Games You've Beat in 2014

[toxicitizen]

Fez.

 

There was a few hours left for the related Playfire rewards so I figured I might as well fire it up and try to get some. Turns out I was pretty close to finishing it. I had stopped out of frustration while hunting down the last few cubes. Guess I just needed a break cause I was able to get the first ending in about an hour and then get into the NG+ stuff. I'm using a guide for the more cryptic stuff, though. I don't have the time to get into all that shit right now and honestly, half of it I probably couldn't figure it out on my own. I wasn't familiar with the "quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" phrase so right off the bat I'd never have figured out the game's alphabet.

 

Anyway, say what you will about Phil Fish but Fez is a pretty damn good game. One of the most creative indie platformers I've had the pleasure of playing. The perspective shifting never felt like a gimmick and some of the puzzles are really clever and inventive. And while there isn't much of a story to speak of, what's there was pretty intriguing and was enough to keep me wanting to progress.

 

Also, I have no idea what they did to the PC version but holy shit it got glitchy since the last time I played. I was getting crazy screen flickering, which at first I thought might just be part of the whole glitchy theme the game has got going, but when it started happening in menus and overlapping with the Steam overlay I kinda figured something wasn't right. Also, sometimes I'd bring up the menu and the text just wouldn't display. To fix these issues I had to force vsync through Catalyst Control Center and disable my GPU on-screen display, respectively. 

[TheMightyEthan]

 

Batman: Arkham Origins: Blackgate.  I actually really enjoyed it aside from the boss fights, which were pretty terrible.  It probably helped a lot that I went in with low expectations.

[Alex Heat]

In the last month or so, I've burned through a bunch of stuff on my backlog and some stuff that wasn't:

 

inFAMOUS 2, which would've been great, if not for all of that weird swamp monster stuff.  Only did a Good Karma playthrough so far because I couldn't stand Nix at all.

 

inFAMOUS: Second Son was a lot of fun, though it seemed like it was over kind of quick.  Played with Good Karma because Neon was amazing (dat neon dash tho) and super fun.  I hope we get another sequel with a bigger variety of powers and abilities.

 

Enchanted Arms was something I had reservations about when I first started playing it, but it started to grow on me after a while.  Didn't care for the battle system or some of the mechanics (like the lack of a genuine defense stat), but overall it was still relatively enjoyable.

 

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z was more enjoyable that the modern NG games for me.  Has a lot to do with the fact that I find NG's combat to be full of bullshit because of its awful camera (something Yaiba also suffers from) and its kind of half-assed approach to blocking and counterattacking (Yaiba still has these, but they don't detract enough to make unplayable).

 

Magus was mostly unremarkable.  It had an interesting idea in regards to the plot, but the execution of the whole thing was...not so great.

 

Resistance 1-3 I'm putting all together because for the most part, they all played similarly (except when Resistance 2 did that 'only two weapons' thing).  It was fun, but it felt like the weapons leveled too slowly (and believe me, I tried to use them evenly) and enemy AI was sketchy (lots of things ran face first into my weapon fire).  I do really like when shoots have guns with secondary functions and ammo though.

 

Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty and Into the Nexus were both...a little on the short side.  I know Quest for Booty was just there to hold you over until Crack in Time came out and that's acceptable, but Into the Nexus seemed like they had a lot more played, but dropped it all partway through, leaving it feeling like a barebones formulaic affair.

 

Singularity was pretty great.  Almost all the weapons were sollid choices (except the pistol, which was way WAY too weak and the sniper rifle, which was broken because of its time slowing ability).  The TMD powers had potential, but ended up going largely unused because it was always easier to shoot someone in the face than wait for the meter to recharge.

[deanb]

Lego Marvel Super Heroes.

 

It's only 23.6% complete, but I've beaten it!

 

Might go back and try and collect shit, but tbh that's kinda unlikely. Fun game, good fun lines, nice simple puzzles great for a lazy weekend.

[danielpholt]

Just finished Arkham Origins. The game certainly didn't merit some of the bad reviews it received (although I can't speak to technical issues - although the game did quit on me twice), but it wasn't a truly great game either.

All in all, if you're wanting Arkham City 2, Arkham Origins hits the spot. I just hope they mix it up a little for the next game. Also if they could stop throwing generic bad guys at you whilst your supposed to be in a battle to the death with a major villain, that'd be fucking great.

[TheMightyEthan]

Just finished Cold, Cold Heart.  I actually really liked it, and would say it's better than the main game, except it's a little on the short side.  Took me 3.5 hours to beat it, including 20 minutes of the slowest scrolling credits I have ever seen.

[toxicitizen]

3.5 hours? That's actually pretty good, longer than I expected. Harley Quinn's Revenge was less than half that, iirc.

 

Really want to give it a shot as well but between studying for finals and Dark Souls II coming out friday, all my gaming time is going towards finishing Thief right now. I already took a (way too long) break from it because of Reaper of Souls. If I don't finish it before DaSII, it might stay unfinished for a while. And I still need to play Burial at Sea Ep 2...

[deanb]

The Room.

 

Pretty fun little game, looks pretty good and certainly a title that works well with the platform it's out on. And it was free (for me) so certainly a good deal there.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I enjoyed it apart from the super abrupt ending. Got me to buy the second game though. 

[toxicitizen]

Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate Deluxe Edition

 

It's alright, I guess. But a few major issues kept it from being great. Nowhere near as good as the main series but I never expected it to be. Glad I was able to get it for 10 bucks, though, because at 20 I wouldn't be happy with my purchase.

 

My main complaints would be the terrible boss fights and environments that can be very frustrating to navigate because of a map that's about as unintuitive to read as you can get (apparently it's even worse on Vita, if that's even possible). Oh and at the very end you get sent on what I can only describe as "the stupidest bullshit back-tracking fetch quest since Wind Waker". At that point I was already fed up with the map and back-tracking so it actually made me groan when it started. Come to think of it, that's a pretty serious offense for a metroidvania game...

[CorgiShinobi]

Just finished Cold, Cold Heart.  I actually really liked it, and would say it's better than the main game, except it's a little on the short side.  Took me 3.5 hours to beat it, including 20 minutes of the slowest scrolling credits I have ever seen.

I've been pondering if I should give Arkham Origins a final shot with Cold, Cold Heart. That challenge map pack I got months back gave me quite the fury.

 

Then again, Dark Souls II is this Friday, and there's other DLC I haven't played yet.

[Mister Jack]

 

PS4 version.  Definitely a short game but I enjoyed it.  I played it once with the move, then again in co-op with a friend of mine where we each controlled one arm and one leg.  It was surprisingly fun to play that way.

[TheMightyEthan]

 

Just finished Cold, Cold Heart.  I actually really liked it, and would say it's better than the main game, except it's a little on the short side.  Took me 3.5 hours to beat it, including 20 minutes of the slowest scrolling credits I have ever seen.

I've been pondering if I should give Arkham Origins a final shot with Cold, Cold Heart. That challenge map pack I got months back gave me quite the fury.

 

Then again, Dark Souls II is this Friday, and there's other DLC I haven't played yet.

 

I didn't bother with any of the challenge packs in this game, I didn't like how they were designed. Cold, Cold Heart is short enough that you can knock it out in an afternoon, and worth a play if you've got the season pass.

[TheMightyEthan]

Lego Marvel Super Heroes.  I'm enjoying it enough I think I'm going to keep going and plat it.

[TCP]

I wanted to plat it but those racing controls.......

[deanb]

The Room 2.

[deanb]

Mark of the Ninja. 

 

I'm on a roll.

 

I quite liked it, nice blend of puzzle and death. I'd be quite interested in NG+ down the line. My only major qualms is (A) being context sensitive meant some jumps were pretty annoying (especially to the slightly higher ledges), and the way the maps work means I get annoyed at not seeing everything, but that's just the "gotta clear all the fog of war" gamer in me. Both of which are largely inconsequential (though former is pretty annoying at times). I did rather enjoy killing people with their own traps, the terror stuff was pretty cool (though it seemed very hit and miss on how frequently it happened, only really the spike traps that did it 100%).

[toxicitizen]

NG+ is pretty great if you really want to challenge your ninja skills. It's not just start over with all your abilities, the difficulty increases quite a bit. A lot of things become line of sight based, so you won't see what's in adjacent rooms unless you peek. And if the guard is just outside your cone of vision then you're not going to know he's there. I loved it.

[Strangelove]

Borderlands 2. I never hear anyone mention it, but I actually like the story of Borderlands 2. 

I did most of the optional missions except the ones that have timers. I hate those.

I havent done any of the dlc though. Im not sure if I will or not.

[TheMightyEthan]

I wanted to plat it but those racing controls.......

 

Use the taxi, it actually has sensible handling.

[toxicitizen]

Dark Souls II.

 

Well, shit. Didn't expect to beat this one so quickly, certainly not in less than a week. Clock was at a little under 50 hours when I beat the final boss last night, which is 10 less than the original took me. That's not to say it's shorter, though. In fact, I think it actually has more content. It probably took me less because, for the first time in the Souls series, I actually embraced co-op. There were just so many summon signs in the first few days that I couldn't help myself and summoned help for the first boss I truly got stuck on. From that point on, I prioritized enjoying my first playthrough as much as possible over obstinately trying to solo all the bosses. Not as much of a challenge but there's always New Game Plus for that. As a result, I never really got stuck for too long. I also put my own summon sign down quite often. Was a lot more fun than I expected to just wail on those fuckers in groups of 2 or 3 and see their health bars go down that much faster!

 

Overall, it's a Souls game so it's better than most of what's out there. That being said, I think it's just not as good as the first one. At first, I really disliked some of the changes. The nerf to the Estus Flask and the health penalties associated with death, in particular. They made the first 10 or so hours very brutal and, at times, kinda frustrating. But ultimately, about a third of the way through I got into the groove of things and they stopped bothering me as much. Still not a fan but they're not as big of a deal as I initially thought.

 

The one major aspect where I feel the game is inferior is the overall level design. The fact that you can now warp between bonfires from the very start means they didn't need to get creative with interconnected levels and clever shortcuts. That was a really cool aspect of the original and I'm sad to see it gone. The first time you kick down that ladder to the Undead Burg bonfire or find the elevator from the Undead Church to Firelink Shrine are just so very satisfying. Now all the areas are just kinda lined up and lead into one another. The world feels a lot bigger as a result but is not quite as memorable.

[Mister Jack]

 

Downloaded this off of PS+ and beat it in two sittings with a friend on co-op.  It's an okay top-down shooter, but my biggest problem with the game was its tendency to throw way too many enemies at you.  I don't mean that in the sense that the game is too hard.  It's just that you kill one wave and then another and another and another and another and another and oh god can I please just go to the next room already.

 

Also the ending was bullshit.  Still, it was free so I can't complain too much.

[deanb]

Gunpoint. Only took a couple hours.

 

This is a nice touch: http://www.pentadact.com/category/conwaysblog/?K=13&U=24&C0=3&E1=2&C1=6&E2=3&C2=6&C3=3&C4=3&C5=2

 

Given you kind of end up with everything In one play through I'd say there's not much replayability beyond I think two points in the game where you can pick one of two paths. Certainly a pretty weird game on the story front. Odd that there's no Workshop support, strikes me as the kind of game that'd thrive from extra levels/campaigns given the main mechanic is pretty solid.

 

Thumbs Up.

[toxicitizen]

I think Tom Francis said workshop integration is coming. Seems like a natural fit given the level editor, yeah. I couldn't be bothered to look around the web for community-made levels but I'd definitely try some if it was as simple as browsing them directly through Steam.

Edited April 30, 2014 by FLD

[TheMightyEthan]

 

The trailer for Advanced Warfare got me in the mood to play CoD, so I played through Black Ops 2, the next one in the series that I hadn't played yet.  I'll probably rent Ghosts at some point in the semi-near future.