Games You've Beat in 2017

[TheMightyEthan]

First finished game of the new year is Wolfenstein: The New Order!

 

I'd heard great things about this game and was still pleasantly surprised.  It played well and they kept up a good variety between levels.  If I'd managed to finish it before the end of the year it probably would have even beat Titanfall 2 for my favorite shooter I played last year, which is saying something.

[Mister Jack]

Dishonored 2, Corvo campaign.

This game did what a sequel should. It fixed what sucked and added more than the original to make it better. About my only real complaint is the weaker story, and I still wouldn't say it's terrible. It's just okay. I also managed to get through the game without killing anybody. It was a pain in the ass but God damn it, I wanted that trophy.

I haven't decided yet whether I want to replay it as Emily first or save that for later and move on to Watch Dogs 2. Decisions decisions...

Edit: You know what?  Screw it.  I'm gonna do an Emily playthrough while the level layouts are fresh in my head.  Since I did no killing with Corvo, this time I'm going to go for no detections for the entire game.  Let's fucking do this!

Edited January 3, 2017 by Mister Jack

[toxicitizen]

Xanadu Next.

 

I played through most of it at launch and stopped like 30% of the way into the final dungeon. Not even sure why, the game is fucking fantastic. I think I got distracted after buying DOOM, Hitman and RotTR and feeling like I should play them ASAP. Anyway, after putting it off for a few weeks, I finally jumped back in tonight and finished it. 

 

Like I said, it's a fantastic game. This is Falcom at their old-school finest. Trails is by far my favorite Falcom series but even I can't deny just how good their more gameplay-focused RPGs like this and Ys feel to play. You can easily lose an entire evening just running around a dungeon and killing enemies. Xanadu Next is kind of its own thing, though. Try to imagine a cross between an isometric, Diablo-like RPG (minus the focus on loot drops) and metroidvania world-design and you'll have a pretty good idea what the game is like. I can't really think of anything else like it that I've played and now that it's over I kinda hope there's similar stuff out there for me to find.

 

Even if you've never played Trails or Ys, it's definitely worth a look because it's so freaking good! It hasn't aged very well visually but it's easily one of the best games I've played last year. What really sucks is that a quick look on SteamSpy shows it sold abysmally. Didn't even break 5K, which is fucking criminal. A game this good deserves better and so does XSEED for finally releasing it in english.

[Mal]

I knew I forgot to get a game during the Winter Sale but yes, it's a good game. How's the port? When I played the fan translation, I recall that I sometime question if my game was running correctly (running via Japanese applocale and all its potential issues) and hell, the translation accuracy as well. This was like 2-3 years ago. I still can't believe how much the JRPG and related games scene on PC have changed.

[toxicitizen]

Well, they simply localized the PC version from 2005, so I imagine it's about as good as the version you likely played (unless that was the N-Gage one ). Although, I imagine they put in some extra work to ensure it runs smoothly on current machines. There were some small issues at launch, mostly related to achievements (which is understandable since they're hacking them in a 10 year old game) but their programmer was pretty good at fixing things quickly during the first week. The biggest issue I personally encountered was this weird bug where some in-game text wouldn't display properly if your character's name was a certain length. Not sure if that was ever completely fixed but it's easily avoided by using a name 6 characters long.

 

The only major remaining "issue" that can't really be fixed is the controller support. Basically, Falcom originally designed the game with only m/kb in mind and only patched in controller support post-launch because people complained. It mostly works really well but you still need to use the mouse for menus and inventory management. It's annoying but it's also one of those rare use cases where the Steam controller truly shines. You just need to set the right trackpad as a mouse and you never need to take your hands off the controller. Once I thought to do that, it played flawlessly.

Edited January 4, 2017 by FLD

[Hot Heart]

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

 

Played this a bit much trying to clear it in a few days over the holidays and started getting quite sick of it a few missions before the end. There's a lot to love about it but also so many niggling little problems. Overall, though, it's a really enjoyable experience. Once you get used to the ship stuff it becomes quite addictive, building up your fleet and taking on more and more ships. There are some quite nice missions in there, also, where it just gives you a large area and you can take a few different approaches; even some of the more scripted feeling segments work quite well.

 

The meta or "true" narrative stuff was entertaining also. I liked seeing Abstergo's internal video presentations on previous assassins (Altair, Ezio, Connor) where they criticise them and "pass on the property". Especially amusing when the American guy narrating it (deliberately?) screws up names and pronunciations, e.g. keeps referring to Ezio as "Enzio"

 

I kind of want to go back and become master of the seas but it seems like it might be a laborious process and I kind of just want to move straight onto Syndicate now. There's certainly a lot of stuff for completionists; perhaps too much.

 

p.s. It feels weird rating the missions, considering how old the game is now, but maybe someone at Ubisoft/Abstergo is logging it somewhere.

[toxicitizen]

Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus.

 

Well, it only took me about two and a half years across two different versions of the game but I finally finished this thing. Most of my playtime was from the last couple weeks, too. Man, that is one Vita game purchase I seriously regret. Especially since this is the kind of game that just plays better on PC in every imaginable way. It was a legitimately limited physical release, though. I might actually be able to sell it for a small profit at this point.

 

Anyway, there really isn't much to say about this one, what you see is what you get. If button mashing and excessive fan service (almost to the point of parody) doesn't sound like something you'll enjoy, then you probably won't. This isn't a great game. Hell, I'm not sure if I'd even call it a good game. It is a pretty fun game, though. "Dumb fun" is probably the most apt description for it. Well, either that or "Ninja Tits". They're both fairly accurate... I enjoyed it enough to know I'll want to grab the sequel when they get around to releasing it on Steam. I'm kinda looking forward to it because that one actually had a PS4 version. Shinovi Versus really feels held back in terms of scale from being originally a Vita exclusive and playing it on a bigger screen made it even worse. Hopefully the existence of a PS4 version means the next one will look better as well as scale nicely and have a bit more stuff happening/more enemies on-screen.

 

So, Xanadu Next and this were the two unfinished games from 2016 that I was the closest to beating, so I figured I might as well get them done ASAP. Next one would be Shin Megami Tensei IV but I'm pretty sure I still have like at least 30h to go with that one. I think it's gonna wait a little longer.

[Mister Jack]

No detections playthrough of Dishonored 2 complete!  Man, it's so much more fun in New Game + mode when you can really screw around with everything.  Now that I've done both no kills and no detections, I guess it's time to move on to Watch Dogs 2.

 

Then again, I still have some trophies left to get...

[Mr. GOH!]

DOOM 2016. Fucking excellent.

[toxicitizen]

VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action.

 

I'm not a huge visual novel guy. I don't mind them but I usually prefer to have at least some small amount of gameplay to keep things engaging. Ideally, you have stuff like Ace Attorney where the investigation and trial phases make up the real meat of the game. But even just minimal stuff like the escape the room puzzles from Zero Escape or the much less involved investigation and trials from Danganronpa are preferable to me.

 

VA-11 Hall-A (pronounced Valhalla) falls much closer to the "pure VN" end of the scale. The drink mixing feels like little more than a mini-game and, while your performance as a bartender apparently does have some small impact on the story, it doesn't exactly feel like gameplay. It's just something you do in-between bits of dialogue. That being said, I'm happy to say that I loved the hell out of this game. I certainly went in wanting to love it because of the premise alone but I think it really nailed the execution.

 

The story is fairly simple and intimate but the characters are what really makes up for the lack of gameplay complexity. Outside of maybe one or two exceptions, they're all either interesting or just very likeable. To the point where I really wish the game wasn't over just so I could spend more time with them. Kinda like that void you sometimes feel when you've just finished a show you really enjoyed, I guess. Another thing that worked in the game's favor is how the script is pretty much entirely dialogue. You're never just reading narration or descriptions, you're always talking or listening to someone. That combined with the bartending really helps make it feel more engaging and really draws you into the game's world. It feels like something is actually happening as opposed to just reading a story.

 

Oh and if you're planning on playing it, I'd recommend playing the demos first. It's weird, there's both a prologue and a demo that are not in the actual game but are considered part of the story. The prologue was an early prototype I think, and I haven't played it and was mostly fine. Pretty sure it's currently being remade in the final game's engine and will be patched in at some point. But the demo takes place the night before the start of the game and has something in it that feels kind of important. I played it a little while back and I feel like some stuff that happens in the last chapter of the game would've been confusing as hell if I hadn't. There's a mention of it early on in the game but it's kinda glossed over. I'm surprised they shipped the final game without including it, to be honest.

 

Anyway, I don't know what the devs' future plans are but I would certainly be down for a sequel. Barring that, at least I still have Read Only Memories to play, which is a Policenauts-like VN/point-and-click hybrid set in the same world. It's made by a different dev, though, so I don't expect a huge deal of overlap or similarities. I would jump right into it but the enhanced rerelease with voice acting isn't coming out for another week or so.

[deanb]

Watch_Dogs 2

 

Was a bit alright. I'll add more thoughts tomorrow, it's 11 here and I want to head to bed (let's me stew on it a bit too). Kinda pleased that I didn't fire a single shot throughout (except as Wrench near the end but you're kinda required too and it's not against people). Not to say I didn't kill a shit ton of people mind, explosive containers at least keep guards out of the game, shock panels they wake up a few minutes later.

 

But yeah, more thoughts later.

[danielpholt]

Oxenfree and Sara is Missing

 

Sara Is Missing was a short mobile game I played in bed. You have to work out where Sara is...because she's missing. I dunno, it was fine.

 

Oxenfree was great though. Atmospheric, creepy and even occasionally funny. The first 2 hours promises things the game doesn't quite deliver, but its still really cool.

 

 

 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[Thursday Next]

The Last Guardian. If you liked Ico, then you'll like it. Not sure if the AI is really accurate to an animal's foibles or if the AI is just janky. Probably the latter.

[Mal]

Can you even tell the difference between what an animal would do and janky, at time unresponsive AI?

[Thursday Next]

That's what generous people would say.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Watched my wife play some hours of The Last Guardian. It seemed irritating. Not just the pet dogcatbirdlasers, but the controls.

[CorgiShinobi]

I finished DOOM (2016) a few days ago. Definitely an excellent game, though a few Glory Kills did glitched me into an object. Nothing a Checkpoint couldn't solve and it was very rare. It's almost surreal to have a realistic and gory game be lined with classic game drops. Like imagine The Last of Us, but your resources glow and float around the environment. I'm not saying this like a negative, it's just a surreal experience for modern day gaming. It's both nostalgic and played real well in the game.

[Mister Jack]

I actually enjoyed Doom more when I played it a second time on the pc than the first time on the PS4, and not just because of the hardware upgrade.  The first time I played the game I was still stuck on the way I usually play FPS game, which made it a lot more frustrating than it needed to be.  The second time, now that I understood and knew what to expect, I said "come get some" and ran straight into every fray and it was a total blast.

[toxicitizen]

Yeah, I can totally see that. I was something like halfway through the game once it finally clicked. I expect to enjoy it even more when I decide to replay the campaign.

[Thursday Next]

Watched my wife play some hours of The Last Guardian. It seemed irritating. Not just the pet dogcatbirdlasers, but the controls.

 

Yeah, a couple of issues with the controls, I get that triangle is at the top so makes "sense" to put the jump button there, and X is at the bottom, so crawling/descending makes sense... but I did die a couple of times when I tried to jump from a hanging ledge because X is normally jump...

[Mister Jack]

Platinum trophy achieved for Dishonored 2. Now I can finally move on to Watch Dogs 2. For real this time.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[Mister Jack]

Polished off Day of the Tentacle HD real quick and got the platinum for it, then I finished Watch Dogs 2.  Probably going to get the platinum for that too.  It was a significant improvement over the original, although when it came to the writing I couldn't really divorce myself from this "how do you do, fellow kids?" vibe that I kept getting from the characters.  Meh, I've seen worse writing, but I was very aware that a bunch of suits at Ubisoft were trying to be cool and hip.

[danielpholt]

Mirrors Edge Catalyst.

 

Maybe it was because I completed the campaign in a little over 24 hours, but this game really pissed me off. I'd watched my GF play it, so I knew its flaws before I went in, however I wasn't expecting everything to feel so....stodgy. The free running wasn't even that much fun, aside from a few moments where you jump into dudes from above, or fall onto a large air cushion.

 

Mirrors Edge Catalyst was a game I wanted to finish, just to say I'd finished it. I can now safely say that I'll never touch another game in this franchise again. Not that they'll make another. 

[TheMightyEthan]

Dan you be cray. Catalyst isn't without its problems, but it just feels so nice to play.

[MetalCaveman]

Got the third ending and the platinum in The Witch and the Hundred Knight. Getting all 3 endings gives you most of the trophies, with only a couple being somewhat easy to miss, thankfully, they're not hard to get, as the game tells you which areas have pillars which are not yet active, and the other one just requires starting a NG+ save and making a couple of choices at the beginning, pretty simple stuff.