Games You've Beat in 2013

[toxicitizen]

I think it's more a case of people being less forgiving this time around. I haven't played it yet so I can't compare the two, but like I said in the Beyond thread, I'm still kinda baffled that Heavy Rain was received as well as it was. People seem to like shitting on it a lot more these days, so I'm not surprised that Beyond is getting a similar treatment.

Edited October 13, 2013 by FLD

[Thursday Next]

Played Rain through to completion on Saturday morning. Thoroughly enjoyed it. The music, the art style, the storytelling were all spot on. The platforming was solid. Never felt like I missed a jump because the controls were iffy or the camera angle was deceptive or anything like that. The puzzles were relatively simple, but for the length of the game, they went deep enough. I think I'm mostly through Beyond now. Hopefully I can finish that this week and get back to TLoU.

[NeoStarr]

Pretty sure I just got everything (including the secret out-of-map ending) in The Stanley Parable remake. It was really epic. Not as much new stuff as I had hoped for, but the changes they did make were exciting enough to make it worth playing. The new countdown ending in particular will drive you nuts. Took me about 5-6 hours; laughed throughout. Highly recommend. Play the demo too.

[toxicitizen]

DmC: Devil May Cry. (Jesus, what a fucking redundant title...)

 

Goddamnit, I fucking hate gamers sometimes. This game is actually fucking great. It's even better than the old ones, in some aspects. I'm going to be so pissed off if Ninja Theory doesn't get to make a sequel.

 

First, the story is told coherently. It actually makes sense. That's kind of new for this series. I don't know if I'd call it great but it's certainly better than what the previous games had. The new take on Dante and Vergil was alright, too.

 

 

For a while there, the game actually had me believing Vergil might not turn on you. When he did show his true colors and Dante and him were about to fight, I actually had chills.

 

The old games also had such awkward level designs sometimes and the shitty camera didn't help in that regard. This isn't an issue here. Not only that but some of the levels actually look kind of amazing. The one in the nightclub in particular comes to mind, there's just so much going on in the background that it's hard not to enjoy the sheer creativity of the art direction. There's also a boss fight where you're basically fighting a demonic version of Fox News. It's kind of amazing. Ninja Theory really knocked it out of the park here.

 

My only major complaint would be how piss easy the combat was, even though I played on the highest difficulty available. But there's 3 higher difficulty levels to unlock, so I don't see it as that much of an issue. I'll definitely be replaying it on those at some point. But overall, I feel like for once this was a needed reboot. The old games were great but it was kind of jarring how archaic DMC4 felt when I played it over the summer.

[Mr. GOH!]

Assassin's Creed III. Game was great until the last act, which feels rushed and very sloppy. The ending is stupid and ineffective. I loved the rest of the game, though it never lived up to its full potential. 

 

Also beat Arkham City last week. Fun, though not as good as Arkham Asylum. Made me want to preorder Arkham Origins.

[Mister Jack]

I beat Mario and Luigi: Dream Team for the 3DS.  The last area was a lot harder than I expected from a Mario game, and I actually had to switch on the easy mode for the final boss because I didn't feel like level grinding.  I just wanted to finish the game so I could play one of the many other 3DS games I bought recently.  I'll probably go back to it at some point to beat it "legit" and do the bonus boss.

 

Right now though, I'm moving on to Shin Megami Tensei IV and Pokemon X.  I'll probably play back and forth between them until I see which one sucks me in more.

[TheMightyEthan]

 

Holy shit.

[TCP]

Finally beat Wind Waker HD, procrastinated a bit during the triforce quest, which was still a pain. This is the most charming Zelda game, but I think I prefer my Zelda games with big open fields and large forests to explore and mountains to climb. That's an essential part of Zelda for me, while exploring the ocean was nice, once you realize there's only one island per square and only 2 or 3 of them are a decent size, the game loses some excitement IMHO.

[TheMightyEthan]

It was definitely lacking in dungeons too.  It has something like half as many as OoT or TP.

[TCP]

Yeah that was disappointing too. Wind Waker's dungeons were great but were too few. OoT + MM + TP remain my favourite 3D Zeldas. Not sure where I'd put Skyward Sword on that list...

[TheMightyEthan]

I love Skyward Sword, but it's just so different from other Zeldas.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

I still haven't finished that. Damn sword waggle.

[Alex Heat]

The sword waggle is what killed it for me too.  I still beat it, but it felt more like finishing a chore than beating a game.

[TheMightyEthan]

I hated the sword controls the first time I played it, but I played it again this year and had much better luck.  The first time I used an original Wiimote with the Motion Plus add-on, but the second time I used one of the newer Wiimotes with the Motion Plus built-in, and I think that might have been what made it work so much better.  The first time through the sword did what I wanted maybe 50% of the time, whereas the second time it was more like 80-90%.

[TCP]

I didn't mind the motion controls (but I'm willing to bet it could easily be ported over a controller) I didn't like the way the world was connected (or not connected, for the most part). Flying in the sky was beautiful but the sky was mostly empty. The 4 different areas below were nice but felt entirely bricked off and not connected or related to each other in any way. They basically felt like levels. There wasn't that open feeling you'd get from a more traditional Zelda. Even in Ocarina of Time most of the levels were closed off, but you could still see Death Mountain from Hyrule Field, you could jump into the canyon, fall into the river, and wash up in Hyrule Lake, and there was portals that zipped you from Kokiri Forest to Zora's River. Twilight Princess had similar things. Those games just had a sense of exploration and openness that worked well with those sorts of adventures.

All that said, Skyward Sword would look great in HD though.

[toxicitizen]

Gone Home.

I liked it but I'm glad I waited for a sale. This just isn't worth 20$. One slightly ridiculous complaint:

from the very start I was getting this creepy vibe from the house and you keep running into paranormal-related stuff but it never pays off! I just wanted to see some ghosts, man...

Also, like I said in currently playing, I've been replaying Arkham Asylum in anticipation of Origins. I know I've said before that Arkham City didn't feel much bigger than Asylum but I guess I had just never played them so close together. Asylum is ridiculously smaller than I remembered, both in terms of the map and the content. I mean, the map itself isn't that much smaller but there's a lot less stuff in it, especially in the outside areas, so it feels kind of empty.

 

The main story is somewhat the same length but it only took me 2 evenings to both beat the campaign and do all the Riddler challenges. Then today, it only took me another 2-3 hours to beat all the challenge rooms. So it only took me like 14ish hours to 100% the game and get all the achievements.

 

Getting those last few achievements was so satisfying, though. Back when it first came out, I could never get the damn gold medal on that last combat challenge, so I never got the platinum trophy. I guess playing so much Arkham City over the summer paid off because it was kind of easy now.

 

I am the Bat. 

 

Edited October 24, 2013 by FLD

[Hot Heart]

I don't understand people who think Asylum is better than City. I mean, the only argument you could make is that the story is 'tighter' and sure, yeah, that'd be more significant if it were a film (and neither story is outstanding anyway). City is just better at everything and there is more. I wouldn't even say Asylum's better paced because City is impeccably so, and would only lag if you strayed from the main path (which is all that Asylum has really).

[Strangelove]

Apparently a lot of people hated AC's ending. I did not know that. I liked all the twists and shit. I thought it was cool.

[toxicitizen]

I wouldn't even say Asylum's better paced because City is impeccably so, and would only lag if you strayed from the main path (which is all that Asylum has really).

See, that's the thing. Arkham City is kind of at odds with itself. I agree that overall it's the superior game, regardless of story. The gameplay is refined in every aspect imaginable and it's just full of shit to do. I sunk 60+ hours in it and I still haven't done everything. But on my very first playthrough, I remember how the story kinda conflicted with its open-world nature. You want to explore but you keep getting this pressure to move on to the next main story objective. 

 

 

"Joker just infected me with his blood, but whatever, I saw a shiny green question mark over there. Gotta go check that out!"

 

 

So it's a superior game but it suffers from its design not being as focused and cohesive, at least on a first playthrough.

 

Apparently a lot of people hated AC's ending. I did not know that. I liked all the twists and shit. I thought it was cool.

I'm with you there. I enjoyed the ending and all the twists and turns that led to it. It pales in comparison to stuff like Hush or The Long Halloween but who cares. Different mediums.

Edited October 24, 2013 by FLD

[Hot Heart]

You want to explore but you keep getting this pressure to move on to the next main story objective. 

 

 

"Joker just infected me with his blood, but whatever, I saw a shiny green question mark over there. Gotta go check that out!"

 

 

So it's a superior game but it suffers from its design not being as focused and cohesive, at least on a first playthrough.

 

But that's (open-world) games/RPGs for you. I wouldn't say it's a design 'fault', it's just that 'options' are what games do best (been meaning to write an article about that at some point). As long as you're willing to reconcile those things, which we do in varying degrees and for different things in all games, then I don't think it's really a problem.

 

Plus, I think Rocksteady have a lot of respect for players' time so that a player can blast through the story and still feel satisfied as well as devoting a whole session to only side stuff and never become bored. They know how to keep things fresh and varied, and even those Riddler trophies (i.e. a game's collectibles) didn't really repeat the same solutions.

 

On the subject of story, AA is fairly straightforward but has that execrable ending. AC's concept is a little too silly, it pushes the 'in a single night' thing a bit too far and really wastes Hugo Strange, but it kept things moving at least...

Edited October 24, 2013 by Hot Heart

[toxicitizen]

But that's (open-world) games/RPGs for you. I wouldn't say it's a design 'fault', it's just that 'options' are what games do best (been meaning to write an article about that at some point). As long as you're willing to reconcile those things, which we do in varying degrees and for different things in all games, then I don't think it's really a problem.

Well, it's a design fault in the sense that the story and gameplay are kinda working against each other. But I get what you're saying and I agree to an extent. I just feel like AC took it to an extreme. They wrote a story that would've been better served by a more linear and focused game like Asylum, without taking the open-world into account.

 

I mean, I'm not usually one to play a game and be bothered by so-called ludonarrative dissonance. But when I first played AC, I did feel like I was doing it wrong whenever I wasn't heading to the next story objective. And it's kind of exacerbated by the way the game constantly pokes you all "Hey. Hey! There's that story mission you're not heading to. You should do that. Now would be good." I don't remember feeling that kind of pressure in games like GTA or Sleeping Dogs or whatever else but it was really noticeable in AC.

[Hot Heart]

I can see what you mean but I was never in a rush to track down Saren and stop the Reapers from invading to wipe out all life in the galaxy, nor solve the mystery of my father in Fallout 3, or stop Sephiroth from bringing a meteor down on the whole planet, etc. Obviously, the stakes are different for each game (even higher in most cases), but it's the same principle. I'm happy to 'paper over the cracks' for the sake of freedom and enjoyable gameplay.

 

I think City's variety is its real strength. If it were just that same path as Asylum, I definitely wouldn't love it that much.

[toxicitizen]

Yeah, definitely. I think the problem I had was mostly with how the game constantly reminds you about the story, whether it's someone saying something over your comms or just the hourly countdown to whatever the big evil plan was called. I don't remember the games you mention doing anything like that. They just let you go about your business in peace. But I'm certainly not trying to argue that Asylum is better. Just playing devil's advocate as to why some people might think so.

 

Anyway, earlier I realized I had forgotten to play DmC's Vergil's Downfall DLC, so I figured that was a good enough way to kill a couple hours while I wait for Arkham Origins to unlock at midnight. It's... kinda bad. I mean, playing as Vergil is always awesome but his moveset feels kinda limited compared to Dante's. The enemies aren't all that varied and the levels are all like to the shittier ones from the main game. And, for some reason, Vergil can't double jump so all that floating rocks platforming becomes kind of annoying fast.

 

It takes place after the ending of DmC but really doesn't add anything to the story. I also can't help but feel like it was rushed. Instead of having in-engine cutscenes like the main game, they're all done in a more abstract animation style. It looks cool but, again, it really doesn't add anything. And there's a few times where there's actually some in-engine stuff, which makes it feel more like they were rushed to release it so they had to put them together quickly.

 

If you absolutely must play it, wait for a sale. Otherwise, by all means skip it.

Edited October 25, 2013 by FLD

[Thursday Next]

I can see what you mean but I was never in a rush to track down Saren and stop the Reapers from invading to wipe out all life in the galaxy, nor solve the mystery of my father in Fallout 3, or stop Sephiroth from bringing a meteor down on the whole planet, etc. Obviously, the stakes are different for each game (even higher in most cases), but it's the same principle. I'm happy to 'paper over the cracks' for the sake of freedom and enjoyable gameplay.

 

I think City's variety is its real strength. If it were just that same path as Asylum, I definitely wouldn't love it that much.

 

Although for Mass Effect 2 (and of course by extension 3) that had an impact since:

 

If you cockhole around after your crew gets nabbed they all die.

 

[Strangelove]

I just finished Batman: Arkham Oranges. Origins.

Kind of....bleh. The story was cool, but its definitely the weakest of the franchise. I dunno. Felt like an expansion of the first. Same gameplay, lots of reused assets, the new gadgets you get kind of suck, or at the very most are useless.
I shouldnt have paid full price. Or I should have gone with Blackgate instead since I hear thats a good Metroidvania. If you dont have it, wait til its under $30.