Finished Any Games Lately?

I finished up Far Cry 3. It's been in my Steam (I guess UPlay too) library for a long time but all the talk about Far Cry 5 over the summer got me interested in the series. I booted it up for the first time about 2 weeks ago and just after I found a great deal on #4. It really got it hooks in me. The mix of shooting with the Assassin's Creed formula (taking over bases, scaling towers) works really well. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I liked it. I've played way too many Assassin's Creed games.

Anyone ever try the co-op? Is it worth trying to find someone to play it with?

I'll wait awhile before heading into Far Cry 4. Far Cry 3 was a nice break from Red Dead Redemption 2 but, oddly enough, has me more excited to go back to the slower cowboy lifestyle. Well, that or Assassin's Creed Origins. So many open worlds, so many open worlds.

I finished up Emily is Away and Emily is Away Too awhile ago but never updated. The sounds were very nostalgic.

Spoiler:

I did sort of enjoy that as I was progressing through the sequel, I was at first annoyed about the 'gamification' of relationships a bit, only to be end up being punished for doing so.

I used my Thanksgiving free time to play and finish the campaign for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Graphically it holds up surprisingly well.

I recently finish A Night in the Woods and I had a pretty mixed experience while playing it. I think the best way to describe it is by saying that I loved the smaller stories that occur throughout the game, but didn't really enjoy the bigger story that's introduced at the beginning and concluded at the end. So I didn't enjoy the first and last hours of the game, but had a great time in between. A big issue for me is that for most of the game I found the main character to be really annoying... That reaction went away as the game progressed but I never got to the stage that I actually liked them.

I also played the two bonus games that cane with the Switch version (Longest Night and Lost Constellation) and I really enjoyed both of them.

wook1000 wrote:

Finished Bulletstorm on PS4 this weekend.

It's proof that even bad games can be fun if you get them at the right time for the right price. I got this through the PS Plus monthly games when I was looking some mindless distraction. Tick and tick!

It's a buggy mess. Got stuck numerous times in the environment, fell through the floor and laughed as, during a pivotal cut scene, my character stopped talking but continued with the rest of the animation gesticulating wildly protesting his innocence.

The game play was ok but there a far better FPS' around. The story was also just ok.

The more I type the less I understand why I kept going back to play a little more when I have a long list of games to play.

Still, I had fun!

I had a lot of fun with that. I don't remember any of those bugs, but I played the original PC version.

Fastmav347 wrote:

Finished Witcher Enchanced Edition, while the game ran like ass on modern hardware, crashed a few times, the story still holds up, glad I finally made time for this.

I've been meaning to do this myself. I probably missed some good story bit and character introductions the first time I played it.

Finished up Return of the Obra Dinn. I think it was around 10 hours for me to determine all fates. Possibly my GOTY!

Finished Red Dead Redemption 2. I have mixed feelings about it. Some great highs with amazing world design, and some surprisingly good writing for Rockstar (although badly in need of some editing), but..also so much of it devolves into a third rate covershooter and is mired in mission design where all pretense of systems goes out the window and you're reduced to an actor trying to hit your marks.

I completed the single player campaigns for CoD: Modern Warfare 2 and CoD: Modern Warfare 3. I never really played the older CoD games when they first came out, so I've been surprised that there were single player campaigns that I found to be a lot of fun (though, I'm glad I got them all on deep discounts, as they were short). I won't bother with any of the 'special ops' or multiplayer stuff.

I also completed AER Memories of Old. When I was a kid, I had a 'recurring mechanic' in my dreams; the content of the dreams would differ, but I could 'fly' by jumping in the air and then holding my ankles so that my legs were bent behind me, leaving my knees pointing at the ground. The flying mechanic in this game reminded me of what flying felt like in those dreams, so I may have enjoyed it in a different way than most. I was also a bit tired while playing the game, so found myself occasionally nodding off; usually I would consider that a point against a game, but it worked out as something of a positive here I think.

Last week I finished Forgotten Anne, an anime-styled adventure game with some light platforming elements. It told a charming story, which basically begins with "Are we the baddies?" and winds its way though rebels and animated objects. Significant choices are made which give you some sense of control in the story telling, but still leads to the same conclusion. The platforming controls were a bit unforgiving, but there were no fail states. Overall I enjoyed it.

As a side note, I only learned about the game through a sale on PS4, even though it came out earlier this year, which tells me two quite obvious things: 1) Discoverability is bad and 2) This has been a great year for games.

I finished Yakuza Kiwami last night. Although Yakuza Zero is the more complete game, I enjoyed this one just as much, maybe because Zero sets it up so well. The Yakuza games are so offbeat, I think they benefit a lot from knowing what to expect when you go in.

I found myself thinking a lot about the main character Kiryu as the game went on. He's basically a thug who solves every problem with his fists, but somehow endearing as well. He's surrounded by people who are smarter than him and especially in this game seems to always be a beat behind everyone else in the world. When it comes to Yakuza things he has a very keen sense of honour, but outside of that is childishly naive and at the same time trying to understand.

I can see why the series has such a devoted fanbase. It's such a strange combination of flavours - over the top bombast mixed with countless petty sidequests, minigames and oddball NPCs - but somehow it works. I'm not in any hurry to play another one but can see myself returning to it in a year or so when my appetite returns.

Inspired by a recent podcast, I picked up and finished Minit. It's a very fun little game. I don't know what NG+ is like, but the main game is relatively short. I took my time and got 100% and came in at under 4 hours. I really enjoyed the '60 seconds at a time' gameplay mechanic, and I found the puzzles provided a nice relaxed level of challenge (for someone who plays lots of Zeldas). I'd say this is a nice game to play between other games cause it's quite short. I also think it works perfectly on Switch because the way it's designed means that you're never gonna lose more than 60 seconds of progress. Plus, every 60 second chunk contributes something to your overall progress, so picking up the Switch for even two or three minutes is worth your while.

Aristophan wrote:

Last week I finished Forgotten Anne, an anime-styled adventure game with some light platforming elements. It told a charming story, which basically begins with "Are we the baddies?" and winds its way though rebels and animated objects. Significant choices are made which give you some sense of control in the story telling, but still leads to the same conclusion. The platforming controls were a bit unforgiving, but there were no fail states. Overall I enjoyed it.

I just played a demo of this on Switch. I picked up on something and I'd be curious to know of this happens throughout the whole game. Say I wanna walk left, climb a staircase, then continue walking left. At every change in direction, I noticed that Anne came to a complete stop for a second so that a turning animation would play. Does that happen throughout? I found that movement lacked flow because of it. It's a game I was interested in when it came to Switch though.

I finally got around to playing 80 Days. I didn't manage to make the 80 days - took me 96.

I always feel like I'm missing something when I don't really enjoy a game that is pretty much universally praised. Some of the little stories that crop up can be interesting, but it's not like I found them to be amazing. There was a lot of generic stuff too, like this person is looking for their baby and another person was looking for their dog.

I assume the yellow messages pop up that say things like 'you're feeling clever', mean that you should try and pick choices that compliment it. Too often I felt the choices were vague and that the game was more about seeing what text would pop up next than trying to get back in 80 days. Maybe I'm not sophisticated enough to 'get it', but I found the writing in something like The Witcher 3, or Telltale's The Walking Dead much better at getting me to care what is happening.

I'm curious to hear what people thought made this game so enjoyable.

Yesterday I finished Hyper Light Drifter, and I really enjoyed it. My understanding is that this game got a lot of attention and praise when it came out. I missed all of that so I came to the game knowing very little about it except that it was popular.

For the most part, I really liked that the game basically tells you nothing and leaves you to explore and figure out what you're doing on your own. I still have little to no idea what the overall story of the game is but I'm pretty sure that I (the good) defeated my enemy (the bad). I also know that I missed a tonne of collectibles. I only went a little beyond minimum and there's one type of collectible that I barely encountered at all. I think I'll use a guide and get them all at some stage cause I'd like to see everything the game has to offer and I know I've missed a lot.

Overall, this game is lots of fun and I'm glad I picked it up.

Today I finished Age of Empires: Mythologies for the DS. I liked most of it, but found it tedious at the end.

It's an interesting take on an isometric, grid-based strategy game. The god powers, base building, and nuance to the rock-paper-scissors system (which is also pretty understandable) makes it fun and creative, and sets it apart from a Final Fantasy Tactics or a Fire Emblem. On the other hand, the game gets slow and tedious at the end of certain missions (especially near the end), and becomes an exercise of "how do I move my guys to destroy the enemy base efficiently" long after you have already routed the AI and effectively won the map. Also, the AI is really, really bad. But I'm glad I played it, and glad I get to cross another item off my backlog!

Divinity: Original Sin 111 hours later. Satisfied. Very enjoyable. I now need a break from PC style RPG's for a month or so.

Last night, I finally finished all of Little Nightmares. I played the base game on PC over the summer, and last night I finished the DLC campaign, "Secrets of the Maw", on Xbox One.

Of the various surreal, atmospheric platformers that have sprung up in the wake of Playdead's oeuvre, this is by far my favorite. It is a game that understands well the distinction between the gory and the grotesque, and between the kind of scary that leaves your adrenaline pumping and the kind that fills you with an awful, creeping dread. Little Nightmares earns its title not through the genre tropes of blood and chainsaws but through elastic dream spaces filled with rot and shadows and hopelessness.

Little Nightmares has one of the most hypnotically captivating worlds that I've seen in gaming despite being built from the same pieces (leaky pipes; overflowing boxes) as other games. The ship in which the game takes place, the Maw, is troublingly memorable, and it's inhabitants even moreso.

All that said, the gameplay itself frequently frustrating, especially when you're tasked with maneuvering around one of the game's showpiece characters, larger-than-life figures trying to catch you and (presumably) eat you. Each one of the game's five chapters and three DLC chapters had an unexpected difficulty spike where I couldn't quite figure out how in the hell I was supposed to get past the man with no eyes or the thing under the water or whatever.

The game was ultimately worth it to me to struggle through some of those parts, and the game gets significantly easier as you go along. After the first chapter, I was considering giving up on it, and by the end of the eighth, I was sad to see it go. I look forward to seeing what Tarsier Studios comes up with next. I hope it's suitably unnerving.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Last night, I finally finished all of Little Nightmares. I played the base game on PC over the summer, and last night I finished the DLC campaign, "Secrets of the Maw", on Xbox One.

I played it earlier this year, and I loved the main game, but the DLC left me a bit indifferent. (Actually, I found it quite frustrating.) I loved the character design, the environments, and the amazing atmosphere. I agree with you that the world is captivating, and the way the game creates that sense of dread and creepiness is much more effective than in many other games. I am also looking forward to Tarsier's next project!

I really enjoyed the DLC, although I don't know how much of that benefitted from playing it five months after the main game. Since each episode leads into the next, it felt like a nice half-sequel with some new ideas.

I'm glad you liked it. Maybe if I hadn't played it right after finishing the game, I might have enjoyed it more. To me, it was just okay while the rest of the game (the main game) had been fantastic.

Five months ago I loaded up my laptop with games to finish.
So.....I've finished one

I have played Ziggurat for a while now and never got till the end of the game.
Put the game on Easy mode and first try, all the way through! Finished the game!

Might still try it on Normal. But for now taking a break from it.
Fun game though, try it!

Finished Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix! I enjoyed going back and experiencing the world again, but I'm definitely glad to be done and on to the next game.

Just finished Fallout 4: Far Harbor. As mentioned a couple of pages back, I loved Fallout 4 - easily my favorite among the newer 3D versions (I really enjoyed Fallout 3 and New Vegas as well of course)

It's not fair to call Far Harbor just "DLC". It's a full blown expansion. The island is huge, the story is great, the personalities there are distinct, and I would have to say if you loved Fallout 4, then Far Harbor is like a condensed, purified version of everything you loved about the main game.

My favorite thing in Far Harbor had to be

Spoiler:

the Vim! Power Armor. It's like wearing a tank made by Coca-Cola.

I love coming off games like this where you've spent dozens of hours doing a single thing.

Up next, finishing up that XCOM2 free DLC, and finishing up my latest Stellaris game before the new DLC drops. And some other random pile games. Also, it's about time I get to Assassin's Creed: Unity (I'm waaay behind on my AC games).

Stevintendo wrote:
Aristophan wrote:

Last week I finished Forgotten Anne, an anime-styled adventure game with some light platforming elements. It told a charming story, which basically begins with "Are we the baddies?" and winds its way though rebels and animated objects. Significant choices are made which give you some sense of control in the story telling, but still leads to the same conclusion. The platforming controls were a bit unforgiving, but there were no fail states. Overall I enjoyed it.

I just played a demo of this on Switch. I picked up on something and I'd be curious to know of this happens throughout the whole game. Say I wanna walk left, climb a staircase, then continue walking left. At every change in direction, I noticed that Anne came to a complete stop for a second so that a turning animation would play. Does that happen throughout? I found that movement lacked flow because of it. It's a game I was interested in when it came to Switch though.

I just booted this up on my PS4. There is a slight pause when running back and forth to play an animation, but it didn't really bother me. Platforming is only an issue in certain areas, but I was willing to forgive the sluggish controls for the story. The Switch port could be a bit more slow.

Budo wrote:

Just finished Fallout 4: Far Harbor. As mentioned a couple of pages back, I loved Fallout 4 - easily my favorite among the newer 3D versions (I really enjoyed Fallout 3 and New Vegas as well of course)

It's not fair to call Far Harbor just "DLC". It's a full blown expansion. The island is huge, the story is great, the personalities there are distinct, and I would have to say if you loved Fallout 4, then Far Harbor is like a condensed, purified version of everything you loved about the main game.

My favorite thing in Far Harbor had to be

Spoiler:

the Vim! Power Armor. It's like wearing a tank made by Coca-Cola.

I love coming off games like this where you've spent dozens of hours doing a single thing.

Up next, finishing up that XCOM2 free DLC, and finishing up my latest Stellaris game before the new DLC drops. And some other random pile games. Also, it's about time I get to Assassin's Creed: Unity (I'm waaay behind on my AC games).

Why must you remind me that I own Fallouts 1-3 and X-Coms 1-2 and have yet to play them? Why?

"Finished" The Crew 2 main "story", overall I liked the first Crew better, while this game is very good looking and ran very well on my base PS4, there was lack of consistency in the racing. The story is a joke, I really wish I could turn off all the dialog in the game, its awful. Difficulty was all over the place, for example in regular street car race, my car was 70-80 points above recommended level yet I barely was able to beat the AI, meanwhile on pretty much all touring car/formula 1 car races I was under powered and winning by half a mile. The game in my opinion ether needs a rewind system or a better catch up mechanic. This brings to the point system, due to the way its designed it made all cars feel like a "skin" for the particular type of car, no way in hell a stock Miata should be as fast as a stock Austin Martin (or anything for that matter). I think if they had a point system similar to Forza or Wreckfest I think the game would be much better.

Crysis 2: Maximum Edition

Because it was going for a couple of euros during the last Steam Sale, I wanted an fps as a palate cleanser, and I saw a discussion that mentioned that Crysis 2 was actually pretty good.

They were wrong.

Crysis 2 is a bit like playing a Roland Emmerich movie, if he ditched all that inept melodrama and instead made movies that featured only grumpy military people, and were all about really wanting to f*ck a super-advanced suit.

God, everybody's such an asshole in this game, and the only thing they love more than shouting at you for being too slow while you're busy fighting for your life, is yammering on and on about how f*cking awesome your suit is.

So is the suit aweseome? Ehhh. Not really. It lets you sprint, cloak, jump higher, and armor up, all running on the same energy source that drains quickly, but also recharges quickly. Problem is, it's all running on the same energy source, and if you get caught in the open all your maneuverability goes out the window and you probably die.

Visually it hold up pretty well, in large part because the widescale destruction still feels novel enough, even if the art direction is uninspired. The basic shooting is fine. Just fine. But the tone and the incomprehensible worldbuilding and character writing is enough to not want to touch this one ever again.

If you want a trashy early 2010:s sci-fi fps with slightly exteded gameplay verbs that's ostensibly written by Richard Morgan, go for the Syndicate reboot instead.

Finished up Golf Story on the Switch. This one was completely off my radar until a few GWJers talked it up awhile back, and when I saw it on sale, I pounced. I'm not much of a golf person (the only golf game I ever played is Golf for the Game Boy), but I found myself really enjoying this. It started a bit slow, and it dragged for some of the side quests, but the controls were easy to understand and surprisingly tight, the writing was wittier than it had any right to be, and it turns out that unnecessarily tagging RPG elements on to a golf game works out just fine. It was also a good palate cleanser ahead of Smash Bros coming out. An easy recommend.

Finsihed up RiME. A nice puzzle platformer, kind of like Ico with Wind Waker-esque visuals. It also kind of reminded me of Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons. Nice little game that really pays off at the end.

I loved RiME! I wouldn't say it's an underappreciated gem, as even if more people played it I think many would find it's not their cup of tea. But as someone who loves The Witness, Journey, Myst, The Talos Principle, ICO, Brothers...it's completely up my alley.

The same team, Tequila Works, did The Sexy Brutale and the VR game (later released in FlatVision®) The Invisible Hours; they're a really interesting crew.

Tonight, I finished up Hollow Knight! I beat the final boss and saw the credits with 96% completion, then went back in and finished a very tough platform hell area as part of an effort to push myself to 100% and beyond. I definitely want to experience some of the remaining content, so I'm not done yet.