Last Game You Finished and Your Rating

More cinematic, inni'?

I have a 4k monitor but for some reason the display port on my PC or monitor isn't working so I to use HDMI which can only carry 4k at 30Hz. To play street fighter 5 I have to down rez to a plebeian 1080.

Game 47 - Battlefield 1 [PC] ★★★
When Battlefield 1 was first announced and it was revealed the series was going back to the Great War, I was a little concerned. A bro-military series that's all about explosions, sparks and spectacle taking on the horrors of first world war just seemed like a recipe for disaster, and rather than deal with the tonal imbalance, they seem to have just sidestepped it by glossing over the less action-packed realities of the conflict. The multiplayer is standard fare for the series, a mix of vehicular and on-foot combat in massive matches focused around capturing and holding key points on the map. The main differentiation is the equipment available, defined by the period. It's absolutely gorgeous and sounds incredible, and it really assaults your senses and overwhelms you with mayhem to feel convincingly like you're in a brutal conflict. But, the problem is, while exciting, it's not really any fun. You're under constant threat of sniper fire, and will too often find yourself in an unwinnable situation, where no amount of personal skill can save you. The modern Battlefields have enough gadgetry to give you a fighting chance from almost any scenario, but in Battlefield 1, the tide of battle can often feel pre-determined from the moment you spawned, and the game just becomes about throwing blue fodder against red fodder and seeing which one suffers the heaviest losses. The story campaign is a fresh change, though, swapping out a one-man hero story for a series of vignettes about different characters in a different part of the greater war. While they still lean a little towards being one-man armies, the characters are charasmatic and their stories interesting, while the final chapter changes up the structure entirely and gives a brief glimpse of some open-world stealth action reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid V. It's a fun and varied campaign, but it's completely at odds with the multiplayer.

Oh, strawberry float. Don't let Photek read that.

Dark Souls 3 - 9/10

Very fun, and my first Souls game, but I'm going to be critical anyway.

After coming from Bloodborne I was slightly underwhelmed by some of the areas, and think it would have really benefitted from another couple of large areas full of enemies on the scale of Irithyll, the Cathedral, Catacombs or Lothric Castle (which are all great). Hopefully the DLC provides that.

Boxboy. Fantastic game that seemed to fly under most people's radar.

Game 48 - Gears of War 4 [PC] ★★★
Gears of War has typically been a single-player series for me. I've only ever really gone through the campaigns and moved on, but for Gears of War 4, I decided to give the multiplayer some time, and it turns out, it's pretty good. The regular modes are pretty standard fare, but the main event is Horde Three Point Oh, a class-based tower-defense alike that is as thrilling as it is maddening. Playing with random players online, you're relying on them to make a long time commitment without quitting (which they seldom do) and having a shared resource pool lets some greedy little gooseberry fool spend all your money on their dumb ideas. But as stupid as people online can be, they will seem like strategic geniuses compared to the AI you'll encounter in the campaign. Gears 4's story mode is no worse than any game in the series, and I really enjoyed the original trilogy, but this gooseberry fool just doesn't fly in 2016. Obvious kill rooms telegraph fights before they start, two terrible on-rails set-pieces fall flat on their face, and outside of that, you're just fighting endless waves of bullet sponges with no hit detection. It looked like it was going for something different at the beginning, when you were fighting robots, but then it's just about fighting the totally-not-Locust ad nauseam. It never surprises or impresses. I appreciate the legacy behind the series, but Gears 4 is just a fresh lick of paint on the same-old same-old.


Game 49 - Gang Beasts [PC] ★★★
Gang Beasts is an early access mess. With barely any presentation, and only a handful of modes, this is a physics-based fighting game where you have loose control over a coloured little dude as you try and knock out and eliminate other players. It controls more like you're a puppeteer than playing a videogame, which makes it often difficult to translate your intention to action. Difficult, but not impossible. Unlike games like Octodad or Surgeon Simulator that just ride off the gimmick of "look at our wacky controls", Gang Beasts gives you just enough direct control to feel right. And when you pair it up with multiplayer fighting, essentially what you have is a convincing simulation of drunken fighting. And it's strawberry floating brilliant. The maps are hit and miss, but with a group of friends, you're laughing too much to care. They've recently rolled out online multiplayer, and the ability to host your own server (with some technical knowhow), and it holds up surprisingly well. It just needs a little more fleshing out and polish, but for now, it's worth a 30 minute session every week or so.


Game 50 - Elite: Dangerous - Horizons [PC] ★★★★★
I dipped into Elite: Dangerous when I got my Oculus Rift DK2. As the only full game with proper support at the time, I spent a lot of time with it, but really just in a demo capacity. When I realised VR was a waste of time and sold on my Rift, I never really went back to it. No Man's Sky this year put me in the mood for a galaxy-spanning space exploration game, but when that turned out to be a shitfest, I turned back to Elite. It's interesting, because compared to NMS, Elite throws out most of the minute-to-minute gameplay in favor of wrapping everything in a solid structure, and it's somehow a much better game as a result. The galaxy is vast and utterly convincing, and that's pretty much all this kind of game needs. It's basically Space Truck Simulator: a grind for sure, working your way up the ship hierarchy, but your work and planning is consistently rewarded, and everything is just sim enough that it's hard for any sci-fi fan not to geek the strawberry float out at it all. In multiplayer, working together on long-haul routes, hunting down pirates, or simply just meeting on a planet's surface after a 150 lightyear journey, it's magical. Elite makes a lot of promises, and keeps them all. Aside from an occasional server disconnection, it's hasn't set a foot wrong. Perfect for playing with a podcast or some tunes on. The gameplay loop isn't for everyone, but if it's your thing, it's basically flawless.


Game 51 - Overwatch [PC] ★★★★★
Blizzard's Midas Touch is still in full effect. As both their first foray into first person shooting, and their first new IP in almost 2 decades, Overwatch could have fallen really flat, but thanks to an obscene level of character and polish, it soars. Overwatch is essentially a TF2 clone, with even more of a push to individual characters and their abilities. What's incredible is really how they've managed to make every last one fun to play. A lot of that is thanks to the focus on positive feedback, where assists and kills are counted as the same, and there's no attention given to how much you've died. As a result, you feel like you're doing good even if you're not, and when you are having a good game, you feel godlike, with the Play of the Game at the match's end being a nice appreciation of some top play (or someone being Bastion). The sound design is also remarkable, giving you an awful lot of essential information about threats/allies in the vicinity without any cross-talk. The characters and their callouts are of such a high standard that they've been instantly iconic, and a massive dedicated fanbase sprung up around the game overnight. The post-release support has been impressive, from rebalances and meta-shifts to keep the game from getting stale, to high-quality seasonal events and the new Arcade mode adding new twists and rules to the base formula. Overwatch is an impeccable first step, setting up an exciting future for itself. One of the best new games of the last decade.

Child of Light. 5/10. So disappointing.

Game 52 - DOOM [PC] ★★★★★
DOOM is an incredible balance of past and present. The moment-to-moment gunplay feels fresh and new, it boasts a modern upgrade system and brutal melee finisher system, and it looks incredible, but the sprawling map design, lack of reloading, non-regenerating health and coloured keycards hark back to the old days. It feels like id took only the best parts of both eras and removed all the headaches, and the result is one of the best shooter campaigns ever, and a game that feels truly unique. There are no weak sections, and there's virtually no downtime. If you're not running around killing demons, you're speedily platforming around the environment, or searching around for secrets. The glory kill system invites you to melee finish enemies to replenish your health, while chainsaw-killing them will make them explode in a shower of ammo pickups like a bullet piñata. You're always being pushed to move, get up close and strawberry float demons up, and the more you do it, the more you want to do it. From minute 1, DOOM puts its foot on the accelerator and doesn't ease up until the credits roll. Personally, I couldn't handle its relentless pace for more than 90 minutes at a time on my run through it, but complaining about that seems unfair when it's exactly what it tries to be: a pumped-up adrenaline-fuelled delight. The combination of the action and the stunning synths & metal soundtrack makes DOOM feel cathartic in a way few other games are. Hell of a strawberry floating game.

Well, that's my target hit. Here's 2016 in gaming for me:

How on earth do you find time to play and complete so many games? Weren't you complaining earlier this year that your job was leaving you no free time at all, as well?

My job is life-consuming, but it's not without downtime. I'm not working all the time, but I am on call always. I need to be able to get back to work within 30 minutes at all times. When it's impossible to have a social life, work out or travel, consuming media is about the only thing I can do to enjoy myself, and the escapism from my gooseberry fool situation offered by games makes it an easy first choice.

Managed to finish off one last game in 2016, Dead Rising 3. Although opinion seems to be split over this compared to the previous games, I enjoyed this for the most part more than 2. In the original it was all new, and the tight time line to complete each section was very love or hate. In this game the time line is not so tight and for the most part, a much easier game, certainly much easier than the original. Having said that though, the difficulty really ramps up from chapter 7 with zombies being everywhere and all of the bosses increasing quite dramatically in difficulty (yes, I may have sworn once or twice in chapters 7 onwards and told the TV how strawberry floating unfair it is).

In summary, a pretty good game. As good as the original? You tell me. 8

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided 7/10

A solid follow up to Human Revolution but nothing more which in itself is a bit disappointment. Human Revolution was such achievement especially giving credibly back to the franchise whereas MD felt more a continuation. The series has such grandiose ideas but it doesn't build upon its predecessor. All the way through I kept thinking how 'safe' they've played this to not strive too much with the formula. The controls feel dated, the framerate came to a crawl at times and the lip syncing was diabolical but what there is a very solid game that can be played how you you want to play which is to b commended. I just wanted something more, maybe next time.

Assassins Creed II (The Ezio Collection) - 1000G in a couple of days. One of my favourite games & characters of all time. 10/10

On to Brotherhood.

jiggles wrote:My job is life-consuming, but it's not without downtime. I'm not working all the time, but I am on call always. I need to be able to get back to work within 30 minutes at all times. When it's impossible to have a social life, work out or travel, consuming media is about the only thing I can do to enjoy myself, and the escapism from my gooseberry fool situation offered by games makes it an easy first choice.

Well, when you put it like that, no wonder you get through so many games.

Lego City Undercover The Chase Begins 6/10 Pretty impressive how they've managed to stuff the Wii U world on the 3DS, but not so impressive are the missions, which avoid interiors completely.

I've changed this back to the classic name for the new year

I Am Weapon (PC). If you can get this for a very low price (was 98p yesterday but I bought it for £1.40) and you like top down style twin stick shooters, worth a punt. However, be aware that the game is a bit buggy (sound glitches, side quests has words missing from at least one of the quests so you can't see what you are supposed to do). There are a couple of frustrating levels where a cock up means you have to start over and also the game lacks polish (when you die, just a screen showing "You are dead" and when you complete the game, no real fanfare but straight onto the credits). I certainly wouldn't recommend picking this up at it's full price (over £10) but if you see it for a couple of quid or less and like this type of game, you can't really go wrong.

At £1.40 - 6

At full price - 2

Death's Head wrote:I Am Weapon (PC). If you can get this for a very low price (was 98p yesterday but I bought it for £1.40) and you like top down style twin stick shooters, worth a punt. However, be aware that the game is a bit buggy (sound glitches, side quests has words missing from at least one of the quests so you can't see what you are supposed to do). There are a couple of frustrating levels where a cock up means you have to start over and also the game lacks polish (when you die, just a screen showing "You are dead" and when you complete the game, no real fanfare but straight onto the credits). I certainly wouldn't recommend picking this up at it's full price (over £10) but if you see it for a couple of quid or less and like this type of game, you can't really go wrong.

At £1.40 - 6

At full price - 2

Even cheap, I have so many other games to play it doesn't sound worth it. IMO.