What Was The Last Game You Played?

[BFTD]

Limbo was part of the era that had people starting to ask whether games could be art, like Braid's time & mechanic bending nuclear princess tale. I've no time for folk who claim that they can't be - it's their loss. Games are certainly art to me.

I just popped in to point out that there's been a Quake 2 remaster released recently, which I knew nothing about and got for free because (obviously) I own the original on Steam. It had never occurred to me to ask for a completely remade Quake 2 with updated textures, cut scenes, smarter enemies, and a whole load of other improvements, but here we are and it's great. Night Dive Studios are the boys, and I hope being bought by the shambling corpse of Atari doesn't destroy them (but it probably will, alas).

[Stellaboz]

Tried to play FFX2 but I just can't get into it. 

Recently completed FFX again after some years and the story, characters and gameplay are all just superb.

 

FFX2 is just a girly dress up game. The system is incredibly difficult to really get to grips with and the leveling system makes no sense to me. Gain more by NOT attacking? Nah, I don't mind a level grind but that's stupid. Pity, as it could have been great. 

[DA Baracus]

All Xbox One, all games downloaded from Game Pass.

 

McPixel 3

Pish. It's supposed to be charmingly daft but it's just a bit w**k. As the title suggests it's a game that looks like old pixel trash of a bygone era. There's no story, just a load of short scenarios where you can do different things to end them. You need to work out how and when to do them to be able to do all actions in each scenario.

 

A Short Hike

Now this is charming! Looks lovely and is such a chilled, laid back game. It's pretty short but there's a few things to do and explore. You're a humanoid bird in a national park who wishes to climb to the top of the highest mountain. You need to get enough golden feathers to be able to do this. Said feathers can be found hidden or obtained by gold or doing tasks for folk. It's such a cheery, nice game. You can't die or get hurt. The music is upbeat, the dialogue amusing and it's just really fun to play.

 

Sea of Solitude

You are Kay, a young German woman who is shrouded (literally) in blackness. You must traverse a flooded city and avoid the monsters who dwell in the water. This game is a study in loneliness and depression with some heavy visual metaphors. Not particularly challenging but worth playing once I'd say.

 

Superliminal

Trippy puzzle game all about perspective. There's various levels with various puzzle mechanisms, all about (literally) changing perspective. Admittedly had to look up a solution twice!

 

Quake 2

Loved this back on the PS1. Wondered why it seemed a bit different on the Xbox but then read it's remastered and the enemies are smarter. It's still cracking though. Only a few levels in to single player. Comes with the N64 version of the game and two addition missions. Me and my pals used to play multilayer all the time. Haven't played multiplayer on this version buy will soon.

[BFTD]

3 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Quake 2

Loved this back on the PS1. Wondered why it seemed a bit different on the Xbox but then read it's remastered and the enemies are smarter. It's still cracking though. Only a few levels in to single player. Comes with the N64 version of the game and two addition missions. Me and my pals used to play multilayer all the time. Haven't played multiplayer on this version buy will soon.

The running TRESPASSER! dudes now have an utterly bullshit AOE jump attack that will hit you even if you're on a floor above them.

The dogs are now capable of seriously ruining your day too, as their proboscis can hit you over much longer distances, is way more accurate, and they'll stab you with it even if you're on a different floor. My first death came from walking into the first room you meet them in and freaking out about how easily they were hitting me  

I forgot to mention that the enhanced edition also comes with the two mission packs, which I'm not sure if I ever finished, and also a whole new adventure created by the guys who made the new mission pack for the enhanced edition of Quake. Oh, and a conversion of Quake 2 for the N64, which was apparently a bit different to the PC release - I might be wrong, but I think they've given it the upgrade treatment too, and not just a port. Bit of a bargain at £7.99, so I'm stunned to have been handed it for free.

[DA Baracus]

5 minutes ago, BTFD said:

The running TRESPASSER! dudes now have an utterly bullshit AOE jump attack that will hit you even if you're on a floor above them.

The dogs are now capable of seriously ruining your day too, as their proboscis can hit you over much longer distances, is way more accurate, and they'll stab you with it even if you're on a different floor. My first death came from walking into the first room you meet them in and freaking out about how easily they were hitting me  

I forgot to mention that the enhanced edition also comes with the two mission packs, which I'm not sure if I ever finished, and also a whole new adventure created by the guys who made the new mission pack for the enhanced edition of Quake. Oh, and a conversion of Quake 2 for the N64, which was apparently a bit different to the PC release - I might be wrong, but I think they've given it the upgrade treatment too, and not just a port. Bit of a bargain at £7.99, so I'm stunned to have been handed it for free.

Re the bits in bold, aye, fucking hell! Took a bit of getting used to! The "TRESPASSER!" fuckers have some range on their jump! Likewise those wee dog like fuckers have some range on their proboscis, and it does constant damage as long as it touched you.

Thankfully there is a save function which I now use a lot more.

[ConcernedReferee]

Played some Castlevania 2: Simons Quest this morning, thats a right blast from the past from the time games didn't hold your hand 

[Miguel Sanchez]

Alan Wake Remastered (PS4, 2021)

Alan Wake is a game about Alan Wake, a writer who goes on holiday with his wife to the secluded town of Bright Falls to get away from a period of writer's block after finishing the last book in a long-running series. You play as Alan Wake, the world's most unfit man. The game starts with Alan and his wife Alice landing at Bright Falls and going to the cabin on the lake they're staying in. While you're there Alice surprises him with a typewriter and a pile of paper. Alan storms off in a huff because he wanted to get away from writing, and the next thing he knows he's outside it's dark he hears screaming and he runs back into the cabin only to see that Alice has seemingly jumped off the deck and into the water, so he jumps in after her. 

I had never played Alan Wake originally and didn't know anything about it. I knew it was a third person horror game but that was about it. My assumption was that I'd like the game, since the premise is largely something that appeals to me. Ultimately, I enjoyed its literary pretensions. Although it seems obvious in a game and story about a writer, there's a lot of narrative depth and complexity. Reality is often subverted in a way which suggests Alan is responsible for all of the things happening to him, which is an interesting premise for a story. You can't argue with that.

The problem is that it doesn't do this well. It does pretty much nothing well. I've played this game from beginning to end twice. I've read the very detailed Wikipedia article. I've read all 144 collectible manuscript pages you find in game. I still don't know what the plot is. I'll try and summarise it.

It turns out the cabin Alan was staying at doesn't exist. Only it does, or did, but there was a writer there some decades before called Thomas Zane who stayed there. He had a girlfriend called Barbara and they disappeared. When Alan turns up, Barbara is actually the one who steals Alice away and holds her to ransom, trying to force Alan to write a book to get her back. She actually is taken hostage, Alan ends up following one of the kidnappers who he later discovers is in cahoots with a psychiatrist who works in Bright Falls. He deals with struggling artists and Alice secretly planned to get him to see Alan to try and help him. But it turns out that Thomas Zane and Barbara are in The Dark Place and The Dark Place turns various objects and people against Alan in the present - it gets dark, swirly, people appear in the woods and in town covered in darkness trying to attack Alan. If you defeat them you get away, but more come. Alan and his agent Barry go to this farmhouse outside of town owned by two old, viking-obsessed former rock stars who brewed their own moonshine and wrote a song about how if you drink the witches brew then you can find out where she is, so Alan and Barry get plastered and this gives them insight into getting Alice back. Thomas Zane pops up periodically too, for some reason he's in an old fashioned diving suit and looks like a Big Daddy from BioShock. Then... I think eventually you get Alice back. I don't even remember how it ends, and I'm writing this much earlier after finishing the game than normal.

In my old age and relative social seclusion there are times I think I can feel my brain deteriorating in real time. Not anything serious that I'm going to go into detail on here but just not getting things. I felt like that when I played Alan Wake the first time. By the end I realised it wasn't my fault. This game's plot is incomprehensible. As I said, it's an interesting premise. That's where it ends though. You end up struggling so hard to follow it you stop caring. By the time it reaches a resolution it's so contrived it's not worth it.

And that's before we get on to the characters. Weirdly, for a game about a writer there are very few characters who react to things the way an actual human does. When Alan arrives in town he goes to the local diner and meets a waitress who's a massive fan. She gushes about how much she loves him, all his books, the usual stuff. Later she gets possessed by The Darkness and she calls him telling him she has the manuscript he's working on to free his wife. Hello, Alan. Yes. I have the. Manu. Script. You should. Come. Over. It's like Smithers' screensaver. When Alan turns up at her house and asks for the manuscript she instead offers him coffee, and he accepts. In the same voice. The coffee is then drugged, because The Darkness which wants him to write a book things making him waste time running around after his wife will help. He wakes up at night and Rose is gone and there's no manuscript. When will his luck turn?!

That's just the lack of logic, there are plenty of characters who are just plain irritating. There's Alan's obnoxious agent, Barry, who manages to do a better job of embodying Alan's self-doubt than all of the possessed people and objects trying to kill him. There's the rogue FBI agent who turns up... in fact I don't think I know why he turns up. Or why he constantly tries to shoot Alan whenever he appears. I do know why he calls Alan by a different writer each time though - someone thought this would be funny, and they're badly wrong. Hey Stephen King! Hey Hemingway! Hey Brett [sic] Easton Ellis! Hey Dan Brown! I'm not kidding, there's tons of these. There are pretty much no sympathetic characters anywhere in this game, and it's because they're all written like people who just don't behave the way people do. 

The setting doesn't help in this regard either. The game's development actually shifted from an open world to a more linear experience, but with aspects of both making it into the final game. The result is a fundamentally linear experience - you have an objective marker you need to follow (but no minimap) to a place to advance the story. But there are also large open sections which feel like they were designed to be explored, but aren't. Often they'll just be a stretch of road where you can drive a car while Alan's voiceover dumps some exposition if you haven't been following what's going on. The result is the setting and Bright Falls are less impactful than they probably should be. I don't have any investment in the location because I'm just being funnelled through an array of corridors, with nothing detailed or interesting to find.

In addition to the nominally interesting story conceit, there's also potential here with gameplay. You do have guns for stopping the possessed people, but you have to shine light on them first to get rid of the Darkness on them. You have a torch which you need to replace the batteries for, along with things like flares and flashbang grenades in some places. You can also use environmental objects occasionally, like exposed electric cables, to guide your enemies to their death. This aspect of gameplay is about the only thing I can praise the game for, as it's both straight-forward and consistently varied enough to be interesting. It's also undeniably satisfying launching a flaregun into a group of four howling monsters and watching them evaporate. 

Sadly, there are problems here too. Shining your torch at an enemy is fine. Only it doesn't stop the bigger ones from moving towards you. If you then back off you'll end up backing into a wall or an object you can't see, you'll get stuck and they'll catch you and you'll die. If there's more than one enemy then you can't shine your torch on all of them, so you'll back up and you'll die. You need to get rid of the Darkness on them to be able to kill them, so unless you have flares or anything to stop them (and there are occasionally bigger enemies like lumberjacks or bulldozers or combine harvesters), you're going to die. The shooting also doesn't have much weight to it. It's really not a satisfying gameplay loop, apart from those few occasions you get a big group kill.

Speaking of which, this is one of those deeply annoying games which aspires to the cinematic. Frantically backpedalling from three or four guys surrounding you, pulling out your last flare to buy yourself some space? The game will slow down and rotate the camera 360 degrees in slow motion to show you just how dramatic the danger you're in is. Only now you don't know which direction is which and you're probably going to die. Press the dodge button just in time to avoid a clawing hand? Slow mo camera time. And here's another thing that annoys me, you know how in third person games if you press the right stick it swaps shoulders for the aiming view? Alan must be left handed, because if you do this the game just switches you back to the other shoulder a few seconds later. 

In the game's brief tutorial section at the start which explains the combat, you're told that it's often a better option to run into light rather than try and kill every enemy. You'll find streetlights and other things periodically which act as safezones and checkpoints. This is fine, and obviously based on what I've said it would seem preferable to actual combat. The only problem is it's one of those games where your character can sprint for about three seconds then needs an oxygen mask and a cup of tea before they can think about doing it again. It doesn't help that there's no stamina meter (he breathes more heavily but he can't sprint even when this stops) or that it's the same button to dodge and sprint. Why? This isn't a game newly released, it's a game that was 'remastered' ten years after it first came out. Based on what I've looked at it was relatively well-received. How?

The game doesn't look or sound nice either. For a gameplay premise centred around the contrast between light and dark there's very little in the way of style or atmosphere. I actually got quite far in the game before I realised I had the brightness turned up too high. When I was in the woods I could see everything with no problems - trees, rocks, enemies, that sort of thing. When I turned the brightness down it just felt like my TV wasn't working. The sound quickly gets irritating too, with the same music cue every time enemies 'suddenly' appear and the same nondescript swirly noise in the background just before. I also think the PS4 version has an uncapped framerate, because during cutscenes my console was silent, during gameplay it turned into a jet engine. And this wasn't even utilising any HDR settings. I'm not going to tell you I'm the most technically minded enjoyer of video games, but this seems like easy thing to rectify. If everything else didn't annoy me so much I might not have been so bothered, but here we are. 

Quite early on in my time with this game I realised what it reminded me of. It's like Deadly Premonition written by David Cage. A surreal love letter to TV shows like Twin Peaks and the Twilight Zone, only without any of the skill or insight to make something as engaging as those were. There are probably more details about Alan Wake that annoyed me as I was playing but I'm honestly surprised I've been as restrained as I have here. At some point in my time with it I realised this is technically probably one of the worst games I've ever played. And yet, I never really hated it. There were times when I played on the hardest difficulty I really questioned what I was doing with my life, but that was about it. Despite the amount of words I've typed here, it's not going to live long in my memory as a benchmark of anything. It was just a very stupid, unenjoyable period of my life where I ended up feeling quite aggravated in the process of not achieving a lot. If you think it's impressive that it's managed to make me feel so unenthusiastic about video games, then I suppose that's something. It's probably not what anyone was going for though. 

Edited September 7, 2023 by Miguel Sanchez

[Miguel Sanchez]

Transistor (PS4, 2014)

Transistor is a 2.5D sort of turn-based RPG set in the futuristic city of Cloudbank. You play as Red, a popular singer who goes out one night and loses her voice. On the same night she pulls a sword out of a dead guy lying on the street, and the sword talks to her. She then spends the next few hours fighting through the city against the Process, an assortment of robotic creatures that pop up, and trying to find out what she can about the Camerata, a secretive group which is responsible for it. 

I think I've done quite a good job of explaining the story of the game there. I've tried harder to explain it than the game ever does. It's quite hard to even try and explain Transistor because in addition to it definitely being a story told through showing rather than telling, it's very short. To explain the entire story is to explain the 4-5 hours a single playthrough takes. This isn't necessarily an overall criticism but it took two playthroughs and a lot of reading and listening to properly appreciate what's going on. 

There are games which start in medias res and then there's this. You're dropped into pretty much everything right away. Who is Red? Why is the sword talking? Who are the people she's encountering along the way and taking new powers for the sword from after killing them? Who are the Camerata, and why is there nobody else around? What is the Process? Why do none of the computer terminals you find which ostensibly offer citizens votes on things like what the weather should be or what colour the sky should be ever offer a meaningful response? Why doesn't Red feel safe responding to them honestly? Why are all of the abilities you unlocked named like computer programming commands, and why is the combat explained so poorly?

With all of that said, I don't want to explain all of it. It would ruin the game. I will say that all of that is explained. The combat isn't really, trial and error is the point but there's still little explanation to start you off. But I'll come to that later. The game's length helps it a lot, because while the story and characterisation are deliberately obtuse, you'll uncover it all quickly enough to feel as if you're always uncovering interesting details. There's no real telling as you play how long things will take, but there's a constant sense of progress to keep you going, even if you don't necessarily understand everything you find as you go. 

Combat is probably the most interesting thing about the game. As you progress you unlock Functions. Functions can be used in three ways. Active Functions work as attacks. You press a button and do a thing to an enemy. Passive Functions alter an Active Function. You can apply two of these at a time. Passive Functions provide... passive upgrades. With 16 Functions available (and the ability to stack the same Functions for extra strength) there's a wide range of combat options, and experimentation really is rewarded. By the end of a second playthrough you'll have discovered (or looked up) the one or two combinations which cheese every enemy encounter, but it's still more fun putting your own twist on things. 

Rather than just creating Functions and spamming them, the game also offers a Turn-based style where you can freeze the action and plan out a few moves, with a cooldown period after. The need for thought and planning is a nice change of pace, and you'll probably use this most of the time due to multiple enemies or wanting to avoid the delay after using a Function normally. Once a Turn is over you'll spend a few seconds running away from the Process waiting for the cooldown to end (unless you have Passive Functions to speed this up) which makes things feel a bit awkward, but on the whole trying to do as much damage as possible in a single turn is always a fun challenge. 

The enemy variety throughout the game is great for this too, with several different kinds of enemies posing very different challenges pretty much all the time. The amount of variety in the combat for a game this short is genuinely amazing. You could play games three times as long as this and not have this much choice on offer. In addition to the main story there are Test rooms you can enter to really make the most of combat. Speed tests where you have to beat enemies under a time limit, Performance tests where you have limited Functions and waves of enemies, that sort of thing. These really make the most of the combat, provided you've spent enough time with the game to understand it and not be overwhelmed. When it works, it's very rewarding. 

This is the third Supergiant Games game I've played after Hades and Bastion, two games very similar in their presentation and overall aesthetic. I tried not to, but naturally I compared it to them as I played. It's much more similar to Bastion in terms of length and the overall depth, but I think Transistor suffers a lot in terms of its setting. This happens in a few ways. Much is made of Cloudbank and how great the city and its people were. You don't meet any of them. You read about some of its greatest citizens on a text log, but that's it. It's hard to care about a setting like this when there's very little done to immerse you in it. The same goes for your actual progress too. The whole game is a completely linear path with very little to interact with. I suppose Red and the consciousness inside her sword know the city, but the player doesn't. Less here is definitely less rather than more. The art style is similar to Bastion - beautiful isometric backgrounds with a hand-drawn feel, but with much less detail there's much less to care about. 

Ultimately I think Transistor does a lot right and a lot wrong. It's very obtuse in its story and gameplay, although it's short enough that two full playthroughs (with a new game plus or 'Recurse') don't feel like an imposition, and they will explain everything if you pay attention. The gameplay itself is tremendously detailed and rewards a lot of time spent with it. The story, setting and characterisation is actually quite clever once you understand what's going on, although for pretty much the whole first playthrough you'll wonder when or if this moment of clarity is coming. The game looks and sounds great, although the city of Cloudbank and the central story conceit of what's happening to it always feels just out of reach of the player, as if you've come late to something fundamentally world altering and are just trying to pick up the pieces. The game is short enough to overcome these problems, which doesn't sound like the compliment it is, but despite enjoying and appreciating it I do think I wanted a bit more. Flawed, but still very good.

[Nkomo-A-Gogo]

I have been playing a game called SCORN on the game pass.

Im enjoying it. Its linear but its still tricky with codes to break and puzzles to work out. Some of the scenes and sounds are stomach churning.  

Ive been away from gaming for a couple of years so not sure how it compares to other games but id like to hear what anyone else thinks of it. 

[Stellaboz]

Doing a team career on F1 23. Really enjoying it, developing my 2nd driver whilst I'm off bagging points occasionally. 

 

[54_and_counting]

Just finished separate ways dlc for resi 4 remake, for the cost it was really good, shows that companies can release good dlc for cheap

[well fan for life]

Lies of P. A Soulslike game based on Pinocchio. It's pretty slick and pretty difficult so far. I don't think the difficulty curve is anywhere near as steep as something like Bloodborne but it's a challenge. 

[Sigma]

Mario Wonder is an absolute blast. The Wonder Seeds are a tremendous edition, and they help give each level its own spice and personality. The look of some of these levels are stunning and colourful, and you will have a hard job finding a level that doesn't bring a cool new enemy to the table. 

My main complaint is the game is a little on the easy side, but I suppose I can't really fault them for that, since the game is marketed to kids afterall.

Another complaint I have is that there has been two worlds that felt too short and anti-climatic with how they ended. I especially loved the levels in World 5, so I was pretty let down with how it was one of the shortest worlds in the game. 

Overall, I would say that this game deserves to sit at the same table as Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World. Wonder has the variety of SMB3, and it has the exploration of SMW. I definitely recommend this game to anyone who has kids, or if you want a worthy modern take on the classics we all grew up with.

9/10

 

 

  

[Jives Miguel]

Been playing Slay The Spire recently.

 

Very fun game, but a total time sink. 

[RuMoore]

Far Cry Primal remains a 10/10

 

[54_and_counting]

Bought Hogwarts Legacy on half price for black friday, thought id see what the fuss is about

It is easily one of the most detailed games i have ever played in terms of environment, graphics etc, hogwarts itself is unbelievable in terms of drawing you into the environment, but they did a superb job of making the whole world map just as detailed in different ways 

Yup the side quests etc are repetitive (but not really needed to complete the game) and the puzzles aren't as challenging once you think about it, but a lot of open world games are like this

Still a cracking game though, flying on your broomstick seeing people walk between towns etc is just fantastic fun

[TxRover]

Took a flyer on Subnautica after seeing it mentioned on here will reading back a bit, quite enjoyable, but a huge time sink.

[BFTD]

1 hour ago, TxRover said:

Took a flyer on Subnautica after seeing it mentioned on here will reading back a bit, quite enjoyable, but a huge time sink.

I've had Subnautica waiting on my 'to play' list for a few years, but unfortunately this is my problem with a lot of games. The only ones I've bothered with in the past few years have been titles that I could play for an hour without feeling like I was missing out. Bit envious of people I know who talk about spending the weekend playing games.

[Jives Miguel]

On 23/12/2023 at 21:13, TxRover said:

Took a flyer on Subnautica after seeing it mentioned on here will reading back a bit, quite enjoyable, but a huge time sink.

 

On 23/12/2023 at 22:48, BFTD said:

I've had Subnautica waiting on my 'to play' list for a few years, but unfortunately this is my problem with a lot of games. The only ones I've bothered with in the past few years have been titles that I could play for an hour without feeling like I was missing out. Bit envious of people I know who talk about spending the weekend playing games.

Subnautica's not that long, can complete it in about 30 hours

[TxRover]

33 minutes ago, Jives Miguel said:

 

Subnautica's not that long, can complete it in about 30 hours

Depends how you approach it. I’m playing a bit more relaxed than only aiming at this or that. It’s a pretty impressive “world”, and I just found out it does “end” by driving in a single direction for about 40% power in a SeaMoth. It suddenly reset me back a km from where I’d started.