Games You've Beat in 2014

[Mr. GOH!]

South Park: Stick of Truth. It was funny, and well-done as a South Park game parodying all sorts of gaming tropes in classic South Park style. Probably the funniest game I've played, much better written than the Saints Row games (which makes sense; Matt and Trey have been writing jokes for two decades). 

 

 I encountered two repeating bugs; a flickering main character during cut scenes and random de-equiping of weapon and armor mods. Did not really hurt my enjoyment of the game. Well worth $45, but not replayable at all.

[TheMightyEthan]

 

Thief.  I really enjoyed it.  Like I keep saying, it was pretty much just what I was expecting.  I can see that people who really liked the old ones might be disappointed by it because it's different (I never played them so I can't say), but otherwise anyone who liked Dishonored should probably like this.

Edited March 9, 2014 by TheMightyEthan

[Hot Heart]

Now I have S2 of The Walking Dead, I decided to go through the 400 Days DLC.

 

So many horrible situations crammed into one DLC.

[Mister Jack]

I just finished the new Walking Dead.  I can't remember the last time a Tellltale game crammed so many agonizing decisions into a single episode.  I actually ran out the timer on a few of them because I just didn't know what to do.

 

I also finished the story mode of Danganronpa on the vita.  One of the most fucked up visual novels in recent memory.

[TCP]

South Park The Stick of Truth.

That was ok! Glad I didn't spend $65 on it but it was pretty decent. 

 

Canada was the best part.

 

[Strangelove]

MGSV: Ground Zeroes. It's totally worth it.

Took me a little over an hour and a half to beat it, I didn't do any side stuff either, I just wanted to get to the story, but kind of lost direction for a while. The base you play in isn't huge, but its dense as hell. Honestly, the game is kind of a big sandbox. Theres just lots of stuff to do, lots of ways to handle the enemies in the game. Theres a lot packed in here.

Also a really good chunk of MGS story.

[TCP]

MGS V: Ground Zeroes

 

Give me Phantom Pain now, Hideo!

[TheMightyEthan]

 

South Park: The Stick of Truth.  I really liked it a lot.  The only glitch I encountered was in a few cutscenes characters were appearing and disappearing, but it was after I had alt-tabbed so I wonder if that had something to do with it.  It only happened in that one game session.

 

*Edit* - Took me just over 15 hours to finish, although I did pretty much every sidequest (I believe the only one open is I'm still missing one of the hobos).

Edited March 19, 2014 by TheMightyEthan

[toxicitizen]

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.

 

Took me about an hour. I didn't do any side stuff because at first I couldn't figure out how to find or activate side missions but then a bunch of side-ops unlocked once I finished the main story so I think you just can't do any of it right away. I should mention that I ended up playing a bit last night, so it only took me an hour but I was already familiar with the map and objective locations.

 

That being said, I have to seriously doubt any reviewers who claimed it took them 2-3 hours. Unless there's actually a way to do side-missions on a first run and I missed it, I just don't see how it could take anyone that long to play through the main story. After an hour last night I was about 80% through the story. Only reason I stopped is I went to restart from checkpoint and ended up accidentally picking restart mission instead. Seriously, who the fuck thought putting those two options right next to each other was a good idea? It's not.

 

Anyway, it's pretty damn good but it really shouldn't have been its own release. People complaining it was nothing more than a demo weren't very far off. The only reason this exists is because MGSV is still quite a ways off and Konami needed or just wanted to start generating revenue now. That much is clear as day. I can't believe they initially wanted to charge 40 bucks for the PS4/XBone version. That's just fucking theft. 20 bucks is a bit easier to swallow, at 30 I'd probably be regretting my purchase.

 

I was also both surprised and disappointed that there's essentially no story to speak of. I mean, I didn't expect anything too elaborate but this is nothing. This does less to set up the story than either the Tanker or the Virtuous Mission. And the ending, well...

 

it probably would've had more of an impact if I'd spent hours building Mother Base in Peace Walker. Since I haven't, it fell kinda flat. But now I kinda feel like I should get around to it so I'll probably do that in the near future.

 

 

So yeah, overall it's quite good but I felt it failed to justify its price tag.

 

edit: Forgot to mention. Not a fan of Snake Bauer. Nothing against Kiefer but he's just not Snake. Though after Blacklist, I kinda knew this would be an issue for me.

 

Also, those who played it on PS4, was the 60fps framerate stable? On PS3, it couldn't really keep a stable 30. Nothing so major as to affect gameplay but there were quite a few noticeable dips.

Edited March 20, 2014 by FLD

[TheMightyEthan]

The Stanley Parable.  It was interesting.  I know it's not really something you "beat", but I found a good number of the endings so I'm gonna put it in here anyway.  It was probably the weirdest game I've played after Thirty Flights of Loving.  Maybe after Antichamber too.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I just completed Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons in one sitting. I enjoyed it a lot. I would say it is my favourite storytelling experience of any game I've played - It conveyed everything it wanted to in a simple, non-intrusive way. A lot of games try to have too much story. It felt like a proper adventure to me, like LOTR, starting out in your village and everything slowly gets bigger and more daunting.

 

The idea of controlling the two brothers at the same time worked well. I did get myself mixed up a few times when I had them on the screen the wrong way around. I guess some people may complain that it was too easy, but I think it was more about the experience than the challenge so I think it was pitched well. It was also a nice change to have a game without combat.

 

I thought the graphical style was very pretty  It had the same solid looking rocks that the cave had, and I loved the rocks in that game too - I think it's because they look like they're painted instead of trying to look real. I didn't like how the people looked though, they didn't seem to fit in to the world somehow, maybe they looked a bit Kingdom hearts? cartoons in a painted world.

 

Anyway. Overall, this is the sort of game I could play all day. Been looking for things that are similar:

Dust an elysian tale

papo & yo

to the moon

ico

journey

two brothers, strangely similar title!

 

came up. Would you guys agree or have any other suggestions?

Edited March 21, 2014 by TheFlyingGerbil

[Strangelove]

inFamous: SS.

 

Yep, unemployment will do this to you.

 

Awesome game though. GOTY potential.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Strangelove

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

You don't have that bar job anymore?

[TheMightyEthan]

 

Infamous: Second Son.  Awesome game.  Way better than the first two.  I'm going to dive right back in to play as evil.

[Mal]

Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea Part 2

 

This was way better. It also in ways wrapped up the entire Bioshock universe. Kind of weak but that "Ace in the hole".

[toxicitizen]

It also in ways wrapped up the entire Bioshock universe.

Haven't played it yet but that's good to hear considering this is likely the last "true" BioShock game we'll ever get.

[TCP]

Infamous Second Son

 

Reggie

 

 

But the good news is it got me to level 16 on PSN. Awwwe yes!

Edited March 27, 2014 by The Cowboy Poet

[TheMightyEthan]

Infamous Second Son: Evil playthrough.  Also got a platinum out of it.

[toxicitizen]

Deus Ex: The Fall.

How the fuck did people manage to be disappointed by this? I mean, it's a buggy, half-assed iOS port, yeah. So what the fuck did you expect? Did you think it would magically turn into something else when brought to PC? Did the 10$ price tag not tip you off that this wasn't going to be anything remotely comparable to DX:HR? The way people have been flipping their shit and asking for refunds, I just... what? What kind of delusional retard went into this with high expectations? I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised. I've been finding myself increasingly annoyed with gamer "outrage" lately so this is just par for the course, I guess. Some gamers really need to learn to manage their expectations.

Anyway, I expected shit and went in with an open mind and I ended up actually enjoying it a lot. It's like a shit version of Human Revolution but it felt Deus Ex-ey enough that the music and atmosphere provided enough enjoyment for my 10 bucks. The gameplay is somewhat the same but much shallower, the levels are small and the enemies are dumb braindead. But being an augmented badass just doesn't get old for me. My main complaint would be that I only found out this was Part 1 after buying it. I don't think the Steam store page makes any mention of that. So after 6 hours you're left with an unfinished story and a cliffhanger and AFAIK there hasn't been any word on whether or not Part 2 is still happening. If it is, then I'll definitely be grabbing it as well. But for now, it made me really want to replay Human Revolution. Might give the Director's Cut a shot once I'm done with Thief.

 

Oh and it only allows one save. That's pretty bad. I realized early on that my quicksaves were overwriting my checkpoints so I learned to be careful with them. But someone walked into my room and started bugging me with some stupid shit during the final cutscene even though I made it clear that I needed them to be quiet for a sec. So I just alt-F4'd out of frustration but the game still autosaved and when I fired up the game again I could only start new game plus. Had to look up the cutscene on youtube. :/

Edited March 27, 2014 by FLD

[TheMightyEthan]

People who won't shut up during a cutscene bug the shit out of me.

[toxicitizen]

Yeah, I mean, I can understand how a non-gamer might not get it at first. But after I politely ask you to be quiet for a bit, if you insist on talking anyway then I've run out of patience and will just tell you to shut the fuck up. 

 

And when it's happened with the same person repeatedly, I just skip the polite part and tell them to fuck off right away. Fucker, do you not learn? Worst part is the people I live with have the worst timing imaginable. If I was paranoid, I'd think they just stand outside my room and wait for the worst possible moment to come in and talk to me. You'd think that by now they would know not to interrupt when I'm just watching the screen and listening to people talking. And it's kinda hard to explain to a non-gamer the difference and why "This game I can pause the cutscene but this game I can't. Oh and this other game I can't even pause when it's the playing part."

 

But yeah, I'll just close this rant by saying pausable cutscenes should be an enforced industry standard. I don't care by who, just someone do it!

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm lucky that my wife totally understands and respects it when she starts talking to me and I say "hold on, cutscene", or when she asks me to do something and I say "okay, just let me get to a place I can save".

[Mister Jack]

You could always start walking in while they're watching a movie and blab on about stupid bullshit they don't care about.

[TheMightyEthan]

"Oh, I thought in this house we didn't care if people are trying to watch things?"

[toxicitizen]

Hahaha, if I have something I actually need to talk to them about I will but they can always pause and rewind those and I know that. With games you're lucky to have a save you can reload just before the cutscene triggered. More often than not you'll have to redo some gameplay section. Or just simply won't be able to go back.