What Was The Last Game You Played?

[Boo Khaki]

I think I'm maybe getting to an age where I'm just becoming cynical about all gaming in general, because I've spent the past week looking at titles that a few years ago I might have thought 'aye, that looks interesting, I'll give it a go', and I'm just totally 'meh' about everything. I know this time of year is usually slow for new releases and stuff, but I'm watching things I've had on watchlists for years suddenly go on sale for pennies and I'm just 'nah....' . It feels really odd, especially since I just went and spent a fortune on PC parts in case there was something my old potato wouldn't run 

One wee thing I think I'm suffering with is the proliferation of Early Access stuff around. I mentioned in the FM section that I haven't bought FM since 2018 because I got sick of paying for a never complete game. The idea of playing a flawed product that is never going to be corrected makes me really uneasy, and I'm a bit weary after having played Wartales since it's first version. I feel a bit like I'm being used as a beta tester all the time, even though I'm still enjoying the games for what they are. I know that doesn't really make a lot of sense, but it gives me a feeling like I'm wasting my time because no matter how far I progress, there's going to be an update in a few months that makes all that progress pointless because mechanics have changed/save games aren't compatible/new achievements will only be achievable with a restart, and so on. 

Edited July 11, 2023 by Boo Khaki

[54_and_counting]

Im struggling with gaming the now because i dont have a lot of time and can go maybe 2 days without being on the ps5, i always want to start deep story driven games but can't because i know I'll lose the drive if i misd a few days 

Why i always go back to the likes of fifa or god help me cod, jump in, play few games, jump out 

Recently enjoyes resi 4 remake, again not exactly a game thats deep storywise i sometimes end up back at games like x-com 2 etc

[Miguel Sanchez]

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PS4, 2019)

This review is going to be, broadly, about three things. The Soulslike genre, and my first experience of it. The story, and its place in my experience of new Star Wars. Finally, and least significantly, the game itself. 

I've never played a Dark Souls game or any of its derivatives. The Dark Souls series seems like something I would find interesting in terms of of its world building and lore. I think all of my knowledge of these specific games is entirely second-hand, but the impression I get is something dark, mysterious and heavily detailed with a profound sense of significance in everything you come across. I know that it's a concept which has inspired many copycats, and since I was in the mood for a Star Wars game I thought I'd give this a try.

If you're reading this you probably know what a Soulslike is and how it works. One thing that did interest me about the concept is the deliberate, almost fundamental way the gameplay mechanics work. The notion of pressing a button to attack an enemy isn't a new concept in video games, but a third person game which is centred around precisely timed attacking, blocking and dodging sounds like such a deceptively good, simple idea for a game you wonder how it took so long for the genre to exist at all. Knowing that this concept is effectively distilled into something so precise and challenging it effectively becomes an art I went into the game pondering one of modern TV's greatest pieces of wisdom: How hard could it be?

Very hard, as it turns out. Fallen Order has four difficulty options - Easy, Medium, Hard (or some Star Wars version of these words) and Story, if you just want to go through with minimum fuss. Since going through this with minimum fuss defeats the purpose I went for Easy just to see what it was like. It was terrible. I was terrible. I play a lot of video games of varying genres and I can be very good at several of them, but there was no chance I was ever getting good at this. Each enemy has its own attack patterns and its own unique way of approaching them, and there are plenty of them. Lots of Stormtroopers obviously and lots of alien bug type things. It's great. I just couldn't get near any of them. 

Part of this was down to something I might expand on later but ultimately, there's a bit of a problem with making a Star Wars Soulslike. It's Star Wars. If you give me a video game where I'm controlling someone with a lightsaber I am going to batter the attack button like a lab rat with electricity wired up to its genitals. But that's not how this game works, and it's not something I think I ever adjusted to. Reflecting blaster shots to kill Stormtroopers was a given and was definitely very cool. So was Force pushing Stormtroopers off of cliffs. That's about the only enjoyment I got out of the combat. Even when you turn the difficulty down and get your button mashing fix there's something hollow about killing enemies. It's not visceral. It feels as if the game's waiting for you to time your presses properly before it shows you the nice kill animation they've put together rather than something physical you're actually doing. And that's just for the humanoid enemies, the creatures just end up being an annoyance after about an hour. 

In addition to combat there's some platforming, and when I started the game and realised it was made by Respawn, the people who brought us the fantastic Titanfall 2, I was surprised and newly hopeful. I don't think I knew at that point there was actually platforming in the game, but there is. You eventually unlock running along walls and double jumping, and you can move some objects around with the Force to climb walls and stuff. I think there are about four times in the whole game where you move a wall into place, then slow it down so you can climb on it before it snaps back. The notion of unlocking skills or abilities and your progression methods changing as you progress through a game certainly isn't new, but here the upgrades feel oddly tokenistic, as if they're there to add something that's obviously missing from the story or the combat. Outside of wall running there's some basic climbing and shimmying on ledges, but that's it.

The other thing about the player movement in general I never got used to is how bad the character animation is. Whether it's running, wall running or double jumping, any time you employ any of these skills your man looks like he defaults to a default character model with two different poses. None of it looks natural at all. I actually found it quite hard to judge the wall running sections because of how strange the arc of his run would look against the camera. The best way I could sum up the non-combat movement is that it effectively looked unfinished. Mechanically it was sound. Everything worked the way it should. It just looked terrible.

There are huge sections of the game too where you don't actually do anything. You know in third person games where you slide down something apparently in mortal peril but not actually doing anything? There's lots of that here. On one or two occasions the slide hits a bend and if the running animation looked bad, this is genuinely broken. There's one on Dathomir where the only way I could get round the bend consistently was to get stuck at the outside and then jump back into the middle. Aside from those, there are huge scripted sections where you're on a bird, or a train, or something, and a good minute of apparently intense action might see you press a button, or move a stick once. If a game is exciting it can get away with this now and then, in Fallen Order I found myself pointedly holding the controller up to show I wasn't doing anything.

I'm not going to look it up but I'm pretty sure that when I played the new Battlefront II a few years ago I mentioned how the only new Star Wars films I'd seen were The Force Awakens and Rogue One, and they did nothing for me. I've since seen The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, so obviously I have an even lower view of Star Wars content since 2017. The thing is, I like Star Wars. When I was younger they were on TV and I recorded them and watched them so much I can't hear the music without thinking of Frank Skinner popping up at the side of the screen doing a bit to advertise his chat show. Imagine if Peter Cushing married Whoopi Goldberg. The original three films, and even because I was the appropriate age when they were released and because they concluded the story, the prequels, are a complete circle. They're a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. That works for me. 

The problem with Star Wars is it's effectively an unlimited source of content. If you want to make a film, or a TV show, or a book, or a comic, or a video game, anything at all, you can get someone to write something. Scratch that. If you want to make money, you can get someone to write something and call it Star Wars. Make up a planet, make up some names, bang. Part of the galaxy. But to me there is "Star Wars" - everything seen and mentioned in Episodes I-VI and then there is "other Star Wars" - literally everything I've seen or heard of second hand in the time since then. So a game like Fallen Order is starting from a position of weakness. I'm always going to think it's effectively fan fiction with a really large budget to start with, and it needs to bring me around. 

Fallen Order does not do this. You play as Cal.... something or other. Apparently in a universe of unlimited possibility and creativity there is only one ginger person to be found, and you're finally hearing his story. The game starts with him working in a scrapyard and it turns out he's a Jedi in hiding after Order 66. So far, so fine. It turns out there's an Empire Jedi hunting squad on the go, and that's fair enough. Good start, good premise. After they catch up with Cal he escapes on to a ship driven by a small sarcastic grey thing with four arms and a woman. 

Shortly before the end of this game I thought about writing this review and realised I had no idea what the story was. Fortunately the game seemed to realise it had allowed this to happen and just before the end of the game the woman on the ship gave me a handy recap, telling me where I was and what I was doing. The problem with a plot this bland is that it makes the entire thing seem inconsequential. Nothing truly galaxy-defining happened around the time of the Empire rising and all the Jedi disappearing. We know this, because it would have been mentioned by now. The problem with doing a story here is that it obviously has to seem worthwhile to the person watching or playing it, but can't be so large as to be on a par with the Bothans stealing the Death Star plans or Leia being chased by Darth Vader.

Speaking of Darth Vader, after referencing no notable Star Wars characters, the game throws him in as a boss fight near the end. The game absolutely one hundred percent did not do enough to earn the right to invoke Darth Vader. He's in the game for about fifteen minutes and it just feels like a joke.

There isn't really much to say about the story and the characters other than they're all really bland and feel as if every bit of dialogue and every aspect of the story was written by committee to be as bland and non-specific as possible. There's some potentially interesting stuff as Cal has flashbacks to remember his training with his Master to unlock new abilities in the present, but these appear so infrequently they virtually feel like something from a different game. 

If the characters are all forgettable, do the environments make up for it? Nope. You can visit five planets in total including some Star Wars classics like Kashyyyk and Dathomir. Each of them is different in terms of how they look and some of the platforming/environmental interactions, but they all fall foul of a Soulslike trope - dungeons. From what I know of Souls games there are optional branching paths you can take through levels to explore and find things and enemies. You can do that here, but the minimap your droid companion shows you is so awkward to try and interpret you'd be as well trying to write down where you were on a bit of paper and trying to retrace your steps. It doesn't help that almost everything is a narrow series of linear corridors (and that the story path itself is entirely linear), so near enough everything looks the same.

Some of the planets are much more detailed than others too, both the optional and the story stuff. When you get to Kashyyyk you think great, the Wookies are here, now stuff is going to be happening. By the way, how useless are Wookies? They're nine feet tall fearsome warriors and every time you see their planet they all seem to be enslaved by people they could kill with one punch.

Anyway, while you're on Kashyyyk you get to shoot some stuff with an AT-AT. You get out and Forest Whitaker shows up and you think okay, now there's some story. Nope. He's made out to be this really important person to what's going on but he disappears and is never seen again. It doesn't feel as if every planet is treated equally, and it shows in how much of them you can (or need) to see. Your time on Kashyyyk ends with an extended sequence of climbing a tree, going down a slide and hitching a ride on a giant bird. It's as thrilling as it sounds.

And what is the reward for this exploration? There are quite a few collectables actually. There are boxes your droid can open that give you a new outfit, a new skin for your ship, or bits to customise your lightsaber. I forgot about the lightsaber bit, I could complain about this for hours. It's a third person game, so your lightsaber is either at your waist or in your hands. There are I think five bits you can change the colour of, with a nice lovingly rendered close-up view when you're at a customisation bench. The problem here is that it doesn't make any difference to anything because you can't ever actually see it. These unlocks feel like a panic happened shortly before the game was released because they didn't have anything in the world to interact with. I know, unlocks! Customisation! Make the robot a different colour! Make the ship a different colour! Why even bother? There's well over a hundred of these things to find too. It's cosmetics, but cosmetics you can't see. What's the point?

The other collectable-adjacent objects are Force Echoes which act as the game's attempt at world building. Find some glowing stuff on the ground and press a button to feel the actions of someone who was here, previously. A mother shielding her children, a Stormtrooper abusing a Wookie, that sort of thing. The story is done in part through this as well, and now I think about it the story is following some old guy's breadcrumb trail to find a thing. So you get Force Echoes from him telling you what's happening. Only they don't, you get a brief snippet of it then a prompt to pause the game and read a text log explaining it to you. The same goes for enemies, there are things you can read about those too.

It's at this point I'm going to quote one of my favourite Zero Punctuation moments from a review of Final Fantasy XIII: "This is not good story-telling; you're supposed to weave exposition into the narrative not hand the audience a fucking glossary." How am I supposed to be immersed into a world and characters when I need to pause the game to read some gibberish every five minutes? And let me tell you, it is gibberish. I realise complaining about names being silly in something as large as Star Wars is a bit futile but here some of the names of creatures and characters honestly sound like something you say when you're trying to make fun of something stupid by making up names on the spot. I'm actually going to look up what some of them are called:

Oggdo Bogdo. Scazz. Splox. Jotaz. The place where you find Darth Vader is called the Fortress Inquisitorius. Bounty Hunters spawn randomly looking for you with names like Chonk, Pango Two-Teeth and Sir Chogs. I was genuinely expecting to walk into a room and be met with Big Chungus at one point. 

Reflecting on all of this it's almost impressive that anyone could take Star Wars - one of the most iconic, beloved stories and set of characters ever and derive something as bland as this from it. The gameplay is what it is. It's functional enough mechanically and does what it does. I'm not the person to review it in any detail, but for my first encounter with it I found it difficult and wasn't really inspired to spend any time learning it. I don't know if it's a good Soulslike, at least from a gameplay perspective. 

Everything else is just so cold and forgettable. At no point when I was playing this did I think anything mattered. At no point did I think my perception of the Star Wars universe was being altered, or that I was seeing anything or anyone important. I finished the game a week ago and I'm honestly surprised I could remember as much now, when I've sat and written this out in one go. That's probably the most impressive thing I'll take from this. 

[Miguel Sanchez]

Mafia: Definitive Edition (PS4, 2020)

In Mafia you play as Tommy Angelo, a cab driver in the city of Lost Heaven who has a chance meeting with some Mafia guys one night. He has another chance encounter with the same Mafia guys a few weeks later, whereupon he's invited into their boss's restaurant to interview about giving up the cab and becoming a wheelman for the Mafia. What follows is a stunningly realised period piece, with 1930s America the backdrop for an assortment of open world driving and shooting. 

I never played the original Mafia, either on PC or PS2. I've played 2 and 3, although 2 was so long ago I can't really call on it as a point of reference. Either way, the Definitive Edition of Mafia rebuilt the entire city and re-voiced the characters. I understand that this might affect the way players of the original think of the game, but it doesn't apply to me. As a result I can say that Lost Heaven is absolutely remarkable. In terms of capturing the aesthetic of the time period I've not seen something this successful since L.A. Noire. Every detail of the world is stunning. The vehicles, the buildings, the music, the environment, every part of it. Each area of the city feels distinctive as you drive around. You could honestly just drive about for a few hours, listening to the radio and following the speed limit and be quite content. Things are a bit shallow in terms of what you can interact with, but the scale and detail of the achievement is to be admired. I think I said something similar when I played Mafia III, so it's clearly a developer that knows what they're doing. 

Mafia is old enough that the open world aspect is old enough to separate Story Mode and Free Roam. The story has chapters where you start a mission and finish it before moving straight to the next one. Free Roam is separate. As someone longing to see Driver make a return like this, I can respect that. It does make the world feel slightly hollow though. There's no benefit to exploring aside from a few period collectables and the chance to unlock some new cars for your garage. But then in Story Mode you get given good cars every time anyway. It almost feels like this fantastic world was made but rather than really let the player loose on it, it's just... there. Maybe it's just me. Maybe open world games have changed too much. But for a remake, couldn't you update this one thing?

Gameplay is functional. Driving is a strange experience. I don't think you could slide cars from the 30s the way you can here. There's a deliberate way of driving them that can make police chases awkward if you need to make sudden turns, but they're still manageable enough that you can overcome it. Cars also have a fuel gauge and a speed limiter, so if you do spend lots of time in Free Roam you can pull into a garage and give a kid a nickel to fill er up. It's quaint, but it's a nice touch. There are also guns, melee combat and a bit of sneaking available, and they all work well enough. Aiming can be a bit vague but if you pop in and out of cover headshots almost become a formality. 

The story itself is good. It's classic Mafia story stuff. Lots of characters with the usual names. The standalone missions can make some of the minor characters feel inconsequential. For instance, one mission Tommy walks the bar owner's daughter home. Later on, they're married. Later, he's not coming home on time and his dinner's cold. He has a daughter. I don't think his daughter is even named. Character development only really happens for Tommy, then Sam and Paulie, the two guys he meets at the start. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with this, but the game starts by introducing you to a bunch of people who you think are going to be important who quickly become part of the background. 

Still, I like the development of those three over the course of the story. The voice acting on all three is great too (my apologies to the original cast), and it's just all very believable. Maybe because there's a similar structure to all those Martin Scorsese films but it feels easy for a game like this to fall into cliches and tropes, and outside of everyone being impeccably dressed I don't think it is. To be extra critical, there are references made to the Great Depression (and the general misery of the 30s) but these are always just in the background. Radio noise, posters on a wall. I think the possibility to make a real social commentary exists here, but the lack of immersion in the world hinders it. There are only twenty story missions. A modern sandbox game like this would have at least double that and probably twice as many characters. Ultimately, there are a few occasions where I just feel like the game could have done more than it did with what it had to work with. 

One thing I've just remembered after finishing that I'm putting in here. One occasion where you feel disconnected from what's going on is a mission near the end, where you need to break into an abandoned prison to climb the guard tower so you can assassinate a politician giving a speech. The prison has been taken over by homeless people who meet you with a range of responses - attacking you, calling you a fed, telling you to leave, or insane babbling. Things like "I lost an arm in France for this" written on the walls. The level comes out of nowhere and is a genuinely haunting experience. It comes and goes with no mention before or after. This is the sort of thing I mean, something that could be explored further and given context. Instead you just have something off-putting, rather than truly haunting.

Since I didn't play the original, I can't say if this is the sort of remake of a beloved game I'd be happy with. The obvious care and attention paid to the world is fantastic. The story still holds up, and I could see this as something I would have spent a lot of time with if I has it on release, when I was 12 years old. That's probably all I can say about it. 

Edited July 26, 2023 by Miguel Sanchez

[DA Baracus]

Blasted through a few games recently:

Deliver Us The Moon

Set in the near future where Earth has been knackered by global warming and an energy crisis, you discover that some smart folk were able to harness some energy on the moon and beam it back to Earth. Alas, this goes offline, so you need to fire up to the moon and sort it. It's a nice paced game that it mainly storyline driven. There's no enemies. There's some puzzles and a spot of platforming. I quite liked it as it allowed me to get really in to the story, which unravels as you progress and you discover what happened. It's relaxed and feels different to so many other games.

 

Deliver Us Mars

Sequel to the above. To explain the title would be to give spoilers to its predecessor, but needless to say you need to fire off to Mars to work some stuff out. This game is bigger than the original but of the same type. Some puzzles, more platforming (there's a new mechanic they really make use of) and a deep, double story. It's decent.

 

Breathedge

Been described as 'Subnautica in space' and that's pretty apt. You have limited oxygen, you need to find resources to make stuff and you gradually get to make better and better equipment to last longer. It has a silly tone with some silly humour. Actually found it a bit 'meh' for the first wee bit, but then I figured it out and started really liking it, and then as I progressed and upgraded further I liked it more. Really good fun and will be good to go back and play again.

 

Arcade Paradise

An odd and different game, but enjoyable. It's odd because you start off managing a laundrette. You have to put clothes in the washing machines then wet clothes in the driers. You have to tidy up litter. You have to remove chewing gum. You have to unblock the toilet. These are all mini games though. Unlocking the safe is a mini game. Throwing the trash in the bin is a mini game.

You start with a couple of arcade machines in the back. As you make more cash (and if you don't do the laundry and clean you don't make any cash, except through the arcade machine, but as you only start with a couple you'd be waiting a long time to do this) you can afford to buy more machines, then buy more space for the arcade machines. This removes the space for washers and driers.

Oh, you can play every single arcade machine. Each machine is a simple 80s style arcade game, with some being deliberate rip offs of popular titles, but quite a few are actually pretty decent.

The eventual aim is to get rid of all the washing machines and all the dryers and turn it fully in to an arcade. You can change settings on each machine to maximise the profit they make.

There's a storyline as well that unravels as you progress.

Good stuff.

 

Dicey Dungeons

Very fun little game full of charm. You play as a humanoid dice that must traverse a dungeon fighting enemies (it's not an open dungeon, you just move along a path like in the early Mario games). You have some weapons and abilities and how you can use them and what damage you can do depends on the roll of a dice. You can pick up more weapons, upgrade weapons, get more dice to roll during battles and unlock other dice characters (each has their own unique abilities, weapons and special attacks). It's a lot more fun than I'm probably making it sound.

[Richey Edwards]

On 26/07/2023 at 22:27, Miguel Sanchez said:

Mafia: Definitive Edition (PS4, 2020)

In Mafia you play as Tommy Angelo, a cab driver in the city of Lost Heaven who has a chance meeting with some Mafia guys one night. He has another chance encounter with the same Mafia guys a few weeks later, whereupon he's invited into their boss's restaurant to interview about giving up the cab and becoming a wheelman for the Mafia. What follows is a stunningly realised period piece, with 1930s America the backdrop for an assortment of open world driving and shooting. 

I never played the original Mafia, either on PC or PS2. I've played 2 and 3, although 2 was so long ago I can't really call on it as a point of reference. Either way, the Definitive Edition of Mafia rebuilt the entire city and re-voiced the characters. I understand that this might affect the way players of the original think of the game, but it doesn't apply to me. As a result I can say that Lost Heaven is absolutely remarkable. In terms of capturing the aesthetic of the time period I've not seen something this successful since L.A. Noire. Every detail of the world is stunning. The vehicles, the buildings, the music, the environment, every part of it. Each area of the city feels distinctive as you drive around. You could honestly just drive about for a few hours, listening to the radio and following the speed limit and be quite content. Things are a bit shallow in terms of what you can interact with, but the scale and detail of the achievement is to be admired. I think I said something similar when I played Mafia III, so it's clearly a developer that knows what they're doing. 

Mafia is old enough that the open world aspect is old enough to separate Story Mode and Free Roam. The story has chapters where you start a mission and finish it before moving straight to the next one. Free Roam is separate. As someone longing to see Driver make a return like this, I can respect that. It does make the world feel slightly hollow though. There's no benefit to exploring aside from a few period collectables and the chance to unlock some new cars for your garage. But then in Story Mode you get given good cars every time anyway. It almost feels like this fantastic world was made but rather than really let the player loose on it, it's just... there. Maybe it's just me. Maybe open world games have changed too much. But for a remake, couldn't you update this one thing?

Gameplay is functional. Driving is a strange experience. I don't think you could slide cars from the 30s the way you can here. There's a deliberate way of driving them that can make police chases awkward if you need to make sudden turns, but they're still manageable enough that you can overcome it. Cars also have a fuel gauge and a speed limiter, so if you do spend lots of time in Free Roam you can pull into a garage and give a kid a nickel to fill er up. It's quaint, but it's a nice touch. There are also guns, melee combat and a bit of sneaking available, and they all work well enough. Aiming can be a bit vague but if you pop in and out of cover headshots almost become a formality. 

The story itself is good. It's classic Mafia story stuff. Lots of characters with the usual names. The standalone missions can make some of the minor characters feel inconsequential. For instance, one mission Tommy walks the bar owner's daughter home. Later on, they're married. Later, he's not coming home on time and his dinner's cold. He has a daughter. I don't think his daughter is even named. Character development only really happens for Tommy, then Sam and Paulie, the two guys he meets at the start. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with this, but the game starts by introducing you to a bunch of people who you think are going to be important who quickly become part of the background. 

Still, I like the development of those three over the course of the story. The voice acting on all three is great too (my apologies to the original cast), and it's just all very believable. Maybe because there's a similar structure to all those Martin Scorsese films but it feels easy for a game like this to fall into cliches and tropes, and outside of everyone being impeccably dressed I don't think it is. To be extra critical, there are references made to the Great Depression (and the general misery of the 30s) but these are always just in the background. Radio noise, posters on a wall. I think the possibility to make a real social commentary exists here, but the lack of immersion in the world hinders it. There are only twenty story missions. A modern sandbox game like this would have at least double that and probably twice as many characters. Ultimately, there are a few occasions where I just feel like the game could have done more than it did with what it had to work with. 

One thing I've just remembered after finishing that I'm putting in here. One occasion where you feel disconnected from what's going on is a mission near the end, where you need to break into an abandoned prison to climb the guard tower so you can assassinate a politician giving a speech. The prison has been taken over by homeless people who meet you with a range of responses - attacking you, calling you a fed, telling you to leave, or insane babbling. Things like "I lost an arm in France for this" written on the walls. The level comes out of nowhere and is a genuinely haunting experience. It comes and goes with no mention before or after. This is the sort of thing I mean, something that could be explored further and given context. Instead you just have something off-putting, rather than truly haunting.

Since I didn't play the original, I can't say if this is the sort of remake of a beloved game I'd be happy with. The obvious care and attention paid to the world is fantastic. The story still holds up, and I could see this as something I would have spent a lot of time with if I has it on release, when I was 12 years old. That's probably all I can say about it. 

Spoiler

That fucking racing mission though.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

5 hours ago, Richey Edwards said:

  Hide contents

That fucking racing mission though.

 

Meh. It took a couple of tries on Classic difficulty but mainly because I kept outbraking myself.

[54_and_counting]

Spider Man: Miles Morales

Gonna pre order the sequel out in October, so battered into this again as its shorter than the Spiderman game but just as fun (maybe more fun with Miles' powers) 

Insomniac did absolute wonders with both Spiderman games, New York is fantastic (looks better in MM given its a winter setting) but the web swinging, the traversal through the streets and alleys is just amazing, even when you unlock fast travel you dont really use it as much as the web swinging is just so easy to do and fun to do

Fighting is spot on for a spiderman game as well, he isnt Batman in the arkham games, you cant just stand still and go toe to toe with everyone, spiderman is all about dodging, webbing, couple of hits then move onto the guy closing in on you etc, and miles' powers make it even more fun (if a little easy) the camo is great fun mid fight and the venom powers are good in a tight spot

First time playing this my only issue was how short it was, it was a filler before the main sequel but still a bit short, it still is but its a good way to get back into them in time for the main sequel in October 

[Mark Connolly]

2 hours ago, 54_and_counting said:

Spider Man: Miles Morales

Gonna pre order the sequel out in October, so battered into this again as its shorter than the Spiderman game but just as fun (maybe more fun with Miles' powers) 

Insomniac did absolute wonders with both Spiderman games, New York is fantastic (looks better in MM given its a winter setting) but the web swinging, the traversal through the streets and alleys is just amazing, even when you unlock fast travel you dont really use it as much as the web swinging is just so easy to do and fun to do

Fighting is spot on for a spiderman game as well, he isnt Batman in the arkham games, you cant just stand still and go toe to toe with everyone, spiderman is all about dodging, webbing, couple of hits then move onto the guy closing in on you etc, and miles' powers make it even more fun (if a little easy) the camo is great fun mid fight and the venom powers are good in a tight spot

First time playing this my only issue was how short it was, it was a filler before the main sequel but still a bit short, it still is but its a good way to get back into them in time for the main sequel in October 

It's huge fun.

I can't wait for the sequel. Might have to play both of the first two again before it arrives

[Stellaboz]

FFX HD edition.

Love this story and the combat system, its just such a fun game. 

However.

It took me a,gew days to get the sun sigil to break Tidus' celestial weapon damage break. That fcking chocobo race to get a time of 0.0 or under? Horrific. Felt like I totally lucked it in the end, one of the worst mini games ever for something so important. 

[54_and_counting]

2 hours ago, Mark Connolly said:

It's huge fun.

I can't wait for the sequel. Might have to play both of the first two again before it arrives

Yeah the sequel should be unreal, funny thing is that they nailed the combat and traversal in the first 2 games, all they have to do is expand new york, have a cracking storyline and morr varied boss battles and side quests and it will be a cracking sequel, 

Hope they keep the FNSM app that's used for side quests and crimes in the area, that was a massive upgrade from the first game

[SweeperDee]

Baldurs Gate 3 anyone? No idea what the hell I am doing but it's a tremendous game. 

[BFTD]

16 minutes ago, SweeperDee said:

Baldurs Gate 3 anyone? No idea what the hell I am doing but it's a tremendous game. 

I just picked up the re-releases of the first two games for about a tenner, along with a few more Dungeons & Dragons games, through Humble Bundle: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/rpg-legends-baldurs-gate-beyond. Seems like a pretty decent bargain to me, if anyone's interested.

I'm hopeful to play at least one of them within the next five years, so hopefully I'll get to #3 sometime before death.

[Stellaboz]

Downloaded it last year having never played the series before.

 

Got a refund as I knew id lose my life to it. 

[Boo Khaki]

On 05/08/2023 at 20:01, BTFD said:

I just picked up the re-releases of the first two games for about a tenner, along with a few more Dungeons & Dragons games, through Humble Bundle: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/rpg-legends-baldurs-gate-beyond. Seems like a pretty decent bargain to me, if anyone's interested.

I'm hopeful to play at least one of them within the next five years, so hopefully I'll get to #3 sometime before death.

I still have the original boxed releases. No CD Rom drive to install them with though!

[Boo Khaki]

On 05/08/2023 at 19:34, SweeperDee said:

Baldurs Gate 3 anyone? No idea what the hell I am doing but it's a tremendous game. 

It had better have Golden Pantaloons and a Gong quest

[Jives Miguel]

Baldur's Gate 3 for me too. Looks stunning on the PC. Never played the previous 2, but Divinity Original Sin 2 was fantastic, so this will be too.

Getting to hand pick what your characters fanny/cock looks like has been an early highlight.

[Antiochas III]

Baldur's Gate 3 for me too.  25 hours in and still on Act 1.  Highlight being failing a DC 2 Ability Check because I rolled a 2 and had a -1 ability bonus.  

[Busta Nut]

On 25/05/2023 at 09:28, forameus said:

 I don't think I've gotten towards any of the large hordes yet, but the first time you hear the rush of them chasing you and turn around to see the entire view almost completely filled with them is quite something.  

First time I saw a horde I thought I was never gonna beat them.

[Miguel Sanchez]

Limbo (PS4, 2015 - originally PS3, 2010)

Some years ago in a review no doubt lost to the mists of time, I played Limbo and performed an analysis of the game's narrative and themes. Although it's long gone from the internet I still have it saved, and I read it after finishing the game again. It was a bit wordy, but it was all accurate. It was a bit wordy, but fine. I think I just wrote and posted back then. Now I finish the game, wait a week, spend half an hour writing then go back and check what I've written after another few weeks. I'll let you decide whether or not that's a good thing.

I'm also not going to explain the game this time, I'll just get to the point and say it's really good and really smart.

Limbo is classic video game stuff. It's a 2D platformer with a basic (yet detailed) aesthetic where you play a boy trying to reach a girl. You can move left or right, jump and grab on to stuff. There are some physics involved in the basic puzzles you encounter. What more can you want? When I played Fallen Order recently I mentioned how the gameplay in Soulslikes is essentially the most fundamental video game interactions possible. Is a side-scrolling platformer even more basic? As a concept it's certainly older, but maybe it's just my childhood SNES memories making it feel like year zero.

When you know what you're doing you can finish Limbo in under an hour. Even on a first run, it doesn't take very long. There are some puzzles that might take a few tries to figure out, but the simple controls mean everything is intuitive enough to avoid being frustrating. That said, there are sections where the game plays with your expectations just enough to keep you alert enough to never become complacent. When you do mess up the boy usually dies in brutal, squelchy fashion. There are a lot of sharp things and heavy things to cause a gruesome death, while the possibility of drowning also pops up now and then. The brutal deaths were chosen deliberately as a way of discouraging players from not doing the puzzles properly. It's a good example of a design choice which works on two levels. Dying is shocking, but it makes you become invested in the boy's fate even if you don't realise it. 

There is a lot of symbolism in Limbo, and I don't want to spend too much time dwelling on all of it. The platformer trope of Boy Chases Girl is a classic as we've covered, but Limbo actually does something different with it. The basic premise is slightly different, and purely going by the game's title there is a lot to read into the different things the boy goes through as he goes looking for the girl. I think the game's length ensures a tight, well-measured experience which contains exactly as much content as it should for what it's trying to do. I don't think it's a symbolically complex game, but it's certainly an effective one.

In terms of aesthetics, Limbo is the perfect example of why the obsession with video game graphics is often an exercise in redundancy. The boy and everything he interacts with is black. The background is varying shades of grey, with some flashes of white light every now and again. The result is one of the most visually striking worlds you could ever possibly want. The game's concept is haunting enough, but the art design complements it perfectly. The entire game feels like it exists in a dreamlike state of, well, limbo, which it should. 

Equally haunting is the soundtrack, which isn't even really a soundtrack. It's more a series of ambient noises with the occasional sound effects. It's the sort of background music you don't even really notice the first time you play. The more times you go through and become more familiar with the puzzles and the visuals though the more it stands out, and the more you realise just how haunting it is. 

I last played this on PS3 in 2017. I loved it then. Playing it six years later, most of the game felt familiar to me. I had forgotten a few sections and one puzzle in particular had me googling but even if the game was familiar, this isn't a negative. Despite knowing what I'm going to see I'm still able to recognise the quality and significance of what's going on. Ultimately I think it's just a pleasure to spend time with something I know is worthwhile. I'll need to try Inside again, I think that had little enough of an effect on me for me to be able to go back to it and review it without any preconceptions.