Currently Playing in 2019....

Samus Returns. This is a real 7/10 if there was one. It's extremely competent in a lot of ways, but there's nothing really standout about it so far. The pacing is a bit too slow, I feel like the new abilities take too long to get. Parry mechanic, while fairly inoffensive, is used way too much. The areas just don't do it for me.

Still glad the released a Metroid game, and it's better than Zero Mission, so that's plus.

Ironhide wrote:Hexyz Force

Relatively obscure PSP JRPG with some nice anime cutscenes, haven't spent much time with it yet but seems pretty good so far. The visuals are nice and chunky, very similar in style to the brilliant Jeanne D'Arc.

Its supposedly quite short though, even with two separate story campaigns but after spending 120+ hours on Persona 3 I think something lighter will be a good thing before I start Disgaea 5 in the next couple of weeks.

Think i'm nearing the end of the story campaign I'm playing, around 25 hours so far and I think I've probably missed out a few sidequests along the way.

Its been fairly decent if a little bit too easy.

Was having a sort through some stuff in what was our study, (which is now being transformed into my eldest's bedroom), when I stumbled across a PC disc of Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project. So I installed it.

It's an absolute riot.

Also been playing Journey.

I'm not really sure what to make of it. I'm not bored by it, but I'm not particularly enthralled by it either.

Brerlappin wrote:Ive finished Resi 7 a bunch of times previously and loved it, but I don't ever remember being as aggravated by it as I am on this attempt. I thought it would be good pre Halloween gaming but its just driving me up the strawberry floating wall now. As a first person shooter its pure gooseberry fool. The aiming is so slow, and the molded zigzag and stagger around so much headshots are incredibly difficult to land with any consistency. And the strawberry floating banana splits just eat ammo. I didn't get the shotgun until AFTER going through the basement which made it even more of a nightmare. And this banana spliting strawberry floating chainsaw boss fight. Oh my strawberry float who thought this was a good idea?? Its not bad enough that he respawns about 50,000 times, movement is so slow, blocking is so slow, everything is so strawberry floating slooooooow that it makes trying to run around this room a pain in the god damn taint, the fov is so narrow you cant see where he is unless hes in your face, and on my last attempt I strawberry floating had the bastard only for him to chainsaw my head off at the last second because I was trying to fiddle around in the strawberry floating inventory to use a bloody herb because you cant quick select while holding the strawberry floating chainsaw. /rant

I can't imagine going through that game again. I loved the strawberry float out of it, but it very much felt like a once only experience which, after you've experienced all its tricks the first time round, probably wouldn't be much fun.

As for me, I'm just finishing off BioShock 2 and am coming away pleasantly surprised. I remember enjoying the game when I first played it but being disappointed by its take on Rapture and the story it presented, both of which were lesser versions of the original. All of this remains true, but in the opposite manner of something like Resi 7 I'm finding that having previously experienced this disappointment means I can put it to one side and concentrate on enjoying the gameplay. Which is legitimately excellent. I read a review of it that summed the game up as being a better game but a worse experience, which I agree with entirely.

Also, unlike BS1, the last third of BS2 is actually its strongest section. The pure chaos you are able to unleash, especially in conjunction with Eleanor, is a pure strawberry floating joy to behold.

There's a lot I didn't like in Resident Evil 7. I didn't like 5 or 6, I was hoping for something that would get the series back to its former glory. The game just didn't deliver for me.

Been blazing through Ratchet and Clank PS4 over the past few days and really enjoying it. The gameplay is great and the world design is absolutely superb. I especially loved Gaspar, I was expecting the jetpack to just allow you to hover a bit off the ground to go over lava pits and stuff, not enable full flight, so it was a nice surprise when the map opened up so much.
Only problem I have is that it just seems so bland and soulless story/character wise compared to the originals. Ratchet is just your standard peppy kids movie hero, Clank is massively underused, Qwark's been completely flanderised (I swear he wasn't *this* much of an idiot/transparent fake before) and some of the dialogue is just cringeworthy. I kind of expected it going in since I watched the film a while ago and didn't think all that much of it, although maybe all of this is just me putting on my rose-tinted glasses given how I played the first one to death when I was little.

BS2 is the best Bioshock game, I finished Minerva’s den and I was dissapointed, kinda guessed the ending, most of it anyway. Still great compared to Infinite tho but I like BS2 because it’s the only Bioshock to not really have any bad levels/area’s

Destiny on PS4. I stopped playing this originally before any of the DLC came out as I felt there just wasn’t enough there to keep me interested. Going back to the complete version of the game I’m enjoying it far more now.

Photek wrote:BS2 is the best Bioshock game, I finished Minerva’s den and I was dissapointed, kinda guessed the ending, most of it anyway. Still great compared to Infinite tho but I like BS2 because it’s the only Bioshock to not really have any bad levels/area’s

It's the best game, no doubt, but it's not as effective an experience as BioShock 1 which, for all it's flaws, presents a better world and story and hits highs BS2 simply never reaches. True it also hits lows that it's sequel never delves into but its still a far more ambitious project. BS2 never really does anything particularly interesting with itself. The core combat loop is great fun, and the level design is decent, but there's never any sense of innovation or surprise.

What the flying f...





Ok, so that happened today.

I need more time to mentally prepare for my dive into the Yakuza series...

Vermilion wrote:...Ok, so that happened today.

... . Amazing. I've not yet played a Yakuza game... it seems like you have to go in with an open mind .

Yubel wrote:I need more time to mentally prepare for my dive into the Yakuza series...

.

- - - - - - - - - -

I've been playing...

> Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (Switch) - I've completed the first five puzzles (all stars, challenges and retro toads!); I intend to complete everything on each puzzle before moving on (although I guess this'll quickly get real tough). Game is crazily cute!

> Fallout 4 (PS4) - This is starting to click with me; I've reached Diamond City and taken a look around the place. Repairing equipment seems more complex than in Fallout 3 (I have to use bits on a workbench?) and, rather embarassingly, I haven't figured out how to apply stimpacks to specific limbs to aid healing. I could do this in Fallout 3... but not here .

> PES 2019 (PS4) - Yeah... of course. My current challenge is to play as Locomotive Moscow through an Online Divisions season.

Who are Locomotive Moscow when they're at home Jawa? You should try doing it as Lokomotiv Moscow instead...

...

Corazon de Leon wrote:(Locomotive / Lokomotiv)

Dang tablet typing! .


I wasn't on my tablet .

Finished off BioShock 2 and am about an hour and a half into Infinite. It's already a struggle.

I don't know where to start, really. I certainly don't have anything to say that's not been said a thousand times before. It's a themepark ride. It's a visual marvel. It's fathoms wide and centimetres deep. It's troublingly non-committal in its condemnation of racism.

It's also incredibly boring to play. The combat is comfortably the worst of the series, even worse than 2007's original which was at least slow and heavy enough to feel like it was combat. Here, everything is so determined to move at a sprint that the combat more often than not feels like shooting a pop-gun at a sparse-leaved bush. Enemies don't react when hit, only when they die, the guns are all light and insubstantial and the vigours are there as an after thought. Considering how much Ken Levine likes to pretend BioShock 2 doesn't exist (he basically rendered it a non-canon fangame with Burial at Sea) it also steals a hell of a lot from that game in terms of combat mechanics whilst never managing to come close to how good that game feels to play.

It's also a super messy game, narratively and structurally. The progression from one area to the next rarely makes sense and leaves the player feeling totally flummoxed: one minute you're in a flooded church, the next a fayre, then a parade-ground, then a print-shop, then a murderous quasi-magical racist cult, then a prison/tourist attraction...then a beach. The game's pace means all of these pass by in an instant with no time to flesh out the themeing or why you're there. The level designs are all pretty standard too considering the amazing, multilevel vertical playgrounds that were demoed in the early trailers. They're just...there.

At this point I'm not even sure I'll be able to finish it.

Bioshock Infinite was always an overrated turd. The gushing praise many reviewers gave it (94% Metacritic) was an embarrassing miss-fire. One of the many examples of why I began taking video game "journalists" views and opinions on games with a massive dollop of salt.

Hexyz Force

Its started with one of the things I hate in RPGs - a sudden lack of any healing/recharging points at sensible intervals.

Save points are also becoming tiringly far apart, the last two were over 40 minutes apart.

Bioshock Infinite's messy development is somewhat on display sadly with the disjointed structure and stifling linearity, not to mention how much pre-release material didn't make it into the final game. Pretty astounding that it was so polished in many ways despite that, at least visually. Bet there's loads of untold stories still to tell from the poor overworked staff.

Doubling down on the combat despite that never being a series' strength was especially a blunder, I remember the gunfights becoming an excruciating slog well before the end. At least Bio 1 has a few more viable approaches to encounters and much more exploration to break up the poor gunplay

@Gemini73 Honestly I think everyone was taken with it upon release, I remember plenty of praise from non-critic folks as well. Definitely one of those games whose reputation has fallen over time.

Gemini73 wrote:Bioshock Infinite was always an overrated turd. The gushing praise many reviewers gave it (94% Metacritic) was an embarrassing miss-fire. One of the many examples of why I began taking video game "journalists" views and opinions on games with a massive dollop of salt.

Never underestimate the power of a cracking pair of tits to sell a game.