Games You've Beat in 2017

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I finished Little Nightmares last week. It's a puzzle platformer but the puzzles were more point and click style than platformer style (that's a good thing). It got (unnecessarily?) dark at the end but I enjoyed the atmosphere, and graphics were great, like an eastern european stop motion animation. It's a bit strange it got a disc release as even as a new release was under £20. I enjoyed it and would recommend it and hope a publisher picks up city of metronome, which looks like I'd enjoy but certainly won't be holding my breath for.

[TheMightyEthan]

Finished and then platinumed Horizon: Zero Dawn.  Excellent, excellent game.  Right now it's looking good for GOTY.  The thing I find most impressive is that I played it for 57 hours and never felt like it had me doing busywork, or that quests were added just to pad out the game, or anything.  I can't remember a single fetch quest (though I do have a vague feeling that once or twice characters asked me for stuff I already had in my inventory...).  And as far as the lore goes, not only is the world itself very cool, but the explanation for how and why it got to be the way it is is very cool, and a neat twist on what you would expect.  I also really like how they handled Aloy as a female main character, in that she is just the main character and female and there's not really anything made of it.  There are a couple of passing references to institutional sexism in some of the tribes, but it's not a main focus at all, and it's never really directed at Aloy herself.  She just is, and it's great.

Overall, I am sad that the game is over, and quite looking forward to the expansion this fall.

Very minor spoiler unrelated to the main story:

I actually got all the cores to unlock the overshield armor prior to beating the final mission, but forgot to actually do it.  It would have come in quite handy.

[Mister Jack]

Crash Bandicoot.  The first one.  AND I got all the gems, which I was never able to do as a kid.  It's easier in the remake because checkpoints actually save how many boxes you've broken now like they should have all along, but there are still levels where you have to do the entire thing without dying once to get the colored gems, which is still a bitch because they're some of the hardest levels in the game.  But I did it.  Time to move on to Crash 2!

[toxicitizen]

Neon Struct.

Comparisons to Deus Ex and Thief always make me simultaneously curious and skeptical. They're two of my favorite game series, so it's enough to make me interested in a game but it also sets the bar pretty damn high. So, for an indie game made by (as far as I can tell) just one dude, Neon Struct is a shockingly good effort.

It's obviously limited in many ways. It has a very minimalist art style that frankly doesn't look all that great (think Blendo Games but without the strong art direction), it's not a full-on immersive sim (the maps are all fairly small and there are no hubs, just a linear sequence of small, short levels) and there aren't many options given to you gameplay-wise, it's pretty much just a stealth game. But even within that limited scope it still manages to capture at least part of the essence that made Deus Ex so special at the time.

Some maps have you doing simple objectives that would be relegated to the hub (like go buy a train pass and catch the train), and even the "mission" maps are completely open despite being small. One mission has you infiltrating and clinic and there's like half a dozen ways to enter the building. It's surprisingly great. It has the kind of plot you'd expect from such a game, people are always talking to you over comms, you're constantly hacking doors and shit (although the hacking minigame is... kinda dumb. It's literally Breakout.)

Oh and it has an absolutely fantastic soundtrack!

So, yeah, Neon Struct was a pleasant surprise and gets the FLD seal of approval.

Edited July 9, 2017 by FLD

[TheMightyEthan]

Orwell.

It was okay.  The ending was weird.

They set up the ending like the player character would be expected to decide that the Orwell system is horrible, even though throughout the game you use it to successfully investigate a terrorist group without really causing harm to anyone else (other than the invasion of their privacy), so doesn't mesh very well.

[TheMightyEthan]

Offworld Trading Company.  I like it.  I was a teensy disappointed with the campaign, I didn't realize it was randomly generated like a Total War campaign, I thought it would be a story-based campaign.  Even so, it's fun, a neat take on RTS by making it all base-building, which is the part of RTS I like best anyway.

[Mister Jack]

Crash Bandicoot 2.  Got 100% on this one too, which was considerably easier to do than in the first game.  I never actually played Crash 2 and 3 before but I hear they get progressively easier, so getting 100% on Crash 3 shouldn't be too hard if I was able to do it on the first one.  I'm really liking this collection but I have one major complaint.  In order to get full completion for a lot of levels, you have to play them perfectly.  If you mess up, however, there is no restart level option.  You have to quit the level, sit through a loading screen, pick the level again from the world map/hub, sit through another loading screen, and only then can you try the level over from the beginning.  For some dumb reason, the restart option is only available in the time trial runs, which doesn't help me because those change the level's items into time related items rather than the fruits and Aku Aku masks I so desperately need.

[TheMightyEthan]

The Turing Test.  I liked it, though the puzzles never really got hard enough.  There was one weird thing plot-wise though:

It's weird that the game sets it up as though there's any moral question about what needs to be done?  The crew cannot be allowed to return to earth, it's too dangerous.  This is not a question, and that the game acts like TOM might be in the wrong for quarantining them is bizarre.

[CrowKnow]

Was on a roguelite run today apparently... beat gonner and spelunky.  Gonner after 7 hours and Spelunky after 44 hours ;_;.  First time getting to Olmec and managed to finish it with my last bomb.  Gonner I found a new kinda op combo that basically let me burst down the last two bosses..

[toxicitizen]

Lords of the Fallen.

Finally got around to giving this one a shot. It's uh... let's go with uneven. It's a soulslike but for every superficial thing it gets right, it gets a fundamental one wrong. Like someone looked at Dark Souls and went "I could make this" but didn't bother looking too deeply into what makes Dark Souls so damn good.

There's little variety in the enemies and bosses, they're all very samey both visually and mechanically. Which might have been deliberate either because of budget or just to minimize the risk of screwing things up but either way the game suffers for it.

It's also not as tight mechanically. I'm on NG+ now and I can plow through just about everything with ease, but on the first run through there were some very frustrating issues. A lot of enemies are these big hulking guys with huge tower shields and they aren't a whole lot of fun to fight. If there's an obvious way to open them up, I never figured it out. Even attacking them from the backside results in hitting their shield, which is fucking stupid. They can just turtle up behind their shield and take the hits without staggering. They also have some truly bullshit combos that make it very clear that they do not obey the same rules of stamina as you do. You, on the other hand, can only take a hit or two before your guard breaks. There were moments where it genuinely felt like the devs went "You know, Dark Souls is pretty good but maybe it would be better if it wasn't so fair?" At this point I'm just rushing everyone with my "Fuck you!" greatsword to take them out before they can do anything.

The game does get enough things right to make you want to love it, though, and there's a few cool tweaks on the formula here and there so it's definitely worth 10 bucks and a playthrough if you have a Souls itch to scratch. Just keep in mind that it's nowhere near as good. If the Souls series is a 10/10 then this is a 7 at best. Oh and unless you're going for all the trophies/achievements, don't bother getting the Ancient Labyrinth DLC. It is so fucking bad...

Edited July 20, 2017 by FLD

[deanb]

I played it a bit since it was a PS+ game. I don't wholly gel with the OG soulsborne games but this just bounced right off me, but hey I'll try anything once. Seems Surge is the new attempt at a "souls-like", which I think is getting a demo soon.

[Mister Jack]

The only "Soulslike" games I've heard positive things about outside of the Souls games themselves have been Dragon's Dogma (if that even counts) and Nioh.  Everyone else seems to be fumbling over themselves trying to figure out what makes those games appealing to people.

[TheMightyEthan]

Inside.

Well that was weird as shit, but I expected weird.  I really enjoyed it, and it's a masterclass in environmental storytelling.  Since there are no words anywhere in the game (other than the title and the credits) things were obviously fairly vague about what was going on in the world, but that considered I have a surprisingly clear idea about it.

[toxicitizen]

2 hours ago, deanbmmv said:

I played it a bit since it was a PS+ game. I don't wholly gel with the OG soulsborne games but this just bounced right off me, but hey I'll try anything once. Seems Surge is the new attempt at a "souls-like", which I think is getting a demo soon.

Yeah, the demo for Surge just came out. It's by the same devs as Lords of the Fallen. It's already installed, I'll give it a shot once I'm done getting the last few achievements in Lords. I'm really hoping they learned from their mistakes because they're honestly pretty close to getting it right. But even if they haven't, I've wanted a sci-fi Souls for so long that I'd probably be willing to put up with it anyway...

2 hours ago, Mister Jack said:

The only "Soulslike" games I've heard positive things about outside of the Souls games themselves have been Dragon's Dogma (if that even counts) and Nioh.  Everyone else seems to be fumbling over themselves trying to figure out what makes those games appealing to people.

I only played about 10 hours of Dragon's Dogma before dropping it but from what I've seen I really wouldn't describe it as Souls-like. Nioh seems to fit the bill, though. I'm still hoping it'll come to PC eventually because I really want to try it.

In my experience, the best Souls-inspired games have been on the indie side of things. Most of them only borrow a few mechanics and apply them to other genres, though. I still need to go back and play more of it but Salt and Sanctuary is basically 2D Dark Souls. And I mean that in the most literal sense possible. It's actually kinda shocking how blatantly identical it is.

Edited July 21, 2017 by FLD

[deanb]

Yeah what I've seen of Nioh it's "souls-like", but Dragons Dogma not at all.

[Mister Jack]

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age

I enjoyed this a hell of a lot more than I did the first time thanks to all the QoL changes, which completely address the majority of the game's problems.  You're still a little too dependant on the RNG for some items, and I got annoyed by all the bosses who could put up barriers that completely negate all damage, forcing you to just wait until they go down, but aside from that I don't really have many bad things to say about this remaster.  I might try to platinum it, but I dunno if I'll actually do it this time.  Some of the trophies require some serious dedication and luck.  I'm definitely going to beat Yiazmat, at least, and there's still plenty for me to do even after beating it.  I'm realizing now that, aside from the MMOs, FFXII probably has the best postgame content in the series with all these extra hunts and bosses. 

[deanb]

I'm just at Mt Bur Omisace. But I've had a busy few weeks (also running a chunk through the remote play, which is useful, but mainly for grinding than wanting to do anything specific with).

[toxicitizen]

Batman: The Telltale Series.

Being a huge Batman fan, I went into it with fairly high expectations (well, as high as they could reasonably be for a Telltale game) and I wasn't disappointed. Well, except for how they've made basically zero changes or improvements to their formula. Don't fix what isn't broken, I suppose. Too bad that doesn't extend to their engine...

At first I wasn't crazy about the liberties they've taken with the canon but if they're going with an early days storyline then that's probably the best way to keep things interesting. Also, I got curious and did some quick googling and apparently your choices are as inconsequential as ever lol.

So, Harvey still turns into "Two-Face" even if you save him? That makes me not feel bad about letting him get burnt, at least he's the real deal now. Although, his split personality kinda came pretty suddenly and out of nowhere. If it wasn't for the character's pre-existing history, it would just be awful, nonsensical writing...

But yeah, after the Arkham games it felt a little weird to not be more in control of the action but it was pretty fun overall. I think I'm actually looking forward to the second season more than I am for the Wolf Among Us now. I know better than to buy a Telltale game at launch, though. Not just because of the wait but also because of how poor of a state they tend to be in at first. Still need to play Game of Thrones and catch up on The Walking Dead, anyway. Oh and I guess Minecraft too, which I got along with Batman in the current Humble Bundle.

[Zeo-Gold92]

The games I've finished this year so far have been: Resi7, Titanfall 2, Dishonered Definitive Edition, Injustice 2. Resi7 is my GOTY so far. I think that's it so far, I really wanna get my hands on Nier Automata soon. I do have a handful of games that are ongoing though >_>. I tend to do that, have multiple games going at any one time and feel as if they aren't progressing at all! I was never like this when I was younger, maybe because games were more of a luxury for me back then. 

[TheMightyEthan]

Finished Watch Dogs 2 last night.  I liked it quite a bit, a good 4/5.  I ranted a lot about the terrible checkpointing, but there were really only a few missions where it became an issue.  The problem were the missions which made you actually go in with Marcus rather than using your drones, so if you got killed it reset you at the beginning of the missions.  Since most missions let you accomplish them with the drones it wasn't a huge issue overall, there was just a series of several missions in a row that had that problem so I was getting frustrated.  I really liked using the drones though.

It definitely had more personality than the first one, but I felt like it lacked focus, even in the main missions.  I know that lots of open world games are criticized for lacking focus, but usually at least the main missions stick to a clear throughline.  In this one though, several missions were labelled as "main" missions that I would have called side missions.  It just made the game seem meandering, since usually in these games I'll play side missions until I start to feel like I want to progress, then I'll do a main mission, and repeat.  In this one though several times even doing the "main" mission didn't feel like it had anything to do with the central plot, so I couldn't reliably get that sense of progress when I wanted it.

Also, somehow they managed to make the car chases less fun in this one than the first one, which is a bummer because the car chases were the best part of the first one.  I think part of it was due to the more open nature of San Francisco as compared to Chicago, but even though I fully upgraded my city control I felt like I rarely had an opportunity to use the techniques during chases, for the most part it turned into GTA style "run away until you break line of site long enough" rather than WD1 style throwing up barriers and exploding streets and whatnot to get them off your tail.  I had the upgrade that's supposed to pop up a prompt to let you trigger that stuff when your pursuers are in place, but for whatever reason it rarely showed itself.

It almost seems like a wash in terms of improvements/problems, but overall the increase in personality really brightens my impression of it, and so I come away feeling like it was better than the first one even if on a breakdown it doesn't seem like it should have been.

[danielpholt]

Finished Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice on Friday. 

 

So, I'm not really equipped to talk much about it's take on mental illness, but I can say that I don't think I've ever played anything that handled the subject matter as well as it does. You'll want to play it with headphones for certain, as much of the games overall feel comes from 'the voices in Senua's head'.

 

The combat is fine, if a little boring at times (especially as you get towards the end), and some might find the games pacing a little..slow, but that didn't bother me much. I mean, it's closer to walking simulator that character action game, surprisingly.

 

I think if the game works for you, you'll really enjoy it, regardless of its shortcomings. It worked for me, and I think it might end up being one of my favourite games of the year. Can't ask for much more than that from £24.99.

[CorgiShinobi]

Yep, just posted my thoughts in the game thread. I agree with your points and I forgot to mention that when the difficulty ramps up, the enemies do feel like sponges taking in so much damage. Honestly, the bridge to Hel/Hella was frustrating once six guys spawned around me. Because there isn't a true lock on mechanic, it was a pain to finish off the correct target or evade.

 

Still, very great stuff.

[danielpholt]

13 hours ago, Atomsk88 said:

Yep, just posted my thoughts in the game thread. I agree with your points and I forgot to mention that when the difficulty ramps up, the enemies do feel like sponges taking in so much damage. Honestly, the bridge to Hel/Hella was frustrating once six guys spawned around me. Because there isn't a true lock on mechanic, it was a pain to finish off the correct target or evade.

 

Still, very great stuff.

 

Yup. I actually ended up knocking the difficulty down to easy at that point, largely due to the fact that I didn't want to see my save deleted this close to the finale. 

[TCP]

Assassin's Creed II (PS4)

Yeah, I bought the Ezio collection. I haven't been gaming much in the past 12 months. Well, I played three Pokemon games for the second half of 2016 and lots of Breath of the Wild in 2017, but not much else. I thought maybe the best way to kickstart me back into some console games would be something I've played before for nostalgia's sake. So I played and beat AC2. I know you're all wondering "TCP, does it hold up?". The answer is "no, not really". It's kind of ridiculously janky. It might not seem like Ass Creed has improved much over the last few games, but it has, at least in how it controls and looks. AC2's buildings look fine but character's look a little weird and the entire game has this ugly brown filter on it. There was a few times you could see outside from inside your villa (one of the few buildings you can actually enter) and from the inside the sky looks nice and blue, once you step out the ugly brown filter comes in. Definitely a sign of the times. Also, especially after previous Ass Creed games, not to mention BotW, climbing/parkour is absolute trash in this game. Did I mention how ridiculously bad the voice acting is? I don't remember that bugging me much in 2009 but in 2017 it's hard to get past. All that said, Ezio is charming AF (much more so than Arno or Jacob Frey) and, maybe it's the nostalgia, but the game is still a blast. Plus easy trophies. Onto Brotherhood now, in the first few sequences and it's already a major step up. 

 

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)

Yeah I beat BotW for the second time, this time on Switch. I usually hate when people say something new is their "all time favourite" but this game might be my all time favourite.

Edited August 17, 2017 by The Cowboy Poet in English

[deanb]

Ezio era of AC was the tops.