Last Game You Finished and Your Rating

Assassin's Creed Rogue - Remastered (Xbox One) [7]

+ Story was ok for an AC game and the finale was pretty good. I liked seeing younger / older versions of some of the characters that featured in other games from the American Saga.
+ The Black Flag naval combat is repeated here and it's just as good. Just scraping a fort attack after a tense sea battle is just as thrilling as it was when Blag Flag was released.
+ Love the setting. The bleak cold North America suited the story well.

-Remaster was a little weak. Still 30fps and a very simple up-res. Could have been more. Could easily tell it was a 360 game.
-Shay is a pantomime Irishman with his "ders more ta Iarland dan dis" accent. The subtitles even misspelt "the craic" for "the crack". Would it have been hard to actually get an Irishman to play an Irishman?
-As always, too much busy work. Upgrading the ship is satisfying but SLOW and not necessary to complete the main quest. It felt more like cleaning than playing a game at times.
-Shay's path-finding was a bit wonky resulting in some frustrating traversal, particularly through trees and when jumping on to the ship.
-The connection to Unity was very tacked-on and could have served a better purpose if Arno's dad was actually featured in the main part of the game, perhaps betraying Shay at some point.

My AC 'order':

AC4:BF > AC: Syndicate > AC III > AC: Origins > AC: Unity > AC: Rogue > AC: Revelations > AC: II > AC: II Brotherhood > AC

Little Nightmares Main Game 8/10
Little Nightmares DLC 4/10

Bought this recently on the Switch. Loved the main game, I felt it was very clever and innovative and could overlook some of the downsides, the controls are a bit floaty and there are some annoying trial and error bits. However, the DLC which attempts to build on the main game just highlights the games flaws. It introduces zombie like creatures in the final part but the controls are just not up to it and it ended up being a very frustrating experience in the end.

Mafia 3 - 7/10

A disappointment considering the first two games are comfortably amongst my favourites ever made.

It's not a bad game by any stretch, there's a lot to like and I wouldn't have spent around 30 hours playing it if there wasn't. However, it has too many issues that stop it from ever achieving greatness.

Starting with the positives...

It has a great story, really engaging and interesting with some brilliant characters. New Bordeaux is a fantastic setting. It also has one of the best soundtracks of any video game I've played.

Visually it's pretty nice, some slightly ropey textures and too many repeated character models but the main characters are wonderfully detailed and the motion capture is amazing, the main characters look incredibly lifelike.

Gameplay for the most part is a lot of fun and very solid, fairly straightforward cover shooter action and nothing particularly innovative but it works well and the stealth mechanics are pretty functional as well.

Being able to call for certain things via Radio is a great idea, getting an ammunition or weapons delivery, a new car or being able to call in reinforcements can be really useful for helping you out of difficult situations.

Certain missions feature the brilliant, creative set pieces and scenarios which have always been part of the series and these are incredibly well done.

On to the negatives...

The mission structure is so repetitive, go to a territory, kill/interrogate the enemies and do some damage. Rinse and repeat until the leader of that particular area appears. Do the same thing again to kill them. Then repeat, over and over again. As I said the special missions are really well done but there's so few of them and most are just this same repetitive style. It also means doing lots of needless driving around the map because there's no fast travel system. If it didn't have such a great soundtrack then it would be even worse. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay is solid which means the missions are fun to play but it just becomes so tedious doing the same thing over and over and over...

It's also still quite buggy in places although it largely seems to be fixed from the original release. Had one or two missions fail on me because aspects didn't load properly, also had characters just fall out of the sky or appear suddenly on a few occasions.

The game can be quite unfair at times, some enemies seem to be bullet sponges whereas many of them are capable of killing you in 1 or 2 shots. Had a guy one shot kill me with a shotgun from so far away he hadn't even appeared on my map. On many occasions I unloaded an entire round of ammunition into an enemies head and he carried on walking. It also employs a system where enemies can call for back up, or civilians can call the police if they see a crime. In theory I don't mind the idea but it can unfairly turn the odds of a situation on your head and the police can be particularly relentless.

Breakable scenery is an issue and it makes the game feel particularly dated. I've driven into a kerb in an armoured truck and rather than just mounting the kerb it has bounced off and caused damage to me, similarly hitting a tree or a wooden crate or even a bush!

TLDR; It's a bit buggy, a bit repetitive but overall still good fun with a great story and even better soundtrack.

Hatoful Boyfriend - ?/10

I don't even know how I'd rate this 'game', just an utterly bizarre and weird experience. I didn't play through all the endings, after two I'd had more than enough. Judging by the 9/10 on Steam there must be a lot of people who liked it but yeah, I've got to say that I didn't get it!

Jamo3103 wrote:
Hatoful Boyfriend - ?/10

I don't even know how I'd rate this 'game', just an utterly bizarre and weird experience. I didn't play through all the endings, after two I'd had more than enough. Judging by the 9/10 on Steam there must be a lot of people who liked it but yeah, I've got to say that I didn't get it!

Yeah, you need to unlock a few more endings for it to get really crazy. But if you don't like / get what you have seen so far then its probably not going to change your opinion.

Yeah I don't imagine it would, it's not that I thought it was a bad game, just not my cup of tea!

Another one for the list...

Grow Home - 8/10

Probably the biggest compliment I can pay to this is that it doesn't feel like a Ubi Soft game. Absolutely charming, almost Nintendo-esque design (it really reminded me of Pikmin in a lot of ways!) and relaxing, well paced gameplay. Lovely experience!

The Evil Within 2 - 8/10

Watched this on 'Krillin Plays' on Youtube. Had never played the original. Was surprised by just how emotional the story got at the end, and the more open world gameplay looked interesting. I had to give it a go myself.

I loved it. The stealth is satisfying when you sneak up on enemies, and the gunplay is quite good. I was really impressed by some of the psychological effects stuff in the first half of the game. There was stuff I didn't even think you could do, like the cool way things would change when you turned your back, and rooms would exist in spaces that contained nothing. The game gets relatively scary at some points, and the sound design is horrendous in the right way with the tormented sounds the enemies make and creepy singing from Anima, the ghost lady. I liked the various side missions too, and the enemies themselves were fun to work out how best to beat, especially with the extremely limited ammo the game gives you. But it's the ending that really shines for me. It's so bittersweet and human. Very satisfying.

Owlboy (Switch)

A pleasant game which looks good and is generally quite fun to play, particularly some of the more creative boss fights. However the game is fairly short and does have its frustrating moments, plus the Switch version seems buggy (had at least half a dozen crashes).

6/10

AC Origins (PS4)

Completed the main story. Still lots of stuff to mop up around the map though.

The best non-Assassin's Creed Assassin's Creed game.

9/10

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood - 9/10

Continuing my catch up on the series and I came to Brotherhood, had high hopes for this as I've always heard it's one of the best in the series and it absolutely lived up to the expectations.

I much preferred the setting being kept to one location rather than the constant jumping around of 2, the plot was a lot more coherent and the gameplay on the whole felt more fluid. The Borgia towers and the economy investment gave me a reason to actually scour the map and climb towers, complete side quests etc. rather than them feeling like they were there just for the sake of it. I really enjoyed the story too, Ezio is such a fantastic character.

Only real flaws I could find are certain missions which I felt were quite poorly designed, a few with enforced stealth (never fun) and one or two that just didn't work as well as intended. They were minor frustrations but easily overlooked in a game I absolutely loved!

Sleeping Dogs - 8/10

So I take it this game is one of these ones that sold like Jimmy Saville's soiled underwear? I would like a sequel. It was really fun, almost gave it a 9, but for some unfortunate glitches I experienced.

The combat was awesome, especially loved the environmental finishers (some of them were brutal as strawberry float). Really enjoyed the car chases, story and atmosphere.

Hue

Absolutely charming little puzzle platformer, this. A really simple mechanic (switch to different colours to make that colour platform disappear) is switched about, expanded and then turned upside down to great effect. It's on the gentler side of things, so if you're looking for a game to tickle your brain rather than break it, I can't recommend this enough. Free on Game Pass at the moment too.

8/10

Star Wars - Secrets of the Empire

Went down to London yesterday evening for this VR experience game, thing.

You go in and put on rumble backs and VR headsets and wander around a short series of rooms in a group of upto 4 people. The 'game' lasts for about 15 minutes and you play a rebel pretending to be storm trooper trying to retrieve a McGuffin from a imperial base. The game is basically a shooting gallery with a few puzzlish things thrown in for good measure. The game is mostly set on a lava planet and they've added some cool effects like when you arrive on the planet and walk outside you can smell sulfur and feel the heat. The suits track your hands without you having to hold anything, although it was a bit hit and miss, at one point it looked like I was straggling another person in the games because of where he was holding his hands. I'm not totally sold on the new VR systems though, the POV is too small and the game seemed a bit blurry and out of focus. I know there are more options to set stuff up but we didn't get a chance to really change anything other than the games volume. It still is pretty scary walking across small bridges over lava fields. I was shuffling along, also there are bits where you are moved around on floating platforms which is really disorientating because you can feel that you're not really moving somehow.

That said everybody else I went with was blown away. I give it a 6/10

Final Fantasy XV - 7/10

Quite enjoyed it, on the whole, but that combat system is completely baffling (why the developers went with it, that is). I wouldn't say that it isn't fun but there is bugger-all skill involved in holding down circle and healing occasionally. The game was also a lot smaller than I was expecting, though I take this as a positive as I didn't think it was bloated at all and I managed to finish it at around the 35-hour mark (admittedly, I didn't do a huge amount of side-quests). So, yeah - not bad.

Squinty wrote:Sleeping Dogs - 8/10

So I take it this game is one of these ones that sold like Jimmy Saville's soiled underwear? I would like a sequel.

Good news, there is a sequel!

It's a mobile game

OrangeRakoon wrote:

Squinty wrote:Sleeping Dogs - 8/10

So I take it this game is one of these ones that sold like Jimmy Saville's soiled underwear? I would like a sequel.

Good news, there is a sequel!

It's a mobile game

Why do you do these things to me

Observer 8/10

Being on the hunt for cyberpunk games I settled on this, and wasn't disappointed. From the guys behind Layers of Fear this is another game very much in the Amnesia/SOMA vein with no combat but plenty of scares. The difference here is that there are people to talk to, even if they're mainly locked behind closed doors.

It was actually quite a difficult game for me to finish as I'm not best suited for horror, but I'm glad I persisted. It tells an interesting story in a novel way, and touches on a lot of what makes cyberpunk so interesting: what it means to be human, and the sacrifices made on the road to immortality. There's also a big old corporation there.

Visually stunning, extremely well designed but a little overlong. Definitely worth a punt.

Assassin's Creed Origins 9/10
Absolutely the re-invention the series needed, it's change to a more action RPG approach is welcome but it still feels like AC. Bayek and Aya were great protagonists and Egypt as a whole is beautiful and huge. Very excited to see what Odyssey will bring to the table.

Persona 4 Dancing All Night

Utter shite. Story was awful, with almost no "hey do you remember that time when we...." which was clearly what people buying this wanted. And the same story beat is just repeated about 6 times in a row. Just dreadful. Rhythm often did not line up with the notes completely, and the song selection could have been better (the classics are in there, but some sort of medley or something would have been nice, i just didn't find the selection tweaking the sentimentality nerve often). And why are all of the songs in story mode on the "easy" setting? I kept hoping they would escalate as the game progressed, but nope, that didn't happen.

Somehow P4 DAN has made me like P4G less after playing this.


3

Horizon Zero Dawn (PS4)

I'll start with what I didn't like about this game - too much talking (usual game interaction where you can ask a set list of questions), too many collectibles (particularly those that relay the story) and the climbing up mountains - a lot of time spent jumping that didn't necessarily result in progress up the mountainside. Special mention must also go to the workout my wrist was given through excessive arrow firing, some of the enemies take a significant number of arrows, twice leaving me with an aching wrist!

Putting those fairly minor annoyances to one side, it is just that old age story of a girl, trying to make her way in a world of killer robot dinosaurs. The story is really rather good and going into the game I would be surprised if anyone would have a clue why robot dinosaurs share the world.

The world you all share is fairly massive with lots to do, aside from the main story (which is great), there are loads of collectables as mentioned, plenty of side quests and a number of other events such as taking over bandit camps, clearing corrupted zones (zones full of dinosaurs that are more of a handful than the non corrupted versions), exploring cauldrons (underground caves that result in giving you a slight edge over various robot dinosaur "species") and climbing tallnecks (a particular type of dinosaur which once scaled, will help you map out the world).

Value for money wise this is great and when combined with the superb graphics and story, you can see why many think this a top game from this gen.

The game ends in such a way that the story could end here but there is also something that could be the start of a sequel, should the developers get the go ahead.

9

For anyone who has the DLC, is this worth getting?

imbusydoctorwho wrote:Assassin's Creed Origins 9/10
Absolutely the re-invention the series needed, it's change to a more action RPG approach is welcome but it still feels like AC. Bayek and Aya were great protagonists and Egypt as a whole is beautiful and huge. Very excited to see what Odyssey will bring to the table.

I'm pretty far into this and have some more quibbles and problems with it, but holy gooseberry fool this game is massive. I will be curious to see the trophy percentage for how many people actually get to the end of this.