Games You've Beat in 2016

[toxicitizen]

Since I've been going through my backlog lately to kill time until the next steam sale happens, I went ahead and got through AVGN Adventures.  I was perfectly capable of running it on my old PC too, of course, but I just never got around to it.  Figured since I bought it, I might as well play it.  Also, the second one just came out and it looked fun so I wanted to get that, but not before beating the original.

The first AVGN game was surprisingly good. Definitely one of the best challenging platformers I've played, I had a blast with it. I meant to get the sequel at launch but didn't, for some reason. I should probably get around to that soonish...

Edited April 16, 2016 by FLD

[Mister Jack]

And beat the second one now.  Time to move on to Rise of the Tomb Raider, I think.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Finished wolf among us. I enjoyed it but I would only play another of the tell tale games if I was interested in the franchise, I didn't like the format enough to play them for their own sake. I was kind and just, as I Felt that was the truer narrative, plus I always end up being good, even when I've wanted to do a naughty play through of a game and I think it would have been fun in this game? I tried not to replay too much and stuck to just one save file and didn't replay any of the ending so I don't feel too cheaty, and honestly I can't worry about things like that.

[toxicitizen]

Dark Souls III.

Finished it a couple nights ago and it was everything I wanted it to be and more. In many ways, this is the real Dark Souls II. It feels like a true sequel to the original in ways Dark Souls II simply didn't. DSII was still a solid game but now it retroactively feels kind of random because of how much DSIII ties everything together so much better. Like, it almost makes DSII feel like it should've been its own new IP similar to Bloodborne. At the very least, I feel like people probably would've been kinder to it had it not been for the Dark Souls name.

The only "issue" that comes to mind is that it felt short compared to the previous two games. It took me about 30h to beat whereas a first playthrough of the original was a solid 50h. I can't really call it a problem, though. The original had some pacing issues in its second half and DSIII pretty much avoids all of that stuff. 30h is still a pretty good length and I think might be the sweet spot for this series. Beyond that, I had no performance issues whatsoever on PC and no area or boss comes to mind as being particularly bad or anything, which can't be said for the first two games.

I'll have to give it a few more playthroughs before I can rank it with 100% certainty but so far it's definitely at least a close second to the original. Possibly even the best out of all three. Can't wait to see what the DLC will be! Until then, NG+ should keep me busy. Still got some more achievements to get and a few more endings to see, as well.


off topic: Is there any particular reason why the post box expands and scrolls horizontally now? Is that something I can turn off on my end? It makes longer posts kind of a pain in the ass to type.

Edited April 23, 2016 by FLD

[Mister Jack]

And now I've beaten Rise of the Tomb Raider.  Still no steam sale, though...I'm not sure where to go from here.  Guess I could just keep playing FFVII or try to actually beat Enter the Gungeon, but damn that game is hard.

[Thursday Next]

I beated the Bloodborne. It was deeply satisfying.

[danielpholt]

Just finished The Banner Saga 2. 

 

Great follow up that improves upon the original in almost all aspects. The ending comes a little..suddenly, and there are certain aspects of the combat that I still find a little perplexing but on the whole, it's a great little game.

 

Roll on 2034 when Banner Saga 3 finally hits. 

[Mister Jack]

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/272842219471213873/C8BE828A54970AE91F2DEC1A4534F42ED257FBAE/

 

I FINALLY BEAT ENTER THE GUNGEON

 

With one out of four characters.

 

This game has to be the hardest out of all the roguelite games I've played, and I've played quite a few.  Of course, to REALLY beat this game I'll have to beat it with all four characters and then do the extra level, but for now I feel like beating it even with one character is quite an achievement.

 

Edit: Holy crap, I beat it with a second character on my very next try.  It took almost 30 hours but I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of this game.

 

Edit 2: Electric Boogaloo: And a third character!  This is so weird.  I knew I'd get better with practice but I didn't think I'd suddenly improve this much.

 

Edit 3: The Final Edit: And now I've beaten it with all four...I went from thinking I was never going to beat this game to beating it with all four characters in the same day.  What the hell happened?  Did I get sprinkled with fairy dust while I was asleep last night or something?

Edited April 27, 2016 by Mister Jack

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I finished Assassin's Creed Syndicate today. I got all the collectables, except  white chests and helixes as I didn't need the money, and not sure what the helixes get you? The beer bottle belt and aegis outfit were pretty great for something you could get early on. Topper was the only guy I couldn't max out my loyalty with as I just couldn't do the races, though I enjoyed the shirtless brawling I didn't play any DLC, and since it's £24 on XO, I won't be even though I'd like to :/

 

I think they've struck a good balance of story and non-story activities now, I particularly like the conquering boroughs ideas they've the had last few games. Wish they'd make it easier to get hold of your money though, and I missed the sleuthing they had in the last game, thought there was a small bit of it here. I liked the story and the new characters, shame we won't see them again. I liked swapping between them for stealth and brawn tasks, though once I'd maxed out their stats that made less difference.  I even think I understand the Juno plot now thanks to the World War I rift, and it seems that will come to head in the next game? Even though I just finished Unity fairly recently, far from being sick of them this has made the extended wait for the new one seem interminable. 

[TheMightyEthan]

I also beat Syndicate yesterday, weirdly enough. Quite liked it, so I bought the Maharaja and Jack the Ripper DLCs.

 

@Gerbil: wrt sleuthing, there was the Dreadful Crimes DLC which was pretty good (although looking now it was a PS4 bonus exclusive until March 31 so it might have cost money on Xbone). I'd definitely recommend seeing if it's free on Xbone too, cause I thought they were quite good.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Nothing is free on XO, it's awful for offers, especially if you don't have gold.

[danielpholt]

Ratchet and Clank.

 

Its fun. Sometimes thats all I want from a game. 

[Mister Jack]

Scratched Deponia off of the backlog.  Might get the second one on the next steam sale.

[toxicitizen]

Shadow Complex Remastered.

Solid metroidvania. Well, more Metroid than Vania, really. It didn't really click with me right away, I played the first few hours in short bursts over a couple of days. But once it started opening up and I was able to really explore for items and power-ups, it was a blast. At first I thought it suffered a little from being an early last-gen game (mostly visually) but by the time I was done with it I didn't really care anymore.

 

Also, it's probably the first game I've played that actually justified being 2.5D. I was never a fan of that visual style, always thought games using it ended up looking more bland than if they had went with a proper 2D look. But this one makes pretty good use of the style. Enemies are constantly showing up in/coming from the background and even though the action takes place on a 2D plane you really get a sense of depth that adds to the experience. So yeah, if you like the genre definitely consider picking it up.

Edited May 8, 2016 by FLD

[TheMightyEthan]

Finished two games today.

 

AC: Syndicate: Jack the Ripper DLC:

 

Pretty good, and I liked the fear mechanic. I feel like about halfway through I just kinda was mentally done with the whole AC thing, since I played this immediately after the Maharaja DLC, which I played immediately after the main game, and as a result didn't enjoy it as much as I otherwise would have. That's not the DLC's fault though, and I did like that it actually changed some stuff up and wasn't just more of the main game.

 

Pneuma: Breath of Life:

 

Good enough puzzle game, if a little on the easy side. It had a point it was trying to make that I felt was heavy handed while at the same time not really making its point well, if that even makes sense, but it really only comes into play in the last 5 minutes so it doesn't really detract from the rest of the game. Solid 3/5.

[TCP]

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Holy shit this game holds up. 7 years later and it feels like it could be a new release. Hell, the remastered PS4 version still looks bette than most new games. The gunplay and climbing feels great, the set pieces are still better than most games, and the dialog/characterization is top notch. 

I was hoping to have time to play through UC3 but I've definitely run out of time for that before UC4 comes out.

[TheMightyEthan]

The gunplay and climbing feels great

You mean the gunplay where it takes 5 headshots to kill dudes with no helmets? 

[TCP]

I don't know what game you were playing but even with the weaker guns I'd always one shot helmetless guys in the head. I was playing on normal, I could see maybe that being different on Brutal or Crushing. 

[TheMightyEthan]

It's entirely possible I'm confusing it with UC1 and/or 3.

[TCP]

Well I started UC3 up last night and played till chapter 5 or 6. At one point I had a headshot streak of 12 going, so, no I'd say it wasn't UC3. I guess it could have been the original UC1, I don't recall that happening, but maybe they fixed it for the HD version. Though, in fairness, that is an almost 10 year old game.

Hold on, you don't also think that countering breaks combos in the Arkham games do you?? 

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Oh lord am I annoyed with myself. After finishing ac syndicate recently I went back to liberation as it's the only 3D one I've not completed. Well now I have which is good, but I literally only had 10 minutes left which obviously I hadn't realised at the time so I just spent that time Seemingly killing every named character I'd met without any recollection of who they were or what they'd done. Cue credits. Grrr. Going to have to look up the plot not to actually work out what happened.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I finished Murdered Soul Suspect today. I enjoyed it well enough. The story was fine, I didn;t guess the ending, and the gameplay was a style I enjoy, though with no map and being able to walk through walls I did get myself turned around a bit sometimes. Also, and I know this is going to sound stupid when you play as a ghost but the creepy music and effects even when you're not at a jumpy bit meant I felt a bit on edge even when I was just wandering around which didn't jive with the relaxing time I want from a point and click game (it's the reason I didn't like the demons too - they'd be fine in a different game). Ghost trick managed to be dead and fun 

 

It all felt very budget too, which I can certainly forgive in many ways (it didn't bother me in Sherlock Holmes Sin and Punishment - sound was awful) but when they use the same character model down to hairstyle/colour and clothes for two characters you have to interact with in the first scene it's a bit far down the money saving path. 

[toxicitizen]

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth.

 

Finally finished it at like 4AM last night and holy shit, that was a long one! Took me way longer than I ever expected it to, at least. My clear save says about 76h but according to the 3DS' Activity Log it was actually a little over 90h when accounting for deaths and reloads. I did the P3 route so I'll have to come back and do the P4 route at some point but I really don't see myself doing that anytime soon. Not with the 3DS backlog I have right now.

 

Anyway, so, this was definitely different than what I expected going in. It was the last Persona spin-off I needed to play and so far none of them had been particularly good when it came to story. I expected this one would be different and, well, to be fair, it was certainly better than the shitty VNs in Arena and Dancing All Night. But as I came to realize over the course of my playthrough, this is much more Etrian Odyssey than Persona. The story isn't awful or anything like that, it's just not the main focus. There's the setup at the beginning, some more stuff after the first dungeon and then basically nothing until right before the final dungeon. There's little vignettes throughout the game but most of it is basically just fan-service interactions between the P3 and P4 casts. It can be funny but there's not much substance to it. So the game is like 20% story and 80% gameplay. But how good is that gameplay?

 

Well, I ended up buying Etrian Odyssey Untold before I was even done with this game, so that should tell you something. Like I said, this is very much an Etrian Odyssey game with a Persona coat of paint. There's the characters you know and love, the great music and even all the Velvet Room stuff like fusions and what not. But the meat of the gameplay is very much exploring dungeons and mapping them out carefully. Even the combat system is a far cry from the regular Persona combat. Because of "reasons", everyone gets the ability to equip a secondary Persona and you can have up to five characters in your party. Even stuff like weaknesses and all-out attacks don't work quite the same. It just has a completely different flow to it. That's not to say it's bad, though. But someone who loves Persona and doesn't like Etrian Odyssey could be massively disappointed here.

 

Overall, I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have a regular Persona game but I still loved the hell out of it. It's by far the best of the spin-offs and if they ever make a sequel I'll be there day one. What little disappointment there was at finding out the true nature of the game was completely overshadowed by the discovery of an awesome new series. Basically, the main thing I got out of it is that Etrian Odyssey is fucking rad and I really need to get into that series proper. I guess using the Persona series as a gateway to the EO gameplay wasn't the worst idea ever. I mean, it worked for me.

[Mister Jack]

I rented Doom from redbox yesterday and just finished it a little while ago. The multiplayer is dogshit like we already knew it was, but the campaign is actually pretty decent. It's definitely the fastest modern shooter I've played in a long time, and the violence is so gratuitous that I couldn't help but have a blast with it. Doomguy is a total psychopath in this game. Playing as him made me feel like this:



If I have a complaint, it's that I'm tired of Mars. I want a modern Doom that takes place on Earth already.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

Edited May 16, 2016 by Mister Jack

[Mal]

DOOM

This is what happens when you take Doom I and II and give it a fresh new coat of gore. It knows itself and its target audience. Solid entry in the Doom franchise. With that said, no idea how they screwed up the multiplayer...

 

You can see many influences from Brutal Doom where enemies and yourself just get torn up. Most kills and even deaths are satisfying to watch. Getting curb stomped by a Hell Knight or getting torn to pieces by a Revenant is neat.

Any story driven slow downs are pretty brief and any other slow downs are you just trying to find secrets and junk.

 

Now to wait for Shadow Warriors 2 to continue all this gratuitous violent FPS.

 

If I have a complaint, it's that I'm tired of Mars. I want a modern Doom that takes place on Earth already.
 

DOOM II: Hell on Earth can still work...