Games You've Beaten in 2018

[Thursday Next]

Knack 2

Do not @ me.

[FMW]

Sonic and the Black Knight

 

It's... bad.  Really bad.  It's kinda mind boggling how a game with this much production value made it out with such little polish given to the interactive component.  I played through almost the entire game in one sitting while working through a bottle of whiskey.  It wasn't a great Wednesday.

[toxicitizen]

I'm kind of offended that you'd waste a perfectly good bottle of whiskey on a Sonic game.

[TCP]

Far Cry 5. That was one of the worst endings to an otherwise good game. It was just stupid. I know Far Cry is about stupid but this was bad stupid not good stupid.

Truthfully, as others have mentioned the story kind of sucked. During the last brother's story sequence I just ended up skipping the cut scenes entirely. It didn't help that the main story missions in the north area is super repetitive. In fact, the way the game is structured didn't really work with me. I like the idea of pissing off the cult enough that they hunt you but there's no escaping it and the game doesn't care if you're just meters away from a new Prepper Stash or half way through a side quest, it'll pull you out and throw you into a long cut scene followed by a frustrating mission.

Otherwise, the game is great. The side quests are usually fun. The game play loop is fun. Hunting and fishing is great. Montana is beautiful. I'm actually pretty excited, I'm going to Montana this summer, to a city called Missoula which they mention in the opening is only an hour away. Hopefully no cults take control of the area while I'm there, as a left leaning Canadian, I'd be the first to be murdered.

It just felt like this game had something to say about Christianity and right wing middle Americans, but then it chickened out. 

[Zeo-Gold92]

I just got done with Far Cry 5 as well, I too shared a lot of the criticisms that you had with the game. It really is a shame that for what is a pretty good game to be let down so hard like this, especially the endings. I got the 

Spoiler

Nuclear ending.

 

[Mister Jack]

Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

 

It's...alright?

 

 

Honestly I don't have much that's interesting to say about this one.  The game is fairly generic and there aren't really a whole lot of original ideas in it, but it's polished and generally well done.  It just doesn't do much to stand out.  The story is extremely predictable.  The characters are pretty bland and the only one I really cared about was Evan himself.  But on the other hand, there were no super annoying party members either.  I dunno, this game is real middle of the road.  I didn't hate anything about it, but I didn't really love anything either.  If you're into basic, tropey RPGs like Dragon Quest then I guess you'll probably like this game as well, but I don't really think it's worth 60 bucks.  Maybe 30.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Mister Jack

[Hot Heart]

Rise of the Tomb Raider

 

It was good. I mean, it's probably "great" if you never played the first one but it didn't feel like enough has changed since it. It didn't do any Batman: Arkham sequel type improvements. The story's merely okay and the combat gets a bit samey by the end but the environments are gorgeous and all the clambering about in the setpieces is heaps of fun.

[Thursday Next]

On 23/04/2018 at 4:31 AM, Mister Jack said:

Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

 

 

I played the original, the biggest hook for me was the Ghibli animation/story telling.

[TCP]

I got about half way through NNK2 and just couldn't finish it. I do like the side stuff with the army battles and the kingdom building. Evan go fuck off and die though.

[Mister Jack]

God of War

 

If you own a PS4 and you don't pick up this game, just get rid of it because you are doing it wrong.  This game is an absolute must-play for PS4 owners, and it may just be the best exclusive they've released yet.  I thought I was done with the series after God of War III.  The previous games were excellent, but after so many sequel and spin-offs that used the same formula it was getting stale.  This soft reboot, however, changes up so many things that it feels like a completely new franchise, and I mean that in the best possible way.  Kratos' character arc is satisfying and feels like a natural progression from his days as a rage-filled murder maniac in the previous trilogy.  He is now a man filled with regret for his past actions and struggling to move on from them as well as teach his son to be better than he was.  It's very interesting to watch their relationship unfold.  The combat is top-notch.  While I enjoyed the old combat just fine, this feels a lot more methodical, requiring you to really consider the various options you have in your arsenal.  I can't wait for the inevitable sequel, but in the meantime I still have a lot of side content to do.  I'm not anywhere near done with this game yet.

[TheMightyEthan]

Is it better than Horizon: Zero Dawn?

[Mister Jack]

Easily, and I liked Horizon quite a bit.

[Mr. GOH!]

God of War. I finished the main story,  but I have a significant post-story quest to finish (that has major story implications going forward; I'm not just collecting 50 widgets). This is my GOTY so far. If you have a PS4, you should probably get GoW. 

 

@TheMightyEthan I loved Horizon Zero Dawn but I ended up liking GoW slightly more. The combat in both is fantastic,  but GoW was consistently more fun because of how meh the combat against humans was in Horizon. GoW also benefits from a tighter narrative focus, better writing and acting overall, and some pretty great world design. I also really loved its take on Norse mythology.  Both games are masterpieces, though. 

[MetalCaveman]

MGS V, only took me 2 years.  Got burned out with some of the side-ops and how you have to play a bunch of them, before unlocking the next story mission, so I stopped and went to play some other stuff. After the nod to the series in Ghost Recon I decided to go back and finish it, only had 2 story missions left so it wasn't that hard.  

 

Probably because of how long it had been since I last played, but that mission where

Spoiler

you have to kill your own soldiers because they're infected

didn't have much effect on me.  

 

Can't say enough good things about the gameplay, it's fucking awesome! \m/ \m/  The story is... Well, it's a thing.  Still, in the end it was a pretty enjoyable game, and it was fun to go back to it.  

[Thursday Next]

+1 God of War. What a game. Jesus. Can't wait for the next. Was a bit thrown by the ending 

Spoiler

didn't expect it to end in Jotunheim after killing Baldur. I'm used to credits rolling immediately after the last fight. That said, I love that the game is tee'd up for a sequel. Would love some meaty DLC in the meantime, but not sure if that is on the cards.

 

Love that the side quests generally feel meaningful. I've got two last jobs to do in the game till I've done all the content, then it's just a matter of whether or not I want to upgrade everything... Which I maybe do...

[TheMightyEthan]

Destiny 2

 

Just finished the campaign, obviously there's a lot more game left. I actually really liked the campaign though, it was way better than the Destiny 1 campaign. I'm really glad I waited until after the Go Fast update though. Cooldowns feel okay to me now, but if they were much slower oh my God it would be frustrating.

 

I ended up playing with a controller even though I'm on PC because sitting in front of the TV is just so much better than playing at my desk. Sacrilege, I know, and I was worried I'd be the weak link in any team, but actually in the strikes I've done I've been up with the best players in terms of kills/precision kills/assists/etc, so I guess I didn't have anything to worry about.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Finished the single player of Splatoon 2. I got all the collectables for the first worlds but it was enough to get through the final world - it was tough. I'll go back and get them with easier weapons as you can choose on your second go through but for now I'm playing the splatfest. Not too sure how I feel the game. I look forward to playing it, but get bored of it fairly quickly when i do. I would say I like it though because I do keep going back.

[CorgiShinobi]

I'm still playing it because I feel I can Platinum this game, but I'll say I've beaten...

 

GOD OF WAR!

 

It was the other day, and while I knew what would happen half the time, but I still thoroughly enjoy the story and love that we have a father-son story the likes of The Last of Us' father-daughter story. I don't have any true nostalgia for the prior God of War games, but to me I enjoy this Kratos more than I could the edgy and rage filled Kratos of the original trilogy. This game deserves all the praise it gets. Even when I have other games asking to be played, I couldn't stay away from God of War too long.

 

My only complaint would be that while there's a sense of exploration, I feel the game doesn't properly harbor that sense to explore. Quite a number of times I would see something I could finally unlock, and almost immediately regret it because the enemies where Lv 7-8 while I was only Lv 2. The flip side to this, where you are at Lv 7 or 8, is going after the collectibles. If you're missing a few ravens, expect to run halfway across an area and then backtrack to get to back to the mystic gateway. Things happen to get blocked off when you progress through the story.

 

And I guess some of the Valkyries are bull, but the others make up for it. They give off a strong Dark Souls vibe with how challenging and varied they can be to fight.

[Mister Jack]

Far Cry 5

 

This is a game with two different ideologies that are at war with each other.  On the one hand, it wants to give you the freedom to do missions in any order you want.  You aren't railroaded along a certain path and you can choose how you want to progress.  That's great.  On the other hand, once you hit certain milestones the game suddenly stops whatever you're doing, even if you're in the middle of a side mission, and forces you to do an aggravating story mission to progress the plot.  Why was this necessary?  Why can't you just lock those missions until I hit the milestone, then I get to choose when I feel like doing them?  How many times can this one dumbass deputy get himself captured?!  A lot!  I also can't stand that the playable character is a silent protagonist.  The villains yammer on and on at you, and you're forced to just sit there and take it because the deputy never speaks.  Why?  Because it's a create-a-character.  Why did the game even need this?  It's a first person view!  You don't see your character's face!  This was a really stupid decision to sacrifice having an actual character in favor of customization.  Finally there's the endings.  Good god.  You know, Far Cry would be a much better series if it didn't always insist on crawling so far up its own ass with these bullshit endings.  Do they think they're being deep or clever?  Too clever by half, maybe. Is the intention of Far Cry endings to make me feel utter vexation?  Well congratulations, I guess.  You accomplished your goal because your story fucking sucks.

 

At least the gameplay is good outside of it.  Is it way better than Far Cry 4, though?  I'm not so sure.  There are definitely improvements in place, but I don't know if it's 60 bucks of improvements.  I might recommend waiting for a complete edition once all the DLC is out.  That would be worth 60 bucks.

[deanb]

Create a character element sort of makes sense from the Arcade/co-op elements.

[toxicitizen]

On 1/24/2018 at 4:00 PM, FLD said:

Also, I think I'm some kind of oracle or something because the devs just announced a follow-up today.

 

Remember this from a few months ago? Well, it happened again! On a whim, I got around to playing Subsurface Circular last night and today Mike Bithell announced and released Quarantine Circular out of nowhere! I'm gonna have to figure out if there's a way to use this power of mine for evil.

 

Anyway, Subsurface Circular is pretty neat. I bought it at launch because I've enjoyed everything Mike Bithell's ever done, but then kinda forgot about it. It's a cool little text adventure kinda deal, nothing mind-blowing but it's pretty cheap and was interesting enough that I beat it in one sitting. Might grab the sequel(?) and play it tonight.

[TheMightyEthan]

Hmmm, what games do I want sequels to...

[toxicitizen]

4 hours ago, TheMightyEthan said:

Hmmm, what games do I want sequels to...

 

I'm more optimistic about it this E3 than I've been in a long time but maybe I should start replaying all the Splinter Cell games. Just to be safe...

[TheMightyEthan]

Yes, yes you should.

[Mal]

Titanfall 2

 

Not too shabby after the interesting halfway point. Before that though I was really just running past enemies just because the game allowed me to. I was just killing those that was necessary to get to my waypoint. Not too sure how I feel about it but it does teach you to move around. After the halfway point (the part that Titanfall 2 is well known for), the game kind of forces you to kill most things but it also become more interesting as well (large battles or really open areas) so it didn't feel like a chore.

I got to say though, killing human mobs doesn't have any "omph" to it like say Wolfenstein or DOOM has. I partially blame the lame feeling weapons. I think the only feel good weapon was the sniper rifle at close to point blank range.

 

Overall, I think it is a fine single player experience.