Last Game You Finished and Your Rating

jawafour wrote:

IAmTheSaladMan wrote:Spyro 2... about as close to an N64 platformer as your likely to see on PlayStation...

I'd agree with you on that point, Salads. I've only played the first Spyro, but the styling and solidity of the environments really did look as good as the N64 platformers. The PS often struggled technically in this area but Spyro got it spot-on... great coding!

Yeah, I can't think of many good 3D platformers on PS1 beyond Crash, Spyro and Ape Escape. Croc was okay but had really weird controls.

EDIT: There's also the Tomb Raiders I guess but I think of those more as action adventure with some platforming elements.

Rayman 2 B)

OrangeRakoon wrote:Rayman 2 B)

I keep forgetting there was a version of that on PS1. I always think of it as an N64 game.

IAmTheSaladMan wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:Rayman 2 B)

I keep forgetting there was a version of that on PS1. I always think of it as an N64 game.

Snap!

I only played the PS1 version recently on Vita - originally I had the game on N64.

It has voice acting rather than gibberish speech. It's weird. It is also missing levels, cutscenes play out differently, and there is no murfy.

Still a great game though! And if you 100% it you get a demo level of a side scrolling rayman 2 from early development, which is cool.

I want to play the dreamcast version and the PS2 version, every version seems to have some quite major differences.

Starfox Adventures - 7/10

+ Looks nice
+ Controls are good
+ Some good 'dungeons'
+ Some good puzzles
+ Flight sections are a bonus, albeit too brief/scarce
+ End boss was great

- Prince Tricky (seriously, who thought this was a good idea)
- Combat is tedious and shallow
- Lots of backtracking
- Very formulaic
- Goes on ever-so-slightly too long

The whole 'Starfox' thing never really felt right here - the gameplay for the most part felt at odds with the characters' involvement. However, the combination of platforming/Zelda-style mechanics/aerial combat worked quite nicely and was generally fun to play.

Spyro: Year of the Dragon on PS1 via PS3. I feel this review will be nigh identical to the last one. It was a really fun platformer with a few really frustrating objectives. Oddly enough the flying levels weren't nearly as bad this time but instead they added the infuriating skateboard levels which the game would have been much better off without. I actually liked the different characters you got to play as besides Spyro and when you unlocked the monkey Agent 09 I reckon you got an early glimpse into where Insomniac were headed with the Ratchet and Clank games.

I didn't enjoy this any more or less than the last two so it gets the same score 8/10

Crash Bandicoot XS (AKA Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure) on GBA (via emulator). Not a bad side scrolling interpretation of the Crash series. Particularly impressive was the inclusion of toward the screen chase levels like the PlayStation games. My only gripe was that occasionally the controls don't seem to do quite what you want them to do.

7/10

Fallout 4: Nuka World (PC) [7]
+Haunting, eerie and well designed locations in new park area.
+Engine has been patched. Graphics looks especially great. The particle effects and lighting seem to have been worked on. Gun fights have a pleasing drama to them.
+Loads of new costumes and weaponry.
+A vast amount of content adding to an already huge game (my play time is 215 hours! - 20 hours just to complete 'Nuka World').
+It's a Bethesda RPG - I find them to be very moreish. I love finding books, unlocking perks or levelling up.

-Mundane quests, too many overly-long fetch quests (in the most literal of fashions). Who in their right mind thought it would be fun to track down 31 circuit boards scattered across the map to complete one of the missions? (I didn't complete this one).
-In this story, you're 'forced' to side with raiders and sacrifice some of the outposts you've already created through the main game. I spent the whole game doing the right thing and now I had to act like a tool and kick the settlers out of their settlements to finish the main story missions.
-Locations stretched across landscape. Area too sparse.
-Same issues (obviously) as original game: buggy sound, buggy terminals / doors (I had to leave one mission reward as the door failed to open at the end cant believe this is still happening nearly two-years after release!), too much reading via the terminals, difficult inventory to manage (especially late in the game), wooden characters / poor character animation.
-I find that Fallout / Elder Scrolls DLC should be released sooner in a game's life. Although this one has been out a while, they usually come out too long after original game. It'd be nice to treat these as side quests not end-game quests so that the perks, etc. have more of an impact. You also forget lots of things like where you've stockpiled you good gear, what's your current goal, etc.
-Probably not quite as good as Far Harbour despite being larger. If I paid the increased price for the season pass for this, Far Harbour and the other (largely workshop-enhancing DLC) I would be a little annoyed. Both this and Far Harbour had great marketing and looked really fun, but failed to add anything significantly new. They always seem to have great ideas for DLC, often campier and pulpier than the main game - which I love. I would prefer it if Bethesda made smaller DLC that offered more variety. I'm still happy to pay a premium for additional content as long as it's not threadbare and has a real impact on my character.

Lotus wrote:Starfox Adventures - 7/10

The whole 'Starfox' thing never really felt right here - the gameplay for the most part felt at odds with the characters' involvement. However, the combination of platforming/Zelda-style mechanics/aerial combat worked quite nicely and was generally fun to play.

One of the most infamous retcons there has been. Would it have been a better game if left as 'Dinosaur Planet' do you think?

Mass Effect Andromeda - 5/10

Attritional bullshit for the most part but the combat is solid and enjoyable. I don't think I could tell you any of the plot details if my life depended on it as I started skipping the dialogue once it became clear that it didn't really have a story to tell and was just padded-out with guff to sustain its own existence. Proper shoddy from a technical perspective too, and I would gladly trade whatever is necessary to eliminate or reduce loading times (goes for any modern game, really - why this isn't a primary focus in game development, I don't know. Hey, ho - maybe it is...).

Jordan UK wrote:

Lotus wrote:Starfox Adventures - 7/10

The whole 'Starfox' thing never really felt right here - the gameplay for the most part felt at odds with the characters' involvement. However, the combination of platforming/Zelda-style mechanics/aerial combat worked quite nicely and was generally fun to play.

One of the most infamous retcons there has been. Would it have been a better game if left as 'Dinosaur Planet' do you think?

Not especially. I don't think the game is any worse off for having Starfox involved, and it gives credence to the flying sections which broke things up nicely I thought, but you pretty much could've substituted them for any other characters and it wouldn't have made any real difference.

Gears of War 4 (Xbox One - Single Player) [8]
-Terrible opening few levels battling the DB robots made me put this one in the backlog but...

+It picks up significantly once the Hive are introduced.
+Some of the best use of HDR lighting I've seen. AMAZING. It's true what they say about this adding to the graphical fidelity of games when used well. It's really transformative. The electric blues of the armour lights, the spray of hot metal and the pulsing red of the Hive sacs glow with such an incredible depth and pop. Again, this comes into its own after the first Act or so. This and Forza Horizon 3 really show case HDR for me. Xbox One is ahead of the game in this regard. It just seems to render rich colours in a better fashion in my eyes.
+A ghoulishly gory game. Really plays up the horror which I wasn't expecting. Even the soundtrack in the mines has a Carpenter-esque vibe to it.
+A lengthy campaign that never drags (after the first Act).

Jordan UK wrote: +A lengthy campaign that never drags (after the first Act).

Really? I thought it was pretty short, and it dragged pretty much the whole way through.

more heat than light wrote:

Jordan UK wrote: +A lengthy campaign that never drags (after the first Act).

Really? I thought it was pretty short, and it dragged pretty much the whole way through.

I thought so. I've put 12 hours in and only played the campaign so seemed quite long to me, especially for a game that's quite multiplayer focused. Time flies and all that

It's the worst Gears game yet, in terms of campaign, with the exception of Judgement. The entire thing is so uninspired, that they have to drag Marcus Fenix back to spur any remotely interest in the wafer-thin story. And the writing! My god, it's horrific.

Lotus wrote:

Jordan UK wrote:

Lotus wrote:Starfox Adventures - 7/10

The whole 'Starfox' thing never really felt right here - the gameplay for the most part felt at odds with the characters' involvement. However, the combination of platforming/Zelda-style mechanics/aerial combat worked quite nicely and was generally fun to play.

One of the most infamous retcons there has been. Would it have been a better game if left as 'Dinosaur Planet' do you think?

Not especially. I don't think the game is any worse off for having Starfox involved, and it gives credence to the flying sections which broke things up nicely I thought, but you pretty much could've substituted them for any other characters and it wouldn't have made any real difference.

I got the general impression that the game originally had the character you play as in the opening section (Krystal) as the sole protagonist but they replaced her with Fox and made her into the 'damsel in distress', there's further evidence of this in that Fox uses her staff and has the same fighting stance and moves.

I think it'd have reviewed better without the Starfox license but probably wouldn't have sold as well so I can understand why they did it.

Dead Rising 3 - 9/10

Yes it's a high score for a flawed game, but I've always appreciated the Dead Rising series, and this is a worthy entry. It's the first game I've taken the time to go through this year, and it's also the first time since Dead Rising in 2006 that I've wanted to put the time in to nail the achievements as well - apparently I'll have to take down 340,000 zombies to get the last one though.

The DLC is pretty good value, some of it is glitchy as strawberry float but it adds to the value of the game and the storylines - I paid a tenner for the game plus season pass.

Weighing up the extra £7-odd to get the ridiculously named additional content.

I finished Uncharted 4 last night, with a massive year+ gap between when I stopped playing to picking it up again. I think I stopped playing it because it made my PS4 sound like a drone, and I couldn't hear anything without turning the volume up and waking my kids, or wearing headphones and not hearing my kids wake up in potential distress.
Anyway, I've opened up the console and given it a clean a couple of times since. It was time to see Thief's End to the, erm, end.
It's gorgeous. No set-piece impressed me further than anything the first three games managed. I'm tiring of the highlighted grab-able scenery so prevalent in action-adventure titles these days. Gunplay and tackling enemies was enjoyable. Puzzles were weak. Ending was satisfying, letting you see the characters you've cared about over 4 games have emerged from the experience happy and fulfilled. There is some padding I could have done without. Decent writing.
Probably 7, maybe 8 out of 10.

Ironhide wrote:

Lotus wrote:

Jordan UK wrote:

Lotus wrote:Starfox Adventures - 7/10

The whole 'Starfox' thing never really felt right here - the gameplay for the most part felt at odds with the characters' involvement. However, the combination of platforming/Zelda-style mechanics/aerial combat worked quite nicely and was generally fun to play.

One of the most infamous retcons there has been. Would it have been a better game if left as 'Dinosaur Planet' do you think?

Not especially. I don't think the game is any worse off for having Starfox involved, and it gives credence to the flying sections which broke things up nicely I thought, but you pretty much could've substituted them for any other characters and it wouldn't have made any real difference.

I got the general impression that the game originally had the character you play as in the opening section (Krystal) as the sole protagonist but they replaced her with Fox and made her into the 'damsel in distress', there's further evidence of this in that Fox uses her staff and has the same fighting stance and moves.

I think it'd have reviewed better without the Starfox license but probably wouldn't have sold as well so I can understand why they did it.

I believe the original N64 version had a male character who didn't look all that different to Fox and I think you could play as both him and Krystal in the original concept.

I loved Starfox Adventures at the time and I never had an issue with the way the license was added on, agree that the Arwing sections broke it up nicely. I always felt the games biggest problem was how it felt unfinished in places, the final boss fight in particular felt like the first half was missing. I do remember it being a really beautiful game though at the time.