GRcade

Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage on PS3. This is very much a game of two halves. One one hand the standard campaign mode called Legend Mode which plays more like a scrolling beat 'em up and closely follows the story of the original manga up to Kenshiro defeating Raoh, allowing you to play the story from the perspective of several different characters was a lot of fun. On the other hand the other major game mode called Dream Mode plays more like a traditional Dynasty Warriors game and as such is tedious as hell, the new stories in each character's Dream Mode campaign are mildly entertaining but other than that I feel this mode should have been left out entirely.

The game controlled pretty well for the most part although the camera wasn't the best and the block and taunt buttons rarely if ever seemed to work. The graphics were a bit of a mixed bag with the character models being pretty decent but the scenery all looking rather dull and generic which is made worse by the fact you play through the same maps over and over again. The sound was okay however by the end of my 50+ hours with the game I was rather tired of the one liners spouted by enemies when you kill them and the sound bites when you executed your special attacks became more of a nuisance as the game went on as they interrupted the flow of the game.

If all you had was Legend Mode this would have likely got a 7/10 from me as it was fun if slightly repetitive. The tedium that ensued from Dream Mode however pushes this down to a 6/10.

Rage

Don't really have a lot to say about it. It was ok. Some of the coop missions where good fun. Errrrm yeah.

JediDragon05 wrote:Rage

Don't really have a lot to say about it. It was ok. Some of the coop missions where good fun. Errrrm yeah.

A game that just sort of abruptly ended.

Squinty wrote:

JediDragon05 wrote:Rage

Don't really have a lot to say about it. It was ok. Some of the coop missions where good fun. Errrrm yeah.

A game that just sort of abruptly ended.

Pretty much

Mad Max

Ploughed about 40 hours into this in the end, and I've still got a fair number of wasteland missions to do, regions to lower threat in, strongholds to upgrade, and parts to put on the magnum opus. Never felt like a chore, and despite a pretty limited set of gameplay mechanics, managed to remain really fun throughout. Upgrades do a great job of making you feel powerful, but never invincible. Really well balanced, basically.

Solid [8]

Knoyleo wrote:Mad Max... Solid [8]

. It remains one of my favourite games in this console generation. The only bit I am a bit frustrated about is that I’d thought I may attain my first-ever Platinum trophy from it but the car-racing trophies are just, for me, too frustrating. I have completed all of the “adventuring” challenges but those car trials.... grr. I may return to it and have another go, though.

Some of the Death Runs are daft. It's an aspect of the game I push much ignored after a few tries, though, and thankfully, you can get through without them just fine.

jawafour wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:Mad Max... Solid [8]

. It remains one of my favourite games in this console generation. The only bit I am a bit frustrated about is that I’d thought I may attain my first-ever Platinum trophy from it but the car-racing trophies are just, for me, too frustrating. I have completed all of the “adventuring” challenges but those car trials.... grr. I may return to it and have another go, though.

If you want a Platinum trophy, just pick up pretty much any TellTales game and just complete the story. I'd recommend Tales from the Borderlands as it was free with PSN+ and you'll get to play a really fun story and as a bonus, get a Platinum.

007 Blood Stone - Xbox 360

I picked this up because i wanted to see Bizarre Creations' final game and holy strawberry float I can see why it tanked. This is a mechanically competent but utterly rote third person cover shooter which is clearly from the post-Gears of War period where they were the hot ticket of the day.

Its a shame as there are some good moments and the devs' driving pedigree makes the chase sequences not unbearable, but even decent performances from daniel craig and judy dench can't save this.

This commits the horrendous sin of not resolving anything at the end, leaving it all up in the air for a presumed sequel which never came. You defeat two big bad guys however there's all this allusion to a bigger force at play, presumably SPECTRE, but it doesn't do enough to make you give a strawberry float one way or the other; making all the man-shooting and ducking behind all the chest-high walls an exercise in repetition which is fun on the most basic of levels - "there are men shooting at me, i must shoot the men."

After playing this i detest activision even more for farming this out to a decent developer and sending them and the game out to die.

Don't bother/10

Shovel Knight Spectre of Torment

This was a cracking campaign. It has two main gameplay moves, and uses them in a lot of different ways. It also manages to make the Shovel Knight world a bit more cohesive and fleshed out. Minor characters get backstory, and it details stuff that happened before the main campaign.

I didn't find the game hard until the last level. I really enjoyed it, probably not as much as Plague Knights one, but it adds more to an already amazing package.

Squinty wrote:

JediDragon05 wrote:Rage

Don't really have a lot to say about it. It was ok. Some of the coop missions where good fun. Errrrm yeah.

A game that just sort of abruptly ended.

I started playing this the other day and remembered it was that game which was widely panned for just stopping rather than actually finishing, presumably for a sequel which never happened. After being jilted by 007 blood stone i couldn't face another experiencd like that so dropped it.

Rage is a great game right up until the very end. You feel sure it’s building to something but then it just stops.

IAmTheSaladMan wrote:Rage is a great game right up until the very end. You feel sure it’s building to something but then it just stops.

The shooting was pretty solid, it was a solid enough game.

Yakuza 0 - 8/10

Loved it, though over indulged in the multitude of side quests at the start (many of which gave me a hearty chuckle!), which disjointed the story a bit. Still lots I haven't done but a little worn out after 83hrs; need a break and a change of style for my next game. Though, will prob go back and finish off real estate, club czar and pocket circuit before I fully set it aside.

Steamworld Dig 2. I feel a little let down as I got this on the basis that it was meatier than the first, but I finished it in 6:02...

That being said all the core mechanics are tighter and it's overall more fun and satisfying than the first.

Not updated this for a while, have to try and remember what I've completed recently.

First up Inside (PS4). Think Limbo with a bit more colour. I liked the graphical style and the atmospheric sound (which is fairly minimal, but good when it is used). It is fairly short though and for the most part the puzzles are fairly simple. Although short, it is a bit samey and if I'm being honest, it does border on becoming repetitive. The last 20 minutes or so are "interesting" but the end is a bit disappointing in that it basically just ends, but having said that it also just starts, with no kind of story. Maybe this is the result of a low budget indie title. Got this on sale from PSN for half price (something like £6.49 I think) and certainly wouldn't recommend at full price. Even at this price it is debatable whether I'd recommend, target price is £3.99 or less.

5

Final Fantasy IX - probably my 4th playthrough. Didn’t enjoy it as much as I remember until I got further into the story. The mini games are gash and the poorest compared to others. Also The card game is poor compared to triple triad

7.5/10

Flatout 4 (PC)

Not the best racer money can buy, but for £3 odd not much to complain about. The "career mode" consists of a number of championships across 3 different levels of cars with each championship normally consisting of straight racing (i.e. with plenty of ramming/crashing opportunities), time trials, destruction derby style arenas and racing with weapons.

There is also another mini-game type mode that includes odd things like ejecting into massive cups (or maybe you have just become mini) and an angry birds style game where you have to eject from your car to knock down the buildings made from wooden blocks. I didn't touch much on the mini games, just having a brief look at them once the main career game was over.

This is a fairly enjoyable game with three minor annoyances. The first is the animation. Not exactly a frame rate issue (as Steam reports a pretty much sold 60fps), but something just doesn't look right. The 2nd issue is the handling of some cars on some tracks, touch something and go spinning or flying up in the air. This isn't really fun, just strawberry floating annoying. The last issue I had was on the more snowy tracks where I sometimes found it difficult to see where I was going.

Overall though, worth £3 of anyone's money. Unfortunately console owners won't get such a great bargain but if you are a PS4 or XBO owner, wait until this gets to below £15 before considering.

6

Zombie Army Trilogy (PC)
If you've played any of the Sniper Elite games you will be very familiar with the mechanics. The basic story behind this is that realising WW II is over, Hitler turns everyone into zombies, with the exception of the characters you get to play.

Unsurprisingly, 3 games make up the trilogy, each with 5 chapters, with each chapter taking about an hour. Overall it is good fun, but you really need to play with someone else (which I did for all three games) as I think it could get a little boring on your own. Also, this is not an easy game so on your own you will struggle and maybe not be able to complete it, even on the easiest difficulty level.

A recent update brought the Left 4 Dead characters (though they do look a bit out of place in 1940s Germany) and there is also a hoard type game for either when you are done with the main campaign or a break during.

One other thing of interest is that the game runs very well on a low spec PC making this accessible to almost everyone.

7

Ys 8

Finished it a while ago but was attempting to get the platinum. Gave up on it because I was rushing through everything (zones, conversations, etc) and it was no longer fun to play. But up until today it was brilliant. The combat was up there with Ys Origin but everything else was massively expanded up with tonnes of stuff to keep the player occupied whilst still managing to feel like a Ys game.

Up there with the likes Yakuza 0, Nier Automata, Persona 5, Horizon Zero Dawn / 10.