GRcade

Lotus wrote:Binary Doman - 8/10

+ Looks good.
+ Satisfying shooting.
+ Nice length.
+ Bosses were actually enjoyable for the most part.
+ I liked the upgrades and augmented abilities.
+ Story was vaguely intriguing.

- Idiotic team members who kept walking in front of my line of fire.
- Context issues with the A and B buttons meant Dan would often do what I didn't want him to do.
- Team mates wouldn't shut up.
- Lack of music. I can count about 3 occasions when music came on, and it actually sounded good. No idea why they didn't use it more.
- Voice command was gooseberry fool, so had to resort to buttons, which actually worked.

No mention of my guys Bo and Cain? For shame.

Bo was pretty annoying, not much more than one big cliche really. Cain was okay, when he didn't keep walking in front of my gun and then complaining about it. Shindo was forgettable, as was Rachel (apart from her awful accent) and Charles was okay, probably the least annoying. Dan was pretty obnoxious, but you kinda expect it with an arrogant/cocky American lead.

Lotus wrote:Binary Doman - 8/10...

- Idiotic team members who kept walking in front of my line of fire.
- Context issues with the A and B buttons meant Dan would often do what I didn't want him to do.
- Team mates wouldn't shut up.
- Lack of music. I can count about 3 occasions when music came on, and it actually sounded good. No idea why they didn't use it more.
- Voice command was gooseberry fool, so had to resort to buttons, which actually worked.

Negative aspects being noted for Binary Domain?!? If this doesn't draw Buffalo back to GRcade, nothing will!

Binary Domain

Rhythm Heaven. Once I started using my finger instead of a stylus, this game was way better. I think the difficulty level is a bit all over the place, Remix 8 was harder than anything. Still really enjoyed the game. I like the weird visual style and the simplicity of it. I'm hoping to get my copy of the Wii game back from my brother, so I can play through that once again.

Elite Beat Agents. Stuck this on and deleted my save just to remind myself of how awesome it is. All my skills have gone. Scrapped through medium difficulty, don't really have the patience to play Chieftain. Still a really cool game. I hope there is another one.

Red Dead Redemption - 8/10

I first started playing this back in 2011 and tried again in 2012 but never quite got into it, found the early sections of the game fairly dull and and wasn't really inspired to carry on.

Always hear about how good it is though so I decided to revisit it and although my opinion on the early sections hasn't changed I found that once it really got going it was a great experience. The gameplay in the story missions is pretty formulaic most of the time - ride here, shoot these people, ride back - and when it deviates from that then the likes of herding cattle/wrangling horses aren't exactly the most exciting things I've ever done in a game. However the strengths of the game really lie in the characters, story and settings. I loved the Wild West setting and every single character in the main story was really memorable, even though the world probably isn't that big compared to more recent open world games I never once felt confined or restricted by it either. Mechanically it also still holds up really well, some minor niggles here and there and some aspects do feel a little dated (particularly coming from Breath of the Wild) but overall for a 7 year old game it still feels quite fresh and for the most part it's a fantastic looking game as well. Shame there's no PC port as it would really benefit from a framerate and resolution boost.

Overall it's a good 8/10 for me, would probably have been a 9 if I'd played through it back in the day but difficult not to compare it with some of the brilliant open world games which have come since, particularly when one of them is so fresh in the memory.

Nier Automata: 8/10

A remarkable game in many ways, the ending sequence and final boss actually had me welling up. It's so rare that games use their inherent interactivity to actually make a point as succinctly as the way this does.

Besides that the game is one hell of an experience. I perhaps didn't buy into it quite as much as some reviewers, I didn't find it to be the "RPG of a generation" but it was definitely a unique take on a lot of RPG tropes, and the ending is brilliantly done. Ending E really does shift the entire thing into a different light, a light I unfortunately can't see at the moment as I chose to delete my save.

Lego City Undercover - PC

I think as i'm getting older i'm becoming less and less impressed by super-gritty games full of shooting people in the face while swearing all the time. I've bounced off a lot of games recently and I'd been curious about this on the wii u but never got round to it, and now its been freed from its original platform i wanted to see how Tt could do a lego game unshackled from an existing IP.

It was one of the most fun, warm and deeply silly experiences i've had playing a game for a long time; full of nods to everything from the matrix and starsky and hutch to the worzels. One character is a walking Arnold Schwarzenegger quote machine which had me giggling like a loon.

The story is a bit bloated in the middle; a lot of it seems to be contrivances to unlock all the character outfits but the finale falling towards and through the spaceship as it breaks up on re-entry left me genuinely speechless through a sense of spectacle and scale impressive for a 'normal' game let alone a lego game.

Like good disney/pixar films this operates on different levels for the age groups coming to it; on the one hand a kid-friendly pseudo-Sleeping Dogs but with stuff for everyone else to like. Its by no means difficult but the world is packed with stuff to do and a decent size; i wrapped up the story at around 14 hours with less than 25% completion. I won't be going back for all the collectables as that would be madness, but thoroughly enjoyed my time with it.

9/10.

Mass effect Andromeda 8/10

Seems to have been shunned by most here and proclaimed to be the worst game ever..

It's not, it's still Mass effect and the core gameplay is still solid. The bugs are nowhere near as bad as people have made out, I played 77hrs to finish single player and I didn't encounter any game breaking bugs. At most there was half a dozen graphical glitches over those 77hrs, which isn't the disaster the internet wants you to think it is.

The story had a nice idea but they wasted it with lazy design, choosing to reuse races and politics from the trilogy rather than create a whole new galaxy. It reeks of lazy that they only introduce a few new species.

While mostly forgettable the story does get going by the end and it does link to the trilogy albeit vaguely. The side characters at first seem bland but by the end i had really warmed to them. Once you get past the fact it's not Garrus and co they are alright.

The fact it let me going till the end shows how much i enjoyed it, though equally I can understand why people might find it bland and boring in places. You get what you put into it, I love ME so I probably gave it a pass on some of its weaker aspects. If you go in determined to hate it then you probably will pick it apart.

I'm hopeful it does well enough to continue a new trilogy and that the Internet backlash doesn't kill it.

Crash Bandicoot 3 for PS1 on PS3. This was pretty good. It's a huge improvement over the previous two and outside a couple of time trials and one level very late in the game it was rarely as frustrating as the last two games. I've enjoyed playing through this trilogy but considering how annoying some parts of each game are I'm not in any rush to get the HD collection when it's released.

8/10

Also, like strawberry float am I doing all the gold, platinum and developers time trials.

IAmTheSaladMan wrote:Crash Bandicoot 3 for PS1 on PS3. This was pretty good. It's a huge improvement over the previous two and outside a couple of time trials and one level very late in the game it was rarely as frustrating as the last two games. I've enjoyed playing through this trilogy but considering how annoying some parts of each game are I'm not in any rush to get the HD collection when it's released.

8/10

Also, like strawberry float am I doing all the gold, platinum and developers time trials.

Ha, I understand the platinum time trial targets are ridiculously tough, basically at speed running standards

Brerlappin wrote:Thimbleweed Park 9/10

Not only an amazing return to form for adventure games, but one of the best point & click adventure games ever.

I really enjoyed it, too. Went a bit 'Twin Peaks' towards the end.

Dark Souls 2: Scholar Of The First Sin

Someone in the DS2 thread described this game as being 'like Dark Souls, but a little bit worse in every way'. And that's kinda true I guess. The level design is a little worse, environments are a bit uninspired and some of the new game features (especially the new health degredation system) are bad design decisions.

But I didn't really care, because this game was awesome. In fact it's probably the game I've enjoyed the most on my Xbox One to date. There are few things in gaming as enjoyable as taking down a Dark Souls boss, and this game is chock full of them. And while they vary wildly in quality (Prowling Magus lol) there are enough fantastic encounters here to fill three games. Taking down Sir Alonne and Fume Knight are two of my favourite gaming moments EVER. I know this game has issues, I know it's considered the worst in the series, but I've now played it through twice and I just loved every moment*.

9/10

Also, The Walking Dead: Michonne

Telltale at its most tedious. Dull story, dull characters and short as hell. Shame, as the last game of these I played (Borderlands) was really good.

4/10.

*Four hours of grinding sunlight medals notwithstanding

Mega Man and Mega Man 2 on NES. The first game is decent but not great, without the password saves of the sequel I found it a bit of a chore to play and had to resort to using save states and the infamous pause glitch to kill bosses.

The sequel is a huge improvement and thanks to the password saves I beat it legitimately with only one continue because I ran out of ammo for the only weapon that harms the end boss. I could probably manage it without continuing too if I hadn't wasted my reserve tanks on the penultimate boss.

MM1 6/10 a decent start to the series but not a lot of fun to play nowadays.

MM2 7.5/10 this is where the series started getting good, hopefully 3 improves things even further.

With Mega Man I only used the pause glitch on the Yellow Devil and Only used save states to save before knocking it off. I am strawberry floating rubbish at it, though. Took me 5 hours in total to complete it. I really enjoyed it too, had great fun with it and only disliked IceMans stage at the end of the level and The Yellow Devil.

Full Throttle Remastered - 9/10

I have very fond memories of this game, having played through the original a number of times but it's probably 10 years or more since my last play through so it was great to revisit it. When I first saw the screenshots of the remaster I wasn't that impressed, looked pretty much how I remember it in my minds eye, but it's clear when switching between graphical modes just how much improvement has been made graphically since then. It looks absolutely fantastic and the art style has so much character.

The voice acting is brilliant and all the music contributes really well to the atmosphere of the game, I always preferred the puzzles in Full Throttle to many other adventure games as they were so much more logical rather than just being bizarre things found only by trial and error or using a guide. It's not perfect though, the action bits haven't aged brilliantly but they're only a very small portion of the game and still playable enough, whilst one part late on is a little grindy. It's also a little on the short side, admittedly I could remember most of the puzzles but I managed to complete it in less than 4 hours.

Still a wonderful game though and just as enjoyable now as it was over 20 years ago, cannot recommend it enough!

Pedz wrote:With Mega Man I only used the pause glitch on the Yellow Devil and Only used save states to save before knocking it off. I am strawberry floating rubbish at it, though. Took me 5 hours in total to complete it. I really enjoyed it too, had great fun with it and only disliked IceMans stage at the end of the level and The Yellow Devil.

I don't think I would have had as much trouble with it if there was a password system in it. I mainly used save states upon beating a level in lieu of passwords.

Sniper Elite III (PS4) 7/10

+ Excellent sniping experience
+ Great sound
+ Interesting play areas
+ Good range of challenge; I played on Cadet (easy) level
- A bit of a weak ending cinematic

Terrific fun; I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Little Nightmares 7.4

Donkey Kong Country on SNES. I'd beaten this before years ago but last time I tried playing it I rage quit after the first minecart level. I fared a little better this time around although my completion percentage was barely halfway so I'm going to track down all the secret areas too if only to stop Cranky Kong's snarky remarks in the ending.

Anyway this is a pretty fun platformer, it's not quite Super Mario World but then not much is.

8/10

Trine 2 with a friend online 8/10