Finished Any Games Lately?

I guess I finished Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. It has three events that could be used as a logical ending yet it never wraps things up and the credits never roll. I know they have DLC plans but after over 160 hours I am not sure I feel any need to play anymore of this game.

I finished Concrete Genie the other day. Short and sweet, it had one great gimmick, and just as it was beginning to fade, it ended!

Recommended especially as it's free this month on PS Plus.

I've completed a couple of games over the past few weeks:

I finally started the Yakuza series, completing Yakuza Kawami. I really enjoyed it even though I found the basic combat pretty thin. I basically wore down the bosses slowly with lots of health "potions" and tore through the standard enemies. The combat didn't really get interesting until the last ring or two of unlocks. Even then, the abilities were limited or spread out between stances so I would forget about them. I hope they build on this. Tell me it's better in 2 or 3 or 4....

Spoiler:

I also got very tired of fighting Majima. Man, so many fights and I never got to the S rankings. I loved the inside jokes - the photo booth one, for example, made me chuckle - but fighting him 3 consecutive times was just too much. I get it already. Enough padding.

I really dug the world and what they did with essentially a couple of big city blocks. It's not afraid to be silly and just entertain. I'll be back for the Yakuza Kawami 2 or Yakuza 0 sometime soon. Not sure which one I'll try next.

I also finished up The Medium on GamePass. I really liked it. It's essentially a puzzle game with a creepy/horror-like story. It's on the correct side of that balance for me, pushing more towards creepy than straight up horror. I think I liked it because it never gets too complicated. The puzzles are there but don't push back too hard, allowing the game to have momentum, especially during the middle third. That kept me playing when I typically would have run off and played something else.

Spoiler:

I don't think I liked the ending. It's too open. I don't know if I mind that it was very, very left up to interpretation. I think I disliked it because the payoff kind of sucked in that there wasn't one.

I started Bowser's Fury on Thursday after hearing Amoebic talking about it on this week's GWJCC. I 100%'d it this morning. And then I restarted and 100%'d it again. Knowing where everything is made the whole thing much shorter.

I had a blast. The platforming is good, the puzzles are fun, the running and jumping and riding the friendly aquatic beast are all excellent, and fighting a gigantic version of Bowser as a kaiju-sized Mario was pretty fun too!

I bought the game on the Switch mostly so I could play 3D World with a friend of mine. It turns out the new content is just as good, if not better, than the original game!

I also finished Concrete Genie last night; it was one of the free PS+ games this month, but I'd had my eye on it for quite some time, because it looked gorgeous and it's about making things rather than killing things, which is a pretty effective sales pitch for me.

It's really a beautiful game - I can't underline that enough - and I love the fact that the central mechanics are "painting" and traversal. I put painting in quotes, because the graffiti you create is really the application of stickers. But some of your creations are "genies" that come to life after you choose parts - body, horns, ears, tail, etc. - and how to lay them out, so they've done quite a bit of work to get everything to work together. And then they did a great job of giving the genies character-filled animation, so it's lots of fun to see them running around on the walls of the town you're decorating, sometimes coming to your call to aid you with a particular puzzle. There's a tremendous amount of charm there.

Unfortunately though, they cave to conventionality and at the end a game that's been all about creation suddenly becomes a game about combat and hitting things. I was so disappointed when that turn came that I played through the first mini-boss battle and quit for the night. Finished it, through gritted teeth, the next day out of pure stubbornness; I'd put enough time in that I wanted to see it through to the end, but I can honestly say I didn't enjoy any of the game after that turn, although I suspect that's more of an issue for me than for most.

There are other issues with the game - the writing can be so on-the-nose it's insulting (did you know that all bullies are mean because they've had events in their past that made them sad? Well, this game will let you know that over and over, and it will also let you know that if you just say to them "I understand you're mean because you've been sad" they'll instantly become your best friend and want to play basketball with you, a message that would have had even my eight-year-old self say "How stupid are the people that wrote this game? And do they think I'm that stupid, too?"). And I found that frequently I couldn't figure out what to do to progress the game, even though at some point they clearly threw in the towel on communicating that in-game to the player and gave you a big "What Do I Do Next" button; not infrequently the text that gives you still isn't clear, and I'd have to stumble around the entire area repeatedly until I accidentally happened on the necessary trigger.

Traversal could also be a little clunky, which wasn't that big of a problem until the game became a combat game, when it meant I was throwing attacks into empty air (there's a lock-on system, but when there are multiple enemies it can fail frustratingly, and because of control choices I very frequently found myself going into photo mode when I was trying to lock on to a new enemy). The issue about communicating with the player compounded the frustration with combat for me; there were a number of times I died and thought that I clearly wasn't getting what I was supposed to do, then eventually managed to get through a combat situation without every figuring it out; I guess I just accidentally did the right thing.

All of those are things I could have easily overlooked, though, if they hadn't disappointed me by deciding at the end that all video games have to have combat in them. They're mostly the kind of issues I regularly see in games with smaller teams that simply don't have the resources to playtest with a large group of users, and I'm happy to forgive clunkiness in a game that has its heart in the right place. Without the last hour-and-a-half-that-felt-like-three-because-I-hated-it-so-much, I would have had much fonder memories of Concrete Genie, flaws and all.

@ Evan E I completely agree with everything you say about Concrete Genie, except that I think I loved the creative part a little less, and loathed the combat part a little less (maybe because it was over so quickly). So I would say I am at about 0.8 Evans.

Add me to the list of "just finished Concrete Genie", and I also agree that it was a weird step for the game to go hard on the combat at the end, and with hardly any explanation. It was such a weird tonal shift for a game that had zero combat for the majority of it.

I will say that the scenes with the bullies gave me some pretty big memory triggers of being bullied in Jr. High/High School, something I'd never experience happen in a game before. It was... discomforting. And also odd? I hadn't thought about some of that stuff in almost 30 years. As Evan pointed out, it was super ham-fisted too. Everything is forgiven (and the kids are instantly nice) because you understand their traumas now? That's a bit hard to grok.

There's a mini-game for PlaystationVR I tried yesterday, but (so far) it's been pretty boring. Just you in a room, painting on the walls. Maybe it opens up a bit more though, and I'm just in a tutorial area of it. I'll give it more of a go later today.

Trachalio wrote:

There's a mini-game for PlaystationVR I tried yesterday, but (so far) it's been pretty boring. Just you in a room, painting on the walls. Maybe it opens up a bit more though, and I'm just in a tutorial area of it. I'll give it more of a go later today.

I played that yesterday! It definitely opens up, and you wind up in an extended section (honestly, I thought it was too extended) painting and creating in a 3D space, so for instance when you paint grass, trees, and flowers they're all around you at whatever distance you painted (you're still in one fixed spot, though). After that's done you unlock a number of additional "2D" environments to paint in - 2D walls that surround you like a cyclorama.

I actually wound up spending far more time in it than I intended to - VR really heightens the charm of the painted creations, and I spent more time admiring how a painted genie interacts with the painted objects (chasing butterflies, eating apples, grabbing hold of a dandelion and being carried away on the wind like it's a balloon) than I ever did in the game proper. It made me appreciate anew all the work they put into the parts of the game that I liked.

Just finished Control.

I don’t know, this was ... fine? Wander around a large confusing building. Fight orange things. Read spooky notes.

Astral planes. I don’t like them, give me a real looking place I can identify with and explore rather than a series of random space platforms. And fighting giant monsters that can punch holes in the space platform right where you’re standing - no thanks.

But not too real please - almost every other room looked like something out of an FBI office in a TV show, except weirder. And the motel sequences were just annoying. Fast travel was handy but I just couldn’t navigate some areas. I went back to the hallway full of clocks multiple times, and struggled every time to find the entrance from the nearest control point. Just not intuitive.

Combat was hard until I got the memo that you aren’t supposed to aim or take cover or anything that games have been doing for years, just dive in to the middle of everything and have fun. And it was mostly fun after that.

Some neat characters and lore going on. Just maybe some more variety in the environments, and make it easier to get around and I’d be a lot happier with this one. Having said that, I am going to finish the two DLC bits because Foundation is good so far, and the second one has some connection to Alan Wake, which is still one of my favourites.

Just beat the final boss in Ys: Memories of Celceta. Good 3D Ys gameplay. If you know the series, you know what to expect. Serviceable story, but ultimately it's about the gameplay.

This month finished Detroit:Become Human and Shadow of Tomb Raider.

Detroit will definitely stay with me longer I think. I'd be interested in knowing whether others think it worth exploring the other possible plot branches. I felt that aspect was really interesting and led to some high stakes decision making.

I had expected to drop Tomb Raider after beating the final boss, but I'm enjoying doing the optional tombs much more than the main game. The storyline didn't grab me (though playing it in Spanish probably didn't help much), but the environments are really lush at some points.

BlobFlex wrote:

This month finished Detroit:Become Human and Shadow of Tomb Raider.

Detroit will definitely stay with me longer I think. I'd be interested in knowing whether others think it worth exploring the other possible plot branches. I felt that aspect was really interesting and led to some high stakes decision making.

I had expected to drop Tomb Raider after beating the final boss, but I'm enjoying doing the optional tombs much more than the main game. The storyline didn't grab me (though playing it in Spanish probably didn't help much), but the environments are really lush at some points.

I wanted to love Detroit, but some of the plot points they slam you over the head with made my eyes roll. I feel like they thought themselves to be David Lynch by being deep and thoughtful, but it was all superficial.

"What, you mean that the robots are sort of treated like slaves?! I wonder how this is going to pan out!"

-video game pans out in the most tropey way you can think-

BlobFlex wrote:

...I had expected to drop Tomb Raider after beating the final boss, but I'm enjoying doing the optional tombs much more than the main game. The storyline didn't grab me (though playing it in Spanish probably didn't help much), but the environments are really lush at some points.

Yeah, I thought the storyline of the subsequent games took a precipitous drop after the merely-serviceable plot of the reboot, but the technology got better and better, and I absolutely loved the actual tomb raiding; I played through Shadow just for the tombs, the rest of it was what I had to get through to get to them.

Evan E wrote:
BlobFlex wrote:

...I had expected to drop Tomb Raider after beating the final boss, but I'm enjoying doing the optional tombs much more than the main game. The storyline didn't grab me (though playing it in Spanish probably didn't help much), but the environments are really lush at some points.

Yeah, I thought the storyline of the subsequent games took a precipitous drop after the merely-serviceable plot of the reboot, but the technology got better and better, and I absolutely loved the actual tomb raiding; I played through Shadow just for the tombs, the rest of it was what I had to get through to get to them.

This was me also. I would get frustrated when I didn't have an upgrade or weapon to open a tomb that I was nearby. I had the most fun in those things.

I watched credits roll on Celeste. Definitely, the most accomplished I've felt with a game in a while. According to the stats, I died a whopping 4,0004 times in my 20 hours with the game.

Garth wrote:

I died a whopping 4,0004

I'm not sure if this is a typo for 4,004 or 40,004. Having played Celeste, I would believe either.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Garth wrote:

I died a whopping 4,0004

I'm not sure if this is a typo for 4,004 or 40,004. Having played Celeste, I would believe either.

Oooops! 4,004. But yeah, I could believe either as well. I would have tapped out on it a long time ago, but I found the story touching and endearing.

Just got through Carrion. This was a fun change to the Metroid formula. While the game starts you off as a monstrous powerhouse, you soon find out that the "enemies" have plenty of tools at their disposal, and besting them takes some ingenuity on your part.

It's relatively bite-sized as far as duration goes, though it took me about 4 separate sessions, with this last one being the longest. I recommend the game wholeheartedly.

I'm unlikely to play Carrion - largely because I still have such a backlog - but I've gotten enormous entertainment just watching others play it on YouTube. That animation is fantastic, and the screams of the lab workers is endlessly, ghoulishly fun.

So. Hades.

Wow.

I don't know where to start with this game. Other than that it is utterly amazing in every aspect of game design. One of the best games I have played since the Witcher 3.

The word I keep coming back to with Hades is how generous it is and how much it shows appreciation to the player. Everything from the gameplay which is easily learnable but varies every time you do a run, to how you can save anywhere, the mountain of voiceover, dialogue, character progression, NPC character interactions with you (Zagreus) and with each other, the absolutely stellar music that demanded I buy the album, to all the little ways that the game rewards you and all the ways you can spend the rewards. The game, about Hades mind you, is actually a beautiful story about family, parental relationships with children, growing up as a young man, and how to find your purpose in, well, life. Or afterlife I guess.

The story and how it is delivered in easily digestible bites is so well written and communicated I completed this game all the way to the epilogue where

Spoiler:

Hades and the Olympians reunite and bury the hatchet at an underworld dinner party.

You know you're playing a great game when you're dreaming about it and can't wait to wake up to play it some more...

And there's STILL stuff to do! I'm about 80 hours in at this point and there's still narrative, dialogue, and voiceover that's still new and being revealed. I can't stress this enough. As much as the basic gameplay is essentially you clearing a combat room in about a minute, meaning you are going to clear hundreds if not thousands of these rooms, I would say the amount of repetitive dialogue I've heard when a Olympian or underworld character chimes in is about <5%. That's astounding. The game never stops making your gameplay familiar yet original each time, whether you play for 5 minutes or (more likely) 5 hours straight.

And the dying. Yeah you're going to die. A lot. But it's ok. It's actually more than ok, it's essential. It's the core mechanic to your progress and a central theme in the multiple stories and dialogue running through the game. You end up looking forward to death so you can cash in your gems and renovate the palace, or talk to Achilles again, or advance your romance with one of 3 characters (of course there's a romance story). Or hey, maybe upgrade one of the 6 weapons in the game that each has 4 variations and have their own mechanics, no, combat language that further emphasize the variety inherent in this game.

This game is an outstanding achievement. Do not sit on this game. Please but it at full price. Hades was actually spontaneously gifted to me, and I felt the need to purchase my own copy that I will eventually give to someone else.

Up next I probably need to slow it down a bit with some WoW and Total War, or if I feel the need to dungeon dive, there's Pillars of Eternity.

But I will not uninstall Hades. Not yet. Usually I immediately remove a game I've just completed. This one is going to linger for a while.

Just rolled the credits on Last of Us Part ll. Thoroughly enjoyed the 35 hour murder/mayhem ride. I do think that I need some type of therapy after playing through this game. I just want to stare at a painting of some rolling hills for an hour or so or maybe listen to some relaxing sounds of the ocean. Hmmmm, what should I play next on my PS4?

I finished Torment: Tides of Numenara. I kickstarted the hell out of this game, as Planescape: Torment was my GOAT until Disco: Elysium came out. Heck, when taking a course on movie scenario's in college I discussed this game instead, aced it, which lead to the professor asking me to write my master thesis on videogames. He sponsored my thesis on ludonarrative dissonance in Half-Life 2, also thanks to P:T.

So is it fair to compare Tides of Numenara to Planescape: Torment? Of course it is! The references in ToN to P:T are neither subtle nor rare. But while ToN is not a bad game at all, it fails to live up to its promise.

A lot was said back in the day about how P:T was held back by the D&D franchise, but at least it grounded the universe in somewhat known territory. The Ninth World was sometimes hard to get into for me, maybe a bit too out there for its own good. The game finally came out a few days before my youngest was born, when my eldest was only 18 months old. As you can imagine, I didn't have the headspace at that time to persist in the face of weirdness.

The main storyline and side-stories are solid but feel a bit disjointed at times. Maybe that's because Planescape was one big redemption arc with your protagonist as the thread holding your little universe together, while in ToN the link to your castoff is not as direct? Or maybe it's because P:T wove the gameplay and story together in unique ways, and this is not as novel anymore - and plainly not executed as masterfully this time?

While ToN underwhelmed me, that's mostly because P:T is one of my most cherished games of all time. And maybe a little bit because some weird and annoying bugs still persist after 4 years. If you're looking for a chunky story-driven RPG, please have at it. But if you're here because you loved Planescape: Torment and are hungry for more, go play Disco: Elysium instead.

^ the above almost describes how I feel about that game. I really wanted to love it more than it let me. It felt too short and too disjointed. I feel like the developers thought that just making the world and atmosphere "weird" was enough to be a true successor to Planescape: Torment... and it's not. There's a reason why Planescape is so well regarded, and I don't think the devs understood it fully.

There were SO MANY awesome random characters that they did not flesh out enough in Numenara. Why is this guy talking to himself? Why is this robot talking like this, and just said that he is being controlled by a child in some far off land? GIVE ME MORE BACKSTORY.

The game really frustrated me with how it teased. I'm glad I played it, but I cannot recommend it at full price.

I'm glad it exists, though.

(And yes, Disco Elysium is a truly wonderful and great game. I feel like you and me have the same tastes, dejanzie. Let's be friends.)

I just "beat" Yakuza 7: Like A Dragon, which is in quotes because of the brick wall of a difficulty spike in Chapter 12. It destroyed me. The game was going along nicely to where I was actually overpowered, then within two hours I was grinding 10 battles at a time just to not immediately die to random encounters.

Then I hit a pretty infamous boss fight that sapped every ounce of my will to keep going.

I won't delete my save since I truly feel like it's a wonderful game (so I may actually see the credits roll eventually), but games pulling cards like this 40+ hours in is really a sh*tty move.

I looked up the rest of the story on Youtube.

If it kept up the pace it was at, it would have probably been my Game of 2020. Now? Eh. Top 5 for sure, but not the best.

After playing two games (Cyberpunk and Hades) that were massive time sinks, I was ready for something short, cute, and complete. And I got just that with Old Man's Journey.

I liked it so much! It was like brain candy. Sweet, very colorful, and done in a flash (about 2 hours). This is a game where, well, an old man goes on a journey. And on the best of journeys, the road rises to meet you. And that is exactly the gameplay puzzle gimmick. Take old man who is at A, move the landscape around to get him to B. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The gameplay is basically just an excuse to look at the beautiful art design that looks like the game was painted, not programmed. During the journey, the old man reminisces and you see pictures of his memories telling a story, hinting at why you are on this trip in the first place. The game ends in a very predictable way, bittersweet yet oddly comforting.

What is remarkable about the game is that it tells you a complete story, builds the main character and feeds you his emotions without a single line of dialogue. You come to like the old man, question him, resent him, sympathize with him, and then forgive him without a single word of written text in the game.

And then it's over. A surprisingly semi-deep but sweet game that doesn't demand more than a couple evenings of your time and is happy to give you a complete experience without overstaying its welcome. A good time for everyone, but don't spend more than $5 on this title.

Up next, I literally have 5 Total War games on my laptop. So obviously it will be Stellaris.

Finished up Tell Tale's Guardians of the Galaxy. Man, this was a buggy one, but still fun. And hearing all of the licensed music they had to purchase the rights to...it almost hurts to hear after knowing what went down with Tell Tale going out of business. Speaking of that, it is a bummer to see them setting stuff up for future games (same with their Batman series) that were just not to be.

Budo wrote:

Up next, I literally have 5 Total War games on my laptop. So obviously it will be Stellaris.

Stellaris has swung back onto my radar as well, although I am going to wait for the next DLC / Patch drop.

I missed the Stellaris bandwagon and now there's over $150 of DLC and expansions. I'll have to watch out for a sale on this before I can get it.

Sorbicol wrote:
Budo wrote:

Up next, I literally have 5 Total War games on my laptop. So obviously it will be Stellaris.

Stellaris has swung back onto my radar as well, although I am going to wait for the next DLC / Patch drop.

Same. This will be the time when the game will take!

Budo wrote:

After playing two games (Cyberpunk and Hades) that were massive time sinks, I was ready for something short, cute, and complete. And I got just that with Old Man's Journey...

Thanks, you've reminded me that I actually bought that on sale a while ago but never got around to playing it! I'll move it up to the top of the pile.