Games You've Beat in 2015

[Strangelove]

Saints Row 4 Re-elected. It was a lot of fun. It sucks that they kind of broke their own game by adding super powers though. All the vehicles and for the most part guns dont matter anymore. You just use superpowers all the time. The problem is that there are parts where your powers are taken away or when youre forced to ride a vehicle and it just doesnt feel right because youre too used to the super powers.

The super powers are really fucking fun though. The game is also really funny sometimes.

 

The dlc was kind of lame though. Just run of the mill stuff.

[Thursday Next]

+1 Arkham Knight.

[toxicitizen]

Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition.

 

There really isn't much to say about this one. It's DMC4, neither the best nor the worst of the series. That being said, I think I enjoyed it more this time around than I did when I played it for the first time a few years ago. Not really sure why, though. It was pretty much exactly how I remembered. Anyway, this version has a bunch of extra characters, so I'll probably end up replaying it again in the near future. I remember reading that Vergil even has his own story with new cutscenes and everything, so that should be fun.

 

For the past couple years, the one thing I really wanted out of the series was a sequel to the reboot but that's clearly not happening at this point. And, frankly, I think after this I'd actually prefer a proper DMC5, anyway. Bring back Dante, Nero and the others, find a way to fit Vergil in there somehow, and make the ultimate DMC game. That sounds pretty damn good.

 

Oh, but remaster DMC3 first. Seriously, do it. I need that to happen. A proper version of DMC3 on Steam would make me so happy. 

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

I really don't think there's anything left to do with that style of DMC. I'll gladly take DmC2 instead rather than treading the same ground over and over again. I get that some gamers crave familiarity over new experiences but this series did what it did so well that I don't see why you can't just replay the older titles if you want that.

[toxicitizen]

I don't see why not. I mean, what about Bayonetta? That's pretty much the same style of gameplay but better modernized than DMC4 was. Hell, Bayo 1 felt like the true DMC4 at the time.

 

When I say I want DMC5, I don't mean I want more of DMC4. DMC4 feels archaic as fuck in many ways. I want a proper step forward for the series, both in terms of design and mechanics. And as much as I loved DmC and think it doesn't deserve the shit and hate it gets, even I have to admit that that's simply not what it was. And replaying the old games can only bring you so far. At some point it's nice to have new levels and a new story to play through.

[deanb]

Beat Gone Home, took 0.8hrs according to Steam (kinda wish since they're measuring hours they maybe didn't use decimal).

 

What a weaksauce game for all the palava about it. Was quite surprised when it rolled credits. Like...especially when you got the secret passageways. Figured that it'd massively open up. But...nope.

 

End of day it's just an extremely simple point n click not even really any challenge to it. I've played android point n clicks (and there are many of them) with more depth n content to them. Pretty glad I picked it up cheap in the sale cos £15 is a bit of a piss take tbh.

 

Ah well, something meaty to start tomorrow with the new shiny.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

I never got the sense that Gone Home was meant to have any sort of challenge. It seemed to be a story based game.

[deanb]

There wasn't even much of a story to it. It's maybe not good on Gone Home that not long ago I'd played Stanley Parable, which really takes advantage of the structure of a game to tell a story and weave a narrative in a fun and interesting way unique to the medium.

[TheMightyEthan]

If you don't think there was much story you must have missed a lot of stuff.  That's also supported by the fact that it only took you 0.8 hours.  My first playthrough took ~2.5.

[Mr. GOH!]

Gone Home is all story. :\

[toxicitizen]

Yeah, if you thought Gone Home didn't have much of a story, especially compared to Stanley Parable of all things, then something is very wrong here. Did you rush through it without reading anything?

 

I mean, Gone Home had actual characters that I still remember to this day. Stanley Parable is more of a glorified decision tree where the main appeal is "Oh, let's see what happens if I go left now!".

[deanb]

Oh I fully understand the workings of Stanley Parable, and I'm not saying it had "more story", but that the story it had worked in with the medium much better than Gone Home which was scraps of paper and audio littered around. Not much different than many mobile games thrown out for free on Amazon App Store.

 

Chatting with some other folks we reckon cos I knew the whole 

 

sister is lesbian

 

is might have messsed things up for me. Though it's hard to not know, and it's not exactly much of a subtle thing. I guess I figured it'd be much more subtle n told in a much less traditional manner that actively used the medium (hence the Stanley Parable comparison)

[TheMightyEthan]

I thought that was common knowledge, even before release.

[deanb]

Completed Infamous: Second Son. Some cool spots, though felt kinda small. Though I guess being an early PS4 game it's not going to have maybe tried to overly push the limit there. Though certainly prettier than any PS3 game. Some of the powers were a tad fiddly to use, mainly ended up using Neon most the game, could get annoying the times it stopped you from using certain powers. The boss fights I guess were...I dunno. Like I imagine if it was a QTE fest I'd find sucky, but just beign "wittle down the enemy health" made them bullet sponges than any smart way of using powers to despatch certain enemies.

 

Onwards to First Light.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, neon is definitely the go-to power once you get it.

[deanb]

Boom, Flower in the bag. Only taken me several years and a new console later

[MetalCaveman]

XCOM Enemy Unknown. Took me a long time, after rage-quitting a couple of times I finally went back and finished it. \m/ \m/

[Strangelove]

Max Payne 3 was kind of, uh, not as good as I hoped. It was ok.

My first Max Payne game and probably my last. Halfway through I realized I wasnt having fun and was just playing to finish the story. The story itself isnt that great either, but I liked Max enough to see it through to the end.

As an MGS fan this might seem like a joke, but there were just too many cutscenes in this fucking game. Youre constantly interrupted to do some dumbass qte or to walk for like 15 mnutes just enjoying the view or whatever the fuck. It was really annoying.

90% of the game was spent in cover because if I tried to do something actually fun like jumping in midair and using bullet time, I would hit everyone but not kill anyone. Then Id land, and get shot and killed in about a second, which causes you to use a painkiller, then you shoot the guy, youre laying on the ground and getting shot by the same dudes and so forth and so on. Just totally not worth doing.

Something about bullet time makes it so that you cant get headshots.

I killed way more people faster and more accurately by just staying in cover and using the auto aim and moving the gun up to the head over and over. Not to mention that if you dont get headshots the enemies dance around in circles for eternity, fall, then get back up if theyre not dead. They can keep getting up 3 or 4 times til I guess the game decides the bullets finally got through their bulletproof vests.

At other times it takes 2 bullets to the chest and they drop dead.

It was just a really dull and sometimes infuriating game. I cant even count the times I died because I had to fight like 10 guys at once and if you stick your head out for a second most of your health will get whittled down.

 

Aside from the production value, it felt like I was playing a midtier PS2 game. I had just finished RDR too, and I honestly didnt feel like it was that far removed, which is what I expected. I expected tighter controls from a linear shooting game compared to an open world one, but it was almost exactly the same. Shit, it was more fun using dead eye in RDR than bullet time in MP3.

 

And lastly, what the fuck was up with that stupid shitty tv filter that makes everything look distorted and annoying? That shit got old fast. Whoever directed the game was definitely a frustrated wannabe movie director. Like Kojima, except with no fun whatsoever.

[MetalCaveman]

Tomb Raider, really fun game, managed to get 100% completion too. \m/ \m/

[TheMightyEthan]

Batman: Arkham Knight.

 

I thought it was a really good finish to Rocksteady's trilogy.  There's still something to be said for how much tighter and more focused Asylum was, but I still enjoyed this one immensely.  I even got 100% of the sidequests (including Riddler's) before finishing the game.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Max Payne 3 was kind of, uh, not as good as I hoped. It was ok.

My first Max Payne game and probably my last. Halfway through I realized I wasnt having fun and was just playing to finish the story. The story itself isnt that great either, but I liked Max enough to see it through to the end.

As an MGS fan this might seem like a joke, but there were just too many cutscenes in this fucking game. Youre constantly interrupted to do some dumbass qte or to walk for like 15 mnutes just enjoying the view or whatever the fuck. It was really annoying.

90% of the game was spent in cover because if I tried to do something actually fun like jumping in midair and using bullet time, I would hit everyone but not kill anyone. Then Id land, and get shot and killed in about a second, which causes you to use a painkiller, then you shoot the guy, youre laying on the ground and getting shot by the same dudes and so forth and so on. Just totally not worth doing.

Something about bullet time makes it so that you cant get headshots.

I killed way more people faster and more accurately by just staying in cover and using the auto aim and moving the gun up to the head over and over. Not to mention that if you dont get headshots the enemies dance around in circles for eternity, fall, then get back up if theyre not dead. They can keep getting up 3 or 4 times til I guess the game decides the bullets finally got through their bulletproof vests.

At other times it takes 2 bullets to the chest and they drop dead.

It was just a really dull and sometimes infuriating game. I cant even count the times I died because I had to fight like 10 guys at once and if you stick your head out for a second most of your health will get whittled down.

 

Aside from the production value, it felt like I was playing a midtier PS2 game. I had just finished RDR too, and I honestly didnt feel like it was that far removed, which is what I expected. I expected tighter controls from a linear shooting game compared to an open world one, but it was almost exactly the same. Shit, it was more fun using dead eye in RDR than bullet time in MP3.

 

And lastly, what the fuck was up with that stupid shitty tv filter that makes everything look distorted and annoying? That shit got old fast. Whoever directed the game was definitely a frustrated wannabe movie director. Like Kojima, except with no fun whatsoever.

You fucked up using auto aim and never using bullet time because you sucked at it. It's actually pretty damn fun once you skip all of the cutscenes.

[MetalCaveman]

Wolfenstein: The New Order.

 

Played through the Wyatt timeline, might go back to it later and see what the other timeline is like. London Monitor was the best boss fight IMO. \m/ \m/

 

[toxicitizen]

Ronin.

As expected, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was pretty much exactly what I expected from the demo, Gunpoint with turn-based combat with a little Mark of the Ninja thrown in. That's not the say the game is without flaws, though. The core idea is very, very good but the execution can be a little hit and miss.

At first, the game seemed like it would be very short. I breezed through the first three chapters fairly easily in like 3-4 hours. But then I got to the final level of the fourth chapter and it was like hitting a goddamn wall. The game makes it a point to tell you "This isn't a stealth game. Just kill everybody.", but there were a couple levels that felt so goddamn impossible to take head on. The only way I managed to beat that fourth chapter level was by sneaking around and taking out as many enemies as possible before going into open combat. Even the final level didn't feel as ridiculously impossible.

Another weak aspect is the story: there really isn't one. There's a hint of a backstory/context to what you're doing and I kept waiting to find out more about it but that never happened. And even though there are two possible endings, the only difference is whether

you survive the final mission or not. That's it, either you die or leave on your bike like every other level in the game. Credits roll.

The gameplay is an absolute blast, though. If you loved Gunpoint, I'm pretty sure you'll also love this.


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So, I haven't posted anything in this thread in a little while because I've spent the past few weeks playing almost nothing but Dustforce and SpaceChem, two incredibly challenging and lengthy games, neither of which I've managed to completely beat yet. But I just realized I can technically make two additional entries.

I replayed OlliOlli in anticipation of its sequel's Steam release. It's every bit as good as it was on Vita but something feels a bit off with it. This is a game requiring very precise and quick inputs and at first I kept screwing up the landings and other timing-sensitive moves. When porting the game over from Vita, they somehow screwed with that and now you need to time yourself a little earlier instead of exactly on time. I feel like it ultimately made the game a little easier but I don't think that was intentional because OlliOlli 2 goes back to requiring the precise timing.

Also, despite what I just said above, Dustforce. So, here's the deal: Dustforce has only a single achievement on Steam called Double S+ which requires you to earn a rank of SS on every single level. You're graded on two things in Dustforce: completion and finesse. What that means is, as long as you get all the dust and clear the level without breaking your combo, you got that SS. Getting that achievement was my goal. I managed to get that fucking SS rank on every single of the 64 base levels, some of which are pretty goddamn challenging.

Seriously, some of the last few levels took me entire days to get just right. I'd have to play all goddamn day long before I developed the techniques and muscle memory required to SS them. By the time I was done, my playtime counter on Steam was past 90 hours. But here's the catch: when you clear all 64 levels, you unlock a new hidden area with even more difficult levels. The thing is, most of those extra hard levels were added post-release so there's only really one of them you need to SS to get the achievement, the one that was there at launch.

Now, a lot of levels in Dustforce feel fucking impossible at first. But after a few hours of grinding at them, they quickly start to feel a lot more doable and eventually you get them just right. Not so with that final level. I got to it and just kinda went "What the shit is this even?!". I still haven't managed to clear the fucking thing with checkpoints enabled. I don't think I'm going to get this one. I mean, just look at this fucking load of horseshit:
 

 

But I did manage to SS every normal level and that's something, damnit! So whatever, fuck you Dustforce! 

[TheMightyEthan]

I don't know what I just watched, but it looked hard as shit.

[toxicitizen]

The crazy thing is that Dustforce actually kinda looks easier in action than it really is. Like, you'll get stuck on a section, go to the leaderboards to watch someone's replay and go "Oh, okay, I see what I need to do." Then you actually try it and it can easily be a couple hours of "AARRRGG WHY ISN'T IT DOING THE THING??!?!".

 

To give you an idea of how insane the one above is, here's a "normal" difficult level. 

 

 

That's the last level I SS'd and it was one of the two that gave me the most trouble. I actually spent a couple days on that one alone and it actually looks sane compared to the other one.

Edited August 18, 2015 by FLD