GRcade

SEGA AGES: Puyo Puyo 8/10 - There are more refined versions of Puyo Puyo available on Switch, but I love the simplicity of the original. It was nice to hear the arcade music renditions of the Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine music too. Bliss.

Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee 5/10 - This hasn't aged too well, but it has charm. I found the game incredible ugly with cumbersome mechanics to guide your fellow buddies to the goal, but once I got into the swing of things I was having a pleasant time possessing enemies and flipping switches.

I have fond memories of Munch's Oddysee is only because it was one of the free games i got from Microsoft for buying an Xbox on release, only for them to cut the price by about £60 a few weeks / months later.

Sleeping Dogs - 9/10

+ Looks really nice (especially when it's raining).
+ Good voice acting, and soundtrack.
+ Loads to do, with lots of variety in missions and side activities.
+ The plot is actually pretty original (for a videogame) and well done.
+ Limited use of guns, and a preference for hand-to-hand combat (which is very good), was a bold but positive move.
+ The game world of Hong Kong is well-crafted and atmospheric.

- Lockboxes...I've already found the lockbox, why do I have to do a frustrating and unenjoyable safe-cracking thing? It adds nothing at all, other than tedium. Think they got a bit carried away with Wei's magic phone in general, really, and its use in seemingly everything he does.
- Races offer little challenge, if any.
- Purchasing things (cars, clothing) can be slow and clunky.

What a great game this is. I clocked just under 34 hours in total, and that was really taking my time, completing everything and getting most of the achievements. I enjoyed pretty much everything about it, and you can see from the negatives above that I'm really being picky. It's been a long time since I've played a game for hours at a time and not been bored. Haven't bothered with any DLC, but I'm thinking I may pick up the Definitive Edition at some point and go through it again on PS4. Thoroughly recommended.

There's another Sleepy Dogs convert

Just finished Vampire The Masquerade Bloodines. For the second time. Had to stop myself from diving into a third playthrough.

First playthrough I let the game create me as a Gangrel, the second playthrough I went as a Malkavian and it seemed like the most fun choice I could have replayed the game with. Not to mention it went a lot more smoothly with some hindsight and better abilities/exp distribution. Invisibility was a godsend - especially in some of the lategame combat zones.

I liked the ending:



Put off playing this game properly for years but I'm now looking forward to Bloodlines 2.

Bloodlines is my favourite game ever so hopefully 2 will love up to that hype. So long as the atmosphere and writing are there, it'll be good.

Indivisible.

Meh, it was alright. The story was crap and the combat became so wearing that I ended up actively trying to avoid it, but some of the platform elements were quite nice. Not really the kind of game I usually play, and I had had enough of it by the end of 15 hours gameplay.

5/10

Squinty wrote:There's another Sleepy Dogs convert

I meant to put bullet sponge enemies as another negative...4 or 5 bullets to the body should definitely put an enemy down.

What's the DLC like - any good?

After almost 2 months I've finished my run through Uncharted and last of us games, and finished TLoU2 this evening.

Sleeping Dogs and TLOU2

Florence - 8/10

Totally charming little interactive graphic novel. Perfect example of the medium enhancing the experience.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Remastered - 7/10

Short and sweet dumb fun. Nonsense plot and bad accents all round. Not particularly challenging on normal difficulty. Some great set pieces.

This is my first COD game on the current console generation, so perhaps the novelty is still there for me.

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:I have fond memories of Munch's Oddysee is only because it was one of the free games i got from Microsoft for buying an Xbox on release, only for them to cut the price by about £60 a few weeks / months later.

I wish I played it back in the day, have fond memories of watching footage of the game via an Xbox magazine VHS tape, and being jealous of not being able to play it on Gamecube. Nice to see it being preserved, even if its a little crusty in 2020.




Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour 9/10 - Had a great time playing through this game again. I had it on N64 when it originally came out, so some of the content was surprising to say the least...

Far Cry 5 (PC) - 5/10

Great looking game and in terms of shooting mechanics it can be really fun to play, but my god what a tedious slog it was. I don't even know why I saw it through to the end.

The story was trying to be edgy but just came of bad and pretty tame on the whole. The forced kidnappings every few missions that you cannot escape were frustrating when you want to be getting on with something else. There's no scope to expand or upgrade your guns beyond basic additions, so you basically have the same arsenal from beginning to end. And my pet peeve in games - too many hallucination missions/enemies to deal with. On this note in particular, the final boss fight was beyond plausible. I know far cry games are a bit out there but this was just bad.

I'm glad, however, that they got rid of the tower climbing process from previous games and I quite liked the new companion approach - having the dog scout the area and then setting up a fellow sniper to pick people off as I took down the stragglers was good fun.

If it was half the length I think it may have scored higher as the general shooting gameplay was enjoyable.

I had purchased the gold edition in a sale so have all the DLC and New Dawn sitting there... not sure if I can bring myself to play them. Are they worth it, or better in any way?

Titanfall 2: 10/10

I went into this blind. People said the campaign was great, but holy strawberry float. Blown away. Everything about this is superb. Movement, weapons and story are all verging on perfect.

I couldn’t put it down and blasted through it in one sitting. Genuinely haven’t been this impressed with an FPS since playing Halo or HL2 for the first time.

‘The Beacon’ is quite possibly the best level I’ve played in any game. Period. In fact the movement is possibly the tightest in any FPS game I’ve played too thinking about it.

Just amazing.

Yakuza Kiwami 2

Really enjoyed this. Not quite as good as 0, but far better than Kiwami in my opinion.

I'm not sure if the new graphics engine really improved things for me - there was a lot of loading, and i still noticed pauses between each fight, plus the way you kinda crashed in to everything as you walked along was absurd (if hilarious), but the story, antagonists, mini games and humour were all top notch.

I find playing one of these games a year is a good way to prevent burn out, but at the rate they are pumping these out (plus spin offs etc) im not sure i will ever get caught up. But it's always great to have more to look forward to, the plots and cinematography are top tier.

9

Carrion - 8/10

I ended up really enjoying this. It looks great and places really well. The movement of the creature is surprisingly slick. It's probably a tad easy, with I think only one slightly tricky part in the game. The worst part was how easy it was to get lost. I thought I'd got to the end, but ended having to watch a walkthrough about where to go next, which was pretty frustrating. I assume there will be a sequel, which if they make a map could certainly improve things.

Halo 3 - 9.5/10

Replayed this and it's still one of my favourite ever games. Just a shame about the Cortana level

SandyCoin wrote:Carrion - 8/10

I ended up really enjoying this. It looks great and places really well. The movement of the creature is surprisingly slick. It's probably a tad easy, with I think only one slightly tricky part in the game. The worst part was how easy it was to get lost. I thought I'd got to the end, but ended having to watch a walkthrough about where to go next, which was pretty frustrating. I assume there will be a sequel, which if they make a map could certainly improve things.

Halo 3 - 9.5/10

Replayed this and it's still one of my favourite ever games. Just a shame about the Cortana level

JT986M2 wrote:Titanfall 2: 10/10

I went into this blind. People said the campaign was great, but holy strawberry float. Blown away. Everything about this is superb. Movement, weapons and story are all verging on perfect.

I couldn’t put it down and blasted through it in one sitting. Genuinely haven’t been this impressed with an FPS since playing Halo or HL2 for the first time.

‘The Beacon’ is quite possibly the best level I’ve played in any game. Period. In fact the movement is possibly the tightest in any FPS game I’ve played too thinking about it.

Just amazing.

I seriously want to play through the campaign for this again. It was amazing and such a nice surprise. I got the game for a fiver or something.

Squinty wrote:

JT986M2 wrote:Titanfall 2: 10/10

I went into this blind. People said the campaign was great, but holy strawberry float. Blown away. Everything about this is superb. Movement, weapons and story are all verging on perfect.

I couldn’t put it down and blasted through it in one sitting. Genuinely haven’t been this impressed with an FPS since playing Halo or HL2 for the first time.

‘The Beacon’ is quite possibly the best level I’ve played in any game. Period. In fact the movement is possibly the tightest in any FPS game I’ve played too thinking about it.

Just amazing.

I seriously want to play through the campaign for this again. It was amazing and such a nice surprise. I got the game for a fiver or something.

I did this too

Should give the MP a go really.