Games You've Beat in 2017

[Mal]

To this day I'm undecided if that did more harm or good to teams who had to play with four people on one console.

[TheMightyEthan]

I think it largely depends on the size of your TV.  4 people on a 20-inch was awful, but 4 people on a 37 wasn't bad.

[Hot Heart]

To this day I'm undecided if that did more harm or good to teams who had to play with four people on one console.

 

Heh, yeah, the communication worked well and... not so well. Especially since you'd usually all just have guest usernames that were the same gamertag with (1), (2) after it.

 

It was a heck of a lot of fun for Rocket Race though. Also, the social slayer playlists were so casual that it was just a blast in any case. You'd often see groups of people with the Gamertag(1), ...(2) etc. guest players.

[Thursday Next]

 

To this day I'm undecided if that did more harm or good to teams who had to play with four people on one console.

 

Heh, yeah, the communication worked well and... not so well. Especially since you'd usually all just have guest usernames that were the same gamertag with (1), (2) after it.

 

It was a heck of a lot of fun for Rocket Race though. Also, the social slayer playlists were so casual that it was just a blast in any case. You'd often see groups of people with the Gamertag(1), ...(2) etc. guest players.

 

 

Ummm, how is communication an issue with local MP? Presumably you know the names of the people you are sitting next to so don't have to refer to Steve as Gamer Tag 1.

[deanb]

I'd guess it's in not knowing that "xXxhotsniper360xXx (2)" is bob and not john.

[Hot Heart]

 

 

To this day I'm undecided if that did more harm or good to teams who had to play with four people on one console.

 

Heh, yeah, the communication worked well and... not so well. Especially since you'd usually all just have guest usernames that were the same gamertag with (1), (2) after it.

 

It was a heck of a lot of fun for Rocket Race though. Also, the social slayer playlists were so casual that it was just a blast in any case. You'd often see groups of people with the Gamertag(1), ...(2) etc. guest players.

 

 

Ummm, how is communication an issue with local MP? Presumably you know the names of the people you are sitting next to so don't have to refer to Steve as Gamer Tag 1.

 

 

Dean has it. It's because everyone on-screen looks exactly the same, so you might not know which one Steve is. Of course you know what everyone's called. 

[Mal]

One down. Now onto Pirate's Curse and perhaps I'll get the new game during a sale.

[Thursday Next]

 

 

 

To this day I'm undecided if that did more harm or good to teams who had to play with four people on one console.

 

Heh, yeah, the communication worked well and... not so well. Especially since you'd usually all just have guest usernames that were the same gamertag with (1), (2) after it.

 

It was a heck of a lot of fun for Rocket Race though. Also, the social slayer playlists were so casual that it was just a blast in any case. You'd often see groups of people with the Gamertag(1), ...(2) etc. guest players.

 

 

Ummm, how is communication an issue with local MP? Presumably you know the names of the people you are sitting next to so don't have to refer to Steve as Gamer Tag 1.

 

 

Dean has it. It's because everyone on-screen looks exactly the same, so you might not know which one Steve is. Of course you know what everyone's called. 

 

 

Oh right, I get it. Fair point. Well, if there's only four of you it won't take too long to remember who is top left etc.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

 

Had the game sitting on one of the last chapters for about a year. Put it on hiatus for book stuff, then Witcher 3 stuff, then Pillars, and who knows what else. Turned out to be one of the best, if not the best, PS3 Atelier titles. While I'm accustomed to the time management of the earlier games, I like that it was removed in this one. Being able to take care of things at my own pace was pleasant. Made ultimate gear and all that in preparation for a quick second run in order to get the Platinum for it. Also has an Ar tonelico-tier vocal album.

[Mal]

Sure, I bitched about the last few levels (especially the final level which is pure instant death platforming) a hour ago but this is still a great game. Besides from the great music, I like how each item from each stage changes the game in neat ways, unlike the transformations from the last game. You could only use one transformation at a time so there were no synergy between them and moves. The items though has great synergy which culimates to being able to blast through levels which makes backtracking a breeze. And backtracking you will if you want the real ending. The real final boss is a blast to fight as well. There's four stages where the last one is just for fun.

 

Now I really want Half-Genie Hero. Seems like they are combining the transformations and items to work together. Also there's more Rottytops.

 

Edit: I got to mention this: There is one level that screams the first level of Super Ghoul N Ghosts. All it was missing was changing platforms. It nearly kicked my ass until I started to run. God, so many flash backs.

Edited February 3, 2017 by Mal

[Mr. GOH!]

Uncharted 4. Best gameplay in the series, but I think the new Tomb Raider games are a little better. But, holy hell, I forgot how insane the production values are in Naughty Dog games. 

 

Great fun, can't wait for TLoU 2. 

[Mister Jack]

Broken Age was sitting there on my PS4 from a previous PS+ month and I'd never gotten around to beating it so I went ahead and did that and got the platinum while I was at it.

[Thursday Next]

I Expect You To Die. Fantastic puzzle game that really shows off some great VR tricks. Highly recommended.

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm probably gonna break down and get a VR system when the 2nd gen units arrive.

[Mister Jack]

Metro: Last Light

 

Pretty good to finally get this one off the backlog.  I already have 60% of the trophies for both games in the redux collection so I might just go back and get the platinum for them both.  

 

edit: BOOOO.  There's a glitch or something in Metro 2033 which prevents one of the trophies from unlocking, which means I'll never be able to platinum it.  There goes all my interest in replaying it.

Edited February 12, 2017 by Mister Jack

[CorgiShinobi]

Resident Evil 7

 

First playthrough at about 9 hours, though it would have been about 8 hours if I hadn't been retrying a few scenarios and...

 

 

as Mia trying to figure out where to plug in the power cable.

 

 

I got 19/20 Mr. Everywhere statues without any help. Kinda pissed about being off by one. I looked up a video and it was the one under the net in that shed on the dock after fighting a handful of Molded. I swear it wasn't making a sound when I got there, but in the video it was making a sound. Still, it's the only one that's laying down while all the others stand up.

 

15/18 Antique Coins and 56/72 Files. Used 42 Health Items.

 

Ending was dirt easy with all the Remote Bombs I got, though word to the wise don't try them on the final boss. Mainly because you can get instantly killed trying to set them up.

[Mister Jack]

The statues are cumulative at least, so when you play it again you only have to get that one.

[toxicitizen]

Tales of Zestiria.

I finally beat a Tales game! After I got bored with Symphonia and dropped it after 20h, I figured the series might just not be for me since it's generally one of the most highly-regarded entries. But I still wanted to give it another shot and Zestiria being on Steam made it the natural choice. I'm really glad I did because I ended up really enjoying this one, which is kinda weird because, from what I can tell, most Tales fan seemed to hate it. It probably helped that I went in with incredibly low expectations but I think that was the correct approach for this series. Looking back, I can kinda see why Symphonia didn't click. I went in with the completely wrong expectations. I had heard so much praise for it over the years that I had it built up in my mind as some kind of semi-hidden amazing JRPG that would stand alongside the greats like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI  and what not and lmao, that is not this series.

 

But back to Zestiria. You play as Sorey, who becomes Anime Jesus the Shepherd and has to go defeat Ganondorf the Lord of Calamity. As far as JRPG plots go, it's incredibly straightforward and laid back. You're not gonna fight the evil pope to keep him from resurrecting Cthulhu or find an ancient spaceship or go to the moon on a whale or any other kind of typical JRPG nonsense. I mean, I love that stuff but now that all's said and done I kind of appreciate how relatively normal Zestiria was. The main plot is a little dull at times but (most of) the characters are very likable and there's these little optional skits you can watch throughout the game that are way more fun and charming than anything from the game's actual cutscenes.

 

My biggest gripe (and this was true of Symphonia as well) remains the combat system. It's more actiony but you're essentially locked "on rails" towards the enemies as far as movement goes. It ended up growing on me in Zestiria but the side-view camera in Symphonia really made it seem like glorified 2D combat, which was a huge bummer at the time. I started enjoying it more once I really dug into the Artes system and the mechanics finally clicked but I could never shake the thought that I would enjoy it a lot more if the combat was more Ys-like.

 

The game is also "open-world" which is just a buzzword-y way of saying it has these huge open, barren areas you have to cross to move between cities and dungeons. It's so bad that the new game actually introduced a fucking hoverboard to make traversal less of a chore. Although, to be fair, the parts where I had the most fun were when the main story gave me more open objectives (go find/collect all the XYZs) and I was mostly free to explore and do side-quests as I pleased. So the open-world thing is not a complete failure, it just needs some work.

 

Overall,  it's not my new favorite JRPG or anything but I enjoyed it enough to want to play more of the series. I'll probably give Symphonia another shot at some point but right now I'm more interested in Tales of Berseria. I'll wait until the price drops a bit but everything I'm hearing makes it sound like it improves on all the issues I had with Zestiria and apparently the story is pretty good (I'm hearing "the best since Vesperia" a lot but I don't know what that means and at this point I take everything fans of the series say with a grain of salt anyway).

 

Oh and if you play Zestiria on PC then definitely install the Zestiria Fix mod. It adds a lot of cool features but the main one is 60fps. I played the first 5 hours or so at 30 and thought it was fine but then I installed it just to check it out and holy shit, it's night and day. The game seriously benefits from the framerate boost, it's very much a "you can't go back" kinda deal. I think the mod had some issues early on where some animations and game logic were sped up but the modder did a pretty damn good job of fixing all of that, so it's mostly flawless now. The only issues I encountered were very minor stuff. Mostly just cloth physics sometimes going apeshit during cutscenes.

[TheMightyEthan]

I thought I was gonna be able to post Gravity Rush 2 in here, but it turns out when the credits roll you still have 20% of the game left...

[TheFlyingGerbil]

at least that's better than a ubisoft game where the credits are about 20% of the game.

[TCP]

at least that's better than a ubisoft game where the credits are about 20% of the game.

 

 

Post of the year

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Which 20% of the game are they recapping in the credits though?

[TheMightyEthan]

Now I can officially put Gravity Rush 2 in here.

 

I liked it quite a bit. Fundamentally it was just more Gravity Rush, which was all I really wanted. My only real complaint is that with some of the challenge missions they got too far away from just playing with your gravity powers.

[Mister Jack]

Bloodborne

 

I had a much better time with this than I did with Demon's Souls, though some of the things I griped about with that game still apply here.  It's too easy to get lost, there's no attempt whatsoever to convey the story to the player, and farming for healing items can be a chore.  Also, this game introduced a new thing I hate with the Frenzy status, which fills up a bar EXTREMELY quickly if you just walk too close to certain kinds of enemies, taking off NINETY PERCENT of your health when it fills up.  Walking away doesn't even save you because the bar continues to fill up until you've taken the full amount of frenzy damage.  Bullshit!  And the items to cure frenzy are really expensive, too!

 

That said, I didn't have to hateplay my way through this one.  I enjoyed it for the most part, especially since the more aggressive combat helped with the pacing.

[TheMightyEthan]

Halo Wars 2

 

It was really good.  There was some stuff about the plot that I didn't like, but ultimately that just comes down to framing for the missions, and the missions themselves were great.