Last Game You Finished and Your Rating

It scares me at how big that game is. Price is consistently high too. With Forza horizon and halo on the horizon, I keep getting tempted by it, but find something else to play instead. But I keep looking at it…

It regularly drops to the £23ish mark in digital sales, both Xbox and PlayStation.

Preezy wrote:Red Dead Redemption 2 - 10/10

It's a masterpiece. Took me a while to complete the main story as I was so engrossed in just exploring the world - completing side missions, going on rampages or adventures in the forests and hills, just being a cowboy. But when I finally did return to the story, it pulled me in and I just had to see it through to the end. Arthur is a fantastic protagonist and I was genuinely sad when he died, especially as I'd been a bit of a psycho at times on my playthrough and he ended up with the low honour ending, being shot in the head like a dog by that filthy Micah Bell. The epilogue was great as well and really took its time to reach the finale, it let the world and player breathe a bit, but it didn't outstay its welcome. Revenge was sweet

And now that I've finished the story, I can't wait to jump straight back in and complete all of the little bits and bobs that are outstanding, I'm 85% overall completion and I doubt I'll reach 100%, but I'm going to enjoy every second of trying.

What a game

Great to see someone else with a viewpoint similar to mine. It’s amazing how many people found the controls too difficult etc. I was absolutely gripped for the entirety of my 70 hour play through.

It’s in my top 3 games of the generation.

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:It’s in my top 3 games of the generation.

Without a doubt, might even be number 1 for me.

And yeah, I didn't struggle with the controls or mechanics at all, but I can see how people might get frustrated with them.

Red Dead 2 is one of those games I should play, I adored the first one but when the second came out I was pretty much only playing on my Switch, should buy it when it’s cheap just to play the main quest if nothing else.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope - 5/10

+ Looks quite nice
+ Plot is a bit different, and relatively engaging
+ Exploration is enjoyable enough

- Annoying characters
- Awful writing
- Characters that won't shut up
- Overly long cut scenes
- Battle system wears a bit thin

Ehh...this was okay. It's a typical JRPG, so you've done everything a hundred times before in other games, but the setting and plot made it slightly different to most that I've played. The characters are unbelievably annoying though, and the writing is so, so bad. As if suffering through this wasn't enough, the cut scenes are ridiculous, often dragging on for 20 minutes or so. When the controller disconnects through inactivity, that's a sign that you're spending too much time watching and not enough playing. One of the cut scenes goes on for at least half an hour, which is just crazy. Would've been a higher score if not for the irritating elements which could've been easily avoided.

Over the last few months I've completed the following:

DBZ Kakarot (PS4) - A good way of reliving the entire series for fans with solid combat mechanics. Does become pretty repetitive though and somewhat lacking as an RPG. 7/10

Mass Effect Legendary Edition (PS4) - Really enjoyed playing through the trilogy again. Brought back lots of memories while 3 in particular had a fair amount of content that I never experienced or didn't remember (I hated the Citadel DLC boss fight). 2 remains one of my favourite games ever while 1 & 3 also have their merits. ME2 - 10/10, ME1 & 3 - 8/10

Watch Dogs Legion (PS5) - I enjoyed London as the setting. It certainly had some fun elements to it but also some repetition and other issues (e.g. I wasn't a fan of the forced combat situations which often left you with minimal cover). Not as fun as 2, but better than 1. 7/10

Finished a second play of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. It’s just to me an incredible gameplay experience, how you can play and navigate the levels in a wide array of styles, and the mechanics can cope (even excel) in every one. Gungho? It’s a great cover shooter. Stealth? Does that really well too.
The story aims so ambitiously high and widely misses, which is just a huge shame. Would absolutely love a sequel…strawberry floatin Marvel

Hitman 2 - 9/10

Excellent stuff. Even better is that because there's, 2 other games of the same quality, I've gone straight in to hitman 1.

Buffalo wrote:Finished a second play of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. It’s just to me an incredible gameplay experience, how you can play and navigate the levels in a wide array of styles, and the mechanics can cope (even excel) in every one. Gungho? It’s a great cover shooter. Stealth? Does that really well too.
The story aims so ambitiously high and widely misses, which is just a huge shame. Would absolutely love a sequel…strawberry floatin Marvel

The "main story" to MD is a bit of a let down, it never really gets going and I think fails terribly at giving you a central compelling villain or plot to foil. But some of the world building and storytelling that isn't front and centre is really good. They set up some really interesting things about what really happened to Jensen between the first and second games that I doubt we're ever going to see followed up on now.

Yeah all of the side missions are just excellent. Wish there were more.

What a shame.

Psychonauts 2

A really charming, funny sequel. Beautiful visuals and some great music in it.

Very easy, and a bit longer than I felt it needed to be, but some really memorable levels. A much more polished game than the first, but not a dramatic leap forward in terms of game design.

8

Yakuza 5 Remastered - PS4

It's absolutely colossal with 5 playable characters across multiple urban areas which are incredibly dense with stuff to do, however by this point the novelty of a lot of it has worn off and I definitely found myself skimming over a lot of things i've done at least once before, and broadly avoided each character's main side activity because it would just take way too long to do all of it. If this was the most recent game and there was nothing else after it then it would be perhaps one of the best value to time equations as you could play this for absolutely ages to do everything, but I've got one more in Kiryu's story and I think after that i'll have had my fill of the format, possibly for good.

My main problem is that the story is extremely long, but doesn't necessarily do enough to justify being that long - you could have cut the last main character to be introduced (and their 6-8 hour solo arc which is mainly about a baseball conspiracy which is tangentally related to the plot but I suspect is a casualty of not translating across cultures well) and it would have still broadly been the same outcome. I did like and appreciate the bravery of pulling a complete gameplay handbrake turn and going from stoving in thugs on the street with traffic cones and bicycles to doing dance battles with Haruka, but this comes back to the core plot committing the sin of having a hidden agenda by a hidden bad guy throughout the vast majority of it that, when finally revealed (in the now standard shirtless confrontation atop a skyscraper) is actually not that sophisticated and is actually quite stupid, even for the weird melodrama present in the rest of the series and the myriad other foes that have been dealt with before. The final, final scenes after the credits end on a quite disatisfying cliffhanger that just felt like a real damp squib after the several hour-long finale sequence.

It's an incredible, sprawling and dense juggernaut of a game, and I am a huge fan of the series but this has probably been my least favourite so far, and I am glad that it snaps back to just Kiryu for the final game in his main story as this is definitely an example of it getting too big and unwieldy for its own good, but i'll reserve final thoughts until that's done too.

Smashing a bike into a gangster's face outside a Teriyaki restaurant/10

I still haven't gotten around to Yakuza 5 yet as it sounds like such a mammoth commitment.

Yeah, i keep putting off playing it. I have already played 3 & 4 this year, and so am aware of potential burn out, but i would like to play it before it leaves the Game Pass service.

That being said, its probably fairly cheap to buy standalone form the other remasters.

Biomutant (PS4) - After an initially lukewarm response to this I ended up really enjoying Biomutant. It's a little rough around the edges and I wasn't a huge fan of the narration (although he generally does a fine job), but I enjoyed the combat and exploration and found the crafting mechanics and loot worked well. It does suffer a bit of the old Ubisoft open world too many collectables though! From what I understand is a small team it's an impressive achievement and I'd love to see a more polished follow up. 8/10

The Evil Within 2 (Series X)

Amazing game. Some poor dialogue was probably the only weak point. One of this boss battles was bloody tough but all the rest were excellent and pretty creative.

Felt like the perfect blend of Resi 4 and The Last of Us.

9

Recently completed Days Gone, this time on PC. Still one of my favourite games.

9/10

The Medium (Series S)

Always had a soft spot for Bloober's output. I do like the old school, fixed camera approach they took with The Medium while trying to do something a little different with the genre.

7/10

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:The Evil Within 2 (Series X)

Amazing game. Some poor dialogue was probably the only weak point. One of this boss battles was bloody tough but all the rest were excellent and pretty creative.

Felt like the perfect blend of Resi 4 and The Last of Us.

9

High praise indeed. I'm currently playing TLoU Remastered, but plan to begin The Evil Within 2 nearer Halloween.

Last Game You Finished and Your Rating

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