Last Game You Finished and Your Rating

To be fair, they were absolutely amazing. I genuinely believe that if they hadn't existed, and the lessons about shared universes etc hadn't been learned from the 90s cartoons, you wouldn't have the MCU as we know it today.

Abzu - I haven’t ever played Journey but wow, did I like this. I absolutely loved going through it. The combination of music, visuals and wonder as you go through...it felt so peaceful to play. It’s short, but it doesn’t need to be long and I liked how it played out its underlying message. I’ll definitely replay it sometime.

Link’s Awakening - finished this of this evening too. It’s a lovely remake, I love the graphical style they went with, it really suits the game and the musical score is fantastic. The frame rate issues are well documented, and I felt they could have done more not only with the controls (unused buttons on the controller!!) but also the additional stuff. Dampe’s Dungeon Maker is just a bit dull unfortunately. I haven’t 100%’ed the game but don’t really feel the motivation to given how much I’ll have to do in the dungeon maker mode. Nevertheless, thoroughly enjoyed revisiting the game. The first game I ever completed I think, although I suspect my original playthrough as an 8 year old took me a lot longer than the 10-15 hours the remake did.

8/10

Tomous wrote:Link’s Awakening - finished this of this evening too. It’s a lovely remake, I love the graphical style they went with, it really suits the game and the musical score is fantastic. The frame rate issues are well documented, and I felt they could have done more not only with the controls (unused buttons on the controller!!) but also the additional stuff. Dampe’s Dungeon Maker is just a bit dull unfortunately. I haven’t 100%’ed the game but don’t really feel the motivation to given how much I’ll have to do in the dungeon maker mode. Nevertheless, thoroughly enjoyed revisiting the game. The first game I ever completed I think, although I suspect my original playthrough as an 8 year old took me a lot longer than the 10-15 hours the remake did.

8/10

Am I right in saying that you can still only equip two items at a time in this? Because that's my only complaint about the original.

Squinty wrote:

Tomous wrote:Link’s Awakening - finished this of this evening too. It’s a lovely remake, I love the graphical style they went with, it really suits the game and the musical score is fantastic. The frame rate issues are well documented, and I felt they could have done more not only with the controls (unused buttons on the controller!!) but also the additional stuff. Dampe’s Dungeon Maker is just a bit dull unfortunately. I haven’t 100%’ed the game but don’t really feel the motivation to given how much I’ll have to do in the dungeon maker mode. Nevertheless, thoroughly enjoyed revisiting the game. The first game I ever completed I think, although I suspect my original playthrough as an 8 year old took me a lot longer than the 10-15 hours the remake did.

8/10

Am I right in saying that you can still only equip two items at a time in this? Because that's my only complaint about the original.

Yes, but sword, shield and pegasus boots
have designated buttons and the power bracket is always equipped.

But they didn’t use the second shoulder buttons or the D Pad for anything. They could have put Roc’s Feather on ZR (because it’s the one you use the most really) and let ZL be customisable too. And then used the D Pad for some kind of quick select menu.

Don’t get me wrong, the changes I mentioned make a huge difference to the original but they could have gone a little further with it to make it a bit more refined.

Tangle Tower - short, nicely written story with good dialogue and interesting puzzles. The plot left me a bit confused as I was not fully invested in it and the names were all similar to one another.

7

AI: The Somnium Files - really good story that was interesting and gripping to the end. Took me about 26 hours to complete but the time flew by. A few technical issues on Switch, some long times to load things in etc which was a bit unfortunate.
Largely enjoyed the Somniums , though a couple of them were a tad frustrating. Liked most of the characters and found the main character really funny for the most part.
A strong recommendation if you enjoyed the Zero Escape Series. Just bare in mind that it's a bit less interactive.

8

Rage 2 (PS4)

Was really enjoying it for a time and the gunplay is great, but outside of the main story there's little else to do. Vehicular combat isn't a patch on Mad Max.

Looked lovely at times, particularly with the setting sun.

6/10

Jak II (PS4) - 7/10

Finished this off last night, the final boss was a bit annoying as it basically forced you into using my least favourite weapon in the game (by virtue of not dropping any ammo for any of the other guns) but I'm definitely glad that I went back and finished this game after being so put off by it back in the day.

For me it's definitely a weaker game compared to The Precursor Legacy, but is certainly better than I gave it credit for back on release. Whilst the first game is a more narrowly focused experience (an evolution of the Mario 64 style 3D platform game) it absolutely nails what it goes for. It is an excellent 3D platformer with spades of character, charm and is still a beautiful thing to look at even now. Jak II gets credit for broadening its palette and introducing some more variety into the gameplay through weapons, hover board action, driving etc. but it lets itself down with the fact that none of these elements are as well refined as that core experience of the first game. It has, shall we say, become something of a Jak of all trades.

I think the main aspect that lets it down is simply the inconsistent quality of the experience as you play through. There are many, many missions which are excellent - well designed, fun to play, fit into the story well, look lovely etc. but they are peppered with just a few too many sections that are of a much lower quality. The game never really offers enough refinement in the shooting controls so areas that are big on gun combat tend to be more of a slog than is welcome and most missions involving heavy amounts of driving are probably the real low point, particularly those that involve collecting and dropping of passengers as the mechanics just do not work well enough to be anything other than frustrating. Failing because you are bad or failed to understand what is the goal is one thing, but failing because the game simply doesn't behave effectively or consistently is entirely different!

Something else that I think sours the experience, and is definitely what made me give up on it back on original release, is that the game presents a lot of the worst content in its opening third. The initial slums area is the least interesting to look at and most frustrating to drive around, and the same goes for the early missions. As the game proceeds there is still a reasonably regular occurrence of poor missions, but they start to become outweighed by the good ones. I heard an interesting interview with John Romero recently who was talking about the development of the original Doom and how the opening level of the game was actually the final one that he completed. He said you want to open the game with something strong and that by completing the development of all of the other levels before coming back to this one he could put everything he had learned into making this opening play to the strengths of the game. I feel like this is an approach that Naughty Dog could have benefited from here - taking what they had learned from the later missions which are far better and using some of that to make the early parts of the game more fun.

In terms of narrative there is certainly more going on here in comparison to the first game, more characters, a greater level of cinematics etc. On the one hand this is a good thing, and they certainly play up to the strengths of character and animation that the first game set down, but at times it feels a little ... directionless in a way that the original never did. At times you can be doing things without really knowing why, missions that seem to serve little or no purpose to the core goal and so on. Plenty of times you will complete a mission and just be dumped back in to the city and think "oh, now what?" - what you were doing seemed to have no real point and there is no obvious follow up or new direction for you to pursue other than to wander the city again and find the next icon that the game wants you to go to. The first game could get away with being looser as it wasn't trying to be an especially story driven game. Get power cells to beat the bad guys is an easy overarching goal that doesn't need re-iterating to make each challenge valid, whereas here they're almost trying to have their cake and eat it - make the game much more narrative driven but without putting the effort in to make the narrative and the gameplay thread together effectively.

Overall I had fun with it, increasingly so as things progressed, but it still feels like something of a missed opportunity. With a bit more refinement and focus I could easily have seen this as a 8 or 9 out of ten game.

On to Jak 3 next...

I think you'll like Jak 3 more. Narratively it is the best and you'll probably prefer the car driving to the zoomers (even though you're wrong )

I actually don't mind the small zoomers, they're pretty nippy and by the end I genuinely quite enjoyed using them, but basically every other vehicle in the game was an omnishambles!

Uncharted 4 - 8.5/10.

Enjoyable romp. It's simplicity was both a strength and a weakness. Loved the car chase bit.

Luigi's Mansion - 3DS - 7/10

The original Gamecube version of Luigi's Mansion was a game I bought at launch and loved it, have very fond memories of my time with it. I have replayed it once or twice since but it's probably about 15 years since I've played it for anymore than a 5 minute burst of nostalgia.

Revisiting on 3DS was a little strange, it's a very impressive technical achievement and it looks stunning for a 3DS game but the control scheme never really quite worked for me, the game was very clearly designed around the Gamecube's dual analogue controls and despite the best efforts of the developers to compensate for this it just never felt totally natural. The game still has every bit of charm that it originally had, the portrait ghosts are wonderfully designed and the presentation of the game is outstanding, however some aspects of the design do feel quite dated now. I particularly found that with the backtracking between rooms to capture Boos that get away, this was only really a problem with the boos that had a higher HP but backtracking between several rooms juggling the iffy controls did take away from the fun a little bit. It was always criticised for its length back in the day and that's still a fair criticism, I completed it in around 5 hours, spread out over a week or so, capturing all Boos and getting a B Ranking. It wasn't as good as I remember it being, due in part to dated design and in part to the controls but still, a lot of fun to play through.

Bioshock 2 - 8/10

+ Looks good.
+ I love the aesthetic and design of the world.
+ Weapons are varied and satisfying to use. I like the upgrades too.
+ I liked how it was relatively linear while still giving a sense of exploration.

- Telling the plot through audio messages and recordings really began to grate and isn't a great way of telling a story. As a result I didn't really know or care that much about the characters by the end of the game.
- Quite predictable at times (mainly in terms of scripted events).

Enjoyed this a lot on the whole. Ready to start Minerva's Den now.

The Walking Dead S1 (360)

Enjoyed that, but my word is it a stuttering, janky mess at times.

7/10

I adored S1 of The Walking Dead, not many videogame endings have affected me as much.

But yeah, Telltale's engines are an absolute mess

Tomous wrote:I adored S1 of The Walking Dead, not many videogame endings have affected me as much.

But yeah, Telltale's engines are an absolute mess

I thought I'd finished it before on PS3, but clearly not. Think I only got as far as ep4 last time as I had no memory of ep5. The ending is superb if gut wrenching.

Gemini73 wrote:The Walking Dead S1 (360)

Enjoyed that, but my word is it a stuttering, janky mess at times.

7/10

That engine was total dogshit.

It's brilliant story regardless.

Call of Duty Infinite Warfare campaign -

Loved it, to my almost genuine surprise. The shooting is tight and varied due to the scenarios the game puts you in, the fighter jet gameplay segments were a nice break. It's just a fun game.

8/10

Blair Witch. I liked it.

Final Fantasy IX (PS4) - 10/10

Just as good as i remembered it to be, i even completed the mognet central quest.