far. 

I'm guessing that getting to NV itself will be a big moment. 

I found it a bit underwhelming when I finally got there.

I've never got the thing about New Vegas being the best of them; I enjoyed Fallout 3 a lot more. I get the feeling that setting plays a big part in these games, and the Capital Wasteland was a lot more interesting to me than Nevada. I found New Vegas to be a lot sillier too, which some folk like, but eejits running around pretending to be Roman legionnaires and Rat Pack gangsters was too spoofy for me.

Both were better than Fallout 4 though, which I won't be going back to without mods to remove that base-building shite and busy work. Felt like when Football Manager introduced enough micromanaging that you could play for an evening and only get through a couple of matches.

[Jives Miguel]

I find New Vegas was a lot more memorable, interesting and funnier, and the plot was much better with more choices available to the player. I've not played Fallout 3 since it came out granted, but I don't remember many characters from it apart from Three Dog, Dogmeat and the guy that wanted to blow up Megaton. Whereas with New Vegas you've got Mr House, Caesar, Fantastic, Benny, Jason Bright, Lily and more. The DLC was also substantially better.

[BFTD]

Just now, Jives Miguel said:

I find New Vegas was a lot more memorable, interesting and funnier, and the plot was much better with more choices available to the player. I've not played Fallout 3 since it came out granted, but I don't remember many characters from it apart from Three Dog, Dogmeat and the guy that wanted to blow up Megaton. Whereas with New Vegas you've got Mr House, Caesar, Fantastic, Benny, Jason Bright, Lily and more. The DLC was also substantially better.

Folk will never agree about this. I only remember Mr House and Caesar, none of the others you mentioned, but still remember meeting a load of characters from Fallout 3, maybe because I played it first and Bethesda's NPCs are generally poor. The DLC put me off finishing New Vegas in the end as it was tedious as f**k, although I remember one of Fallout 3's being very dull. I generally preferred the quests in Fallout 3 too.

I've seen videos with folk explaining why theirs was better and thought both cases seemed reasonable, so it's very much personal choice, but some folk don't half get agitated that there's an objective truth in which of these games someone else enjoyed more!  

[Jives Miguel]

3 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Folk will never agree about this. I only remember Mr House and Caesar, none of the others you mentioned, but still remember meeting a load of characters from Fallout 3, maybe because I played it first and Bethesda's NPCs are generally poor. The DLC put me off finishing New Vegas in the end as it was tedious as f**k, although I remember one of Fallout 3's being very dull. I generally preferred the quests in Fallout 3 too.

I've seen videos with folk explaining why theirs was better and thought both cases seemed reasonable, so it's very much personal choice, but some folk don't half get agitated that there's an objective truth in which of these games someone else enjoyed more!  

 

Benny was the Matthew Perry voiced antagonist, Jason Bright was the cult leader ghoul trying to lead an expedition into space, Lily was the supermutant companion, and Fantastic was the man with one of the best lines in gaming

 

[BFTD]

14 minutes ago, Jives Miguel said:

 

Benny was the Matthew Perry voiced antagonist, Jason Bright was the cult leader ghoul trying to lead an expedition into space, Lily was the supermutant companion, and Fantastic was the man with one of the best lines in gaming

 

I remember the Matthew Perry one because he got absolutely slaughtered when the game came out because of how lazy his acting was, then when he died suddenly there were a load of people online giving it, "RIP Matt, best part of New Vegas"  

[54_and_counting]

Finally, FINALLY, finished TLoU2, loved the story and setting, the apocalyptic world is so real, on par with how engrossing hogwarts and spiderman games were for how the environment sucks you right in

Story was cracking i thought, no issues with any of the talking points back in its release, only two things id say

The walking sections, f**k me they are good storyline wise but they are so long at times

And the order of the story, i think you should do abbys sections first then ellies, dunno just feel it would have been better in that order, save the big reveal to later on in the story (both reveals actually) 

[Miguel Sanchez]

Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier (PS4, 2024 - originally PSP, 2009)

I own three Game Boys. A Game Boy Color, a Game Boy Advance and a Game Boy Advance SP. I played these all regularly over the years I had them. As time went on I gradually shifted to playing full console versions of games rather than a handheld equivalent, but there was still occasion to play and really get something out of the games I had for these handhelds. There's a chance I'm just thinking of Pokemon and extending that to any other thing I might have played on them, but I definitely remember them being a significant part of my early gaming life. 

I got a PSP when they were released in 2005. I remember trying to crack open the plastic case the discs were in because I didn't realise how they were supposed to work. My abiding memories of games on this platform are WipEout, Ridge Racer, NHL 07 and buying Final Fantasies 1 through 8 and getting about a quarter of the way through the first one and never touching them again. I also remember using my neighbour's wifi to do the sort of browsing an unsupervised 13 year old would do. Ah, youth. 

Once it became apparent that digital distribution was the way forward for games I remember buying two games from the store - Gran Turismo and Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier. Looking back at the amount of content in Gran Turismo, the fact they managed to release it on a platform like that is remarkable. Looking back on The Lost Frontier and comparing it to my experience playing it now, I think I played it for about five minutes and then never went back to it. 

Happily, because I bought it all those years ago on PSP, PlayStation decided that this entitled me to the rereleased versions on PS4 and PS5, without having to buy them anew or sign up to one of their hilariously overpriced PlayStation Plus subscriptions. It's rare that me managing to overpay for something video game related ever pays off, but I've managed it here so that's nice. 

The Lost Frontier is the only Jak and Daxter game to not be fully made by Naughty Dog. Apparently they were too busy making the first Uncharted game, so we can add another victim to Nathan Drake's list of crimes against humanity. Set some time after the events of previous games, Jak, Daxter and Keira are... somewhere. And Eco is running out. 

I'm writing this quite a while after actually playing the game but the plot was very, very thin even as I was playing it. Perhaps the game's biggest problem is shifting from the distinctive locations of the original trilogy to an entirely new setting. The game's story passes through five separate locations which you can also fast travel between, and there's little in any of them to really immerse you in. I feel as if I could talk about this game and write "this can be excused because it's a handheld game" but is it, really? If your game does end up lacking because of a clash between its scale and the capabilities of what it's being played on, does that absolve any issues? Am I just missing the satisfying sound effects that come from walking on giant piles of Precursor crap?

Gameplay is your standard Jak platforming/melee/shooting mixture. Each world also has an open, flying vehicle area with side-quests, collectibles, combat and races to participate in. These are enjoyable enough, but again there's very little variety between each of them. There is quite a substantial amount of variety in the ships and upgrades you can unlock though, so there's enough to provide a sense of variety in control, even if the things you do with them are ultimately quite repetitive. 

On-foot gameplay sees probably the biggest additions to gameplay, which come with positives and negatives. Coloured Eco returns for the first time since The Precursor Legacy, with Jak unlocking new powers as you progress. Some of these are contextual like creating a platform you have to use before it disappears, some can be used in combat any time like making a shield or slowing down time. While there is strong variety here, there's almost too much. Some powers will only ever be used once or twice. Some might sound like a good idea like the shield, but actually coordinating the buttons to use them will confuse you and slow you down, making it more likely you'll be hit by enemies.

Remember that this is a port of a game from a platform which had fewer buttons than the one I'm playing on now, so switching between weapons and powers with the d-pad will, and does, lead to several cases of using the wrong thing and having to stand there as something hits you over and over while you eventually scroll through to the right weapon or ability. 

I should also add here that since it only had one stick, camera control with the PSP was usually with the shoulder buttons. Not only did I never get used to this, but I'd almost always press the wrong button and rotate the camera in the opposite direction to what I wanted. And not only that, but I discovered about an hour before the end that there's an option added here that lets you change the camera to the right stick. Check for that if you're playing any PSP ports. Even with this in mind, aiming your guns feels very vague and it's never really a guarantee you'll aim it where you want to. 

Characterisation has always been a strong point of Jak and Daxter games and this is largely still the case. Daxter is as brilliant as ever. Genuinely hilarious. There are sections (slightly tacked-on) where he transforms into a Dark Eco creature and gets all ugly and angry which add another layer to his character which is great. Jak and Keira are sort of... there, and even though Jak's usual voice actor was changed I, rather embarrassingly, didn't notice. The rest of the characters you encounter are largely all forgettable. As I've been typing this I think I've realised that any enjoyment I got from this game was about 99% residual appreciation for the familiar characters.

That said, there is still a simplicity to The Lost Frontier which I think anyone could appreciate. A game where you sit down for a period of 8-10 hours and experience a completely straightforward story, simple and intuitive gameplay and minimal external bullshit designed specifically to waste your time rather than provide anything thematically or mechanically satisfying. The game is lacking in areas - some due to the limitations of the format, some not - but ultimately I think I really needed to play this just to enjoy something simple and self-contained again. 

All I need now is Daxter to be ported to PS4/5 and I'll have the complete set of Jak and Daxter games on my profile. Who says a creatively bereft, multi-billion dollar industry is at its worst when it's recycling itself?

[54_and_counting]

Paid the 17 quid to upgrade my ps plus to premium till august, so basically trying a shit load of the free games on it

Tried a load of FPS games, couldnt stick to them, so looked for strategy games and came across Settlers: New Allies

Ive never played a settlers game before, so some will probably know what its like 

Its a bit like command and conquer in the sense you build your "base" which is actually your village, your warehouse is your main building (you can have many of them) and you need to harvest resources from mines, quarries, forests, beaches (fishing) etc

Its quite smart how it plays, needing to connect everything via roads once the building are built, having to have enough people to transport your goods to the warehouse or to their second location (tree logs to the sawmill etc) having enough engineers to build things but also expand your territory etc

So far its been quite easy (no difficulty setting which I thought was strange) apart from one mission, but the missions do take long, can be a bit repetitive in terms of simply building everything up

Some missions require you to trade for goods to upgrade, others you need tk harvest, some you can mix the ideals etc

Quite enjoyable way to waste a couple hours, planning your village etc, the graphics are fucking superb, you can literally zoom in and see one single villager carrying a stone rock etc

[BFTD]

1 hour ago, 54_and_counting said:

Paid the 17 quid to upgrade my ps plus to premium till august, so basically trying a shit load of the free games on it

Tried a load of FPS games, couldnt stick to them, so looked for strategy games and came across Settlers: New Allies

Ive never played a settlers game before, so some will probably know what its like 

Its a bit like command and conquer in the sense you build your "base" which is actually your village, your warehouse is your main building (you can have many of them) and you need to harvest resources from mines, quarries, forests, beaches (fishing) etc

Its quite smart how it plays, needing to connect everything via roads once the building are built, having to have enough people to transport your goods to the warehouse or to their second location (tree logs to the sawmill etc) having enough engineers to build things but also expand your territory etc

So far its been quite easy (no difficulty setting which I thought was strange) apart from one mission, but the missions do take long, can be a bit repetitive in terms of simply building everything up

Some missions require you to trade for goods to upgrade, others you need tk harvest, some you can mix the ideals etc

Quite enjoyable way to waste a couple hours, planning your village etc, the graphics are fucking superb, you can literally zoom in and see one single villager carrying a stone rock etc

I'm really weird with The Settlers. I've played #2, 3, and 4, and every now and then I'll get the urge to go back to one as I remember enjoying building a settlement, mining ore, harvesting trees and crops, using it all to make buildings and create new things, managing paths to get resources from one place to another efficiently, panning out and watching my little guys all busily beavering away...

Then I have to defend it from rival tribes and the aim is always to kill them and take over their land, which is when I lose interest. Kinda feels like I'm only into the boring part, like if I'd bought Fallout 4 and spent all my time making buildings and getting annoyed when I have to do quests in the Wasteland. Are there any games similar to The Settlers where the ultimate aim isn't military defence and conquest?

[54_and_counting]

1 hour ago, BFTD said:

I'm really weird with The Settlers. I've played #2, 3, and 4, and every now and then I'll get the urge to go back to one as I remember enjoying building a settlement, mining ore, harvesting trees and crops, using it all to make buildings and create new things, managing paths to get resources from one place to another efficiently, panning out and watching my little guys all busily beavering away...

Then I have to defend it from rival tribes and the aim is always to kill them and take over their land, which is when I lose interest. Kinda feels like I'm only into the boring part, like if I'd bought Fallout 4 and spent all my time making buildings and getting annoyed when I have to do quests in the Wasteland. Are there any games similar to The Settlers where the ultimate aim isn't military defence and conquest?

Probably cities skylines or sim city to an extent 

Ive never played the civilisation games, maybe them? 

I just usually spend ages building up a fully functioning village/settlement, then auto training troops, letting it build up for half an hour or so then quickly wiping out the map

Im like you i like the building part finding new resources etc

[BFTD]

5 minutes ago, 54_and_counting said:

Probably cities skylines or sim city to an extent 

Ive never played the civilisation games, maybe them? 

I just usually spend ages building up a fully functioning village/settlement, then auto training troops, letting it build up for half an hour or so then quickly wiping out the map

Im like you i like the building part finding new resources etc

I could never quite get into Sim City; it was a bit too pulled-back for me. Cities Skylines might be worth a bash, although I think it's the small medieval settlement aspect of The Settlers that I like. I think Civilisation still involves conquest and defence and is on a grander scale (the older ones, anyway).

It probably comes down to the fact that the game would just peter out without conflict - you'd build a settlement up and lose interest after a while, but then I lose interest when the combat kicks in anyway. Might be fun to have a Settlers game with a small settlement where it just evolves through time to the space age, like Mega-Lo-Mania did (the combat didn't annoy me so much there, mainly because it felt more like the point of the game, and it wasn't as laid back).

[54_and_counting]

1 hour ago, BFTD said:

I could never quite get into Sim City; it was a bit too pulled-back for me. Cities Skylines might be worth a bash, although I think it's the small medieval settlement aspect of The Settlers that I like. I think Civilisation still involves conquest and defence and is on a grander scale (the older ones, anyway).

It probably comes down to the fact that the game would just peter out without conflict - you'd build a settlement up and lose interest after a while, but then I lose interest when the combat kicks in anyway. Might be fun to have a Settlers game with a small settlement where it just evolves through time to the space age, like Mega-Lo-Mania did (the combat didn't annoy me so much there, mainly because it felt more like the point of the game, and it wasn't as laid back).

Yeah a game where you had to start off with cavemen essentially then work your way through the ages would be good, learning stuff as you go, instead of the military aspect you could have issues like disease, animals hunting you etc

Take a group of cavemen, and the final part of the game is you colonising mars or something like that 

Could even have conflict in it (an AI nation grows as you do) but no one can ever be wiped out and instead you can negotiate peace etc

Edited June 1 by 54_and_counting

[Jives Miguel]

My favourite city building game was Caesar III. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_III

 

I picked it up a few years ago, and I was absolutely obsessed with it for a few months. Its an objective based city builder, where the emperor of Rome sends you to provinces of increasing size and difficulty to build a city in. Really fun, and quite hard game.

[BFTD]

3 minutes ago, Jives Miguel said:

My favourite city building game was Caesar III. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_III

I picked it up a few years ago, and I was absolutely obsessed with it for a few months. Its an objective based city builder, where the emperor of Rome sends you to provinces of increasing size and difficulty to build a city in. Really fun, and quite hard game.

Nice, I remember when it came out, but never tried it at the time.

Before everyone started coming up with workplace simulators, these were the definition of 'dad games', so I suppose it's inevitable that they've started to seem more appealing as time's gone on  

[54_and_counting]

So after playing settlers i fired up cities skylines, i bought it ages ago, tried it one night, realised it would take a bit of learning then never went back to it

Forced myself to focus on it last few nights, after many trial and error and starting again i have the general hang of it, can see myself not bothering with curved roads etc, but so far my city is ticking along nicely, just not fast enough 

I did start a second map with the infinite money cheat on, just to see what its like, good when you boost your city with parks and stuff

Will go back to my normal one tonight, see if i can get further ahead 

[Miguel Sanchez]

Death's Door (PS4, 2021)

I've played one Soulslike in my life. Jedi: Fallen Order. I didn't like it. I've played no Zelda games in my life. Naturally a mashup of the two genres in which you play as a mute crow who has a job collecting souls but who uncovers a terrible conspiracy to cheat death and alter and corrupt the very fabric of reality seems like it's right up my alley.

Your crow works in a grey, bureaucratic office environment where you're given doors and souls to go and collect from the dead. This keeps the system running so you can keep going out and collecting souls. If you work in an office I'll give you a moment to contemplate the futility of your existence. The problem for our hero is that certain beings are living longer than they should and becoming corrupted and horrible, so you need to fight your way through the minor enemies to reach the larger enemies and try and right this phenomenon. 

The game is fairly short. I, with the many problems which I'll cover, reached 100% in 15 hours. This means that everything in the game is quite neat and organised. Nothing really overstays its welcome, which is nice. The world itself has a simple, bold art style with enough variation between each of the locations you visit to compensate for the lack of overall length. The colour palette can be a bit muted and dull, but the art style is consistent and cute enough in its details.

That said, the actual world building itself is by far my biggest problem. When I played Jedi: Fallen Order I complained about how terrible navigation was because of the layouts of the levels and the horrible map you were given to see where you were going. Death's Door avoids this problem by providing no map at all. The different levels are technically open world, although some areas are blocked off until you learn a certain ability, so you're usually funnelled into the direction the game wants you to go. In theory this works, but often you make progress by trial and error, running around until you find the only door or path you aren't prevented from using. I felt as if an undue proportion of my time with this game was spent doing this, and the game's various charms wore off pretty quickly when it happened. 

The notion of returning with abilities later on is also fine in theory, but I don't think it holds up very well. For one thing, you forget. There are so many doors or paths or platforms just off screen that you'll never remember all of them. Revisiting each area and every part of it when you unlock fire or the bomb or whatever is about the only way you can fully explore without looking up a guide, and that's just tedious. Looking up a guide will probably be beneficial for the parts of the game which aren't explained at all, like the fact you can move off a ledge, press attack and shoot down either damaging enemies or going through metal covers in the ground which actually hide tunnels which take you to secret locations. The game seems big on discovery, but there are times where it gives the player too much credit and makes things a bit too vague.

I played through the game twice and navigation felt much simpler on my second go even though I didn't feel like I was playing with any extra knowledge of what I was doing. I obviously had an advantage, but I never had the feeling of being confident with moving around. Even the hub world is infuriating for this, with three general directions you can head in to then move to several different doors to enter the world at different locations, but there's seemingly no logic to this layout and there are stairs and things making it all more awkward than it needs to be. And there's no signposting, so you'll need to go up to each door to read the name of the location you're travelling to and hope you remember which one you actually want.

Outside of the actual level design, the world itself can feel a bit shallow. I know the game was only made by two people so I don't want to seem too critical, but you do notice a lack of depth. The background music is entirely forgettable. Enemy variety is okay, but the classic Soulslike pattern of dodge then hit will get you past absolutely everything. Only the boss fights have any real variety with different attacks requiring different approaches. My lack of experience in the genre led to this being very annoying on several occasions, but I don't want to use my shortcomings to declare the game as bad. 

As you defeat enemies and collect souls you can use these to purchase upgrades to things like damage and movement speed. The problem here is that enemies scale as you progress, so you might struggle to feel like your upgrades are making a difference. There are also different weapons you can discover in the world and use, but there are five and only one of them really changes the gameplay, and they all have broadly the same damage stats anyway. There are ranged attacks too and these can make enemy encounters a bit more strategic, but against minor enemies you'll often face three or four who either rush you or have ranged attacks of their own, so things often descend into a button mashing affair anyway.

The game isn't without charm, and it's easy to see how much love and care went into it. There is humour in the crow's interaction with other characters, although him being silent and the dialogue being entirely text-based makes it difficult for characterisation to shine through. The ironic spin on an established genre feels like it should be more substantial, but then I don't want to rate a game on something I think it should be any more than I want to rate a game based on how bad I am at it. 

Death's Door is alright. If you like indie games, Souls games, Zelda games and anthropomorphic animals there will be a lot for you to enjoy. You won't really be challenged and you might occasionally be annoyed. You'll definitely get lost at some point and you'll probably struggle to feel a real sense of achievement. But if you like it, you might like it. 

[BFTD]

Currently having a go at Freshly Frosted, which is free on Epic Games Store until the 27th of June. You're the friend (I guess) of some lassie who likes to stare into the clouds and daydream about donuts. It's basically a puzzle game in the style of Pipe Mania - you lay out the conveyor belts that transfer donuts from the fryers past the various decorating stations on their way to the sales counters. You're told how many of each type of donut is required, so it's up to you to fill the order.

It's quite a chill experience, with no time limit and laid-back audiovisuals; more something that you play to think about and tinker than to furiously wrestle with. If that's your kind of thing, you could do a lot worse for £7.99, but for nothing it's a total no-brainer.

As well as the aforementioned Pipe Mania (which younger games will remember more as the hacking game from Bioshock), it also reminded me a little of a game from the same period - Night Shift. It was also more of a frantic action game, but put you in control of a giant machine that assembled LucasArts toys (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc), and you had to make sure it was producing the right toys, assembling them correctly, painting them the right colours, etc. Not available on any modern platforms, but you can play the PC version in browser here, and here's Yahtzee Croshaw giving it the Let's Play treatment:

 

[Gianfranco]

I’ve been playing Alan Wake recently. Some bits are ridiculously hard when you don’t have a lot of ammo. The story is a bit mental but it’s really enjoyable when you get used to taking out the taken.