Games You've Beat in 2016

[Mister Jack]

You can beat that game?  I thought it was basically SimCity with prisons.

[TheMightyEthan]

There's a campaign, which essentially amounts to an extended tutorial, but since it took me 14 hours to finish I decided to call that "beating" the game.  It doesn't actually end though, and I can keep playing indefinitely.

[toxicitizen]

There's a campaign, which essentially amounts to an extended tutorial, but since it took me 14 hours to finish I decided to call that "beating" the game.  It doesn't actually end though, and I can keep playing indefinitely.

Isn't there also some kind of story/campaign mode where you escape from your own prison or something like that?

[TheMightyEthan]

If there is I didn't see it.

[toxicitizen]

The Escape Mode will automatically start if you met the failure condition of allowing too many deaths in a short period of time. You will then be convicted of Criminal Negligence, and will spend time within your own prison as a prisoner. The Escape Mode can also be started from the menu directly, where you can load any save game to start playing there as a prisoner.

http://devwiki.introversion.co.uk/pa/index.php/Escape_Mode

[TheMightyEthan]

Firewatch.

 

I'll second everything FLD said, except for the part where he really loved it. I liked it fine, but it wasn't amazing.

 

@FLD:

What part do you think it doesn't make sense for Ned to be behind?

 

[toxicitizen]

@FLD:

What part do you think it doesn't make sense for Ned to be behind?

 

 

 

Almost everything relating to the site behind the fence. All that high-tech gear, the falsified reports, I dunno, just seemed like a shitty explanation for all of it.

 

Also, why did he feel the need to wreck the girls' tent? That's not exactly lying low...

 

 

[TCP]

I also beat Firewatch. I also loved it. What a game! I do wish they had released it in summer though, it can get pretty smokey around here, it would have been a great time to play it.

 

 

 

Yeah, the entire time, after you leave Brian's hideout and you're heading north, I kept waiting for another twist to explain the fence, all the research stuff, the three cots... yet... nothing?? Weird. 

Is there anyway to meet Delilah? Or end up with her? I talked to her on the radio from her station, and asked her to come to Boulder, but she declined. 

 

 

[TheMightyEthan]

 

He's not supposed to have set up the fence area, that was an actual research station for something, that he just broke into before you and planted the false reports to make you think the station is focused on you.

 

He wrecked the campsite to scare the girls away, and then planted your sheets there so you would just think it was the girls who'd broken into your tower.

 

[TCP]

 

THAT ASSHOLE!

 

[TheMightyEthan]

 

Bring on Gravity Rush 2!

[TCP]

Daaaammmnnnn Ethan is on a platinum streak. I need to step my game up. 

Edited February 15, 2016 by The Cowboy Poet

[deanb]

Beat Far Cry 4. Rather sudden wrap up at the end, though I imagine that's mainly cos the final two choices I was given it barely had time for the animation to unholster the gun and I'd fired it

 

Fun game, much same as Far Cry 3, with a few neat tweaks here n there. Some slightly sucky elements such as the rather superficial rebuilding of the old family home, but eh. I imagine Far Cry Primal is unlikely to stray form the beaten path too much apart from largely the whole lack of cars n guns. Kinda looking at that Horizons a bit for that kind of feel though. We'll see.

[TCP]

Did you try co-op at all? I found it pretty enjoyable, especially with the helicopter-like machines.

[deanb]

Oh didn't do any MP. One of thing I forgot to add is the radio is kinda shitty. Especially at the end when it doesn't acknowledge the actions you've taken (including Pagan Min being in power)

[Mister Jack]

I bought Wolfenstein: The Old Blood a while back on sale and only just now got around to beating it.  Pretty decent little standalone, especially since I only paid like 6 or 7 bucks for it.

[Mister Jack]

And now I've beaten Dishonored.  It ended up being shorter than I expected.  Three of the missions only took me about 20 minutes each.  I managed to get through it without killing anybody except for one guy I was unaware of who I put to sleep with a dart and then his unconscious body fell down a flight of stairs.  Oops.  Probably took me 7 or 8 hours, but I'm going to play it again as a murderous psychopath so I'm not complaining about the length, especially since I paid 15 bucks for it.

[Mr. GOH!]

Rise of the Tomb Raider. I've been stuck at home sick since Saturday, so I decided to finish this. Got all the side tombs, finished the campaign with a 74% completion. Neat game, kinda wish it had deeper combat and a wider variety of enemies. I also wish there were actually difficult puzzles or traversal areas. 

[TheMightyEthan]

It was a big step up from the 2013 one IMO, so hopefully with the next one they'll continue to refine it.

[TheMightyEthan]

Dead Rising 3.

 

It was fine, though overall I felt it fell into an awkward zone between serious and silly, where it kind of tried to be silly but wasn't OTT enough about it for it to be fun (from a plot/presentation standpoint, I'm not talking about gameplay).  The gameplay was fine, but nothing special.  I don't regret playing it.  I would have been happy had I paid up to $15, and since I got it for free well yay for me!

 

Solid 3/5.

[toxicitizen]

SUPERHOT.

It's the most innovative shooter I've played in years!

... but it's also about 2 hours long which, yeah, really glad I didn't pay 35 bucks for it. Although, to be fair, the gameplay is absolutely fantastic and you unlock a bunch of challenges and an endless mode after you beat the story mode (which is surprising cool), so I can see that giving the game some longer legs than it otherwise would have. I guess 20 bucks like Mr. GOH! said would be a decent price for it. But it's not 20 bucks here, it's 35 bucks. And they can fuck right off with that price The game is great but it's absolutely not worth that much.

--------------------------

XCOM 2.

I finished my campaign a few days ago but I wanted to let it sink in for a little while before writing my thoughts on it. The TL;DR of it is that it's undeniably an improvement over the original but I'd argue only a marginal one.

The tactical gameplay is largely the same. There's some tweaks here and there to accommodate what became the preferred playstyle in Enemy Unknown but it's not wildly different or anything. The concealment mechanic was a really nice addition although it ended up making me wish there was a viable stealth approach. I was always tempted to try to remain concealed for as long as possible, sometimes even managing to make it all the way to the objective before being detected. But then I'd end up activating like 3 pods at the same time and I'd be fucked. That is, if it wasn't for another new mechanic!

 

There was something so incredibly satisfying with sneaking my way to the objective, getting found out, quickly planting the bomb/hacking the thing/whatever else and immediately calling the Skyranger and evac'ing my entire squad while like 3 archons, 2 mutons and like 4 other dudes just stood there, powerless to do anything about it. Fun times! Although, probably a bit unbalanced, I guess...

 

One thing that's mostly improved is the tactical layer. The geoscape is more involved now and actually has something that qualifies as gameplay in it. You constantly have to weight time vs what you really need to get or do. My campaign ended up lasting a good 15h longer than it should have because I played like a goddamn idiot early on. In EU, you could pretty much postpone the main objectives indefinitely with little to no penalty. So I did that and ended up filling the Avatar progress bar almost all the way through before I had even done the first Blacksite objective. Not sure why I didn't catch on to that being a big no-no but I ended up having to focus all my efforts on bringing it back down, which added the extra 15h I mentioned. By the time I was ready to get back to doing main objectives, I had end-game gear and was able to power through most of it pretty easily.

 

Beyond that, here's where I thought the game fell a bit short. So, in EU, Firaxis said that at some point during development they had to choose between procedural map generation and environmental destruction. They chose the latter and, as a result, as early as my second campaign I started seeing maps coming up again and kinda frequently. That made the game get a little old much faster than it should have. So, procedural map generation was my most-wanted feature from an XCOM sequel, so I was pretty stoked to see them doing it.

 

Here's the thing, though. EU had a ton of great, memorable maps that I remember instantly whenever I think of the game. I can't really come up with a single map from XCOM 2 that feels the same way or whose layout I could actually describe all that well. It's hard to say how much of a difference the procedural gen really makes until I do a second run and honestly, I think given the choice I'd stick with it over the map pool of EU. But it's still something that I couldn't help but notice because it seemed like such an obvious drawback. 

 

Another aspect I'd argue was a step back is the art style. There was just something kind of iconic for me about the enemy design in EU. The little fatty Sectoids, the creepy Thin Men, the hulking Mutons and even the fucking Cyberdiscs! Maybe it's because the designs were directly based on the original game but it was all so charming and almost cartoony but in a great way. Other than a couple of enemies like the Vipers and the Archons, I thought the enemy design in XCOM 2 was kinda bland, uninspired and overly serious by comparison. I wouldn't call it bad by any means, it just seemed like a slight step down.

 

My biggest issues with the game are clearly superficial, though, so I don't want to sound too negative here. The game is fantastic and I loved the hell out of it. I kinda want to start a new campaign right away but I think I'll hold off, maybe until the first season pass content comes out. Got too much other stuff to play and too little time to actually do it.

[TheMightyEthan]

There was something so incredibly satisfying with sneaking my way to the objective, getting found out, quickly planting the bomb/hacking the thing/whatever else and immediately calling the Skyranger and evac'ing my entire squad while like 3 archons, 2 mutons and like 4 other dudes just stood there, powerless to do anything about it. Fun times! Although, probably a bit unbalanced, I guess...

Having not played the game this actually sounds fairly realistic for a guerrilla force fighting a conventional force.

[toxicitizen]

Having not played the game this actually sounds fairly realistic for a guerrilla force fighting a conventional force.

Perhaps but I meant unbalanced in the turn-based sense. Like, that's all happening on a single turn. They just don't get the chance to react. The fact that you can call the Skyranger and evac on the same turn is a bit OP, honestly. It's like a get out of jail free card.

[TheMightyEthan]

The Legend of Korra. I quite liked it, it was a lot better than the talk had led me to believe.

[deanb]

Beat Stick of Truth. Pretty good, though kinda disliked any button mashing that was needed as it usually required a pretty high frequency to do anything.

It was crude in humour, but mechanically pretty sound. As remarked elsewhere it's kinda like a grown up Costume Quest. I like that you could knock folks out with the environment.